TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG                   VOL. 1
                            Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10                 OUR FIRST WINTER IN FLORIDA                                       
St. Augustine History; as I saw it.
St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States of America that was founded by Europeans. In 1565 Don Pedro
Menendez de Aviles established the small colony and then left to return to Spain and instructed his colonists not to
do anything until he returned…which he never did.
Over the years the British, pirates and Indians attacked the little Spanish settlement. It was such a poor little suck-
hole it is hard to believe that anyone would have even wasted the effort.
The British conquered Cuba and traded it back to the Spanish in 1763 for Florida. The British relinquished it to the
United States in 1821 and in 1860 the CSA or Confederate States of America took control. It was invaded and
conquered and ultimately in 1865 became part of the United States of America again. In the intervening years a
seven-year war was waged with the Seminole Indians that claimed many lives between 1835 and 1842. At the
National cemetery in St. Augustine, under three cement pyramids, a mass burial grave holds more than a thousand
bodies. Most of those soldiers came from England, Ireland, Prussia and Germany.

It was a poor little town with poor soil and no overland ties with the outside world until the 1890s when Henry Flagler
made old St. Augustine into a place of significance. Henry built three state of the art hotels that were lavishly
appointed and he then brought the world to St. Augustine with his railroad.
Henry Flagler soon became very disenchanted with St. Augustine and said that, “the locals kept the town third rate
and dirty”.
Henry then moved south with his railroad to West Palm Beach, Miami and Key West.
St. Augustine languished as a poor little town on the way to somewhere else. Henry Flagler maintained a railroad
office there. The Flagler hotels eventually converted to other uses, even the Flagler Memorial Hospital that Henry
built and funded with a self-perpetuating trust in perpetuity was flimflammed out of business and even the land it sat
on was a snafu.
At least the many churches Henry Flagler built in St. Augustine are still operational.

Over the years the local shrimp fishing industry supported three fish processing docks, Salvador, Versaggi and Poli
were all there from the beginning. A man named “Salvador” was a pioneer in the Florida industry and in 1922
opened a seafood processing plant in St. Augustine.  Between 1922 and 1929 it was rumored that the Saint
Augustine commercial fishing fleet exceeded 100 boats. In 1949, Salvador discovered shrimp in Key West and the
demand for shrimp trawlers went wild.

When we arrived in St. Augustine in the fall of 1972 we were surprised to see that there were over a hundred shrimp
boats fishing the last of the fall white shrimp season before moving on to Key West to fish the winter season.
Half dozen boat builders sprang into action in St. Augustine. The biggest was Desco, (Diesel Engine Sales
Company), where their motto was “The Sun Never Sets on a Desco Trawler”, St. Augustine Trawlers was next in size
followed by four “mom and pop” boatyards that were mostly Greek owned. The most impressive to me was the one
owned by Steve Sarris. He and five other workers would completely build an entire shrimp boat, ready to sail away,
every two months. These boats were at least 65 feet long and the only thing that they used on shore was an oak
tree to hoist up the stem for assembly and for shade.

This was a low wage industry. It was said that Jacksonville was the minimum wage capital of America and that
workers from St. Augustine would go there to better themselves.

1964; the race riots; these were very bad times for the city. Blacks were literally beaten into submission. For four
months the city was under martial law with Federal troops trying to keep a lid on hotheaded fanatical hate mongering
zealots. Sheriff L.O. Davis rode out those brutal times and remained in office for 21 years, and finally the state
governor deposed him. In the end the Federal Government suspended all federal aid for ten years. The population
went from 16,000 to 12,000 in four months; it was almost a quarter century before the city got moving again
economically.

When we arrived in December 1972 we got to see a picturesque little “down-south” city with quiet neighborhoods.
We witnessed some of the aftermath of those race riots when we would see distinguished well-dressed black men
step off the sidewalk into the street when a white women came by and then they would bow and tip their hats. We
couldn’t believe what could have possibly transpired that could have brought these people to this state of mind.
There were no chain restaurants in 1972 and the cooking featured “down-south” style. You didn’t have to ask for
grits…they just came with the meal. Fried chicken, “St. Augustine style fried shrimp”, shrimp pilau or purlo (an
African specialty), collard greens, rice and gravy and the St. Augustine specialty of datil peppers were all standard
fare. Six small neighborhood drug stores with soda fountains and lunch counters had daily specials and a regular
clientele.

Pantry Pride and A&P were the only two supermarket chains with Winn Dixie soon to follow. Broudy’s was the only
locally owned supermarket but local neighborhood grocery stores were in every part of town. The local businesses
were all closed on Wednesday afternoons, which was a standard southern tradition found in all small towns in the
south and was a carryover of days gone by. We got to see the last of that tradition that went away with the coming of
the franchise fast food establishments in the mid -70s plus K-mart came to town.
Florida law permitted drive-in liquor stores where the customer could get their booze plus an open beer or mixed
drink and drive away. St. Augustine had several of these businesses. The Florida law at that time concerning
drinking and driving was that it was OK but against the law to “be under the influence” of anything including drugs.
The law has since changed.

There was a local bus service but it folded less than 6 months after we arrived.

No fishing license was required and the only limitation on fishing was that in order to use a gillnet you needed to go
to the ocean. Harvesting of clams, oysters and other shellfish was unlimited. Most people usually preferred the
cooler winter months for shellfish. My personal opinion was that the oysters in the St. Augustine area were tied for
first place with the Indian River as world’s best.

Wild “Red Neck” bars like the South Dixie Tavern, Shrimp Haven and the High Chaparral were noted for rowdy fights
and loud music.  
The Trade Winds and White Lion bars were for the more sophisticated and catering to the white-collar group.

The most conspicuous thing about St. Augustine was its tourist traps. Over the course of our first winter in St.
Augustine we checked every one out.
We became Florida residents, then received discounts and free admissions to attractions.
There are far too many tourist attractions to list them all here but a few were; the old fort (Castillo de San Marcos),
Potter’s Wax Museum, Lightner Museum, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, The Fountain of Youth, The Old Jail, Old School,
Old Drugstore, Oldest House, and on and on…
















 Castillo de San Marcos; (the old fort), Jane and I on the entryway moat bridge.














The old fort looking south from the top with the “Bridge of Lions” in open position.













The old fort looking north at low tide with Bird Island and the Vilano Bridge in the background.

Sightseeing trains and horse carriages were the most popular ways to get around to all of the attractions and you
could buy a pass and get on and off as much as you liked. The harbor tour on Usina’s family owned Victory II was
one of the best values in town and also among the most pleasant. It left from the City Yacht Pier several times a day
and in the evening.

Though Saint Augustine has been touted as a “Stagnant Little Suck Hole” and a “Cultural Wasteland”, there were
several daily and weekly events that made it culturally acceptable. There were weekly free concerts in the tourist
center in the winters and in the central plaza park in the summer. Daily there were free pipe organ concerts at one
of Flagler’s churches.  Flagler Collage held informative and interesting programs, hosted speakers and had
classical movies all free and open to the general public.

The State D&B School, (Deaf and Blind School), sponsored special interest travel logs, song and dance groups and
the like. We kept busy and made it a point to take in all that was offered.

The city abounded in architectural curiosities that ranged from the Old Spanish Fort, which I first visited in the 1940s
to ornate old hotels that Henry Flagler threw his enormous wealth behind and imported the most talented craftsmen
from across Europe to give a touch of class. Henry Flagler also funded several churches and spared no money on
them either.

The English built a State House Government Building and an open-air slave market that both still exist.
The U.S. Government built the State National Guard Building complex and National Cemetery where more than 1300
soldiers are buried in a mass grave a result of the Seminole Indian Wars in the 1830’s.

The city housing was a real hodge-podge that ranged from run down shanties and house trailer parks to fairly nice
homes, none of which would be classed as elegant. The period of the homes ranged from pre-Flagler and very poor
to early depression and later colonial look alike spin-offs.

The city government has tried to maintain an authenticity to the old downtown section and created a “Historical
Review Board” to oversee the area and impose many restrictions in an attempt to preserve it. The problem has
been that no end game was thought out and the only noticeable outcome has been an endless quagmire of rules
and regulations followed my countless inspections.
                                                

The city had an attitude problem toward tourists and most of the people including those that profit directly from
tourism really don’t want to be bothered by them. This trait is obviously apparent in restaurants where the service is
slow and surly, the food is mediocre at best and the portions meager, but the prices are high enough to discourage
repeat business. Another problem with some of the locals and their attitude toward customers is the outright hatred
of “Yankees”. A Yankee is any person that doesn’t have a southern accent. Refusal of clerks to wait on customers
and their refusal to fill orders were a couple of things that personally annoyed me in my business dealings in St.
Augustine.
Having said the above derogative things, I think it is only fair to say that Jane and I had several non-tourist
restaurants that were exceptional in service, quality and price. Most of the people we had dealings with were
wonderful, friendly and honest. We made many friends and have maintained those friendships to this day.
                                              

So, there dear reader you have a look at St. Augustine, Florida as we saw it back in December of 1972 from our
prospective.
                                            
Getting acquainted in St. Augustine and other Florida adventures:
When our crewmate Jim Muller returned to Savannah, Jane and I settled into a nice routine that included time each
day to take in the local attractions, shop the local shops and do some much needed up-grades to out boat.
We had several visitors from the boatyard that were very interesting people. Uncle Harry Xynides had lots of stories
to relate and we soon found out that he was estranged from his wife Betsy because of an advance he made on one
of the waitresses at his favorite coffee shop, “Dunkin Donuts”. It turned out that Uncle Harry had propositioned this
waitress and she promptly got on the phone to Uncle Harry’s wife Betsy with the full details, which instantly got Uncle
Harry booted out of the house. Uncle Harry never told us this story but would dodge around the subject of his wife
and go on to tell of many of his other exploits back in his native Greece and also when he originally immigrated to
the United States.
From Uncle Harry’s stories you could soon tell that he took a special delight in being a scoundrel and beating the
government was his all-time favorite game. One of the first stories he told was of coming through US Customs when
he first entered the country and having a huge overcoat that had a lining filled with contraband, which he smugly
smuggled in.
Uncle Harry’s son, Nicky, was a hard working, long and lanky handsome Greek that was mostly quiet and spoke like
a southern gentleman. Jane and I always felt like Nicky was trapped in his role as a boatyard worker and he seemed
more like he should have been dressed in a business suit and toting a briefcase instead of scrapping barnacles and
pushing a paint roller.
Uncle Harry always had a story to relate that took on the aspect of a parable with double implied meanings that
made him into a philosopher of sorts. His thick Greek accent only added to his well-embellished narratives.
                                                                       ***
We met Captain Robert White at Xynides Boatyard. Captain Robert White was not only very friendly but also
sincerely wanted to be friends. He arrived at Xynides Boatyard as captain of the shrimp boat, “Little Derrick” owned
by a man called L. T. Miller. Jane and I quickly got the impression that Captain Robert had only been hired to bring
the boat from Bayou La Batre, Alabama over on the Gulf of Mexico to St. Augustine and then to baby-sit it with the
implied promise of later working it as captain for a piece of the action. In the end our sentiments proved to be right
about the owner L.T. Miller.  L. T. obviously had some money just to buy the shrimp boat and bring it all the way
over to St. Augustine and then have it renovated at a commercial boatyard but was using Captain Robert White.
























