| Travels of Dursmirg Vol. 3 Chapter 3 |
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CHAPTER 3 MELBOURNE AND THE INDIAN RIVER
October 26th, 1973 we found a place that we would make a regular stop in the years to come both by water and
later by land and we have cemented lifetime friendships in the area of Melbourne and Palm Bay along the Indian
River.
Our first night on the Indian River with our boat Dursmirg we anchored just off the waterway adjacent to one of the
many small spoil islands that were formed when the Indian River portion of the Intracostal Waterway was dredged.
We took our dinghy into a small marina named Rhum Cove to ask about shopping, restaurants and places we might
put our dinghy ashore. The Rhum Cove channel in those days was just barely deep enough to accommodate our
dinghy under power; so entering with our Dursmirg was out of the question, especially in this area where virtually no
tidal flow took place.
We were directed to a little restaurant resembling a fish camp perched on the side of the riverbank south of Rhum
Cove and half a mile away.
With our ten horsepower high-speed dinghy, we considered that kind of distance insignificant and went over to
check it out.
The Palm Terrace Bar and Restaurant was a relic of Florida in the 1940s and we got the impression as we
approached by water that only rarely would clients ever drop in by boat. A small seldom-used wooden dock well
weathered by the Florida sun terminated in water so shallow that there was hardly enough to float our dinghy.
The building and grounds made us think that the establishment was a laid back hangout for locals and definitely not
catering to or surviving off the tourist trade arriving by road now that Interstate Highway 95 had taken the traffic
away from old U.S. Highway 1.
The draw of the Palm Terrace was its remarkable view looking out over the Indian River from the second story bar
and dining area.
Unbeknownst to us at the time of our arrival we had been scrutinized and evaluated by the regulars perched upon
their bar stools and gazing out over the unrestrictive and expansive river view that took in the river that was a good
two and a half miles wide at this point.
As views in Florida go, this one was “tops” especially in the late afternoons when the sun cast long shadows out
onto the water and across the river and highlighted the palm lined coastal barrier island far off across on the
eastern side of the river. Moonlight evenings gave enchantingly miraculous reflections with phenomenal sights as
the regulars could gaze past the back bar out and to the distant Atlantic Ocean where the lunar show begins.
After climbing the hill and entering the bar at highway level on the west side, we were greeted by a jovial Pete Bailer,
the owner, who cordially invited us in to meet the regulars. We too became regulars that very evening as we all
exchanged stories and drank tap beer while taking in the extraordinary view of the river that now included our boat
the Dursmirg, anchored half a mile offshore. The boat was just inside the row of neat little tree covered spoil islands
that orderly and precisely lined the waterway as it passed through the expansive 85-mile stretch of Indian River from
Titusville on the north to near Fort Pierce on the south.
This happened to be as close as we were able to anchor to shore with the six foot two inch draft of our Dursmirg.
Pete Bailer was like the one-man band and was the only employee at his Palm Terrace. He tended bar, cooked in
the kitchen, waited tables and entertained the troops with pleasurable and convivial confabulations.
The regulars were a strange mix of social misfits and square pegs that collectively were a total mismatch of
personalities. So, of course, we fit right in.
While we sampled Pete Bailer’s house special that consisted of an out-sized gourmet hamburger and fries that was
designed to make the client into a regular, we began to meet this strange mix of outlandish eccentrics.
Chain-smoking Harold Wright was in his fifties, raised in Miami, went to radio broadcasting school, was in his own
area nursery business and was a wee bit “momsy”.
Harold was the proverbial walking encyclopedia and had a vocabulary that could trump anyone especially with his
knowledge of horticulture and his extensive string of botanical names for every living thing that he randomly rattled
off freely no matter how much beer he happened to slosh down. His time spent at broadcasting school must have
been used with due diligence because his diction was flawless and precise but that was the extent of all he cared to
present to the public that had any semblance of order.
Harold traveled with his little dog, Broom Hilda and he jokingly used to say that when he got too drunk to drive home
that Broom Hilda drove him home. As far as we could tell that must have been the truth because Harold never left
the bar until he was thoroughly inebriated but some how managed to make his five mile back road drive home
without a major incident.
We had known Harold Wright for two years before we discovered that he actually had a wife.
Harold had married into the old time Louisville, Kentucky money. His wedding reception at the Waldorf Astoria and
extravagant honeymoon came from his wife Eleanor’s rich parents. Harold quickly learned how to spend Eleanor’s
fortune and he spent it well developing a huge nursery business, which he in due course bailed out of, chased by
the bankruptcy lawyers. Harold and his wife then took up deep-sea fishing down in the Cayman Islands and also the
South Pacific until the financial flack cleared and then came to quiet little Palm Bay, Florida where he again began a
nursery business down a quiet little dirt road. Harold’s expando-pre-fab home was unimaginably non-descript but his
several acre plot of land was landscaped almost to the point of overkill with exotic flora most of which Jane and I had
never seen the likes of before. Harold even had a lake dug that he had stocked with fish and ducks.
Eleanor had a first class drinking problem and took many a trip to the dry-out ward but Harold always took her back
because of her steady cash flow…some years later she finally moved on and left Harold to stack up his own dough.
Harold employed half a dozen helpers to keep his business going but his business seemed to be just a nuisance he
put up with in order to have an excuse to pursue his number one passion of collecting exotic plants.
Jane and I, on many occasions, would go to shore to meet Harold who loved to get our attention by lying on his truck
horn until we responded to his persistence. Harold almost got to the point of being a nuisance with his horn beeping
when he parked in a friend’s front yard.
On many an occasion we were told by Harold that he needed to show us some exotic plants so we piled into his big
white van and would be off getting a lecture and education on the exotic species that Harold had discovered along
this tropical stretch of Florida.
The trips became extended forays to out of the way bars that were many times local knowledge only spots that did
not have a closing time and cranked out the drinks around the clock.
The incredibly beautiful, “Miss Bud” that would automatically become the center of attention and turn every
head in any crowd with her seductive everything was gorgeous and stunningly striking. Miss Bud when not
representing the local beer distributor worked for a plastic surgeon who made sure Miss Bud received every bodily
upgrade available. Harold Wright jokingly maintained that with Miss Bud everything was fake and that she even had
a plastic vagina. We wondered how Harold could draw his conclusions but then Harold was never without some
provocative and enlightening comments with observations and antidotes well punctuated with descriptive expletives
spoken with his perfect broadcaster diction
With a name like Mickey Rooney you have to have a good since of humor and this guy certainly did. Likeable
Mickey was a social miss match almost anyplace he went and how and why he wound up here became less and less
of a mystery as we got to know more of this group of regulars.
Mickey was a senior Air Force Pilot and flew Air Force 1 for Lyndon Baines Johnson.
He told the group that he had just been transferred to a new assignment flying a seven-drawer desk in the
bureaucracy department.
If his abilities matched his intellect and humor, he definitely deserved his job.
The list of people and places that Mickey had encountered in his flying career was a match for anyone’s Who’s Who
directory.
One of the regulars was an eccentric and witty engineer from Harris Semiconductor who lived on small
sailboat at Rhum Cove (the small marina just half a mile north of the Palm Terrace at Malabar, Florida and five miles
south of Melbourne where we first stopped to ask directions.)
Home on weekends to Daytona and every weekday evening he was alone on his little sailboat and so he just
naturally gravitated into the Palm Terrace Bar where his intellect and humor were much appreciated verbally
bantering with the regulars.
He said that his kids were miserable and that when they grew up they would miserable adults and ultimately they
would go on to be miserable old folks.
This was the guy that got us involved with our lifetime friends Grant and Deb Ball. Deb had a very good job as
secretary to a vice-president of Harris Corporation at the time where our engineer friend also worked.
Sure enough, after our first meeting with the engineer from Harris Semiconductor the very next night a small 22 foot
Catalina sailboat named Godspeed came directly out to our boat and circled us until we came out to see what was
up. There were Grant and Deb: they waved, said hello, and we invited them aboard.
Deb said that at work she was told that she would enjoy meeting us and that she should just drop in for a visit. We
were sure glad that they did because over the years we have had many an interesting and adventuresome time with
these two sailors who have gradually graduated to larger and larger sailboats. I will be writing more about them in
the upcoming pages.
Here I have to give you some insight into the Palm Terrace Restaurant and Bar as we got to know it back in
1973 and on many subsequent visits.
I cannot imagine just how Pete Bailer came to be the owner of the Palm Terrace but he did and his precarious
financial position he kept to himself.
Pete, in his mid-forties, of average height and slightly stocky had a jovial easygoing mild mannered disposition but
was mysteriously silent and guarded regarding his personal life.
Though he managed to have an in depth and extensive résumé stowed away of all his clients, his personal life
remained a mystery to us all.
Our first week frequenting the Palm Terrace, Pete arranged to have a “free for all the regular’s” party and we
pitched in to help with the food. Jane and I brought oysters, clams and enough smoked fish to feed the regulars and
then some; we harvested it all from the Indian River. These oysters were the most prolific and largest we had ever
seen and we remember having eaten some so large that it took three big bites just to eat one and when one was
shucked it would fill a water glass. The clams could be harvested with such ease that a five-gallon bucket could be
filled in ten minutes or less. In all of our travels, I cannot remember ever finding any place that could match the
Indian River for its prolific quantity of seafood back in the early 1970s.
Oh, by the way!
At this time in the early 1970s, these waters of the beautiful Indian River were uncontaminated but that was soon to
change.
Vast bulldozed tracts of land were soon filled with shopping centers, retirement villages and mobile home parks
linked by new highways. Next in moved the new inhabitants who would continue this relentless battle to tame Florida’
s wild backcountry and render it civilized and sterilized with every lethal chemical that could be purchased at the
local garden center.
Agriculture was also a very big business in this area and getting bigger by plowing up the native vegetation and
draining the lowlands. Now with the help of new herbicides this prolifically near tropical paradise was able to produce
three garden crops a year.
This eco-system was being turned upside down by the radical chemically induced changes.
The one net loser was the Indian River with its seemingly unlimited resources of bountiful sea life.
Soon the Indian River began to be commercially harvested. The “final filter” for lethal chemicals was now bringing
that once lovely and pristine river to the point of being a “dead sea”.
We happened to witness this transformation take place. In less than 30 years, this near virgin and pure slice of
paradise has almost become a has-been.
One of the strangest things of all is that hardly a single soul even remembers that bountiful place of our fondest
memories and even worse is the fact that of the very few that do remember it, I do not know even a single soul who
gives a damn about its demise.
Back to Pete Bailer and his party:
I smoked the fish aboard our boat Dursmirg in our smoke oven. Even though the food was free to all the invited
guests, we were surprised that several of these guests spirited our smoked fish out the door. Pete generously and
freely poured tap beer to all and had similar results.
Other than a couple of lushes, the party was a big hit. We have always felt that a person that will go out of their way
as Pete did inviting all of the close regulars has to have some redeeming qualities or a very bad conscience.
It seems strange now looking back over the years and thinking about the feelings that Jane and I had regarding
Pete Bailer and The Palm Terrace. That was a very special place at a very special time in our lives and the patrons
that all were regulars had a special affinity and closeness akin to a family atmosphere. We still have many close
friends in the area to this day but that original old Palm Terrace group has dispersed over the years just as we all
crossed paths at that special place and time, time has moved on and so have we all. The memories are fond ones
never to be duplicated again.
Pete Bailer, the owner of the Palm Terrace, had a mortgage he was not paying. He asked if we wanted it.
We could have had his restaurant business, 400 feet of riverfront property and a couple of apartments for less then
$40,000. We were not ready to settle down, and we unfortunately or fortunately as we look back did not know of the
actual financial straights poor Peter was in. We had the cash at the time but we definitely would not accept partners
in that type of business or even feel like tying ourselves down to the daily responsibility and financial commitment
required. Therefore, for better or worse we can now only speculate what might have been.
Pete was a slippery type of person and did not mind doing a little scam for a quick buck. His food was the greatest
and his regular bar business could be counted on.
Our next move was five miles back up the river to Melbourne and into the harbor at Crane Creek. This
was our first place that was in all appearances tropical after our very long journey all the way from Northern
Wisconsin across the Great Lakes, down the Hudson River and the entire east coast of the U.S.
Here we were about to meet another strange and interesting group of individuals most of whom were sailors.
In the early 1970s Melbourne was still an old-time down-south laid back out of the way small town with no appeal to
tourism. The main street had only mom and pop stores with not a franchise in sight. In the down-south tradition, the
stores still closed on Wednesday afternoons. Local produce was featured and above all the downtown business
district had an unrushed, easygoing atmosphere where the storekeepers looked you in the eye and greeted you
with a smile and friendly greeting. We liked it a lot and deeply lament the fact that that type of existence is no longer
to be found anywhere in America in this day and time.
When we arrived in the harbor we were told to tie to the yacht club dock where we would be guests and where we
could do the one repair we wanted to do that required electricity.
