Simonton Beach

Strolling up to the end of Simonton Street I spotted one of Key West's finest keeping an eye on tourists enjoying the sliver of downtown beach.


"Like day shift, do you?" I asked my colleague. He grinned. We are sharply divided between those that love days and those like me that love nights.
The restroom hut that had been a haven for scruffy residentially challenged oiks is soon to be transformed they say.


The city has approved a plan to create a concession stand here, a plan I heartily endorse. The sooner the better.


I'm sure these visitors might have been tempted to buy a coffee or a soda or perhaps rent a kayak or something.


Simonton Beach is fifty feet wide, the size of a large city lot and it's a window on the city's harbor.


Across the way you can see Wisteria Key (Christmas Tree Island to locals) whose ownership is under review by the Federal government who recently found out to their surprise, that they may own the spoil island, just in time to save it from development by the rapacious Bernstein family. They wanted to build 75 homes on the island which is zoned for just two. That plan got them a lot of attention as they maneuvered to outwit the county and a local activist discovered an anomaly which indicates the US government never released it's interest in the island. Had they had the wit to build two very expensive homes no one would have been any the wiser. Ah, delicious irony.


Commercial fishing boat, pleasure boat, and parasailer all in one spot. Key West harbor is a busy place and fun to watch from Simonton Beach.


The beach is also a relief for city dogs on leashes.


It's a pretty spot, seen here looking north.


Guests at the big hotel next door get their own private dock.


There they go, past the window on the harbor that is the little beach.


Big floating homes at anchor.


Center cockpit Island Packet under some sail.


The dog too was done and off we all walked back into the mêlée that is downtown.


I saw one scruffy oik and he wandered off when he saw the cop. Simonton Beach is open for visitors once again. And soon perhaps the new concession stand will be open too.



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Full Moon Sunrise

It's starting to be summer in the Keys, the air is hot and thick in the middle of the day and my dog gets tired too easily. So we walk more in the morning when it still feels cool.


Luckily the mornings are cooperating and the skies put on quite a spectacle for my Labrador and I when we stroll around the Ramrod Pool, an informal county park located around a human made tidal inlet on the north shore of the island.


But then, last weekend, we had a full moon and the early morning darkness when I got home after work was illuminated by silver light all over the place.


I played with the camera a bit, in color...


...in sepia mode....


...and black and white before going back to color for a look out across the waters of Niles Channel at the twinkling lights of Summerland Key.


I fail to take these spectacles for granted and wonder at anyone that can. It is true that if there weren't an eager Labrador to satisfy I would be tucked up in bed. As it is Cheyenne's needs must be met and I get to enjoy the view. This sunrise was quite full and I snagged this picture a couple of mornings before the full moon.


With enough of a breeze to keep Cheyenne moderately chilled and the mosquitoes at bay, this is an entrancing spot at seven in the morning.


She roots around the bushes and I get to stand around and watch, and I have to admit that after a might spent sitting up and taking 911 calls it gets a bit wearisome.


Not for her. In winter she loves to be out anytime of day, but now she retreats to the air conditioning. The entire east coast had a particularly mild winter this year, including the Keys, where we never saw temperatures below sixty (15c).


Some days Cheyenne gets bored out here in the mangroves and we stop on the way home to take an urban walk among the homes.


I prefer the wilderness.


But this is Cheyenne's time and she gets what she wants.


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Life On The Margins

Niles Channel under blusterous skies, gray clouds scudding overhead, the air thick air almost muggy even though it's only April. A mixed day for a dog walk.


Cheyenne took to the bushes at the edge of Highway One, enjoying their shade as the sun played hide and seek with the clouds.


The Overseas Highway is never far away in these islands and large SUVs and trucks slid into view at the top of the embankment above our heads busy rushing hither and yon to important land bound appointments.


I found a rather nice bicycle parked at the water's edge, apparently the land transportation of some waterborne resident nearby. It happens in the Keys that convenient dinghy landings seem to sprout spontaneously there where boats anchor off the shore for any length of time.


