Lucibeth Dees, Guest in January 2019
The title is not misspelled. It’s a Cedar Key quote one of the owners, Ian Maki, of the new, and yet old, Firefly Resort Cottages, laughs about that is a cute twist on the more well-known “Keep Calm and Carry On!” Fresh clams are key at Cedar Key where the Firefly Cottages, all seven of them, are situated. Fisherman, oystermen and “clammers” head out at sunrise from the boat launch downtown.
I didn’t miss a sunrise or sunset during my 5-day, 4-night stay there. But staying calm is an overstatement: I stayed downright fluid with relaxation and peace from being at the place. I stayed in Redfish Cottage. Cozy and quaint with a luscious colored coverlet on the queen bed the restored fishing cottage was comfortable. Sweet artwork on the white walls. It’s for two people but I was there for solitude and I found the size perfect for one. I interspersed my healthy meals with several meals at the local restaurant row downtown only about 3/4 of a mile away. Yes, the floor of the cottage isn’t perfectly level (and never will be), but Ian Maki and his husband Darrin Newell, work daily to refurbish the property and cottages built in the 1950’s. A Balinese goddess, Saraswati, symbolizing art, music, education and more, in bas relief decorates the trunk of a cedar tree. There are still quite a few trees left but it’s a surprise since pencil king, Eberhard Faber, discovered Cedar Key’s cedar lumber planks were perfect stock for his handwriting instruments.
There are many sitting chair clusters around the site which is saturated with flora and fauna, meaning trees, plants and flowers of all types, thanks to the men as well as to the original owners who planted them. An aqueous cairn that Ian built lends a splash and liquid tinkle of water and certainly makes the birds happy who flock there to drink. Speaking of birds, thank heavens I took my binoculars, I’m not a professional birder but I picked up a local bird id chart and saw the pink Roseate Spoonbills along with White Ibis with their downward curved beaks, black and white Buffleheads, Blue Herons, millions (okay, hundreds) of pelicans, seagulls, terns and then robins, wrens, and tiny birds I just didn’t know the names of. Cedar Key is one of the few “Old Florida” towns I know of and as a 59-year-old Floridian, I know “Old Florida” when I see and feel it. The town is worn without being worn-out. You can barely tell the difference between the homesteaders front yards “decorated” with large buoys, driftwood, gnomes, shells, glass bottles ,etc and the fronts of art studios. In Cedar Key it seems many of the working townspeople have a artistic sideline of making belts, carved wooden bowls, quilts, or smoked mullet dip. Some are quite good, others are…..well….tacky.
I took too many things to do with me–books, journal, yoga mat, camera, binoculars and I found plenty to do there: kayak over to Atseena Otie Key and look at the 100-year-plus-year-old cemetery with headstones and a delicate wrought iron fence. Also remnants of the pencil factory are around. I also rented a fat tire bike from Pirates’s Cove, next door to Firefly, and rode a little ways to see “Charlie” at his house and buy some shrimp and his yummy smoked mullet dip. I had a moment of enlightenment when I did my my yoga on the shore at sunrise–“Never place your yoga mat in wet sand.”
Not only are beautiful sunrises dependable so is the fresh roasted, fresh ground, gourmet coffee the owners leave for you each night to brew the next morning. Oh, and some may think just like a rose is a rose is a rose, water is water is water but the proprietors don’t agree and have a special water purification system. They actually fill four glass bottles for each cottage and if you need more you just set empties by your door.
When I first walked from my cottage the short distance to the water’s edge, there was no water. I was shocked and somewhat dismayed, thinking for a moment I had managed to book a sweet cottage on the edge of swamp world. But within the hour the tide began rushing back in and soon the mudflats were covered with calm waters, reflecting the colors of the sky. There are two tides a day and they are powerful, changing the landscape into waterscapes and back again and again.
It’s a largely rural community, not a Burger King or Wal-Mart to be found. Only about 700-people-plus according to the last census occupy the long key shaped lay of the land. There still seems to be whatever you need from hardware to hair salons. .
Though they admit they are going through an experimental phase with their cottages, currently it is a no dogs, no kids property. They do have a well-behaved Australian shepherd named Sidah, who follows one or the other owner constantly.
Will I go back to Firefly? Yes, indeed. There is calm and there are clams