Jeff is gone

As you must know by now, I left the island a couple years ago; but the island has not left me. I am living with a wonderful, caring woman who takes such good care of me. But I have no water in my life and I am finding that to be hard. I spend a lot of time thinking about southern Florida and the different lifestyle there.

Things change - and usually without my permission. The island is now cared for by Mario. He is a good soul and we share a “Keeper’s” appreciation of Broad Key. I am lucky to have him as a friend and compatriot. He keeps me informed of the activities on the island so my link remains fed. But the last communication was not great. He informed me that Jeff had died the night before. This has proven to be harder on me than I would have guessed. Jeff was a friend. Mario summarized best:

“,,, He was a unique person, rich with character and full of kindness. It makes sense that you and I would have a connection with him being the ones out here. I got pretty close to him—be it at one point necessity that evolved into friendship. He was a guide, a friend, a confidant—simply a brother in arms, that you quite literally bled and sweat beside, in this madness that we have endured out here.”

Jeff was the island owner’s representative for the physical facility that is Broad Key. He was the go-to person for property issues like the septic tank, or wind damage or any other damage repair. While he did not live on the island, he lived for the island. He proved to be great support, physical and emotional, on many occasions. But, as Mario said, he was a friend. I’ll never forget things like honey dipping together to clear the septic system drainage field or flying across Barnes and Card Sounds after an evening at Gilbert’s with no boat lights or GPS, and navigating by the lights of the various towers, bridges and shoreline markers. I enjoyed many hours with him doing many different things.

I am better for knowing him. I learned a lot from him. I will miss him for a long time as he represents life in south Florida, saltwater life and Broad Key.

Supermoon. Lunar Eclipse. Blood Moon. Oh My!

September 28, 2015 was a lunar special night. It was a Supermoon when the moon was at its closest position to the earth on the moon's elliptical path.

This close position makes the moon appear larger.  At moonrise and moonset, when the moon appears larger anyway, the supermoon looks even bigger. This year the moon appeared 14% larger. My view was noticeably larger but I might not have noticed if I was not aware of this special evening. 

Add to this already interesting event a Lunar Eclipse. The sun, earth and moon were aligned so that the earth's shadow blocked all sunlight from falling on the moon. This shadow kept the moon in darkness for more than an hour.

Broad Key is a fairly good viewing spot. The horizon from the north to northwest suffers from a lot of light pollution. Miami and Turkey Point Power simply refuse to turn off their lights at night. But from the northeast to the southwest the sky is quite dark at night.  

The roof of the Big House is almost the highest thing on the island.  There are a few tree tops that are higher. However, they are in the right place to block much of the northwest horizon light pollution. So the view from the rooftop is good both day and night.

Sooo....    You would think everything was in order for a great view of the supermoon and lunar eclipse. I charged all my camera batteries. Pre-programmed my intervalometer on my camera. Tripods from 6 inch to 6 feet were placed by the door. All was ready.

But for the weather.  We experienced a typical south Florida summer day.  Partly cloudy.  I watched and watched the sky all day and into the evening.  Is it clearing at all?  Is that a hole in the clouds over there? Please, oh, please.......

The moon rose into the clouds. It played peek-a-boo teasing me for the whole night. Mosquitoes be damned; I am going to get some pictures!  I spent several hours on the roof shooting pictures as I could.

As a photographer, I all but refuse to show pictures that are not good quality at least technically. A fuzzy-graph?  You will not see it. Well not until now. I was on the roof (which flexes slightly). This meant that my tripod did not have a solid base. The tripod was extended to about five feet.  I was set up in a strong breeze. A telephoto lens was needed and used in maximum zoom (~300mm). Add to these issues an exposure of about 6 seconds at f5.6. I know, I know:  Excuses. Excuses. But these were slightly trying conditions. Also of interesting note; the images I got I did not see.  The camera captured images that I could not see. I felt that I was doing well whether the shots were presentation grade or not.

There is another side to the supermoon. The tides. Since the tides are caused by the moon, the closer moon means higher tides. The supermoon therefore causes very high tides. Fortunately, Broad Key is used to these tides so the only issue is the tidal flotsam is pushed farther up the lawn and deeper into the mangroves. The paths and lower places on the island get water covered when normally they are dry.

Being on the island means life closer to nature. Closer to the heat. Closer to the cycles of life, water and moon. While this closeness can be a wonderful thing, sometimes is also wears on you.  Ah!  Another post?

cz, 1330 9/30/15

Hurricane Shmurricane

Erika's visit was, yawn, not so eventful. She gave me little to write about. Her path took her over the Dominican Republic and Haiti. She was always a disorganized storm (whatever that means) and the mountains of the island were her downfall. Erika never got to hurricane status and just drifted to the west of Florida as a bunch of thunderstorms.

