Mangrove Walk

It used to be the start of the day, when I worked nights, that found me walking Rusty through the mangroves. That all got turned on its head when I was moved to days after thirteen years of night shift. Nowadays I hurry on home at six in the evening and load Rusty into the car for a short drive into the wilderness.  

This has been a summer of sporadic heavy rain and long periods with none. Then more endless rain and now we are in the period of high, high tides as Fall approaches and flooding is everywhere. The trail may only be six inches under water but the mud is slimy and the rocks are slippery so unless you have four paws the going is slow and careful. 

They carved roads through the mangroves on top of the rock in an effort to open these areas up to development. Florida is populated with ghost development, many places long since planned but never built.

Nature encroaches and red mangroves put out feelers into the trail like skeletal fingers reaching for a grip in the rock.  The trail is closed to vehicles with huge concrete blocks so eventually I assume the trail will become a path and eventually disappear. 

It is in many respects a surreal landscape, flat and lacking in long vistas, small trees rising above the sea of bushes like islands and from below the sounds of fish jumping in the pools of water.

Photographers call it the Golden Hour before the sun sets and the atmosphere turns the sunlight that familiar shade of orange and gold we call sunset.

Quite breathtaking some evenings when the atmosphere is charged with moisture.

And you don't have to be at Mallory Square to enjoy it.

Mind you its probably time I paid a visit to the sunset celebrations as I rather enjoy the street fair atmosphere.

Until then this will have to hold us over.

Evenings are closing in and soon I won't get home before dark so Rusty and I will have to walk darkened suburban streets where I won't trip or slip. Wilderness walks will be reserved  for my days off until the  days get longer in the Spring.

It gets this dark between 7:30 and eight at the moment.

The Hills Of Julia Street

I have thought that perhaps a climb to the top of the lighthouse might possibly be one way to announce to myself the firm conviction that I can walk properly again, but a quick search in the blue box at the top left of this page reminded me it hasn't been three years since I climbed the spiral staircase.  Lighthouse Visit. So I took a picture from Truman Avenue to remind myself to consider another visit. How do you like Key West's total disinterest in preserving an historic skyline from the blight of wires?

Some days I take my lunch break downtown and I walk on my re-built pelvis and I take pictures with my camera and I wonder if I shall see anything worth photographing and something usually springs before my lense. Old Town is described as the largest collection of wooden buildings located in an American city. I think. Something like that. And I get to wander around it as often as I like. The city was incorporated in 1828 and in those days the lighthouse was close to the water until storms undermined it and they moved it inland. The seas have been nibbling at the Keys forever it seems.

These signposts are springing up anywhere and everywhere and I don't find them to be particularly attractive. Pointing to Lublin in Poland is a stand out destination in a  city where the Poles are mostly workers and not tourists. People keep wondering where the workers will come from to service the increasingly wealthy leisure class that is buying property in Key West. There's an answer: staff rooms hot bunking in the garrets and eaves of hotels.

The classic Conch Cottage worth a million bucks to someone I am sure and it's neighbor...

...exposing it's skeleton for all to see. Is this worth a million? 

The refreshing of Old Town is a phenomenon that carries with it a certain cheerful optimism as the high, high tides this year produce predictable flooding in streets up and down the Keys.  Even though we pretend it isn't happening sea level rise is progressing nicely and apparently unstoppably - LINK.  I wonder if these late comers or their inheritors will expect a government bail out for buying in a flood plain?

We have ignored the problem and denied the problem and now we nervously joke about he problem. I fear the next stage will be anger but perhaps that will produce a sea change in our rather cavalier attitude that sea level rise is not our problem. There is an overflow parking lot ext to the police station where I was warned not to park on the east side as at high tide it goes under water by as much as a foot. On night shift we had enough parking and to spare for the few of us in the building overnight but by day the administrative ranks swell and latecomers park  off site.  

When I was a youngster Important People predicted all kinds of nonsense by the turn of the century like flying cars and eternal life and all that stuff. What we actually got was more of the same and the Internet which no one predicted. Now we are told flooding is coming and no one really seems to believe them. And I for one usually don't  a  quick calculation every time they predict. By 2050 I will be 92 and I'm pretty sure I will be long since dead. In the ordinary course of things you might shed a tear or two but under the circumstances and having no offspring to worry about I am prepared to sit back and let others with a stake in the future do their bit. 

I have developed my own theory about hurricanes and this year has once again borne me out. It seems like the pattern of their paths follows a route determined by the jet stream in early summer and just about every storm follows a similar path. If you are in that pah you are doomed (viz: Puerto Rico in 2017) but if like this year they go north early we are okay. North Carolina got smashed of course and Bermuda got hit and they are in line for more rain and wind but the fact we haven't been hit yet is no indicator of future storms is it? 

