November 28 29 St Marys to Cumberland Island and Lay Day There 6 5 Miles

Another short passage, though made longer because Lene had to go grocery shopping again, her fourth day in a row! So we did not leave until early afternoon, when the tide was flooding into the St. Marys River, reducing our speed. Once we arrived and the anchor was securely set, some course plotting for the stops between here and Fort Lauderdale, a good dinner and we snuggled in for a night that was supposed to be even colder than the one before, but wasnt. While I played with the charts, Lene checked out Cumberland Island by trhe internet. It is a "National Seashore" administered by the National Parks Service. Im grateful to Dick and Elle for suggesting Cumberland as a great place to stop and to Lene who found the activities on the island. It is very roughly the size of Manhattan Island and we passed its beachy Atlantic coastal side while heading south for the St. Marys River inlet about a week ago. Our anchoring location was on its east coast, just off "Sea Camp", the NPS ferry dock,

Dinghy left, ILENE, right

where small boatloads of passengers come over from St. Marys, twice a day, to mingle with folks like us who come on our own bottoms.

All the tourists are also divided among those, like us, who spend a day (or less) on the island and those who bring tents, food, water etc., and camp out at its camp sites, by permit, for up to a week, $4.00 per head! The campers can be further divided between those who take campsites less than a mile from the dock, and those who carry all their stuff up to eleven miles (and back) to camp at wilderness sites.The eight folks here came as a group, took the near option and very friendly.

We were fortunate to get two open spots (another couple had not been able to make it) on a guided tour for eight people in a government van for only $12 per senior.

led by NPS agent Roy

This was a six hour tour and Roy kept talking to us throughout and answering our questions about the geology, flora, fauna, history and politics of the island and the state of Georgia.  He was a great tour guide and very knowledgeable...and isnt allowed to accept gratuities!









We saw an armadillo

and more than a dozen of the 150 wild horses who inhabit this island.

They receive no food or veterinary services but live breed and die on the island and are quite unafraid of humans. They are smaller than the jumpers and hunters I know from barns and their life expectancy is half that of domesticated horses. They and the wild boar, were introduced here by the Spanish. We also saw wild turkeys and deer, close up, but without photos.
Live oaks predominate. This one  extends further to the right than shown, and as you can see, is quite wider than it is tall. They

are not harmed by the Spanish Moss that hangs from them, except to the extent that when wet, and the moss can hold up to ren times its weight in water, can break branches off the trees.. The branches can curve down to the ground and back up again, when they grow in open cleared fields, like the one pictured. Most of them are "Second Growth"; the primeval forest having been cut down to supply curved timbers for building ships like Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution, made largely of Cumberland Island live oak.
We visited the first African Baptist Church, near the north end, a very small, one room chapel in which John John F. Kennedy Jr. was married. It was also visited by President Carter, a Georgia boy.

We stopped at Plum Orchard, a huge formal house, of about 25,000 square feet, built by the widow of Andrew Carnegies brother, for one of their sons and his wife. Completed with indoor squash court and swimming pool about 112 years ago, it reminded me a bit of Downton Abbey, in terms of the social structure and activity norms of the people who lived there.

Even larger, 37,000 square feet, was the Dungeness Mansion, built by Mrs. Carnegie for herself on the ruins of the home of the former plantation owner. Her kids decided not to maintain it after her death so only the stone and bare verticals remain.

Ms. Carnegie owned about 95 percent of the island. Sadly, those kids, who never had to go to school or do any work, generally died young, of alcohol related disorders. Roy told us there were very limited fond feelings among the children for their mother.

The island is now almost entirely owned by the government but about five percent of it is held by about 25 folks with "reservations of rights", i.e., the right to exclusive control of their land until they die. Then, one by one, the government will take over and will either restore the buildings for park or administrative uses if they have historic value or raze the structures and let the wilderness take over again. One such rights holder is Carol, who like the horses, lives off the land, at the north end, and has done so for 44 years, while becoming an expert on sea turtles.
This wall is made of "tabby" which is home made "cinder blocks" molded from burned seashells, sand and water to make a cement in which unburned sea shells are embedded in lieu of gravel to make concrete.

In the morning I went back for a walk across the island to the sea. Even with light waves, you could hear the Atlantics roar from half mile away. Long board walks to avoid disturbing the very wide dunes;

except the horses tracks show that they ignore the signs.








