Hurricane Season

The line from Jimmy Buffett about the inability to reason with Hurricane Season is well worn, over used and true. And because today is the start of the Tropical Cyclone Season in the Atlantic basin I figure one has to say something in a blog about life in the Keys. If you check the link in my alphabetical list, called Hurricane Center you will get the picture below, or a variant thereof. As the season progresses I will probably check the link a couple of times a day and as speculation mounts about hurricane season I will visit it more often.

Hurricanes in the Atlantic basin and Caribbean most frequently form early and late in the season in the Western Caribbean where the waters warm up sooner in June and stay warmer later in November. In the middle of the season hurricanes are spawned off the coast of West Africa and take a week or so to reach the West Indies and another week to reach us, if they are coming. It's all just a matter of hoping for the best. Everyone is at risk on the Eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico so unless you choose to live in the Jacksonville area which historically is pretty safe from hits... for now. Considering the natural disasters we have going on across the country the future fears about hurricanes seem rather insignificant at the moment. There will be no doubt further opportunities to re-visit this subject before the season ends officially November 30th.

Getting Around

I headed to the city parking lot off Caroline and Margaret expecting to find the place half empty. I guess the lot has been discovered. It used to be a pain to use because there was a ticket booth and an entry gate but now it's all automated. You drive in, park, buy a ticket with metered time with a credit card or cash, leave the ticket on the car dashboard and off you go.

People lie to make a big fuss about Old Town parking and in winter or during events it can get crowded but the trick is to be a little bit flexible, allow a little time and expect to walk a few blocks. All of which is irritating fro residents but for visitors the situation really isn't bad. A scooter makes things a lot easier, but be careful about parking on sidewalks. It's not legal and is tolerated only for insiders. Or bar patrons like those at Don's Place:Key West has tons of free scooter and motorcycle parking and bike racks everywhere. Which is just as well as scooters are the quickest way around. Not everyone has the style of a Stella geared two stroke. My heart still goes pitter patter when I see one even though mine was a dog and utterly unreliable. Bicycles are the other mainstay and there is nothing quite like cycling round Old Town watching the world glide by. The nice thing I find about bicycles, as with all transportation in Key West, is that it is a matter of practicality not status.A bicycle is a bike and it's value is measured much more by it's ability to get the groceries home than by it's value or it's slick componentry. Who cares about on street parking when one's car is a bike?

Schooner Western Union

The Western Union schooner is back at her berth at the seawall at Key West Bight. And very pretty she is too after her refit. The boat I mean; the stranger just got in the way of the picture.The Western Union was first launched in 1939 and spent the next three decades as a working wooden schooner laying and maintaining telegraph cables between the Caribbean and Key West. The old cable hut that connected Key West to Havana is still visible today next to the Southernmost Point buoy.Things went downhill for the boat after being discharged by the Western Union company but Historic Tours owned the boat for a decade until a major refit was called for and the crew was summarily dismissed.After the abrupt shutdown in 2007 Historic Tours donated the boat to the not for profit Preservation Society created to restore the boat and return it to service. They did the work, raising one and a half million dollars and spending years on the restoration which appears to have paid off handsomely. I have never actually sailed on the Western Union though I have been out on other schooners and I figure I will have to give it a shot because I enjoy the view from the dock.
When I sued to work on the waterfront I knew youngsters who crewed on the Western Union and I remember envying them their youth. They didn't get paid much but they lived on board many of them and enjoyed being in the heart of the action on the waterfront in Key West. Theirs was as close to a piratical existence as one could imagine in the 20th century.And the work consisted of going sailing. A head for heights helps in these circumstances.
They have a website of course : http://www.schoonerwesternunion.org/

And this photo from their website of the ship under sail:
In lubberly terms the way the ship's sails point forwards and backwards, not across the decks, is what designates the vessel as a schooner.

Night At Rest

Rest Beach at night is a place I come back to again and again. There is a table by the parking lot where one can sit and watch the water. If, as happens sometimes the table is occupied one can walk the pathway to an opening on the sand and sit on a step and watch the water and the lights twinkling on the White Street Pier.This is the first place I think to come when I get a lunch break and I want to leave the police station instead of taking a nap. There aren't generally many waves around here thanks to the coral reefs that keep the Straits of Florida away but if there is any kind of south east breeze here is where you will feel it. When the wind is strong it makes the palms flap back and forth.Many many years ago Rest Beach (named for a once upon a time local notable) was the place where cows, raised on Stock Island (hence the name) were slaughtered for consumption in the city. I have read that one can still find pieces of bone from that gruesome time but I think that story is a canard for cheap thrills for visitors. That is to say the cows were slaughtered but their remains are all long gone.I don't come here at two in the morning to look for cow bones but to clear my head and enjoy some sea air in the middle of a shift. Oh and I get to ride my wife's Vespa this week while my Bonneville is getting it's annual check up.Then it's back too work with lungs full of bracing sea air.

