Ratcheting Down The Rules

One reason I do not plan to retire in the Keys right away is that I want to make at least one more epic journey in my life before it's too late. My friends view me as well traveled and maybe I am but this time I want to push the boundaries a bit further than I have in the past, I want to explore further afield with fewer lifelines thanI have in the past and time is finite, I am growing old, darkness is closing in.  

The idea of retiring in the Keys at some later date is dependent on a  couple of factors. One is access which around here means affordability and the other is what to do in retirement. I have already established I am not a barfly. Sitting around drinking under the flickering gaze of  televisions screen in a crowded noisy room filled with people seeking oblivion does nothing for me. The other classic retirement activity is fishing and that holds no interest for me. I do my fishing at the market. So what do I do in an eventual Keys retirement? 

I have long enjoyed the fact that life in the Keys has been accepted as slightly off kilter, eccentric even. Key West has been home to non conformists and harmless types who don't fit in very well with mainstream but that has changed a lot already and continues to be forced out by wealthy conformists who neither understand nor appreciate non conformity.  Now the national marine sanctuary of all agencies is proposing reducing how local people get to use natural resources in the Keys.To me this is one more symptom of too many people in too small a space. Had you lived in the Keys in the 70s and came back now you would be unable to recognize this town for rules and restrictions. For me who has lived here a mere 20 years (and can remember Key West in the 1980s) the corset of public conformity is already too tight.

It is I suppose inevitable when people spend stupid sums of money to buy a house to live here that they then expect to be able to shape this community in the likeness of the restrictive and conformist world that they know Up North.  Had you bought a million dollar home in a gated community you'd expect to have parking and not to have bums and to have decent traffic flow and so forth. Around here the frustration of realizing you have simply bought a ridiculously expensive home in a community that lives permanently on the edge of chaos exacerbates every other difficulty. And then you find that people try to correct this misaligned way of doing things and that creates a whole new world of misunderstandings and irritations. So it is with the Marine Sanctuary. They had a meeting Tuesday night to discuss proposed new restrictions on public use of protected waters and according to the Citizen newspaper's reporter the meeting was a four hour harangue of the Sanctuary, its management past and present and its new proposals to protect marine life and spawning grounds.  

I haven't written about this fiasco previously because it seemed like there was a chance things might calm down but at this stage it doesn't seem very likely. Also he editor of the Citizen newspaper has published a rather severe commentary  wagging his finger at Facebook users who he says are inflaming the populace with false information. However he also admits the Sanctuary has said it will limit access to residents at several favored boating spots around the Middle and Lower Keys. Why would anyone be surprised locals are upset when told the plan is to reserve prime snorkeling sites to commercial boats? That there is time to comment on these new restrictions is not very encouraging to a populace used to seeing customary rights and privileges rescinded in the same of ecology or population control. Indeed the new rules will be written come what may, starting next February.

The editorial by Richard Tamborrino is worth reading in full but here is the nub:

Nothing’s been decided with certainty yet. Sure, the Sanctuary folks are partly culpable in terms of poor early communication. Initially, they were not clear about closing off Sanctuary protection areas to the public. Now they are clarifying it as closing some areas to dive operators who are not Blue Star certified. The Sanctuary wants to broaden the number of Blue Star Program operators (which recognizes those who complete training, conduct conservation activities and encourage responsible use). How and if individual users’ access would be limited continues to be open for public input and ideas.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Social media gives a voice to many who don’t deserve one. But even in a public setting, like Monday, when the Sanctuary kicked off the first of three public workshops at Key West High School, the anger was clearly ratcheted up.

Well there's something new to ponder, the press berating public comment in Facebook instead of in the pages of the newspaper. I have long advocated reading newspapers instead of relying on rumor and innuendo on Facebook, I am a believer in fact checking perhaps owing to my background as a radio reporter, but if the newspaper notices the tenor of debate on Facebook perhaps the newspaper should tackle the issue head on and in large print. Mandy Miles has left the Citizen which is not a good sign, and the Citizen getting into it with Facebook isn't much better. Being able to go boating and fishing is one of the pillars of life in Key West and its being restricted. The newspaper should notice.

I wonder how all this will end because as inconceivable as closing dive sites to boats may seem now this is just the first step on an endless road of limiting access to the waters around the Keys. It may be necessary or it may be excessive, you decide, but it won't stop here.In a decade it will be normal. On land I see similar encroachment all the time, which leads me to wonder if pretty streets and lanes will be enough for those of us who like to walk. They aren't enough for me though I do enjoy them.

The funny thing is that this is a generational problem. Talk to anyone who used to live here and discover how paradise lost its sheen for them years ago. Too expensive, too crowded, too restrictive are the recurring themes of exiles of all ages from this island paradise. So perhaps I have run my course and things have now got too restrictive and too limited and not quirky enough to contain my personality. I am reluctant to accept that notion as Key West has been the best home I've had in six decades of wandering. So here's the sum of things: do I return here after my next nomad adventure ? Do I not?  Who knows...I am certain the journey will change me and my perceptions and if there is to be a future somewhere Key West may well not be it. So the brief right now is to squeeze this moment in life, this suspension between now and the unknown future for all it is worth. 

