From The Archives: Sunset Key

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Latitudes Restaurant

We were on the Westin Pier for the 12:15 ferry to Sunset Key. There were cruise ships docked for a fine Christmas Eve in Key West and tourist boats were sailing up and down the harbor. We were waiting for this one to complete it's latest round trip across the water:Nephew Tim showed up exactly on time which was when we discovered we should have checked in with the Westin Concierge to get our boat passes. A quick call by the captain confirmed our reservations for a ride to lunch across the water. We were not Westin guests, which put us in an unusual category, we were just visitors to Sunset Key's only restaurant, called Latitudes. As we are relatively impoverished in our brave new world (and because I was working Christmas Eve) we were having a Festivus lunch rather than dinner. It's a five minute ride across Key West harbor and we were preceded by the other launch that serves the exclusive island. In the background we see uninhabited Wisteria Key, known locally as Christmas Tree Island, which is also privately owned. The owners have announced plans to turn it into a boating center surrounded by a mooring field which I thought sounded rather interesting. I'm sure the anchor outs who live for free around the island will complain about gentrification...
It's been a while since the wife got out on the water thanks to shoulder surgery that disrupted our usual summer boating activities so she was enjoying the open water ride.
Frankly the ride from the Westin Marina to the Sunset Key dock is too short, with not enough time to take in all the sights. Pretty soon the sand beach comes into view: The homes on the island are strictly private and sell for millions of dollars even though they pretty much resemble the standard "Conch Style" sold in similar developments like Truman Annex and Tranquility Bay (the Singh property in Marathon) which still sell for lots of money but not as much as this lot. Tin roofs, porches and palm trees on a private island equipped with narrow streets and golf carts is what Sunset Key amounts to. I have been around the island in a previous life when I worked at Fast Buck Freddie's and helped deliver furniture. Our van was loaded onto the elderly tank landing craft docked at Trumbo Road (and which is used to transport the garbage truck among other utility vehicles to the island) and we rolled off at the vehicle ramp on the east side of Sunset Key. The house we delivered to was unexceptional, hardwood interiors, high ceilings, granite countertops in the usual way. It was an interesting diversion to discover that Sunset Key is vaguely like Key West only Disneyfied, sanitized and rather boring. Sunset Key, like Wisteria Island is made of dredge spoils from efforts to make the key West harbor deep enough for ocean going ships. The original dredging was done long enough ago that nowadays the islands are not really considered "spoil "islands- they have become part of the scenery. I have heard it said that homeowners insurance is difficult to buy for these homes as they are built on what is essentially human made land, but movie stars and the like buy here (Oprah Winfrey is rumored to own one) and I expect it is of little moment to the likes of them if insurance is ridiculously expensive. It is possible to rent a bungalow on the public beach side of the island next to Latitudes, the corner reserved for plebs like you and me who get to play on sand imported by barge from the Bahamas. No expense is spared in this crazy place:

As the ferry approaches the dock one can see Latitudes sitting right on the beach:The dock is covered to protect the precious cargo (you and me) from the ill effects of sun or rain:

There are docks for private boats but only residents are allowed to use them, no hoi-polloi may land on the island. Indeed, residents have been known to complain about plebs daring to anchor off the island. One can only imagine what would happen were you to land and claim Florida's inalienable right to public use of beach up to the high tide mark. Good luck if you try it. There is a fire truck stationed on the island (staffed by city firefighters as needed) and they do have security I believe, but the Key West Police Department has to send officers over from the city if they call for them, as Sunset Key is part of Key West (Wisteria Island is in Monroe County, not the city), and it takes time to ferry them out and get them back so as far as I am concerned, when i am dispatching, the less mayhem on the island, the better. And of course, Sunset Key is really an unruffled oasis of tranquility, all joking aside. There aren't even any roosters running loose. And if you think that as a guest at Latitudes you are going to get to run around the island at will, think again. A nice young lady met us at the dock and escorted us cheerfully to our luncheon appointment:

This is about as much view of the island as you get:Consider that we were having Christmas Eve lunch and this was the weather:Temperatures in the upper 70s, (around 25C in Canadian weather), with a light breeze and plenty of sunshine. we elected to eat outside on the beach. Though at Latitudes "inside" is a relative term:

And eating outside doesn't involve anything quite so gauche as actually sitting in that fine Bahama sand; tables are set on their own wooden decks:Young nephew Tim has been in Key west a few weeks and had yet to explore Sunset Key. Our choice of lunch venue worked for him:The lunch menu is relatively simple, with salads, sandwiches and a few appetizers.

