The transformation of Key West Bight is close to complete. A couple of decades ago this area was a working waterfront, the place where shrimpers came to load up with ice and supplies after off loading their catch. I remember this area the first time I came to Key West. filled with those commercial boats. Nowadays the smelly noisy metal hulled fishing boats are long gone, replaced by an assortment of wooden docks, home to Key West's recreational, mostly fiberglass fleet. There are also a bunch of assorted sailboats that offer sunset cruises, known to landlubbers as "tall ships" and to sailors as "square riggers:"
The work in the old days involved chasing shrimp and fish, these days it takes trolling for tourists to catch the fish:
In the bad old days people chased and killed turtles, hundreds of them, and there are photographs to prove it. They laid the creatures on their backs on the dock to render them helpless and took pictures. There is a museum of uncertain opening hours devoted to the subject and a noted bar and restaurant nearby devoted to more epicurean pursuits:
The restaurant called Turtle Kraals is named after the pens, the "corrals" the turtles were kept in, though why they adopted the South African version of the name I don't know. They sell beers from around the world in a gloomy room shaded from the burning sun:
And one can get a rather decent breakfast outside under that very sun on Turtle Kraals' waterfront deck, though it does put the diners rather in the face of passers-by who cruise the boardwalk, ambling aimlessly for the most part, and who thus get a chance to inspect one's breakfast plate as they go:
Not a stone's throw from Turtle Kraals lies the other well known drinking hole in these parts, the Half Shell Raw bar, under the same ownership:
One measure of how many people are still in town is to check the parking situation and in front of Half Shell it was looking good, which was just as well as I had to haul the boat into town for a service and as a a result I was driving the car (again- it's been a constant lately). I had my pick of places to park and naturally chose a jammed meter which technically one is not allowed to park at by city rules. However I got back to the car seconds before the parking control officer showed up. That whole hassle made me miss my motorbike even more as there is tons of free two wheel parking by the Half Shell.
The city of Key West owns the "Historic Bight" and the waterfront and the businesses all along the water around to the Galleon Resort are city tenants. The idea was to preserve the historic structures and the feel of Key West as a harbor. Maybe or maybe not, but there are boats out there, small ones too (the little black dot in front of the helmsman is his dog):
There is a working fuel dock, which doubles as the custom dock for boats checking in from foreign countries. Most people just stop here to get fuel or to pump out their holding tanks:
And in the rear one can sit in the shade next to the Harbormaster's floating office and watch the water world go by:
The old ice house, a crumbling structure for decades, now appears to be getting renovated. However if it is renovation, rather than demolition, they are sparing no expense, half tearing the place down before rebuilding it:
The dinghy dock is located right in front of Turtle Kraals also. There are many people who choose to live afloat, anchored doff Fleming Key or Christmas Tree Island in the harbor. personally I found no decent anchorages in the area, as there are no good spots for all round weather protection . On top of that there are strong currents and lots of boat traffic that kicks up huge wakes in every direction. It's hell I tell you, pure hell, but young people do like their adventures, and they park here when they come to town:
Wandering the Boardwalk on a crisp sunny Monday morning I saw bunches of people, some hanging around chatting with coffee in their hands:
Others shopping at the Waterfront Market:
It's a much loved institution, and it recently faced extinction as the owner, the curiously named Buco Pantelis announced his exhaustion with the victuals trade, and his inability to negotiate an advantageous lease with the City, thus forcing him to close. Well, you might as well have suggested the the earth spin in reverse on its axis. Immediately people started to froth at the mouth and demand the store stay open. And apparently some smaller Florida based natural foods chain is interested:
The fat lady has yet to trill but the change over to new management seems likely at this point. And everyone expects Wyland's muriel will stay as well which as it occupies the entire building isn't surprising.
The Boardwalk offers all sorts of excitement to visitors, this is the place you can book a trip to the Dry Tortugas, or a simple snorkel trip to the reef. There are sailboats, fishing boats, excursion boats and there are free offers too:
Though why anyone would offer free genuine Spanish treasure is hard to fathom, and yet some believe the inducement may be worth while. Call me skeptical but I'm not much of a shopper.
A trip round this half of the bight wouldn't be complete without a look inside the third of the three long time bars at the Bight. Schooner Wharf bills itself as the "last little piece of Old Key West," and naturally I think there may be other candidates for the title, but that just makes me sound churlish (Hogfish maybe,or Geiger Key Marina?). Besides they are still proud to note the endorsement of the long dead Charles Kuralt and the venerable National Geographic not the first publication that comes to mind when one thinks of drinking recommendations.
