| Travels of Dursmirg Vol. 3 Chapter 9 |
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CHAPTER 9 DINNER KEY ANCHORAGE
Here I have to attempt to describe some of the many rogues and various boaters that populated the Dinner Key
Anchorage in the mid 1970s.
After finding a spot in the deep-water anchorage with sufficient swinging room for Dursmirg amongst the strangest
hodge-podge of mismatched floating flotsam we had encountered up to this time, we anchored.
This was our first night in Dinner Key with our boat so we put our dinghy down from its davits and went cruising
around with our motor to check the place out.
We discovered our friends Bubba and Linda Schill. It was just like old home week because we had become close
friends back in St. Augustine where they were the first live-aboard boat people we met in Florida.
Bubba gave us some advice about outboard motors at the Dinner Key anchorage and said that the purest sailing
group of the deep-water anchorage does not appreciate them. I said, “Thanks” and went speeding off through the
anchorage. We were up to full speed and hadn’t gone two hundred feet when we were shockingly snatched to an
abrupt halt that sent both Jane and I almost flying over the bow of our little high-speed “Bingy Dinghy”.
We were surprised at the local response of laughter and jeering when the total population of the anchorage came
out to unanimously taunt and boo us in our predicament.
It so happened that one of the boats in the anchorage had been anchored with polypropylene anchor line and that
stuff just happens to float. This was the perfect trap for the speeding outboard dinghy motor and it surely snatched
us to an abrupt halt!
In the future we would be changing our mode of getting around by dinghy and would be rowing and sailing. This
proved to be some kind of a blessing in the end because soon two Arab oil embargoes would all but dry up the
supply of fuel and we also found our mode of getting around by dinghy much enhanced and our standard of living
much improved by rowing and sailing. This lifestyle change probably did more to get us to slow down and thoroughly
appreciate a realm of wonderful real life pleasures not visible to the jet-set community. Yes, a lovely world that was
hidden from the view of all but a very few that we had the good fortune to discover while still possessing enough
youth to savor its precious fruits, which both Jane and I came to cherish.
Above: A time for sailboats. Here I am sailing our Bingy Dinghy along with sailboats under only sail
power approaching the deepwater anchorage at Dinner Key with Biscayne Bay and Key Biscayne in the
background.
Dave McDougal
You have already met Bubba and Linda in the last chapter. Now for some more of their friend Dave McDougal: Even
though Dave was tripping along on some different frequency propelled mentally by the strange chemical
concoctions his group experimented with he did have another side. His oil paintings were prominently displayed in
the most prestigious art galleries in The Grove.
Dave’s new little boat, which he had just purchased had such a small cockpit that Dave complained that in order to
read the Sunday newspaper he had to go to his dinghy to unfold it, which was slightly beamier.
Dave’s sailing outfit was unique to him alone. Rummaging through the marina dumpster, he found some nice high
topped tennis shoes. They were several sizes too small but that didn’t bother Dave… he just cut the toes out. At first
glance, they didn’t look too bad, then a second look revealed his size 12 white feet protruding several inches out of
his size 8 shoes.
Dave was going to be a gentleman sailor so he wore white cotton garden gloves along with a big felt slouch hat like
the old time buccaneers wore when he bravely and fearlessly put out to sea. Dave’s auxiliary power was a canoe
paddle.
Dave was gone on a two-day excursion out into Biscayne Bay. When he returned to Dinner Key, Jane and I asked
him if he would like to join us on an excursion down to southern Biscayne Bay to Sand and Elliot Keys. Dave said,
“No, I can’t”. We asked, “Why?” Dave then said, “My boat only sails in two directions, over to Key Biscayne and
back.”
Dave had the proper sized dinghy; it was his boat that was too small. His sailboat was 19 feet long and very narrow
on the beam. For this reason, Dave was segregated from the deepwater anchorage where he would have been
literally battered to pieces by the open waters of the bay with a 17-mile fetch when a southeaster was blowing.
Therefore, Dave had to anchor up amongst the spoil islands for protection.
(Note; our friends who also sailed these waters, Hein and Siggi Zenker circumnavigated the earth in a boat only one
and a half feet longer than Dave’s little boat See recommended reading at the end of this volume for a description of
Hein and Siggi Zenker’s book “West, Sail West, Man!”)
The (spoil islands) artificial barrier islands had a totally different culture back in the 1970s. These little spoil islands
that were covered with Australian pines, (casuarinas) were the result of Pan American Airline’s development of
Dinner Key for their fleet of flying boats. With deep water on one side and shallow water on the other side of these
islands they were less than 100 yards from the public land access. They became home to numerous squatters.
Transient tenters escaping northern winters and even some longer-term inhabitants took up residence on these little
islands with only several inches of dry soil at high tide.
One guy who had definitely kept to himself had homesteaded on one of the islands and with only some basic hand
tools was in the process of building a well-crafted and nicely fitted out sailboat totally from wood and fittings he had
salvaged from derelict or sunken vessels near Dinner Key. (This made me think of one of the all-time most famous
sailing circumnavigators who was shipwrecked on a lonely beach in Brazil where he then built a boat from
beachcombed lumber and then sailed all the way home to Massachusetts. Joshua Slocum named that boat
“Liberdade”. Another coincidence is the fact that Joshua Slocomb’s last port of call was Dinner Key. At the end of
this volume, see recommended reading about Joshua Slocum’s books)
For interesting characters and real sailors this was the cross roads where the mix was complete from the world
renowned Joshua Slocoms’ of this planet all the way down to the idiots on their “idiot boats” stranded on “idiot shoal”.
A description of the deepwater anchorage at Dinner Key in Coconut Grove just would not be complete without a
description of what we referred to as the “idiot boats”.
The Dinner Key sailboat rentals catered to anybody that could hit the deck with the cash and take their chances at
the helm, renting by the hour these 19-foot open sloop rigged fiberglass motorless sailboats.
Most of these boats left the dock with a crew of 6 or 8 want-to-be sailors that didn’t have even the slightest notion of
what they were doing and didn’t even much care…this was a lark.
This was just like kids in the bumper-cars at the carnival where they were turned loose to bump and bash their way
along. They sat in amazement and seemed content letting the boat take them from one collision or grounding to
another.
A big difference here was that this was not in the confinement of the carnival bumper-car attraction. These want-to-
be sailors set out amongst some of the most expensive yachts to be found anywhere.
Within the protected spoil islands of Dinner Key, it was no more than a lark to bob around and play silly bathtub
games. But occasionally, with some persistence, one of these want-to-be sailors would manage to sail or drift out
past the barrier spoil islands and into Biscayne Bay where they then imagined that they had arrived upon the high
seas. This is where the deepwater anchorage is located.
Unable to control their vessels they would plow through the anchorage smashing everything in sight. One Sunday
alone we were struck five different times: one time with a direct broadside hit while the idiot boat was on a sprinting
beam reach. That impact was so intense that the forestay of the idiot boat snapped on impact and then proceeded
to whip around our spreaders like a cracked bullwhip. Well, there they were impaled and lashed to our vessel. Of
course, when I was finally able to turn them free their mast took a dive to their deck and our nerves were shot. Next,
that same day one of these want-to-be sailors came clipping by and tore our dinghy out of our davits where it was
hanging. This time the entire transom of our dinghy was ripped out. Our poor dinghy was smashed, rammed and
sunk countless times by the idiots.
Just north of the deepwater anchorage is located a shallow known as Idiot Shoal. Invariably one of these idiot boats
after terrorizing the anchorage would run aground on Idiot Shoal. First, they would sit mystified wondering why their
“bumper boats” were no longer moving and were rendered harmless to the boats that they had just terrorizing. After
several feeble attempts to get moving again, we would then hear their plaintive screams and shouts for help!
Aground in six inches of water is hardly reason for panic, but that is exactly what the idiots would do. After a
reasonable length of time, one of the boaters from the anchorage would feel a pang of conscience and holler over
to tell the idiot to roll up their pants and shove off.
Late in the afternoon, a motorboat from the rental company would come out in search of the want–to-be sailors that
could not manage to maneuver their rental boat back to the dock. In large bold print on each side of this motorboat
were written the words, “IDIOT RETRIEVER”. The only comical part of this chain of events was that now these want-
to-be’s had earned their title of “idiot boats”.
It was interesting to observe that after their one-hour rental these want-to-be sailors would return to the dock and
then strut around as if they were now accomplished sailors just returning from an ocean crossing.
Tom and Travis; our deep-water anchorage neighbors at Dinner Key
These two social misfits were a couple of the nicest and naturally most humorous boaters that in many ways made
the rest of us in the boating community appear somewhat conservative. Their wooden boat was a rakish rustic relic
of the past with its long bowsprit and raked back mast. Nearly a hundred years old at the time, it had spent most of
its life as a purebred sailboat without a motor. The motor was installed when the boat was some fifty years old. It was
bolted sidesaddle to the keel and the propeller shaft came out a fitting on the side of the vessel…it worked.
Tom and Travis had but one sail and were both unaware of the mysterious doings of how to make the boat move
under sail.
We never found out how this like-minded team of two hooked up together but they both had a special attitude and
disposition that drew them into the same profession. The high pay and independence were pluses but the
exuberating highs coupled with not having a supervisor looking over their shoulder made radio tower painting and
repair their kind of job; a utopian dream come true. This line of work wasn’t for everybody but Tom and Travis weren’
t just everybody, they too marched to a different drummer. These guys weren’t the village idiots, quite the contrary,
they were both well read, educated, well traveled and possessed an inquisitive intellect. They came from good
families and Tom’s sister was a judge in Wisconsin.
The ironic thing was that here we were together at a very troubling time in history striking out for the freedom of the
sea together.
Being next-door neighbors in the Dinner Key deepwater anchorage, we did neighborly things.
We cooked a lot of meals together on our boat with its spacious galley and Tom and Travis got involved. Fresh
seafood was abundantly available and we only had to make the decision of what we wanted for dinner, then just go
out and collect it in the prolific waters of the bay.
A big hit was Jane’s homemade wine. Coconut, orange and prickly pear cactus wines were all made from local fruits.
In those days a walk through the park at Dinner Key’s bay front would yield huge bags full of downed coconuts on a
windy day…free for the taking…we made wine and shredded and roasted the rest.
Tom and Travis were eager to get into our lifestyle of living off the land and out of the sea. For starters wine making
perked their interests the most. Tom and Travis got Jane’s basic wine recipe and were quick to innovate it.
What came next will forever remind me of those two free spirits. These guys definitely weren’t out to impress but to
do exactly what fulfilled their lives and in their simple way made our little boating community and the world for that
matter a better place to be.
Jane’s basic wine recipe called for these basic ingredients: water, fruit, sugar and yeast. In looking over their boats
larder of provisions Tom and Travis discovered that they possessed the main ingredients. They had an over
abundance of blackberry Jell-O and its main ingredient was sugar…perfect…now all they needed to add was yeast,
water and wait. Curiosity and impatience soon brought temptation to the point of uncontrolled irresistibility. Two days
of wine making would be enough. The ghastly colored concoction took on a strange new tone of iridescence as the
yeast consumed the sugar and the bacteria piss set off some strange chain of chemical events interacting with the
Jell-O’s artificial coloring. The least offensive part of this witches brew was the aroma and taste of the
yeast…something that even halfway decent wine will attempt to brew out. Yes, Tom and Travis were on their way to
making alcohol but to call this ghastly stuff wine was a real stretch of the imagination. Ironically, they bravely drank it
up and low and behold they polished it off completely before it was a week old. We had never met anybody so easy
to please.
