| Travels of Dursmirg Vol. 3 Chapters 12-13 |
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CHAPTER 12 MARATHON AND BOOT KEY
Marathon is half way from Miami to Key West with a single road, U.S. Highway 1 its only land access. Marathon is the
biggest settlement in the mid-keys which are all within Monroe County, the southernmost part of the State of Florida.
Here is what our dear friend Nira Brown always used to say about Monroe County, “there are so many junkies in
Monroe County that you could become one by osmosis”.
Marathon is situated on Vaca Key and Boot Key. This is where the famous seven-mile bridge begins that leads off to
Key West. This Key is long and slim and with the inky blue waters of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic on the south side
and the Coke bottle green waters of the Gulf of Mexico on the other side.
As you pass down U.S. Highway 1 through Marathon all of the streets are either on the ocean side or the bay side.
The ocean side refers to the Atlantic Ocean, which happens to be to the south. Bay side refers to the Florida Bay,
which is on the Gulf of Mexico side.
Back in 1975 this part of the world was just like a wide place in the road and only had a seasonal tourist business
and a local fishing fleet that was mostly involved in fishing with traps for stone crabs and lobster. To make the place
even quieter and more forlorn the Arab oil embargo all but shut down the tourist trade in the 1970s. There was so
little traffic down US Highway 1 that we joked that you could pitch a tent in the middle of the road. Fuel for boats was
also in very short supply and so only sailboats could enjoy boating.
This would be our second winter to venture into these crystal clear waters and we had already gotten to know our
way around plus made many friends amongst the regular sailboat cruising community and also several of the Cuba
fisherman and their families.
A very small bay situated between Vaca key and Boot Key became the anchorage of preference to the sailboat
cruising community.
1975 Boot Key anchorage; Astern of Dursmirg is Keith Gore’s Whatever’s Fair followed by Ed Weber’s
Caribbean Sunrise and Bubba and Linda’s schooner Jaeger. The trimaran Aquarius belonged to Gary and
Marge Thompson.
Boot Key anchorage; Dursmirg with the Boot Key Bridge behind; this is where Harvey the bridge tender
worked.
A view of Boot Key anchorage from the Boot Key Bridge looking west with the marina and behind that
the channel leading into the harbor.
A very rare phenomenon occurred in this little bay that was situated over one hundred miles from the mainland and
completely surrounded by open sea on all sides. This rare thing was that no barnacles would grow on the boat
bottoms here and any barnacles that were attached to your boat when you pulled in would soon perish. No
explanation was ever made of this but whatever caused it, if discovered, could be worth a fortune to the discoverer
because the nemesis of salt water boating are these prolific and rapid growing little marine creatures.
This little bay had a seldom-used channel running through it and there was even an opening bascule bridge with a
full time bridge tender. The road that went over the bridge went to a totally vacant island with no development
whatsoever upon it. This bridge was another good example of the fact that in America we had the very best
politicians that money could buy.
I got to know the cantankerous old bridge tender named Harvey and spent many hours listening to his fascinating
life’s adventures.
I still remember a couple of humorous incidents that Harvey got involved in; One day a large fancy sport fishing boat
approached the bridge and wanted it to open. They either didn’t have a horn or it was inoperable. After several
minutes of screaming for the bridge to open Harvey finally came out of his little control house and informed the boat
operators that if they wanted to have the bridge open that they would have to give three blasts on their horn. The
operator of the boat replied that he didn’t have a horn and then Harvey told them that he wasn’t going to open the
bridge without the prescribed three honks of a horn. With that the man operating the boat screamed back to Harvey;
“honk…honk…honk”, and Harvey laughed and then went in and opened the bridge.
Keith Gore and his bridge story:
Harvey the bridge tender:
This bridge that went to Boot Key and where there was only a garbage dump opened once a day and sometimes not.
Many times Harvey would be sleeping or just watching TV while a boat was repeatedly honking to open the bridge
and there would be no response. After some time all of the boaters in the anchorage would become exasperated
and begin to honk in unison with the boat waiting to get through the bridge and that eventually got results.
Keith Gore on his boat, WHATEVER’S FAIR, was one of the boaters that anchored in the anchorage. One day he
attempted to open the bridge. After many blasts of his horn Keith gave up, tied his 26-foot Norwegian “Folkboat” to
the bridge fenders, climbed up to the bridge tenders house and awoke Harvey the bridge tender. Well, Keith
became very unpopular with Harvey after his tirade in which Keith told Harvey in no uncertain terms that Harvey was
a public servant whose only job it was to open the bridge, not keep it closed.
Harvey and I got along just fine and I definitely took a liking to that old curmudgeon.
Harvey the bridge tender and water out the window at night; this particular winter Jane and I were getting low on
fresh drinking water because of a lack of rain where we were. We had been relying on our rain catcher to fill our 750-
gallon fresh water tank and never in six years of cruising went to the dock expressly for drinking water. One inch of
rainfall produced approximately one hundred gallons of fresh water in our water storage tank so you can see we
were mostly self-reliant when it came to drinking water. Our wheelhouse top was our rain catcher. I had it plumbed
so that the water would go directly to the boats water tank through a particle filter. The rainwater was diverted by
switching some valves to the galley sink or even run back overboard if we had enough water in our tank, which
usually was the case.
Because of our low water supply this winter season, we inquired with our friend Buck who lived at Boot Key marina if
we could fill a couple of five-gallon jugs at his houseboat where we many times tied our dinghy. Buck said sure, so
we filled the jugs. As we were getting ready to load them into our dinghy the manager of the Boot Key Marina saw us
leaving with the water and went into some kind of a belligerent rage and dumped our water out on the ground and
informed us and Buck that there would be no water for any of the anchored out boats. Well, we had absolutely no
idea that anyone would harbor any animosity toward any of the anchored boats. We searched our minds for some
rational reason for the manager’s behavior but in the end could only imagine that he harbored some jealous feelings
for our easygoing lifestyle and his own wretched disposition.
Oh, by the way! Buck was one of the very first people we met when we first landed in Boot Key harbor. Buck made
it his business to get to know all sailors that came to visit this little harbor and he always had an eye on this curious
conglomeration of transit travelers that freely and liberally set sail when the spirit moved them.
Buck was a stocky ruggedly built individual who originally came from Australia, looked, and still spoke like his
homeland brethren.
During WWII, Buck enlisted in the American military and he was stationed ultimately in Panama at the Canal Zone.
This is where he built his floating home by himself completely of the native mahogany and hatched his plan to sail
away with it.
Buck crossed the Caribbean Sea and continued up through the Yucatan Channel into the Gulf of Mexico taking
advantage of the persistent Gulf Stream and trade winds. While rounding the Florida Keys the temptation to land
there was overpowering and in he went. He made it to America and found his ideal little slice of paradise. Marathon
back in those days was still a wild and pristine paradise so we can definitely understand why he did not go further
than that because it would be hard to improve on this paradise.
Buck Taylor with his second ferro-cement sailboat behind him and his new wife that told him that she
would break his arms if he ever entertained the thought of sailing it back to Panama.
Buck was set to settle in and had his floating home pulled out of the water and blocked up on dry land where he
converted its bilge into a garage and workshop. With an outside staircase leading up to the boats foredeck Buck
had his tropical waterfront home and still had his dream home vessel, though not floating.
With Buck’s constant eye trained on the transit sailboats in Boot Key harbor his mind soon wandered off to thoughts
of yet another sailing adventure.
Having made his trip up from Panama he thought of retracing his steps back to the Caribbean and this time with a
sailboat so that he would have the independence of not relying on engine power and fuel consumption.
Buck was a fine craftsman and boat builder with attention to detail so his endeavor of constructing his 36-foot Ferro-
cement sailboat went smoothly. (Later in this chapter you will meet two of his helpers, Sandy and Naomi from the
vessel Grace.)
Jane and I quickly struck up a common bond with Buck because we had not only built our own Ferro-cement boat
but we had proven its seaworthiness.
We watched Buck as he fitted out his hull, which he had completed when we first met.
In less than a year Buck not only had completed his sailboat and launched it but he actually sailed it away.
Buck was on his way across the Caribbean Sea and had already made good progress leaving Cuba behind when a
fall hurricane overtook him in the Yucatan Channel.
Jane and I actually read of Buck’s perilous miss-adventure but we were unaware that it was our dear friend Buck that
was being snatched off his heavily storm damaged vessel that was caught in those hurricane ravaged seas.
Buck was not ready to give up the sea, returned directed to Marathon, and immediately began construction of his
replacement vessel.
During his construction project on his second Ferro-cement sailboat Buck acquired a wife who told us in no
uncertain terms that if Buck ever entertained thoughts of retracing his steps back into the Caribbean with his new
boat that she would break both of his arms.
Back to our water shortage:
I happened to relate to Harvey the bridge tender the story of our treatment by the disgruntled manager of the Boot
Key marina pertaining to our water. Harvey told me to get a hose and swing the stern of our vessel Dursmirg close
to the bridge fenders and he would not only give us some water, he would top off out tanks that very night. Sure
enough that very night Harvey solved our water problems…bless his heart and thank you Harvey.
Of course, he was not paying the water bill so it was a little easier to be benevolent
(Harvey was well up in years at the time and soon passed away but we have never forgotten his thoughtful and kind
gesture.)
RAID OUR BOAT
In the winter of 1975 at the Boot Key anchorage the US Customs, the Federal Marshal, the Florida Marine Patrol,
the Monroe County Sheriffs Office and the Department of Natural Resources boarded our boat Dursmirg, all at the
same time.
I invited the group aboard and cautioned them that I had just finished painting our cockpit and that the paint was still
wet but that they could just cross on boards that I provided and enter.
Well, they charged in like so many berserk wild animals on a stampede. My new paint job was wrecked plus we had
a huge mess with the tracked in wet paint.
At the time we had three visitors, our friend Ed Weber from a nearby boat and a couple that was visiting him at the
time.
US Customs officer Ralton signing our guest book. Michel Wilmen, (Ed Weber’s friend), myself and the
officer.
I made the US Customs officer sign our guest book because he seemed to be in charge of the group. He then
checked out all of our ships papers and could find no problems so next on the pretext of checking our
documentation number wanted to peer into our bilge(meanwhile the other officers were going through our jars of
spices).
The US Customs officer then informed us that he had an infraction and issued us a summons to appear before the
Federal Magistrate at Key West to answer the charge, which was that our number on the ships hull was too small.
Well, our number which was etched into a stainless steel plate that was in-turn welded to our engine stringers had
been approved by the district office of the Duluth, Minnesota Documentation Office when they issued our original
papers.
We were also informed that if we moved our vessel that we would be fired upon and this was no idle threat. Just a
mile north of where we sat was a wooden trimaran that was riddled with machinegun holes plus there were no
survivors. The US Customs officers’ clamed that the trimaran wouldn’t stop for them. Yes, this was very serious
business!
Early the next morning I went to our bilge and carved fresh documentation numbers the exact size that the
government guidelines required in our main wooden beam plus painted them a contrasting color. So now we had our
original approved number plus the new extra numbers or double the requirement.
As soon as we could that morning Jane and I went in search of the “goon” that issued us the summons and made
the threat that we would be fired upon. We found him before noon and told him to come and inspect our new
number. This despicable, degenerate and disgusting trouble-making functionary now told us he had no power to
inspect. Wow! This asshole functionary was making a very good case for out and out hatred of the government. We
clearly needed some help.
That afternoon after much thought and deliberation, Jane and I both came to the same conclusion. The only agency
of the government that had not harassed us was the United States Coast Guard so we decided that our next move
had to be to go to them for advice and help.
It so happened that the district office for the United States Coast Guard was located there in Marathon.
We went with all of our papers and to our surprise several of the United States Coast Guard lawyers were there and
eager to assist us.
We were told our rights and they even gave us an official letter of “Safe Passage”, so we could then travel to Key
West to answer the threatening summons.
The next day we set sail for Key West, which was a day and a half sail away.
When we arrived at Key West we went directly to United States Magistrate’s office.
