Sailing the Sloop Reality

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I’m back aboard Reality, docked at the Harbor Towne Marina in Dania Beach, just outside of Fort Lauderdale. I’ve been up to the Marina’s complementary breakfast, with bagels and doughnuts and muffins and spreads and juice. No Krispy Kremes, though.

I had a great visit in New York – fun with old friends and new. Just about the first thing I did was to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I discovered some corners of exhibits that I had never seen before. The most interesting was a small gallery on the third-floor above the Asian wing covering Chinese decorative arts that we reached by taking a small elevator disguised as an alcove display case.

I went out to New Jersey for dinner with my sister (known to the message board as Green Bean), brother-in-law, and dog-in-law, Spot the wonder-pup. Since I’ve been on the trip, I’ve been letting my beard and mustache grow, and Spot was greatly appreciative of this. He would sit on the couch for as long as you let him, licking my bearded face. It was only when he was blocking my view of the World Series on TV or when he got that ticklish spot just under my chin that I would push him away. He even preferred licking my beard to licking my feet, which is odd, as Spot is a notorious foot-licker.

I went to Long Island for lunch with my parents at their (and Peggy’s) yacht club, where we had started our trip. My dad had been handing out copies of this narrative to all and sundry at the Yacht Club and the rest of the Port Washington boating community. My mom, who is president of the local library board of trustees, was working on the speech she would give this weekend at the rededication of the library after a major expansion project she oversaw.

On Wednesday, I went to a casual Halloween gathering at a bar in Brooklyn. In response to the e-mail telling me about it, I said, “I’ll be there with bells on.” This provoked some light e-mail banter, so I thought I’d try to find some bells to wear there. After a brief search I stumbled into my local pet store and found a parakeet cage decoration with three small bells attached for a buck seventy-nine. I clipped it to my buttonhole as I walked through Brooklyn to the bar. When I got there, everyone praised my creativity and flair. Interestingly they phrased their admiration: “What a total geek!”

Yesterday evening I flew back. Joan had been on an earlier flight that day. She was asleep in the forward cabin by the time I got there. Gene and I watched the baseball game, with me dozing off in my bunk as it went into extra innings.

We’re carefully watching Hurricane Michelle (upgraded from tropical storm this morning), which has barely moved from its position southwest of Cuba for the past few days. It looks like we’ll be here in Fort Lauderdale for some extra days, at least until we see what the storm will do.

Bill’s Boating Safety Tip of the Day: If you’ve been letting your beard and mustache grow wild for almost a month, be careful when taking the first sip out of a pint of Guinness, or your friends will think you’re foaming at the mouth.

42

it’s a good thing you met fairychatmom before she became a hurricane!

hurricanes are cranky this time of year. take care and hunker down.

43

Well, shucks - I worried about my namesake ruining Rue’s vacation and I forgot all about Reality! Here’s hoping you don’t sustain any storm-related casualties. I’m still envious - we haven’t dropped dock lines since July.

44

I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten us, Billdo. You all be careful. And keep it coming.

45

I was able to get up to Dania Beach (Harbor Towne Marina) after some cellphone tag with Billdo, and tour the great ship Reality Saturday late morning. After uploading his recent updates from the dockmaster’s office, the two Bill’s headed into Ft Lauderdale proper for some lunch and Guinnesses (Guinnessi?) and some ogling of the natives. A GORGEOUS old Ford Cobra Roadster was parked right in front of us, and the rumble as it started up paid homage to it’s power and style. I was impressed.
After stuffing our guts, we drove along A1A and watched the high surf crash into the beach, on the way to the Ft Lauderdale Blues Festival, a great event in a neat area. We got the official poster, shown in the link, for $30 each, versus the list of $50. Some great music and absolutely SMOKIN’ guitar work later, we joined the rest of the crew at Dave and Busters for dinner and a whomping of the Yankees. It was surreal to see a pretty young blonde lady in a little black cocktail dress and heels, martini glass in her left hand, and a red plastic pistol in her right hand, blasting away at aliens, or whatever. Topped only by her a few minutes later, sans martini glass, with boxing gloves on, fighting a computer generated opponent. After blasting a few aliens myself, I bade goodbye and fair and following seas, and headed back south to my home as the crew retired to their vessel to wait out Michelle, with or without that bottle of tequila, I do not know.

46

Ah, sailing as it should be.

Totaly envious, Billdo.

47

We’re having cheese and crackers before dinner as we wait for Hurricane Michelle to move past. Its current predicted path put it well south of us, with its closest approach happening sometime overnight. We’re expecting gale force winds, with possible tropical storm force gusts, and heavy rain, but we should be OK.

We’ve had a quiet few days as we’ve been trapped here, shorebound and waiting for the storm to move. Two days ago, on Joan and my first morning here, we decided that it would be a good idea if we had a car to get around and in case we had to evacuate. Joan and Peggy went to rent a car while I showered and Gene slept late.

In response to our meteorological predicament Joan provided her traditional suggestion – let’s go shopping. We set out for the Galleria Mall, which we found after only minor wrangling over the map. Once there, Gene and I went one way and Peggy and Joan went another, agreeing to meet for lunch.

