Key West Sea Store - Antiques

Seastore is Bob Cerkleski's shop on Fleming Street, and the backstory explains everything on the shelves. Cerkleski trained as a marine biologist and served as curator of the Key West Aquarium before turning a lifelong interest in art and antiques into this. What he makes comes out of things the Keys have finished using. Wooden lobster and stone crab traps that have come out of service get taken apart and rebuilt as frames, which then hold Key West photography and island imagery. Old bottles, buoys and more trap material become glass sculpture. He forages the raw material from local junkyards and along the shoreline, which is a more honest description of recycling than most shops using the word.

The trap wood in particular is worth looking at closely. Florida spiny lobster traps are slatted wood, they live hard lives in salt water, and the ones that make it to the end of their working life have the weathering to show for it. Framed around a photograph of the island they were pulled out of, they carry more of the Keys in them than anything printed on a souvenir. Alongside the frames and glass work there are antiques, Key West memorabilia and photography, and Jimmy Buffett material for the people who come down here looking for exactly that.

Much of the inventory is one of a kind and lives at the shop rather than online, which is the real argument for walking in. Seastore sits on Fleming Street in Old Town, a block off the Duval crowds, which is also where you tend to find the shops worth finding. Hours are not published, so call ahead if you are making a special trip.