Surfers wait for waves in Santa Ana, California

Hablan Espanol en El Salvador?

Si. Claro. Y Usted? Habla usted Espanol?

Si, un poco, pero yo tengo que aprender mas.

La mayoria de gente en Florida hablan Espanol, no?

Talvez no la mayoria, pero es verdad que mucha gente lo hablan. Porque hay mucha gente de Cuba alli.

The early morning is deep purple and cool. I'm cruising along the highway towards the Orange County airport in the passenger seat of a Yellow Cab. My driver is from El Salvador, a small Central American country recently battered by ten straight days of torrential rain. Some third of a million people have been displaced due to dangerous floods, and many farms and communities have been irreparably damaged.

My driver's two story home in El Salvador, according to him, protected his family only by merit of its second floor. The Salvadorian government is distributing funds to families ousted by the catastrophe, helping them to rebuild homes and reestablish lives. His family, he says, won't receive any assistance owing to their secure financial status.

Eberyting gone, he says, switching back to English. Telebision, ferniture, deeshes, eberyting. Ees OK, you know. All material tings.

I interrupt briefly to point out the sign for my terminal. After a moment he continues in Spanish.

Cuando yo regreso para vacacionar, voy a comprar todo los cosas electronica.

Won't that be expensive -- replacing all of your electronic things? I ask.

Not too bad. I gadda druck, you know. An I dribe to Panama and buy eberyting der. Ees berry cheep in Panama, you know? No taxes, and berry good prize.

He turns off the meter as we pull into the United departure terminal. I pay and thank him, then heft my bag onto my back and head towards check-in.

The brief stop in Santa Ana, California came after a few months of working and visiting family. Back in September I spent two weeks with my entire family between Williamsburg, Virginia and the Outer Banks, North Carolina, then returned to Denver to finish up some short term work before going, well... home.

Mad maxian desert combat in the Outer Banks

For the nearly five months that I was away from Key West I didn't hear word one about my boat. I'd left it bobbing in an unauthorized mooring field, and was mailing cash every month to a contact in the Conch Republic who was supposed to be keeping an eye on it. Of course I hadn't been able to get in touch with him even once while I was away. When I flew into the Key West airport around 9:00 pm yesterday evening, I was beginning to wonder what exactly to expect.

I crashed on a friends couch last night, then woke up early this morning to go about getting out to my boat. It took me about twenty-five minutes to walk my kayak from the house I had stored it at out to the water's edge at Key West Bight Marina. I wasn't able to bring my pack or a paddle in the same trip. When I got close to the marina I ran into Lobster Lee, the aforementioned boat-watching contact, who was spinning a yarn to a couple sunbaked tourists. I set down my kayak and waited for him to recognize me.

"Woah man!" He said shaking my hand. "Your boat's doing great."

Lee is a distracted guy. He strikes me as honest and trustworthy, but also as sort of a recluse. He built the mooring that my boat is anchored to, as well as the other twenty to thirty moorings in the immediate area. He's been living in Key West for about twenty years, and has been managing my "neighborhood" for all that time.

"That's what I wanted to hear," I said, glad to hear my boat was above water.

"What, did you think I'd let you down? You want a ride? I'm headed out there right now."

"Can you wait fifteen minutes?" I asked. "I left my stuff at a friend's house. I can get it in fifteen if I run, though."

"Sure," said Lee, turning back to the two polite tourists standing by to hear the rest of his story.

A short jog and a boat ride later, I was coming up on Jordan's Ghost. It was in perfect condition, without a splotch of bird poop or a bit of accumulated water anywhere to be seen. There was, however, a problem.

"Of all the things I could have forgotten," I said, lifting my forty pound pack off of Lee's boat and onto my own, "it had to be the key to the cabin. I had my brother mail it to the marina, too, but of course I didn't know they stopped receiving mail in July. Bummer."

"You mean you can't get in?" Lee squinted into the sun, his gray hair crawling in wiry sprouts from beneath his cap.

"No, not without a key. I was hoping I could crawl in through the lazarette, but I don't think I can get the engine room door open with the step-ladder in the way."

Lee was scrounging around in his flat-bottomed sixteen foot skiff. His face looked serious and weathered.

"Key, key, key," he said distractedly, then reaching into a scuffed up trunk, he produced a huge rusted set of lock cutters. "I've got a key right here."

As it turned out, the lock cutters were far too rusted to work. We ended up gnawing up the lock pretty good, but weren't able to break it. We headed over to Lee's fishing boat where he trudged around for some twenty minutes looking for tools and cursing himself for having moved them all to either his home or another boat. After awhile, we stopped by another person's boat and begged a hacksaw with a metal blade. Once back to Jordan's Ghost, we made it through the lock in less than a minute.

As Lee twisted the remnants of the lock off, I pushed the main hatch forward towards the bow of Jordan's Ghost.

"Look at your boat!" Lee hollered excitedly, which had me immediately peering down into the cabin to see what was the matter.

I looked back at Lee, who was smiling appreciatively.

"You've got a gorgeous boat," he said, "it's as nice on the inside as it is on the outside!"

I was thrilled to be back home. With a little laundry, some new varnish and a little bit of money spent on regular maintenance, Jordan's Ghost will be in its best condition yet. I thanked Lee several times, saying I would have had plenty of difficulty getting inside if I hadn't run into him.

"Hey it's just about being in the right place at the right time," he said. "If you ever need anything, just call me. You can come by, too, whenever I'm at the boat."

I nodded as I lowered my bag into the cabin, then looked back at Lee.

"I'll do just about anything for the people in this neighborhood," he said, starting his engine, "that's why I'm the Mayor of Fleming Key."