From the National Weather Service:
In the wake of a strong cold front, the coldest temperatures of the season
will impact locations from New York and southern New England down to parts
of the eastern Gulf Coast. In fact, the freezing line Monday morning is
forecast to surge south of Atlanta all the way to the central coast of the
Gulf of Mexico. Temperatures will warm a few degrees for Tuesday, but
still remain 5 to 10 degrees below average.
I do not enjoy cold weather and for me anything below 70 degrees (21 Canadian) is cool enough so tonight's possible 68 degrees is starting to look uncomfortable to me.
This is after all a city where outdoor living is not meant to be boxed in, where opening up windows and doors is part of the pleasure of winter, where skies are blue and the sun shines is an all year phenomenon.
BEHIND THE FRONT...NORTHERLY BREEZES WILL FRESHEN WHILE DEWPOINTS SLOWLY FALL. WATER TEMPERATURES ARE WELL ABOVE NORMAL...SO WE DO NOT THINK OVERNIGHT LOWS WILL REACH THE UPPER 60S. TEMPERATURES HAVE NOT BEEN BELOW 70 DEGREES IN KEY WEST SINCE APRIL 1ST. WE WILL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL TUESDAY MORNING WHEN TEMPS WILL FALL INTO THE UPPER 60S.
This is after all a city where outdoor living is not meant to be boxed in, where opening up windows and doors is part of the pleasure of winter, where skies are blue and the sun shines is an all year phenomenon.
The fact is that the Lower Keys are not in the tropics, the tropic of cancer runs through the Straits of Florida 60 miles south of here and in winter even properly tropical Havana gets cold gray weather from time to time just as we do.
So much as one might prefer to spend all winter in t-short and shorts, there are occasions from time to time when we must adapt. Socks are de rigeur when Jack Frost strikes.
So much as one might prefer to spend all winter in t-short and shorts, there are occasions from time to time when we must adapt. Socks are de rigeur when Jack Frost strikes.
One hears stories of homeless Americans freezing to death Up North, and how they cope in the snow filled states and Canada I can't imagine. Key West has beds for the homeless but when it gets cold or wet they tend to fill and some street people just prefer to be left to cope on the streets. In a town where frost has never been seen a cold snap is not exactly life threatening. I don't think pets or humans should be outside but they haven't yet voted to make me dictator so cruelty remains a viable option.
There are people who dislike heat and humidity and mosquitoes, inexplicably, and they revel in snow and ice and the misery of short days and long nights and the rick of death by exposure. A while back someone sent me a picture of a car with a Key West sticker, and I wonder if they were wishing for warmer weather?
My young colleague JW saw snow in 1997 once in North Carolina when he was nine and he says he loved it. Not sweating and sledding made his young heart sing. When I told him my wife was going to be in freezing temperatures this week in Northern California his eyes lit up with envy. Man, he said, I have to go and stand in the freezer rooms at the grocery store to feel that cold. I miss cold weather.
My buddy Nick also grew in Key West and last saw snow in New York last winter. He is another pervert who likes snow. He wears the badge proudly saying snow gives him a thrill. He likes to be cold. What is wrong with these people?
I don't know how cold it will really get tonight and over the course of the next few days. The run up to the cold weather was magnificent heavy rain and roiling black cloud and strong west winds that lasted for days, a surprisingly powerful precursor to the cold front. Typically it gets hot and humid and winds blow out of the south and swing round rapidly to the northwest which brings clear skies and cold temperatures.
Perhaps it really will be cold enough to get us looking like these file pictures I took in winters past, socks, jackets, hats, hoods and maybe even gloves. A lot of people don't have heat in their homes and when it gets crisp around here people start to lose their resistance and everyone starts to sniffle and hack with winter ailments. Pathetic I know, but true.
