Windy Saturday

Today teams posed with their fish.

We just went outside to check on the final results of the fishing tournament, and discovered that our door mat had blown away.  The wind picked up this afternoon and is moving Aunt Aggie around a bit.

The tournament finished.  Boats had to be in the harbor by 4:00 pm.  We went down to watch the weigh-in at 3:00 and saw a bigger crowd than yesterday.  There were more children and pretty young women, dressed up, in the crowd - all waiting for Daddy to come home from fishing?  After their fish was weighed, the boats pulled to the side and washed off.  Groups of pelicans sat in the water by the boats, grabbing extra bait fish being tossed.

More details:  $20,000 for the winner; $9,000 for second place; $5,000 for third (money for the pros).
There were 72 boats yesterday and 62 today.  Some were pro, some were amateur, and some were in the junior division.

The giant fish from yesterday was out on display again today:  78.66 pounds.  Small children came up to look in the box and touch the ice packed around him/her.  That team did win, but we don't know what size fish they brought in today.  We'll have to report on that tomorrow.

We have another beautiful yacht at the marina, Freedom, a 1926 era ship from Newport, RI.  We heard that it was purchased for $100 and completely restored.  Here's a vimeo link to the boat:  http://vimeo.com/10210862

We walked over and looked at Freedom during a lull in the weigh-ins.

A good sized yacht near us is Cattitude.  It's been here the whole month, and I had wondered how to pronounce the name.  I met the owner yesterday, and he said it emphasizing the word "Cat."  He has four cats onboard.  He said they do great and stay aboard and also come out on the decks.  A couple of days ago one cat was startled and fell off into the water.  Luckily, he heard her fall and saw her swimming beside the boat.  He ran out with a towel for her to climb up.  We had read that leaving out a towel or swim noodle will give a cat a way to pull back onto a boat.  I hope I will spy his cats as I walk by Cattitude.  

Our first Fishing Tournament

Here's the official tee shirt for the tourney.

Today and tomorrow our marina is hosting a king mackerel fishing tournament.  There are lots of young men on fast boats across the road from us.  They wear long-sleeved tees printed with their team and sponsor names.  The boats have testosterone fueled names like The Young Guns, Som Beach, and Knot Scared.  The local team is Papa's Pilar, named for Hemingway's boat.

I was reading around 3:00 pm when I heard the weigh-in starting at the end of the dock.  I quickly went down to enjoy the atmosphere and take some photos.  I had missed the winning fish of the day, a 78 pound mackerel that is a record for more than this tournament.  It's a record breaking fish! Three of a Kind brought it in.  They placed it in a six foot long box that read, "Biggest Fish of the Tournament."  I tried to take a photo, but it was too long to capture except in panorama.  I'm sorry to report that the gorgeous fish lying in that box did seem to be in a casket.

Each team came in and chose one fish for the weigh in.  They had caught several fish, but they are not allowed to weigh them on the boat.  They choose the one they think is biggest and present it for the weigh-in.

See the team shirts?

Here you see the overalls the team wears.  

Most fish weigh from 30 - 45 pounds.  

Tomorrow they will fish again.  The winning team will have the largest aggregate weight, the total weight.  There are 26 boats participating.  First prize is $20,000.  The shuttle driver, Mike, says tonight will be loud on the docks.

In other news:  Thanks to Tom Moorman for this flag information:  The New England Patriots flag featured the face and Minute Man hat.  We still haven't identified the other flag.

News from the Shuttle

It's a beautiful Thursday in Key West.  We took the 10:00 am shuttle downtown and walked along Caroline, Duvall and Petronia Streets with Katherine and Eddie.  Key West felt surprisingly large a few weeks ago.  Now we can get around quickly and know where stores and restaurants are, and the town seems small - just right.  Whenever we are looking for something, the way there seems slow and long.  On the way home the trip is much quicker.  What is that phenomenon?

Eddie has bought several cool tee shirts around town.  I bought two more light-hearted books by Florida authors:  Dave Barry and Jimmy Buffett.  George is reading his second Hemingway novel, downloaded for free on the iPad.  We also bought another key lime pie from Kermit's shoppe.  This time I will cut smaller slices, so everyone will enjoy the pie but not be sickened by the overload of sweet and sour.

