Route 1, Day Nine: More Research Required

January 6th we wake to a rainy morning on the sailboat docked at Stock Island in the Florida Keys. Roberta scrambles eggs and cooks up sausage for our breakfast. We’ve been on the road for eight days, so it’s laundry day. James fires up the dinghy and gives us a ride to the laundry/shower house. I put our laundry in the washer and head for the shower. It doesn’t have a ceiling, just a palm thatch roof about 15 feet above my head. Wish I had a shower like that (during the New England summer, that is).

Walking around the marina, Roberta points out a boat completely wrapped in a red and yellow tarp with a sign:

                   
                                   
 She says it’s termite extermination and shudders at the thought. The marina has a clubhouse with gym and restaurant and a small sandy beach. Unexpectedly, all the sand on Key West is imported from the mainland.
After the laundry is done James takes us in his dinghy to Old Town Key West. Earlier in the day there had been a small craft weather advisory, but he thinks it will be alright. (Obviously we make it.) We motor along in fairly open, choppy water. It does occur to me that I have put my physical safety in his hands: I can swim a mile in a swimming pool, but am not confident of my survival in open water. He doesn’t offered life jackets, and I’m too cool to ask, but before we are underway, when he opens Jim’s seat to tinker with the battery, I notice the bright orange jackets and rehearse mentally how I will retrieve them if we capsize. Closer to shore, James winds through the “mooring field”, an area of the harbor with dozens of buoys for rent, each tethered to the sea floor. Boat owners tie up their boats and go ashore by dingy. The marina where we are sleeping has actual slips and docks: our car is a few yards from the sailboat.
On land once more, we have a meal at Sloppy Joe’s. The eponymous owner, Joe Russell, was great friends with Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway is big on Key West. He only lived there for 8 years, but he wrote some of his greatest works, including A Farewell to Arms, there and his home is a Mecca for aficionados. For dessert at Joe’s we have key lime pie, again.
Then we head for the west end of the island. Crowds gather there every evening to watch the sun set. There is a man with large glasses, an unassuming Clark Kent kind of guy, without the handsome actor behind the glasses. Like a businessman from the fifties he wears a white shirt, with combed-back hair, but also sports diamond ear studs and is reading a man’s palm. A steel band pierces the air with bright West Indian music. Street performers have laid ropes on the ground, defining makeshift stages. The cruise ship Constellation sounds its bass horn and we stand above the dock watching the workers lift heavy ropes thick as your arm off the bollards to release the ship. Counter-intuitively (to us), the ship pulls away from the dock, sideways, staying parallel to the shore, and then turns 180 degrees to exit the harbor.

                                                     
We walk through the crowds, passing a street performer with an annoying voice and about six cat carriers. The performers all have the technique of warming up the crowd by acting like they’re about to start, but it’s mostly talk until a good crowd has gathered; I don’t have the patience to wait for the cats to appear. Another performer is waving a flaming torch around. He has a compelling technique: all through his show he’s encouraging people to step right up to the line. He even calls out to passers-by: come on, you in the pink, step up here.
After watching his show we find Kermit’s and buy a whole key lime pie to share with James and Roberta. After four pies my study proves inconclusive: more research will be required.