How to handle a Crab

I don't have any photos loaded on our new computer that I am using to write this blog so I am including a video of "How to Handle a Blue Crab". We made this video back in the Chesapeake bay before we left Maryland but I had no way to publish it on our old computer.

I should mention that our dear friends, Jim and Vicki O'Neil, who we visited at Christmas, gave us a new camera to replace our broken one--It's that Southern hospitality again. We bought this new ACER computer in Brunswick but promptly spilled a scotch on it and it has been confused and recalcitrant ever since. It refuses to load any pictures because it refuses to find the drivers I need to run the software to transfer photos.

It's getting more like me every day. I named it Hal. "I'm afraid I can't do that Max", it says in a soft voice when I try to load my new software that will let me relax on the boat and reach the WiFi router which is mounted in the laundry room. So Hal and I are writing this blog in the laundry room. "How about another scotch," I say to Hal in a mockingly soft voice. Silence. Ha! I thought so!

We rented a car for a week so that we could celebrate our 12th anniversary by car instead of on foot. We reserved a room (for free, thanks to our friends at American Express) at the Hampton Inn in Islamorada 30 miles north of here. We had a suite with separate king bedroom, a full kitchen, and a balcony overlooking the sea. The hotel had a large pool, whirlpool, tiki bar, sand beach, and an Outback Steakhouse restaurant. Instead of spending a fortune on dinner, we decided to grab some carryout from the restaurant and dine while watching the sunset sky.

On the way back to our marina the next day, we stopped at Lorelei Waterside bar and met a fellow who told us about the tarpon (large silvery fish) that congregate at Robbie's Marina on Lower Matcumbe Key. For a few bucks, Robbie's staff give you a pale of fish to feed the tarpon which snap the fish from you with the same speed that an alligator might snap your arm off. They are harmless, though, and some brave souls hold the bait underwater and allow the tarpon, who don't know where the food ends and your hand begins, to try to swallow most of their arm. So we went there and fed some tarpon but I wasn't brave enough to stick my hand deep into the water.

I forgot to take the camera battery along on our trip so I have no photos of all of this. But we plan to rent a car again in a few weeks and maybe I'll get some pictures of Robbie's and of the Hampton. I hope the video works for you.

We've been here over a week at Banana Bay Marina in Marathon Florida and are settling into a routine. We watch "Let's Make A Deal" with Wayne Brady at 10:00 am. Then we walk to Hurricane Restaurant next door for lunch for one of their daily specials. Then we walk and walk and walk.

Tranquility Bay Resort is about a mile west of here and has a neat but pricey Tiki Bar by the water. The West Marine store is a little further. Our 30 year old heater finally died and yesterday we had to walk to West Marine for a new one. Along the way is Daffy Doug's Dollar Store. We can't pass up a dollar store. Also, on the way back to our boat, we stop at Annette's Lobster House--our local favorite--or we might stop at the Sunset Bar that overlooks Florida Bay's spectacular sunsets.

Annette's takes us back in time to when Florida roadside bars and restaurants felt warm and homey. In the lower Keys, most bars feel cool (as in cool, baby) and homo-y (as in gay--not that there is anything wrong with that). Annette's bar has soft lighting and a salt water fish tank whose occupants hypnotize us as we sip our drinks.

East of here is shopping. A K-Mart, Publix Grocery Store, Liquor Store, and a CVS Drug Store are less than a mile away. The Dockside Bar and Grill is about a mile-long walk east then south off of US1 to the south side of Boot Key Harbor. We used to trailer our old 26 foot sailboat to the Dockside and pull into a slip for a week or two. Many of the friends we made on previous trips are still hanging around or working there.

Of course we go to the pool almost every day for a few hours. They also have a poolside Tiki bar. We especially enjoy evenings in the hot tub. We meet people from all over the country and Canada (eh?). Most of them are staying in the hotel and they all have a mission in the Keys. One young couple wants to dive with a whale, another couple wants to buy a boat and wander the marina looking at the different types. Two muscular fellows had rented motorcycles and were roaming the Keys as biker-dudes (Y-M-C-A?). A country-fried family are here to enjoy each other's company for a week at the expense of poor grandpa (You should hear the cussin').
We've had a massive fish kill here in the Keys. The fish of warmer climates aren't equipped to withstand deep hypothermia. Their muscles quit, they stop moving, they stop respirating, then roll belly up. I didn't take pictures of the poor little critters but I did shoot some of the local greenery. The photos above are from here at Banana Bay and surrounding waters. The small island is called Pretty Joe Rock. It has a cottage with a boat ready to go. You can rent it if you have the cash.

