Rain

I was watching the forecast yesterday, unavoidable really as the sky clouded over ominously in the afternoon and I had to decide whether to ride or drive into town. I had a date with my trainer, an hour of what I liken to being thrown around the room without mercy. After three months of two dates a week I am stronger than I have ever been and I'm eating like a horse but not putting on weight. I am motivated and Sean is brilliant at what he does, even if he doesn't understand my sense of humor. He also hates having his picture taken so I snapped this while he was in the logo... Puff...puff...puff.

The radar showed a huge pile of wind and rain coming up from Mexico so I took four wheels and a small brown dog who wanted to get out of the house.

After the workout Rusty surprised me by wanting to go for a walk in the rain. He used to hate getting wet but perhaps now that he comes home to a watertight roof and his own bed he was ready to get in the rain. So he got his way. I struggled a bit with the umbrella as the winds picked up but I was already soaking wet from the workout. It really is that tough with Sean.

We took refuge at the Gato Pocket Park (a future essay) and I sat for a minute out of the rain. Rusty gave me not much of a break and soon he made his feelings known, pacing back and forth in front of me.

I took the long way back to the care so we were both nicely wet, but not cold. Winds were picking up, expected to reach 40 miles per hour but it was still in the mid seventies. It looks like winter even if it feels like summer:

Smashers Beach looked bleak, but the seas weren't terribly rough as there was a lot of west in the wind, blowing over the end of the island not the south shore.

Glad I'm not living on a boat in Cow Key Channel today!

I wore Rusty out with all the excitement. He went to bed early. Good boy.

Posted with Blogsy

Sugarloaf 939A South

I am starting to think Rusty expects me to pull a completely new walk out of my head every time we leave the house. These days he waits for me at the top of the stairs when I get home around 6:20 in the morning and I barely get off the Bonneville before this little ball of fur is bouncing off my chest. 

I drive Rusty to the Sugarloaf Boulevard walk at the south end of the island but this time, once we got past the jumping bridge we went straight and ignored the paved loop.

The bridge was the scene of excess, oddly enough several pairs of dainty black socks were lying on the ground in wet heaps alongside empty cans and cardboard debris. 

My goal was a 45 minute walk through the mangroves on the old roadway to the scene of the former bridge. Had that been in place we could have walked all the way back to Highway One at Mangrove Mama's. As it was we paused and when Rusty was finished with his inspection we retraced our steps, a meandering walk back the way we came.

The channel connects Cudjoe Bay to the waters in the middle of  Sugarloaf Key. Head east to go to my house, head west and eventually you will reach the marina at Sugarloaf Lodge. Here it is a deep, fast flowing, desolate salt water stream between mangroves.

The dark gray skies broke and started to brighten bringing warmer temperatures and sharper colors. 

The bushes are closing in on the old roadway making the track a one lane path.

While I played with the camera Rusty ducked in and out of the buttonwood trees sticking his nose imprudently into land crab holes.

As the old roadbed sank closer to sea level the buttonwoods gave way to red mangroves, the ones that like to live directly in the water. These trees are the roots that form the green island blobs you can see either side of the highway. There is no land there, no dirt to speak of, no way to walk properly. 

Many years ago I was caught in the Gulf Stream by a sudden winter storm, half way to Key West from Mexico. We were too far south to reach the Dry Tortugas, and a nearby boat chose to park (heave to) and wait the weather out. My wife and I decided to turn and run before the storm, losing ground but escaping the shipping lanes between Florida and Cuba. The storm blew us into the Cuban north shore at a point of my choosing, a wide open bay, deep enough to get out of the wind and waves, dotted with small islands (Minas de Matahambre, west of Santa Lucia), so we could avoid meeting officialdom and having to explain ourselves. We anchored between some islands and found our dogs a place to walk amidst a profusion of mangrove roots. I came to hate these things, so impossible to walk among, so useless to humans, so important to fish. We spent a week ducking amongst them waiting for a change of weather, we were never discovered and our dogs survived on the leanest of walks at low tide picking their way among mangroves. I think of them when I see these sights.

