CAPTAIN MICK’S WHEELCHAIR-ACCESSIBLE TRANQUIL ADVENTURES: Like having a favorite uncle with an accessible pontoon boat in Key Largo

CAPTAIN MICK’S WHEELCHAIR-ACCESSIBLE TRANQUIL ADVENTURES: Like having a favorite uncle with an accessible pontoon boat in Key Largo

By Steve Wright

What could be better than having a friendly, storytelling uncle with a boat in the Florida Keys?

How about an uncle who has a ramp- and lift-equipped pontoon boat that is perfect for wheelchair users?

It gets even better. This uncle doesn’t just have accessibility equipment, he has insights into the needs of disabled sightseeing and fishing cruisers, because he has post polio syndrome and sometimes uses a wheelchair for his own mobility.

And best of all, this uncle knows every inch of Key Largo from the reef to the bay to the gulf to the mangrove-lined backwaters to the mansion-lined canals. He’s an expert angler and he’s figured out all kinds of ways of rigging fishing poles and equipment to accommodate even high level quadriplegics.

To add icing to the cake, he has a portable ramp that provides access to the docks at the little out of the way fish joints – so you can get fresh Keys seafood in your belly even if you don’t catch enough to grill on board the boat.

And uncle’s subtropical hideaway is located less than an hour’s drive from one of the largest airports in the world, with thousands of convenient flights connecting you to this neck of the woods from just about anyplace.

Add in a hydraulic lift that can lower disabled swimmers into the warm, gentle, shallow waters off Key Largo and an on-board massage table – the uncle, of course, is a licensed massage therapist – and the deal becomes too good to be true. Surely this uncle character is a mythical being. No one person could offer so much appealing to disabled seafarers, could he?

TOMORROW: MEET CAPTAIN MICK
The website is www.tranquiladventures.com

Wright is a Pulitzer-nominated writer who lives in Miami’s Little Havana. Contact him at: stevewright64@yahoo.com