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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Nov 1 5 zero miles Five More Laydays in Oriental

We end up spending eight nights here. Thats the way it is in shipyards. It takes longer and costs more than expected.  Deatons however, is a very fine yard. Small but bustling with activity, with friendly competent and helpful staff, free electric which we used to warm the boat through our heat exchanger on the cold nights, and a small lounge with a washer dryer $3.50 per load), good shower, TV and a small desk and sofa. We really became friends with the staff who all cheered the news when Witty was found. John Deaton and his wife, Karen have owned and operated the place with service manager and master teacher Greg, their son Steve, Rita, who was the most helpful about Witty and maybe about 20 -30 other folks.  We had business and they let us fax letters and photocopy others -- no charge.
And despite the gloom of Wittys potential demise, or perhaps because of it (and after his return) work on the boat (and life) went on.
Our friends, Bill and Sando,

saw how ratty looking our small jib sheet had become and gave us a new one, from his old Saga, which had been offered for sale in a consignment store. A very valuable gift. I whipped its new ends when I cut it into two pieces to serve as the sheet and as a line to better secure the dink. Bill also taught me a better placement for the shackle at the clew of the sheet and Lene helped me pull the new line through its under the deck channel with a snake.
 I saw that Oriental has a dealer for AB Inflatable dinghys and scored a valve cover for ours and I used electrical tape to enlarge the washer and thereby make a better fit for the air pump nozzle to inflate our dink. I tried to change the zinc in the refrigerator unit but needed the yards help when the old zinc twisted off in its holder (a new brass holder at $7.50 was a lot cheaper than the labor needed to melt the zinc out of the old one). Lene ordered the electronic versions of Waterways Cruising Guides to the Intercoastal by Mark Doyle. I polished and waxed the stainless steel of the bowsprit and bow pulpit and cleaned out the bilge. This in addition to overseeing/assisting the yards workers who hauled the boat two more times, replaced the lip of the Strong Seal (dripless stuffing box) in an attempt to stop the leak, aligned the prop shaft with the engine by shifting the engine on its mounts, and took ILENE out for a test drive which shows that we have good alignment --but we still have a leak, The cause this time is believed to be a distorted plastic disc bolted with four bolts to the transmission and four more to the shaft. It is plastic so it will shatter to prevent harm to the transmission if we hit something. Our choices were to get a replacement disc, or one of steel to take up the space, or get a new longer propeller shaft so no such spacer would be needed. We chose option A, and it is being sent to friends in Florida for me to try to install there.

But it was not all boat work and Witty worry. We had a tour of Bill and Sandos big new 45 foot dual engine DeFever trawler, named Lucille, like her predecessor, their Saga.

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Bill loves that it has easy access at dock level from the stern, does not have an open fly bridge (which he would not use), and has wide, safe, covered, exterior passageways. He is a perfectionist about his boats, keeping them pristine and making many improvements for comfort, safety and convenience. A minor example of these is the port side rear view mirror shown in the first photograph. M/V Lucille was in Maine this past summer and we hope to join Bill and Sando there in the summer of  16. I continue to very much admire Bills gentle, intelligent advice over the years and Lene says he has the best sense of humor.  He prefers to make longer off-shore passages to get to the desired cruising grounds more quickly, a very useful philosophy as we head south trying to get where it is warm before it gets too cold up here after a delay of a week.

Then, we had drinks and snacks at their lovely spacious modern home, raised about five feet above their lawn, which reaches to to the seawall,
which in turn is five feet more above sea level, with a commanding view of the Neuse River and all the boats that necessarily traverse it on the ICW. All told we enjoyed three dinners out with them, at half the local eateries, "M and Ms," "The Silos" which is built in two connected silos and "Toucan", and two breakfasts with them aboard ILENE.

And I played with the blog and determined that on the ten separate days that we made passages in October since we left Annapolis on October 12, we totaled 351 miles -- compared to the 268 we made in less than 48 hours from the Harlem to Annapolis on October 8-10. We went shopping for groceries several times and took Witty to the vet. Lene has a cold and visited a local emergency medical place and the Walmarts pharmacy. I try to not patronize Walmart whose owners get rich by paying their staff so little that we taxpayers subsidize them through food stamps etc.  But here we shopped at their store which was one of the places that put up a the lost kitty poster.

