The Beaches

Checking the sign below you'll notice that Higgs beach is owned by Monroe County even though it is surrounded on all sides by the City of Key West. The signs are clear and the beach is empty. 

There are a few people wandering around keeping proper distances from each other and enjoying some fresh air and exercise.

The chickens are there of course which is not surprising as they live there and are enjoying a relatively human-free life which I dare say involves seeing fewer scraps too.

The African cemetery is open. That's the monument to the slave ship detained en route to Havana whose unhappy human cargo was rescued and brought to Key West where many died and others were shipped back to an uncertain fate in West Africa.

 For some, beach restrictions don't hold them back, for they are on the high seas:

 For others the most you can get is a perch from which to admire the waves and turquoise waters:

 Children's playground: as empty as if it were 4 am.

 Passersby on foot and on wheels and not very many of either.

Smathers Beach had a few souls littering its vast expanse but they were not exactly bunched up crowds. It looked more like a handful of local unemployed enjoying for once what so many come to Florida to vacation on: golden sand.

Miles of emptiness even in a  town as small as Key West. Closed to outsiders and living with remarkably little confirmed coronavirus. I wonder if possibly isolation actually does work like the scientists told us?

Some Pretty Pictures

We live in a state of suspended animation but photographs must be taken all the same. A moored boat at dawn, bathed in the weird pink glow of early morning light. Bear in mind that temperatures are in the 90s by the middle of the day so if you were thinking dew or frost or visible breath, that wasn't happening. Thank God.

There has been the beach opening fiasco in Jacksonville where the governor said open the beaches if you can do it safely and of course it was about as unsafe a display of crowding as the Sunshine State can put on. If you live in a boring state that never makes the news I can only sympathize. I thoroughly enjoy a pratfall (my wife abhors this trait in me) and to live even only peripherally in the afterglow of the exploits of Florida Man tickles my funny bone. I managed to annoy my colleagues by looking at the link and falling out of my chair laughing. Feel free to react with disdain.

So when the Governor says he is allowing beaches to open "if  it is done safely" you just know it will be a train wreck and of course it was in best Florida Man style. The pictures of people crowding the beach was a throwback to the world before coronavirus. Before you get all sniffy at Florida and our capacity for stupidity, much as my relatives in North Carolina like to do, consider the lock down reaction Up North  where people carrying guns marched around waving flags and looking grim and serious protesting the usurpation of their various constitutions. I much prefer the Florida way of mass cheerful stupidity. 

The beaches in Key West are still closed the mayor hastened to proclaim after barricades started to be moved gently aside and people took to the sand.  Nothing has changed here. On the plus side the Governor has made it clear that schools will not reopen this semester so that issue is settled. My wife has found teaching from home far harder than doing it in the classroom even after we set her up with a desk and monitors and a lovely view across the canal. As much as she knows she has to stay isolated as she has a compromised immune system, she is looking forward to being in her classroom again. Safety first and teaching from home is the best solution for her, certainly.

I continue to hunt for unconsidered trifles on Rusty's mangrove walks. I have seen videos from European photographers, many of them professionals, who are earning no money in this long anxious lock down over there. They can't leave home, they can't work and they can only photograph their gardens at best. I at least get to walk my dog with a camera, go to work with my camera and be socially distant with my camera. Even so I am learning that whether or not you photograph people, human activity leaves behind much of interest to the lens. You notice things in their absence. 

I am struggling to notice things that are more apparent that have always been lolling there pushed into the background by more absorbing activity. Ooh look, a cement crack in a utility pad!  Excellent, how can I make that look like the Grand Canyon? I can't? Oh well. 

The inevitable spandex warrior swished by as I stared hard seeking inspiration from a bright orange leaf....Hey! I wanted to call out, come back, can I photograph your sprocket?  But he was gone, a disappearing speck of high visibility yellow taking all his photographic possibilities with him. Drat.  

 I have noticed this past weekend how dark it is outside when the moon is new as I live on a street with no street lights. A couple of nervous neighbors have outside lights on as though to attract burglars like moths but most of the street is pitch black. Rusty disappears into the void and I follow with a flashlight. So it is that I am missing the moon for a few days. If you can't remember what it looks like here it is:

 Lacking people trees have figured prominently in my repertoire, sunrise in color...

 ....windy in black and white:

Coronavirus? I can't remember anything about that while I'm looking for beauty in this messed up world.

Our Haunted House

We had tickets to the theater when the coronavirus hit the fan. So much for that. I can confirm the Waterfront is still here but I haven't seen the Red Barn as the driveway to that theater is locked. Coronavirus may have swept it away as it seems to be sweeping away every civilized thing in its path.

