Filed at December 31, 2007 under Commercial Fishing and Florida Keys/Lower Keys/Key West by Keys
It was 1923 and, in a two day period at the end of December, Key West fishermen brought in 106,000 pounds of kingfish, which was selling for 8 cents a pound wholesale.
Filed at December 30, 2007 under On the Water/Boating and Florida Keys/Lower Keys/Key West by Keys
By Capt. Tom Serio
Because government officials and others involved with the recovery of S/Y Legacy have not been forthcoming with her progress, I flew over Legacy in late November to find out her status. She is still in the marine sanctuary just north of Key West, where she was deposited by Hurricane Wilma two years ago, a few dozen yards from Bluefish Channel. The latest recovery process of pulling her out the way she went in has freed her from the bottom and continues. Originally speculated in early September to take three weeks, pulling Legacy to deep water has so far taken three months, with probably several more to go.
This current recovery process (others have been tried but failed) includes creating a channel in front of Legacy by removing the sandy bottom using an auger and pump. The sand is then relocated aft as the yacht moves forward. A series of cables connected to her hull run along the initial path of entry cut in the sea grass (almost a mile long), out to a utility boat, the Helen B. Legacy is pulled several feet at a time by the utility vessel. Miami-based Byrd Commercial Diving is the marine salvage contractor on site. The flotilla of houseboats rafted nearby allows Legacy’s owner and crew to remain close by and keep watch over the recovery.
So instead of official reports on what is happening, we have photos, which indeed speak a thousand words. [To see more, visit http://www.the-triton.com.] Although Legacy appeared to have moved about 1,200 feet by late November, there appears to be at least that much farther still to go. As she inches closer to the edge of the flats, hopefully the water will get deeper and aid in her refloating.
The sand deposits pumped from in front of Legacy appear to be well scattered in the area aft, appearing to create a sandy island. With the concerns of the impact on the local ecosystem, this process appears to be disturbing a large area. Due to sustained wind and/or current conditions, there is a large sand plume leaching out of the yellow containment boom. It was good to see Legacy headed toward freedom, but there will be many questions as to the process and long-term effect on the area. Let’s hope the marine sanctuary as well as Legacy will one day be restored to pre-Wilma condition.
Filed at under Florida Keys by Keys
Sloan Bashinksy’s 2007 mayoral candidate suggested the city dress its staff - and the homeless - as pirates to boost tourism. Arrrrrgg! He must have just seen Seinfeld’s “Puffy Shirt” show.
At the Boot Key Harbor Lighted Boat Parade in Marathon, as one boat passed the reviewing stand, spectators saw a woman who seemed to be wearing very little at all standing at the bow. She then performed what a witness described as a “pole dance.” The 24-year-old woman was wearing a body stocking, said the owner of the vessel, aptly named Neptune’s Love Palace. However, upon further review, the general consensus was that she was, in fact, buck nekked. Whichever it was, some onlookers were appalled. Others applauded.
Government officials this summer declared war on the Gambian pouch rat, trying to eradicate a colony that established itself on Grassy Key. The imported rodents, prolific breeders, can grow to weigh a fearsome 9 pounds. Gambian rats bred for captivity reportedly escaped when a storm destroyed their cages. In November a dead pouch rat was found in Islamorada.
While Gambian rats in the Keys are considered bad, the Key Largo wood rat is a native species considered good. In April, researchers tracking a wood rat fitted with an electronic device followed the signal through the North Key Largo hammocks - right to the stomach of a Burmese python sunning itself. “There’s a good chance we never would have found him” if the snake were not emitting a radio signal from the devoured wood rat, a state exotic-species expert said. The python - more than 7 feet long - reportedly was the first discovered in the Keys, although the nonnative snakes are a known nuisance in the Everglades. Since then several more large exotic snakes have been found in North Key Largo.
In June, an attempt to save a newborn dolphin calf included a bizarre incident. Marine Mammal Conservancy members reported to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office that they found a plastic bag containing a severed goat’s head in the calf’s bayside pen on Key Largo. The rescue effort drew national attention because after the mother, a rehabilitating dolphin named Castaway, was discovered to be deaf, the calf’s pen was wired with speakers to play dolphin sounds. The calf, named Wilson, died; no connection to the goat’s head was apparent.
