Tortugas Sketches

Sunrise at the Dry Tortugas National Park. I took these pictures while on my last trip to the island known as Garden Key, home to Fort Jefferson built around the period of the Civil War. The coaling docks which were built on these pilings were added in time for World War One:Nowadays they make for excellent snorkeling. The fort and it's moat on the east side of the island, looking southeast:On the opposite side of Garden Key there is Loggerhead Key (named for the turtles that used to reside there in abundance). The lighthouse, three miles west of Fort Jefferson is the last speck of land before Mexico some 300 miles west. National Park volunteers staff the lighthouse and live on a house there, weeks at a time. The only access is by private boat with a dinghy landing on the beach. The Park Service supplies the volunteers at their private dock on the east side of the island.The fort itself has a bunch of antennae, including satellite access to television and Internet for the National Park personnel stationed there. There is a satellite payphone (by credit card) on the dock for the public, but cell phones don't work on this island 70 miles west of Key West.Next door is Bird Key, separated by this strip of water that was filled in, then emptied in turn by hurricanes. The island is closed to the public as it is a nesting ground for migrating birds.
Fort Jefferson is a speck in a very large ocean. A surprisingly civilized speck all things considered.They say the place is constructed out of 16 million bricks, imported from Up North from two different factories which explains the two different shades of red of the bricks in the outer walls. The top of the wall is a grassy, sandy walkway.The five acre interior of the fort, whose construction plans were never completed, is like a park:

Some reconstructive surgery has been completed to prevent buildings, like the domed powder magazine from crumbling.

Looking southeast from the northwest corner:Looking east from the same spot one can see the rectangles of dark grass that show where the barracks were located and beyond them the domed powder magazine once again.This ancient fort looks more like a crusader fortress in Syria or a European castle than a North American building.Darkness falls suddenly at the fort, as is the way at these tropic latitudes:

Campers and the National Park Rangers are the only people left on the island, after the ferries take the day trippers back to Key West, leaving at 2:45pm and getting back to the city around 5:15pm. For campers it's time to cook dinner:And every day succeeds the previous day in the same way. A view south from the main entrance. The covered building is the dock with an information room and some changing rooms for people who need a place to put on, or take off a swimsuit:
The other covered buildings are the composting toilets, four of them, near the campground:They work very well but are only available to campers after the ferries leave. While ferries are docked campers are supposed to use the toilets on board and only use these when the large number of day visitors have left so as not to overwhelm the island facilities.The fort is open during daylight hours and even when the ferries are docked there is plenty of room for everyone. After the boats leave the fort is a private place, and that's when the interior of the fort is one photo opportunity after another:The moat wall was designed to keep marauding boats at a distance from the fort itself to give gunners time to sink enemies before they could get close, but it also keeps wave action away from the delicate foundations of this fort built on sand. Swimming is not allowed in the moat:This is a US National Park so there are informational signs everywhere. My pink crocs are happily barely visible:Bird Key beyond the eastern coaling dock pilings just visible in the foreground:
The unfinished windows in the case mates:The US Coastguard downgraded the old lighthouse at the fort and now it's known as a harbor light. At night it glows with a steady yellow gleam and all boats at anchor in the National Park are required to anchor within one mile of this light:There are some bushes sprouting on the eastern side of the fort and among them I found this prickly pear.......and this I-know-not-what:And here is a view from the salon of the Yankee Freedom ferry taking us home to Key West:It costs $180 round trip on this boat but every trip to the fort is an adventure and an exploration.

Land Of The Inexplicable

The State Department of Families and Children has offered activists in Key West three quarters of a million dollars-free!- to build accommodations to get 16 women and their children off the streets of Key West. The offer has been refused. Yup, we are people of principle in the Keys and we don't take easily to big Gummint handing us free money so we'd rather leave the women and children on the streets. This reaction caused some consternation we are told in the ranks of the state bureaucrats, but there we are.

Samuel's House is a women's shelter located in the city. It's address is not supposed to be public (even though they publish it on their fliers!) because women who have been battered by their partners take refuge there. It is a vital service in a city that sees way too much economic stress combined with enormous quantities of dutch courage induced by a constant diet of alcohol. It's director is a well respected woman with a long history of active devotion to the cause, someone who you'd think would get a hearing when she pipes up and says "I've got a barrow-load of cash and need somewhere to build a shelter." Her requests for land were rejected by the Catholic Diocese which owns an eyesore open space on Flagler Avenue next to it's soup kitchen. That rejection didn't surprise me, I have no doubt the princes of the church are going to hold out for absolute top dollar, as is their wont.

