up late for work if the surfing is good. He has employees who arrive at work in wet suits. "Its very laid back," he says.

The Keys, without all the bells and whistles," is how Waterfront manager Bob Slicker describes Anna Maria Mr. Slicker likes it so much, he lives here and twice a year uses his vacation time to rent a place closer to the beach.

Maybe I will eat at the Water-front A fillet of grouper, lightly grilled, topped with crab, aspara­gus and a hollandaise sauce. Sesame tuna, grilled, on a bed of rice. Maybe I will walk  off my glut­tony and stare across the bay at the Sunshine Skyway, suspended in blue in the distance. Maybe not

Longboat Key

Instead, maybe I will get in the car and drive down Gulf of Mexico Drive, top down, Beach Boys singing "Don't Worry Baby," jade-blue water close enough to splash. I will pass Holmes Beach and Manatee County Beach and the lit­tle village of Bradenton Beach. I will cross a bridge onto Longboat Key.

They don't like beach goers on Longboat, not unless you're stay­ing in one of the condos behind the dunes. They make it hard for the non-paying to get to the sand. But I know a place to park. I have done this before. Many times.

road to the end, where there is a tiny turn-around and legal parking for eight or 10 cars. I go an hour before sunset, when all the beach people are packing up and head­ing the other way, the traffic stacked up like ants at a picnic.

There are no more than two or three cars parked when I arrive. I grab my beach chair and my book, climb the dune and view the best stretch of white sand I have ever seen.

There is no beach better in Florida than the beach at Long-boat Key.

I read and watch the sun slip into the Gulf like an over-easy egg off a plate.