The festivities are to kick off Friday, Oct. 23, with a parade down U.S. Highway 1. The procession is expected to gather at 5:30 p.m. along Caribbean Drive, ending at the Holiday Inn Tiki Bar, mile marker (MM) 100 oceanside — not far from the place where Black Caesar is thought to have maintained a harem and buried treasure worth millions of dollars.

Float judging and a costume contest are to begin at the Tiki Bar at 7 p.m., along with a Pirate Bash on the Bay with live music. Tickets for the bash are $20 per person plus tax and gratuity.

Those eager to come face-to-face with the fearsome pirate — or at least his modern-day stand-in — are likely to do so Saturday, Oct. 24, from noon to 11 p.m. at MM 104 bayside. Caesar and his buccaneer brethren might be spotted haunting the Pirate Bazaar and Thieves’ Market, set to begin at noon at the Big Chill, Sundowners, Cactus Jacks & Señor Frijoles. Pirate paraphernalia, memorabilia and art are to be among the attractions for attendees.

Also Saturday, scallywags are to take to the high seas for underwater treasure hunts and an underwater poker tournament. Along with an above-water contest open to the public, the underwater action is part of a three-day Pirates’ Poker Challenge that coincides with the festival.

For nongambling types, a concert on the water on Blackwater Sound commences at 2 p.m. off Sundowners and the Big Chill bayside complex.

The pillaging and plundering is to intensify at 6 p.m. as pirates invade Key Largo in a professionally choreographed re-enactment of Black Caesar’s return — complete with artillery line, encampments, battles and skits on Blackwater Sound.

Like the concert, these can be viewed from Sundowners and the Big Chill. Grog, grooves and golden treasure are to abound as the bazaar continues well past the blasts of festive fireworks set for 9 p.m.

The action Sunday, Oct. 25, is to include Black Caesar’s By-Land-or-Sea Poker Run beginning at 11 a.m. at Sundowners, MM 104. Pirates are expected to hit ports of call such as the Bayside Grille, Snappers, Mandalay, Pilot House, Coconuts and Gilbert’s Resort.

Key Largo Pirates Festival organizers also plan to host The Good, The Bad & The Ugly costume contest at a location yet to be determined. Prizes await the sexiest and scariest pirates, best buccaneer and best wench. In addition, revelers can enter conveyances including bikes, cars and boats in a contest for best-decorated conveyance.

The pirate festival is to culminate in a Buccaneer Finale at the Caribbean Club, MM 104 bayside. Attendees can expect to find wild-eyed pirates jiving to live music and imbibing the island’s grub and grog before the climactic handing over of the loot.

For a complete parade route and more festival information, visit www.keylargopiratesfest.com or call Sue Finney at (305) 394-3736.

For information on area accommodations, call the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce at (800) 822-1088 or (305) 451-4747, or visit the official Florida Keys & Key West Web site at www.fla-keys.com

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Send a Tweet and it will be seen by your followers and someone who happens to be searching words or phrases in your Tweet.

Send a Tweet beginning with @username and it will be seen only by @username and those following @username, someone who happens to be searching words or phrases in your Tweet.

Send a Tweet with @username not at the beginning but within the body of the Tweet (a mention) and it will be seen by your followers, @username and their followers and someone who happens to be searching words or phrases in your Tweet.

Send a ReTweet beginning with RT @username and it will be seen by your followers, @username and their followers and someone who happens to be searching words or phrases in your Tweet.

Include a #hashtag with any of the above examples and it will be seen by any of the above plus others that search or watch for the #hashtag.

So if you want to reach the greatest number of Twitter users it is best to not begin your Tweet with @username, use words and #hashtags others may be watching for, ReTweet relevant Tweets from users with many followers. Of course if you send a Tweet with a bunch of irrelevant mentions and #hashtags, Twitter users will begin blocking you as a Twitter Spammer (Twammer).

An example of a Tweet that could reach a huge number of Twitter users, and possibly garner you some additional followers, is to follow one of Twitterdoms top users (or a user with similar subject Tweets as yours) for the number of followers they have. For example: @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher), @TheEllenShow (Ellen DeGeneres) or @britneyspears (Britney Spears) each with over 3 million followers, and search their Tweets to find one that is about a subject you also Tweet about and use a #hashtag for. Then ReTweet their Tweet and add your comment and #hashtag.

