Here & Now

Ever notice how people who spend too much time on islands are, shall we say, a wee bit off? One needn’t actually live there, just hang with the natives a little too long. Case in point: Magician David Copperfield has been holed up lately on Musha Cay, the gazillion-dollar private Bahamian island he bought in something like a hostile takeover, guarding the Fountain of Youth that he’s convinced he has discovered there. There’s a bar in the British Virgin Islands where the beverage of choice contains magic mushrooms gathered by night on the mountainside. And on Pentecost Island deep in the South Pacific, loincloth-clad men tie Tarzan vines to their ankles and plunge headfirst from atop a 50-foot tower of sticks to bounce off the dirt below just before their necks snap. It’s a sacred annual tribute both to manhood and to the spirit of the sweet potato harvest.

"Well, that’s there," you might say, "and this is here. Weird potato doings and bizarre native dress don’t have anything to do with islands along our sophisticated Gulfshore."

With all due respect, you might be wrong about that. Take, for instance, Useppa, a charming, Old Florida island just eight miles north of Captiva Island—with a tiny population, even in mid-season. Gracious homes, exclusive shabby chic sportsman’s club and romantic inn. Nice people, normally. But provoke their ire and the Useppa Militia might well be called to arms. The weapon is a musket-like apparatus fueled by hair spray and loaded with potatoes. Not just any hair spray, says militiaman Barney King. Must be White Rain. And certainly not just any potato. Must be Yukon Gold. My guess is that it’s a throwback to the Civil War when island residents—not-too-bright Yankee sympathizers—lobbed potatoes at passing Confederate ships. Personally, I suspect it has something to do with the island’s Calusa Indian mounds, or the headless body of a Spanish princess supposedly buried by womanizing pirate Jose Gaspar back around 1800. Her name was Josefa. In any case, it’s best to announce your intentions to visit well ahead of time, or show up in the relative safety of one of the official lunch cruises. www.useppa.com, (239) 283-1061 or www.captivacruises.com.

Indian spirits can’t be held responsible for the insanity that happens every Sunday down on Goodland, just off S.R. 92. Not technically an island—it occupies the southeast corner of Marco Island—but it may as well be. I suspected it might be a bit off on my first visit several years ago, when the best-landscaped yard in town featured a row of painted toilet bowls planted with flowers. Suspicions were confirmed when I spotted the voluptuous Queen Mary, poured into a black bodysuit decorated in feathers, doing the Buzzard Lope on stage at Stan’s Idle Hour Seafood Restaurant and Bar. Turns out Stan-The-Man Gober, inspired by the antics of buzzards feasting on roadkill (this is verifiable public information), invented the dance and a song to go with it. Once a year, for the past 22 years, Buzzard Lope Queen hopefuls, dressed in their best tail feathers, have gathered to compete for the coveted title. Queen Mary, who holds the most titles, doesn’t compete anymore, but she still dances onstage for her fans. You can practice any Sunday, when everyone from the after-church ladies to the Harley crowd gather to feast on grouper sandwiches and cold beer, and hear Stan sing. Boaters can tie-up at the dock right beside Stan’s open-air patio. Check it out: www.stansidlehour.net, (239) 394-3041.

Roadkill dancers and potato militias fade in comparison with the weirdness that inhabits Matlacha, a spot of rainbow colors at the bridge from civilization to Pine Island. Case in point: At least 20 percent of the island’s women are card-carrying hookers. More about that in a minute. The second biggest sport on the island involves tossing dead mullet. (Hint from prior mullet-tossing champ Nancy Goodwin: You’ll want to be among the early tossers for the least mess.)

Matlacha’s claim to fame, besides the self-proclaimed title to the Fishingest Bridge in the World, is its quarter mile of terminally cute, brilliant-hued fishing shacks—half on the highway, half in danger of sliding into Pine Island Pass. Some have been reborn as totally funky galleries or kayak shops, a few are private homes and weekend fishermen’s retreats, and one, I found (right), turned out to be a big sheet of painted wood and sheet metal to fake me out: curtains, doorknobs, window boxes and all. As for the locals, well, there’s definitely something besides fish in those waters. Artist and gallery owner Leoma Lovegrove, who, besides from her paintings, makes a fine living turning 35,000 coconuts into mailable postcards each year (biggest customer is Disney), also has painted herself a quite colorful seven-day wardrobe. Makes life easier, she says: wake up, see by the calendar that it’s Thursday, put on Thursday pants. Laid-back vacationers who lose track of their days can stop in and look at Leoma’s pants. Makes sense to me. What doesn’t make any sense at all is the intense need I had, when visiting the island, to become a hooker. Not just me, either. There are more than a thousand of us worldwide, charmed by the same mysterious spell. In any case, I’m an official, dues-paying member of the Matlacha Hookers, with all the privileges and responsibilities implied therein. You know, this would be the obvious place to explain that, but I’m not going to. OK, fine. I confess that although we do address our leader as Madam President, my sisters and I wear the official "hook" to symbolize membership in the most fun women’s fishing and community service organization in the world, established by one-time mullet-toss winner Nancy Goodwin herself. Tossing smelly fish not your thing? No worries. The craziness and color never stop in Matlacha and environs. Art Nights, Songwriter Sundays, the world-famous Mango Mania festival each July. And there’s always Leoma’s pants.