This little harbor was just a small pond that a very small creek flowed through on its way into the Indian River. The
dredged channel and inner harbor were just deep enough for us to enter with our Dursmirg. The pond-sized harbor
was as protected as anywhere a sailor could ever hope to find. In the early 1970s, the harbor had the appearance
of having been passed by and it must have been. The little harbor gave a feeling that was like an anticipation of an
upcoming event that just never came to pass…tranquil and placid to the extreme where small town atmosphere filled
the air.
This was near the northern limit of tropical Florida and entering this little harbor was just like taking a step within.
Upstream of this pond was the US Highway 1 bridge and adjacent to it was the railroad trestle belonging to the
Florida East Coast Railroad.
Oh, by the way!
I have to mention here that the Florida East Coast Railroad has a very interesting history that dates back to the
original founder Henry Flagler. At the time of our arrival here in Florida the railroad was still a family owned business
principally held by a man named Ed Ball. Ed Ball also happened to be one of Florida’s largest landowners, with
duPont money he bought up the railroads at bargain basement prices from the Henry Flagler trust.
An unresolved labor dispute led to a bloody and very nasty strike and Ed Ball was not the person to back down or
be intimidated. The strike that began back in 1963 and lasted until 1977 saw the nastiest of union tactics used with
bombings, shootings and continuous unrelenting sabotage. The trains did go through and each one carried armed
guards plus spotter vehicles ahead of the trains to detonate various explosives. This was the same railroad whose
trestle passed over Crane Creek and we did definitely see the spotter vehicles and fortunately did not witness any of
the shoot-outs or bombings. (Read about the rest of this story in volume 4.)
Back to the harbor: On the north side of the pond was located the small seldom used city park fronted by the city
public docks that were showing their age, grayed and weathered timbers and boards gave the appearance of a laid
back apathy and an easy going attitude. Surrounding this little pond was a marine supply dock, a fuel and bait
dock, the yacht club dock and on the south the docks of FIT (Florida Institute of Technology) where the students
would occasionally come down to row their racing shells. The shoreline was crowded with drooping banana and palm
trees and interspersed with towering ancient oaks.
To add to the atmosphere; playing porpoises, jumping mullet and lazy manatees made it obvious that the Indian
River was prolifically filled with marine life.
The few structures were small and single story. All was quiet with the exception of the occasional freight train.
At first glance, the little harbor did not reveal the multitude of strange and interesting individuals that made this place
their yachting world headquarters.
The boat names in the harbor revealed much about the sailors especially when the dinghy names fit with
astonishing compatibility. Some of my all-time favorites were located in this little harbor. Ed Mueller had a vessel
named Gay Lady and his dinghy was aptly named, Gay Ladies Kid. Ed for whatever reason made this place home
with his 46-foot go-fast all aluminum sailboat.
A couple of years before Ed showed up in Melbourne he had been a gas company employee for the State of New
York and had the misfortune of being atop a three story tall expanding gas tank when it blew up. Of his entire crew,
Ed was the single survivor and the trauma of his sub-orbital flight took a heavy toll on his health, but he still clung to
his dream of escaping on his vessel.
Bob Erickson had sailed south a year before Jane and I did and had cruised south Florida and the Bahamas
aboard his vessel Algo. He settled into this little harbor, sold his boat Algo and promptly bought the larger sailing
vessel Excedrin with its dinghy named Preparation- H.
Bob became afflicted with the sailors lament of “harbor fever” and seemed to have had enough of sailing and got
enough pleasure out of just owning a boat so he could go down to the harbor and dream aboard. His original boat
Algo remained in the Melbourne harbor also along with its new owner, Harold Metcalf.
Bob told of an interesting event that took place aboard a six-foot draft sailing yawl named Cindy owned by a man
named Art Roe. Bob was crewing aboard Cindy and while in the race they ran aground right off the start and then
powered to catch up with the rest of the fleet, then cut a buoy and wound up with the trophy which Bob, then very
pissed off, threw into the middle of Melbourne Harbor.
Art, the owner stirred up local controversy after that sailing race and it was his last one.
This is Melbourne Harbor in Crane Creek with Jim Flood’s Puffin at the dock.
Jim and Mary Flood were the owners of a twin-engine sport fishing boat named Mistress that only provided Jim
with a place where he could be a dockside yachter. He had the outfit and if you had an outfit, you could be a yachter
too. With a glib Irish wit and party mentality Jim poured all visitors his potent high-octane and nearly lethal
concoction that Jim called his “cherry bounce” that felt like 200 proof.
The only time Jim ever cast off the dock lines was to take Mistress out for the prospective buyers. His reason for
owning the Mistress was to have a dockside party headquarters, and in this, he was very successful.
Jim had worked for Household Finance in Chicago and later Collagen Water Company where he made enough
dough to have his own private plane, a DC-3, before he came to the sunny southland to lay back. Jim drove the
biggest Lincoln Continental available and owned the biggest house on the block over on Indialantic Beach, in the
high-rent district.
Jim was taken up with the sailing community and decided to join. After he sold his sport fishing boat, Mistress he
bought a classic flush-decked Crocker designed 40-foot sailboat named Puffin with a dinghy aptly named Huffin. (I
will write more about Jim and Mary Flood later in this volume.)
Jim Flood aboard Puffin in Crane Creek (Melbourne Harbor)
Annie Lyon, Richard McKeever and Dave Hanks
This next boat crossed our path many times in the coming years. The Annie Lyon was a classic wooden vessel with
its flush deck and ketch rigging. The 42 footer had a banquet-sized cockpit and any sailor that ever saw it would do
a double take and never forget its pleasing to the eye silhouette. This too was a Crocker design and Jane and I had
first seen it up in South Carolina when we passed in the Intracoastal Waterway the previous spring. At the time, the
captain was a young man named Richard McKeever and the boat carried a full crew of mostly sun bathing ladies.
We did not have the opportunity to meet the captain until we entered Melbourne harbor the following fall with its
unique collection of boats and boaters.
Richard McKeever definitely was not your average young college age citizen, he was a graduate linguist who
specialized in Japanese and he was on his way to Japan to teach. In Melbourne, he had two crewmembers who were
Japanese exchange students and they were thrilled when Jane and I got out our cast net and promptly landed
enough fresh fish to feed the whole group in just a few minutes. Jane and I got to sample sushi freshly made and we
made a lasting impression upon these Japanese who were astonished at the prolific waters of Florida.
The Annie Lyon fell into a near derelict condition when Richard left for Japan. The following year we saw it
languishing in a half sunken state and thought its days were numbered.
The next time we saw it, Annie Lyon was being brought back to life or resurrected from the dead by a man that had
a talent seldom seen for working magic with all types of plastics and especially fiberglass. Dave Hanks was a natural
with marine related outfitting and his work was superb in every detail.
Dave had gotten much of his experience working in a fiberglass fabricating plant where custom made surfboards
were made and he then moved on to a specialty plastics company that made such things as “clean rooms” for the
local semiconductor industry that all tied into the Cape Canaveral Space Center program.
We always heard wild and fascinating stories that seemed like whoppers from Dave who always seemed to have an
experience to trump all others. One thing for sure, Dave did know his sailboats and the sea and low and behold we
did actually substantiate many of his wild tales; so like it or not, he just had to be believed!
He later sailed Annie Lyon off to Hawaii and back. While returning from Hawaii and while headed for the Panama
Canal he had a mishap at sea and collided with some floating debris that nearly sent him to the bottom. Being the
resourceful person that he was he rigged a sailcloth patch over the hole and made it to shore. Dave said that the
boat was totaled and if he said so it must have been true because he knew how to restore almost anything that had
even a remotest possibility of being saved or ever floating again.
Annie Lyon in Melbourne Harbor after Dave Hanks restored it.
Dave Hanks with his daughter Kim aboard Dursmirg in Melbourne Harbor.
A boat that was utterly amazing when seen under way with its high speed and exceptionally agile tacking abilities in
tight quarters was the 55-foot; three masted, staysail schooner with 9 feet of beam named Giggling Witch and its
dinghy The Wiggling Bitch.
Some story circulated around about a run-in the owner Art had with some of the local Indians down on one of the
Caribbean Sea islands when he was involved in some sort of clandestine freight hauling…Art had a scar that was
attributed to that incident.
Moonspinner owned by Hasty Miller was a 36-foot double-ended sailboat designed by Hershoff moored in the
harbor. Hasty was one of the first people to board our Dursmirg when we landed at the Melbourne Yacht Club. We
immediately associated his name with his actions as he sprang aboard our vessel….hasty for sure.
Hasty and several of his sailing crony associates loved to daily have their lunch down at the yacht club dock.
After inquiring about our reason for coming to the dock for our repair job Hasty had to tell us about the yearly ritual
he preformed on his marine engine aboard his boat Moonspinner.
His story went like this; each spring when he was preparing his vessel for the upcoming sailing season he would go
to the bilge of his boat, uncouple the main engine, hoist it up using the boat’s boom and then swing it overboard.
There he would threaten it and then return it to the bilge and it would be good for yet another season.
Hasty was an engineer in everything that he did and I still remember the innovative propeller shaft-packing gland he
installed on his boat. It was a ceramic-faced clothes washing machine water seal that required no lubrication or
calibration.
Hasty was a racer and sometimes raced single-handed. He always made good showings even in some fairly
distressful weather in offshore sailing events.
Ross Wheelton - Ross owned a little boat and a big motorcycle. Ross was a real gentleman and an excellent
sailor. A retired Midwesterner, he was slightly built and when sailing always wore a long-sleeve shirt and lightweight
sweater and more layers in the winter. He kept his very small (about 20-22 foot) wooden sloop in a slip on the east
side of the harbor, facing east. The tiny boat had a little cabin with two berths. There was very little freeboard.
Ross sailed frequently, always single-handed, always under sail and never with an engine. He maneuvered and
tacked in and out the narrow harbor channel with the greatest natural skill. He loved to talk.
Unfortunately, Ross's boat sustained serious damage one windy day, right in its slip. A large powerboat that was
berthed alongside the seawall at Florida Institute of Technology (now Florida Tech) had been at anchor in the river
during the afternoon. When the boat returned to the harbor, the helmsman tried to turn the boat in the basin so that
it would be facing south when tied up. The wind prevented the turn to be completed in one pass, so he began to
maneuver back and forth to make the boat face south and lay to the seawall. During one of those maneuvers, while
the boat was backing the helmsman backed a little too far and nudged Ross's boat. The sloop was in peril of
sinking, so very soon afterward she was hauled and put on a trailer. I don't think that Ross ever sailed again as his
health was failing and the damage to his precious little boat was just too much for him to contend with.
John and Evelyn Burtchell owned a 42-foot steel ketch Gazelle, a famous Tom Colvin designed and built ketch
that they kept moored in the center of the harbor along with several other boats. (I must tell here that on another
occasion Jane and I tried to anchor in this harbor. It was impossible for us to get anyone of our anchors to hold and
we later found out that the boats moored there used big truck engine blocks and all chain moorings…that was the
only thing that would hold in that soft silty bottom.)
John Burtchell was built just like Santa Claus; in fact he even played that part at a local shopping center one
Christmas season until he got fired. It turned out that one of the kids bit John and he instinctively bit back. John had
a short temper with brats.
John was retired military and he had decided that the sailing life would suit him so he struck off from Wellsville, New
York to take in the sunshine and live rent-free at anchor.
John wasn’t looking for a sailing adventure but only wanted to take it easy in a quiet low rent laid back spot, and
Melbourne harbor fit his requirements.
He soon let boredom take over and began to refit and refurbish his lovely vessel that he had purchased fully fitted
and ready to go. Bit by bit and piece-by-piece, his boat began to be disassembled in his refit. The story going
around about John was that he had purchased a sailboat and was working at making it into a kit-boat.
One Sunday afternoon some water-skiers came by and disturbed the peace and tranquility of the little harbor so
John let them know they should cease and desist. Well, all that these hot jock kids needed was some old Santa
Claus like guy telling them what to do…they would show him. The harassment escalated and John pitched a
grapefruit at them.
Now the aggravation got serious when the boater told John that he was going to get gasoline and would be back to
torch John’s boat that night. John decided that it was time to take action so he reached into his boat, pulled out a 22-
caliber rifle, and fired several warning shots. To the best of my knowledge, the fourth shot struck one of the young
men.
Some time later John decided that this could escalate into a bigger mess than he cared to get further involved in
and left the harbor heading north for the open sea.
The police got involved at this point and radioed the bridge tender out in the Indian River not to open for John’s
boat. John then had to face the heat of the charges brought against him.
John’s boat was impounded, with a Federal marshal posted and John’s dream of a quiet and tranquil retirement
quickly disappeared because he was sent directly off to jail. John had to pick up the tab for his then docked boat,
the Federal Marshal, a place to live and damages plus legal fees. Several years passed before John was finally
cleared of the charges and everything was finally concluded and resolved. John went broke defending himself.
John Burtchell’s Gazelle
John Burtchell in 1982 aboard Dursmirg at the dock on the St. Johns River.
Jim Mooney and his classic boat Posh; Jim was the straightest sailor in the harbor and was the local fire chief.
Jim’s wooden sloop Posh had been built in Wisconsin back in 1936 when boat design was traditional and classic and
Jim kept his vessel pristine with attention to detail.