Gene and I wandered the mall finding nothing to buy – or even interesting – until we got to a Sharper Image store at the far end of the mall. After circling half the store, and a great massage in the massage chair, we came across the wall display for the Space Blaster. The Space Blaster is a hunk of plastic vaguely shaped like the Starship Enterprise with a pistol grip on the bottom. When you pull the trigger, a one and a half inch soft rubber disk comes shooting out of the front of the Enterprise as the Blaster made a phaser-like noise. The mechanism shoots the disk out with enough spin so it will fly straight for 15 or 20 feet, but only hit with a light thwack.

We saw two Blasters on the display, so Gene and I each grabbed one and proceeded to have a shoot-out across the store. We were ducking behind display cases like we were in a cop show, dashing out to pick up spent disks so we could reload. Once our shoot-out was done, we turned on the target on the display, an electronic monster with waving limbs that you had to hit to knock the beast down. We managed to save the world from monstrous depredation by a fusillade of rubber disks. After round two of the shoot-out, we saw that the Blasters were only 15 bucks each (batteries not included). Gene and I each bought one, along with a spare magazine of 20 disks for each.

When we met Peggy and Joan for lunch and showed them our acquisitions, they looked at us like we were crazy and asked how old we were. Somehow our answers of mid-thirties and mid-twenties did not satisfy them. We sampled the delicacies of the mall food court for our midday repast, and then visited Fort Lauderdale’s famed Las Olas Boulevard shopping area, where we found an over-abundance of over-priced and over-done galleries and shops.

When we got to the boat, Gene and I raided our AA battery stashes and set up our Space Blasters. We had a shoot-out in the main cabin, with only a few ricochets hitting Peggy who was cooking and Joan who was reading the paper. I opened the cabinet in front of the shower, cleared out a shelf, and set up a shooting range from the main cabin, through the forward cabin, forward head and shower. Scoring was 10 points for shots that ended up on the shelf, 5 points for anywhere else in the shower, 2 points for the head area, and 1 for the forward cabin. Gene beat me decisively in our shooting match.

Peggy was getting just a bit grumpy at the flying disks, so we put the Blasters away until dinner. Peggy made Funky Chicken, an easy-to-make but great tasting recipe of hers. We opened the bottle of white from the winery in St. Augustine, which was even worse than their red. We did, however, finish the bottle under orders from the Captain who decreed that it would not remain on the boat any longer.

After dinner Gene and I were collecting disks and reloading our magazines. Peggy was looking at us cross-eyed, so I suggested that Gene pass her his Blaster. As Peggy began to launch disks at Joan, who was washing dishes, her eyes lit up. I gave my Blaster to Joan, and she and Peggy started madly firing at each other as Gene and I served as their squires, collecting disks and reloading magazines.

For dessert we had bought a lemon meringue pie, which was sitting on the table. The gun battle raged, hotter and hotter, until Peggy went into berserker mode. She jumped up, grabbed a handful of meringue, charged forward, and slapped it toward Joan’s face. Joan ducked, but got meringue splattered all over right ear and hair. Peggy’s charge brought the battle to an abrupt halt, probably saving the remainder of the pie. This may not have been such a good thing, as the pie, when finally eaten, was atrocious.

Peggy and Joan then took their turn at the firing range, with Joan getting her revenge for the meringueing by winning the marksmanship competition. Gene set up another target made from a mesh laundry bag, and I edged him by a single point. After we tired of gunnery, we watched the movie Shrek on the VCR and went to sleep.

Yesterday morning was spent preparing for the hurricane. We doubled up the dock lines, took the roller-furling jib down from the headstay, and lashed down or removed any loose gear. When we were done, Peggy, Gene and Joan went to Palm Beach, and I decided to stay on the boat.

I’m glad I did, because I got a call from UncleBill, a Miami-based member of this message board with whom I had traded e-mails. He drove up and saw the boat. We went to lunch and then to the Ft. Lauderdale Blues Festival at the fairgrounds.

It was a large three-day festival with four stages and lots of different musicians. Among the highlights we saw were Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater, who took up the blues as a teenager in the 1950’s; a presentation on Louis Armstrong’s love for the blues by one of his disciples; and E. G. Knight, a popular female country-turned-blues singer who was backed by an amazing 17-year old guitar player from her hometown. Headliners on the other days were Ike Turner, Keb’ Mo’, and John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. We picked up mounted copies of the Festival poster, and had them signed by the artist, who was there at the booth.

We met up with Peggy, Gene and Joan for dinner at Dave and Busters, a giant restaurant/video arcade/pool hall/sports bar. After dinner we went into the arcade portion, which was filled with games, just about all of which involved shooting a weapon or driving a vehicle, neither of which I was inspired to do then. There were only two pinball machines off in a far corner, one of which was broken and the other of which was in constant use. After Dave and Busters we went back to the boat and would have watched the end of the baseball game if the Yankees weren’t getting crushed 15-2.

Today has been a quiet day, spent waiting for the storm to arrive. My big activity was taking a walk up to U.S. 1, the main drag running through Dania Beach. I was going to make my brother-in-law’s dry rub pork chops, but Gene had used up one of the main spices in the secret recipe. He hadn’t told Peggy, who thought we had all of the ingredients aboard. As an alternative Peggy made her tomato sauce pork chops, which she rounded out with spaghetti squash, potato pancakes and an apple crisp for dessert.

