Saturday Afternoon

 It was not a lunch break to spend indoors so I took my big camera (a Panasonic FZ1000 with a one inch sensor and four hundred millimeter lens if you care) and went to look for things to look at. I didn't even get out of the parking lot before I spotted a group of three shady characters loitering in front of the police department:

I got to Garrison Bight and pelicans were floating around, slow and easy to photograph and an elegant reminder that it is winter in Key West:

Winter in Key West, 75 degrees, sunny and a light cool breeze blowing over everything:

There was a fair bit of small boat activity. It is an axioma that the smaller the boat the more it gets used:

Garrison Bight residents watching the traffic from their waterfront home:

A sudden flurry of wings announced the arrival of an unwelcome drop-in:

"That way!" Nautical mansplaining I dare say.

The intruder with the sharp beak took up a position underneath the bridge and quietly watched what was going on. he seemed unwelcome and rather lonely. No one wanted to play with him of be decapitated by him either.                                                                                                        

Houseboat row in the sunshine. They used to be tied up along the seawall on South Roosevelt near the Riviera Canal Bridge. Then a developer decided to build two million dollar condos overlooking that stretch of seawall and the houseboats were deemed unattractive. Money talks and the scruffy houseboats were walked over to the city marina and offered docks in the heart of new town. 

Other boaters live on the city mooring field outside Garrison Bight. They pay a few hundred a month ion an area wide open to north winds and minimally protected from the prevailing south east winds. They get dinghy dockage with showers and trash collection. 

The pigeons watched the boats come and go and wondered when the kestrel might leave.

When I was back at work I got a 911 call from a man who was being yelled at by a couple on one of Key West's narrow lanes. The picture I was painted after some slow patient questioning revealed that he had come across a car stopped in the narrow street blocking his path and he felt they weren't unloading their vehicle fast enough so he tooted his horn. The reaction he got was not a  quick apology and a rush to move the offending vehicle. The mild mannered guy got full on in your face yelling from the busy couple. So he called for help. It's what people do all day and all night in contemporary Key West. In the old days it would be a case of "what up cuz?" and an offer to help unload. I wondered if the pigeons had called 911: "There's a creepy looking bird of prey landed in our midst and upset our afternoon routine, threatening us. Can you come and move him along?" It used to be in Key West you waited and pretended it was cool to be on "island time". Now its all yelling. Be a pigeon.

People ask me when to call 911. Generally I say the time to call is when you are afraid, not when you are angry. Sound advice rarely heeded I fear. 

The self reliant pigeons took up positions on isolated lamp posts with clear views in all directions and waited for the passage of time to remove the intruder.

Winter is the time of year for fighter pilot training at Boca Chica. Every time I see them fly overhead I wonder how soon cheaper drones will knock these romantic expensive planes out of the sky for good. Time and technology waits for no one, as I look at my futuristic pocket phone unimaginable in 1945 when dogfights ruled the air.

That's my pigeon soulmate up there on his own far from the madding crowds, far from any office enjoying the sunshine.

Election Day

Today they vote, do the citizens of Key West, for leaders to govern the city and its budget. A thankless task in my opinion and in the most watched race a second round of voting is expected as none of the three candidates for mayor is expected to get a simple majority of votes cast. 

Meanwhile back in the real world life goes on, people go to work, others struggle to get unemployment and tourists argue with themselves and police as to whether or not they want to wear masks, that endless tiresome tirade against common sense.

In the photo above we see Horace O'Bryant middle school a relatively new building that caused outrage by the sun blocking properties of its mass, mostly its height. My wife doesn't think it looks huge but she's about the only person I discuss it with these days as the public outrage has simmered down. I can't make up my mind. I suppose it is huge but I'm not sure it's too huge. 

Wandering Garrison Bight Marina and pondering the meaning of nothing very much at all I came across a gaggle of pigeons. I don't know if they have some sort of communication system but they sure did remind me of people hanging out in the shade talking about nothing very much. I didn't bother them at all by standing there and they didn't even get annoyed when I took their picture.

Garrison Bight is a place I like to go and be by myself and look at the water right in the middle of town. Even on scorching days I can be found lurking there staring into the depths from shade of the Palm Avenue bridge,  with the pigeons.

And make no mistake its hot though the numbers indicate it was actually hotter a month ago when they were telling us it was over 100 degrees. I'll take what I can get but it is August in the Keys.

I am astonished to discover by looking through old pictures that we have had my wife's Fiat 500 for 105,000 miles and eight years. Now she works from home for her last school year before retirement  and I take her 40 mile per gallon car to work. Time does fly by. 

Garrison Bight

A few years ago they cleared out the old houseboat row, a nostalgic line of boats tied up to the seawall on South Roosevelt Boulevard. Expensive new condominiums were being built across the street and Ed McKnight the developer wanted to give his buyers clean ocean views.

They were offered places in the much sought after city marina at Garrison Bight, the marina you drive past on North Roosevelt and Palm Avenue.

This is also the home of the dinghy dock serving the city mooring field north of Key West, so dinghies come and go:

I had no idea there was a harbor tour boat operating here. It's not apparently well know as it had but two passengers on board:

A man and his dog. I am amazed by how many liveaboard keep dogs. I did it for a while but it was horrendously complicated. Never again, hence the retirement van.

Everywhere is in the airport flight path!

And here is the rather well built dinghy dock. There is even a toilet and shower block next to the parking area. It all makes the mooring field quite a decent option for a few hundred dollars a month.

Garrison Bight Lobster

They are gone now but boy was it a gathering of the trailers last week for lobster season. Families ween't in school: they were out chasing lobster.

I was walking Garrison Bight  and across a used trailer lot left behind by the hunter-gatherers on the water in their boats.

This was just a small sampling of the traffic all around the Keys. My neighbors had a dozen cars on their lot for a few days. Now they are all gone.

I don't know why you would steal this trailer over all the others but it was one of the few secured with extra chain and locks.

The waters in the basin were actually quite busy with all sorts of boats coming and going. It's called the "Fly Navy Building" thanks to the words stenciled on it but its official name is the BOC - Bachelor Officers Quarters. It's huge and overlooks Garrison Bight but when I was inside once many yeas ago it reminded me a bit of a 1950s  era hotel, strangely out of place in 21st century Key West.

I took the picture below to ask myself if pigeons count as pets?

I saw this boat actually on a  trailer and obviouly not much used. It looked sad.

Across the marina I could see the houseboat that has gained a measure of fame thanks to the smiley face on the roof.  I don't know what they go for now but at the height of the real estate boom people were asking more than a quarter million for these floating residences. Sometimes much more.

I have to say I enjoyed walking around Garrison Bight looking at the scenery:

My workplace on the other side of the basin across North Roosevelt Boulevard. I was acutely conscious that usually I look from the second floor over there at the marina over here especially during storms when I am locked up in the police station for the duration. in 2005 I watched Hurricane Wilma flood the basin and raise water levels above the docks. 

Pigeons roosting under the bridge out of the direct blazing heat of the sun:

It was a long slow walk back to the car.