Zombie Bike Ride 2019

Over the years the Zombie Bike Ride has become one of the most popular events associated with Fantasy Fest. This is despite the fact the ride is organized as an independent advance event, similar to Goombay, before the main carnival party called Fantasy Fest really kicks off. 

To approach the route after work required me to trail groups of costumes pedalling toward the south side of Key West. Originally the ride originated at the Stock Island bike shop Recycle, which organized the event. That soon proved to be a bad idea  when thousands of riders showed up, 7500 last year according to people who count such things. Crossing the only bridge into and out of Key West with an immense slow moving line of bicycles proved impractical. Not to mention the pre-ride gathering at the side of the Overseas Highway...Something had to be done.

So they moved the kick off location to Pines Park next to the East Martello Tower on South Roosevelt Boulevard. The ride sets off shortly before sunset  with police closing the roads as they go and eventually, in the fullness of time the bicycles and their costumed riders have a street party on Lower Duval where the bars are centered.

This year  I took up a position where I could park my scooter easily as I came straight from work and road closures prevented easy access to the start line where I would usually hang around for a little while. As it was I caught bicycles going "the wrong way" toward South Roosevelt to join the crowd departing from the proper spot. 

As you can see from this long line of pictures the costumes are the thing and this is an entirely child friendly event.

Well let me rephrase that, I saw tons of kids  riding as well as spectating so people who actually have children seem to think this event is child friendly. Good enough for me what has no children or experience with them..

 Cars prohibited. Once can only imagine the driver's astonishment at being so ill informed about the wifdely publicized event that actually closed a main road for a while...

Curry Mansion

A lunch break on a rainy day prompted me to go for a walk in black and white mode.

I found myself walking past the historic Curry Mansion built by an immigrant from Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas in 1896. It was  a mail order design apparently and included all the trimmings still visible today.

In the days before air conditioning it was normal for people to sling hammocks and sleep outdoors and the mansion has a couple of wide verandas suitable for the purpose

The house was falling into disrepair by 1976  when it was purchased, restored and  turned into a guest house.  Below you can see the decorative fretwork that was a boast of the original plans:

Hurricane Irma tore down some of the massive tree cover from in front of the mansion which has opened it up to view.

And I find it very photogenic from all sides:

This last picture below is NOT the Curry Mansion but I include it here by way of saying, again, you don't need a huge historic pile to have an atmospheric home in Old Town...

Goombay 2019

Fantasy Fest 2019  has officially got underway with the opening of the first event of the week, which is Goombay.

Goombay is a street festival on Petronia Street from Duval to Fort and it is supposed to be a celebration of Bahama Village, the African American community in Key West. Bahama Village has seen a lot of gentrification just like the rest of the city but it remains a cohesive community ina town devoted to transient tourism.

My target was a food stall not devoted to precisely Afro-Caribbean roots, but I was recommended to try the smoked brisket cooked in the Baltimore style:

I took some home for dinner with my wife and all it needed was the recommended horseradish accompaniment. Smoke and horseradish: simplicity wins!

Goombay is afamily festival unlike the rest of Fantasy Fest. It is really a  separate event without nudity adult themes or costumes but it takes place the weekend before fantasy fest so that makes them easy to combine for advertising and promotion.

Fantasy Fest is under new management and I have to say there is a general hope that  perhaps the trend toward less nudity and more fun costumes in public will continue to be upheld this year. Goombay isn't associated with any of those issues but  with the appearance of the street fair the arrival of Fantasy Fest is obvious. 

Today there will be the Zombie Bike Ride along South Roosevelt Boulevard ending downtown with a street party of thousands of bicycle riders. Then the private parties begin and culminate in the Grand Parade next Saturday night. The restaurants open their doors, the hotels are full one hopes and the original intent to provide  an infusion of cash in a  town out of season will be fulfilled even though the season gets longer and longer. 

I have to say I enjoy Fantasy Fest so before I am roundly berated I had better explain why. This is one week Key West is on citywide vacation. That I am working every day doesn't change that. This is the city's carnival, a week in the calendar when the rest of the world carries on as usual and we have a citywide time out. Let me hasten to add I don't like costumes and I don't like the naked people being tasteless which sounds contradictory. 

I enjoy the festive atmosphere, I like smart clever costumes even if they are more risque than one might imagine consonant with this puritanical society we live in and I also enjoy the reminder however slight that Key West was and sometimes can be non conformist. 

Alternatively you can join the ranks of tut tutting people on the sidelines who welcome cruise ships and twelve month tourism and see no contradiction in abhorring this mild attempt at adult Halloween. Yes, perhaps fantasy Fest has matured enough to enjoy the costumes like adults with good taste. I wonder...

Winter Light

This is the time of year when summer breaks at 24 degrees North Latitude and cold fronts start to roll through the islands creating a familiar cycle of weather that lasts through April or even May. Except of course  that climate is changing and the weather thus changes too in small ways here and there for now.  

