On board!

We’re on board, the last few supplies are being loaded and we’ll be on our way shortly.

Allan and Jane drove us to the port, through the classy homes alongside the intra coastal waterway and the art deco districts of Miami beach.

 

There was no time to make a lengthy tour of the pastel coloured hotels and the beachfront properties but hey, we need to leave some things to see next time, don’t you think?

Soon, we began to see boats of all sizes.  Small, private yachts and motor cruisers.

Large ships, lined up alongside the vast cruise terminal, awaiting the arrival of excited families going off to the Caribbean for a week of fun and sunshine.

There was one absolutely enormous ship which was probably going to do the same.

Then, over the other side of the pier was a smaller, quieter presence waiting for us.  Hello Mariner!  We’ll soon be there!

Sure enough, we were soon on board.  There was no queue at the terminal and after completing some formalities, we were waved on board and joined Allan and Jane on the pool deck.  We’d arranged for them to join us for lunch and the four of us sat and enjoyed an hour or two together just as we have many, many times before. 

We did a quick recce of our home for the next couple of weeks, finding the layout of the ship slightly confusing because it’s a while since we sailed on Mariner.  We last said goodbye to her in Athens, nearly four years ago and in the meantime, sailing on her sister ship, Voyager, we’d forgotten the small idiosyncracies.  Our suite is huge and having waved our dear friends goodbye, we returned to it to unpack, shower and change for the must-do event of the afternoon.

The Lifeboat Drill.

I’m pleased to say how seriously this is taken; glad to think that the 450 staff are well trained to take good care of the 700 of us and didn’t mind spending 45 minutes listening, following and mustering on deck at all.

In the meantime, the other ships were leaving; tooting their horns to one another as they went.  We opened our champagne and looked forward to the next part of our adventure.

Bye bye, Miami.  Next stop Willemstad, Curacao on Tuesday!  Time to get ready for dinner!!

Suddenly, it’s our last day here

Here we are, Friday already.  Our cruise ship leaves tomorrow, so today was the last opportunity to do all of those things which we’ve been putting off until later.  Like going to the drugstore for one or two bits and pieces, including a packet of travel sickness pills. 

Have we ever needed them before?  Well, no.

Do we think we’ll need them this time?  Well, not really.  But we heard that our ship has a malfunctioning stabiliser system and the Captain has advised everyone to be prepared.

So we did.  Prepare, that is.

But come on.  Life’s too short to spend worrying about such things and Jane and Allan’s great idea to take us to the Morikami garden was the perfect thing to do on a beautiful Friday morning.

Such a beautiful place, so peaceful and miles away from the bustle of Boca Raton in spirit, even though it’s just off the main highway.  We were fortunate too, to wander around the garden when it was almost empty.  What a haven.

And yet, one of my favourite things was the noisiest corner of the park; the bamboo.  This small corner of the garden clattered in the breeze as the tall stems of bamboo crashed against one another with a hollow and rather peaceful sound, if there could be such a thing.  Very Japanese!

Rather than take you around the garden step by step, let me simply share one or two favourite sights, then.  Just a little further on from the bamboo was this beautiful tree, covered with pink blooms, each one around six inches in diameter.  Have I any idea what it is?  Not at all.  But isn’t it extraordinary?

I liked the shadows which were formed by some of these plants as well.  What lovely shapes there were, forming on the pathway.

Speaking of lovely shapes, there were a couple of raked gravel gardens too.  These were interesting – if difficult to photograph effectively – and the patterns carefully created.  One of our party made her own rearrangement of one small area, but thankfully, all was well

Each peaceful corner offered another photo opportunity and, if we lived closer, then this would be somewhere to return frequently.  We loved it.

As usual, it’s the small details which make the difference; details such as the cut out on this bench.  So simple,yet so expressive, especially when the pattern and texture behind the bench creates such an interesting design.  I’ve seen Fuji-san represented in so many ways and count this one amongst my favourites!

Suddenly, on the way back to the museum building, this sign reminded us we weren’t in Japan any more.  Hmmm.

A deli sandwich lunch was further confirmation – delicious!

Then, one final stop at the supermarket on the way home, where one small corner of a shelf is forever British.  But what a curious selection is stocked there – flavours of home which clearly mean a lot to some people and which are worth importing.  Yes I’m not sure they are the things I’d choose to pick out as “special” – what do you think?

Tonight, having put a couple of loads of washing through the machine, we’ll be packing our bags and preparing for the next stage of the trip.  What a great time we’ve had here, though!

Oh, and buying that travel sickness medicine was a good precaution, too.  We heard tonight that the missing part is expected to be fitted tomorrow, so fingers crossed, the stabilisers will all be working perfectly by the time we set sail!

