Walking along Summerland Key with Cheyenne I was moved to contemplate the life of a lobster catcher. I grew up surrounded by agriculture and I learned first hand how a way of life as stark as farming is a life that one either loves or hates. I hated it it. 
In the Keys farming was never very profitable even as people tried to grow winter fruits and vegetables, crops that are mass produced around Homestead and Immokalee on the mainland.
Fishing is still one of the mainstays of the local economy, that and tourism and government/military expenditures. Sometimes the economies cross and a lobster pot can be converted into a tourist souvenir, like a mailbox stand. 
It is one of the great pleasures of living here that properly fresh seafood is never too far away. I told my wife about this place newly refurbished and opened after years of languishing, an abandoned building. With fishing boats pulling up in the canal behind it the fish can hardly be anything but fresh. 
On Stock island the owner of a well known fishhouse and restaurant has pleaded guilty to charges of buying fish from rogue, unlicensed fishermen. The settlemen with the Feds was announced in the paper with a fine of $500,000 and a program of education for the staff at the Rusty Anchor. The tone of the settlement as announced made it sound as though a bunch of uninformed staff had gone on a buying spree taking fish from unlicensed fishermen. 
In the Keys lifting someone else's lobster pot can get you a ten thousand dollar fine and banishment from the community of decent and right thinking people. The problem had gotten so severe fishermen recruited volunteer pilots to fly sorties to try to spot people illegally lifting their pots. That programn was successful because the community supported the fishermen protecting their livelihoods. When you see the work it takes to go lobstering you wonder who would want to eat at a restaurant that bought illegal fish? 
6 comments:
I do like the focus this frequency of posting gives your writing - it's a good thing, and this post captures both the mood of the place along with your observations.
Perhaps something along the line of a backstory for a photoessay - or - some of Conchschooters Common Sense interspersed amongst the photos to keep the intellectually enabled enthralled.
Also - I'd recommend tearing a page from the novel writer's handbook - instead of running your Lobster Pots posts back to back, separate them by a post or two about Summer Horizons or Riepe's piss poor riding technique.
Remember - this last comment comes from a guy who rides barefoot.
The helpful haole,
Chuck on Fleming.
PS-it's great work. I only want to see it get better. Key West needs a good chronicler and you're well on your way.
I think they are called crawfish since they have no claws like a "real" lobstah!
There's a Beetle in need of rescuing slumbering in the shade. Perhaps the automotive equivalent of Cheyenne.
I wouldn't know where to begin. Chuck would need to get invovled, being the project man he is.
The floor pan probably looks like Swiss cheese if it's been sitting in that vegetation for an extended period of time.
There are replacement floor pans available..
Chuck on Fleming.
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