Tuesday, April 9, 2013

SLSU033113A – Friday April 5th, 2013


Day 6 – Key West

 

Weather…our master when it comes to diving. It was predicted that a strong storm front would hit us overnight with continuing bands of rain and storms throughout the day. With a forecast like that nobody wants to go diving. Luckily the crew had another activity on their to-do list; the crew wanted to visit Key West (KW). With the weather the way it was we decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea so we packed them a lunch and off to KW they went.

First it was they went to the Eco-Center, an environmental educational facility. It’s really nice, very well done and it’s free. That’s rare in Key West.  Jenna and I met them for lunch in the small park outside the Eco-Center. Luckily we were between rain bands and the sky looked like it was lightening up. During lunch we gave them a few ideas on what to do in KW; Mel Fischers, the Aquarium, the Wrecker Museum, t-shirt shops and the Duvall Crawl (people watching and shopping, not drinking). They put lunch away and against Jenna’s and my better judgment they also put their jackets away in the van. The sky was getting very light but this is the Keys and they had predicted strong rain bands all day.

Jenna and I (wearing our raincoats) led the crew up to Duvall Street and turned them loose. We were to meet them in front of Sloppy Joe’s at 17:00 to go to dinner then to the sunset festival. Jenna and I set off to run our errands in KW. We ran into the crew in various places but didn’t see them after the Harley-Davidson Store. Besides the H-D store we had stops to make at the Hard Rock Café, the Rum Barrel, Diver’s Direct, Walgreens and of course the absolutely required stop at the Key West Ice Cream Factory where we got a locals discount because we work on a boat here in the Keys. We have to take of advantage of opportunities to run errands because on the live-aboard program the staff doesn’t really get a day off.

During our errands the rain fell on and off, sometime pretty hard. We kept wondering what the crew was doing to stay dry until we ran into them huddled in the doorway of a shop trying to stay dry. They hadn’t been very successful at that. Jenna and I continued on until the sky started to open up. We ducked into Irish Kevins with a lot of other folks trying to get out of the rain. There was a performer on stage working the crowd, zeroing in on a young lady that wouldn’t stop talking on her cell phone during his song. Poor girl.

It poured. During a short break in the rain we ran down to the meeting place in front of Sloppy Joe’s. In the mean time it started pouring again. When it pours in KW you can’t see across the street, the streets flood and everyone turns it into a party. Hey, it’s KW. We found out how the crew stayed dry…they didn’t. They came from across the street, wading through the ‘flood’ waters.

The rain had finally started to slow so we headed out to Turtle Krawls for dinner. Tom wanted to go there because he had been there years before and I hadn’t heard anything bad about the place; it’s very popular. They pushed a few tables and seated us together. The food was pretty good, they did a fair job getting the orders right but overall the service was sub-par. I won’t be recommending that place again. The crew covered Jenna’s and my dinner…thank you very much! We sincerely appreciate it.

After the bill was finally settled we headed out for the Sunset Festival at Mallory Square. On the way we stopped at the Gellato shop for dessert. Yummy! We finally made it to the Sunset Festival area to find that all of the acts had either packed up or didn’t bother showing up. The weather was bad and there was a cold wind coming from the water…not great conditions for ‘Flying Cats’. We called Captain Denny to meet us at the Eco-Center and headed there for the ride back to the boat, stopping at the mile marker zero sign for pictures.

Back at the boat the crew bedded down inside. It’s a bit tight but there’s twelve bunks (well two are hammocks).

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