From The Archives: Living On Boats In The Keys

The state of Florida is trying to control anchoring in coastal waters, a privilege traditionally extended to sailors by maritime law and usage and overseen by the Federal Government. Among sailors these encroachments are feared and opposed buy coastal residents see too many bad apples fouling waters, and coastlines, and not respecting local communities. Proposals to ban anchoring in Boca Chica Bay, south of Mile Marker Six on the Overseas Highway so far have come to naught but the  future is clearly pointing in that direction. Here's why:

Boca Chica Bay

Boca Chica Bay is a body of water bounded by Highway One to the north (with enough clearance to allow fishing skiffs to pass underneath) Stock Island to the west, and Boca Chica Naval Air Station to the east. To the south is a narrow channel which gives access to the open waters of the Straits of Florida. It is the perfect place to live on a boat and I am not alone in noticing this.
Over the years I have seen the number of boats anchoring in Boca Chica Bay increase by leaps and bounds. Living on a boat has always been a cheap way to hang out in Key West, and aside from the transient population of mostly winter visitors who stay for a few weeks or months at a time, there are any number of boats whose owners never move their water "craft."The waters off Key West aren't the best possible place to anchor from a boater's perspective because even though they are closest to the downtown action they are exposed in any winds that don't have an easterly component to them. Winter north winds rake the harbor and pre-frontal west winds do the same. Holding isn't the best, as it's mostly thin sand over rock and the waters are part of the main channel which carries plenty of traffic to the Gulf of Mexico. All that compares unfavorably to the closed waters of boot Key in Marathon discussed here previously. And Boca Chica isn't too bad at all if you are looking for protected waters. I took these pictures in a steady southeasterly at 20 knots gusting 25:The channel into Boca Chica is well marked, and splits just south of the old Peninsular Marine, where the right hand channel leads to the trim and inexpensive marina maintained at the Navy Base for military and ex-military at astonishingly cheap slip rents:I find it ironic that on the water, as on land, the chaos of civilian life finds itself living cheek-by-jowl with the trim and orderly life of a neighboring military base. The chaos of Boca Chica liveaboards is generally a product of the fact that this is housing of the last resort, rent free, amenity free and pretty much unregulated. The fishing boats passing between the Gulf and the Straits zip through here, passing underneath the Highway, and overhead the Navy jets in training, circle on their way to and from imaginary aircraft carrier landings at the Base:The issue as always for people living on the water is how to get ashore and in that respect Boca Chica ("small mouth" in Spanish) is very accommodating. Cars on the highway zipping past the Key Haven Shell gas station might be forgiven for not noticing the Key Have Boat Ramp that gives access to any trailered boat wanting to launch:And people who want to launch their boats from here get to do so for free:For those living on boats this is the main access point to shore side life, though many people land further up the highway in the mangroves alongside the road:And despite the abundance of garbage cans provided as a service by the county the shoreline in the mangroves is filled with debris, as is the seawall itself, most delightfully:The mangroves make for safe dockage for the variety of dinghies that the liveaboards use to get to shore; the trees carry out their natural function of acting as living fenders for the shoreline:Ashore the causeway is lined at night with parked cars and scooters and bicycles when the boaters come home from their day labors, and make no mistake this is largely a population of working people. Some use bicycles which make for a six mile pedal for someone working on Duval Street:Others use motorbikes:No, wait a minute, that one's mine! The ramp parking area does have lots of room:So there you have it, how to live for free in (or almost in) Key West.I can only say that from my many years of living on a boat, in marinas and at anchor, the best way is to be underway. Admiral Nelson is famously quoted as saying: Men and ships rot in port! Look no further than the waters adjacent to Key West to see the truth of that dictum, even today.

Garrison Bight Dawn

What a glorious start to the day in Key West, a line of clouds, a blue sky overhead and the promise of sun. Lots of sun, exactly how I like it.

Fiberglass has taken the place of a lot of the routine struggle to keep a boat afloat. Modern boats are made of plastic in one form or another, and that being the case the complexities of wooden hulls have largely been replaced by almost indestructible glass fiber mating and glue.

Walking Cheyenne past the boat workshop and Spencer's Boatyard I was reminded that not all industry starts at the crack of dawn. You'd think it would be easier to do outdoor work early in the day,

There are some who still hold with the old ways and very pretty they are too, wooden boats:

When you have a boat a boat yard is a gruesome place where your boat is out of its element, everything is coated in dust and the noise of hammering drilling and sanding is endless and all you want   is to get the work done, pay your bills and get out of there. But to walk by is to see other people's hopes and dreams and thus get inspiration far from the hard work!

Spencer's is such an anachronism in modern high price Key West (shown below with the red dot).

Yet this picture from the 1970s by Dale McDonald in the State Library of Florida Collection, shows this kind of work has been going on for a while at what was Steadman's Yard. I guess thirty years ago they became Spencer's according to their advertising.

Landlubbers don't quite get it usually, buying the old line that boats take a lot of work, compared to a house. In my experience a reasonably sized fiberglass boat is fairly low maintenance compared to a house. A boat consists of machinery and machines like to be used or they freeze up, especially in a salty environment. But modern boats are amazing with plastic hulls, plastic sails and plastic ropes they are tough and easy to live with.

The hard part is the anchor they can represent in your life. A boat is a constant responsibility and even though it should be mobile in a world where planes fly 500 miles in an hour and cars drive 500 miles in a day a sailboat, your home, can only do about  miles an hour and is subject to the vagaries of weather and access to deep water.