As Jim was a respected part of the local sailing community when Jim relocated to peaceful and tranquil Palatka,
Florida up on the St. John’s River to escape the crush and rush of coastal population expansion many of the local
sailors tagged along.
Jane and I over the years made many return visits to the Melbourne harbor before the land developers moved into
the area in earnest with high-rise apartment condominiums and their high-test yachts.
Our longest stay was in 1976 when we were there for nearly two months building an aft cabin/ wheelhouse on our
Dursmirg.
Dursmirg tied at the Melbourne City Pier in Crane Creek with its new wheelhouse just completed.
We tied our Dursmirg at the city docks that at that time were scheduled to be turned over to a land developer who
would be building a condominium complex with dockage. The developer would be using the docks and the land
where the little city park was located across the road. The deal had not been finalized yet but long-term dockage
contracts were no longer available. This was exactly what we were looking for and the price was definitely right.
Our good friend Grant Ball who also happened to have his machine shop just half a block away up the hill from the
harbor put us onto this deal. Grant was helpful in letting us use his machine shop and machine tools. Jane and I
reciprocated by keeping Grant well stocked with stainless steel and bronze propeller shaft material, anchors and
other marine fittings that we had salvaged during our winters down in the Florida Keys.
While we built our aft-cabin/wheelhouse one summer in Melbourne harbor that machine shop proved to be
indispensable to our project.
Another indispensable asset to our construction project was a salvage yard just a block south, which specialized in
items that were surplus from the space center. I was an almost daily customer and became well acquainted with the
owner while making the purchase of the exotic metals available in sheet, shaft, nuts, bolts, stainless steel welding
rods and many weird shaped curiosities cast off from the space program.
Ed Bell, the owner, wanted to sell us his home and business for $100,000…this was his huge house with swimming
pool, gas business, (selling oxygen, acetylene etc.) plus one city block of property and his salvage business…he
was willing to finance the deal. We were not ready to settle down. That was one of the deals of a lifetime that would
have made us into multimillionaires in a very few years.
My only conclusion is that life is full of trade-offs. At that moment in time, we had the best opportunity of our lives to
have this unique occasion with the time to enjoy to the fullest six youthful years of unprecedented freedom.
We were aware at the time how very important it would be in life to have good memories and no regrets in old age.
Now more than 30 years later as I write these lines when we are in our 60s and looking back, those sentiments of
our youthful years were definitely on track. We only had one regret, and that was that we had not sailed away
sooner.
Jane and I developed a daily ritual that summer of 1976 of riding our bicycles across the causeway to the ocean
beach for a predawn swim in the surf. This turned out to be one of our finest pleasures and I became an avid body
surfer. I soon wore the skin off my nose and chest and not wanting to relinquish my newfound pleasure I quickly
developed a technique of body surfing on my back…yes, I did wear the skin off my back too.
It was not long and I developed a colossal earache that I needed a doctor’s attention for. The expensive doctor
flushed my ears out with alcohol for $40.00 and to my surprise; he retrieved what looked like a half a cup full of
seashells. I had several options and one was to either quit body surfing or to use earplugs or do my own alcohol ear
flushes.
WARREN AND NIRA BROWN
Our friends Warren and Nira Brown aboard their boat Our Dream who we had met down in Dinner Key and Coconut
Grove in 1973 came to anchor here in the harbor the summer of 1976 when we were building our wheelhouse.
Warren and Nira’s heavily laden Our Dream underway under sail.
Warren wanted to visit his father back up in Boston but didn’t want to sail all that way so he came up with the idea of
leaving his boat here in the Melbourne Harbor with his wife Nira aboard. We would help Nira and also watch their
boat. This seemed like a wonderful idea because this snug little harbor was so protected that it was unimaginable
that any weather conditions could possible threaten their boat here.
The Our Dream was anchored directly off our stern and directly downstream from the Crane Creek Highway Bridge.
Warren was happy with this arrangement and boarded the bus for his trip to Boston…he would be gone for three
weeks.
In the early morning hours of this peaceful summer time a freak torrential downpour resembling a tropical
disturbance unleashed a torrent of water down little Crane Creek that turned it into a raging river with rapids.
We were securely docked and tied out of the violent flow of that now raging river but Warren and Nira’s boat was
squarely in the path of that inundation.
At the height of the storm, we heard a persistent knocking on our hull and I finally went out into that wall of rainwater
that was coming down in blinding sheets. There in a dinghy was little Nira soaked to the bone with a desperate and
pleading expression on her face. Could I possibly help her?
For the next five hours, I had a challenging workout. It turned out that the Our Dream had been washed out into the
harbor and was still being dragged along by the powerful current.
I went with Nira and the first order of business was to keep their boat from slamming the other vessels in the harbor.
I developed a plan to get a rope secured to one of the highway bridge pilings then bring the other end to the Our
Dream where I would then be able to winch the boat out of danger using their large double acting anchor winch. The
plan was a good one but implementing it took a super human effort and I made many attempts to approach the
bridge pilings and get the rope secured only to be whisked away downstream where I would have to reposition and
work the back currents for yet another attempt. Nira stayed aboard their boat to fend off potential collisions with
other vessels while I maneuvered back to their boat with the other end of the ¾-inch nylon rope. The current made
this maneuver exceedingly labor intensive but my persistence finally paid off and I finally managed to pass the other
end of that rope to Nira. Next, the heavy labor began as I put several turns of that ¾-inch rope around the capstan
head of the winch. I worked the winch handle and Nira tailed the rope and kept the tension while flaking the hauled
in rope down on the deck. When we started winching there was almost three hundred feet of rope out overboard
that mostly needed to be hauled back aboard. Daylight was dawning by the time we finally positioned the Our Dream
out of danger.
A note about Warren and Nira Brown and their boat Our Dream; Warren was a rough and raw-boned sailor with
sandy red hair and freckles that earned him the nickname of “Red” Brown. Brought up on the Boston waterfront in
his youth he knew how to fend for himself and didn’t get pushed around though he did thoroughly understand
keeping the peace in a closed community like sailors in a harbor, it was much like life aboard a ship out to sea,
everyone had to manage to get along. The mentality of “don’t piss-off the cook” when out to sea fit into Warren’s
mode of operations.
Warren would rather risk his neck than do a day’s real work so he picked jobs that fitted his disposition. He painted
flagpoles, radio towers and bridges. Repair of tall smoke stacks also appealed to him and he was an expert rig man
who definitely knew his trade. Warren taught me some invaluable tricks that actually have saved my life when
working aloft with rope rigging.
Warren started sailing the Atlantic coast after WWII when he hunted his way south in the fall of the year shooting
wild game along the way to provision his journey.
Grant and Deb Ball.
Deb was a secretary to a vice president of Harris Corporation. They lived in a modest mobile home in a very proper
trailer park on Malabar Road. Other than their sailboat, Grant and Deb fit a stereotype of conservative Down-south
Middle America. Grants parents, Forrest and Connie Ball owned a simple but adequate waterfront home ½ mile
south of the Palm Terrace Bar and Restaurant.
Forrest, Grant’s father, had owned a saloon in Colorado before and moving to Florida and always had an extensive
repertoire of bar room stories to tell and his son Grant possesses the exact same type of quick-witted absurdly
hilarious humor laced with puns and one-liners. A couple of their classics went like these; the poor parents of a little
boy wanted to get him something for Christmas, something to wear and something to play with. They bought him a
pair of pants and cut the pockets out; or, did you hear about the hermit…he went off by himself!
Connie, Grants mother, owned and operated a health food store and dabbled in financial investments.
Deb, Grants wife, loved her go-fast little red sports cars and her job as the vice presidents secretary at Harris Semi-
conductor where she could put her quick mind, rapid typing skills, speedy efficiency and swift organizational abilities
into action every minute. She never did get the boss his coffee though…she had her principles!
In our frequent visits to this part of Florida we always connected with Grant and Deb. Jane and I loved to anchor
offshore at Rocky Point amongst the spoil islands and well off the Intracoastal Waterway channel some six miles
south of Melbourne, in the vicinity of Malabar, (28° north latitude) on our many passages on various vessels we
owned over the years. A number of years we came to this lovely place with our sailboat Dursmirg, then on our
commercial shrimp trawler, Secotan and even several times on our little 26-foot Columbia sailboat El Barco.
Sunday evenings when we would anchor off Rocky Point at Malabar, we would have a ritual meeting planned for a
rendezvous featuring a Mexican dinner of tacos. Deb would bring lettuce and some condiments; many times arriving
by canoe and Jane would hand make tortillas. We always managed to stuff ourselves.
Another one of our favorite get-togethers was to find the best pizza and beer joint in the area. Grant and Debbie
always had the pizza joints well evaluated. Back in the 1970s, Lorenzo’s on Malabar Road was one of our all-time
favorites. It was a mom and pop establishment that featured a glutton’s delight house special plus the owner
furnished the live music with his one-man band. We were all young enough to soak up several pitchers of beer and
never ever ran out of fun stories to tell.
Over the years Grant and Deb have hunted us down to make rendezvous in such places as; Miami, St. Augustine
and even Mexico.
They went on to get their 100-ton captains licenses and have together as a husband and wife team operated
various vessels in the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Caribbean and also the Pacific. You will read more about this
husband and wife team in the following pages of Travels of Dursmirg.
Grant and Deb Ball aboard their sailboat Hawk on the Indian River
More about Jim and Mary Flood
Jim was the methodical and scientific wine maker. Jim’s exact and precise procedures for making wine were beyond
any dispute and the only acceptable way to make wine. He and his wife Mary came to our boat for dinner one
evening and Mary went to great lengths to compliment Jane on her exquisite wine. Mary exclaimed that it was by far
the very best she had ever sampled and would not quit her lavish and abundant praise.
Now Jane happened to be and still is a fine wine maker by anybodies standard.
The thing that made this whole incident so hilarious to Jane and I was that this particular wine was made using Welch’
s concentrated grape juice and we had heard Jim Flood go to excessive extremes to profess his scornful distain and
contemptuous loathing for that particular type of wine. We knew that Jim knew that this was Welch’s concentrate
wine, as he smoldered. Mary either knew this was wine from concentrate and was giving her husband the business.
On the other hand if she did not know then Jim knew we were just getting a chance to see him squirm.
Another Jim Flood wine story; Jim told Jane that we needed to take advantage of the prolific fox grapes to be
harvested in the area.
We talked to our friend Harold Wright and asked if he knew the whereabouts of any fox grapes in the area. The next
thing we knew was that we were then off on another all-day excursion into the county down the back roads that just
so happened to yield lots of fox grapes and coincidently also had a number of taverns where Harold was well known.
Jane followed Jim’s exact winemaking instructions with the fox grapes and sugar but in the end we wound up with the
driest mouth puckering wine ever produced aboard the Dursmirg or for that matter the driest red wine we have ever
sampled. Jim remarked that we should have washed our feet before stomping the grapes and it would have been
better!
Jim and Mary Flood came down to a small island five miles south of Melbourne near Rocky Point with their boat
Puffin one Sunday afternoon. Jim had been working diligently aboard his spiffy yacht that now looked like a show
room specimen with its meticulous paint and varnish work.
We had a fabulous time together, catching our fish for dinner. Jim had a knack for landing trout and snook and Jane
had the talent to cook it to perfection.
When Jim and Mary got ready to leave, I went over to their boat with my dinghy and gave them a demonstration of
how to sail up their anchor without using the engine. I got all the sails ready to be deployed and tied down the helm.
Then with only the main sail sheeted in close the boat would take off sailing on one tack until it was snatched to a
halt by the anchor rode. Next, as the boat fell off the wind and began to sail off on the other tack by its self I would
then rapidly take in as much slack anchor line as I could and then make it fast. Again, the boat would be snatched to
a halt by the anchor rode and again I would take up more anchor rode until the boat finally broke the anchor free
and continued off on that tack. At this time, the anchor was hauled aboard and the jib hoisted. We were then
underway and it was time to tend to the helm. This all had to be done with much forethought and planning then
executed expeditiously because time was of the utmost importance unless the body of water you were in was
completely unrestricted.
Next I pointed Jim’s pristine yacht in the proper direction, sheeted in the sails for optimum speed and performance,
handed the helm over to Jim and disembarked into my dinghy giving Jim and Mary a thumbs-up as they briskly
sprinted off on a beam reach.
We were later told by them that that was the very best sail that they ever had.
Jim Flood and I are aboard Puffin ready to sail up the anchor near one of the spoil islands in the Indian
River near Rocky Point south of Melbourne.
Viking 50
I have to tell a story of one of our favorite anchors and some of the circumstances regarding it that conjure up many
a memory of not only our experiences with it and also how much of the history of the times came along with our
Viking 50.
First, I will tell you that a Viking anchor is designed and patterned after the famous and very trustworthy Danforth®
brand of anchor. The Viking line of anchors was made of lightweight aluminum.
