Rob + Holly at Robbie's of Islamorada

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Across 5 iconic Keys' locations, travel with Rob + Holly through incredible parks and excursions to give you a sample of what the Florida Keys and Key West is all about before you book your own trip.

Transcript

00:00We're the Rob and Holly show. We're here with Brad Bertelli, the Florida Keys historian.

00:05Yes, absolutely. And Robbie's obviously very historic place and we got to hear some incredible

00:10stories. Right behind us here are the tarpon that you can feed. Can you tell us that story

00:15again real quick about how this all started? Yeah, Scarface the tarpon. Absolutely. This

00:20Robbie's has been here for 50 years next year, the anniversary. So Robbie, this is a family-owned

00:26business. Robbie was the patriarch. He first got here. There was a tarpon struggling in

00:32the mangroves. He scooped it up. It had a detached jaw. So he called his friend, Doc Roach, who

00:37was not a veterinarian, but a medical doctor who brought a mattress and some, his wife's

00:43needle and sewing kid with yarn and they flopped the fish onto a mattress, sewed it up, nicknamed

00:51him Scarface, put him in an old bait tank to recuperate for about six months. And then when

00:55he was all healed, he'd been hand fed for six months. He wasn't going anywhere. They

00:59put him in the water. He never swam away. He invited his friends. However, however, tarpon

01:05communicate underwater. And ever since then, these docks have been filled with tarpon waiting

01:10to get a hand fed. I know you guys did that. Pretty fun, huh?

01:12It was absolutely amazing. And you know what was really crazy? They said that this is not

01:16normal, but I mean, you're here. So you would know when we saw manatees as well.

01:21Manatees, the last week, there's been three of them, but they've been hanging out. And

01:25they don't always come. It's always a thrill when they are here because people come down

01:29here and there's no manatee show. You know, they show up when they show up and they've been

01:33here. And it's really a cool thing to, a little extra bonus piece to see them.

01:37That's the thing about potatoes. You can do whatever you want.

01:39That's right. We got, we got double, triple, quadruple bonus actually, because we also saw three

01:44sharks in the water right here. And of course the pelicans, they're trying to get some action

01:49from the, they're stealing the tarpon's fish.

01:51They're an entitled group, the pelicans.

01:53They really are. I was trying to be the pelican police for a hot second. And I was like, no,

01:57you're bad. They look guilty. They have guilty looks on their faces.

02:01They have been scorned and yelled at and talked to for years. They could care less. It's free

02:07fish. It's free food. It's easier to sit there and steal, steal that fish from everybody else

02:11than to go out and hunt themselves.

02:12Yeah. Another staple here in the Keys is of course, key lime pie. And when we got to try some of that,

02:19that was absolutely amazing. This is also a rich history of how that started down here

02:24as well. Yeah. Key lime pie. It's the, it's the official state of Florida, of Florida, the

02:29official, official dessert of the Florida Keys in my history tasting program, which you guys

02:33were lovely to be a part of. I do all the history of how, of how it was invented, how it started,

02:38how it's important when you come to the Florida Keys to try it every chance you get. Because like a

02:43margarita, there's three ingredients, but they all taste a little bit differently. And some are

02:47sweeter, some are charter. The one, the one here at Robbie's is excellent on the sweet side,

02:52but super tasty. That's so much fun. And I just feel like that's part of the whole experience of

02:56being on vacation is the food as well. You can't come to the Florida Keys and not have some conch

03:02chowder, not have some conch fritters, and definitely you can't have, not have key lime

03:07pie. And the rum runner to go with it. It's the Florida Keys. You got to. Oh, real quick before we go as

03:12well, you mentioned that you've written several books as well. How can we check out some of your books?

03:15You can find them on my website, bradbertelli.com. I do a Facebook group called Florida Keys History

03:20with Brad Bertelli. My last three books are a series based on that. I explore little known stories of

03:27the Florida Keys. I dig a little deeper, tell some really amazing stories. The Florida Keys are an

03:32amazing place to visit. So much history. There's so much more than drinking and eating and diving and

03:38enjoying the sunsets. The history is incredible down here. I found them on Amazon. You can find them here at Robbie's.

03:44Okay. All right. That's amazing. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. We're thrilled to be here and

03:47appreciate your time. Brad Bertelli. My pleasure. Thanks guys.

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