Key Largo
Boy, that name, “Key
Largo”, sure stirs up some old classic images doesn’t it? Images like
Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Edward G. Robinson immediately come to
mind and add to that hurricanes and funny talking gangsters. Well, these
days the place doesn’t conger up images like that at least not anymore.
About the only thing that even partially resembles a nostalgic impression
is what’s left of the rusty old boat that was used, not in the old classic
movie Key Largo, but in The African Queen. It is not even
proudly on display but propped up out of the water on an old boat lift
under the cover of an open air canvas roof and sadly this famous icon is in
pitiful condition. The wood is rotting, the paint peeling and anything
metal is rusting right through.
GANGSTAHS?
And the only thing here
that comes close to resembling old star gangsters like Edward G. Robinson
from the movie Key Largo was the gossip that one of the marina
owners went missing after a trip to Miami. He never came back having
supposedly met his fate with a contract on his head. So… maybe there is
still a bit of underworld mystic still hanging around here.
SMOKE & CHARACTERS
Actually there are
some rough looking local characters here but they are more of the salty
kind, with ruddy complexions, untrimmed sun bleached hair and scruffy
unshaven faces. Along with that they can spew some well meaning but
pretty rough language and their ever present cigarette in one hand and
beer in the other projects an image that was quickly becoming my lasting
impression of Key Largo. This place must be the last hold out for
smokers. In fact we have never been to a place where EVERYBODY seemed to
be able smoke and eat all at the same time. Remember those days when
everybody smoked and it was cool? Well, good or bad, that’s about the
only thing nostalgic around here, smoking. 
MICROCOSM
It was a far cry from
images I had of Key Largo with weathered wooden hurricane shutters, wrap
around porches, tin roofs, old fishing boats, drying nets and floats
hanging in trees and a few illegal Cubans milling around to boot. Naw,
sadly it’s nothing like that. At least that’s not the impression we had
from our small micro space of a world that we see from our boat. Here you
are surrounded by the Holiday Inn, the Ramada Inn and you might see the
Starbucks if you happen to be brave enough to venture across the amazingly
busy highway, in the heat of the day. There are no convenient cross walks
and nor do you as the pedestrian have any rights or right away (even the
local police car speeds right by you inches away without stopping).
So….so if you are feeling lucky that day…well, it’s up to you.
The
surrounding area is filled with amazing amounts of
small-square-footage-short-time rentals that seemed to be packed with
oversized families on vacation. And as far as the harbor or I’d call it
the channel, it is lined with one big dive boat after another as the most
important form of employment here is dive and snorkel excursions. If you
don’t dive they’ve got the big clunky glass bottom boat to go in to get a
glimpse of diving and if neither of those activities fit the bill you can
try your luck and board the big claustrophobic looking dark windowed
casino shuttle boat that heads out the harbor to some legal gambling sight
in some unknown offshore location.
INSANITY OF SANITY
To tell you the truth none
of those activities were on our list of things we wanted to do so we spent
a lot of our time lounging around at the pool and taking walks. Yep, we
had a swimming pool and a Jacuzzi to boot! Now that was a real treat for
us after these many long weeks of boating. The idea of taking a swim was
my idea of real luxury. And the atmosphere was even a bit tropical in a
planned landscape sort of way with palms swaying with the windy Front that
passed through the few days we were here. We even managed to sort of have
Ziggy with us at the poolside so we wouldn’t have to lock him up on the
boat. The hotel/marina wouldn’t allow him to sit inside the fence where
the pool area was but he could sit just outside the fence we were told “it
wouldn’t sanitary” inside.
HOOFS
I beg to differ though on
that point as I think he was much more sanitary than the women boaters
that came in the last day we were there. They took a nice long dip in the
pool, a long soak in the Jacuzzi and then began to trim and pick at their
toe nails while lounging around the pool area, oops, excuse me the
“sanitary” area. Hey, I know it’s hard when boating to go for weeks on
end when those ugly gray roots start becoming visible and then those darn
toe and finger nails (or hoofs as Larry likes to call them) get much
neglected but PLEASE, PLEASE, clean and trim your hoofs on your boat! I
can certainly say Ziggy behaved with more respect and consideration than
that and certainly was a lot more sanitary.
