Splash! Splash!  A tarpon jumped and flopped back into the still Intracoastal waters to the left of us.  I could barely avert my eyes from the food in front of me to see the ripples in the water.  On my plate, sat six more succulent stone crab claws.  The juice of the first crabs rolled through my fingers, their shells piled high in a bowl by my elbow.  Patrick and I did not speak, could not, we were too busy sucking the sweet meat from the cartilage.  The river was quiet that night, devoid of the normal yacht and dingy traffic cruising past. The only sound that filled the air after the splash was the continual zit, zit, zit of the cicadas in the mangroves across the water.

It is stone crab season in Florida, a time that makes me thankful the yacht has returned to this part of the world.  We have spent the last few years in the Mediterranean, and although seafood abounded, I had missed stone crabs. When most people think of Florida, they think of Disney, the beaches, and the endless strip malls.  But, when I think of Florida, I think stone crab.

“The best Key lime pie is the one you are about to eat.” David Sloan, author of the upcoming The Ultimate Key Lime Pie Cookbook, told me.

I was in Key West on an odyssey. Instead of doing the Duval crawl, I was in search of the taste of Key West. In the past six days, I had tried eight key lime pies; each one different from the last. I was overwhelmed and confused.

“What about traditional versions?” I asked as I dug into the ninth slice a hint of cinnamon in the crust stood out as unique. Next to us, a woman with Medusa-inspired blond curls cocked her head to reveal a red, green and blue phoenix-rising from ashes-tattooed up her neck and across her throat. It had been hidden in the tangle.

This article originally appeared in MarinaLife Magazine

I stumbled down the dock, my eyes only half registering the sky the color of Eyore. I swallowed another gulp of Oceana coffee in hopes of being alert before I back rolled off the boat and into the water. I was about to go spearfishing.

“We’ll go down about thirty feet,” Jason, a Florida sport-fish captain told me as we loaded the boat with dive gear and spear guns. “That’s the best place to sight fish.” The early hour did not seem to bother him. Between diving for lobster, spearfishing, deep-sea fishing and surfing, he was up at this time most mornings. That’s what life here in Ft. Lauderdale was all about for him.