Joy On The Waterfront

Eat it raw indeed. 

It was all business as usual at the Historic Seaport at Key West Bight.

I find myself feeling pompous and rather silly every time I describe the Bight as the Historic Seaport...etc... but as it happens a  Very Important Consultant said the name matters and that's what they came up with. 

The transformation of Turtle Kraals into the Boathouse at Turtle Kraals is not moving especially fast. That's a good name though, connecting the new to the past.

For a mad moment I wanted to own the dinghy with the flared bow. Then I remembered that vans don't need dinghies. Another point in their favor.

Why you say? Because engines fail at the most inconvenient moments, that's why:

This was decidedly a good day to walk the Historic Seaport at Key West Bight on my lunch break:

It's called the Bight by locals because a bight is an indentation in a  coastline suitable for anchoring a ship. The original American settlers in Key West after they bought the island from the Spanish made this corner of the new city the harbor.

Now the shrimp boats are gone and recreational boats have taken their place. This is where the people anchoring out leave their transportation. The one closest has a bag of laundry aboard, reminding us of the joy of living at anchor and doing chores.

"This area is under video surveillance" Makes me glad I don't have to review hours of boring tape every time someone loses their marbles. I behaved impeccably while being surveilled, just so you know.

As usual I was walking against the flow. 

And there were quite a lot of people out enjoying the day.

I saw the potential for a vacation date here:

Telephonic vacation:

Schooner Wharf making people happy since forever. Its Schooner Wharf Bar, by the way, no plurals involved. Schooners Wharf sounds like finger nails on a  black board to my delicate ears. 

Key West: ideal for family vacations. And lots of people think this happy town is not child friendly.

Time to go back to the salt mines. It was good while it lasted. 

Waterfront

The Railway Condos as seen from the ground on Grinnell Street are clearly newer construction, modern with parking underneath the units and decent landscaping.

However when seen from the top of the parking garage on the other side of Grinnell, the eagle eyed observer will note the even taller and more imposing block of Steam Plant condos. The difference? About $1.4 million to buy the different units. 

Originally the Steam Plant units built in a converted steam to electricity generating plant were offered at nearly three million each with private elevators from the basement garage and private pools on the rooftops but times were tough apparently and some lucky buyers got cut price condos before they sold out. The Railway Condos are named for Flagler's railway which ended up in a terminus built on excavated soil up the street at what is now the Coastguard Base. They were sold as price controlled affordable quarter million dollar homes for local workers. 

The Steam Plant used to generate electricity for the city and spewed waste water into the harbor near where the loving couple above were sitting and enjoying the view. Those lovely waters used to be known as the toxic triangle thanks to the steam plant effluent. I had a friend who kept his boat on the seawall and he thought it was easier than living at anchor. True enough but that wasn't convenience I wanted and I stayed in the purer waters outside the harbor.

Nowadays the old shrimp boat free-for-all in the Bight has become a sedate and proper recreational boat harbor with several marinas dotted around inside the breakwaters. The public is welcome to walk the city owned boardwalk but rules abound.

The city very cleverly kept ownership of the Bight and rented space out to the various businesses which pay rent to the city. It was a smart deal, a reminder that Key West does not have to give everything it values away.

Bight in nautical terms means an indentation in the coastline suitable for a harbor, but most people don't know that. So instead of a "bite" the city now owns an "Historic Seaport" which sounds much more appealing. I suppose that's one reason I will stick to calling this the Key West Bight. 

The city offers dinghy dockage for a modest fee of $96 a month which gives people who live at anchor easy access to downtown. Actually Key West offers quite a few facilities beyond docking your boat if you live cheap at anchor. The homeless and hopeless have access to soup kitchens, sleeping space for the homeless, mental health facilities and low/no cost medical and dental clinics. People in house sometimes conflate  living on a  boat with being homeless...

From the city's website:

• Dinghy Dockage Rates: $7.15 per day or $31.90 per week or $95.70 per month (13 foot maximum)
• Private Dinghy Slip: $192.50 per month
• Shower Use: $24.20 per week or $71.50 per month plus $25.00 for the key deposit

On a bright sunny day with modest winds and tiny ripples it looks lovely. On a hot thundery summer's night in a tropical downpour the commute may look less attractive and in winter cold fronts can honk the waves over the breakwater.

It may not be sailing for sure, but it is cheap living in a notoriously pricey town. A boat, an anchor, a bicycle and a desire to look hardy and romantic keeps the dreamers coming. Soon they stop sailing and they sit at anchor more and more involved in town issues and working while less and less sailing and exploring takes place.