CLOTHES? NOT A PROBLEM
And add to that last
spectacle, the day another woman just decided to take her clothes off
except for her bra and panties and swim in the pool as if nothing was
unusual.
There were some characters
here for sure.
STEADY POUR
And several yards away,
just far enough to be tolerable, was the Coconut’s Restaurant, part of the
hotel and marina complex. It was trying hard to look and be like
something from the nostalgic days of the past but was succeeding only in
developing a reputation for serving up bad food and flamboyant overdressed
cocktails. About the only thing they were profitable at that we could see
was producing a steady flow of late night noisy drunks that stumbled down
the docks after closing.
HOLLYWOOD EYES
Hey don’t get me wrong,
this place wasn’t bad at all. It served our purpose for getting out of
the bad weather and getting a few days rest. It just didn’t meet my
nostalgic impressions. What the heck did I expect anyway, growing up as a
kid in Southern California seeing the world through old Hollywood movies?
We had all we needed; power, water, a descent restaurant, called
Sharkey’s down the way and a pool a few yards away, well at least
until the ladies did their pedicure.
IF YOU CAN’T DIVE…
Let’s face it, the biggest
and only attraction around here is diving, period. Everyone that comes
here comes here for diving. If you don’t come here for diving then what
are you doing here? In fact we felt a little ridiculous as we watched
everyday as the divers gathered in the mornings, testing and loading up
their gear to head out each day to explore that reef that gave us
protection from the Florida Straits and we just sat there watching like
lumps on a log.
About the most adventurous
thing we explored was what we saw on our daily walks and that wasn’t
much.
LET’S DO THE SHUFFLE
Our hotel/marina was
really quite pleasant and Candy the dock master did everything possible to
make the boaters comfortable but there was nothing she could do about the
little wedge of a dock that practically took a death defying act of skill
to get on and off the boat at low tide in the dark and well in the
daylight hours too. Larry got very adept at doing a comical night time
shuffle in the dark to make sure he didn’t accidently step off the pointy
narrow part finding himself and Ziggy dropped into the brink. We had
some good laughs about it all.
One day we walked by the
Glass Bottom Tour Boat which is located next to the Casino Boat. The girl
that worked on the Glass Bottom Boat was very friendly and started talking
to us about Ziggy. She asked if we were coming out on the Glass Bottom
Boat today and we said no because we had Ziggy. “Hey, Ziggy can come!
It’s not a problem! We love dogs!” (I guess the bad economy does have
some advantages). Well, why not we thought. So we bought some tickets
and climbed aboard.
Well, this was about the
corniest thing we’ve done yet I thought. What could we possibly see in a
big clumsy boat like this? But then I thought, wouldn’t it just be
relaxing letting someone else do the driving for once. We could just sit
back and watch the show. Turns out we had a great time and learned a
lot.
MOOCHER
We really enjoyed the
local egret too that came to mooch some bait from the snack counter on the
boat before we left. He’s a little white egret that hangs around the
harbor and has figured out that humans are just big suckers that can be
manipulated for tasty bites of fish scraps. I think he thinks he’s a
pelican as he acts a bit like one. He’s so clean, white and elegant that
everyone gives him lots of attention.
Off we went with a
different glimpse of “Crash Corner” and the skinny entrance we came in, a
glimpse as a spectator watching a local who knows the ropes and shallow
waters. Turns out the tour was really fun and interesting because the
girl that narrated, you could tell, just loved the sea and all the
creatures and had plenty of fascinating stories to tell about the coral
and fish, things that you normally wouldn’t know. Things like how many
years it takes for a brain coral to grow a ¼” and it made us realize how
old some of that “stuff” we’ve been picking up on the shores was. Also if
you notice when you walk along the shores here in the Keys, (although I
couldn’t find a shore to walk on here) the water line is littered with
coral that looks like little bones and that’s why one stretch of beach is
called “Skeleton Beach.” There were lots of fun facts or maybe they were
myths with a bit of falsehood thrown in but was very entertaining and we
had a great time. Sorry to say what we saw through the glass wasn’t the
greatest but she made it fun and interesting anyway.
