Walking to Key West

The trip to Key West from Fiesta Key takes about an hour and a half by car. There's only one road in and one road out and Key West is a popular place. It's also a cruise ship stop. That's how we arrived there last May. That day in May there were at least three cruise ships in port. It makes the town ridiculously crowded so when we were planning our day in Key West we tried to pick a day when there would be no cruise ships. We decided to go on January 2nd. Zero cruise ships in port according to the website that lists cruise ship ports and ships and where they are on any given day.

One of the things we noticed when we were in Key West last May was the inconvenience of having to pay for parking and we were only driving around in a golf cart. So when we went back this time with our Jeep, Mark thought it would be a good idea to park in a grocery store or shopping center parking lot and walk into town. It sounded reasonable to me.

He picked a spot that was "just a few blocks away". Honestly, I don't know what map he was going by. It took us over an hour (probably closer to two) to get into the historic part of town. Fortunately it was a pleasant walk. When we finally got there, I was looking for mile marker 0. Never saw it. What I did see was cruise ships. There were two of them in port. They were not supposed to be there! I had checked the website. There were not supposed to be any cruise ships in Key West that day. There were two possibilities - 1) the cruise ships had changed their itineraries or 2) I misread the website that posts the cruise ship calendars. I suppose it could have been either but no matter - we were in Key West and so were those cruise ships.

Since we'd wasted an hour or more just getting there on foot, we were starving. It was lunch time. Sloppy Joe's was out - you can't get near the place with two gigantic cruise ships in port. We thought we'd go to the same place we went in May - it was on the water, overlooking a marina. But since we were on foot and not in a golf cart or any other motorized vehicle, we couldn't find it and gave up looking. We found a really nice place, Bagatelle. They had shaded outdoor seating upstairs. Excellent food and service, just not overlooking a marina. By the way, great crab cake.

After lunch we walked back to Sloppy Joe's and bought a tee shirt. Then I wanted to make sure that we found the dock for the Yankee Freedom that would take us to Dry Tortugas the following day as well as the parking lot that was supposed to be near the Yankee Freedom dock.  (We had to be there by 7 AM which meant leaving Fiesta at 5 AM. No margin for error.)

We didn't get very far when Mark started to complain that he had a blister on his foot from walking into town. Not only could he not continue the search for the Yankee Freedom dock, he couldn't walk back to the car, either. With all those cruise ship people in town would we be able to get a cab? Several went past us, all full. We took down the number of one, called their dispatcher and told her we were at the intersection of Duval and whatever street that was. We waited. And waited. It was Key West. Not New York City. Not Chicago. It's just not that big. There is no reason why a cab should take longer than 15 minutes to reach you. I called them back. "When will the cab be here?"

"As soon as I have a free one. It could be five minutes, it could be an hour."

"I see. Thank you."

Then I told Mark to start looking for an empty cab because the one we called probably wasn't coming. We managed to hail one quickly and he drove us back to our car. That only cost $20.

Then we set off in the Jeep to find mile marker 0 and the Yankee Freedom dock. We found the dock, very close to the historic district and plenty of parking. All day parking. $11. All day. Which means we could have driven in to town, cut out an hour and a half of walking, had more time to spend in Key West, and it would have cost us about half as much as the cab. And Mark could have avoided the blister. (To tell the truth, I'm the one who usually gets attacked by my shoes, so I was probably a bit smug about the whole thing.)  We live and learn.

The traffic was a bit congested for such a small place. I did see mile marker 0 but there was too much traffic for us to stop and get out for a photo op. But that's okay - I found a photo on the internet.

Here are a few of the other photos we took on the way to and in Key West.

Don't get me wrong. Key West is great, but I think I prefer the less crowded, less congested, less iconic keys.

Running Aground

We booked a sailing trip for New Year's Day. As it turned out, this was the inaugural trip of the Island Dreamer Biscayne National Park Tour. (Which explains why my confirmation email confused me. - I thought I'd made a mistake and booked a sailing school. It also explains why the confirmation email didn't mention food and water.) And it might explain why no one calculated tides into the departure time.

Departure time was 10 AM. We hit bottom while making the turn out of the slip. I think the technical term is "running aground". Captain Harold ordered everyone to the front of the boat but it didn't help. A man on the dock tried to help using some ropes but that didn't work either. One of the park rangers came out and offered suggestions. When none of them helped, she advised us to "wait here for a minute". "Wait here" wasn't really necessary. We were stuck.

The next thing we knew, a different park ranger turned up asking for "license and registration please". This guy was serious. Not smiling at all. Captain Harold quietly produced the requested documents and was then asked to accompany the ranger. The ranger advised us that it would be about an hour and a half before Captain Harold returned. Wow! Are we having fun yet? It looked like we would have ample time to get to know the other four passengers. But Captain Terry didn't seem to think that Captain Harold would really be gone an hour and a half.

The ranger came back about 45 minutes later without Captain Harold. I had visions of poor Captain Harold in the stockade. Running aground in a National Park appears to be serious business. The ranger wanted a word with us.