In this time of American history many consumer products became in short supply and literally disappeared from
stores shelves. (This was usually in conjunction with copiously larger quantities of those scarce items returning but
at much higher prices.) At this time we were running out of toilet paper …of all things and by some strange
coincidence Tom and Travis had three full cases of the stuff, a several year supply. After some wine drinking and
deliberations, a swap was worked out. We would trade one of our three sets of encyclopedias for two cases of toilet
paper. Everyone was happy.
Another thing that was happening at the time was that the national economy had almost stalled. The unemployment
lines were long. Travis was reading the newspaper one day about the unemployed persons lamenting that their
unemployment compensation would soon run out. He put down the newspaper and said to us, “I’m not coming back
until I have a job”. That was at noon. At 6 PM, he returned to the boat tired but vindicated. He had started by just
walking down the street knocking on every door and asking for work. He did admit that it was tough and he didn’t
have any success until 5 PM as the shops were beginning to close. He had accomplished his mission and would
start work the following morning at a print shop.
This next caper has to go down as one of the all-time greatest. Here is what happened; The Miss Universe pageant
was about to be held in Miami and Tom and Travis got the notion that they would try to crash the gate and sneak in.
First, they went over to Miami Beach where the pageant was being held and tried to buy tickets, but none were
available and their hopes of getting in dimmed. Next a crafty scheme was developed. Tom would put on the act of
being a spastic and Travis would act out the part of being his nurse. The story presented must have been worthy of
an Oscar nomination because they not only got in but got a special seat right up front. Tom’s spastic routine got
them seats amongst the rich and famous. The capper came as they laughingly related this whole story of when they
were finally seated and the lady next to them said; “nice show boys, but you can cut the act now.”
These guys were always up for adventure and when we told them about our fabulous times anchored down at Elliot
and Sand Keys in southern Biscayne Bay they were ready to set sail.
The only problem was that they only had the one sail and that was their big jib plus they really didn’t know anything
about sailing or boat handling. With persistence, they made the 17-mile trip in two days and came in to anchor next
to us. Another fabulous time was had by all! They were eager to learn how to sail especially with the Arab oil
embargo and the scarcity of gasoline and diesel fuel.
I gave them many helpful pointers and explained how we managed to visit all of the Florida Keys and not burn a
drop of diesel fuel. We even sailed up our anchor and we didn’t even have an anchor winch, the sails did the work
for us.
Sure enough, they put into practice some of my sailing ideas. As they prepared for their departure, we watched.
First with their helm tied, up went their only sail, their jib which was sheeted in tight. (I only use the main sail for this
caper because the rig is then more balanced and controllable.) Just as I had described the boat moved ahead
gently and silently as the jib added power. Then we noticed the look of shock and alarm. Then the anchor was free
and the vessel sprightly and gently gathered speed for a perfect departure. Tom and Travis didn’t know what to do
next with the helm weathercocked, hard over but unable to overpower the center of effort sailing with jib only. Then
they helplessly watched their vessel bear down on us for a broad side slamming. Their oversized bowsprit came at
Dursmirg like a jouster’s javelin. In a couple of seconds, it was over except for the profound apologies. The impact
was incredible, throwing all of us off balance and clutching for survival. The most amazing thing was that there was
not any structural damage to either boat, only some smudged paint. By some quirk of fate, their bowsprit missed one
of our big portholes by inches. As soon as we all evaluated the situation and discovered that there was no damage,
we all had a good laugh.
The world would be a better place to live if only there were more Tom and Travis’s around.
WARREN (RED) AND NIRA BROWN
In our travels of Dursmirg over the years, Jane and I had the very good fortune to meet and get to know a wide
variety of people. These people ranged from wealthy to poor and spanned a diverse spectrum of personalities with
one common thread; they were unique individuals doing what motivated them most, the pursuit of their dreams.
Ironically this next couple captured that motivating sentiment of that thought in the name of their boat, Our Dream.
Warren (Red) and Nira Brown marched to the tune of a different drummer and in no way set out to impress or flaunt
whatever they had.
Jane and I became close friends with these two unusual eccentrics and over the years in many of our boating and
even land travels always went out of our way to rendezvous. So, dear reader you will come across Warren and Nira
Brown a number of times in the volumes of “The Travels of Dursmirg”.
Warren and Nira Brown, their boat, their life, Key Hopper and their kerosene refrigeration;
Warren and Nira’s 42 foot wooden two masted schooner, Our Dream, Warren had custom built in Marsh Harbor,
Bahamas. They owned land in the Abacos Islands of the Bahamas and used to sail over to the Bahamas on
extended trips with plans of ultimately setting up a back to nature home site. They set sail at night from Dinner Key
towing their 19-foot sailboat, Key Hopper, heavly laden to the point of questionable buoyancy.
The reason for sailing at night was that both Warren and Nira had fair skin and could not tolerate the bright sun on
the high seas. They always left fully overloaded because Warren was such a pack rat that he just could not bear to
leave behind and part with anything he had ever laid his hands on.
On one of their last trips over to their land in the Bahamas their overloaded Key Hopper took a trip to the bottom
and Nira told me later that might have been a blessing in disguise.
Pack rat: Warren had snooped around every inch of the Miami area and thoroughly beach combed the adjacent
Keys searching for his treasures.
Here I have to explain the situation when Jane and I first met Warren and Nira Brown. They were living aboard their
42-foot wooded sailing schooner Our Dream at the Dinner Key anchorage in south Miami on Biscayne Bay. The
boat was a beautifully designed Tom Colvin classic that they had custom built in the Bahamas. Warren had a
kerosene powered absorption refrigeration system aboard his boat that I believe was the first I had ever seen and
was definitely the only boat in the anchorage that enjoyed the luxury of refrigeration at anchor without the help of an
electrical generator set. On hot afternoons when Jane and I would stop over to the Our Dream for a visit Nira loved
to prepare one of her favorite cold frappe iced drinks called Whistler’s Punch. Made by beating in the blender ice,
sweetened condensed milk, dark rum and pineapple this treat was even more spectacular considering that it was
prepared using ice made aboard their boat and even their portable generator drove the blender at anchor no matter
where they happened to call home.
We shortly thereafter installed our own kerosene powered absorption refrigeration system aboard our Dursmirg.
Occasionally we would sit down below in the main salon of Our Dream that was nearly packed to capacity. We
observed that their front berth was jam crammed tighter than sardines in a sardine can with Warren’s treasures. On
other occasions, we would sit out on deck under their Bimini sunshade. The deck was literary littered with portable
pumps, generator sets and various cartons and crates containing the damnedest collection of nearly useless
mismatched and unrelated items of dubious usefulness. Here I have to admit that when I was looking for a cover for
a water jug and asked Warren, he just emptied on his deck the contents of a large bag and low and behold out
flowed several hundred covers he had collected over the years and yes he had exactly what I needed…so thank
you Warren.
Besides their ever-filling vessel, they had a second boat that they called their Key Hopper that turned out to be their
floating overflow warehouse that was riding low in the water burdened with its heavy load.
Warren could not possibly store his complete inventory of hoarded treasures aboard his two boats and I discovered
quite by chance several of his stashes down in the Keys of southern Biscayne Bay. In his stashes, he actually had
several dinghies and a collection of lumber enough to build a small house besides other unrelated things of curious
and indescribable origin. As the years passed Warren’s pack rat instincts made it impossible for visitors to the Our
Dream to venture below decks because the mounting pile of Warren’s treasures was totally filling and crowding them
out of their own boat. In the end not even a place was left to put your foot down. After a visit to Warren and Nira’s
boat Jane and I would return home to our Dursmirg with an uncontrollable urge to pitch something overboard,
anything, just so that we would not slip into that “packrat” mentality.
Warren and Nira had also made it their business to identify and locate nearly every species of plant to be found in
the area plus the usefulness and edibility of them too. Jane and I first sampled prickly pear syrup over homemade
ice cream aboard their vessel and instantly acquired a passionate appetite for it. Of course, anytime we ran into
Warren down in the Keys he would inadvertently have his hat full of freshly picked prickly pear fruit and would never
divulge were the plants were located. (We were able to locate all that we could use and soon discovered that they
made one of the most exotic fresh fruit wines on the planet earth. Bottled in heavy champagne bottles while still
kicking and consumed young, this sparkling deep magenta colored wine was more than just a wonderful wine, it is a
heavenly experience.)
Warren, with a pair of 25-power binoculars got his thrills. One of the attractions that caught his undivided attention
was when a local sailboat owned by a man named Arthur would sail the bay with his crew of sunbathing beauties all
in the nude.
Nira also gave us our first beer recipe, “Groundwater’s homebrew for a penny a bottle”, and that got us started in
the homebrew business, which we have continued to this day.
Warren knew how to live off the land and the sea and always kept a fish trap where he could count on pulling up a
fresh mangrove snapper or grouper whenever he got the urge for a fish dinner.
Warren used to boast that they could live for two weeks down in the Keys from just one chicken. Here is how he did
it; first, they would have a roast chicken dinner, then cold cuts, then soup and with the remaining bones he would
bait his fish trap which would then provide them with fresh fish. The bones and guts of the cleaned fish were then in
turn used as bait for more fish.
We have known these fine and eccentric people for many years and have seen how their lives changed with the
times and their beliefs.
When we first met we heard the story of their ultimate dream of homesteading their property over in the Bahamas
Islands and becoming totally self-sufficient in every way. They soon took up some offbeat religion through some
radio ministry that advocated no shellfish and that included shrimp, conch and lobster, which were the basic foods
available over in the Bahamas waters.
Some time later Lyndon Baines Johnson got his food stamp program going which Warren and Nira quickly adopted.
Just as the federal government plundered the American Indians by giving them just enough money to survive but not
prosper and eventually this took their initiative away, Warren was robbed of his dreams.
Warren and Nira Brown sailing their Our Dream on Biscayne Bay.
Oh, by the way!
(A note about those Gulf Stream crossings; this was the Straits of Florida and here the swift north flowing Gulf
Stream current is filled with all sorts of marine traffic much like the congested waters of the English Channel.
Depending upon the size and speed of your vessel, your perspective of the dangers completely change. Jane and I
have had the opportunity to transverse the English Channel on a 600-foot freighter while observing the entire show
from the control bridge nine floors above sea level and witnessing the full and intense attention to detail of the entire
bridge deck crew. They made a coordinated effort to plot a course through that incredible maze of vessel traffic
while making better than 20 knots of forward speed.
We have also crossed the English Channel on huge ferries but until you are down at water level bobbing along in a
little sailboat making five or six knots through this maze of multi-thousand ton freighter traffic some of which is
steaming along at better than twenty knots, the real feeling of anxiety can’t truly be appreciated. Of course these
conditions can always get worse when fog sets in, a gale blows up or all to the above happens in the dark of night.
As long as I am on the subject of these crossings, I might as well relate some other stories pertaining to this subject;
An old couple sailing their sailboat from Miami to the Bahamas at night passed behind the stern of a large ocean-
going tugboat and had the unwelcome surprise of running into the tugs towrope. The net result was that their boat
was swept along the towrope some five hundred feet before it became impaled under the bow of the barge being
towed. They at least were fortunate enough to be able to climb aboard the barge before their little sailboat was
swept under the barge and sunk. For five days they sat atop the barge unable to signal the crew of the tug until they
ultimately arrived in Puerto Rico.