After waiting half a day to see the Magistrate, late that afternoon we finally got in and to our complete surprise we
were told that our case had been thrown out of court because it had no merit. Nobody bothered to inform us. Those
bureaucratic bungling bastards did it again. At least the Coast Guard had been there to help.
Three years earlier at Savannah, Georgia a similar thing happened but we were not issued a summons or harassed
further at that time.
Two years earlier while we were anchored in Herb Creek just south of Savannah with two other sailboats we were
boarded and searched and found to be clean. The ironic thing this time was that the other two boats anchored next
to us were loaded with pot.
This is a letter that we wrote after returning to Marathon and discovering U.S. Customs agents watching
us from shore through binoculars.
December 24, 1975
District Director of U.S. Customs
Miami District
U.S. Customhouse
Miami, Florida
Dear Sir;
We are writing concerning our vessel, DURSMIRG, Documentation number 535679, Superior, Wisconsin,
documented permanent pleasure yacht through the Duluth, Minnesota Coast Guard District on October 13, 1971.
Owners John M. Grimsrud and Jane A. Grimsrud, Box 84 Maple, Wisconsin, 54854.
We arrived in Marathon, Florida on December 18, 1975. Shortly after our arrival we began to hear rumors that we
were told originated through your office here in Marathon, Inspector Hauser.
The rumors are that we and our vessel are currently under suspicion by the U.S. Customs.
We are very upset by these rumors. We would like your immediate investigation in order to straighten out these
flagrant misrepresentations. We would like your file on our vessel investigated in case there is some false
information. We have had no violations whatsoever with the U.S. Customs, Coast Guard, Marine Patrol, etc. with our
vessel. We built our vessel in 1970 and are the sole owners.
We plan to be in Marathon at least a month. Our Marathon address is: John M. Grimsrud, General Delivery,
Marathon, Florida, 33050.
We await your prompt response.
John M. Grimsrud
Jane A. Grimsrud
HERE IS ONE OF THE LETTERS WE RECEIVED IN RESPONSE:
DEPARTMENT OF THE TRESUARY
U. S. CUSTOMS SERVICE
MIAMI, FLORIDA
Mr. John M. Grimsrud
General Delivery
Marathon, Florida 33055
Dear Mr. Grimsrud:
This is in response to your letter December 24, 1975, regarding the records that the United Stats Customs may
possess which related to you and your vessel.
A complete search of our records has been made. We discovered that your name and the name of your vessel, in
fact, were inadvertently placed within the records maintained by Customs.
Therefore, I have instructed that your name and the name of your vessel be removed from Customs records. In
addition, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience which we may have resulted from this matter.
If you should encounter future difficulties, or if I may be of any other service to you, please do not hesitate to contact
me.
Sincerely yours
Albert F. Bazemore Regional Commissioner
CHAPTER 13 BOOT KEY ANCHORAGE AND THE SAILING ROGUES THERE:
Ed Weber was one of the first people we encountered when we came into the Boot Key anchorage at Marathon
down in the Florida Keys. Our first day at Boot Key Jane and I retrieved a sailboat that had been blown across the
harbor and up into the mangroves on the opposite side of the channel. I went with our dinghy and provided tug
service to return the unattended runaway vessel to the anchorage. When I went to re-anchor the 26-foot fiberglass
sailboat, I happened to notice that it had been anchored with an anchor so small that I would not have trusted it hold
our dinghy even in a calm harbor.
We later met Ed Weber, the owner of this vessel, a Herreshoff designed Bristol 26-foot sloop named Caribbean
Sunrise. Ed Weber turned out to be a jovial unassuming retired schoolteacher from New Hampshire who was single-
handing his boat and just wandering around trying to discover a new frontier in the sunny southland to lay back and
mingle with the natives.
I joked with Ed and told him that he had anchored his vessel using a tie tack and he really needed to get himself an
anchor if he intended to get some sleep or even come back to where he had left his boat and find it there again.
However Ed was a mechanical genius with some disconnected idiosyncrasies. He could engineer any kind of
electrical, plumbing or refrigeration system problem; these were some of the many technical subjects that Ed
happened to have taught.
(Some years later Ed assisted Jane and I in reengineering our 22-gallon per hour diesel powered furnace that
heated an apartment building we had purchased. The net result was that our fuel consumption was reduced by
more that half. When we purchased that apartment building the fuel price was 32 cents per gallon and a year later it
was over $1.30 so Ed saved us thousands of dollars…thank you Ed!)
Over the years, Jane and I became very good friends with Ed and we not only sailed several places with him but also
even visited his lovely 200-acre ranch up in the New Hampshire hills where he lives in a home over 300 years old
and has his own airplane and private airstrip.
During this winter season at the Boot Key anchorage Ed became one of the crowd who later told us that he really
had the very best time of his life here down in the Florida Keys.
Ed was a lonely sailor who more than anything was looking for companionship and did not what to sail alone.
Everywhere that Ed went, he tried to organize a traveling group to fulfill his gregariousness.
Several afternoons a week Ed would organize as many of the boating community as he could to swim at a neat old
abandoned mansion with a salt-water swimming pool that had been built by the family from the Clark Candy Bar
Company. The pool was ceramic tile lined and 75 feet across so we swam with the fish, but the fill and discharge
ports for the pool were too small for sharks.
We did go swimming with the sharks and barracuda with Ed on many of our snorkel diving trips in and around
Marathon. This got me interested in treasure diving and Jane and I passed many an interesting and rewarding day
discovering artifacts, some of which we sold and others we used ourselves.
Above is a stainless steel dinghy boat anchor I welded together and was made completely from scrap
salvaged from the Barefoot Contessa, a derelict and sunken sport fishing boat. The shank was made
from a water pump drive shaft; the flukes were made from rub-rail and the eye from bolt.
This solid bronze Sampson post I recovered from a derelict Cuban refugee vessel found in the
mangroves at Marathon. When I found this treasure ( measuring 6-inches in height) it was green with
oxidation and the boat it was affixed to already nearly rotted to pieces.
Judging by the amount of dings, scrapes and abrasions it had, the Sampson post must have seen very
heavy use over a very long period of time, which led me to believe that it might have survived several
different vessels. Now we proudly display it at our home here in Mexico.
Every time I see this beautiful jewel, my thoughts go back to those Cuban refugees that laid their lives
on the line crossing the wild wide open seas to escape oppression as they entered the unknown new
world. I also wish that I could know of the previous owner and the sea adventures that went with this
unique and distinctive work of art.
Ed got Jane and I making sprouts from various seeds so we were able to have fresh crispy crunchy salads wherever
we traveled, by land or sea and we have kept this practice up all of these years. Ed also got us making our own
granola with honey, almonds and coconuts that we found in south Florida and roasted ourselves. Drying fruit in the
sun and also making sun tea were the rage of these back to nature people like Ed whose inquisitive minds and spirit
of independence drove them to this last frontier of the sea.
We spent many an hour discussing alternative power from the sun and wind that led me to experiment. One idea
that we came up with that I actually built did work but not well. Employing a 12-volt bicycle generator, the contraption
was compact, easily mounted on a boat and relatively cheap to make. It had one totally insurmountable problem that
drove me to pitch it overboard. One peaceful night, after I finally got it operational, a wind sprang up during the night
and the generator sprang into operation. The insurmountable problem was that this electrical generator contraption
was a far better generator of noise than electrical current. It sent a loud deafening thunderous and earsplitting
vibration through our entire vessel. Jane and I were jolted awake and responded with fright and terror. It would be
back to the drawing board and the end of this memorable joint project with Ed.
In this photo you can see mounted upon the dinghy boat davits my wind-generating contraption. Jane is
at the helm as we slowly sail downwind on a broad reach.
We did finally surrender to the experts and purchased a commercial wind generator at the Miami Boat Show and it
proved to be fully functional and much cheaper than solar power at the time.
Our new 5-amp commercially made wind generator mounted atop our new wheelhouse along with our
“Grog” self-steering gear which I designed and built.
The strange mix of wayward boaters that all became neighbors here this winter in Boot Key harbor accepted each
other without any questions. There were no social snobs and the general feeling was that if anybody wanted to
divulge their past it was totally up to them because no questions were ever going to be asked.
We had known Ed for almost three years before we discovered that he did indeed have a wife and family along with
a home. To this day we never have discovered what it was that sent Ed off all alone on his little sailboat. Because we
know him so well we do know that whatever it was, Ed did not carelessly abandon his wife and family and that his
reasons had to have been valid. (We did meet Ed’s wife Odette; in fact, they even later on came to spend the winter
in St. Augustine, Florida where we had gone into business, some years later.)
During Ed’s first winter in the Boot Key harbor he made the purchase of a two-man inflatable dinghy, “Shark 80” and
a tiny outboard motor to push it around.
Ed was of Swiss decent and his huge size reflected his ancestry. We gawked with amazement at 280-pound big
boned Ed, who was not fat, in his tiny little dinghy, which he filled to overflowing. Then we had to laugh when he told
us that he had actually purchased the “two-man” model.
Ed, besides being a lonely groupie, was an itinerate “gadgeteer” who absolutely could not resist any type of
contrivance that he could amuse himself with that was mechanical. One of his favorite pastimes was shopping not
only for gadgets but also for foods and his inclination tended toward sweets. I can still see him in the Winn-Dixie
store when he found his favorite jam exclaiming wildly as he held up the jar, “Smuckers!”
Ed Weber and on the right is Ed with his vessel Caribbean Sunrise parked in the cold snow of in his 200-
acre New Hampshire estate.
Though Ed never sailed his “Caribbean Sunrise” into the Caribbean he did fulfill his dream of sailing
away into tropical waters and enjoyed many a sunrise and sunset from his dream boat.
Ed was the best of sports and never passed up the opportunity to take off on any excursions. We explored with
snorkels and flippers the waters around Boot Key, Vaca Key and Sisters Creek that led out the other side of our little
harbor and to the Ocean at Marathon. Before long, we had discovered a number of sunken boats to salvage. Some
of the wrecks dated back many years and others were a product of the mass exodus of Cubans fleeing Castro’s
Cuba in the early 1960s. This discovery led Jane and I into a new pastime and business, which was commercial
salvage.
We mostly just amused ourselves with our salvage business but we did manage to make some money and keep
friends and ourselves in a good supply of bronze and stainless fittings.
Oh, by the way;
The time was right and the conditions fit the mood of this unusual group of sailors that some how managed by some
twist of fate to be thrown together in this strange little anchorage of Boot Key harbor at Marathon. This was a sailor’s
paradise with the Arab oil embargo making gasoline and diesel fuel something that put power boaters out of
business. The recreational boating places became silent and only enjoyed by the lucky sailors who had a chance of
a lifetime to escape the disruptive, smoky and noisy powerboat people that the sailors all referred to as the “stink
potters”.
The amalgamated motley mix of sailors here in the Boot Key anchorage at this time as you will see as you read on
was never to be duplicated again; in fact, in all of our travels we have never encountered anything like this group of
social misfits that somehow made the perfect fit here at this time and place.
Keith Gore from Virginia Beach, Virginia and John Fornear from Merritt Island, Florida arrived in the harbor
with a classic little 25-foot wooden lap-strake sloop, “Folkboat” made in Norway named Whatever’s Fair. The reason
I referred to Keith’s boat as little was that he arrived in the harbor towing a 19-foot sailboat as his
dinghy…outlandish! I will expand on that last statement and you will better understand why I referred to Keith as well
as his dinghy as outlandish.
On Keith and John’s trip south their first year they waited for a strong “norther” to arrive and then they set out sailing
offshore from Cape Canaveral inlet straight on down to the Key’s directly with their 19-foot dinghy in tow. Keith said
that the trip was a piece of cake and required little or no navigational skills…all he needed to do day or night was
follow the row of beachfront hotels and condominiums. The 35 to 40 knot northwest wind that they took broad on
their beam got their Folkboat almost up to planing speed even with their 19-foot dinghy in tow. Their dinghy was only
six feet shorter than their Folkboat.
