Key West

This was the site off our port bow yesterday. Not something anyone living on a boat wants to see.  It blew up a houlie.  We had dragged our anchor earlier in the day so Barry stayed on the boat while I went ashore to take our computers to the "doctor", they are very ill. These clouds came complete with bolting lightning and LOUD CRASHES of thunder. One was so close to me, that I screamed.  Now I like a good thunderstorm, on the prairies you can see them coming for miles and you get prepared and then they stay around for awhile and you can count the time between seeing the flash and hearing the thunder. Here, there were four terrific crashes and then the whole thing was gone, blown away just like that, Mind you it did rain for quite awhile.  There were tornado warnings further up the coast but it bypassed this area. 

These beautiful boats are used to take tourists out for a jaunt and tonight there were three in the harbour for the sunset cruise. It is a Key West thing to line the harbour for sunset and all the boats paraded in front of the crowd on their way out of the harbour, just lovely. 

There has been a cruise ship in town everyday, I just love the paint job on this one.  Barry's brother Bruce and Margaret, the love of his life, are coming here on a big ship on Monday.  We are looking forward to spending the afternoon with them. 

We walked by this marker a couple of days ago. That makes three biggies, northern most point of continental Australia, the eastern most point of continental North Amerca and now the southern most point of the continental U.S. I guess you could say we get around!! 

In the past Key West was having issues with the Federal Gov't so a movement formed and they declared the area the Conch Republic! It had it's own flag and flower and marine animal. This is an example of Conch architecture. There are some stunning restorations in town.

Roosters romp through the streets. I heard a guide telling his charges that cock fighting used to be a big sport here.  In the 1970's Florida declared the sport illegal so the owners just let the chickens run wild.  Well this is a prime example of the umpteenth generation of chicken. The cars slow down to let them cross the street and there is a store full of chicken memorabilia, I could not resist a chicken shot glass for Barry's collection. 

These are the boaters that give the rest of us a bad name. They totally neglect their craft's and the boats are eventually driven ashore. No one wants to spend money disposing of them so there they sit, unwanted and just plain ugly. It is so sad. Thankfully, we were aboard Cat's-Paw IV when she decided to drag and  we just started the engine and reanchored. We let twice as much chain out this time!!