Another tragic story of this crossing from Miami to the Bahamas took place aboard a small sailboat when the
husband was manning the helm while his wife slept below. The wife noticed that the boat was behaving strangely
she went out on deck to inspect and to her horror found that her husband had vanished. It was thought that he had
gone to relieve himself and lost his footing and fell overboard. No trace of him has ever been found. (These people
were some friends of our friends.)
Another hair-raising experience and this one happened to me on a boat delivery I was making from Trinidad down in
the Caribbean near the South American coast to Key West, Florida. I made this eleven-day trip in a fiberglass 75-
foot, 128-ton displacement Desco Trawler. After crossing the Caribbean, we came up the Old Spanish Channel past
Cuba and the Cay Sal Banks before crossing the Gulf Stream on our approach to Key West.
The seas were running with a steep chop very common in these waters and the night was black as smut as I came
up into the wheelhouse to relieve my 83-year-old Swedish mate Dick Janson. It only took me a split second to see
the eminent disaster approaching. A container freighter was upon us and they are noted for their speed that often
times exceed 25 knots. We were on a direct collision course and meeting at right angles. With less than a split
second to impact, I snatched the autopilot lever off with one hand and spun the helm wheel over hard to starboard
so that the impact would at least be lessoned. With a racing heart, I braced for the impending impact but evidently
good fortune was with us because we escaped unscathed…I am sure that not a single soul aboard that freighter
even had the slightest notion of our presence. So there you have it, “ships that pass in the night”.
Another near disaster occurred also at night in the waters of the Gulf Stream as Jane and I traveled north from
Miami to Fort Pierce in the Straits of Florida aboard our Dursmirg.
At night the lights of shore are dazzlingly bright and continuous along the entire coast with high-rise hotels and
condominiums ablaze in a myriad of various colored illumination. This is known as the Gold Coast. Offshore, by
contrast the blackness of night is amplified. Vessel and navigational marker lights inshore of your vessel become
bafflingly commingled amongst the unending array of shoreline lights. Eyestrain and intense scrutinizing of the
waters for other traffic is imperative with the huge quantity of commercial traffic mixed with the occasional small
fishing or sailboats that transverse between Florida and the Bahamas Islands.
Jane and I were both on deck this night some six miles offshore where we would be able to take full advantage of the
Gulf Stream’s north setting currents when we were instantly shocked by what we next saw. Directly in front of our
course a huge freighter that had been laying there totally in the dark with absolutely no lights suddenly switched on
its full array of deck lights. We were at that time almost too close to avoid a collision but because we were manually
steering our vessel at the time I was able to take the evasive action at the last second to avoid a collision that could
have easily sent us to the bottom in more than 200 fathoms of water.
Norm and Allene McFarland; These two people were among the very few of the Dinner Key sailing community that
were straight, solid citizens, working normal jobs, that lived in a normal home in a normal neighborhood and even
belonged to the Dinner Key Sailing Club.
We met quite by chance down at Elliot Key. We were invited aboard their 30-foot sailboat boat Kai-Via for evening
drinks, accepted and struck up a friendship.
We believe that they were just curious and wanted to see what kind of strange people would actually sail in such an
unconventional boat as ours. I felt that they were looking for anything that would be a step out of their structured
and strictly regulated Miami Lakes yuppie neighborhood environment. Well, they found it when they met us and
became acquainted with all of our square peg friends.
Here is a short story about a trip that Norm, Allene, Jane and I made together aboard their boat to the Bahamas
Islands.
Trip to the Bahamas Islands aboard their boat Kai-Via; we left from Hurricane Harbor on Biscayne Key before
sunrise and sailed off to Bimini, Bahamas where we saw an old cement cargo ship similar to the one we had seen at
Cape May, New Jersey. (In volume 1 of Travels of Dursmirg, you will find the story and a photo.) They were used as
military cargo ships during the war and were later abandoned and used as breakwaters. We also got to swim with
the biggest barracudas we had ever seen. They were bigger than we were and we had the notion to tread air and
save our swimming for places that were less intimidating. We had had experience with these lightning striking eating
machines that would strike anything that even reasonably looked like a possible meal. I always figured that I did not
have an extra few pounds of flesh to feed to the barracudas.
We sailed the shallow expansive Bahamas Banks from Bimini. We discovered that the Bahamanian markers were
either out or nonfunctioning and sometimes totally missing so our navigational abilities were put to good use
calculating the side setting currents plus the drift of our vessel under sail on that two day passage across the
Bahamas banks. These were the days before Sat-navigation and GPS.
We did manage to catch our dinner of fresh fish by trolling using our Cuban Yo-Yo and a slick trip line I devised
using a spring loaded clothespin . Barracuda and Spanish mackerel were there for the taking. Norm and Allene
would not eat the barracuda and it was definitely the very best of the two fish…sometimes we just win by default.
I provided supper with this barracuda landed while crossing the Bahamas Banks.
As we sailed across the “Tongue of the Ocean” headed for the port city Nassau and capital of the Bahamas I was
asked by Allene how far it was to shore. When I answered that we were only about a mile and a half from shore she
got a questioning expression on her face and said, “I can’t see any shore”. My reply was, yes indeed it was only a
mile and a half to shore…straight down”. I do not think that she had ever conceptualized that the water under our
little vessel could be that deep and she actually trembled at the thought as we crossed the Tongue of the Ocean.
Nassau was an impressive city from afar with its many huge white gleaming cruise ships tied at the downtown
municipal pier.
We tied at a laid-back marina that charged prices higher than the Florida Gold Coast “gold-plater” marinas and set
out to explore this strange island notorious for its downtown street market district.
When the British controlled the islands several years earlier I can’t imagine that the state of hygiene and order could
possibly have been as decrepit and uncaring as the city we now were witnessing.
The streets were not just dirty but piled high with drifts of garbage that must have taken years to accumulate and the
locals were evidently totally blind to its existence. A few women sat in the shade weaving straw hats and baskets that
they were selling at tourist rip-off prices. We were surprised that much of the basketry being displayed as native
crafts carried labels from China.
Everything we encountered in Nassau was more than just expensive, it was prohibitive. A case of beer that sold for
less then $5.00 in Miami sold in Nassau for more than $20.00 Food also was stratospherically high priced and we
had a hard time understanding how the locals could cope with the prices and still exist…this was not a rich country.
One thing that I did manage to obtain at a local hardware store was repair parts for our kerosene powered
absorption refrigeration system for our boat Dursmirg. It turns out that many of the out-islands of the Bahamas had
no electric service or very little that could be relied upon for refrigeration purposes so the islanders relied upon
kerosene refrigeration using the Swedish Electrolux burners. Of the small out-island grocery stores we visited we
noticed that the stores would have one top loading freezer run off of kerosene and that was the extent of their
refrigeration. The locals did not have ice or things like ice cream that were definitely luxuries. The islanders still
traveled intra-island by sailboat with no auxiliary power for their commerce and socializing; they were excellent
sailors. Their sailboats were their link to the outside world and played a crucial part in all aspects of their lives.
When hurricane winds piped up and threatened these islanders they had a simple system to save their precious
boats. Their unsophisticated tactic was to remove everything of value and that included the mast and rigging which
they brought home. Then they would merely pull their boat to deeper water and pull the plug to scuttle the vessel
where it would sit on the bottom to wait out the storms passing. With the storm gone, the boat would be pulled to
shallow water and bailed out.
It seemed like such a paradox to watch these islander sailboats silently traversing Nassau harbor under sail with
their homemade vessels and patch upon patch sails grayed with age while at the same time you could see the huge
gleaming cruise liners with generators roaring to illuminate the thousands of lights that made them into reeking of
decadence objects of awe; a paradoxical example of the two worlds set side by side.
Across the harbor from where we tied at a marina we could not help but notice the mountainous heap of pink conch
shells, a by-product of the Bahamas fishing industry. The local fishermen from their sail powered vessels harvested
the shells for its meat. They went out upon the Bahamas banks to collect them. I had always thought that they dove
for these shells but instead while standing aboard their boat and peering onto the crystal clear waters they used
long poles with a right-angled forks on the end to slip under the shells and then merely lifted the conch aboard. The
water is so very clear that spotting the shells is like shooting ducks in a barrel. These Bahamanian conch fisherman
drift over the shallow banks standing with their poles ready to snatch the conch and fill their boats, then sail back to
town with their catch to collect their cash.
We spent a couple of weeks sailing out to the Exuma Islands and beyond and though the waters were extremely
clear and beautiful, the anchorages were crammed full of sail boaters and harvesting any seafood in the vicinity of
those anchorages challenged my abilities to the limit because of the competition for the limited resources. I did
manage to provide fresh conch every day we wanted it but the hunt entailed at least eight hours of diligent diving
effort…that is not even working for minimum wages even at Bahaman rip-off prices.
We had a very good time, the Bahamas Islands are interesting, beautiful and distinctive but we have never been
inspired to make a return trip.
Jane and I clean the fresh caught conch on one of the small Bahamas Islands.
These are our friends Norm and Allene McFarland aboard their getaway cruising sailboat Kai-Via during
our out island Bahamas adventure trip.
BACK TO THE DINNER KEY ANCHORAGE
I am not going to attempt to write a story about everyone living in the anchorage but I will just tell the stories of a few
interesting incidents of various transient visitors to this strange out of the loop water world.
Deb and Grant Ball visit; they drove down from their home in Melbourne to Dinner Key at Coconut Grove where we
had our boat Dursmirg anchored for a several day sailing trip down into the Keys.
The afternoon that they arrived we all went shopping to provision for the trip.
Because of a windstorm and the small size of our dinghy, I sailed Jane and Deb out to our anchored boat Dursmirg
then returned to pick up Grant and the provisions. The dinghy was filled to near capacity as grant and I sailed away
from the dock heading for Dursmirg anchored out in the deep-water anchorage. I hoisted the sail and gave Grant
the main sheet to control the set of the sail and I took the tiller to steer the dinghy.
The wind was literally screaming as we made our downwind passage out the channel to the deep-water anchorage.
The wind speed was more than we needed and the little dinghy quickly surpassed its hull speed as it threw off a
large bow wake. The wind piped up further and I told Grant to sheet in the sail in order to spill the excess wind…we
needed to spill wind or we would soon sail under. (This condition can occur when downwind sailing in high winds.
The center of force is located up in the sail and the center of lateral resistance and buoyancy are located down in
the vessel, below the waterline. Well, as these forces intensify with high wind and high boat speed the result is
simple, like a huge lever arm the bow of the vessel is literally pried down.) Yes, our bow was going down!
The first time I told Grant to sheet the boom in, he let it out further, making it worse. The second time I said, “Sheet it
in Grant!” he let the sheet go free all together and the boom slammed against the shroud thus extending the sail to
intercept the maximum brunt of the winds force. This chain of events occurred so rapidly I had no time to bring the
dinghy around into the wind and we took a trip to the bottom.
We spent the next hour swimming after our soaked and sunken provisions…some floated.
On our days together we wound up having a really fine time swimming, fishing and beach combing down at Sand
Key in southern Biscayne Bay.
Their last day with us we all headed to the beach for beach combing. Sand Key has a fascinating feature in that in
days gone by some developer had dredged a channel and also an inner harbor into the Key. This is where we
would land our dinghy, then walk east through the woods to the seaside beach.
To our astonishment when we arrived at the beach, we encountered a huge neatly packed and bound bale of
marijuana.
The first question, what to do next? We did not want to touch it, it could be a government plant and sting operation
and we for sure did not want to be in possession! We collectively decided to slit the pack and let the sea take care
of its disposal.
