Fish Depot: From the Ocean to You

Fish Depot in Boynton Beach is the best fish market in South Florida. I drive up from Fort Lauderdale with my cooler.

By the time I get there, the selection may be depleted as you see here.

You might think that this old-fashioned method of refrigeration wouldn't be as good as coolers. But that is far from the truth. People like me come from all over to Fish Depot on Federal Highway (U.S. 1).

When I lived closer, I often saw fishermen driving up with a boat on a tow to offload whatever they didn't want for personal use at the back door of Fish Depot, shown here.

If I recall right, the unusual structure once housed a neighborhood bar, way back in the early 1980s.

I like the whimsical windmill design. Kitschy structures like this once dotted South Florida, calling out to tourists making their way South on U.S. 1.

Most have fallen to wreckers and been replaced by trim subdivision housing.

Besides having the best fish, Fish Depot has this cool mural to hide the dumpster.

Why do I love living in South Florida? Let me count the ways.

Why I Love Florida: Scenes from St. Petersburg Skyway Show Gulf Beauty

Vistas of the Gulf of Mexico seduce the traveler to pause at a rest area.




It's hard to believe that a busy six-lane Interstate highway is just a few hundred yards away.




Gnarled trees spread their branches across the path in a natural arch.




A weathered log creates an elegant pattern of lines and curves.




Local residents park pickup cars in the shade. Boat trailers wait for day trippers to return with coolers of fish. Kayakers paddle in after a full day on the water.



The wind was stronger than reported, the kayakers tell me, which made rowing more challenging.



The wide purity of the blue water gleaming in the sunlight.



Trees at water's edge create abstract designs with their branches. It is illegal to cut mangroves in many places, because they create valuable ecosystems for sea creatures.




Scrub pine wave their feathery branches against the blue background. Color and texture, broad vistas and intimate byways, create the endless appeal of natural South Florida.

Try as we might to pave over Paradise, small bits and and pieces survive to inspire and delight.

Everglades Canals Are SwollenFrom Tropical Storm Fay

The canals along Alligator Alley through the Everglades are more filled with water than I have seen them. Tropical storm Fay crossed and re-crossed the state at a slow 12 miles an hour, flooding some areas. Now the River of Grass is doing its job – draining the excess into the ocean.

You can see how the water comes all the way up the boat ramp to the parking lot at this rest area along highway 75. The other photos also were taken there. These canals would normally would have visible sides, rather than spilling into the grasslands. One shot, taken out the car window, shows standing water in the highway media, almost enough to be a canal in itself. On other drives, the median has been dry.

The Everglades usually appears as a dry sea of long grasses, with an occasional island of trees popping out here and there. One knows that there is water under the grasses, a swampy and complex ecosystem. I have rarely seen that water. Now, however, lakes have formed on the surface in a few places.

The magnitude of the flat grassy swamp is as awe-inspiring, in its way, as the Grand Canyon, the glaciers of Alaska, or the desert stretches surrounding Death Valley, California. Even this vast river or bay area outside Bradenton fills me with wonder at the beauty of Florida. I love this place.

Three more storms are lining up in the Atlantic. Hannah is expected to make landfall in the Carolina. It will skim the east coast of Florida. I do not expect much water from that. Josephine is dissipating off the coast of Africa.

Ike is the one to watch. Landfall is expected early next week. The hurricane meteorologists are not sure of Ike’s path. Already a cat(egory) 4, Ike will blow through the Bahamas, leaving destruction in its wake. Whether this storm will land in south Florida, bump northward along the east coast, or rush into the Gulf of Mexico is not known. If Ike enters the gulf, the storm will be Somebody Else’s Problem but could do great harm elsewhere in the United States or Mexico.

Recommended Blog: Casting Jewels for Readers

I have been preparing to launch a website (details when ready) and neglecting this blog. It does not get much traffic anyway.

Today, I scuttled on over to Velvet Sacks from Ronni Bennett's Times Goes By, the best blog about aging anywhere.

Velvet Sacks refers to the little pouches in which women often keep small items of precious jewelry. As it turns out, Velvet Sacks is often about two topics most precious to me -- dogs and Louisiana.

During a time of emotional confusion, I bought a Florida condo apartment that does not allow dogs. Dogs were my most valued companions for more than 30 years. Honestly, what was I thinking to make such a lame decision?

I was not able to take care of my beloved companions and had placed two in good homes, thanks to my connections with dog rescue and dog training people. How could I have believed that I would live a dogless future forevermore. Now the value of property has decreased so much, I appear to be stuck here much longer than I dreamed.

As for Louisiana, like so many artists and oddballs, I've been attracted to New Orleans since I was young. I believe I read Dinner at Antoine's when I was a teenager. I lived the summer of 2004 in the Lower Garden District. The flood of 2005 tore my heart out -- as does the prospect of a dogless old age.

Enough of my whining. For some jewels, stop by Velvet Sacks.