And then there is a very wide beach. You can barely see the three NC elementary school teachers, seated, half way back to the dunes, just slightly to the right of center.

On our way back north, we hope to explore this island by bike. We loved Cumberland.

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October 26 and 27 Elizabeth City to Deep Point to Slade Creek 43 5 and 33 NM Respectively

From Eliz. City we got a late, 11 A.M. start, due to marketing.  It was mostly motoring but we put up the genoa three times for about half of the passage, once even turning off the motor. We arrived at the anchorage after the sun had set, but before it got dark. Our route was to continue down the Pasquotank River, traverse Albemarle Sound and go south (up) the Alligator River to a place off Deep Point which is deep enough to anchor, moderately protected from potential winds, outside the ICW channel and reachable before dark. The little white space to the left of the word "River" in the upper right quadrant of this chart segment hit the spot. It is 2/3 of a mile long and about 700 feet wide at its widest spot.

There are about 8 boats here. We are in 11 feet of water with 60 feet of chain out. We have a potential problem because when we tried to use reverse gear to set the anchor, we heard only strange sounds. So we laid out sixty feet of chain, which, with the weight of the anchor, held us in place all night in very gentle air. If we had dragged, there was a lot of room behind us toward the channel in which the anchor, hopefully would have caught. No internet access here. Dinner, card games (Lene almost always wins), reading and in the morning we emptied the aft compartment so I could take a look at the "no reverse gear" problem. I saw how, by disconnecting the end of the cable from the shift lever at the helm, one could manually shift the boat at the engine itself. And while we had access, I added distilled water to those of the cells of the batteries that looked like they could use a few sips.
Among the boats here were "Whisper," who we met in Elizabeth City, and their buddy boat "Piper."

In fact, two of the three adorable kids who played with Witty belong to Piper, not Whisper. We accompanied them most of the next day, toward Slade Creek through the Alligator-Pungo Canal and somewhat down the Pungo River, but they had elected to go elsewhere the second day.
The AP canal is quite a bit wider and almost twice as deep as the Great Dismal Swamp Canal.

Our only scary moment was crossing under the Wilkerson Bridge, near its southern end; unlike all the other fixed bridges over the ICW, which are 65 feet high, this one got short changed and is only 64 feet high -- and we are 63.5 feet high!

Slade Creek is wide and over a mile long. We got here first, at about 2:30 after a totally motoring day, and anchored in the first bend after entry, where the wind protection was good, in eight feet of water and were later joined by two other boats. There is lots of room here.

Then chores: I dove into the brownish, tannin dyed water and cut several lengths of line from around our propeller, but the boat still makes a chattering noise in reverse. We will get this checked out in Oriental, our next stop. (Also the harvesting of leaves in the Great Dismal Swamp Canal whacked our wind speed and direction instruments making them even more in need of calibration.)  I went up the mast to reattach the halyard for the Harlem Yacht Club burgee because the halyard had worn through in the strong winds in Yorktown, completed the wiring of our two million candlepower flashlight for finding buoys at night, hung a picture, fixed a cabinet and organized our cabinets. This last in the course of looking for the two white LED interior lights that we replaced with red ones to preserve night vision. Lene does not like living in a red light district. But we have not found the white ones yet.
The problem here is flies, lots of them. Lene killed about a hundred that had invaded ILENE. She is fully screened but they got in while we were underway and the companionway was open.
Also Alphie gave Lene a scare. She was missing, Lene was crying. I looked in both the aft end and the forward end of the stack pack tube that holds our mainsail when it is not in use. No Alphie. Finally I unzipped the top of the tube to raise this sail and there she was, in the middle, perturbed that her nap disturbed.

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April 17 19 Redbird Creek to Beaufort SC and Two Lay Days There 66 5 Miles