"I think I know the answer to this, but I have to ask: Was anyone injured when the boat ran aground?"

Nope. We were all fine. Apparently anytime you run aground, a detailed incident report must be prepared. And when you haven't actually left the dock it's pretty easy to identify the "incident".

It wasn't long before Captain Harold was returned to his ship and we were instructed to stay put for another 15 or 20 minutes until the tide came in enough to lift the boat.


Once we got moving (about 11:15) the sailing was good. We saw lots of birds - ospreys, cormorants, and frigates as well as some dolphins. Captain Harold was very good about slowing down so we could get a better view of baby birds in nests and other items of interest.

On the way back the wind died down and we were traveling at a speed of about two knots. You don't actually think you're moving at that speed but he wanted to avoid using the motor if he could. 

Anyway, it's a beautiful park. If I go back, I want to go to Boca Chita Key instead of Adams Key, mainly because there's a lighthouse there and lighthouses are so photogenic. Here are some photos we took on this excursion.

Lots of sea birds

Yes, they do own the place.

On board the Island Dreamer

Tall sails

Baby osprey

About to take flight

A lovely bunch of coconuts

A boat made from styrofoam coolers and plastic that brought Cuban refugees to Florida.

A beautiful, peaceful place.

The Bucket List

One of Mark's bucket list items has been to sit on a beach on Christmas Day with his toes in the sand and a pina colada in his hand. I'd always brushed this off because I thought it was frivolous. Christmas is about family and as long as we have family that still wants to be around us, that's where we'll be.

But then he spent that week in the hospital in Paris last year (needing 5 units of blood) and then another week in a Texas hospital with bouncing blood sugars and a pulmonary embolism - it just seemed like he should be able to do whatever he wanted to do. I was on board. Give me that bucket list!

So this Christmas, he got his wish. We sat on a beach on Christmas Day with a bottle of champagne and some pina coladas. Check that one off the list!

Now we just need to determine the next bucket list item. I'd like to go to India, or maybe a European river cruise, or navigate the Intracoastal Waterway from one end to the other. I've always fancied going to the headwaters of the Arkansas River and canoeing the length of it. Mark's wanted to repeat a trip he did across the US when he was in his twenties. And then there's a train trip through the Grand Canyon. So much to do. So little time.

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Backing Up

I thought we learned not to change the plan on our last time out in the camper, but perhaps not. A new cardinal rule - don't change the plan. We originally planned to arrive at Fiesta Key on the 22nd of December. But while we were driving on the 21st, the GPS showed Fiesta Key as our final destination and indicated that we would arrive there around 6 PM.

Well! Why wait? Let's see if we can get into our site today and just head on down there. A quick call confirmed that we could occupy our site that evening but that the office closed at 6 PM. But not to worry, if we didn't arrive before 6 PM, they would leave a packet for us at the entrance and we could settle in and stop by the office in the morning. That would be fine!

I had every confidence that this plan would work. We learned about packets on our very first trip. We learned that just because they said they were leaving a packet with your name on it did not guarantee that said packet would actually be there. What are the odds that we'd experience a missing packet this time?

So the GPS figured we'd arrive at 6 PM. That did not account for gas stops taking over 30 minutes each. And it sure didn't account for the slow traffic on Highway 1. We arrived at 8:30 PM. And the odds of a missing packet? 100%. (The next time I can't reach my destination by closing time, I'll just pass on that destination or arrive the next day.)

No packet. Two packets for someone named Cannon. Maybe they got confused and gave them ours. I called the emergency number and got someone named Rosa who said she was going to send someone right over. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably 10 minutes, I phoned back to see when the person who was coming might arrive.

Debbie arrived shortly, but without the keys to the office. She had to phone someone else to bring those. She apologized for not leaving the packet. At least she owned that. She got us checked in and set off to lead us to our site. It was pretty clear that she didn't know the place all that well. She had to keep stopping to look at the markers. We were at least in the right row. But then she told us to "just back right in there."

Back? As in back up? I'm certain that we reserved a pull through site. It's what we do. We are not good at backing up. We were also relatively certain that we'd reserved a waterfront site. Debbie told us that we didn't. She said we'd reserved a site that was too small for our camper. I don't think so. But anyway, we were determined to have a good time and not get bent out of shape. We could sort all of that out later.

But it was dark. We'd been driving for more than 12 hours. We hadn't eaten and Mark's blood sugar was tanked. And he's really not an experienced backer upper. It was about to go very badly. The RV across from us was a monstrous thing - probably over 40 feet long. Shiny and new looking and if he'd kept going, Mark would have taken those wing mirrors right off. Larry, it's owner was excited and came out to "help" - which actually didn't help. But he was probably more help than Debbie.

After three failed attempts at backing into the site we asked Debbie if there was someplace we could just park for the night and sort it out in the morning. Fortunately, there was a place where we could just pull in sideways - go get something to eat, and then get a good night's rest.

Got it in first try the next day. Daylight and a good night's sleep make a world of difference.