LITTLE JOHNNY WALKER
The only restaurant that
was worth eating at was Sharkey’s. The fish was good and fresh and we got
to know the guys working there. No problem with Ziggy either as this
place wasn’t “sanitary” I guess. The owner of the restaurant had his
little black dog that hung out there so I guess that justified all dogs to
be welcome. The story is the owner found him as a puppy just walking the
streets of Miami and picked him up and that’s how he got his name “Johnny
Walker”. We had great fresh Florida grilled lobster and grouper and this
is where we got hooked on Key Lime pie.
As a side note: We did
find another restaurant that was fun for lunch called Snook’s and had a
great view of the bay on the other side. But to get there you have to
cross the “highway” but worth it.
WATER & DIESEL DON’T
MIX
That’s about the extent of
our visit in a nutshell. There’s nothing much to write home about but it
was a good place to rest up after our incident with the “big wake”. We
were pretty shaken after that and needed a good stop to wait out the Front
and to get our sea legs back again. Speaking of that, I forgot to mention
that after we got the crap waked out of us the alarms started going off
again. This time it was the alarm to warn us of water in the fuel tank.
Last time that happened was in some bad seas in Albemarle Sound, remember
that? Boy, we’ve had some rough seas.
Larry thinks the rough
seas stirred up some moisture that may have collected in the bottom of the
fuel tank. So in the midst of all those bad seas and after “the wake”
Larry had to get down into the Lazarette and drain off the water from the
fuel tank. It was very dangerous in those seas but he managed to get a
cup of water and junk, algae, out and it seemed to help for awhile, maybe
an hour, but then the alarms went off again and never stopped. It was
like this the whole day, extremely nerve wracking with that alarm going
off all the time after the bad experience.
We seem to get water in
the fuel when we are in bad seas and then it is impossible to do anything
about it while you are being thrown back and forth, but nevertheless the
alarm keeps nagging at you driving you crazy. Once we got to Key Largo
Larry drained the water off again and got big chunks of algae out of it
and lots of water. He thinks he got it all. I hope.
TIME TO SEE WHAT
TOMORROW WILL THROW AT US
We’re heading to Marathon
tomorrow. The seas are down from the Front that went through but it’s
still not to our liking. We don’t want to wait any longer so we’ll see
what tomorrow is going to throw at us. We have explored this microcosm as
much as possible. Sometimes when traveling on a boat you don’t see the
whole picture of a place. You don’t sense the whole area but just the
small surrounding space you are within and I guess that is what we did
here. I know there is much more to this place that we didn’t experience.
People get used to having cars and traveling many miles in a day and get
spoiled being able to get to and buy anything, but on a boat life is
different, slower, more challenging and more microscopic. I felt a bit
trapped by this place, trapped by the highway that runs the length of the
Keys and trapped by the thin strip of land the key is on. The water was
blocked off in every direction by houses and docks, to me, it was time to
go.
We couldn’t leave until
10:30 when the tide was right. Why is it always easier to get out of a
slip than in it? We also waited until the Front blew through and the seas
calmed down a bit. The winds have died down a bit and were predicted to
come from the north now. That means we’re going to have the seas on our
beam and guess what, another uncomfortable ride. Larry and Candy, the
dock master, say when we make our turn by Ismoralda the seas will be more
behind us and it should be a smoother ride but that’s quite a ways down.
I actually think we’ll have them on the beam the whole way but we’ll see.
Whatever. It always blows down here so you might as well go out and
suffer as they say. Here we go, let’s see what the day throws at us.
FRONTS
It was a Cold Front we
had. Do they ever have Hot Fronts? We even had to put the heater on
several mornings while at Key Largo. Everyone dug out their winter gear
again and was complaining about the cold weather. The seas were choppy
out there but that didn’t stop the dive and fishing boats from taking the
unsuspecting tourists out each day.
Larry called on the radio
stating his intention to head out Crash Corner. No answers back.
Once we headed out the
channel and back into Hawk’s Channel we could see rollers on the horizon.
Not a good sign but maybe they are rollers from boat wakes. Let’s hope.
NAGGING QUESTIONS
Larry checks the latest
weather update and then the buoys to see what they are doing. On days
like this, in the hours before we set out, we always wonder what the
conditions are trying to figure what it’s like out on the water but you
never know for sure. When there’s iffy conditions like this we can never
quite decide whether we should go or not go, whether we want to be
uncomfortable or stay and be comfortable. Sometimes we make excuses why
not to go, but then when it comes time to go, you just go, to get it over
with, to just get out of there, as you’ve just been in one place too
long.