We wound up powering back to Miami into a strong headwind because Grant and Deb had to go to work the next day
Back at Dinner Key we casually mentioned to our friend Warren Brown from the schooner Our Dream and our
neighbor that we had discovered a bale of pot on the beach at Sand Key. Within minutes, there was a mass exodus
of boats racing off in the direction of Sand Key.
Grant and Deb were like us and did not touch any mind-altering substances except alcohol.
Dale Nichols and Jon Moin visit us in Miami and then we sail to Marathon
Jane and I took the city bus to the airport to meet Dale and Jon when they arrived.
As Jane and I waited for Dale and Jon to exit the airplane, we were surprised to see the first person out the door was
Cassius Clay, (Mohammad Ali), with no fanfare, photographers or news media…just his big winning smile and a
wave. We did later see a film clip of Mohammad Ali’s trip to Miami and another one of his famous rhyming one-liners;
“A coon to the moon by June or the jig is up”. His humor mixed with wit made him one of the most colorful sports
people of all-time.
We bused back to The Grove with a change of bus in downtown Miami…our visitors were impressed with the racial
diversity…there was nothing like this place in the 1970s.
We took the dinghy out to the Dursmirg and set sail for Sand Key that very afternoon. After some beachcombing,
swimming and fishing we set sail again for Marathon by way of the Hawk Channel, which affords a place for spirited
sailing without the high seas of the open ocean protected by a barrier reef.
We had a group of six with our friends Norm and Allene McFarland and drove from Boot Key anchorage at Marathon
to Key West for the day to do all of the tourist things.
Dale and Jon flew back home from Marathon the next day and we were surely happy that we did not have to go back
to face the humdrum work-a-day world that awaited them.
Jon Moin and Dale Nichols aboard Dursmirg
Carl and Sonja/ Ed and Eunice Pearson come to visit us at Dinner Key and sail to Elliot Key and anchor:
Jane’s parents drove down from Wisconsin to visit us and Jane’s uncle and aunt, Carl and Sonja Pearson. They all
came over to our boat at anchor at Dinner Key. Then we enjoyed a banquet catered by Jane’s aunt Sonja; a
fabulous feed done up in all the appropriate elegant serving dishes with the fancy frills of the rich and famous. Jane’
s aunt and uncle managed the Allworth mansion at Miami Beach. Jane’s aunt Sonja was the culinary coordinator
there and she sure knew her business. We were all very impressed.
I made several dinghy boat trips to shore as shuttle boat service, which lent a special atmosphere to the day’s
activities.
One of several trips I made in our Bingy Dinghy shuttling Jane’s folks and her Aunt Sonja and uncle Carl
from shore to Dursmirg anchored in the deep-water anchorage at Dinner Key. In this photo, my father-in-
law Ed and I approach the Dursmirg under sail in our little dinghy, quietly burning no fuel.
Aboard Dursmirg and seated at the dinette looking over a scrapbook of photos and newspaper clippings
are Jane’s aunt Sonja and Jane’s mother Eunice Pearson.
Seated in the main salon of Dursmirg, Jane’s Dad Ed Pearson and her uncle Carl Pearson check our
photos of our adventures.
Jane’s Mom examines part of our collection of beachcombing treasures that include sea-beans, palm
nuts and our favorite seashells.
A collection of different sizes, shapes and colors of sea beans just as they look when found on the
beach. Later in this chapter are photos of the sea beans that we have polished and buffed to make into
jewelry. Jane and I always had a competition to see who could find the most sea beans.
We were easily amused and had the time of our lives with these simple carefree self indulgences when
the world was ours and we had our youth.
In my autobiography I write about how my sea bean infatuation started in the 1940s with Billy the Bean Buffer from
Briny Breezes at Boynton Beach.
Above a sample of some of our best beach combing finds.
Above are earrings and a pendant I made and polished from palm nuts found along the Florida Keys. No
varnish or wax is used, only lots of time and persistent buffing.
At anchor at Dinner Key with Key Biscayne far off in the distance on the other side of the bay: Jane’s
Mom, Eunice and her aunt Sonja enjoy one of the very best waterfront views to be found in the Miami
area from the deck of Dursmirg.
We made a driving tour to some of the places that we thought would be a big hit. The Space Transit Planetarium
across the street from the Dodge family’s estate “Viscaya” situated on the shore of Biscayne Bay was a must. Here
we took in one of our all-time very favorite shows, “Child of the Universe” by Isaac Asimov. To us this thought
provoking philosophical planetarium presentation was a “high-light attraction” for any visitor to Miami.
Next over to Key Biscayne with a visit to Florida State Park, Nixon’s home and then Crandon Park for a swim in the
briny Atlantic. On to Little Havana and dinner at our favorite Cuban restaurant, “La Esquina de Tejas”. After an
exquisite meal with all the trimmings in traditional Cuban style we took an after dinner drive over to Miami Beach for
a look at the beach crowd who were mostly retired Jewish New Yorkers down for the season to get the frost out of
their old bones. Lining the hotel patios, shoulder to shoulder, along most of Collins Avenue these old timers
entertainment was to people watch so we too were people watching as we drove along. Jane’s folks were sure that
they did not want any part of that type of lifestyle.
This had been a busy day, but fun filled and loaded with pleasant memories.
The next day Jane’s parents set sail with us for a trip down Biscayne Bay through the Featherbed Banks where both
Jane and her father thought that I was cutting the channel a little too close. Sure enough I ran us aground and I
received several; “I told you so’s” from Jane. We had to crank the engine to power off.
That afternoon we anchored offshore of Elliot Key in “Biscayne National Monument”. We had talked all day about all
the lobsters at Elliot Key and Jane’s newly acquired swimming and diving abilities.
We anchored and all went for a swim over the side of Dursmirg using the boat as a swim platform and our boarding
ladder for easy access to our super sized swimming pool.
Jane and I both spent over an hour that afternoon diving for lobster and only managed to get one that was just
marginally of legal size. It just goes to show you what too much bragging will do to the fishing results and I again
received some more, “I told you so’s” from Jane.
It was great and we all had many wonderful memories to last our lifetimes.
Bud and Joyce Partridge: This interesting pair lived a conventional life, worked at conventional jobs, had a
conventional house, owned a conventional sailboat and belonged to the Dinner Key Sailing Club but they evidently
yearned to be drop-out boat-bums.
They were long time friends to our mutual friends Warren and Nira Brown and that is how we came to meet them.
Bud was quiet, reserved, retired from 44-years at Florida Power and Light and late to marry. Joyce was
effervescent, outgoing, daring, flamboyant and on her third marriage.
This was the “odd-couple”, but they together struck off on any kind of adventure that presented itself, in their
sailboat or their VW “hippie-van”.
Bud and Joyce Partridge boarding their totally gadget laden boat Curlew II from their dinghy.
Bud and Joyce in their perfectly painted and meticulously appointed dinghy that had a complete
collection of bolt-ons and add-ons that represented all that the marine stores had to offer.
During our times in south Florida, Jane and I managed many times over the years to spend interesting and
entertaining times together with Bud and Joyce. They always would hunt us down whether they were cruising by boat
or hippie van and we likewise would go out of our way for rendezvous. You can read about one of our memorable
evenings spent together in chapter 4 of volume 3 where I describe “Little Havana” and downtown Miami after dark in
the 1970s.
FRED AND ANN EVERSON, DINNER KEY MARINA AT COCONUT GROVE
Jane and I first met Fred and Ann in St. Augustine in October 1974 while we had our boat Dursmirg docked for five
days at the City Yacht Pier.
I had just had an appendectomy and docking the boat was an imperative so that I could board it after surgery.
We actually had a fabulous five days at the dock in spite of my recent surgery and lots of visitors.
In our years living aboard we lived at anchor almost exclusively and therefore our visitors were limited to boaters.
Now we got pedestrian traffic.
I was confined to the boat and spent most of my time stoking our smoke oven cooking fish that was abundantly
provided by our neighbors.
This is when Fred and Ann came into our lives.
Fred had just sold his lucrative electronic appliance warranty business in Canada. They were heading south to the
Sun Belt aboard their steel sailboat, Moonspinner.
Fred was a resourceful type of chap that never had any problem asking around for what ever he needed and the
evening we met we invited he and Ann aboard after Fred had approached us looking for patch material to repair his
inflatable dinghy. Well, I didn’t have exactly what he was looking for but we got him back in business with some 3-M
vinyl tape that I used to sell in my previous wholesale business back in Wisconsin.
Our next encounter was in Miami where Fred and Ann had sold their steel sailboat and purchased a bare fiberglass
hull for a price that was a give-away and didn’t even equal the cost of materials. The 54-foot hull set Fred back less
than $10,000. They then began to do the finishing work and were doing a very professional job.
Fred always found the very best deal to be found anywhere and sure enough, Fred and Ann got dockage at the City
of Miami Marina at Dinner Key, which happens to be the very best dockage deal in all of Florida.
They had plans of doing some extensive cruising with their new boat but Fred soon discovered that he loved his
creature comforts too much to leave the dock with its electric power, running water, phone hook up, shower room
and car parking. They made several trips to the Bahamas and a couple of trips to Biscayne National Park but Fred
found that the freedom of the wide open spaces wasn’t exactly what he had been dreaming of and inconvenience of
any kind didn’t sit well with him…he just wasn’t cut out to suffer.
It also turned out that they had two children that came to live with them after they became settled at the dock in
Dinner Key. Ten-year-old Charley and his teen-age sister went to school in the Grove so that was somewhat of an
anchor that kept the cruising limited to school vacations.
Jane and I tied our dinghy at their boat when we went to shore and that was a real convenience to us. Fred also
invited us to use his shop and electric power when we needed it and that is where Jane and I gave each other
haircuts when we were in Miami.
Fred and I worked out a swap that was good for both of us. I got his gas absorption refrigeration system, which I
converted to run on kerosene in exchange for a 110-volt belt driven AC generator; Fred was happy and I think that I
was. It took me nearly two weeks to get that refrigeration system functional and efficiently running. When I did finally
achieve success, the result was wonderful and we were very happy. The thing only burned a cup of fuel a day and
would freeze a case of beer as solid as Popsicles in no time at all.
Ann was Fred’s third wife and he told her that in six months he was going to bed with a slim woman and that he
hoped that it would be Ann. In six months, true to Fred’s word he went to bed with a slim woman and it was not Ann.
He hooked up with a married woman who happened to be their neighbor at the dock. The boat was sold, the spoils
divvied up and Fred moved ashore. We only saw them separately years later and neither one then had anything to
do with boats so their original dream of sailing off to the southern latitudes for the best of all possible lives fizzled
when they had a taste of that reality.
Old Timer; strange boat …goofy guy;
This couple was referred to as The Maniacs, for one reason because they were from the State of Maine.
The “Old Timer” was a retired machinist from Singer Sewing Machine Company and proceeded to over engineer
everything aboard their home built steel vessel.
He had his main engine mounted in the bow and used a long drive shaft with several universal joints to connect to
the propeller in the stern. Also mounted in the bow of his boat was a Bridgeport milling machine…the type used in
machine shops.
We managed to know these “Maniacs” for many a year and crossed paths innumerable times and they never once
set foot aboard our boat or invited us aboard their boat.
*
So there you have a sample of some of the people and their boats that took up residence back in the 1970s at
Dinner Key.
next chapter
Here I have to attempt to describe some of the many rogues and various boaters that populated the Dinner Key
Anchorage in the mid 1970s.
