Flying a drone in Key West can be problematic. The city has an ordinance making it illlegal to fly in city limits which is redundant in that you can’t fly within 4 miles of an airport – Key West is only 4 miles long, and has an airport. Actually with the US Navy being here there are a couple of helicopter pads and the airbase on Boca Chica Key. So to fly...
When you live on a mooring or an anchor the dinghy becomes your most important piece of daily equipment, and the choice of how to power your “car” is very important. The place that I am moored (between Fleming Key and Dredgers Key outside of Garrison Bight in Key West) is exposed to the North and North Easterlies in wintertime. This can lead to motoring...
From the mooring field you can see a number of mangrove islands off to the northeast. They are about 4 – 5 miles away and don’t look like much. With the new dinghy motor providing me a little more range I decided to head out there on a pre-dawn Sunday excursion to get an angel for a sunrise shot that didn’t include buildings and stuff in the way...
This was the opening gambit of a series of books I read about an ancient Roman private investigator who’s life was turned upside down by a random event. The thing that struck me about the series was how you can just be going along in life thinking you had a plan and system set up for a while. Then just a random turn of events can change your entire perspective...
Working two jobs has got me behind on my photo editing, and this harbor walk shoot is one that I’ve been slacking on. I’m trying to build a stock photography library that’s selling on the various agency websites, with a goal of 10 – 20 photos added every week. These are all photography that I’ve submitted to them. It’s working...
Decided to do an early morning dinghy adventure yesterday to test out the viability of taking my dinghy all the way to the job on Stock Island. The wind had finally calmed down after blowing on/off for almost 2 weeks and I had a full can of gas ( my little 2.5 gallon gas can will get me about 30 – 40 miles). It was a nice day to be on the water and take...
I’ve been living on a mooring ball in Key West for almost half a year now. One of the challenges of living on a sailboat out on a mooring ball is the humid salt air. I did a really good job of sealing up the portlights last year so during a recent heavy rain, not much water got into the boat. I still have the hatches on the deck to do, but even then it’s...
Finally have a new computer so I can work on my photography edits that have been piling up. About 4 or 5 weeks ago, we had a little wind storm going on. I had taken my electronics to shore so I could work on my computer but had gotten complacent and didn’t put everything into ziploc bags like I normally do. Trying to lift my overloaded backup up to the boat...
Had a day off work in the middle of this week so I ventured down to Old Town to wander around and people watch the tourists. Being a boat bum, pirate treasure always attracts my attention. So I stopped in the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum to check out their displays (entry fee is just $15). Cannon recovered from one of the wrecks Being a history buff, I was interested...
It’s funny, all the books and forums discuss all the macro issues to live on a sailboat. Rarely are mentioned are all the little microaggressions, which if you don’t resolve can make the experience very frustrating. So, here’s a bunch of little lessons learned while living on a sailboat in Key West. But first some more local images. Most of these...