Azur

The tourist trade still looks busier than you might think in Key West, though there are caveats to the financial well being one might expect from all the traffic there is still in town. The lodging association reports beds are still getting slept[t in though the nightly rates have dropped considerably from the crazy flights of the boom years. Restaurants still put knees under tables but patrons are choosing cheaper and sharing more, and everyone is running specials of one sort or another... These are hard times and I've noticed at night that Duval Street is wrapping it up early because this is family time, kids are out of school and bar flies just aren't there to get in trouble and start drunken fights and all the nastiness associated with winter revelers. In addition to being the times that try men's souls, these are also the times that favor established businesses and well known, reliable providers.

Thus it was that on my wife's first trip into town following shoulder surgery we met friends at Azur, a café that describes itself as Mediterranean in style and which my wife and I had never previously visited. The weather was crap outside and I previously published pictures of the down pour that accompanied our return home, but inside the restaurant offered a pleasant contrast to the gray outside, warm wooden floors and serene blue decor and a fascinating menu: Frankly I thought Carole's effort to be "good" yielded the least interesting result, a light and colorless frisee and endive salad with some olives and an appearance bland enough I didn't bother to taste it. This next one was my wife's $9 flat bread with lamb and it was as delicious as it looked:

If my wife's lamb had Eastern overtones, Kathy's flat bread was what I called the Jewish Mediterranean plate, based on lox and cream cheese:

My choice was perhaps not so adventurous but I enjoyed every bite of a fresh and genuine old favorite:

While I choose the Caprese sandwich, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes in proper Italian style, the idea was to share, as my wife says sharing food is part of the marriage vows in the Jewish culture. However, it turns out sharing ain't necessarily so if you've got the lamb flat bread and your husband has the very serviceable but not as alluring dish...but at least I got a taste of hers and she admitted my sandwich was entirely delicious, just not as delicious as hers.

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The service was attentive and not intrusive which is how I like it and we got all the iced tea we could have wanted (this was a working day for half the table). I was tempted to ask for a glass of milk to see how the French waitress would take such an outlandish American request, but I was trying to be on my best behavior, so I refrained. I think she would have coped just fine actually. Azur, which is on Grinnell at Fleming, offers breakfast all day and they have lots of standard egg dishes and pancakes along with Key Lime Pie (! for breakfast!!) or something called sweet Portuguese bread and even carbonara pasta (yes! for breakfast!!). It wasn't the day to eat outdoors but we will be back because this place has shot to the top of our short list of interesting, value packed places to eat. And it has a cozy bar to boot:

Furthermore to keep the interest up they offer various special deals to keep one coming back. Too bad they just closed the two-for-one breakfast deal this week. Pasta and Key Lime Pie for the price of one would have been decadence in high gear.

