Key West Roofs

So how big is one of the current crop of average sized cruise ships? Why this big, compared to little old Key West. All we have to do is widen the harbor channel to get bigger ones in.

I was in the Key West Diary helicopter, also known as the roof of the Park and Ride garage, taking pictures and it seemed like Key West was looking good under a burst of rare, rain free sunshine so I baked a little on that roof and took pictures.

I think the shot above shows the Galleon resort, the gray box on the right, which GarytheTourist calls home from home.

And here's Christmas Tree Island on the horizon. Looks pretty doesn't it? Wish you were here...

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Channel Widening

The Key West harbor is a labor of dredging to keep it open for modern shipping, even though in the days of sail it was considered a most valuable deep water port. These days Key West is home not so much to c Mercia, fishing but lots of recreational boats, the Navy, research vessels for the sanctuary and of course the Coastguard and Navy. Let's not forget the cruise ships too.

Next week the city commission is going to take up, one more time, the issue of studying widening the channel to allow extra large cruise ships to dock. These would be ships with six thousand passengers, a quarter of the city's population. A majority of the city's population has voted already to oppose the city spending five million dollars to figure out if dredging is a good idea. Nevertheless the interests that support widening the channel have been loud in support of the plan (not with any of their money of course) while assorted environmentalists, anglers, tour guides etc... have lined up opposing the plan. Myself. I am fairly indifferent to the issue as I don't see cruise ship passengers much and you won't have to as they rarely stray far from Lower Duval. I doubt even if their numbers doubled they would be seen much further afield.

Dredging is a pretty messy activity, with the material that has to be dragged out to sea and dumped in deep water. The big cruise ships may stir up even more sand than the "little" ones already do and it's doubtful that will do much good for the coral. I have my doubts that more cruise ship passengers will do much for the gentrification image the other planners seem to have in mind for Key West. As far as I am concerned this endless debate seems to point more to the lack of a coherent vision for this city than anything else.

The waterfront is ready for development and the Spottswoods want an upscale marina with shops and Disney-like walkways and landscaping. And then the city wants to plunk down a cruise ship bigger than the iceberg that sank the Titanic right there blocking off the view. Bizarre.

Mind you the capers surrounding the undeveloped island off the waterfront is just as grotesque. The owners wanted to build a huge number of homes on the deserted island, used mostly by anchored out liveaboards as a place to walk dogs and do boat projects. Wisteria Island is so named for a ship that sank in the area, but locals call it Christmas Tree Island thanks to the Australian pines (casuarinas) that cover it.

After the Bernsein family got everyone's backs up with a plan to build seventy five homes on county land zoned for just two homes, the local group Last Stand pulled a rabbit out of a hat. One of their members found evidence suggesting the island was never properly conveyed out of a federal hands and the island properly belongs to the US government and not the Bernstein family. The Feds have agreed and everything has ground to a halt. It seems unlikely Christmas Tree will ever become something like the extremely upscale Sunset Key next door.

Apparently sudden loss of ownership is not going down well with the people who donated the only strip of parkland found on Stock Island's densely inhabited avenues.

You'd think they may want to take the park back after all this trouble over their ownership rights to Wisteria Island have been disputed. The funny thing is they bought the island from a venerable state representative who had in turn bought the island from the state even though the state admitted ownership rights were a bit vague. Meanwhile Bernstein Park belongs firmly to the people.

Who make full use of it.

I wonder how it will all end. Another funny thing I have previously reported comes to mind. The city was offered a plan to allow merchants to close off a couple of blocks of Duval Street in the evenings to create a pedestrian zone, which seemed like a really good idea to all concerned. Then the merchants outside the zone bitched and moaned that it was such a good idea it would poach customers from their stores. So what did the city do? Expand the plan, you say? Hell no they killed it off completely. That's how things work in this upside down world at the end of the road. Endlessly amusing to watch, it must be hell trying to do business here.

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Hubris Key West Style

Nobody could really believe it when the Feds stood up and announced loudly that they owned Wisteria Island. But...but...but e Bernstein family owns it don't they? Not according to the Federal Government which has asserted ownership going back to the 19th century. As reported by the Key West Citizen the ownership was confused by the question of whether or not the island is shallows created naturally or an island built with dredgings from the creation of the deep water harbor. The material dredged is called spoil thus the question is: does that make Wisteria a spoil island or not? At first the answer was yes, allowing the private ownership, now the research says no thus the Feds will have to reimburse the modest purchase price and assume control. Or will they? Local authorities are hoping this scenario will come to pass but no one can really believe the nuisances who claim ownership will be booted out. And the Bernsteins have proved to be a huge headache for local officials.

This whole mess started out when the family prosecuted a couple of liveaboard boaters who took a walk on the island and were taken to court for trespassing. The walkers ultimately won their case, but the precedent was set that walking the island was trespassing. After decades of neglect the family had decided to turn the scrubby island into gold. They presented a plan to the county for a whole resort to be built with hotel rooms, cottages, employee housing and as a sop to local people a park. The county recoiled pointing out that land use rules allow but two homes. Which at modern rates you'd think would have made the Bernsteins millions for two homes sharing a private island. But we live in a greedy world and many more millions made more sense to the land developers. Had they accepted the modest proposals they probably would have got away with the ownership and made enough money for an average family to live extraordinarily well in perpetuity. What happened instead was a local land use activist with the moribund Last Stand environmental group got active and single handedly researched the issue and pestered the Feds and threw the ultimate wrench into the works. The problem with development is that developers never give up. Block them and back they come. Block them and back they come. It's a never ending process of wearing down the opposition. However get the Feds involved and then you have to go to the Republican Party and get them to rein in our ultimate protectors. So far the Feds trump all. Well done Last Stand. Wisteria gets to remain public and perhaps little less wild than below or it becomes an exclusive village as see at the bottom, on Sunset Key.

Wisteria's future is undecided but that mere fact is exciting in a world made safe for developers. I hold out no hope for Truman Waterfront, especially now that the Mohwak has been banished anid scheduled for sinking. With the museum gone from the seawall upscale development will be able to move in. The struggle to contain these things never ceases. Happily a false step has exposed a fissure that Last Stand heroically exploited.
I walked Wisteria Island when I was living on my boat at anchor. It was a musty airless place covered with acidic Australian pines (hence it's nickname of Christmas Tree Island, because to the fevered tropical mind casuarinas can resemble pine trees from a distance) which don't permit other growth. Boaters used the island happily as a place to do boat projects repairing dinghies and outboards, as a place to walk their dogs and as a site for cook outs and campfires in winter. I doubt it will return to that happy natural state but we can now hope that it may be something other than a second Sunset Key. One is quite enough.