After finding a spot in the deep-water anchorage with sufficient swinging room for Dursmirg amongst the strangest
hodge-podge of mismatched floating flotsam we had encountered up to this time, we anchored.
This was our first night in Dinner Key with our boat so we put our dinghy down from its davits and went cruising
around with our motor to check the place out.
We discovered our friends Bubba and Linda Schill. It was just like old home week because we had become close
friends back in St. Augustine where they were the first live-aboard boat people we met in Florida.
Bubba gave us some advice about outboard motors at the Dinner Key anchorage and said that the purest sailing
group of the deep-water anchorage does not appreciate them. I said, “Thanks” and went speeding off through the
anchorage. We were up to full speed and hadn’t gone two hundred feet when we were shockingly snatched to an
abrupt halt that sent both Jane and I almost flying over the bow of our little high-speed “Bingy Dinghy”.
We were surprised at the local response of laughter and jeering when the total population of the anchorage came
out to unanimously taunt and boo us in our predicament.
It so happened that one of the boats in the anchorage had been anchored with polypropylene anchor line and that
stuff just happens to float. This was the perfect trap for the speeding outboard dinghy motor and it surely snatched
us to an abrupt halt!
In the future we would be changing our mode of getting around by dinghy and would be rowing and sailing. This
proved to be some kind of a blessing in the end because soon two Arab oil embargoes would all but dry up the
supply of fuel and we also found our mode of getting around by dinghy much enhanced and our standard of living
much improved by rowing and sailing. This lifestyle change probably did more to get us to slow down and thoroughly
appreciate a realm of wonderful real life pleasures not visible to the jet-set community. Yes, a lovely world that was
hidden from the view of all but a very few that we had the good fortune to discover while still possessing enough
youth to savor its precious fruits, which both Jane and I came to cherish.
Above: A time for sailboats. Here I am sailing our Bingy Dinghy along with sailboats under only sail
power approaching the deepwater anchorage at Dinner Key with Biscayne Bay and Key Biscayne in the
background.
Dave McDougal
You have already met Bubba and Linda in the last chapter. Now for some more of their friend Dave McDougal: Even
though Dave was tripping along on some different frequency propelled mentally by the strange chemical
concoctions his group experimented with he did have another side. His oil paintings were prominently displayed in
the most prestigious art galleries in The Grove.
Dave’s new little boat, which he had just purchased had such a small cockpit that Dave complained that in order to
read the Sunday newspaper he had to go to his dinghy to unfold it, which was slightly beamier.
Dave’s sailing outfit was unique to him alone. Rummaging through the marina dumpster, he found some nice high
topped tennis shoes. They were several sizes too small but that didn’t bother Dave… he just cut the toes out. At first
glance, they didn’t look too bad, then a second look revealed his size 12 white feet protruding several inches out of
his size 8 shoes.
Dave was going to be a gentleman sailor so he wore white cotton garden gloves along with a big felt slouch hat like
the old time buccaneers wore when he bravely and fearlessly put out to sea. Dave’s auxiliary power was a canoe
paddle.
Dave was gone on a two-day excursion out into Biscayne Bay. When he returned to Dinner Key, Jane and I asked
him if he would like to join us on an excursion down to southern Biscayne Bay to Sand and Elliot Keys. Dave said,
“No, I can’t”. We asked, “Why?” Dave then said, “My boat only sails in two directions, over to Key Biscayne and
back.”
Dave had the proper sized dinghy; it was his boat that was too small. His sailboat was 19 feet long and very narrow
on the beam. For this reason, Dave was segregated from the deepwater anchorage where he would have been
literally battered to pieces by the open waters of the bay with a 17-mile fetch when a southeaster was blowing.
Therefore, Dave had to anchor up amongst the spoil islands for protection.
(Note; our friends who also sailed these waters, Hein and Siggi Zenker circumnavigated the earth in a boat only one
and a half feet longer than Dave’s little boat See recommended reading at the end of this volume for a description of
Hein and Siggi Zenker’s book “West, Sail West, Man!”)
The (spoil islands) artificial barrier islands had a totally different culture back in the 1970s. These little spoil islands
that were covered with Australian pines, (casuarinas) were the result of Pan American Airline’s development of
Dinner Key for their fleet of flying boats. With deep water on one side and shallow water on the other side of these
islands they were less than 100 yards from the public land access. They became home to numerous squatters.
Transient tenters escaping northern winters and even some longer-term inhabitants took up residence on these little
islands with only several inches of dry soil at high tide.
One guy who had definitely kept to himself had homesteaded on one of the islands and with only some basic hand
tools was in the process of building a well-crafted and nicely fitted out sailboat totally from wood and fittings he had
salvaged from derelict or sunken vessels near Dinner Key. (This made me think of one of the all-time most famous
sailing circumnavigators who was shipwrecked on a lonely beach in Brazil where he then built a boat from
beachcombed lumber and then sailed all the way home to Massachusetts. Joshua Slocum named that boat
“Liberdade”. Another coincidence is the fact that Joshua Slocomb’s last port of call was Dinner Key. At the end of
this volume, see recommended reading about Joshua Slocum’s books)
For interesting characters and real sailors this was the cross roads where the mix was complete from the world
renowned Joshua Slocoms’ of this planet all the way down to the idiots on their “idiot boats” stranded on “idiot shoal”.
A description of the deepwater anchorage at Dinner Key in Coconut Grove just would not be complete without a
description of what we referred to as the “idiot boats”.
The Dinner Key sailboat rentals catered to anybody that could hit the deck with the cash and take their chances at
the helm, renting by the hour these 19-foot open sloop rigged fiberglass motorless sailboats.
Most of these boats left the dock with a crew of 6 or 8 want-to-be sailors that didn’t have even the slightest notion of
what they were doing and didn’t even much care…this was a lark.
This was just like kids in the bumper-cars at the carnival where they were turned loose to bump and bash their way
along. They sat in amazement and seemed content letting the boat take them from one collision or grounding to
another.
A big difference here was that this was not in the confinement of the carnival bumper-car attraction. These want-to-
be sailors set out amongst some of the most expensive yachts to be found anywhere.
Within the protected spoil islands of Dinner Key, it was no more than a lark to bob around and play silly bathtub
games. But occasionally, with some persistence, one of these want-to-be sailors would manage to sail or drift out
past the barrier spoil islands and into Biscayne Bay where they then imagined that they had arrived upon the high
seas. This is where the deepwater anchorage is located.
Unable to control their vessels they would plow through the anchorage smashing everything in sight. One Sunday
alone we were struck five different times: one time with a direct broadside hit while the idiot boat was on a sprinting
beam reach. That impact was so intense that the forestay of the idiot boat snapped on impact and then proceeded
to whip around our spreaders like a cracked bullwhip. Well, there they were impaled and lashed to our vessel. Of
course, when I was finally able to turn them free their mast took a dive to their deck and our nerves were shot. Next,
that same day one of these want-to-be sailors came clipping by and tore our dinghy out of our davits where it was
hanging. This time the entire transom of our dinghy was ripped out. Our poor dinghy was smashed, rammed and
sunk countless times by the idiots.
Just north of the deepwater anchorage is located a shallow known as Idiot Shoal. Invariably one of these idiot boats
after terrorizing the anchorage would run aground on Idiot Shoal. First, they would sit mystified wondering why their
“bumper boats” were no longer moving and were rendered harmless to the boats that they had just terrorizing. After
several feeble attempts to get moving again, we would then hear their plaintive screams and shouts for help!
Aground in six inches of water is hardly reason for panic, but that is exactly what the idiots would do. After a
reasonable length of time, one of the boaters from the anchorage would feel a pang of conscience and holler over
to tell the idiot to roll up their pants and shove off.
Late in the afternoon, a motorboat from the rental company would come out in search of the want–to-be sailors that
could not manage to maneuver their rental boat back to the dock. In large bold print on each side of this motorboat
were written the words, “IDIOT RETRIEVER”. The only comical part of this chain of events was that now these want-
to-be’s had earned their title of “idiot boats”.
It was interesting to observe that after their one-hour rental these want-to-be sailors would return to the dock and
then strut around as if they were now accomplished sailors just returning from an ocean crossing.
Tom and Travis; our deep-water anchorage neighbors at Dinner Key
These two social misfits were a couple of the nicest and naturally most humorous boaters that in many ways made
the rest of us in the boating community appear somewhat conservative. Their wooden boat was a rakish rustic relic
of the past with its long bowsprit and raked back mast. Nearly a hundred years old at the time, it had spent most of
its life as a purebred sailboat without a motor. The motor was installed when the boat was some fifty years old. It was
bolted sidesaddle to the keel and the propeller shaft came out a fitting on the side of the vessel…it worked.
Tom and Travis had but one sail and were both unaware of the mysterious doings of how to make the boat move
under sail.
We never found out how this like-minded team of two hooked up together but they both had a special attitude and
disposition that drew them into the same profession. The high pay and independence were pluses but the
exuberating highs coupled with not having a supervisor looking over their shoulder made radio tower painting and
repair their kind of job; a utopian dream come true. This line of work wasn’t for everybody but Tom and Travis weren’
t just everybody, they too marched to a different drummer. These guys weren’t the village idiots, quite the contrary,
they were both well read, educated, well traveled and possessed an inquisitive intellect. They came from good
families and Tom’s sister was a judge in Wisconsin.
The ironic thing was that here we were together at a very troubling time in history striking out for the freedom of the
sea together.
Being next-door neighbors in the Dinner Key deepwater anchorage, we did neighborly things.
We cooked a lot of meals together on our boat with its spacious galley and Tom and Travis got involved. Fresh
seafood was abundantly available and we only had to make the decision of what we wanted for dinner, then just go
out and collect it in the prolific waters of the bay.
A big hit was Jane’s homemade wine. Coconut, orange and prickly pear cactus wines were all made from local fruits.
In those days a walk through the park at Dinner Key’s bay front would yield huge bags full of downed coconuts on a
windy day…free for the taking…we made wine and shredded and roasted the rest.
Tom and Travis were eager to get into our lifestyle of living off the land and out of the sea. For starters wine making
perked their interests the most. Tom and Travis got Jane’s basic wine recipe and were quick to innovate it.
What came next will forever remind me of those two free spirits. These guys definitely weren’t out to impress but to
do exactly what fulfilled their lives and in their simple way made our little boating community and the world for that
matter a better place to be.
Jane’s basic wine recipe called for these basic ingredients: water, fruit, sugar and yeast. In looking over their boats
larder of provisions Tom and Travis discovered that they possessed the main ingredients. They had an over
abundance of blackberry Jell-O and its main ingredient was sugar…perfect…now all they needed to add was yeast,
water and wait. Curiosity and impatience soon brought temptation to the point of uncontrolled irresistibility. Two days
of wine making would be enough. The ghastly colored concoction took on a strange new tone of iridescence as the
yeast consumed the sugar and the bacteria piss set off some strange chain of chemical events interacting with the
Jell-O’s artificial coloring. The least offensive part of this witches brew was the aroma and taste of the
yeast…something that even halfway decent wine will attempt to brew out. Yes, Tom and Travis were on their way to
making alcohol but to call this ghastly stuff wine was a real stretch of the imagination. Ironically, they bravely drank it
up and low and behold they polished it off completely before it was a week old. We had never met anybody so easy
to please.
