December 25 31 Final Work Day and 2015 ROUNDUP A Great Year!

I had planned on more than one final work day before the end of the year, what with such good warm weather so late this year but a wrenched back put the end to that. The last work day was devoted to the cabin sole. I want to check out how good the pieces I have done look, before committing to do the rest. I have been doing the bottom side of this flooring to encapsulate the wood in plastic to avoid a softer surface on which mildew could potentially grow, not that mildew has been a problem for ILENE.

Another non-boat day for calling Dave to make an appointment for January to work with me on cleaning and lubricating the winches and steering gear and fixing some pesky wires that no longer transmit sound to the cockpit speakers, etc. And then I had to figure out what parts and supplies I need for these jobs which involves a lot of calling and computer searching before ordering. But the non-boat water relatedday involved some play too: While my two favorite ladies, ILENE the boat and Lene, her mate, are thoroughly land locked on the hard in New York in late December, I had fun with Dames at Sea:

And while laid up resting the lumbar-sacral region I have been reading this months selection of my book group (all right, it was my suggestion): Jules Vernes "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea". So avid readers may expect another book report soon.

So what can I say about 2015. I sure got a grand dose of sailing and boating related activities - a lot of water under our keel. It was a very satisfying year, the year that my beloved Lene finally lost her ability to continue to claim "Im really not a sailor.".
We began the year in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to which we returned on March 5, after a lovely multi-stop visit to Key West Florida and 20 miles past that. Next were a lot of great passages and ports until we got back to the Harlem on May 26, the 146th day of this calendar year. Also: a two day trip down to Gravesend Bay to sail with LHermione, 17 days on the Club Cruise to Block Island, five days with Bob on s/v Pandora from The Connecticut River around Montauk Point to Hampton Virginia and 22 additional days of day sailing from our mooring and back for a total of 190 sailing or living days. My career high total, and possibly a number that what with aging, may never be equaled or exceeded. And as they say in the infomercials: "But wait, theres more! Add on 21 days involving the water that are not related to living, sailing or working on a sailboat, and 25 work days on ILENE. (Or course, many of the cruising or living days also involved some boat maintenance and repair, but those are not counted as lowly work days.) So the grand total this year was 236! A goodly percentage of the 365 available. I have nothing to complain about.

The way I have looked at it, sailing is a social activity with much of the fun coming from sailing on other peoples boats and inviting them onto ours. Most of the sailing days, including the first 146, were aboard ILENE. But 5 were on Pandora, 4 on Deuce of Hearts, 2 on Ohana and 1 on Pas de Deux, totaling 12 -- 178 out of the 190 were aboard ILENE.

Continuing my lifelong desire to share my boat with present and future friends, a total of 38 different people in addition to Lene sailed with me on ILENE, at least once day this year. Some sailed multiple times and others, not counted among the 38, did not sail, but came aboard for meals. Friends of mine, of Lene, from the Yacht Club, from our Synagogue, and from our condo.

And 2016, with a three month cruise to Nova Scotia as a goal, starts in a few hours. Before Nova Scotia comes after both a week with Bennett and Harriet (in whose home we will celebrate the New Years arrival) on s/v On Eagles Wings in the Virgins in early April and a week with Lenes family on a cruise liner from Galveston Texas in the Gulf of Mexico in early June.

On the macro level, the world may be going to hell in a hand basket with democracy threatened by big money at home, climate change destroying the world, gun nuts (both domestic and foreign) running amuck, a certain redheaded egomaniacal reality show star trying to move us from love toward hate, educational standards low and sliding, etc. But all I can say is that focusing in on the micro level I am blessed to have such a great life. And I recognize and am very grateful for the bounty bestowed upon me and my family.

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December 1 3 Kingsley Plantation to Jacksonville and two Lay Days There 19 8 Miles

The passage, under motor, was uneventful. I was a bit disappointed to miss out on the tide up the St. Johns River. If we had started a bit later we would have caught more favorable tide.  This large suspension bridge had a high tech industrial appearance, less graceful than others, I thought.

 We passed a large cruise ship about ten miles before the city and waved to the passengers. I had not known that Jax was a cruise ship port. The trip up the river about 15 miles reminded me a bit of Norfolk with a large military presence, and huge commercial shipping. Watching the mammoth cranes at work -- sliding out and picking up or putting down shipping containers so quickly was rather amazing. They must have a computer program to tell it what to do because each trip out over the water between ship and shore involved two containers -- one off and one on.
Jacksonville was named after President Andrew Jackson who made his name by killing Native Americans in Florida, and is the largest city we have visited since leaving New York, almost two months ago.
Jacksonville Landing, on the river, at the heart of the downtown area was apparently intended as a version of the commercial activities of New Yorks South Street Seaport Museum. But it has fallen on hard times and the stores are mostly fast food restaurants. (So we ate at Hooters, a first time experience for me as was eating a corn dog for lunch the next day).  But the City offers its seawall, perhaps 200 yards of floating dock -- free -- for up to three nights. And there is water so ILENE got a thorough bath, but there is no electric, showers or help getting on or off. The Landing has a bad reputation for subjecting boaters to petty crime and pan handling. An alternative is a different free municipal marina where one can also get electricity for $8.00 per night, and which is not near pan handlers. But it is 1.5 miles from the downtown area, we did not fear panhandlers and did not experience any problems.