Endless Summer--or Endless November

The temperature yesterday morning in Cold Bay, Alaska was higher than in Pensacola, Florida. The jet stream, which dictates how far south the arctic blast can meander, has parked itself over the Straits of Florida. For the past several days, we have awoken to temperatures in the 30s and 40s with wind chills in the 20s and 30s.

On the bright side, because of the colder weather we have the waterways to ourselves. Florida boaters are hunkered down warming their hands over their laptops and cell phones. Other snowbirds like us, who plow down the ICW to the Keys and the Bahamas are all already positioned at their destinations.

Another good side of colder and windier days is that the bugs that so fiercely attack Mandy are unable to navigate in the high winds. She is safe for awhile. We hope not to repeat the vicious attack she suffered back in Harbortown Marina just before Christmas. I counted 50 weeping welts just on one leg. She probably had three hundred or more over her whole body. These are the notorious "no-see-ums" which resemble tiny gnats (they are visible) and inject an anticoagulant which allows for better extraction of body fluids from its victims. Mandy reacts badly to these injections.

Another bright side is that the skies are sunny and bright. The pictures above look as if they were taken on a balmy warm afternoon. In fact, they were all taken in temperatures in the 50s. In our minds, we created expectations of warm sunny days in the Florida Keys. The days have been sunny---just not warm. The Keys and lower Florida are as beautiful as ever---just not warm.

Yesterday, we reached our destination at Banana Bay Marina in Marathon, Florida in the Keys. But each morning over the past week began with our daily ritual of bundling up. I personally put on a thermal shirt and pants covered by a T-shirt, a denim shirt, a sweatshirt, another sweatshirt, and topped off with foul weather jacket. Mandy dresses similarly. If we were home in Columbus, I would wear fewer clothes to go shovel snow. After an hour of shoveling I would sit by the fire to warm up. But open cockpit boats don't drive themselves and once the anchor is weighed and we are underway I remain at the helm for six to eight hours dressed like a "Tick about to Pop" like Christmas Story Randy.

I'm not whining. It's just facts folks! It's great to be here. We have seen pods of dolphin playing around our boat, thirsty manatees drinking fresh water from a hose, an eight foot shark (OK three foot!!)and more species of birds than we recognize. It's great to see the tropical fauna and flora again. Coconuts and palm fronds float by the boat. Outside, a banana wind is blowing. That's a wind just strong enough to blow bananas from the banana trees. Maybe we'll score some fresh bananas today.

And the cold weather keeps people hiding out in the bars and we are fortunate to meet them. In Miami, we taxied to a liquor store--the kind with a sleazy lounge attached. We did our "walk down a street and turn into a bar" magic trick and found ourselves transported back in time to when drinking was a sport. The bar, named Happy's Stork Lounge" is the third oldest in Miami. Built about 1950, the lounge once had a neighboring bar owned by Dean Martin. Deano's bar entertained a tough crown who sometime spilled over into Happy's. Two bullet holes grace the walls of Happy's Lounge--the result of an unknown dispute of some thugs who frequented Deano's. The holes penetrated a hand painted mural which the bartender, Tanacy, says was painted about the time the bar was built. The mural of bar patrons drinking and couples flirting wraps around two walls of the bar. It's a little dark and faded but provides the mood of the bar's history.

Tanacy, a scotsman, told about his recent boating experience. "I got droonk as hell at the marina bah and when I clymbed down the laadder to my friend's boot I got tangled in a roll of gahden hoose he had left on deck. I couldn't figure my way out of the tangle of hoose so I just slept there on deck. When I opened muy euys it was still daak. I thought that I had slept through the night, through the next day and into the next night until I tried to get up and realized that Sampson, (his overfed pitbull who was lying on the floor in the bar) was lying on my head with his balls coovering muy euyes. No woonder it was daak."

The photos above are sailing down Biscayne Bay, looking back at Miami, Boca Chita Key in Biscayne Bay, cormorants in the Keys.

Happy New Year

We spent nine days on Merritt Island with our friends Jim and Vicky. They took us everywhere that we needed to go and out to dinner and for drinks more times than I remember. We had all of the local foods and even our first taste of Vietnamese food--very tasty. Jim and Vicky met many Vietnamese people in Biloxi, MS because many Viets came there to start shrimping. J&V became a fan of their food.