The fact is you won't find one of these on the mainland, complete with dogs, dust and total decorative chaos. I took this picture at 10:54am last Monday and there they are, enjoying Paradise at least for their week's vacation. Personally I'd rather be riding my motorbike.
Across the street from Schooner Wharf development is moving forward. The former Watermark condo project got crapped on by all the neighbors as too huge and after a bitter legal battle the developers, claiming to be locals cut back the dimensions, and the new Harbor House is supposed to be built to more human proportions:
I feel as though I should frequent Schooner Wharf more often as there is an uneasy feeling in town that pretty soon the genteel occupants of these condos will start complaining about the noise and the smell and the untidiness etc.. and money will talk loudest no doubt...But for now all is light happiness and joy on lazy Way Lane. And the Harbor House developers are advertising their neighborliness:
Back at the parking lot a bunch of visitors was enjoying a fine example of Key West funk, in front of Mac's Sea Garden. They got a kick out of the gently decomposing old truck:
And that brought me back to the parking lot and the as-yet-unticketed Nissan at the jammed meter. Time to go home and polish the Bonneville for the next outing.
It wasn't too terribly long ago I was down at Boca Chica Beach at dawn taking pictures of the Bonneville and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. This recent cold front put the mossies to bed and made the beach safe for humans for a short while. That and the fact I covered myself in poison to keep them away maybe. I took advantage to pay a daytime visit to the beach and go for a walk.
Boca Chica (small mouth in Spanish) is actually a large island, large enough to hold a Naval Air Station and a good bit of land beyond that. Its southernmost coastline is open to the public and makes for a pleasant recreational area for those so inclined. To get to the beach one turns south at the Shell gas station on Big Coppitt Key, near Mile Marker 10. The road to the beach is several miles long and passes through Tamarac Park, a sub division on Geiger Key, before dead ending at the cement barriers in the photograph above. Beyond the barricade lies the rest of the roadway:
This was all open to cars in 2005, with a line of small trees throwing shade across the two lane roadway. Hurricane Wilma put paid to the greenery and washed out part of the roadway, that which is left is being overrun by vines, and there is little more than a footpath to show the way to the back country. The beach itself isn't much to write home about if you expect a beach to have sand, and lots of it. 
This place is more like a seaweed factory:
Which helps to give the waters their unusually tannin brown complexion. All very unsavory, especially when you consider the waters aren't even very deep. You can wade out a quarter of a mile and still not drown, assuming a wader of average height. So why come to this cruddy beach at all? Well, these are the keys and if you want decent sand beaches you'll have to go elsewhere, like Sarasota...but locals come to Boca Chica because the views are pretty enough:
And there is still a stretch of roadway with vegetation:
And a picnic table to contemplate the joy of it all:
I used to walk my dog here and after she grew old and died I was reluctant to come back, as I had too many memories of Emma stumping along and throwing herself in the water to cool off.
I wasn't ready to do the same but the water beyond the seaweed looked inviting. These days Monroe County is busy sticking up signs along the beach advising free range dogs are no longer allowed. 
I was glad to see one couple,and their small dog, ignoring the strictures to no one's apparent detriment:
It really is a pleasant spot for a picnic if one felt so inclined, or to watch passing boats:
I felt inclined to walk especially as I was a bit short of time- my wife expected me to be home when she got there. I got walking down the roadway. Two youngsters on skateboards ignored me completely, so engrossed in their private dramas were they:
Then a young mother approached pushing her offspring. I felt like I was in a busy city park:
I don't think the pavement lasted half a mile before it ended in the spot where, pre-Wilma, cars had to turn around and the dirt track begins:
The path follows the old roadway more or less, which at this point is washed out on one side and runs close alongside the boundary fence of the Naval Air Station on the other. The path meanders for a while and then rejoins the paved segment of the road further along. Some people bring bicycles, and I have cycled this place in the past. The roadway ends at the remnants of a wooden bridge that is gone leaving a rather large crevasse as the final obstacle. I may be wrong but I seem to think that traffic into Key West came this way in the old days before the new Highway was built in 1982. These days this area sees other kinds of travelers landing:
This hovel craft looks like a Cuban escape raft, one of the more sophisticated efforts, showing signs of an inboard engine removed, and flotation jackets still alongside the hull, which is metal sheathed in fiberglass. USCG Okay is painted in white spray on the side of the boat, presumably to show it had been checked, but the cost of removal of dead boats is prohibitive so I suppose it will stay here ignominiously destined to become a garbage scow, a process already underway. I have to admire people who would put to sea in a craft like this to take on the mighty Gulf Stream. I arrived in the U S courtesy of Boeing Corporation, a much saner way to travel. Talking of rubbish, someone took it upon themselves to decorate the Navy's fence with footwear flotsam:
The fence actually runs out at one point and turns inland cutting across the mangroves towards the Navy's traffic control tower :
These areas of Boca Chica beach open up to lots of little coves along the water, several notorious as gay nude (nude gay?) hang outs. Also young people like to gather and be uncomfortable around camp fires and the like. I met a few loaded with supplies headed out towards a rather loud gathering along the beach:
They had their faces painted white like Japanese Kabuki performers which gave them a grotesque ethereal air. Sprites on their way to a piss up. Which rather made me feel glad to be old and en route to a proper dinner with a proper wife in a comfortable home. I took the opposite path to Oberon and his fairies...