Joan had gone to visit her mother, who lives in Boynton Beach, and plans to stay with her overnight. The rest of us are waiting for tonight’s two big events, the coming of Hurricane Michelle and Game 7 of the World Series.

48

Every time I read one of Billdo’s dispatches, I wonder if anybody else mentally adds “Dear Penthouse Letters” at the beginning, and then feels secret disappointment at the lack of rumpy-pumpy. :smiley:

Just kidding. Keep it up. Er, you know.

49

I woke up early this morning and couldn’t fall back to sleep, so I’ve come ashore and am writing at a picnic table at the marina. There is just a bit of chill in the air, but the day should warm up as the sun comes overhead.

Hurricane Michelle stayed well south of us the other night, and caused no real problems (but let’s not talk about the Yankees, OK). The winds were gusty, but not too bad. I saw our wind gauge go up to 30 knots, but it may have gone higher when I wasn’t watching. The TV reported top wind speeds for Ft. Lauderdale in the 40’s. There were heavy rains, but they weren’t overwhelming.

The wind was generally from the north and east, which kept the boat away from the dock. At 0230 I woke up and saw that wind was starting to come around to the aft. I thought that it would be a good idea to remove the cockpit dodger (a large canvas and clear plastic windscreen in front of the cockpit), which we had kept up until the last minute and then decided to leave up. As I was removing it, Peggy stuck her head up, and we carted it, dripping, to the forward shower.

When we woke up it was still windy and rainy, but the TV showed that the back end of the storm system would pass in a few hours. Perhaps the most serious effect was that the high tide and storm surge had combined to drive our dock about 2 inches under water. I put on my boots and went walking on water around our part of the marina.

I forbade Peggy from cooking breakfast, and, surprisingly, she complied. After a breakfast of cold cereal and toast, the day was spent hanging around the boat, relaxing, reading, and waiting for the wind and rain to pass. Joan stayed with her mother, and decided to remain there one more night, so we were without wheels.

By the evening, I was so stir-crazy that I decided to damn the weather and take a walk. I came back after about an hour, and Peggy was ready with dinner, bake ham, sweet potatoes, beans and fresh cornbread. We watched some TV and went to bed.

It looks like we’ll remain here today, leaving tomorrow. We’re waiting for wind and sea to calm down, and for our autopilot to finally be fixed, again.

50

Howdy, all. I haven’t done a catch-up post for a while, so I thought I’d break from my narrative for a bit and say ‘HI’ to the kind people that have checked in.

FairyChatMom, your namesake hurricane did its part and stayed away from us. It looks like you did a bit of a job on Cuba and the Bahamas, though.

I’m sort of sorry to hear that Steve was a sailing instructor on his own time. Imagine the recruiting ad: Join the Navy, teach sailing, and pick up women.

rocking chair, both times when the dolphins came around Gene had his fishing line out. We were a bit worried about that, but they stayed away from the line before we pulled it in.

javirs, welcome to the message board. It’s been great sailing with Peggy and Gene. We’ve managed to squeeze ourselves aboard with all of the food at the start. It’s a little easier now, as Peggy has decreed that there will be no food left aboard by the end of the trip. She has her galley inventory, and is requiring us each to eat our share of the remainder.

vix, it took you that long to read my full tale. Hmmph. See if I send you a postcard next time. If I do, it’ll be by fourth-class mail via Fiji, Calcutta and Dakar.

Gorgon Heap, glad to hear you’re back after surgery. I’m scheduled to fly back to New York on November 15, weather permitting. I’ll be sad to see the story end (though I’m sure I’d lose whatever readers I had if I posted a detailed journal of my everyday life in New York).

Sophie, I’d never forget you. We’ll always have Paris. You wore blue, the Germans wore grey.

UncleBill, it was a great time, buddy. Can’t wait to see you for the January New York Straight Dope Meeting.

Tranquilis, you know that I’m just doing this trip for my readers. I’m really getting no enjoyment out of it myself.

Cervaise, I think you’ve been reading Scylla’s sheep thread for too long. We’ve had undulating waves and passionately raging storms, but no rumpy-pumpy aboard.

See you all on the high seas.

51

We’re finally on the move! We’re in the Hawk Channel, the channel running to seaward of the Keys but inside Florida Reef. We’ve just passed Bowles Bank off Sand Key, headed for Key Largo.

Yesterday was another quiet day. I logged onto the internet for a couple of hours in the morning, until I couldn’t stand the Marina’s maddeningly slow connection any more. I read for a while and took a nap. When I woke up, an Aunt and Uncle of Peggy’s late husband were visiting. A repair technician was in the aft locker working on the autopilot. This time he replaced both the control arm and the rudder feedback sensor. We hope it will solve the problem.

Later that afternoon Joan came back from her mother’s. She had picked up some groceries, including the one significant staple that Peggy didn’t have, Oreo cookies. After Peggy and I had finished the laundry we had started, we went out to dinner.

