Waterfront

The Railway Condos as seen from the ground on Grinnell Street are clearly newer construction, modern with parking underneath the units and decent landscaping.

However when seen from the top of the parking garage on the other side of Grinnell, the eagle eyed observer will note the even taller and more imposing block of Steam Plant condos. The difference? About $1.4 million to buy the different units. 

Originally the Steam Plant units built in a converted steam to electricity generating plant were offered at nearly three million each with private elevators from the basement garage and private pools on the rooftops but times were tough apparently and some lucky buyers got cut price condos before they sold out. The Railway Condos are named for Flagler's railway which ended up in a terminus built on excavated soil up the street at what is now the Coastguard Base. They were sold as price controlled affordable quarter million dollar homes for local workers. 

The Steam Plant used to generate electricity for the city and spewed waste water into the harbor near where the loving couple above were sitting and enjoying the view. Those lovely waters used to be known as the toxic triangle thanks to the steam plant effluent. I had a friend who kept his boat on the seawall and he thought it was easier than living at anchor. True enough but that wasn't convenience I wanted and I stayed in the purer waters outside the harbor.

Nowadays the old shrimp boat free-for-all in the Bight has become a sedate and proper recreational boat harbor with several marinas dotted around inside the breakwaters. The public is welcome to walk the city owned boardwalk but rules abound.

The city very cleverly kept ownership of the Bight and rented space out to the various businesses which pay rent to the city. It was a smart deal, a reminder that Key West does not have to give everything it values away.

Bight in nautical terms means an indentation in the coastline suitable for a harbor, but most people don't know that. So instead of a "bite" the city now owns an "Historic Seaport" which sounds much more appealing. I suppose that's one reason I will stick to calling this the Key West Bight. 

The city offers dinghy dockage for a modest fee of $96 a month which gives people who live at anchor easy access to downtown. Actually Key West offers quite a few facilities beyond docking your boat if you live cheap at anchor. The homeless and hopeless have access to soup kitchens, sleeping space for the homeless, mental health facilities and low/no cost medical and dental clinics. People in house sometimes conflate  living on a  boat with being homeless...

From the city's website:

• Dinghy Dockage Rates: $7.15 per day or $31.90 per week or $95.70 per month (13 foot maximum)
• Private Dinghy Slip: $192.50 per month
• Shower Use: $24.20 per week or $71.50 per month plus $25.00 for the key deposit

On a bright sunny day with modest winds and tiny ripples it looks lovely. On a hot thundery summer's night in a tropical downpour the commute may look less attractive and in winter cold fronts can honk the waves over the breakwater.

It may not be sailing for sure, but it is cheap living in a notoriously pricey town. A boat, an anchor, a bicycle and a desire to look hardy and romantic keeps the dreamers coming. Soon they stop sailing and they sit at anchor more and more involved in town issues and working while less and less sailing and exploring takes place.

And if perchance you do head out best send the crew forward to bring in the lines and fenders. Its a romantic life all right!

Always lots to see at The Bight  Key West's Old Historic Seaport...

Turtle Kraals is being transformed into the Boathouse which occupied a space further round the harbor.  Slowly the historic connections to turtle slaughter and commercial fishing will evaporate from the waterfront entirely.

Fishing too can be a spectator sport now, a selfie opportunity, a moment of fun.

The hard drinking, hard fishing commercial fishermen with Cuban accents and white shorty rubber boots ("Stock Island Nikes" is their ironic name) are relegated to the next island over where you can see them behind fencing, like creatures in a  zoo preparing their traps and living their lives oblivious to the tourist mecca of the historic Key West Bight.

I took these photos a few years back but nothing much has changed.  

It's not the tourist water front of the Historic Seaport.

Hemingway wrote about this world of boating in To Have And To Have Not except in his day, during the Great Depression, fishing drama played out in Key West.

Five miles and a different world. 

