RICH AND CAROL MEET FRIENDS

January 31, 2012  Dateline: Key West, FL USA

Today I sat in my slip while Rich and Carol went off to meet their friends Michael and Petra from Germany.  Michael and Petra flew into Miami, rented a big Harley Davidson motorcycle and rode to Key West.  That is all I know so I will turn this posting over to Rich. 

Hi! Rich here.  It has been some time since Carol and I saw Michael and Petra so it was good to see them again.  The four of us walked all over the southern end of Key West. 

At the old US Customs house there are several statutes that are very life like and creative.  Here is a picture of two dancers that is about twenty feet tall.  (They would make good basketball players if they could only move.)  There was another statute of an artist painting some people who were dancing in a circle, further away was the statute of the people dancing in the circle that the artist was painting.  It was all kind of neat.

From the Old Customs House we went into the Mel Fisher Museum which somewhat tells the story and then displays many of the items found on the sunken Spanish Treasure ship, the Atocha.  Mel Fisher found the Atocha where she sank in 1622 after having left Havana, Cuba.  She and another ship, the Margareta, ran into a hurricane that caused their sinking.  There were tens of millions of dollars of gold, silver, gems and jewelry on board the Atocha.  The State of Florida and the Federal government thought that the treasure belonged to them.  Mel took a law suit all the way to the Supreme Court who then decided that the treasure belonged to Fisher as it was found outside of Florida and Federal waters.

Treasure ships would come to Havana from all over Central and South America with their cargos.  The cargos would be consolidated there and, as part of a convoy, be shipped on to Spain.  The Atocha and Margareta left Havana in early September in the heart of hurricane season and were sunk a few days later.  Finding the ship was made difficult as all of the soft material, such as its wooden hull, would have rotted or been eaten away so all that was left was the hard metals, ceramics and gems.  In the museum store, Carol saw an emerald that she wanted me to buy her. It is in excess of 24 carats and the asking price was $650,000.  Given that the likelihood of getting the emerald was remote, she then asked for a gold bar that was 2 pounds 5 ounces for $213,000-----she didn’t get that one either. 

The gold jewelry that was found on the Atocha is spectacular and the fine detailed workmanship was amazing.  One of the exhibits explained that the tax on bringing jewelry back to Spain was lower than that of gold or gold bars, so much gold was brought back as jewelry then could be converted back to gold bars. 

Then off we went to the southernmost point in the continental US.  There was a line of people taking pictures. Each person handed their camera to the one behind them to take a picture. It would be difficult to be the last person in line that day.  Here is a picture of Carol and me as well as one of me, Petra, Carol and Michael.

Next we went to Ernst Hemmingway’s house for a tour.  Ernst Hemmingway had four wives.  It seemed that the best time for him to write a book was when he was chasing after another woman.  The house is also the home of six toed cats and the cats have the run of it (currently there are 44 cats).  There are signs all around saying “Do Not Sit on the Furniture”, the cats surprisingly obey the rules, and they simply lay on the furniture.

The day pretty much ended for us at Mallory Square for the nightly sunset event there.  Mallory Square is full of bucksters who perform unicycle riding, juggling, singing (most should not give up their day jobs), fire eating and acrobats.  The sun set was not very dramatic as there was a layer of clouds just above the horizon.  We will try again tomorrow night.

 In the area where the cruise boats dock there are a number of tee shirt shops.  Everything is $10 when a cruise ship is in.  Immediately after the ship leaves the price goes down to $5----as Michael said it is simply the application of the law of supply and demand.  There is another law being employed and that is collusion as they all have the same deal at the same time.