At Xynides Boatyard; Captain Robert White aboard the Shrimp trawler Little Derrick December 20th 1972,
our 3rd wedding anniversary.

Robert soon told his story of being the manager of a tough New Orleans tavern and of his being involved in a fight
that lead to a murder and then his hard time spent in prison.
Jane and I had lots of time now to sit and have conversations and listen to stories.  Captain Robert had had a life of
adventuresome events to relate in his colorful Cajun accent (although he was a full-blooded Oklahoma Indian).
Captain Robert was an avid reader and shared some of his favorite books with us.  Two of the books he lent us to
read were Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher and Khubilai Khan.  Early each morning, Captain Robert would put a hot
and steaming blackened pot of the strongest coffee we had ever had inside our companionway and then wait for us
to be aroused by the stimulating aroma. Captain Robert maintained that coffee wasn’t any good unless, “a nine
pound hammer would stand up in it, handle first”.  The brand of coffee he used was “Luzianne Coffee with Chicory”
which was soon a staple on our boat.
We invariably would invite Robert in for breakfast but he never would accept food. He maintained that he never ate
on an empty stomach and then he would spike his coffee with some whiskey. That had to be a step toward self-
annihilation.

(This recipe is one of our all time favorites and it came from this very special person; “Captain Robert White’s Boiled
Shrimp”)
1-3 lemons
1 large onion sliced
3-5 cloves of garlic unpeeled and sliced  
1-3 teaspoons ground black pepper
Boiling size shrimp 2-5 pounds
Combine all of the above except shrimp and salt with the water. Boil until the lemons are soft. Add shrimp- cook
about one minute. Add salt and stir, cover, and let stand twenty minutes off the heat. Spoon out and serve. Do not
dump into colander to drain, as they will be too salty.
Oh, by the way!
This is a comment made by our crewmember Jim Muller some years later;

“The first time I used Robert's recipe (probably 30 years ago), I forced
everyone out of the apartment I was in.  I made the mistake of adding
the substantial quantity of black pepper to the water when it was boiling
rapidly- instant pepper spray!  I had to put a kerchief over my nose and mouth
to make it back in to take the pot off the burner.  But the shrimp did turn out
well.”
                                                                    ***

Our neighbor at the boatyard from the sailboat Sabrina, Bob Baker, came by and introduced himself and told of his
escape from Boston the previous December and how determined he and his girl friend Beverly had been just to
make a new life somewhere else.
The waterways had ice when he left and in Boston, with its 12 foot plus tides, he told of losing power on his boat
while going through a bridge and being nearly sunk by those unforgiving strong currents as he smashed into the
bridge fenders. Bob said that the bridge tender offered him 5 cents for the boat. Well, they really wanted to get out
of town and they persisted as they sailed through many a blizzard before finally getting far enough south to be
warmed by the sunny southland.
It turned out that the boat trip south had been mostly misery and when they finally reached St. Augustine both Bob
and Beverly were ready to jump ship and they rented a small house and drifted apart.
Christmas Eve day, 1972, Bob Baker took Captain Robert White, Jane and I out to the “South Dixie Tavern”. We had
no other plans and the place turned out to be just a hanging out place for southern “red-necks”. After a few beers
and several games of pool, the “South Dixie Tavern” had lost any of the charm it might have had. Bob Baker then
invited us all over to his waterfront house on Cherokee Street next to Desco Marine for Christmas dinner. There we
met Beverly, Bob’s girl friend, and she was just a little surprised to have “drop in company”. Beverly had fixed a
lovely turkey dinner and graciously invited all of us to partake… which we did. The night was a very nice one
because we all had one thing in common in that we all were newcomers in town with no other acquaintances there.
                                                                   ***
Jane and I were kept busy and every spare moment we had we got some work done on our boat.
                                                                   ***
Bob Baker had worked previously over at Desco Marine and took us to the landfill that Desco was using to
scavenger for boat parts and lumber. It was immediately apparent that Desco was run just like some cost-plus
government contractor because of all of the good materials that were discarded. Bob Baker had gotten enough
fiberglass material to build a 50-foot sailboat and much of it was still on the original rollers. I just brought my tape
measure and got the size lumber I needed for the projects we were then doing. We even had mahogany lumber for
burning in our fireplace to keep warm…I also popped popcorn over mahogany and used to joke, “we didn’t use
peasant wood to heat”.
                                                                   ***
At New Years we were invited to Jacksonville to spend New Year’s Eve and Day with Dan and Diana Kossoff. We
were very impressed with their family and also Dan’s abilities on doing documentaries at the PBS television station
where he worked. Dan had a natural talent and was able to use it in creative ways.
                                                                   ***
Uncle Harry Xynides, the owner of the boatyard, invited Jane and I to accompany him and his friend, Mr. Lumbus, to
Tarpon Springs, Florida for the Epiphany Ceremonies of the Greek Church. We accepted and left St. Augustine on
a Friday afternoon in Mr. Lumbus’s big car. Mr. Lumbus was a spry 87-year-old Greek who had lived most of his life
in Cuba where he was in the restaurant business. He was then retired and living alone in his own home out at St.
Augustine Beach.
Mr. Lumbus liked to go fast and his big car would really roll along. The biggest problem was that he and Harry had to
be continuously involved in a heated conversation and would both turn to confront each other with shaking fists
while we were speeding down the road at close to 90 miles an hour. Jane and I were totally amazed that we didn’t
get killed.
We stopped at Crystal Springs for dinner that night and we were in for another surprise. After a very nice dinner with
great service, we all left a tip on the table except Uncle Harry who went after us picking up our tip money exclaiming
that it was too much…of course he put it in his pocket.
We got to Tarpon Springs and found a motel room and then went visiting. It turned out these two Greeks were
related in some way or another to everyone that we met. In our four-day stay we met hundreds of these friendly and
smiling relatives.  We traveled from house to house and from business to business and it was like “old home week”.
Jane and I both agreed that if we stuck around this town and with this group for another week we would go home
speaking Greek. It was so much fun to see all of the smiling faces and happy people.  We had never seen such a
gregarious bunch as these Greeks…they were just a lot of fun to be around.
Every day we took turns buying the meals and low and behold whenever it came to be Uncle Harry’s turn he either
forgot his billfold or pulled out a hundred dollar bill that nobody could cash. There was a definite pattern with Uncle
Harry’s behavior, though he was so much fun to watch in action with his broken English and interesting twists that he
enjoyed putting on all of his little stories.


















                                                


                           A postcard Jane sent to her parents






















Postcard reads: 1-7-73   Hi,
We took a trip here over the weekend and went to this festival with the man who owns the boatyard we are
at.  This is on the Gulf of Mexico on the West Coast.  It’s very warm here.80.  We ate Greek food and they
had Greek dancing.  It’s really a lot of fun.  I’ll write you a letter in a couple days when my mail comes from
Bayfield.
Love, Jane & Bing
                                                                    ***
We had no idea that there were so many Greeks in the whole world as turned out for this event. Tarpon Springs was
packed beyond its limits and the crowd consisted of well-dressed and well-behaved fun loving Greeks. It was good to
see that at least for this event the Greek community was completely unified and bent on having a good time…we
were happy to have had the opportunity to partake.


















Picture taken in a restaurant in Tarpon Springs, Florida; left to right; John Grimsrud, Uncle Harry Xynides
Jane Grimsrud and Mr. Lumbus

Back to St. Augustine;
In spite of our active activity schedule I began to look around for more travel and adventure opportunities.
In the boatyard, they got me painting the names on shrimp boats.  I did it using one arm. My left arm was still in a
sling as a result of my accident back in Savannah.
I took money for the first few shrimp boats that I painted the names on but then later just had Uncle Harry apply the
money to our dockage bill which turned out in the end to be a mistake. Uncle Harry got the idea to have his name
painted on the boatyard roof and so up I went and had it done in no time at all. The letters were more than eight feet
tall but Harry wasn’t happy because he couldn’t see it from his house across the river. I told him that all the area
airplane traffic would see it but he felt somehow duped and after that was not quite so friendly to us especially when
the end of the month came around and he didn’t get any cash from us because of the credit I had built up toward
the dockage bill.
                                                                   ***
Another thing that got my interest were all of the trawlers that were being built in St. Augustine and going to many
distant ports. I inquired around about boat deliveries and made a connection with a man named Lloyd Wainwright
who had been handling these deliveries. The next thing I knew I was going to be captaining a new shrimp trawler
from St. Augustine around the southern tip of the Florida Keys and then up to Tampa, Florida.
There would be two boats traveling together and I would have the company of a very interesting guy named George
Tappin as my crew. George would become a very good lifelong friend and we would later even become partners in
our own commercial shrimp boat.
Note:  You can read about George Tappin in my story; Life of Secotan, that tells of more about George and also
interesting events involving our experiences in the commercial fishing industry.
                                                                   ***
Boat delivery to Tampa, Florida;
The shrimp trawler I would be operating was a 73-foot Desco Marine wooden hulled vessel with a 3408 Caterpillar
main engine and a Lister auxiliary. This was a new experience to me and it was going to be a good opportunity to
handle a vessel over 100 tons. The amazing power that this vessel possessed with its six to one reduction gear and
six-foot propeller with six feet of pitch made it into a real tug boat. Even at an idle when the transmission was
engaged into reverse the stern of the boat would literally lift a couple of feet up as the propeller wash water was
being pushed under the vessel. The boat could be maneuvered in its own length by putting the helm hard over and
using a short burst of power in one direction and then in the other direction. It all sounds easy but this thing was a
real brute that could do many a ton of damage when not properly handled. I was learning.
Even the little Lister two cylinder air-cooled diesel auxiliary engine was a thing of new interest to me. The engine was
started with a hand crank and lots of determination. With your feet firmly placed and two hands on the big cast iron
crank handle you had to give your full determination and undivided attention as you began this process of spinning
the engine up to starting speed.  When you thought you had sufficient speed, the next trick was to quickly reach up
and trip the compression release and hope to hear the first, “bap”. When you heard the engine beginning to start,
the “bap-bap-bap” would pick up until full speed was reached. These little engines were standard equipment on all
shrimp trawlers at the time and would be used to pull the electric generator and also an auxiliary pump. The main
engine also had a pump and an amazing maze of valves that let you use either pump for all water handling in the
engine room and on deck. No labels were used and I believe that each boat had a little different system. So, the
standard of the industry was that there was no standard.
The engine room was huge with enormous fuel tanks. Most of the trawlers were equipped with tanks having a
capacity of over 20,000 gallons. This particular engine consumed 40 gallons per hour at a cruising and working
speed of 1,900 RPM’s.
On this vessel only ice would be used for the catch so no refrigeration was onboard, except in the galley where a
large refrigerator/freezer would hold enough provisions for a crew of twelve.
The wheelhouse was very simple and the only equipment was a VHF radio, a Wood-Freeman auto-pilot, magnetic
compass, a Norwegian “Furuno” depth recorder and the electrical control panel which had to be watched all the time.
The autopilot was connected to the main helm by a big roller chain and coupled with a manual clutch. When the
autopilot was switched on it continuously hunted for the course. To operate it was quite simple; when you were
steadily on course (that meant that you had averaged out the swing of the bow of the boat as you passed through
the seas) you merely pulled a big lever that tripped the coupling clutch and put the autopilot in operation. From this
point on the helm would be driven back and forth continuously. One day as I stood adjacent to the helm in some
fairly heavy seas, the spoke from the helm wheel hooked under my shorts and picked me up and flipped me to the
opposite side of the wheel house with out missing a beat. Wow! Was I surprised! Those things really have lots of
power!
The electrical control panel had a huge rheostat that would control the field current to the alternator and thus you
could get full current output even when the engine was idled if you wished. The reason for this was that many times
while fishing at night, when the nets were being pulled back, the engine would be at idle speed but all of the lights
were still required. The trick was not to overcharge the batteries so the rheostat was always being fiddled with to get
the correct battery voltage. The 32-volt system required 37.86 volts for proper charging with the engine running.  If
you exceeded this voltage the batteries would soon be boiled dry and be ruined.
I easily could go on and on about all the interesting things aboard but I feel it would be too much. I will just say that
the boats were totally new and not worn out but at the same time this was the shakedown cruise and things like
leaking gas lines to the galley range could easily cook the whole boat. Many adjustments were required such as
inspection and adjustment of the propeller packing, which could easily send you and the boat to the bottom if not
attended to.
There was no need to check the weather unless a hurricane was coming because sooner or later you were certain
to encounter some rough seas on a trip of this length.

