There’s JP staring at the day’s catch, “The only fish I’ve seen today”. We biked from south Key Largo right through Islamorada to Holiday Isle. Wallace would recognize the shoreline from 2001, when we toured part of that exact area. I warn again, when Florida advertising tells you the Keys are a day trip, they mean it literally. This time, with bicycles and an early start, JP and I saw the whole place and every beachlet along the way.
Since the prime directive was a meeting over real estate, today I’ll tell you some of what we saw of housing over there. We parked in a vacant lot in Tavernier, a lot that should be teeming with tourists. JP won’t go off-road on his bicycle. I had no problem plowing over coral levees and dirt paths. The docks and piers are empty and dozens of hotels and cafes he remembers as a child are boarded up. In a strange mentality borrowed from the stock market, some people will hold on to a losing property rather than cut their losses by selling below cost. I’ve never trusted island economies. Prices are still high and the rumor is that no new construction is allowed unless you bribe City Hall. Or is that Ft. Lauderdale, I forget. We pedaled past more than a few virtual ghost communities.
Moorage is $13.50 per foot per month, if you stay year-round. Nobody would specify per foot of what, so save money and build a square ship. There were few boats for sale because there were fewer buyers. At what point does a barge with a box become a houseboat? Other than towing it from one berth to another these houseboats are not meant to be moved.
The fishing excursions are $700. That works out to around $100 per person, which I’d pay but not JP. I was all for biking around one of the smaller islands that had anything like a footpath. JP preferred to stay nearer the pubs, where his beer cost less than my soda [because of tax]. Of our four hours in the Keys, two was bike time; we traveled 12.9 miles averaging 6.6 mph. We stopped at pretty well every place and looked at everything.
Notable was the absence of pretty women. We saw one; she was with her mother, Nature’s way of saying stay clear. That is correct, in the Florida Keys in four hours, we saw just one babe. We talked to boat owners, a helicopter pilot, two bartenders and a clerk at a museum who did not like JP at all. The museum had the “world’s largest collection of dive helmets” which I might have paid the $12 to see. JP muttered he’d rather go to the Seaquarium and the blonde clerk skritch started getting on his case. I hauled him out of there before anything sizzled, as I, for one, have no problem whatsoever telling blonde women where to go. (Trust me, even blondes can get boring after a while. Not the ones who last with me, but in general I mean.)Nothing was decided about a house, but it was a perfect day for an outing by the ocean. The new causeway is creeping along although parts of it are already older than the road it is supposed to replace. Other than the bridges (more because it was a very windy day), it was an easy ride with marked bike paths all along the way. Our farthest point south was the Islamorada Burger King, because there are no coffee shops left. There are lots of seafood buffets. They are like Texas steaks – cheaper the farther you get from the source.
Back home by dark, we finally got to see the movie we originally set out to rent last August. It was either not released yet or sold out, that movie “300” concerning the Greeks vs. the Persians at Thermopylae. Only they call it Hell’s Gate. Great, if unusual, special effects that left you wondering at times what they were thinking. Xerxes is some eleven feet tall and there are so many mutants and pierced body parts per minute he would have felt at home in Miami Beach.
While nothing was decided today, we made up for a huge gap in getting out of the house for the last few months. I still view weekends as a precious commodity. Ever notice how people who don’t regularly scout off the beaten track go a little ga-ga? Don’t count on JP and I to support the economy as we budget these trips for less than $10 each. By direct observation, most of the Keys begin drinking around noon. Must be one of those Hemmingway things. The fish were so overfed they would not even sniff those pellets you buy from the dockside vending machines, “Hey, these peanuts taste like fishmeal!”
With luck, we will repeat the meeting soon, as we did not get around to discussing half the material that needs attention. Our bicycles are the same make and age so it was telltale how shiny and new his looks next to my scratched and adapted unit, now approaching that 3,000 mile mark. My cruiser is festooned with locks, bells, baskets, brackets, reflectors and a pump, weighing in twice the bare-bones prototype.
Pardon me. We did see a second woman. Some twenty-year old on a one-speed across the roadway flew past us like we were pedaling backward.
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