They say you have to raft up to other boats -- up to five abreast!!  -- if there are more boats than wall space. This could be quite difficult considering the current that runs in the river. But we were the only boat there when we arrived in the early afternoon, and no rafting was needed during our three nights; and we could have stayed longer had we wanted. The photo was taken after we left, and the only boat is the one just to the left of where we were tied up, below the Hooters.
We visited the Cummer Museum. Not a bad try for a smaller city like this. It was in the Cummer mansion, with additional buildings and had three lovely formal gardens out back, fronting the river, English, Italian and the third by Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of New Yorks Central Park. The city has a municipal trolley- looking bus system. Its route is listed on the tourist maps and would have taken us to the museum $.75 per person, one way. We waited for almost an hour before some kind person showed us the inconspicuous sign which had been pasted up that said that service had been discontinued as of the day before. So we took a cab, walked to the new Fresh Market nearby and got another cab back to the boat.  I also visited a somewhat disorganized maritime museum located in JVille Landing, and we took the free skyway, an elevated railroad that connects different parts of the city (sort of like the systems at New Yorks airports) to an excellent and popular restaurant, B.B.s, at the end of the line on the other side or the river and walked back across the Main Street Bridge.

We were lucky to make this bridge opening on our way in. There was construction and all of the associated equipment had to be removed before they could raise the bridge, causing a delay that permitted us to avoid waiting almost an hour for the next opening.
We enjoyed visitors here: Michele and Manu, whose "TeePee" is in a marina at Green Cove Springs, another 20 miles up the St. Johns River, where they are readying her for the Bahamas. They came by car and after several hours of talking and eating we went to the  monthly arts walk including a free guided tour of the Jacksonville Theater, built in 1927 and renovated in the 80s, including its backstage and dressing rooms; sort of a mini Radio City Music Hall. The central business district was done up in booths with artisans and crafts people; many live music events reverberated in the streets.
We visited the Museum of Contemporary Art to see what all the controversy was about: The day before we arrived, a painting of a nude pregnant woman on display there had been denounced as pornographic by the city manager. It was not, but his criticism ensured large crowds and pickets defending the arts. Shades of Mayor Rudy Guiliani.  Then, back at the boat, Lene cooked up that sweet potato pasta as a prima vera for dinner aboard for the four of us. A good time. One Floridian described Jacksonville to me as "the armpit of Florida". We had only a few days there but his criticism seemed harsh.

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December 27 to January 1 Lake Sylvia to Cooleys Landing and Five Lay Days in Fort Lauderdale 2 9 Miles

Our short passage from an anchorage east of the ICW to a municipal marina up the New River to its west took place early in the morning, timed for our arrival to coincide at slack tide at our destination, at 7:30. The New is a natural river with deep enough water way up past Cooleys Landing. It has been dredged and is lined by boats on both sides, and very expensive homes. It twists extensively and is narrow. It is because our dock is perpendicular to the shore line that we had to arrive at slack -- to avoid being pushed past the slip by the tidal current at other times. Our slip is at the edge of Fort Lauderdales Riverwalk, with its arts district, close to the intersection of Las Olas Boulevard and Andrews Avenue. These streets divide the town into its four quadrants, NE, etc., i.e., the heart of town. The marina is inexpensive with good showers and wifi; its drawback was the inattentive staff. We got help tying up from a neighboring boat because the staff, who had promised to help us tie up, was no where to be hailed or found, and they did not check us in until the next day. The dock master, Matt, is helpful but his subordinates are not.
Getting here we passed under four bridges, each about a city block apart, which open on request. Well, one is for the railroad and is always open except when a train comes along. We were lucky to arrive on a weekend day because the bridges do not open during designated ninety minute periods at the morning and evening rush hours on weekdays -- and the slack was during that 90 minute period. ILENE is the boat at the left, closest to the bridge, shown at the right. View of the arts center is blocked by the tall condo.

 This next view is from the bridge with ILENE the boat on the right.

