This trip is rated 5 little globes out
of 5 on the Globe-Trotting Globe-o-meter. Florida, Bimini, and the Conch Republic -- November 29 - December 12, 2006
This trip is rated 5 little globes out
of 5 on the Globe-Trotting Globe-o-meter.
Part the Fourth - In which we journey southwest to the Florida Keys, finally go snorkeling, and wander drunkenly around Key West.
Here we are buzzing our way into Fort Lauderdale, concluding our skillfully executed Bimini Bailout and eager to get a head start on our way to the Florida Keys and make good use of our extra Florida time. We had reserved a rental car in advance, and figured that we would just pay a few bucks extra and pick up the car a day early. So we figured. We breezed through the obligatory immigration and customs inquisition surprisingly quickly and painlessly, and headed to the airport rental car counters. We approached the nice lady at the Budget counter and explained to her that we had arrived a day early, and, not surprisingly, would like to pick up the car a day earlier than planned. She banged on her computer for a while and finally announced triumphantly that the original 4-1/2 day rental fee of $265 had magically jumped up to $465 when the extra day was added in - and thank you for renting from Budget. Hey - not so fast - we decided that we really wanted to discuss this a little bit, and wondered aloud, and somewhat incredulously, how a single additional day could cost $200. She asked us when we had made the original reservation, we told her it had been in October, and she suggested that since we had made the reservation so long ago, it was only reasonable that the rates had gone up significantly, and that what she was doing was throwing away the original reservation and doing a new rental based on that day's higher rates, thank you so much. We thought briefly about renting a cheap econo-box for one day and bumming around Fort Lauderdale snorkeling or whatever and then using the original cheaper reservation for the original dates, but that didn't go anywhere once we found out that the extra day would cost $40, and anyhow, we really wanted to get heading south
We told the Budget lady to hold the original reservation (and price) while we shopped around for a more agreeable option. We tried the usual name-brand rental companies, all of which all seemed to have embraced Budget's inflated current rates. And the no-name guys typically either didn't speak English or were going to require a big drop-off fee for us to return the car to Miami, from which we were flying home 6 days hence. We finally rounded up a fairly good rate with no Miami drop-off fee from Royal Car Rentals. They spoke English well enough to allow us to negotiate a mutually-agreeable rental agreement, and we descended into the dark bowels of the airport parking garage to find our car, which, unhappily, turned out to be a butt-ugly little orange Dodge Caliber. Ugh...
Ugh, indeed. We really wanted to be on our way, but the interior reeked of cigarette smoke, there was no real trunk, and it was a really dumb looking car, so we went back to our friends at Royal and pretty much told them that the car really stunk and we wanted another one. While that certainly was true, we were really hoping to end up getting a different kind of car, but the Royal manager headed out to the garage with a big spray can of air freshener in tow, with which he liberally hosed down the inside of the car. Not surprisingly, we now had a butt-ugly little orange Dodge Caliber that reeked of cigarette smoke and air freshener. Perhaps emboldened by Sue's successful 'fresh paint smell' bailout at the Bimini Blue Water Resort, we pretty much insisted that they give us a different car. In any case, the Royal manager - he looked like his name was probably Enrique - by now was growing somewhat unhappy with us, but we dug in our figurative heels and next thing you know, we were staring directly into the snout of a second butt-ugly little orange Dodge Caliber. This one didn't have a smoke smell problem, but was covered with so many dents and scratches that we were dreading having to tell the rental check-out booth guy all about each and every one of them as he filled out the pre-existing damage form, plus , as we had already established, there was no real trunk, and it was a really dumb looking car. We grudgingly resigned ourselves to our apparent fate, loaded up, and headed for the exit, but then, what's this - can it be? The blessed official Dodge Air Bag / Seat Belt Warning Light was all lit up, proud as you please! So, we made another trip back to the Royal Rental Car counter, promptly followed back to the car by the now openly unhappy Enrique, who, upon seeing the warning light ablaze, said that it really wasn't a problem. We asked him, somewhat non-rhetorically, whether he would be willing to accept a rental car which had a problem with the air bags / seat belts, and in any case indelicately wondered aloud what the liability ramifications would be for he and his company if it did turn out to be a problem. And, oh yes, would he kindly note on the rental form that he knowingly and intentionally sent us on our way with the official Dodge Air Bag / Seat Belt Warning Light all lit up.
Next thing you know, there we were holding the keys to this oh-so-sporty cruisity-snoozity silver Mustang Fastback cruiser-mobile. It was only going to cost us an extra $5.00 per day, but Enrique was so happy to get rid of us that he would let us have it for just $3.00 extra per day. Such a deal. Gracias and adios, Enrique.
