There are some low income apartments for sale to qualified Monroe County residents, and they are close to the waterfront off Trumbo Road. If the developer were to tell people the apartments were at Key West's Toxic Triangle it might make for a hard sell, but luckily for Ed Swift there are only a few of us that remember that designation for the waters off Trumbo Road.
They are nice enough units offering garage space underneath and a price tag I believe of around $180,000 for a one bedroom. They are part of a luxury deal because this isn't a charity operation. The larger development is called the Steam Plant, because that is what it was before they decided to build apartments:
The low cost units look like quite a deal to me, but the Steam Plant luxury apartments are supposed to sell for several millions each and they have all the penthouse bells and whistles, including I'm told individual elevators from the garages. Its quite the lump, which isn't surprising when you know that this was actually a power plant supplying the city of Key West with life enhancing energy.
And that, in the long version, is where the term Toxic Triangle comes from. The power plant had to spew its effluent somewhere and there is tidal water nearby, across the street actually.
There was a time, not so long ago that people lived on pleasure boats tied up along this waterfront, and it didn't cost a thing. Of course there were no amenities but inasmuch as the basin is protected from wind and wave to the south by downtown Key West , and to the north by the Coastguard Base it was a good place to tie up out of the rougher waters of the main harbor. It still is for the few commercial boats that continue to tie up there. Behind them lies the US Coastguard Base where the coasties keep their cutters:
The base entrance is at the end of Trumbo Road:
The Toxic Triangle isn't locked in everyone's memory as a foul blot on Key West's history, not at all. I spoke with Carol, a colleague of my wife's and she remembers coming down here for picnics and to go swimming. She thinks of this sylvan spot as a sort of public swimming pool, crystal clear waters and a good spot to relax.
This is also the spot whence the Sunset Key landing craft takes off to haul moving vans and garbage trucks and delivery vehicles across to the luxury island. I actually took the trip over there a few years ago helping to deliver furniture. The development of Sunset Key generated its own controversy when the city took control of the Navy's old Tank Island, so called because of the (unused) fuel storage tanks on the deserted fill island, and sold the island and the mainland waterfront to the Hilton developer for all of eleven million dollars . When the landing craft was being serviced in the boat yard to take over haulage duties for the new and exclusive development the yard workers baptized the vessel and painted a new name on its bulky stern. "Tank Island Whore" was what they painted to express their disdain for the resort. Apparently the name was spotted by the new owner of the island and there was unhappiness all round. Nevertheless when I see the craft plowing across the harbor in a welter of foam, the unfortunate name keeps popping, unbidden, into my mind. The Toxic Triangle is also home to the School Board headquarters, on the inland side of Trumbo Road:
And it seems likely that the School District may soon give up this land, with its bus yard and elderly ex-military buildings. The land is waterfront and valuable and could be sold for money enough for the district to design a purpose built headquarters somewhere less developmentally desirable. The buildings themselves have benefited from a lick of paint or two since their use by the military:
Its hard to imagine anything other than yet another development of expensive homes taking the School District's place and that will be something else for us to look forward to. Meanwhile the big yellow buses come and go.
And across the way is a development that sprang up almost a decade ago, as far as I can remember. It was an Argentine company of all things that put in a bid to develop a ferry terminal in Key West and on the riverfront in downtown Fort Myers on Florida's West Coast. The company, called Buquebus collapsed inevitably in the great financial meltdown that wrecked Argentina. and its legacy is two ferry terminals that are still known to some people by that peculiar name (pronounced: boo-kay-bus). The one in Fort Myers isn't used anymore as it is more efficient for the ferry to dock at Fort Myers beach as the Caloosahatchee River is a slow speed zone for 20 miles to downtown Fort Myers.
The Key West Ferry Terminal is a surprisingly modern facility, all steel and glass and light, though a bit of a hike to get to Duval Street if you are elderly and loaded with luggage, after your three hour ride from Fort Myers Beach. And across from the Ferry terminal is a monument to the man who first enabled easy mass tourism in Key West, Henry Flagler himself:
In the background you can see the panels painted by local youngsters to mask the construction detritus along Trumbo Road. Of course they reflect local conditions to some extent, though where the notion arose that a shark might nab a cat dockside, I'm sure I don't know:
Another day at the Toxic Triangle as it faces a fresh new incarnation, condos for all.