Barricades

The Florida Keys by their nature offer limited opportunities to spread out on land. When you live near the end of a 120 mile chain of narrow flat islands you aren't going to have many wilderness hang outs. I have my favorite on West Summerland Key in sight of the Old Bahia Honda Bridge, a location that shows up frequently on this page. I was there yesterday thoroughly enjoying the sun and a cool breeze and I was not alone.

I have spent the night along the seawall and enjoyed the relative quiet even though I slept just below the highway, pretty much out of sight and at peace with the world. The track became viable after Hurricane Irma tore down the trees and the state decided to build up the wall with rip rap and gravel which anglers drove out on and flattened into a bumpy but viable trail.  Some enterprising folk then drove all the way out to the point and left some rather ostentatious campsites with fire rings and the usual trash...

I knew it wouldn't last...it couldn't last and this small privilege has come to an end of course. You won't see pictures of Gannet 2 here again:

I wasn't therefore shocked when I came back and found these cement barricades, a stock item used by county and state governments in the Keys to close off the few dirt trails to all terrain vehicles seeking some off road fun.

For someone like me (and Rusty) who like to walk the barriers will actually work to our advantage as most people seem to find locomotion too arduous and now that motors are effectively banned we will be alone out on the point. In fact a fisherman did just that yesterday, parking his truck here and venturing no further on foot with his rod.

I would also like to think we will walk trash-free. I take pictures and leave footprints and I carry a bag for those occasions Rusty feels moved to extrude an egg or two. Like the half-wild dingo he is, he likes to dump on the edge of the trail, unobtrusively, and leave little trace which I have to find and remove, not always easy. 

I confess I was surprised to see tracks coming straight down off the highway here a couple of weeks ago. I guess I wasn't alone in my astonishment because they aren't doing that again!

It seems as though the state had barricades to spare as they put them everywhere, carefully butted up to impenetrable tree trunks where possible. 

This one surprised me, carefully placed between two trees to avoid end runs by determined drivers, on a trail that didn't exist last year. Somone checked it out, someone else followed and then the trail was marked and became, as you can see, established.

I used to walk out here picking my way through the grasses until this freeway was trampled through the grass.  I also found some graffiti, high flown sentiments written in indelible marker on a plank. I took the picture and moved it back up out of the way where I found it. 

The great thing about this spot is that there is no beach, no sand, no attraction for people to come and feel like they are in a postcard. To me that makes it doubly attractive as people stop their cars, take a look, walk a bit maybe and then take off again. 

Rusty enjoyed his walks and then took a philosophical approach to change in the Keys. Change is inevitable he said and its rarely for the better when too many people want to jostle in too little space. He has a point.

Overseas Market

I wondered if Rusty might enjoy walking the back alleys behind the shopping centers of New Town. Usually I take him downtown to walk the smells of Lower Duval around the bars and discarded hot dog buns at four in the morning on my days off.

When we travel these kinds of walks are much more the norm because before we got the van and slept in hotels, shopping centers and vast  empty parking lots are the most convenient open spaces near the hotels. 

So I asked myself, perhaps he'd like to walk here for a change?

Our first foray to Searstown was such a success I repeated the experiment behind Overseas Market.

Four thirty in the morning is the ideal time to social distance.

All alone.

Perfect.

And Rusty couldn't get enough of it, back and forth for more than an hour.

Even here there are mangrove hideaways.

Industrial Key West and abstract art!

A convenient parking space for a commuter who lives at anchor and uses the Salt Run Creek under North Roosevelt as his road to a daily routine:

This place used to be called Shimp (sic) Daddy's and now it's Biggie's. I hadn't heard about the change in name, which when you work 911 is probably a good thing.

Interior Design!

And exterior maintenance:

And some rather less than salubrious exteriors too. 

Pay attention, even during Spring Break:

Our of focus art, the picture above on my first attempt...

He liked it and I did too so I guess we will be back.

Who needs Mallory Square?