Fantasy Fest Plaid Party

Fantasy Fest in key West is probably the biggest event of the year. What started out as a way to drum up business in the off season of Key West has become a nationally known event that's famous for good times, outlandish behavior, and zany adult antics that feature body paint, elaborate costumes, and lots of nudity. What more could you ask for? Like Mardis Gras, Fantasy Fest has beads and topless women, but it's better. That's because Fantasy Fest is smaller and less famous, so it hasn't been overrun by problems such as crime waves and a disproportionate number of loutish drunken people who spoil the fun. Yes, Fantasy Fest is partly fueled by drugs and alchohol, but you can still feel safe at night, even the final Saturday night when the crowds swell and out of towners flood the city and things get raucous. It's still fun and safe and probably nobody will pick your pocket or mug you.

Fantasy Fest starts out on a Tuesday night, with the Plaid Party at Captain Tony's Saloon, just of Duval Street. Even if you don't plan on paying to get into Captain Tony's, and you just want to hang out in the street and enjoy the fun, my advice is to wear plaid. Once you get downtown and see the great sexy costumes people come up with, you'll want to get into the spirit of things. Even if it's just a plaid pair of shorts or a plain bikini. One of the most popular plaid outfits for girls was a micro mini skirt with pleats, as short as can be. One of the coolest outfits was a plaid corset, worn with a white mile-high Louis XIV wig. Awesome! Another good one was a woman body builder who wore just an itsy bitsy plaid bikini.

Around 9pm or so, the Key West Police block off the side street where Captain Tony's Saloon is located, off Duval Street, so the Plaid Party can spill out into the street area. People in plaid mill about, comment on each others' costumes, take pictures with each other, have some drinks or some vendor food, and it's a great atmosphere. You can't help but feel the energy. As the night wears on, more and more plaid people come out and the costumes get more daring.

Fantasy Fest

Fantasy Fest is one of the best things about Key West. The coral reef is the best thing, hands down, but
Fantasy Fest comes in at a strong second. No other place in the country do you get a week long festival that
inspires so much adult creativity, so much baudy good fun and such energized street life. The atmosphere is
contagious because everyone is in such a good mood so you just can't help getting into the spirit of things.
The energy is positive and fun, and even those not used to even wearing a bathing suit in public will feel less
inhibitions at Fantasy Fest. I'd say a third to half the people in the streets are either scantily clad or
topless altogether. It's like going to a topless beach. If everyone is doing it, it's no big deal and you can
just be one of the crowd. Unlike Mardis Gras, nobody will grab you. Almost all of the women going topless are
also body painted, so it's an art form for people to admire. And they do admire. Strangers approach topless
strangers and complement them. Sometimes they ask if they can take a picture. It't nothing invasive or rude,
and everyone that wears a costume or body paint is fine with having their picture taken. If you aren't cool
about photos, then you really shouldn't dress up and go to Fantasy Fest. Of course exhibitionists love
it! A lot of the pictures end up on the internet. Just do a search for Fantasy Fest photos.

Fantasy Fest Pet Parade & Masquerade

For a change of pace during Fantasy Fest, the Pet Parade is kid-friendly, and pets are the center of attention. Pet owners dress up with their pets and parade around onstage to compete and donate money to pet charities. The best part of the show is the sidelines, where pets and owners mill around and wait their turn. The stage antics are silly and embarrassing to watch and you can't see anyway, so the real show is down in the crowd.

People dress their dogs up in the most ridiculously silly costumes, you have to laugh. There's probably a hot dog dog costume every year. Still funny! We love it!

The show starts out with the kid-pet combinations, then moves on to the adult-pet contestants. This year there was an adorable gray weimaramer as part of a tea party ensemble. Then there was a girl who shaved her dog in zebra patterns and dressed up as a lion, to represent animals of Africa! Totally spectacular!

The Fantasy Fest Pet Masquerade and Parade takes place at the Westin Resort on Front Street, behind the hotel facing the water. They put up a stage and try to keep people moving so nobody gets to stand in front and watch. Some people get there early and get tables at the restaurant in front of the stage. They can't see anything either because of all the people walking in front of them. Like I said, the best show is the sidelines where contestants are waiting for their turn on stage. You can actually talk to them while they wait, ask them about their costumes, congratulate them, pet the dogs. There was a chicken lady with a rooster in her arms, and there was a guy who entered some lobsters. For the most part, it's dogs.

Key West Boat Rentals

If you are interested Key West boat rentals, then be prepared to pay substantially more than anywhere outside of Key West. For a 16 foot skiff, get ready to shell out $300 for a full day. For a two hour jaunt to see the Key West sunset, it'll cost you $200 plus 7% tax if you want to rent your own boat. For a 20 foot center console Angler, it's $400 for the whole day. Compare this to elsewhere in the Florida Keys, outside of Key West, it's $255 for a 20 foot center console. Keep in mind, that even with high prices for Key West rentals, you still probably won't get a nice GPS system like the screen on the boat in this picture.

