Lifestyles of boaters are slipping away
Keys Treasures
Boat residents in the Keys are finding themselves squeezed as boat
slips -- prime marine real estate -- attract investors and are
increasingly going the way of the condo.
BY JENNIFER BABSON jba...@herald.com
MARATHON - The way Kenneth Cowan sees it, he's become ''dockominized''
-- the latest casualty of a trend that's making it tougher for
laid-back, liveaboard boaters up and down the Keys to drop anchor
offshore and find basic amenities on land.
Starting April 1, Cowan and other holdouts who've anchored their boats
for years in Marathon's Boot Key Harbor, using the nearby Dockside
Lounge and Marina as a kind of community center, will have to look
elsewhere for services.
A legend in Marathon, the Dockside has served up tacos and cheap beer
for decades. But its new owners are transforming the marina's boat
slips into the maritime equivalent of condominiums.
''I don't like the idea that they are turning the water into a parking
lot to make money,'' says Cowan, a tiler who lives aboard a 36-foot
sailboat, the Lismaree, with wife Elizabeth, a local public school
teacher's aide.
The Dockside's low-cost extras -- showers, a laundry room, and tie-ups
for a fleet of withered dinghies -- will soon be off-limits to all but
employees, slip renters, and dock-owners who will have paid up to
$325,000 for a spot.
'The sad thing is they wanted to come down here and see all these
`Key-sy people' -- the ambience and all -- and now they are driving all
the people away,'' Cowan said.
Rick Servais, co-owner of the Dockside, says 10 slips are already
reserved for $325,000 each, and 14 others for $225,000.
The owners intend to hold onto about 30 more.
''The majority of people who are buying slips are investors,'' Servais
said.
Many of the liveaboards who once used the Dockside amenities have
turned to a nearby city-owned marina that offers most of the same
services -- but without the atmosphere.
Servais said he's willing to rent slips for about $13.75-a-foot to some
of the liveaboards, but so far he's had no takers.
The very notion flies in the face somewhat of the ''living on the
hook'' ethic that Cowan and other liveaboard boaters have embraced for
years along these coral rock islands.
For those whose lives have revolved around Dockside's waterfront haven,
the break is emblematic of bigger changes.
Boat slips have become coveted real estate as demand for homes on dry
land has pushed many prices beyond $1 million.
Some worry it will only compound affordable housing woes.
''Marinas that provide dry storage and wet boat slips up and down the
coast of Florida are being sold and converted into dockominiums,'' said
Doug Gregory, a Monroe County extension service agent who works on
marina issues.
``If we eliminated [liveaboards], we'd have to shut down most of the
businesses in Key West. These are not just bums living out there --
these are doctors, lawyers, workers.''
Among those who started in the Keys aboard a boat is George Neugent, a
Monroe County commissioner who anchored his 32-foot sailboat in Boot
Key Harbor nearly 20 years ago while working as a restaurant dishwasher
and bartender.
''There are times when I get that itch again to just get on the boat
again and go sailing, and live that liveaboard lifestyle,'' Neugent
said. ``The demographics of the Keys are changing. That's sort of sad.
We are losing that lifestyle.''
At Dockside last week, the sentiment was shared.
Regulars sat around a wooden table where over the years they've shared
holiday dinners, heartbreaks and gossip.
''This is the last real Keys place in Marathon, what they are doing to
this place is taking a landmark away,'' said Janet, a liveaboard.
``This is community.''