The Pez Garden is still there happily even though that too is locked. They call it the Pez Garden in Key West as the notable citizens represented there are depicted by bronze busts stuck on long rectangular pillars that look like nothing quite so much as Pez dispensers.

They look like this, below, but this one is separate placed next to the building that was named after him, thus he is outside the locked Sculpture Garden next to Mallory Square.

You can see why they named the old courthouse after him. I wonder how his eminence would have coped with the coronavirus? One likes to think he would have navigated the crisis like a gentleman.

Back in the alleyway between the Waterfront Theater and El Meson de Pepe we find the ficus roots taking over the old coral wall and very artistic it is too:

Cigars we were once worth more to Key West than pirates, though pirates that never existed in Key West are more glamorous:

Lots of parking if you need some and no valets to assist you either. Parking meters aren't working at the moment either so you know the fabric of civilization is rending just a little bit.

Rusty was surprisingly enterprising at the edge of the dark black sloppy ocean waters. The glass bottom boat is parked (and locked) for the duration in case you had some mad idea things were getting back to normal.

The weird thing is people are still calling the police department asking if they can come down for a visit. And they don't seem that thrilled to be told that no, the road is closed to non residents and hotels are closed. "Does that include air B and Bs?" asked one hopeful dimwit. He seemed surprised when I told him two people have been arrested so far for trying to rent vacation rooms.

There is no doubt everyone wants things to start back up but even though I don't really understand the mechanism of transmission of this weird virus, it seems to pop back up when people clump together. So do you leave the cities empty and people out of work like this?

Or do we risk a lot more people getting ill in a hurry and overwhelming hospitals? I think social distancing in Florida has been obviously pretty hit or miss and  now its getting worse as proposals to ease up start leaking in certain communities. We are lucky as long as the Sheriff holds the roads closed at the county line but Up Noprth we have seen people clumping on beaches in Jacksonville. 

I'd like to give them time to see what happens before we go whole hog down here. If in three weeks Jacksonville isn't a hot spot I say we go for it...but let them be the guinea pigs first as they seem keen to throw caution to the wind. I don't mean to imply anyone's  asking my opinion but honestly I'm not keen to be the first to open the door into the haunted house. 

It's quite possible there are no ghosts behind the closed door, and perhaps there isn't much virus in South Florida but what if there is?

So for now the shops are closed, the restaurants are either closed or restricted to outside service and the town lumbers along like a ghost town.

I spend my walks keeping one eye on Rusty who keeps an eye on me and together we meander empty streets and I dare say streets that have fewer interesting smells for a small brown dog to track down.

I expect there is less food for the wild birds too now that drunks aren't dropping pizza slices everywhere.

And even though the lights shine on in the dark the bills will come due at some point.

This dock line clamped tight around a cleat seemed like a good metaphor for our situation, hanging on for all we are worth until something changes. 

Till then follow Rusty's example and keep smiling. 

Key West Still Closed

I hear the plans are for a return to some sort of economic activity before long. These kinds of pictures I can take if I get up in the middle of the night whether or not the town is shut down. However just at the moment getting in the car at four in the morning just isn't necessary at the moment with the city shut down. This attractive pile is a real estate office not a stone's throw from Mile Zero. Behind it you can see the entrance to the old jail in the Jefferson Browne building. You can see  no people and neither could I.

then I turned to my right and took this picture of the empty main post office. It put me in mind of the post office's  plea for coronavirus funding which was denied even as airlines got theirs.  

Mile Zero with no one around. There are lots of souvenirs available if you need them. Not that you can buy them in person right now. Speculation is how much e-commerce will be inspired to ship stuff all over the place from Key West. Perhaps you won't need to be an actual tourist, just order your Mile Zero key chain on line and get it shipped. I expect you can do that now it's just becoming a more obvious way to do everything now it seems.

In normal times I'd never bother to notice this  sign. It has a nice nostalgic ring to it now, imagining a street full of people and dogs. Not the sort of scene you can find today. 

"Coming Soon -March 15th"  frozen in time. Properly lit up at the Tropic Cinema but as abandoned as if in a zombie apocalypse.

Not every empty store front can possibly be virus related. Can it?

Leaves piling up on Duval Street. Not a permanent feature of life but evocative of the times we are living.

The bar closed tight, the city darkened.

The sidewalks are repaired, up next is repaving while no one is around on Duval Street.

A slow walk through a dead city.

Rusty doesn't care as long as we get time together.