Solstice At Smathers

I took these the day before the Solstice, Friday morning so the sun was rising at its most northern point on the horizon before it rolls back down south to bring us all into the darkness of winter. Of course this seasonal stuff is all relative at 24 degrees North Latitude, so if one stands here in six months (I'll try to remember) the sun will be further to the right, the temperature will be lower by a bit and it will be later in the morning. But all that notwithstanding, none of it by much.

It's turtle nesting season so after hunting and eating these inoffensive creatures almost to extinction and glorifying the hunt on the walls at Turtle Kraals, where the turtles were corralled prior to execution, we now turn off the street lights to avoid confusing the hatchlings who scamper towards the light of the moon reflected on the water. 

By the time I had sufficient sand in my shoes I made my way round to Dead Man's Curve where motorcycles used to prang with some regularity, and stopped to park alongside the sidewall where Houseboat Row used to exist. The houseboats were towed to slips in Garrison Bight to make a more pristine view for the new multi-million dollar condos across South Roosevelt, but this stretch of stupidly empty seawall is still known by its old name. I ask myself why buy a condo in colorful Key West if your first request is to remove the color; but just because they're rich doesn't mean, against all stereotypes, that they are smart. 

My wife is working in Key West this month to help out the schools and make some vacation money so she suggested breakfast at El Mocho on Stock Island. If you want genuine local's food that's your place and since I wrote the essay in 2008 not only have my photographic skills improved but they have spiffed tghe place up a bit. The grub happily remains the same.

I was driving my wife's Fiat as shewas bringing Cheyenne into town and as always it is a fun drive. However last Saturday she had to take it back to Rick Case Fiat in Davie, four hours away as the seat back handle made of best Italian plastic had snapped and the clock computer had failed and was running abysmally slow. I was laughing as neither of our Fusions have been to the dealer even though the driver's seat heater has failed in my car, bummer. Last month the Fiat's computer controlling the opening roof and trunk lid goofed off. Fix It Again Tony indeed but my wife loves her car and it is a blast to drive. No regrets!

It was a lovely morning, flat and serene.

Except of course for the people who came clumping by waving their arms, pedaling their bicycles and generally behaving oddly if you didn't know they were exercising heroically in public and setting a  good example.  I reserve my tussles with weights and elastic bands and stuff to the privacy of my home, but that's how I was raised.

Hints of sun to come:

It was a perfect morning and then the phone rang and I received my summons to cross the channel for bacon and eggs and grits and con leche and so it goes. Extra physical jerks later to pay for that little lot, and an extra long walk for Cheyenne before bed. A long day ahead.

Mangoes, Two Boats And A Thunderstorm

It was time Robert said, to take the boat home. He has fixed it up, better than it's been the last seven years I've owned it and it is now restored to proper, clean running order.

It's nothing fancy, a Dusky 14 foot powered by a Yamaha 25hp two stroke I bought new six or seven years ago in Garrison Bight from the dealer. The engine ran just fine until it didn't which is what happens to machinery used intermittently in a salt air atmosphere. It seemed impossible to diagnose correctly until finally the Yamaha dude found a broken spring the size of a dime. That search was such a pain I kind of lost heart, and got sick of engines for a while. My motorcycles are extremely hard wearing but my outboard was not. Grrr.

Robert to the rescue. He empathized all right but he did more and snatched my boat and worked some private magic on it. We launched it at the Cudjoe Marina ($7). Now it's clean, reorganized and not only running right but smoothly as well. Like new.

Cudjoe Marina is delightful, a bait shop and office with a ball toting black Lab, some rumpled long term liveaboard boats and an easy to use ramp. And they tell you the old style Florida Keys are gone forever...on Duval Street maybe but out here you could be reverting to the 1960s with no trouble at all. 

The steering was a little stiff after far too long sitting stationary on the trailer but nothing we couldn't handle and we rode around to Robert's house where he picked up his wife and dog and we set out to do a little exploring.