Of Eccentricity

I was looking at the cute dog curled up in the shade but upon mature reflection I realised there is a woman's backside here to cheer up Jack riepe who feels neglected by the serious nature of my essays, poor man.Of all the pictures I took waiting for the Minimal Regatta this year these perhaps reflect what caught my eye. The dog, the food, unidentifiable and thus interesting, alongside what could be a couple of pints of margarita (or lemonade, unlikely but possible). riepe considers me eccentric for not focusing on the female form but my wandering eye is taken by irony not big knockers.
The man with the hat in the next picture is a professional eccentric trying to earn a crust flogging a book; surely not? I understand not everyone is cut out to be an office wage slave but I admire anyone motivated to flog themselves publicly like that, walking around in a silly hat trying to look eccentric. I much prefer to melt into the crowd if actual flight is not an option.I am frequently accused of eccentricity by people who don't know me well, and I think even my wife had the wrong idea at first. After several years of marriage she said with wonderment how surprised she was by my tendency to follow the rules, to put trash in the can, to walk on the path and not use the pool after hours. I see no reason to make an exhibition of oneself in public but in Key West happily that reticence is a rare commodity. While everyone is staring at the over sized breast or silly hats I go about my business undisturbed. And some of the time I make it my business to look through a camera and the professional eccentrics love to have their picture taken.

Which in Key West is a standard activity, we are all amateur recorders of our times.When I went to Santa Cruz last year I got yelled at for taking pictures which I thought was odd in a tourist town. Santa Cruz is a town filled with opinionated people exposing their minds not their lives to public contemplation. In Key West a camera makes you a visitor and thus invisible to locals, which suits me just fine.I never could live on mainland Florida where even I am rated an eccentric, more a measure of the mainlanders' narrowness than my weirdness. Six months in Fort Myers and I was ready to dress up in funny clothes and walk with a swish to take attention away from my speech impediment, which is a mid Atlantic immigrant's accent. That mainland misery of being constantly noticed for the manner of my speech is how I know why Key West is my haven, as it is for so many lost souls. People in Key West are too busy nurturing their eccentricities to notice me. I recommend Key West for that reason alone, never mind the weather.

Meeting Conch

I had been planning a quiet afternoon in the air-conditioning with Wayne and Chuck but Wayne had ideas other than computing.

It was lovely and hot outside. Wayne and Chuck pride themselves on keeping the air quite warm now they are well south of St Louis as compared to me who likes his indoor chill.

The neighbors were out of town and their dog walker was charging horrendous sums to let the creature out so Wayne the decent fellow offered to help out. Wayne and Chuck will be taking excellent care of my beloved during our vacation this July.

Cheyenne and I waited in the shade for Wayne to collect the hound from upstairs and I was left to contemplate the value of a boob trappe?

Conch's home sits on an extra large waterfront park that Cheyenne found was full of new smells too check out. It was like a park for her.

Conch is young and full of energy alongside my older slower dog but they put up a good show in the blistering on sun. Wayne started to wilt and it was time to flee the scene. Conch's next scheduled outing was at dusk when temperatures drop a few noticeable degrees.

It was a quiet summer afternoon when human activity was noticeable by it's absence. Fat Albert, the air force blimp was among the clouds checking for intruders.

Last week 17 Cubans within sight of freedom were spotted by a busybody angler who called the Coastguard and because they were not touching land they were sent back to Cuba for re-education.

Wayne's favorite view he says, typical of fabulous Florida Keys scenery...myself I always enjoy sun glinting on palm frond:


But poor Wayne was over heated and had to get back to Chuck waiting patiently with ice and tea in the kitchen.

As lovely as it was outside Cheyenne promptly threw herself on the boys' terrazzo floor to cool off. Tis not the season for long walks!

Posted from my iPad using Blog Press. Some photo tweaking is clearly still required, but I am getting the hang of it. Blog Press is amazingly simple.