This winter season Keith and John took a side trip up into the Gulf of Mexico and they returned without their 19-foot
dinghy. When I asked Keith what became of his dinghy his answer was, “it committed suicide by drowning”. Actually,
the dinghy swamped in heavy seas and then departed in the night.
Keith was the owner of Whatever’s Fair. This fearless sailor whose cynical wit soon made him into the anchorage’s
number one character, (this was a real accomplishment considering his fellow anchorage mates). He was in his own
element when cannabis smoke scented the neighborhood air.
Not too tall, wiry, agile, witty and with a definite lispy speech, Keith let it be known that his mother was a speech
therapist.
Keith mentioned that his family tree took his ancestry back to the Mayflower Gores and that his folks had higher
expectations for him than just being a boat-bum dropout. Sure enough, his straight laced and proper parents
showed up in Marathon and found their son and his little boat swinging on the hook where “Whatever is fair!”
Keith and John were into scuba diving and quickly organized expeditions out to some of the nearby islands and coral
reefs looking for conch and lobster. On one of our first endeavors we took their sailboat, Whatever’s Fair, but pulled
our Bingy Dinghy which was ideal for carrying a heavy load and very easy to board while swimming.
We headed out to a small island named Pigeon Key that was about half way out from shore along the famous Seven-
mile Bridge. Our success was incredible and I had never seen so many conchs in my life. They were so prolific that
we did not even have to go diving for them. In fact, we could have had all we wanted without even getting our
bathing suits wet because we got all we could carry in less than three feet of water. With a heavy load of conch, we
headed back to harbor. I believe that there were about eight of us aboard the Folkboat this particular trip. The water
was very shoal and we had to pay close attention to our water depth especially because we were heavily loaded.
The boat drew 48 inches of water normally but now we were down on our lines weighted with cargo and crew. Keith’s
partner John took the helm and promptly put us aground. We figured that there would be no problem refloating the
boat and getting underway so several of us disembarked the vessel to push off and get moving again.
Whoa! Almost instantaneously huge sharks began circling and moving in for a meal and surrounded us. I do not
think that any of us had second thoughts about what these demons could do especially in their own element. Jane
and I had first hand evidence of the attacking ferocity these sharks were capable of from our previous encounters
aboard our friend George Tappan’s shrimp boat, Terry, up in St. Augustine.
Jane had a relative that had been an underwater photographer and lost his life due to a shark attack and only small
bits of his swimming suit were ever found in the Gulf of Mexico waters up on the Florida panhandle. Yes, this was
serious business and we later found out that the Florida State University had been doing research on shark attack
behavior at the exact same place we were harvesting our conch at Pigeon Key. They had been luring the sharks in
by feeding them so these guys definitely came in expecting to be fed…not by us or with our arms and legs, however.
It was now time for plan “B” and I took the outboard motor off from Keith’s boat Whatever’s Fair and placed it on our
Bingy Dinghy. Now I had a tugboat and using the halyard from the masthead as the towline we heeled Whatever’s
Fair over on its gunwale and the little boat with four and a half feet of draft floated as its deep keel swung clear of
the bottom.
Keith and I developed an ingenious technique for extracting the conch meat from the conch shells, which was quick
and easy and only made a hole the size of a BB in the shell. The tool of choice for this delicate operation was a
carpenter’s scratch awl. If any of you readers are interested in just how our technique worked, I would be happy to
share that information with you, just ask.
We now had to devise a multitude of recipes for conch because we had harvested enough to feed the group for
many meals. Conch fritters, cracked conch, chowder and conch ceviche were the favorites but John Fornear
smoked some in our smoke oven then cut and dried the conch by hanging it up in the rigging to dry in the sun,
making conch jerky. It was OK but it was harder to consume than an all-day sucker and its flavor was somewhere
between bland and tasteless.
Whenever Keith and John caught fish they brought them to our boat for smoking in our smoke oven. They always
paid for this process with a generous amount of the smoked fish and we were all happy.
Keith Gore; Keith besides his many other interests was an avid reader. His favorites were, Kurt
Vonnegut (author of; Slaughter House Five), Adele Davis (author of various health food books) and
Euell Gibbons (author of several books on the subject of living off the land and out of the sea, the most
famous of which was; Stalking the Blue-eyed Scallop).
Keith used to joke that Euell Gibbons died from eating a poison mushroom.
Oh, by the way!
Some years later Jane and I were surprised to find, a feature article about our dear friend Keith Gore in
a commercial fishing magazine named the “National Fisherman”.
It turned out that at that time Keith had a fish market at Virginia Beach, Virginia and one of his
specialties was smoked fish, which he had perfected into a local delicacy. Above is a photo of his dream
come true!
Back to the Boot Key anchorage at Marathon;
The problem of keeping the conch fresh and ready to eat on demand with no refrigeration was quickly solved. We
merely placed the conch into an old sunken boat in the harbor so that they stayed alive and could not escape. We
had our own conch corral.
I always used to joke that, “we ate so much conch that we got all conked out”.
These are a couple of the conch shells we harvested with the meat extracted and the lower photo
clearly shows how I cut the top of the shell and then punched out just the right amount of the center
section in order to make the shell into a horn. These horns were enormously loud and we used them to
open bridges and also for other nautical signaling. (The above shell is immature and not fully
developed. This size shell made the loudest, most ear splitting horn.)
*
The following year Keith was back to the Boot Key Anchorage again with his Folkboat and this time he had an
inflatable dinghy and a new companion named Carol Carpenter.
Carol was the master of the little ship even if Keith was the owner. With thick glasses, buckteeth, assertive,
intelligent and self-motivated, Carol did not get pushed around. (She later moved to California where she made a
million dollars with her own holistic medicine business.)
Keith and Carol were a team in many ways and they instigated and organized several group dinners featuring the
seafood we harvested from the local waters. Conch fritters turned out to be their specialty along with conch
chowder. The dinners were always prepared and held aboard our vessel Dursmirg because we had the room to
accommodate all the boaters in the little harbor at the same time. Our galley had a 16-foot countertop, larger than
many in landside homes.
Though Carol was into holistic medicine and natural health foods, she was still a big consumer of cannabis. It was
not enough that she was fanatically taken up with her offbeat dietary idiosyncrasies; she also got thoroughly bent
out of shape if Keith didn’t tow the line and follow Carol’s strange and dietary wacky ways. One of Carol’s absolute
ironclad rules was that Keith would not ever let a single drop of coffee cross his lips even though she could suck on
reefers non-stop all day.
Jane and I had no idea just how emphatic Carol was concerning coffee consumption when we invited Keith aboard
one morning for a cup of coffee. Keith eagerly took up our offer and rowed over to our nearby Dursmirg in his
dinghy. No sooner did Keith get aboard and Carol was out on their back deck, hands on her hips and demanding an
answer from Keith when she asked, “where do you think are you going?”
Keith’s answer was; “I’m going to shoot up a coffee!”
We had our coffee and as usual a very stimulating and intellectual conversation with Keith.
When Keith returned to his little Folkboat, he got as far as the companionway when a barrage of airborne projectiles
aimed directly at him began to come flying out of his boat’s cabin. In an instant, Keith turned, leaped and took a
swan dive directly into his dinghy. Carol was “super-pissed”!
Besides the barrage of projectiles that included pots and pans that Carol let fly at Keith, she also let loose with a
matching volley of verbal abuse.
At this point, everyone in the anchorage had come out of their boats to take in the fireworks. The best comment of
all came from our dear friend Bubba Schill, anchored nearby who said; “Do I detect a little dissension in paradise?”
Quotes from Keith: “Water cars and sand gnats have the same level of consciousness”. Keith referred to
speedboats as “water cars”.
Keith was working at a local restaurant as a waiter and when his patrons would become disgruntled with the service
or food Keith would always say, “If it make you feel any better, I really feel bad”…Keith was as cynical as they come.
Lyndon Baines (Food Stamps) Johnson had a big push on at that time for federally mandated bussing to achieve
racial equality in the nations schools and Keith’s quote on that subject was; “They should bus them from Mississippi
to Minnesota!”
February 6th, 1974 Sandy Needhem and Naomi came aboard our vessel and signed our guest book. No last
name was ever given by Naomi and she listed her address as “outer and inner space”, Marathon, Florida. These
two women were beyond a doubt the most outrageous sailors we had ever met and they were definitely doing their
own thing. Sandy, a 6 foot 4 inch tall blond Scandinavian in her early twenties from Oregon was ruggedly built but
gentle and looked as though she could easily have been a Viking ship princess. Naomi on the other hand was less
than five and a half feet tall, had black kinky hair, a perpetual smirk and smile and gave the appearance of sailing
with Sinbad the sailor. These two women came sailing into the harbor aboard a little decapitated wooden sailing
sloop named Grace. The Grace had no motor or any provision for one so this was the time and place for sailing. I
watched with amazement these two boat handlers who somehow made this little vessel go where they wanted it to go
but not using any traditional sailing techniques. By manhandling the sails and back winding them, I witnessed the
most peculiar boating maneuvers I have ever seen. First they sailed up to the spot that they wanted to anchor in
and then just like they were parallel parking a sport car they back-winded both of their sails manually and literally
backed into their preferred position. Now I have never seen or even read of such a maneuver but I am sure by trial
and error they discovered how to make their little vessel go where they wanted.
Later on I did go out daysailing with them aboard their little vessel Grace and I was able to give them some helpful
hints on trimming their sails. The one requirement I made before setting out to sail with them aboard their little vessel
was that they leave their profoundly putrid reeking rank and fetidly foul smelling scruff-hounds Otis and Dead Eye
behind.
I soon discovered that they had a very slow moving vessel. In fact, Jane actually got so worried about us returning to
port that she actually took our dinghy and outboard motor out at ten that evening on a rescue/search mission. Jane
found Sandy, Naomi and I attempting to tack up the harbor channel against the outgoing tidal current. Because we
were hardly making any progress at all, I was happy for the tugboat service.
Their two dogs, Dead Eye and Otis, were definitely scrawny, scruffy flea bitten street hounds. The dogs never got
the privilege of a ride to shore in the dinghy. Whenever Naomi got the notion to get the dogs out of their little floating
home she would merely grab two fists full of fur and pitch the dogs overboard and from there they would make their
way to shore. Naomi maintained that this was her treatment for getting rid of the dog’s fleas.
They definitely had fleas and every other type of insect that could possibly climb aboard them.
Sandy and Naomi’s little vessel also had a teaming and thriving population of cockroaches that were so prolific and
pervasive that they had actually become brazen. The average cockroach is nocturnal and runs for cover when
confronted but these had bred up to the status of super-roach that stood their ground.
The girls soon became regular visitors on our boat and they enjoyed our homemade beer, wine and bread enough
to attempt their own.
Sandy had a car and she went on a hunt for coconuts in order to make wine. It turned out that coconuts were so
abundant in the Marathon area that the locals actually did not want to be bothered with them in their gardens and
would have their gardeners cut them down and carry them off to the garbage dump. Sandy found the bonanza at
the garbage dump and everyone in the anchorage had all of the coconuts we could possibly use for no charge
thanks to resourceful Sandy.
I gave instructions on a quick and easy way of opening the coconuts and we not only were making coconut wine but
also, roasting and cooking with coconut.
The cockroaches absolutely loved Sandy and Naomi’s coconut wine and I must admit after seeing the swarm of
those ferocious little critters teaming in droves into that frothy caldron of wine I just could not bring myself to
contemplate the thought of drinking it. This is where we differed in out sensibilities because the girls had no
reservations or compunctions about swilling down their brew.
They definitely did what they could to reciprocate with hospitality and even baked us homemade bread atop their
small galley stove with a collapsible stovetop oven.
Anytime that they went out shopping they always shared what they had with us even though their place of
preference for produce shopping was the local Winn-Dixie dumpster. They knew the best time to rummage through
the dumpster and the produce manager took a liking to them and always made sure the pickings were good.