It is much harder to abandon a boat for a while and then come back to it and resume using it as though it were a house. Boats need to be aired out, their systems operated and the best person to do that is the person who owns and cherishes the boat. When you own a boat that is your home your home owns you. And a piece of you belongs to the boatyard.

When I lived at anchor near Rat Key ( the island at the top of the map above) I used to tie my dinghy up o this seawall and walk into town across Peary Court. Spencer's charged a dollar to use their dinghy dock, dump your trash and fill a water jug each day but my buddy was an appalling cheapskate and he preferred to live on the edge of society and I was easily swayed to follow suit. Looking back I was an idiot as I could easily afford a dollar a day, plus the wall was awkward to climb over and the dinghies were vulnerable to passersby. Nowadays the seawall is home to a proper home afloat. 

The views aren't all industrial wasteland:

A "bight" in nautical lingo means a  body of water indented into a coastline, as though the water had taken a bite of the land , as it were. Garrison Bight is actually human made as Flagler's railroad built up the land you see at the top of the picture above and ran his rail line across it to the Havana Ferry Terminal at what is now the Coastguard Base. In so doing this body of water became an enclosed pond with one small access to the sea outside, and less of the original bight. The aerial view above from Google Maps illustrates the geography quite well.

The boatyard lives in the shadow of the so called "Fly Navy" building on the base. It's correct name is Bachelor Officers Quarters as Key West has a dive school and Boca Chica trains a lot of naval aviators and they need somewhere to sleep.

The city also created a mooring field partly visible in the dark water to the left of the aerial view above. To accommodate those boats they also built a floating dinghy dock as seen below, a fifteen minute boat ride by outboard motor. And above we see he new shower block for their use as well. Very civilized, too bad the mooring field is so exposed to the weather, particularly winter north winds.

And of course recycling and trash disposal. And spare toilets too, on parade for inspection by my Labrador.

Its a serene spot though inside the Bight as an arriving dinghy carves up the smooth waters. Behind him you can just see the docks of the Sailing Club.

My wife and I used to be members here and we'd dock our dinghy behind the fence and sometimes sit out he rain under the thatched roof of the tiki hut, reading a book (no Kindles back then!) and waiting with the patience endowed to humans by boats.

Not all Key West is picturesque, and sometimes the waterfront takes on a slightly industrial look.

All the better to explore.

Boca Chica Road

On this visit to Boca Chica Beach with my insatiable hound I decided to take a few pictures of the road leading to the beach for a change. The changes are coming at the end of the road and they were shocking enough.

It's around Mile Marker Ten that you turn south off the Overseas Highway at the Circle K gas station in Big Coppitt. It's a large, mainland style gas station with a large convenience store attached, open 24 hours. I got pulled over here once, years ago by a motorcycle deputy with radar.

He relented when he saw I was hauling a wet Labrador, swimming Emma in those days, from the beach. I was clearly not in a hurry and just distracted on the long empty straightaways so I got a written warning. It worked - a decade later I am still reluctant to speed here, as tempting as it is.

Big Coppitt Key ends at this narrow bridge and Geiger Key starts. The place is named for Key West's first harbor pilot Captain John Geiger who lived in the Audubon House, which in turn got its name from his famous guest.

Actually its a tad bit more complicated than that. In 1832 Audubon painted a pigeon sitting in a tree taken from Geiger's garden so it became "Geiger's tree" which was found on this island and somehow got its name thus from the tree. Or perhaps not and the name came from a lone German settler living here when the first surveys were undertaken around 1860. Go figure.

Alongside Boca Chica Road, first one side then the other and sometimes both sides at once you will see green link fencing with fearsome government signs on them. They mark the boundaries of Boca Chica Naval Air Station, impregnable behind marshes swamps salt water and fencing.

Half way to Boca Chica Beach the community of Tamarac Park shows up, a collection of houses and an even slower speed limit.

It's on the edge of the ocean so stilt homes are springing up here alongside the older ground floor trailers.

Many are boarded up waiting for winter occupants.

In many respects an unremarkable community about 15 minutes from the edges of key West.

It is not a community well served by even an inconvenience store, the closest being the gas station at Highway One, but it is, despite it's isolation within commuting distance of Key West.

For me the frequent passes overhead by jets from the neighboring airfield would make living here a trial. I do not enjoy noise but the jets are so loud you have to pause whatever you are doing to let them pass, and they circle as they practice landings and take offs.

Beyond Tamarac Park the road resumes it's implacable drive to the sea, a straight line between green military fencing.

A bridge to break up the monotony...

....a couple of far flung homes...

...and an abrupt end to the road. Supposedly this closure is temporary while the trees are torn down. Apparently they pose a threat to the safety of the multi-million dollar jets flying here which makes one wonder if spindly little trees are going to pop up in the hot spots of the world to foil these jets and render them unsafe to fly. Be that as it may the beach is not going to look like this for long.

This van's sticker rings with irony as the vehicle is always here promoting the occupant as some kind of overseer of the public beach. The beach will be an unfriendly place after the shade is removed to make way for jet noise.

I knew the destruction was coming but I had hoped for one last shady walk. Boca Chica was not a daily destination for me, I enjoy variety, but I will miss what was. It used to be twice as long as it is now with hurricane damage wrecking the further reach of the road. Now what will be left seems as though it will not be hospitable. Of course once upon a time this was a back road to Key West with bridges whose stumps are still visible in the undergrowth further along the shore.

As it is all that one can do today is turn around and drive back the three miles to Highway One. And that is your typical side road in the Florida Keys, one of the longer ones actually. The limited reality of life on a peninsula.

 

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