Back to the delivery:
Our first day out after leaving the dock and before passing through the only bridge we needed to go through,
Captain Wainwright radioed me to come aboard his boat and fix a problem that they had. It turned out that there was
an explosion and fire in the galley gas range. They had just turned off the gas at the gas cylinder to put out the fire.
I had the problem resolved quickly and found that the gas line to the stove inadvertently had been assembled and
not tightened or checked.
After going through the bridge we put the trawl booms down to stabilize the vessel out to sea. We were also
equipped with stabilizers that resembled a sea ray and were suspended by a cable attached to the trawl boom ends
that would keep the vessel on an even keel even in quite heavy seas but they had the disadvantage of reducing our
forward speed, which was 10.5 knots at 1,900 RPMs.
The night closed in on us as we rounded Cape Canaveral heading south down Florida’s East Coast. My one
comment about the night was the beautiful phosphorescence when our bow would dive through the oncoming seas.
The system for helm duty on these trips was to do a shift of four hours on and four hours off for the entire trip. With
a two-man crew that was the only way.
As the sun beamed up we were skirting the inky blue waters of the Gulf Stream and as I walked the deck I was
surprised that we had visitors from the previous night. Several flying fish had landed aboard obviously as our vessel
was deep down between the big beam seas. The flying fish normally attain an altitude of a couple of meters at most
in their flight. These fish were a bright silver color and looked like mullet with huge pectoral fins that enabled them to
actually fly through the air. They are common in the tropical waters of the Gulf Stream and always seem to be in a
big hurry as they alternately fly and swim at great speeds. The following night as we were rounding the Florida Keys
and were also in heavy seas I actually found one of those fish on top of the wheelhouse in the morning. The
wheelhouse top is more than fifteen feet above the water so we must have been in some very deep troughs.
At West Palm Beach the Gulf Stream comes closer to shore than anywhere else in North America. It is located right
at the end of the very short jetties of the inlet.
Because of the fact that we were heading south we didn’t want to be in the Gulf Stream because its current is up to
four knots in a northerly direction and would be opposing us. It is easy to spot the Gulf Stream here because of its
distinctive inky blue color.
We wanted to avoid the streams current and so we navigated as close to the beach as possible between West Palm
Beach and Miami. This made for some great sightseeing and I was amazed that as close as we were to the beach
some big freighters were actually between shore and us.
Late in the afternoon on our second day we were just south of Miami and I went to inspect the engine room.  This is
something that is done every hour. Well, as I started down the companionway ladder I almost got killed. The entire
engine room was covered with lubricating oil. I had to get down to the engine to determine where all that oil could be
coming from. This was a super challenge especially when rolling in those beam seas. When I finally was able to get
down to the engine, it was quite apparent that the oil was coming from a high-pressure hose on the hydraulic
reverse gear. We would have to shut down immediately and repair that leak. I went up to the wheelhouse and shut
down the engine and radioed to Captain Wainwright the news of our problem and that I would attempt to repair the
problem myself and if I was successful and there was enough lube oil onboard I might be running before dark.
This was no place to be drifting at night because it was one of the most heavily traveled bodies of water in the world.
This was the Straights of Florida where all of the ship traffic from the Gulf of Mexico and also the Caribbean Sea
converged upon entering the Atlantic Ocean.  This area is a part of the famous and treacherous “Bermuda Triangle”.

I had just installed a similar hydraulic reverse gear in our boat, the Dursmirg, so I was very familiar with the Aero-
quip hydraulic high-pressure hose connections and was able to refit the badly assembled parts and refill the gear
with the proper amount of oil from a reserve oil tank. I couldn’t believe it but this vessel had a 300 gallon reserve
lubrication oil tank and it was full.
In half an hour I had the engine running and was in the process of bringing the oil level up to its running volume. We
still had the problem of getting to the engine room. Over the course of our trip we tried to wipe down at least the
places in the engine room where we would have to walk.
I have to add here that Captain Wainright didn’t respond to his radio and just kept on going. By the time he finally
answered the radio I had the problem resolved and was very thankful that this hadn’t been a life-threatening
situation. I then gave him the nickname of “Captain Wainwrong”
As we headed south around the Florida Keys and the sun went down, we could see off our stern the lights of Miami
begin to loom on the horizon and the lighthouse of Fowey Rocks begin its nightly coded flash pattern. This night I
was going to get another lesson in navigation. We only had the chart, the compass and the depth recorder to
navigate with. Captain Wainwrong was a “seat of the pants navigator” and knew that we would have to continually
correct our course to a westerly heading by the time we arrived at Key West. So this was his navigational strategy;
He would maintain a certain depth of water under the keel and keep nudging his course further and further to a
westerly direction until we were on the approach to Key West. There was an inner protected channel that we could
have taken called the Hawk Channel, which was inside the coral reef and protected from the open sea but it
required attentive navigation and was beyond Wainwrong’s capabilities so we would have a chance to roll around in
some heavy seas.
The wind piped up strongly and the seas with it. Dinner was a challenge this night, in fact just keeping your stance
required one hand on something. There is a sailors saying; “one hand for the ship”. I did learn something new this
night as I put the dinner on the galley table. Old sailors know lots of tricks that don’t get written up in the textbooks
as I soon found out. This was so simple yet so effective. I watched George wet a towel and place it on the galley
table and then place the cup, plate and silverware on it. That wet towel kept everything from sliding around and it
was possible to at least eat. The coffee cup could only be filled half way at a time and while seated it was necessary
to prop your legs against something that was bolted down.  The galley had fiddles on everything including the stove
where they were movable and could be clamped in position with a setscrew that kept the pots and pans in place.
I did the cooking because I trust my own cooking and that way I always have everything done to my liking. There is a
saying out to sea that goes like this; “never piss-off the cook”. The cook can make life unbearable and food inedible
or very enjoyable and pleasant.
This night before I went to my bunk for my four hours off, I just happened to look over the gunwale outside the
pilothouse and was amazed at what I saw. As we were sloshing through a huge beam sea as high as our
wheelhouse top I looked directly into the eyes of a gillnet fisherman who was out in these mountainous seas without
a light tending his nets from a small open boat. If our course had been off by twenty feet we would have plowed him
to the bottom. On this dark and stormy night as we skirted between the shoal waters and the Gulf Stream we were
actually in a world of darkness and our only guidance came from our compass with its dim red light and the Furuno
depth recorder. The lights of the towns on the Florida Keys were over the horizon and only the several tall
lighthouses we navigated by were visible. Those lighthouses all are named after vessels that had foundered on the
shoals where they stood. Even the light of the Marathon airport was only visible as it flashed up on the clouds as it
rotated.
It is strange but I tend to get the most profound sleep in these conditions and even the sound of the engine straining
against the limits of its governor as we sloshed through the seas sounded like a lovely pipe organ that lulled me off
to sleep.
In the morning we took a detour across the Stock Island shoals on a shortcut to the Key West main shipping channel
and there we passed a huge aircraft carrier just before we got to the downtown section of the city.
Back in the 1940s when I had visited the Key West Naval Base I was aboard the Navy’s largest tanker and also a
submarine here. Somehow this channel didn’t seem like it was in anyway large enough for vessels of this size.
We departed Key West via the Northwest Channel that took us to the Gulf of Mexico and there we took departure on
a direct course for the Port of Tampa.
The weather we encountered was bizarre to say the least because all the way we glided through an inky smooth sea
and it was so calm that you could have taken a canoe. In all of my times out to sea I had never seen a day and a
half at sea this calm.
Tampa Bay is enormous and we would travel all the way up to its northeast end where the company was located that
had purchased the boat. On the way we passed under the famous “Sunshine Skyway Bridge”.
Oh, by the way!
My first time over this bridge was in 1966 when Jane and I came to Florida on a land speculation deal at Cape Coral.
A hurricane had just devastated the coast and our airplane had to land at Tampa, then we went by bus over this
bridge to Cape Coral.
Another memorable encounter with this same bridge was in May of 1980 when Jane and I along with our friend and
partner, George Tappin came to St. Petersburg to pick up our new shrimp boat the “Secotan” and return to St.
Augustine. Four days earlier a seagoing freighter had missed the channel completely and slammed into the bridge
killing many people and destroying the bridge. As we approached the bridge that day with our new shrimp boat we
saw the sickening sight of the collapsed bridge and the freighter still there with a large portion of the bridge slung
across its bow.

Back to the shrimp boat delivery;
Our job was finished when we tied the boats up at the dock and signed the delivery papers. The place we tied had
more shrimp boats than I had ever seen before and I was sure that as soon as the boat was fueled, iced and
provisioned it would be out on its maiden voyage of fishing.
We got a ride to the bus terminal and were back in St. Augustine that afternoon.
George Tappin told me to pay him a visit at his shrimp boat back in St. Augustine and see if I wouldn’t like to make a
trip out on his boat fishing for the day. George had his boat tied to a dock just down the river from where Jane and I
had our boat at Uncle Harry’s boatyard on the San Sebastian River.
                                                                   ***
After my first shrimp boat delivery, I had noticed that all of the shrimp trawlers had steel deck top fresh water tanks
adjacent to the wheelhouse.  A hand operated pitcher pump was used in the galley to pump the water out.  Upon
checking out these tanks that had 8-inch diameter removable covers, I was somewhat sickened to discover that
these tanks were littered with all sorts of garbage including old cigarette butts (I had been drinking that water).  
When I got back to St. Augustine, I went to Marine Supply and Oil Company to buy whatever the shrimpers used to
treat the fresh water onboard.  The owner, Mr. Poli, told me to go to the county health department and get all of the
inoculations and shots they had available, as the water wasn’t treated.   That turned out to be very sound advice as
I then got my (yellow) health card needed at that time to travel to many foreign ports.  Later, the new shrimp boats
came equipped with pressure water systems.
                                                                       ***
Over this winter Jane and I delivered several shrimp trawlers and here are some photos:

























  Jane aboard a 73 foot “St. Augustine Trawlers” shrimp boat at Tampa, Florida
Jane is standing aft of the fresh water tank next to the wheelhouse (starboard side)
























Jane at the helm of one of the trawlers we delivered in 1973.  Here you can see the helm wheel that
hooked my shorts and pitched me across the wheelhouse when the boat was on autopilot.

























Aboard one of the Desco trawlers we delivered in the winter of 1973 leaving the Port of St. Augustine,
Florida with the famous “Lions Bridge” off our stern and another trawler is following.