We purchased our first Viking 50 at a W.T Grants store in Marathon down in the Florida Keys. (Here I must mention
some of the history of the times; W.T. Grants was the second largest retail chain store at the time and shortly
thereafter was dissolved in bankruptcy taking many of their suppliers with them. Another economic event of the
times was inflation fueled by the Vietnam debacle, which escalated to 22% per year thanks to the slick and slippery
spendthrift politicians that found it painless to spend other people’s money and then cover their ass by cranking up
the printing presses flooding the world with dollars. The net result was the cruelest tax of all; inflation. While fat
bankers and political insiders profited this inflation emptied bank accounts of the thrifty savers, depleting the value
of retirement pensions and this cruel tax also sent gasoline prices from 23 cents per gallon in 1973 to $2.00 a gallon
in 1974.
Ten years later, it came down to around $1.30 per gallon. In the mid 1970s, prices were going up so fast that retail
stores employed full time staff just to change price stickers on merchandise.)
Off my tangent and back to the Viking 50 story; we owned one of these Viking 50 anchors and really liked it, so
when I spotted one at a marina in Melbourne, Florida that still had the pre-inflation price sticker I promptly purchased
it. As I was paying for it I mentioned that I would possibly buy a second anchor if they had one. That was evidently a
mistake on my part because then the sales price was re-thought and my $41.00 anchor became an $80.00 anchor,
which I then declined to purchase. (Run away inflation can be profitable to those that play the proper financial
games, but for those that cannot see or are locked into financial commitments like pension plans the results are
financial ruins.)
So, dear reader you now have another look into the times and conditions that existed during the years of our travels
of Dursmirg through this little story of our Viking anchor.
Orange groves/navels/ avocados/ mangoes
From the Melbourne area on southward was where Florida’s orange groves thrived. The Florida orange industry
was nationally famous and the “Indian River Citrus’ was sold at all souvenir stands and even shipped in fruit baskets
and by the crate. The extra fancy oranges and grapefruit went out at harvest season across the Mason-Dixon Line
to snowed in Yankee homes where thrilled recipients savored the tropical delicacies and dreamed of that distant and
delightful destination.
Make no mistake about it; in Florida the citrus industry added a very pleasant touch to the sunshine state. From the
heavenly and almost overwhelmingly sweet scent of the springtime orange blossom season when a drive through
the orange grove areas would make you light headed and pleasantly giddy drinking in the sweet perfume. The
aroma of canneries where orange juice concentrate was being rendered and packed also filled the air of Florida with
the sweet citrus perfume.
One of the gimmicks employed by Florida’s roadside souvenir shops to lure in passing motorists in the 1970s and
before was the offer of all the fresh orange juice you could drink for a dime. This deal snared many a southward
bound snowbird that got their monies worth. Eventually this old ploy was modified to read; “All the fresh orange juice
y’all can drink for 10¢”. When the thirsty thrifty Yankees held out their cup for a free refill the clerk would explain that
they had already received “all y’all could drink for 10¢!”
The Indian River area for some reason produced the largest tropical fruit to be found anywhere, mangoes and
avocados the size of footballs and the sweetest navel oranges I have ever had.
That was then and now many of those orange groves have been plowed under to expand shopping centers and
housing developments.
The demand for orange juice has skyrocketed so vast shiploads of orange concentrate were being shipped into
Florida from Brazil and then chemical extenders, colorings, sweeteners and preservatives were then added and that
has helped take up the slack to fill the demand.
The lovely actor Anita Bryant became the spokes lady for the Florida Orange Growers and at the same time
emphatically denounced the gay life style on religious and moral grounds. (The joke of the day then was that
drinking orange juice made you queer ;)
Tex and Shirley Downs: One fall evening in 1973 while Jane and I were out on the Indian River for a sail with our
friends Grant and Deb Ball aboard their 22 foot Catalina sailboat named Godspeed they mentioned that they knew
someone we would enjoy meeting. We sailed south to Rocky Point where we tied to a very long dock. The dock
belonged to Tex and Shirley Downs, recent arrivals from Poughkeepsie, New York, up the Hudson River from New
York City.
We had a lovely evening exchanging stories and admiring Tex and his extensive collection of antique memorabilia
that adorned the walls of their small new waterfront home stacked all the way to the ceiling.
We received an invitation to an outdoor yard party at their home the following Saturday plus a request to help in
gathering clams and oysters for the occasion. We accepted on both accounts. The party was just great, the food
superb and definitely ample. Jane and I got the opportunity to sample the largest and tastiest oysters we had ever
sampled and the quantity fed the entire group until we were all completely stuffed.
It was at this party that we met Dr. Locke and his wife who were cruising aboard their 55-foot trawler. (We later
rendezvoused with them at Boot Key at Marathon down in the Florida Keys and write about this very interesting
couple in that part of this volume.)
Dr. Schnay was also at the party and he happened to be sailing his sailboat south with a young man named Frank
Knight. (We would encounter Dr. Schnay several more times and each time we had a story to tell of our meetings in
West Palm Beach, Miami and Marathon. You will read about them later on in this volume.
Tex had a special talent for surrounding himself with people that had some kind of social status and name-dropping
was his expertise.
The yard party was held in Tex and Shirley’s waterfront yard. The group was all a collection of fun loving and jovial
boaters that each contributed to the outing. The culmination of the party that evening was when Shirley, a lovely
lady, provided us all with a belly dance presentation provocatively dressed and adorned with bobbles, beads and
bells.
Tex was from New York and maintained that he had spent his life earning minimum wage and that when he left New
York he was making $3.50 an hour.
Tex was a friend of our friends Walter and Cynthia Perry from the sailboat named Z-walker, and Tex used to love to
tell some funny but very belittling stories about Walter’s sailing experiences and his cheapness. Both Tex and Walter
were from Poughkeepsie, New York and I write about Walter and Cynthia Perry later when we had adventures in
Marathon down in the Florida Keys later in this volume. They were with us again in St. Augustine so you will read
about them in Volume 4.
Tex and Shirley had a Cheoy Lee 30-foot sailboat that they sailed to Marathon a couple of winters later with the help
of Frank Knight and they all anchored with our group there at the Boot Key anchorage. That story will follow in this
volume.
Tex had made one sailing trip to the Caribbean from his homeport in Poughkeepsie, New York and from the sound
of the accounts, there was near mutiny with the crew. From what we had heard Tex got excessively paranoid about
the drinking water consumption and that led to a near mutinous explosion. On that same trip we heard some rumors
whispered around that Tex had discovered some old Spanish silver coins from a ship wreck that he later was selling
off one at a time to finance his laid back life style.
Tex claimed to be a treasure diver and bought a steel workboat from MIT, Melbourne Institute of Technology, with a
6-71 Detroit diesel named The Big Zip and promptly renamed it for some Indian tribe of Florida. Tex plowed a good-
sized fortune into fitting the Big Zip out with every conceivable gadget and piece of paraphernalia that could possibly
be loaded aboard and to the best of our knowledge the vessel never left the dock.
Tex managed to have plenty of money but had no visual means of support and many times would cry poor boy
status. One time he indicated that he would love to go to the flea market the following Saturday but he just did not
have enough cash to buy gas to make the trip. Jane and I actually felt sorry for his plight and said that we would be
happy to pay his gas tab and even treat him to lunch so that he and Shirley could make the trip.
We made the tour to the flea market and had a good time and as promised we filled up Tex’s gas tank and paid the
check for all at lunch. Surprise, poor boy Tex went home that day loaded down with several hundred dollars worth of
purchases from the flea market. Jane and I knew that we had been snookered in one of the worst ways and found
out that we were dealing with a real shyster and not a friend. On the other hand, he might have been subtly sending
us a message that we were just hanging around too much…who knows?
Tex had a house filled to the rafters with antiques and a garage filled to overfilling with tools, machinery and he
obviously had some means to support his unquenchable lust for acquiring stuff to pile on his heap.
Tex always complained that the people that docked at the Melbourne Harbor did not go anywhere and therefore he
did not want to have anything to do with that class of boater.
We heard many complaints about other boaters, how they dressed, the kind of boats that they had and where they
traveled. Because of this, we decided to bait Tex when he told us how shabby our friend Brett Hollerith dressed. We
just happened to mention that Brett was a multimillionaire and had just purchased a 110-acre tract of waterfront land
up on the St. Johns River…, which was all-true.
Tex took the bait and the next time we ran into our friend Brett Hollerith he could not quit exclaiming what a warm
and overly friendly reception he had received from Tex. Tex had previously treated him very coolly.
Tex got some engineer to design and build a little efficient anchor light and then Tex wanted to market it and take
half of the profits.
Despite all of these idiosyncrasies we did have some very good times with Tex.
Legs and Mabel Quintin: We first met in St. Augustine when Legs and Mabel sailed south their very first time
aboard their Colombia sailboat. They tied their brand new sporty go fast sailboat to the City Yacht Pier and got
acquainted with all the regulars there. That is where we first got to know this lovely couple.
Legs was a real intellect and had retired from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he did cutting edge
scientific lab work. He was a boxer for recreation.
Legs and Mabel sold their go fast sailboat after their first season down in the sunny south country and bought a
spacious live-aboard houseboat.
They docked their houseboat over at Indian Harbor Beach at the Pine’s Marina. Legs sold the engines out of his
houseboat as soon as he tied it where he wanted it because he knew that all they really wanted was a place to live
dockside and they were not even thinking of ever moving their boat again. Legs said; “I might as well sell the
engines while they are running instead of waiting until they have rusted to death.” (In all of our boating travels, these
two were the only people that we met that made absolutely no pretenses about their motivations for living aboard
their boat. Yes, they were very happy and contented, and we definitely understood the appeal of having such a
lovely canal front home in Florida.)
They were happy at their new home site and bicycled out to play tennis and visit the beach for walks when the spirit
moved them. They had shrimp traps that provided them with good sport and all the shrimp that they wanted.
Legs and Mabel Quinton aboard their Col9ombia sailboat the the Pine's Marina on the Indian River.
William Marshall Malabar, Florida… (Traded a gillnet for our outboard motor)
One of the original Melbourne area residents was a man named William Marshall. William’s family was one of the
original settlers at Malabar and he still lived on the original family land on Malabar Road next to the post office with
his ten or so kids.
Living out of the river, with gillnet fishing and crab trapping, he also repaired and refurbished outboard motors.
This guy definitely knew the local history plus he knew the river, what to catch, when and where to catch it. I only
wish that I had taken the time to pick his brain back then.
When I was looking for a gillnet our friend Grant Ball told me to look up William Marshall…and so I did. After an
afternoon of stories and negotiations, we finally came to a deal. I would get 150 feet of gillnet in exchange for our
outboard motor. We were both happy. William had another toy to tinker with and we now had more food than we
could eat for the rest of our boating career. Jane and I were now very close to 100% self sufficient with fresh
seafood. We also had fish lines, cast nets and crab traps plus we collected clams, oysters and even dove for our
own lobster.
next chapter
October 26th, 1973 we found a place that we would make a regular stop in the years to come both by water and
later by land and we have cemented lifetime friendships in the area of Melbourne and Palm Bay along the Indian
River.
Our first night on the Indian River with our boat Dursmirg we anchored just off the waterway adjacent to one of the
many small spoil islands that were formed when the Indian River portion of the Intracostal Waterway was dredged.
We took our dinghy into a small marina named Rhum Cove to ask about shopping, restaurants and places we might
put our dinghy ashore. The Rhum Cove channel in those days was just barely deep enough to accommodate our
dinghy under power; so entering with our Dursmirg was out of the question, especially in this area where virtually no
tidal flow took place.
We were directed to a little restaurant resembling a fish camp perched on the side of the riverbank south of Rhum
Cove and half a mile away.
With our ten horsepower high-speed dinghy, we considered that kind of distance insignificant and went over to
check it out.
The Palm Terrace Bar and Restaurant was a relic of Florida in the 1940s and we got the impression as we
approached by water that only rarely would clients ever drop in by boat. A small seldom-used wooden dock well
weathered by the Florida sun terminated in water so shallow that there was hardly enough to float our dinghy.
The building and grounds made us think that the establishment was a laid back hangout for locals and definitely not
catering to or surviving off the tourist trade arriving by road now that Interstate Highway 95 had taken the traffic
away from old U.S. Highway 1.
The draw of the Palm Terrace was its remarkable view looking out over the Indian River from the second story bar
and dining area.
Unbeknownst to us at the time of our arrival we had been scrutinized and evaluated by the regulars perched upon
their bar stools and gazing out over the unrestrictive and expansive river view that took in the river that was a good
two and a half miles wide at this point.
As views in Florida go, this one was “tops” especially in the late afternoons when the sun cast long shadows out
onto the water and across the river and highlighted the palm lined coastal barrier island far off across on the
eastern side of the river. Moonlight evenings gave enchantingly miraculous reflections with phenomenal sights as
the regulars could gaze past the back bar out and to the distant Atlantic Ocean where the lunar show begins.
