One of the last ways to live relatively cheaply in the Florida Keys is on a boat, especially "on the hook," or anchored out but it's not the idyllic easy life that you might imagine.
State House representatives have removed the requirement from a proposed bill that would have ordered boat owners anchored or moored off the Florida Keys to move their vessels every 90 days if they were not moored in a regulated mooring field.
HB 639, and its Senate companion bill, SB 1068, included the 90-day requirement to help prevent Keys vessels from becoming derelict and sinking, which has become an expensive problem for the Monroe County government.
The 90-day provision remains in the Senate version of the state bill, which the Senate has passed. Also in the Senate version is a provision that before the law be enacted 300 new moorings be placed within a mile of Key West, 250 new ones and adding 50 to the City of Key Westâs mooring field.
1856: William Hackley recorded in his diary: Rose at 4:30 and walked to the Salt Ponds, returned home and bathed. At 8 a.m. barometer 29.57, thermometer 75, wind northeast, clouds 2. Wrote to Mother and mailed my letters. The USS Fulton came in about 8 a.m. The steamer Isabel got in about 4 p.m. and the Fulton went to sea at 5 p.m. The steamer Florida went to sea at 5:30. Mrs. Charles Tift and children went on her on a visit to a sister in Mississippi. The steamer Isabel went to sea at 6 p.m. William Wall went in her as did Senator Stephen Mallory and Dr. Walton.
Anticipating that a proposed state bill requiring all live-aboard boaters in the Florida Keys to move their boats every three months will pass, Key West city officials are discussing ways to mitigate the impact on local boat owners living âon the hook.â
City commissioners are discussing expanding the 140-anchor Garrison Bight mooring field. And Key West Port Director Doug Bradshaw said the city and Monroe County might work together to create some new mooring fields, giving live-aboards more places to go every three months.
âI think what you are looking at is anchors with buoys on them in certain areas. And then I would assume the county or city would manage them,â Bradshaw told city commissioners at their March 31 meeting.
Neale Vernon âBuzzyâ Rossman, window washer, water skier, golfer and well-known Key West character succumbed to a long battle with heart disease on Feb. 20, 2021, at hospice in Jacksonville. He was 76 years old.
Buzzy was born in Salem, New Jersey on May 1, 1944. âHome of the tomato,â he would proudly tell folks. Of his Garden State upbringing, he said he got the water boiling before he picked the corn.
Following a stint in Vietnam as a radio technician during the war, he ventured down to Coconut Grove and eventually Key West. In the mid 1970sâ he became the sole employee of Wistarburg Window Wipers. His office was a tall pink bicycle with a big white box on the back for the tools of his trade. His kickstand was a squeegee pole extender that ran through a fishing rod holder and slid up and down with a clamp. He kept the windows of Duval Street clean and ate free at most of his restaurant accounts. He had a knack for getting the deal, little or no rent, at t