This essay was first published three years ago and I figured perhaps while I am laid up I could give it another airing on my blog. 
Some people call this Houseboat Row, because this is where the houseboats of South Roosevelt Boulevard washed up, but to me its just part of Garrison Bight Marina. The City of Key West owns two marina properties, one is Key West Bight, near Schooner Wharf and the other is Garrison Bight in the middle of the island, with a narrow opening to the Gulf of Mexico to the north. (A bight in nautical lingo is an indentation in a coastline, or a loop in a length of rope).
Garrison Bight is a well protected marina when the weather turns rough, and because it's city owned the dock rates are lower by a few hundred dollars month than those of the private marinas downtown or on Stock Island. However in a town like Key West where a one bedroom apartment can cost a thousand dollars month, a marina slip at less than $800 a month can seem like a bargain. But that's not all that goes on at Garrison Bight, people don't just live there:
Sport fishing is a big deal in the Keys, obviously, and there's a whole line of boats parked at charter boat row waiting for clumps of customers to show up for a day on the water. Humans aren't the only anglers, and hopefuls come in all shapes:
For a lot of people the dream job is running a charter fishing boat. Its a dream everyone should fulfill, because speaking as a former Captain myself, the life has a bunch of drawbacks. It confirmed my opinion that the lucky man is the one who keeps his hobbies and his jobs separate. I enjoy writing my blog a lot more because I do it for fun, not a living. That was written as a former journalist, not a former boat captain. But youth is a great time to be sorting your equipment on your charter boat:
But these are modern times so we have abandoned the old ways and no longer use roofs to collect rainwater, instead we suck water out of the ground and pump it 150 miles to our faucets with predictable results, not enough to go around:
However this is the land of abundance so we still get to use plenty of it! It'll be a bad day in the Keys when boaters can't keep their vessels clean. Garrison Bight is a strangely shaped marina bisected by Palm Avenue and a low bridge, the bridge prevents sailboats getting into the inner sanctum but its a main artery out of Old Town and sees lots of use, especially in the evening rush hour:
The top of the bridge, for all that its probably only twenty feet above the water gives a nice view to the pedestrian at the top. To the northwest the landmark Fly Navy building, properly known as the Bachelor Officers Quarters (or BOQ) a delightfully old fashioned 1950's style of architecture when viewed from the inside:
To the left the cluster of buildings is the last boatyard in Key West, Spencer's, still a working boatyard with haul out facilities right on Palm Avenue- a minor miracle in this day and age. On the south side of Palm Avenue is the other working-class business a boat storage and sales facility owned by along time Key West family. They repair boats (and did a nice job of re-powering my skiff a couple of years ago):
And directly due south of the bight lies the Police Station, coyly tucked away behind the mangroves. I get a nice view of the marina from our dispatch windows, especially during hurricanes when the winds reduce Garrison Bight to horizontal white spume:
And finally to the north there lies that mysterious half hidden street, the only one of two in the city that offers back yard dockage to its residents. Its called Hilton Haven and it is the north east arm of garrison Bight, the civilian half opposite the Fly Navy Building.
And then the nitty-gritty, the docks themselves at the center of this geographical tour of the waters. The houseboats are frequently for sale, indeed I saw one, a thousand square footer claiming to be an original from Houseboat Row on South Roosevelt for sale for two hundred thousand dollars- described as affordable Keys living! Cramped Keys living if you like!