For our last dinner in Fort Lauderdale, we went back to D’Alessio’s Restaurant, where we had eaten the first night that we arrived. It was a small Italian restaurant in a shopping center that was obviously family run. The waiters were tall, slim, young men, obviously sons of the tall, slim host. Every so often the kitchen door would open and an older man would step out, looking like the prototype for the father and sons. There was one waitress that looked just a bit different, perhaps a cousin. There was also a teenage girl, clearly a sister, who was dressed up in a waitress uniform but did absolutely nothing except sit on a stool behind the bar and look sulky.

The food was superb. There were meat, fish and pasta entrees in succulent sauces. The fried zucchini appetizer, which we had both times, was incredibly light and crumbly. Although the menu wasn’t too extensive, they had numerous specials.

For dessert the waiter mentioned that they had Italian cheesecake that his grandmother had just made. Peggy commented that she had been trying to make her mother-in-law’s Italian cheesecake, and would love to see the waiter’s grandmother’s recipe to see how it compared. The waiter said that he didn’t know, but his grandmother would be back in a few minutes.

As the cheesecake came out, an older woman stepped into the restaurant. She pulled a chair up to the table and began chatting. She and Peggy discussed cooking and their families. She gave Peggy the recipe in a very casual, “you mix in this and add a bit of that” manner. We went home stuffed.

This morning at 0900 we finally pulled out of our slip in Fort Lauderdale. Over our stay Gene had bought all sorts of fishing books and gear, and this morning he bought some ballyhoo from the marina shop to use as bait. Peggy wouldn’t let him keep it in the freezer, so he put it into a bucket on deck under ice.

After all our time ashore and an intervening hurricane, we still had northerly winds. They were blowing 8-12 knots, and the seas were just a couple of feet. We settled on our usual broad/beam reach.

We had originally planned to make the short hop to Miami Beach from Ft. Lauderdale, but because of the weather delay, we’re skipping Miami and making the long run to Key Largo. We were going a bit slower than we needed to get to Key Largo in daylight, but it was so pleasant under sail that we kept the engine off, hoping to make up the time later. As we were sailing, Peggy called the marina we were scheduled to stay at in Key West to confirm our reservation, but was asked to call back later because they were on fire.

After hooking seaweed a few times, at about 1230 Gene finally got a solid hit. Off in the distance we saw the golden flash of a dolphin (the fish, not the mammal, often known to the squeamish as mahi-mahi). We furled the jib to slow the boat down so Gene could reel the fish in more easily.

After a spirited fight, Gene brought the fish up to the boat. It was about 15-20 pounds, about 3 feet long. As I took the watch at 1300, Gene was filleting it in the back of the cockpit.

We had unfurled the sails, but, but with the fishing delay we decided that we should run the motor as well to gain additional speed. I piloted us along south of Miami and into the beginning of the Hawk channel before my watch ended at 1500.

After stacking the CD changer and fiddling with the navigational instruments for a bit, I picked up my journal to begin writing.

52

We’re powering along in light winds in Hawk Channel off Islamorada bound for Marathon. It’s a sunny day, with just a few light cumulus clouds in the sky.

Our destination last night was the Ocean Reef Club, an exclusive, membership, golf, tennis and boating resort and condominium complex on Key Largo. The only reason that we could get dockage was that the nephew of a friend of Peggy’s was a member who agreed to make a reservation on our behalf. The resort sprawls over a huge portion of Key Largo and has three 18-hole golf courses and its own airstrip.

We pulled into the Ocean Reef Club Channel just at sunset, and docked in the evening twilight. When we registered, among the materials we got were the club dress code and dock area rules. The club prohibited barbecuing aboard so we couldn’t grill the dolphin fillets we had caught. Instead we went to one of the club’s casual restaurants, which only required collared shirts and trousers for the gentlemen and equally appropriate attire for the ladies.

All-in-all the club gave me a very vaguely creepy feeling. The place, while beautiful, seemed overrun with “thou shalt not” rules. The only persons of color that I saw there were either bus boys or in maintenance uniforms.

We left at 0900, and I took first watch. Once we got to Hawk Channel, we set sail. For a change the wind came from the southeast, though on our course this put us on yet another broad reach. Since we have 60 miles to go, we had to make time. By the end of my watch, the wind dropped just enough that we decided to put the engine on an motorsail. Peggy called the marina in Key West back, and they confirmed our reservations, utterly unconcerned about yesterday’s electrical fire.

We now have our sails set with a 7-8 knot wind abeam and the engine running.

53

It’s a lovely night here at anchor just outside of Marathon Harbor in the middle Florida Keys. A gentle breeze blows through the hatches as we run the generator to charge up the batteries for the night.

Motorsailing all afternoon yesterday, we got to the anchorage at 1800, just after sunset, an hour into my second watch of the day. Peggy whipped up her bean dip as an appetizer before dinner, which was surf and turf. Gene was the grillmaster, grilling a skirt steak and the dolphin he had caught, which Peggy had marinated in a lemon and garlic sauce. On the side were spiced, fried potato wedges, and a 3-bean salad.

Joan had made reservations for she and I to go diving from a boat out of Marathon in the morning. I was a bit nervous about it as I hadn’t dived since my trip to Australia three years ago. I’m also suffering from the annoying allergy cough that I periodically get, which I hoped wouldn’t affect my diving. I fell asleep in my bunk at 2100 as everyone scurried about the cabin.