We had lunch at Santiago's Bodega, a tapas restaurant that Eddie and Katherine discovered nine years ago on a cruise here.  It is hidden at the end of Petronia Street, past the famous Blue Heaven.  We are satiated with fish and shrimp, so eating small bites of pork, mushrooms, stuffed dates, and bruschetta was a good move.

As we walk on Caroline Street, I admire the architecture and think about which houses I would like to buy.  Although there are many grand mansions, I prefer the tiny houses with colorful porches.  When we return to Atlanta, I want a small house with sunny land for a garden.  I want a porch.  Here are my two favorite houses from today's walk:

Just enough porch to sit and watch the world.  Tidy brick work shows off the plants.

I love this entrance.  Everything is cheery and colorful.

At 1:30 Bob came back to pick us up on the shuttle.  We drove to the Publix to gather shoppers.  I knew everyone on the shuttle, so we picked up not just people but also news.  The couple who will circumnavigate the globe with the Blue Planet Odyssey was there.  We got a report on their search for crew.  They have interviewed a sailor from Detroit and have another guy from the Netherlands coming to meet them.  It looks as if they will get a new crew and be ready for a March departure.

A sailor two boats from us shared good information on harbors and anchorages east of here and in Biscayne Bay.  She was full of clear details, and I asked George to take notes.  

Our friend Vicki told about their plans to leave next Monday and move to Boot Key Harbor, which is crowded with people waiting for good weather to go to the Bahamas.  She gave information about anchoring there, outside the mooring field.  For some reason the conversation turned to protection, and Vicki reported that she has two cans of hornet spray on board. She can spray an intruder from 20 feet away in the eyes and disable him for 4 hours, plenty of time to escape or get help. We were impressed.  If a person is on your boat without permission, they are fair game. We learned so much that George said we should just ride the shuttle and ask questions even if we don't want to go anywhere.  

Our Boy Blue

In Mallory Square last night with Katherine and Eddie, we saw Blue, a street performer who juggles fire, rides a unicycle, and does hat manipulation, all the while keeping up a gentle and humorous prattle with the audience and passersby.  We have seen Blue's show three times.  He's our favorite performer.  He is in great physical shape, as you'll see by the photos below.  He also is funny without being crude or mean.  He is quick with a quip for a person walking by the show and not stopping.  "Hey, Dad, see you back at home."

Blue starts and ends with hat manipulation, moving a bowler from his head to his foot and then flipping it back on his head sans hands.

He uses three big guys from the audience to hold the unicycle while he mounts it.  What trust!  The first time we saw this, a burly guy came up and dropped the F-bomb.  Blue spoke quietly to him and kept control of the show. I felt admiration for his skills.  Once he's all set, he says, "When I count to three, let go of me, and run!"

He uses a young boy to throw the clubs up to him, as he sits on the 10 foot unicycle.  After the kid does this, the boy gets applause from the audience and praise from Blue. Blue tips the boy $5.00.  He says,"When you go back to your parents, and they say, "Son, give that money back to Blue at the end of the show, don't do it.  Say, 'No, Mom.  No, Dad. You give Blue $10.00.' "

Then he lights the clubs and juggles atop the unicycle.  He finishes with hat tricks on the bike.

Here are some photos of Blue from last night.

Flags

While we were waiting for Katherine and Eddie to arrive at noon, I walked around the marina and took photos of flags flying on boats.  Some flags have been removed due to yesterday's high winds, but I did get a representative sample.

There are various categories for flags:  country flags are popular.

Flag of Cuba

Key West is also known as the Conch Republic.

Old Glory flies from lots of boats.

This is the American Great Loop Cruising Association flag that is on the front of loopers' boats.
When we walk around a marina, we look for this and meet other loopers.

Individual boats also have their own flags.  Here is a flag for a boat called Wine Down:

See the red wine glasses?

These flags fly from the back porch of Aunt Aggie.  I found them in Tortola and bought them as a birthday gift for myself. We get lots of questions about them.  What do they mean?  I think of them as island art.  

