1st Annual Cedar Key Oyster Roast!

John Sculley said, "Timing in life is everything." Years before that, Fred Tobias and Clint Ballard Jr. wrote, and Jimmy Jones sang:

 Oh, you need timin'
A tick, a tick, a tick, good timin'
A tock, a tock, a tock, a tock
A timin' is the thing
It's true, good timin' brought me to you.

And we had good timing, it's true, because timing brought us to Cedar Key when they held their 1st Annual Cedar Key Oyster Roast today!

An oyster roast is, most importantly, all about the shucking:

But we get ahead of ourselves.

Before the Oyster Roast, we headed over to the northern end of Cedar Key to visit the Cemetery Point Boardwalk and Park:

The cemetery is truly the local, historic cemetery, but the land around it has been developed into an attractive municipal park, with paths for walking, a disc golf course, and places to sit and picnic or enjoy nature.  In fact, Kathy found a bird feeder along the boardwalk:

The boardwalk offers beautiful views of estuarine ponds and waterways:

Here we looked out toward the Gulf shoreline, and we could understand how, despite the fact that Hurricane Idalia hit Cedar Key with the full force of a storm surge, the boardwalk and other natural features survived -- they were protected by mangrove islands and shallow water:

Walking along the boardwalk, we felt we had found the true Florida we have sometimes uncovered -- usually in small parks along one coast or the other, or down in the Keys:

Returning to our trailhead along the boardwalk, we noticed this old, disused boat, left to decorate the mangrove swamp:

We finished our boardwalk stroll and drove down to the waterfront to park.  We happened to find a spot directly across from Atsena Otie Key, where we had paddled the other day.  There it sat, beckoning to us, but acknowledging that we had already paddled over and explored its mysteries:

From the same spot, we could see the main developed waterfront of Cedar Key, past which our Oyster Extravaganza lay:

Kathy had researched the Oyster Roast enough to know that we would be able to order a plate of raw oysters.  When we arrived at the beachside park after the event started, we found people milling all about.  There was a line to buy tickets for food, and lines for each food option.  Fueling it all were these large bags of freshly harvested oysters, dumped into bins and hauled by hand over to a shucking table where generous members of the Cedar Key Oystermen's Association opened and shucked each fresh oyster before it was served to members of the public.

Our choices were raw oysters or smoked oysters.  We chose the smoked oysters.  As it turned out, the smoked oysters were simply raw oysters that spent perhaps 15 minutes over an open smoking fire -- warmed and enhanced with the smoky flavor of birchwood:

We bought our tickets for smoked oysters and got in another line to wait perhaps 30 minutes for our oysters to smoke.  In the meantime, Kathy noticed that someone was cooking and serving something else on the side.  She went over to investigate and discovered that some ladies were battering and frying fillets of mullet.  She ordered a serving for us to taste as we waited in line for our smoked oysters.

Eventually, we reached the big smoker where our own personal oysters awaited our pleasure.  We ordered 2 dozen, but there were only a dozen plus 9 oysters left on the grill.  We accepted 9 oysters for the second serving and repaired to some steps at the bandstand where we could hear some local musicians playing universal favorites such as "Wagon Wheel," "Ring of Fire," and "Margaritaville."  You can see the bandstand in the background behind the oyster smokers in the photo below:

Here, Kathy shows off her smoked oysters before they were demolished:

We feasted and listened to music until we were done feasting, dumped our oyster shells in a basket for recycling, and walked out to explore the town of Cedar Key and do some gift shopping.

Up 2nd Street we found the Cedar Key Artists Cooperative:

Kathy walked in to examined the arts and crafts available from local artisans, while David looked around for more public art.  It wasn't long before he found this lucky fisherman:

We shopped for some gifts and for some local products, and then walked back across 1st Street toward our Jeep.  Structures on both sides of the street had been impacted by the storm surge of Hurricane Idalia, but most had seen only minor damage, and much of it has been repaired.  We even spotted some whimsical reminders that this is, after all, an island of escape and pleasure:

We had some smoked mullet dip in our bag, so we had to head home promptly so that it would not spoil.  We passed some local fisher people, who seemed to be content to wait patiently for that "big catch."

Never saw them get that big catch.

Jumped in the Jeep and headed back to our campground.