Some of their followers may ReTweet or Tweet directly to you or checkout your Twitter page or your #hashtag. If you have a collection of interesting Tweets they may even begin following you. Continuing this procedure should increase your followers and readership on Twitter and if you have other Internet Blogs and or Websites they should also filter through to them.

One quick note: If you want to send some sensitive information to one of your Twitter followers you should use a Direct Message (DM), begin the Tweet with DM @username. The Tweet can’t be read by anyone but @username, unless they ReTweet it. Remember a DM can only be sent to someone who follows you.

Happy Tweeting

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My time on Twitter has taken away some of the time spent on this blog. I hope to resolve this in the future by both Tweeting Blog posts and Blogging about Tweets.

Since Tweeting is at the same time enhanced and somewhat limited by the 140 character rule, blog posts can be used to tell the “Rest of the Story” when 140 characters just won’t do.

I hope you will join me in both the Florida Keys Twitterdom (A particular domain or field of twitter communication) and Blogosphere

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Commissioners said the lack of a specific site raised too many questions, calling it premature to begin the process of changing land-use rules to allow for designated “naturist” areas. They also said the proposed referendum could confuse voters.

“This is also not a proposal for Fantasy Fest. I want to end those comparisons,” Commissioner Clayton Lopez said. “I actually do support the naturists in their quest to find a place where they can go in comfort, but we have an obligation both to the naturists and to those who don’t want to be — excuse the pun — exposed to it.”

Interim Commissioner Joe Pais, who is filling out the term of Dan Kolhage, reminded commissioners of the long-gone businesses like Naked Lunch and Atlantic Shores and said that naturism may not be the economic draw supporters portray.

“They [the aforementioned businesses] failed. The thousands of people that are going to be here, they’re not going to be here,” Pais said. “We’re not going to trade our businesses for businesses that have already failed. Buy your own property. Start your own business.”

Mayoral candidate Sloan Bashinsky called out commissioners for not having the political courage to make a tough decision, rather than sending the nude beach issue to a non-binding referendum.

“You seven should have made the decision. That’s what you were elected to do,” Bashinsky said. “I will never pass the buck like that. That is weenie-ing out and I accuse you, Mr. Verge, of being a weenie.”

District I Commissioner Bill Verge laughed that off and joined the rest of the commission in killing the referendum.

City staff is working with commissioners to set up public workshops to discuss the idea of designated naturist beaches. For more information, go to www.kwfb.org .

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John Buckheim and Nick Demauro, of 79 Palm Drive in the Saddlebunch Keys, were arrested by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration law enforcement agents. The pair are accused of sinking a boat to create an artificial habitat, known as a casita, south of Sammy’s Creek Bridge on Sugarloaf Key on Oct. 29, 2008, according to a federal indictment.

Prosecutors allege the poaching began in 2008 and continued into this year, reports say.

Both men are scheduled to appear in a Miami courthouse today.

The arrest comes a week before the start of the commercial lobster season.

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Biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) Fish and Wildlife Research Institute and the Dolphin Research Center rescued a female manatee today at Gilbert’s Marina in Key Largo.

Biologists captured the animal so they could remove monofilament fishing line that was embedded in the manatee’s right flipper. If left untreated, the entanglement could lead to the loss of the flipper.

A Miami Seaquarium veterinarian removed the line, treated the wound and deemed the animal healthy enough for immediate return to the wild.

Monofilament fishing line can cause serious injury or death for a variety of Florida wildlife. Florida’s Monofilament Recovery and Recycling Program is a statewide effort to educate the public about the problems caused by monofilament line left in the environment, to encourage recycling through a network of line-recycling bins and drop-off locations, and to conduct volunteer fishing line cleanup events. For more information, visit www.fishinglinerecycling.org.

To report a dead or distressed manatee, call the FWC’s Wildlife Alert hotline at 888-404-FWCC (3922).

For more information on manatee research, visit http://research.MyFWC.com/manatee.

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With the winding down of the fawning season in July, quite often we feel that the fawns have had time to adjust to vehicles. However, the Lower Keys has on occasion experienced a crop of new fawns in August. Residents are being cautioned to watch out for new fawns during this time.