In this time of American history many consumer products became in short supply and literally disappeared from
stores shelves. (This was usually in conjunction with copiously larger quantities of those scarce items returning but
at much higher prices.) At this time we were running out of toilet paper …of all things and by some strange
coincidence Tom and Travis had three full cases of the stuff, a several year supply. After some wine drinking and
deliberations, a swap was worked out. We would trade one of our three sets of encyclopedias for two cases of toilet
paper. Everyone was happy.
Another thing that was happening at the time was that the national economy had almost stalled. The unemployment
lines were long. Travis was reading the newspaper one day about the unemployed persons lamenting that their
unemployment compensation would soon run out. He put down the newspaper and said to us, “I’m not coming back
until I have a job”. That was at noon. At 6 PM, he returned to the boat tired but vindicated. He had started by just
walking down the street knocking on every door and asking for work. He did admit that it was tough and he didn’t
have any success until 5 PM as the shops were beginning to close. He had accomplished his mission and would
start work the following morning at a print shop.
This next caper has to go down as one of the all-time greatest. Here is what happened; The Miss Universe pageant
was about to be held in Miami and Tom and Travis got the notion that they would try to crash the gate and sneak in.
First, they went over to Miami Beach where the pageant was being held and tried to buy tickets, but none were
available and their hopes of getting in dimmed. Next a crafty scheme was developed. Tom would put on the act of
being a spastic and Travis would act out the part of being his nurse. The story presented must have been worthy of
an Oscar nomination because they not only got in but got a special seat right up front. Tom’s spastic routine got
them seats amongst the rich and famous. The capper came as they laughingly related this whole story of when they
were finally seated and the lady next to them said; “nice show boys, but you can cut the act now.”
These guys were always up for adventure and when we told them about our fabulous times anchored down at Elliot
and Sand Keys in southern Biscayne Bay they were ready to set sail.
The only problem was that they only had the one sail and that was their big jib plus they really didn’t know anything
about sailing or boat handling. With persistence, they made the 17-mile trip in two days and came in to anchor next
to us. Another fabulous time was had by all! They were eager to learn how to sail especially with the Arab oil
embargo and the scarcity of gasoline and diesel fuel.
I gave them many helpful pointers and explained how we managed to visit all of the Florida Keys and not burn a
drop of diesel fuel. We even sailed up our anchor and we didn’t even have an anchor winch, the sails did the work
for us.
Sure enough, they put into practice some of my sailing ideas. As they prepared for their departure, we watched.
First with their helm tied, up went their only sail, their jib which was sheeted in tight. (I only use the main sail for this
caper because the rig is then more balanced and controllable.) Just as I had described the boat moved ahead
gently and silently as the jib added power. Then we noticed the look of shock and alarm. Then the anchor was free
and the vessel sprightly and gently gathered speed for a perfect departure. Tom and Travis didn’t know what to do
next with the helm weathercocked, hard over but unable to overpower the center of effort sailing with jib only. Then
they helplessly watched their vessel bear down on us for a broad side slamming. Their oversized bowsprit came at
Dursmirg like a jouster’s javelin. In a couple of seconds, it was over except for the profound apologies. The impact
was incredible, throwing all of us off balance and clutching for survival. The most amazing thing was that there was
not any structural damage to either boat, only some smudged paint. By some quirk of fate, their bowsprit missed one
of our big portholes by inches. As soon as we all evaluated the situation and discovered that there was no damage,
we all had a good laugh.
The world would be a better place to live if only there were more Tom and Travis’s around.
WARREN (RED) AND NIRA BROWN
In our travels of Dursmirg over the years, Jane and I had the very good fortune to meet and get to know a wide
variety of people. These people ranged from wealthy to poor and spanned a diverse spectrum of personalities with
one common thread; they were unique individuals doing what motivated them most, the pursuit of their dreams.
Ironically this next couple captured that motivating sentiment of that thought in the name of their boat, Our Dream.
Warren (Red) and Nira Brown marched to the tune of a different drummer and in no way set out to impress or flaunt
whatever they had.
Jane and I became close friends with these two unusual eccentrics and over the years in many of our boating and
even land travels always went out of our way to rendezvous. So, dear reader you will come across Warren and Nira
Brown a number of times in the volumes of “The Travels of Dursmirg”.
Warren and Nira Brown, their boat, their life, Key Hopper and their kerosene refrigeration;
Warren and Nira’s 42 foot wooden two masted schooner, Our Dream, Warren had custom built in Marsh Harbor,
Bahamas. They owned land in the Abacos Islands of the Bahamas and used to sail over to the Bahamas on
extended trips with plans of ultimately setting up a back to nature home site. They set sail at night from Dinner Key
towing their 19-foot sailboat, Key Hopper, heavly laden to the point of questionable buoyancy.
The reason for sailing at night was that both Warren and Nira had fair skin and could not tolerate the bright sun on
the high seas. They always left fully overloaded because Warren was such a pack rat that he just could not bear to
leave behind and part with anything he had ever laid his hands on.
On one of their last trips over to their land in the Bahamas their overloaded Key Hopper took a trip to the bottom
and Nira told me later that might have been a blessing in disguise.
Pack rat: Warren had snooped around every inch of the Miami area and thoroughly beach combed the adjacent
Keys searching for his treasures.
Here I have to explain the situation when Jane and I first met Warren and Nira Brown. They were living aboard their
42-foot wooded sailing schooner Our Dream at the Dinner Key anchorage in south Miami on Biscayne Bay. The
boat was a beautifully designed Tom Colvin classic that they had custom built in the Bahamas. Warren had a
kerosene powered absorption refrigeration system aboard his boat that I believe was the first I had ever seen and
was definitely the only boat in the anchorage that enjoyed the luxury of refrigeration at anchor without the help of an
electrical generator set. On hot afternoons when Jane and I would stop over to the Our Dream for a visit Nira loved
to prepare one of her favorite cold frappe iced drinks called Whistler’s Punch. Made by beating in the blender ice,
sweetened condensed milk, dark rum and pineapple this treat was even more spectacular considering that it was
prepared using ice made aboard their boat and even their portable generator drove the blender at anchor no matter
where they happened to call home.
We shortly thereafter installed our own kerosene powered absorption refrigeration system aboard our Dursmirg.
Occasionally we would sit down below in the main salon of Our Dream that was nearly packed to capacity. We
observed that their front berth was jam crammed tighter than sardines in a sardine can with Warren’s treasures. On
other occasions, we would sit out on deck under their Bimini sunshade. The deck was literary littered with portable
pumps, generator sets and various cartons and crates containing the damnedest collection of nearly useless
mismatched and unrelated items of dubious usefulness. Here I have to admit that when I was looking for a cover for
a water jug and asked Warren, he just emptied on his deck the contents of a large bag and low and behold out
flowed several hundred covers he had collected over the years and yes he had exactly what I needed…so thank
you Warren.
Besides their ever-filling vessel, they had a second boat that they called their Key Hopper that turned out to be their
floating overflow warehouse that was riding low in the water burdened with its heavy load.
Warren could not possibly store his complete inventory of hoarded treasures aboard his two boats and I discovered
quite by chance several of his stashes down in the Keys of southern Biscayne Bay. In his stashes, he actually had
several dinghies and a collection of lumber enough to build a small house besides other unrelated things of curious
and indescribable origin. As the years passed Warren’s pack rat instincts made it impossible for visitors to the Our
Dream to venture below decks because the mounting pile of Warren’s treasures was totally filling and crowding them
out of their own boat. In the end not even a place was left to put your foot down. After a visit to Warren and Nira’s
boat Jane and I would return home to our Dursmirg with an uncontrollable urge to pitch something overboard,
anything, just so that we would not slip into that “packrat” mentality.
Warren and Nira had also made it their business to identify and locate nearly every species of plant to be found in
the area plus the usefulness and edibility of them too. Jane and I first sampled prickly pear syrup over homemade
ice cream aboard their vessel and instantly acquired a passionate appetite for it. Of course, anytime we ran into
Warren down in the Keys he would inadvertently have his hat full of freshly picked prickly pear fruit and would never
divulge were the plants were located. (We were able to locate all that we could use and soon discovered that they
made one of the most exotic fresh fruit wines on the planet earth. Bottled in heavy champagne bottles while still
kicking and consumed young, this sparkling deep magenta colored wine was more than just a wonderful wine, it is a
heavenly experience.)
Warren, with a pair of 25-power binoculars got his thrills. One of the attractions that caught his undivided attention
was when a local sailboat owned by a man named Arthur would sail the bay with his crew of sunbathing beauties all
in the nude.
Nira also gave us our first beer recipe, “Groundwater’s homebrew for a penny a bottle”, and that got us started in
the homebrew business, which we have continued to this day.
Warren knew how to live off the land and the sea and always kept a fish trap where he could count on pulling up a
fresh mangrove snapper or grouper whenever he got the urge for a fish dinner.
Warren used to boast that they could live for two weeks down in the Keys from just one chicken. Here is how he did
it; first, they would have a roast chicken dinner, then cold cuts, then soup and with the remaining bones he would
bait his fish trap which would then provide them with fresh fish. The bones and guts of the cleaned fish were then in
turn used as bait for more fish.
We have known these fine and eccentric people for many years and have seen how their lives changed with the
times and their beliefs.
When we first met we heard the story of their ultimate dream of homesteading their property over in the Bahamas
Islands and becoming totally self-sufficient in every way. They soon took up some offbeat religion through some
radio ministry that advocated no shellfish and that included shrimp, conch and lobster, which were the basic foods
available over in the Bahamas waters.
Some time later Lyndon Baines Johnson got his food stamp program going which Warren and Nira quickly adopted.
Just as the federal government plundered the American Indians by giving them just enough money to survive but not
prosper and eventually this took their initiative away, Warren was robbed of his dreams.
Warren and Nira Brown sailing their Our Dream on Biscayne Bay.
Oh, by the way!
(A note about those Gulf Stream crossings; this was the Straits of Florida and here the swift north flowing Gulf
Stream current is filled with all sorts of marine traffic much like the congested waters of the English Channel.
Depending upon the size and speed of your vessel, your perspective of the dangers completely change. Jane and I
have had the opportunity to transverse the English Channel on a 600-foot freighter while observing the entire show
from the control bridge nine floors above sea level and witnessing the full and intense attention to detail of the entire
bridge deck crew. They made a coordinated effort to plot a course through that incredible maze of vessel traffic
while making better than 20 knots of forward speed.
We have also crossed the English Channel on huge ferries but until you are down at water level bobbing along in a
little sailboat making five or six knots through this maze of multi-thousand ton freighter traffic some of which is
steaming along at better than twenty knots, the real feeling of anxiety can’t truly be appreciated. Of course these
conditions can always get worse when fog sets in, a gale blows up or all to the above happens in the dark of night.
As long as I am on the subject of these crossings, I might as well relate some other stories pertaining to this subject;
An old couple sailing their sailboat from Miami to the Bahamas at night passed behind the stern of a large ocean-
going tugboat and had the unwelcome surprise of running into the tugs towrope. The net result was that their boat
was swept along the towrope some five hundred feet before it became impaled under the bow of the barge being
towed. They at least were fortunate enough to be able to climb aboard the barge before their little sailboat was
swept under the barge and sunk. For five days they sat atop the barge unable to signal the crew of the tug until they
ultimately arrived in Puerto Rico.
Another tragic story of this crossing from Miami to the Bahamas took place aboard a small sailboat when the
husband was manning the helm while his wife slept below. The wife noticed that the boat was behaving strangely
she went out on deck to inspect and to her horror found that her husband had vanished. It was thought that he had
gone to relieve himself and lost his footing and fell overboard. No trace of him has ever been found. (These people
were some friends of our friends.)
