Key West has escaped me for quite some time. I had been to Key West a few times before in my life, but all were as a kid. One time I helped my dad work down there for a day while in college (we took a day trip from South Florida). Other than that, I had never really been to Key West as an adult, so it’s been a place I’ve tried to get back to numerous times.
Recently, I finally had a few good excuses to make the 7-hour drive to Mile Marker Zero. Since my friend Jamie has been living in Key West for more than a year now — I’ve been trying to find a time to visit him. After all, he has a 36-foot boat he has said I could sleep on! This past week my friend Marcel was also visiting from Germany and was looking for something unique to do while back in Florida. And my friend Marshall’s lady friend Sukei was visiting from Italy. Neither Marcel nor Sukei had ever been to the Florida Keys. It’s also late March, perhaps one of the best times to be down there, despite having to battle some of the tourists on Spring Break. So off we went!
On our way down we made two “key” stops – the first was in Key Largo, where we stopped in to see the “African Queen,” a small boat that was used in the 1951 film, The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. The boat is located at a dock next to The Holiday Inn in Key Largo, at Mile Marker 100. It’s a good excuse to stretch your legs and take in a bit of film history.
The second stop we made was at Bahia Honda State Park. You pay $10 for a carload of four people for an opportunity to walk around the trails and even dip your feet in at the beach. There is also a ramp you can walk up to see the remnants of Henry Flagler’s railroad which went across a bridge from there. Unfortunately, this area was hit really hard by the hurricane, so it’s not as nice to visit as it used to be. About half of the park (including the entire stretch facing the Atlantic Ocean side) is currently fenced off. But its natural beauty is still a sight to behold and it was worth the stop for the view from the old railroad ramp above. Bahia Honda State Park is located around Mile Marker 38, just a short distance to the south of the iconic Seven-Mile Bridge.
From there, we continued on to Key West. We parked the car near the dock where our friend Jamie’s boat was and planned to meet up with him later. For now, we headed down to Sloppy Joe’s to get a quick meal. And they were quick! They served us all of our food and drinks – super fast! I had the “Original Sloppy Joe” sandwich and the “Sloppy Rita” margarita, along with a shared basket of fries for the table. Joe and Rita make a great pair.
We then walked over to Mallory Square to catch an amazing Key West sunset — which happened at 7:42 PM! There are some good crowds out at Mallory Square every night. There are musicians and magicians and food and drink vendors as we all look west in anticipation of an awesome event that apparently happens every day. I remarked to my friends just before the sun went down: “How much are you willing to bet the crowd will applaud after the sun sets?” We laughed. But then it happened, as if it was a show at a theme park. I shouted out loud towards the west where the sun just faded: “Well done! Please come back and do it again tomorrow!” The sun never fails.
We walked back around the streets nearby. Marshall and I got some cigars and finished them before we met up with my friend Jamie at his friend’s Italian restaurant, Bruschetta, — making Sukei feel at home. From there, we then headed back to the car, snatched up our things and headed to the sailboat which was about a mile dinghy ride away, out in the water, on a mooring area where many other boats are located. What a clear beautiful night it was. Temperatures in the low 70s, with a very strong breeze. We enjoyed time conversing and catching up with Jamie and then he took off to head back home.
The next morning, Jamie arrived to pick us up around 9:30am to take us to shore. He then took off on his scooter to pick up his girlfriend. We walked 20 minutes across the island to meet them at La Grignote, a quaint French restaurant with an amazing breakfast! The almond croissants are a must! Just a few doors over from there was La Te Da, a historic Key West hotel where Jose Marti once stayed in 1892. From the balcony of the upper floor he gave a speech to the Cuban emigres below, many of them tobacco workers, inspiring them to take part in a war for independence against Spain, which began just a few years later in 1895. This was special for me to see. Back in 2001, my senior thesis as a history major at Florida Atlantic University involved this very scene. It was titled: “The Key West Tobacco Workers’ Strike of 1894 and the Struggle for Cuban Independence.”
After everyone listened to me ramble on about this unique intersection of Cuban, American, and Spanish history over breakfast, we walked just a couple blocks over to the Southernmost Point in all of the United States. It’s the very southernmost point in Key West – just 90 miles from Cuba! We were now much closer to Havana than we were to Miami (which is about 165 miles from Key West). All the tourists line up to take a photo of an iconic monument there marking the Southernmost Point. We didn’t have time to stand in the long line (at least 30-minutes). So we snapped some selfies from the other side, trying to get one without any people in it. I think I succeeded.