Residents living in Key deer habitat need to be aware that as a doe crosses a road, a fawn may be following and the fawn will not understand the threat that a vehicle can present and may run in front of the vehicle. These new fawns have not had time to experience vehicles and may dart across a road unexpectedly. Other hazards to deer and fawns in particular, include free-roaming dogs. Even if a dog does not catch a fleeing fawn, it may die from being chased into traffic or a canal. Residents are reminded that dogs on refuge lands must be on a leash. Residents seeing free-roaming dogs are encouraged to report them to animal control (305-743- 3779).

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Keys’ locals formed the 1,500- person Conch Coalition to oppose the sanctuary. They engaged in letter writing campaigns, sent hundreds of coconuts with anti-sanctuary messages painted on them to representatives in Washington, and held public speeches and demonstrations. Activists even hung NOAA’s two main sanctuary managers in effigy. Through the efforts of anti-sanctuary groups (Conch Coalition, Monroe County Commercial Fishermen’s Association, and other fisher groups) and individuals (many treasure salvagers), the no-take zone was reduced from six percent to one percent in the 1996 final management plan.

FYI: The six percent designated as no-take zone in the draft management plan was already a major reduction from the 20 percent initially considered in 1990. Yet, despite these major concessions with regard to the extent of fully protected areas within the proposed FKNMS, the people of Monroe County were still not in favor of the establishment of a marine sanctuary in their backyards.

The citizenry of the Keys were troubled not only that the sanctuary would not address key local concerns, but also disturbed that to overlay an appointed bureaucracy on top of those duly elected to manage resource use would be a violation of the democratic process. As such, the people of the Keys (i.e. Monroe County, including the fiercely independent people of Key West) would become equivalent subjects in a NOAA administered colony.

Through the Conch Coalition, people of Monroe County pushed for a vote on the sanctuary issue. NOAA and the green groups that supported them (The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, the Center for Marine Conservation, and Last Stand) were against holding a vote but put significant funds into a pro-sanctuary campaign after Congressman Peter Deutsch promised to listen to the people with regard to their votes.

When the votes were counted, the people had voted against the existence of the marine sanctuary in the (non-binding) November 5, 1996 referendum. In the aftermath of the vote, NOAA reported that people had misunderstood what they were voting for or had been swayed by false, anti-sanctuary propaganda. Deutsch had no comment when he went forward and supported the sanctuary in spite of the vote.

Those against the sanctuary report that people knew exactly what they were voting for and that they were tired of public hearings which allowed for input but where they often had to wait for hours and where they felt they were not listened to. To them the vote was in line with earlier, anti-government activity in the region, the most notorious of which was the 1982 secession of Monroe County from the United States and the declaration on the independent Conch Republic.

The anti-sanctuary forces had some wealthy backers, including Mel Fisher, who found the wrecked Spanish galleon the Atocha. Fisher was a leader not only of the Conch Republic, but also opposed the sanctuary on the grounds that it would discourage treasure salvage by requiring lengthy permit applications and complicated, multi-stage archaeological and environmental assessments. In spite of considerable anti-sanctuary sentiment and the anti-sanctuary vote, the FKNMS was fully implemented in 1997.

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For the first time in Florida waters, scientists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of South Florida observed this species spawning in a Marine Protected Area in the Florida Keys. The site was established, in part, to protect spawning schools of snapper and grouper in the Tortugas Ecological Reserve.

Mutton snapper is an important species to both recreational and commercial fisheries. When fish group together in large numbers to spawn, they are more vulnerable to fishing pressure. Allowing the fish to spawn without angler pressure will help sustain the fishery. The data collected from this study will help biologists understand the effectiveness of creating no-take Marine Protected Areas to protect a variety of sea life, including fish and coral reefs.

Biologists spotted the large school of spawning snapper while working on an acoustic tagging project. The purpose of this research is to obtain information regarding the movement, spawning and migratory habits of snappers and groupers. They conducted surgeries underwater at depths of up to 120 feet to implant acoustic tags inside the fish. Conducting the tagging at this ground-breaking depth causes less stress to the fish than bringing them to the surface by conventional hook-and-line methods to complete the surgeries.

Biologists will continue to receive data from the tagged fish for the next few years. This information will help them learn more about the movement, spawning and migratory habits of these fish.

For more information on FWRI’s marine fisheries research, visit http://research.MyFWC.com.

via Biologists see spawning fish in Marine Protected Area | Chipley Bugle.

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