You would think that I'd be isolated from U.S. politics for a while, anchored off a deserted island halfway to the Marquesas, gazing at a shooting star bisect the constellation Orion as it traveled across the night sky.
But you'd be wrong.
From the opinions of our first mate to the sorry condition of Florida's reefs, politics followed me like the jellyfish that swarmed us whenever we snorkeled.
The week before Christmas I was fortunate enough to be part of a 17-person crew from Tampa Boy Scout Troop 53 aboard the 80-foot schooner Heritage of Miami II. My 17-year-old son and I took part in a program out of the Scouts' high-adventure Florida Sea Base near Islamorada. From Monday through Saturday morning, we crewed the schooner, set the sails, weighed anchor, steered the boat and cooked the meals. Along the way, we snorkeled five different reefs and fished (with moderate success) for dinner.
It was an awesome, life-changing experience.
I took a copy of Moby-Dick to read, expecting a respite from the nonstop presidential campaigns and other political stories.
That lasted about a day and a half.
On the second day at sea, I sat near Don, our Sea Base guide and first mate aboard the schooner. It was Don's job to assist the boys as they ran their own crew, stepping in only when necessary to give them guidance or crack the whip.
Don is from Dubuque, Iowa, and he has all the clean-cut optimism you would expect from a Midwesterner who is also an Eagle Scout. So I asked him: What's the mood in Iowa? Who's going to win?
I didn't get a prediction, but I got an interesting lesson in just how complicated political beliefs are, a lesson you almost never find in the mainstream press. Don is a Republican who describes himself as a social liberal and fiscal conservative, a moderate. He doesn't like Mike Huckabee's religion-based politics and wasn't crazy about anyone in the GOP field. His favorite candidate for president right now? Bill Richardson, a Democrat.
I asked Don about immigration, which gets a lot of play in Iowa politics, especially in the GOP primary. I didn't get all the hubbub; Iowa surely doesn't have a large immigrant population? Is it undocumented farm workers that have raised the locals' ire?
No. It turns out that immigrants increasingly are turning up in the industrial factories that dot the Midwest, like the myriad meatpacking plants or the huge John Deere factory in Dubuque that manufactures tractors, backhoes and skid steers (whatever the hell those are). Midwesterners, uneasy with losing jobs, are less familiar with Mexicans and other undocumented immigrants than, say, Miami or Tampa, where immigration has been a fact of life for decades. Their fears fuel some of the anti-immigrant hysteria that has produced CNN's Lou Dobbs. Don said that didn't make Iowans racists, or at least didn't make them any more or less racist than the rest of the United States.
Iowa's caucuses are Thursday night. The winners will get some momentum that they may not deserve, given that Iowa is so unrepresentative of the rest of the nation.
Two days later, I ended up in a conversation with one of the Boy Scouts from our troop, a young man who will be eligible to vote for the first time in the 2008 presidential election. So who does he like, I asked.
Ron Paul was his answer.
I was very surprised. Paul's appeal has always fascinated me, but I previously chalked it up to cynicism among (mostly white male) disaffected voters who feel government is broken and politicians aren't listening. But the idea that a 17-year-old is already so jaded by the system that he would consider voting for Paul (whose positions didn't exactly match the teen's own beliefs, as further discussion proved) shows the depth of the rot in the U.S. political system. I spent the better part of a half hour detailing for the teen why the flat tax favored by Paul and Huckabee is a bad idea, as it assumes savings that surely won't be realized.
But the worst part of U.S. politics in the Florida Keys lies 10 to 15 feet beneath the turquoise waters. I have been going to the Keys since I was about 8 years old, as Islamorada was one of the few vacation spots my family consistently visited when I was growing up in Fort Lauderdale. I remember vividly fishing out of a rented Bud & Mary's Marina skiff and catching triggerfish and grunts. I recall walking in off the beach at Bahia Honda and snorkeling in 3 to 4 feet of water, seeing lobsters walking along safe in the knowledge that it was not lobster season.
Snorkeling the Florida Keys reefs today is not as glorious as it once was. Yards and yards of dead coral were apparent at every reef we visited — Looe Key, Western Dry Rocks, Pelican, Sombrero. Dead brain coral was covered by a fine, brown-gray silt.
We're killing the Keys reefs. More than 1,000 shallow disposal wells pump inadequately treated waste out to sea. Septic tanks dump even worse, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
That's not the only cause: Algae is overtaking the living coral because of overfishing of algae-eating species; the Atlantic waters are warming, either due to climate change or cyclical phenomena such as El Niño; and the spate of hurricanes and tropical storms over the past decade have physically damaged the coral, too.
I've lived in Florida since 1967 and have seen many changes. Growth has brought many good things, but we continue to live like a parasitic virus off the land and sea, killing the very paradise that drew many to Florida in the first place. The reefs. The Everglades. Our rural areas. Our rivers and bays.
Let's see if the presidential candidates talk about how they would reverse that damage when they finally show up to campaign in Florida.
This article appears in Jan 2-8, 2008.