The drawback to being so close to The Marshall Bridge, named after the towns first Mayor, is that it opens and closes with a clanging bell and each car that drives across makes a loud noise on the central span which is a metal grate; but this is no worse than the traffic on Broadway and

Fourth Avenue, which serenades us at home -- we city slickers are inured to noise.
The most exciting thing happened one afternoon: the subject of the next days headlines. In addition to the four bridges there is an overhead power cable, stated on the chart to be 80 feet above the water, so of no concern to us. But a sailboat with a 75 foot high mast (or he said it was that high) hit the cable and broke it, with the ends falling into the river and shutting down a good part of the city for several hours until power could be restored. The newspapers reported that there was a loud explosion but we did not hear it. A police boat hovered off our stern, shutting traffic on the river for several hours.
Several of our activities here involved Lenes cousin, Naomi and her family. We had thought to do more with them but Naomi broke her pelvis a few days before we arrived so instead of fun activities we visited her in a Rehabilitation Center a couple of times. Each of her sons, Jeffrey and Alan, and her granddaughter, Carly, who is a Vet student came to the boat, for breakfast, to hang out, and for a trip by dink, a mile and a half further up the New River, to a shipyard where they work on mega yachts.

And this is a mega in transit down the river, with one tug pulling at the bow and another pulling and steering from the stern.

We also took in a performance of the State Ballet of Russia at the Parker Playhouse, a 1000 seat auditorium a cab ride away.

It was Sunday afternoon, with the Dolphins playing so we had a good shot at getting tickets at the door.

The program was excerpts from three Tchaikovsky ballets and the performance was skillful. One dance I had never seen was called the cat dance from the Sleeping Beauty; living with cats we saw how accurately and cutely  the choreographer had mimicked their movements.
Another day involved a trip to the Galleria Mall where the Apple store is, to replace the one Lene droped. We had Apple insurance so it did not cost an arm and a leg. The mall was 3.7 miles away per Mapquest, but after half a mile Lene balked at the walk and we discovered that the Number 40 bus ran from nearby to the mall for 85 cents for a senior. And while there, the food court provided great salads for lunch.

We did some other shopping and were picked up by Dick and Elle, former Harlemites who are selling their trawler and have sold their home in NJ for a home in an over-55 community in Boynton Beach. Dick is a Past Commodore of the Club. We were the first Harlemites to meet Elle when they came into a dock at a marina in Baltimore during May of 2006. Dick and Elle were the first Harlemites to see ILENE afloat. Dinner was at the Bimini Boatyard (more posh than the boatyards in Bimini where we stayed in 2012). They drove us back to the boat and for coffee here. In the summer of 2010 they met me and gave me a list of their favorite places to stay on the ICW, many of which we have now visited. Im very thankful for their help.
Naomi had joked that she was running a parcel service for us, and we took possession of about a dozen boxes: repair parts, cat food, mail from home, etc. And then we stowed it and iustalled the new and larger club burgee to replace the old one which had been whipped into shreds by the wind. Also a replacement dog to fasten down a side opening port. The old one had been tightened by pliers after its bakelite knob broke off about two years ago. It was not until the Annapolis Boat Show that I saw that the ports were made by Hood and ordered a new knob. And while at at, I cleaned and waxed the stainless of the starboard side ports.
Jeff took us to dinner at a local restaurant called Tarpon Bend. While enjoying blackened mahi tacos, I had the pleasure of informing our waitress how her restaurant got its name. She guessed that it was after the tarpon fish, but the first bend on the New River is called Tarpon Bend.
New Years eve was about as non posh as one can get. The number 10 bus took us to a movie theater up on Sunrise Boulevard where we saw The Imitation Game. Not bad but it would have been better if they showed the three sets of scenes: (a) at boarding school in the 1922s, (b) during the war and (c) in the early 50s -- in chronological order instead of slicing them to bits and jumbling them together. My theory is that if your story is good enough, and this one had two stories, one about code breaking and the other about Alan Turings personal relations, you dont need flashbacks. Its sort of like The Love Boat, that TVshow. Each week they had three weak stories about
 relationships among the passengers and crew, but by jumbling them they made it seem more interesting. Down, Roger! Get off that soap box!
Our non posh evening continued after the movie: Dinner at Burger King, bus ride back, walk through the five block long stretch of 2nd Street barricaded and with 20 stands selling beer and bombarded with ultra loud recorded music, in preparation for the throng to watch the ball drop at midnight, and home asleep in our berth from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Our final night here was a family dinner at Islamorada Fish Company with all of Naomis family except, alas, Naomi.

 Carly, Jeff, Mary, Roger and Lene.




A better view of Carly and her three legged rescue dog, Mulligan.

Next stop Miami.

