This morning I’m fulfilling another dream of mine, kayaking in the Keys. Boyd’s campground has a boat ramp about 150 yards from our trailer, which was a little further than we wanted to carry the kayaks, even though we have wheels for my 68 lb., 14’ long kayak. Driving to the ramp was so much easier.
We unloaded the boats and put them in the water. Then we put together our paddles, put on our life vests and paddling gloves, and off we went. The ocean was bathtub water warm, and only about 18” deep most of the places we rowed. The first thing we did was cruise past our trailer, photographing it from the water.
The many islands in this bay are populated with mangroves up to 50’ wide with most much smaller. Some served as private moorings with boats tied to them, and in a couple cases we saw a single mangrove sticking out of the water, apparently hoping to become its own island one day.
Along the way we came upon two partially sunken pleasure boats, teaming with fish savoring the protection they offered. I spotted a 12” wide dark stingray flying beneath the surface, scurrying to get out of my way. And later I saw a 24” wide white stingray that was oblivious to me and just kept on cruising under the water minding his (or her) own business.
We also found a pair of sponge fisherman standing in the waist-deep water pounding the sponges with what appeared to be ping pong paddles to remove the sand trapped in them. The slap, slap, slap sound was echoing across the water.
We paddled out of the protection of our bay into more wide open water, were we came upon a harbor where several large yachts were parked. Their gleaming white hulls and flying bridges were contrasted by the turquoise blue hues of the water. But I’m guessing that they were envious of us, maneuvering our engine-free kayaks without the hassles of paying for thousands of dollars in fuel, the upkeep of these behemoths, not to mention the depreciation. We were both in the same place, doing the same thing, just at different ends of the scale.
Although it was warm enough to break into a sweat on land, we were relatively cooler, so low to the water with a breeze, either the natural one or the one we create when we move through the water. Marianne now always brings some treats with her and we drifted among the mangrove islands eating a tangerine, some string cheese, and sharing a cold Coke Zero. I’m living my dream!
After an hour we returned to the ramp, loaded the kayaks back onto the truck, and headed back to the trailer for a shower, since I was now drenched with sweat from the physical exercise of hoisting the kayaks up onto the racks on top of the truck and securing them. The heat and humidity were definitely becoming oppressive.
After showering and a little rest, we headed into Key West to grab lunch with some local flavor and then visit the home of Ernest Hemingway and the six-toed cats that descended from his six-toed cats 75 years earlier.
It the middle of the day we found the municipal parking lot wide open, and for only $1 per hour – at last, something cheap in Key West.
Next to the parking lot was BO’s restaurant which had been hyped in a local TV documentary we caught the night before. It was one of the older restaurants in town and was proud of the fact that it was a shack, complete with tin roof and no windows. It was filled with a strange menagerie of knick knacks from beer signs to an entire rusted pick-up with mannequins inside.
The place had no air-conditioning but did have a number of large, high-speed fans to keep the air moving. We found a table directly under one of these fans, so we were relatively comfortable in the heat. The fan played havoc with the paper towels that doubled as napkins, but I soon discovered that our table was sticky enough that it would hold them flat as if they were glued down.
BO’s were famous for the ½ pound hamburgers called BOMF’s, which stands for “mother’s favorite”. I had a hankering for a large cheeseburger and this thing filled my every desire.
After lunch we decided to walk to the Hemingway house. We weren’t really sure of where it was in relationship to where we were, so we broke out our chintzy tourist maps, determined where we were and set out. Remember, it is hotter than Hades here.The sun was baking down on us as we merrily set off, but within minutes we were plodding block after block after block, like survivors in a desert trying to make it to the next oasis. Water, water, water…..
We stopped into a couple of stores to cool off, and asked how much further the Hemingway house was. In one of the stores, the salesman with the very foreign accent had no idea. Heck, he probably didn’t even know who Hemingway was.
By the time we finally arrived at the house we were hot and tired. We paid our $22 (with a AAA discount) to tour the place. It turns out that Hemingway didn’t have an air-conditioner either, so I’m guess that made him a hot author instead of a cool one. Fans were blowing in every room to cool the fans that had made the pilgrimage.
It was hard finding the famous six-toed cats. Apparently it was too hot for them, too. Of the 43 that are said to inhabit the house, we found six lying underneath various chairs on the verandah trying to keep cool. They weren’t moving much, and visitors aren’t allowed to pick them up, so I could never see if they really did have six toes.
After touring the home we came to the mutual conclusion that it was just too hot to attempt to walk all the way back to the truck. We called a cab and within five minutes were sitting in the coldest car I can remember. We were also surprised how long it took for the cab ride back to the truck; we had hiked the entire Sahara!
On the way back to the campground we stopped at a Winn Dixie supermarket to pick up more provisions.
After dinner we met the campers who had pulled in next to us. They were from Birmingham, Alabama and gave us a number of suggestions of where to go on our trek up the east coast of Florida since that’s the way they had just come down.
Tomorrow morning we will leave the Keys and head back to the mainland. Oh yeah, it rained that night, our record remains intact.
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