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Re: cruising seasons: those cool crisp nights, sound lovely. The heat here has been unusually brutal last few years even for locals who are supposedly used to it.

After a day of lounging with my dogs and doing some creative things, I departed Lake Surprise. The winds remained from the southwest. Right in the nose for my travels today. I decided to motor slowly along the shore and admire the expensive waterfront residences while the rest of the boating world passed me by at high rates of speed. Black water Sound has several attractions for weekend warriors. One is the famous Caribbean Club bar. The other is the “cut” or “Adam’s Waterway” access between the bay and ocean side of key largo. (No mast clearance) These two critical boating features make this body of water very very busy. There is a fuel dock nearby. Also, Sundowners (fine dining) and Senior Freeholes (less fine dining) there’s a Kayak outfitters, and several resorts.
The houses that line the shore in between these points of interest are all beautiful. Which one would you choose to own? One area of particular interest to cruisers is the Rowells Waterside county Park. There are bathrooms here and a wide open space to walk your dog. You can anchor quite close to shore. There is a service station not too far away. This usually has a fair number of people with families and dogs visiting it during the week ends. So if you dislike either, best to avoid it.
After a few hours or idyllic sightseeing, I found myself in the mangrove creek that leads to Tarpon Basin, which has been my cruising base for this spring. A multitude of people in a big rush to get *somewhere* all were annoyed that someone dared to travel at less than 20 knots. One guy slowed down but only because he lost his hat, and had to go back to get it. Tarpon Basin was a hot, muggy, but welcome sight. It is nicely off the beaten path and sees very little traffic brave enough to navigate the shoals of grass that separate it from the ICW. There is a Publix and a hardware store, a farmers market, several restaurants all within walking distance.
(A note on shore access here: a few years ago the county closed the public dinghy dock. However, people still do access the shore and park, by using the gaps in the nearby mangroves. Not as easy, but possible. I place my things on the finger pier, and then bring the dinghy over to load them. I suspect that the docks were closed due to insurance reasons. Now they have “docking prohibited” signs to cover their @ss)
This concludes the log of my bottom scrubbing foray. My next trip will be south to the Islamorada/Lorilie district.

Ix

This is like an old time radio serial.
I’m old enough to remember them.

Hi Ixneigh!

Great trip! Idyllic and yet relatable!
Can’t wait for the next exiting episodes!!!

Great writing!

Best Regards,
Over Easy

Thanks for the memories. I hope to get back down there one of these days. My cousin had a big house on the east end of the cut. Some of my earliest sailing experiences were on a Sunfish in Largo Sound back in the '60s.

Key largo in the sixties and seventies was probably a bit more awesome than it is now. My advice if you do return: do NOT visit Molasses Reef.
We do have a brand new Publix though. “Where shipping costs a treasure!”

So the shoals of time have found Key Largo…..
That stuff happens…

Was down there as a kid on a family travel trailer vacation…. Thought it was beautiful (back in the sixties … time marches on…..
There was a nice simple beachside campground near there that we spent time at….all nice memories

Ixneigh wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 8:24 am Key largo in the sixties and seventies was probably a bit more awesome than it is now. My advice if you do return: do NOT visit Molasses Reef.
We do have a brand new Publix though. “Where shipping costs a treasure!”

Yes, it's changed a lot. At the time I'm pretty sure his house was the only one on the north side of the cut. I heard that the new owners tore down his original 3 story poured concrete home. The only thing left of the original house is the massive concrete dock.

Just north of there was the last of the large pieces of property that we had in south Florida. It started out as about 40 acres that my great uncle farmed on, then we sold some went to the state to build Card Sound Road, a little more for the crocodile refuge (gave them a great deal on both), and finally, they got the rest under Eminent Domain to expand John Pennekamp (did not want to sell that portion).

Hi Be Free!

That’s sad to hear…. …. But your not alone… do you recall when they excercized the eminent domain acquisition?

