| Travels of Dursmirg Vol. 3 Chapter 15 |
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
CHAPTER 15 FROM THE LOGBOOK OF DURSMIRG
The following entries are taken from our Dursmirg logbook and I have then added some personal information so you
can get to know this interesting mix of visitors to the Boot Key anchorage back in the mid 1970s.
Gary and Marge Thompson; from Union Lake, Michigan, boat name Aquarius,
a 40-foot Brown designed trimaran was homemade by Gary and Marge Thompson December 1975 Boot Key.
Gary was a retired building contractor from Michigan and hooked up with younger Marge. Gary with his snow-white
full head of hair and full bushy beard to match gave the appearance of being Marge’s father with his “bring-em-
young” mentality.
In this harbor of social misfits they melded in and found their niche. I couldn’t picture them in any other environment.
After launching and fitting out their Aquarius, their escape plan was implemented. South, directly south down Lake
Michigan to Chicago, and then the Chicago River to the Mississippi River and then down stream to Lake
Pontchartrain, near New Orleans is where they sailed after leaving home. This is where they spent their first winter
away from ice and snow in their new homemade floating home.
Although, their vessel was 40-feet long and amply wide on the beam, the living quarters were confined to a very
narrow center hull of the three-hulled trimaran. You have to be in love in order for a relationship to survive a voyage
and then a prolonged time in the constricted confinement of a little house, much like camping in a narrow hallway.
Well, they survived and ultimately moved on drawn like a magnet attracted to metal
down into the Florida Keys. They then made the Boot Key anchorage their homeport for the next several seasons.
With several compromises to their compact living conditions they were rewarded in other ways that made their
trimaran exceptional in speed and shallow draft. This was definitely not the vessel to bang off sea walls or pilings
and choppy seas could splinter it into so much matchwood if not expertly piloted.
This, the only trimaran in our anchorage community, stirred up much controversy and discussion.
It wasn’t until Jane and I ventured out on a day sail with Gary and Marge in search of conch and witnessed the
spirited high-speed performance, (15-knots sailing with the jib alone), did we think of our Dursmirg with full sail
laboring to do 8 knots in the same 16-knot breeze.
Old Gary and youthful Marge Thompson who escaped the work-a-day world on their homebuilt trimaran
Aquarius had the same desires of new adventuresome frontiers.
Tom and Betty Wilson from Oracle, Arizona and their boat name Road Runner January 1st 1976. They launched
their little live-aboard sailboat at Boot Key and then sailed the Florida Keys. (They had a small sailboat that they
trailered to various places in North America and then did some live-aboard cruising and when their vacation was
over they just drove home to Arizona down the highway with their boat in tow …very neat!)
*
Woody and Marsha Watron and their wooden Norwegian sloop rigged sailboat Freyja. We first met up in
North Carolina in the fall of 1972 when Jane and I were making our maiden voyage south aboard Dursmirg.
We weren’t the only sailors at this little back woods fish camp that evening. Besides Woody and Marsha aboard
Freyja another couple, Stewart and Nancy Force, schoolteachers from Jacksonville were bringing their newly
purchased sailboat home from where they bought it on the Chesapeake Bay. Each weekend Stewart and Nancy
would go and bring the boat a little closer to their homeport.
It turned out that Jane and I were picking up our mail in this little town and were shocked to find out that money we
were expecting to arrive didn’t come in.
The group wanted to go out for pizza so Jane and I literally shook the piggy bank and went through all of our
pockets to find every stray penny we had. It was determined that we could afford a pizza so out we went. Later that
evening we all gathered aboard Dursmirg for tap beer, we had a keg in the bilge and the spigot was in the galley.
And that was how we first met Woody and Marsha.
Woody was a good sailor, he could get anywhere under sail alone using his roller furled jib and fancy sailing
maneuvers. Later he delivered boats to the Virgin Islands from St. Petersburg, Florida where they were built. When
food stamps became available, Woody got his share and loved to flaunt them at the supermarket where he took
great pleasure in using them to purchase the very best cuts of beef. A note; It didn’t bother several of the lazier
boaters that were taking advantage of food stamps in the Boot Key Harbor that winter season to grab everything in
sight especially when they figured that the government was fighting a fraudulent war. Those food stamps just from
this one little harbor were costing the taxpayers more than $2,000 a month.