We had originally planned to be ferried into Marathon on the inflatable dinghy, but fortunately someone realized that we didn’t have any gas for its outboard motor. Instead, at about 0700 this morning we weighed anchor and took Reality into Marathon Harbor.

The channel into Marathon was well marked and charted as having 7 feet of depth, plenty for our 5½-foot draft. Unfortunately, part of the outer channel had shoaled, and about halfway down our keel gently ground to a halt on the sandy bottom. We remained stuck there, worried about missing our 0800 dive appointment as Peggy tried to get us unstuck with the engine. Finally, the wake of a passing fishing boat lifted us enough to get past the bar. The captain of the next boat past yelled to us that we had to stick close to the port-hand side of the channel for depth.

When we got into Marathon Harbor, we tied up at Pancho’s fuel dock. Gene and Peggy started fueling both the boat and the dinghy tank, while Joan and I called for a cab to the dive shop.

We arrived at Capt. Hook’s Dive Shop just past 0800. As we were registering, a cute blonde popped up and announced that her name was Wendy and she was our dive master for the day. We didn’t notice the juxtaposition of her name and her employer until she mentioned later that when she got the job she joked that the other dive instructor was Peter Pan.

We got our gear and boarded the Reef Hopper, a dive boat about 30 feet long. The captain was Phil, and along with us were two couples vacationing together. Wendy started with a short safety talk. As she mentioned that life jackets were located in the forward cabin, she pointed and we turned to see Phil, a stout man, with a children’s inflatable pool float stretched barely around his middle.

Our first stop was the Gap, a section of reef off Marathon (not to be confused with the ubiquitous clothing retailer). There we stopped the boat and did a drift dive, where the boat just drifted and we dove on lines attached to floats on the surface. The reef was about 70 feet down, and visibility was quite good. We saw a large grouper, angelfish, and lots of other undersea flora and fauna. I was quite comfortable for my first dive after three years, and I did not cough at all underwater. I did draw down my air rather quickly, so I surfaced at the float a bit before Joan, who stayed down with Wendy. When they were down, they saw a moderated-sized nurse shark.

Our second dive was at the Horseshoe, a curved section of reef about 25 feet down. The dive boat anchored in the center of the reef, and we went below. Wendy uncovered a large conch shell buried in the coral, which we left below. We saw a ray gliding across the sand at the bottom, nearly invisible because of its coloration, along with hawkfish, reef lobsters, angelfish, Christmas tree worms, parrotfish, and a host of other sea life on the vibrant reef. We headed back to the dock tired and happy, eating orange wedges and watermelon.

We went back to the dive ship, spent some time shopping, and then called a cab to get back to the dock where Peggy and Gene would pick us up by dinghy. When I called Peggy, she said that there were some issues and it might take them a while to get in. We agreed to meet at the tiki bar above Burdine’s dock when they could get there.

Joan and I taxied to the tiki bar and ordered drinks, wondering about what sort of issues Peggy and Gene might be having. It was quite a while before we saw the dinghy puttering up the channel. Once the dinghy arrived, Peggy immediately ordered a beer before discussing the issues they faced.

Peggy had noticed last night that the bilge pump was running rather frequently. As soon as Joan and I had left to go diving, Peggy heard the sound of rushing water. When she went below to investigate, she found a heavy stream of seawater was spraying in through the stuffing box (the fitting that seals where the propeller shaft exits the hull).

The dockhand at Pedro’s didn’t have a particularly good command of the English language, so he didn’t quite understand Peggy’s explanation of why the boat wasn’t leaving after it was done fueling. Despite the dockhand’s protests, Peggy and Gene stayed on the dock until they could tighten the stuffing box and stop the leak. They started the engine, and shifted it into forward and reverse, and the stuffing box held.

When they left the dock, and put the engine up to a little bit of speed, they found the leaking recurred. Worse, they found that the whole propeller shaft was out of alignment, with the resulting vibration causing the stuffing box to let go. They limped out to the anchorage, tightened the stuffing box and called a mechanic, who will be coming in the morning.

Just after they anchored, a catamaran about 60 feet long pulled up and dropped anchor. Three people immediately jumped into a dinghy and headed toward the harbor. Once they were away, Gene noticed that their anchor hadn’t set and they were drifting away in the one knot plus current.

Gene donned his mask and fins, and swam off after the catamaran. After a long swim, he climbed aboard the boat and let out more anchor line. He went to start the engine, but just as he got it started, the anchor caught.

Gene found their VHF radio and called Peggy, who suggested that he hang out there until the crew came back. He lay on the boat tanning and reading their magazines until their dinghy came back. The crew was quite surprised to see Gene aboard their boat, but gracious once they understood the situation. They dropped Gene back on Reality, and Gene and Peggy began to inflate the dinghy so they could pick us up.

At the tiki bar, we had a good lunch, and then dinghyed out to the boat. Once there we investigated, and found that two of the four bolts connecting the propeller shaft to the transmission were gone. We fished the bolts out of the bilge so we could give them to the mechanic in the morning to get replacements.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing. Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs on deck. After dinner, Peggy, Joan and I played a vicious game of hearts, while Gene watched a movie on the VCR.

Peggy had decided that her video collection aboard should consist of movies with nautical themes. What that turned out to mean, however, was that other than Wind, a vapid film about sailboat racing, all of her videos feature maritime disaster. Gene decided to watch Titanic, choosing it from among Jaws, Lifeboat, Dead Calm, The African Queen, Moby Dick and a training video for the boat’s life raft.

