Part 2: Life on the Hook by Casey

Thanks to everybody who liked the last post! I hope you all enjoy the saga of my second day with the guys. One quick anecdote though – when I was in KW I was exposed to an entirely new culture of people who don’t live on land. I know plenty of people who’ve bought houseboats or sailboats and lived out of a marina, but Florida has a whole population that lives anchored out from the coast and takes dinghy boats into shore each day. I heard somebody say they were “living on the hook,” and the phrase really resonated with me. So that’s the title of this second post – “Life on the Hook.” Enjoy.


 

Part 1

Tuesday started around 11am after a few cups of coffee and some badass breakfast quesadillas a la Paul. Hank had a pretty comprehensive list of things to accomplish including things as simple as showering and as complex as finding a store named Cuban Joe’s that debatably didn’t actually exist (spoiler alert: we found it). But that’s another story. We took the dinghy out around noon and made our way to the dock. Unfortunately the dock was full so we had to will a spot to open up. I think we put on a pretty good show for the people eating brunch at Turtle Kraals. But we made it happen and we felt like champs. Victory #2 for the day (#1 was breakfast).

Our first destination was to Stock Island to pick up a part for the engine. This was one of those times where it’s not so much the destination, but the journey that was important. I say this because a really expensive cab ride resulted in the part not even being available for pickup, but the cab driver, Rick, was the freaking man. We started talking about making a living in Key West and asked how long he’d been here. Rick said 4.5 years ago he divorced his wife, sold his shit, quit his 6-figure job and moved to Key West to start driving a cab. Swag. And the best part was, he spent the 13 years prior to that living and working in Corpus Christi. Hank was obviously super stoked and we compared life notes for the entire 45 minutes we were in the cab with him.

After he brought us back to KW we went hunting for some more boat parts and struggled to find a store people kept telling us about called Cuban Joe’s. Well, it turns out it’s actually called West Marine or something and has a small sign on the door that says Cubanito’s. Translation issues I guess. Victory #3(?). Hank and I got done there and decided to check out a few bars for drinks. I needed sunscreen and the place we happened to walk into actually sold beer too, and had a bar we could drink it at. Such a helpful store! Victory #4. We had a cold Shiner and moved on to Dante’s, the apparent Spring Break College Bar. We drank some shitty Landshark before reverting back to what we know best – The Red Snapper – The King of Beers – THE Budweiser. We played some Bohemian Ring Toss and I learned I should probably start betting money on that game because I hustled the shit out of Hank. Victory #5. We ate some oysters and wings (Victories #6 and #7), talked life, and hit on the bartender (no victory). Overall a good man date.


 

Part 2

Hank and I headed back to the dingy around 5, but not before making a stop at the convenience store. I asked “Hank, should we get more beer for the boat?” Hank replied, “That’s never been a bad idea.” So that’s what we did, and we enjoyed some roadies on the dinghy as we putted back to Contigo.

Adam and Paul were both hanging watching Breaking Bad. Adam had finally opened his eyes after probably a 15-hour recovery slumber. Though I don’t think he’d actually physically moved his body yet. I actually don’t know if he did for the rest of the night other than to click on the next episode of Breaking Bad.

IMG_0449

We lounged on the boat until probably 9pm then Hank, Paul, and I loaded into the dinghy to start the bar crawl on land, but not before Paul graciously grabbed three more red snappin roadies for the trip. When we hit land we started at Half Shell for a quick beer and oysters before they closed. I gotta say I really wish that cluster of restaurants that serves the cruise ships would stay open past 10pm. Then we’d almost never have to leave the square where we park the dinghy. But Halfshell closed basically after we finished our beers and we had to head out to Duval Street. The oysters weren’t quite enough for dinner so we had the challenge of finding a place that served both food and beer after 10pm. Enter Johnny Rocket’s.

I never imagined that’s where I’d do dinner in Key West but we got a bucket of buds (notice a theme here?) and some kick ass sandwiches. We were maybe halfway through when you’ll never guess who we saw trotting down the road past our booth. That’s right, Silent K and The One. They saw us right away and trotted onto the patio we were eating at. They brought their own plastic cup and we happily filled it up with beer for them as they broke into song. Silent K actually talked this time. And he sang. And it was actually pretty soulful.

The One just continued his diatribe of “I’m the one, man. I’m the fuckin one.” I just kept telling him I acknowledge his status and I agree he’s the one. Silent K played an original song about getting drunk in Key West (he claims it’s an original at least), but it was funny and catchy. Not to be outdone, The One tells us he’s gonna sing us something and to make a request. After shooting down every request he suggested Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.