This boat is flying a flag from their hometown in Ohio:  

This flag says, "National Tractor Pulling Championships"  from Bowling Green.

Here are two mystery flags.  Can anyone identify these?  The owners weren't home to tell me the stories.

As I wandered around the marina, I also saw this cool art on the bow of a ship:

Desperate Reader finds Time Capsule

Sunset last night at Stock Island Marina

Today has been a cleaning and prepping day for our third round of guests.  My sister Katherine and her husband Eddie are arriving tomorrow at noon.  We did laundry and vacuumed and cleaned the bathroom.  George also cleaned our paneling with Murphy's Oil Soap.  We changed up the recipe for yellow tail snapper that we will prepare.  We will blacken the fish and serve it on spinach instead of topping it with red pepper salsa. Two wild and crazy guys! (Martha Stewart has 22 snapper recipes online.  So easy and creative!)

We just got home from Publix.  On the ride back we met a couple from Erie, Pennsylvania, who didn't know about the blizzard up north.  George said checking on the weather at home adds to his pleasure on the boat.  Yes, he can be mean spirited.

Yesterday I was bored:  no company, trying to be lazy, calling friends and family and not getting attention.  So, I went for a walk with a new friend, Vicki from Blue Willow, and her dog, Daisy.  However, there are no sidewalks around here, and we had to tromp through the grass in order to avoid trucks.  It was not easy, but I did enjoy hearing about her childhood in Michigan.  I also looked for a book on the laundromat lending shelf.  Pretty sad pickings.  (I will go to a book store tomorrow when we go downtown with Katherine and Eddie.  There's a used book wagon that we've spotted.)  Here is what I found and read:

Note the date:  August 1997

This magazine is from a time when I had two children in high school; a time before 9/11; a time before blogs and Facebook and emails became a regular part of our days.  This is like looking back at a time capsule.  And yet the stories are the same as magazine stories today:  "The Global War against Christians,"  "Twelve Simple Ways to Burn Fast Faster," and "Rescue of the Dying Manatees."  I wonder if there's a grab bag of stories that magazine editors return to for ideas.  I remember being a kid and having this on the table in our den.  The familiar humor sections, like "Life in these United States," were unchanged.  The tone now seems so white and conservative.  When I was a child, that was our world, and I was unaware of other ways of being.  I'm glad to live in a more diverse time now. 

We made magic.

Yesterday I was worried about party failure.  The weather had turned too windy and cold.  We were all tired and had no great ideas about what to do on our last day together in Key West.  But we were saved!  I think it was that old idea of just do something, just put one foot in front of the other, just get up from the nap and see what happens.

1.  Donny/George vs. Nannette/Martha at bocce ball just before dark.  We had a 6-6 tie going.  Then George got four balls closer in one turn and finished us off.  (We were just playing to eleven.)

Nan and I tossed the green ball.  You can see we are pretty close to the small white marker ball.
Wham!  George brought it home.

2.  We went back to the boat and found Jenny and had happy hour.  Conversation flowed easily as it does with good friends.

3.  We went to Hogfish Bar and Grill just a mile away on Stock Island instead of driving back into Key West.   We'd never eaten there, but we'd heard good things about the fish dishes.  This is a place frequented by the locals.  In fact, on the menu it says that it is well hidden.  True.  First, we got an easy parking spot.  Second, a band playing acoustic guitars was just two tables away from us.  Moose was the lead.  Third, the food was delicious.  George and Donny got the fried whole hogfish.  I had an amazing grouper with creamy tomato sauce on rice with vegetables.  (Not a french fry in sight.)

See the conch shell hanging above the weather reports?

Nannette, Donny, and Jenny

Thanks to Nan or Jenny for taking our photo too.