We hauled the anchor at 7:15 to get to Hell Gate about 30 to 60 minutes before high tide at 8:40, measured at a tide station only 2.5 miles from that canal. It was cold and windy -- in the wrong direction -- but we passed through Hell Gate with no less than nine feet of depth -- about six more than would have been there at low tide. We got such an early start and partial favorable tides, that we changed our destination from Bull Creek to Beaufort SC, which had been scheduled as the next days destination; we got onto a mooring, rather than their dock where we had stayed our last two times here at 5:05 pm.  Generally the tides were running to the sea from high tide near Hell Gate for six hours and then rushed upstream. The course was so circuitous and involved going upstream on some rivers and down on others that it was always a surprise to us when we entered a new segment to find out which way the tide was flowing. With 2500 rpms on the Yanmar our speed varied from 4.8 to 8.4 knots depending on the current. Maybe some Comp Sci Ph.D. could solve the riddle of when is the best time to leave from point A to go to Point B, depending on your boats speed, unadjusted for tide, and the date in the lunar cycle. But I cant game nature. I mentioned hairpin curves and here is an early part of the passage

from the pliers at the right, through Hell Gate  at the screwdriver tip, upper right, past one hairpin curve above the big washer to just above the wrench jaw at the left. Overall,  the course for this segment was about 30 degrees, or north of northeast.
The portion of the days passage before we got to and crossed the Savannah River was new to us. It took us past Thunderbolt, the boating capital of Georgia. We had heard so much about this place, so close to Savannah, including that the marina brings you a free Krispy Kreme doughnut in the morning. Here are its boatyard and marina and a big beauty. I wonder how she got in this far from the sea with her mast vastly exceeding 65 feet in height.

We also passed Paris Island and Hilton Head, both of which I mentioned during our voyage south last fall.  We tried to motor sail in the afternoon, when we got to Port Royal Sound and the Beaufort River the last 14 miles, but the wind had died down and our speed brought it to our nose.
Our stay in Beaufort was quiet. Unlike our last two visits here, we took one of the marinas moorings. We used the marinas courtesy car to spend $290 at the Publix on Ladies Island, across the river. We off loaded several days of our garbage, filled our four one gallon water bottles, met with friends, including a pot luck dinner ashore. We had planned only one lay day, but the forecast weather seemed worse on the second lay day and we like it here so we stayed.
We made a date with Carla, co-owner of another Saga 43, "Reverie", as she was driving past this town between Charleston and Brunswick. But she had a friend as a passenger who did not want to stop, so our rendezvous had to be put off until the fall when, hopefully, Carla and John, who we have not yet met in person, will be driving through New York on a day when we will be there.
We spent some time discussing whether to divide the segment from Beaufort to Charleston into two halves, as we did on the trip south, but in the end decided to go almost all the way to Charleston and anchor in the Stono River, just south of the city. This solution avoids two problems. 1. It is hard to find a berth in Charleston due to Race Week. 2.  There is a strong tide under a bridge that is closed for rush hours which we have to pass at the end of another long day, just before Charleston.
We saw a matinee of Noel Cowards "Blithe Spirit", at the USC Beaufort campus theater. We sat next to Louise and Jim, nice folks, who recommended "Narrow Dog to Indian River" by Terry Darlington, which I am recommending to Dick and Elle.

Though in a university setting, the show was put on by the local theater group and funny, a farce: during a seance with a medium a mans wife comes back as a ghost visible only to him and torments his new wife. And only $20 per ticket for good seats.
And having had dinner and breakfast at Low Country Produce, located in the former City Hall, during our trip south, we had lunch there this time. Innovative inexpensive food in a place with cloth napkins  which also retails its food; one sits among display cases and racks.
The dink is hauled and we have to get underway early tomorrow to make the 7 am opening of the Ladies Island Bridge, less than a quarter mile away, or wait until 9:00.

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March 5 10 Six Lay Days in Fort Lauderdale Zero Miles

Dinner at the Downtowner, across the river, under the Andrews Avenue Bridge, outdoors, ten feet from the River, after dark, with great atmosphere, twice. Here from the other side of the river, by day.

Once, just the two of us, and the second time with Craig and Kathy. Their 45 Amel Santorin ketch, "Sangaris", is now back in Florida after they have spent the last fifteen years living aboard, as far away as the Galapagos in the Pacific, and throughout the western Med. Craig is a Past Commodore of the Harlem, now an honorary member. They have more miles under their keel than all the rest of us Harlemites put together. I was pleased to tell him that ILENE is the second most sailed boat in the Club. I raced a few times with Craig and Kathy on their old boat "C-Jack" and learned a lot about how to do this thing. Yelling never helps when things go wrong, as they invariably will. Quick, calm instructions on how to fix the problem is what is needed. We enjoyed some wine etc. aboard before the Downtowner.

We also enjoyed mango-sweet potato pancakes with Lenes HS classmate, Elissa and her husband Len, This was the advance guard of Lenes Lincoln HS class of 67 reunion in Boca Raton next week.