The girls had no problem in finding work because they didn’t have any inhibitions. Our friend Buck that was finishing
off his Ferro-cement boat at the Boot Key Marina found many projects that the girls eagerly took on. I stopped by
several times to see how Buck’s boat project was progressing and was surprised at the advanced woodworking and
joinery Buck had taught the girls to do. Scribing and compound miter cuts that were tricks used by cabinetmakers in
complex joinery were just a few of the things that Buck had taught the girls to handle.
I was impressed with the intelligence and natural aptitude these girls possessed and knew that with their talents that
if they took the notion to pursue almost any project that they would be able to accomplish the highest of standards if
they wanted to.
Oh, by the way!
After leaving Boot Key, Sandy and Naomi took on an ambitious sailing adventure. Considering the hull speed of their
little boat Grace and the fact that they had no motor or any type of electronic navigational equipment, what they
attempted was either super gutsy or profoundly foolhardy.
Sailing offshore from the Florida Keys they headed north up the east coast of Florida on their way to New England.
They were caught in a storm north of Cape Canaveral that caused some damage and ultimately when their
provisions were exhausted they were able to signal a boat that summoned the Coast Guard who pulled them into the
Port of St. Augustine. By the time that Jane and I arrived in St. Augustine that next spring Sandy and Naomi had
already moved on and we never heard from them again. We did get the full story from the locals because the
newsworthy story of two young girls sailing alone offshore and shipwrecked made the newspapers and even the TV.
We did however find some of the crew of the little ship Grace patiently waiting at the City Yacht Pier in St. Augustine
for their ship to return and they definitely recognized and greeted Jane and I. The two were definitely scrawny,
scruffy flea bitten street hounds named Dead Eye and Otis.
Back to Boot Key anchorage;
Drew and Barbara McManus fit into the opposite end of the social scale from our friends Sandy and Naomi.
They had a brand new Great Dane 28-foot fiberglass sloop named Loon exactly like the one our friend Bob Burn
from Daufuskie Island, South Carolina had just made three trans-Atlantic crossings with. Drew and Barbara were the
odd couple in this anchorage.
An incident that occurred when Jane and I arrived at the Boot Key anchorage; our chart didn’t show the water
depths off the marked channel so we anchored Dursmirg offshore and took our dinghy in to lead-line the water
depths and also pick the best spot to set our anchor. While we were looking the anchorage over we spoke with Drew
and Barbara and told them a little about our boat and adventures. I also happened to mention that the night before
while we were anchored out in the open waters of the Hawk Channel in a windstorm that the seas had been so
violent that we could not even sleep in our bunk and we were pitched out. The wave motion had jarred our untied
helm past its stops and we had to repair it before we could proceed.
Well, Drew damn near pissed in his pants with paranoia and frantically went around to all of the other boats in the
anchorage and told them that a 46-foot, 20-ton displacement boat with no rudder was on its way into the anchorage.
We liked Drew and Barbara but they definitely did not have the slightest concept of the reality of providing for
themselves.
Drew went through college on an expense account financed by his rich parents and graduated with a liberal arts
degree, took a job as a social worker, got tired of it after a year and quit. He liked sailing so his parents bought him
the boat and even had a dock built for him in front of their West Dennis, Massachusetts waterfront home.
By some twist of fate, these two individuals who most likely ventured down the coast staying at the most expensive
marinas and indulging themselves at the upscale restaurants dropped their anchor amongst sailors who had all
gotten their vessels and made their own way with their own efforts.
I was surprised that Drew actually guarded his vessel as if he had made the effort to stack up the money for it with
some kind of toil. He didn’t even know how to put on varnish and nearly drove everyone in the anchorage crazy with
questions like he was preparing to perform brain surgery just to apply a simple coat of some varnish.
Drew and Barbara were like two lost puppies in the anchorage with no hobbies or sports activities that interested
them and they couldn’t find anything meaningful or creative to do. Barbara spent hours with her nose in some book
figuring out astrology.
These two did enjoy playing cards and they taught us their favorite games, Hearts, Dirty Neighbor and
Concentration. On those long nights of the winter season we managed to pass our time away with them playing
games and telling stores. Drew had such a dry and unexpressive personality that it was hard to tell when he was
having a good time. In our beachcombing trips together Jane, Barbara and I always managed to make a game out of
searching for treasures on the beach like seashells, sea beans and anything useful to drag home. Drew wouldn’t get
involved. One day he did ask us what we were looking for and we replied, “sea beans”. I showed him one and he
exclaimed, “oh, those things, they are everywhere”. Then he proceeded to pick up a half dozen, one right after the
other…more that we all had found that morning.
We made one sailing trip with them to a place called New Found Harbor that was situated on the south side of Big
Pine Key and very isolated and west of Marathon by about twenty miles. We were on our way to Key West down the
Hawk Channel that was separated from the open ocean by a string of barrier reefs that extended all the way from
south of Miami to past Key West, our ultimate destination on this trip.
I noticed that the entry in our logbook stated that we went aground trying to get in the channel and later anchored in
twenty feet of water. Well, that was just half of the story. The wind was blowing so strong and the current was so swift
that we lost many of our options for entering the harbor. When we went aground we were momentarily stopped,
bounced off the bottom and the wind and current did the rest as the waves bumped us up and down, we were
carried into the harbor like being sucked up by some huge vacuum cleaner. The wind was awesome and howling all
the time we were anchored there but we did manage a trip to shore by dinghy. We discovered that the island was
just a tuft of low rough coral rock with a few stumpy wind blown and twisted trees abused by the elements. Drew and
Barbara came over to our boat for popcorn and beer that night which turned out to be a treacherous excursion with
the wind whipped waters. I tried to make the popcorn over the fire in our fireplace and nearly drove everyone off the
vessel with the backed up smoke driven back down the stack by the gusty wind that persisted in holding Dursmirg
abeam to the swift current.
These are the kinds of nights that get all but the most persistent of sailors to abandon ship. One consolation of
these conditions was the fact that we were still living in one of the last free frontiers on earth. It is interesting to
reflect back on those fabulous years and realize that though this particular windstorm was discomforting we did
indeed survive and though the threat of killer weather was always present, we at least dodged that bullet and had
our escape and lived to tell the story.
Drew and Barbara later sailed with us to Miami. In the area where we anchored up for the night Drew caught a nice
barracuda and I caught a good-sized snapper. Jane prepared the meal aboard Dursmirg and we noticed that Drew
wouldn’t eat any of the barracuda. As always with Jane’s cooking of seafood nothing remains and Drew missed a
fabulous treat.
Back to Boot Key Harbor at Marathon:
Neal and Ronda signed our guestbook March 28th, 1976, gave no last name and listed their vessel as Lana Jean.
I am not sure what the history of Neal’s boat was but it was the only sailboat in the anchorage with no masts. Neal
was a slim guy in his thirties with a ready toothless smile.
Over the course of the winter, Neal took care of his problems in a vacant field adjacent to the anchorage.
Using nothing but hand tools Neal got lumber from the local lumber mill, glued and screwed it all together to make
the masts and booms for his schooner. He didn’t solicit any help or ask to borrow anything from anyone and went
about his business as through he was working for a tough taskmaster. I know that he finished his mast-building
project in record time and was ready to set sail. Neal invited Jane and I out on his maiden voyage and it was a good
sail. Evidently, Neal knew what he was up to because he had obviously thought through his construction project and
his finished spars. Though not esthetically up to traditional yacht standards, the sailing rig was fully functional. With
a few adjustments, we were off for a spirited sail and headed out and through the opening span of the Seven-mile
Bridge, through the Old Spanish Channel and into Florida Bay on the Gulf of Mexico.
It took at least fifteen minutes for the Seven-mile bridge to open and this turned out to be quite a show to watch.
With the current running with us and carrying us down to the bridge, we had to tack in tight quarters between the
shoals while the bridge tender first acknowledged our presence by answering our three blasts on the horn. Then
the bridge tender climbed down a ladder from his house above the traffic to a place where he started the engine
that would power open the bridge. Next, he climbed up the ladder to his house above the traffic and signaled the
highway traffic with flashing red lights. Then he put down the guard gates to stop the highway traffic and engaged
the motor to open the swing bridge span. The swing span opened at a snails pace that was almost imperceptible.
We then began our sail for the open bridge and discovered that this whole process took more than fifteen minutes
from the time we first signaled the bridge tender. After we had cleared the bridge and we were on the other side it
took another five minutes for the bridge tender to close the bridge, put up the guard gates and for the highway
traffic to begin to flow again. We repeated this process again later that afternoon on our return voyage.
The next amazing thing that Neal accomplished in that vacant field adjacent to the anchorage was to have his dental
problems resolved. Some traveling dentist down from South Carolina for the winter made Neal a complete set of
false teeth right out of the trunk of his car in that vacant field. The price was right, Neal said that they worked just
fine and to top it all off they looked great.
The other half of this team, Ronda was a very pretty young lady and she took a job as a waitress at a pizza
restaurant that opened that winter along Highway 1 on the other side of the vacant field next to the anchorage.
On the grand opening of the restaurant every single boater from the anchorage came for the inauguration. We put
enough tables together to seat the entire crew, which extended from one end of the restaurant to the other. Before
the evening was over our group stayed until we had consumed every drop of tap beer on hand and the owner even
sent out for more, which we thirsty sailors also polished off.
Oh, by the way:
A couple of years later Neal made the national news when he was apprehended smuggling in to the US illegal
Haitians with his sailboat.
A comment that one of our friends, Bubba Schill made about Neal’s smuggling; “I could see smuggling, but at least
smuggle something we needed…but Haitians?”
Christ and Janet Kniedler arrived from Pennsylvania aboard their little Catboat named Flexible Flyer. Christ was
definitely among the tallest people I had ever seen and had to have been over seven feet tall. His shoe size
matched his huge frame. We had seven feet of head room in the main salon of our boat Dursmirg and Christ had to
stoop so his preference when he came to visit was to sit in our open companionway with his huge feet down on our
companionway ladder. Our neighbor Keith Gore was the smallest member of our anchorage community and Keith’s
comment was that he could easily paddle to shore in one of Christ’s tennis shoes.
Christ was besides extremely tall very friendly and easy going with a perpetual smile and had fascinating and
interesting stories to tell.
One story that Christ told was about his ingenious preparation for sailing his little boat in the tropical waters of south
Florida. Christ knew about the problem that wooden boats have with marine creatures like barnacles and wood
eating teredos so he devised a plan to foil them. He purchased copper sheathing and nailed it over the entire
bottomside of his boat before he ventured south.
Coming down the Hawk Channel south of Miami, he encountered heavy weather and high seas, which began the
process of peeling off the sheathing Christ had nailed on. He had put on the overlapping pieces facing forward so
that the water flowing past his hull wanted to peel the sheathing off like the scales of a fish swimming backwards.
When Christ pulled into Boot Key Harbor, he had lost some of his copper sheathing and the many nails that had
held it on. The problem now was that the nails were long enough to puncture his boat’s hull thus creating a multitude
of small water geysers in his bilge. Christ plugged all the holes he could locate but that left a number of them where
he couldn’t reach them so he literally had a sieve. The boat was in danger of sinking if it was not regularly pumped
out and would definitely not make it through the night without sinking if not pumped out.
Christ had no automatic bilge pump so he devised an ingenious trick to keep his boat floating. He slept with one foot
down on the cabin sole and when the water level got high enough it would reach his foot, this would wake him up so
that he could then get up and pump the water out and save his little Flexible Flyer from sinking. This was similar to
what the America Indians did if they wanted to get up early in the morning; they would drink excessive quantities of
water the night before so that they would be forced to rise early to relieve themselves.
Christ and Janet had plans to move to Washington D.C. where Janet had an offer of a high paying job working for
some political figure.
1986 at St. Augustine, Chris and Janet Kriedler visit us with their children Adam and Patrick…a happy
reunion!