Another hair-raising experience and this one happened to me on a boat delivery I was making from Trinidad down in
the Caribbean near the South American coast to Key West, Florida. I made this eleven-day trip in a fiberglass 75-
foot, 128-ton displacement Desco Trawler. After crossing the Caribbean, we came up the Old Spanish Channel past
Cuba and the Cay Sal Banks before crossing the Gulf Stream on our approach to Key West.
The seas were running with a steep chop very common in these waters and the night was black as smut as I came
up into the wheelhouse to relieve my 83-year-old Swedish mate Dick Janson. It only took me a split second to see
the eminent disaster approaching. A container freighter was upon us and they are noted for their speed that often
times exceed 25 knots. We were on a direct collision course and meeting at right angles. With less than a split
second to impact, I snatched the autopilot lever off with one hand and spun the helm wheel over hard to starboard
so that the impact would at least be lessoned. With a racing heart, I braced for the impending impact but evidently
good fortune was with us because we escaped unscathed…I am sure that not a single soul aboard that freighter
even had the slightest notion of our presence. So there you have it, “ships that pass in the night”.
Another near disaster occurred also at night in the waters of the Gulf Stream as Jane and I traveled north from
Miami to Fort Pierce in the Straits of Florida aboard our Dursmirg.
At night the lights of shore are dazzlingly bright and continuous along the entire coast with high-rise hotels and
condominiums ablaze in a myriad of various colored illumination. This is known as the Gold Coast. Offshore, by
contrast the blackness of night is amplified. Vessel and navigational marker lights inshore of your vessel become
bafflingly commingled amongst the unending array of shoreline lights. Eyestrain and intense scrutinizing of the
waters for other traffic is imperative with the huge quantity of commercial traffic mixed with the occasional small
fishing or sailboats that transverse between Florida and the Bahamas Islands.
Jane and I were both on deck this night some six miles offshore where we would be able to take full advantage of the
Gulf Stream’s north setting currents when we were instantly shocked by what we next saw. Directly in front of our
course a huge freighter that had been laying there totally in the dark with absolutely no lights suddenly switched on
its full array of deck lights. We were at that time almost too close to avoid a collision but because we were manually
steering our vessel at the time I was able to take the evasive action at the last second to avoid a collision that could
have easily sent us to the bottom in more than 200 fathoms of water.
Norm and Allene McFarland; These two people were among the very few of the Dinner Key sailing community that
were straight, solid citizens, working normal jobs, that lived in a normal home in a normal neighborhood and even
belonged to the Dinner Key Sailing Club.
We met quite by chance down at Elliot Key. We were invited aboard their 30-foot sailboat boat Kai-Via for evening
drinks, accepted and struck up a friendship.
We believe that they were just curious and wanted to see what kind of strange people would actually sail in such an
unconventional boat as ours. I felt that they were looking for anything that would be a step out of their structured
and strictly regulated Miami Lakes yuppie neighborhood environment. Well, they found it when they met us and
became acquainted with all of our square peg friends.
Here is a short story about a trip that Norm, Allene, Jane and I made together aboard their boat to the Bahamas
Islands.
Trip to the Bahamas Islands aboard their boat Kai-Via; we left from Hurricane Harbor on Biscayne Key before
sunrise and sailed off to Bimini, Bahamas where we saw an old cement cargo ship similar to the one we had seen at
Cape May, New Jersey. (In volume 1 of Travels of Dursmirg, you will find the story and a photo.) They were used as
military cargo ships during the war and were later abandoned and used as breakwaters. We also got to swim with
the biggest barracudas we had ever seen. They were bigger than we were and we had the notion to tread air and
save our swimming for places that were less intimidating. We had had experience with these lightning striking eating
machines that would strike anything that even reasonably looked like a possible meal. I always figured that I did not
have an extra few pounds of flesh to feed to the barracudas.
We sailed the shallow expansive Bahamas Banks from Bimini. We discovered that the Bahamanian markers were
either out or nonfunctioning and sometimes totally missing so our navigational abilities were put to good use
calculating the side setting currents plus the drift of our vessel under sail on that two day passage across the
Bahamas banks. These were the days before Sat-navigation and GPS.
We did manage to catch our dinner of fresh fish by trolling using our Cuban Yo-Yo and a slick trip line I devised
using a spring loaded clothespin . Barracuda and Spanish mackerel were there for the taking. Norm and Allene
would not eat the barracuda and it was definitely the very best of the two fish…sometimes we just win by default.
I provided supper with this barracuda landed while crossing the Bahamas Banks.
As we sailed across the “Tongue of the Ocean” headed for the port city Nassau and capital of the Bahamas I was
asked by Allene how far it was to shore. When I answered that we were only about a mile and a half from shore she
got a questioning expression on her face and said, “I can’t see any shore”. My reply was, yes indeed it was only a
mile and a half to shore…straight down”. I do not think that she had ever conceptualized that the water under our
little vessel could be that deep and she actually trembled at the thought as we crossed the Tongue of the Ocean.
Nassau was an impressive city from afar with its many huge white gleaming cruise ships tied at the downtown
municipal pier.
We tied at a laid-back marina that charged prices higher than the Florida Gold Coast “gold-plater” marinas and set
out to explore this strange island notorious for its downtown street market district.
When the British controlled the islands several years earlier I can’t imagine that the state of hygiene and order could
possibly have been as decrepit and uncaring as the city we now were witnessing.
The streets were not just dirty but piled high with drifts of garbage that must have taken years to accumulate and the
locals were evidently totally blind to its existence. A few women sat in the shade weaving straw hats and baskets that
they were selling at tourist rip-off prices. We were surprised that much of the basketry being displayed as native
crafts carried labels from China.
Everything we encountered in Nassau was more than just expensive, it was prohibitive. A case of beer that sold for
less then $5.00 in Miami sold in Nassau for more than $20.00 Food also was stratospherically high priced and we
had a hard time understanding how the locals could cope with the prices and still exist…this was not a rich country.
One thing that I did manage to obtain at a local hardware store was repair parts for our kerosene powered
absorption refrigeration system for our boat Dursmirg. It turns out that many of the out-islands of the Bahamas had
no electric service or very little that could be relied upon for refrigeration purposes so the islanders relied upon
kerosene refrigeration using the Swedish Electrolux burners. Of the small out-island grocery stores we visited we
noticed that the stores would have one top loading freezer run off of kerosene and that was the extent of their
refrigeration. The locals did not have ice or things like ice cream that were definitely luxuries. The islanders still
traveled intra-island by sailboat with no auxiliary power for their commerce and socializing; they were excellent
sailors. Their sailboats were their link to the outside world and played a crucial part in all aspects of their lives.
When hurricane winds piped up and threatened these islanders they had a simple system to save their precious
boats. Their unsophisticated tactic was to remove everything of value and that included the mast and rigging which
they brought home. Then they would merely pull their boat to deeper water and pull the plug to scuttle the vessel
where it would sit on the bottom to wait out the storms passing. With the storm gone, the boat would be pulled to
shallow water and bailed out.
It seemed like such a paradox to watch these islander sailboats silently traversing Nassau harbor under sail with
their homemade vessels and patch upon patch sails grayed with age while at the same time you could see the huge
gleaming cruise liners with generators roaring to illuminate the thousands of lights that made them into reeking of
decadence objects of awe; a paradoxical example of the two worlds set side by side.
Across the harbor from where we tied at a marina we could not help but notice the mountainous heap of pink conch
shells, a by-product of the Bahamas fishing industry. The local fishermen from their sail powered vessels harvested
the shells for its meat. They went out upon the Bahamas banks to collect them. I had always thought that they dove
for these shells but instead while standing aboard their boat and peering onto the crystal clear waters they used
long poles with a right-angled forks on the end to slip under the shells and then merely lifted the conch aboard. The
water is so very clear that spotting the shells is like shooting ducks in a barrel. These Bahamanian conch fisherman
drift over the shallow banks standing with their poles ready to snatch the conch and fill their boats, then sail back to
town with their catch to collect their cash.
We spent a couple of weeks sailing out to the Exuma Islands and beyond and though the waters were extremely
clear and beautiful, the anchorages were crammed full of sail boaters and harvesting any seafood in the vicinity of
those anchorages challenged my abilities to the limit because of the competition for the limited resources. I did
manage to provide fresh conch every day we wanted it but the hunt entailed at least eight hours of diligent diving
effort…that is not even working for minimum wages even at Bahaman rip-off prices.
We had a very good time, the Bahamas Islands are interesting, beautiful and distinctive but we have never been
inspired to make a return trip.
Jane and I clean the fresh caught conch on one of the small Bahamas Islands.
These are our friends Norm and Allene McFarland aboard their getaway cruising sailboat Kai-Via during
our out island Bahamas adventure trip.
BACK TO THE DINNER KEY ANCHORAGE
I am not going to attempt to write a story about everyone living in the anchorage but I will just tell the stories of a few
interesting incidents of various transient visitors to this strange out of the loop water world.
Deb and Grant Ball visit; they drove down from their home in Melbourne to Dinner Key at Coconut Grove where we
had our boat Dursmirg anchored for a several day sailing trip down into the Keys.
The afternoon that they arrived we all went shopping to provision for the trip.
Because of a windstorm and the small size of our dinghy, I sailed Jane and Deb out to our anchored boat Dursmirg
then returned to pick up Grant and the provisions. The dinghy was filled to near capacity as grant and I sailed away
from the dock heading for Dursmirg anchored out in the deep-water anchorage. I hoisted the sail and gave Grant
the main sheet to control the set of the sail and I took the tiller to steer the dinghy.
The wind was literally screaming as we made our downwind passage out the channel to the deep-water anchorage.
The wind speed was more than we needed and the little dinghy quickly surpassed its hull speed as it threw off a
large bow wake. The wind piped up further and I told Grant to sheet in the sail in order to spill the excess wind…we
needed to spill wind or we would soon sail under. (This condition can occur when downwind sailing in high winds.
The center of force is located up in the sail and the center of lateral resistance and buoyancy are located down in
the vessel, below the waterline. Well, as these forces intensify with high wind and high boat speed the result is
simple, like a huge lever arm the bow of the vessel is literally pried down.) Yes, our bow was going down!
The first time I told Grant to sheet the boom in, he let it out further, making it worse. The second time I said, “Sheet it
in Grant!” he let the sheet go free all together and the boom slammed against the shroud thus extending the sail to
intercept the maximum brunt of the winds force. This chain of events occurred so rapidly I had no time to bring the
dinghy around into the wind and we took a trip to the bottom.
We spent the next hour swimming after our soaked and sunken provisions…some floated.
On our days together we wound up having a really fine time swimming, fishing and beach combing down at Sand
Key in southern Biscayne Bay.
Their last day with us we all headed to the beach for beach combing. Sand Key has a fascinating feature in that in
days gone by some developer had dredged a channel and also an inner harbor into the Key. This is where we
would land our dinghy, then walk east through the woods to the seaside beach.
To our astonishment when we arrived at the beach, we encountered a huge neatly packed and bound bale of
marijuana.
The first question, what to do next? We did not want to touch it, it could be a government plant and sting operation
and we for sure did not want to be in possession! We collectively decided to slit the pack and let the sea take care
of its disposal.