One of the strangest vehicle accidents of the year took place not on U.S. 1 but a taxiway at Key West International Airport in August. The driver of a fuel truck dozed off - while he was driving toward a 1996 Beechcraft commuter airplane. A police report noted, “As the pilot [the only person aboard] watched, the truck slowly approached the plane, then ran into it, hitting the propeller, the engine and the plane itself.” The plane was grounded for repairs. The fuel-truck driver was given a ticket for careless driving.
A former Lower Keys resident, John Peffer, was arrested in February after authorities investigated a rash of unusual funerals. One of the services reportedly saw the body transported to the cemetery in Peffer’s personal vehicle, a white SUV, rather than a hearse. Then instead of the priest requested by the family, a woman tentatively identified as Peffer’s girlfriend delivered the eulogy. After being laid off from a local funeral home, Peffer reportedly arranged at least four burials or cremations on his own. State authorities said he was entirely unlicensed, holding only what amounts to a learner’s permit to become an embalmer. Even that permit was expired. “This whole thing is just too crazy for words,” said a family member of one of the deceased.
Other crime reports:
A Homestead man who commuted to the Upper Keys was charged in January with entertaining himself by using a paintball gun to shoot at people and stores along U.S. 1 on the trip. Six incidents were reported over three months before the arrest.
A Stock Island woman flagged down a deputy to complain that she made a $100 sale to a customer, but he tricked her by giving her a crumpled $1 bill. The merchandise: Crack cocaine. Michelle Long was charged with possession.
A woman was arrested in April on a charge of attempting to smuggle cigarettes, considered contraband, to an inmate at the Stock Island Detention Center. Shanetta Oliphant’s felony arrest interrupted her job training - she was enrolled as a trainee to become a jail corrections officer.
Glen Springer, 51, a British citizen living in Key Largo, was arrested in July, some months after getting married in a Homestead church. He was married in the same church in 2003. And he apparently was still legally married to the 2003 wife when he married again three years later. Springer “thought since he left without consummating his first marriage, that was enough to dissolve the marriage,” according to the Sheriff’s Office. It was not. He was charged with bigamy.
A 22-year-old woman working as first mate on a sailboat was arrested in September on charges that she seduced a passenger. The passenger was a Boy Scout, age 15, on a trip from Florida Sea Base on Lower Matecumbe.
Filed at December 28, 2007 under On the Water/Diving and Florida Keys and Florida Keys/Upper Keys/Islamorada by Keys
You might think that as a beginner or basic scuba diver your choices of truly amazing or exotic aquatic experiences are somewhat limited. Not true, indeed even for the beginning Scuba Diver holding an entry-level Scuba certification the world truly is your Ocean - or River, Lake or Stream for that matter. Some of the most exotic and popular dive sites in the world like Costa Rica, Fiji, Thailand even Australia have sites for beginners as well as the advanced or experienced diver.A little closer to home Florida and the Florida Keys offer some of the most extensive dive areas and different Scuba Diving environments that are easy enough for beginning divers but diverse enough to return again and again. For example Scuba Diving Magazine rated Islamorada in the Florida Keys the number one dive site for beginners. There you can find many dive sites like the fully protected Alligator Reef Sanctuary, this 25 ft dive is located only 3.5 miles off the coast of Islamorada and is ideal for snorkelers and beginner Scuba Divers. Safe and easy and crystal clear, Alligator Reef - don’t worry it’s named for a nearby wreck the USS Alligator not the reptile - is home to the largest variety of fish species in the keys. This is a great beginner dive for fish lovers and underwater photographers alike.
There are dozens of other sites throughout Islamorada where even beginner scuba divers can see large pelagic fish like groupers, exotics like blue parrot fish and even have close encounters with a variety of Sharks.
