I cannot deny it, I have been thinking about cruising by sail once again. The facts are against any possibility of taking off on a sailboat in the near future but I cannot deny the thoughts that have filtered into my brain. My wife and I were discussing our Plan B in the event our parlous balancing act of income versus massive mortgage fails to stay balanced, and I got to remembering travels past. I wonder if perhaps moving back onto a boat, forced to abandon our pretty little canal side home would be so bad? Well, actually I think it would be. Nevertheless, faced with the requirement, we both know we could live on a boat again if we had to.
My thoughts of cruising are fueled by the time of year; I know hurricane season is scarcely weeks away but this is when I like to be in the Bahamas, when the weather is warm and the waters are hot. This is the time of year the crowds have left and the islands are quiet. And even though a June hurricane is a possibility, early and late season storms tend to form in the Western Caribbean where the waters are warmer at those times of year. As you can tell I have given a fair bit of day dreaming time over to the notion of going sailing.
The fact is, I have turned a corner. For the first time my itchy feet are quiet. I like my life, my wife, my job, my surroundings. What's not to like? I grant you cross country skiing is in short supply, mountain biking is feeble and river rafting is not possible, as there are no rivers down here, but for a tropical sloth like me, a day in the life of the Florida Keys is almost as good as a day afloat in the Great Exumas. Better, if you look at my wheels, under the sun at twenty four degrees North Latitude:
Smathers Beach is a pretty modest strand by Florida standards, but it does okay for the people who turn out to enjoy the sun, the shells, the coconut palms the breezes and the waters:
Taking off sailing would be hard to do when the house is underwater, while my current boat is a fine but modest 14-foot skiff. One needs time and money and both are in short supply, times have changed since the carefree 1990's... Besides which I don't want to give up my job, my commute, my home and all the things that tie me down. I am looking forward to a second growing season in my garden, hopefully more productive as I learn from my mistakes and make some modifications pointed out by my more experienced friends (thanks Celia!). It used to be that I spent my time plotting and planning my escape, nowadays I am domesticated, aground in a world that somehow keeps my interest.
A walk on the beach, a trip out to the swimming hole in the boat and I am always in awe of this place that I call home. I surprise myself by my domesticity after spending most of my life as a nomad. Stationary societies tend to look down on nomads with envy and suspicion all mixed together. A common complaint from Key West residents is of people living in vehicles on city streets, they want them moved along. I, obedient public servant set the wheels in motion,unable to stop myself thinking about all the miles I've covered, hobo-like, motorcycling through towns resistant to the beauty of a life lived "on the road."
The village elders used to remind the youngsters of the fables of Aesop to pass on the collective wisdom, but as my friend William pointed out recently in a moment of insight, the collective wisdom has been supplanted by the electronic message of television and the Internet. Nowadays youngsters travel the electrons, not the highways, and nobody bothers to teach them the widsom of Aesop.
It is their loss if they think the Internet could be as intimate a journey as a real road trip. We live our life in small increments. We work, we play, we move we vacation. Cruise ships come to Key West for a few hours and their residents "do Key West" between lunch and dinner, all they time they are allowed.
I have spent the past two years making almost daily observations on these few islands with no end in sight. So here I am, a member of a fixed community, a reliable pendulum between home and work, and at last I like it.
Horrors! I must be maturing.
Boca Chica Bay is a body of water bounded by Highway One to the north (with enough clearance to allow fishing skiffs to pass underneath) Stock Island to the west, and Boca Chica Naval Air Station to the east. To the south is a narrow channel which gives access to the open waters of the Straits of Florida. It is the perfect place to live on a boat and I am not alone in noticing this.
Over the years I have seen the number of boats anchoring in Boca Chica Bay increase by leaps and bounds. Living on a boat has always been a cheap way to hang out in Key West, and aside from the transient population of mostly winter visitors who stay for a few weeks or months at a time, there are any number of boats whose owners never move their water "craft." 
