Dear Oh Deer

One couldn't be quite sure were they gamboling or running away, but they were in fact tired of being watched and they split the scene. Key deer dive into the underbrush and vanish. Once they are out of sight they are gone completely. No Name Key has produced a fair crop of deer this year which either means they are showing up in public looking for food or they are reproducing at high speed because there are lots around. I don't think the drought helps because greenery is withered everywhere this year.I don't often come to No Name Key in the summer months. What makes the island so pleasant in winter cold fronts makes it terribly hot in summer. All those trees keep the winds at bay and the trails are much warmer in a cold north wind than you would expect.And you wouldn't expect to find people fishing under the full Florida sun, but it takes more than that to keep the fanatics away, apparently.I followed a big old construction truck from the gravel quarry on No Name Key across Big Pine Key and I can only figure the driver was from out of town because every time a Key Deer poked it's head out on the grass verge the big old truck lumbered to a stop as the driver stared at the deer. Locals pretend to be blasé about the deer so when I see them I stop and photograph them to prove I'm just a visitor.I caught this one sticking it's tongue out at me, so I did the same back. Cheeky bugger. They are quite rude these deer. This one was completely ignoring one more of those signs favored in the Keys to tell people what to do and what not to do. I was surprised to see Key Deer type animals photographed in St Johns, US VI, by this resident of the British Virgins: http://thebvis.blogspot.com/ She took a vacation across the water and met a Key deer. I had no idea Key Deer lived abroad too.

Flagler Dawn

Fire Station Three looks like the Alamo as the sun comes up around six in the morning. We are approaching the longest day and photo opportunities must be snagged now if they appear on the ride home. So I stopped my headlong flight home and took the time to get the picture I had seen in my head for the past week. In summer I usually use Flagler Avenue to get into and out of town. When traffic is lighter there are just a couple of traffic lights on this street as opposed to the crappy surface and numerous lights on North Roosevelt Boulevard. In winter Flagler seems to get as crowded as North Roosevelt and the advantage of long empty ride through town gets lost. Tourists take North or South Roosevelt when they come to town, to head either to Duval (North) or the beaches (South) but you can't hide a thoroughfare like Flagler from the snowbirds, so in winter it gets crowded...The back side of the fire station, facing Flagler is just another blank wall. Forget the Alamo comparison! Habana Plaza got an art deco type face light after Hurricane Wilma flooded the place from the ground up and through the roof and since then the owner has apparently gone bust according to the paper. I don't mind at all how this strip mall looks. My wife and I used to use the air conditioned laundromat here when we lived on our boat in Key West and we'd wander down to the end of the strip to get a con leche while we waited. The guy who operated the Riviera Café was a grump to beat the band and we used to amuse ourselves seeing how many grunts we could extract in one transaction. I need to go back with Chuck on Guam to break the ice, as he's the man for that. On the other hand perhaps we should leave one coffee outlet to the Conchs who need respite from outsiders.My imagination works overtime because when I ride past this place it looks North African or Middle eastern to me, the arched arcade, the rather cool outdoor seating arrangements and so forth. Rick's Café I'd call it if I wanted to get the title of world's grumpiest barista. I would make a terrible host.It's absurd isn't it? Here's my wife's scooter parked on a main thoroughfare through New Town......and I think it looks lovely. What a town.

Tift's Alley By Night

By day these alleys around the entrance to Mallory Square are pullulating with people, but by night not so much.

I set my pocket Canon to the sepia position and to my surprise I rather liked the results.

I left the Vespa in the free parking on Wall Street and took a stroll. I was a block from Lower Duval yet I was alone. It was lovely.

That was a side shot of the Waterfront Playhouse a place we like to patronize in winter when they put on some worthwhile plays.

The scabby mossy walls surround the open seating area for El Meson De Pepe, a Cuban eatery popular with visitors.

The sculpture garden is a wildly eccentric exhibit in a town like Key West. The heads are those of people who made their mark and they are preserved on limestone rock pillars. Locals call this place the Pez Garden thanks to the resemblance to Pez dispensers...