After climbing the hill and entering the bar at highway level on the west side, we were greeted by a jovial Pete Bailer,
the owner, who cordially invited us in to meet the regulars. We too became regulars that very evening as we all
exchanged stories and drank tap beer while taking in the extraordinary view of the river that now included our boat
the Dursmirg, anchored half a mile offshore. The boat was just inside the row of neat little tree covered spoil islands
that orderly and precisely lined the waterway as it passed through the expansive 85-mile stretch of Indian River from
Titusville on the north to near Fort Pierce on the south.
This happened to be as close as we were able to anchor to shore with the six foot two inch draft of our Dursmirg.
Pete Bailer was like the one-man band and was the only employee at his Palm Terrace. He tended bar, cooked in
the kitchen, waited tables and entertained the troops with pleasurable and convivial confabulations.
The regulars were a strange mix of social misfits and square pegs that collectively were a total mismatch of
personalities. So, of course, we fit right in.
While we sampled Pete Bailer’s house special that consisted of an out-sized gourmet hamburger and fries that was
designed to make the client into a regular, we began to meet this strange mix of outlandish eccentrics.
Chain-smoking Harold Wright was in his fifties, raised in Miami, went to radio broadcasting school, was in his own
area nursery business and was a wee bit “momsy”.
Harold was the proverbial walking encyclopedia and had a vocabulary that could trump anyone especially with his
knowledge of horticulture and his extensive string of botanical names for every living thing that he randomly rattled
off freely no matter how much beer he happened to slosh down. His time spent at broadcasting school must have
been used with due diligence because his diction was flawless and precise but that was the extent of all he cared to
present to the public that had any semblance of order.
Harold traveled with his little dog, Broom Hilda and he jokingly used to say that when he got too drunk to drive home
that Broom Hilda drove him home. As far as we could tell that must have been the truth because Harold never left
the bar until he was thoroughly inebriated but some how managed to make his five mile back road drive home
without a major incident.
We had known Harold Wright for two years before we discovered that he actually had a wife.
Harold had married into the old time Louisville, Kentucky money. His wedding reception at the Waldorf Astoria and
extravagant honeymoon came from his wife Eleanor’s rich parents. Harold quickly learned how to spend Eleanor’s
fortune and he spent it well developing a huge nursery business, which he in due course bailed out of, chased by
the bankruptcy lawyers. Harold and his wife then took up deep-sea fishing down in the Cayman Islands and also the
South Pacific until the financial flack cleared and then came to quiet little Palm Bay, Florida where he again began a
nursery business down a quiet little dirt road. Harold’s expando-pre-fab home was unimaginably non-descript but his
several acre plot of land was landscaped almost to the point of overkill with exotic flora most of which Jane and I had
never seen the likes of before. Harold even had a lake dug that he had stocked with fish and ducks.
Eleanor had a first class drinking problem and took many a trip to the dry-out ward but Harold always took her back
because of her steady cash flow…some years later she finally moved on and left Harold to stack up his own dough.
Harold employed half a dozen helpers to keep his business going but his business seemed to be just a nuisance he
put up with in order to have an excuse to pursue his number one passion of collecting exotic plants.
Jane and I, on many occasions, would go to shore to meet Harold who loved to get our attention by lying on his truck
horn until we responded to his persistence. Harold almost got to the point of being a nuisance with his horn beeping
when he parked in a friend’s front yard.
On many an occasion we were told by Harold that he needed to show us some exotic plants so we piled into his big
white van and would be off getting a lecture and education on the exotic species that Harold had discovered along
this tropical stretch of Florida.
The trips became extended forays to out of the way bars that were many times local knowledge only spots that did
not have a closing time and cranked out the drinks around the clock.
The incredibly beautiful, “Miss Bud” that would automatically become the center of attention and turn every
head in any crowd with her seductive everything was gorgeous and stunningly striking. Miss Bud when not
representing the local beer distributor worked for a plastic surgeon who made sure Miss Bud received every bodily
upgrade available. Harold Wright jokingly maintained that with Miss Bud everything was fake and that she even had
a plastic vagina. We wondered how Harold could draw his conclusions but then Harold was never without some
provocative and enlightening comments with observations and antidotes well punctuated with descriptive expletives
spoken with his perfect broadcaster diction
With a name like Mickey Rooney you have to have a good since of humor and this guy certainly did. Likeable
Mickey was a social miss match almost anyplace he went and how and why he wound up here became less and less
of a mystery as we got to know more of this group of regulars.
Mickey was a senior Air Force Pilot and flew Air Force 1 for Lyndon Baines Johnson.
He told the group that he had just been transferred to a new assignment flying a seven-drawer desk in the
bureaucracy department.
If his abilities matched his intellect and humor, he definitely deserved his job.
The list of people and places that Mickey had encountered in his flying career was a match for anyone’s Who’s Who
directory.
One of the regulars was an eccentric and witty engineer from Harris Semiconductor who lived on small
sailboat at Rhum Cove (the small marina just half a mile north of the Palm Terrace at Malabar, Florida and five miles
south of Melbourne where we first stopped to ask directions.)
Home on weekends to Daytona and every weekday evening he was alone on his little sailboat and so he just
naturally gravitated into the Palm Terrace Bar where his intellect and humor were much appreciated verbally
bantering with the regulars.
He said that his kids were miserable and that when they grew up they would miserable adults and ultimately they
would go on to be miserable old folks.
This was the guy that got us involved with our lifetime friends Grant and Deb Ball. Deb had a very good job as
secretary to a vice-president of Harris Corporation at the time where our engineer friend also worked.
Sure enough, after our first meeting with the engineer from Harris Semiconductor the very next night a small 22 foot
Catalina sailboat named Godspeed came directly out to our boat and circled us until we came out to see what was
up. There were Grant and Deb: they waved, said hello, and we invited them aboard.
Deb said that at work she was told that she would enjoy meeting us and that she should just drop in for a visit. We
were sure glad that they did because over the years we have had many an interesting and adventuresome time with
these two sailors who have gradually graduated to larger and larger sailboats. I will be writing more about them in
the upcoming pages.
Here I have to give you some insight into the Palm Terrace Restaurant and Bar as we got to know it back in
1973 and on many subsequent visits.
I cannot imagine just how Pete Bailer came to be the owner of the Palm Terrace but he did and his precarious
financial position he kept to himself.
Pete, in his mid-forties, of average height and slightly stocky had a jovial easygoing mild mannered disposition but
was mysteriously silent and guarded regarding his personal life.
Though he managed to have an in depth and extensive résumé stowed away of all his clients, his personal life
remained a mystery to us all.
Our first week frequenting the Palm Terrace, Pete arranged to have a “free for all the regular’s” party and we
pitched in to help with the food. Jane and I brought oysters, clams and enough smoked fish to feed the regulars and
then some; we harvested it all from the Indian River. These oysters were the most prolific and largest we had ever
seen and we remember having eaten some so large that it took three big bites just to eat one and when one was
shucked it would fill a water glass. The clams could be harvested with such ease that a five-gallon bucket could be
filled in ten minutes or less. In all of our travels, I cannot remember ever finding any place that could match the
Indian River for its prolific quantity of seafood back in the early 1970s.
Oh, by the way!
At this time in the early 1970s, these waters of the beautiful Indian River were uncontaminated but that was soon to
change.
Vast bulldozed tracts of land were soon filled with shopping centers, retirement villages and mobile home parks
linked by new highways. Next in moved the new inhabitants who would continue this relentless battle to tame Florida’
s wild backcountry and render it civilized and sterilized with every lethal chemical that could be purchased at the
local garden center.
Agriculture was also a very big business in this area and getting bigger by plowing up the native vegetation and
draining the lowlands. Now with the help of new herbicides this prolifically near tropical paradise was able to produce
three garden crops a year.
This eco-system was being turned upside down by the radical chemically induced changes.
The one net loser was the Indian River with its seemingly unlimited resources of bountiful sea life.
Soon the Indian River began to be commercially harvested. The “final filter” for lethal chemicals was now bringing
that once lovely and pristine river to the point of being a “dead sea”.
We happened to witness this transformation take place. In less than 30 years, this near virgin and pure slice of
paradise has almost become a has-been.
One of the strangest things of all is that hardly a single soul even remembers that bountiful place of our fondest
memories and even worse is the fact that of the very few that do remember it, I do not know even a single soul who
gives a damn about its demise.
Back to Pete Bailer and his party:
I smoked the fish aboard our boat Dursmirg in our smoke oven. Even though the food was free to all the invited
guests, we were surprised that several of these guests spirited our smoked fish out the door. Pete generously and
freely poured tap beer to all and had similar results.
Other than a couple of lushes, the party was a big hit. We have always felt that a person that will go out of their way
as Pete did inviting all of the close regulars has to have some redeeming qualities or a very bad conscience.
It seems strange now looking back over the years and thinking about the feelings that Jane and I had regarding
Pete Bailer and The Palm Terrace. That was a very special place at a very special time in our lives and the patrons
that all were regulars had a special affinity and closeness akin to a family atmosphere. We still have many close
friends in the area to this day but that original old Palm Terrace group has dispersed over the years just as we all
crossed paths at that special place and time, time has moved on and so have we all. The memories are fond ones
never to be duplicated again.
Pete Bailer, the owner of the Palm Terrace, had a mortgage he was not paying. He asked if we wanted it.
We could have had his restaurant business, 400 feet of riverfront property and a couple of apartments for less then
$40,000. We were not ready to settle down, and we unfortunately or fortunately as we look back did not know of the
actual financial straights poor Peter was in. We had the cash at the time but we definitely would not accept partners
in that type of business or even feel like tying ourselves down to the daily responsibility and financial commitment
required. Therefore, for better or worse we can now only speculate what might have been.
Pete was a slippery type of person and did not mind doing a little scam for a quick buck. His food was the greatest
and his regular bar business could be counted on.
Our next move was five miles back up the river to Melbourne and into the harbor at Crane Creek. This
was our first place that was in all appearances tropical after our very long journey all the way from Northern
Wisconsin across the Great Lakes, down the Hudson River and the entire east coast of the U.S.
Here we were about to meet another strange and interesting group of individuals most of whom were sailors.
In the early 1970s Melbourne was still an old-time down-south laid back out of the way small town with no appeal to
tourism. The main street had only mom and pop stores with not a franchise in sight. In the down-south tradition, the
stores still closed on Wednesday afternoons. Local produce was featured and above all the downtown business
district had an unrushed, easygoing atmosphere where the storekeepers looked you in the eye and greeted you
with a smile and friendly greeting. We liked it a lot and deeply lament the fact that that type of existence is no longer
to be found anywhere in America in this day and time.
When we arrived in the harbor we were told to tie to the yacht club dock where we would be guests and where we
could do the one repair we wanted to do that required electricity.
This little harbor was just a small pond that a very small creek flowed through on its way into the Indian River. The
dredged channel and inner harbor were just deep enough for us to enter with our Dursmirg. The pond-sized harbor
was as protected as anywhere a sailor could ever hope to find. In the early 1970s, the harbor had the appearance
of having been passed by and it must have been. The little harbor gave a feeling that was like an anticipation of an
upcoming event that just never came to pass…tranquil and placid to the extreme where small town atmosphere filled
the air.
This was near the northern limit of tropical Florida and entering this little harbor was just like taking a step within.
Upstream of this pond was the US Highway 1 bridge and adjacent to it was the railroad trestle belonging to the
Florida East Coast Railroad.
Oh, by the way!
I have to mention here that the Florida East Coast Railroad has a very interesting history that dates back to the
original founder Henry Flagler. At the time of our arrival here in Florida the railroad was still a family owned business
principally held by a man named Ed Ball. Ed Ball also happened to be one of Florida’s largest landowners, with
duPont money he bought up the railroads at bargain basement prices from the Henry Flagler trust.
An unresolved labor dispute led to a bloody and very nasty strike and Ed Ball was not the person to back down or
be intimidated. The strike that began back in 1963 and lasted until 1977 saw the nastiest of union tactics used with
bombings, shootings and continuous unrelenting sabotage. The trains did go through and each one carried armed
guards plus spotter vehicles ahead of the trains to detonate various explosives. This was the same railroad whose
trestle passed over Crane Creek and we did definitely see the spotter vehicles and fortunately did not witness any of
the shoot-outs or bombings. (Read about the rest of this story in volume 4.)
Back to the harbor: On the north side of the pond was located the small seldom used city park fronted by the city
public docks that were showing their age, grayed and weathered timbers and boards gave the appearance of a laid
back apathy and an easy going attitude. Surrounding this little pond was a marine supply dock, a fuel and bait
dock, the yacht club dock and on the south the docks of FIT (Florida Institute of Technology) where the students
would occasionally come down to row their racing shells. The shoreline was crowded with drooping banana and palm
trees and interspersed with towering ancient oaks.
To add to the atmosphere; playing porpoises, jumping mullet and lazy manatees made it obvious that the Indian
River was prolifically filled with marine life.
The few structures were small and single story. All was quiet with the exception of the occasional freight train.
At first glance, the little harbor did not reveal the multitude of strange and interesting individuals that made this place
their yachting world headquarters.
The boat names in the harbor revealed much about the sailors especially when the dinghy names fit with
astonishing compatibility. Some of my all-time favorites were located in this little harbor. Ed Mueller had a vessel
named Gay Lady and his dinghy was aptly named, Gay Ladies Kid. Ed for whatever reason made this place home
with his 46-foot go-fast all aluminum sailboat.