Conchs

As I stepped out of the shower this morning, my hero called to say that there was a ship coming in.

Sure enough, a large cruise ship was approaching the harbour and we peered to identify it.

Ten minutes later, our view had changed rather and there was no doubt that the Majesty of the Seas was in town.  We met Allan and Jane and went in search of breakfast, thinking that we needed to be ahead of the game if there were going to be a few thousand extra souls in town this morning.

My healthy option of a plate of fruit arrived with the unlooked for bonus of mildewed grapes and a couple of mouldy brambles too.  Hmm.  My quiet remark to the waiter fell on deaf ears and I was just about to let it go when the manager asked outright, was everything ok?  Result, one complimentary fruit plate and fulsome apologies.  Perhaps I should have had the pancakes after all!

There was time for a look around the further corners of Key West this morning.  Yes, there is a town beyond the bars and souvenir shops and actually, it’s very pretty indeed.  But rather than take Shank’s Pony, we hopped aboard the “tooterville trolley” and sat comfortably, listening to the commentary about the historic places we were passing by.

First spot was the “Mile Zero” point, the start of Highway One and the most frequently replaced sign in the town, according to the driver.

As we drove through the historic neighbourhoods of Key West, the significance of the Conch Republic was explained and we enjoyed seeing the beautiful old wooden houses with the verandahs and lush, tropical plantings in the gardens.

We saw the beaches on the southern side of the island, clean, palm fringed stretches of sand with yachts and shrimp boats on the horizon.  Now we could see the attraction of Key West goes well beyond the bars and tacky souvenir shops of Duval Street.

We drove past the Southernmost Point of the continental USA, where Cuba was closer than Miami and where the world and his wife were having their photographs taken.  Next landmark was Ernest Hemingway’s home where the queues stretched around the block – a good job that none of us wanted to look around there, for sure.

The tour ended right outside the souvenir shop, where the conch shells were piled high on the cart, priced $18.99 each.  We tested a few for the sound of the sea and having checked that yes, they did all work as they should, we replaced them carefully.

A short stroll around the waterfront brought us back to the hotel and where we started.  Of course, I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of this empty cafe with the colourful furniture, though.

One last look at our lovely hotel and that little tub of a boat parked outside and it was time to leave.  We loaded the car and made our way back through the town and onto the highway, returning the way we came, but with a slightly different view from the other side of the road.

In particular, we could get a great view of the railway trestle which we’d caught a glimpse of yesterday.

It’s quite a structure, still, even after all these years of disuse, and without any access from either end, it stands empty.

Five or six hours later, after a short detour to the outlet mall, we were driving along the ocean road at Fort Lauderdale, heading to the restaurant where we were meeting friends for dinner.  I looked at my watch and noted it was 5.50pm.  Right at that moment, we pictured the Cat Circus there in Key West and the crowds waiting for the sunset.  Here, looking eastwards, the sky was more delicately coloured in pastel shades of pink, blue and lavender and the atmosphere was calmer and less frenetic.

What a great couple of days, though.  How glad I am to have seen it all and to have experienced the Florida Keys like that.  But yes, how pleased I was to leave it behind and return to the quieter, more refined atmosphere of Allan and Jane’s home because, as we all observed, we are not really “Conchs” at heart!

Observations

Jane had described Key West as a “kind of honky-tonk place” and whilst I knew what she meant, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Checking into our cool, waterfront hotel overlooking the moored yachts, our initial impressions were turned right around when we stepped outside and had a little mooch through the town, for the rest of it is indeed a very honky tonk kind of place!

One of the first things we noticed, was that chickens and roosters roam freely in the streets.  These colourful birds seem to be overlooked by everyone else but this was the first we knew of it.

Of course, this is a popular seaside resort, so there’s all the trappings of such a place right outside the door, including the tacky souvenirs and pirate museums, the T shirt shops and, naturally, a Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

Though Jane was looking for a mitbringsel to take to a brunch hostess at the weekend, for some reason, she couldn’t find anything suitable here

For whilst the edible souvenirs of Key West are focused on the fruits which bear its name,

other souvenirs which could be more useful were rejected, too.  Would this huge and rather scary sponge man tempt you to buy a sponge, anyway?

The purchases we made were of a more fragrant variety, because having sampled the Key West Lime salt scrub in the small shop around the corner, our hands smelled divine!  I’d noticed the stuff in the visitor centre bathroom earlier, where, instead of a soap dispenser there was a bowl of salt scrub and a teaspoon and though it didn’t smell anything like as lovely as this one, I liked the way it left my hands soft and smooth. One pot of Key Lime Salt Scrub sold to the English lady!