We let him have his moment then went into some serious life discussions. At one point Paul and Hank had both gotten up from the table the The One was really getting in my face about how important heart is and how big ours were. It was the most aggressive compliment I’ve ever received. He also talked about how big his neighbor’s heart was: “I sleep in a doorway about two blocks from here every night. And you know what my neighbor says when he sees me all balled up on the street outside his place in the morning? He says “Good Morning.” That’s heart, brother. And I’m the one.” Then he told me about how he ended up in Key West with a pretty kick-ass little anecdote: “I came here on vacation 20 years ago with my ex-wife. Three years later, she cheated on me. I started driving South and by the time I hit the first palm tree in Southern Georgia, I didn’t give a shit about that bitch. But I still miss my fuckin dog.” Sorry for the profanity but that was a powerful story at the time and I typed it exactly as he said it. Finally, we paid our tab and Silent K dragged the one away because he knew it was time to move on and busk for some money and beer elsewhere.

IMG_0460

From there, the night never really took off. If there’s one thing we learned, Duval Street and the surrounding bars are a good place to be drunk, not necessarily get drunk. But that’s ok. We grabbed some roadies from a street bar, people watched, watched a guy pick up a hooker on a motorcycle, and eventually ambled back to the dinghy. When we got back to the dinghy, there were two guys sleeping on the dock hoping to catch rides back some place. One was our friend Scotty, whose boat was en route to Contigo so obviously he got a spot in the dink. The other guy was this really whiny wannabe hipster looking guy who just said he needed to get to Casa Blanca but had no idea where that is. It’s too bad we could’t help him, but he wasn’t doing himself any favors by ambiguously saying he needed to go some spanish white house…and looking and sounding like a little bitch. That being said I hope he found his way home, kind of. End Day 2!

Dinghy with an “H” Part 1 by Casey

Followers of Contigo – I’d like to start this guest blog entry by thanking Hank, Adam, and Paul for being outstanding hosts. If you ever have a spare few days, I encourage you to fly out and join them for a short bit. It’s worth every minute and penny. Lastly, I want to provide a disclaimer – what follows is not the usual progress updates. This falls just short of a full blown story.  And it’s about partying. Day 1 Part 1 (mildly edited for family consumption) So there I was (no shit) fresh off the plane from nine grizzly months in the Sinai Peninsula. I had 3 weeks of leave with no plan. I was shopping some ideas around with the guys back home but nothing was coming together. Then Hank chimed in. All it took was “dude, you should come hang with us on Contigo,” My response was pretty simple – something like “F**** yeah.” After a small amount of limited coordination Hank told me they’d be somewhere in the Keys around the time I would take leave. That was all I needed to know. Right away I booked a flight to Miami and the Keys Shuttle to take me to Marathon Key (Marathon was the estimated rendezvous at the time.) Unfortunately for Contigo, but fortunately (and selfishly for me) they got stuck with engine issues in Key West. So bam, easy answer – boys I’m coming to KW on Monday, and idgaf what happens from there as long as I find a way to Miami by Thursday, and that’s where day 1 of this log begins. I flew into Miami around 10:30am with the plan of preloading at an airport bar before a 1pm shuttle. After I grabbed my bags I walked to pick out where I would be picked up by the Keys Shuttle. Luckily, the driver for the 1100 shuttle was an old confused man who hadn’t taken off by 1120 so I said “Hey, I’m here. Can I just get in and go?” He made the call to his office and they said ok so I proudly declared shotgun and hit the road with a full shuttle. The 5 hour ride wasn’t so bad, except for the first four hours and 50 minutes riding shotgun with a senile retiree. I swear we made a u-turn for every stop we made, even though he had a Garmin GPS mounted on the dash. We stopped and let off people at about a dozen stops before I made it to Turtle Kraals and he drove like and asshole the entire time. An old asshole who doesn’t know what conventional traffic laws are. But to his credit he retired ten years ago to Marathon Key and just drives the shuttle for fun. I hate because I want. So after 5 hours of pulling 2 G’s every time a light turned green and trying to keep my head from flying through the windshield every time there was a red light or even a hint of traffic, he let me out at the Contigo home base bar – Turtle Kraals.


Day 1 Part 2 I got myself a beer and some lunch at Turtle’s while I waited for Adam and Hank to show up with Paul. They eventually came storming into the bar and we had a hell of a bro love reunion for the entire place to enjoy. Hank and Paul had to then run off and find some stuff for the boat and mail some items so Adam and I started impatiently drinking waiting for the turtle races – which are exactly what they sound like. IMG_0419 Adam practiced what I call alcoholic social excellence and began making friends with everybody who occupied the three seats beside us for about 4 hours. We met a bunch of people from Omaha, they sure were nice. IMG_0416 Then we met two couples from Baltimore that included a former marine who lived vicariously through Adam’s stories. He had them entertained for at least 90 minutes. But the best was your classic two friendly gay dudes and their sister accompaniment. They were probably like 40+ish. I did not understand the dynamic there but they were hilarious. No doubt I could tell the gay guys had their radar on trying to figure out me and Adam. I’m not sure what they figured out in the end, but I did get free drinks. IMG_0420 Kinda weird looking back, but I like beer and it was free. IMG_0421 Towards the end Adam got into an argument with one of the guys – Jimmy, about whether or not he can actually crochet. Adam swore up and down he had a pot holder he made himself on the boat. We later took a picture of it and sent it to one of the ladies as proof. Unfortunately I lost the picture at sea. PS shout out to Thomas Cole, we bragged about him being a pageant winner and they started asking a lot of questions about the authenticity and prestige of the pageant that we were not equipped to answer. All I could say was that Thomas wasn’t dressed like a girl, apparently that was an important detail. Finally their time at Turtle’s came to an end, we took farewell shots of Fireball (free again) and said goodbye. They left the bar, we didn’t.


