Islamorada: So when did this key get cool?Think about it: Key West always gets the best press, Key Largo packs movie heat and Marathon Key is famous for fine-ass fishing. Islamorada was always just there, about halfway between Key Largo and Key West, devoid of their romance, mystique and elegant "upper crustacean" shell shops full of Philippine conchs.
In fact, the string of 43 bridges connecting those U.S. cays from Key Largo to Key West has always been pretty much just that — a ribbon of road, the only way to get to that haute Hemingway haunt at Mile Marker 1. Now those "lesser keys" are awake and soliciting dollars, just as tackily as any other U.S. tourist draw.
Islamorada (roughly translated, it means "Island Abode") is chief among them, with a gigantic two-storied World Wide Sportsman store complete with glass elevator and replica of Ernest Hemingway's wooden boat. Elsewhere along Overseas Highway (a.k.a. U.S. 1), Miami-Beach-style gift shops with $200 cigar-box purses compete with tourist draws such as Robbie's, where you can lean over a dock and hand-feed bait fish to 200-pound tarpon.
But it's during lobstering season, from August through March, that Islamorada's lure is particularly strong. Sure, there are plenty of spots up and down Florida's Gulf Coast where you can dip your tickle-stick (more on that later), but Islamorada is the most convenient, and — thanks to that huge sports supply store — the best-equipped.
That's why, faced with less than a week of vacation time during an otherwise tripless summer, I set off for Islamorada with Captain Hal Gibson, my fiancé, and Mark Jreisat, my son, for an all-expenses-paid-by-Sugar-Mama tour. Our recently purchased used 17-foot Mako made it seem like a good idea to give the boat its virgin ride during the madness of the lobstering "preseason," a two-day period at the end of July set aside exclusively for sport fishermen.
Hey, it's not every mother lucky enough to have a fiancé licensed to pilot a 100-ton vessel, much less a 23-year-old business-major offspring whose one Gen-Y-worthy goal in life is to make lots of money while impersonating an impoverished student, who never remembers a birthday and whose endearing idea of a nickname for his non-petite mother is Snapping Turtle (something to do with the chin).
Outfitting him with fins — $30 on sale — and a mask and dive-flag — $37, all on sale — was just the beginning of a three-day jaunt during which the two males on board wound up with 12 lobsters.
Nice haul — but then again, the lobsters wound up costing roughly $250 apiece.
The buying spree started at Scuba Quest in Brandon, and continued into Islamorada with the purchase of a $9.99 underwater camera and a $20 packaged set from the Islamorada Eckerd's, complete with lobster net, lobster-carapace-measuring instrument and tickle-stick.The way you catch a lobster is to tickle it with the stick, which inspires backward propulsion into your net. As for the measuring instrument, every single person on board, according to laws governing state and federal waters, must have one of these little rulers in his or her possession. The lobster is to be measured in the water, thank you very much, from the point right behind the eyes down to where the tail starts. The tail is pretty much the only edible part of the Florida spiny lobster, and "tails can be separated only on land."
Pay attention: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. If you forget your lobster-carapace-measuring instrument or you go out one minute before the season begins, the government may impose various penalties leading up to confiscation of your boat. I doubt I could talk the Coast Guard into taking my firstborn instead, or I'd be very tempted to go out early. Judging from the numbers of pickup trucks and boats invading the Keys, we're facing lots of competition.
We meet up right away with John Brummer, a city carpenters' supervisor from Hollywood who has spent three days scoping out lobster lodges and ledges in preparation for the mini-season, which the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission calls the Sport Lobster Season. Always the last consecutive Wednesday and Thursday in July, the 48-hour period was invented to keep the hobbyists from clashing with the commercial harvesters. This is owing to the long history of bad blood, if not bloodletting, between recreational fishermen in Florida and those commercial bastards, but I'm not taking sides.
Brummer says, "I just look over the side of the boat, and when I see something I turn around and take another look. If it still looks interesting, I dive down and investigate. Today I saw a washing-machine drum."
Lobstering is not high-tech.
Captain Hal is dubious, having hunted real 5-pound lobsters in Panama, not the lame Florida crawfish, but when he and Da Kid finish scouting they are psyched. They enter six sets of coordinates into the GPS. Grown men enter figures into hand-held electronic devices like boys recording Nintendo passwords. One will lead them back to a coral head the size of a bar tabletop they found crawling with crustaceans. They also spot part of an airplane wing with a long, thin crack full of lobsters — there's some weird shit in the Atlantic.