          George Tappin in the wheelhouse of his shrimp trawler the “Terry” in 1973

Our first experiences with commercial fishing:
I took George Tappin up on his offer of a day out on his shrimp trawler, the Terry It turned out that George’s wife
Mary was scared to death to go out to sea with George because of an incident when they were coming in the inlet in
very heavy seas.  So George had been going out by himself, which to me seems impossible but he did do it just the
same.
The first trip I made with George was a wonderful experience and I asked if he would mind taking Jane the next time
and he agreed.
The one thing that happened the first day I was out with George was that one after another his bilge pumps all
failed. He rigged another and another until his seventh one didn’t work. He was a real resourceful sailor and
instinctively went down to his main engine that was a 6-71 Detroit Diesel and rerouted the engine raw water pickup
hose to suck the bilge water and discharge it overboard. That was enough to keep us afloat until we could get back
to the dock.  I have to state here one of the basic rules of boating; “the water is supposed to be on the outside”.
Jane’s reaction on her first trip out on the “Terry” with George was that she wished that she hadn’t wasted so many
years working at the finance company back in Superior, Wisconsin. She could have been out here upon the ocean
instead.
There was always plenty of action on the shrimp boat and I wrote quite extensively about it in my story Life of the
Secotan.
I will tell one of those stories here however; one of my jobs on George’s boat was to open the net when it was hauled
onboard and hoisted high up in the rigging. To visualize this you must consider that the boat is always in constant
motion as it passes through the seas. When the full net is overhead I would go under it and grab hold of the trip line
that would open the bag portion of the net to release the catch. Timing and coordination are crucial because if the
net isn’t opened at the precise time the catch can be released back overboard as the roll of the boat keeps the net
swinging overhead. The varieties of living things that come out of the net are astounding. Crabs with their pinchers
poised to shake hands with you, catfish with their dorsal fins ready to stab, sting rays with their tails armed with a
jagged spear, electric skates will jolt you, sea turtles just want to snap, but sharks want a piece of flesh.  Almost
everything has some way of doing damage to other flesh and is always aggressively trying to escape.
One day as I opened the net out came a 7-½ foot shark that was flipping around the deck like a bucking bronco but
at the same time was snapping its razor sharp teeth at everything in sight. I instantly got the message and sprung up
in the rigging and told George that he had a visitor to take care of. George didn’t bat an eye and came from the
wheelhouse with a carpenter’s knife and took a flying tackle on the shark. Next, he slit the shark’s bottom side from
one end to the other and spilled the shark’s guts onto the deck.
Now the shark got even more aggressive and snatched our fishing net in its mouth and began to aggressively trash
around. Again I called George and told him of the new problem. This time he came with a hammer and commenced
to bash in the shark’s head. Now the shark became docile for a moment and George then fastened a rope to the
shark’s tail and hoisted it up into the air using the winch. With the roll of the boat, the shark swung overboard and
George then let the shark down so that he could cut the rope on its tail.
Now that shark was back to thrashing again and when it hit the water the other sharks in the vicinity completely tore
this shark to shreds in a matter of seconds. After witnessing this chain of events I was convinced that you never
wanted to fall overboard from a shrimp boat.























          Shrimp boat Terry heading out the St. Augustine inlet at sunrise.
























  Porpoises are following the Terry, as the boat is slowed in order to pull the nets.






















The Terry offshore in the Atlantic with one of its trawl rigs, doors up and nets emptied, ready to go back
to fishing. The photo shows the cable at the end of the boom that holds the stabilizers, next inboard the
block and cables that the net and doors are fastened to and also the block that is used to raise and
lower the boom. The boat has two booms and they must be put up to return to the dock and put down
when underway because the boat is very top heavy with the booms up.
























Picking up speed to put the nets down and resume fishing. The nets are usually brought up and emptied
ever 45 minutes.

For the remainder of this winter season, Jane and I went out fishing with our friend George Tappin two or three times
a week. This was some of the best fun we had our entire time in St. Augustine this winter season. We thought of
ourselves as very fortunate to not only to be able to have this opportunity but we even got paid plus as a fringe
benefit had all of the seafood we could eat.
                                                                       ***
The third week of January, our friend, Captain Robert White, from the shrimp boat Little Derrick discovered that he
wasn’t going to be operating that boat and he then decided to go to Key West to look for work in the shrimping
industry. Robert couldn’t obtain a passport because of his criminal record and therefore missed an opportunity
offered to him in St. Augustine to deliver shrimp boats to foreign ports. In Key West, he got a job as crew working out
of Key West and after a successful trip decided to take the bus up to visit his friends in St. Augustine. We were
really happy to see him and he even brought us a present of the biggest helmet conch shell we have ever seen plus
many other interesting sea creatures. Robert told us that he had the whole back of the bus to himself because of
the odoriferous bag of decaying sea creatures he was toting along. Well, after all of these years Jane and I still have
that extra special “helmet conch shell” prominently displayed in our home.






















     
        Here are two of the many shells that Captain Robert White gave to us.

After a couple of days Robert was ready to bus back to Key West. Our neighbor, Bob Baker, said that he wanted an
excuse for a road trip. So, in Bob’s car, Jane and I along with Captain Robert White and Bob’s girl friend Beverly all
set out for yet another adventure.
On the way south we stopped to visit Bob Baker’s old friend from Boston who was living at Miami Beach. We wound
up spending the night and got to hear many a story of Bob Baker and his friend’s adventures back in Boston…they
had lived on the wild side of life and after a few drinks the stories got more and more suspenseful.
The next day early we were rolling south from Miami and out across the many bridges and islands that make up the
Florida Keys. At noon we were in Key West getting a behind the scenes tour of the roughest and toughest bars and
saloons in town. Captain Robert White knew these places like the back of his hand and all of the regulars knew him.
We went from the back door of one to the front door of another. In our travels that day we even ran into Dave W. at
“Howie’s Lounge”. This was the same spaced out hippy that we first met up in North Carolina when his boat the
African Queen III slammed into us in a windstorm. We also saw David W. in Savannah and later in St. Augustine.
Jane and I were totally amazed that someone in his blitzed out state of mind could even navigate his way to the
latrine.

Oh, by the way!
Here is what a friend of ours always used to say about Monroe County and the Florida Keys; “here there are so
many junkies that you could become one by osmosis”.
Back to the bars: Before the day was out we got a city tour conducted by Captain Robert White and then we were off
to where his boat was docked at Stock Island, which was adjacent to Key West. Another seedy bar awaited us. All of
the “bar floozies” there knew Captain Robert White. Robert was loose with his money and those floozies went after
him like bees heading for honey.
It is strange but this afternoon when we parted our ways it would be the very last time that we would ever see our
friend Captain Robert White. We seriously inquired after him over the years but he mysteriously vanished.
Bob and Beverly wanted Jane and I to visit the South Beach and so we drove over there and the weather was so
spectacular that we wound up just sitting on the beach conversing until wee hours in the morning. A beach patrol
came by and told us that we couldn’t lie on the beach after dark and that we would have to leave. Well, Bob blew his
stack at the cops and I thought for sure that we were all going to have lodging at the local jail in the end. Bob
maintained that it was perfectly legal to lie on the beach all day so why was it illegal just because the sun had gone
down… must admit that was a very good argument but it wasn’t going to change the minds of the police. In the end
Bob only raised his blood pressure and we still had to pack up and move on. By this time it was about 3 AM and it
was hardly worth checking into a motel so Bob said he would find us another beach to sit on until the sun came up
and we could start another day. I am not sure where Bob ultimately took us but it turned out to be a very rocky
beach and Jane and I both decided that for whatever it was worth we would at least try to get some sleep and rolled
out our sleeping bags to snooze. By 8 AM a black rain cloud came over dumping a huge quantity of rain in a few
seconds and we all quickly packed up and headed for a restaurant for breakfast. Jane and I found a laundromat
where we could put the damp sleeping bags to dry in one of their dryers.
This day we were less inclined to go bar hopping and just took in the tourist traps and local eateries. We checked
into a motel early and tried to recover some of the lost sleep from the previous night.























Part of Key West harbor looking west from the downtown and taken from the restaurant balcony where
we had lunch. I had dined at this same restaurant back in the 1940s when I traveled here with my
parents. The last time I was there was in 1949 the year that the shrimping industry got started and it was
just like the California gold rush back then.

On our way back north we stopped at Marathon Key and looked up some of our old friends from Duluth, Minnesota,
Don and Betty Currie. It was a big surprise to see that they had actually made their trip all the way down the
Mississippi River and across the Gulf of Mexico to the Florida Keys in their 42-foot Lake Superior converted fishing
boat.
They had lots of stories to tell and we invited them to come up to St. Augustine and see some of that part of the
country, which they did about two months later.
By the time we got to Miami that afternoon the beautiful summer like skies had turned blacker than smut and the
north wind was piping up and bringing an “Arctic Express” weather system down on the State of Florida.
It was after midnight by the time we returned to St. Augustine and the outdoor temperatures had take on an arctic
chill. We decided to go to Bob and Beverly’s house because they said that they had a good heater. Jane brought in
our warm and I must add dry sleeping bags and we went to sleep quite comfortably but Bob and Beverly froze
because their space heater refused to light. The next morning we all went out to a warm restaurant for breakfast and
then over to our boat where we spent the remainder of the day cozy and warm because we had lots of firewood to
burn in our fireplace. Jane cooked and we had a good time telling boating stories and playing cards the rest of that
cold day. At least in Florida when the north wind quits the temperature warms up and most of the rest of that winter
was a real treat to Jane and me as there was no snow or ice.

Letter Jane wrote to her parents, Feb l, 1973
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
I finally got the letter you wrote me before Christmas. Thank you so very much for the present. We had a
nice warm Christmas. We spent New Years in Jacksonville at Dan Kossoff’s, (Sharon Markovich’s brother).
Bing went to high school with Dan. We’ve seen them quite a bit.
We’ve been doing so much it’s hard to remember each day and time goes by so fast. We’ve been here six
weeks already.
Last weekend we went to Key West by car. A friend of ours who is a shrimp boat captain was going down by
bus so we decided it would be more fun to drive him down. The couple who have the sailboat next to us
have a car. I really liked the Key West area so we may move down there but when I don’t know. We saw Betty
and Don Currie from Duluth at Marathon (They had their boat next to ours at Drills Marina). They took the
Mississippi River down to Florida. It was really nice to see them.
We’ve got some work done on the boat; we built a dingy, a bowsprit, spice racks, repainted all of the metal,
and all kinds of odd jobs. We still have a lot to do but no real rush.
We are still working on a deal to transport shrimp boats to South America. I’d really like to go. It would give
us a chance to look over all the islands with someone else’s boat, (cheaper and safer). We would also get
paid.
We got a letter from Jim and Penny from Hot Springs, Arkansas. It sounds like they may come and see us in
March.
Do you have John’s new address? I sent him a letter in early December. I had sent it to his first address.
They forwarded it to Fort Gordon then I got it back. Maybe that was when he was home on leave. You’d think
they would hold it for him. I don’t think that he is more than three or four hundred miles away.
Bing’s arm is a lot better but he still doesn’t have full use of it and it gets quite painful at times.
Sounds like you are plenty busy and like Dad’s been taking quite a few trips. It’s probably kind of quiet
without Joel around.
Bing and I bought a guitar in a pawn shop and I’m hoping to learn to play so far all I can do is make noise.
It’s really warm today but we had some real cold weather last week. It got down to 30 degrees one night.
Frost all over.
Well I better get on my bike and get to the post office and grocery store. It looks like rain. Hope everyone’s
okay.
I’ll try to write more often. I’ve been pretty lazy about it lately. Always something to do when we’re in port.
Love Jane and Bing





















This is the “Bingy Dinghy I” that I built in St. Augustine, Florida in the winter of 1973 using only one arm
as I still had one arm in a sling. Besides being a very fast little boat with a motor I also fitted it with a sail
rig and we also had oars. Because of its relatively square design it was very stable and excellent for
throwing a cast net from.  Another feature that I built into the dinghy was a sturdily reinforced transom
and motor board that I would rap an anchor line around very snugly and then go forward in the dinghy to
utilize the dinghy’s buoyancy for breaking our second anchor loose. We would then use the main sail of
the Dursmirg sheeted in close to sail up the other anchor Over the years I have built three of these little
boats and each time modifying the design slightly to meet our changing needs. To this day I still have
the “Bingy Dinghy III” with an “El Toro” sailing rig and we have logged many a happy mile and landed
many a fish in these interesting little “Bingy Dinghies”.