I also remember walking Cheyenne down here when she was younger and that was such a long time ago. Rusty seemed to enjoy it much more than my old Labrador ever did. He sniffed everywhere, enjoying the woods much more than urban walks.

The walk ended up being two hours long and it was properly sunny by the time we were finished. 

It was hot but lovely.

Approaching the bridge we came across signs of civilization still not quite ready to fade away.

And what would civilization be without graffiti?

And a water swing:

The two hour walk required a day of rest and deep sleep for young Rusty. I had to go to work because I am older and tougher. And because I am not a dog living a dog's life.

Consent To Mosquitoes

I'm pretty sure if the Federal Food and Drug Administration and the local Mosquito Control Board think releasing genetically modified mosquitoes is a good idea, a bunch of angry home owners won't stop them but who, like the cliche says, only time will tell.

 

Oxitec is a British company founded by a  group of Oxford University scientists in 2002 and they have been looking for ways to reduce mosquito populations around the world and by so doing reduce the outbreak of serious diseases. It's a worthy cause but now, for some reason  not explained, they want to test their latest batch of mosquitoes in the ritzy neighborhood of Key Haven, at Mile Marker 5 on the Overseas Highway.

Key Haven is five minutes from Key West, ten minutes from downtown (in light traffic) and has traditionally been the unincorporated subdivision where the movers and shakers of Key West live, outside city limits but close enough to show up when needed. This is an island of broad streets, regular sized houses with yards, and freedom from city taxes and regulations. For instance on Key Haven boat trailers parked on the streets is okay, where in the city it is forbidden. 

Traditionally science experiments "in the public interest" are carried out on powerless minority populations. Indeed Oxitec released a version of these genetically modified mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands which reportedly killed off 96 percent of mosquitoes in the islands. All in secret, without any residents' consent. And opponents argue that genetically modified mosquitoes could survive among the four percent and develop immunity and create a whole new generation of problems. The old fashioned way to contain mosquitoes is shown below in a Reuters photograph of mosquito control in Honduras. The human applying the fumes is well protected from their poison which gives you some idea of how this stuff works:

I find this whole situation weird and the big question in my mind is what on earth possessed Oxitec to choose Key Haven of all under educated and backwater communities to test this release? Did nobody warn them that hornets live here and they would not be best pleased to have this sort of intrusion? Let's not forget when the Navy routed training flights over Key Haven the uproar  could be heard all the way to Washington.

So why not release these neutered mosquitoes to kill off the local population? All the bitching one hears about mosquito control you'd think people would be delighted. When one looks at the negatives of this mosquito program one hears speculation that the release of these mosquitoes increased the prevalence of the Zika virus in Brazil. Not that there is any evidence you understand, and despite the fact that it now seems likely Zika spread from Haiti to Brazil. In any event opponents of the release, which they have been fighting since 2012 argue that genetically modified mosquitoes pose threats to everything including humans while other surviving mosquitoes may get the upper hand over the modification and become even more nasty.  

 

As to whether this stuff will work I haven't a clue but I am no great fan of mosquitoes. Oxitec's program is intriguing, as they inject mosquito eggs with a deformed genetic code and keep the mosquitoes alive, only males they assure us though how they know I'm not sure, by feeding them antibiotics. In the wild they mate with the blood sucking females who have offspring who can't find a diet of antibiotics (tetracycline in this case) so they wither and die. End of story. Not so, argue opponents who say tetracycline has been found in wild waters available to mosquitoes so the modified insects could conceivably survive and flourish...Which sounds a bit far fetched to me, more a plot from a novel than realistic, but I have no doubt my attitude is too casual. In my experience these scientific flourishes cause a lot of uneasiness.

I remember when genetically modified tomatoes were grown for the first time in the Pajaro Valley of California. I was a reporter and followed that story for years and stood in the field as the world wondered if we spectators were all going to become GMO zombies in the presence of the unnatural tomatoes. They were grown as planned after endless opposition and became a non-event. Calgene's failure to market FlavSavr tomatoes led nevertheless to most soybeans and corn getting genetic modifications. And no one cares. 