The evacuation of Broad Key was scheduled for Saturday. Evan (supervisor) came out to help finish preparations and to provide assistance with the boat move to a trailer. Before he got here the University of Miami public safety folks decided Erika was not going to be a major threat and cancelled the evacuation. Evan came out anyway and we did a final buttoning up of the island.  After all, we were still expecting heavy rain and some wind.

Saturday night through Sunday were to be "heavy weather".  I waited and waited. The island did get about 2" of rain and at one point it rained at about 4.5 in/hr.  But I experienced barely a breeze.  Nothing...

These things are so unpredictable.

However...

Hear ye, hear ye!
Coming from the stormy east coast of Africa
The hurricane incubator that gave us Danny and Erika
Comes Fred!

My bet is that Fred doesn't really get going at all.  We shall see.

cz, 1200 Aug. 31, 2015

Maybe my first hurricane or tropical storm or ...

Danny

Last week I thought I was going to deal with my first hurricane. Well Danny fizzled days before getting near southern Florida. While relieved, I admit to being a bit disappointed.  Hmmm, I should not have said that.   Here comes Erika.  She is currently flying across the southern North Atlantic at about 20 mph. I may get my taste after all.

Erika

Since the above start of this post Erika has made progress.  She is currently approaching the Dominican Republic but remains a "tropical storm".  Her status has been downgraded and she may not make hurricane status at all. But that does not mean she is not going to cause issues.  Her predicted path at this time is centered right over Broad Key. So I have to prepare the island for whatever she might toss around.

I have been moving things to a more protected location. Or tied things to something solid. The Big House furniture that might be subjected to wind or rain issues has been moved inside. The boathouse contents are tied down.  A few more things remain to be prepared.  I should also make another trip to the mainland for a last purchase of diesel fuel.  So I am close to being ready to hunker down and

Evacuate?    I have to evacuate?    But!    But!

I am now operating under orders to evacuate!   No!   I am ready.  I want to experience whatever is coming.   Call me Skink (Carl Hiaasen, Stormy Weather). But at the time of this writing I have been to told I will be getting off the island.    Grrrr!   Am I really going to spend my hurricane opportunity in a motel room?  No!

cz 11:20 Aug. 28, 2015

Did I mention it is hot?

It has been a long quiet spell again.  The summer has been hot and fairly humid. I have lost interest in just about everything. We  have all said "The heat really takes it out of you". Well I can tell you from first hand experience, the heat really takes it out of you.

I have been sweating more than my whole previous life put together. Often I have to be careful to avoid sweat dropping onto or into something I have been doing. I have to step back and shake my head to rid my face of water drops that are hanging from my eye brows, eye lashes. nose and more. My sunglasses (a permanent and necessary facial adornment) are often rendered obscured by water pooling on the inside of the lenses. I don't want to sound gross or crude but on more than one occasion, toilet paper has been rendered useless by sweat running down my back.  

The sun is no longer my friend. It has beaten me.  I now cower in it's presence. Many times I have noticed a real physical change as the sun goes behind or returns from behind a cloud. There is an ebb and flow of my energy and interest in what I am doing that is inversely proportional to the amount of sun on my body. An example is I tend to do my dishes in the morning. If I get up before the sun comes into view, or there are clouds on the eastern horizon, I approach the task with some energy and life. When the sun and it's oppressive heat hit my face I lose all interest. Instantly. It is not something I just don't like but can deal with. It often just overwhelms me and I have to retreat.

I have hung shade cloth over part of my back deck.  That was done in an effort to get some use out of the deck; I really don't like to be inside. While it has made a difference I seldom can sit under it if there is no breeze. I have lightly burned my bare feet walking. Now I understand why Inja runs from shade spot to shade spot. 

I have experienced afternoon temperatures in my kitchen as high as 105F. On a typical morning I  step from my bedroom into the living area where the temperature is as high as 88F . . . at 06:30! I know, I know. Enough with the heat stuff. But please one more.  I keep my little window air-conditioner set at 80F. During the latter part of the day (13:00 to 20:00) it runs continuously and typical room temperatures are mid-80s.  I have found the ceiling temperature at 118F.  You can feel the radiation.