With our new “Bingy Dinghy” Jane and I had lots of new places to explore but we still used our bicycles every day
and it would be ten years before we made the purchase of a motor vehicle.
Now that we had a dinghy, we were able to visit the anchored out boats and meet the strangest and also some of
the very nicest people we would ever know.
This was a strange time in history and definitely a good time for us to be doing what we were doing. The Vietnam
War was raging and a lot of the people we met on other boats had had enough of some of the government policies
that were dividing the country and making many enemies of the United States worldwide. The Arab oil embargo was
beginning to have its affects on the economy. Jane and I were amazed to see people standing in line to buy $2.00 a
gallon gasoline but the ingenious capitalist marketers had a secret weapon. They merely put a limit on the amount of
gasoline a person could buy at a time and then the public eagerly stood in line for that high priced gas. I am still
amazed by human nature.
At this time in Florida, construction ground to a halt and we were surprised that out at the beach condominiums that
were half completed were being sold off board by board and even the fixtures that had been installed were sold on
sight to forestall foreclosure.
We continued to go out fishing with George a couple of times a week which was just fine with us and kept us in
spending money and also fresh seafood.

On February 15, we took another across state excursion with some new acquaintances of ours, Scott and Pat, who
were living on a converted World War II Navy minesweeper that they had sailed down from New York State. The 50-
plus foot vessel was equipped with a huge Buda diesel engine that Scott kept running by a series of ingenious
homemade and unconventional inventions.  The inside of the boat was stark, to say the least, because of their lack
of money and visitors had to sit on helter-skelter placed boards that could be arranged for tables, benches and
even their bed. The entry way was covered with a piece of canvas in bad weather but these people were at least
living their dream and not still back in cold New York where they could be unemployed as well. At least here they
wouldn’t freeze to death.
Scott had absolutely no idea about boats, seamanship or navigation and on his trip from New York to Florida, when
part way, he finally purchased a marine chart and then he said he really started to run aground. Scott had been
navigating with a road map from some gasoline company and the map had absolutely no marine aids to navigation.
Scott possessed a burning desire to escape the work-a-day world back in New York and Jane and I could definitely
equate to that because we had been in his shoes.
Whenever we stopped over to visit on Scott’s boat that was anchored out in the harbor, Scott would light up with
excitement when he contemplated cruising off on their new home. He and Pat always put on the tea pot which was
heated over a single burner pressure kerosene stove and we would make ourselves comfortable in their humble but
basic boat.
Well, they had a car and we were invited to take a trip over to Tampa to visit the Busch Gardens and also visit the
Schlitz Brewery where Scott had spent a lot of time when he went to college there.
So, Scott, Pat, Jane and I took off for Tampa on the 15th of February in Scott’s car. One objective of Scott’s was to
visit a company the made tapered aluminum lamp posts that he thought he might be able to use for masts on his
boat that he had dreamed of converting into a sailboat.
When we got to Tampa and the entry gate to the Busch Gardens, Scott was more than a little miffed at the fact that
now the Busch Gardens had an entrance fee. Well, some time previously the admission had been gratis and Scott
wasn’t about to tolerate the $3.50 per person charge and said that we should head over to the Schlitz brewery
where he knew the beer samples were still free. Sure enough Scott was right about Schlitz and we downed several
pitchers full of their free draft beer. Several college students that seemed to be regulars had the same idea.
The day turned out to be a nice sightseeing outing and we stopped on our way home in the city of Orlando at a
Chinese restaurant on the main street where Scott had eaten previously. This would be our last look at “little”
Orlando; it was soon to be a boomtown. A year later we returned for a visit to the recently opened Disney World and
the town had already become a booming “Tourist Mecca” filled with every kind of tourist trap and franchise eatery
known to mankind.
Scott and Pat introduced us to several other people interested in boating. Brad and Jean Kinsey were locals and
Brad’s father was definitely financially secure with his Standard oil distributorship.
We spent a lot of time visiting with Brad and Jean at their apartment just across the Bridge of Lions and above one
of the gasoline stations that was owned by Brad’s father.
Jean had us over for St. Augustine style fried shrimp several times and Jane got her fabulous recipe which we have
enjoyed many times over the years and each time we partake of that exquisite world class feast we always
remember Brad and Jean.

Oh, by the way!
Another interesting thing that we got from Brad and Jean was a small aloe vera plant no more that three inches tall
with two leaves in a small pot. We took the aloe plant home to our boat where it thrived over the years and ultimately
had to be re-potted several times. We even gave an offshoot to our sailing friend Jim Flood who also had good
success with it and then gave an offshoot to Brett Hollerith, another sailing friend.
As the years went by we eventually moved off our boat the Dursmirg and took our little aloe plant with us. Then, we
lost our aloe plant to frost in St. Augustine one winter. By this time it had become a large pot full because of its
multiplication over the years. At the same time we had purchased land in Yucatan, Mexico where we were then
building a new home.
We then obtained an offshoot of the aloe plant that Brett had gotten from Jim Flood and brought it to Mérida,
Yucatan, Mexico where it is now proliferating in our garden and has multiplied to several hundred individual plants
that now bloom and flower each year.
We consume this plant every day because of its rich abundance of vitamin E and also spread it on our skin for its
soothing and healing properties.
Each day when we walk through our garden we have lots of fond memories from this interesting story that began
over thirty years ago with one little aloe plant.

Back to St. Augustine;
Another interesting person we met through Scott and Pat was a young English citizen who had come to St.
Augustine as a supervisor at a boatyard that was in the process of commercially producing Ferro-cement boats.
Harry Walden was 21 years old and single. Harry really knew his business from a technical as well as a practical
approach and proved it with the several boats that he built including his own 34-foot sailboat. It soon became
apparent however that Ferro-cement boat construction in United States with its high priced labor force made this
type of boat construction completely economically impractical.
One of the very first things that Harry did was to buy himself a new Ford Pinto. That little red car served frugal Harry
for many a year and I believe that he in the end squeezed the very last mile out of it.
We have remained friends with Harry over the years and he went on to become a very successful boat builder and
now has his own steel boat fabricating business with his wife Jane. Harry and Jane were both English citizens but
have immigrated to the United States permanently and their two brilliant daughters are now in college. Harry and
Jane are the type of people that it is very easy to be proud of because they achieved their success through hard
work and dedication.
I will mention more of the people that we met over this first winter in Florida later on as they fit into our story.
February 23rd, our friends from Jacksonville that we had met up in North Carolina that were transporting their boat
south, Stewart and Nancy Force invited us to go with them to the Miami Boat Show and, of course, we didn’t have to
be asked twice.  
As we were sightseeing on Miami Beach, Jane and I spotted a boat that belonged to a man we had met while we
were building our boat back in Superior, Wisconsin. Winston Bushnell from Sudbury, Ontario, where he built his 34-
foot double-ended Ferro-cement boat.  

Here is a letter that Jane wrote to her parents that tells of our travels;
1973 March, 5th
I sure have been slow at letter writing lately. It seems like I had more time to write when we were traveling.
We are constantly busy doing something. We have been here long enough so that we know a lot of people
and there’s always someone that wants us to go somewhere.
A week ago we went to the Miami Boat Show. In Miami we also saw the cement boat made by Winston
Bushnell from Sudbury, Ontario. Dad may remember him; He met him at our house in 1970. He showed us
slides of the building of his boat.
Yesterday we went to Daytona Beach with Harry Xynides and his wife, (the owner of the boatyard.) It was a
beautiful day and we took a highway that runs next to the ocean.
Springtime is really here in Florida and it’s beautiful. Saturday Bing and I rode our bikes to the beach. Next
weekend we might ride our bikes to Jacksonville, (40 miles) to visit our friends.
We’ve been trying to get a little work done on the boat each day also- so time really flies.
Jim and Penny should be here in a week or so- I’m anxious to see them. I do get a little home sick at times -
not for snow but for all our friends, (and relatives). When I get letters people don’t seem so far away.
I think that we will be in St. Augustine at least one more month-we like it here so much its hard to leave but
it will be too hot here during the summer months so we are going to the Chesapeake Bay for the summer
months. We have friends in that area and also I think Dale and Dian Nichols will join us there for a few days.
From the letter I have gotten recently, it sounds like you’ve had a mild winter. All of your snow must have
dumped on the south by mistake.
How is Dad feeling, better I hope.
Bing and I both had bad colds but we got over them in a week. The sunshine sure helps.
We have about 12 hours of daylight now.
Well, I got some work I’ve got to help Bing with on the boat so I better get busy.
Write soon
Love Jane and Bing

