Coast Guard Station Marathon

Welcome to the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Marathon, Florida. Though it’s not a tourist attraction, it does have a totally unique driveway entrance worth using your GPS to find and then pull over for a view of your own. Most drive by this entrance without ever noticing the two channel markers, one is a red triangle while the other is a green square that flank each side of its driveway.

There’s all sorts of markers and buoys dotting the channels leading in and out of any harbor area. For those of you non-nautical landlubbers here’s a crash course in buoy & marker meanings: 1) Red triangle marker represents a ‘NUN’ buoy with even numbers that get higher as you get closer to shore  2) While the green square represents a ‘CAN’ buoy  with odd numbers that get larger as you head out to sea. In everyday human language I’ll make it very simple for you: RED means “Stay On The Right Returning To Port” & GREEN means “Your Heading Out To Sea”.

You can find this most different uniquely signed guarded gateway at Mile Marker 48 on the right side of the road southbound on the Florida Key’s US-1.