Since we left New York I have been meaning to shorten the length of the strap at the tack of the Genoa, to pull that sail down

about an inch in order to be able to stretch out its luff (front edge) more fully. I think that the sail has simply gotten stretched out a bit during the many years of heavy use so that unless I lowered the bottom, the top would get stuck and interfere with furling. I took advantage of access to the tack of the sail from the dock on a windless morning to do this job, doubling the bottom of the strap back upon itself to create a new loop to shorten it. It was too difficult to force the needle through the tough doubled multi-layered strap, even with the palm. So I used fewer stitches than I had planned and other methods to attempt to achieve this job. Time will tell whether the sewing will be strong enough.

We contacted canvas shops to try to get what Lene has sought since those cold days on the way south -- a cockpit, fully enclosed by clear plastic, which will warm up without the cold wind blowing freely through it. The boat came with five panels of mosquito screening to keep out the prevalent pests in the hot summery months in the Chesapeake, where the original owner kept this boat, then called "La Vie." I put these panels up once, on a rainy day, about eight years ago. So I knew they fit. But they did not keep the rain out, nor the wind. The plan is to use the existing Sunbrella canvas "frames" or "hems" around the outside of the panels, but cut out the screen material and sew in sheets of clear strong plastic. I put the panels up and took measurements and photographs. We sent what we have back to Doyle Sails on City Island who will do the work and send them back to us. Best price plus friendly knowledgeable local work at home.

"La Vie" is a lovely name for a boat, by the way, "The Life". But it was not as good for us as ILENE. It is said to be bad luck to change a boats name, but I have changed the name of each of the three boats I have had. The Pearson 28 went from "Y Knot" to "Just Cause".  The Tartan 34 went from "Alsterwasser" (the favorite beer of the late husband from whose widow we bought her) to "ILENE", as did "La Vie."

Carlos walked the dock, gave me his card and offered to clean and wax the exterior of the boat including the stainless, from the waterline up.  Cleaning is work that I can do, though in hindsight, not as well as Clarence. And though I can do it, I seem to not get around to doing it and  I have never gotten ILENE as clean and shining bright white as Carlos has. She had not been done since last spring. Carlos worked, with power polishers,  the better part of three days, and the money was well spent.

I learned a lot at the New River Hotel, now the history museum, located in the former small modest cinder block hotel beside the former Florida East Coast Railroad depot. The FEC still screams past, many times per day, over that RR bridge, right outside the hotel, but they are freight trains and do not stop at the former passenger depot. There are plans to run passenger trains from Miami to Disneyworld over these same tracks. But there is some opposition to the plan because it would require the RR bridge  to open an additional 30 times per day with the loud train whistle reverberating at one second intervals while the trains pass through the heart of the city.

The train runs near Cooleys Landing, because Flagler couldnt persuade the Brickell family, who owned Broward County, to sell him a right of way closer to the coast. And that is why Flagler did not build his typical Flagler pleasure palace hotel here and this one was built by others. There was indeed a fort here, three of them in fact, one after the other, named after the commander of the first fort, one a Mr. Lauderdale. Most of us think of this place as a beach town, which it certainly is ("Where The Boys Are"), but the town grew up by the New River, where we are, several miles west of the beach. The river got its name, according two two competing legends, either (A) because an earthquake caused an underground stream to rise to the surface, i.e., a new river, or (B) because the mouth of the river kept shifting, causing it appear as a new river each time it was charted. Neither story sounds true to me. Cooley, after whose landing our Marina is named, was a local merchant and Justice of the Peace. He also operated a large facility extracting arrowroot from the roots of a plant he grew. When some drunken settlers killed an Indian, he had the culprits arrested and brought to trial. But he lost the prosecution because his only witnesses were Indians, and they could not testify in 1835. The witnesses were upset and blamed Cooley. Some time later they killed Cooley and his family. Class dismissed.