Some bicycle trips we made over the winter;
Jane and I were anxious to take some bicycle trips and our friends Stewart and Nancy Force invited us to visit them
in Jacksonville so we thought this would be just the trip to try. We left St. Augustine early in the morning on March
12th and headed north up highway A1A that follows the coast.
In the spring of 1973 this route was virtually undeveloped with only a small settlement just across the Vilano Beach
Bridge that consisted of a couple of local hangout bars and a fishing camp. The few homes there were basic
dwellings mostly used for summer homes.
The weather was spectacular and there was almost no traffic as we rolled along the sand dunes and short scrubby
palmetto palms that are native to the coast. I couldn’t help but think of a story our friend George Tappin told of
visiting this beach back when he was a kid and long before there was a bridge. George said that the Usina family
had a beach resort with a boat landing over on the mainland where they would pick up clients that wanted to make
an excursion over to the island for the day. George also told of wild horses that roamed the island and had
multiplied into a sizeable herd. He said that around the time of World War II that some government official had gotten
the bright idea to get rid of the horses and had them shot.
The whole morning Jane and I had a look at some of the last wild and undeveloped waterfront on the entire east
coast of Florida. Looking back to that lovely day and the quiet and remote stretch of the state we got to enjoy, I am
very happy we got to see it when we did because it was going to quickly be gone.  Our friend Dan Kossoff was right
with his documentary movie he made, “Come to Florida before its gone”, but we couldn’t believe that the
transformation would come so quickly and be so complete.
As we neared Jacksonville, our first sight of civilization came at Ponte Vedra Beach where the very elite have the
private “Sawgrass” golf club community. In later years this place would sponsor national golf championship events.
On our way north to the St. Johns River, that we would cross on the ferry boat we passed the community of
Jacksonville Beach which was only seasonally busy and at this off-season time of year it was quiet and many of the
small motels and tourist business were closed. This wasn’t the season for North Florida and we liked the lack of
traffic. On our 40-mile trip to the ferryboat that crosses the Saint John’s River we hadn’t encountered more than a
dozen motor vehicles and that made the trip even better.
Our plan was to enter Jacksonville just north of the downtown section because we figured that this route would have
the least traffic. As we waited for the ferryboat to transport us across the river we got to see the local shrimp boat
fleet at Mayport, a little town adjacent to the very large naval base that is home to some of the largest vessels in the
US fleet.
The ebb current in the Saint Johns River is formidable but compared to currents in the Savannah area they seemed
tame.
The day so far had been as beautiful as they come and after we crossed the river we looked for a place to have
lunch in this mostly rural part of Florida. We were now headed west and following the river into downtown
Jacksonville. We were starting to feel desperately hungry and both agreed that the very first place that had a food
sign hanging out on the road would get our business.
Well, we pulled into a little fishing camp and got a sandwich and something to drink. The view of the river was
fantastic with old Fort Caroline across the river and lots of ship and barge traffic to watch.
After lunch we were a little on the weary side but a blackening sky and high winds got us moving. We were thankful
that those winds were on our back because we couldn’t have possibly pedaled into it. We estimated that our speed
was in excess of 35 miles an hour and we were in downtown Jacksonville in just a few minutes.
Well, we didn’t beat the rain. Before we could reach our friends boat where we were to spend the night, a torrential
rain hit us. In less than an hour seven inches of rain came down. I always said, “if you are afraid of getting wet you
shouldn’t go sailing, bicycling or be a plumber”.
Needless to say, we were thoroughly wet but we didn’t have any problem finding our friends boat. We had a surprise
when we arrived, as there was a note on the boat telling us to make ourselves at home and enjoy the place but
Stewart and Nancy had an unexpected problem that called them away from town and they were sorry that they would
miss us this trip.
Yes, we had the boat to ourselves and we were happy that our friends had taken their pet monkey with them.
We took a hot shower, wrung out our clothes and dried them and then went out on our bicycles to a Chinese
restaurant for dinner.
The day had been unbelievably beautiful except for the last half hour and it would be many a year before I ever
witnessed a downpour as intense as the one we had the opportunity to bike in with seven inches of rain in one hour!

Our next out of town bicycle trip was south to Marineland. We had a visitor, a schoolmate friend of mine named Leon
Solberg, who visited for a few days. He rented a bicycle so naturally we took off to see some sights. This twenty mile
one-way trip was great fun because in those days we could ride right down highway A1A and not be bothered by
traffic. Thinking back I can’t believe we packed so much into one day.
We took a side trip over to an old Spanish fort named, “Fort Matanzas”, which was a national monument. The
federal government maintained a boat and operator just to ferry interested people across the river to visit this little
stone structure on a small island. It was a curious spot but hardly worth a return visit. We were glad that there was
no charge and figured that the free ride was the only way to solicit people to visit the little fort.
We continued on and across the long bridge at Matanzas Inlet where the shifting sands change the configuration of
the many small sand islands with each storm. Two miles south of the bridge was our destination of Marineland.





















                 Marineland; killer whale show and also performing porpoises.
We were amazed to find the large parking lot nearly full of out-of state visitors and the variety of displays and shows
made it worth the trip. I was the most impressed with the large aquarium tank filled with strange and exotic creatures
from the ocean that were representative of the sea just offshore here in North Florida. There were strange creatures
like the electric eel and electric skate plus demonstrations and lectures were given on all of these different types of
oddities. A three-dimensional theater featuring Florida was a big hit and probably worth the entrance price all by
itself.
Our twenty mile return trip to St. Augustine was made even more interesting because the tide had gone out and the
beach all the way back was several hundred feet wide and an easy ride on the hard packed sand. This beach was
just the same as the famous beach at Daytona where the Daytona 500 motor races were originally held.
Along our twenty-mile ride we only saw one group of condominiums and some German developer had built those. Of
course, it wouldn’t be long and the entire beachfront would be filled elbow to elbow along the entire coast. This day
we were treated to some of the last natural seaside on the entire east coast of Florida. We only met a couple of
fisherman on our way that used a strange type of fishing procedure. These gill-netters had a shallow draft boat that
would carry their net offshore in a large semicircle and then bring a tailing rope back to shore and fasten it to the
back of their pickup truck and then using the truck pull the net closed and up on the beach. We stopped to watch
this ingenious procedure and we were impressed with their sizeable catch.
All I remember for sure was that by the time we finally got back to our boat that night we all were ready to quit. It had
been a splendid day and we definitely got to see a side of Florida by bicycle that tourists didn’t see that just drive.

In this winter and spring, Jane and were going to meet a variety of boaters and sailors all with strange and
interesting stories. One of these people we were about to meet received a great deal of publicity when he single-
handedly sailed his 35 foot Ferro-cement sailboat, which he had built himself, up the coast and attempted to enter
the St. Augustine inlet at night. Due to the fact that the inlet had shifted and only provisional channel markers were
placed precariously making the inlet a local knowledge situation, Nick sailed his boat up on to the shore because as
he guided his boat he headed for the St. Augustine lighthouse. Ironically the St. Augustine lighthouse had been built
to mark a channel that no longer existed and was more than a mile south of the new inlet.
The net result was that Nick wound up high and dry on that hard and unforgiving beach near high tide. Nick’s
problems had just begun when he went for help and some locals that drove down the beach went aboard Nick’s boat
and helped themselves to everything aboard including Nick’s money. Nick found out that many of the coastal
Floridians were descendents of the pirates on his first unfortunate night in town.
Nick’s boat was very basic with no extras but all of the work that he had done was first class and artfully executed
such as the deck beams and bulkhead supports that were neatly laminated out of different colors of wood finely
sanded and varnished to perfection.
Nick got a truck and had his damaged boat hauled to Gordon Whitmore’s boatyard in St. Augustine on US highway
one. Jane and I heard of this terrible story and went over to see if we could be of any assistance to Nick as we had a
good bit of knowledge about Ferro-cement boats and also had gotten to know many area people that might also be
able to help.
It turned out that Nick was a few years older than I was and he had come from the Czech Republic and being
German he and his mother were interred in a refugee camp for several years after World War II by the Russians.
They then moved to Canada and that is where Nick finally resided and built his Ferro-cement boat.
When we met Nick he was understandably weary of everyone because of his terrible experience with the St.
Augustine pirates.
Nick had a lot of repair work to do to his boat starting with his rudder and his rigging that had to be removed to bring
his boat into town. He was diligently at work and he wasn’t a man of many words so he seemed unfriendly at first but
he was just a quiet person by nature.
Many of our acquaintances in St. Augustine took an interest in Nick and got him involved in our group activities that
included dinners together. Nick had his boat back in the water in a couple of weeks and took the whole group out on
his first offshore shakedown sail. Harry Walden, Brad and Jean Kinsey, Jane and I and Nick had a spirited sail.

Oh, by the way!
Jane and I were very conscious of navigation and always paid special attention to our position at all times. On our
sail offshore we took a course of 90 degrees due east and just sailed directly out to sea and over the horizon. As we
checked our position on the way offshore I noticed a distinct current set that carried us south. On our return trip we
took the reciprocal course of 270 degrees or due west and again we noticed a distinct current set but this time it was
to the north and we discovered that the coastal current changed direction with the turn of the tide. That wasn’t
something that was taught in our boating courses or had any bearing on the Gulf Stream. Remember this was in the
days before satellite navigation, so plotting of the course was very important.





























Sailing off shore from St. Augustine on Nick’s sailboat; Left to right, Jane, Nick at the helm, myself and
Jean Kinsey.

Jane and I managed to catch a couple of Spanish mackerel trolling which we cooked up as a community dinner that
night on Nick’s boat. Nick didn’t have any ice or refrigeration so we had to eat all that we caught that night, which
wasn’t a problem for this group.
In a few days Nick got his boat provisioned out and set sail for who knows where. We wrote him several letters and
we never received a response. So, mysterious and quiet Nick drifted into our lives and then sailed out nevermore to
be heard from again.

Another strange and interesting encounter this winter season was with Tony Woodruff from Eveleth, Minnesota.
Jane and I had gotten to know Tony’s parents back in Superior, Wisconsin when we were still building our boat.
We hadn’t met Tony before we left Superior but his parents paid Jane and I several visits as we were working on our
Dursmirg. They told how they had purchased a 26-foot kit sailboat and were assembling it, and their son Tony had
plans of taking it on a long cruise.
Tony’s father was a medical doctor in Eveleth where I happened to have several business accounts with my
wholesale distributing business. Over the years I became well acquainted in that community where Tony’s father was
very outspoken politically and on several occasions stirred up many a controversy.
One of the people that stopped at the Savannah Yacht Club while we were tied there when I broke my shoulder was
Tony Woodruff. He was sailing all by himself.
We had lots of stories to share and I helped him get his bilge pump working.
This was the first time we had ever met Tony or seen his lovely sailboat that was artfully decorated with many cast
bronze fittings.
It turned out that Tony’s parents had sent Tony off for an adventuresome cruise with an expense account and also
their blessings. We thought that was as nice a thing as a parent could ever do and we hoped that Tony could grasp
the value of his opportunity, especially at his young age.
A short time later when we were in St. Augustine, Florida, Tony and his sailboat came through town and we had
another opportunity to share stories again. In spite of the fact that Tony had made the same trip that we had just
made from the “Twin Ports” of Duluth-Superior he was still not fully proficient at boat handling and a little unsure of
himself. Tony told us that he was on his way to South Florida and to the Bahamas Islands for the winter.
In the springtime, before we left St. Augustine, we were again surprised to encounter Tony Woodruff and his lovely
sailboat. Well, this time Tony was fully proficient at boat handling and as far as we could tell he could hold his own
with any sailor we had met when it came to sailing. Tony, over the winter, had hardly used his engine at all and
pretty much mastered his sailing skills. He took great pride in sailing out of town and through the bridges in those
strong tidal currents only using his sails when he left. That was the last we ever saw of Tony.
                                                                       ***
Living aboard the very nicest sailboat anchored in the harbor was Monroe Drake. Monroe was the hired captain and
seemed to have life figured out perfectly. His life style was thoroughly self-indulgent and he perpetually had a bigger
than life smile that could have been cannabis induced.
Monroe dressed the part of a hired captain and kept his beard trimmed to give himself a salty seagoing appearance.
He always seemed to keep a good looking young woman around for company and made sure that she did his menial
jobs and kept his meals served in first class yacht style.
Jane and I, along with many of the other boaters in Saint Augustine this winter, were invited over to Monroe’s boat
for social get-to-gethers and several times for lavish meals, which Monroe’s different girlfriends would slave to turn
out.
I will never forget Monroe’s comment on the subject of building Ferro-cement boats; Monroe said, “I would never
consider building a boat out of anything that I couldn’t get high off the fumes from!”
Over the years Jane and I ran into Monroe many times in Florida and even up in the Carolinas and I write about him
in following volumes.
                                                                       ***
Tom and Sophie Tredor lived aboard an old New England fishing trawler named the “Gloucester” and they kept it
permanently at the City Yacht Pier.
Somehow Tom managed to live by his wits and always had some kind of scam that he was exploiting.
In this portion of the story I will only tell of our first encounters with Tom and Sophie.
Upon first meeting this character he came on like a long lost friend and though Tom never mistreated Jane or me in
any business dealings he had a real well deserved reputation as a trickster.
Tom had a mysterious background (he claimed to be a Greek orphan who grew up on the streets of New York City)
and we never did find out his whole story but somehow he always managed to put some kind of deal together and
keep up his life style.
We did find out from a friend of ours that Tom had gotten his boat for less than two thousand dollars up in Cape
May, New Jersey. The boat had a 1300 Caterpillar engine in working condition.
Tom and Sophie had converted their boat into a comfortable home that was big enough for two and occasionally
they even had a tenant that would reside in the forecastle.
                                                                       ***
We next met some newcomers to St. Augustine when two small sailboats came to Uncle Harry’s Boatyard to have
their bottoms painted. Harry made them a deal that if both boats would agree to be pulled at the same time on his
marine railway, there would be a special price.
Steve and Lum Brown had a 25-foot wooden sailboat and Jay Herndon had a 23-foot homemade molded plywood
sailboat. Sure enough, crafty Uncle Harry got both boats up at the same time. He may have given a special price
quote but he was an expert at padding the bill.
I actually saw grown men cry when Uncle Harry got done totaling up the yard bill on some shrimp boats he had done
work on.

