The Conch Republic

Friday, January 30, 2026

I feel the presence of Jimmy Buffet’s ghost. 

We finally made it to Key West, and it’s love at first sight. This town is full of history and charm. There are restaurants, bars, and restrained gift shops. There are museums, and cigar shops, and tidy white houses, and rock and roll. The ghosts of pirates, writers, presidents, poets and musicians haunt the imagination of visitors. People ride bikes and scooters and drive around in golf carts, as well as cars. It’s busy, but not especially crowded.

The view from our balcony

Coast Guard Cutter Ingham was the most decorated vessel in the Coast Guard fleet. She is now a museum.

Birds stood in formation on a dock for hours.

We started our morning with some geocaching in a small park, the Key West Historic Memorial Sculpture Garden. The garden was full of monuments dedicated to former distinguished citizens of Key West. The centerpiece of the park is a large sculpture called “The Wreckers.” The wreckers were the men who saved lives and cargo from the vessels that were wrecked on nearby reefs. Wrecking was Key West’s first economy. The city became the richest city per capita in the US in the 1800 as a result of the salvage fees earned by wrecking crews.

There were interesting blocks of local limestone throughout the park. I completed an earthcache about the properties of limestone that enabled it to function as an aquifer.

Two very different limestone blocks

Of all the memorials here, the memorial to Sandy Cornish was, perhaps, the most remarkable, and most gut-wrenching.

The photo of the plaque associated with this bust did not turn out well, so I have transcribed it below. Warning: The following paragraph describes self-harm.

Sandy Cornish

C1793-C1869

Sandy Cornish (Uncle Sandie) was born a slave in Maryland about 1793. He migrated to Florida in 1839 where with his wife Lillah’s help he was able to buy his freedom. In the late 1840’s his free papers were lost in a fire. Six unprincipled men captured him with the intent of selling him at the slave market in New Orleans. Uncle Sandie escaped and to prevent recapture he inflicted severe injuries on himself. In the public square of Port Leon, he cut the muscles of his ankle joint, plunged a knife in the other hip joint, and cut off the fingers of his left hand rendering himself unfit for labor and thus worthless as a slave. In the late 1840’s he came to Key West where he and Lillah bought a farm on what is now Truman Avenue near Simonton Street. Uncle Sandie supplied fresh vegetables and fruit to the island’s inhabitants. During the Civil War many Union soldiers visited Sandy’s fruit orchard. He was by all accounts a highly successful farmer, one of the richest men in Key West and a leader of the African American community. In 1864 he established the ongoing Cornish Chapel of the African Methodist Episcopal Church at 702 Whitehead Street. Uncle Sandie died in the late 1860’s, a wealthy, respected, and free citizen of Key West.

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After the sculpture garden, we walked around the town center  and looked at some of the shops.

Cute crocheted creatures

There are chickens all over the place here. They just wander around wherever.

Next we found ourselves at the Little White House, where President Harry Truman maintained a home. He made eleven trips here during his presidency. The property is now Truman’s presidential museum (but the main Truman Library and Museum are in Missouri). 

Truman’s 1950 Cadillac limousine

The Little White House

While in Key West, President Truman signed a bill establishing the National Weather Service. The original NWS building is now an Inn.

We walked past a large park where they were getting set up for a big “red dirt” music festival called Mile 0 Fest. We then made our way back to the ship to join a food tour we had booked through HAL.

The food tour was great. Our guide, Mike, provided a lot of historical commentary in addition to shepherding our group of 16 to a series of memorable eateries. We started with some background on two nearby buildings - the Customs House and the Mel Fisher Museum.

The Customs House is a beautiful example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. It is now a museum and art gallery.

Mel Fisher was a man obsessed with finding a sunken treasure ship. It’s an interesting story, but too long to get into here. Fisher did eventually find a sunken Spanish ship, the Atocha, in 1975, after decades of hunting. After a U.S. Supreme Court case, Fisher’s company got to keep the treasure, worth over $450 million at that time. If you want to know more, Click here. If we ever get back to Key West, we will definitely plan a visit to Mel Fisher’s museum.

Our first food stop was Garbo’s. This restaurant started out as a food truck, but it now has a nice location on a lot with a large building for a bar and tables inside and outside. We could have a mahi taco or a Korean beef taco. I chose the mahi. The sauce and vegetables were good, but I could tell the fish had been frozen. It had no taste and an awful texture. 

Our next stop was Cuban Coffee Queen where we had a very delicious Cuban sandwich. Sorry, but the photo of the food did not turn out. Here’s the inside of the shop and a photo of Mike, our guide.

At the Rodriguez Cigar Company we watched people hand-rolling cigars. Mike told us an interesting story about the history of cigar production in Key West.

Next door we visited the Kino Sandal Company where they make leather sandals that you can only get if you visit the store. I didn’t think they looked very comfortable, but people that had them raved about them.

Street scenes in the uncrowded town center

Capt. Tony’s is mentioned in Jimmy Buffet’s song, Last Mango in Paris

Inside Capt. Tony’s the ceiling is papered with money

Inside another part of Capt. Tony’s, license plates and bras

Then it was time to go to the Tiki House for cocktails. We could choose one of three types. Most of us chose the Zombie, a rum drink which was set on fire and which the patrons had to blow out. It included a home-made liqueur I had never heard of called Falernum. It had a cinnamon flavor.

Flaming Zombies

The cocktail menu

The ambience

At a place called Bagatelle we enjoyed Florida lobster mac and cheese in a historic house turned into a restaurant.

Finally, the dessert. You have probably guessed what it was. Hint: Our final stop was the Florida Key Lime Pie Company. Yes, we had key lime pie, but it was made without eggs. Mike explained that in the 1800’s sponge fishermen would be gone for a long time on their boats, and they did not have refrigeration, so they came up with a recipe using canned sweetened condensed milk (Borden’s), local limes (Key limes), and bread. And I am glad they did.

I enjoyed Key West so much! We did not have conch fritters, but I didn’t really want them. The food tour was quite fun and interesting and a perfect introduction to this historic town. At the end of the tour we walked back to our ship and sailed off into the sunset. (Sailing off into the sunset sounds better, but we actually sailed to the east, so we sailed away from the sunset, which means we had a spectacular view of the sunset from our aft balcony.)

Shabbat shalom!

Today’s fabric is Conch Shell by tendertextile for Spoonflower.