We prayed on the sabbath with Lenes cousin, Jeff, at Temple Beth Am (house of the people) in Margate.. Jeff is an officer there. The service was in the Conservative tradition, in which I grew up and belonged for the first 30 years of my life. Many of the melodies were familiar to me. The Rabbis sermon was timely and excellent, drawn from an essay whose author he credited.
The current spat between the Prime Minister of Israel and President Obama and Senator Boehner who invited Netanyahu to address Congress without asking Obama, was nothing but a bunch of politicians ALL behaving badly. They all agree that Iran cannot be permitted to get a bomb and that Israels security must be assured.  He traced the history of the U.S. - Israel relationship and showed that it was not a warm one until the 1967 war; that the chief suppliers of arms to Israel until then were first the French and then The Soviets via Chechoslovakia.  But, having failed to pacify Afghanistan or Iran after almost 15 years of trying, the U.S., under Obama, has moved to a policy of requiring the four major powers of the region to buffer each other and balance each other out, with U.S. air strikes providing a bit of assistance, to assist ground troops of the local rivals. The four powers in this regional analysis are Turkey, Israel, Iran and the Saudis, none of which like each other, and all of which have cause to hate ISIS.  The spat between Israel and the U.S. comes from Israels feeling of loss that that they were the favorite of the US.  Yet there are many hawkish right wing Jews in the US who hate our President for many reasons. Jeffs Rabbi is to be commended for not joining them.

 After services we had lunch with Jeff, his brother Alan and their Mom, Naomi, at a Chinese Buffet that Naomi craved. This was her first outing since our December visit, when she was in rehab for a broken pelvis. After eating too much we were driven back to Naomis house to pick up about six packages which we had shipped there and then back home to ILENE, for the rest of the rainy day.

I walked to and on the beach one day, via Las Olas Boulevard. Well, a quarter of the round trip was a ride, from the Post office, where I had walked to send off the screens. to the beach. I passed the art gallery district including Pococks, whose owner, though British, like George Pocock, was not related to that famous builder of cedar rowing shells featured in "The Boys In the Boat." I told him that he would enjoy the book.  On the beach I walked north, past the most crowded spot, called "Beach Place," covered with young bikini clad women and men who desired them, then past a gay section of the beach and finally a much more sparsely blanketed section by the Westin Hotel, featuring older people and families. On the way back, along Las Olas ("The Waves"), I noticed the towns logo: a boat with a spinaker on the bow and a phoenix or rising sun as the main.

I walked past the ends of the many canals that were dredged to Las Olas Blvd. and visited an open house in this almost completed new 7488 square foot home. It can be yours for less than $7M. Nice spot to dock ILENE comes with it. But not for us.

We had wine and then dinner aboard with my only nephew, David, who this lousy under-lit photo does not do justice, sorry Dave. He lives with his lovely wife and two kids in Atlanta where he has a business, but is also a partner in a business in Boca Raton and works here three days (two night) per week. He had a weekend with his father aboard "Just Cause" back in 1996, from City Island to Northport and back, but had never seen ILENE. 
We have several more days here in Fort Lauderdale.

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October 6 Oriental to Morehead City 19 5 Nautical Miles

We had to get our sea legs back. But while it was calm in Whittaker Creek, it was blowing hard, though probably not as hard as our new wind measuring instrument shows -- calibration needed -- once we left its shelter.  We could have beat the first five miles crossing the Neuse River, but after that is was mostly canal-like waterways with the wind strong in our faces from the southwest and we motored all the way and did not set a sail.  Approaching Morehead City/Beaufort a pod of perhaps 20 dolphins passed us, going upstream, in groups of two or three at a time, their black fins, and later their backs revealing them. Sorry I could not catch a picture; I was at the helm. This military assault landing vessel was going out Beaufort Inlet to the sea while we were approaching it from the north.

Our first stop was a fuel dock, which was tricky getting into, and back off from with all that wind, but we took on 45.8 gallons, our first refueling since Annapolis. I figure that since Yorktown, we have been burning .66 gallons per hour.
We had several choice anchorages picked out but with all this wind we took a spot on the dock of Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant for $25 if you eat here.
We were joined for dinner there by Deb and Terry of "Island Time," a 42 foot Brewer cutter-rigged cruiser, the boat that is tied up behind us and enjoyed good conversation but sadly, very mediocre food.

