Here are some more great pics, and a live webcam, too. Select “Tarpon Dock” in the dropdown menu on the webcam page.

Never mind Disneyworld. Bring 12 quarters to Islamorada, buy a bucket of bait fish at Robbie’s and get ready to smile.

In a nutshell: overseas highway, pirates, margaritas, black powder cannons and that special kind of burlesque that can only be found in Key West. Plus, bugs. This kind, I mean.

Here’s the promo:

Most notably, I think she’s a pretty inspiring entrepreneur. Sandra will be one of those overnight success stories that’s ten years in the making. She saw a huge need, boot-strapped her way to production, outsources her manufacturing to China, has national distribution deals with some very well known chains and has been on MSNBC. All from little ol’ Key Largo, Florida.

Sandra also makes a heckuva product. If you’re a new parent, or if you’ve ever had someone else’s baby suddenly thrust upon you, you’ve probably asked yourself, “Where is somewhere safe that I can put this little booger, er, beautiful child while I ________ (find a stamp/make a sandwich/pass out from exhaustion)?” Take the answer to that question, then throw in a crib, splash pool and changing table, and you’re there…the Room to Grow inflatable play yard.

We absolutely love ours, and so does our youngest – to the point where I seriously considered asking Sandra to see if she could manufacture one for a lanky 200 man.

Lastly, thought I’d give Sandra a plug because despite the Keys being full of small business owners and entrepreneurs, it seems like most of the local press coverage in the Upper Keys lately has been about raw sewage. (Don’t ask.) Here’s a local business story that should get more attention.

And to be clear, this is not an ad or ‘sponsored post’ of any kind…though I think Sandra may now owe me coffee at the Conch House.

Here’s the general idea behind the Room to Grow…a commercial they recently taped:

And here are some of Sandra’s thoughts about being an entrepreneur in the Keys:

Q. How did the Room to Grow play yard come about?

A. We were traveling with our 6 month old daughter and needed to provide for her accomodations with something that would fit into a suitcase for the plane or car, and be easy to set up. There was nothing on the market for us or other families…so you could say “need” was the catalyst of this mother’s invention.

Q. At what point did you realize you had a serious business on your hands?

A. When we took it to our first tradeshow and heard the same comment made by so many people – “Where was this product when I had my children?”

Q. What has been the reaction from the national media and big chain stores when they hear where you’re based?

A. They are very interested, and are waiting to see what comes next. Individually they are jealous of where we live and work…especially in the winter months

Q. How challenging was it to find the right manufacturing partners?

A. We were fortunate to have an international company based in the states work with us on initial samples and then set up a meeting at their factory in China. Taking the big step of traveling there and setting up the initial order was something I will never forget.

Q. What do you find the most unique about operating the business out of the Keys? The most challenging?

A. Working and living in the same small community I have loved for 30 years helps. Most challenging? Not having the warehouse and logistics conveniences of the mainland.

Q. Where do you see the business in five years?

A. We got off to a great start, receiving awards and developing additional products to incorporate into a stand alone line that consumers want. However, given the state of the economy, we’ll need to find more working capital to continue into the next phase. Our plan is to go nationwide with a partnering company and/or licensing contracts.

Q. What words of wisdom do you have for other entrepreneurs here in the Keys?

A. Try not to let the business define the success of you or your life. Never give up, but don’t let it rule or destroy you. It’s tough unless you have ample money, time or support from others to make it work….and there’s no guarantee. Just do your best.

Q. Tell me more about your Dreamers & Doers program.

A. We work with charities and those who want to assist families in need by donating play yards for fundraisers or by offering discounts to those who want to donate to their favorite charity. It’s our way of paying forward where we can.

Q. Where’s the closest place folks here can go to check out a play yard?

A. We sell on our website www.GrowingRoomInc.com with free shipping if you need to ship one to someone directly. We also have a posted list of local stores, and do special offers to local daycare centers.

Q. Anything else you’d like readers to know about Growing Room?

A. We just received an award for Best Play Yard from Creative Child Magazine for our second year and an Award of Excellence for our Bathinet, which we will hopefully have out for fall.

For more info, visit Growing Room, Inc. Sandra is also currently looking for good salespeople. Check out her video here.

Update: Forgot to mention Sandra is on Twitter, too. She’s @GrowingRoomInc.

If you’ve never been to the Keys before, a note on ordering beverages:

Corona is a fine beer, but let’s not confuse it with something that men drink. That would be more like Kalik, brewed in Nassau.

It was once explained to me that Kalik was popular in the Keys because of the Bahamian Conchs who originally settled here, but I suspect it also might be because it’s just an excellent kind-of-local beer. And it’s pronounced Ka-LICK, like the sound an old cowbell makes when it’s rung. (Thus the cowbells in the logo.)

Here’s a great story from a Canadian gentleman desperate for some Kalik.