 

On the whole I find the opponents to be flinging all sorts of pasta at the wall, several different lines of argument, as though hoping one of them might stick. Oxitec offers a chance to eradicate dengue and variants, Zika and so forth from impoverished populations who are vulnerable and hugely at risk. No one else seems to have a clue how to control mosquitoes  except by poisoning us all along with our water and food.  Locally mosquito control drops funny little pellets of bacillus thuringiensis  which is used as a genetic modification in crops to inject insecticide properties into plants. It seems to me the genetic modification genie is well out of the bottle. 

 

In the end I suppose Armageddon could come out of this closely observed experiment and we could all end up with Zika injected by marauding super-mosquitoes. Or the mosquitoes could die off for a bit depriving local predators, like bats, of their food precipitating another crisis.  I would not like to think of bats dying off because of this.  

 

In my heart of hearts I want this experiment to succeed because I have seen the misery dengue fever causes. I was caught in central America in an outbreak. For many thousands of Salvadorans it was a death sentence.  For well nourished first world me it was  a nasty fever accompanied by the feeling my bones were breaking. Traveling in Africa as a youngster I had to abandon my motorcycle and fly home from Cameroon when I came down with jaundice and hepatitis A, a lethal illness that kills its mosquito victims. I spent three weeks in an Italian hospital (no bills) and ate a delicate diet for a year and recovered completely. Nigerians and Cameroonians around me weren't so lucky. (Some nice Frenchmen living in Douala shipped my motorcycle, a Yamaha SR500, home to me with the money I left behind for that purpose as I got on the plane).

 

On the other hand we all know that corporations have this nasty habit of not being completely truthful, BP springs to mind easily. And the lure of gold is not a great inducement to be up front about this sort of thing especially when it doesn't work out. The question really is how catastrophic would it be if things went wrong? Who knows. 

For the time being we will have to live with the nasty little things, cover ourselves in sprays with God knows what ingredients and hop that pellets of BT sprayed over our communities will keep the insects at bay. And one other thing let's hope all these nasty diseases stay well away. Zika was last reported in Jamaica, not too far at all.

Front Street

For the last week of April, and as far as I know the last week of access to my preferred photo storage at Picasaweb here are a few of some black and white pictures I took playing around Wall Street and Front Street near Mallory Square.

Google is transitioning photo storage to Google Pics and I have been trying to figure out a work around to the closing of Picasa. I think I may be able to avoid switching to the Wordpress page I have set up. In my opinion Wordpress tries to offer too many options and choices and as a result I find it labor intensive and slow to import pictures and set up self publishing of essays and so forth. Also I am not fond of the page layout, you can see my back up HERE but for now it is just a place holder. I think I have found a way to get pictures out of my phone and onto this page without Picasa. I am keeping my fingers crossed that nothing has to change.

Dust catchers galore:

Fitpatrick Street, where they sell Kino sandals.

The Custom House on Front Street is built in the Federal style (think snowy Canadian border) and was nearly demolished after it fell into disrepair. Had the guardians of Old Town Beauty been in charge at the Historic Architecture Review Commission it would probably have been replaced with something in concrete and glass. As it is it flourishes as a very worthy and enjoyable art and history depository for the city. Well worth a visit.

I am over Seward Johnson's larger than life statues in front of the building but young Rusty was quite put off by the presence of an immobile elderly woman loaded down with groceries. He was having nothing to do with her.

The people kissing are clearly a little over sized but the shopper looks quite natural in this picture:

Picturesque Key West, Wall Street next to Mallory Square.

Moon Set Over Ramrod

It was a fantastic opportunity to enjoy what may be one of the last cool fronts of the winter. Rusty was delighted to enjoy the cool north breeze blowing over the islands. 

The crisp air cleared the skies and we got the benefit of a sunrise to the east with an almost full moon setting to the west ( obviously). 

It's these moments that transition me from a night at work to my reward asleep in bed.

The transition starts when I leave the 911 center and enjoy a half ride home in the dark. Rusty's greeting is always over the top. He waits for me at the top of the stairs and ambushes me with leaps and kisses and toothy rubs on my cheeks while he desperately paws my chest. Then we get in the car and look for a place to walk. 

Like this. 

An excellent way to end the day.