After our hearts game, which Peggy won by shooting the moon, I picked up my journal to write before going to sleep. The batteries are now fully charged, so we’ve turned off the generator. The bilge pump is easily keeping up with the slow leakage through the stuffing box.

54

Our engine having been realigned, we’re back in Hawk Channel, underway to Key West. We’ve just passed the Ninefoot Shoal beacon off of Sugarloaf Key. We’re motorsailing again under partly cloudy skies in a cool but comfortable breeze.

Gene was to pick up the mechanic in the dinghy at 0830, so we all woke up early. At about 0900 Gene called on the radio to say he couldn’t find the mechanic. After a few cell phone and radio calls, we found that the “you can’t miss it” directions were quite missable after all. Eventually, they rendezvoused, got the needed parts and came out to the boat.

The mechanic, Mile, was a tall, rangy, tanned man with a scruffy beard and a rather interesting habit of calling Peggy “Hun.” He aligned the engine to the shaft, cursing and cajoling it to move into position. He determined that some of the engine mounting bolts were too tight and that others were loose. Once he was done with the alignment, he helped drain the fuel/water separator and offered advice on everything from engine coolant to impeller pump pullers.

While Gene took the mechanic back to the dock, I got into my bunk for a nap, feeling groggy from some antihistamines I had taken. When I awoke, we were under sail in Hawk Channel with Bob Marley playing on the stereo.

Unfortunately, the afternoon wind has dropped again, and we’ve had to put on the engine. My watch is scheduled for 1800, but we should be getting into Key West at around that time.

55

I’m making myself a grilled salami and cheese sandwich after a morning of exploring Key West. We’re waiting for the rest of the crew to get back from town, and then we’ll be setting out this afternoon for our overnight sail to our final destination, Marco Island, on the west coast of Florida, about 100 miles north of here.

The sun set the day before yesterday at about 1730 as we were approaching the channel entrance south of Key West. We navigated into our marina in Key West Bight on the north side of the island using range lights and lighted buoys. At 1800, it changed to my watch, but Peggy kept the helm for the final run in as I watched the chart.

Peggy piloted us neatly into our slip at the Conch Harbor Marina in the old harbor, a few blocks away from Duvall Street, Key West’s tourist center. We tied down the boat and prepared to spend Saturday night in Key West as sailors on shore leave.

Our first stop was Sloppy Joe’s Bar, a dive bar and Key West institution. After searching around the bar a bit, we got a recently vacated table. We ordered conch fritters and a round of drinks, beers for Gene and me, her usual Mount Gay Rum and Coke for Peggy, and a Bahama Mama for the light-drinking Joan. The band was of an off-color variety, playing such classics as “Rich, Dumb, Young Nymphomaniac,” a song about their conception of the perfect woman, and “Show Your Butts for Family Values,” a request with which several members of the audience complied, coming on stage to lift their skirts revealing American flag stickers pasted on their butt cheeks. We stayed until their set was done (listening to such favorites as “Scrotum, Scrotum” and the obligatory Jimmy Buffet song, “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw”) and had several more drinks.

As we were leaving Sloppy Joe’s, Gene ditched us, preferring to spend the evening on his own. Peggy, Joan and I went for dinner and more drinks at a nice restaurant up the street whose name we can’t recall. I had the conch chowder and fried dolphin sticks, and dessert was, of course, key lime pie.

We wandered up Duvall Street, seeing the shops and people. Peggy somehow got separated from Joan and I as Joan ducked into every exotic lingerie and fetish-wear shop on Duvall. Joan and I continued up Duvall as Peggy struck out on her own. Joan and I were first back to the boat, with Peggy coming back a bit later.

I slept until I was awakened at 4 a.m. by Gene stumbling onto the boat. Gene grabbed a sleeping bag and went out to the cockpit to pass out. I rolled over back to sleep, and when I work up rather late in the morning, Gene was still immobile in the cockpit.

Peggy and Joan went out for a morning walk, and I went out for a walk a bit later, leaving Gene on deck, firmly holding down the hatch covers. I took a long walk around the whole end of Key West, starting at the old seaport area by our dock, passing through Mallory Square and the Truman Annex of the Navy Base, where President Truman often wintered when he was in office.

I continued on to Fort Zachary Taylor, where I met a historian and Civil War reenactor, also the president of Friends of Fort Taylor (Sgt. David Jones, 1 US Battery D, Garrison Artillery), who was giving a tour. Fort Taylor was built for the Civil War, during which the Union held Key West. It was an important post, because many of the Confederate ships captured by the Union blockade were impounded in Key West under Fort Taylor’s guns. The island was of mixed sympathies, and the Federal forces let the Confederates have free liberty on the island, so it probably wasn’t too bad a place to be impounded as a Rebel sailor.

After the Civil War, the fort was dormant, until just before the Spanish-American War, when it was reinforced by large coastal defense batteries. At that time the army demolished the upper two stories of the three-story fort, and covered the debris with concrete. Included in the covered debris were almost 200 Civil War-era artillery pieces and close to a million rounds of ammunition, much of it still charged with black powder, along with numerous other artifacts.