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December 25 and 26 Vero Beach to Lake Worth Then to Ft Lauderdale 48 1 and 54 Miles

These two rather longer passages were quite different because the first was inside, cold and dry while the second was out in the ocean, warm and rainy.
On both days we got underway a few minutes after seven but we dropped the anchor at 4:15 the first day and 3:00 the second. More miles in less time.
The ICW requires attention to detail and while we flew the small jib for speed, we could have profited from the larger genoa except that the wind was generally directly behind us so that the self tacking smaller head-sail gybed back and forth as minor wind changes and course variations took place. With the genoa such gybes would have been a major problem. One of the myriad beautiful homes we passed.

There was very little other traffic on Christmas morning and we wished a merry Christmas to the bridge tenders of the low bridges when requesting openings. Bridges were the major frustration, causing delay and providing the days "moment of terror". When we called to alert the tenders that we were coming from the north and request openings, most of the tenders, who these days are mostly ladies, told us to maintain speed -- they would open for us when we got there. One failed to live up to this promise and at the last minute, moving at almost seven knots, three of them provided by a favorable current, I had to slam into reverse gear, hard, to avoid breaking our mast against the not yet opened bridge. A moment of terror. We normally thank the tenders for the openings.

We also had to wait for three of the bridges to open because they open only on request but only on the hour and half, or at 15 and 45 minutes after the hour. I have written in large print on our paper charts whether each bridge is "High" or "Low" and if low, its name, (needed to hail it to request an opening) and what its schedule of openings is, or "on demand".  But what I have yet to do is calculate the nautical miles between each pair of bridges with schedules so that we can regulate our speed to arrive "on time."

One cant get there late and early is bad too, because the current is sometimes trying to push you under the closed bridge. And I learned through experience yesterday that a 1:30 pm opening does not mean that the bridge will actually be open at 1:30. Rather, the whistle sounds then that the gates will be coming down and only after all the traffic has passed and the gates lowered does the bridge begin to slowly swing upwards. So our ability to pass will not occur until 1:35 and an additional five minutes of fighting the current has to be built in together with a five minute delay in starting toward the next bridge. I hope it does not sound like Im whining about the bridges; actually I write to give you a sense of the challenges we embrace.

I tried to rendezvous with Dave of the Harlem YC, who was visiting in the Deerfield Beach area but our plans were thwarted by a failure of communications. Lake Worth, Florida, is a city that appears on land maps. But the lake in question is quite long and our anchorage was in a cove at the extreme north end, in Palm Beach actually. This extra drive, the difficulty in finding a restaurant open on Christmas night and the problem of directing Dave to a parking spot near the dinghy dock of a place I had never been before all conspired to prevent the rendezvous. I changed the oil instead. And after a long day, we had a quiet evening aboard and did not lower the dinghy. I won at rummy and Lene won at casino, as usual.
The anchorage is quite large with many boats and room for many more. And it is surrounded by private residences including many high rises and a marina where mega yachts stay, like those in Antigua, St. Maartens and St. Barts, and, well, Fort Lauderdale. We are in the crowded wealthy part of Atlantic South Florida. Many of the people up the coast told us they felt that they had escaped from here.
(The only time I was ever in the Lake Worth anchorage before was briefly, aboard m/v Sea Leaf, in the spring of 2012. heading north, I had continued straight into the anchorage instead of making a left turn to continue up the ICW. All of the thousands of reds and greens that mark the ICW have a distinctive yellow square to distinguish them from non-ICW buoys, like those marking the channel into the anchorage. But I did not know that then. I sensed that something was wrong, however, and the captain confirmed it and we turned around.)
The next day we avoided about twenty bridges by going outside in the Atlantic from the Lake Worth Inlet to the Port Everglades (Fort Lauderdale) Inlet. One high bridge before transit through a busy commercial port on the way out and one low bridge with half hour openings on request at the other end, which we made without a significant wait. And once out, our course was essentially a straight line, an average of about .7 miles off the coast. Actually the coast here curves slightly to the west so we added a few degrees to the west as we got further south. At first the wind was from the west, not the north-northeast, as had been predicted. And then it was confused and near absent. But by nine a.m. the wind came in from the predicted direction and the apparent wind was  a bit more east, about ten to twenty degrees aft of ILENEs port beam. We used full main and genoa; how long has it been since last we used them -- before Thanksgiving on the overnight passage to the St. Marys River. With apparent wind in the teens we were making better than seven knots, with autopilot steering.
We overtook one sailboat. It first appeared as a speck before us on the horizon. Soon it became apparent that it was a sailboat. Her mast kept getting taller as measured against the slot between the upper and lower rails of ILENEs  bow pulpit. She was not even visible behind us when we turned in. We passed another sailboat being towed north by Sea Tow and I felt so sorry for him. We passed the condo where my parents lived in Pompano Beach. We passed four huge freighters anchored out at sea. The rain was mostly light but decreased visibility to the beach, though you can see it in the photo below.