Onward then, through the T shirt shops and the bars, one of which had a sign which read, “You can’t drink all day unless you start early” (and there was evidence to show that some had taken that advice a little too enthusiastically), we made our way back down Duval Street to the waterfront.

Along the way, I noticed one of these, blue-edged labels on every rubbish bin, each one with a different, encouraging message.  When I could get close enough to take a picture (a couple of bins were the focus of attention from people rather more interested in the contents than the blue edged labels stuck on the side), I did.  I’ve googled to try to find out more about what looks like some kind of creative project online, but drawn a blank.  If you discover what it’s all about, please share!

By now, in the late afternoon, people were beginning to collect around here, the place to watch the sunset. We settled into four comfy chairs and braved the chill to watch and wait as the sun went down.

Well, we needed sustinence, didn’t we?

There was plenty of activity to keep us amused.  Several old yachts sailed out of the harbour and made swift progress in the strong breeze.

Right in front of us, a man was setting up his show, too.  We watched as he made several trips, bringing a wealth of stands, boxes and assorted equipment for … well, for what?  We thought those looked like animal cages behind him.  Perhaps there were to be birds?  Hmm, we thought not – those stands don’t look like perches.  Maybe music?  But a single tambourine was the only instrument in sight.  We began to imagine more exotic creatures; marmosets perhaps?  Jane suggested performing seals?  Who knew?

Meanwhile, as we chilled out (literally!) the sun went down and the show began.

The zoom on my camera meant we could identify the somewhat crazy man who was starting his show, too.  For this was Dominique, the Cat Man and we had a prime view of his Cat Circus!

We couldn’t really hear much more than a few words, but it was enough!

Because, of course, the main event was taking place over to the left, where one or two small clouds added interest to the sky as thousands of camera shutters captured what looked to be a pretty spectacular sunset.

Sitting, chilled to the bone now, we willed it to hurry up!

As soon as the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, we were off, back into our super-comfy hotel rooms to thaw out before dinner.  Of course, we were delighted we’d held out and stayed to watch the best free show in town, but oh my, were we cold!

And though I didn’t get my shot of a pelican flying across the sunset, a yacht sailing by at an opportune moment will just have to do. 

Along with another forty or fifty pictures taken within that ten minute timespan, that is!

Just down the road

Today, we drove through the Florida Keys to Key West.  On the map, it looks like a short drive from Allan and Jane’s home, but actually, it’s around 170 miles – a good drive.  It was our first time here and we didn’t really have much idea of what to expect but looked forward to some stunning seascapes and wide, open spaces.  To me, Key West conjured up images of Ernest Hemingway and of fishing, particularly from those boats with high chairs on them.  How accurate these mental pictures were, I had no idea, but I was about to find out.

We woke to bright sunshine this morning but the scene through the window was a little misleading because there was a stiff and rather chilly breeze.  Not that it worried us in the comfortable car though.  Having driven through the lengthy Miami suburbs and the southern tip of mainland Florida, the road narrowed to just two lanes, then one single lane in each direction and I looked for the water.  Actually, all I could see at this stage was the concrete central reservation, painted a swimming pool blue which was very much in keeping with the palette of the landscape.

Shortly afterwards, though, the road rose high enough for me to see over the barrier and sure enough, there was the water and one or two – or rather more - mangrove swamps.

Realising that I had no real concept of where we were in relation to anywhere else, we stopped at the Visitors Centre and I took a photograph of this beautifully clear map.  There was quite some way still to go.

We made a couple of stops so that I could hop out and take a photo here and there.  We were following highway number 1 – well, of course we were, because there wasn’t any other.  This was it.

In places it was easy to see how shallow the water is around here, in fact in places the sandbanks were plainly visible above the water level.

The road was well maintained and in a few places, fairly traffic free, though in others we were in a single lane convoy, all travelling together with one destination in mind,

The remains of the Florida East Coast Railway, built in the 1920s but destroyed by a hurricane in 1936, appeared alongside the road.  Quite an amazing undertaking to try to build a railway in this place, don’t you think?

We just kept on driving, occasionally spotting rather interesting features ahead, for example the Seven Mile Bridge.

The view from the top was rather interesting, with the remains of the railway and the electricity supply running alongside the elevated road.

It was the mid afternoon when we finally arrived in Key West, then.  Allan had booked us rooms at the Westin hotel, right on the waterfront and we were lucky to have the most marvellous view from our balcony.  The yacht “Outta Here” parked right outside our window, was too big to fit in the photograph and was creating quite a stir down there on the quayside.  For now, though, it was time to catch our breath, to close the window and to set out and see what’s what in the town which had taken so long to reach.

I’ll share some of the curiosities we encountered in the next post so you can get a flavour of this very individual place.  For now, though, it’s time for bed.

Goodnight from Mile 0 on Highway 1!