So I'm not going to deny the onset of middle age or anything but while the youth were getting drunk and even louder I was finding my lost youth with the help of two wheels and sixty horsepower:
Quite the best way to arrive at Boca Chica beach. And to leave also, in a cloud of mosquito repellent and exhaust.
Of course one could twist one's wrist if one were so inclined and reach a top speed, easily enough of say 85 miles per hour which would be horribly illegal and entirely exhilarating if one were feeling naughty and one happened to have a 900cc motorcycle capable of such speeds especially if one happened not to have "upgraded" the exhausts, like mine which are entirely stock and relatively quiet. But of course sensible motorcyclists pootle along at a proper 35 miles per (5mph over the limit is allowed in Florida on penalty only of a written warning; this is a weird state). The corners here are a bit tricky, not only because they are right angles but because they also enjoy scatterings of pea rock:
Those little white balls look innocuous enough but they play merry hell with a motorcycle tire's grip when the tire runs over them at an angle; it's like riding on marbles and the subsequent heaving and sliding plays hell with a middle aged man's heart rhythms. In between the sharp turns which put my cornering skills to the test (I needed the practice) there were lots of those long straightaways, blasted by the cold north winds:
I am really enjoying the power curve of the Bonneville, lots of pull from slow speeds, a smooth gearbox and light clutch. The riding positions, feet hips and shoulders in a vertical line gives excellent control when taking the corners too. This road is one of my preferred locations to practice u-turns as well because I can see traffic coming from a long way and there aren't many houses around to be bothered by the sounds of my (factory stock) exhausts. There are a few houses along the way:
And the houses are clustered along a canal:
It's not immediately apparent but these homes appear to all have cisterns for water collection though they do have electricity. 
And here we have, I believe an egret judging by the long curved beak, but as usual I can't be sure. Whatever it was, it was swooping and riding the strong winds aloft:
Close to the end of the road there are a couple of houses and these are entirely off the grid, no electricity poles anywhere near them. This pole is just supporting a box for an osprey nest:
The road ends in a barrier and a bunch of graffiti and a turn around, apparently in the middle of nowhere. In fact the island runs out altogether in a wad of mangroves and mud just beyond the barrier:
This is where I parked the Bonneville, and crawled off the bike. I was cold, truly cold. I was lightly dressed for the short 3-mile hop to the barber's and my ride out into the Torches got me quite chilled. I know it was 70 degrees and sunny but in my defense I was under dressed and my blood is thin. I got busy walking down the trail:
The trail looks like an ancient road, slightly raised above the rest of the dirt and about wide enough for a vehicle. However officious persons have made sure no vehicle will desecrate this piece of land:
It was less than half a mile out into the bushes and I was soon warmed up. The shrubs provided perfect cover from the wind and I could open my jacket and feel almost spring like. There were insects buzzing and the sun was warm on my head. The trail opened up into a sort of clearing:
Which got wide enough that I could see across the scrub to one of the last two houses on the road looking a bit like Rapunzel's hangout:
It's been fairly dry lately and this cold snap was what had inspired me to make the trip out here. I was hoping for low water levels and not too many mosquitoes to allow me to walk deeper into the mangroves than I had previously gone before. I was right on both counts though I met the tidal waters well before I got the shoreline:
The walking was easy along here, the mangrove roots were considerately far apart and the ground between offered sure footing on smooth limestone rocks:
It was just a matter of another eight miles of straights and sharp turns back to the highway. Which showed up in the fullness of time, a line across the horizon and suddenly there was traffic and cars and people and all the other stuff that zips by and misses out on the side streets of the Lower Keys:
The whole trip took an hour out of my day and was an excellent break, snatched between chores.