Except for short periods during World Wars I and II, the fort was largely unused until the 1960’s, when a historian discovered the treasure trove of weapons and artifacts. Fort Taylor, now a state park, is slowly being excavated, with many of the munitions being put back into working order.

After the fort, I walked down Whitehead Street, which contains Mile Marker 0 at the very beginning (or end, depending on how you look at it) of U.S. Highway 1, stretching up to Maine. The street’s south end is billed as the southernmost point in the continental United States, and I got my picture taken by the marker there.

I then walked up Duvall Street, past the tons of stores and galleries, every third one of them a t-shirt shop selling shirts with identical off-color messages screened on. Apparently, the hot item du jour is men’s tightey-whitey underpants with the legend “I (heart symbol) to Fart, Key West” on the back. As much as I enjoy the occasional burst of flatulence, I did not think that they would be a wise investment of my limited souvenir funds (but if they had them in boxer shorts, maybe).

I got back to the boat at about 1400, and to my surprise Gene was no longer sleeping on deck. Apparently, he had gotten hot in the sun and moved into the cabin to sleep. Sometime later he emerged from his burrow, and I heated up some leftover steak to make sandwiches for lunch. Gene wolfed his down and then went out on deck to lie down for another nap. When asked about his evening, he was notably reticent with details.

We relaxed that afternoon, and then went to the Sunset Celebration on Sunset Pier. Every evening on Key West crowds gather for the sunset on a pier looking west, and when the sun sets conch shells are blown. There are stands selling stuff and buskers and acrobats performing. We stayed to watch a juggler juggle knives on a tightrope held by volunteers above a semi-willing member of the audience. After that we retreated to the deck of the Hilton to watch the festivities wind down and have a drink. Gene had a Coke.

For dinner we went to Kelly’s, one of the several Key West businesses owned by actress Kelly McGillis. It is housed in a building that was the first home of Pan American Airways, used when they started up flights to Cuba. Dinner was superb. Peggy and Gene each had the whole red snapper special, while Joan and I went land-based with the sirloin steak special. I had more conch fritters for an appetizer and more key lime pie for dessert. Gene drank water with his meal.

After dinner we again wandered Duvall Street, with Peggy and Joan losing Gene and I as we bought gifts in a trinket store. We stopped in a bar, and Gene finally was convinced to have a single beer. On our way back to the boat, we stopped for Gene to get a black henna tattoo on his arm.

Today was spent on more wandering in town. I toured the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, where I saw the treasure that Fisher recovered from a Spanish galleon that sank in a storm in 1622. I found an internet cafe where I could post some earlier journal entries and then went back to the boat for lunch.

56

I’ve just come off my final night watch of the trip. We’re 45 miles south of Marco Island beating upwind, averaging 6.5 knots against a steady 18-20 knot wind under reefed mainsail and jib. Orion is shining brightly overhead, as he has for the whole trip.

We left Key West at 1515, and Peggy took the first watch, piloting us out the Northwest Channel and into the Gulf of Mexico. The trip’s northerly winds held, this time coming almost directly from Marco Island, our destination. We unfurled the sails and set them closehauled, planning to tack back and forth across our course, getting as close to the wind as we could and still be comfortable.

The waves were only 2-3 feet, but heading into them made for a much more aggressive motion than our earlier legs where they were passing under our stern quarter. Joan, who hadn’t been aboard for any of our prior heavy sea legs was particularly uncomfortable with the motion.

I had the second watch, starting at 1700. Gene wanted to sail the boat in daylight for a bit, so he took the wheel for the first part of the watch, passing it to me a bit before the glorious sunset. Peggy was below making chicken stew and biscuits for dinner, which was ready at about 1900. A few minutes before that I thought that we were riding smoothly enough to use the autopilot, and I switched it on so that we could eat together. I held the watch until Gene had finished and a crossing fishing boat had passed safely astern of us, handing off to Gene at about 1930.

I went below and slept fitfully, getting tossed from side to side in my bunk when we changed tack every two hours or so. Joan stayed on deck the whole time, feeling sick whenever she would go into the cabin. Gene stayed up with her for moral support as she took her first overnight watch.

I woke up a little before my 0100 watch, and went on deck to take over for Peggy. A few minutes into my watch we tacked the boat. Joan had been dozing on the port side cockpit seat, the lower one on our starboard tack, and after tacking she switched to the starboard seat, now leeward and lower, to get what rest she could. Peggy wedged herself into the companionway to sleep on deck for a bit as well. The remainder of the watch was quiet, with the monotony broken only by the occasional bit of spray that would make it over the deck to the helm station.

At 0300 I handed the watch over to Gene and went below to write for a while before trying to get some more sleep.

Bill’s Boating Safety Tip of the Day: A Jolly Rancher candy will take almost exactly 15 minutes to dissolve in your mouth, occupying one-eighth of a two-hour watch.

57

Well, Billdo, you should be at the destination, Marco Island. Thanks for the updates and anectdotes (so Gene got plowed, huh?), and thanks for making an effort to see us East Coast Dopers in your various ports of call. Enjoy the town, have a beer, and have a safe flight back to NYC. Look us up in the spring for the reverse trip!