Jim and Vicky saw, in this blog, that our camera had died so they gave us their camera. Southern hospitality has no limits. I haven't installed the software yet so I don't have any photos to present now but I have memories to describe until the photos are ready.

We tied our boat to a slip next to J&V's boat in Harbortown Marina at the end of the most hospitable pier we have experienced so far. We met Chuck, who lives aboard his sailboat with his cat, Mandy. Mandy has free run of the marina and climbs on 'Chablis' (J&V's boat) to eat whatever herbs Vicky might be growing in her pots.
We also met the steel drum musician and his wife on the next pier over. We also met hundreds of birds that rest in the Australian pines across from our slip. We saw dozens of cormorants, pelicans, anhingas, grackles, gulls, terns, martins, and some crows (who travel in murders in the same way that grackles travel in plagues). The cormorants, which we see at home on Hidden Lake, and their cousins the anhingas spread their wings to dry them after a dive to capture fish. It's a stately pose to see.

One day J&V drove us to Grills Bar where the cruise ships depart and where we drank rum with coke and waved to the passengers of the ships as they passed heading out to sea. My oldest son, his wife, and my grand kids went there many times back when he used to live in Florida. Those are great memories.

J&V have involved themselves in a most obscure hobby and shared their passion for it with us. It's a kind of scavenger hunt for retirees, families, and anyone who enjoys a 'hide and seek' challenge. It's called Geocaching and you can read about it at http://www.geocaching.com/. There are hidden caches all over Columbus and the world and one somewhere in Hidden Lakes where we live. Geocaching is a worldwide hobby and many travellers take time from their business trips or sightseeing to hunt for hidden treasure with no more reward than the satisfaction of finding the cache and signing their username on the cache ticket.

We left harbortown Marina on Tuesday, December 29, to continue our progress south. We anchored on Tuesday night at Dragon Point at the southern end of Merritt Island and the next night just north of Vero Beach. On Thursday, we tied up at another Harbortown Marina property in Fort Pierce to have a little New Years Eve fun and to watch the OSU Bucks beat the Oregon Duck-ups today, on new years day. We are also letting a butt-load of rain go by.

The marina bar here harbors many friendly folks such as Dave who says he is a retired cop from Brooklyn New York but has no ID, driver's license, or credible history. But talking to him is like being 'on camera' with a retired vaudeville comedian like Milton Burle, or Mory Amsterdam. His conversation, complete with New York accent, skips from adornment of Mandy's breasts to what a friend ate at a yacht club celebration to his bizarre plan to sail to Barbados with an incompatible friend.

We also met Marvin who just celebrated his 80th birthday. Marv is a WW2 vet who, when yelled at because everyone assumes that he is hard of hearing, yells back at them "because he's not hard of f#@king hearing". He was a reconnaissance pilot in the war and still is pissed because when he was discharged one day short of his 21st birthday, the F*#cking bartender at a Hollywood Florida bar wouldn't serve him a f#*king drink until midnight when he legally turned 21 years of age. "The A--hole," he laments.

Then there's Delna who is a transplant from the Caribbean. When we met her and her beautiful accent on New Years Eve she was smoking her last cigarette ever for the rest of her life. Today she was back in the bar promising to quit after this next pack is gone. We gave her a copy of our book. We plan to return here in the spring and see if my words offered any help. Maybe--Maybe not!! We'll see.

Next entry will have pictures, I hope.

Marv says "Happy F*#king New Year to all of our friends.

Happy Holidays to All

We jumped from St. Augustine to Daytona Beach for another two nights. Grant Hospital gave me a bundle of Macy's gift certificates as a retirement gift and Daytona has a mall with a Macy's store.

We didn't get any photos of Daytona because of rain and overcast skies. We did our shopping. Mandy talked to Santa between his visits with children and loved the Christmas decorations throughout the mall. After that, the camera broke so we will have no photos until we get a new camera.

Our dock neighbor, John, joined us after dinner on Friday night for a few holiday libations. John is a singlehander and showed me a few unknown anchorages in the area.

We anchored the following night in Mosquito Lagoon, a body of water behind the barrier islands that carry highway A1A to Miami and beyond. It's the biggest anchorage we have ever used, measuring about 3 miles wide by 10 miles long.