*
Ed Weber; boat name Caribbean Sunrise February 7th 1976 (Ed arrived this year by motorcycle and spent a
couple of weeks living aboard Dursmirg with us. Ed and I rode his “crotch rocket” motorcycle to Key West from
Marathon, not my idea of pleasure…I would rather take my chances on the high seas than hang on to that speeding
missile.
We had a very good time with Ed this trip, swimming, diving, fishing, cooking, eating and drinking samples of Jane’s
fabulous wines. Ed’s all time favorite was sassafras but he loved it all.
Ed would visit us many more times in the years that followed and we made a number of visits to visit Ed in his New
Hampshire estate that includes a private fishing pond and his airport that he calls, “Candia International”.
*
Brett Hollerith and his boat named An Jan, a black 36-foot teak Cheoy-Lee Lion. This sleek spotlessly kept
vessel sailed into Boot Key Harbor with a single-handed sailor aboard. (Brett had both hands but he was sailing
alone.)
There wasn’t an ounce of fat on his slight well-muscled and wiry frame. Brett Hollerith agilely and nimbly handled all
functions of his boat without any wasted movements all very naturally and without fuss or confusion making his
maneuvers like a well rehearsed routine. Not dressed to conform to any stereotypical image of a sailor but definitely
making a counter-culture fashion statement with his well-worn last generation cotton creased and wrinkled to the
extreme plaid shirt and khaki cut-offs.
His big smile and friendly disposition made him part of the group and as soon as he settled in with his anchors down
he had his Avon inflatable dinghy overboard to test the social environment of this different dimension in the sailing
community.
We invited this new guy aboard and noticed that Brett had parked his shoes and it would be some years before we
ever saw him wear any. He carried a little leather zip up purse for his pipe, tobacco and lighter and who knows what
else.
Well into his fifties his hair was mostly gray, maintained at a minimum, in the Albert Einstein style and he sported a
full bushy beard.
Barefoot Brett below in the galley of his lovely and elegantly crafted vessel An Jan.
Note the superbly crafted and hand carved woodwork coupled with very nautical bronze
embellishments.
Jane and I soon became long time friends and loved what Brett was doing. His boat, the Cheoy-Lee Lion is a classic
vessel that features the most intricate and artfully crafted teak wood joinery perfected with classic oriental attention
to detail, putting it in a class apart and above all others.
Brett kept his life aboard as simple as he could. He used a bucket for his marine head and his shower. Almost all the
foods he cooked he cooked in his cockpit over a wood fire in a small Weber cooker. In his sparse galley, a single
burner gimbaled primus kerosene stove was used to heat tea and pop popcorn. Brett consumed almost everything
that he ate raw which included much of his seafood. He would drag his clothes behind his boat to launder them. As
basic and simple as Brett lived aboard, everything he had was thoroughly worn and heavily used though neatly kept
and functional. A curiosity that revealed his taste for quality and an artful appetite for distinction was the
meticulously hand crafted bronze letters and designs fabricated in bronze in oriental type script he meticulously
inlaid into his galley dinette. The words “An Jan” were always kept brightly polished to a mirror shine. This eye-
catching adornment was obviously something that Brett took great pride and satisfaction in.
Barefoot Brett at anchor aboard his meticulously painted, varnished and polished, An Jan. Brett made
An Jan his only home for a number of carefree vagabond years.
Jane and I didn’t think too much about Brett’s financial condition because he appeared to live a Spartan life style
existence apart from the fact that he arrived at Boot Key harbor aboard the most valuable vessel to anchor there.
Our first winter down in the Florida Keys we did find it a little curious that Brett made a undisclosed two month trip to
somewhere and just went to a local marina and had his boat pulled out and dry-docked before he flew away. This we
considered to be very expensive and extravagant. The truth later came out that Brett was wealthy. (It turned out that
Brett’s father was a lawyer from Greenish, Connecticut hooked up with the company that put the lead in gasoline
(lead tetra ethyl).