A brief heavy downpour occurred just as we were furling the headsail to turn right into the inlet.



But it was warm so the rain was not unpleasant, though it chased Lene and the paper charts below. If I do not look like a happy camper to you, your impression is mistaken.

Lots of big traffic in and out of Port Everglades. We saw this guy miles away, heading west toward the inlet as we came south.

Two of these funny looking rectangularish tugs came out to greet her and push her in just behind us, honking us further to the red side of the channel.

We hugged the eastern shore tightly going in and at mid tide saw no less than 7.8 feet of water during the entry. As soon as we were secured, on 50 feet of chain in eleven feet of water, the rain stopped and the drying process could begin. The cats began their mutual bathing ritual. We were the 17th boat in the lake, with room for more. (Sorry about this font.)

We spent a week in Lake Sylvia in the Spring of 2012 but this time we are planning to stay most of our time in Fort Lauderdale at Cooleys Landing, a municipal marina in the New River, next to Riverwalk and two blocks from Las Olas Boulevard. I guess we are just city people at heart, though we do enjoy nature too, like this Lake Sylvia sunset.

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December 19 20 Dragon Point to Vero Beach and First Two Lay Days Here 32 4 Miles

Another day of motoring in the ditch with no wind. Passing Johns Island, near Vero, to port, we were impressed by the wealth invested in real estate there recently, lets say within the last decade, in large single family homes. The John Island stretch of the ICW was nice and deep, about 16 - 18 feet, compared with 10 - 14 feet most of the rest of the days passage. possibly the influence of money.
Dragon and Vero are very similar geographically. Both are on the eastern, barrier island side of the ICW, just north of a high, 65 foot bridge linking that island to the mainland. In both cases you continue south until you are almost at the bridge and then hook a sharp left around a green buoy into a small sheltered space.

Vero has a nice municipal marina with docks (at left in photo above) for those who want them and moorings that rent for less than $15 per night, including taxes, cheaper on a weekly, monthly or annual basis.

ILENE is third from right. Sailors on a budget joke that the place is called "Velcro Beach" -- people come here and seem to stick here -- living aboard for about $300 per month. The marina reserves the right to raft you up, as many as three boats on a mooring, but so far we (and all the other moored boats) have been alone. We told the marina to raft up only people who are not allergic or phobic about felines. They have no launch service but a very short dink ride in sheltered water to an ample and secure dinghy dock in a canal just off the harbor.

Good showers and laundry but the wifi is terribly weak: we retreated to ILENE where Lene finished Breaking Bad using most of our remaining monthly allotment of fifteen gigabytes on the last day of the subscription month.
Our neighbors:

The town has a free public transit system of fifteen mapped and scheduled routes. The marina is a stop on Bus Route 1 which runs both to and along the Atlantic coast, about a mile east, leaving at 10 minutes after the hour and west to the airport on the mainland side at 45 minutes after the hour. At the airport, or before, you can connect to most of the other routes but some destinations require three buses. So it is free and extensive but service is limited to once an hour, ending on weekdays at six, Saturdays at three and there is no service on Sundays.
We walked to the beach and back on our first evening (about two miles round trip) and had a mediocre Italian dinner. We took the bus to the mainland market and to the beach for a long walk on it the next day. We had some nice talks with some of the local people. Many jellyfish, about a foot in diameter when flattened, lay dead or dying on the beach, to be cleaned up by the authorities. The Beach is steeper than those at Daytona and Cumberland Island. This beachside town is the opposite of Daytona Beach. No honky tonk.  No cars on the sand. Banks and brokerage houses(insurance, real estate and securities) instead of head shops and tattoo parlors. And no or very few high rises. Moderately large suburban ranch style homes that I guess were built in the 60s.Modest compared to the Johns island megamansions. More older people. Development has been managed here. There are poor people in Vero but not in the beachfront side of this town.
We saw a sign advertising a diver, Peter, who lives on his boat here. He came to do our bottom, said it was rather clean, and replaced our zincs. I was surprised that he charged only $40.00. I topped up the water levels in the seven batteries, which were down very little, except for the group 27 starting battery where the level was too high, above the "fill to this line" mark, so I used an eye dropper (used to test the battery) to draw out the excess fluid from it. I wonder how that happened and what harm the excess acid-water may have done to the battery. Its charge seems better now.
We had planned to stay two days but some forecast  rain and strong winds from the south  may extend our stay until Christmas. It is a pleasant place to be detained and we plan to visit the Art Museum, which is an easy walk, on Sunday, and the Botanical Gardens and a movie at the mall using bus connections after that.
We have also been contacting present and former members of the Harlem YC who live in south Florida at least part of the year, and though some are going north to be with family for the holidays, we expect to rendezvous with at least some of them during the next few weeks.