And thus it was that we squandered a fair piece of our Florida Keys headstart getting the rental car squared away. It was a real relief to finally hit the road - here we are blasting through Miami in the mid-day traffic lull, only stopping once we were safely south of town, in the beautiful Miami suburbs, at a Subway sandwich shop for a mid-day repast. We had scoped out snorkeling opportunities on the web before we left home, and drove straight to the Sundiver Station Snorkel Shop in Key Largo, just across the street from the John Pennekamp State Park. We had timed it just right for the 3:00 trip, so we got our tickets and spent a few minutes in the Snorkel Shop looking around, forgetting to use our $3.00 off coupons from their web site, and then headed down to the boat which was waiting in a canal a few miles south.
The boat was pleasantly empty - just 6 or 8 other snorkel heads, plus the Captain, plus Matt the nice deck hand guy and deliverer of the requisite speech about please do not not drown and please do not touch the coral cuz it's alive and you'll kill it.
We headed out to the Grecian Rocks area of the reef, caught a buoy, and jumped in. Splash...
For Sue, it wasn't enough to go swimming with the fish, she had to have some of them for dinner.
http://www.hungrypelican.com/doc/home.html
http://www.quicksilversnorkel.com/
http://www.vacationrentalskeywest.com/hibiscus-efficiency.htm
http://www.capttonyssaloon.com/
We started off at the Drunken Parrot, a little bar next to Captain Tony's off Duvall Street, where we watched Zoe the parrot (who didn't seem too drunk) for a while, and listened to an angry young man whining his way through a few songs. Sue ordered our first Margarita of the trip, and we were appalled when it showed up full of little ice cubes rather than crushed ice. Captain Tony's was still in the process of getting going, so we headed over to the Bear Bottom Beach Club where Matt Avery was holding court, accompanying himself on the guitar while providing all manner of strange but highly entertaining oral and nasal percussive supplements.
http://www.bearbottombeachclub.net/
Next it was Uncle Bob playing some good old southern stuff at Rick's Bar and Grill to a moderately rowdy crowd, and at one point we were all treated to an impromptu floor show when a young lady, obviously feeling no pain, earned an official Uncle Bob Mardi Gras necklace with a swift hoisting of her t-shirt.
Finally, we headed back to Captain Tony's for the Carl Peachy Band.
And of course, Sue insisted on spending a good portion of the evening at Jimmy Buffett's Margararitaville, where we split a big old cheese burger and frowned at our second ice cube margarita. The dream was now completely shattered. Of course, the music of Jumping Johnny Sansone helped us get over it - that and a few more Coronas.
http://www.vacationrentalskeywest.com/poolside-retreat.htm
Key West - certainly one of the few places in the world where a wonderful old movie theater could morph into a Walgreens Drug Store and get away with it.
The congruity of this giant Conch Shell in the parking lot of a Shell gas station was certainly not wasted on us.
Two big cruise boats had snuck into Key West and disgorged hoards of eager visitors who could be seen heading, post haste, to the tacky trinket outlets and the plentiful Key West watering holes and then abruptly back to their floating hotels.
But we, meanwhile, had our eyes focused firmly on the 80' schooner Liberty. We had secured tickets earlier in the day and were looking forward to an afternoon on the water. As the contingent of paying passengers congregated for the pre-voyage briefing by Cap'n Josh, it became delightfully apparent that we would be joined by exactly 4 other sailors - the ship is licensed to carry 49 passengers so we were looking forward to having it just about all to ourselves.
This rotund bird was contentedly relaxing on the plastic inflat-o-dock.
Cap'n Josh wisely took the opportunity to learn some valuable pelagic lessons from the visiting skipper... or maybe he's making a mad lunge for the helm?
The crew agreed that this was one of the best sailing days that they had had all summer.
Sue's smile says it all... Cap'n Jack would have been proud.
It looked to us like this boat's big red finned keel somehow got put on upside-down, or the boat had capsized, or something.
Here we see the Liberty heading off on the sunset cruise, slipping out from behind the bow of the Veendam, providing an interesting contrast.
It looked better all by itself.
So much for the famous Key West sunsets. This was about as good as it got.
The Liberty's slip-mate, the 125' Liberty Clipper
We paused briefly for a peek into the "Smallest Bar in the World".
About all we could find on Duval Street was this bitter-sweet Blue Elvis. Not much was shaking musically, perhaps because it was a Sunday night, after all. But there were 2 things worthy of note - the sign says: "Tips appreciated Especially for Pictures" which we ignored, and, yes, frighteningly enough, that really is a pink thong with a picture of Elvis on the front. Anyhow, we really needed to start getting ready to head back up to Miami the next day, so we ended up back at the Poolside Retreat and started packing up.
