I am not a power sports kind of guy, though I did attend a few car races with my father in England in the 1960's, an era so far removed from the modern one I feel embarrassed to mention it, all goggles and leather gauntlets and cars that looked more like water beetles than racers at Goodwood. Later I trailed along behind my friends when we rode to motorcycle races, though I frankly preferred the ride to the destination being as how I am not fond of noise, though the smell of burnt castor oil is more aromatic than it sounds. Thus it was I had no desire to visit the boat races underway this week in Key West, but Fate had other plans:
It so happened my instructor at the college had a field trip organized to check out the engine systems on a Marine Sanctuary boat docked at the Eco Discovery center , which it so happens put us in the front row of the warm ups for the races:
The boat basin at the Truman Waterfront has long been a Federal preserve used by the Navy and now by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And for the week, high powered race boats:
We completed our field trip against a backdrop of wildly revving engines and circling boats being prepped for the races. My young classmates were entranced:
The boats zipped back and forth in the distance between Sunset Key and the Key West seawall overflown by helicopters whether for photographic or safety purposes, or both, I know not:
The boats were flying across the waters but I don't think it's much of a spectator sport to watch the little colorful boxes splatting their way back and forth in straight lines:
I knew a guy who raced to the Bahamas on these kinds of boats. Consider its 200 miles from Fort Lauderdale to Nassau and they covered the distance in a couple of hours, racing across the Gulf Stream, slipping onto the Great Bahama Bank at the Gun Cay cut which I've sailed through and is about 30 yards wide, which seemed narrow at 5 miles per hour, and crossing the bank in less than an hour, a feat that usually took me all night to accomplish on my sailboat. Mark told me the engineer controls the throttles and the helmsman does nothing more than steer, so slight are the margins. All under the cloud of deafening internal combustion noise. Definitely not my cup of tea. The boat races though appeal; to lots of people, of all ages:
Though women are a big part of the appeal I'm told, the camp followers as it were. Not exactly Betty Grable but I suppose it's all a matter of taste:
The real live women wandering the paddock (or whatever it's called in boat racing slang) were a small compensation doubtless for the KWPD officer directing traffic, who had been to my certain knowledge up all night already:
Times are tough everywhere and off duty work is a much valued source of extra income for police officers, especially in a town with a high cost of living, and off duty details are becoming scarce so officers grab them where they can. It's another way these events help bring cash to Key West. And women, let's not forget the women they bring:
Driving and talking simultaneously on a cell phone, just my kind of babe. Even if it is a golf cart it's still wrong. Of course it's not just women that keep the boats racing, it takes men too, including these apparitions in weird Steve Fossett style suits:
Some people think riding a motorcycle is dangerous but I can't say that I would feel any too good if I indulged in a sport that needed fire proof clothing. But there again the boat race women don't do much for me either. Add the noise, and this is clearly not my arena. Scooters though always appeal, however riding a scooter that matches your outfit is over the top for me:
If however the allure of racing fast boats cannot be resisted there is at least one for sale in Key West:
I have no idea no idea what a 46-foot Skater is but I can say with certainty that 179 miles per hour is outside my comfort zone. The fastest I've ridden a motorcycle is 125 miles per hour which is an ample sufficiency. Going 150 miles per hour on the water would require kidneys made of rubber, and mine aren't. However if you haven't got a spare half mill right now (and who does these days?) there are bargains to be had:
Cut price too, however I passed. But there was one part of the boat race thing I could enjoy, a cheerful outdoor picnic with friends:
Cheapskates. We need them spending money in restaurants.