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December 11 13 Daytona Beach to New Smyrna and Two Lay Days There Only 16 Miles

It took only three hours with a fifteen minute delay at a bridge near our destination that opens only every twenty minutes. Cold but clear with more wind than yesterday so we used only the small jib. We passed the Ponce de Leon Inlet with its distinctive lighthouse by the sea.

There were alternate buoyed routes at two points in this short passage and we took the one officially marked as the "ICW route" which was inland from the light. The last time I was here was crewing on a northbound 74 foot motor yacht, m/v "Sea Leaf," in 2012. Then we stopped at a marina by the light before jumping out into the Atlantic for a romp up to Beaufort NC.
Today we could have gone another 32 miles to Titusville, but we broke the trip there from Daytona into two parts by stopping here because Lene heard or read that New Smyrna is a nice town.  This has emerged as our plan for the winter: We are going south in Florida slowly. We are already in Florida but have several hundred miles to get to the Dry Tortugas, which is as far as one can go in the U.S.  This involves a lot of the ICW because many of the ports are not easily accessible from the sea. The two hops from Lake Worth to Fort Lauderdale and from there to Miami Beach, will be out in the Atlantic, during good weather, because of bridges. There are so many bridges that you have to wait for in the first such hop and a fixed 56 foot bridge in the second that we just can not ever get under. And the trip in the Keys is planned as a mix of inside and outside jumps. Having stopped almost everywhere in Florida on our way south, we plan to skip a lot of these same stops on the way north by going outside. A plan that has sort of come to us and like all plans is waiting to be changed.
Anyway New Smyrna is a very nice cozy well run, friendly municipal marina with good showers but mediocre wifi.

We are at the furthest out slip, which, given how small this place is, was not a disadvantage. In fact it was an advantage because we had a clear unobstructed view of the Christmas Parade of lighted boats on Saturday night from our cockpit. About 20 boats, both power and sail, decked out in vastly colorful lights came up the ICW right past our cockpit. The photos do not do the spectacle justice.
They have a decent history museum here run by the historical society with interesting local artifacts such as the equipment used to cut "cats faces" (shallow "V" shaped slashes) on pine trees to collect the sap to make turpentine. The town got its name from the home town of the founders wife in Greece. The Marina is in the background, two blocks from the museum and between them is a 20 foot high plateau

on which is the ruins of the foundation of either the home that was shelled and burned in a naval bombardment from two US gunboats during the Civil War or a fort. The signage was more directed against vandalism than providing information. The museum has a copy (or original of an affidavit signed by a survivor, after the war, in support of a claim for reparations, asserting that no member of the family lifted arms in support of the Confederacy. I was interested in how the legal form of the affidavit has been relatively unchanged from then to today.
One thing I forgot to report from the museums in St. Augustine is that during the civil war, excluding the native Americans, the total population of Florida was less than 10,000, more than half of them slaves. But you cant believe all you learn in museums: In Fernandina I was told that the original native Americans here were a peaceable and matriarchal society; in St Augustine the story was about the chiefs and the wars between them. Because we can not talk to them directly anymore, each historian draws his or her own conclusions.
The main drag on this half of town, west of the ICW, is called Canal Street,

about six blocks long. We had dinner one night at Yellow Dog Eats on that street, which specializes in variations on pulled pawk. Saturday the street was closed for an antique and classic car show. My friend Jim would have loved the car show. Meticulously maintained and highly shined cars from the 30s through the 70s simply parked on the street, with their owners in lawn chairs nearby to answer questions. Some pride themselves on all original components while others have replaced the interior mechanicals with more powerful and efficient engines.
We took the shuttle bus that picked us up at the far end of Canal Street at Dixie Highway and took us to the beach.

The fare is $0.75 one way for a senior. After a stroll on the beach, we walked the two plus miles back through the main drag of the beach side of town, Flagler Street, and across the bridge that detained us on our passage into town.

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December 16 18 Two More Lay Days in Titusville and Passage to Dragon Point Anchorage 30 9 Miles

Titusville is a good place to leave ones boat for the Christmas holidays as our friends on Autumn Borne and Seeker are doing. But it is also a sightseeing launch pad. Our first lay day was devoted to JFK Space center on Cape Canaveral, on Merritt Island, which forms the eastern shore of the Indian River (think of boxes of fruit from Florida) and was the subject of my prior post.
Our second lay day was mostly errands: Post office, bank, pet food store, laundry, and supermarket. But we also visited the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. It has a one lane unpaved loop road about three feet above sea level in a very circuitous path  about 7.5 miles long with about fifteen stops for viewing wildlife, mostly birds. But there are alligators there too and the book says there are small mammals as well and their droppings attest to it. It is a birders paradise and made me wish I was a birder, because there are so many species.

t flies but its not a bird.