I suppose there is romance in life afloat, though after many years of doing it myself I'm happy enough to be living ashore. What I don't miss is marina living, and perhaps one needs to do it to be convinced of it. Living in a marina is like living in a cramped trailer park with the chance of drowning to paraphrase Doctor Johnson. Some people wouldn't live any other way. Of course living on a boat while traveling can be splendid, but to quote Admiral Nelson "Men and Ships rot in port," and Garrison Bight seems to see more than its share of rotting. Not forgetting that boaters themselves produce waste that needs to be kept out of the waters these days. There is a specially equipped pumping boat for the task that lives in the marina cheek by jowl as it were with its clients. The boat also serves the boats at anchor outside the marina:
I used to pay fifteen dollars a week to get my boat pumped in Sunset Marina! Ah, living in paradise... To that end I like looking at the boats parked nearer North Roosevelt Boulevard, the main drag into town which is noisy as hell but from the roadway one gets to see the visiting boats, the vessels that tend to be more on the move, the smaller boats. Not all of them leave their slips but they look more like they could:
Back on shore the parking lots, ample though they may be are choked with winter time drivers who will soon be heading back north, presumably leaving their boats behind to the tender mercies of storm season. This being Key West alternatives in transportation are catered to when it comes to parking areas:
Motorized and not:
Alternative living in a mild climate, and this is by no means the most alternative. Monroe County is now starting to eye liveaboards on their boats in Boca Chica Channel, between the Navy Base and Stock Island. That's where the free spirits are congregating that don't want to live within the confines of a marina. Monroe County is viewing the free anchorage with a jaundiced eye complaining of sunken wrecks, debris and anarchy afloat. Meanwhile in the Bight marina living is at least still possible for some in the heart of the city of Key West.
Some people call this Houseboat Row, because this is where the houseboats of South Roosevelt Boulevard washed up, but to me its just part of Garrison Bight Marina. The City of Key West owns two marina properties, one is Key West Bight, near Schooner Wharf and the other is Garrison Bight in the middle of the island, with a narrow opening to the Gulf of Mexico to the north. (A bight in nautical lingo is an indentation in a coastline, or a loop in a length of rope).Garrison Bight is a well protected marina when the weather turns rough, and because it's city owned the dock rates are lower by a few hundred dollars month than those of the private marinas downtown or on Stock Island. However in a town like Key West where a one bedroom apartment can cost a thousand dollars month, a marina slip at less than $800 a month can seem like a bargain. But that's not all that goes on at Garrison Bight, people don't just live there:Sport fishing is a big deal in the Keys, obviously, and there's a whole line of boats parked at charter boat row waiting for clumps of customers to show up for a day on the water. Humans aren't the only anglers, and hopefuls come in all shapes:For a lot of people the dream job is running a charter fishing boat. Its a dream everyone should fulfill, because speaking as a former Captain myself, the life has a bunch of drawbacks. It confirmed my opinion that the lucky man is the one who keeps his hobbies and his jobs separate. I enjoy writing my blog a lot more because I do it for fun, not a living. That was written as a former journalist, not a former boat captain. But youth is a great time to be sorting your equipment on your charter boat:But these are modern times so we have abandoned the old ways and no longer use roofs to collect rainwater, instead we suck water out of the ground and pump it 150 miles to our faucets with predictable results, not enough to go around:However this is the land of abundance so we still get to use plenty of it! It'll be a bad day in the Keys when boaters can't keep their vessels clean. Garrison Bight is a strangely shaped marina bisected by Palm Avenue and a low bridge, the bridge prevents sailboats getting into the inner sanctum but its a main artery out of Old Town and sees lots of use, especially in the evening rush hour:The top of the bridge, for all that its probably only twenty feet above the water gives a nice view to the pedestrian at the top. To the northwest the landmark Fly Navy building, properly known as the Bachelor Officers Quarters (or BOQ) a delightfully old fashioned 1950's style of architecture when viewed from the inside:To the left the cluster of buildings is the last boatyard in Key West, Spencer's, still a working boatyard with haul out facilities right on Palm Avenue- a minor miracle in this day and age. On the south side of Palm Avenue is the other working-class business a boat storage and sales facility owned by along time Key West family. They repair boats (and did a nice job of re-powering my skiff a couple of years ago):And directly due south of the bight lies the Police Station, coyly tucked away behind the mangroves. I get a nice view of the marina from our dispatch windows, especially during hurricanes when the winds