Rainy Season

The picture from the National Hurricane Center yesterday showed two areas of disturbed weather, neither of which promises to develop into a tropical cyclone as they merged into one big blob. Therein lies some good news as we get into the meaty part of hurricane season in the South Atlantic, Western Caribbean and Gulf Of Mexico. However, for two wheeled riders this week, Key West was a moderately unfriendly environment as streets flooded and cars became wave making machines on city streets:It so happened I was in Key West ferrying my wife around and I got to point and shoot from the comfort of the interior of my Nissan, and I have to admit the thought did cross my mind that it was nice not to be out and about on the Bonneville:Hard core BMW riders take their lumps, with a foul weather jacket, a helmet (of course) and bare legs and shoes to limit their exposure to the weather. I suppose this is what he has been waiting for with his go-anywhere GS: The rain came down suddenly around lunchtime and by the time we pushed our empty coffee cups away the streets were still being pounded and the storm drains had given up trying to move the water out of the streets. I have sat on my motorcycle in enough downpours to know that sitting and waiting can be the worst part, which was what I imagined this guy was thinking as he waited for cars to move along on Eaton Street:
And when they did move they created more waves such was the depth of the water. This is rainy season, though I haven't seen a decent down pour at Mile Marker 27 in ages. The rain has battered neighboring Summerland Key, and Big Pine Key but my island has been spared these scenes all of which I shot in Key West: It's actually rather annoying as my vegetable beds, holding on grimly through the heat of summer could use some rain, not to mention the fully grown palm trees and other shrubbery around my house...We drive home from key West in this appalling down pour and found ourselves barely able to see the traffic through the rain we had high hopes that ramrod key would be showered and fresh and wet. No such luck. It was like the gods were making rude faces at us and the rain petered out as we drive through Summerland key, still wet from recent rain. By the time we were on the bridge separating Summerland from Ramrod the rain was gone, the asphalt was dry and our hopes for rain at home were shriveled up.
They tell us this hurricane season should be lighter than usual, whatever that means, but all it takes is one direct hit and that makes for a rotten hurricane season for you. Nevertheless the wild guess/estimate of a light season is curiously heartening. "Phew! No storms this year, for the third year in a row!" I say to myself as though predictions were reality... And then suddenly a yellow shaded area appears in the Caribbean Basin and the reality of hurricane season is upon us, from now till November 30th. And the more immediate reality of summer thunderstorms, summer winds and summer rains. I want the rain, not the hurricanes.

Waves and Rocks

My wife recently took a week off in one of our favorite Central American destinations. No, not Costa Rica, but the Pacific Coast beach town of San Juan Del Sur, and one of the nicest hotels we've stayed in:

Piedras Y Olas means Rocks and Waves and is the brainchild of a friend of ours who sailed to Nicaragua decades ago and never got around to leaving. It's been a long struggles but Chris has created a world class hotel on the slopes above the little town of San Juan, using his hotel to improve the lives of locals and give visitors a world class destination resort:The hotel is built of local materials in the local style, a cascade of paths and vegetation between the rooms, the pools and the two restaurants on the property:

Chris keeps an assortment of refugee animals on his hotel grounds, local residents abandoned or ill treated who find refuge at Piedras Y Olas, including a pelican who I am told helps in the raising of kittens born on the property. Apparently the pelican keeps an eye on them and if they wander he scoops them up in his bill and returns the kittens to their mother:

Monkeys are frequently to be found abused and abandoned, often suffering severe personality defects as a result of their treatment by humans:

You get extraordinary views from the three infinity pools scattered around the grounds of the hotel, whose website is http://www.piedrasyolas.com/: The pools also offer ringside seats for the sunsets, as famous in San Juan as they are in Key West:

Part of the hotels raison d'etre is to provide a place for locals to train and learn how to work in first world hospitality industries. The American chef teaches Nicas how to cook gringo style using local ingredients:

All served under the Ramadas:

Development has come to San Juan, not only in the variety of businesses around town but also at the government docks that used to be pretty much moribund but nowadays see recreational boats lined up for maintenance:In the hills above the waterfront sits the Pelican Eyes resort, Piedras Y Olas, hidden in the foliage while on the beach there sits a multi story monstrosity that prosperity has brought to the town. San Juan's first high rise bang on the beach:

Hotel guests can opt for a day long excursion on the hotel sailboat, the 43-footer that Chris sailed down from California and that he has used to offer Nicaragua's only sailboat excursions ever since. The sailboat lives at anchor in the harbor and guests board via a trip from the docks on a motorboat.The sailboat is again met by the lancha, at the destination beach down the coast. The crew on the motorboat has previously landed the fixings for a beach side picnic and then takes the guests safely to the beach through the swells, from the anchored sailboat:Classic Pacific Coast shoreline in the tropics, abundant vegetation, granite rocks and long sandy beaches washes by tall tides and strong waves:

To gringo eyes I think it takes a certain amount of bravery to contemplate spending the best part of a day braving the swells of the Pacific Ocean in a wooden fishing boat with an uncertain outboard for company:

A view of San Juan Del Sur in the approaches. Beyond the last hill, twelve miles from the town lies the shore of Lake Nicaragua, a huge body of fresh water that generates powerful down drafts of wind along this section of Pacific Coastline:The ride back from the beach is usually less windy than the ride out but sailors will notice the double reefed main and scrap of head sail only, which is the remnant from the wild ride out to the beach:

And so, back to the anchorage, a final ride in the lancha to the docks and a short cab ride back to the hotel for a drink and dinner and a sunset view:

My wife admitted I was right, it was the restful week long vacation she needed and the boat ride was the highlight as always of a vacation spent in San Juan Del Sur.