And if perchance you do head out best send the crew forward to bring in the lines and fenders. Its a romantic life all right!

Always lots to see at The Bight  Key West's Old Historic Seaport...

Turtle Kraals is being transformed into the Boathouse which occupied a space further round the harbor.  Slowly the historic connections to turtle slaughter and commercial fishing will evaporate from the waterfront entirely.

Fishing too can be a spectator sport now, a selfie opportunity, a moment of fun.

The hard drinking, hard fishing commercial fishermen with Cuban accents and white shorty rubber boots ("Stock Island Nikes" is their ironic name) are relegated to the next island over where you can see them behind fencing, like creatures in a  zoo preparing their traps and living their lives oblivious to the tourist mecca of the historic Key West Bight.

I took these photos a few years back but nothing much has changed.  

It's not the tourist water front of the Historic Seaport.

Hemingway wrote about this world of boating in To Have And To Have Not except in his day, during the Great Depression, fishing drama played out in Key West.

Five miles and a different world. 

Dinghy Life

I was surprised to see small boats making progress through the harbor yesterday and when I realized how many of them I photographed I saved the pictures for a separate cold front essay.

Technically the winds have not produced a proper gale as the winds reported to 35 miles an hour have been mere gusts and not sustained, however these are mathematical calculations and merely standing on land facing the wind you could say it feels like  gale.

Sailors like all humans have a tendency to exaggerate, thus in a  sea story waves have the ability to get taller and deeper and winds increase in strength exponentially in the telling. What may not be proper reporting makes for much better storytelling.  Being securely tied up in a marina makes for a crappy story but much more comfortable living.

Note the tightly wrapped black plastic garbage bag in the bow. Unromantic but critical device for the average liveaboard who wants stuff to travel and remain dry. I cannot imagine this boater's return journey in a  small inflatable with an equally small outboard. It would be a long slow wet ride.

There are those who eschew outboards altogether as instruments of the devil, naming no names Webb Chiles, who takes pride in rowing his inflatable. Who can argue with the health benefits and general manliness of a pair of properly sized oars? I can. It's too much hassle for daily living at anchor. I am in the mainstream here.

A nice hard dinghy with a big motor. Naturally that makes towing or storing the thing difficult for the average modest sailboater so a dinghy in this work boat style usually  indicates a sailor who sails less and anchors in one spot more. But he commutes mostly dry in the heaviest winds.

I was trying to capture wave action. always modest in these shallow waters, along the breakwater protecting the Bight and to my astonishment another small rubber doughnut dipped  and bobbed into my viewfinder.

That was the best I could do to illustrate massive overwhelming seas submerging the north shore of Key West. I have to admit I didn't look really hard as my digits were numb and my brain was following suit.

I had, as reported elsewhere, a slow intermittent exit from Key West around four post meridian as vehicles struggled to find alternatives to North Roosevelt. Traffic snarls don't bring out the best in people and I saw lots of pushy car drivers and distracted phone operators. I was at least inside with the heater on. Then I noticed a gaggle of cyclists at the light at South Roosevelt. It didn't look much fun but I thought perhaps it was better than bouncing around and taking a shower in a dinghy.

Whichever way you look at it travel yesterday in the Lower Keys had it's challenges.

Cow Key Channel

It may be my imagination but the community of people living suspended between Key West and Stock Island may be increasing.

It is quite a community of liveaboards, some of the homes neatly cared for and others not so much, just like on land.

There are times when one wants to take the scenic route, the only such route on my commute, instead of fighting traffic and pedestrians and traffic lights on the Boulevard (North Roosevelt Boulevard) which is when I drive by the boats. So it's inevitable that from time to time I shall stop and look out across the water.

Living on a boat as a form of cheap accommodation doesn't work for me. For all the years I did live on a  boat I was either in motion or if stationary for a period I kept my boat ready to move.

Anchoring a boat as a form of free storage ends up making the thing an eyesore but boats are private property and it takes massive efforts by the State to assume ownership and remove these derelicts. 

And even if they do the question then remains how to handle piles of indestructible fiberglass when disposing of piles of boat. Who pays for all this is the bog problem and even so Monroe County foes get rid of patently abandoned boats in county waters. The supply though, appears to be inexhaustible.

 Even defining abandoned isn't easy. You need somewhere to live in a county this expensive.

From a distance the boats afloat are picturesque and what I suppose, you expect to see when you come to visit Key West. This would be a strange little island with no boats dotted around it.