Days 4 and 5

Like any microcosm of life, our marina is its own little galaxy of personalities: misfits, malcontents, drunks, genuine American heroes and average Joes. There's the guy who's since moved on but used to hold down the far stool at bar in the patio from open til close; and the unassuming old guy who walks his small, fluffy white Maltese every morning, chomping his cigar and saying a polite good morning to all passersby. He's unremarkable enough, except that he lives on a boat when most are heading to nursing homes, and oh by the way, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (second only to the Medal of Honor) for receiving four usually mortal wounds during a particularly vicious firefight in Vietnam while singlehandedly saving his entire platoon. Women are fewer here, and most are of retirement age, but they are nice enough. Still, this is definitely a man's world, and a man's man world at that.

Life here definitely has its routine for the inhabitants of the vessels that occupy the 130 or so slips and moorings. Early mornings, you'll find a crowd of wizened old guys shooting the shit, sipping coffee and trading stories about their days in the war. Most are from the Vietnam era, the Greatest Generation having become all but stories in history books. Because John wakes very early every day -- by biorhythm not by choice! -- he gets to see much more of this than I do, but occasionally I have a chance to listen in to this group of coffee pot philosophers. I'm convinced they could save the world...if only someone would let them!

A little about this marina we now call home. Kinsale -- that's the name of our boat by the way, bequeathed by previous  owners -- is docked at Naval Air Station Key West (NASKW) on Boca Chica Key, two "Keys" up from where US 1 ends at the Southernmost Point.

Rather than one large base like I'm used to, NASKW is actually a collection of properties scattered around the island of Key West proper plus our location on the main air station. Despite its sleepy demeanor, there's a ton of military history in these scrubby patches of sun-baked land. Here's a picture of the runways at Boca Chica. The marina is located on the middle right side of the picture, just left of where the road cuts across the channel to Stock Island and Key West:

The Navy's presence in Key West dates back to 1823, when wealthy shipping merchants who operated fleets in the area needed protection from the likes of notorious pirates Blackbeard and Captain William Kidd. During the Spanish-American War, the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor prompted the government to move the entire U.S. Atlantic Fleet to Key West for the duration of the war. A series of expansions to the various NASKW properties followed, including the addition of a U.S. naval submarine base. Aerial photos of Boca Chica clearly show sub pens on the ocean side of the island, as seen below:

We theorize, although we haven't had confirmation, that our marina was created for submarine use and re-purposed at some time after the last subs vacated the area. I'm thinking the Navy wouldn't bother to spend the millions it likely took to create this little slice of paradise just to house a bunch of drunks and misfits on boats...

You'll find the marina at the end of a one-way road looping past the base of an active runway. It is the perfect combination of natural and man-made splendor for a prop-head family. We've seen C-130s, C-17s, P-3s and the resident F-5 aggressors and F-18s come and go while kayaking and snorkeling. Amenities are sparse but adequate: Navigator's bar and grill located just steps from our boat has good food and plenty of rum. There's a laundry room (where, by the way and as a matter of demographics, you see more men than women!), restrooms with showers and the dock master's office. Barry, the dock master and a marina resident, seems to like our family. I'm not sure if that's because he thinks we're generally good people, or if we're simply a nice change from the recreational bitchers he typically deals with!

Kinsale rests comfortably in the second slip of "S" dock, the collection of berths that line the walkway between the beach and the main basin of the marina, seen here in an older photo showing one lonely boat:

 
And, yes, we do see those rainbows. The beach has 3 tiki huts and barbeque grills, and a small island with a floating dock lies just offshore.

Bow in for privacy, we walk across a homemade gangplank tilted somewhat precariously onto her foredeck, although no one in the family, including the dog, has had a problem negotiating passage from ship to shore and back again. Across a stretch of water from S dock are three other docks, each lined with vessels ranging from 20' open cockpit powerboats to quarter-million dollar sailboats boasting accommodations that would put some hotels to shame. The photo below shows the general layout of the boats, although improvements have changed some aspects.

A half-dozen boats lie on mooring buoys between the marina and the channel, carved by some industrious soul into coral rock and running nearly a mile to link the basin to deeper water just offshore. Depth outside the channel is so slight that at low tide, water breaks over the edges of the channel, an ominous warning for boaters like us needing five feet of water under our keel. God forbid we lose power in that channel.

Leave the marina and drive back toward the main gate, and you'll find a gym with an impressive collection of equipment, a post office, bowling alley, lodging and the requisite office buildings, hangars and fuel tanks of an active airfield. The road passes under the flight path for the east-west runway, an approach so low that signs caution you to look for aircraft and stop signs were erected to halt traffic when planes are inbound.

There is no commissary (grocery store) here, but one is readily accessible just in town on Sigsbee Annex, another NASKW property. I've already made my first trip there, enjoying the savings as well as the sense of being reconnected with life on/near an operational military base.

Another location, Trumbo Point, used to be a seaplane base back when the Navy flew such things. Truman Annex, which used to be part of the original NASKW (closed in 1974), remains under military control and has a beach and a few amenities. We haven't ventured that far since moving here, but a few years ago we spent a memorable Fourth of July watching fireworks on the beach there. Located just next door is Fort Zachary Taylor, formerly part of the base and now a state park. It has a beautiful beach we've visited several times in the past, and it's definitely on our must-do list.

Being down here, even while trying to work, is like stepping out of time. The sun comes up and sets again, and you're hard pressed to say where the day went. There's no hustle here: When you're roughing it, life has to move at a slower pace. You could try to stick to a schedule or confine yourself to what you knew before, but you'd miss out on some of the most important experiences. Yesterday, at Barry's invitation, John sat in on a jam session with a few old guys with guitars who gather in the dock master's office every Thursday after quittin' time. They're working through sets of songs, hoping to play an open-mike night at Navigator's. A crowd of tipsy, aging groupies stopped by to applaud and buy rounds of beer. It's like living in a Jimmy Buffett song.