h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Collier-Seminole State Park, Florida - April 23, 2007


You can usually find conch in grassy sea beds in warm tropical waters. A Cayman Islander taught me to cook them chemically by soaking them overnight in lemon juice. Conch fritters and conch chowder are widely available in Key West as is Key lime pie.

There is only one way in and out of the Florida Keys. At Florida City, at about mile marker 120, US 1 branches out to other choices. Yesterday, another fatal traffic accident on US 1 near Florida City stopped all traffic in and out of the Keys for three hours last night. This happened just after we passed through.

In 1982, the US Border Patrol set up a checkpoint at the chokepoint on the north endof the Keys and began to randomly search motorists’ cars for drugs and illegal aliens. This is not an unusual tactic for the border patrol. If you drive in Texas, New Mexico or Arizona today you will be stopped and interrogated somewhere on a road north of the Mexican border and subjected to similar scrutiny.

Once, coming out of Laredo, Texas at night, I was directed off the interstate and stopped in front of a blinding searchlight. The uniformed officers questioned me about parrots and waved me on. As I pulled past the searchlight, I saw several officers with assault rifles pointed at me and I was very glad that for once I had no parrots.

When the Border Patrol tried the same tactic in the Keys in 1982, the citizens resented both the inconvenience to themselves and the impact on tourism. After their protests went unheeded, the mayor of Key West decided that if Key West was to be treated as a foreign country, then it might as well be one.

The city announced its independence from the United States of America on April 23, 1982 and declared itself to be the Conch Republic. The Mayor visited the Admiral in charge of the Key West Naval Air Station and broke a loaf of stale Cuban bread over his head. After that, Key West immediately ceased hostilities and applied for a billion dollars in foreign aid from its giant neighbor to the north.

The Conch Republic still sells passports to tourists. The 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, bought a set of these online in early 2001, demonstrating both an abysmal lack of understanding of the American culture and a missing sense of humor.

The Republic later annexed the old abandoned “seven-mile bridge” after a boatload of Cubans landed on it a few years later. The Coast Guard sent them back to Cuba after stating that since the bridge was severed on both ends, the refugees had to be returned under the "wet feet/dry feet" policy. Under that policy, refugees who make it to dry land can stay. Those intercepted at sea are returned to their country of origin.