We opened up with a cheese platter featuring four wedges of cheese with crackers, fruit and bread in an exquisite display:Then my wife and I shared a steak salad, and this was one half portion:And we followed up with a shared grouper sandwich. Tim had a turkey and bacon sandwich and left nota crumb on his plate. I think it was up to snuff... We all three elected to try the intriguing sweet potato salad, which is obviously the orange ball on the plate. It was quite delicious with a gingery tang:Decidedly I wanted something sweet to finish up with but Tim and my wife demurred. Then Michael, our smart waiter dropped by a dessert menu "just in case..." and I spotted my wife's weakness: creme brulee. They had three flavors in a tasting dish, vanilla, amaretto and something else. We scooped them up whatever they were:

Our meal was in many respects modest, they drank water I splurged with a delicious, full bodied ice tea (unsweetened if there were any doubt about that). The whole shebang including a decent tip (18%) came to exactly $100. And the view was free:

Guests from the Westin can come over apparently and enjoy the beach and they were out sunning themselves in the weak December sun:

For us it was time to take the 1:45pm ferry back to the mainland, we had places to go and all that good, real world, stuff. So when we saw the ferry heading towards the island dock from the city, we reluctantly got up and walked past the indoor guests, some in festive outfits:Sunset Key used to belong to the Navy, which organization built fuel tanks on the island and ran utility lines out to the place they called, unimaginatively, Tank Island. Then the Navy handed the island back to the city, without every having actually stored a drop of fuel on the island (!) and the city commissioners of the day sold all the waterfront land and the island to the Hilton developers for the bargain basement price of eleven million dollars. What made Tank Island so valuable were the water and electrical utilities laid across the harbor by the Navy. And the lack of such amenity has made it hard to develop Wisteria Island (Christmas Tree Island) just fifty yards north. I find the raggedy anchored out boats rather endearing as a symbol of the determination of the marginal and dispossessed to hang in and make a life in Key West even as gentrification continues even in the face of economic collapse. On Sunset Key the only free living these days is for the wildlife:

Lesser mortals off work and on vacation may circle Sunset Key on jet ski tours but they may only look and not touch:
Which goes doubly for anyone on the island:

We rated the lunch an enormous success and plan to do it again before too long. We enjoyed our previous foray to Latitudes and were wondering why we took so long to come back.And there in the distance is the US Coastguard base overseen by the huge pink bulk of the "Fly Navy" building as the Bachelor Officer Quarters building is known.The help gets to ride in the small boat well away from guests like us:

And if like us you parked in the Westin's multi-level garage on Front Street you will want to get your ticket validated at the restaurant for free parking:

Residents' dogs get to ride to the island, but Cheyenne is not so privileged so she got to nap in the Nissan while we stuffed our faces:

It's a dog's life but I doubt she would have enjoyed the sweet potato salad. We'll never know for sure.

Borders

Taken from Motorcycle Bridge Club website this picture (among many there published) made me laugh out loud. I know its an unfair comparison but there it is. Barle-Hertog  is a real town split between Holland and Belgium. Made easier I suppose by the European Union open borders inside the Schengen Agreement.

Mechanical Entropy, Coffee & Gossip

They say that things come in threes, catastrophes usually and though I can't say its devastating it definitely gets annoying when one's life is taken up by things mechanical going awry.  There has been the ongoing struggle to get the boat fixed, a mysterious ailment that fingers crossed, seems to be okay for now. Then there are my two wheelers...When I was over at Jiri's shop on Stock island it looked like a Vespa dealer with other people's Italian scooters on both stands:

My Bonneville is in the shop for its major annual service. It's seven years old with 81,000 miles on the clock and roughly once a year it gets a major going over, all fluids changed, cables lubricated, carburetors balanced and this time around tires, chain and sprockets replaced. Also I had some difficulty starting after a rain storm one night at work so I asked that the plug caps as well as the plugs themselves be replaced. It was a mysterious failure to start that corrected itself equally mysteriously and I fear moisture in the exposed ignition system was to blame. Pushing the 500 pound Bonneville to Jiri's shop from work was going to be a tough four miles. I was glad when it decided to start, just as mysteriously when I pressed the starter button as an idle afterthought about the time I got tired of pushing the motorbike. It roared to life and I jumped on and rode home directly not daring to hope I would arrive. I did 23 miles without hesitation or stalling and immediately got on the phone with Jiri who promised to investigate when I brought the bike back in.

If that failure happens again I may have to have the coils replaced but we shall see if plug caps solve the issue. Meanwhile my wife's Vespa which I have appropriated for the time being as my daily rider, needed a new rear tire so that was one more job for The Man. A quickie, but still a chore as I don't do tires on my modern Vespa struggling with wheel removal tire irons and all that. On my 1979 soon-to-be restored Vespa the interchangeable wheels have split rims which don't need tire irons to remove the tires. Very nice old fashioned technology which is one reason I like the old two stroke models; order the tires and install them myself. Plus I get a spare wheel to drag around with me on the road. 

