We sat on the balcony upstairs and talked of this and that, our collective feeling of helplessness in the face of societal contraction, and at the same time our good fortune facing the difficult years ahead down here among friends.
Across Cow Key Channel white lights twinkled at water level along the mangroves; they were kayakers out for a dusk paddle.
We had crusty shrimp and crab cake first, I indulged my middle aged taste with a rare gin and tonic which came in a pint glass (!) and helped the problems of the world recede for a while.
It was cool outside so three of us put on sweatshirts. Chuck, fetching in dark green complained of waking up in the night with his teeth chattering and I tried to make sympathetic noises about the misery of a 68 degree night. I should have put my own sweatshirt on in solidarity I suppose.
This is not a climate to bitch about, that's for sure.
Nor was the food, slices of snapper and risotto...
...pork chops and potatoes, Pinot noir flowing and cheerful banter from Dan our Romanian lawyer turned American waiter who had humor and flair and good service all sorted out.
We ate and talked and drank over the course of several leisurely hours and I got the rare pleasure of feeling like it was a dinner worth celebrating. Too often one pays a lot for not much in return and these days that sort of slovenly service grates the nerves more than usual.
We ended dinner with a candle bedecked carrot cake which was really quite excellent and a bizarre dessert of chocolate pannini served as seen above with a pot of warm chocolate dipping sauce.
Wayne was our designated driver and he took the long way home dropping my wife and I off first though we live further up the highway, then doubling back to his and Chuck's place last.
It was a dark night, the moon is rising late and Cheyenne after greeting me deliriously as usual on my return helped me water the plants before we turned in.
In bed with the louvered windows open I could hear the wind rustling the palm fronds outside, a sound that reminds me that Fall is here, the air conditioning is turned off for now and a sweatshirt is survival gear in the trunk of the car.
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These few pictures shot from the shore out across the waters of Boca Chica Bay look just like a summer afternoon.
That is perhaps one of the great fortunes of living at low latitudes, that rain need not be a reason to sit, Charley Brown-like at the window watching the droplets crash the party. The rain from the sky was cold but the water in the pool was quite warm. There was no thunder, no lightning so we swam ignoring the rain. My wife is nothing if not determined. 
Cheyenne was at home snoozing away her afternoon no doubt (or playing poker with a group of her friends from around the neighborhood) and we were free for a few hours to be humans being not humans doing.
Normally a fourteen month membership at this place costs $1500, a single month $125, but my wife nailed 14 months for $400 through the US1 Radio auction. "They'll be the only Democrats in the place," a friend remarked darkly to his wife but I think he exaggerates. I am not a clubby type but my wife loves the idea of being able to meet her friends there, which I find amusing. The ratio of Democrat government employee to plutocrat may be changing...
However for some people a little rain is enough to keep them home so while my wife and I were alone for the swim when we went up to the restaurant for happy hour the place was equally quiet.
The Yacht Club is part of a chain of marinas between Tampa Bay and Key West for people with boats who also want a place to meet, possibly use a gym, swim in a pool or rent a waterfront apartment. It's very much, in my opinion pre-2008 when everyone was fueled by credit and economic expansion was the watchword.
The restaurant produces good food at a reasonable price, they have happy hour with inexpensive drinks and the views from the upstairs bar restaurant and terrace are quite pleasant. My wife hopes the unheated pool will stay warm enough on sunny winter afternoons to make it possible to swim during the cold season when our boat comes out of the water. Between November and April visitors are the only people around here who swim in the ocean without a wet suit. 
A two dollar Red Stripe sipped while overlooking the water is pleasant enough but the draw of a dry sauna and a swimming pool makes the beer the payoff for some strenuous afternoon lounging...supposedly. 
A one hundred million dollar buy up of land around Safe Harbor has landed in bankruptcy and the paper was reporting recently that a second ice house has opened to return the island one more step closer to it's former role as a commercial fishing hub. Before that Stock Island housed the cattle (the "stock") that fed Key West next door. One can only imagine the Gulf Oil Spill, currently sunk out of sight, may help shrimpers and the like down here.
I wonder in a gloomy way what the future will bring to Stock Island, formerly at risk of losing it's trailer parks and low income housing and light industry to the unstoppable wave of development that was sweeping up vast tracts of the island. 