Speaking of weird shit, Islamorada isn't entirely a relaxing getaway. Coast Guard cutters, helicopters and Falcon medium-range surveillance jets go great guns throughout the day and night. They are a reminder that if Homeland Security efforts have done little else, they've bought lots of gas for federal-issue vehicles. The sky buzzes. Boat horns blare in the Atlantic. We feel so safe.Then again, we are staying right next to the Coast Guard station, which is right next to the Whale Harbor sandbar on the Atlantic, Whale Harbor being a buffet where for $24.95 you get crab legs, mashed potatoes, shrimp, salmon, tuna and roast beef. (A tip: Skip the roast beef.)
The sandbar, it seems, is a high-profile site of sex, sleaze and perhaps outright crime. Take what happened a couple weeks ago. Five young people set up a bamboo tripod on the beach, then proceeded to hang themselves by meat hooks. First-responders, there within minutes, included the Sheriff's Office, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, two Islamorada paramedics and, no lie, the U.S. Coast Guard. According to the deadpan report in the Islamorada Free Press, in a finding attributed to the Coast Guard, "there are no laws against somebody embedding hooks into their bodies and hanging from a tripod at the sandbar." However, a Coast Guardsman took videos, and according to the paper, the possibly incriminating tape is now in the hands of an unnamed state agency "for review to determine if, indeed, any laws were broken."
The video record allegedly shows a young woman enjoying the sport, her feet splashing in the surf. One of her companions bearing hook track marks is described as "heavily pierced and tattooed."
Too bad Janet Reno's not still state attorney; she'd kick their ass.
At any rate, and who can blame him, the Islamorada Free Press reporter takes the opportunity to dredge up "other questionable conduct that concerns some locals": the descent of adult video crews, for one thing. Though the filmmakers have been gone a whole year now, those neighborhood-watch wannabes apparently are still talking about the producers of Girls Gone Wild at the sandbar. More recently, in May, realwildgirls.com did some filming — but "we busted them and confiscated their work just as they were ready to leave," the Sheriff's Office district chief proudly recounts. Apparently, the U.S. Coast Guard leaves some things to the locals.
It's still at least five hours and one minute before the season starts, more than enough time to do an Islamorada key lime pie taste test at a few places up and down U.S. 1.Whale Harbor has a saucy little key lime tart, but the crust is soggy. Ziggy's Crab Shack, a Creole place, has outstanding food but a so-so key lime pie. (Do not miss its 80-year-old recipe for conch chowder.) Zane Grey Lounge on the second floor of World Wide Sportsman looks out onto a beautiful harbor. Don't spoil the view with its mousse-y pie. Opt instead for the key lime martini with a scattering of graham-cracker-crust crumbs replacing salt around the rim. The lounge graciously provides the recipe: Bacardi limon, Liquor 43, a splash of sour mix. Add cream, shake with ice and strain into a martini glass.
The best key lime pie to be found is at Papa Joe's, north of Robbie's (the tarpon-petting place) but south of Whale Harbor. The dessert is dense and creamy with a sour-tart bite. The graham-cracker crust is flawless. Key lime pie ranges from $2.50 to $4 around Islamorada, a bargain once you've spent $414 to get here. (See "Bucks and Barracudas.") Papa Joe's also has a cool wormwood interior and a saltwater tank worth seeing, especially if you don't snorkel. This aquarium has everything you'd view on the coral reef, except in miniature.
After two key lime martinis at the Zane Grey Lounge, I hardly care whether my dynamic duo nabs any lobsters. My opinion doesn't count, however, mostly because the hunter-gatherer genes apparently were recessive in both my parents. While I've been challenging my taste buds and admiring the large black pearl with gold octopus legs at Blue Marlin Jewelry, they've been daydreaming about the creatures they spotted crawling in the deep.
At 4 a.m. the waters are dark and choppy, but out into the salt mist they go. They know about lobstering etiquette. The first person there with a boat is the one who gets dibs on the spot. If John Brummer is the early bird, he has rights to that washing-machine drum, no matter who illegally sank it in the first place. Captain Hal suspects other people must know about that coral head. Thus the predawn rousting.
The experienced Brummer goes out later — at 6 a.m., after sunup — and is back by 8:15 with his legal limit.
The minutes drag as I watch a black racer stalk a lizard near the sandbar.
An hour later the novices return, and they, too, have six apiece, their one-day limit. X had marked the spots, and the spots were all theirs. No one had invaded their turf (surf?). The lobsters they had spotted yesterday were still there today. Around that coral head, Mark even had to flush a little nurse shark out from under a ledge to get to the lobster.
Ah, the sea. There's nothing like it as a backdrop for a rite of manhood. My boy is a man now, having returned to shore with a bagful of Florida spiny lobster. My captain is happily planning next year's attack. And back in Tampa, I have just consumed a delicious $125 cup of homemade lobster bisque.
Andrea Brunais is a freelance writer living in Tampa.
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2004.