Message on a Mother’s Day card Jane sent her mother;
1973 May 9
Mothers Day;
Mothers Day came up so fast you might not get this by Sunday.
We have really been on the go. I took a shrimp boat with Bing to Tampa and then we helped a friend bring
his boat to Fort Lauderdale-in all we were gone for two weeks.
We will be here only a short time longer but I will let you know when we leave. I have another letter to you
started but its back on the boat so I’ll send you this short one now and the longer one later. I’ll be calling you
on Mother’s Day if I can get through.
Love, Jane

We got to know these interesting people on these two boats and soon we found ourselves departing St. Augustine
with Jay Herndon on his 23-foot sailboat headed for Fort Lauderdale.
This was new water to Jane and I as we hadn’t been any further south on the Intracoastal Waterway than St.
Augustine, only off-shore.
Jay, Jane and I got an early departure from Uncle Harry’s Boatyard in St. Augustine and we were making fantastic
time in Jay’s little sailboat because of a strong tail wind that got this little boat up to its hull speed.
I had no idea that Jay couldn’t read a chart when I turned the helm over to him and went below for my morning
coffee.
Well, we abruptly came to a halt on a sand bar. I came out on deck to find that we were at least one hundred feet
from the channel and solidly aground.
We tried the usual trick of carrying out an anchor and then healing the vessel over and attempting to sail off. We
weren’t going anywhere soon and we would have to just wait for “Mother Nature” to bring the high tide waters back
to us and then we could float away.
The strangest part of this whole ordeal was that as we sat aground we were still in full view of the old city even
though we had an early morning departure from St. Augustine.
























Aground aboard Jay Herndon’s sailboat our first morning out of St. Augustine. The boat is healed over at
low tide. (Jay Herndon with sunglasses)

By afternoon we were sailing again and the wind hadn’t let up so we were making record speeds and it appeared
that we would be able to get close to Daytona by dark.
This was an exhilarating sail with only the jib flying and we had attained hull speed and were leaving a sizeable wake.
We had just passed Matanzas Inlet and I was at the helm when an extra burst of wind took the mast away faster than
I could blink my eyes. In less than an instant the sail and half of the mast were gone and we quickly slowed and
stopped. Jay felt totally defeated at this point and wanted to just give up and return to St. Augustine.
I told Jay that we were less than a mile from Marineland where there was a marina and he had all of his carpenter
tools aboard so we could repair the mast there and continue on. I must have been pretty persuasive because
between Jane and I, we got Jay into action and we folded up the broken mast and rigging, retrieved the sail and
stowed the lines. Then under power we used Jay’s outboard motor to get to Marineland. We got a rental slip and set
out to look for the materials needed to do the repair job.
Sure enough, as we walked the grounds of Marineland we soon spotted just the right sized piece of wood to plug the
two pieces of Jay’s aluminum mast together.
I got Jay busy planing the wood plug to “force fit” into the mast as I took over the job of milling the two metal mast
pieces so that they would fit together almost like they had come from the machine shop.
Besides the mast repair we would now have to shorten all of the standing rigging that included the six shrouds plus
the forestay and backstay. The chain plate where the backstay had been fastened was badly rusted so we merely
drilled a new hole in the chain plate where the metal had a little more meat. When Jay had the plug neatly fashioned
and ready to install in the two mast parts we took the mast up to a sturdy cement wall and all three of us took the
mast like a battering ram and drove the force fit plug into place. It was an impressive repair and when it was together
we again saw Jay’s face beam with pleasure.
By the next evening our diligent efforts had paid off and the mast was read to step.
Just like we had made an appointment that had been previously arranged, here came Steve and Lum Brown from
the boatyard in St. Augustine. They were both good sized people and that was what we needed to stand that mast
up.
Steve and Lum were very surprised that we had only gotten twenty miles in our first day so we had to relate our
incredible story to them. At the present speed we might be to Fort Lauderdale by Christmas.
Most of the rest of the trip we had to use the engine because of the lack of wind but we had a very good time and
one night we stopped on the Indian River and had a wonderful experience at a fishing camp dock.
The bartender was a jovial character and when he found out that I was Norwegian he made sure that we had the
time of our lives.
We had cherrystone clams raw on the half shell with hot sauce. This was our first time to ever imbibe this delicacy.
Well, Jane was skeptical at first but after one plate full we were hooked on them and over the years Jane always
made sure that I got the little raw clams…my favorite.
The bartender was also the chef and the next morning he insisted that we come in for his special $1.00 breakfast
with no questions asked. He did it again and this time we became so stuffed we could hardly get back aboard the
little boat.
The fun and laughter lingers in our memory after all of these years and that is what makes traveling so special to
us…these special unplanned happenings.
What a way to arrive in Fort Lauderdale, we seemed to be going right through the front yards of the classiest homes
in town. The town was just dripping in opulence and these homes with huge yachts tied in their front yards and
Cadillac’s and Rolls Royce’s out back made a real contrast to poor little St. Augustine.
We tied up at a very nice marina in Fort Lauderdale, Pier 66 on the 17th street causeway, where Jay had a
carpenter job waiting for him. This was as downtown as you could get.
The reason the marina was named Pier 66 was because of the Phillips 66 gasoline facilities there.
The boat traffic past the marina was unbelievable and the one bridge between the ocean inlet and us had a novel
feature.
The bridge opened for large vessels and sailboats but on a restricted basis. Next to the bridge tenders house was
located a large clock that resembled the type used at sports fields and this one told the number of minutes
remaining until the bridge would open. What I liked about this system was that after the bridge had opened it would
be fifteen minutes until the next opening. But if you arrived at the bridge and the clock had counted down to zero
minutes it would then open right up. So that at night when there was little or no boat traffic any boat that approached
the bridge would not have a wait.

















Aboard Jay’s sailboat heading to South Florida on the Intracoastal Waterway I am at the helm with my old
trout fishing hat from Wisconsin.
While we docked at the marina we did get to sight see in the neighborhood and the biggest attraction was the super-
sized yacht of Aristotle and Jackie Onassis. We did check out the other marinas and discovered that they were all
even more palatial than the place we were at.

One big surprise was that we happened to see our friends, Don and Betty Currie going through the 17th street
Bridge in their boat Ione. This is the boat that had just pulled us on our Dursmirg from Superior, Wisconsin to
Duluth, Minnesota, when our boat had first been launched.
We all waved, hollered and even jumped up and down but it was to no avail Don and Betty were headed north and
surely weren’t looking for us as they just chugged along.
We were expecting them to come to visit with us in St. Augustine and for the moment thought this would be the
perfect time to make contact and possible ride north with them. There was no way to contact them and so we would
just have to return to St. Augustine to await their arrival.

Our last night on Jay’s boat in Fort Lauderdale was interesting to say the least. We had an idea that Jay loved to
smoke up his “weed” but we didn’t have any idea that he would carry a sizeable stash of the stuff…enough to get
the authorities attention for sure. Well, with one of his big grins he pulled out his screwdriver and unscrewed a metal
flame deflector from above the galley stove and down came a big carefully wrapped bag…his stash.
While we were all asleep that night, Jane happened to roll over in her berth and put her foot on the cabin sole and
discovered that the boat was filling with water. What had happened was that the marine head had inadvertently not
been shut off after its last use and water began to siphon in and slowly flow into the boat. Of course, the lower the
boat got in the water the faster the water would flow in. Needless to say this event required a couple of hours of work
to rectify.
Jay Herndon’s mother drove down from Jacksonville to meet us and give us all a ride back. She obviously had plenty
of money judging by the car she drove and the clothes she wore.
Upon arriving back in St. Augustine the big news was that the federal authorities had swooped down on Xynides
Boatyard and made a “drug bust”. Evidently they had a tip off.
Well, they missed the one big haul they could have made on Jay Herndon’s boat but they did find a potted marijuana
plant on Steve and Lum Brown’s boat, for which they levied them a fine of $100.00. Steve and Lum were not in the
business but occasional smoked a joint. They preferred to grow their own (healthier and free of pesticides!) The
“Feds” got a bust.
A letter Jane wrote to her parents;
1973 May 15
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
I tried without success to call you and wish you a happy Mothers Day-all the circuits were busy. I tried many
times but couldn’t get through.
We’ve been very busy lately. I went with Bing on a new 75-foot shrimp boat to Tampa.
It took us 59 1/2 hours non-stop. I really enjoyed the trip. The first day out it was quite rough but it calmed
down and the rest of the way was very nice.
After we got back we took a 23-foot sailboat to Fort Lauderdale via the Intercoastal Waterway. That was an
exciting trip too as we broke the mast. We had winds up to 53 miles an hour, the sails up and the back chain
plate was rusted and broke. It took us two days to fix the mast then the wind switched and we had to motor
and the fuel pump went on the engine, so we had a lot of excitement. Although we were gone over two
weeks, a couple of days after we got back Don and Betty Currie from Duluth showed up on their boat. They
are tied up here at the boatyard with us.
Thursday we are going to leave here and anchor out until the 22nd and then we are leaving for Fernandina
Beach, Florida to haul and paint both our boats. After that we are just going to just cruise for the summer.
We will probably go north as far as Annapolis, Maryland and also go to Washington, D.C. to visit “Tricky Dick’
s" place.
Besides all the work we have been doing on the boat we have been crewing on a shrimp boat and getting all
of the fresh fish and shrimp we can eat.
I was wondering when we start traveling if we could forward our mail to you and have you hold it for us.
I will send money to cover the postage and then I could call you or drop you a line and let you know when to
forward it to us. Let me know if you would do it. The post office will only hold mail 10 days and then they
send it back or dead letter it. Jerry and Bonnie Peterson took care of our mail last summer for us but they
just opened a new business in Washburn and are moving there so they are awfully busy.
The weather has been beautiful lately-between 70 and 90 all the time. I’ve even gotten a suntan instead of a
sun burn.
Well, I have to get on my bike and go get groceries and the mail.
Hope everyone is OK. Maybe I’ll try calling you again soon.
Love Jane and Bing