DAY 1 PART 3 Hank eventually came back to meet Adam and I at Turtle’s. IMG_0428IMG_0422 Adam and closed out for probably the third time, but this time we actually left afterwards. The three of us headed out to Duval street to find some more entertainment. We had the genius idea to call Eric Duskin along the way to talk about what we really thought was some deep stuff at the time. Luckily for him he didn’t answer and the three of us just left a loud incoherent message on his answering machine. I think we actually left two messages. Sorry Eric. We hit a few quick bars and got the crappiest liquor drinks ever made, like worse than what we probably served at the Nutmeg drive house in 2009. If you know what I’m talking about, then you know what I’m talking about. We took the party to Irish Kevin’s to see a band that promptly hit an intermission the second we walked in. But, we really wanted to see these guys for some reason so we stuck around and had some more drinks and that’s when Adam hit that next level making it a mostly memorable night. I’ll hit a few of his highlights. One of the best was at Irish Kevin’s a girl had her hands full of drinks and beers she was carrying, leaving her defenseless (figuratively). Adam grabbed a straw, dropped it into one of the beers, had a nice taste, thanked her kindly, and she moved on. She wasn’t even mad. I love Key West. After Irish Kevin’s somebody decided we should get pizza. They were 100% correct. But en route to getting pizza we made two unlikely friends. IMG_0434 I say unlikely, but honestly at this point in the night nothing was unlikely. One had a guitar and no shoes plus an unlit cigarette he literally never took out of his mouth the entire 15 minutes we hung out with them (except the above picture). I guess he can just breathe through his nose really well. He was leathery tan and withering away. Classic Key West. We’ll call him “Silent K” for the purpose of this story. His buddy was an even older and more haggard looking guy, but he hand a nicely trimmed snow white beard. Like it was impressive grooming for a bum. He also wore sunglasses with one lens popped out. I guess it was so he could actually see at night. We’ll call him “The One.” They asked for us to buy them a beer. I agreed on the grounds that it would be Budweiser and they would have to share it with me. So I grabbed a frosty can and ceremoniously offered it to our new friends. Politely, they demanded I take the first sip. I was honored. And it was the best first sip of Budweiser I’ve ever tasted. Those that know me understand those words carry weight.

After the first sips, the Truth gave Adam his missing lens as a gift. I guess he just kept it in his pocket to pop back in during daytime? IMG_0442 Anyways, that’s when The One started his whole “I’m the one, man. I’m the one.” speal. Silent K started playing guitar, what song was debatable, but The One decided he could sing Wish You Were Here along with it. So that’s what we did. We stumbled through the “two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl” line over and over and over, with every break in words being filled with “I’m the one boys.
I’m the one.” After what was apparently a ton of pictures and videos we didn’t even know we had until a day later, we decided it was time to move on and let The One continue trying to find his next beer benefactor. As we got closer to wanting to leave and started hitting bars en route to the dingy, Adam and Hank got into an argument about where the dingy was parked and how to get there. It escalated really quickly. Listen to Hank talking and Adam screeching. Love you Adam.
You could really tell these dudes have been stuck on a boat together for 4 months. So Adam got really upset but hung with us as we stopped at one last bar. You should have seen the bartender’s eyes when Adam walked in. He ordered a drink and the bartender looked at Hank and I. We gave him the head shake saying don’t do it. But Adam, socially excellent as he is, convinced the bartender he was ready for another drink and he got it. I love that dude. Unfortunately at some point Adam got upset again and stormed off to find the dingy without me and Hank. What happened after that was something I’ll always regret missing. Apparently Adam had some issues with the 4 foot drop into the dingy and took a swim. Like fully submerged. Now I know why Hank and Adam are both super stoked on their Life Proof phone cases and are on their second phones, at least. So there’s Adam flailing around in the water, or at least that’s how I imagine it happened. Really he probably just shook it off and finally was able to crawl into the dingy from the water. Fortunately for us some guy named Frenchy saw the whole thing. So when Hank and I walked up and saw Frenchy checking on a soaking wet, gangly passed out Adam sprawled across the dingy he waved us over and told us the whole story. Adam also gave us his side of the story, it was something like “I fell in the water and now I’m all wet you guys.” We decided to call it a night then, rolled Adam into the front of the dingy, and we headed back to Contigo. That’s the end of Day 1. Stay tuned for the recount of Day 2!

adam in the dink