The Florida Keys will rise again
Battered and bruised by Hurricane Irma, the chain of coral islands connected by 42 bridges has survived 109 hurricanes since 1900
HURRICANE IRMA, which ravaged the Florida Keys south of Miami early this month with wind gusts of 210km/h, has caused $30 billion (R396bn) damage to insured property, and reconstruction will take many months to complete.
But Floridians are confident the sub-tropical holiday mecca will eventually recover, as it has almost every year.
Since 1900, the chain of coral islands connected by 42 bridges has survived 109 hurricanes, so residents clean up storm debris and repair their homes regularly. In fact, in the 166 years since 1851, the Keys escaped their annual battering on 18 occasions.
Returning after the latest storms, Keys residents found their homes damaged, roofs blown off, boats washed ashore, waist-deep water on their lawns and fish in their swimming pools. But the scope of damage in Florida paled into insignificance in comparison with devastation on the Caribbean islands.
The worst Keys hurricane recorded was in 1935 when winds of 320km/h destroyed a privately-run railway that took 12 years to build.
An entrepreneur named Henry Flagler financed the construction of the famous Seven-mile Bridge in 1900 to extend the railway to Key West 258km from Miami. It opened in 1912 with a price tag of half a billion dollars but collapsed under the force of the 1935 hurricane and a 6m-high tidal wave. Flagler then sold the remains of the tracks and bridges to the US government, and three years later the overseas highway called US Route 1 opened.
Thankfully, the hurricane season was over when I drove along that highway with my wife and two friends several years ago to stay a couple of days in Key West before flying back to South Africa. We had spent one night in a kitschy Miami hotel dedicated to the early days of cars. The foyer featured hand-operated petrol pumps and advertising signs from the 1920s, and we ate our evening meal inside a cut-away 1950s Oldsmobile.
Early one morning we left Miami in a hire car and cruised along Highway 1 towards “the Last Resort” of Key West, passing through resort towns such as Key Largo and Big Pine Key with their world-class dive sites and the largest coral reef in the Western hemisphere.
The islands have the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other, and they have all the amenities of the Caribbean destinations.
Explorer Ponce de Leon discovered La Florida and the islands for Spain in 1513, naming the last one Cayo Hueso (Bone Key), because the bones of dead Indians littered the beach. Cay, the Spanish word for island, was corrupted to “key” in English, and by the time all of Florida was ceded to the US in 1819, the islands were referred to as the Florida Keys.
Bone Key was re-named Key West and in 1823 it became the main port of the Anti-pirate Squadron established to protect Americans and commerce from pirates. Trade routes came close to the Florida coast and frequent hurricanes often caused ships with valuable cargoes to founder on reefs guarding the Keys. As a result, wrecking and salvaging became the primary business of the residents, and they became wealthy on the proceeds – until the route was developed as a popular tourist destination in the 1930s.
The waters of Key Largo conceal a remarkable number of wrecks from Civil War warships, British frigates and World War II freighters. Its marine sanctuary, the nation’s first underwater reserve, is home to more than 600 species of fish and 40 types of coral. Islamorada is known for its world-class sport fishing. Each season welcomes new fishing tournaments and angling opportunities.
Bone-fishing is especially popular, while fishing for sailfish offshore can be equally exciting in the winter months.
Key Marathon is about halfway along the Keys and was the base camp for Flagler’s railway workers. It is now a popular resort area boasting the world’s longest fishing pier. At Crane Point we found the Children’s Museum of the Florida Keys, the only tropical natural history museum designed exclusively for children, where families can re-live the past excitement of pirates roaming the area.
The nearby Dolphin Research Center offers a “swim with the dolphins” programme and the hotels on Marathon have daily cruises for visitors wanting to explore the coral reefs.
Big Pine Key and the Lower Keys are about as “laid back” as it gets in this part of America. Boating is the main attraction and there are plenty of cruises to Looe Key for diving and snorkelling.
With such an abundance of fish, the Keys are a magnet for anglers. Fishing for yellowtail and mutton snapper is excellent along the deep ledges of the reef. Live bait attracts these fish, as well as mackerel, kingfish and barracuda. June is the best month for blackfin tuna, white marlin and blue marlin. Great numbers of yellowfin tuna and wahoo can be found in deep water in July, and August brings the annual run of kingfish shoals.
Crystal-clear waters with visibility up to 36m attract divers from all over the world for submarine vacations. Snorkelling and diving off the Keys is an unforgettable experience. Bizarre colour displays from 600 varieties of fish and exotic shapes of coral create a living, breathing seascape. Sunlight slants through the shallow water to spotlight darting fish and coral formations of stag horn, elk horn and polyps in the shape of spreading fans.
Wreck diving is also very popular. Although many of the wrecks are historically significant, others have been created by local people who are concerned about the survival of the natural coral reef.
Key West is 6km long by 2.5km wide, but it has more character and history than any other American town of its size. Its residents included US president Harry Truman, who ushered in the Nuclear Age to end World War II; playwright Tennessee Williams; and hard-drinking adventurer-author Ernest Hemingway.
The bars in Duval Street that Hemingway frequented in the 1930s and 1940s have changed very little, especially Sloppy Joe’s pub, where I met a South African earning a living by playing a honky-tonk piano for tourists.
Hemingway’s house, now a museum, is evocative of his lust for life. The descendants of the cats he loved are still in residence. He wrote seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works which were considered classics of American literature. Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 and took his life with a shotgun on July 2, 1961.
Key West has always attracted artists and its many art galleries display the works of local talent as well as national and international artists. Visitors get a detailed history of the area from the guide of the Conch Tourist Train as he drives them around the island.
The year 1959 brought the Cuban revolution and Key West, 145km from Havana, became a major port of entry for Cubans fleeing Communism. On a beach in one corner of the island is a monument to those who died trying to escape the Castro government.
Sunset in Key West is more than a time of day – it’s a spectacular happening.
Tourists from hotels and cruise liners gather on the Mallory Square docks along with musicians, entertainers, and vendors who offer conch fritters and tropical fruit drinks. Flame-tossing jugglers vie for attention with balancing acts, sword-swallowers and powder-covered “human statues”.
On clear nights, as the golden orb dips into the sea beyond the westward-facing pier, the silhouettes of sails and seagulls are seen against a magical canvas of crimson sky.
It’s an experience no visitor should miss – but make sure you avoid the hurricane season.