Dismal Key is a small island, part of the Ten Thousand Islands archipelago in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida.
It lacks a permanent source of fresh water, which is available only by being imported, collected from rainfall, or extracted from the local cacti. In pre-Columbian times it was inhabited by members of the Calusa nation, highly skilled as fishers, artisans and traders. A huge mound of oyster shells, 15 feet high, remains as a monument to the Calusa. In recent times, Dismal Key has no permanent human habitation - only the occasional hermits, poachers, smugglers and tourists.
Dismal Key is the locale for the second half of the novel Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen.
Famous quotes containing the words dismal and/or key:
“To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind moan and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to listen to the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee of some old barn or rick, or in the hollow of a tree; are dismal things—but not so dismal as the wandering up and down where shelter is, and beds and sleepers are by thousands; a houseless rejected creature.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“As soon as you are in a social setting, you better take away the key to the lock of your heart and pocket it; those who leave the key in the lock are fools.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)