58

I’m on the beach facing the Gulf of Mexico on Marco Island, sitting in a lounge chair. The sun is shining brightly through some wispy cirrus clouds, and a stiff onshore breeze is keeping the day cool.

I woke up at around 0800 yesterday in advance of my 0900 watch. As I climbed on deck, Peggy was starting the engine. We were 32 miles from Marco, having made only 13 miles of progress along our course in the five hours since I had gotten off watch at 0300. We simply weren’t making enough headway against the wind and waves under sail. Once we settled down under power, Joan went below to try to get some sleep in her bunk.

When I took the wheel at 0900 I found steering a challenge. Most of the time we would do fine pushing straight through the oncoming waves, but sometimes when we went over a particularly steep wave the bow would drop down and pound, slowing our progress and shaking up the boat. To combat this I would have to turn the boat so that the bow was at an angle to the seas when I saw a particularly large wave coming. This would allow us to pass over the wave smoothly, but would require prompt adjustment to return to our course.

Adding to the challenge were crab pot buoys. Commercial fisherman mark their crab traps with circular floats about four inches in diameter. Catching one of these crab pot lines on your keel, rudder or propeller is rather strongly contraindicated, so you had to be careful to spot the tiny balls floating in the waves and steer between the markers laid out in series.

By the end of my watch the lee of the Florida mainland had attenuated the waves just enough so that I could leave the boat on autopilot without it pounding. I still had to keep a sharp lookout for crab pots, though, often switching off the autopilot to steer to avoid them. At about that time I caught my first sight of the approaching land – tall, white, beachfront, condominium apartment buildings, reaching proudly into the sky.

At 1100 Gene was still asleep, having stayed up for double watches overnight. I kept the helm, declining Peggy and Joan’s offers to take over to let Gene sleep. Gene woke up a little before noon, and took over for the second half of his watch.

At around 1300 we were approaching Marco Island, so Peggy took over, piloting us into the Marco River. She had rented a slip for the winter at the Marco Island Yacht Club. The only remaining challenge in getting there was a power line crossing the river with an authorized minimum clearance of 65 feet, just a little lower than our mast. We avoided the low clearance at its sag in the middle of the river by passing close aboard the tower near the south shore that was holding up one end of the cable. We approached the dock with no problems after that.

At 1400 on 13 November 2001, we pulled into slip C-59 at the Marco Island Yacht Club, Reality’s home for the winter. Our journey was complete 36 days and 7 hours after it began.

Once we tied down, Peggy and Joan went to pick up a rental car while Gene hosed down the boat and I put away gear. By around 1530, Peggy and Joan had come back, and we went off for a late lunch at the Snook Inn.

The Snook Inn, named after the popular gamefish the snook, is a bar and restaurant right on the Marco River with great food and a relaxed, downscale atmosphere. Joan was concerned that after a night and day spent sailing we’d be a bit too scrungy for the place, but Peggy correctly assured her that this wouldn’t be a problem. We each had a huge lunch, Peggy having conch chowder and peel-and-eat shrimp, Gene having red snapper along with his conch chowder and peel-and-eat shrimp, Joan having fried mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers, and me having conch chowder and a huge, batter-fried pork tenderloin sandwich. There was also a large salad bar from which we all partook, and Joan even left enough room for dessert (mainly by offering each of us several mozzarella sticks), a Snickers pie.

After the Snook Inn we drove to Peggy’s in-law’s condo and went to the beach to watch the sunset. Once the sun was down, we went into the condo parking lot to connect the battery of Gene’s grandfather’s car, which had been lying dormant all summer. The car is a 1988 light gray Lincoln Town Car with whitewall tires, a true babe magnet. The land yacht started up immediately, and Gene and I hopped in, stopped at a gas station to clean the thick layer of grime from the windows put air in the whitewalls, and cruised back to the boat.

On the boat we were a lively crowd – we each were in our bunks by 2000. We all passed out for at least 11 hours, with Peggy and I up the earliest at 0700, when Peggy’s phone rang. It was one of her daughters, who has a habit of calling ridiculously early in the morning, somewhat to Peggy’s chagrin.

Eventually we all slowly got moving. Peggy and Joan ran some errands, I ran the computer, typing up and posting my journal, and Gene just ran, covering about 10 miles on roads and beaches. In the afternoon we met on the beach by the condo, where I started writing in the sun.

When I started this journal, I picked a pen of Joe’s. It was a promotional ballpoint with a triangular shaft that his girlfriend had been given by a drug company rep. I took a liking to it and started writing almost all of my journal entries using it. When he left, he graciously offered it to me (knowing he’d have to fight to get it away from me), and I kept using it for the remainder of my journal. As I was writing the prior paragraph, more than 100 handwritten pages into my journal, spanning four different pads, the pen ran out of ink. As the pen expires, so does my journal. It was a great trip.

59

Glad you all arrived safely! What a fabulous journey - and to think, you not only had numerous adventures - you got to meet ME!!! After this, our future trek from Jax to Pax will be dull, especially if we go up the ditch.

Wonderful journal - thanks for sharing it! Have a safe trip back home…

60

FCM and UB, thanks, it was great seeing both of you on the trip down. I’m about to head to the airport for the flight back to New York. I think the trip up in the spring will be more quick and direct, and I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to go.