The waters off Key West aren't the best possible place to anchor from a boater's perspective because even though they are closest to the downtown action they are exposed in any winds that don't have an easterly component to them. Winter north winds rake the harbor and pre-frontal west winds do the same. Holding isn't the best, as it's mostly thin sand over rock and the waters are part of the main channel which carries plenty of traffic to the Gulf of Mexico. All that compares unfavorably to the closed waters of boot Key in Marathon discussed here previously. And Boca Chica isn't too bad at all if you are looking for protected waters. I took these pictures in a steady southeasterly at 20 knots gusting 25:
The channel into Boca Chica is well marked, and splits just south of the old Peninsular Marine, where the right hand channel leads to the trim and inexpensive marina maintained at the Navy Base for military and ex-military at astonishingly cheap slip rents:
I find it ironic that on the water, as on land, the chaos of civilian life finds itself living cheek-by-jowl with the trim and orderly life of a neighboring military base. The chaos of Boca Chica liveaboards is generally a product of the fact that this is housing of the last resort, rent free, amenity free and pretty much unregulated. The fishing boats passing between the Gulf and the Straits zip through here, passing underneath the Highway, and overhead the Navy jets in training, circle on their way to and from imaginary aircraft carrier landings at the Base:
The issue as always for people living on the water is how to get ashore and in that respect Boca Chica ("small mouth" in Spanish) is very accommodating. Cars on the highway zipping past the Key Haven Shell gas station might be forgiven for not noticing the Key Have Boat Ramp that gives access to any trailered boat wanting to launch:
And people who want to launch their boats from here get to do so for free:
For those living on boats this is the main access point to shore side life, though many people land further up the highway in the mangroves alongside the road:
And despite the abundance of garbage cans provided as a service by the county the shoreline in the mangroves is filled with debris, as is the seawall itself, most delightfully:
The mangroves make for safe dockage for the variety of dinghies that the liveaboards use to get to shore; the trees carry out their natural function of acting as living fenders for the shoreline: 
Ashore the causeway is lined at night with parked cars and scooters and bicycles when the boaters come home from their day labors, and make no mistake this is largely a population of working people. Some use bicycles which make for a six mile pedal for someone working on Duval Street:
Others use motorbikes:
No, wait a minute, that one's mine! The ramp parking area does have lots of room:
So there you have it, how to live for free in (or almost in) Key West. 
I can only say that from my many years of living on a boat, in marinas and at anchor, the best way is to be underway. Admiral Nelson is famously quoted as saying: Men and ships rot in port! Look no further than the waters adjacent to Key West to see the truth of that dictum, even today.
On the approach to the airport the new terminal is now the departure building, up the ramp which collapsed during construction. That piece of the shoddy contract killed a Guatemalan worker Carlos Humberto 
The new terminal is a massive expanse of cement with a splendid view of the control tower:
The upstairs parking lot, most convenient to the terminal is for employees whose vehicles sit in the roasting sun. I'd rather park in the shade downstairs while I was inside working. In the distance the East Martello Tower:
The employees at the airport I spoke to before the new terminal was built were looking forward to it as a relief from the 
And there is still room to sit outdoors to wait for transport:
The main parking area is underneath the terminal, more massive expanses of concrete:
Whence one takes the stairs, or rides the (currently) operational elevator to the sterile Anywhere USA departure area upstairs:
The $40 million dollar contract apparently didn't include signage or trash cans according to an article in the paper so the county had to pony up for those too, at the last minute as they only noticed when the place had been opened. One can only be delighted the former county administrator and his sidekicks on the commission are all history. The cost did include outdoor fans which rotate at public expense at all hours apparently:
The iconic Conch 
It's a nice clean terminal with solar filtering glass showing off that concrete acreage:
And travelers now get to walk through a tube impervious to weather to get to their planes, though they will still have to go outdoors to get on the plane itself:
I got on the Bonneville and took a spin, up one side, down the other, a tip of the hat to the late Carlos 
And at the 
And ninety miles beyond that as we know so well, lies Cuba, all of a thirty minute flight from here.