Sunday in Key West

Days 83 January 27

After helping Bill on the boat in the morning, we spent the day being consummate tourists. We toured Mel Fisher’s Maritime Museum, took the famous Conch Train tour of Key West, went for margaritas and lemonade at Kelly’s (guess who had the margarita), and finished the day with another Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square. The best performance of the evening went to a tight rope walker performing in 20 to 25 knot winds!

Mel Fisher Maritime Museum

Mel Fisher’s museum, displaying the results of his treasure hunting career, was very interesting. On September 4, 1632 a fleet of 28 ships left Havana to return to Spain with a cargo of gold, silver, indigo, pearls, and other merchandise from the New World. Nine of them were driven off course in the Florida straits by a hurricane which struck only one day into the journey. The Santa Margarita and the fleet’s flagship, the Atocha, carried the bulk of the treasure. By dawn of the next morning, 550 persons and cargos worth more than two million ducats had been lost to the sea.

In 1969 Mel Fisher began his search for the lost galleons. He discovered the Margarita in 1980, but his search went on until 1985, making a total of 16 years, before he located the Atocha and its cargo. Court battles ensued with both the State of Florida and the Federal Government over possession of the $200,000,000 cargo – which was impounded in a jail for the duration of the dispute. Mel finally won the battle but, in the course of his pursuit of treasure, lost one of his sons and a daughter-in-law in a storm at sea.

Conch Train Tour

The Florida Keys have the world’s 3rd longest coral reef stretching 230 miles from Biscayne Bay to Key West.

Key West was originally named Cayo Hueso (Bone Island) by the Spaniards due to the huge number of Indian bones found on the island. Key West boasts the largest historical district in the United States with over 3,100 buildings on the register. Many of the homes have “gingerbread” trim, carved by men at sea and used to trim their homes when they returned. It was given the name gingerbread after cookies the wives baked for their sailor’s return.

Key West itself has had a colorful and very tumultuous history, going from prosperity to poverty numerous times. In the 1890’s it was the richest city in the U.S., in the 1930’s the poorest. It’s been home to pirates, shipwreck scavengers (a one billion dollar a year activity), a huge Cuban cigar cottage industry, a naval base (65,000 sailors before 1975 – only 3,000 today), and many of the rich and famous such as Hemmingway, Jimmy Buffet, the Truman Whitehouse – and today Madonna. It has the most bars and churches of any city in the U.S.

Chickens and cocks roam the streets of Key West. They were brought from Cuba where cock fighting was popular. When cock fights were banned in the U.S., the birds were set free and are now protected by a city ordinance.

Duval Street, one of Key West’s famous streets, is the “longest street in the world” stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. Whitehead Street boasts both the beginning and the end of US Route 1.