Out in the middle of nowhere, there is an additional 5 mile hiking loop further than the road goes. I walked about half a mile and back while Lene waited. The wet lands and marshes have a few high spots, about three feet high, and the road simply connected them. The place is not completely natural but rather carefully managed to let seawater in,or out, to preserve ideal depths for different species. I took a lot of pictures but few came out well. Another paved road takes you to Playalinda (pretty beach in Spanish) Beach but we ran out of time.

And our last lay day was for the Universal theme parks in Orlando. Lene wanted this and I think she has gotten roller coasters out of her system. It was mostly monster rides but also a lot of inside rides that are intended to be scary.  For the giant ones a person must check all things that could fly away with the violent shaking of ones body: bags, hats, glasses, phones, cameras, wallets, change etc. They have rooms with walls of lockers that use your fingerprint to lock and unlock them. These areas need to be enlarged a bit. They have attendants to keep things moving when the system fails. The locker areas are the only thing in the park that needs to be expanded. I did not take pictures except these of Lene in chartreuse top with colossal structures.

We were lucky it was not Christmas week when the crowds would be three times as large. Several rides said that the line was 45 minutes, but in fact the times were shorter than that. And they keep you moving and entertained while waiting.  There are two separate parks with different rides in each, though both had Harry Potter rides and villages (One London and the other the suburban school). We were not close followers of the HP phenomenon but enjoyed it anyway. One mistake was drinking a "butter beer:" it looks like a beer with a head, but it is all cream and butterscotch and sweeter than is good for anyones health. All told, we went on about a dozen rides or shows during the 8.5 hours we were in the park. Most rides and shows are based on Universals action thriller or cartoon characters. They have done a very good job with some of the shows. The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad was in a huge amphitheater with acrobats, diving, and explosives. A Neptune show was all large excellent computer animation and pyrotechnics. These two had a watery theme as did two rides that we skipped because the fun is getting drenched. Both of the HP rides and several others put you in cars which move along a track, swivel on center and tilt and shake in myriad ways while 3D computer animations confront you. Very clever use of burning hot big flames -- you could feel the heat. Similarly, when an aquatic villain loomed out there was a spray of real water -- Aldous Huxleys "The Feelies" have arrived. An old fashioned looking railroad takes you from the HP area of one park to the other, with attendants in each area appropriately costumed. But the view out the window of the train would be of the back sides of  the various rides so instead of they put us, six in a small cabin, on one side of the train and amused us two ways during the short ride. For one thing, silhouettes of HP characters were made to appear in cloudy silhouette in the trains corridor, nattering about aspects of the plot. On the other side, a computer animated view of the English scene was shown moving past as if you were traveling by train in England. Clever. And the park is very expensive: $135 per person plus $17 to park the car. And merchandising everywhere. (for an additional $50 per person you can get an express pass which gives you the right to get on a separate shorter line to wait for the rides and shows. Not needed the day we visited.) We had dinner back in Titusville at Chops -- good food at a reasonable price.
On passage day, breakfasting out (third day in a row), returning the rental car, showering, raising the dink and fueling led to a 10:45 departure for Dragon Point (There was a big statue of a dragon here but it has disintegrated). It is the southern pointy tip of Merritt Island. No wind to speak of so; motoring all the way. At the Point we hooked a left into the Banana River, on the eastern side of that island, and dropped the hook a couple of hundred yards up that river in 17 feet of water at high tide with 100 feet of snubbed chain, for a quiet evening aboard. We had thought to stop and anchor half way in Cocoa FL,but skipped it this time. I have stopped reporting dolphins because they are with us every day.

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December 10 St Augustine to Daytona Beach 45 Miles

The storm surge having receded from the day before, we got underway at 6:30a.m. motoring the inside passage starting shortly after low tide. We held our breath a few times passing under 65 foot bridges as the tide rose during the day. There were about ten bridges in all but the low ones all opened on request, causing no delays. It began cold but clear and the winds were light. Bundled up, we were warm enough. The ICW here was mostly southerly and deep and wide enough to not be a cause of worry. With the winds mostly easterly, we were able to fly the small jib and later I was emboldened to fly the genoa, which gave us half a knot.

We arrived at the Halifax River Yacht Club  at two. What a club it is. View with Lene from ILENE.

It is easily approached directly from the ICW through a straight, well- marked channel -- a 90 degree right turn west from the ICW just after passing a particular low bridge. You can see the day markers to the sides of ILENEs forestays and part of the bridge to the left.