A couple of years before Ed showed up in Melbourne he had been a gas company employee for the State of New
York and had the misfortune of being atop a three story tall expanding gas tank when it blew up. Of his entire crew,
Ed was the single survivor and the trauma of his sub-orbital flight took a heavy toll on his health, but he still clung to
his dream of escaping on his vessel.
Bob Erickson had sailed south a year before Jane and I did and had cruised south Florida and the Bahamas
aboard his vessel Algo. He settled into this little harbor, sold his boat Algo and promptly bought the larger sailing
vessel Excedrin with its dinghy named Preparation- H.
Bob became afflicted with the sailors lament of “harbor fever” and seemed to have had enough of sailing and got
enough pleasure out of just owning a boat so he could go down to the harbor and dream aboard. His original boat
Algo remained in the Melbourne harbor also along with its new owner, Harold Metcalf.
Bob told of an interesting event that took place aboard a six-foot draft sailing yawl named Cindy owned by a man
named Art Roe. Bob was crewing aboard Cindy and while in the race they ran aground right off the start and then
powered to catch up with the rest of the fleet, then cut a buoy and wound up with the trophy which Bob, then very
pissed off, threw into the middle of Melbourne Harbor.
Art, the owner stirred up local controversy after that sailing race and it was his last one.
This is Melbourne Harbor in Crane Creek with Jim Flood’s Puffin at the dock.
Jim and Mary Flood were the owners of a twin-engine sport fishing boat named Mistress that only provided Jim
with a place where he could be a dockside yachter. He had the outfit and if you had an outfit, you could be a yachter
too. With a glib Irish wit and party mentality Jim poured all visitors his potent high-octane and nearly lethal
concoction that Jim called his “cherry bounce” that felt like 200 proof.
The only time Jim ever cast off the dock lines was to take Mistress out for the prospective buyers. His reason for
owning the Mistress was to have a dockside party headquarters, and in this, he was very successful.
Jim had worked for Household Finance in Chicago and later Collagen Water Company where he made enough
dough to have his own private plane, a DC-3, before he came to the sunny southland to lay back. Jim drove the
biggest Lincoln Continental available and owned the biggest house on the block over on Indialantic Beach, in the
high-rent district.
Jim was taken up with the sailing community and decided to join. After he sold his sport fishing boat, Mistress he
bought a classic flush-decked Crocker designed 40-foot sailboat named Puffin with a dinghy aptly named Huffin. (I
will write more about Jim and Mary Flood later in this volume.)
Jim Flood aboard Puffin in Crane Creek (Melbourne Harbor)
Annie Lyon, Richard McKeever and Dave Hanks
This next boat crossed our path many times in the coming years. The Annie Lyon was a classic wooden vessel with
its flush deck and ketch rigging. The 42 footer had a banquet-sized cockpit and any sailor that ever saw it would do
a double take and never forget its pleasing to the eye silhouette. This too was a Crocker design and Jane and I had
first seen it up in South Carolina when we passed in the Intracoastal Waterway the previous spring. At the time, the
captain was a young man named Richard McKeever and the boat carried a full crew of mostly sun bathing ladies.
We did not have the opportunity to meet the captain until we entered Melbourne harbor the following fall with its
unique collection of boats and boaters.
Richard McKeever definitely was not your average young college age citizen, he was a graduate linguist who
specialized in Japanese and he was on his way to Japan to teach. In Melbourne, he had two crewmembers who were
Japanese exchange students and they were thrilled when Jane and I got out our cast net and promptly landed
enough fresh fish to feed the whole group in just a few minutes. Jane and I got to sample sushi freshly made and we
made a lasting impression upon these Japanese who were astonished at the prolific waters of Florida.
The Annie Lyon fell into a near derelict condition when Richard left for Japan. The following year we saw it
languishing in a half sunken state and thought its days were numbered.
The next time we saw it, Annie Lyon was being brought back to life or resurrected from the dead by a man that had
a talent seldom seen for working magic with all types of plastics and especially fiberglass. Dave Hanks was a natural
with marine related outfitting and his work was superb in every detail.
Dave had gotten much of his experience working in a fiberglass fabricating plant where custom made surfboards
were made and he then moved on to a specialty plastics company that made such things as “clean rooms” for the
local semiconductor industry that all tied into the Cape Canaveral Space Center program.
We always heard wild and fascinating stories that seemed like whoppers from Dave who always seemed to have an
experience to trump all others. One thing for sure, Dave did know his sailboats and the sea and low and behold we
did actually substantiate many of his wild tales; so like it or not, he just had to be believed!
He later sailed Annie Lyon off to Hawaii and back. While returning from Hawaii and while headed for the Panama
Canal he had a mishap at sea and collided with some floating debris that nearly sent him to the bottom. Being the
resourceful person that he was he rigged a sailcloth patch over the hole and made it to shore. Dave said that the
boat was totaled and if he said so it must have been true because he knew how to restore almost anything that had
even a remotest possibility of being saved or ever floating again.
Annie Lyon in Melbourne Harbor after Dave Hanks restored it.
Dave Hanks with his daughter Kim aboard Dursmirg in Melbourne Harbor.
A boat that was utterly amazing when seen under way with its high speed and exceptionally agile tacking abilities in
tight quarters was the 55-foot; three masted, staysail schooner with 9 feet of beam named Giggling Witch and its
dinghy The Wiggling Bitch.
Some story circulated around about a run-in the owner Art had with some of the local Indians down on one of the
Caribbean Sea islands when he was involved in some sort of clandestine freight hauling…Art had a scar that was
attributed to that incident.
Moonspinner owned by Hasty Miller was a 36-foot double-ended sailboat designed by Hershoff moored in the
harbor. Hasty was one of the first people to board our Dursmirg when we landed at the Melbourne Yacht Club. We
immediately associated his name with his actions as he sprang aboard our vessel….hasty for sure.
Hasty and several of his sailing crony associates loved to daily have their lunch down at the yacht club dock.
After inquiring about our reason for coming to the dock for our repair job Hasty had to tell us about the yearly ritual
he preformed on his marine engine aboard his boat Moonspinner.
His story went like this; each spring when he was preparing his vessel for the upcoming sailing season he would go
to the bilge of his boat, uncouple the main engine, hoist it up using the boat’s boom and then swing it overboard.
There he would threaten it and then return it to the bilge and it would be good for yet another season.
Hasty was an engineer in everything that he did and I still remember the innovative propeller shaft-packing gland he
installed on his boat. It was a ceramic-faced clothes washing machine water seal that required no lubrication or
calibration.
Hasty was a racer and sometimes raced single-handed. He always made good showings even in some fairly
distressful weather in offshore sailing events.
Ross Wheelton - Ross owned a little boat and a big motorcycle. Ross was a real gentleman and an excellent
sailor. A retired Midwesterner, he was slightly built and when sailing always wore a long-sleeve shirt and lightweight
sweater and more layers in the winter. He kept his very small (about 20-22 foot) wooden sloop in a slip on the east
side of the harbor, facing east. The tiny boat had a little cabin with two berths. There was very little freeboard.
Ross sailed frequently, always single-handed, always under sail and never with an engine. He maneuvered and
tacked in and out the narrow harbor channel with the greatest natural skill. He loved to talk.
Unfortunately, Ross's boat sustained serious damage one windy day, right in its slip. A large powerboat that was
berthed alongside the seawall at Florida Institute of Technology (now Florida Tech) had been at anchor in the river
during the afternoon. When the boat returned to the harbor, the helmsman tried to turn the boat in the basin so that
it would be facing south when tied up. The wind prevented the turn to be completed in one pass, so he began to
maneuver back and forth to make the boat face south and lay to the seawall. During one of those maneuvers, while
the boat was backing the helmsman backed a little too far and nudged Ross's boat. The sloop was in peril of
sinking, so very soon afterward she was hauled and put on a trailer. I don't think that Ross ever sailed again as his
health was failing and the damage to his precious little boat was just too much for him to contend with.
John and Evelyn Burtchell owned a 42-foot steel ketch Gazelle, a famous Tom Colvin designed and built ketch
that they kept moored in the center of the harbor along with several other boats. (I must tell here that on another
occasion Jane and I tried to anchor in this harbor. It was impossible for us to get anyone of our anchors to hold and
we later found out that the boats moored there used big truck engine blocks and all chain moorings…that was the
only thing that would hold in that soft silty bottom.)
John Burtchell was built just like Santa Claus; in fact he even played that part at a local shopping center one
Christmas season until he got fired. It turned out that one of the kids bit John and he instinctively bit back. John had
a short temper with brats.
John was retired military and he had decided that the sailing life would suit him so he struck off from Wellsville, New
York to take in the sunshine and live rent-free at anchor.
John wasn’t looking for a sailing adventure but only wanted to take it easy in a quiet low rent laid back spot, and
Melbourne harbor fit his requirements.
He soon let boredom take over and began to refit and refurbish his lovely vessel that he had purchased fully fitted
and ready to go. Bit by bit and piece-by-piece, his boat began to be disassembled in his refit. The story going
around about John was that he had purchased a sailboat and was working at making it into a kit-boat.
One Sunday afternoon some water-skiers came by and disturbed the peace and tranquility of the little harbor so
John let them know they should cease and desist. Well, all that these hot jock kids needed was some old Santa
Claus like guy telling them what to do…they would show him. The harassment escalated and John pitched a
grapefruit at them.
Now the aggravation got serious when the boater told John that he was going to get gasoline and would be back to
torch John’s boat that night. John decided that it was time to take action so he reached into his boat, pulled out a 22-
caliber rifle, and fired several warning shots. To the best of my knowledge, the fourth shot struck one of the young
men.
Some time later John decided that this could escalate into a bigger mess than he cared to get further involved in
and left the harbor heading north for the open sea.
The police got involved at this point and radioed the bridge tender out in the Indian River not to open for John’s
boat. John then had to face the heat of the charges brought against him.
John’s boat was impounded, with a Federal marshal posted and John’s dream of a quiet and tranquil retirement
quickly disappeared because he was sent directly off to jail. John had to pick up the tab for his then docked boat,
the Federal Marshal, a place to live and damages plus legal fees. Several years passed before John was finally
cleared of the charges and everything was finally concluded and resolved. John went broke defending himself.
John Burtchell’s Gazelle
John Burtchell in 1982 aboard Dursmirg at the dock on the St. Johns River.
Jim Mooney and his classic boat Posh; Jim was the straightest sailor in the harbor and was the local fire chief.
Jim’s wooden sloop Posh had been built in Wisconsin back in 1936 when boat design was traditional and classic and
Jim kept his vessel pristine with attention to detail.
As Jim was a respected part of the local sailing community when Jim relocated to peaceful and tranquil Palatka,
Florida up on the St. John’s River to escape the crush and rush of coastal population expansion many of the local
sailors tagged along.
Jane and I over the years made many return visits to the Melbourne harbor before the land developers moved into
the area in earnest with high-rise apartment condominiums and their high-test yachts.
Our longest stay was in 1976 when we were there for nearly two months building an aft cabin/ wheelhouse on our
Dursmirg.
Dursmirg tied at the Melbourne City Pier in Crane Creek with its new wheelhouse just completed.
We tied our Dursmirg at the city docks that at that time were scheduled to be turned over to a land developer who
would be building a condominium complex with dockage. The developer would be using the docks and the land
where the little city park was located across the road. The deal had not been finalized yet but long-term dockage
contracts were no longer available. This was exactly what we were looking for and the price was definitely right.
Our good friend Grant Ball who also happened to have his machine shop just half a block away up the hill from the
harbor put us onto this deal. Grant was helpful in letting us use his machine shop and machine tools. Jane and I
reciprocated by keeping Grant well stocked with stainless steel and bronze propeller shaft material, anchors and
other marine fittings that we had salvaged during our winters down in the Florida Keys.
While we built our aft-cabin/wheelhouse one summer in Melbourne harbor that machine shop proved to be
indispensable to our project.
Another indispensable asset to our construction project was a salvage yard just a block south, which specialized in
items that were surplus from the space center. I was an almost daily customer and became well acquainted with the
owner while making the purchase of the exotic metals available in sheet, shaft, nuts, bolts, stainless steel welding
rods and many weird shaped curiosities cast off from the space program.
Ed Bell, the owner, wanted to sell us his home and business for $100,000…this was his huge house with swimming
pool, gas business, (selling oxygen, acetylene etc.) plus one city block of property and his salvage business…he
was willing to finance the deal. We were not ready to settle down. That was one of the deals of a lifetime that would
have made us into multimillionaires in a very few years.
My only conclusion is that life is full of trade-offs. At that moment in time, we had the best opportunity of our lives to
have this unique occasion with the time to enjoy to the fullest six youthful years of unprecedented freedom.
We were aware at the time how very important it would be in life to have good memories and no regrets in old age.
Now more than 30 years later as I write these lines when we are in our 60s and looking back, those sentiments of
our youthful years were definitely on track. We only had one regret, and that was that we had not sailed away
sooner.