I expect the Sanctuary managers will retreat a little bit, for now but like the Key Deer whose home range keeps expanding and clashing with humans, the reach of the marine regulations, whatever they are, will keep spreading. It may take a new generation to settle back and for a while enjoy what they view as ideal tropical living. I am reluctant to hang around and be heard grumbling "back in my day..." to anyone that might listen. "When I lived in Key West, back in the day....we were properly free to live as we wished....blah blah blah."I am fearful of becoming a bore in my own home which means a journey, a fresh perspective and new horizons are all absolutely necessary. So now I am entering that privileged first world state of being: a retiree. Less than three years is the countdown as my wife and I stand on the precipice of a whole new life.

While I look forward to writing these dispatches from the edge of human experience (Webb Chiles) I hope someone else will take on the task of photographing Key West as it evolves.

Mangrove Walk

It used to be the start of the day, when I worked nights, that found me walking Rusty through the mangroves. That all got turned on its head when I was moved to days after thirteen years of night shift. Nowadays I hurry on home at six in the evening and load Rusty into the car for a short drive into the wilderness.  

This has been a summer of sporadic heavy rain and long periods with none. Then more endless rain and now we are in the period of high, high tides as Fall approaches and flooding is everywhere. The trail may only be six inches under water but the mud is slimy and the rocks are slippery so unless you have four paws the going is slow and careful. 

They carved roads through the mangroves on top of the rock in an effort to open these areas up to development. Florida is populated with ghost development, many places long since planned but never built.

Nature encroaches and red mangroves put out feelers into the trail like skeletal fingers reaching for a grip in the rock.  The trail is closed to vehicles with huge concrete blocks so eventually I assume the trail will become a path and eventually disappear. 

It is in many respects a surreal landscape, flat and lacking in long vistas, small trees rising above the sea of bushes like islands and from below the sounds of fish jumping in the pools of water.

Photographers call it the Golden Hour before the sun sets and the atmosphere turns the sunlight that familiar shade of orange and gold we call sunset.

Quite breathtaking some evenings when the atmosphere is charged with moisture.

And you don't have to be at Mallory Square to enjoy it.

Mind you its probably time I paid a visit to the sunset celebrations as I rather enjoy the street fair atmosphere.

Until then this will have to hold us over.

Evenings are closing in and soon I won't get home before dark so Rusty and I will have to walk darkened suburban streets where I won't trip or slip. Wilderness walks will be reserved  for my days off until the  days get longer in the Spring.

It gets this dark between 7:30 and eight at the moment.

The Hills Of Julia Street

I have thought that perhaps a climb to the top of the lighthouse might possibly be one way to announce to myself the firm conviction that I can walk properly again, but a quick search in the blue box at the top left of this page reminded me it hasn't been three years since I climbed the spiral staircase.  Lighthouse Visit. So I took a picture from Truman Avenue to remind myself to consider another visit. How do you like Key West's total disinterest in preserving an historic skyline from the blight of wires?

Some days I take my lunch break downtown and I walk on my re-built pelvis and I take pictures with my camera and I wonder if I shall see anything worth photographing and something usually springs before my lense. Old Town is described as the largest collection of wooden buildings located in an American city. I think. Something like that. And I get to wander around it as often as I like. The city was incorporated in 1828 and in those days the lighthouse was close to the water until storms undermined it and they moved it inland. The seas have been nibbling at the Keys forever it seems.

These signposts are springing up anywhere and everywhere and I don't find them to be particularly attractive. Pointing to Lublin in Poland is a stand out destination in a  city where the Poles are mostly workers and not tourists. People keep wondering where the workers will come from to service the increasingly wealthy leisure class that is buying property in Key West. There's an answer: staff rooms hot bunking in the garrets and eaves of hotels.

The classic Conch Cottage worth a million bucks to someone I am sure and it's neighbor...

...exposing it's skeleton for all to see. Is this worth a million? 

The refreshing of Old Town is a phenomenon that carries with it a certain cheerful optimism as the high, high tides this year produce predictable flooding in streets up and down the Keys.  Even though we pretend it isn't happening sea level rise is progressing nicely and apparently unstoppably - LINK.  I wonder if these late comers or their inheritors will expect a government bail out for buying in a flood plain?

We have ignored the problem and denied the problem and now we nervously joke about he problem. I fear the next stage will be anger but perhaps that will produce a sea change in our rather cavalier attitude that sea level rise is not our problem. There is an overflow parking lot ext to the police station where I was warned not to park on the east side as at high tide it goes under water by as much as a foot. On night shift we had enough parking and to spare for the few of us in the building overnight but by day the administrative ranks swell and latecomers park  off site.  

When I was a youngster Important People predicted all kinds of nonsense by the turn of the century like flying cars and eternal life and all that stuff. What we actually got was more of the same and the Internet which no one predicted. Now we are told flooding is coming and no one really seems to believe them. And I for one usually don't  a  quick calculation every time they predict. By 2050 I will be 92 and I'm pretty sure I will be long since dead. In the ordinary course of things you might shed a tear or two but under the circumstances and having no offspring to worry about I am prepared to sit back and let others with a stake in the future do their bit. 