It used to be that after Fantasy Fest scheduled for next week by the way, one could expect increasingly cool temperatures as cold fronts stacked up with humidity dropping off noticeably followed by a period of pleasant weather cool enough to allow air conditioning to be turned off and windows and doors thrown open. Which hasn't happened for several years in my memory.

Earlier this week i noticed an early morning walk with Rusty on my day off produced a calamitous sensation of melting. We both had to pause after an hour and sit and get our composure back, Rusty panting and me dripping. I looked at my weather app and noticed north winds predicted for this weekend. Aha! I thought,m this humidity is the predictor of a mild early cold front, excellent.

Because that's how it works, first you get hot humid air pushed up from the south as air masses collide then the cold air from Up North starts to assert itself and winds start to clock round ("veer" in sailing talk) going from southeast to south and then southwest and then as dark clouds mass to the north the wind goes northwest and brings a line of rain which clears as the wind goes due north and honks and reduces temperatures to even a slow as 50 degrees in January or February. Which may not sound cold but it can be bone numbingly damp and windy and even visitors remark how cold it feels. We had a quick such blast last winter but it doesn't seem to last as long as it did, the cold snap season.

In November and December I enjoy cold fronts but by the time March rolls around I am ready for summer and swimming and fewer people, more heat and longer days. Getting dark at six o'clock when daylight savings ends in two weeks is really annoying, especially as dusk in the tropics is short and very abrupt when you live close to the equator so one minute it's day, the next it's night. In winter  it gets dark around 6pm or at most 6:30 while in summer it gets dark no later than 8:30 and at the moment its around 7:30 or so.

So when I got a lunch break and had forty minutes in hand in which to get some "shutter therapy"  I went to Higgs Beach.  Shutter therapy is so called by Robin Wong a photographer in Kuala Lumpur when he goes walkabout with his camera, and I find it a good way to exercise my legs and rest my mind when my dog isn't available. So there I was at Higgs Beach to find shadows and light and a desert of white sand and practice my black and white photography.

Key West's homeless population increases in winter oddly enough. Somehow they find their way down and they leave in Spring when the mosquitoes get more aggressive but just as  there is a permanent population in the city of people with homes there is a population year round of residentially challenged. The interesting thing  is that the city offers a multitude of  services including a free shelter and programs to get people off the street but for some, public living is preferable. The homeless don't bother me but what does bother me is when they are  a living symbol of social indifference. 

There is a population of working poor in Key West, the people who can't get into housing in this expensive city. First they can't pull together thousands of dollars for a deposit for a one room apartment. Consider that it may rent for $1500 a month which means a deposit could run you  $4500 to move in. Do that on a working salary...So instead  you end up sleeping at KOTS, the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter on Stock Island that gives everyone a chance to sleep in an air conditioned dormitory with showers and so forth. Dismal yes, but safe legal and dry. Key West is not the right destination for people hoping to start their lives on a wing and a prayer.  

For me, landing in Key West on my own boat, living for free at anchor and then in a marina was the way I eased into life one step at a time in a city that was never easy for newcomers. I had tried Key West earlier and found it too isolated but in the Internet era with a proper highway Key West was quite bearable and even enjoyable and somehow my wife and I found sensible jobs.  It is still something of a surprise to me that a town noted for it's vacation ethic to outsiders became the place where I settled down to a proper job, a career even and all almost by accident. 

In the hunt for winter light at Higgs Beach I found what I was looking for and at the African Cemetery I found a compass rose. It was as though it pointed the way forward with no idea how we will get through the winter but get through we most probably shall, with cold weather or not. 

Ratcheting Down The Rules

One reason I do not plan to retire in the Keys right away is that I want to make at least one more epic journey in my life before it's too late. My friends view me as well traveled and maybe I am but this time I want to push the boundaries a bit further than I have in the past, I want to explore further afield with fewer lifelines thanI have in the past and time is finite, I am growing old, darkness is closing in.  

The idea of retiring in the Keys at some later date is dependent on a  couple of factors. One is access which around here means affordability and the other is what to do in retirement. I have already established I am not a barfly. Sitting around drinking under the flickering gaze of  televisions screen in a crowded noisy room filled with people seeking oblivion does nothing for me. The other classic retirement activity is fishing and that holds no interest for me. I do my fishing at the market. So what do I do in an eventual Keys retirement? 

I have long enjoyed the fact that life in the Keys has been accepted as slightly off kilter, eccentric even. Key West has been home to non conformists and harmless types who don't fit in very well with mainstream but that has changed a lot already and continues to be forced out by wealthy conformists who neither understand nor appreciate non conformity.  Now the national marine sanctuary of all agencies is proposing reducing how local people get to use natural resources in the Keys.To me this is one more symptom of too many people in too small a space. Had you lived in the Keys in the 70s and came back now you would be unable to recognize this town for rules and restrictions. For me who has lived here a mere 20 years (and can remember Key West in the 1980s) the corset of public conformity is already too tight.

