I awoke to a strange dark world yesterday, dark because it was 4am but strange because it was damp and muffled- by fog! I've seen fog in the keys before and I dare say its happened before I came here and likely will again, but its not "normal" in the sense that one expects to see fog around these parts.
I got on my bicycle for my customary early morning ride and found my darkened street rather creepy, tendrils of damp floating everywhere and the nearly full moon darkened by the cover overhead. Highway One was barely illuminated by the outside lights at the gas station at the end of my street and a couple of cars floated by, like electric eels in dark waters, a cone of light appearing out of the fog and disappearing back into the murky depths.
I left home a few minutes early muffled in my waterproofs, my high beam blazing a path in front of the Bonneville. I was brought up to drive with the low beam in fog but I experimented as I rode up my street towards the highway, and found the moisture wasn't thick enough that it refracted the light of the high beam, so I hit fifth gear on high beam. Highway One seemed empty, no cars in front and none behind and I was enveloped in damp darkness. As I came over the 40-foot high Niles Channel bridge, Summerland Key appeared plunged into a power cut- I could see no lights anywhere ahead. I cruised down the bridge at a comfortable 55 mph, my headlight cutting a bright path, and yet I could see no lights anywhere, until I came off the bridge and was in their midst, where they glowed like faint fireflies. Further down the highway I stopped to take a quick picture of the Sheriff's substation on Cudjoe Key, normally a beacon of civilization in the dark of Mile Marker 21:
The morning at work was dull and quiet, the naughty citizens of Key West were either under wraps waiting for the foul weather to pass, or their vigilant neighbors were being a good deal less vigilant in the damp conditions prevailing, because we got few calls in police dispatch. Outside, the parking lot looked cold and uninviting despite an ambient temperature reading near 75 degrees:
I took a ride downtown during my lunch break with a detour by the beach. The conditions were very weird for someone who, like me, spent years in the West. The weather reminded me of nothing quite so much as the sort of marine inversion type of low cloud "fog" that builds up along that coast in the warm months. In California the low lying clouds are formed every summer day by hot desert air meeting cold ocean air, unlike here in Key West where a lump of cold air from Up North had temporarily mixed with the warm air of the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Stream to the south. The air was still and the sailboat races that were called off on Monday due to hairy conditions were becalmed on the horizon south of Key West yesterday by the sudden absence of breezes: 
I took a ride downtown during my lunch break with a detour by the beach. The conditions were very weird for someone who, like me, spent years in the West. The weather reminded me of nothing quite so much as the sort of marine inversion type of low cloud "fog" that builds up along that coast in the warm months. In California the low lying clouds are formed every summer day by hot desert air meeting cold ocean air, unlike here in Key West where a lump of cold air from Up North had temporarily mixed with the warm air of the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Stream to the south. The air was still and the sailboat races that were called off on Monday due to hairy conditions were becalmed on the horizon south of Key West yesterday by the sudden absence of breezes: I rode back to the office from my lunch break, enjoying the cool foggy air with weak sunshine warming my face, rather like outdoor air conditioning. I could have been in Santa Cruz, however later the sun came out properly, Key West style and bathed the parking lot in rays that promised a warm, though not hot, ride home:
I don't miss the cold and damp of coastal California and today was an unexpected reminder of what I lived through for 20 otherwise happy summers. I've always told my California friends a nice winter day in Key West is like a perfect summer day in Santa Cruz. Yesterday it was mimicking California a little too perfectly for my taste.
I don't miss the cold and damp of coastal California and today was an unexpected reminder of what I lived through for 20 otherwise happy summers. I've always told my California friends a nice winter day in Key West is like a perfect summer day in Santa Cruz. Yesterday it was mimicking California a little too perfectly for my taste.