And stout fans may not know that in the Caribbean there is actually a third type of Guinness – Foreign Extra Stout. To make sure the beer would hold up well when shipped long distances around the world, brewers back in the day added extra hops and brewed it longer. As a consequence, it had a higher alcohol content. Still does, despite modern transport. Read into that whatever you may.

Other Caribbean beers: Piton from St. Lucia, Carib from Trinidad and Tobago, and of course Red Stripe from Jamaica. Aruba makes a local beer called Balashi that is supposed to be pretty good, too.

And ya can’t plug micro brews in Islamorada without mentioning The Trading Post. Across the street, Morada Bay has Stella Artois on tap. And although it’s not actually brewed in the Keys, Key West Sunset Ale isn’t half-bad, either.

See there? Sitting around reading annual reports has other benefits, too…

Sort of like Google Earth, but just for the Conch Republic. It’s all here, from the Islamorada Sandbar to Hens and Chickens to a Japanese tourist who has confused his beer bottle with a conch shell.

For Travelers

The Florida Keys: Laid-back Living With a Touch of Glamour. From The Independent across the pond.

All Keyed Up. The Washington Post.

For Newlyweds

Islamorada is #3 on The Knot’s top honeymoon spots, behind Venice and Paris. Take that, Oahu.

For Vacationers

Deep Blue, Pristine Waters Make This Florida Keys’ Island a Paradise. Video from Good Morning America.

For Subprime Borrowers

The Islamorada Dream Home. From HGTV’s annual contest.

For Recovering Yuppies

Best Places to Live. National Geographic rates Islamorada as #10 in the East. The list looks more rigged than an Iranian election, though. Jersey and Maryland can’t possibly rate that high.

For Conservationists

The Last Days of Florida Bay. By Carl Hiaasen.

For Football Fans

Jimmy Johnson Living in Luxury With Football a Distant Memory. Miami Herald.

For Foodies

Searching Margaritaville for the Perfect Key Lime Pie. NY Times.

Keys Cuisine: Flavors of the Florida Keys. Book. Try the seafood linguine recipe. You’ll pass out.

Keys’ Eats. From one of those magazines in the seat pocket in front of you.

For Colonoscopy Patients

Miami resident Dave Barry at the top of his game. This has nothing to do with Islamorada, but everyone should read it.

For Anglers

Going Fishing with The Kid. Ted Williams in Islamorada.

In the Florida Keys, Bonefish Oblivion. NY Times.

If You Teach a Man to Bonefish…You Can Feed His Soul Forever. Chicago Tribune.

Waiting for Godzilla. From Sports Illustrated.

The Real Thing at Islamorada. Another oldie but goodie from SI.

Guiding Light in The Keys. “Caustic or kind, Florida’s famed light tackle guides are obsessed with leading you to the fish—and you sure better catch them.”

The Bonefish: Ghost of the Shallows. From Sports Illustrated in 1959.

The Tempestuous Tarpon. From 1958. “There is little else to do at Islamorada but swim, bake in the sun and after fishing enjoy an incomparable meal of green turtle soup and stone crabs at the Green Turtle Inn.”

Stu Apte’s Fishing in the Florida Keys and Flamingo. Book. The chart of Stu’s fishing spots alone is worth it.

And lastly, from Man Alone:

It is a rare man who does not sometimes ache to go forth alone and be lost and solitary under the enormous sky—to savor his own uniqueness and make all nature his private vision. So moved, Fishing Guide Jimmie Albright stands in silhouetted battle with a tarpon somewhere between the cloud-veiled afternoon sun and the Florida Keys. His fish did not strike at once.

Hours passed after he shut off his motor, staked out his boat, stood carefully in the silence and made his first intent and rhythmic cast. The sea’s color was lost in glare. Clouds darkened above the horizon. Then, without warning, he found himself in combat with something—a leaping, glittering, savage form—which bespoke all the mysteries, the dangers, the riches of the deep.

For 15 straining minutes Jimmie Albright lived in a wild world of his own. Then he gaffed the tarpon, lifted it high, released it. He mopped his brow, laid down his rod, started his motor and steered for his palm-shaded Islamorada cottage and the world of other men.

Funny story. This is my firm’s old logo:

After first seeing it last year, a friend up north asked, “Why is that bank robber in your logo holding a broom? Looks like he’s standing at home in Fenway ready to jack one out.”

As I explained at the time, it was actually a backcountry cowboy – a fishing guide who specializes in the flats and backcountry in Florida Bay. Kind of an iconic image down here, and I liked the symbolism. He’s wearing a balaclava as protection from the sun and holding a pushpole to move his skiff around the flats, which are often too shallow to motor through.

Behind the scenes, we’d been in a start-up mode. Every minute counted. I couldn’t find a picture like Pat’s above at the time, so I rushed into the backyard, stood on the picnic table – with a real broom – and asked Mrs. Cale In The Keys to take this pic:

Then I sent it to Gail at Gecko Graphics to work her magic. Thing was, though, I didn’t want the guy in the logo to actually look like me. How egotistical would that be?

