Yamaha is still building the SR400 single cylinder motorcycle after 30 years in production. The 500cc version sold in Europe and North America was my first Japanese motorcycle after several "exotic" Italian machines and I bought it in 1979 principally for a trip across North and Central Africa, a trip that foundered when I reached Yaounde, Cameroon, where I got hospitalized with hepatitis, but the Yamaha rolled on and on without effort. Lightweight, comfortable and a total nostalgia trip it was the bike that taught me how to kick start a big four stroke single.The Italian magazine Motociclismo says the SR400 for the home market, reduced in cubic capacity to fit into Japanese tax and licensing laws, remains firmly in production and has a solid future as it is now equipped with fuel injection. I would love a test ride to see if my pink tinted nostalgia were real or phony. Perhaps I am better off not knowing and just playing the happy memories in my head. Perhaps not.
She isn't yet well enough to climb the ladder to get back into the boat after a swim so we have been forced to go swimming off the beach and I find I have missed being out on the water in my little boat. 
Wisteria Island, known locally as Christmas Tree Island thanks to all the casuarina trees on it, is a product of the harbor dredging over the years. It can be seen in the picture above. It's privately owned and so far unable to be developed. It is pretty much reserved as a dog walking area for people living at anchor around the island. There is talk of developing the island from time to time but unlike Sunset Key it has no utility services which makes everything more expensive. Some wags have suggested, rather sensibly in my opinion, turning it into a clothing optional park...
My wife was taking inordinately long so I rode round to the White Street Pier to get some pictures of the boats out on the water: 
I've mentioned elsewhere that I have an annual State Parks pass which makes the decision to go and hang out at one of the nicest beaches in the Keys pretty easy:
I like to swim but for visitors from out of town the relatively clear waters of the Keys make snorkeling a worthwhile activity: 
Not forgetting the abundance of palm trees:
For some people seagulls are rats with feathers, for others they are objects of fascination:
It's a tough life hanging out at the beach in the keys in September.
This is a family park, supervised by rangers where alcohol is sort of not allowed and fights and rowdiness are definitely not allowed which means this is a good place for the generations to mix:
And before w we get carried away let's check out those casuarina trees one more time. This is the place where a public uproar guaranteed these pines would not be removed for at least another decade. So called Australian pines are a source of irritation in South Florida between scientists and members of the public. Scientists argue these trees are non native, acidic in nature and thus prevent other native growth and though the trees provide shade they do not provide food for native animals and migrating birds. Lots of birds come charging through the Keys to and from the Caribbean each year it seems. 
Supporters of the pines got their knickers seriously twisted when plans were announced by the Park Service to tear them up and replace them with piddly little native shrubs and cement ramadas to provide shade while the bushes grew. The Park Service underestimated the popular revolt and after hearings and shouting matches and innumerable letters to the Editor the Park Service yielded and here we are with pines intact. 
You can see the point of both sides, especially if you live in Key West and would like to retain one, bum-free, shady spot to hang out by the water. The Park Service, in my opinion, would have done better to import a few decent sized native trees and started encroaching on the casuarinas piecemeal by showing that sea grapes and buttonwoods can grow to full size and provide decent shade. The funny thing was that after the people won the fight the Park Service was forced to waste $200,000 shoring up the pines which were getting eroded around their bases. Very funny of course at a time of shrinking park funds...Key West inspires passion so I suppose it's inevitable that shade trees will do the same.
On the other hand, here we are almost to October and people are still swimming happily in the salt waters of the Straits of Florida: 
I don't know how much longer I will keep swimming. My wife and I were sitting out watching the sun do it's thing from our porch Sunday evening and we remarked the temperatures seem to be dropping a tiny little bit. Not enough for sweatshirts and pullovers just yet.
Indeed this is the perfect time for a picnic at the Fort, no crowds, not suffocatingly hot (by local standards) with a slight but appreciated sea breeze:
Though the sun is hot enough to tan by, apparently:
Construction began at the fort in 1845 according to the indispensable The Streets of Key West, by J Wills Burke, who says a major storm wiped out the fort's beginnings in 1846 and work had to be started all over again. Before the harbor was dredged for modern shipping and the spoil piled up around the fort, it was in fact conceived as an island at the end of a human built causeway:
Today I content myself with looking out to sea, dipping into my book and alternating with a few sporadic photographs to remind myself of the pleasure of a few moments snatched from the day and spent doing next to nothing at the water's edge.
The empty parking lot on a gorgeous September afternoon will not be replicated during the winter months so I figured it was worth noting, in passing:
And so to work, ready for a night of answering 9-1-1 calls.
This is a Proper Photographer, with a real camera and a multiplicity of lenses. I keep wanting a single lens digital reflex to get "better" pictures but I end up thinking what the hell, this is as good as it will get and you can't haul one of those things around in your pocket. My Canon SX100 does me quite nicely I find:
The morning after the night before. He was quite polite when we crossed paths, he made eye contact and everything. I wanted to ask him where he spent the night because clearly Officer Biskup couldn't find him... 
Like I said at the beginning, wholesomeness on Duval is a difficult commodity to spot. You want wholesome you need Disney, where the Pirates of the Caribbean don't suffer from body odor issues, I'm told:
As if you needed the confirmation, cause and effect:
This next one is for cpa1234 who, we discover, likes women's bottoms. I don't of course but I thought they looked like a very wholesome and energetic pair of visitors. 
Riding a bicycle in Key West is not necessarily a way to burn calories. It can just be a way to get where you are going while saying "hi!" to your neighbors as you roll by:
I should have saved this next picture for use in the dead of winter when the rest of the country has been immersed in gray for months, but then I thought, there'll be lots more pictures of sunshine by then. As you can see the sun is strong enough this early to completely burn off the face of a visitor who is not used to the sub tropical sun. His companion seems better adapted to the climate. Either that or I had my camera on the wrong exposure setting:
If you listened to my wife's friends, mine is "pain-in-the-ass-with-a-squeeze-box" but perhaps they'd prefer this one: 
It's hard to imagine there are pests on Duval. I wanted to point out a couple sleeping in doorways but he didn't look like the type to appreciate an early morning existential extermination joke:
Rush hour was building. It is legal to ride on sidewalks in Florida as long as you yield to pedestrians.
But mopeds and scooters have to stick to the street. Even ones carrying large laundry bags:
Harry Houdini preparing his sunset act: "Escape from a Toolbox."
The sun is up and it's long past my bedtime because the former Wachovia building is by now fully illuminated.