Robert's father died not so long ago but before he did he gave Robert his boat, stored meticulously after almost no use at all, so now Robert has one more boat in his formidable collection. That he found time to do so much valuable work on mine is something of a miracle in my eyes.  

The Lightning, now named the Lee Key (say it quickly) boat, powered by a pristine 30 year old Evinrude left the dock behind Robert's home in fits and starts until he got the fuel supply situation under control and got the twist grip throttle turning correctly.  My seven year old Yamaha purred absolutely perfectly (Thank you Robert!) and sounded as quiet as a four stroke alongside his pinging and rattling Evinrude.

By the time we got out on Cudjoe Bay something rather odd was happening to the weather. No, wait, summer was happening to the weather and what had been a crisp hot sunny morning started to evolve into a classic summer afternoon thunderstorm and we were powering briskly into the heart of it.

I was having a blast, my boat rose up onto a plane in a flash and we skimmed the smooth waters at somewhere I guess between 15 and 20 mph effortlessly. Robert, in an attempt not to overwork his elderly 25 horsepower was going much slower and I found I had to stop from time to time as my tea tray was skimming too fast and streaking away. It was good to be back on the water and away from land for a while.

 However the clouds were closing in and I frantically took a few pictures with my phone before stuffing it back into the zip lock I had brought to keep it dry, in the event I myself got wet. Getting wet soon became inevitable.

We dithered momentarily in the middle of the bay contemplating splitting with each making for home alone, me ahead, Robert Dolly and Salty Dog turning back, but I was unwilling as his engine had had some issues which in the end turned out to be a blocked fuel tank vent which was starving the outboard and thus easily fixed. Which was little comfort at the time as we managed somehow to drive ourselves into the heart of a thunderstorm that cracked so low directly overhead that Dolly in her boat and me in mine, we jumped simultaneously off our seats and cowered in the bottom of our  boats. As though that would do any good in the event of a direct hit by an Olympian thunderbolt. 

 By now we were committed and as Robert had never ventured up my canal I had to lead the way as I had explored the area previously under human powered propulsion. And I knew the south side of the canal entrance has some remarkably large lumps of rock near the surface. Naturally as we skimmed closer to the canal visibility plummeted as the water turned white with the force of the raindrops hitting the surface. Within seconds all of us were soaked though I am glad to say both engines ploughed on not missing a beat. I managed the entrance without going aground, as did Robert and we pulled up at my dock under a toad strangler of a tropical downpour.  The weight of the rain is not very clearly illustrated by this picture taken from the protection of the overhang under my stilt house.

We sat waiting for the rain to end playing with our phones, as one does, and Robert and I preferred to sit outside as I knew damned well the air conditioning inside the house would feel arctic in our soaked condition. Dolly went upstairs to dry our shirts, anticipating a  cold ride home when eventually the rain would let up.

In the  end Robert persuaded Dolly a damp shirt was good enough and the sun came out, more or less, so Dolly refused my offer of a ride home in the car and they set off into the sunset. I rather envied them.

I felt like we had had a rather Swallows and Amazons adventure, skipping around in our boats, under power not sail of course, but still...it had all been a terribly youthful adventure. More to come I hope, and perhaps a little drier.

We made a date for dinner at Square Grouper later, hogfish steak and wine, all very grown up, and my wife and I had a bicycle ride in the warm dark night air, which washed away the memories of rain.

 What did seem to be washing away was the topsoil from the empty lot across the canal. I took this picture at the end of the down pour when it was safe for a delicate camera to be out on my dock and the flow of water was greatly reduced but during the rain enough water flowed into the canal to reduce crystal clear water to a muddy brown mess. We were surprised by the force of the run off.

