2:30 AM - A loud discussion about how many beers someone has drunk and how many shots they did. "No I did more than you", “No that was Tequila and that counts double”, “Did you see that hot redhead doing shooters?” “No, but she could....”.

I was awaken early to a stridency of roosters crowing . Checked the weather. It's going to be a BEACH DAY! We pack up our stuff and walk to Higgs Beach. Did you know that the barrier reef off the coast of Key West is the third largest IN THE WORLD!? Well, if you don’t know that when you arrive, you will hear it several times before you leave. Because of the barrier reef, sand cannot reach shore. Therefore beaches on Key West are rock. Unless someone ships in a bunch of sand.

Higgs beach is a wonderfully wide sandy beach with public restrooms, volleyball, two-beach chairs and umbrella for rent all day for $20, a nearby restaurant (sister to Blue Heaven), two large covered buildings and a dock that goes out into the water with ladders and platforms to help swimmers and snorkelers. A really nice, free beach. We basically spent the day at the beach relaxing, reading, getting sunburned, etc.

I didn’t actually take all these pictures of houses on this one day. But I am using this sparse entry to tell you why many of the homes in Key West have the ceilings of their porches painted blue. It turns out it is not unusual to find the ceilings of the porches painted a color often referred to here in the south as “haint blue.” Some folks – notably of African descendants –could be pretty superstitious in this regard. Many believed if you painted the front ceiling of your porch haint blue, it would look like water and keep the haints, (restless ghosts and bad spirits) from entering into your home, because as everybody knows, haints can’t cross water. In painting their porches blue, they trusted the spirits would be confused by the water-colored hues and tricked into thinking they couldn’t enter their home.