They are from Midland Michigan and plan a five winter campaign to cover the Caribbean, all the way to Panama and the Central American coastal nations, leaving the boat for the summers. He was an engineer for a chemical company and she retired as a professor of biology.
           For tomorrow I planned two options. The first is to go out of Beaufort Inlet and back in at the Masonboro inlet near Wrightsville Beach. This is about 75 miles, but 69 of them a straight shot in the ocean, where we can go straight and fast. They predict 20 to 25 miles of wind from the NW, so it would be a speedy beam reach and close to shore so that the big seas will not have had a chance to build up and winds diminishing by five knots in the afternoon.  The alternative is a two day passage to Wrightsville Beach via the Intercoastal. The problem with this second alternative is the midpoint anchorage -- Mile Hammock Bay located in Camp Lejeune. Specifically, the Coast Guard is advising that the ICW will be closed tomorrow for military exercises involving firing live ammunition in the direction of Mile Hammock Bay. So the inside route may require us to spend another day here. A variation on plan B, mentioned by our new friends during dinner, would be to anchor at Swansboro, about ten miles short of Camp Lejeune with a rather longish run in the ICW the next day.  After dinner, while we walked four blocks to the postoffice and back Lene prevailed upon me to forego plan A for fear that even if we left at first light, we would have only 11.5 hours before it got dark, meaning that we would have to make 6.5 knots to get there before dark. Plan for the worst is her mantra. And Lene did not relish rising before daybreak and a rough passage and I like a happy crew. Lets check the weather again in the morning.

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January 11 15 Five More Lay Days in Coconut Grove 1 5 Miles

We spent four nights at a dock of the Coral Reef YC, after one more rough night on anchor in the John Brennan Channel way off from the Dinner Key Marina. We did not even go ashore the day after the botanical garden trip, because it was so rough. This Google Earth picture shows both locations and the route between them, which is not charted, in the northern half of its brief 1.5 miles. (The dinghy dock is clearly visible in the extreme lower left and the well marked Dinner Key Channel -- through which we entered and will leave -- runs in from below the yellow humanoid figure in the upper right, slightly downward to the left, between two islands. The chart does not indicate and I am not sure which of the islands shown is actually Dinner Key.)

 The white dots, right side lower central are moored boats. They are rather orderly, like grave stones, because mooring fields are generally laid out in an orderly manner. We were anchored to the right of them, off the picture, in the anchorage area, where such orderliness does not exist. Our first anchoring attempt (not enough water) was among the white dots at the extreme lower right corner. The dark blue between these two fields of dots is the John Brennan Channel. To got to the Coral Reef YC we motored (1) to the  left through that well marked channel, (2) south of the lower end of the berm that runs sort of vertically past the end of the seven docks of the Dinner Key YC, (3) turned left to pass between the ends of those docks and the island running to the upper right, and (4) hugging the ends of the smaller docks, toward the upper left where we (5)entered and tied on, facing the shore, between the two shoreward docks extending downward from the "E" shaped dock in the extreme upper left.
 After bringing ILENE to the dock we went to the movies seeing Big Eyes (about an female artist who painted children with emotive big eyes and her emotionally abusive husband) and Inherent Vice (which provided a vehicle for actors to act as trashy people doing trashy things which signified nothing and was a waste of time). And we stopped at Fresh Market for take out food to eat at home, i.e., aboard.
We learned the local mass transit system and used it to visit local cultural attractions. This included the rather new, large and very elegant Perez Art Museum of Miami (PAMM).
The 249 bus took us from two blocks from the YC, about a mile, to the Coconut Grove light rail elevated system station which in turn took us to the People Mover, a free elevated loop in the central downtown area, which left us a block from the museum, of which the Miamians are quite proud, having spent $200 million on its construction in prime real estate next to the new concert hall and the new science museum under construction.

Lene hooked up with the same Rhonda who we had dined with on our first night in Miami Beach and three other women. She viewed the art and had lunch with them. I explored the art myself. It rained a lot early in the day but we had our foulies and did not get very wet. Most of the artists were not known to me and most had some Miami or south Florida connection by birth, education, work, residence or death.They had a large collection of pop art, by name brand artists: Warhol, Lichtenstein, etc. which Lene liked. This seemed old to me. These two works, one inside and one out, are based on geodesic domes.

My favorite was this painting, approximately 5 by 8 feet by my guess, by an African artist. Three zig zag lines, two starting in the upper right and one from the top toward the left define the spaces that are painted in. And the bottom represents more, little triangles that I saw as water in this landscape, though the plackard said it could be a TV static pattern. I spent quite a few minutes intrigued by this one.