South Florida Is Home

It doesn’t seem that it should be so difficult for a lifelong writer and diarist to post once a week, which seems the minimum appropriate to have an ongoing blog. Yet, much of what I write is too personal to share, a voyage of self-discovery. Universal truths may be part of that journey, but each of us must discover and apply these for ourselves. That’s why the journey is personal.

I spent the past week in Fairfax, Virginia, and that was a real journey both in time and space and in inner discovery. As I grow older, I contemplate whether Florida is the best place to grow old. I believe it would be better to live in a city with museums and other cultural and intellectual opportunities, as well as with good public transportation. Baltimore is one such city, and it has the familiarity of a place where I spent 10 of the best (and sometimes worst) years of my life. But like many cities, it also has crime.

And, as the trip to Virginia illustrated, I already live in subtropical paradise. I arrived on a sunny, hot day, the end of an Indian summer heat wave. No one calls it Indian summer anymore; now its global warming and a sign of dire things to come rather than a respite from the cold and rain of winter. By the next morning, a cold front had arrived, and the rest of the time was spent with gray skies and rain of varying intensity.

The buildings, once charming to me for their federalist period facades of brick and stone, now seem hopelessly dated and dreary. Where are the clean white stucco exteriors, the sometimes Caribbean Popsicle colors, and the red tile roofs? Where are the palm trees and hibiscus?

I was happy to return to South Florida, to my messy apartment with its leak, my battle with the International Village condo association and the property manager to fix that leak, and the various trials and tribulations of ongoing life that we all experience. It is good to get away and better to come home.

Biking to the Caribbean

Biking to the Caribbean may seem impossible. Because of the rich cultural diversity of Broward County, the Caribbean is almost as close as my doorstep. Want to join me on a bike trip to the Post Office?

This is the road just beyond the gate of International Village. I stay on the narrow sidewalk. Inverrary Drive is a two-lane road with lots of speed bumps, so I am pretty safe here. You can see a faux English Tudor structure on the left. The cinderblock apartment buildings are identical, except for the Disneyfication of the exteriors to vaguely resemble various European architectural styles – Marseilles, Bordeaux, Inverness and so on. A lot of these details blew off when hurricane Wilma came through in 2005, but the exterior repairs go on and on.

The ride gets dicier at the intersection where Inverrary Drive meets Inverrary Boulevard. When we find a name we like, we go for it around here. It’s kind of like Atlanta, where at least half-dozen streets seem to be named Peachtree.

Inverrary Boulevard is a four-lane thoroughfare with a grassy median. Cars mostly ignore the 30-mile-speed limit. There is a bike lane, but knocking down bikers is good sport in Florida. Our state took high honors for greatest number of bicyclists killed by cars in 2005, 124 out of 784 nationwide, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics reported in the November 21, 2006 South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Three bicycle riders were killed during a three-week period at the time of that report.

The bike lane ends, but a sidewalk lies just beyond this entrance to another Inverrary subdivision of small homes with garages. Residents can have dogs there, which I would like to do.






This water feature, pictured below, with its rocks and flowering plants add a note of serenity to the ride. It’s a popular spot for newlyweds to have their wedding photos taken. The clever landscaping hides a major intersection just a hundred feet or so away.












Oakland Park Boulevard, left, is a six-lane divided highway with right-and-left turning lanes, thus eight lanes in most places. Run for your life! I mean it. Drivers are so mean that the traffic lights are calibrated to show you how many seconds are left to get across the road, like an electric-chair countdown. I walk my bicycle across intersections, my parents’ voices ringing across the decades.

I have to cross one intersection from the north to south sides of the road, and this one from the east to west side. See that little piece of white cement at the other side of the road? Look closely. Yep, there it is. It’s a sidewalk. Despite the heavy traffic on Oakland Park Boulevard, I will be able to finish the trip on this sidewalk and relatively safe access roads. I do not have a death wish. But maybe I should wear a helmet. There are maniacs out there on these roads.

Here is the strip mall that houses our little local post office. Not Caribbean enough for you? What about the Creole Diner and Juice Bar? The little store that specialize in island music? The ten-buck nail salon? Or how about the seafood restaurant where the men cook blackened fish on grills made from oil drums?

I stop at the So Loved Market before heading home to buy a bottle of water. Click on photo to enlarge to see sign. Amazingly, I see someone I know at the laundermat. Last summer, in brutal heat, I gave an elderly woman at the supermarket a drive to her apartment because she is nearly blind. She is such a sweetie pie, and I haven’t seen her since. She peers into my face but remembers me quite well. Her vision may be going, but she is still sharp as a tack.

There are two waterfalls and a small pond at this entrance to the subdivision, directly across Inverrary Boulevard from the pond I shot earlier. It is another great favorite of brides and grooms for their photos.

I am almost home. Once I turn on Inverrary Drive, a head wind combined with the slight incline is too much for me. I walk the bike for a while, until the ground levels. My packages are mailed, I’ve gotten some exercise, enjoyed my trip to the Bahamas, and had a nice chat. Mission accomplished.