We didn’t see them again until some years later when Jane and I had moved to St. Augustine, Florida
where we had our boat Dursmirg tied to our dock that we built in the downtown area adjacent to the
Fountain of Youth tourist attraction. Christ had spotted our boat and he and his wife Janet and their two
young sons arrived at our dock for a very nice visit and reunion.
next chapter
Marathon is half way from Miami to Key West with a single road, U.S. Highway 1 its only land access. Marathon is the
biggest settlement in the mid-keys which are all within Monroe County, the southernmost part of the State of Florida.
Here is what our dear friend Nira Brown always used to say about Monroe County, “there are so many junkies in
Monroe County that you could become one by osmosis”.
Marathon is situated on Vaca Key and Boot Key. This is where the famous seven-mile bridge begins that leads off to
Key West. This Key is long and slim and with the inky blue waters of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic on the south side
and the Coke bottle green waters of the Gulf of Mexico on the other side.
As you pass down U.S. Highway 1 through Marathon all of the streets are either on the ocean side or the bay side.
The ocean side refers to the Atlantic Ocean, which happens to be to the south. Bay side refers to the Florida Bay,
which is on the Gulf of Mexico side.
Back in 1975 this part of the world was just like a wide place in the road and only had a seasonal tourist business
and a local fishing fleet that was mostly involved in fishing with traps for stone crabs and lobster. To make the place
even quieter and more forlorn the Arab oil embargo all but shut down the tourist trade in the 1970s. There was so
little traffic down US Highway 1 that we joked that you could pitch a tent in the middle of the road. Fuel for boats was
also in very short supply and so only sailboats could enjoy boating.
This would be our second winter to venture into these crystal clear waters and we had already gotten to know our
way around plus made many friends amongst the regular sailboat cruising community and also several of the Cuba
fisherman and their families.
A very small bay situated between Vaca key and Boot Key became the anchorage of preference to the sailboat
cruising community.
1975 Boot Key anchorage; Astern of Dursmirg is Keith Gore’s Whatever’s Fair followed by Ed Weber’s
Caribbean Sunrise and Bubba and Linda’s schooner Jaeger. The trimaran Aquarius belonged to Gary and
Marge Thompson.
Boot Key anchorage; Dursmirg with the Boot Key Bridge behind; this is where Harvey the bridge tender
worked.
A view of Boot Key anchorage from the Boot Key Bridge looking west with the marina and behind that
the channel leading into the harbor.
A very rare phenomenon occurred in this little bay that was situated over one hundred miles from the mainland and
completely surrounded by open sea on all sides. This rare thing was that no barnacles would grow on the boat
bottoms here and any barnacles that were attached to your boat when you pulled in would soon perish. No
explanation was ever made of this but whatever caused it, if discovered, could be worth a fortune to the discoverer
because the nemesis of salt water boating are these prolific and rapid growing little marine creatures.
This little bay had a seldom-used channel running through it and there was even an opening bascule bridge with a
full time bridge tender. The road that went over the bridge went to a totally vacant island with no development
whatsoever upon it. This bridge was another good example of the fact that in America we had the very best
politicians that money could buy.
I got to know the cantankerous old bridge tender named Harvey and spent many hours listening to his fascinating
life’s adventures.
I still remember a couple of humorous incidents that Harvey got involved in; One day a large fancy sport fishing boat
approached the bridge and wanted it to open. They either didn’t have a horn or it was inoperable. After several
minutes of screaming for the bridge to open Harvey finally came out of his little control house and informed the boat
operators that if they wanted to have the bridge open that they would have to give three blasts on their horn. The
operator of the boat replied that he didn’t have a horn and then Harvey told them that he wasn’t going to open the
bridge without the prescribed three honks of a horn. With that the man operating the boat screamed back to Harvey;
“honk…honk…honk”, and Harvey laughed and then went in and opened the bridge.
Keith Gore and his bridge story:
Harvey the bridge tender:
This bridge that went to Boot Key and where there was only a garbage dump opened once a day and sometimes not.
Many times Harvey would be sleeping or just watching TV while a boat was repeatedly honking to open the bridge
and there would be no response. After some time all of the boaters in the anchorage would become exasperated
and begin to honk in unison with the boat waiting to get through the bridge and that eventually got results.
Keith Gore on his boat, WHATEVER’S FAIR, was one of the boaters that anchored in the anchorage. One day he
attempted to open the bridge. After many blasts of his horn Keith gave up, tied his 26-foot Norwegian “Folkboat” to
the bridge fenders, climbed up to the bridge tenders house and awoke Harvey the bridge tender. Well, Keith
became very unpopular with Harvey after his tirade in which Keith told Harvey in no uncertain terms that Harvey was
a public servant whose only job it was to open the bridge, not keep it closed.
Harvey and I got along just fine and I definitely took a liking to that old curmudgeon.
Harvey the bridge tender and water out the window at night; this particular winter Jane and I were getting low on
fresh drinking water because of a lack of rain where we were. We had been relying on our rain catcher to fill our 750-
gallon fresh water tank and never in six years of cruising went to the dock expressly for drinking water. One inch of
rainfall produced approximately one hundred gallons of fresh water in our water storage tank so you can see we
were mostly self-reliant when it came to drinking water. Our wheelhouse top was our rain catcher. I had it plumbed
so that the water would go directly to the boats water tank through a particle filter. The rainwater was diverted by
switching some valves to the galley sink or even run back overboard if we had enough water in our tank, which
usually was the case.
Because of our low water supply this winter season, we inquired with our friend Buck who lived at Boot Key marina if
we could fill a couple of five-gallon jugs at his houseboat where we many times tied our dinghy. Buck said sure, so
we filled the jugs. As we were getting ready to load them into our dinghy the manager of the Boot Key Marina saw us
leaving with the water and went into some kind of a belligerent rage and dumped our water out on the ground and
informed us and Buck that there would be no water for any of the anchored out boats. Well, we had absolutely no
idea that anyone would harbor any animosity toward any of the anchored boats. We searched our minds for some
rational reason for the manager’s behavior but in the end could only imagine that he harbored some jealous feelings
for our easygoing lifestyle and his own wretched disposition.
Oh, by the way! Buck was one of the very first people we met when we first landed in Boot Key harbor. Buck made
it his business to get to know all sailors that came to visit this little harbor and he always had an eye on this curious
conglomeration of transit travelers that freely and liberally set sail when the spirit moved them.
Buck was a stocky ruggedly built individual who originally came from Australia, looked, and still spoke like his
homeland brethren.
During WWII, Buck enlisted in the American military and he was stationed ultimately in Panama at the Canal Zone.
This is where he built his floating home by himself completely of the native mahogany and hatched his plan to sail
away with it.
Buck crossed the Caribbean Sea and continued up through the Yucatan Channel into the Gulf of Mexico taking
advantage of the persistent Gulf Stream and trade winds. While rounding the Florida Keys the temptation to land
there was overpowering and in he went. He made it to America and found his ideal little slice of paradise. Marathon
back in those days was still a wild and pristine paradise so we can definitely understand why he did not go further
than that because it would be hard to improve on this paradise.
Buck Taylor with his second ferro-cement sailboat behind him and his new wife that told him that she
would break his arms if he ever entertained the thought of sailing it back to Panama.
Buck was set to settle in and had his floating home pulled out of the water and blocked up on dry land where he
converted its bilge into a garage and workshop. With an outside staircase leading up to the boats foredeck Buck
had his tropical waterfront home and still had his dream home vessel, though not floating.
With Buck’s constant eye trained on the transit sailboats in Boot Key harbor his mind soon wandered off to thoughts
of yet another sailing adventure.
Having made his trip up from Panama he thought of retracing his steps back to the Caribbean and this time with a
sailboat so that he would have the independence of not relying on engine power and fuel consumption.
Buck was a fine craftsman and boat builder with attention to detail so his endeavor of constructing his 36-foot Ferro-
cement sailboat went smoothly. (Later in this chapter you will meet two of his helpers, Sandy and Naomi from the
vessel Grace.)
Jane and I quickly struck up a common bond with Buck because we had not only built our own Ferro-cement boat
but we had proven its seaworthiness.
We watched Buck as he fitted out his hull, which he had completed when we first met.
In less than a year Buck not only had completed his sailboat and launched it but he actually sailed it away.
Buck was on his way across the Caribbean Sea and had already made good progress leaving Cuba behind when a
fall hurricane overtook him in the Yucatan Channel.
Jane and I actually read of Buck’s perilous miss-adventure but we were unaware that it was our dear friend Buck that
was being snatched off his heavily storm damaged vessel that was caught in those hurricane ravaged seas.
Buck was not ready to give up the sea, returned directed to Marathon, and immediately began construction of his
replacement vessel.
During his construction project on his second Ferro-cement sailboat Buck acquired a wife who told us in no
uncertain terms that if Buck ever entertained thoughts of retracing his steps back into the Caribbean with his new
boat that she would break both of his arms.
Back to our water shortage:
I happened to relate to Harvey the bridge tender the story of our treatment by the disgruntled manager of the Boot
Key marina pertaining to our water. Harvey told me to get a hose and swing the stern of our vessel Dursmirg close
to the bridge fenders and he would not only give us some water, he would top off out tanks that very night. Sure
enough that very night Harvey solved our water problems…bless his heart and thank you Harvey.
Of course, he was not paying the water bill so it was a little easier to be benevolent
(Harvey was well up in years at the time and soon passed away but we have never forgotten his thoughtful and kind
gesture.)
RAID OUR BOAT
In the winter of 1975 at the Boot Key anchorage the US Customs, the Federal Marshal, the Florida Marine Patrol,
the Monroe County Sheriffs Office and the Department of Natural Resources boarded our boat Dursmirg, all at the
same time.
I invited the group aboard and cautioned them that I had just finished painting our cockpit and that the paint was still
wet but that they could just cross on boards that I provided and enter.
Well, they charged in like so many berserk wild animals on a stampede. My new paint job was wrecked plus we had
a huge mess with the tracked in wet paint.
At the time we had three visitors, our friend Ed Weber from a nearby boat and a couple that was visiting him at the
time.
US Customs officer Ralton signing our guest book. Michel Wilmen, (Ed Weber’s friend), myself and the
officer.
I made the US Customs officer sign our guest book because he seemed to be in charge of the group. He then
checked out all of our ships papers and could find no problems so next on the pretext of checking our
documentation number wanted to peer into our bilge(meanwhile the other officers were going through our jars of
spices).
The US Customs officer then informed us that he had an infraction and issued us a summons to appear before the
Federal Magistrate at Key West to answer the charge, which was that our number on the ships hull was too small.
Well, our number which was etched into a stainless steel plate that was in-turn welded to our engine stringers had
been approved by the district office of the Duluth, Minnesota Documentation Office when they issued our original
papers.
We were also informed that if we moved our vessel that we would be fired upon and this was no idle threat. Just a
mile north of where we sat was a wooden trimaran that was riddled with machinegun holes plus there were no
survivors. The US Customs officers’ clamed that the trimaran wouldn’t stop for them. Yes, this was very serious
business!
Early the next morning I went to our bilge and carved fresh documentation numbers the exact size that the
government guidelines required in our main wooden beam plus painted them a contrasting color. So now we had our
original approved number plus the new extra numbers or double the requirement.
As soon as we could that morning Jane and I went in search of the “goon” that issued us the summons and made
the threat that we would be fired upon. We found him before noon and told him to come and inspect our new
number. This despicable, degenerate and disgusting trouble-making functionary now told us he had no power to
inspect. Wow! This asshole functionary was making a very good case for out and out hatred of the government. We
clearly needed some help.
That afternoon after much thought and deliberation, Jane and I both came to the same conclusion. The only agency
of the government that had not harassed us was the United States Coast Guard so we decided that our next move
had to be to go to them for advice and help.
It so happened that the district office for the United States Coast Guard was located there in Marathon.
We went with all of our papers and to our surprise several of the United States Coast Guard lawyers were there and
eager to assist us.
We were told our rights and they even gave us an official letter of “Safe Passage”, so we could then travel to Key
West to answer the threatening summons.
The next day we set sail for Key West, which was a day and a half sail away.
When we arrived at Key West we went directly to United States Magistrate’s office.