We then walked about about 7 minutes over to the Hemingway House – the famous residence of the author, Ernest Hemingway. From this home, he wrote more than 70% of his books. I have personally read many of them – The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, For Whom The Bell Tolls. We heard many interesting stories and saw all sorts of things there, including the famous six-toed cats. There are dozens of them around the property. After visiting this site, I feel inspired to add another Hemingway work to my 2018 reading list. I’ll keep you posted.
From there, we strolled by Mile Marker Zero (the most stolen sign in all of Key West), where U.S. Highway 1 ends. This was a good stopping point along our 10-minute walk over to “The Little White House,” which was a home on the Marine Base made famous by President Harry Truman, who stayed there about 10 different times during his tenure as President. It was his home away from home – as Florida has become to so many Presidents since. He remarked that he often felt he got more work done there than Washington. He had an interesting morning routine. Due to his heart condition, the doctor recommended he drink a little whiskey in the morning. So he would get up early ahead of everyone else, sip a little whiskey in the living area we walked through on our tour of the house, and then he would take a very brisk walk (120 steps per minute) around the base – and sometimes around the town itself – before returning to the house to have breakfast with his staff.
After our tour of the “Little White House,” we took another 7-minute walk over to the original Margaritaville restaurant, owned by singer Jimmy Buffet. Of course, there are now many Margaritavilles across the country, including at Universal Studios in Orlando. But this is the original Key West one. And while here, Marcel, Marshall, and I each had to have our “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” It’s not only a song, it’s also on the menu! And we might have slipped in a Margarita — maybe even a Watermelon Margarita, which was refreshing on what had become a warm 80-degree day.
We also had been drinking plenty of water all day to keep ourselves hydrated and refreshed. After lunch, we walked back to the car, changed into our bathing suits, grabbed our towels, and headed to the Margaritaville Resort – where we would check-in with Fury Water Adventures — we were going for some real refreshment now: snorkeling seven miles out at sea!
The original package we booked the day before was supposed to take us to Florida’s Reef, on the Atlantic Ocean side of Key West. It’s the third largest reef in the world – and as the Fury representative told us: “the second most populated by fish and the first most populated by humans.” At check-in, however, they told us the seas were too rough on the Atlantic side today for their boats to go out there. Safety first.
Instead we would be going to another reef – seven miles out on the Gulf of Mexico side. They told us the water wouldn’t be as clear due to the recent wind that moved a lot of the sand, and we could have our money back if we wanted. But we wanted to go swimming. Plus, on the way back, this package included a sunset cruise as well as all you could drink rum (or beer) and reggae music pumping through the speakers. Rum and reggae after a snorkel? That might make you dance as you wait for the sun to go down. We negotiated a 10% discount for the “inconvenience” of not being able to go to the larger reef. But we still got an amazing experience jumping into waters seven miles from shore, snorkeling around for 45 minutes (I saw some interesting coral, but not a single fish — Marcel said he saw a few fish). We then got in our share of rum and beers on the sail back — topped off by another amazing Key West sunset! The sun never fails.
It was around 8pm when we got back on shore. We walked back to the car, changed, toweled off, and went back out on the town. We got in some tacos and then spent about an hour or so at The Green Parrot, a bar with a really good live band. We then met Jamie back at the dock, where he took us back out to his boat. We enjoyed this final night conversing, smoking cigars, and having a few drinks under a full moon, while on a sailboat (and did I mention the “homeless” guy and his dog who we gave a ride to and “dropped off” at his friend’s boat on the way? That was interesting.)
We awoke the final morning and hitched a ride back with Jamie on his dinghy to the dock. We then high-tailed it out of Key West to head back towards Orlando. Those first few hours coming out of the Keys was scenic, as we said goodbye to this iconic string of islands only recently accessible by highways that connect them in our modern era. What a great two days in the Florida Keys. It has been a getaway for writers like Hemingway, musicians like Jimmy Buffet, and Presidents like Harry Truman. And for common folk like you and me, or homeless men like the one we gave a ride to from the dock, Key West is still a place where you can roam the streets, visit historic landmarks, swim and snorkel in the waters, or drown at the bars. Luckily, we didn’t take home any hangovers on this trip. Only a memorable experience of two beautiful days in a little chain of islands surrounded by the majesty of the sea. No matter our age or station in life, Key West is a place we will all dream of going — or returning to again and again.
*****
My friend Jamie Quick has started a nonprofit organization called “Sea Changes” to help people battle addiction and other challenges in their lives by using sailing as a rehabilitative means. Its still in its infancy stages, but I encourage you to check out the Facebook page for Sea Changes and make a contribution if it so moves you. Being on that boat and spending time in Key West was certainly therapeutic for us. It certainly will help people battling challenges in their own life.