We wound up powering back to Miami into a strong headwind because Grant and Deb had to go to work the next day
Back at Dinner Key we casually mentioned to our friend Warren Brown from the schooner Our Dream and our
neighbor that we had discovered a bale of pot on the beach at Sand Key. Within minutes, there was a mass exodus
of boats racing off in the direction of Sand Key.
Grant and Deb were like us and did not touch any mind-altering substances except alcohol.
Dale Nichols and Jon Moin visit us in Miami and then we sail to Marathon
Jane and I took the city bus to the airport to meet Dale and Jon when they arrived.
As Jane and I waited for Dale and Jon to exit the airplane, we were surprised to see the first person out the door was
Cassius Clay, (Mohammad Ali), with no fanfare, photographers or news media…just his big winning smile and a
wave. We did later see a film clip of Mohammad Ali’s trip to Miami and another one of his famous rhyming one-liners;
“A coon to the moon by June or the jig is up”. His humor mixed with wit made him one of the most colorful sports
people of all-time.
We bused back to The Grove with a change of bus in downtown Miami…our visitors were impressed with the racial
diversity…there was nothing like this place in the 1970s.
We took the dinghy out to the Dursmirg and set sail for Sand Key that very afternoon. After some beachcombing,
swimming and fishing we set sail again for Marathon by way of the Hawk Channel, which affords a place for spirited
sailing without the high seas of the open ocean protected by a barrier reef.
We had a group of six with our friends Norm and Allene McFarland and drove from Boot Key anchorage at Marathon
to Key West for the day to do all of the tourist things.
Dale and Jon flew back home from Marathon the next day and we were surely happy that we did not have to go back
to face the humdrum work-a-day world that awaited them.
Jon Moin and Dale Nichols aboard Dursmirg
Carl and Sonja/ Ed and Eunice Pearson come to visit us at Dinner Key and sail to Elliot Key and anchor:
Jane’s parents drove down from Wisconsin to visit us and Jane’s uncle and aunt, Carl and Sonja Pearson. They all
came over to our boat at anchor at Dinner Key. Then we enjoyed a banquet catered by Jane’s aunt Sonja; a
fabulous feed done up in all the appropriate elegant serving dishes with the fancy frills of the rich and famous. Jane’
s aunt and uncle managed the Allworth mansion at Miami Beach. Jane’s aunt Sonja was the culinary coordinator
there and she sure knew her business. We were all very impressed.
I made several dinghy boat trips to shore as shuttle boat service, which lent a special atmosphere to the day’s
activities.
One of several trips I made in our Bingy Dinghy shuttling Jane’s folks and her Aunt Sonja and uncle Carl
from shore to Dursmirg anchored in the deep-water anchorage at Dinner Key. In this photo, my father-in-
law Ed and I approach the Dursmirg under sail in our little dinghy, quietly burning no fuel.
Aboard Dursmirg and seated at the dinette looking over a scrapbook of photos and newspaper clippings
are Jane’s aunt Sonja and Jane’s mother Eunice Pearson.
Seated in the main salon of Dursmirg, Jane’s Dad Ed Pearson and her uncle Carl Pearson check our
photos of our adventures.
Jane’s Mom examines part of our collection of beachcombing treasures that include sea-beans, palm
nuts and our favorite seashells.
A collection of different sizes, shapes and colors of sea beans just as they look when found on the
beach. Later in this chapter are photos of the sea beans that we have polished and buffed to make into
jewelry. Jane and I always had a competition to see who could find the most sea beans.
We were easily amused and had the time of our lives with these simple carefree self indulgences when
the world was ours and we had our youth.
In my autobiography I write about how my sea bean infatuation started in the 1940s with Billy the Bean Buffer from
Briny Breezes at Boynton Beach.
Above a sample of some of our best beach combing finds.
Above are earrings and a pendant I made and polished from palm nuts found along the Florida Keys. No
varnish or wax is used, only lots of time and persistent buffing.
At anchor at Dinner Key with Key Biscayne far off in the distance on the other side of the bay: Jane’s
Mom, Eunice and her aunt Sonja enjoy one of the very best waterfront views to be found in the Miami
area from the deck of Dursmirg.
We made a driving tour to some of the places that we thought would be a big hit. The Space Transit Planetarium
across the street from the Dodge family’s estate “Viscaya” situated on the shore of Biscayne Bay was a must. Here
we took in one of our all-time very favorite shows, “Child of the Universe” by Isaac Asimov. To us this thought
provoking philosophical planetarium presentation was a “high-light attraction” for any visitor to Miami.
Next over to Key Biscayne with a visit to Florida State Park, Nixon’s home and then Crandon Park for a swim in the
briny Atlantic. On to Little Havana and dinner at our favorite Cuban restaurant, “La Esquina de Tejas”. After an
exquisite meal with all the trimmings in traditional Cuban style we took an after dinner drive over to Miami Beach for
a look at the beach crowd who were mostly retired Jewish New Yorkers down for the season to get the frost out of
their old bones. Lining the hotel patios, shoulder to shoulder, along most of Collins Avenue these old timers
entertainment was to people watch so we too were people watching as we drove along. Jane’s folks were sure that
they did not want any part of that type of lifestyle.
This had been a busy day, but fun filled and loaded with pleasant memories.
The next day Jane’s parents set sail with us for a trip down Biscayne Bay through the Featherbed Banks where both
Jane and her father thought that I was cutting the channel a little too close. Sure enough I ran us aground and I
received several; “I told you so’s” from Jane. We had to crank the engine to power off.
That afternoon we anchored offshore of Elliot Key in “Biscayne National Monument”. We had talked all day about all
the lobsters at Elliot Key and Jane’s newly acquired swimming and diving abilities.
We anchored and all went for a swim over the side of Dursmirg using the boat as a swim platform and our boarding
ladder for easy access to our super sized swimming pool.
Jane and I both spent over an hour that afternoon diving for lobster and only managed to get one that was just
marginally of legal size. It just goes to show you what too much bragging will do to the fishing results and I again
received some more, “I told you so’s” from Jane.
It was great and we all had many wonderful memories to last our lifetimes.
Bud and Joyce Partridge: This interesting pair lived a conventional life, worked at conventional jobs, had a
conventional house, owned a conventional sailboat and belonged to the Dinner Key Sailing Club but they evidently
yearned to be drop-out boat-bums.
They were long time friends to our mutual friends Warren and Nira Brown and that is how we came to meet them.
Bud was quiet, reserved, retired from 44-years at Florida Power and Light and late to marry. Joyce was
effervescent, outgoing, daring, flamboyant and on her third marriage.
This was the “odd-couple”, but they together struck off on any kind of adventure that presented itself, in their
sailboat or their VW “hippie-van”.
Bud and Joyce Partridge boarding their totally gadget laden boat Curlew II from their dinghy.
Bud and Joyce in their perfectly painted and meticulously appointed dinghy that had a complete
collection of bolt-ons and add-ons that represented all that the marine stores had to offer.
During our times in south Florida, Jane and I managed many times over the years to spend interesting and
entertaining times together with Bud and Joyce. They always would hunt us down whether they were cruising by boat
or hippie van and we likewise would go out of our way for rendezvous. You can read about one of our memorable
evenings spent together in chapter 4 of volume 3 where I describe “Little Havana” and downtown Miami after dark in
the 1970s.
FRED AND ANN EVERSON, DINNER KEY MARINA AT COCONUT GROVE
Jane and I first met Fred and Ann in St. Augustine in October 1974 while we had our boat Dursmirg docked for five
days at the City Yacht Pier.
I had just had an appendectomy and docking the boat was an imperative so that I could board it after surgery.
We actually had a fabulous five days at the dock in spite of my recent surgery and lots of visitors.
In our years living aboard we lived at anchor almost exclusively and therefore our visitors were limited to boaters.
Now we got pedestrian traffic.
I was confined to the boat and spent most of my time stoking our smoke oven cooking fish that was abundantly
provided by our neighbors.
This is when Fred and Ann came into our lives.
Fred had just sold his lucrative electronic appliance warranty business in Canada. They were heading south to the
Sun Belt aboard their steel sailboat, Moonspinner.
Fred was a resourceful type of chap that never had any problem asking around for what ever he needed and the
evening we met we invited he and Ann aboard after Fred had approached us looking for patch material to repair his
inflatable dinghy. Well, I didn’t have exactly what he was looking for but we got him back in business with some 3-M
vinyl tape that I used to sell in my previous wholesale business back in Wisconsin.
Our next encounter was in Miami where Fred and Ann had sold their steel sailboat and purchased a bare fiberglass
hull for a price that was a give-away and didn’t even equal the cost of materials. The 54-foot hull set Fred back less
than $10,000. They then began to do the finishing work and were doing a very professional job.
Fred always found the very best deal to be found anywhere and sure enough, Fred and Ann got dockage at the City
of Miami Marina at Dinner Key, which happens to be the very best dockage deal in all of Florida.
They had plans of doing some extensive cruising with their new boat but Fred soon discovered that he loved his
creature comforts too much to leave the dock with its electric power, running water, phone hook up, shower room
and car parking. They made several trips to the Bahamas and a couple of trips to Biscayne National Park but Fred
found that the freedom of the wide open spaces wasn’t exactly what he had been dreaming of and inconvenience of
any kind didn’t sit well with him…he just wasn’t cut out to suffer.
It also turned out that they had two children that came to live with them after they became settled at the dock in
Dinner Key. Ten-year-old Charley and his teen-age sister went to school in the Grove so that was somewhat of an
anchor that kept the cruising limited to school vacations.
Jane and I tied our dinghy at their boat when we went to shore and that was a real convenience to us. Fred also
invited us to use his shop and electric power when we needed it and that is where Jane and I gave each other
haircuts when we were in Miami.
Fred and I worked out a swap that was good for both of us. I got his gas absorption refrigeration system, which I
converted to run on kerosene in exchange for a 110-volt belt driven AC generator; Fred was happy and I think that I
was. It took me nearly two weeks to get that refrigeration system functional and efficiently running. When I did finally
achieve success, the result was wonderful and we were very happy. The thing only burned a cup of fuel a day and
would freeze a case of beer as solid as Popsicles in no time at all.
Ann was Fred’s third wife and he told her that in six months he was going to bed with a slim woman and that he
hoped that it would be Ann. In six months, true to Fred’s word he went to bed with a slim woman and it was not Ann.
He hooked up with a married woman who happened to be their neighbor at the dock. The boat was sold, the spoils
divvied up and Fred moved ashore. We only saw them separately years later and neither one then had anything to
do with boats so their original dream of sailing off to the southern latitudes for the best of all possible lives fizzled
when they had a taste of that reality.
Old Timer; strange boat …goofy guy;
This couple was referred to as The Maniacs, for one reason because they were from the State of Maine.
The “Old Timer” was a retired machinist from Singer Sewing Machine Company and proceeded to over engineer
everything aboard their home built steel vessel.
He had his main engine mounted in the bow and used a long drive shaft with several universal joints to connect to
the propeller in the stern. Also mounted in the bow of his boat was a Bridgeport milling machine…the type used in
machine shops.
We managed to know these “Maniacs” for many a year and crossed paths innumerable times and they never once
set foot aboard our boat or invited us aboard their boat.
*
So there you have a sample of some of the people and their boats that took up residence back in the 1970s at
Dinner Key.
next chapter
Photo of the burner and tank
assembly that I designed and
fabricated for our kerosene
refrigeration system. The
container started life as a peanut
butter jar.
assembly that I designed and
fabricated for our kerosene
refrigeration system. The
container started life as a peanut
butter jar.