And I did not forget to retrieve a bag of mangoes that Dolly gave me from their tree. Robert doesn't eat mangoes (because he's weird, luckily) and these things are absolutely perfect. Its mango season so everyone has mangoes much as Up North when zucchini ripen all at once. To confirm the ripeness of mangoes generally, Square Grouper offered a mango bread pudding for dessert and that was one for the taste buds, a soft formless mass of liquid sugar and mango with gooey lumps of bread. Divine.

And I had a mango for breakfast looking out at my boat riding at the dock on Saturday morning. By Sunday we were out again, this time in bright sunshine with plans to enjoy a swim before work.

 Yesterday was perfect, with flat  seas a little breeze and big puffy white clouds under a perfectly blue sky all illuminated by a  bright burning sun. What a change a couple of days makes! We rendezvoused with Robert and Dolly and Salty Dog in the middle of Cudjoe Bay and headed for the mangrove cut to an undisturbed lagoon in the bottom of Sugarloaf Key.

We swam and taught Salty Dog to swim, a lesson that went very well as he kept wanting more. Cheyenne we left at home as heat  and swimming aren't her favorite things and here we had no beach whereon to land her. So we anchored in four feet of water and floated and talked and I laid on my back, my Crocs supporting my feet, and gazed up at the clouds drifting overhead. The salt water was the perfect bath temperature and I nearly fell asleep watching a  frigate bird dive and circle between the clouds. My ears were underwater and I couldn't hear the exhortations to Salty Dog who was having the time of his life. I wondered if i could manage to die like this, drifting away between consciousness and oblivion watching a  frigate bird wheeling on the currents. I decided I probably would manage a much more spectacular end, a motorcycle wreck long past the age I should be riding ending it all in a big oh shit moment.   

We have arranged another trip out this week hopefully for a picnic on a distant beach. I had forgotten how important a dock and  a boat are to live properly in the Keys,  silly me. Pity the poor Old Town dwellers with their chickens and parking problems and urban agglomeration of bars and noise and drunks. 

Posted with Blogsy

From The Archives: 2007

This was the first picture posted in my blog which used to be called "Key West Vespa."

 In June 2007 I was riding a lovely red Vespa 250, but I soon discovered that writing about riding was too limiting.

 We had been in our house three years, and I was getting to grips with new fangled digital photography.

 And I had been in my job three years also.

 I wrote an essay Road to Pale about a weird encounter we had in our rental car on a disused railroad line through the Bosnian mountains outside Sarajevo in our Balkan odyssey that year:

 Back home I was exploring the Lower Keys by Vespa GTS.

 Which ended up dying after ten months and ten thousand miles of numerous electrical problems. 

 Hurricane Season was nowhere near as bad as 2005 but we had a few scares:

 I took to exploring the Lower Keys by boat, the Seven Mile Bridge in the background. A habit I hope to resume this summer. Same boat refreshed engine (thank you Robert).

 White Street Pier:

 My tree house in our second year of occupancy:

 Politics was on the page too:

 And Bike Week, me riding my wife's Vespa 150 which has proved as sturdy as the 250 was feeble.

 I did love the comfort of that ride. I still miss it:

 But I got a new first rate ride, the best motorcycle I have ever owned I think, still going strong with 81,000 miles on the clock.

 We explored Pigeon Key and made the trip out by train which has since been discontinued:

 It's the railroad workers camp in the middle of the Seven Mile Bridge:

 The bridge is still open to foot and bicycle traffic but the state deemed it unsafe for even the modest tourist train. Visitors now arrive by boat.

 My wife went with her friend Heather to Fort Zachary, and Heather is still smiling and still living in Key West.

 Some things don't change much. I still like to eat fish sandwiches at Keys Fisheries in Marathon:

 People still walk around excessively under dressed at fantasy Fest:

 And I think that was the last year I got to see the Grand Parade. I am usually working.

 Oops, local politics again!

 The Tree house on Ramrod Key from across the canal:

 Bridge fishing at sunset.

That was a part of 2007 when I started this daily thing.