A BIT OF ALGAE?
Oh no. Dammit. We’ve got
water in the fuel tank again. The alarm is going off again. Not another
miserable day of listening to that again I think. Larry says he might
have to try and drain it again. Let’s wait and see. Maybe it’s just a
small piece of algae that he didn’t catch while at Key Largo. It’s
probably just floating around in there and making the alarm go off every
so often.
We pass a nice looking
blue hauled yacht called Elizabeth B. Wonder why they have
their radar running out here? Could only be to watch what’s coming up
behind them.
BEHIND THE NAMES
What funny names on the
chart: Elbow Reef, Molasses Reef, Pickles Reef and Hens and Chickens.
Where do they come up with these names? I’m sure there’s an interesting
story behind each one. There are some Hens and Chickens off Cape Code in
Massachusetts. In fact, I think there are some in the Channel Islands too
in California or wait, maybe it’s called the Potato Patch. Potatoes,
tomatoes, hens and chickens, whose knows what’s left in the kitchen?
NO BREAK
Well, the seas were rough
again but I think we are just getting used to it and the spray over the
windshield. Just don’t give me anymore boat wakes. Even Ziggy decided to
tolerate it without his whining. It turned out to be a long miserable
ride again but the boat can take it. Instead of the ride getting easier
and calmer as we got further south, it was just the opposite, everything
got worse. So much for the weather report again.
7 MILE BRIDGE
Hours later we got a
glimpse of the 7 Mile Bridge. Our harbor entrance is right at the foot of
the north side of the bridge. We continued south further to make a big
wide sweep to go around the shoals and then backtracked to the entrance
markers to the harbor. The seas were retching up but once inside the
markers it was calm. We passed several boats anchored outside the harbor
in these seas. That can only be uncomfortable, cheap or desperate.
ANY MARINA, COME BACK
We hear another boat on 16
calling “any marina” looking for slip space or a mooring but they only get
silence as there is no space anywhere. They sounded a bit stressed. How
could someone think they could show up here without a reservation? This
place is packed like a sardine can. It’s unbelievable. Now I know where
all the boaters in Florida are, right here in Marathon. This little strip
of land, this little spot along the chain of the keys had more
concentration of cruisers than we’ve seen for months.
We’re following a trawler
through the harbor who is going really slow. He’s looks like he’s
wandering the aisles of a crowded parking lot at Christmas time looking
for a space for someone to leave. Larry tries to hail our marina to get
slip directions. The radio is busy with people cutting each other off.
IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?
Instead, that lady comes
back on the radio again and is now hailing for “anybody out there” asking
if anyone knows where a 42” foot trawler can anchor. It’s like a
weird movie, people wandering around aimlessly and no place to go. No one
answers her back. Maybe they had to come in to Marathon unexpectedly to
get out of the seas as they were pretty bad. Maybe they are just trying
to get out of the weather. Still, no reservations? You just can’t do
that here. Who would think that all the anchorage space would be full too
though?
WHERE’S THE DOCK
MASTER?
Larry finally has to
resort to calling the dock master on his cell phone. We get instructions
to keep coming in and to hug the green marker when we make the turn as
“its shallow there”.
TOO MANY BOATS
I can’t believe how many
boats are moored and anchored here. My first thought is where is all the
poop going? Crazy? Well, how can you help but wonder when you see a
small strip of land trying to manage this many boats.
WHERE IS THE SLIP?
I can’t believe how far
into the harbor we are going. It just seems like the channel goes on and
on and still there are more boats. Larry calls the dock master again and
says we are at the marker he said to call him back at and where should we
go now? He says our slip is B25, stern in, port tie. I begin to look for
our slip but can see no numbers posted anywhere. I’ve got the lines
ready. More finger poles I see. What did I really expect? Is someone
going to be able to help us I wonder?
We slowly head down past
the aisle of boats on our starboard side. The endless mooring field now
stops and is replaced by a lagoon of mangrove islands to our port. To
our right continues this endless stack of boats. Larry hugs their sharp
and pointed bows tightly making me very nervous as the wind now is blowing
us on the beam and towards those bows. “I have to hug them tight as the
water is shallow to our port!”
Where IS this B25?
I can’t see a friggin’ number anywhere! It’s like walking a tightrope
looking for something you can’t see. Larry calls the dock master back.