After waiting half a day to see the Magistrate, late that afternoon we finally got in and to our complete surprise we
were told that our case had been thrown out of court because it had no merit. Nobody bothered to inform us. Those
bureaucratic bungling bastards did it again. At least the Coast Guard had been there to help.
Three years earlier at Savannah, Georgia a similar thing happened but we were not issued a summons or harassed
further at that time.
Two years earlier while we were anchored in Herb Creek just south of Savannah with two other sailboats we were
boarded and searched and found to be clean. The ironic thing this time was that the other two boats anchored next
to us were loaded with pot.
This is a letter that we wrote after returning to Marathon and discovering U.S. Customs agents watching
us from shore through binoculars.
December 24, 1975
District Director of U.S. Customs
Miami District
U.S. Customhouse
Miami, Florida
Dear Sir;
We are writing concerning our vessel, DURSMIRG, Documentation number 535679, Superior, Wisconsin,
documented permanent pleasure yacht through the Duluth, Minnesota Coast Guard District on October 13, 1971.
Owners John M. Grimsrud and Jane A. Grimsrud, Box 84 Maple, Wisconsin, 54854.
We arrived in Marathon, Florida on December 18, 1975. Shortly after our arrival we began to hear rumors that we
were told originated through your office here in Marathon, Inspector Hauser.
The rumors are that we and our vessel are currently under suspicion by the U.S. Customs.
We are very upset by these rumors. We would like your immediate investigation in order to straighten out these
flagrant misrepresentations. We would like your file on our vessel investigated in case there is some false
information. We have had no violations whatsoever with the U.S. Customs, Coast Guard, Marine Patrol, etc. with our
vessel. We built our vessel in 1970 and are the sole owners.
We plan to be in Marathon at least a month. Our Marathon address is: John M. Grimsrud, General Delivery,
Marathon, Florida, 33050.
We await your prompt response.
John M. Grimsrud
Jane A. Grimsrud
HERE IS ONE OF THE LETTERS WE RECEIVED IN RESPONSE:
DEPARTMENT OF THE TRESUARY
U. S. CUSTOMS SERVICE
MIAMI, FLORIDA
Mr. John M. Grimsrud
General Delivery
Marathon, Florida 33055
Dear Mr. Grimsrud:
This is in response to your letter December 24, 1975, regarding the records that the United Stats Customs may
possess which related to you and your vessel.
A complete search of our records has been made. We discovered that your name and the name of your vessel, in
fact, were inadvertently placed within the records maintained by Customs.
Therefore, I have instructed that your name and the name of your vessel be removed from Customs records. In
addition, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience which we may have resulted from this matter.
If you should encounter future difficulties, or if I may be of any other service to you, please do not hesitate to contact
me.
Sincerely yours
Albert F. Bazemore Regional Commissioner
CHAPTER 13 BOOT KEY ANCHORAGE AND THE SAILING ROGUES THERE:
Ed Weber was one of the first people we encountered when we came into the Boot Key anchorage at Marathon
down in the Florida Keys. Our first day at Boot Key Jane and I retrieved a sailboat that had been blown across the
harbor and up into the mangroves on the opposite side of the channel. I went with our dinghy and provided tug
service to return the unattended runaway vessel to the anchorage. When I went to re-anchor the 26-foot fiberglass
sailboat, I happened to notice that it had been anchored with an anchor so small that I would not have trusted it hold
our dinghy even in a calm harbor.
We later met Ed Weber, the owner of this vessel, a Herreshoff designed Bristol 26-foot sloop named Caribbean
Sunrise. Ed Weber turned out to be a jovial unassuming retired schoolteacher from New Hampshire who was single-
handing his boat and just wandering around trying to discover a new frontier in the sunny southland to lay back and
mingle with the natives.
I joked with Ed and told him that he had anchored his vessel using a tie tack and he really needed to get himself an
anchor if he intended to get some sleep or even come back to where he had left his boat and find it there again.
However Ed was a mechanical genius with some disconnected idiosyncrasies. He could engineer any kind of
electrical, plumbing or refrigeration system problem; these were some of the many technical subjects that Ed
happened to have taught.
(Some years later Ed assisted Jane and I in reengineering our 22-gallon per hour diesel powered furnace that
heated an apartment building we had purchased. The net result was that our fuel consumption was reduced by
more that half. When we purchased that apartment building the fuel price was 32 cents per gallon and a year later it
was over $1.30 so Ed saved us thousands of dollars…thank you Ed!)
Over the years, Jane and I became very good friends with Ed and we not only sailed several places with him but also
even visited his lovely 200-acre ranch up in the New Hampshire hills where he lives in a home over 300 years old
and has his own airplane and private airstrip.
During this winter season at the Boot Key anchorage Ed became one of the crowd who later told us that he really
had the very best time of his life here down in the Florida Keys.
Ed was a lonely sailor who more than anything was looking for companionship and did not what to sail alone.
Everywhere that Ed went, he tried to organize a traveling group to fulfill his gregariousness.
Several afternoons a week Ed would organize as many of the boating community as he could to swim at a neat old
abandoned mansion with a salt-water swimming pool that had been built by the family from the Clark Candy Bar
Company. The pool was ceramic tile lined and 75 feet across so we swam with the fish, but the fill and discharge
ports for the pool were too small for sharks.
We did go swimming with the sharks and barracuda with Ed on many of our snorkel diving trips in and around
Marathon. This got me interested in treasure diving and Jane and I passed many an interesting and rewarding day
discovering artifacts, some of which we sold and others we used ourselves.
Above is a stainless steel dinghy boat anchor I welded together and was made completely from scrap
salvaged from the Barefoot Contessa, a derelict and sunken sport fishing boat. The shank was made
from a water pump drive shaft; the flukes were made from rub-rail and the eye from bolt.
This solid bronze Sampson post I recovered from a derelict Cuban refugee vessel found in the
mangroves at Marathon. When I found this treasure ( measuring 6-inches in height) it was green with
oxidation and the boat it was affixed to already nearly rotted to pieces.
Judging by the amount of dings, scrapes and abrasions it had, the Sampson post must have seen very
heavy use over a very long period of time, which led me to believe that it might have survived several
different vessels. Now we proudly display it at our home here in Mexico.
Every time I see this beautiful jewel, my thoughts go back to those Cuban refugees that laid their lives
on the line crossing the wild wide open seas to escape oppression as they entered the unknown new
world. I also wish that I could know of the previous owner and the sea adventures that went with this
unique and distinctive work of art.
Ed got Jane and I making sprouts from various seeds so we were able to have fresh crispy crunchy salads wherever
we traveled, by land or sea and we have kept this practice up all of these years. Ed also got us making our own
granola with honey, almonds and coconuts that we found in south Florida and roasted ourselves. Drying fruit in the
sun and also making sun tea were the rage of these back to nature people like Ed whose inquisitive minds and spirit
of independence drove them to this last frontier of the sea.
We spent many an hour discussing alternative power from the sun and wind that led me to experiment. One idea
that we came up with that I actually built did work but not well. Employing a 12-volt bicycle generator, the contraption
was compact, easily mounted on a boat and relatively cheap to make. It had one totally insurmountable problem that
drove me to pitch it overboard. One peaceful night, after I finally got it operational, a wind sprang up during the night
and the generator sprang into operation. The insurmountable problem was that this electrical generator contraption
was a far better generator of noise than electrical current. It sent a loud deafening thunderous and earsplitting
vibration through our entire vessel. Jane and I were jolted awake and responded with fright and terror. It would be
back to the drawing board and the end of this memorable joint project with Ed.
In this photo you can see mounted upon the dinghy boat davits my wind-generating contraption. Jane is
at the helm as we slowly sail downwind on a broad reach.
We did finally surrender to the experts and purchased a commercial wind generator at the Miami Boat Show and it
proved to be fully functional and much cheaper than solar power at the time.
Our new 5-amp commercially made wind generator mounted atop our new wheelhouse along with our
“Grog” self-steering gear which I designed and built.
The strange mix of wayward boaters that all became neighbors here this winter in Boot Key harbor accepted each
other without any questions. There were no social snobs and the general feeling was that if anybody wanted to
divulge their past it was totally up to them because no questions were ever going to be asked.
We had known Ed for almost three years before we discovered that he did indeed have a wife and family along with
a home. To this day we never have discovered what it was that sent Ed off all alone on his little sailboat. Because we
know him so well we do know that whatever it was, Ed did not carelessly abandon his wife and family and that his
reasons had to have been valid. (We did meet Ed’s wife Odette; in fact, they even later on came to spend the winter
in St. Augustine, Florida where we had gone into business, some years later.)
During Ed’s first winter in the Boot Key harbor he made the purchase of a two-man inflatable dinghy, “Shark 80” and
a tiny outboard motor to push it around.
Ed was of Swiss decent and his huge size reflected his ancestry. We gawked with amazement at 280-pound big
boned Ed, who was not fat, in his tiny little dinghy, which he filled to overflowing. Then we had to laugh when he told
us that he had actually purchased the “two-man” model.
Ed, besides being a lonely groupie, was an itinerate “gadgeteer” who absolutely could not resist any type of
contrivance that he could amuse himself with that was mechanical. One of his favorite pastimes was shopping not
only for gadgets but also for foods and his inclination tended toward sweets. I can still see him in the Winn-Dixie
store when he found his favorite jam exclaiming wildly as he held up the jar, “Smuckers!”
Ed Weber and on the right is Ed with his vessel Caribbean Sunrise parked in the cold snow of in his 200-
acre New Hampshire estate.
Though Ed never sailed his “Caribbean Sunrise” into the Caribbean he did fulfill his dream of sailing
away into tropical waters and enjoyed many a sunrise and sunset from his dream boat.
Ed was the best of sports and never passed up the opportunity to take off on any excursions. We explored with
snorkels and flippers the waters around Boot Key, Vaca Key and Sisters Creek that led out the other side of our little
harbor and to the Ocean at Marathon. Before long, we had discovered a number of sunken boats to salvage. Some
of the wrecks dated back many years and others were a product of the mass exodus of Cubans fleeing Castro’s
Cuba in the early 1960s. This discovery led Jane and I into a new pastime and business, which was commercial
salvage.
We mostly just amused ourselves with our salvage business but we did manage to make some money and keep
friends and ourselves in a good supply of bronze and stainless fittings.
Oh, by the way;
The time was right and the conditions fit the mood of this unusual group of sailors that some how managed by some
twist of fate to be thrown together in this strange little anchorage of Boot Key harbor at Marathon. This was a sailor’s
paradise with the Arab oil embargo making gasoline and diesel fuel something that put power boaters out of
business. The recreational boating places became silent and only enjoyed by the lucky sailors who had a chance of
a lifetime to escape the disruptive, smoky and noisy powerboat people that the sailors all referred to as the “stink
potters”.
The amalgamated motley mix of sailors here in the Boot Key anchorage at this time as you will see as you read on
was never to be duplicated again; in fact, in all of our travels we have never encountered anything like this group of
social misfits that somehow made the perfect fit here at this time and place.
Keith Gore from Virginia Beach, Virginia and John Fornear from Merritt Island, Florida arrived in the harbor
with a classic little 25-foot wooden lap-strake sloop, “Folkboat” made in Norway named Whatever’s Fair. The reason
I referred to Keith’s boat as little was that he arrived in the harbor towing a 19-foot sailboat as his
dinghy…outlandish! I will expand on that last statement and you will better understand why I referred to Keith as well
as his dinghy as outlandish.
On Keith and John’s trip south their first year they waited for a strong “norther” to arrive and then they set out sailing
offshore from Cape Canaveral inlet straight on down to the Key’s directly with their 19-foot dinghy in tow. Keith said
that the trip was a piece of cake and required little or no navigational skills…all he needed to do day or night was
follow the row of beachfront hotels and condominiums. The 35 to 40 knot northwest wind that they took broad on
their beam got their Folkboat almost up to planing speed even with their 19-foot dinghy in tow. Their dinghy was only
six feet shorter than their Folkboat.
