The Big Story / Freedom Beaches

By Rick Boettger

A friend with a boat took us out to the Snipe Keys recently. They are a maze of mangrove islands about 16 miles northwest of Key West in the backcountry. The main attraction is a huge sandbar arising at low tide. Maybe a hundred people will boat out there on a perfect weekend day.

Why spend collectively thousands of bucks on gas and take an hour each way instead of going to a land-based beach? In a word, “freedom.” On the simplest level, to drink beer. Everyone I could see had a cooler. You can’t do that at Zach Taylor or Smathers, why I don’t know.

You can also go topless, though I saw only a single woman taking advantage of that. Or play music loudly on your boat’s stereo. Actually, we bypassed the main sandbar at Snipe because someone’s music was so loud. Found a quieter area a mile further up.

But mentioning the beer and single topless gal mischaracterizes the main vibe of Snipe and the other Keys sandbar rendezvous. Mostly it’s families with little kids. Our friend had earlier brought us to a sandbar off Boca Chica while his two boys were still in town, 5 and one year old. It’s a perfect place for them to run around burning energy.

With their friends. They knew other little kids they met regularly there. You hear a pleasant sound of kids laughing and shouting with each other. You can buy an audio of “Day at the Beach” which sounds like this. My friend likes it so much that even when his own boys were visiting northern grandparents he brought us to a spot full of kids.

Basically you either hang out on your boat and in the shallow water nearby, or, like us, haul an umbrella, chairs, and cooler up on the temporary beach/sandbar. Snorkel or float in the currents between the mangrove islands and the sandbar. Drink beer and eat your sandwiches back under the umbrella. Solve the problems of the world together.

Highlight of the trip was when two little girls, 6 and 4, brought their little dog to visit us. Not afraid of four adult strangers. It was a safe area, reminding me of my Midwestern upbringing in the ‘50’s.

The story here is, what’s wrong with this? The fact is, the authorities are trying to crack down on these sandbar confabs. A big one in the Middle Keys was shut down. Environmentalists are complaining about too many people at Boca Grande west of Key West.

They may have a point, but maybe the main objection is the freedom. Especially since 9/11, we are losing our “home of the free, land of the brave” panache. We’re becoming the home of the spied upon and land of the scared.

Out in these unregulated back country flats and sandbars we are still free and unafraid, even the little kids. Away from our increasingly controlled American civilization, we create a mildly wild civilization of our own, friendly and convivial. Sweet!

The only downside I could see was on the long ride back. A part of the day’s adventure is picking your way through unmarked channels through the shallows. Propeller scars furrow the seagrass for miles of the journey. A couple of miles from our marina on the way back, a few shallow acres of our gulf waters were as brown and turbid as the Mississippi River. It wasn’t as much from prop gouging as it was from the prop wash of too many twin 350 horsepower outboards powering their big boats up on plane at 30 mph.

I hope it all settles out overnight. But I worry that the loss of our gin-clear waters may in part be due to the accumulated effects of decades of dragging the bottom for shrimp, blowing the sand up to uncover treasure by the salvors, and big boats roaring over the flats. Along with the agricultural runoff, our waters don’t stand a chance. But we still have so much to enjoy while we still have it, so make sure to get out on the water if you can. Ideally, with the locals in our backcountry flats.

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