Hello all!
THIS IS THE LAST POST I’LL BE WRITING AS A 21 YEAR OLD BECAUSE TOMORROW I TURN
22!!!! Anyone who knows me knows my birthday is one of my favorite holidays,
and to make things even better, I was recently informed that I share a birthday
with Ghandi! Furthermore, I am spending this birthday learning how to share my
passion with the world. Also known as, becoming a scuba instructor :]
If you
have been following my blog, you know I recently made a big move to Florida!
Much to my dismay, the day I’d planned to leave Iowa, the pinnacle of my
summer, the day I’d been counting down to for months on end, September 10th,
was the day Irma brought her wrath upon my new home. I feel selfish admitting
this at all, but I was devastated. My mind, influenced heavily by the media,
came to the rash conclusion that I would be spending yet another frigid winter
in Iowa. There are circumstances in which I tend to be quite overdramatic. I
was reminded of this quality after my semi-midlife crisis about not getting to
move when my journey began a mere three days later than I had planned.
I road
tripped across the country with my awesome Papa. Over the course of our trip it
became clear that we are a tremendously dynamic duo. We made at least one
friend everywhere we went, which included but was not limited to: Nashville,
Tennessee, Atlanta, Georgia, and Jupiter, Florida. Yet another one of our
notorious once-in-a-lifetime adventures came to a close with a goodbye at the
Fort Lauderdale Airport. Though the wave was au revoir to one of my biological
family members, it was a bonjour to my chosen family member, Hadley.
The
central focus of this post however is not about my new, fun, flirty life in
Fort Lauderdale, which is pictured above. It is about my experience living in
the Florida Keys for the past week and a half. Before I stationed myself in
Islamorada for my Instructor Development Course, I drove straight through the
keys to Key West to check the area out. (Side note: I’ve fantasized about a
career in NPR journalism, so going into a disaster zone so to speak, was very
intriguing to me.)
Above is
the Channel 5 bridge. I stopped here on my way down to sit and enjoy the beauty
of the seemingly endless open water. The extreme aesthetic pleasure of this
view equals the deep feelings of desolation upon experiencing the rest of the
Keys. There are piles of debris so high you have to actively look up to see the
sky, police cars everywhere, spray painted signs warning “You loot, we kill.”
Residences appear to have had encounters with evil giants. Giants who picked up
homes, shook all their contents out, then threw back their empty casings
haphazardly without any regard for the surrounding area. The remains of trailer
parks whose only proof of existence are lone standing bathroom appliances here
and there. Seeing people return with so much hope that their homes were spared,
only to find out they no longer exist is one of the most heartbreaking things I
have ever seen. BUT, it is not all doom and gloom here in the keys. There are
spray painted signs everywhere welcoming people home, “#KeysStrong” is posted
everywhere, places that weren’t as badly affected are holding free dinners and
donning baby supplies. This place is definitely geographically unique, with one
road in and one road out, it does not come as a surprise that everyone is
genuinely willing to help each other out. As sad as the sights may be, the
beauty of this community surpasses it and truly makes my heart smile.
Post-Irma Key West is almost unrecognizable. Sand is all over everything, rotting
sargassum seaweed is making the whole town smell like a sewage processing
plant, and the cool, calm breezy climate has vanished due to all the fallen
trees. However, the most notable change in Key West is the lack of people. The
only human life I found was locals at the few open bars. The picture above is
of Mallory Square. It is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Key
West and is moderately crowded to completely congested almost every hour of
every day. The day I took this picture, there was not a living soul to be seen
and as you can see, there was a lingering storm. It was a very ominous place to
find myself. The photo above on the left is of the southernmost point, another
very popular tourist destination. It is not my photo, I pulled it off of Google
for the purpose of comparison. The photo on the right was personally taken
however, it is showing the concrete land marker post Irma.
The sunset
on the left occurred after my apocalyptic Tour de Key West. I believe our universe
is too vast for us to be the only inhabitants, but sunrises and sunsets are the
root of my belief that we are a special planet. No matter how bad your day is,
you can always count on a beautiful sunset.
If you start your day off with a
serene sunrise, remarkable things happen, even if they are little, such as
aiding a baby sea turtle on his journey to the sea.
Après Key
West, I paid my old pal Cody a visit in Key Largo. He usually lives on a sail
boat but Irma caused him to take leave. My visit coincided nicely with his
return to Florida but he had not yet been back to his boat. I got the chance to
do a recon mission with him and his friend Josh who was also searching for his
wind strewn boat. During this undertaking I became acquainted with another
hurricane casualty that I never would have considered, Puffer fish! There were
dead, inflated puffer fish all over the canal. I think I counted 23 in total.
In my experience, the effect natural disasters have on nature is not a concern
of the common population. I hadn’t really considered it too much outside of the
reefs. Seeing all the dead fish was so eye opening to me.
Recon was
super fun, but engines on both of the boats, as well as the dinghy (a small
boat used to get to shore from the sail boats mooring) flooded so we had a long
paddle back to shore. Luckily it provided for some fresh photo ops!
As
previously mentioned, currently, I am in Islamorada at Florida Seabase studying
to be a scuba instructor. My Instructor examination which is a two-day
intensive test to get the certification begins Friday night. SO I have to get
back to studying, and celebrating my birthday :] so that’s all for now! In the
mean time enjoy these pictures of manatees doing their thing in our harbor!