This winter season Keith and John took a side trip up into the Gulf of Mexico and they returned without their 19-foot
dinghy. When I asked Keith what became of his dinghy his answer was, “it committed suicide by drowning”. Actually,
the dinghy swamped in heavy seas and then departed in the night.
Keith was the owner of Whatever’s Fair. This fearless sailor whose cynical wit soon made him into the anchorage’s
number one character, (this was a real accomplishment considering his fellow anchorage mates). He was in his own
element when cannabis smoke scented the neighborhood air.
Not too tall, wiry, agile, witty and with a definite lispy speech, Keith let it be known that his mother was a speech
therapist.
Keith mentioned that his family tree took his ancestry back to the Mayflower Gores and that his folks had higher
expectations for him than just being a boat-bum dropout. Sure enough, his straight laced and proper parents
showed up in Marathon and found their son and his little boat swinging on the hook where “Whatever is fair!”
Keith and John were into scuba diving and quickly organized expeditions out to some of the nearby islands and coral
reefs looking for conch and lobster. On one of our first endeavors we took their sailboat, Whatever’s Fair, but pulled
our Bingy Dinghy which was ideal for carrying a heavy load and very easy to board while swimming.
We headed out to a small island named Pigeon Key that was about half way out from shore along the famous Seven-
mile Bridge. Our success was incredible and I had never seen so many conchs in my life. They were so prolific that
we did not even have to go diving for them. In fact, we could have had all we wanted without even getting our
bathing suits wet because we got all we could carry in less than three feet of water. With a heavy load of conch, we
headed back to harbor. I believe that there were about eight of us aboard the Folkboat this particular trip. The water
was very shoal and we had to pay close attention to our water depth especially because we were heavily loaded.
The boat drew 48 inches of water normally but now we were down on our lines weighted with cargo and crew. Keith’s
partner John took the helm and promptly put us aground. We figured that there would be no problem refloating the
boat and getting underway so several of us disembarked the vessel to push off and get moving again.
Whoa! Almost instantaneously huge sharks began circling and moving in for a meal and surrounded us. I do not
think that any of us had second thoughts about what these demons could do especially in their own element. Jane
and I had first hand evidence of the attacking ferocity these sharks were capable of from our previous encounters
aboard our friend George Tappan’s shrimp boat, Terry, up in St. Augustine.
Jane had a relative that had been an underwater photographer and lost his life due to a shark attack and only small
bits of his swimming suit were ever found in the Gulf of Mexico waters up on the Florida panhandle. Yes, this was
serious business and we later found out that the Florida State University had been doing research on shark attack
behavior at the exact same place we were harvesting our conch at Pigeon Key. They had been luring the sharks in
by feeding them so these guys definitely came in expecting to be fed…not by us or with our arms and legs, however.
It was now time for plan “B” and I took the outboard motor off from Keith’s boat Whatever’s Fair and placed it on our
Bingy Dinghy. Now I had a tugboat and using the halyard from the masthead as the towline we heeled Whatever’s
Fair over on its gunwale and the little boat with four and a half feet of draft floated as its deep keel swung clear of
the bottom.
Keith and I developed an ingenious technique for extracting the conch meat from the conch shells, which was quick
and easy and only made a hole the size of a BB in the shell. The tool of choice for this delicate operation was a
carpenter’s scratch awl. If any of you readers are interested in just how our technique worked, I would be happy to
share that information with you, just ask.
We now had to devise a multitude of recipes for conch because we had harvested enough to feed the group for
many meals. Conch fritters, cracked conch, chowder and conch ceviche were the favorites but John Fornear
smoked some in our smoke oven then cut and dried the conch by hanging it up in the rigging to dry in the sun,
making conch jerky. It was OK but it was harder to consume than an all-day sucker and its flavor was somewhere
between bland and tasteless.
Whenever Keith and John caught fish they brought them to our boat for smoking in our smoke oven. They always
paid for this process with a generous amount of the smoked fish and we were all happy.
Keith Gore; Keith besides his many other interests was an avid reader. His favorites were, Kurt
Vonnegut (author of; Slaughter House Five), Adele Davis (author of various health food books) and
Euell Gibbons (author of several books on the subject of living off the land and out of the sea, the most
famous of which was; Stalking the Blue-eyed Scallop).
Keith used to joke that Euell Gibbons died from eating a poison mushroom.
Oh, by the way!
Some years later Jane and I were surprised to find, a feature article about our dear friend Keith Gore in
a commercial fishing magazine named the “National Fisherman”.
It turned out that at that time Keith had a fish market at Virginia Beach, Virginia and one of his
specialties was smoked fish, which he had perfected into a local delicacy. Above is a photo of his dream
come true!
Back to the Boot Key anchorage at Marathon;
The problem of keeping the conch fresh and ready to eat on demand with no refrigeration was quickly solved. We
merely placed the conch into an old sunken boat in the harbor so that they stayed alive and could not escape. We
had our own conch corral.
I always used to joke that, “we ate so much conch that we got all conked out”.
These are a couple of the conch shells we harvested with the meat extracted and the lower photo
clearly shows how I cut the top of the shell and then punched out just the right amount of the center
section in order to make the shell into a horn. These horns were enormously loud and we used them to
open bridges and also for other nautical signaling. (The above shell is immature and not fully
developed. This size shell made the loudest, most ear splitting horn.)
*
The following year Keith was back to the Boot Key Anchorage again with his Folkboat and this time he had an
inflatable dinghy and a new companion named Carol Carpenter.
Carol was the master of the little ship even if Keith was the owner. With thick glasses, buckteeth, assertive,
intelligent and self-motivated, Carol did not get pushed around. (She later moved to California where she made a
million dollars with her own holistic medicine business.)
Keith and Carol were a team in many ways and they instigated and organized several group dinners featuring the
seafood we harvested from the local waters. Conch fritters turned out to be their specialty along with conch
chowder. The dinners were always prepared and held aboard our vessel Dursmirg because we had the room to
accommodate all the boaters in the little harbor at the same time. Our galley had a 16-foot countertop, larger than
many in landside homes.
Though Carol was into holistic medicine and natural health foods, she was still a big consumer of cannabis. It was
not enough that she was fanatically taken up with her offbeat dietary idiosyncrasies; she also got thoroughly bent
out of shape if Keith didn’t tow the line and follow Carol’s strange and dietary wacky ways. One of Carol’s absolute
ironclad rules was that Keith would not ever let a single drop of coffee cross his lips even though she could suck on
reefers non-stop all day.
Jane and I had no idea just how emphatic Carol was concerning coffee consumption when we invited Keith aboard
one morning for a cup of coffee. Keith eagerly took up our offer and rowed over to our nearby Dursmirg in his
dinghy. No sooner did Keith get aboard and Carol was out on their back deck, hands on her hips and demanding an
answer from Keith when she asked, “where do you think are you going?”
Keith’s answer was; “I’m going to shoot up a coffee!”
We had our coffee and as usual a very stimulating and intellectual conversation with Keith.
When Keith returned to his little Folkboat, he got as far as the companionway when a barrage of airborne projectiles
aimed directly at him began to come flying out of his boat’s cabin. In an instant, Keith turned, leaped and took a
swan dive directly into his dinghy. Carol was “super-pissed”!
Besides the barrage of projectiles that included pots and pans that Carol let fly at Keith, she also let loose with a
matching volley of verbal abuse.
At this point, everyone in the anchorage had come out of their boats to take in the fireworks. The best comment of
all came from our dear friend Bubba Schill, anchored nearby who said; “Do I detect a little dissension in paradise?”
Quotes from Keith: “Water cars and sand gnats have the same level of consciousness”. Keith referred to
speedboats as “water cars”.
Keith was working at a local restaurant as a waiter and when his patrons would become disgruntled with the service
or food Keith would always say, “If it make you feel any better, I really feel bad”…Keith was as cynical as they come.
Lyndon Baines (Food Stamps) Johnson had a big push on at that time for federally mandated bussing to achieve
racial equality in the nations schools and Keith’s quote on that subject was; “They should bus them from Mississippi
to Minnesota!”
February 6th, 1974 Sandy Needhem and Naomi came aboard our vessel and signed our guest book. No last
name was ever given by Naomi and she listed her address as “outer and inner space”, Marathon, Florida. These
two women were beyond a doubt the most outrageous sailors we had ever met and they were definitely doing their
own thing. Sandy, a 6 foot 4 inch tall blond Scandinavian in her early twenties from Oregon was ruggedly built but
gentle and looked as though she could easily have been a Viking ship princess. Naomi on the other hand was less
than five and a half feet tall, had black kinky hair, a perpetual smirk and smile and gave the appearance of sailing
with Sinbad the sailor. These two women came sailing into the harbor aboard a little decapitated wooden sailing
sloop named Grace. The Grace had no motor or any provision for one so this was the time and place for sailing. I
watched with amazement these two boat handlers who somehow made this little vessel go where they wanted it to go
but not using any traditional sailing techniques. By manhandling the sails and back winding them, I witnessed the
most peculiar boating maneuvers I have ever seen. First they sailed up to the spot that they wanted to anchor in
and then just like they were parallel parking a sport car they back-winded both of their sails manually and literally
backed into their preferred position. Now I have never seen or even read of such a maneuver but I am sure by trial
and error they discovered how to make their little vessel go where they wanted.
Later on I did go out daysailing with them aboard their little vessel Grace and I was able to give them some helpful
hints on trimming their sails. The one requirement I made before setting out to sail with them aboard their little vessel
was that they leave their profoundly putrid reeking rank and fetidly foul smelling scruff-hounds Otis and Dead Eye
behind.
I soon discovered that they had a very slow moving vessel. In fact, Jane actually got so worried about us returning to
port that she actually took our dinghy and outboard motor out at ten that evening on a rescue/search mission. Jane
found Sandy, Naomi and I attempting to tack up the harbor channel against the outgoing tidal current. Because we
were hardly making any progress at all, I was happy for the tugboat service.
Their two dogs, Dead Eye and Otis, were definitely scrawny, scruffy flea bitten street hounds. The dogs never got
the privilege of a ride to shore in the dinghy. Whenever Naomi got the notion to get the dogs out of their little floating
home she would merely grab two fists full of fur and pitch the dogs overboard and from there they would make their
way to shore. Naomi maintained that this was her treatment for getting rid of the dog’s fleas.
They definitely had fleas and every other type of insect that could possibly climb aboard them.
Sandy and Naomi’s little vessel also had a teaming and thriving population of cockroaches that were so prolific and
pervasive that they had actually become brazen. The average cockroach is nocturnal and runs for cover when
confronted but these had bred up to the status of super-roach that stood their ground.
The girls soon became regular visitors on our boat and they enjoyed our homemade beer, wine and bread enough
to attempt their own.
Sandy had a car and she went on a hunt for coconuts in order to make wine. It turned out that coconuts were so
abundant in the Marathon area that the locals actually did not want to be bothered with them in their gardens and
would have their gardeners cut them down and carry them off to the garbage dump. Sandy found the bonanza at
the garbage dump and everyone in the anchorage had all of the coconuts we could possibly use for no charge
thanks to resourceful Sandy.
I gave instructions on a quick and easy way of opening the coconuts and we not only were making coconut wine but
also, roasting and cooking with coconut.
The cockroaches absolutely loved Sandy and Naomi’s coconut wine and I must admit after seeing the swarm of
those ferocious little critters teaming in droves into that frothy caldron of wine I just could not bring myself to
contemplate the thought of drinking it. This is where we differed in out sensibilities because the girls had no
reservations or compunctions about swilling down their brew.
They definitely did what they could to reciprocate with hospitality and even baked us homemade bread atop their
small galley stove with a collapsible stovetop oven.
Anytime that they went out shopping they always shared what they had with us even though their place of
preference for produce shopping was the local Winn-Dixie dumpster. They knew the best time to rummage through
the dumpster and the produce manager took a liking to them and always made sure the pickings were good.