Jiri has been coping with his own troubles, an ex-wife who went back Up North and took their daughter. Jiri lives for his daughter and is distraught living in his beloved Key West with his child so far away. Just one more reminder that life in the Keys can be real tough, as Paradise can be a demanding mistress.  I suspect in Spring, if the ex is still enamored of the Great White Wilderness of the snowy northern states I may well be losing my mechanic who would rather repair snowmobiles in Michigan if it means seeing his offspring every day. I am desolate at the thought. All that would be left of mechanics within a hundred miles is the Yamaha dealer in Key West and a Harley guy on Big Pine Key. My Triumph will have to go to the dealer in Miami if my worst fear comes to pass and Jiri leaves. Welcome to the Keys where everything changes and not always for the better!

My Vespa needed new fuel hoses, the ten year old originals were rotting and the scooter was running too rough for Jiri to countenance. I left on a Vespa running as smooth as silk on new rubber. Then I stopped to get a Cuban coffee on my way to an unnatural daytime overtime shift at work. I got to listen to a lot of conversation as I waited and as is the way they talked about everything under the sun. The weather, the (lack of) hurricanes (so far), work stuff, and the news headlines. Which made me squirm in this case.

The police department has been in the news lately and they had some tart comments about what they had read. I avoid knowing about anything that either does not relate directly to my job answering  phones at the department, or is not reported in the paper, so I like being a  mushroom at work, in the dark about all news because no one has the full true story and everyone has an opinion. Lining up for Cuban coffee felt like participating in a stage play as a walk on silent part as I stood behind the principal players in the daily drama of as the city turns. I listened, said nothing and tried to pretend the sudden silence as I stepped forward to collect my con leche had nothing to do with me, or the uniform shirt I was wearing with a big silver cloth police badge. I took my coffee, reaching through the frigid atmosphere breathed by men who had said too much, too publicly, in a  very small introverted little town. I took my coffee and ran, saying nothing, wondering what can one possibly say in a world where no one believes journalists but everyone reads them anyway.

One time I was in a similar situation only the Mouth was some other guy in a line in front of me going on about how dispatchers ask too many questions when you call 911. I broke in and proceeded to explain in some excruciating detail exactly why we ask the questions and I don't know if he learned anything from my detailed explanation but at least it was me and the job I do he was bad mouthing, so I was happy to set him straight, politely but in no uncertain terms. We ask questions for a reason when you dial 911.

My advice to anyone moving to the Keys is the same: mind who you get mad at, because you never know the extent and the depth of human relationships in these small tight knit communities. And at the end of the day gossip is primed to explode unexpectedly harming anyone within reach. Lucky for me and for those guys I just kept my head down and kept moving. Tomorrow who knows if I will be as successful, just minding my own beeswax..

Key West Bight Asleep

I set my alarm for five am on my night off and I looked forward oddly enough to getting up in the dark and letting my hound loose on an unsuspecting city a half hour later. All as planned, Caroline Street dead to the world:

Call me anti social but this is the best time to be in the city, the bars have closed, everyone has gone home and day shift hasn't yet turned up to start the business of cleaning up and reorganizing from last night's debauchery.

The simplest of scenes presents itself as something mysterious and unknowable, the familiar made strange by the hour and the darkness. 

It's me, Cheyenne and all the walking dead of my imagination alone in the world plundering the formerly living to stay alive. 

These souvenir stalls and bait shops aren't exactly my hang outs by day but Cheyenne loves this part of town and she trots back and forth sniffing everything, because apparently everything here has a story for her nose. 

The Cuban Coffee Queen was firing up as I walked by, employees arriving on two wheels, pedal and power. Coffee and cheese toast is the breakfast of champions around here but luckily they weren't ready and I had no money on me so temptation was held at bay.

Key West is full of shadows and the fact that summer time now extends into November is a pleasure for me as I like the early morning darkness, whether I'm riding home from work or whether I'm just walking around.

I like the old duck tour amphibian bus stop sign, it remains as an Awful Warning. The Navy killed off those monstrosities by preventing them from launching in the Navy Basin at Truman Waterfront.

However the sign is a reminder that they will probably be back one day clogging the streets. That's what their website says at any rate and I wouldn't put it past them.

No time to shilly shally as my dog has places to go and things to see and its hard enough to keep up. Soon Key West will be awake again and we have walking to do before that happens.