Poorhouse Lane

Poorhouse Lane is a name that frequently evokes a grin. It sounds slightly daft in this day and age, but getting sent to the poorhouse in the 19th century was a dire fate on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. All that's left of the Key West poorhouse is the name, on the lane that fronts the cemetery at Windsor Lane:

Poorhouse Lane is one of three entrances to Bill Butler Park, written about previously in this bog. There are no benches in the park thanks to the collective punishment mentality that wants to deny the park to idlers, thus preventing others from resting there. And dog walkers are a common sight in this part of Old Town:
I was quite impressed by the canopy towering above my wife's borrowed Vespa.

And in the land of endless warnings and no trespassers we have a minor variation, "caution with the dog" doesn't carry quite the menace of the English language equivalent:
I was wondering at this next house who it was gets the step ladder out when the cook calls out for a handful of chives? Perhaps it's just grass growing up there - the lawn type I mean, not the smoking kind:
Poorhouse is a decidedly odd lane. I next found, rather like Alice in Wonderland, a cat behaving like a dog, I was quite surprised it didn't cock it's leg at the end of it's inspection:

Up above a taste of summer, those Bahama shutters thrust provocatively forward, offering shade and airflow, or at least airflow if the air conditioning were on the blink:

Of course no parking in the little alley, which is why I keep saying off street parking is so important in downtown Key West:

And in my continuing search for the Art of the Peculiar I found this thing that looks like a car tag but clearly is not. What it is I couldn't rightly say, but it appears to originate in Brazil which is exotic enough for most people:

Some people might dream of Copacabana, but others lust...

...after the simple life, a bicycle, a shady porch and thee, their little Conch cottage, Brazilian beaches be damned!

Turtle Beach

It is kind of weird to come to the end of White Street at 2:30 in the morning and find oneself fumbling for the high beam switch on the left handlebar. It's reminiscent of Key West after a hurricane to find the city plunged into darkness.

Parked on Smathers Beach with street lights out all that's left are the headlights of passing cars, or my headlight pointing at the Bridle Path on the inland side of the street. It's turtle nesting season from April 15th to October 31st and as a gesture to help the process along the city dims it's lights. Where there is no beach on South Roosevelt Boulevard, where the seawall fronts salt water directly and without the intercession of sand, street lights and hotels are lit up as normal:The idea is that turtles lay their eggs in the sand and leave them to get on with it. The hatchlings in the fullness of time appear in the sand and are apparently programmed to head for the moonlight reflected on the water. If the moonlight is overwhelmed by human made light inland the hatchlings will head for that instead: Because turtles are endangered lots of human changes have been made to help them along. Commercial fishermen have turtle excluder devices built into their nets which allow turtles to escape drowning (and fish too the fishermen complain). In Key West we dim our lights:

It's one of those gestures that help us believe there is good in the world and we can be part of it. But even though a dark beach is a thing of beauty, a darkened street can be rather nerve wracking, to my surprise.I read about the black out in World War Two England and it seems in their attempts to deny targets to night time bombing they inadvertently created a perilous situation for drivers and pedestrians in their darkened cities. Apparently the accident rate shot up even though fewer vehicles were on the roads and streets owing to war time restrictions. Trundling around our darkened beaches I am not at all surprised.

So, in the end this is what it looks like along the southern shores of Key West, anywhere there is a beach where a turtle could land make a nest. Dark in a good cause.