Basically, like everything else, it costs more in Key West. Anyway, if you're vacationing in Key West, what choice do you have? You can pay for convenience or you can drive "up the Keys" for a lower rate. Marathon, 50 miles away, has a few cheaper boat rental places. Big Pine Key, 30 miles away, has a boat rental company that will deliver the boat to you. You can rent anything from a 12 foot Jon boat for $100 bucks a day to a 30 foot Sea Ray, $650 bucks a day.

Renting a boat out of Big Pine Key also means you'll be close to Looe Key Sanctuary when you go out. That means extraordinary snorkeling and scuba diving. However, no fishing because it's a sanctuary. Don't worry, because the Florida Keys have some of the best sportfishing in the world and the sanctuaries only eliminate a small portion of fishing opportunities.

Goombay, Fantasy Fest Kickoff

Friday and Saturday October 19 and 20 is Goombay, a street festival in Key West's Bahama Village. It's a celebration of Caribbean food plus some live music at night.

If you're from Key West, then Goombay is probably fun because you can walk up and down the street in Bahama Village and see everyone you know. Goombay activities include strolling up and down Petronia Street, which is lined with food vendors, then maybe stopping at the end and catching some live music from the sound stage. You're bound to run into everyone at some point in the long hot tunnel of food and the occasional African pottery vendor. It's a good chance to get out and see your neighbors.

For the visitor, Goombay offers the chance to crawl up and down Petronia Street rather than Duval Street. It's a change of pace from the regular hot sticky trudge. You can buy some $5 Arepas, which are from South America. You can buy a mushy stale soft pretzel for $3 (or $4 if you don't count your change). You can buy undercooked chicken on a stick for $5. Then you can top it all off with a $12 drink that's served in a pineapple. But do arepas qualify as Caribbean food? How about fried rice? As for a celebration of Caribbean culture, well it's hard to know where that is. Was it at the jerk chicken booth? Does buying food from a vendor count as celebrating? I feel more Caribbean just eating out at Jamaican Me Hungry on any given day.

On the other hand, the live music was great, and the warm up guy did a great job of getting everyone into the swing of things. Here he is. You definitely can't go wrong with live reggae!

The best thing about Goombay is that it's the official start of Fantasy Fest, which is the biggest week of the year in Key West. The crowds aren't here yet (60,000 people are supposed to arrive for Fantasy Fest), but many people attending Goombay are already in the spirit of things. You will see people prematurely wearing beads, some people in costume. Fantasy Fest is so much fun they just couldn't wait to get started. It's the spirit of Fantasy Fest and the live music that infuses Goombay with energy, not the elusive "Celebration of Caribbean Culture".

Spearfishing for Hogfish in Key West

Spearfishing for Hogfish, or Hog Fishing as it's sometimes called, is the best way for beginners to learn the basics of spearfishing and freediving. That's because legal-size hogfish can be found in relatively shallow waters off Key West. So, they are easy to get to in a boat, and easy to dive down to. There's another reason hogfish are good targets for beginners: they are pretty dumb and therefore easy to spear.

Hogging requires minimal diving skills since they can be found starting in 10 feet of water. They have to be at least a foot long for them to be legal, which for me is about the length from your spear tip to the end of the gun.  The water skews how big a hogfish really is, so it's hard to judge whether a fish is big enough.  Therefore, it's a good idea to measure a foot on your speargun so you can kind of "measure" them while you're under water, until you get used to judging size.

They like hard bottom, and in 10 feet of water, even on a bad day of visibility, they are pretty easy to spot against the light colors of a hard bottom. They try and camoflouge themselves next to soft coral and rocks, but you can still see them. The big black spot near the back of a hogfish body is a dead giveaway, plus the rooster crown distinguishes them from all other fish in the shallow reef areas.

If you see a hogfish who looks like he might be too small for spearing, then follow him anyway. He might lead you to his bigger cousins swimming nearby. Once you've found a legal-sized hogfish, dive down and get level with him. He will make your job easy for you because he'll wonder what you are and turn sideways to get a good look at you. That's when you shoot. Put your speartip up close and aim for the area just behind his gill plate. Don't wait until he's swimming away from you. When he turns sideways he'll make a good, broad target and that's your moment.

Also keep an eye out for barracuda. They like to try and steal your catch before you can pull up the line and get the fish in your hand. On some parts of the reef, they're so used to spearfishing they'll stalk you and follow you whereever you go if you have a speargun in your hand.