Boats and Bills

Since last Tuesday, much of our (Cutest, Cute and Cuter’s) recreational time in Key West has been observing the festivities of the Off Shore World Championship Boat Races. Our calendar consisted of a Tuesday evening parade of race boats, Wednesday races and street parties, Friday races and bar gatherings, a Saturday after dark parade of race boats, which morphed into a nautical Mardi Gras complete with beads, and finally Sunday, more races.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Grown-ups scrambled for beads and other meaningless trinkets somewhat frenetically.

Cutest was a real trooper, happily (well, uncomplainingly) attending the three days of racing which were run just off of Mallory Square in the Straits of Florida. On race days, we walked the mile and a half from our condo to the VIP seating area. Vendor booths lined both sides of the mole (look it up) hawking women’s clothing, booze, t-shirts, suntan lotion, booze, hot dogs, Caribbean tidbits, seafood, barbecue and, yes, more booze.

Cutest beamed (maybe that was sweat?) when she eyed the shade producing tents, padded lounge chairs, free water and sodas, and my-cash bars. On Friday and Sunday, lunch and breakfast came with the price of admission. Tasty scrambled eggs, sausage and pancakes were on the breakfast menu while lunch saw salads, shrimp and pasta complete the meal offerings. But food was not really the point here.

Toddlers to grandparents covered the age of spectators. Most seemed to really be enjoying the experience, dressed in swim suits or shorts and t shirts, while a few looked as if they wished they had kept their dental appointment. Clothing was entertaining too, according to Cutest who gawked instead of photographed. She did like this brave man's hat though.

• 

• 

Just an oyster throw away, racers flew by as if shot out of cannons, reaching top speeds of 75 to 140 mph. That's quite fast on water. Rooster tails spiked 60 feet up into the air as sometimes twin-engined 1100 horse powered boats roared by, sounding like unleashed  NASCARs. There were two major delays due to a giant sea turtle deciding this was a good time to mosey across the waves. We don’t know if it was the same one both times.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

For all the speed, the flash, the exurberance of color, the trophies were quite subdued we thought.

These two videos may give you just a small taste of the sights and sounds of the day. But magnify the sound about 20 times.

Taking a break on a non-race day, the three of us drove up the keys to No Name Key, home of, what else, the No Name Bar. Hidden away on a side road draped in palm trees and tropic vegetation sits the pub. Its seedy past including game and fish poachers seeking liquid refreshments while in the ‘30s and ‘40s a different kind of “refreshment “ could be found upstairs. The wildest happenings today are the tiny key deer that roam the island free to be themselves.

• 

• 

• 

Inside the rather dimly lit establishment, most everything with the exception of the bar, tables and chairs is submerged in stapled one-dollar bills. Estimates of the value range from $75,000 about ten years ago to almost $800,000. Cutest refused to honor my request to prepare an accurate total. The video below will confirm the difficulty of this task.

Moving about the half-sized mobile home interior showed it could be treacherous as in the brief time we were there, a patron fell backwards off his too (?) high bar stool and a waitress tried to save him and they both took the tumble, entangled unglamorously together. Dinner and a show.

Fortunately, no one at the bar or boat races was harmed in the making of this blog. Including the turtle. All ended well.

Yes, that's not our yacht. Pity.