reduce Garrison Bight to horizontal white spume:And finally to the north there lies that mysterious half hidden street, the only one of two in the city that offers back yard dockage to its residents. Its called Hilton Haven and it is the north east arm of garrison Bight, the civilian half opposite the Fly Navy Building.And then the nitty-gritty, the docks themselves at the center of this geographical tour of the waters. The houseboats are frequently for sale, indeed I saw one, a thousand square footer claiming to be an original from Houseboat Row on South Roosevelt for sale for two hundred thousand dollars- described as affordable Keys living! Cramped Keys living if you like!I suppose there is romance in life afloat, though after many years of doing it myself I'm happy enough to be living ashore. What I don't miss is marina living, and perhaps one needs to do it to be convinced of it. Living in a marina is like living in a cramped trailer park with the chance of drowning to paraphrase Doctor Johnson. Some people wouldn't live any other way. Of course living on a boat while traveling can be splendid, but to quote Admiral Nelson "Men and Ships rot in port," and Garrison Bight seems to see more than its share of rotting. Not forgetting that boaters themselves produce waste that needs to be kept out of the waters these days. There is a specially equipped pumping boat for the task that lives in the marina cheek by jowl as it were with its clients. The boat also serves the boats at anchor outside the marina:I used to pay fifteen dollars a week to get my boat pumped in Sunset Marina! Ah, living in paradise... To that end I like looking at the boats parked nearer North Roosevelt Boulevard, the main drag into town which is noisy as hell but from the roadway one gets to see the visiting boats, the vessels that tend to be more on the move, the smaller boats. Not all of them leave their slips but they look more like they could:Back on shore the parking lots, ample though they may be are choked with winter time drivers who will soon be heading back north, presumably leaving their boats behind to the tender mercies of storm season. This being Key West alternatives in transportation are catered to when it comes to parking areas:Motorized and not:Alternative living in a mild climate, and this is by no means the most alternative. Monroe County is now starting to eye liveaboards on their boats in Boca Chica Channel, between the Navy Base and Stock Island. That's where the free spirits are congregating that don't want to live within the confines of a marina. Monroe County is viewing the free anchorage with a jaundiced eye complaining of sunken wrecks, debris and anarchy afloat. Meanwhile in the Bight marina living is at least still possible for some in the heart of the city of Key West.
To ride down the winding road from Big Coppitt through a 75 degree night was an absolute pleasure and to listen to the silence was divine once the engine was turned off and the headlight dimmed. I stood and heard nothing. The ocean was still, the trees weren't moving and in the distance all I could see was the faint outline of a van parked illegally for the night at the beach. This makes an excellent place to camp but usually Sheriff's deputies patrol here regularly. The van occupant got lucky.
This is the place to bring Cheyenne and soon the snowbirds and their dogs will be gone and before it gets too hot Cheyenne and I will make a couple of forays out here, but it's a long way, 20 miles, from my home and rather too far to visit casually just for a dog walk, so we don't come as often as we might. Besides it is well known and thus well populated in winter. Not at 2 in the morning though!
They make a big deal also out of the complexity of finding No Name Key but it really isn't that hard, turn north at the traffic light on Big Pine, take the right hand street, Wilder Road not Key Deer Boulevard and follow the twists, turns and signs to the bridge that connects No Name to Big Pine. With any luck you'll get a better picture than I did of the bridge anglers as I flashed by in my dog laden car.
These kids weren't fishing, perhaps they were discussing the life altering angst that accompanies the painful teenage years.
Don't feed the Key Deer!
The main road across No Name is called Watson Road and the reason I was out visiting the island last week was quite specific. Just before Thanksgiving Keys Energy announced in the paper they were going to plant two test power poles to see how easy it would be to bring electricity to this island. The $8,000 test was going to be paid by residents of the island according to the article.
No Name key has been in the middle of a contentious discussion about the island's future. At stake is the proposal by some residents to bring power to the island, a proposal fought against by other residents who want to keep the island free of commercial power. To me the whole debate is rather specious: anyone who bought on No Name knew they had to create their own juice by any means they chose and I tend to side with the argument that speculators want power to increase the value of the land. I rather think that ship sailed with the financial crash of 2008, but it seems that even arguments in favor of preserving the Key Deer Sanctuary that covers most of the island will not stop power coming to No Name in 2011.