Filed at December 25, 2007 under Florida Keys/Lower Keys/Key West by Keys
Since holding its first Mass in 1846, the church of Saint Mary Star of the Sea has been helping people in the far outpost of the Lower Keys. Its nuns treated patients with yellow fever in the 1870s, victims of the USS Maine explosion in Havana Harbor in 1898 and the needy during Key West’s bankruptcy of the 1960s, according to the Reverend Deacon Peter Batty. ”Needs change,” Batty said. “We have been very vigilant serving current needs. God wants us to be flexible. We’re Gumby saints.”
The crisis causing today’s need for many living in the Lower Keys: skyrocketing housing costs. Saint Mary Star of the Sea has created the area’s first Out-Reach Mission. The idea was conceived seven years ago but took five years to become reality. Initial funding has come from the Klaus-Murphy Foundation, which is paying for the first three years of rent and utilities for the mission.
With mostly volunteer help, the church converted an old rundown tire store on Stock Island into a homey place for people of all denominations and levels of need to get food, baby clothes, help finding government services, a friendly smile. And hope. Last month, the mission served an average of 552 people per week. The number has been growing as word continues to get out about the caring place that opened in August 2006. ”This means a lot,” Samuel Kelly, father of a 13-year-old boy and 58-year resident of Key West, said last week as he carried two bags of donated groceries. “It helps me to have food in the house. I’m handicapped…. I can’t work.” Read more »
Filed at December 20, 2007 under Florida Keys and Florida Keys/Upper Keys/The Stretch by Keys
The new Jewfish Creek Bridge “will be across the channel” by late January, a project spokeswoman says. Vehicle traffic should be driving over the span “almost certainly by early summer,” said Patti Jones, information officer for primary contractor Granite Construction. “You can see things changing daily,” Jones said. “We’re much closer than most people realize.
“We’re only a few months away from having the complete roadway [from Key Largo to the C-111 canal] with the median barrier and everything else.” In the coming weeks, barge-mounted cranes will lift the final sections of concrete substructure into place atop the finished pilings and cross beams, 65 feet above the water at Jewfish Creek. Crews then still have to prepare and pour the road decking, which will take several months.
When traffic is moved onto the bridge in late spring or early summer, both northbound and southbound traffic will use the east side of the span. Contractors then will complete work on southbound access ramps to reach Gilbert’s Resort and other Jewfish Creek businesses. Removal of the existing drawbridge is designed to relieve weekend traffic jams caused by periodic bridge openings and eliminate one possible obstacle to hurricane evacuation. The drawbridge also is more than a half-century old, and some parts of the mechanism likely could not be replaced should they break. Read more »
Filed at December 14, 2007 under Animals and Florida Keys/Lower Keys/Big Pine Key and Environment by Keys
In a letter to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), The Humane Society of the United States asks the federal agency to immediately halt a trapping program in the Florida Keys because it is needlessly killing raccoons and other native wildlife species. Local residents and wildlife advocates have expressed outrage over the senseless trapping of native wildlife. In its letter to USFWS Southeast Director Sam Hamilton, The HSUS points out that the Fish and Wildlife Service may be violating federal law by carrying out this reckless and indiscriminate killing campaign.
Last March, the USFWS hired USDA Wildlife Services to humanely trap feral and free-roaming cats and bring them to animal shelters, which then would place them in colonies or return them to their owners. The stated goal of the program is to reduce predation upon the endangered marsh rabbit. However, instead of removing cats, it turns out that Wildlife Services has been trapping and killing large numbers of raccoons and other wildlife under a program which costs taxpayers $50,000. “The irony is that the main species they are trying to protect – the Lower Keys marsh rabbit – is rarely preyed upon by raccoons,” explains Laura Simon, field director of urban wildlife for The HSUS. “The federal government is killing dozens of raccoons and other species indiscriminately, for no good reason, and taxpayers are footing the bill.” Read more »
Filed at December 10, 2007 under Florida Keys by Keys
Waterspouts can happen wherever there is water. However, for the most part, waterspouts take place in tropical water, especially during warm temperatures of the wet season. In 1969, the Lower Florida Keys Waterspout Project, led by Dr. Joseph H. Golden, observed 390 waterspouts in a 4-month period, within a 50-mile area. Dr. Golden concluded that waterspouts happen in the Florida Keys more than any other place in the world. Waterspouts have been known to occur over the Great Lakes, Lake Tahoe, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bombay.