Personally I'm fine with it being 80 degrees (26 Canadian degrees) and sunny all winter long. If I wanted it cold I'd live in St Augustine. I don't need it thanks, not that the gods are listening to me. My ideal, of which I never get bored:
This nonsense makes Richard in Fairbanks' heart sing:
The one big issue that faces people who travel on boats is where to park their dinghies when they put down their anchors and want to go ashore. For those with money one of the attractions of stopping off in marinas is the ability to tie up to the dock and simply step off the boat. For those who don't want to spend, typically between $30 and $100 a night (for a typical 30-40 foot liveaboard boat), but a night at anchor is splendid. It's self sufficient, it's got more privacy, better scenery and it's FREE! Then there is the problem of how to get ashore if you want to go shopping or see the town or buy spare parts.
Things are always breaking on cruising boats and finding parts is a constant issue. So it is that towns that have boating populations frequently offer dinghy docks. Key West has two official such docks, one at Garrison Bight and this one, more downtown behind Turtle Kraals restaurant and bar ($6 a night or $80 a month, no dinghies over 12 feet in length, trash, showers and water included).
I wander along the waterfront from time to time and I watch the comings and goings of the water rats, many of them youngsters, some of them retirees and a very few in between, and I can't say I envy them, though I remember my previous life fondly.
I still have opinions about which dinghies make the best vehicles to get ashore, and they fall into two main camps. The inflatable dinghy made of hypalon or some such material:
Difficult to tip, easier to stow sometimes, surprisingly tough, though difficult to row. Or there is the hard dinghy camp which I think frequently ends up being the choice of the boater who lives firmly in one spot and rarely moves the "mother ship." Not generally what I call a "sailor" but more of a a liveaboard:
One of the observations I have made over many years of living aboard and cruising is that a person's mobility is in inverse proportion to the size of the dinghy. If you see a small sailboat with a large well equipped hard dinghy hanging off the stern you can bet they haven't pulled up the anchor in a long while. There is a form of snobbery among boaters about these things and people are always being judgemental about each other in the way humans tend to be. My wife and I belonged in the inflatable dinghy camp and on our Gemini catamaran we had what we considered an excellent solution for transporting our dinghy:
Some sailors think hanging the dinghy off the back of the boat in davits is dangerous at sea, but like I said everyone in the world of boating is a critic. This picture was taken while cruising the north coast of Cuba and we had hauled the dinghy from Santa Cruz California, off the back of our Gemini 105 without a problem. Some people with large boats have large dinghies. I remember being anchored in San Juan Del Sur in Nicaragua when a very large "gin palace" was visiting the town and we felt like peasants when the crew of the big motor boat stepped off a dinghy two thirds the size of our 34 foot (11 meter) catamaran. They had a steering console on their dinghy, but that's a rare feature for we the little people. I found on at the dinghy dock on a regular sized dinghy:
Living on a boat at anchor appears glamorous to land lubbers a lot of the time, but when you look closer it takes effort and energy and organization to do it well. You don't want to forget anything on your shopping list because in that case you do without.
