Tavernier Key, June 5, 1997

Greetings, faraway friends and strangers.

Definitely changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes, as Jimmy Buffet says. I have taken on the Southern laissez faire attitude, and no doubt the heat and bugs have finally gotten to me. Just short of a month since my last update, such shamefulness! Suppose I can’t really call this Real Time or Virtual anymore, but more like when I get around to it.

Close Encounters

While cruising, our Guestbook may fill up with scripture from some of the nicest folk we encounter at anchor or elsewhere, but most will be ships passed in the night. Not Jeff and Liz Armor.

We first me this couple in early October of 1993 in Porto Santo, a small island just off of Madeira in the Atlantic, on our way towards the Canary Islands. Their small boat Different Drum hailed one of the first American flags I was to witness on the other side of the ocean. And so young, I thought, spying on them for the first time with my binoculars. We quickly became friends, hanging out together, sharing chocolate recipes and singing along to Jeff’s excellent guitar accompaniment. They were the first folks to turn us on to the Chesapeake, and perhaps it was thanks to them that we decided to settle there for so long.

During our cruise Southward, we knew that they were supposed to be trekking Northbound. Not having contacted them for sometime, we weren’t sure we would bump into them, but just before we were about to hit the high seas and leave the Intracoastal, we spied them putt-putting towards us. Jeff and traded in their teeny Different Drum, sold their house and bought a bigger Wings of the Morning, upon which they have begun their dream of offering educational charters.

Hello Flah-ridah!

Growing up in California, I heard so many of the same stories about the Other coast. Home of the newly wed, nearly dead and over fed. To prepare myself, I read a few Carl Hiassen novels and listened to Steely Dan (have you noticed that Donald Fagan is quite the geographer? If he’s not singing about New York, New Jersey or Washington DC, it’s about Florida.) Flat, mosquito infested, mall sprawl, condo-highrises, Miami Vice, muscle-tees, little Havana, down towards Jimmy Buffet country ... how much of it would be true?

Cape Canaveral

Achim’s a big space fan. While I’m gulping down novels and short stories, I recall not so long ago how he devoured the biography of Chuck Yeager. So we agreed that on our way South we would make a pilgrimage to Cape Canaveral, the Disneyland of space travel.

Our luck was typical Pangaea style. Arriving at 10:00 at night, we barely caught the last opening of the lock which leads through to the Banana River and shelter. As the water rose up, the lock tender asked us if we had come to see the launch. What launch? Of course we would come just in time to see the take off of Atlantis, the 84th shuttle launch which would occur at 4 am that morning. With 5 hours to spare, we anchored and slept for a few hours before we got our front row seats for the spectacle.

Want to watch the take-off with us? Should take between 4 and 10 minutes for your blastoff (700K)...

Vero Beach

South of Canaveral, our first stop for longer than 24 hours was in this quaint, bug infested anchorage/ mooring field. Rowing to shore in the Florida heat, amazed at how the lush tropical environment corresponded directly to what I anticipated from Florida, I knew not yet about the enemy lurking all about: the no-see-‘ems.

I shlepped our laptop on land to the Vero Beach Yacht Club in hopes of a download session. The dining room was packed with the most happy New York septugenarians I have ever seen. The scene made the waitresses into spring chickens at 50. It was just past sunset, and the bouffants and neckties were dancing cheek to cheek to a live trio. The head waitress, deathly busy and utterly confused by my Email download request, snapped her gum at me. "You ain’t gonna screw me, are you?" When I assured her I wouldn’t, she placed me in the office and closed the door behind me. She never came back and I could have spent the entire evening surfing the web or fumbling through their files to the muffled sound of Mack the Knife and Moonlight Serenade, but I did my local access as needed and headed back to the boat, and straight into... BUG MANIA!

Yes, unfortunately, it’s a bad year for us with sensitive skin and undisciplined nails. This is slowly pushing me in the direction to want an outboard engine, whatever the cost may be. The further we can anchor from shore, the less likely those little devils will smell my sweet flesh.

But music will sooth my itchy flesh, and I rock and rolled most of the sail down towards the West Palm Beach inlet. We anchored surrounded by Germans, Swiss and a drunk American who has taken his boat further than any of us ever will.

 

Somewhere between West Palm and Boca Raton, the famous pink architecture finally made itself noticeable, blending in with fuschia colored sunsets. Now I was heading into family land. Everyone has an uncle in South Florida; the Ginsberg girls are blessed with two, and within a few miles of one another, from both sides of the family.

Boca Raton

We threw an historical barbecue chez our good friend Steve Alley, another able-bodied seaman we befriended in the Bahamas two years ago. Little did we know what a wonderful friend and family circle he has on the waterfront. His parents took us in like we were their own, and gifted us with fishing lures and a most delicious time. The boat remained in Boca Lake, only around the corner from their beautiful homes. I say homes because Alley Alley, that is, where the Alleys live, consists of 4 houses in which abide Mama and Papa Alley-cats, and their three Alley-cat sons respectively. The daughter is the black Alley-sheep; she lives 4 blocks away. Maybe back in the old days, I might have shunned such family closeness, thinking it unadventuresome or too safe. Having lived for so long now away from my own family, I can certainly appreciate what these families have in one another. Now if Claremont only had a deep water dock...

Uncles and their spouses were not the only blood we got to share. Achim and I had the privilege of visiting with my Aunt Elsie, my grandfather’s younger sister and the last one around originally from Pinsk, Russia. Elsie is elegant, wise and wonderfully humorous, even after her stroke which has left her legs paralyzed. She had Achim and I laughing and crying, telling us stories about my grandfather. Although my grandparents lived in Brooklyn and we in California, I wrote to them religiously, and Elsie remembered that. "If Philip could see you here now, he would dance out of the grave!"



By her bedside was a picture of her parents, Dora and Schlom, my ancestors I had never seen before. During our conversation, she pointed at Achim and declared, "You know, I am YOUR aunt! Whether you like it or not!"

We would have stayed longer in Boca Raton, but wanted to catch a glimpse of the Florida Keys before we headed towards the Bahamas. Also, it was Keith’s birthday, (see 2nd page of our Atlantic Crossing) and I wanted to make it down in time to remind him of his half century status...

On our way down, we anchored off Biscayne Key, with the Miami skyline in the West. To the East, what was left of Stiltsville, a cluster of stilted houses in the middle of the flats, miles from shore.
Whoever decided to live there conveniently mixes the disadvantages of both a house and a boat... thank God for diversity in lifestyle tastes. See you in the Bahamas!