people from Ernest’s time,” adds Morgan. Several other Key West places to visit can pick up on the vibe of Hemingway. One of the most famous is Sloppy Joe’s Bar, now located at 201 Duval Street. Local legend tells that Hemingway drank with the owner, Joe Russell, before the bar’s official opening date of December 5, 1933, when Prohibition was repealed. Hemingway is also credited with encouraging Joe to re-name his saloon Sloppy Joe’s, in remembrance of a bar in Havana, which had ‘sloppy’ melted ice on the floor. The Blue Heaven Restaurant, at the corner of Petronia &Thomas streets, is where Hemingway slipped in unrecog- nized at Bahamian boxing fights in the then-named Key West Arena.The SALT Gallery at 830 Fleming Street, a half-mile north of Hemingway’s home, was once called Mrs. Rhoda Baker’s Electric Kitchen, where he dined on 20-cent ‘club breakfasts.’ Hemingway was so inspired by Key West that he finished A Farewell to Arms while staying at the apartment. Hemingway’s passion for big game fishing ignited in Key West. He bought Pilar, a 38-foot wheeler, and often fished with Charles Thompson, who owned a hardware store at Thompson’s Docks on Caroline Street, the location of Key West Historic Seaport today. The two pushed far into the gulf stream, as well as to the Dry Tortugas, fishing for monster blue marlin and bluefin tuna. Charter boat captain Bra Saunders was at the helm on
Hemingway’s and Thompson’s first trip to the Dry Tortugas. Saunders’ gnarled hands are said to be the author’s inspiration for those of the old Cuban fishermen, Santiago, in Old Man and the Sea. The last time Hemingway and his friends fished in the Dry Tortugas, a tropical storm marooned them for two-plus-weeks at what is now Fort Jefferson. Nowadays, a high-speed catamaran ferry takes visitors on day trips from Key West to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas National Park. BIMINI, THE BAHAMAS 1935-1937 Hemingway’s love of fishing, bolstered by his adventurous spirit and 1933 trip to hunt big game on Africa’s Serengeti plains, enticed him to stalk giant bluefin tuna. In 1935, he first ventured to Bimini, with catches of 514- and 610-pound tuna soon to his credit. When he wasn’t aboard Pilar, he was at his home on Alice Town’s Main Street, where only cinder rubble and a commemo- rative sign remain today, or at a small hotel
and bar called the Compleat Angler.This hotel burned down in 2006, and with it all the Hemingway memorabilia, though a monument stands there today. Across the way, at the Bimini Big Game Club Resort & Marina, two framed photos on the wall at the bar are real finds for Hemingway aficionados. One is a 1939-written letter from Michael Lerner, of New York’s Lerner Corporation store fame, to Hemingway, in what was initial correspondence between the two avid anglers to promote releasing rather than killing their catch.The second is Hemingway’s concurring reply. “We don’t have a chair at the bar where we can say Hemingway sat, but the old-time Bimini vibe, the way it felt when he was here, is still very much alive,” says Stephen Kappeler, the club’s managing director. “We have guests that come to soak up that feeling of when Hemingway was here. Of course, they also come here to sport fish off their own boats as Hemingway did or on charters.” Just west of the club off Queen’s Highway is the Dolphin House.This museum and home were hand-built from
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