We’ve officially planned our route from the Keys heading westward to Texas and eventually Colorado as the year progresses. With just one week left in our temporary winter home, we’re looking forward to more time with the friends we’ve made over the past few months, another short visit with family, and a bit more time on the water (and of course fishing, for me anyway, while Ashley continues crafting her numerous projects). Speaking of Ashley and her projects, her hobbies led us to discover a location we may not have stumbled upon otherwise.

The Key West Garden Club resides in the West Martello Tower on Atlantic Boulevard, overlooking a narrow shoreline and the open sea. Added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on June 24, 1976, West Martello is a relaxed haven for those seeking a brief escape from the activities of downtown Key West and for people interested in horticulture and varied plant life. As one of the few remaining free tourist attractions in Key West, the Garden Club is ideal for families on a budget or anyone seeking an inexpensive destination in which to spend an hour or two.

A martello is a small defensive fort typically built on the coast, constructed of thick, solid masonry walls configured in a round structure. The forts were popular throughout the British Empire during the 19th century. Several martellos were built in the United States along the eastern seaboard, ranging from New Hampshire and New York, to South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and finally Key West. While the two towers in Key West aren’t strictly martellos (they’re square and have comparatively thin walls), the structures are still classified as such.

The East Martello Tower is a museum and home of the creepy Robert the Doll, whose tale I won’t recount here because I refuse to visit the display, while the West Martello Tower has been home to the Garden Club since 1949. Ashley learned that the Key West Knitters and Crocheters Group meets at the Garden Club every Sunday afternoon, so she decided to attend some of the gatherings while we were in the area. I recently toured the gardens while she was with the knitting group and snapped a few photos during my visit.

All the plants at the Garden Club are donated and maintained by members and volunteers. The club is non-profit and is dedicated to providing “…educational opportunities for the community relating to tropical gardening and to the West Martello Tower…” in the words of their website. The grounds feature many areas to sit and relax with a book, or to simply enjoy the salt air blowing across the ocean. A path winds through the gardens leading to hidden nooks and cultivated displays featuring a variety of plant life and even a few water features sprinkled throughout for good measure. If we were year-round residents, the Garden Club would be on my list of frequent stops as a tranquil oasis to read, relax, and reconnect with nature aside from time on the water.

The rest of this post is a fishing story, so if you’re tired of reading about fishing you might want to close your browser now and wait for the next installment from after we’ve left the Keys. If you decide to hang around, I hope the following tale doesn’t bore you to sleep.

The wind continues to steadily blow through the Keys over the past couple of months, which makes offshore trips in a recreational fishing boat difficult, if not impossible. All of the fishing we’ve done during our stay has been inshore – typically defined as within nine miles of land in water depths of less than 100 feet. Offshore, or deep sea, fishing is considered over nine miles from land, typically 20 to 130, in waters ranging from hundreds to thousands of feet deep. These ranges vary depending on the person you’re speaking with or what article you might be reading, and some sources even make a distinction between offshore and deep sea as a reference to the style of boat you might be using. But for the purpose of this story, the terms “offshore” and “deep sea” are interchangeable and I couldn’t see land from the boat, so that counts as offshore for me. You can catch different species and potentially larger sizes of fish offshore, but you also spend a significant chunk of your day motoring to a spot and searching for signs of fish hidden in the depths.

So on one of the recent very rare calm mornings, Ashley’s dad decided it was our best chance to get offshore. The two of us loaded the boat in the predawn hours in preparation for a sunrise departure. As we navigated the canal leading to the channel, the view out to sea was serene with only the slightest hint of ripples disturbing the water’s glassy surface. Having little experience on boats, I’m still amazed at how much even a gentle breeze can impact the choppiness of the waves. But the weather was on our side this morning as Rob piloted us out of the channel and into the open ocean. He wanted to tie a few lines so we could be ready to fish at a moment’s notice, so he asked me to take over steering and maintain a course due south. We were soon 20 miles offshore and with a few rods ready to go, we began scanning the skies for birds and the ocean’s surface for floating weed lines or changes in appearance, all signs of potential fish lurking below.

The GPS indicated we were approaching 25 miles offshore and we saw very few birds and no other fishing boats anywhere in sight. A massive shipping freighter slowly floated past in the distance and we corrected course to give it a wide berth. Small patches of sargassum seaweed began to appear, and this was the best sign we’d seen in our two hours on the water. After following the sparse weed line and dropping a couple of jigs in the water to no avail, we decided to turn around and slowly make our way back to shore hoping to spot something worthwhile on our return.

Around 27 miles from land, Rob spotted a small white bucket bobbing in the waves and said we should give that a shot. I thought he was joking and indicated so with a questioning glance. He assured me he was serious, so we targeted the bucket while I remained skeptical that any self-respecting fish would be fooled by a tiny piece of debris in the massive, expansive ocean surrounding us. We pulled the boat alongside the bucket and peered into the water. One small fish was actually swimming under the plastic debris, so we cast our lines and hoped for a bite. We were prepared with various kinds of bait – squid, dead shrimp, mackerel caught the day before – and Rob tossed a few handfuls of cut bait into the water to see if any other fish appeared while I actively worked a white jig with blue and silver hair around the bucket.

After five or ten minutes of no activity and with the wind beginning to pick up, we decided to call it a day and head for land. As I was retrieving my line, I glanced a flash of electric blue and iridescent yellow pass by the boat.

