The Turtle Kraals Restaurant and Pub in Key West- where spies hang out!

 

TURTLE KRAALS IN KEY WEST

 This was a former turtle cannery that was converted into a restaurant/bar. It serves waterfront drinks, oysters, and has Friday turtle races. You can see the turtle raceway set up out front in the above photo. The food is excellent, and you can mosey upstairs to the Tower Bar for a great view of the waters and sunset each evening. The bartender makes strong drinks, but that’s fine with me. Happy Hour is every day from 4pm to 6pm. 

     As an author, the place enveloped me; the setting would be perfect for scenes in my spy thriller novels since it sits in the heart of Key West’s Historic Seaport area. There are continual postcard-worthy views of boats pulling in and out of Key West harbor, all against the backdrop of a red and orange-streaked sunset. There is no other view like it in all of the Key West Historic Seaport!

     The Harborwalk Waterfront trail goes right by the rear door, so you can take a gentle stroll by the huge sail boats, and watch the fishermen bring in their catch.

     There’s free Turtle Races on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, starting at 4:30pm. Grab a free numbered ticket from the bartender or “Turtle Master” and gather with the cheering crowd to watch four box turtles scurry towards the finish line.

 The Turtle Kraals is mentioned often in the PENUMBRA DATABASE spy thriller. A few blocks away, on Eaton Street, is a clandestine safe house where the Director of CIA operations in the Florida Keys and Caribbean resides. He frequently dines at the Turtle Kraals. Here's a short scene from the novel: 

General Morrison sat at an open-air table at the Turtle Kraals restaurant, munching on crab cakes topped with mango chutney. It was an historic place where in years past kraals were used as holding corrals for green turtles before they were made into turtle soup. Perfect location, he thought- a funky old place on the waterfront and only a five-minute stroll back to the clandestine CBIF HQ where he lived on Eaton Street in Key West’s Historic Seaport District. 

He loved crab cakes, having dined on them for years when living in Severna Park, Maryland during his tenure at the CIA HQ in Langley. Bigger crabs in Maryland, but Turtle Kraals mixes them with chutney, making the cakes larger. Morrison thought they tasted better in Key West, despite the smaller size.

A DIU (Daily Intelligence Update) from agent Corey Pearson was expected and Morrison kept his lightweight, secure cell phone at ready in his shirt pocket. It only weighed four ounces, but used a large bit encryption on either end to prevent eavesdropping. Several “businessmen” with briefcases sat at a far table. They were part of Morrison’s counterintelligence crew and swept the open-air café at the Turtle Kraals for video or telephone microphones and remote-controlled transmitters. He continued ingesting the scrumptious crab cakes, wondering what Corey uncovered about the missing case officer.

     The Florida Keys made an ideal location for CBIF HQ. The Atlantic, Western Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico converge into the archipelago of hundreds of islands strung out over 130 miles. Morrison liked the fact that Key West was closer to Cuba than to Miami and US 1 was the only land-bound entrance and exit.

     The counterintelligence (CI) crew blended well with the customers who shared the café with them. Morrison watched the 130-foot schooner Western Union slowly edge its way out of the Key West Bight into the Gulf of Mexico. A hundred tourists were aboard, watching the experienced crew raise the towering sails. In the dock area, pelicans and cormorants waited patiently for arriving fishermen to toss fish innards to them.

     Morrison’s secure cell phone vibrated. He nonchalantly withdrew it from his shirt pocket. “Go ahead.”

     “It’s Pinkston. Much has happened down here since Pearson arrived. He’s been arrested as a murder suspect. Milo delivered the message to me. Corey talked with Darnell Ferguson for about an hour. Then, after their meeting at the British Colonial ended, a detective and two RBPF, Royal Bahamian Police Force constables arrested Corey on the beach and hauled him away.”

                                                                    ~

     Whenever I journey to Key West, I visit the Turtle Kraal. I hope you do, too.

Robert Morton is a member of the Association Of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community. He authors the Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster series.