People in Orient are friendly and honest. The Yard leaves the keys to two of its old vehicles with a signup sheet for use by residents. I put some gas in the tank. I asked the man in the chandlery if I could return the valve cover if it didnt fit. He said: "Dont pay me now: come back and pay me if it fits". When I took our propane tank for a refill, the hardware store man said it was a flat service fee for filling, that the tank seemed 3/4 full and he couldnt charge me $12 for only $3 worth of gas. While walking around on the afternoon after the big storm, I saw folks gathering pecans that had fallen off of trees during the storm. Later I stooped to pick one up and Lee gave me a bag of them from her tree and invited me into her house to meet her husband Billy and their family, who were eating their dinner. They relocated here about a month ago from Orange County, NY. See, it doesnt take long here for the friendliness habit to set in.

I visited the Oriental Historical Museum and took most of one of their walking tours, past the towns historic houses. Oriental was a poor town founded in the late 1870s by hard working fishermen and farmers. This house, with its metal roof, like many of them, was the home of a prominent citizen in its day and is still very well maintained.

Mr. Midyette was the founder. When the post office was established here in the 1870s a name was needed. Mrs. Midyette thought of the steamer "Oriental," which had been wrecked (without loss of life) while carrying people and property for the US government during the Civil War in 1862. This wreck was on the outer banks, about 30 miles from here but Mrs. Midyette suggested the name and it has been so ever since. The name gives rise to the Asian theme including dragons. Here is a view from the middle of Broad Street, also known as Route 55, the main drag, looking west.

 I took a shot looking the other way, which was equally devoid of activity. You can get the idea that traffic jams are the not a big problem in this town. I did not get the full picture when I asked about population. The lovely, dedicated and knowledgeable volunteer at the museum told me it was 750. The Census Bureau reported 900 in 2010. But Im thinking both omitted the people who live in newer larger homes outside, but have Oriental mailing addresses, such as our friends, Bill and Sando. The town still has fishing but its farming gave way to lumber mills which were located where the public dock is now and from which I took this picture of the 1970s era bridge, which replaced the very much narrower wooden bridge of the depression era.
There are several  marinas on this side, the upstream side of the bridge, but not for us, because the bridge height is 55 feet.

 After the mills were shuttered the town was rescued by the boating community. 2700 boats is a lot of boats for what is still a very small town. I believe that much of the money in town nowadays comes from folks who retire here to live with their boats in a moderately warm place.
We plan to stop here again on our return trip back home.

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January 22 26 Five Lay Days in Marathon Zero Miles

Mike and Bev are in the Marathon Community Theater -- operating since 1944!  Well, they have only been in it for seven years; he is an actor and she is lighting crew. We went to their production of "Harvey". Actually, they drove us there. They had to be there early which gave us time for pre-theater dinner at the nearby Cracked Conch Cafe. I pigged out on conch chowder, conch fingers and key lime pie -- and a local beer! If you are going to eat native, go all the way. (ful disclosure: the conch comes in from Turks and Caicos and most key limes are not grown in the Keys.)
Other friends drove us to the local Publix, a little over a mile away, at which we stocked up on everything except Boars Head cold cuts; they sell -- for $3 less per pound than anywhere else -- at the nearby liquor store/deli, where we stocked up. Cab ride back: $4.00
We volunteered to help kids make "projects" out of materials donated by Home Depot, as part of a Family Fun Day at the adjacent municipal park, but the event was cancelled due to adverse weather. It didnt actually rain but threatened and there was a strong wind. We had a mango pancake breakfast on ILENE with Marsha and John, of the Saga 43, "Remora".

Nice folks and we compared our boats; theirs is six years younger and some improvements were made but other good features had been discontinued. They are from Houston and had sailed across the Gulf.
Around noon, the wind came up very strong and our anchor dragged -- a very bad thing in this crowd. We would have gone aground or crashed into other boats (even floating at one knot, ten tons can do a lot of damage to both boats). Luckily we saw it, got the engine and windlass on and Lene steered, I picked up the anchor and we moved to a slightly better location where we dropped again, let out more scope and held while the boat hunted back and forth, getting close, fifty feet, from "Selkie",

an aluminum hull from Cork, Ireland. Selkies captain came over in his dink and we invited his son and daughter, age six and ten (and their parents) over later, to play with our felines.
We were more lucky than a nearby boat, behind us -- facing the wrong way and heeled over -- that dragged into the sandy mud.