When Jan sent the invitation to take a sunset sail to celebrate Lucy's birthday I remembered what I had previously forgotten: that I hadn't been sailing in a long time. We sold our catamaran two years ago and that was after it hadn't left the dock in a year and that was when we got back from our Bahamas trip in 2004 I think. So it was past time to get under sail and even though my wife was away shopping I wanted to go and celebrate in style. Carol and Chuck had fun also, on the schooner Hindu celebrating Lucy's unspecified birthday: 
Oh well, I'll probably never know as teak and canvas and six miles per hour is more my waterborne speed. 
And the Angel of Cleanliness had the same reaction as Lori when my wife told her she was off to Tampa for a few days. "Oooh, excellent. Shopping!" In fact so keen were they to go shopping that my wife and her colleague left town early to put in some quality time at the outlet maul near Fort Myers. Its one of those things, shopping as recreation. Everyone on the island misses it. Except me.
And they also come with a handy little clip so you can secure them to your person or your purse. I have made a habit of overloading my Chico bags and they are very tough and durable. They dry instantly as they are made of nylon and they are very useful to carry all the crap that accumulates in a busy life, school books, left overs, even trash and they can be tossed in the washing machine with the laundry.
A couple of Chico bags in the saddlebags lend great versatility to the motorcycle-as-daily-pack mule concept. Plus they may be good for the planet, if you care. 
Bob lost a two stroke Vespa P125 to Hurricane Wilma and he was pining for a replacement. He's lucky Vespas command no market down here("Huh? I could get a Harley for that!") but with that cash my Bonneville is paid for. 
And my wife has promised that she'll let me ride her Vespa ET4 from time to time to ease the bitter loss.
Riding round South Roosevelt Boulevard on my lunch break I saw a fishing boat at anchor, all lit up on the flat waters half a mile south of Key West. It's where boats go to get out of strong north winds when cold fronts arrive and a front is upon us this morning. Seeing that boat put me in mind of Safe Harbor, a boat basin off Front Street on the south side of Stock Island. 
I have an acquaintance who used to work as a commercial fisherman, and when the National Marine sanctuary was proposed for the waters of the Florida Keys he fought the Feds strenuously. And then he had an epiphany and he joined the move to protect the waters of the Florida Keys. Today he works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and he educates boaters of all stripes about the rules and regulations in place to keep the reefs alive. But its not just environmental pressures that are killing off commercial fishermen; simple economics are doing them in. Its cheaper to pay Third World wages and fly the fish to our tables than it is to pay Americans to chase fish. And so it goes, the shrinking of the Key West commercial fleet.
Thirty years ago it must have seemed inconceivable to all but the most far seeing observer that the shrimpers crowding Key West Bight would be gone, replaced by pleasure boats. 
Yet today no one would argue that the marinas lining the boardwalk look out of place. They smell a good deal better than the commercial docks, a level of authenticity the city fathers would have a hard time selling to visitors, if the commercial fleet were still docked in the middle of the gentrification that is Key West Bight.
Safe Harbor is still thriving as the hub of commercial fishing at least for the time being. Fishbusterz is the anchor business here, an ice house that offers dockage and a place for shrimpers to sell their catch. And refrigerated trucks stand by to haul away the fish; you won't often see an 18-wheeler with Key West as it's home port:
At night this place makes my heart flip, what with the flat shiny waters, the bright lights reflected and the sound of humming generators. I love waterfronts even if I really don't belong there. Boarding a ship, any ship including ferries and cruise ships feeds the romantic in me in a way that getting on an airliner never has. Taking my middle-of-the-night lunch break by prowling the deserted docks of Safe Harbor is pure pleasure.
I am not cut out to be a commercial fisherman, I don't have the stamina or the strength or the nuts to mix it up with people of their ilk, and they wouldn't know what to do with me acting like a tourist flapping my fingers at their hardscrabble way of life. On the recreational side of Safe Harbor I have no desire to return to boat living. 