And you may be anchored half an hour from the dinghy dock across cold choppy waters...On an afternoon when skies are gray and the temperature has dropped to 70 degrees (20C) you might miss the comfort of a commute by car:
And while we are pointing out the most romantic parts of living at anchor let's not forget "dinghy
Then there is the problem of dinghy motors. Hardly anyone rows any more, and even though some still do almost all anchor outs rely on small, two and increasingly, four stroke motors. Which don't always start when they haven't been cared for properly:
See, there I go being critical. Actually she sounded a little miffed too when she hissed: "Just get it started!" he was commendably restrained just pulling the rope in silence until finally he was rewarded with a grudging, choking cough. I'll tell you what though, if he doesn't get it sorted and reliable he will be single handing soon enough. This guy appeared to be single handing already and he was working on a recalcitrant old British Seagull, the original two stroke outboard motor developed in World War Two. And notoriously unreliable:
Actually they are very dependable if serviced regularly and treated with the care a small engine deserves in a harsh environment. If they won't start they are horrid, as the starter rope has to be wound round the flywheel for each try:
He too suffered in silence, pulling away and guiding his dinghy with his paddle between pulls:
He was smart, though, or experienced because he carried alternative propulsion with him, even it was just a paddle. A dead motor is crippling especially in Key West harbor waters which have fierce currents and lots of assorted traffic. Eventually he buzzed off as can be seen further up this essay. There are rules about what you have to carry including lights, fixed in this case though an all-round white flashlight will do if your dinghy is slow, less than seven miles per hour (12km/h):
You need life jackets and flares to be legal and registration if your boat has a motor in Florida. And if you don't you can expect to get stopped by the Marine Patrol, known these days as Florida Fish and Wildlife and get fined if you aren't in compliance. Occasionally Key West PD gets in on the act too, and because Key West is, effectively, a border town the feds are here in force, every letter of the alphabet soup, DEA, FBI, JIATF, and no doubt CIA though I'm sure they couldn't care less if your dinghy has lights or valid registration. Naturally anchor outs fancy themselves rebels so they make a point, many of them ,of flouting this or that. I always preferred to fly under the radar and not draw attention to myself. Which is why I still have factory mufflers on my motorcycle. I am a milquetoast rebel.
Others have solar panels like this, in Gun Cay, Bahamas, though they work fine in a marina too:
Bicycles work well for people who live at or near the docks and boaters tend to prefer small wheeled fold up bicycles thinking they are easier to carry in the dinghy:
Which they are but they are never easy to get back on the boat. Plus they are cumbersome to store in most boats and end up living on deck and rotting away...that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it! Liveaboards are identifiable too, certain clothing choices, a certain swagger perhaps because they think they live a cool "lifestyle" which I suppose they do:
"Be safe!" she called out as though the dinghy ride to the boat is less safe than a roadway commute, a touch of the high seas adventure for people who's boating tends to be limited to the harbor waters. That became the problem for me. Living on the boat and working a job turned the boat into a parked vehicle, too cluttered to sail, too tired to clean up and take off. Now I live in my house I go out on my little boat far more than I ever did when I lived aboard, even in a marina, and held down a job. For youngsters and would-be adventurers the big back pack, the small boat and the envious stares of the land lubbers make it all worthwhile:
I must have cycled past it on my way to work on the waterfront in my previous life but why would I have noticed it? The entrance is marked by the two most common styles of homes seen nowdays in Old Town Key West. The old:
And the old refurbished in grand style:
The lane is half a block long, though unlike others it has somehow resisted the blandishments of tarmacadam:
Personally I'd rather throw my money at central air conditioning than at televised advertising, but there we are. While I am in a bitchy mood (and I can't think why, if it isn't a lack of motorbikes in my life) I should point out that I am a great fan of asphalt. I have lived on dirt and gravelled roads and they suck. They create mud when it's wet, dust when it's dry and they are impossible to ride with any sense of security, though these days even asphalt roads seem to be giving me trouble.
I don't feel particularly indebted to the Scots for golf, haggis or Scotch eggs, but asphalt must rate high on the list of human achievements. I know it is fashionable to denigrate roads and cars but had their critics lived and traveled in communities where it is absent they might possibly change their minds. On the other hand Caraballo Lane's slightly dishevelled air is very picturesque:
And this is the place where those preposterous safety measures called insecurity lights have been allowed to disintegrate:
In a delightful backwater like this a stern finger wagging should be sufficient:
Caraballo Lane is picturesque:
The lane also provides two major food groups for hard economic times, papayas and coconuts and judging by the bountiful fruit on my own trees we may be having a bumper coconut crop this year. I need to plant papayas judging by this bounty:
Looking back at Eaton Street:
And across the street is the landmark Island City Hotel, circa 1889, with its splendid carriage entrance and gingerbread decorations:
I should point out that it would be a very good idea not to mix this place up with the Island House for Men on nearby Fleming Street. One encourages a certain level of intimacy, the other doesn't. Up to you to find out which is which. Neither of which has much to do with lovely Caraballo Lane.