Jane and I developed a daily ritual that summer of 1976 of riding our bicycles across the causeway to the ocean
beach for a predawn swim in the surf. This turned out to be one of our finest pleasures and I became an avid body
surfer. I soon wore the skin off my nose and chest and not wanting to relinquish my newfound pleasure I quickly
developed a technique of body surfing on my back…yes, I did wear the skin off my back too.
It was not long and I developed a colossal earache that I needed a doctor’s attention for. The expensive doctor
flushed my ears out with alcohol for $40.00 and to my surprise; he retrieved what looked like a half a cup full of
seashells. I had several options and one was to either quit body surfing or to use earplugs or do my own alcohol ear
flushes.
WARREN AND NIRA BROWN
Our friends Warren and Nira Brown aboard their boat Our Dream who we had met down in Dinner Key and Coconut
Grove in 1973 came to anchor here in the harbor the summer of 1976 when we were building our wheelhouse.
Warren and Nira’s heavily laden Our Dream underway under sail.
Warren wanted to visit his father back up in Boston but didn’t want to sail all that way so he came up with the idea of
leaving his boat here in the Melbourne Harbor with his wife Nira aboard. We would help Nira and also watch their
boat. This seemed like a wonderful idea because this snug little harbor was so protected that it was unimaginable
that any weather conditions could possible threaten their boat here.
The Our Dream was anchored directly off our stern and directly downstream from the Crane Creek Highway Bridge.
Warren was happy with this arrangement and boarded the bus for his trip to Boston…he would be gone for three
weeks.
In the early morning hours of this peaceful summer time a freak torrential downpour resembling a tropical
disturbance unleashed a torrent of water down little Crane Creek that turned it into a raging river with rapids.
We were securely docked and tied out of the violent flow of that now raging river but Warren and Nira’s boat was
squarely in the path of that inundation.
At the height of the storm, we heard a persistent knocking on our hull and I finally went out into that wall of rainwater
that was coming down in blinding sheets. There in a dinghy was little Nira soaked to the bone with a desperate and
pleading expression on her face. Could I possibly help her?
For the next five hours, I had a challenging workout. It turned out that the Our Dream had been washed out into the
harbor and was still being dragged along by the powerful current.
I went with Nira and the first order of business was to keep their boat from slamming the other vessels in the harbor.
I developed a plan to get a rope secured to one of the highway bridge pilings then bring the other end to the Our
Dream where I would then be able to winch the boat out of danger using their large double acting anchor winch. The
plan was a good one but implementing it took a super human effort and I made many attempts to approach the
bridge pilings and get the rope secured only to be whisked away downstream where I would have to reposition and
work the back currents for yet another attempt. Nira stayed aboard their boat to fend off potential collisions with
other vessels while I maneuvered back to their boat with the other end of the ¾-inch nylon rope. The current made
this maneuver exceedingly labor intensive but my persistence finally paid off and I finally managed to pass the other
end of that rope to Nira. Next, the heavy labor began as I put several turns of that ¾-inch rope around the capstan
head of the winch. I worked the winch handle and Nira tailed the rope and kept the tension while flaking the hauled
in rope down on the deck. When we started winching there was almost three hundred feet of rope out overboard
that mostly needed to be hauled back aboard. Daylight was dawning by the time we finally positioned the Our Dream
out of danger.
A note about Warren and Nira Brown and their boat Our Dream; Warren was a rough and raw-boned sailor with
sandy red hair and freckles that earned him the nickname of “Red” Brown. Brought up on the Boston waterfront in
his youth he knew how to fend for himself and didn’t get pushed around though he did thoroughly understand
keeping the peace in a closed community like sailors in a harbor, it was much like life aboard a ship out to sea,
everyone had to manage to get along. The mentality of “don’t piss-off the cook” when out to sea fit into Warren’s
mode of operations.
Warren would rather risk his neck than do a day’s real work so he picked jobs that fitted his disposition. He painted
flagpoles, radio towers and bridges. Repair of tall smoke stacks also appealed to him and he was an expert rig man
who definitely knew his trade. Warren taught me some invaluable tricks that actually have saved my life when
working aloft with rope rigging.
Warren started sailing the Atlantic coast after WWII when he hunted his way south in the fall of the year shooting
wild game along the way to provision his journey.
Grant and Deb Ball.
Deb was a secretary to a vice president of Harris Corporation. They lived in a modest mobile home in a very proper
trailer park on Malabar Road. Other than their sailboat, Grant and Deb fit a stereotype of conservative Down-south
Middle America. Grants parents, Forrest and Connie Ball owned a simple but adequate waterfront home ½ mile
south of the Palm Terrace Bar and Restaurant.
Forrest, Grant’s father, had owned a saloon in Colorado before and moving to Florida and always had an extensive
repertoire of bar room stories to tell and his son Grant possesses the exact same type of quick-witted absurdly
hilarious humor laced with puns and one-liners. A couple of their classics went like these; the poor parents of a little
boy wanted to get him something for Christmas, something to wear and something to play with. They bought him a
pair of pants and cut the pockets out; or, did you hear about the hermit…he went off by himself!
Connie, Grants mother, owned and operated a health food store and dabbled in financial investments.
Deb, Grants wife, loved her go-fast little red sports cars and her job as the vice presidents secretary at Harris Semi-
conductor where she could put her quick mind, rapid typing skills, speedy efficiency and swift organizational abilities
into action every minute. She never did get the boss his coffee though…she had her principles!
In our frequent visits to this part of Florida we always connected with Grant and Deb. Jane and I loved to anchor
offshore at Rocky Point amongst the spoil islands and well off the Intracoastal Waterway channel some six miles
south of Melbourne, in the vicinity of Malabar, (28° north latitude) on our many passages on various vessels we
owned over the years. A number of years we came to this lovely place with our sailboat Dursmirg, then on our
commercial shrimp trawler, Secotan and even several times on our little 26-foot Columbia sailboat El Barco.
Sunday evenings when we would anchor off Rocky Point at Malabar, we would have a ritual meeting planned for a
rendezvous featuring a Mexican dinner of tacos. Deb would bring lettuce and some condiments; many times arriving
by canoe and Jane would hand make tortillas. We always managed to stuff ourselves.
Another one of our favorite get-togethers was to find the best pizza and beer joint in the area. Grant and Debbie
always had the pizza joints well evaluated. Back in the 1970s, Lorenzo’s on Malabar Road was one of our all-time
favorites. It was a mom and pop establishment that featured a glutton’s delight house special plus the owner
furnished the live music with his one-man band. We were all young enough to soak up several pitchers of beer and
never ever ran out of fun stories to tell.
Over the years Grant and Deb have hunted us down to make rendezvous in such places as; Miami, St. Augustine
and even Mexico.
They went on to get their 100-ton captains licenses and have together as a husband and wife team operated
various vessels in the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Caribbean and also the Pacific. You will read more about this
husband and wife team in the following pages of Travels of Dursmirg.
Grant and Deb Ball aboard their sailboat Hawk on the Indian River
More about Jim and Mary Flood
Jim was the methodical and scientific wine maker. Jim’s exact and precise procedures for making wine were beyond
any dispute and the only acceptable way to make wine. He and his wife Mary came to our boat for dinner one
evening and Mary went to great lengths to compliment Jane on her exquisite wine. Mary exclaimed that it was by far
the very best she had ever sampled and would not quit her lavish and abundant praise.
Now Jane happened to be and still is a fine wine maker by anybodies standard.
The thing that made this whole incident so hilarious to Jane and I was that this particular wine was made using Welch’
s concentrated grape juice and we had heard Jim Flood go to excessive extremes to profess his scornful distain and
contemptuous loathing for that particular type of wine. We knew that Jim knew that this was Welch’s concentrate
wine, as he smoldered. Mary either knew this was wine from concentrate and was giving her husband the business.
On the other hand if she did not know then Jim knew we were just getting a chance to see him squirm.
Another Jim Flood wine story; Jim told Jane that we needed to take advantage of the prolific fox grapes to be
harvested in the area.
We talked to our friend Harold Wright and asked if he knew the whereabouts of any fox grapes in the area. The next
thing we knew was that we were then off on another all-day excursion into the county down the back roads that just
so happened to yield lots of fox grapes and coincidently also had a number of taverns where Harold was well known.
Jane followed Jim’s exact winemaking instructions with the fox grapes and sugar but in the end we wound up with the
driest mouth puckering wine ever produced aboard the Dursmirg or for that matter the driest red wine we have ever
sampled. Jim remarked that we should have washed our feet before stomping the grapes and it would have been
better!
Jim and Mary Flood came down to a small island five miles south of Melbourne near Rocky Point with their boat
Puffin one Sunday afternoon. Jim had been working diligently aboard his spiffy yacht that now looked like a show
room specimen with its meticulous paint and varnish work.
We had a fabulous time together, catching our fish for dinner. Jim had a knack for landing trout and snook and Jane
had the talent to cook it to perfection.
When Jim and Mary got ready to leave, I went over to their boat with my dinghy and gave them a demonstration of
how to sail up their anchor without using the engine. I got all the sails ready to be deployed and tied down the helm.
Then with only the main sail sheeted in close the boat would take off sailing on one tack until it was snatched to a
halt by the anchor rode. Next, as the boat fell off the wind and began to sail off on the other tack by its self I would
then rapidly take in as much slack anchor line as I could and then make it fast. Again, the boat would be snatched to
a halt by the anchor rode and again I would take up more anchor rode until the boat finally broke the anchor free
and continued off on that tack. At this time, the anchor was hauled aboard and the jib hoisted. We were then
underway and it was time to tend to the helm. This all had to be done with much forethought and planning then
executed expeditiously because time was of the utmost importance unless the body of water you were in was
completely unrestricted.
Next I pointed Jim’s pristine yacht in the proper direction, sheeted in the sails for optimum speed and performance,
handed the helm over to Jim and disembarked into my dinghy giving Jim and Mary a thumbs-up as they briskly
sprinted off on a beam reach.
We were later told by them that that was the very best sail that they ever had.
Jim Flood and I are aboard Puffin ready to sail up the anchor near one of the spoil islands in the Indian
River near Rocky Point south of Melbourne.
Viking 50
I have to tell a story of one of our favorite anchors and some of the circumstances regarding it that conjure up many
a memory of not only our experiences with it and also how much of the history of the times came along with our
Viking 50.
First, I will tell you that a Viking anchor is designed and patterned after the famous and very trustworthy Danforth®
brand of anchor. The Viking line of anchors was made of lightweight aluminum.
We purchased our first Viking 50 at a W.T Grants store in Marathon down in the Florida Keys. (Here I must mention
some of the history of the times; W.T. Grants was the second largest retail chain store at the time and shortly
thereafter was dissolved in bankruptcy taking many of their suppliers with them. Another economic event of the
times was inflation fueled by the Vietnam debacle, which escalated to 22% per year thanks to the slick and slippery
spendthrift politicians that found it painless to spend other people’s money and then cover their ass by cranking up
the printing presses flooding the world with dollars. The net result was the cruelest tax of all; inflation. While fat
bankers and political insiders profited this inflation emptied bank accounts of the thrifty savers, depleting the value
of retirement pensions and this cruel tax also sent gasoline prices from 23 cents per gallon in 1973 to $2.00 a gallon
in 1974.
Ten years later, it came down to around $1.30 per gallon. In the mid 1970s, prices were going up so fast that retail
stores employed full time staff just to change price stickers on merchandise.)
Off my tangent and back to the Viking 50 story; we owned one of these Viking 50 anchors and really liked it, so
when I spotted one at a marina in Melbourne, Florida that still had the pre-inflation price sticker I promptly purchased
it. As I was paying for it I mentioned that I would possibly buy a second anchor if they had one. That was evidently a
mistake on my part because then the sales price was re-thought and my $41.00 anchor became an $80.00 anchor,
which I then declined to purchase. (Run away inflation can be profitable to those that play the proper financial
games, but for those that cannot see or are locked into financial commitments like pension plans the results are
financial ruins.)
So, dear reader you now have another look into the times and conditions that existed during the years of our travels
of Dursmirg through this little story of our Viking anchor.
Orange groves/navels/ avocados/ mangoes
From the Melbourne area on southward was where Florida’s orange groves thrived. The Florida orange industry
was nationally famous and the “Indian River Citrus’ was sold at all souvenir stands and even shipped in fruit baskets
and by the crate. The extra fancy oranges and grapefruit went out at harvest season across the Mason-Dixon Line
to snowed in Yankee homes where thrilled recipients savored the tropical delicacies and dreamed of that distant and
delightful destination.
Make no mistake about it; in Florida the citrus industry added a very pleasant touch to the sunshine state. From the
heavenly and almost overwhelmingly sweet scent of the springtime orange blossom season when a drive through
the orange grove areas would make you light headed and pleasantly giddy drinking in the sweet perfume. The
aroma of canneries where orange juice concentrate was being rendered and packed also filled the air of Florida with
the sweet citrus perfume.
