Return To Marvin Key

The plan was to ride Chuck and Wayne's 21-foot boat to Marvin Key, and this time find sand at low tide. Therese, our peripatetic French friend visiting from her home in Holland. Therese likes tropical heat and Florida in winter is better than Holland, though it could be warmer- witness the jacket. Wayne was benefiting from some dog heat (Zuzu or Tootie).
The engine alarm buzzer went off much to the boys' consternation. "It does that every time we get here!" was the lament. I diagnosed over heating and in fact we found a large clump of weed on the 150 hp outboard, accumulated during our run through a shallow channel.
Cheyenne ignored all this commotion and snuggled herself a bed in the cuddy cabin.Captain Crabmore, aka Chuck, was busy navigating, his stubble glinting alluringly in the sharp sunlight. Ah, yes at last Marvin Key at low-ish tide.

Wayne got ready to leap onto the sandbar, dock line in hand, while I disentangled the anchor and it's line. The curvature of the Earth is clearly visible in this picture.

Everyone was ready for a walk after twenty minutes on the boat.

It was a scene worthy of an epic movie this sand bar under the blazing Florida sun. Cheyenne understood the merit of the situation immediately and struck a regal Labrador pose (after relieving herself in the privacy of the mangrove bushes).

Small stick figures pottered about back and forth like characters in a silent play.Therese forgot for a moment that she is a high powered lawyer with a diplomatic passport issued by the United Nations and took off her sandals to go for a walk.The water was running fast and blue in the channel between the islands.

Zuzu and Tootie got into the playing thing.Cheynne struck another of her favorite poses.The water temperature was rather brisk but the Pied Piper of Viszlas was abroad in his green shoes.

The tide was further out, quite visibly, as we walked away from the boat, looking like a rather disreputable bunch of Cuban refugees. well heeled perhaps, but refugees nonetheless.Chuck looking "Australian" according to Wayne, a man who seeks the exotic in his relationships. Wayne assured me Chuck was explaining to Therese and my wife about the most enormous size of his most important attribute in this picture, below:It seemed prudent to put some distance between myself and the rather substantive conversation going on up ahead.Can you believe I live here, or at least within a twenty minutes boat ride of this Paradise?Chuck is rather conservative in his tastes, as evidenced by his footwear:

Therese, heavy in a conversation with Wayne about their mutual experiences living in the Ivory Coast, was wearing her subdued and efficient sandals:Wayne likes electric green Nuthingz:My wife bought these Crocs in Bend, Oregon last summer:I nearly went arse over tip trying to photograph myself walking through the rising tide, so I stopped trying to multi task and paused long enough to record my own footwear in the rising waters of Marvin Key.By now we were all forced to wade every step of the way. The tide was low at 8 am, by now it was closer to ten and high tide was supposed to be at noon. On the Gulf of Mexico side of the islands the tides are totally uneven.Therese was unfazed by this turn of events, she was not planning on drowning as they need her back at the International Court of Justice in the Hague next week.

The boat was where we had left it though water was spilling over the sands by now.Other people were buzzing round like demented blue bottles looking for somewhere to launch their kayak.When all else fails rely on your dog to cheer you up.

She had a rip snorting good time on the sand. It's too bad the family that used to own her never bothered to show Cheyenne how to swim, or how to enjoy herself on the beach.

And as I waxed philosophical about the happiness of my dog the tide contin ued to roll in.When I showed Therese an online manifesto from the right wing nutters complaining about the United Nations wanting to take away people's guns she replied dryly: "And people say the U N never does anything!"We pushed the dogs on board and pushed the boat out into deep water....after retrieving the anchor and the dog water bowl...Somewhere between us and Sugarloaf Key we passed these people out fishing.Just another great day on the water in the Fabulous Florida Keys.

Duval And Petronia

The fog blew off and yesterday dawned gray and cold with a cold north wind making the place cold. Did I mention how cold it was yesterday?

Shown above is my hands down all time favorite ice cream parlor, Flamingo Crossing at Duval and Virginia. I prefer their tropical fruit flavors -soursop tops the list- but when it is less than 70 degrees out it's hard to think of ice cream. And for people who live here it felt cold yesterday, really:

For odds and ends and what they call "notions" in the Bahamas check out the convenience chain store at 1075 Duval. No neon sign posting here.

My every effort to photograph Duval Street ends up in failure in my mind, but I keep on trying. I can't seem to photograph the essence of what I'm looking at. Perhaps the street itself is too much of a jumble to captured in one measly digital image, or a dozen, or any number.

There are lots of galleries and interesting shopping on this end of Duval. I'm planning on coming back down here to check out the Blackfin Restaurant with an interesting menu and not expensive entrées. It might be really quite good and the ambiance looked excellent. I hope a review will follow soon. Eclectic stores abound. Petronia at Duval is covered by an arch with the emblem of the Bahamas- onward and upward they say. An office for a grand all thrown in? Sounds like a deal and you might want to live there- illegally of course.

Some bits of Petronia look really quite grand. There was a wall standing alongside here to no visible purpose. Now it's gone and I'm still none the wiser as to what it was doing there.

This next structure put me in mind of New Orleans. In a good way.

The back of Curry Apartments with a No Trespassing sign that seems superfluous to me.

The Bahama Market is hanging on but the property is still up for sale. This old sign will be gone one day presumably. I think the weathered wood looks gorgeous.

Light was fading as we closed in on 6pm.

How can you not be entranced by Key West's architecture?

And you can own some of it:

But don't forget there are disadvantages to being in Old Town.

I prefer Labradors.

I was ambling down Whitehead and the light was going fast. Playtime was over in Robert Gabriel apartments. It was a good day for Cheyenne. And me too, even though it was still far too cold for Key West.

Fog

Yesterday we awoke to fog, a Keys phenomenon not unknown but rare enough.An early morning walk with Cheyenne produced a dawn that looked like something out of Africa. Cheyenne and I usually go to the Pool on north Ramrod Key when I get home at 6:30. yesterday we hardly knew the place in the mangroves.

Apparently this is a pocket of mixed warn and cold air preceding a cold front, a storm that has undoubtedly dropped snow Up North this week.The Serengeti Plains:We met a neighbor with her family's two greyhounds; they came and went from the fog and back into it.

It looked other worldly.

The sky was clear to the south and east where the sun was coming up.

In the midst of all this aerial dampness I found this spider's web.After my customary morning sleep Cheyenne and I went into town. One of my water pumps has failed, according to Wayne who tore the cistern pumping system apart, and i took the pump to the shop for a check up in Key west. The weather was ominous on the way in.

The fog was hanging overhead as we crossed Boca Chica Key.North Roosevelt Boulevard looked like a different place.

Amazingly enough some idiots forgot to turn their lights on.

Garrison Bight Marina looked like it belonged in Scotland or some other frigid misty isle someplace.

The view from the top of the Palm Avenue Bridge

By five thirty yesterday evening the fog was lower and thicker than ever. Here we are back on Boca Chica headed north.

As darkness crept down over the long slow line of cars traffic moved slower and slower as though mesmerized. The power of Nature, a wonderful thing, and a reminder we are in it's thrall.