The thing is that most of the homes on No Name were as expensive as anywhere when we were looking at houses in 2004 and when we saw the awful complexity of running and maintaining noisy generators as most of these homes do, we figured Keys Energy was a much sounder alternative. There are plenty of solar panels as well, but it takes a lot of juice to run air conditioning and these homes seem to boast all modern conveniences (except commercial electricity!) They even have buried phone and cable TV lines...And now they have two experimental power poles blighting the view.
So far the side streets are still pristine.
I prefer the pole-free look of Watson Road.
People around here like to be left alone but luckily there is lots of public land for the rest of us power hungry slobs to enjoy when we come visiting.
Chuck on Fleming says absinthe is the way to go and I think he may be right but my wife says no milk and thus no proper Yorkshire Gold tea, so I am reduced to drinking ghastly flavorless white tea and eating gruel. Personally I think this is an act of germ warfare by the nefarious riepe recovering from his own bout with bronchitis in Pennsylvania. Perhaps I am a victim of secret government biological warfare experiments. Or perhaps it is just my turn to feel like crap for a few days.
And if anyone wants to go across the canal and sabotage the very noisy crew rebuilding Vera's burned out home I would be very grateful. 
I can't tell which is my nerves in my cranium and which is their circular saw making the screeching sounds and both hurt my head.
In fact humans wasting energy lighting up the Great Outdoors still made brighter light than our supermoon event.
The ocean south of Rest Beach looks pretty bright but I had the camera sitting on the table, with a two second delay and the shutter set to open for ten long seconds to get the desired effect. The two second delay gives the camera the opportunity to settle down and stop moving after I fat finger the shutter release.
The supermoon was 221,565 miles from Earth, or 356,575 kilometers. I grew up with the notion that the sun is 93 million miles away and the moon a quarter million so I guess that is, astronomically speaking, quite close. Perigee came and went and despite predictions of calamity by people who believe in the supernatural. However some nutters connect natural disasters with supermoons giving rise to suggestions that the Japanese tsunami- earthquake fiasco may be connected in some way. Which would be odd as the moon was miles further out at the time.
It was when the ridiculously named Hale-Bopp comet was visible overhead almost twenty years ago that I realised something that struck me as profound at the time. I was living in California at the time and Santa Cruz is a horrible place to observe the heavens. marine inversion, commonly known as fog, blankets the night skies most of the time and yet despite all the odds I was out walking the dogs and there it was- a streak of white in one distant corner of the sky. But I had to look for it. It occurred to me that in centuries past people had been overwhelmed and awed by these natural phenomena. They noted comets passing in the history books, they fell to their knees and prayed to the gods to spare them.
These days we create so much artificial light we can barely see what is going on overhead. I am always grateful that my street has no lights, and when my neighbors come down from Up North and light up everything with their ghastly spotlights I pray, as only an atheist can pray, for a power outage.
The night skies down here have their own magic on full moon nights of any kind. The clouds float overhead like they do everywhere and illuminate the sky with their reflected light. But down here in the sub tropics the night is warm and in summer it's a relief from the heat of the day. One can observe the moon in a t-shirt with no fear of hypothermia.
For that same reason I like riding at night, the warmth of the night air makes it pleasurable, the darkness makes it mysterious and the power of the headlight gives one a fleeting feeling of control in the tiny cone of light. It amazes me how easily we continue to move through storms, fog, darkness and snow, we endeavor never to lose our mobility. In Japan I read of people living lives of devastation, lack of gasoline, no food and feeble shelter in the bitter winter cold. yet, people living two hours away by car are affected by power outages and "non threatening" levels of radiation while their neighbors pick through garbage to assuage their visceral hunger.
And all of this is powered by cheap abundant energy- take away the affordable oil and it turns out we end up back in the Middle Ages. No gasoline means no food, no jobs, no modern industrialised comfort. 