We arrived in Harbortown Marina on Merritt Island on Sunday, December 20. We are there still and are spending Christmas with our friends, Jim and Vicki Oneal who live on their boat here.

They have been hauling us around to shop, drink, and dine at all of the best local places. We had the best ever Jalapeno Poppers, the funkiest tacos, and more. They drove us to a Christmas light display similar to Ogelby in West Va but better. We went through twice.

Last night, we all went to hear a musician play his steel drums with recorded backup at the marina bar. He even gave Mandy a lesson.

Jim and Vicki are visiting family today but will return soon. We have a turkey breast, stuffing, potatoes, and gravy on the menu for tomorrow.

I have the dinghy set up to take Mandy for a row in the canal next to the marina to hunt for Manatee. Merry Christmas!! I hope to have a new camera soon so we can resume posting photos.

St Augustine

We left Brunswick on Thursday, December 10th in a punishing 45 degree North wind. We anchored next to Amelia City on Amelia Island Thursday night. The winds reached near gale force that night and even though I had two anchors down, I slept fitfully because of the chorus of noises created by the wind as it screamed through the rigging of the boat. On Friday, we again sailed downwind through rain on a cold North wind. The temperature never climbed much above 50 degrees.

I can hear the folks back home say "wah" to sailing in temperatures above the freezing mark but I can't think of anyone except my brother-in-law, Erich, who actually spends a day exposed to the cold winds and who knows how the wind and rain can cut through the skin like a sword.

On Saturday we sailed into St Augustine into a slip at the municipal marina next to the Bridge of Lions. The rain continued until just after dark, ending just in time for the Christmas parade of boats. A couple dozen boaters had decorated their craft with hundreds of lights. They motored a circle in the basin North of the bridge. Some were so laden with lights that the helmsman must have had difficulty seeing outside of the boat to navigate having been blinded with Christmas lights.

Saturday night we discovered a Cuban restaurant that featured live Cuban music. The lead singer played a standard electric guitar and his percussionist surrounded himself with a circle of drums as we might have seen in the Xavier Cougat orchestra. But we were most fascinated with the accompaniment of the man playing a 10 string guitar. He produced a never ending series of single notes to compliment the singing.

On Sunday we walked the town. We saw the oldest house and ancient churches. We found a military hospital museum that displayed surgical instruments from the civil war era and the purveyor allowed me to ring the death bell--the bell that the doctors used to call the reverend to come perform final prayers for a dying soldier. We visited the University of St Augustine which was originally a hotel built by Henry Flagler who also built the railroad to Key West. The pictures above are mostly of that building and the courtyard.

Sunday night, Rich and Judy Bendick met us for dinner (thanks again for picking up the tab). Rich has been my friend since 1972. He and Judy moved to the Jacksonville area after he retired a few years ago so I don't see as much of them as I used to.

On Monday we cast off lines at noon and ran a short 13 mile sail to the Matanzas River where the old Spanish fort still stands. I'll post a picture of it in my next blog entry.

A Visit to St Simon Island

We left Brunswick last Thursday, December 10 but not before we took our rental car for a visit to St Simon Island.

Mandy had read most of the Eugenia Price novels that depicted life on the island years ago. She wanted to visit the places that she had read about in the Price novels and we both wanted to spend a night off the boat in a real hotel.

We chose a hotel that resembled the old Florida of Spanish influence. It was a short walk to all of the shops and restaurants of the "Old Town" area as well as the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper's home which we visited the following morning.

We also visited the Christ Episcopal Church and graveyard. Ms. Price is buried somewhere in that cemetery but her grave is difficult to locate.

I drove to Dalonegha Georgia for the weekend of December 5th to visit my son, Matt, his wife, Janet, and my grandkids, Julia and Taylor. We decorated his truck for the town Christmas parade. I only meant to help decorate then watch the parade from the street but when I stepped inside the truck to warm my hands the parade began and I was suddenly in it. Matt handed me a Santa hat and I found myself waiving to the hundreds of children along the street. "Santa has a braided ponytail instead of a beard" the children must have thought.

I returned Monday to Brunswick. Mandy and I drove to Jekyll Island that night to see the impressive Christmas lights. We had a seafood boil dinner at a small shack built out on the end of a pier overlooking the ICW. We would see the same place from the water the next day as we motored further south seeking warmer weather.