The passage of the July 4th holiday has always signified for me that we’re really officially into the summer season. (That, and the rising temperatures.) Given the tropical heat and humidity we experience here in the Keys, summers here aren’t nearly as brutal as they are elsewhere in Florida or other parts of this great nation.
The fact that we’re surrounded by water is what keeps us a bit more insulated from the extreme temperatures that mainlanders experience. While many places in the United States (and other countries) routinely experience high temperatures over 100 degrees, we rarely get higher (temperature-wise) than 93. We also don’t cool off at night as much, rarely dipping below 80. Add in our ever-present humidity, however, and we often feel a lot warmer than the actual temperature. And the word is “temperature,” not “temp,” like the way too many TV and social media weatherpersons misuse the word these days. “Temp” was always short for a temporary worker in the America I grew up in, mister! A “high temp” wasn’t what a TV weatherman would call 95 degrees, it was descriptive of a short-term employee who was stoned out of her gourd.
Meteorologists have given the combination of heat and humidity a name: the Heat Index. So when it’s 92 degrees with 75% relative humidity, it actually feels like 116 degrees. That’s why I can walk the streets of Las Vegas in August at 110 degrees and still have a dry shirt (yes, I have done this), while 20 degrees cooler in Marathon with our humidity means I take multiple shirts to all my outdoor gigs. Of course, the dryness of the Vegas desert cracks your skin, chaps your lips and totally dries out your nasal lining. What a tradeoff.
Other hot-as-hell places I’ve spent summers are the inland southern cities of Columbia, South Carolina and Augusta, Georgia. Combine lots of concrete and asphalt with high temperatures and humidity and absolutely no breeze and you have a recipe for broiled sweltering misery. Why those entire towns don’t just empty out in August is beyond me.
Getting past the heat index, there are actually good things about summer in the Keys. We almost always have some sort of breeze (and hopefully not the variety delineated by categories). The waters are calmer. The underwater visibility is at its best for divers and snorkelers. The fishing is great. We seem to miss most of the mainland summer afternoon thunderstorms (sorry, Key Largo). And we have a visitor base that helps sustain our local economy. So bring a towel, extra shirts, a swimsuit and plenty of water. Then you’ll be ready for whatever summer throws your way.
This past July 4th holiday celebration at Sombrero Beach was amazing, and it was blessed by a constant breeze that made it much more comfortable. Randy Mearns and his band of pyros did another amazing job on the best small town fireworks display in America, and the Rotary Club of Marathon made sure that beachgoers had plenty of food and drink. Our Independence Day celebration has always been one of our best community events, and one fine example of that was the football toss between local kids and Marathon Fire/EMS personnel along with sheriff’s deputies. The camaraderie and sheer joy was evident on all the faces of the football tossers, and it was gratifying to see this incredibly positive interaction between local youth and law enforcement / first responders. A friend of mine commented that our July 4th celebration is like stepping into a Norman Rockwell painting of old. All in all, it was a marvelous day, one of the best Independence Day celebrations I’ve ever seen on Sombrero Beach. Until next year…
– Catch John each Monday at Boondocks, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the Key Colony Inn, and Thursdays at Sparky’s Landing. Find his music anywhere you download or stream your music. www.johnbartus.com