The city of Key West shrugged and said, "Sorry, we don't have enough time to get it together, bad luck!" which isn't surprising considering the city's recent decision not to put the trash contract out to bid as they couldn't find the time for that clearly anticipated contract. So when Samuel's House turned to the Southernmost Homeless Assistance League (SHAL) and got the bum's rush there too I was stunned. Apparently not just me either as the state is now reportedly royally pissed off and is intervening to get things moving. The Executive Director of the State Office on Homelessness (There is such a thing amazingly enough! In Florida!!) is getting involved and is looking for results. This embarrassing turn of events has pushed the sleepers at SHAL into gear and guess what? They are going to take a second vote on Tuesday according to the Citizen and I have no doubt they will support the state's grant with fervor and enthusiasm this time around. What a crowd! And this is a grant to actually help people who desperately need help and have no political voice of their own. Just when one is ready to despair of our leadership someone sticks a red hot poker up a few backsides and one feels hope once again.

Of course this is all just piddly local stuff down here at the sunny toe of the national sock that is Florida. In Copenhagen big issues are being mooted about how to stop climate change and in Afghanistan Danish soldiers are joining US soldiers in making a determined push against the Taliban in some godforsaken mountain range. I woke up this morning, my back burning horribly from some recent pain I inflicted on myself and had a vision of growing old in a country with no middle calls, no health care and no unemployment insurance and I said I wanted to emigrate. I want to emigrate to a country where someone in charge gives a shit about the little people. Perhaps then, I just need to stay in Florida where the Office on Homelessness may be able to come to my rescue when my weary middle class body gives out, I lose my job, my insurance, my home and I need help. It's not exactly socialism but it will have to do.

Winter Like Summer

I left home early, before five o'clock intending to spend a little time in Key West taking some pictures of I knew-not-what. It was to be photography on a whim. Instead I stopped on the bridge between Cudjoe Key and Sugarloaf and pulled the camera out of my pocket. Looking towards Mangrove Mama's restaurant at the end of the bridge, Mile Marker 20.Looking north I saw clouds piled up on a hot humid evening, hovering over glassy flat water, looking like summer time. Summer is the season of rain, thunderstorms and windless days when the water and the sky meet at an undefinable horizon. About like this, perhaps more so:The ability to go out on the water in perfect safety in a small boat is just another reason to enjoy the Keys. Surfing is not the sport where reefs keep waves flat:Swimming in December is best done with some kind of suit or skin. The water is under 80 degrees and even though visitors find it warm, locals don't necessarily.More clouds piling up:When the water is just a few feet deep, maybe ten (3 meters) if its quite deep, maybe three feet (1 meter) if it's shallow, means you can toss out an anchor anywhere. And if it really were summer you could jump in as you felt like, to cool off. The temperature gauge on the Bonneville betrays me. It doesn't feel like 85 degrees, though it is quite warm.The road ahead started to look quite threatening with stormy clouds crossing the horizon. I think storms are bets enjoyed from my home, looking out at the palm trees waving in the sudden wind, the downpour splashing off the leaves surrounding my tree house.All the drama of potential rain faded away as I pressed on towards work, but the low lying clouds looked good:Another boat ploughing a wet furrow across smooth waters......he curved across the channel and disappeared in the distance, never for a minute minding the traffic rumbling by on the Overseas Highway.And there was lots of traffic, a long line of cars interminably leaving Key West, with my side of the road packed with another line of cars, and the odd motorcycle streaming into the city. Perhaps they were down to enjoy the weather, such summery weather with Christmas snow and ice closing in Up North.