 Fortunately, they were afloat again the next morning. We would like to be on a mooring which is more secure against dragging, but no one is leaving until a weather window opens up for the Bahamas.
The daily radio net on VHF channel 68 creates a community among the boaters. It has a section called "Activities": movies,  theater, daily specials at restaurants, archery lessons, bible study, astronomy, meetings on human trafficking, passages to the Bahamas, etc. get announced. I asked whether anyone else sailing with cats wanted to  get together to share stories. But we had to leave our radio and did not get the replies, if any, which were to be shared on Channel 69 after the net. But next day s/v "Mardi Gras", from St. Louis, MO, with Barry and Linda aboard, hailed us while leaving Marathon by yelling, and gave us their phone number, so we could later exchange cat stories. Their stories were about Pearls swim one night when she got distracted while chasing a moth, and the crazy obscure hidden places in Mardi Gras  in which Pearl was able to trap herself. Similar to our cats adventures with variations. Their blog is sailmardigras.blogspot.com. We may see them in Key West or the Tortugas.
Our new pencil holder arrived and is installed. Lene hadnt liked the idea until now. I had thought this would be useful for several

years, to avoid having to open the hinged top of the desk and look under it for a pencil but didnt get one until now.
The movie "Red Dot On The Ocean" a documentary about Matt Rutherford, was shown on a sheet hung at the outdoor Tiki Lounge, next to the main marina building one evening. Matt, who had a troubled past with school, family, substances and the law, sailed an old Vega 27 -- a 27 foot boat -- around the Americas, departing from Little Creek Virginia and returning back there 309 days later, including west through the northwest passage above Canada to the Pacific and around Cape Horn -- (1) alone, (2) without stopping or going ashore and (3) on a short budget. He was met twice by other boats who brought him food and a replacement hand powered water maker. He had essentially no spare parts, sails, etc, and when he got back the boat was filthy and almost everything was broken, except his spirits. The film was highlighted by the presence of its director and producer,

Amy, from "Mary T", on a mooring. Needless to say this movie was appreciated by the audience, including us. Free admission! A real treat.

Technically, we are in Boot Key Harbor, formed by Marathon to the north (on which Route 1, the black line, runs), Boot Key to the South and Vaca Key to the east. We entered between the two red dots in the upper left (The upper one is a green buoy) and motored 1.2 miles east to between R"16" and R"18", shown just below the word "MARATHON."  From here it is a .6 mile dinghy ride, first continuing west and then north to the the land jutting south from Marathon by the buoy "5B". The greenish spot extending just below 5B called PA is a shoaly sea grass area, too shallow for even the dink. Thus, the harbor has room for expansion if people have the money to spend and the Corps of Engineers would permit this large squarish area, perhaps 200 yards on each side, to be dredged.
One morning we dinked through Sisters Creek which is the other entrance to the harbor, for dinghys and boats of up to four feet draft, to visit Sombrero Beach. The Creek is shown on the southern part of the chart and separates Boot key from Vaca Key. The water at the beach was warm enough for barefoot wading but  the air was cool enough for the sweatshirt. When I was in Key West for antisubmarine training in the fall of 1965, the type of seaweed that lines the shore here was made wet by daily rain and rotted in the intense heat, giving off a sulfurous gas that peeled the paint from peoples houses! No such problem here.

The municipal marina is next to the city park where they have tennis courts and shuffleboard courts and equipment and probably lots of other things, available for rent, if you can call it that, because they are free.

Readers may recall my friend Hugh, from my navy days, who sailed with me with his grandson, Levi, in Boston Harbor in early August 2013 and who visited us with Levi in NY in 2014. Learning that we were to be in Marathon through this blog, he put me in touch with his Machetonim (Yiddish word to describe ones childs in-laws), Beverly, who lives here. We contacted her but our first proposed meeting had to be cancelled by us due to excessive wind making the dink ride uncomfortable, and to be here in case of dragging.
We have spent two, non-consecutive days aboard here due to high winds. In the later, our extra scope and the shifting direction of the wind put us in the channel and we were directed to move and did so, to a new spot about .2 miles further from the marina. Our plan calls for us to stay here a few more days.
When I drove to and from Key West in 1965, the keys were largely unpopulated, just a few bars and low budget motels is all I recall. The place has filled in with the rest of Florida.

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