 The Club is a mile from the beach, using that bridge to cross the ICW.
First built on this site in 1898, it was recently rebuilt. The dockmaster, Peter, formerly a teacher, after directing us to our dock and helping us with our lines and electric cord and brewing a pot of coffee for us, gave us a thorough tour of the place, of which he is justly proud. Im a big booster of the Harlem and could have done no better by the HYC than Peter did for the HRYC. He stubbornly refused our proffered tip. The tides are normally less than a foot here so the docks are fixed, not floating. HRYC has a large and elegant clubhouse and a large membership.  Some of the boats here have been extensively done up in Christmas lights.

The restaurant had only its Tiki menu due to a membership meeting our night there so Peter pointed out several restaurants in easy walking distance, of which we chose McKs Irish Pub. He also pointed out the Clubs health club. He offered to take us to stores in his car and a free bag of ice cubes. The showers are clean and offer a copious flow of hot water. This club has many more members than it has room for boats in its marina. It has three hotel quality meeting rooms and had three outside organizations booked for meetings the day we were there. It has three full time office staff. It offers a free nights dockage for members of any other YC that is part of a council of 30 clubs in Florida. As members of the Harlem we paid only $1.25 per foot. It has an active ocean racing program and a youth program.
The only drawback in my view is that in order to actually sail one has to go fourteen miles south in the narrow ICW and then through the somewhat tricky Ponce de Leon Inlet near New Smyrna to the sea with freedom to select the course you wish. Figuring at least five hours for going out and coming back in, this leaves few hours for a day of sailing.
In the morning we declined the free coffee but Peter took me to the sea for a walk there and I walked back and then took Lene to the Supermarket, waited for her and brought her back.
The beach is quite long and clean. Paddle boarders and surfers were out in wetsuits and the paddleboarders surfed the big waves. I noticed the communities of various species of sea birds standing on the beach, common gulls, those with long orange beaks, with the same beaks but black tipped and sandpipers, all in what appeared to be harmony. I talked with the fishermen on the pier built out into the sea. On my way back, taking the closest street paralleling the beach, I saw the usual suspects: tattoo parlors, salt water taffy, piercing shops, head shops, pizza parlors, fried fish joints surfing shops and those selling towels and tee shirts for women with sexually suggestive double entendres blazoned on the front.
On my way back, from the low bridge next to the Club I shot a view to the north of two high bridges with a low one in between them, under which we had passed.

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December 22 24 Three More Lay Days in Velcro Beach Zero Miles

The Vero Beach Art Museum is quite good for a town this size. The highpoint for me was an exhibit of the history of Haitian art, led by docent Phoebe.

She told us how the native artists were given materials and opportunities -- but without any training, classical or otherwise -- to develop their own natural, primitive art forms. This was done by a conscientious objector to WWI who fled there. We were told the history of that blighted nation from its colonial days under the French, its slave revolt, and a series of despotic rulers with occasional harmful US interventions, plus more than its share of natural disasters. All of this history plus the voodoo tinged Catholicism is captured in the art.

And having purchased a steel barrel-head based wall sculpture of gekkos by a Haitian artist in Swansboro, NC, we were pleased to note several works of this genre in the show.

The Mckee Botanical Gardens was less thrilling. The place had its heydays in the 30s when it also featured a zoo and was quite popular. Having been closed for decades, it was reopened in the 90s and provides a very pleasant oasis of quiet solitude with not very much labeling of the trees. McKee specializes in water lilies.

These pads, with raised rims, are 18 inches across.

Two beauties: Lene with orchids

"The Old Man" having fallen, is a life source to other plants

Pink powder puffs is what I call these

I got ten times more questions about this Maine tee shirt than about any of my other shirts. Seems everyone who has ever been anywhere in New England wants to strike up a conversation. Maybe its the large font size.
We had lunch at McKees Cafe and used two buses to get back to ILENE where I polished more stainless,
Our last day here involved a bus ride and .8 mile walk to a movie theater to see Birdman and Wild. Admission for seniors $5, refillable popcorn $2. Our first movie since NY. I liked Wild better; it involves one persons trek of the Pacific Rim Trail, and i somehow identified our boat camping with that long-distance camping experience; no I have not given the plot away.
And we had to buy a new boat hook because the old one now lies on the bottom, after the metal pole slipped out of its rubber handle under strain. Dinner was at Riverside Cafe, about 3/4 of a mile by dink. I love commuting by dink and the live music was nice but the food, unremarkable.
Oh, and you havent heard me whining about how cold it is. Thats because we have have gone from three quilts over the top sheet to zero and opening hatches to let in cooler air.
And ever since St. Marys GA, freight train whistles have been our companion most every night. South Florida was developed as a result of the railroad built by Flagler and freight trains still run along the coast.
Six nights in one place is a long time for us.

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