Another day we visited Viscaya, the seaside mansion of John Deering of John Deere fame, another Breakers-like home of the rich. This one was built during the portion of WWI before the US went "over there" to end it. Deering was a bachelor and imported fountains and whole rooms of walls and furniture from Europe. Quite lovely actually. The big change here in the last century was the erection of a glass roof to cover and hence seal off the central courtyard onto which all rooms of all three floors open -- to keep out the salt air and rain. This, of course, also necessitated air conditioning. And the gardens are not what they once were. I love these marble floors of theseaside and land entryways:

The gardens are nothing to sneeze at either, and here is one of the fountains with "merboys"  --mermaids with boys instead of girls.

A large stone Venetian barge (a place for guests to recline at ease) was built on a sandbank to protect Vizcayas sea entrance, with me at the extreme left and the towers over Government Cut barely visible on the horizon in the between. A bird walked by unconcerned with his proximity to humans.

One evening some young men strolled past our boat and started up a conversation because they recognized ILENE. Russ and Tom had sailed with my late son-in-law, Julien, and sung his praises and those of my daughter who they asked me to convey their good wishes. Small world.
We spent a pleasant afternoon lounging at the YCs underutilized swimming pool and, after some wine aboard, had a nice dinner at the Yacht Club with Jerry and Louise, who came over from Miami Beach and took us to Publix afterwards so Lene could get some products that the very nearby Fresh Foods does not stock, e.g. frozen blueberries and sugarless peanut butter. We lucked out that this was an all you can eat pasta plus night for only $17.00.  I have yet to learn how to avoid over stuffing myself at such affairs, though. The eighteen percent service charge is added to the bill automatically. This club has lots of helpful friendly staff to serve its 800 members, most of who do not keep boats here. It has fixed concrete piers against which we put up the fender board. The docks are busy by day with contractors and many people in suits apparently use the club day and night as a venue to do business. The only drawback is that on sunny days numerous black birds sit in the rigging and emit the remains of their fruit based diet, staining the deck. I washed it off over and over and will use bleach on the remaining stubborn though by now faint stains.
Another evening we were visited by Janet (who had taken us to the Chihuly exhibit) and another member of Lenes grade school posse, also named Rhonda. Rhonda was in town from New York to visit her Mom. After wine and cheese and a tour of the boat, I had, among other things, a single stone crab leg, my first, a delicacy here, and not as good as other seafood to my taste. This was at the well known but not excessively expensive (except for stone crab legs) Montes, on the water, less than a quarter mile away. Photo to be added. Janet and ?Ed may drive down to Marathon to visit us there, and perhaps to fish, though access to the boat on anchor or mooring will be more difficult for Janet than dockside. Also, yesterdays news about Cuba has started us thinking about getting the charts and cruising guides we will need for such a visit, though our insurer, Pantaenius, has not yet come around on this issue. They have several weeks to do so. Life is very very good.

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February 3 6 3 5 Lay Days in Key West Zero Miles

Im calling it 3.5 lay days because we got in so early on Feb. 3, shortly after 1 pm. We strolled Mallory Square and Duval Street -- the heart of the islands tourism. The cruise ships tie up at Mallory Square. The buskers perform there. The town is jammed with tourism. Countless bars (someone said 400), restaurants, shops (chi chi and otherwise), B and Bs, and boats selling trips to fish, sail, look through glass bottoms, dive, snorkel, or jet-ski etc. Most of the  B and Bs and restaurants are in former homes in residential neighborhoods. There are also many larger hotels, new and old.  This town is SO changed from my navy days here, the two months of August and September of 1965.  Possibly this had something to do with the season. Then it was hot -- the seaweed that washed ashore rotted on the beaches giving off  sulfurous fumes that peeled the paint off houses!

When a hurricane came through, my ex and I were ordered to evacuate the little cinder block house we inhabited and stay in the navy school, perhaps the sturdiest structure on the island. We parked our little red Triumph Spitfire on the navy bases baseball field, which was on high(er) ground. I went looking for the squat hot cinder block apartment where we lived but sometime in the last 50 years it had been replaced, with a larger more upscale structure.  It was right down the street from a large parcel of land that was all boarded up in 1965.

When next I visited this island, in the mid 80s the Bar Association Section meeting was held behind those boards -- in the newly renovated Marriott Casa Marina Hotel. The original Casa Marina had been built by Henry Flagler, at the end of Flagler Avenue. The road, Highway 1, which ends (or begins) here, was not a road 100 years ago, but a railroad. The Casa Marina is now a Waldorf Astoria Hotel after an additional renovation.