Filed at December 9, 2007 under On the Water/Boating and On the Water/Diving and On the Water/Fishing and Florida Keys and Vacations by Keys
With scores of recreational activities that cater to women, the Keys are a perfect destination for women-only getaways or solo adventures. Each area in the island chain that stretches from Key Largo to Key West offers its own one-of-a-kind attractions. And while the Keys have a Caribbean appeal, they’re actually all American — no passport is required and English is the native tongue. A selection of girls’ getaway activities is listed here, but in reality the possibilities are as diverse and intriguing as the island chain itself. Underwater Stress Relief Just beneath the tip of mainland Florida lies Key Largo, the northernmost of the Florida Keys. There, women seeking renewal beneath the sea can plunge 25 feet to discover the statue of Christ of the Abyss at Key Largo Dry Rocks. This nine-foot-tall bronze statute rises so close to the surface that it can be seen by snorkelers as well as divers.
Key Largo is known as the scuba diving capital of the world, but it also offers a way to experience North America’s only living coral reef without getting wet. Sail aboard the Key Largo Princess, a 70-foot, glass-bottom, 129-passenger yacht to view the exciting underwater world of John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, the only undersea park in the United States. The Key Largo Princess is located at the Holiday Inn Docks off U.S. Highway 1 at mile marker (MM) 100.
Islamorada, just down U.S. 1 from Key Largo, offers a wide variety of fine restaurants and day spas for sybaritic pampering. For women seeking an all-over tan, the tanning bed can be the large forward couch on Two Chicks Charters’ 26-foot Leisure Cat. The smooth-riding boat accommodates up to six people for an eco-tour to experience the natural beauty of the mangrove islands, an underwater treasure hunt, or a sunset on Florida Bay. Catch the boat at Worldwide Sportsman Bayside Marina, MM 81.5 in Islamorada. Read more »
Filed at December 7, 2007 under Animals and Florida Keys/Lower Keys/Big Pine Key by Keys
A convicted alligator killer has violated his probation by drinking alcohol and taking opiates while on work release from the Monroe County Detention Center this week, authorities said Thursday.
Jordan Milo, 21, of Big Pine Key, was returning to jail after a day’s work at a construction site Tuesday when corrections officers suspected he was under the influence of some substance. A urine test and three Breathalyzer tests showed opiates and blood-alcohol levels of 0.11, 0.12, and 0.13, according to sheriff’s spokeswoman Becky Herrin and Assistant State Attorney Val Winter, who prosecuted the case. Milo could have his probation reinstated or be sentenced to serve five years in prison, the maximum he could have received for poaching the alligator in the Blue Hole wildlife preserve last year. He also risks losing the chance to have the felony charge expunged from his criminal record, one of the terms of his probation.
“The judge could do anything,” Winter said.
An arraignment has been scheduled for 8:45 a.m. Thursday at the Monroe County courthouse on Whitehead Street. Milo either can admit violating his probation or deny it and request a hearing. His attorney, Nathan Eden, did not return The Citizen’s calls for comment Thursday. Meanwhile, the Sheriff’s Office has revoked Milo’s work-release privilege, Herrin said. Work-release inmates have more freedom than the general population, but they also are monitored more closely, she said. “They ride a bike to work and we know how long it takes to get there and back, and the employers are given a session on how to supervise the inmates,” she said, “but these things happen and we catch them when they do.”
Milo and his accomplice, 19-year-old Marathon resident Timothy Goll, began serving a six-month jail term in September, to be followed by five years on probation. Judge Mark Jones ordered them to complete eight hours of public service a month, half of which must be for environmental causes, during the first three years of their probation. The judge also ordered both receive psychological evaluations and the appropriate treatment, and banned them from the Blue Hole wildlife preserve. Both pleaded guilty in June to third-degree felony charges for blinding and bludgeoning to death a 6-foot female alligator they then ate at a backyard barbecue in March, photos of which they posted on www.myspace.com.
Next »