The real live women wandering the paddock (or whatever it's called in boat racing slang) were a small compensation doubtless for the KWPD officer directing traffic, who had been to my certain knowledge up all night already:Times are tough everywhere and off duty work is a much valued source of extra income for police officers, especially in a town with a high cost of living, and off duty details are becoming scarce so officers grab them where they can. It's another way these events help bring cash to Key West. And women, let's not forget the women they bring:Driving and talking simultaneously on a cell phone, just my kind of babe. Even if it is a golf cart it's still wrong. Of course it's not just women that keep the boats racing, it takes men too, including these apparitions in weird Steve Fossett style suits:Some people think riding a motorcycle is dangerous but I can't say that I would feel any too good if I indulged in a sport that needed fire proof clothing. But there again the boat race women don't do much for me either. Add the noise, and this is clearly not my arena. Scooters though always appeal, however riding a scooter that matches your outfit is over the top for me:If however the allure of racing fast boats cannot be resisted there is at least one for sale in Key West:I have no idea no idea what a 46-foot Skater is but I can say with certainty that 179 miles per hour is outside my comfort zone. The fastest I've ridden a motorcycle is 125 miles per hour which is an ample sufficiency. Going 150 miles per hour on the water would require kidneys made of rubber, and mine aren't. However if you haven't got a spare half mill right now (and who does these days?) there are bargains to be had:Cut price too, however I passed. But there was one part of the boat race thing I could enjoy, a cheerful outdoor picnic with friends:Cheapskates. We need them spending money in restaurants.
It is winter now in the Florida Keys, a season barely discerned compared to many places further North, but here nevertheless. The easy way to figure it out is the fact that I am riding home from my job as the sun is starting to appear over the horizon. That's because four days ago we switched to summer time and moved sunrise from around seven am back to around six in the morning.
This change more than anything brings home the fact of winter being upon us. Highway One on the Boca Chica bridge is bathed in that peculiarly gentle light that comes just before the dawn. When I used to spend time at sea on my sailboat I was always anxious to see the first signs of dawn after a night out on the water, the gradually apparent waves in the gray first light were proof that another night watch was in the bag.
In the same way for me, the ride home is no longer the night time adventure it was, just last week. I am like a good many people I hear from who would like to see summer time maintained right through the winter but at these latitudes the difference between night and day is very reduced compared to places at higher latitudes. That also means temperatures are much more even throughout the year.
Yet blood really does thin and when I leave the police station at six, there is dew covering the Bonneville, and the air does feel cold on my skin even though the temperature gauge shows a hair under 80 degrees (27C). These are the temperatures that residents of the temperate zones consider to be ideal summer weather, low humidity, pleasant sleeping temperatures and so forth. The mosquito activity has plummeted of course, helped along by Mosquito Vector Control trucks buzzing round our neighborhoods, but I for one don't enjoy the lack of humidity so much. My hair feels like straw and my fingernails feel brittle and my joints aren't as lubricated; I miss the very humidity that frightens so many people away from Florida.
This is the time of year I enjoyed living on a boat, with the air conditioning turned off, the hatches open to the stars and that cooling breeze funneling into the boat so strongly one needed to sleep under a blanket. At home the tyranny of the closed doors is over for a while. No longer do we have to slide the doors closed behind us lest we let out that precious expensive, dehumidified air.
It's the paradox of summer: to enjoy the hot sticky air outdoors but to demand a dry cool atmosphere indoors. There's nothing quite like putting on warm clothes that have been stewing gently in your closet, or picking up a book bearing the deadly speckled dots of fatal fungus disease. Air conditioning solves those issues, and makes for a pleasant refuge, a place to duck into when the heat overwhelms, especially on those rare days when there isn't a breeze blowing across the Keys. This is the out door time of year. Mornings are fresh and cool and the sunrise is welcomed as it illuminates the tops of the trees.
For some people, weak people, wussies, this is the time of year to wheel out the motorcycle as the sun is lower on the horizon and has lost some of it's summer strength. My Bonneville doesn't get the luxury of a season of rest. It is under the house always ready to go:
18,000 miles (29,000 kilometers) in the last 13 months.
It's a funny old name for a park that might otherwise be known simply as "The Bird Sanctuary" but Indigenous is what it's called and the ubiquitous Sonny McCoy, the outgoing county commissioner was involved in this one too:
The park is located across from Rest Beach, which is the short strip of beach east of the White Street Pier. It is right next to the Southernmost 
And the access to the park is tucked away between some bushes next to the 
Indigenous Park is worth a visit for lovers of birds, particularly chickens:
The park has an expansive decked area, human restrooms and a bird recovery area for fowl discovered in need of help:
Indigenous Park is an excellent resource for people who find injured birds, they have boxes at the park where one can place the birds overnight and they will be picked up and cared for by the volunteers in the morning. And speaking of volunteers Karen is the leader on that front but she told me she is getting weary and needs someone to take over leadership of this intensive task:
I first came to appreciate the park when I came across a dazed and confused pigeon while stopping off for dinner in Homestead. I snagged a cardboard box, put the bird in it and dropped the bird off at Indigenous around midnight. Next morning I checked in and the volunteer told me the bird was 
The part I like best about Indigenous Park is the back area, an overgrown forest of greenery and light, with cement trails winding between the trees:
The stuff of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil...