4. When we returned to Aunt Aggie, we started sharing music.  Nannette wanted us to hear a song she likes, "40 Dogs (like Romeo and Juliet)" by Bob Schneider;  I wanted them to hear another Bob Schneider tune, "Love is Everywhere."  Pretty cool that we both are Bob Schneider fans.  We didn't know that until last night.  Then Jenny requested "Follow your Arrow" by Kacey Musgraves.  I'd never heard of her before.  We went on like this for an hour, naming our favorites and listening to great music, thoughtful lyrics. It was like a personal poetry reading.  We ended with Nan's request of "Long Black Limousine" by Patty Griffin and my choice, "Just us Kids" by James McMurtry.  That song reminds me of George, Paul, Randy and Donny as boys and now as men.  

5.  We went to bed just before midnight, bonded by music, having learned something about each other through the words in our favorite songs.  

Windy!

It's always somewhat windy here in Key West, but today is WINDY.   Right now inland the wind is just 19 mph, but out at the beaches and in the channel the sustained winds are in the mid twenties.  The gusts are higher.  Most people stayed put today even if they had planned to leave.  As we walk around the marina, we hear flags whipping, windmills whistling, and sail boats clanking. The wind is a force and has a voice.

We had dark skies and rain earlier too.  This dampens our chances for activities since so many things to do here depend on sunnier skies.  It also dampened my mood.  When I made a grumpy comment to a neighbor from Michigan, she replied that I should check the Michigan weather and be glad I was in Key West.  Even a bad day here is better than a winter day there.  She is right.  Detroit this morning was just 30 degrees.

However, I feel some hostess responsibility for my guests' entertainment.  What is there to do on a chilly and windy and grey day?  We considered a movie but couldn't get enough enthusiasm to make a plan.  After a slow start, we took a trip into town to have lunch and listen to music at the Schooner Wharf Bar and Hog's Breath Bar.  I found two quotes to share.  Written in the bathroom stall at Schooner's Wharf:  "Where am I going, and why am I in a hand basket?"

The motto for Hog's Breath Bar is "Hog's breath is better than no breath at all." This supposedly came from a related quote of the owner's grandmother:  "Bad breath is better than no breath at all."  Good ol' grandma came through with her wisdom.

We had some yummy chowder; Jenny bought a sweatshirt and wore it out of the store; we enjoyed a two piece combo with a multi-talented brass player and keyboard/ singer at Hog's Breath.  The brass guy played a trumpet and a flugelhorn.  He used percussion instruments too - a cowbell and a scraper.

Everyone faded into naps and reading back at Aunt Aggie.  Maybe we can get up a game of Hearts in a bit.  The sun is finally coming out now, just in time to set.

Here are a few interesting Key West entrances from previous walks:

This is a low stone wall embedded with shiny stones and gems. It is near the cemetery.

I wish I could grow a hedge to frame the garden entrance as this does.  

An original gate for the white stone wall. 

Street Scenes

This is the view on the other side of the dock.  This is Coconut Row, where the permanent live- aboards stay.  They have small tents on the land behind their boats. I've never been in a place with so many sail boats. 

We had a leisurely morning and breakfast and then went downtown around 11:00 am.  Our guests enjoyed touring the Hemingway House. We had already been, so we let them out, found street parking, and drank iced sweet tea on the porch of the Six Toed Cat next door.  After they finished, we all walked by the lighthouse and the Southernmost Point in the USA.  Here is an interesting sight from the walk:

Who throws away that many coconuts?

After more window shopping, we returned to the car and went to Conch Republic Seafood for lunch.  It was delicious.  Most of us ate Cuban sandwiches. There was a good acoustic guitar player singing old songs.  My favorite was "I Will" by the Beatles.  I never hear that song.  I was pleased that I remembered the words:

"And when at last I found you

Your love will fill the air

Make it loud so I can hear you

Make it easy to be near you

All the things you do endear you to me

Oh, you know I will." 

Donny and Jenny at lunch.

After lunch we walked and looked at more street and fine art.  When we came by Kermit's Key Lime Pie Shoppe, we heard more fine music.  We peeked through the fence and saw three young men singing "American Pie."  The oldest guy played a terrific keyboard and was the lead singer.  Two guys are brothers, and the other is a friend.  They finished their set with Jerry Lee Lewis.  Wow!  That is Key West:  happening onto good music.  They are 17, 14, and 13 years old, called "The Boys."  I googled but did not find any information.  We'll look for them again.