Gail’s solution was simple. She gave the guide beefy triceps. Cuz mine are so anemic, apparently.

Below is our new logo. No artificial testosterone was used in the making of this version.

And now if anyone asks about the bank robber, I’ll just send them Pat’s photo.

From the new Live Rock USA store at MM 85, by Pasta’s studio. And it’s for saltwater aquariums.

The owners recently started harvesting live rock from a 600,000 pound tract of limestone that was hand-set in an aquaculture zone off Islamorada ten years ago. Now that the rock has matured, they collect it, store it in a dozen big curing tanks out behind the store and ship it all over the country to reef tank owners. They actually pump the seawater up through the ground underneath the store to circulate in their curing tanks. I was impressed.

And if limestone aquaculture is anything like owning a gravel quarry, these guys are going have a real business on their hands. Even without selling to tourists.

Gorgeous boat, great crew. Then there was the tropical breeze, perfect music and cold beer…plus dolphins, a black powder cannon, some truly impressive shiphandling and – most important – mounds of free jelly beans for the kids. I should do a commerical.

Their website is www.calypsosailing.com. The clip below doesn’t do it justice…I’m sort of the anti-Coppola behind a camera. But here’s another vid for the jet ski crowd, a future postcard, and a clip of her off Sunset Key the day before, too.

Yeah. I’ll stick to investing.

Tarpon on Fly Rod

Leaping Tarpon

Down the Hatch

Captain Ted Wilson and geek Cale Smith.

Here’s a video of the above, another of the tarpon leaping, and Ted where he’s most at home. Also, from the bow of Ted’s skiff, running through the mangroves.

Ted’s site is http://www.captaintedwilson.com, and you can read more about the silver king here.

And, yep, he swam away just fine.

On real estate in Key West:

The local real estate market has been active…lots of showings, and lots of properties on the market. Even with historically low interest rates, many buyers are using cash. There have even been lots of closings, mostly distressed properties and mostly lower-priced. But occasionally, there is the $2+ million transaction, too. I would have to say, in spite of much heartbreak out there, that properties are moving. Bittersweet…great for buyers, not so much for sellers.

In Old Town Key West:

1214 Catherine Street was reduced again! Combined with 1212 Catherine St, the 6-8 units generate about $120,000 annually, and you can buy the complex for under a million. Pay cash and that’s 12+% on your money to take over ownership, same tenants, no changes. Finance 75% and still clear $5,000 per month! What am I missing?

Spoken like a value investor. Must be something in our genes.

From the official site:

DEDICATED TO THE FUNDAMENTALLY AMERICAN SPIRIT OF A PEOPLE UNAFRAID TO STAND UP TO ‘GOVERNMENT GONE MAD WITH POWER’ THAT EMBODIED THE FOUNDING OF THE CONCH REPUBLIC IN 1982. AS THE WORLD’S FIRST FIFTH WORLD NATION, A SOVEREIGN STATE OF MIND SEEKING ONLY TO BRING MORE HUMOR, WARMTH, AND RESPECT TO A WORLD IN SORE NEED OF ALL THREE, THE CONCH REPUBLIC REMAINS THE COUNTRY WHO SECEDED WHERE OTHERS FAILED.

Here’s the schedule of events.

Islamorada is a fishing town, first and foremost, though more Hemingway than New Bedford. It’s an amazing place. Our waters are as clear as gin. We’ve got 6,000 species of fish within a ten-mile radius. Air doesn’t come any cleaner. Manatees float through our backyard canals. And we are the mecca of saltwater fly fishing.

Wait. There’s more.

Olympians train in our swimming pool. HGTV’s 2008 Dream Home is over by the park. One of our fishing captains has the number one show on the Versus channel. Another skipper has raised over $10 million for cystic fibrosis research. We have fireworks every month and an all-night full moon party. The local diner gives its waitresses health insurance. The world’s largest fake lobster is here. We have more bridges than fast food restaurants.

I don’t know why everyone doesn’t live here.

Boaters crowd our sandbar. Bikers cruise our highway. Preppy clothing companies film commercials on our beaches. Yuppies pose for magazine covers at the fish market. A professional wrestler runs our gym.

I believe that Islamorada has more Super Bowl rings (6) per capita (6,500) than any town in America. National Geographic named us one of the top 12 cities to live in. The Knot said we’re the number three honeymoon spot in the world – behind Venice and Paris.

Presidents vacation here. The greatest hitter in baseball lived a block away. Russian ballerinas stop here to perform. World famous artists have studios in town, and local artists are beloved here.

We kiteboard. We win world fishing championships. We create new styles of music. We look out for our fish, the reef, and each other. And we never shovel snow.

Never mind those hurricanes.