And as I strolled through the gardens I heard an appalling screech out of the branches overhead. All I could see in the shadows created by the bright sunny day was a russet colored bird:
I had not a clue what the bird might be but I came across an avid birder, a man who fell in step with me and told tales of bird spotting across the Americas. He tweeted and whooped and 
He squinted at the picture in my camera and 
And we meandered back to the 
In the parking lot we parted ways with expressions of mutual good will and we never even exchanged names. It was enough to be in the right place at the right time. Check it out, Indigenous Park, you never know what you might find.
I have been on Duval Street quite a bit lately, partly because Fall is the quietest time of year downtown, fewer people (outside of Fantasy Fest) clogging up the sidewalks, so I like to spend a bit more time down there until the flocks of busy snowbirds displace me, like chickens shoving aside the ibis. Then of course we all, except Hawaii, Arizona, Puerto Rico the Virgin Islands, half of Indiana, Guam and American Samoa, have to go through the brain busting time change. I like the fact that we are doing it a few weeks later than the rest of the world, and as a bonus Havana's Radio Reloj time checks match ours once again. The negative is that the sun is in my eyes when I commute into Key West in the evening, and it starts to get light as soon as I leave the police station in the morning, which give great dawns on the ride home but it's full daylight as I go to bed. It was even worse last year when they asked me to work days and I felt like a vampire, denied sunlight every workday through the winter.
"Shop keeper going to work" he joked as I snapped his picture. He's been working at Fast Bucks for thirty years, managing an environment that would make most people go mad with all the drama and difficulty of maintaining a capable work force. He seems to thrive on it. This guy looked like he was ready for a joust at the La Concha parking lot behind Fast Bucks. He was in fact making room for a cement truck to maneuver out of the parking lot: 
Actually it's a sensible way to keep the poinciana branches from dipping too low over Whitehead Street and he was going at them with a will:
It was a slow procession as he clipped, with co-workers on the ground feeding his clipping into a chipper that sounded like the advanced guard for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as it whined and shrieked as it ate the branches. I was glad I do my day time sleeping far, far away. When I hear the sound of a siren or I spot a fire truck "running code" my first thought is I'm glad to be enjoying my day off, but sometimes I see a fire truck waiting at a light and it's not one of ours: 
The Naval Air Station Fire department has specialised equipment that can come in very useful. They sent a truck to a fuel tanker that caught fire on the seven mile bridge and it was thanks to their foam truck that the tanker fire was put out as fast as it was (the bridge was closed for two days after that accident, which led to surprising numbers of shortages in Key West).
At $102 for an annual subscription (plus a Christmas tip to the driver!) I find the daily paper to be a bargain yes, but indispensable. And for those that denigrate the Citizen, "the mullet wrapper," you won't find me among them. I admire the level of reporting in our small town independent paper. The paper seems like a helluva deal compared to the cost of some fashionable eye wear, like sunglasses:
Street washing can't be much fun but they do get city benefits for their work. There are other corners where some clean up might come in handy too:
Complaints surface from time to time about noisy small motors in the city. Some people object to blowers and the like which add to the general noisiness of a busy small town and electric motors are much appreciated like the first one pictured:
This guy's big job at the start of the day was to organize himself a cigarette as he absorbed the first warming rays of sunshine:
I met a dog walker on Bahama Street as I made my way back to the Bonneville which I'd parked in front of Old City Hall. And as the dog walker and I crossed paths this guy popped out doing his job of guarding his upstairs landing:
And the last picture in my essay on workers in and around downtown I caught one of the Police department's motor units pulling over a scooter:
Always a healthy reminder for me what it means when an officer clears a traffic stop over the radio with "One citation." And that's a crappy start to the day, for anyone.