Nannette's Birthday

Nannette, Jenny and George with mimosas.

Today we celebrated Nannette's birthday with brunch at Blue Heaven restaurant.  Then we walked around and did some shopping. We visited two art studios and heard about the featured artists.  One was Peter Lik.  While the women were impressed by his photography, the guys went outside and googled him.  They found detractors talking about the marketing being used to sell Lik's work.

We went to Smather's Beach and took naps and walks.  While Jenny and I were walking, Nannette spoke to an antique dealer with a frisbee and got an earful about topics ranging from Obama to cannabis oil.  Oh, Key West!

We're back on the boat now, taking a break and watching an interesting sky.  There are dark clouds and water spouts forming.  The water spouts come out of the cloud bank but so far have not reached the ocean.  They dissipate before they get to the water.  If the clouds clear out, we are headed to Mallory Square to celebrate sunset.  If they hang on, we'll go to dinner at the Hogfish Bar and Grill a few blocks from here.  Time for me to clean up and get ready for the evening.

The ornament reads, "Key West:  A sunny place for shady people."

Dry Tortugas

We were so lucky today.  We went to the Dry Tortugas National Park and had great weather.  The predicted high was 79 degrees.  It was sunny and calm all day.  We took the Yankee Freedom ferry trip over there.  We did see about four sailboats in the harbor and kinda wished we'd brought our boat too.  Of course, that's because the weather was perfect.  There were lots of campers too, out on the grounds of the fort.

We walked around the fort on our own and then had lunch on the ferry.  The ferry is headquarters for visitors since there are no toilets or fresh water on the island.  After lunch we got our snorkel equipment (included in the price) and went snorkeling.  We were on a different schedule than the other folks we had traveled with, so our snorkeling was just George and me.  I like to be with a big group, so sharks see some other tasty person before they see me.  I usually hang back a bit in the snorkeling group.  This time it was just us, and we saw lots of beautiful fish.  The largest was a barracuda.  The smallest was a tiny blue and yellow hiding in some grass.  The coral was beautiful too.  It looked healthy.  Coral is growing on abandoned pilings in two areas out from the fort.  We swam to these pilings and through them and saw many types and colors of fish.  I was in the aquarium.  I was looking for Nemo.  We did not see him, but we saw his buddies.  We were not cold, and we were swimming in January!  Amazing.  After snorkeling for about an hour and a half, we were wrinkled, so we lay out on the beach.

Here's Ft. Jefferson as we approach on the ferry.

Here's the beach curve from the third story of the fort.

The ferry loaded around 2:30 and returned at 3:00 to Key West, docking at sundown near Mallory Square.  We were part of the evening's show there.

Now we are waiting for Nannette, Jenny, and Donny to arrive.  We unloaded our stuff, turned on the air conditioning to cool off the boat, and put on a load of laundry to care for our wet beach towels.  We have the wine and beer and cheese ready.  They're here!

Dry Tortugas National Park

On Wednesday we are spending the day at Dry Tortugas National Park.  We will leave the marina at 6:45 am and return around 6:00 pm.  We'll go to the park, a 70 mile trip, on the Yankee Freedom III, a fast ferry.  We will have breakfast and lunch on the ferry, tour Fort Jefferson, and snorkel on the reef. We expect Wednesday to be a sunny and warm day, so we can be happy in the water.

We considered driving Aunt Aggie over, but most people recommend against this.  Since the trip is 70 miles, we would spend a day just getting there.  There are no services on the island, so boaters have to drop an anchor and be self sufficient.  If the winds pick up, we could be there for a few days, waiting for a good weather window to return to Key West.

Our friends on Bama Dream did go independently to the park in December.  They had a family group visiting and decided it was cheaper to take their boat over and stay a week than to pay for the ferry over.  Also they had the time to stay at the park and had young teens who were eager to snorkel for several days. Another group of sailors we've met went over and back in two days and said they did not snorkel because there was no time to do it.

We are going with four other looper couples.  Mark Hill from Blue Willow organized the group and our transportation to the ferry. How lucky for us to be included! Being with the Hills and other loopers on the ferry ride will be fun.