A commercial fishing boat like this could be a residence but it's unlikely as accommodations would be Spartan in the extreme and the boat would be light an bouncy in any kind of mildly rough seas. More lily the owner of the bike resides on the snug sailboat anchored nearby.


Cheyenne found the dinghy landing ad wallowed in salt water while my attention was diverted. She rose from the muck almost guiltily as I approached, which guilt must have been in my imagination as I have never berated her for cooling in off in mud, salt water or other filth in the heat of the summer.


We might seem to be far from civilization but the bicycle was still securely locked to the mangrove. Here's the thing: a lot of people fantasize about dropping out but not many manage it. Civilization is seductive. Speaking as one whose life seems t have consisted largely in dropping out this bicycle encounter triggered a lot of memories which in turn set me thinking.


Living on a boat at anchor is a dream, especially for those waking by alarm clock to a snowscape outside then kitchen window and facing a drive to a cubicle tom pay the rent to live in the box to wake to an alarm clock to look out the window. That's the routine, we've all done it. The alternative might be a very long bride on a motorcycle (done that), or a mountain climb (forget that!) or a long sailboat trip (did that) or some other fantasy of escape. Hell, somedays at work we envy the hobos riding the rails with a backpack and zero responsibilities.


The are two things about dropping out, boredom is a peril. Living on a boat, answerable to no one, free of routines and obligations requires a high dose of introspection, and those that fail to introspect with sufficient vigor frequently find themselves seeking answers in the bottom of a bottle. The other side of the coin is that escape from the common trajectory also puts the fugitive outside the common experience. Introspection yields insight but the knowledge gained cannot be shared because the neighbors living their routines share no common language with the fugitive. You think this trim, fashionably attired cycling enthusiast dude has anything in common with the live aboard cyclist? Maybe he does but how do they communicate and find out?


The guy who has the million dollar waterfront view and paid a million bucks for it has very little patience typically for the shoeless dude on a boat who enjoys the same view and paid a few hundred dollars for a decent anchor and chain to hold him there. That the boating life requires extreme simplicity and self reliance (the sort of true life, hard core self reliance pitched by presidential candidates of the right wing stripe) makes no mind for the dude with the massive mortgage.


Somehow the Florida Keys still manage to accommodate those living on the margins of society, at anchor or on land, and that bum pedaling slowly with crap hanging off his bike and skin like sun baked parchment may just be the master and commander of his own fate, anchored out and wanting nothing more from his neighbors than a place to land his dinghy and a post office to pick up his pension check.


I'm glad I did it because as I motorcycle over the Nile Channel bridge and look down on the heaving masts and the absolute freedom of true self reliance I don't miss it anymore. And that knowledge, in my routine and my job and my restricted circle of friends, is true freedom. Better not to envy or despise those on their own journeys on the margins of society, and in the Florida Keys you meet those people on land and at sea.


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Carysfort Circle, Key Largo

Headed to the Mainland we stopped at Carysfort Circle, Cheyenne and I.


Not to be confused by a circle of the same name inside the exclusive Ocean Reef community this street is divided into north and south halves circling south of US Highway One.


It may not be Ocean Reef but it boasts some pretty impressive homes all the same.


The central part of the circle is wooded and impenetrable.


I suppose impenetrable is exaggerated but it is thick with growth.


There are a few houses here but much of the circle is wilderness, carefully trimmed.


I found little information about Carysfort except that it is actually a four mile long reef off the south coast of Key Largo (the largest island in the Keys, by the way).


On that reef sits the oldest steel screw pile lighthouse and it is still functioning though automated these days. The origin of the name is a mystery to me.


However typically the reef formations are named for ships that wrecked on them.


Not that any of this historical stuff really matters if you are just out walking your dog.


It was pretty buggy and I used a fair bit of repellent to stay sane.


Others must have too because they were hanging around, petting passing dogs with not a care in the world about mosquitoes.


She too cared not one whit about insects.what she was smelling I had no clue nor did I want to know as it happens.


But now at least I'd do know what another of these mysterious streets off Card Sound Road looks like. Pretty much like streets everywhere else in the Keys, it turns out.



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