A Walk

I was meeting my wife to go to the Tropic Cinema to see Pirate Radio, a movie that had me laughing out loud, but before the popcorn and cola I took a walk. And the exercise I'm sure did me good. Not everyone was as energetic. Overcome no doubt by the drowsy heat of a winter afternoon:There was a Harley Davidson with a couple of hubcaps on the passenger seat. It turned out, on closer inspection to be a highly prized Harley accessory, a bag with silver end caps designed for some obscure reason to look like hubcaps.
This is not an actual live woman of the female persuasion. She is a mannequin showing off the latest fashionable wear. I was more interested in noting the wide open doors with the blast of air conditioning pouring out into the street. The debate over painting roofs in Old Town white to save energy has been opposed on the grounds of historical inaccuracy. One opponent wondered why paint roofs white to look ugly when energy could be saved by simply closing doors. It does make you wonder doesn't it? This man was standing in the street brazenly wiping his sun glasses on the hem of his wife's blouse. She had to be his wife I should have thought as she stood patiently like no paramour would have done.
A sunset performer I'm guessing. There could be no other reason to hazard oneself in traffic with such ungainly equipment. Note the woman in black:
CPA1234 buried in snowdrifts in Kansas remarked on the appearance of women in tank tops recently in one of my essays. Apparently the opponents of Darwinian science in Kansas have outlawed such raw displays of female nudity in the Sunflower State. Here's a woman in a sun dress, photographed Wednesday afternoon. The burqua is I am thinking a non-starter as a tropical island fashion accessory:I hate island time. Visitors bitch and moan about poor service in restaurants, people bitch and moan if they have to wait 15 minutes for a police officer and yet they love to promote the concept of island time as though promptness and efficiency are antithetical to Key West. I hate standing in line at the grocery store while the customer in front and the clerk catch up on the gossip (my wife the teacher does this a lot as she frequently meets her kids parents in line at the grocery store). This next picture could be titled, were I Rockwell, "Hey M'Bubba!" Instead I'll make no further comment:
The term m'bubba in Key West is a supposedly a derivative of the words "my brother" and you will sometimes hear people addressed as "brother." A pejorative term for people who grew up in Key West is the word "Bubba!" spat out with contempt. A well known corruption investigation of a few years ago is referred to as the "Bubba Bust." When you lose a bid in a competitive bid process to a person who grew up in Key West you can console yourself as you sip a contemplative draught Smithwicks, that the "Bubba fix" was in, not that you were less worthy to win the bid.

And now back to the most critical issue of the day, nudity: The endless dreary debate over where people should expose themselves to the sun continues. It's all about money of course because you can expose your white little bod to the sun all over the place in Key West if you have the slightest bit of imagination (rent a boat ferchrissakes! Find a clothing optional Inn!) but there is the hope that creating a public space dedicated to nude sun worship will bring in tons of MONEY. I'd be more convinced if Mercedes Benz's and Lexus's were driving around with "Naturist Beaches- Yes!" bumper stickers. I am not sure in any event that we will be needing more than one such beach. Perhaps the sign is a philosphical appeal to our better natures that we should support the creation of nude beaches in general. Perhaps they need one in Kansas.



It's winter so I will be hunting for manatee again (to photograph, not to kill). In the event I found this tarpon lurking rather domestically under the boardwalk at Waterfront Market:
This fish, wild predators, have figured out that dead fish parts fall from the sky in the Key West Bight and they hang around gathering tourist acolytes like the Pope in St Peter's, so I dutifully hung over the railing and snapped a picture. I should note that a friend of mine who has traveled to Australia told me they EAT manatees down there. I was, I have to say, rather horrified. A brutal people he said, they killed a dugong by accident, cut it up and ate it. It was quite good he said, gagging on the memory of what he had done. Eating a manatee rates with grilling up steaks cut from your pet Labrador in my book, and that story counts as one more strike against our Antipodean cousins. I may never get to visit Australia now."Bird on post, Lights on masts." You may reproduce this artistic masterpiece completely free of charge unless you live in Australia in which case I will exchange it for a dugong steak. I am curious to know what marine cannibalism tastes like. I repulse myself.



This next picture is a simple illustration of why smaller is better. Big boats take lots of maintenance and when your boom is large enough to sit on comfortably you know you have gone over sized. In my opinion. I am not fond of dealing with the public (that's YOU!) which is why I try to hog the main police channel at work, at least then I'm communicating with sober professionals. Taking phone calls from people who are drunk gets to be tedious sometimes, and then I got to observe this scene and my respect for salesmen grew exponentially. How people manage to earn a living sharing jokes with people they are trying to sell tickets to, I have no idea. This guy sounded very convincing, like he thought the visitor was the smartest, funniest man he'd met. I hope he sold him a ticket.
This last picture I took at the College on distant Stock Island (15 minutes by Vespa from the last picture I took and that was riding through crowded winter traffic. Distances are relative). There were two divers bobbing in the water chatting but I couldn't get a decent picture of them in the shadows so I contented myself with this shot of the Sunset Condos in the distance with the sun starting it's descent to the horizon.By the time we came out of the movie theater (another 15 minute ride all the way downtown) it was dark and home beckoned. A night off! Oh joy! Far from the madding crowds, as the poet has it. Someone else got to talk to drunk, aggravated people all night.