It is I suppose inevitable when people spend stupid sums of money to buy a house to live here that they then expect to be able to shape this community in the likeness of the restrictive and conformist world that they know Up North.  Had you bought a million dollar home in a gated community you'd expect to have parking and not to have bums and to have decent traffic flow and so forth. Around here the frustration of realizing you have simply bought a ridiculously expensive home in a community that lives permanently on the edge of chaos exacerbates every other difficulty. And then you find that people try to correct this misaligned way of doing things and that creates a whole new world of misunderstandings and irritations. So it is with the Marine Sanctuary. They had a meeting Tuesday night to discuss proposed new restrictions on public use of protected waters and according to the Citizen newspaper's reporter the meeting was a four hour harangue of the Sanctuary, its management past and present and its new proposals to protect marine life and spawning grounds.  

I haven't written about this fiasco previously because it seemed like there was a chance things might calm down but at this stage it doesn't seem very likely. Also he editor of the Citizen newspaper has published a rather severe commentary  wagging his finger at Facebook users who he says are inflaming the populace with false information. However he also admits the Sanctuary has said it will limit access to residents at several favored boating spots around the Middle and Lower Keys. Why would anyone be surprised locals are upset when told the plan is to reserve prime snorkeling sites to commercial boats? That there is time to comment on these new restrictions is not very encouraging to a populace used to seeing customary rights and privileges rescinded in the same of ecology or population control. Indeed the new rules will be written come what may, starting next February.

The editorial by Richard Tamborrino is worth reading in full but here is the nub:

Nothing’s been decided with certainty yet. Sure, the Sanctuary folks are partly culpable in terms of poor early communication. Initially, they were not clear about closing off Sanctuary protection areas to the public. Now they are clarifying it as closing some areas to dive operators who are not Blue Star certified. The Sanctuary wants to broaden the number of Blue Star Program operators (which recognizes those who complete training, conduct conservation activities and encourage responsible use). How and if individual users’ access would be limited continues to be open for public input and ideas.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Social media gives a voice to many who don’t deserve one. But even in a public setting, like Monday, when the Sanctuary kicked off the first of three public workshops at Key West High School, the anger was clearly ratcheted up.

Well there's something new to ponder, the press berating public comment in Facebook instead of in the pages of the newspaper. I have long advocated reading newspapers instead of relying on rumor and innuendo on Facebook, I am a believer in fact checking perhaps owing to my background as a radio reporter, but if the newspaper notices the tenor of debate on Facebook perhaps the newspaper should tackle the issue head on and in large print. Mandy Miles has left the Citizen which is not a good sign, and the Citizen getting into it with Facebook isn't much better. Being able to go boating and fishing is one of the pillars of life in Key West and its being restricted. The newspaper should notice.

I wonder how all this will end because as inconceivable as closing dive sites to boats may seem now this is just the first step on an endless road of limiting access to the waters around the Keys. It may be necessary or it may be excessive, you decide, but it won't stop here.In a decade it will be normal. On land I see similar encroachment all the time, which leads me to wonder if pretty streets and lanes will be enough for those of us who like to walk. They aren't enough for me though I do enjoy them.

The funny thing is that this is a generational problem. Talk to anyone who used to live here and discover how paradise lost its sheen for them years ago. Too expensive, too crowded, too restrictive are the recurring themes of exiles of all ages from this island paradise. So perhaps I have run my course and things have now got too restrictive and too limited and not quirky enough to contain my personality. I am reluctant to accept that notion as Key West has been the best home I've had in six decades of wandering. So here's the sum of things: do I return here after my next nomad adventure ? Do I not?  Who knows...I am certain the journey will change me and my perceptions and if there is to be a future somewhere Key West may well not be it. So the brief right now is to squeeze this moment in life, this suspension between now and the unknown future for all it is worth. 

I expect the Sanctuary managers will retreat a little bit, for now but like the Key Deer whose home range keeps expanding and clashing with humans, the reach of the marine regulations, whatever they are, will keep spreading. It may take a new generation to settle back and for a while enjoy what they view as ideal tropical living. I am reluctant to hang around and be heard grumbling "back in my day..." to anyone that might listen. "When I lived in Key West, back in the day....we were properly free to live as we wished....blah blah blah."I am fearful of becoming a bore in my own home which means a journey, a fresh perspective and new horizons are all absolutely necessary. So now I am entering that privileged first world state of being: a retiree. Less than three years is the countdown as my wife and I stand on the precipice of a whole new life.

While I look forward to writing these dispatches from the edge of human experience (Webb Chiles) I hope someone else will take on the task of photographing Key West as it evolves.

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.