I was pondering these intangibles while ambling over the rise on Julia Street approaching Duval. It is no steep hill but in a flood it's one of those places where people in Key West wished they lived as brown nasty waters swirl up. If you have lived here through a  few floods,  and Wilma in 2005 when I was a wet-behind-the-ears 911 call taker was a doozy, you know where the dry spots tend to be. 

Looking downhill at Duval Street:

It is very interesting living at Zero Feet above Sea Level in a  time of climate change.

"Climate change took the biggest jump this year of I believe any risk that I can remember, seeing it jump from 7 percent up to 22 percent," said, Max Rudolph, fellow of the Society of Actuaries and author of the report.

Rudolph added that it's becoming harder for risk managers to avoid thinking about climate change. He pointed to major hurricanes in 2017 and the longer, more intense wildfire seasons we're seeing in the west.

"My personal opinion is that this is a case of the risk managers catching up to the actual risk that is out there," he explained.

Cow Key Channel

It may be my imagination but the community of people living suspended between Key West and Stock Island may be increasing.

It is quite a community of liveaboards, some of the homes neatly cared for and others not so much, just like on land.

There are times when one wants to take the scenic route, the only such route on my commute, instead of fighting traffic and pedestrians and traffic lights on the Boulevard (North Roosevelt Boulevard) which is when I drive by the boats. So it's inevitable that from time to time I shall stop and look out across the water.

Living on a boat as a form of cheap accommodation doesn't work for me. For all the years I did live on a  boat I was either in motion or if stationary for a period I kept my boat ready to move.

Anchoring a boat as a form of free storage ends up making the thing an eyesore but boats are private property and it takes massive efforts by the State to assume ownership and remove these derelicts. 

And even if they do the question then remains how to handle piles of indestructible fiberglass when disposing of piles of boat. Who pays for all this is the bog problem and even so Monroe County foes get rid of patently abandoned boats in county waters. The supply though, appears to be inexhaustible.

 Even defining abandoned isn't easy. You need somewhere to live in a county this expensive.

From a distance the boats afloat are picturesque and what I suppose, you expect to see when you come to visit Key West. This would be a strange little island with no boats dotted around it.

Change Of Season

Things have been tough for Florida fishing since hurricane Irma in 2017. The newspapers are saying the storm wrecked habitat and upset breeding cycles for crab and lobster and with stone crab season starting tomorrow fishermen are hoping things will be better this year. Fishing reminds me of farming, in that it's a trade you are usually born into and the weather is never quite right and when it is abundance of harvest lowers prices.

I am not a huge fan of lobster or crab as I would rather eat fish with fins but the economics of fishing are interesting in a  community like this where money rules every decision. The only fishing most people think about is sport fishing, an extension of the tourism trade, not least because commercial fishing is carried out away from tourist centers and largely out of sight.

Recreational boats fill the harbor and this year with only a few weeks of hurricane season left we can hope to skate by without fresh disasters. Stone crabbers are hoping their crabs have settled down and are ready to lose their big claws to the appetites of people who think cracking shells and eating cold crab meat wrenched from a living crab makes an ideal meal. 

This is also the time of year when people start to resurface in town. There was a massive storm reported last week in the Midwest and we heard of sudden temperature dips and snow  falling and sure enough snowbirds suddenly showed up around town. I met a spandex bicycle rider on a recent dog walk, a sure and certain sign of middle aged wealth fighting the good fight to stay fit in a town with a drinking culture. 

I try to stay upbeat in the face of the renewal of the tourist season, mindful that the reason they come is money and the reason they are embraced is money and it's what will pay my pension in the years to come. I used to wish that NASA had sent more artists into space and on the moon to send back reports of the true nature and effect of space travel on the human psyche. In the same way I wish snowbirds could bring more to town than money and overweening attitudes to local habits and customs. 

But this is the price one pays to live in a community where housing costs more than local workers can afford. It is good for one's humility to be reminded how little one matters when in a crowd of people think Key West as winter playground equals Key West as a place to live. So when you see pictures of sunny winter days you will know that the best time of year to visit is in the heat of summer when Rusty and I have the mangroves to ourselves and restaurants are breezing through low seasons before gearing up for crowds and lines from now through April.  

What is necessary is not always desirable and I must remember to be patient as speeds on the highway get slower and slower and lines everywhere get longer and longer.... 

Birds, Dogs And A Person

Pictures without words, an accumulation of creatures observed at the White Street Pier  and on our walks. For a serene Sunday read.