Friday, February 7, 2014

Key West - Dinghy management and an art opening

It's not nice to not pay for dinghy dockage!

There are many boats that anchor out at Key West and the city even provides free pumpout service but requires that you show proof of a pumpout within the last 14 days. I don't have a problem with that even though the resident fleet of boats at anchor is by no means responsible for any significant level of contamination. They are just an easy target, the city itself with storm sewers draining the land (think: all those chickens, dogs, cats, birds, etc.) is much more of a problem but much less satisfying than targeting boaters. When there's been no rain for awhile, the waters are nice and clear, even in the marina.

At any rate, there is a dinghy dock for boats at anchor but the charge is $6/day or $80/month. For that you get the use of the showers and laundry facilities in addition to the docks. Periodically the docks are "cleaned out" of dinghies that have no record of payment, today was such a day (see photo). They are all collected and tied to the office dock for keeping. Some of the dinghies only float because they have a hard bottom, the rest of the dinghy is deflated. Most are hard dinghies with lots of history etched into their sides. I guess some people have been here a long time!

The place was packed and very noisy, we'll go again Saturday when there's less of a crowd
Tonight there was a reception for two local artists and Ann wanted to go so we steered east and found the place but it was packed. It was a reception so they had free food, a real attraction in Key West!! We weren't interested in that, we had just eaten, but the noise of all the people was deafening. Time to leave! Over to BO's Fishwagon to listen to a few sets of Barry Cuda before returning to the boat. It's like a summer evening down here, light breezes and presently it's 76. There's another art presentation on Saturday that Ann wants to see so we'll head south on Duval Street for that in the afternoon. So many things to do, so little time...

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