When we return at 6:00, we'll take quick showers and get ready for cocktails with Nannette, Jenny and Donny, who will be arriving about then.  They are flying to Ft. Lauderdale and driving to Key West tomorrow.  So tomorrow is jam packed for us.  That's why I'm writing this blog entry early.  I'll have to fill in details of the park trip and the snorkeling adventure on Thursday.

On a different topic:  We are surrounded by beautiful boats here at Stock Island Marina.  The largest boat is Azteca, an 85 million dollar ship sitting at the end of the dock.  We googled it to find out some information.  If you want to work on a ship, you can hire on there as a junior stewardess if you have a bubbly personality and promise no drama.  Here's a photo of Azteca:

Azteca is 72 meters or 240 feet long. 

See the real blog for Tuesday, 1/20/15, below:

Prepping for Visitors + Trucks in Key West

Today we are preparing for our second set of visitors:  George's sister Nannette, and Donny and Jenny Jackson.  These three are family, but Donny and Jenny haven't visited Aunt Aggie, so we want to make a good impression.  We washed the grime off the outside, changed sheets, cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed, and also did a new task: wiping down the woodwork in the salon with Murphy's Oil Soap.  I got fussy toward the end of the cleaning because a dockhand had walked on the wet floor on his way to do a pump-out.  The floor was tracked with dirty shoe prints.  Ugh! Yes, I am grateful for the pump-out every Tuesday.  Next week we need to wait for him to finish before we clean outside. We washed it off again and walked over to lunch at the Rusty Anchor.

We had walked through this restaurant in order to find the fishmonger, but we'd never eaten there.  Today we had the lunch special, beef stroganoff.  Yes, it is an odd dish to order here, but it tasted great.  It was a bowl of satisfying gravy, noodles and beef strips.  I don't know when I've eaten any beef, so it was a nice change from seafood.

After lunch we walked out the back door and waited with another couple for a chance to buy fish.  We asked for 2 - 3 pounds of yellow tail snapper.  When the owner weighed our bag of fish, he said we owed $63.  What?  Last week the fish was just $20.  He had three pounds of fillets on the scale.  Last week we bought one fish for $20 and then had it filleted.  Oops.  He took a couple of fillets out, and we paid $46 for double what we need.  Back at the boat we divided the fish into two packages - one for tomorrow and one to freeze for next week. We need to be careful with our ordering because we really like this fish and appreciate the ease of buying. It's so fun to walk over there and buy fresh fish.  There is a language barrier making the transactions tricky.  We will do better.

Beautiful yellow tail snapper waiting for buyers.

As we have toured Key West, we noticed several decorated trucks parked at corners.  I've seen other municipal art on this trip.  One town had decorated dolphins at street corners, for example.  Trucks seem rather large for art.  I wonder how this started.  That's a question I will investigate as I walk around this week with Nan and Jenny.  Here are the three trucks we've seen so far.

Tarpons and sea critters and bones cover this one.

Lots o' bumper stickers on this truck.

Mac's truck has a sign that says, "Out of gas.  Back in a minute" on the other side.

Feeling Let Down after Company Leaves.

This morning Trisha, Caronell and Judy left.  I feel tired and sad, missing them.  They were terrific guests - fun and energetic and considerate. We did a lot of walking around Key West and explored the city well.  They had a list from USA Today of top 10 shopping spots.  It was fun to find those.  We also had a few shopping goals, which gave us a purpose for the walking.  We visited two beaches, which were quite different from each other:  Smathers was sandy and traditional, whereas the beach at Ft. Zachary Taylor was rocky and had shady woods nearby.  We ate conch fritters and snapper and crab soup.  Every meal was pleasing.  We also listened to music together.  Judy introduced us to her favorite song by the Zac Brown Band.  Yesterday we found the lyrics on the wall of our lunch spot, a good sign.

Lots of other signs were also posted.  This is my favorite.

We admired blooming plants and trees on our tour.  

This plant is ubiquitous and comes in several colors.  What is it?  

We have a few days alone now.  Today is sunny.  A good day to rest and do laundry and call friends.