Minimal Regatta 2011
The Coasties were on hand, always ready to help out any boaters in this absurd race who might have bitten off more than they could chew.
However they also had their own dog in this hunt, a spectacularly powerful and determined paddler flying the Semper Paratus flag to victory in the first heat.
His boat was properly built and properly equipped with an anchor on the bow, ready to be deployed! The Minimal Regatta is in it's 20th year as a Veterans fund raiser on Memorial Day weekend. the rules are pretty simple: build you own boat from the same identical inadequate supplies, plywood, two by fours, duct tape and some screws... This was boat racing taken seriously. There are huge crowds traditionally at this event, ostensibly to watch people show up in silly costumes with silly boats and proceed to sink them. In reality it's an excuse to hang out and talk and drink.
Schooner Wharf Bar hosts the fun event http://www.schoonerwharf.com/11minimal.htm and supervises the entries. Results are reported in the paper, as all top flight sporting events should be. But the Minimal Regatta is a place to see and be seen.
The crowds are thick and the heat is oppressive for some, in others it just brings out their peaches and cream complexion.
For Cheyenne it was oppressive and she ducked between legs to find a shady spot away from the action.
Like so many charity fundraisers in Key West this one is a chance to find a really silly costume and pose for the camera. I had left my hard hat at home and was thus obliged to keep my distance.
Cheyenne did her bit for the camera attracting some healthy interest.
I found an available corner at the Shrimp Sound building overlooking the melee. The dock in front of Schooner Wharf was like hot sticky pudding, filled with sweaty bodies rubbing off each other and the air was like custard and just as hard to breathe.
There were actually plenty of free seats with decent views of the boating if you looked for them because the commentary of Evalena Worthington and the DJ Hoebee was broadcast far and wide across the waters...
The pleasure of the racing and the sinkings will be paid for later by some incautious souls.
And whenever I wonder why people discriminate against big dogs I see a pooch in a crate on the back of a scooter or in someone's arms...
And don't let's forget the pirates keeping an eye on things.
I just stood there in the sun pondering the slow start watching people rushing hither and yon on Lazy Way Lane looking for the best spot to watch or perhaps to meet a friend or perhaps, as I was thinking of, to go home.
There was a lady passing through the crowd selling poppies for Memorial Day, a reminder of the purpose of the event.
And the first boats got going to much acclaim.
One sank, one didn't...
...and it was time to go home and get some rest before the all too imminent start of a holiday night shift for me.
However they also had their own dog in this hunt, a spectacularly powerful and determined paddler flying the Semper Paratus flag to victory in the first heat.His boat was properly built and properly equipped with an anchor on the bow, ready to be deployed! The Minimal Regatta is in it's 20th year as a Veterans fund raiser on Memorial Day weekend. the rules are pretty simple: build you own boat from the same identical inadequate supplies, plywood, two by fours, duct tape and some screws... This was boat racing taken seriously. There are huge crowds traditionally at this event, ostensibly to watch people show up in silly costumes with silly boats and proceed to sink them. In reality it's an excuse to hang out and talk and drink.Schooner Wharf Bar hosts the fun event http://www.schoonerwharf.com/11minimal.htm and supervises the entries. Results are reported in the paper, as all top flight sporting events should be. But the Minimal Regatta is a place to see and be seen.The crowds are thick and the heat is oppressive for some, in others it just brings out their peaches and cream complexion.
For Cheyenne it was oppressive and she ducked between legs to find a shady spot away from the action.
Like so many charity fundraisers in Key West this one is a chance to find a really silly costume and pose for the camera. I had left my hard hat at home and was thus obliged to keep my distance.
Cheyenne did her bit for the camera attracting some healthy interest.
I found an available corner at the Shrimp Sound building overlooking the melee. The dock in front of Schooner Wharf was like hot sticky pudding, filled with sweaty bodies rubbing off each other and the air was like custard and just as hard to breathe.
There were actually plenty of free seats with decent views of the boating if you looked for them because the commentary of Evalena Worthington and the DJ Hoebee was broadcast far and wide across the waters...The pleasure of the racing and the sinkings will be paid for later by some incautious souls.
And whenever I wonder why people discriminate against big dogs I see a pooch in a crate on the back of a scooter or in someone's arms...
And don't let's forget the pirates keeping an eye on things.
I just stood there in the sun pondering the slow start watching people rushing hither and yon on Lazy Way Lane looking for the best spot to watch or perhaps to meet a friend or perhaps, as I was thinking of, to go home.
There was a lady passing through the crowd selling poppies for Memorial Day, a reminder of the purpose of the event.
And the first boats got going to much acclaim.
One sank, one didn't...
...and it was time to go home and get some rest before the all too imminent start of a holiday night shift for me.
The man with the hat in the next picture is a professional eccentric trying to earn a crust flogging a book; surely not? I understand not everyone is cut out to be an office wage slave but I admire anyone motivated to flog themselves publicly like that, walking around in a silly hat trying to look eccentric. I much prefer to melt into the crowd if actual flight is not an option.
I am frequently accused of eccentricity by people who don't know me well, and I think even my wife had the wrong idea at first. After several years of marriage she said with wonderment how surprised she was by my tendency to follow the rules, to put trash in the can, to walk on the path and not use the pool after hours. I see no reason to make an exhibition of oneself in public but in Key West happily that reticence is a rare commodity. While everyone is staring at the over sized breast or silly hats I go about my business undisturbed. And some of the time I make it my business to look through a camera and the professional eccentrics love to have their picture taken.
When I went to Santa Cruz last year I got yelled at for taking pictures which I thought was odd in a tourist town. Santa Cruz is a town filled with opinionated people exposing their minds not their lives to public contemplation. In Key West a camera makes you a visitor and thus invisible to locals, which suits me just fine.
I never could live on mainland Florida where even I am rated an eccentric, more a measure of the mainlanders' narrowness than my weirdness. Six months in Fort Myers and I was ready to dress up in funny clothes and walk with a swish to take attention away from my speech impediment, which is a mid Atlantic immigrant's accent. That mainland misery of being constantly noticed for the manner of my speech is how I know why Key West is my haven, as it is for so many lost souls. People in Key West are too busy nurturing their eccentricities to notice me. I recommend Key West for that reason alone, never mind the weather. 
As a result there is a line of would be contestants sitting around dealing with butterflies in their stomachs as they wait for their number to be called. It's a well know fact that the best way to kill off butterflies in your stomach is to drown them in either Captain Morgan's or Corona so that is what is really happening behind the Schooner Wharf Bar. Some vessels look decidedly unseaworthy. 
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility to meet a contestant known to you. Donnie fixes my car on Big Pine when he's not risking life and limb by drowning in Key West Bight. 
Drowning the butterflies before the main event. He's off to a new married life in Indiana in a few weeks. As Donnie put it this was his "last hurrah." Which, sometimes is life in Key West.
My proclivities as a dirty old man come in for much scorn from readers who think staring at young women who wouldn't look twice at them in real life is a macho thing to do, so I offer this taste of what's to come with all due humility for the undoubted shortcomings. 
These absurd pork pie hats are appearing everywhere on top of young touristas, so I am forced to think they look more suitable on Madison Avenue and in Beverly Hills than they do at Schooner Wharf Bar.
Speaking of Beverly Hills I rather enjoyed the babes of Big Pine Bay Watch. 
The actual boats themselves were of less interest to me and in any event despite the rumored presence of CNN the race took an age to start. I'm working tonight so I couldn't even drink beer to assuage the boredom. I went home and took a nap instead.