But I sure do like looking at the craft lined up, listening to the ropes creak, watching the boat cats delicately prowling the dew covered decks. Across the harbor I remember the basins lined with live aboard boats, run down wrecks many of them, but homes nonetheless. 
They are all gone to make way for development of modern marinas that average pleasure boaters will never be able to afford. The commercial side of Safe Harbor is safe for now, but there's too much money to be made here to feel complacent that things on this side of the basin will stay this way for long. The National Marine Sanctuary spelled the beginning of the end for commercial fishing, for good or ill, as large areas of reef were placed out of bounds to sustain tourism to the detriment of commercial boats. The transformation of Stock Island will eventually push out the inconvenient commercial boats and I don't doubt Fishbusterz will get an offer he can't refuse. And then I will be able to say I remember the good old days, and that I appreciated the tenuous thread that held all this together, the shadows of boats barely visible in the encroaching darkness... 
And its that air of imminent destruction that perhaps gives Safe Harbor a romantic overlay, because whether I remember it or not in 20 years, it will still all be gone most likely and I will just be a bore for reminding people of what used to be.
Luckily I'm fairly immune to mosquitoes because they descended on me en masse and settled like a large buzzing halo around my head, the only part of me exposed to the air. When I arrived it was dark, around 6am, and the fence lights at the end of the military runway were blinking bright red almost outshining the moon.
Boca Chica Road has been a dead end for decades but the roadway got ravaged by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 and the county, in their wisdom threw up a barrier and cut off the last mile or so of beach road. So now the chunk of roadway available for vehicle parking is a tiny portion of what it once was. However the pedestrian gap in the barricade up by the trees, is still wide enough for a motorcycle to pass through. And I was astonished by the amount of grasses and creepers that had grown over the unused paved road in less than three years.
When Emma and I used to come down here to go for a little Labrador stump the roadway was lined with bushes and trees all the way along the water front. Wilma put paid to them all when the storm pushed sand and water over the road spilling on military property inland of the road. However, by riding the Bonneville past the tree line, through the barricade I got a crisp dawn profile of the motorbike. 
As far as mossies go I'm lucky because even after they dig into me I never show a welt and the sting goes away just a few minutes later. Even so they were incredible. They landed all over my mesh and Kevlar jacket, and even with my leather gloves on they crawled over my hands desperately seeking blood. I should have dug out my repellent from my saddlebag but I wasn't planning on hanging around... and they took horrible advantage of me.
And slowly the sun came up, highlighting the dew on the windshield and the incredible, summer-like stillness of the waters. I was entranced, despite the abundant insect life.
We're supposed to get a cold front again this week, possibly by Wednesday with temperatures plunging back into the 60s they tell us, but at the moment we have the pre-frontal heat and humidity and the big puffy thunderclouds hanging over the Gulf Stream add to the summer-like ambiance. 
I took a quick stop at Geiger Creek, a saltwater "river" which is usually home to a bunch of bridge anglers, but not at that hour. The mosquito population here was minimal. An enormous relief.
And so it was that about 40 minutes later than usual, tardiness possible thanks to my wife being out of town, I started out for home. First I had to make my way back to Highway One through Tamarac Park, a subdivison of stilt homes set among numerous trailers on canal front lots. In the distance I could see low lying mist which I thought very evocative:
Highway One was busier than I am used to on my trip home in the morning, as by now it was nearly seven am and the daytime workers were massing on the Highway into Key West. Lots of people commute as I do (in cars) from as far afield as Big Pine Key around Mile Marker 30, sometimes to pay less rent or get a larger home on a more spacious lot. Others like the relative peace and quiet and many like the easy access to the water in the Lower Keys, thanks to the many homes built on canals. But they sure do clog the roadway between seven and eight in the morning. 
Tired as I was I had to stop for a moment on Cudjoe Key and attempt to capture the rising orb that had stayed coyly out of sight on Boca Chica Beach. I can only say it looked way better in real life.