Tells him we can’t find the slip.
The dock master asks
“Where are you?”
“Just down from the
Dockside Bar.”
The dock master says he’s
at the Dockside Bar and he can’t see us, then he asks what’s the name of
the marina are we looking for? OK, this is getting nuts. Larry stumbles
over the name. What the heck is it anyway? Is it Sombrero Lighthouse
Marina? No wait, he thinks it’s Sombrero Dockside Marina? There are two
here with similar names. Now we’re getting confused. Larry is still
trying to stay in the deeper water and keep the wind from pushing him into
the boats and deal with this darn dock master.
Larry checks his note pad,
“We have a reservation at Sombrero Dockside Marina. You have our
reservations don’t you?” The dock master sarcastically laughed at Larry,
like we should know where we are going. This guy was really getting my
dander up. Then we were back to “Where are you?” business. Larry says
he’ll turn around and come back to the bar so he can see us. Someone in
the line of boats at the docks yells out to us asking what slip we are
looking for. “B25!” I yell back. He was trying to help but then said he
wasn’t sure what slip number he was in. Where are the G__ D__ numbers I
wonder. He then said very embarrassed, “Sorry, I just got here and I
guess I don’t know what this slip number is and don’t know where that
is.” Big help. I guess he’s as confused as we are.
We get back to the bar and
Larry patiently calls the dock master again. The dock master asks again,
“Where are you?”
“RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BAR
WHERE YOU ARE!!!!” Larry’s is getting annoyed now and I come back
inside to see what’s going on. What in the heck is the problem?
And again, the guy says
“Where?”
“IN FRONT OF WHERE YOU
ARE, THE SOMBRERO DOCKSIDE BAR!!!! We’re the blue hulled boat right in
front of you!”
“Oh, I see you captain.
Just follow me I’ll walk down to your slip”, he says.
What?? I thought he was
going to be at the slip to show us where it is. What’s he doing in the
bar?
So, now we try follow this
guy down the dock at a walking pace for about a ¼ mile down to where our
slip was, you know, old Slip B25. Mind you the wind is blowing a bluster
and we’re trying to walk the boat down at his pace to a slip we have no
idea where it is, along this narrow strip of water with shallows on one
side and pointy sharp bows on the other. I still keep looking for slip
numbers but there are none to be seen.
Finally we
get to our slip, still no number that I could see. Poor Larry never seems
to have easy conditions to dock this boat. We’re at an open spot in the
harbor where the wind is whipping in and blowing us right into the dock.
Neighbors on both sides come out of their boats to help. Well, actually
the one guy to the left is standing on the bow of his boat, like to
protect it, and has the side of his boat protected with a steady line of
bumpers. OK, here we go.
Larry backs in and I throw
the stern to the dock master. Then he asks sarcastically, “What do you
want me to do with this? Is this guy for real or what? This guy is really
getting on my nerves about now. I say we’ll criss cross the two stern
lines. I hand the other guy standing there a spring line hoping he’ll use
that to keep the boat from going too far in to the dock. I go up to get
the bow lines on the posts. When I come back the guy is still holding the
spring line. That’s when I realize I need to take the spring forward to a
post. The dock master makes another wise crack about where do I think I
should put that. I snapped back that I don’t really need this kind of
stress after battering about in bad seas all day.
Then the dock master
reaches down to pet Ziggy and I say not to that he’s not too friendly. He
ignores my request saying “All dogs like me.” It didn’t matter what I
said he still continued to try to pet Ziggy while I was trying to get the
boat secure.
WE’RE IN
Anyway, we were in. The
neighbors were kind to offer help and seemed pretty friendly and nice.
That was good because we were going to be close neighbors for several
days.
The couple to our right
owned a trawler and said they were from upper state NY. They said they
had done the Big Loop a few years back. The other couple on our left
were French from Montreal and had just bought their boat.
Okay, we’re in Marathon.
We had a nice view off the bow of the boat to the Mangroves and we’ve got
a golf course across the road on the other side. The Publix grocery was a
½ mile down the road and the Dockside Bar offered food and drink. We’re
going to rent a car here so will have transportation to explore and also
so Larry can drive back to Palm Beach to have his eye checked again by the
doctor.
We were settled in.
PS later the neighbors
told us the dock master was drunk.
