Key West - So That's Where All the Hippies Went!

Have been over to Key West via our 'car' (dingy) three times now, to run various errands and to have a peek around. Some of the best houses (prettiest, most architecturally interesting) I have seen in a long time. There is quite a bit of vegetation for Florida and nestled in and amongst the palm and other tropical greenery are wooden houses with picket fences, porches and porch swings. Many of the porch ceilings are painted light blue (supposed to keep the bugs away). The porch railings are all detailed or engraved, we saw a fence topped with cut out pineapples yesterday. People are out on their bikes, skateboards, or walking. It feels like a community.

There's a very laid-back lifestyle here with casual dress and slower pace. I look at the dress and it makes me think, "Ah, okay, so that's where all the hippies went." Loads of dreadlocks and loose linen clothing. The market we went to was loaded with organic (which I like and Steve thinks is a great marketing scam) and health foods with just token few 'regular' items - we're still on a search for meat! We found the laundry, two marine stores and Steve's beloved cheeseburger in Paradise.

In between the trips back and forth, I've been rereading 'An Embarrassment of Mangoes' which is great story of how a couple from Toronto pulled up stakes and cruised from the Bahamas to the Carribean and back, written by Ann Venderhoof. It's been fun reading about how someone else views this experience and how the learning curve is steep for other people too!

There was a paragraph which particularly resonated during the first reading: "My whole identity was defined by what I did to make a living, and I didn't like that. Steve was focused on the fact that we were growing older; he watched friends put things off until "later" when, they said, they'd have more money and fewer responsibilities; by the time "later" came, they were no longer in good health and no longer able. "I never want to find ourselves in that position," Steve said. "I never want to say, "If only..." During the past three and a half years of working 12-14 hour days and living (mostly) in two separate countries, one thing that we particularly noticed was the toll that lifestyle was taking on our bodies, in terms of weight, flexibility and energy. This resulted in weekends spent (this past summer) surfing the Internet and napping rather than out walking, motorbiking or exploring as we have in previous years. Our identities were work - that's what we did, that's what we talked about, that's what we thought about.

During the second reading, there is a paragraph which made us chuckle because it so closely parallels what we've experienced: "The word drifted out to colleagues, and the endless stream of questions began. How could we give up two highly coveted jobs and just sail over the horizon? How would we survive when we returned, jobless and out of the loop? What would we do? It was both unnerving and englightening that so many concerns revolved around our work. I heard whiffs of words like "reckless." I caught wind of a betting pool on how long it would be - how soon, actually before we turned back." Aside from the betting pools (of which we believe there are several), there were three main areas which generated tons of questions - how can you give up the job (the perks, the consultancy lifestyle, the money), how can you do this from a financial perspective, and the biggest one was what will you do all day? The concept of going from 'full on' work to 'not work' was one that people really wanted to dig into, they were really interested in exploring what do people do when not working - and how much would that cost? (We're tracking this and will share it in a future post.)

One of the things we're doing is cooking. There are some great recipes in Mangos, one of which we tried last night after picking up some fresh, organic, healthy fish in Key West:

'Tastes Like Lobster' Conch
(or Monkfish or other meaty fish)

(Adjusted to serve 2)

2 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic
2 large conch, cleaned and tenderised (We're saving this delicacy until we get to the Bahamas so we used Mahi-Mahi)
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 sweet green or red bell pepper thinly sliced
1 tomato diced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup white wine

Butter two large pieces of heavy foil and sprinkle each with a layer of garlic. Layer conch (fish) onion, pepper, tomato and the rest of the garlic. Dot with the remaining butter, season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with white wine. Seal packages and cook on a preheated barbeque for 8 - 10 minutes.

Steve's comment, "There's really great food on this cruise!"