“I think I just saw a dolphin,” I told Rob, referring to a mahi-mahi, also known as a dolphinfish or simply dolphin (no, not like Flipper).

“Cast out again, see what happens!” he replied as he stowed his rod in a holder and began cutting strips from the mackerel.

I’d never seen a mahi in the water before, let alone a frenzied school of the colorful fish, and I was hoping to catch a glimpse at some point during our visit to the Keys. As we baited our hooks with the mackerel strips, I watched the lone dolphin swim away from the boat content that I had finally seen one even if we didn’t catch any. We cast our baited jigs back out and kept our eyes on the water hoping the fish would return. After a couple more brief sightings of the same solitary fish but no bites, we reluctantly decided yet again to pack up and call it a day. I began reeling in my line and felt a gentle resistance, thinking the added weight of the mackerel strip to the jig was simply increasing the drag in the water. The pressure steadily increased and I told Rob I think I have a fish on the line.

I’m told that mahi have soft mouths – you can’t crank down the drag on your reel and muscle the fish up to the boat without risking an empty hook and a lost catch. Having hooked what I assumed to be my first dolphin, I applied gentle pressure on the rod and gained line when I could. Within minutes we confirmed I had the dolphin on my line, as it rose from the depths and began trailing the side of the boat. Rob stowed his gear and idled the motor while commenting that the large fish seemed fairly inactive.

No sooner did the words leave his mouth, when the fish darted away from the boat easily pulling drag off of my reel. Rob maneuvered the boat to slowly follow the fish as he coached me through the process of landing the bull. I did the best I could at maintaining pressure on the line without pulling too hard while resisting the urge to tighten the drag on my reel.

“Let him run and gain line when you can, don’t try to horse him up here,” Rob recommended as I held onto the rod.

The fish dove deeper, pulling line along with it, as I simply stood on the deck of the boat waiting for my chance to land the mahi. In an instant, the dolphin changed direction and rocketed to the surface, breaking the water in an impressive leap while whipping its body back and forth. I thought it broke the line or spit the hook, but I still felt weight on the rod as the fish dove back into the water. For the next 10 minutes, the mahi maintained the same depth, running out more line every time I managed to gain a few yards, and leaping from the water twice more before returning to its chosen spot below the surface.

After twenty minutes had passed, Rob solemnly commented that he thought the fish might be winning – either working out the hook or wearing through the line with its sandpaper-like rows of teeth – and there wasn’t much we could do about it. The fish made another spirited run and I spotted two smaller dolphin around it, letting Rob know what I saw.

“I’m not going to throw a line in and risk losing this one, just keep doing what you’re doing,” he replied.

So I did. After three leaps and multiple runs, the fish finally seemed to be wearing out as I gained more line and methodically pulled it to the surface. As mahi-mahi begin to die, sad as it may be, their color shifts from the almost neon blue shade, to a bright green with blue spots. Rob noticed the color change as I reeled the fish closer to the boat. He grabbed the gaff while I did my best to keep the fish close to the boat, and with a lunge he pulled the mahi onto the deck.

In my limited fishing experience, I’ve rarely seen a fish that big, let alone one that I caught. It was far from a record-setting catch, but it far exceeded what we could have hoped for on our lone offshore outing. We slid the fish in ice and plotted a course back inshore, elated with the results of what started out to be a mildly disappointing morning. After stopping at another location and catching a few yellowtail, Rob said we should head to the marina (referring to Geiger Key, just around the corner from his house and our RV spot, a favorite stop for locals as well as our usual Wednesday night hangout for open mic night) and meet Ashley and Beth for lunch.

As we tied up at the marina, word of our catch had already reached Ashley, who had also taken advantage of the calm morning to go paddle boarding. I proudly hauled the 20 pound, 42 inch bull dolphin from the icy fish box and posed for a few photos from Ashley as well as a couple of strangers. I should point out again that this wasn’t a record-breaking fish – male mahi-mahi can reach 50 to 80 pounds, but typical catches are between 15 to 29 pounds, with anything over 40 pounds considered exceptional (according to Wikipedia). But it was a record-breaking fish for me, as well as Rob’s new boat.

So what do you do with a 20 pound mahi-mahi after you catch it? Well, after a snack and a couple celebratory beers at the local marina, you can hop back on your boat and take your catch back to clean. After snapping a few more photos, you can finally begin preparing your catch to fillet, cook, and package. A mahi has delicate skin, so rather than filleting and skinning like a yellowtail or mangrove snapper, you score the skin around the body and peel it away before removing the flesh. Then you carve the firm, white meat from the bones, cut it into portions, and ice it while you clean the boat and your gear after a long day on the water. When you’re finally cleaned up and hungry once again, you remove the thin tail sections from ice, cut them into bite-sized chunks and prepare a very light batter. While the oil in your pan is heating, you should crack open a few beers for you and your friends, cut some lemons and limes, and maybe prepare a sauce if you’re feeling adventurous.

At this point the oil should be hot enough to properly fry your mahi-mahi chunks. You should dip the chunks in your light batter before laying the pieces in the hot oil. After the pieces are fried to a crispy golden brown, you can set your table with the piping hot mahi, the cut citrus, maybe your sauce, and some frosty beers for refreshment. You could cue up a little music to set a festive mood as the sun sets and a cool breeze begins to blow through the palm trees around you.

Then, in the words of Ernest Hemingway from the essay “Trout Fishing in Europe”:

“…you can go away and I will do the rest myself.”