Conch Calls In The Sunset

Marathon Harbor, N24 42W81 05

Every night since we came here we heard what sounded like very bad bugle practice at sunset each night. Since we once heard someone do a very bad rendition of Taps at sunset, I assumed that bad bugle practice was what it was. Eventually, we could discern that it was several bugles. On some nights it sounds like a half dozen bugles blasting from different corners of the harbor at sunset. I surmised that it was boaters mocking the bad bugler.

Last night Orville told us that it was a local tradition to sound conch shells at sunset to call the fishermen home. If true, that’s a much more charming explanation than bad buglers.

It may have something to do with this. “The second essential is sunset. The setting of the sun in Key West is a 365-days-of-the-year "event." When the fiery orb dips into the watery horizon, slips from view, and streaks the sky in mauve, pink, persimmon, and gold, it is ostensibly to entertain the enormous crowds that gather at Mallory Square each evening to gape and cheer and applaud madly, even as they snap the prize-winning photo of the definitive moment. “