One of the gimmicks employed by Florida’s roadside souvenir shops to lure in passing motorists in the 1970s and
before was the offer of all the fresh orange juice you could drink for a dime. This deal snared many a southward
bound snowbird that got their monies worth. Eventually this old ploy was modified to read; “All the fresh orange juice
y’all can drink for 10¢”. When the thirsty thrifty Yankees held out their cup for a free refill the clerk would explain that
they had already received “all y’all could drink for 10¢!”
The Indian River area for some reason produced the largest tropical fruit to be found anywhere, mangoes and
avocados the size of footballs and the sweetest navel oranges I have ever had.
That was then and now many of those orange groves have been plowed under to expand shopping centers and
housing developments.
The demand for orange juice has skyrocketed so vast shiploads of orange concentrate were being shipped into
Florida from Brazil and then chemical extenders, colorings, sweeteners and preservatives were then added and that
has helped take up the slack to fill the demand.
The lovely actor Anita Bryant became the spokes lady for the Florida Orange Growers and at the same time
emphatically denounced the gay life style on religious and moral grounds. (The joke of the day then was that
drinking orange juice made you queer ;)
Tex and Shirley Downs: One fall evening in 1973 while Jane and I were out on the Indian River for a sail with our
friends Grant and Deb Ball aboard their 22 foot Catalina sailboat named Godspeed they mentioned that they knew
someone we would enjoy meeting. We sailed south to Rocky Point where we tied to a very long dock. The dock
belonged to Tex and Shirley Downs, recent arrivals from Poughkeepsie, New York, up the Hudson River from New
York City.
We had a lovely evening exchanging stories and admiring Tex and his extensive collection of antique memorabilia
that adorned the walls of their small new waterfront home stacked all the way to the ceiling.
We received an invitation to an outdoor yard party at their home the following Saturday plus a request to help in
gathering clams and oysters for the occasion. We accepted on both accounts. The party was just great, the food
superb and definitely ample. Jane and I got the opportunity to sample the largest and tastiest oysters we had ever
sampled and the quantity fed the entire group until we were all completely stuffed.
It was at this party that we met Dr. Locke and his wife who were cruising aboard their 55-foot trawler. (We later
rendezvoused with them at Boot Key at Marathon down in the Florida Keys and write about this very interesting
couple in that part of this volume.)
Dr. Schnay was also at the party and he happened to be sailing his sailboat south with a young man named Frank
Knight. (We would encounter Dr. Schnay several more times and each time we had a story to tell of our meetings in
West Palm Beach, Miami and Marathon. You will read about them later on in this volume.
Tex had a special talent for surrounding himself with people that had some kind of social status and name-dropping
was his expertise.
The yard party was held in Tex and Shirley’s waterfront yard. The group was all a collection of fun loving and jovial
boaters that each contributed to the outing. The culmination of the party that evening was when Shirley, a lovely
lady, provided us all with a belly dance presentation provocatively dressed and adorned with bobbles, beads and
bells.
Tex was from New York and maintained that he had spent his life earning minimum wage and that when he left New
York he was making $3.50 an hour.
Tex was a friend of our friends Walter and Cynthia Perry from the sailboat named Z-walker, and Tex used to love to
tell some funny but very belittling stories about Walter’s sailing experiences and his cheapness. Both Tex and Walter
were from Poughkeepsie, New York and I write about Walter and Cynthia Perry later when we had adventures in
Marathon down in the Florida Keys later in this volume. They were with us again in St. Augustine so you will read
about them in Volume 4.
Tex and Shirley had a Cheoy Lee 30-foot sailboat that they sailed to Marathon a couple of winters later with the help
of Frank Knight and they all anchored with our group there at the Boot Key anchorage. That story will follow in this
volume.
Tex had made one sailing trip to the Caribbean from his homeport in Poughkeepsie, New York and from the sound
of the accounts, there was near mutiny with the crew. From what we had heard Tex got excessively paranoid about
the drinking water consumption and that led to a near mutinous explosion. On that same trip we heard some rumors
whispered around that Tex had discovered some old Spanish silver coins from a ship wreck that he later was selling
off one at a time to finance his laid back life style.
Tex claimed to be a treasure diver and bought a steel workboat from MIT, Melbourne Institute of Technology, with a
6-71 Detroit diesel named The Big Zip and promptly renamed it for some Indian tribe of Florida. Tex plowed a good-
sized fortune into fitting the Big Zip out with every conceivable gadget and piece of paraphernalia that could possibly
be loaded aboard and to the best of our knowledge the vessel never left the dock.
Tex managed to have plenty of money but had no visual means of support and many times would cry poor boy
status. One time he indicated that he would love to go to the flea market the following Saturday but he just did not
have enough cash to buy gas to make the trip. Jane and I actually felt sorry for his plight and said that we would be
happy to pay his gas tab and even treat him to lunch so that he and Shirley could make the trip.
We made the tour to the flea market and had a good time and as promised we filled up Tex’s gas tank and paid the
check for all at lunch. Surprise, poor boy Tex went home that day loaded down with several hundred dollars worth of
purchases from the flea market. Jane and I knew that we had been snookered in one of the worst ways and found
out that we were dealing with a real shyster and not a friend. On the other hand, he might have been subtly sending
us a message that we were just hanging around too much…who knows?
Tex had a house filled to the rafters with antiques and a garage filled to overfilling with tools, machinery and he
obviously had some means to support his unquenchable lust for acquiring stuff to pile on his heap.
Tex always complained that the people that docked at the Melbourne Harbor did not go anywhere and therefore he
did not want to have anything to do with that class of boater.
We heard many complaints about other boaters, how they dressed, the kind of boats that they had and where they
traveled. Because of this, we decided to bait Tex when he told us how shabby our friend Brett Hollerith dressed. We
just happened to mention that Brett was a multimillionaire and had just purchased a 110-acre tract of waterfront land
up on the St. Johns River…, which was all-true.
Tex took the bait and the next time we ran into our friend Brett Hollerith he could not quit exclaiming what a warm
and overly friendly reception he had received from Tex. Tex had previously treated him very coolly.
Tex got some engineer to design and build a little efficient anchor light and then Tex wanted to market it and take
half of the profits.
Despite all of these idiosyncrasies we did have some very good times with Tex.
Legs and Mabel Quintin: We first met in St. Augustine when Legs and Mabel sailed south their very first time
aboard their Colombia sailboat. They tied their brand new sporty go fast sailboat to the City Yacht Pier and got
acquainted with all the regulars there. That is where we first got to know this lovely couple.
Legs was a real intellect and had retired from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he did cutting edge
scientific lab work. He was a boxer for recreation.
Legs and Mabel sold their go fast sailboat after their first season down in the sunny south country and bought a
spacious live-aboard houseboat.
They docked their houseboat over at Indian Harbor Beach at the Pine’s Marina. Legs sold the engines out of his
houseboat as soon as he tied it where he wanted it because he knew that all they really wanted was a place to live
dockside and they were not even thinking of ever moving their boat again. Legs said; “I might as well sell the
engines while they are running instead of waiting until they have rusted to death.” (In all of our boating travels, these
two were the only people that we met that made absolutely no pretenses about their motivations for living aboard
their boat. Yes, they were very happy and contented, and we definitely understood the appeal of having such a
lovely canal front home in Florida.)
They were happy at their new home site and bicycled out to play tennis and visit the beach for walks when the spirit
moved them. They had shrimp traps that provided them with good sport and all the shrimp that they wanted.
Legs and Mabel Quinton aboard their Col9ombia sailboat the the Pine's Marina on the Indian River.
William Marshall Malabar, Florida… (Traded a gillnet for our outboard motor)
One of the original Melbourne area residents was a man named William Marshall. William’s family was one of the
original settlers at Malabar and he still lived on the original family land on Malabar Road next to the post office with
his ten or so kids.
Living out of the river, with gillnet fishing and crab trapping, he also repaired and refurbished outboard motors.
This guy definitely knew the local history plus he knew the river, what to catch, when and where to catch it. I only
wish that I had taken the time to pick his brain back then.
When I was looking for a gillnet our friend Grant Ball told me to look up William Marshall…and so I did. After an
afternoon of stories and negotiations, we finally came to a deal. I would get 150 feet of gillnet in exchange for our
outboard motor. We were both happy. William had another toy to tinker with and we now had more food than we
could eat for the rest of our boating career. Jane and I were now very close to 100% self sufficient with fresh
seafood. We also had fish lines, cast nets and crab traps plus we collected clams, oysters and even dove for our
own lobster.
next chapter
Ross Wheelton with Melbourne
Harbor in the background. This photo
was taken before the City Yacht Pier
was sold to a private developer.
Chained to the fence behind Ross is
my Schwinn bicycle. Jane and I did
not own an automobile for ten years,
only bicycles, and that turned out to
be some of our very best times.
Harbor in the background. This photo
was taken before the City Yacht Pier
was sold to a private developer.
Chained to the fence behind Ross is
my Schwinn bicycle. Jane and I did
not own an automobile for ten years,
only bicycles, and that turned out to
be some of our very best times.
Maurice and Ruth Wilson aboard their boat Tide
Call in Melbourne Harbor with Dave Hank’s daughter
Kim and Dave’s boat Annie Lyon in the background.
Tide Call was the only power boat that had a full
time and permanent “live-aboard”, in the harbor.
Maurice and Ruth Wilson kept their vessel in pristine
condition. They both worked and their boat was their
only home plus their recreation vehicle for their
vacations.
Maurice was one of many local engineers employed at
the Space Center. His specialty was fuel for the space
program and his department analyzed and evaluated
all the fuel loaded on to the rockets at the space
center. Part of his specialty was fuel cleanliness and
he told me that when the rigid specifications for fuel
were set down the only place that they could turn for
filters that were capable of micron sized particle
filtration came from the beer brewing industry.
Maurice checked and evaluated all of the fuel aboard
all of the harbor vessels, he did ours, and I was
surprised what he came up with…our fuel was filthy
and our filters needed changing.
Having fuel at this time with the Arab oil embargos was
more than most people could hope for and no one
would dare question the cleanliness or quality of what
you could get.
Call in Melbourne Harbor with Dave Hank’s daughter
Kim and Dave’s boat Annie Lyon in the background.
Tide Call was the only power boat that had a full
time and permanent “live-aboard”, in the harbor.
Maurice and Ruth Wilson kept their vessel in pristine
condition. They both worked and their boat was their
only home plus their recreation vehicle for their
vacations.
Maurice was one of many local engineers employed at
the Space Center. His specialty was fuel for the space
program and his department analyzed and evaluated
all the fuel loaded on to the rockets at the space
center. Part of his specialty was fuel cleanliness and
he told me that when the rigid specifications for fuel
were set down the only place that they could turn for
filters that were capable of micron sized particle
filtration came from the beer brewing industry.
Maurice checked and evaluated all of the fuel aboard
all of the harbor vessels, he did ours, and I was
surprised what he came up with…our fuel was filthy
and our filters needed changing.
Having fuel at this time with the Arab oil embargos was
more than most people could hope for and no one
would dare question the cleanliness or quality of what
you could get.
As I had mentioned earlier in this volume we had met Grant
and Deb Ball in the fall of 1974 when we were anchored with
our boat Dursmirg offshore of the Palm Terrace Bar and
Restaurant at Malabar, Florida five miles south of Melbourne
on the Indian River.
That lovely fall afternoon the little Catalina 22 foot sloop
curiously named Godspeed came out and quite deliberately
circled Dursmirg in anticipation of striking up a conversation
and Grant and Deb definitely got our attention. Jane and I
hailed Godspeed over to raft up to us and invited the young
couple aboard Dursmirg to get acquainted. This started a
relationship that has lasted these many years.
When we first met, Grant was as dealership mechanic and as
Grant so neatly put it about his mechanical abilities, “I can
either fix it or I can fix it so that nobody can fix it”.
and Deb Ball in the fall of 1974 when we were anchored with
our boat Dursmirg offshore of the Palm Terrace Bar and
Restaurant at Malabar, Florida five miles south of Melbourne
on the Indian River.
That lovely fall afternoon the little Catalina 22 foot sloop
curiously named Godspeed came out and quite deliberately
circled Dursmirg in anticipation of striking up a conversation
and Grant and Deb definitely got our attention. Jane and I
hailed Godspeed over to raft up to us and invited the young
couple aboard Dursmirg to get acquainted. This started a
relationship that has lasted these many years.
When we first met, Grant was as dealership mechanic and as
Grant so neatly put it about his mechanical abilities, “I can
either fix it or I can fix it so that nobody can fix it”.
An example and comparison between the two; The Danforth weighed about fifty
pounds and was designed to hold vessels 50 feet in length. The counterpart
was aluminum Viking 50 that was of the same design and physical size but only
weighed 18 pounds, plus it was rust free.
I had seen several boaters using this new Viking anchor; I was definitely
impressed with its holding power, and especially its lightweight
pounds and was designed to hold vessels 50 feet in length. The counterpart
was aluminum Viking 50 that was of the same design and physical size but only
weighed 18 pounds, plus it was rust free.
I had seen several boaters using this new Viking anchor; I was definitely
impressed with its holding power, and especially its lightweight