A couple of days after Jane and I got back to St. Augustine our friends Don and Betty Currie pulled in and got
dockage from “Uncle Harry”. Harry had to pull his usual tricks of extracting just a little extra out of our friends. He was
going to charge per day and counted the day they arrived and every day after, thus getting extra days charged in
the end. That old Greek wouldn’t budge an inch and made such a scene Don in the end relented and paid.
We had stopped to see Don and Betty a couple of months earlier on our return trip from visiting Key West but then
we didn’t have time to visit, now we would.
It had been almost a year since Don had pulled our boat with his boat the Ione just after we had launched it in
Superior.
We had time to share lots of adventure stories now because we had each taken different routes to get to Florida.
Don and Betty had come down Lake Michigan to the Chicago River and then the Mississippi River to the Gulf of
Mexico and then on to Florida where they then wintered in the Florida Keys and the Bahamas.
Don told us that his next adventure would be to buy and operate a shrimp boat.
I then told Don that he had in fact come to the very best place that he could have come for that. Then I told him of all
of the shrimp trawlers that were being built here in St. Augustine and that I would arrange for him to go out on a real
working shrimp boat and get some first hand experience.
It so happened that our friend George Tappin was up in Saint Mary’s, Georgia with his boat getting the bottom
painted and so I checked with his wife and she said that she would make arrangements for Don and I to get a ride
with her up to Georgia and that we would then be able to make the trip back with George and we could fish all the
way back to Saint Augustine.
Don thought that was an excellent idea.  
So, two days later Mary picked us up in her pickup truck at Xynides Boatyard.
We began our ride up to Georgia with Mary Tappin and her little dog Bimbo. Mary was hard as nails and dressed
like a man with bib overalls and a denim cap. She kept a 38-caliber revolver in her pocket in the event anyone had
any ideas of giving her a hard time. At first glance you would think this was a man and then you weren’t sure until
she spoke. Everyone addressed Mary as “Miss Mary”, which was a gentlemanly custom and carryover from the old
Deep South days.
There was no mistake that Miss Mary wore the pants in the family and she also held the purse strings to the point
that George was almost miserable. If George wanted cigarettes Mary would give George a dollar bill and when he
would come back she would ask for the change.
I fully got a taste of her frugality when as we were speeding along the highway in her pickup truck headed for
Georgia, she put on the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road and told me to run back and pick up a
returnable soft drink bottle. She didn’t miss a nickel and there was one.
Our ride was almost one hundred miles and the last portion where we turned off highway 95 and then headed east
into Saint Mary’s was definitely back-country Georgia. Highway traffic was almost non-existent and there was only
one road in to this little town whose only reason for existence was a big wood products plant. A feeling of isolation
and solitude hung over the area because it was fifty miles to Jacksonville, the nearest real city.
George was ready to cast off the minute we arrived at this little backwoods boatyard. He got underway and headed
to Fernandina Beach where we would spend the night tied to the public dock along with a motley variety of shrimp
fishing boats. George knew everyone on a first name basis and there was his long time friend, Sullivan who
happened to own the biggest boat in the entire fleet.
This was a real treat for my friend Don Currie because being a tourist you would never get to meet the actual
owners and visit the boats with guided tours. Sullivan was more than happy to show off his big boat from bow to
stern and from bilge bottom to rigging top.

Oh, by the way!
In Fernandina Beach, I purchased a full coil of 3/4-inch nylon anchor rope from Standard Hardware Company. I
should have purchased it sooner because at the time the Arab oil embargo was causing everything made from
petroleum to go wildly up in price. Just a couple of months earlier the coil cost about $70.00, now the same coil was
$115.00. At Standard Hardware Company each coil of rope is put on the scale and weighed, you pay per pound.
We soon would be living on the anchor full time and we had to have good anchor lines

Don and I slept in the forecastle that night in Fernandina Beach and it didn’t seem like we even got a chance to lie
down and George was rousting us to man the dock lines as we were casting off to catch the ebb tide out the inlet.
Well, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. It was like a lazy day in the summertime. I was able to get Don involved
in the operation of the back deck work. I tried to let him have an opportunity to do all of the different jobs so he
would have a feel for this kind of work.
George worked his favorite fishing spots along the coast south and we only put over the trawl nets where he thought
we would have the best luck.
George wanted to be back at the dock before nightfall in St. Augustine, which was going to make for a very long day.
We got enough of a catch to give Don an idea of what was involved in pulling and returning the nets, sorting the
catch and operating the boat.
We were all beaten down tired by the time we arrived back in St. Augustine late that night. George was the oldest
and the least worn out, probably because he was well accustomed to the long hard days of strenuous work.
The most interesting thing of all was the fact that Don Currie had come to the conclusion that being a shrimp boat
owner and operator was not what he wanted. It was not at all what he had imagined and was about one hundred
times more work than he could have dreamed of in his wildest dreams.
At least I spared Don any illusions of fantasy about the ownership of a shrimp boat and perhaps saved him a bundle
of money in the end.

Now Jane and I were eager to head out and start our new life of living on the anchor.
Don and Betty Currie were headed for Jacksonville where they wanted to spend a couple of days looking around
and then they thought that they would head up to Fernandina Beach where we had planned to pull our boats on a
marine railway and do a bottom paint job.
I had made arrangements to pull our boat on the same marine railway at St. Mary’s, Georgia that George Tappin
had used. It would be just big enough for us. Though our boat had a foot more of draft than George’s Terry, our
boat was nearly ten feet shorter.
This part of the story continues in Volume II “Summers at Daufuskie and the Sea Islands”.

Leaving Xynides Boatyard was almost like jumping out of an airplane. We had become very comfortable and
accustomed to having all of the fresh water we wanted plus electric that was as close as the nearest light switch.
More than five months of being parked in one convenient place was about to change and it would be nearly six
years before our boat; the Dursmirg would be tied to a dock again. Over the years we have seen many friends tied
to the dock and build some kind of phobia about actually leaving. We called this “harbor fever”. Well, Jane and I
could feel its effects but our eagerness to get on with our adventures quickly and easily overpowered our “harbor
fever”.
Backing out of the spot we had occupied for these five months turned out to be a challenge because the dock was
now tied three deep with boats. Uncle Harry was exploiting his dock space beyond its limits.
As we were backing out the strong flood current proved too much for our fouled propeller to overpower and we
became wedged tightly and broadside to the current. With all of the boats at the dock maneuvering was not
possible. Nicky Xynides, Uncle Harry’s son, came to work and lent us a hand getting away by securing a spring line
so we could use the boats full power to pry lose from the speeding current.
In a few minutes we were free and as we left the dock we immediately got the feeling that we would have been far
happier leaving sooner.
In a half an hour we had our anchors down out in the main harbor. This time we swung with two anchors off the bow
utilizing our new double anchor chute that worked perfectly. The silence and tranquility was wonderful and now we
were in a position to fulfill those dreams of cruising to places that were out of the reach of all those that were
tethered to the work-a-day world or a dock.

Over the wintertime Jane and I had finally had the time to enjoy books not just to read them…there is a big
difference and I don’t believe in all my life up to this point I had ever had that privilege. Jane and I became avid book
scouts and had explored every used bookstore in the area.  The Goodwill store had mountains of books and Jane
was a fast reader so that every week she would have a large grocery bag full of read books to return. On board we
had an extensive selection of reference books that included three sets of encyclopedias, plus some classics that we
saved for special times. Our nautical book selection was well rounded and well read.

I kept a list of boat projects to do and for everything that I accomplished and scratched off the list it seemed like I
would add two new things to do. That list stayed with us all of our cruising years and never was completely finished.
Before we left town I went to visit the bone specialist to make sure that my shoulder was healing properly. The doctor
that had set my broken and dislocated shoulder the previous fall back in Savannah told me to wait six months and
then have it looked at to make sure that it had indeed healed correctly and completely.

I made an appointment with the only bone specialist at the Flagler Hospital and had an x-ray taken. I got the x-ray
and carried it to the doctors office and the first thing that I did was to examine the x-ray myself to see what the
condition of my shoulder was. Well it was just fine and completely healed. I was thankful and told the doctor so. This
guy was eager to cut on me and extract some money in the process. He asked if I had ever had any other problems
with joints and then I told him that some years previously I had had a couple of different accidents with my right
shoulder which I had dislocated. This knife happy scoundrel then wanted to operate on my good shoulder…I was out
of there. I did make the mistake of paying the bill to this scoundrel.

Now I was going to have to clean the bottom of our boat before it would make the trip to Fernandina Beach. While at
anchor I would swim down with a scrapper and remove all of the barnacles and different types of marine life that had
taken up residence on our boat bottom over the winter. I quickly discovered that it was almost impossible to swim in
the swift current and devised a system of tying a rope from the bow that would extend aft with a float at the end.
Starting at the bow I would hang on to the rope and with the other hand use a big wide stainless steel scrapper I
made especially for the job of removing the marine growth from the bottom. I used swim fins, a diving mask and
snorkel as I went from bow to stern. Cleaning the propeller was the very most important of all. I quickly learned to
diagnose a fouled propeller by the stern wash when the propeller was engaged. If the propeller was clean, the stern
wash would come directly and forcibly out the stern. If the propeller was fouled, the propeller wash would be slung
out the sides and there would be no perceptible thrust. I maintained that all of the barnacles on a fouled propeller
would hold out their hands and stop the boat; well that was what it felt like anyway.
I soon found out that I could accomplish more work under the boat in five minutes of slack tide than I could in half an
hour with the current running.

Oh, by the way!
The dinghy and using it to pull anchors;
It turned out that our little Bingy Dinghy would be one of our most useful additions to our boating life.
Usually pulling a second anchor involves a lot of maneuvering of the boat and we didn’t have an anchor winch so we
had to rely on the boat to break the anchor loose.
By using our dinghy and slacking our second anchor line I would merely pull the dinghy along the anchor line until I
was directly over that anchor. Then I would pull the line tight until the stern of the dinghy was almost submerged, at
that point I would wrap the anchor line several times around the motor board on the dinghy and then go to the bow
and wait.
It was like sitting on a teeter-totter because of the leverage exerted by the buoyancy of the dinghy. This even
worked better and faster if there was some wave action. Up popped the anchor with no strain! Then Jane on the bow
of the Dursmirg would just hand over hand retrieve the anchor line and pull me in the dinghy under the bow of the  
Dursmirg at the same time. Here I could clean the anchor before it was stowed in the anchor chute. The anchor line
would have to be cleaned of barnacles and other marine growth so it would be stowed on deck to bake and dry in
the sun first.
The second anchor was retrieved by passing the Dursmirg over the anchor and when the anchor line was
perpendicular Jane would make it fast to the Sampson post on the bow and then the boat’s momentum would break
the anchor loose from the bottom. This is how we got the anchor up using the engine.
It was much easier under sail but required better timing and lots of open space…not recommended in a crowded
anchorage.
Again the dinghy was used to get the first anchor up and stowed. Next using just the main sail sheeted in tight and
the helm tied down the boat would sail by itself until the anchor line would snatch the bow around on the opposite
tack. At this point the anchor line would then go slack as the boat took off on its opposite tack. This was the time to
retrieve the anchor line. All would be pulled in that was possible and then made fast. Usually only two or three tacks
would be required to break the anchor loose and we would then be on our way.
We perfected this technique down in the Florida Keys when there was no fuel for pleasure boats due to the Arab oil
embargo.
We continue our adventures in the next Volume; “Summers at Daufuskie and the Sea Islands”
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