Finally-people! No longer alone in my alley but they went one way and I went back to work.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Hurricane Season

The line from Jimmy Buffett about the inability to reason with Hurricane Season is well worn, over used and true. And because today is the start of the Tropical Cyclone Season in the Atlantic basin I figure one has to say something in a blog about life in the Keys. If you check the link in my alphabetical list, called Hurricane Center you will get the picture below, or a variant thereof. As the season progresses I will probably check the link a couple of times a day and as speculation mounts about hurricane season I will visit it more often.

Hurricanes in the Atlantic basin and Caribbean most frequently form early and late in the season in the Western Caribbean where the waters warm up sooner in June and stay warmer later in November. In the middle of the season hurricanes are spawned off the coast of West Africa and take a week or so to reach the West Indies and another week to reach us, if they are coming. It's all just a matter of hoping for the best. Everyone is at risk on the Eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico so unless you choose to live in the Jacksonville area which historically is pretty safe from hits... for now. Considering the natural disasters we have going on across the country the future fears about hurricanes seem rather insignificant at the moment. There will be no doubt further opportunities to re-visit this subject before the season ends officially November 30th.

Getting Around

I headed to the city parking lot off Caroline and Margaret expecting to find the place half empty. I guess the lot has been discovered. It used to be a pain to use because there was a ticket booth and an entry gate but now it's all automated. You drive in, park, buy a ticket with metered time with a credit card or cash, leave the ticket on the car dashboard and off you go.

People lie to make a big fuss about Old Town parking and in winter or during events it can get crowded but the trick is to be a little bit flexible, allow a little time and expect to walk a few blocks. All of which is irritating fro residents but for visitors the situation really isn't bad. A scooter makes things a lot easier, but be careful about parking on sidewalks. It's not legal and is tolerated only for insiders. Or bar patrons like those at Don's Place:Key West has tons of free scooter and motorcycle parking and bike racks everywhere. Which is just as well as scooters are the quickest way around. Not everyone has the style of a Stella geared two stroke. My heart still goes pitter patter when I see one even though mine was a dog and utterly unreliable. Bicycles are the other mainstay and there is nothing quite like cycling round Old Town watching the world glide by. The nice thing I find about bicycles, as with all transportation in Key West, is that it is a matter of practicality not status.A bicycle is a bike and it's value is measured much more by it's ability to get the groceries home than by it's value or it's slick componentry. Who cares about on street parking when one's car is a bike?

Schooner Western Union

The Western Union schooner is back at her berth at the seawall at Key West Bight. And very pretty she is too after her refit. The boat I mean; the stranger just got in the way of the picture.The Western Union was first launched in 1939 and spent the next three decades as a working wooden schooner laying and maintaining telegraph cables between the Caribbean and Key West. The old cable hut that connected Key West to Havana is still visible today next to the Southernmost Point buoy.Things went downhill for the boat after being discharged by the Western Union company but Historic Tours owned the boat for a decade until a major refit was called for and the crew was summarily dismissed.After the abrupt shutdown in 2007 Historic Tours donated the boat to the not for profit Preservation Society created to restore the boat and return it to service. They did the work, raising one and a half million dollars and spending years on the restoration which appears to have paid off handsomely. I have never actually sailed on the Western Union though I have been out on other schooners and I figure I will have to give it a shot because I enjoy the view from the dock.
When I sued to work on the waterfront I knew youngsters who crewed on the Western Union and I remember envying them their youth. They didn't get paid much but they lived on board many of them and enjoyed being in the heart of the action on the waterfront in Key West. Theirs was as close to a piratical existence as one could imagine in the 20th century.And the work consisted of going sailing. A head for heights helps in these circumstances.
They have a website of course : http://www.schoonerwesternunion.org/

And this photo from their website of the ship under sail:
In lubberly terms the way the ship's sails point forwards and backwards, not across the decks, is what designates the vessel as a schooner.