It was from the beach of the Casa Marina that I had my first sailing lesson, only five minutes long and not long enough: we capsized the Hobie cat several times, righted her, beached her on off-limits property of the Navy base and told the hotel to come and get it and us -- a better solution than going the other way -- to Cuba. And I learned through that experience that I needed lessons to become a sailor.

We were on a budget back in the mid 60s. Movies on the navy base and reading of the NY Times Sunday edition were our primary leisure activities plus swimming in the base pool and shopping at the PX.  The Jewish high holy days took place during our time here. In my Ensigns white uniform my ex and I attended the local synagogue, which has long since been replaced by a larger modern structure. The congregation raised funds by offering ritual honors to those who could afford to buy them. One man gave his honor "to the Navy boy".  Later, my ex said: "Hes taken!" when the gentleman, a local merchant, tried to introduce me to his daughter. Another merchant invited us to the post-prayer feast at his home following services. There I ate my first gefilte fish, home made by his black maid. My father was right! I didnt know what I had been missing.

The island was at a nadir in the 60s which I imagined got worse when the navy shut its base and pulled up stakes here. Duval Street was undergoing a repaving job which lasted most of our two months. Sloppy Joes, on Duval, Hemingways favorite bar, was a stop for us then, no trouble finding a place at the bar.

But I have been told that it was the departure of the navy which created the start of the tourist boom here. One thing remains the same: the roar of navy jets taking off from the naval air base on adjacent Boca Chica Key, due east of here. LOUD! Another thing is new -- I dont recall it in the past: as in the Caribbean nations, chickens roam the streets, their crowing ringing out in the night. you might call them free range chickens.

OK, Roger; enough nostalgia!

We visited "The Little White House",  Harry Trumans favorite retreat during and following his term of office. We enjoyed an excellent informative tour by docent Rene. The navy came to Key West early in the 19th century, long before Florida was a state, and created a base to fight our enemy -- pirates!

The place had become a submarine base and when President Truman was ordered by his doctors to take his first vacation after many months in office
-- in a warm place -- Key West was chosen. The position of base commander being vacant, that officers residence was used. The President loved it here and the navy improved, expanded and redecorated it for his future use. Other executives have used it too, most recently, Collin Powell, as Secretary of State, to work out the settlement of the Balkan War. The place was sold to a developer who wanted to develop Tank Island, across the harbor. He needed easements and the State said: "Sure, IF you fix up the Little White House and give it to the state as a tourist site."

We had a pretty good dinner on Lenes birthday at "Flaming Buoy".  The original proposed name was "Flaming Buoy and Hot Grill." Key West, like Provincetown, has a lively gay segment of its population.

We had breakfast at "Blue Heaven", highly rated and decent and a lunch in a very nice retro Chinese restaurant (when have you last seen Chow Mein or Chop Suey on a menu?) because we were cold walking home during the rare all-day rain. We do not eat deserts so we were not able to patronize a desert restaurant named "Better Than Sex."Its menu has suggestive double entendred names.

The rain came after the day I scrubbed ILENEs topsides. I used FRS to get the rust stains out near where the anchor rode has been shedding pieces of rust. It worked well.

We visited the two iconic sites of Key West:

We had a nice dinner aboard with Alice and Danny. Well, left over sausage, pepper and onion with pasta, red sauce and cheese, plus salad, wine and fresh fruit. No one went to bed hungry. Alice is a friend of Lenes from NY, now living in North Carolina and married to Danny. I had never met either of them before. They are here on a land vacation, found we were here via Facebook and we got connected. Lovely people and a nice evening.

Ernest Hemingways house was a repeat tour for both Lene and me, though we had each visited it in the past with others. The crowd there reminded me of  the Sistine Chapel in July. Another excellent informative and entertaining docent with what might be called Key West attitude.

One of the 45 six toed cats that have
 the run on the place, on the marital bed.

His study in loft above the caraige house where he worked
from 6 a.m. each day and wrote most of his books

Papa Hemingway surrounded by his
 four wives, one of who bought this house for him.

And while the light house has been here since the mid 19th century, it was not on the tourist list until recently.  Unlike the lights of Scotland described in a book review in a recent post, this one was set way back from the sea, on high ground, and made of brick. It was decommissioned in the 1960s. The  picture of it is from the Hemingway House balcony. We climbed the 88 steps and saw the museum in the keepers house.

We will be here in the Bight for a few more days.

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