Best Regards,
Over Easy

I have many boxes of correspondence on the case if you want details but as I recall they first started back in the 80s trying to acquire the land. The case was not actually tried until 2008 or so if memory serves. Our case was instrumental in a couple of new legal theories. One involved the state redefining "submerged lands". Another established the principle of "reverse condemnation" where the state takes a valuable property and through threats of future actions drives the property value down and then "takes" it at the reduced price. We won on both points.

Hi Be Free!

Glad your family prevailed in court but it still must have been upsetting.

Still disheartening….. The simple 3% inflationary appreciation in value would be roughly 60% since 2008 to now…(never mind what the actual relative property value could be currently.)

I may be mistaken but I recall back until the late early mid 2000s, I think about your timeframe of 2006-2008 Florida went from one of the most abusive states utilizing eminent domain ( where they were condemning one person’s property only to give it to another entity for commercial development) to one of the least abusive after the Kelo decision spurred grass root ballot petitions force legislative changes.
As I understand it Eminent domain can now only be used for purposes such as road improvement projects, utility projects, construction of public libraries or jails, ect. As a result of these legislative changes, Florida I believe now has some of the better legal property rights and ranks in the top states across the nation on those protections. (Too bad that both of the Florida legislatures refused to make it retroactive to properly compensate, or even better yet return the previously taken properties that were subsequently developed and commercialized, back to those individuals from whom they were originally taken… improvements or not.) I don’t doubt that there are large swaths of coastal condominium high rises throughout Florida and its coasts that came into being back in the 70’s, 80’s, & 90’s that were ‘pocketed’ by the ‘good old boy network’ of developers and the state’s use of ‘eminent domain’.

At least it can be viewed as better now than it had been…. But that’s still small emotional and equitable financial compensation to those whose properties were taken (ie.: Stolen) and virtually given away to high roller ‘connected’ developers to personally profit from…jus sayin

While some might take offense to my perspective, but Personally I wouldn’t mind if a couple high end corporation owned golf courses were subject to eminent domain acquisition to make low income affordable housing or open public parks and public baseball fields …. Really how can anyone take seriously a bunch of grown over paid idiots chasing little white balls around lumpy fields with grossly over priced sticks on fancy motorized park benches only to self report on the number of swings until one accidentally knocks the poor little ball into a buried coffee cup marked with yet another stick with a bit of ribbon tied to it? Seriously, some folks even call this a sport? Heck nowadays apparently most of the high end courses “require” “players” to use the “motorized park benches” so they aren’t even allowed to walk between the “buried coffee cups”! The only sweat they break is from standing in the sun too long at the mobile beer stand! (My ‘brother in-laws seem to take this very seriously … especially as I can only see the humorous silliness of it…. Even Cricket makes more sense as it at least has a phone book thick set of arcane rules one has to know (mental agility) and I have know idea how they came up with that … Monty Python must have had a hand in developing that game! )

Best Regards,
Over Easy

The real irritation was that we did not want to sell at all. On the plus side, while we did not get what we thought it was worth, at trial we did get approximately 1000x more than we paid for it in the 50s and it is now part of John Pennekamp so it won't be sold to someone else for development.

Head over to viewtopic.php?t=29976 for "The Rest of the Story".

Wow Be Free. Your family has quite the history here. My house is about a mile from the Pennekamp park main entrance. In fact I intend to try their ramp in a few days since my usual ramp is too stressful with the boat higher on the trailer.

Ix

Ixneigh wrote: ↑Fri May 24, 2024 6:20 pm Wow Be Free. Your family has quite the history here. My house is about a mile from the Pennekamp park main entrance. In fact I intend to try their ramp in a few days since my usual ramp is too stressful with the boat higher on the trailer.

Ix

I don't remember when the family first came to Florida but they moved from the Weirsdale area to Lemon City around 1880. We've seen a few changes.