Even today there are boats wandering around their anchors in the ebb and flow of the tides in Cow Key Channel and these aren't boats that actually move. They become, over time, elaborate Ali Baba palaces on the water. I look out from the solidity of land, astride my Bonneville and I don't envy them.
As commutes go this bearded water rat doubtless prefers his cormorant neighbors to busy land dwellers among whom he navigates his bicycle locked to a palm tree on South Roosevelt awaiting his return shoreside. I've spent too many nights bouncing around at anchor, too many nights standing at the dinghy dock in the rain listening to the dismal pop-pop-pop of my idling outboard ready to take me to my watery home, to want to do it again.
My home is only 770 square feet in size, larger by far than my 20-foot boat, my 30-foot boat and twice as large as my final floating home which I sold a few years ago. 
Out here on my darkened street I see the stars overhead as crisp and as clear as I did anchored out. I pause my Bonneville on a bridge to take in the watery views, as beautiful as ever they were from the thwart of my dinghy. Beyond the simple convenience of life ashore, which I pay for in the form of a mortgage I like being anchored for a change, in one place with one view, unchanging whichever way the wind blows. Its a sensation new enough it creeps up on me still every single day. I don't regret letting my commercial Coastguard Master's License lapse. I live and work ashore now, a new phase in my evolving life.
----------------------------------
It was a cold north wind blowing last week that pushed the tour boats round to the south side of the island and the flat waters. I pulled off the end of Bertha Street by the old ramp to look out at Cuba, still wishing we might soon start a high speed car ferry service to the invisible isle when I spotted the parachute filling out. I've never gone parasailing and I have half an idea I might like it. Motorcycling across the water, as it were.
I spared a thought for the tourists flying past Fort Zachary under their silk canopy as I got in gear and I headed south to Rest Beach to finish up my lunch break at my favorite bench. And even there I found another active water player buzzing back and forth, like a bluebottle stuck behind a pane of glass.
The winds were stronger and the waters were frothy piling into the corner formed by White Street Pier. Key West gets so active in winter I am surprised frequently by how many people take to the water at the coldest time of year. I miss my skiff but I'm not going swimming for a few months more. Less than 80 degree water temperature and I leave the salt water to the hardy types from Up North. On the other hand Raul outpolled Fidel last week in the Cuban elections. I wonder how much longer the embargo will last?
-----------------------------------
I couldn't figure out what these boots were doing on the seawall at Garrison Bight Marina. They were set carefully side by side, unlaced, waiting for a pair of human feet to slip into them and give them life.
I ought to go back and see if they are still there, waiting, in a state of suspended animation.
---------------------------
I have no children, nor do I desire offspring, I am content to age in my childless state. I don't understand children and I find it hard to hold strong opinions about the State of Modern Education, or to express a thought on how schools should be run. I am entirely ignorant of how much or how little small children should know and I have no idea about the stages of development of the "average child." However, when I dropped in to Borders Books on the Boulevard last week, shelf browsing to burn ten minutes before the start of my shift, I came across this object for sale in the children's section for children of "all ages".
I left the store wondering what is it exactly that parents are teaching their children? And who is going to be trained to be my cardiologist when I am approaching my death bed? Apparently of gynecologists there will at least be no shortage, and I suppose it would be better were I to be less startled and more accepting of this state of affairs.
What a peculiar world young people must be growing up in.
