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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