This used to be the old Peninsular Marine, a dusty marina and haul out facility for boats. There was a fiberglass shop and a sail loft and the limestone was tinged blue with scraped off bottom paint. The very air tasted sour like a penny on the tongue with all the clouds of metallic paint tainting the atmosphere. Some people lived on their boats permanently out of the water. Slip rent was something around $12 a foot when they closed, and there was a long list to get a place in one of the great bargain marinas. 
My wife still remembers with horror the smeared and malfunctioning toilets at Peninsular when we hauled our boat out and spent a couple of weeks living on Miki G in the middle of the facility. She is a tough woman but that particular memory, hauling toilet paper across the yard, still makes her shudder. I never stop seeing the ghosts of the old marina when I look out at the spiffy new Yacht Club. 
I should be filled with nostalgia I suppose but a two dollar Red Stripe goes a long way to curing me of such retrograde notions. It is however to my eternal regret I did not take more pictures of Peninsular Marina in it's heyday. It was an encampment of working stiffs, of the nearly homeless, of decent folks and not so decent, angry and cheerful like any community. That I can drift from one type of accommodation to another is a source of wonder to me.
Rain blows through in a hurry usually around here and Kathy will show up for happy hour appetizers and the sun will come out and life marches on.
Peninsular is gone Long Live the Yacht Club. 
A toast to progress! My wife is partial to smoked fish dip. 
Among the empty slips there are people going boating or going home. I suspect this place will fill gradually, but for now it is a quiet, relatively undiscovered corner that the gentry have overlooked.
A funny place for me to wash up on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I should whip out my wife's iPhone and talk at length ignoring her sitting right there in front of me. Perhaps I should buy a visor to wear around my hair so I could look like a stockbroker on holiday. Perhaps I should just shut up and sip my beer.
Next happy hour I may try a two dollar Guinness, just to make sure it tastes the same as a regular hour bottle. I know my wife will be dragging me back here before long. Woe is me.
This area used to be a rough and tumble marina known as Peninsular Marine on Stock Island. I don't know if the original sign writers messed up the spelling of "peninsula" but this is in fact Pensinsular Avenue and is now known as Yacht Clubs of America. And very plush it is too, especially when compared to the old pea rock working marina and boatyard that used to exist here. 
People do keep boats in the water here and I'm pretty sure this is a liveaboard boat. Who would have thunk of people living on their boats in this place? It seemed quite humanizing to me, that bicycle on the dock!
There was no dedicated motorcycle parking but I followed some other dude's exmaple and made do nudging my Bonneville up to the motorcycle already there:
Across the water to the east of the club is Boca Chica channel with it's share of anchored out boats between Stock Island and the Navy Base on Boca Chica Key visible across the water:
It was an idyllic way to spend the afternoon. The club has a rule that no children are allowed in the club on weekends which makes membership especially alluring to me, and at $100 a month my wife and I were contemplating the value of joining especially as the owner is offering deals apparently.
We joked that we would be the only Democrats in the place but this would be an excellent spot for us to meet weekday afternoons, me on the way to work, and my wife leaving her place of work on the north side of Stock Island. She has eaten in the dining room and she describes the food as excellent and reasonably priced and I can just imagine how pleasant a seat in the sauna would be prior to a night in the salt mines.
I was having trouble thinking my wife was serious about joining and I was wondering if I am going soft in my old age but the showers in this building are quite a bit plusher than those at work, it goes without saying:
The fact that Clyde Butcher pictures decorate the walls led me to think this place has more going for it than just superb facilities and decent grub. I like Butcher's art:
I suppose most people join these places for the social aspect and I grant you I'd rather buy a beer here than on Lower Duval, but my wife is a gym fiend and we both love to swim, in the pool or in the saltwater of the almost empty marina (much to the scandalized amazement of a an established member of the club- not a good start I suppose to draw attention to ourselves when we visitors swam happily in the peace and quiet off the little beach). 
And therein lies the problem. This is a club that would gladly have me for a member, not least because it was built at the end of the crazy money boom and the facilities are sadly under used. The food was eaten, the staff closed up shop, it was time for me to get dressed for work:
