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.
Before all newspapers and magazines go kaput and the Kindle DX
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
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
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.
Facebook and the St. Petersburg Paradox http://t.co/nG9Dj3t6 via @WSJ 9 hrs ago