And then there is the thunder and lightening. While not a problem for me, Inja (my dog) is not happy. That old joke about "When momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy"? That applies here. Inja becomes a shaking, panting, drooling pile of unconsolable dog who KNOWS I am her savior if only she could climb inside me. The problem is several fold. First there are these "popcorn" storms that pop up from nowhere.  They just appear and give you a sprinkle and 20 minutes of thunder and lightening. Then you have the issue of flat land and water. Light and sound travel for many miles. So the storm that is keeping Inja unconsolable might be 60 miles away. And this is why this blog post is being written at 04:00. 

Now the next weather related part of my adventure...hurricanes

cz 04:30 Aug. 26, 2015

VHA

VHA - Benefits the island and makes it more appealing.

VHA - Health benefits for me

VHA - Monotonous

VHA - Vegetation Height Adjustment - Weed Wacking - Weedeating - NOT trimming!

Writing about weedeating?  Glorifying it by wasting time coming up with witty names? While not the primary responsibility for the Keeper of Broad Key, it is a definite need and takes much time to accomplish.


The above is how I like to keep things. But specially now it is hard to keep up. There has been some rain and the humidity is higher.  The growing season is starting. So my time is more occupied by VHA than ever.  I dare not let it get ahead of me.

When I got here the weeds were taking over. The sidewalk was trimmed a bit. But no more than 10 feet away the weeds were really healthy. During the winter I tried to "push the jungle back". Basically, I now look at the task in three levels. Trimming - the sidewalk and visitor viewing areas. Secondary (I have not thought of a catchy name yet) - areas that I need to keep under control once I did the work of reclaiming. Pushing the jungle back (PJB) - reclaiming overgrown areas that, years ago, were maintained. PJB will now have to be put off until next fall.



As you might have guessed all of this has to be done by weedeater. The surface is too rough to be maintained by mowing. The owner of the island has a brush hog but I don't think it is the tool to make things "nice". So I use the Stihl with a string head and a saw blade for the heavy stuff.

Today I took the right side of the walk area from the right side of the picture to the left side. I did about a 1000 feet of VHA. The need to do VHA is not just for looks. There are so many vines and tree sprouts. To let them go would allow them to start climbing anything that will support them.  Down they must come!


Okay...   So this was not one of the most interesting posts.  But it is life on Broad Key.

Thanks for following the blog.

cz, 1845 5/23/20015

I had a helper today

I have not told you about the PNNL research project yet.  I will get to that in another post. But the latest phase of the PNNL research ended yesterday.  It is now time to clean up.

So this afternoon I went to the boathouse to pull the saltwater pump. To manage the removal, I had to lie on the deck and work under said deck. I was not too aware of anything other than the pump with which I was fighting. Suddenly the surrounding water in my limited view went dark. I admit to a tiny bit of concern...until I realized it was a manatee swimming very closely by.  I learned from my previous manatee experience (Hmmm.   I will have to check to make sure I told you of that day) I should provide him some fresh water. So off I ran to get the hose stretched to his location.

Sure enough, they REALLY like fresh water. This guy's fresh water appetite
seemed insatiable. But I am not used to watering a 1000 pound animal so his thirst might be normal.

The pictures I took were not the real story. But I could not take pictures while holding the hose in his mouth. I laid on the dock, took the end of the hose in my hand and offered the water to him. His stiff whiskered nose routed at my hand trying to push my hand out of the way. I gave him a little bit of the hose which he took into his mouth. I figured it was worth the repair to the hose to have this experience. With the hose clamped in his mouth he just hung on the hose. His body literally hanging down, unmoving.  The water pouring into him as if from a large straw.  However he was SO gentle.  He was weightless on the hose; not pulling in the least. And the hose that was clamped in his mouth was undamaged. What a gentle giant!

I got tired of watering him before he got enough.  I pulled the hose from his mouth. He did not resist in the least.  He floated there, nostrils open breathing gently, beady tiny eyes watching me, anticipating the hose's return.  I put my hand on his head. He did not like that and submerged a couple inches but only for a second. He raised his head back to the surface and eyed the hose expectantly.

I returned to working on the pump. But he stuck around. In the picture of the pump you will see him underwater but close.  You can see boat propellor scars on his back (a very common problem). He went off and munched on plant growth on the boathouse frame. But he would return for another shot of water.  This continued for an hour. Finally I had to leave the boathouse.  I spritzed the creek water with the hose a couple times. He came over immediately for a final gulp of freshwater.

I have looked for him every time I am near the boathouse. I hoped the freshwater drinking fountain would keep him around.  But he has not returned...yet.

cz, 0430 5/14/15