I have developed my own theory about hurricanes and this year has once again borne me out. It seems like the pattern of their paths follows a route determined by the jet stream in early summer and just about every storm follows a similar path. If you are in that pah you are doomed (viz: Puerto Rico in 2017) but if like this year they go north early we are okay. North Carolina got smashed of course and Bermuda got hit and they are in line for more rain and wind but the fact we haven't been hit yet is no indicator of future storms is it? 

I was pondering these intangibles while ambling over the rise on Julia Street approaching Duval. It is no steep hill but in a flood it's one of those places where people in Key West wished they lived as brown nasty waters swirl up. If you have lived here through a  few floods,  and Wilma in 2005 when I was a wet-behind-the-ears 911 call taker was a doozy, you know where the dry spots tend to be. 

Looking downhill at Duval Street:

It is very interesting living at Zero Feet above Sea Level in a  time of climate change.

"Climate change took the biggest jump this year of I believe any risk that I can remember, seeing it jump from 7 percent up to 22 percent," said, Max Rudolph, fellow of the Society of Actuaries and author of the report.

Rudolph added that it's becoming harder for risk managers to avoid thinking about climate change. He pointed to major hurricanes in 2017 and the longer, more intense wildfire seasons we're seeing in the west.

"My personal opinion is that this is a case of the risk managers catching up to the actual risk that is out there," he explained.

Cow Key Channel

It may be my imagination but the community of people living suspended between Key West and Stock Island may be increasing.

It is quite a community of liveaboards, some of the homes neatly cared for and others not so much, just like on land.

There are times when one wants to take the scenic route, the only such route on my commute, instead of fighting traffic and pedestrians and traffic lights on the Boulevard (North Roosevelt Boulevard) which is when I drive by the boats. So it's inevitable that from time to time I shall stop and look out across the water.

Living on a boat as a form of cheap accommodation doesn't work for me. For all the years I did live on a  boat I was either in motion or if stationary for a period I kept my boat ready to move.

Anchoring a boat as a form of free storage ends up making the thing an eyesore but boats are private property and it takes massive efforts by the State to assume ownership and remove these derelicts. 

And even if they do the question then remains how to handle piles of indestructible fiberglass when disposing of piles of boat. Who pays for all this is the bog problem and even so Monroe County foes get rid of patently abandoned boats in county waters. The supply though, appears to be inexhaustible.

 Even defining abandoned isn't easy. You need somewhere to live in a county this expensive.

From a distance the boats afloat are picturesque and what I suppose, you expect to see when you come to visit Key West. This would be a strange little island with no boats dotted around it.

Change Of Season

Things have been tough for Florida fishing since hurricane Irma in 2017. The newspapers are saying the storm wrecked habitat and upset breeding cycles for crab and lobster and with stone crab season starting tomorrow fishermen are hoping things will be better this year. Fishing reminds me of farming, in that it's a trade you are usually born into and the weather is never quite right and when it is abundance of harvest lowers prices.

I am not a huge fan of lobster or crab as I would rather eat fish with fins but the economics of fishing are interesting in a  community like this where money rules every decision. The only fishing most people think about is sport fishing, an extension of the tourism trade, not least because commercial fishing is carried out away from tourist centers and largely out of sight.

Recreational boats fill the harbor and this year with only a few weeks of hurricane season left we can hope to skate by without fresh disasters. Stone crabbers are hoping their crabs have settled down and are ready to lose their big claws to the appetites of people who think cracking shells and eating cold crab meat wrenched from a living crab makes an ideal meal. 

This is also the time of year when people start to resurface in town. There was a massive storm reported last week in the Midwest and we heard of sudden temperature dips and snow  falling and sure enough snowbirds suddenly showed up around town. I met a spandex bicycle rider on a recent dog walk, a sure and certain sign of middle aged wealth fighting the good fight to stay fit in a town with a drinking culture. 

I try to stay upbeat in the face of the renewal of the tourist season, mindful that the reason they come is money and the reason they are embraced is money and it's what will pay my pension in the years to come. I used to wish that NASA had sent more artists into space and on the moon to send back reports of the true nature and effect of space travel on the human psyche. In the same way I wish snowbirds could bring more to town than money and overweening attitudes to local habits and customs. 

But this is the price one pays to live in a community where housing costs more than local workers can afford. It is good for one's humility to be reminded how little one matters when in a crowd of people think Key West as winter playground equals Key West as a place to live. So when you see pictures of sunny winter days you will know that the best time of year to visit is in the heat of summer when Rusty and I have the mangroves to ourselves and restaurants are breezing through low seasons before gearing up for crowds and lines from now through April.  

What is necessary is not always desirable and I must remember to be patient as speeds on the highway get slower and slower and lines everywhere get longer and longer.... 

Birds, Dogs And A Person

Pictures without words, an accumulation of creatures observed at the White Street Pier  and on our walks. For a serene Sunday read.