The girls had no problem in finding work because they didn’t have any inhibitions. Our friend Buck that was finishing
off his Ferro-cement boat at the Boot Key Marina found many projects that the girls eagerly took on. I stopped by
several times to see how Buck’s boat project was progressing and was surprised at the advanced woodworking and
joinery Buck had taught the girls to do. Scribing and compound miter cuts that were tricks used by cabinetmakers in
complex joinery were just a few of the things that Buck had taught the girls to handle.
I was impressed with the intelligence and natural aptitude these girls possessed and knew that with their talents that
if they took the notion to pursue almost any project that they would be able to accomplish the highest of standards if
they wanted to.
Oh, by the way!
After leaving Boot Key, Sandy and Naomi took on an ambitious sailing adventure. Considering the hull speed of their
little boat Grace and the fact that they had no motor or any type of electronic navigational equipment, what they
attempted was either super gutsy or profoundly foolhardy.
Sailing offshore from the Florida Keys they headed north up the east coast of Florida on their way to New England.
They were caught in a storm north of Cape Canaveral that caused some damage and ultimately when their
provisions were exhausted they were able to signal a boat that summoned the Coast Guard who pulled them into the
Port of St. Augustine. By the time that Jane and I arrived in St. Augustine that next spring Sandy and Naomi had
already moved on and we never heard from them again. We did get the full story from the locals because the
newsworthy story of two young girls sailing alone offshore and shipwrecked made the newspapers and even the TV.
We did however find some of the crew of the little ship Grace patiently waiting at the City Yacht Pier in St. Augustine
for their ship to return and they definitely recognized and greeted Jane and I. The two were definitely scrawny,
scruffy flea bitten street hounds named Dead Eye and Otis.
Back to Boot Key anchorage;
Drew and Barbara McManus fit into the opposite end of the social scale from our friends Sandy and Naomi.
They had a brand new Great Dane 28-foot fiberglass sloop named Loon exactly like the one our friend Bob Burn
from Daufuskie Island, South Carolina had just made three trans-Atlantic crossings with. Drew and Barbara were the
odd couple in this anchorage.
An incident that occurred when Jane and I arrived at the Boot Key anchorage; our chart didn’t show the water
depths off the marked channel so we anchored Dursmirg offshore and took our dinghy in to lead-line the water
depths and also pick the best spot to set our anchor. While we were looking the anchorage over we spoke with Drew
and Barbara and told them a little about our boat and adventures. I also happened to mention that the night before
while we were anchored out in the open waters of the Hawk Channel in a windstorm that the seas had been so
violent that we could not even sleep in our bunk and we were pitched out. The wave motion had jarred our untied
helm past its stops and we had to repair it before we could proceed.
Well, Drew damn near pissed in his pants with paranoia and frantically went around to all of the other boats in the
anchorage and told them that a 46-foot, 20-ton displacement boat with no rudder was on its way into the anchorage.
We liked Drew and Barbara but they definitely did not have the slightest concept of the reality of providing for
themselves.
Drew went through college on an expense account financed by his rich parents and graduated with a liberal arts
degree, took a job as a social worker, got tired of it after a year and quit. He liked sailing so his parents bought him
the boat and even had a dock built for him in front of their West Dennis, Massachusetts waterfront home.
By some twist of fate, these two individuals who most likely ventured down the coast staying at the most expensive
marinas and indulging themselves at the upscale restaurants dropped their anchor amongst sailors who had all
gotten their vessels and made their own way with their own efforts.
I was surprised that Drew actually guarded his vessel as if he had made the effort to stack up the money for it with
some kind of toil. He didn’t even know how to put on varnish and nearly drove everyone in the anchorage crazy with
questions like he was preparing to perform brain surgery just to apply a simple coat of some varnish.
Drew and Barbara were like two lost puppies in the anchorage with no hobbies or sports activities that interested
them and they couldn’t find anything meaningful or creative to do. Barbara spent hours with her nose in some book
figuring out astrology.
These two did enjoy playing cards and they taught us their favorite games, Hearts, Dirty Neighbor and
Concentration. On those long nights of the winter season we managed to pass our time away with them playing
games and telling stores. Drew had such a dry and unexpressive personality that it was hard to tell when he was
having a good time. In our beachcombing trips together Jane, Barbara and I always managed to make a game out of
searching for treasures on the beach like seashells, sea beans and anything useful to drag home. Drew wouldn’t get
involved. One day he did ask us what we were looking for and we replied, “sea beans”. I showed him one and he
exclaimed, “oh, those things, they are everywhere”. Then he proceeded to pick up a half dozen, one right after the
other…more that we all had found that morning.
We made one sailing trip with them to a place called New Found Harbor that was situated on the south side of Big
Pine Key and very isolated and west of Marathon by about twenty miles. We were on our way to Key West down the
Hawk Channel that was separated from the open ocean by a string of barrier reefs that extended all the way from
south of Miami to past Key West, our ultimate destination on this trip.
I noticed that the entry in our logbook stated that we went aground trying to get in the channel and later anchored in
twenty feet of water. Well, that was just half of the story. The wind was blowing so strong and the current was so swift
that we lost many of our options for entering the harbor. When we went aground we were momentarily stopped,
bounced off the bottom and the wind and current did the rest as the waves bumped us up and down, we were
carried into the harbor like being sucked up by some huge vacuum cleaner. The wind was awesome and howling all
the time we were anchored there but we did manage a trip to shore by dinghy. We discovered that the island was
just a tuft of low rough coral rock with a few stumpy wind blown and twisted trees abused by the elements. Drew and
Barbara came over to our boat for popcorn and beer that night which turned out to be a treacherous excursion with
the wind whipped waters. I tried to make the popcorn over the fire in our fireplace and nearly drove everyone off the
vessel with the backed up smoke driven back down the stack by the gusty wind that persisted in holding Dursmirg
abeam to the swift current.
These are the kinds of nights that get all but the most persistent of sailors to abandon ship. One consolation of
these conditions was the fact that we were still living in one of the last free frontiers on earth. It is interesting to
reflect back on those fabulous years and realize that though this particular windstorm was discomforting we did
indeed survive and though the threat of killer weather was always present, we at least dodged that bullet and had
our escape and lived to tell the story.
Drew and Barbara later sailed with us to Miami. In the area where we anchored up for the night Drew caught a nice
barracuda and I caught a good-sized snapper. Jane prepared the meal aboard Dursmirg and we noticed that Drew
wouldn’t eat any of the barracuda. As always with Jane’s cooking of seafood nothing remains and Drew missed a
fabulous treat.
Back to Boot Key Harbor at Marathon:
Neal and Ronda signed our guestbook March 28th, 1976, gave no last name and listed their vessel as Lana Jean.
I am not sure what the history of Neal’s boat was but it was the only sailboat in the anchorage with no masts. Neal
was a slim guy in his thirties with a ready toothless smile.
Over the course of the winter, Neal took care of his problems in a vacant field adjacent to the anchorage.
Using nothing but hand tools Neal got lumber from the local lumber mill, glued and screwed it all together to make
the masts and booms for his schooner. He didn’t solicit any help or ask to borrow anything from anyone and went
about his business as through he was working for a tough taskmaster. I know that he finished his mast-building
project in record time and was ready to set sail. Neal invited Jane and I out on his maiden voyage and it was a good
sail. Evidently, Neal knew what he was up to because he had obviously thought through his construction project and
his finished spars. Though not esthetically up to traditional yacht standards, the sailing rig was fully functional. With
a few adjustments, we were off for a spirited sail and headed out and through the opening span of the Seven-mile
Bridge, through the Old Spanish Channel and into Florida Bay on the Gulf of Mexico.
It took at least fifteen minutes for the Seven-mile bridge to open and this turned out to be quite a show to watch.
With the current running with us and carrying us down to the bridge, we had to tack in tight quarters between the
shoals while the bridge tender first acknowledged our presence by answering our three blasts on the horn. Then
the bridge tender climbed down a ladder from his house above the traffic to a place where he started the engine
that would power open the bridge. Next, he climbed up the ladder to his house above the traffic and signaled the
highway traffic with flashing red lights. Then he put down the guard gates to stop the highway traffic and engaged
the motor to open the swing bridge span. The swing span opened at a snails pace that was almost imperceptible.
We then began our sail for the open bridge and discovered that this whole process took more than fifteen minutes
from the time we first signaled the bridge tender. After we had cleared the bridge and we were on the other side it
took another five minutes for the bridge tender to close the bridge, put up the guard gates and for the highway
traffic to begin to flow again. We repeated this process again later that afternoon on our return voyage.
The next amazing thing that Neal accomplished in that vacant field adjacent to the anchorage was to have his dental
problems resolved. Some traveling dentist down from South Carolina for the winter made Neal a complete set of
false teeth right out of the trunk of his car in that vacant field. The price was right, Neal said that they worked just
fine and to top it all off they looked great.
The other half of this team, Ronda was a very pretty young lady and she took a job as a waitress at a pizza
restaurant that opened that winter along Highway 1 on the other side of the vacant field next to the anchorage.
On the grand opening of the restaurant every single boater from the anchorage came for the inauguration. We put
enough tables together to seat the entire crew, which extended from one end of the restaurant to the other. Before
the evening was over our group stayed until we had consumed every drop of tap beer on hand and the owner even
sent out for more, which we thirsty sailors also polished off.
Oh, by the way:
A couple of years later Neal made the national news when he was apprehended smuggling in to the US illegal
Haitians with his sailboat.
A comment that one of our friends, Bubba Schill made about Neal’s smuggling; “I could see smuggling, but at least
smuggle something we needed…but Haitians?”
Christ and Janet Kniedler arrived from Pennsylvania aboard their little Catboat named Flexible Flyer. Christ was
definitely among the tallest people I had ever seen and had to have been over seven feet tall. His shoe size
matched his huge frame. We had seven feet of head room in the main salon of our boat Dursmirg and Christ had to
stoop so his preference when he came to visit was to sit in our open companionway with his huge feet down on our
companionway ladder. Our neighbor Keith Gore was the smallest member of our anchorage community and Keith’s
comment was that he could easily paddle to shore in one of Christ’s tennis shoes.
Christ was besides extremely tall very friendly and easy going with a perpetual smile and had fascinating and
interesting stories to tell.
One story that Christ told was about his ingenious preparation for sailing his little boat in the tropical waters of south
Florida. Christ knew about the problem that wooden boats have with marine creatures like barnacles and wood
eating teredos so he devised a plan to foil them. He purchased copper sheathing and nailed it over the entire
bottomside of his boat before he ventured south.
Coming down the Hawk Channel south of Miami, he encountered heavy weather and high seas, which began the
process of peeling off the sheathing Christ had nailed on. He had put on the overlapping pieces facing forward so
that the water flowing past his hull wanted to peel the sheathing off like the scales of a fish swimming backwards.
When Christ pulled into Boot Key Harbor, he had lost some of his copper sheathing and the many nails that had
held it on. The problem now was that the nails were long enough to puncture his boat’s hull thus creating a multitude
of small water geysers in his bilge. Christ plugged all the holes he could locate but that left a number of them where
he couldn’t reach them so he literally had a sieve. The boat was in danger of sinking if it was not regularly pumped
out and would definitely not make it through the night without sinking if not pumped out.
Christ had no automatic bilge pump so he devised an ingenious trick to keep his boat floating. He slept with one foot
down on the cabin sole and when the water level got high enough it would reach his foot, this would wake him up so
that he could then get up and pump the water out and save his little Flexible Flyer from sinking. This was similar to
what the America Indians did if they wanted to get up early in the morning; they would drink excessive quantities of
water the night before so that they would be forced to rise early to relieve themselves.
Christ and Janet had plans to move to Washington D.C. where Janet had an offer of a high paying job working for
some political figure.
1986 at St. Augustine, Chris and Janet Kriedler visit us with their children Adam and Patrick…a happy
reunion!
We didn’t see them again until some years later when Jane and I had moved to St. Augustine, Florida
where we had our boat Dursmirg tied to our dock that we built in the downtown area adjacent to the
Fountain of Youth tourist attraction. Christ had spotted our boat and he and his wife Janet and their two
young sons arrived at our dock for a very nice visit and reunion.
next chapter
