Fifty years. And the sea still calls me. It's been the thread that has connected everything and everyone in my life.

I found Key West as a young man — not for the party, though I didn't say no lol — but for the way it always made me feel. The scurvy-dodging wanna-be pirates crusty old shrimpers and the frat party that seemed to never end on Duval. The forgotten stories washed up between Duval and the docks. Hemingway's house with the cats still holding court on the porch. I came for the history, and I left, every time, with more inspiration than I'd arrived with.

The light here does something to you. It softens the everything. Not the brutal mid-day sun but the sunsets, the hour before and after them. It makes the water look like silver that has it's been poured out across the Atlantic, and for a few hours each evening, standing at Mallory Square with the sun going down over the Gulf, the performers, huskers and drunks, its just a place like no other.

I've fished these waters. I've dived them. I've sailed them. I've watched tarpon roll at the docks at dusk know the sound of a sail snapping and filling with wind. I've raised a glass with strangers who became friends and friends who became family. This island gives you back something the mainland takes.

This year I turn fifty, and I'm coming home to Key West for it. There will be a boat. There will be a line in the water. There will be a mojito at sunset and telling the kind of stories with friends that only get told when the sun is low and the rum is honest.

If you've ever shared a sunset with me — or wish you had — help me make this one count. Buy me a drink. Put me on a charter. Or join me to help look forward to the next fifty years of fishing, sailing, and chasing the stories this island keeps handing out.

The sea is patient. The fish are waiting. Cheers to the next fifty.