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Key West resort town is a tonic for body, intellect and soulBeach, diving and water sports plus Key West Literary SeminarBy Lucy KomisarIn Key West you can have it all -- a gorgeous beach town with thrilling water sports -- scuba, parasailing, jetskis -- and an annual event that draws top writers to talk and schmooze with aficionados from around the country.
Key West is a mecca for serious diving and water sports, because its charm as a sophisticated town draws both sportspeople and instructors. It’s the same reason the literary seminar started here 23 years ago: so many writers already lived here. For water sports, there are two names to remember, Subtropic and Sebago, Subtropic for diving and snorkeling, and Sebago for just about everything you can do in, on and over the water. We begin with the less adventurous.
Then we set out for a day that would involve snorkeling, parasailing and jetskiing, with lunch in between and plenty of beer and wine on ice. The boat made for a reef that fish were known to frequent. Masks and snorkels were handed out, and, woosh, into the water. January is not as hot as July, so the smarter snorkelers had brought cutoff wetsuits.
Lunch on Sebago trips are scrumptious buffets – cold cuts, salads and cold pasta and plenty of wine, beer, soft drinks and deserts. We spread out around the deck to enjoy the sun and breeze and view of the shoreline.
Diving occupied another exhilarating day. I’ve done this half a dozen times and am still a beginner, each time taking lessons and doing a dive with an instructor. But, so what! You don’t have to be an expert or even certified to dive as long as you have qualified teachers and careful captains who drop anchor in safe waters.
Then lunch and back for the real test – in deep water. We suited up in skin tight wetsuits and climbed onto the boat. Joining us were two women from Atlanta who had left their husbands back home. The psychologically hardest part about diving for me is getting into the water. You simply walk off the end of the boat! After you’ve got your mask on and the air tube in your mouth, you find the rope that goes from the boat to the anchor that’s been tossed out, and you pull yourself down, hand-over-hand. Meanwhile, you pinch your nostrils and blow out to equalize the air pressure. (You can use the same trick if your ears pop during a plane’s landing.)
Ah, but I started out talking about the intellect and soul as well as the sea. The literary soul. After my days of sea and beach -- including an excursion on a glass bottom boat (an easier way to see live fish) and a visit to the aquarium (still easier), I moved indoors to the San Carlos Institute on Duval Street for the 23rd Annual Key West Literary Seminar. The subject this year was comedy, and so many people had subscribed, that the organizers had to hold two sessions. For Thursday through Sunday, two weeks in a row, essayists, novelists, playwrights and screenwriters chattered and mused about the nature of humor — political humor (my favorite), ethnic humor, male-female humor, and what some of the writers found funny in what they wrote, which they read.
Next year’s topic is travel writing, with a focus on discovery and adventure. Speakers include Pico Iyer, Robert Stone and Peter Matthiessen. Maybe they will do some parasailing or scuba diving. It would be right up their alley. And good for the soul. If you go
Is it raining? Want something special for the kids? Here are two museums worth a visit. Key West Shipwreck Historeum Museum
Photos by Lucy Komisar |
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Did you think you were just going to lie on this quiet
beach? Noooooo. Key West exudes energy. Walk down Duval Street, past the
restaurants and cafés and stores selling beach towels and bathing suits, and you
will bump into open-air stands with brochures and agents urging you to sign up
for adventure. Maybe it will be a dive to explore Alexander’s wreck, a U.S. Navy
destroyer escort which sunk in 1962. It’s in shallow 26 feet of water and
attracts angelfish, barracuda, snappers, pompano and stingrays. Or perhaps you’d
prefer a snorkel trip to North America’s only living coral reef.
It was a gorgeous morning as we boarded the Sebago
catamaran, a sailing boat constructed with two attached hulls to increase
stability. First, we and a few dozen others got serious safety instructions,
flotation devices, a review of what lay ahead, and an invitation to take
refreshments. This boat had a very well-stocked galley!
But the excitement was still ahead. My companion and I had
never gone parasailing. I am naturally adventurous. He overcame his hesitancy by
deciding that the equipment had to be safe or the company would be out of
business, the authorities would have cracked down, and on and on. Why are men
such babies? What a thrill to float up into the sky and then get pulled through
the air by a rope tethered to a small motor boat! Suddenly we dipped, and our
feet brushed the waves. The boat captain grinned. Surprise! He took digital
snapshots and a flight video, which we bought as a souvenir -- and proof of
bravery.
But the pièce de résistance for us was the jetski, the
“wave runner.” Everyone got to go on multiple 10 or 15-minute rides. We went
tearing across the waves headed for shore, then suddenly pulled up and around
and back out to sea. Again and again. After a couple of turns, my companion let
me take the wheel, and he sat behind. On jetskis is where men become boys.
“Slow down!”
My instructor at the Subtropic Dive Center was Shane LaBeet,
who ran through the paces for me and two men who were getting certified.
Certification means one can dive without instructors. The teaching system is
standardized according to the rules of PADI (the Professional Association of
Diving Instructors). In this “resort course,” you start the day with a film and
then hear repeated in a lecture how to use the equipment, how to descend and
ascend, how to breathe while you’re going down and when you’re underwater, how
to make hand signals to communicate. After that, you go to a pool or shallow
water to try out what you’ve learned. We piled into a van and drove to the
nearby Grand Key Resort hotel where we practiced with equipment the rest of the
morning.
When I reached the bottom of the amazing, colorful seabed,
Shane grabbed my hand and pulled me along to point out interesting plants and
fish. If you’re a beginner, PADI instructors don’t let you swim off on your own.
I love snorkeling (Subtropic does snorkel trips, too), but there’s something
breathtaking about being completely enveloped by the aquatic world, a feeling
that you get only with scuba.
Political columnist Molly Ivins was a scream talking about
Good-Ole-Boy Texans (“How to Make Fun of American Political Life”), followed by
Conch Chowder at the Key West Library’s Palm Garden. A big party in her honor
was held at the Key West Museum of Art and History, where entertainers and
guests mixed in a modern art gallery or wandered through floors of exhibits.
In his turn, playwright-screenwriter Bruce Jay Friedman
(“The Heartbreak Kid”) explained how “A funny thing happened on the way to the
movies.” Well, playwrights always complain about how crass Hollywood destroys
their art. But nobody makes them go there. It’s been decades since films were
art, anyway. There was some good insider movie talk between screenwriter Nora
Ephron and film and TV writer Patty Marx.
Sebago Watersports
Subtropic Dive Center
Key West Literary Seminar
Key West Aquarium
Glass Bottom Boat
Pirate Soul Museum