Over the years, we would rendezvous, sail and visit countless times. Many an evening was spent in the cockpit of An
Jan roasting oysters we had collected together. In Marathon, Miami, the Indian River, St. Augustine, and finally at his
lovely waterfront home up the St. John’s River at Green Cove Springs, we would meet to share our mutual memories.
(Note; Brett met his present wife Janis when she sold him a 110 acre tract of waterfront land on the St. John’s River
which he later donated as a wild life refuge and sanctuary.)
*
Eduardo Cordoba and his family; wife Magaly and children, Lissette and Maggie;
A story of Boot Key harbor just would not be complete without the story of the Cuban fishing community.
Anybody that has struggled and starved to achieve a goal will be able to equate to the huge family effort we
witnessed in a vacant field adjacent to the Boot Key anchorage where Eduardo Cordoba and his Cuba family of
recent refugees pulled together to make a success of their lobster and stone crab business. Mom, pop and the kids
were all there. With the most basic of tools and materials, little by little, trap-by-trap the stack grew larger in time for
the lobster season to begin.
The Cuba refugee community faced a social environment that openly worked against them with xenophobic
resentment that slammed the door of equal opportunity in housing and jobs. They were resented for a number of
reasons, one of which was that they just worked too hard. (Our friend Eduardo Cordoba told us of his very first job
upon arrival in Miami. He went to work cleaning as a janitor at a hotel out on Miami Beach…because of his
punctuality and strong work ethic, within 6 months he was trusted with the keys to the place.)
Well, the whole family started their new life in Florida from the humblest of beginnings. Eduardo’s father began
commercial offshore fishing in a little open boat not 20-feet long. With the entire family working together they
gradually and frugally saved until they could own their own home, commercial fishing dock and ultimately Eduardo
would build with his own hands a 50-foot fiberglass boat powered by a new Caterpillar diesel engine capable of
carrying 200 lobster traps at a time.
Eduardo Cordoba at the helm of his new lobster boat.
Out to sea and on the job pulling lobster traps, this is a view of the back deck where Eduardo’s two
nephews pull the traps and process the catch.
Dockside unloading the day’s catch. The wooden crates are full of lobster and represent a very long day
of hard work that started long before sunrise. This dock is Eduardo’s own private dock and before he
was able to purchase this dock space he had to off load his catch in a vacant field by dinghy from his
anchored out fishing boat.
His family started commercial fishing in Florida with a boat that was not as long as this new boat is wide.
(I must admit that the Cubans are definitely the gutsiest boaters I have ever met. They would venture out across the
Gulf Stream to the Cay Sal Banks and back to fish in the most unseaworthy vessels, boats that I would have serious
reservations about crossing the harbor in.)
We witnessed several times the good-hearted and openly friendly gestures that the Cuban fishing community made
to any of the anchored out boat community; the use of a dinghy or even assistance with a ride or a tool lent. They
just naturally were there…no questions asked or thanks expected.
One day I left early to go out fishing with Eduardo and his father at their invitation.
This was hard backbreaking non-stop work pulling traps with their little winch just barely capable of doing the job.
The wooden traps were constructed of ½ by 2-inch strips making a box 30x 20x18 inches that needed continuous
cleaning, repairs and were weighted with cement so when waterlogged made for some muscle to handle them. A
black polypropylene floating line called pot warp attached a distinctively painted multicolored and numbered float to
each trap. (Each fisherman had his own distinctive float paint job and number so there is no mistake whose trap is at
the end of the float line) The trap pick up is a two-man job but we have seen Eduardo perform this maneuver by
himself.
Here is what happens on a lobster fishing boat; with one person at the helm and the other using a gaff to hook the
float line, it is snatched and then dropped into a deep-v capstan that grips the float line. The capstan then does all
the work of pulling the trap and even has an ingenious divider that automatically dumps the float line out of the
capstan head before it makes one complete revolution and begins to spool on top of itself. Whoever designed this
system was surely a clever chap. So, the water logged trap soon surfaces and lands on a side deck. Here dexterity
and instant reflex are needed to flip the float line out of the capstan before the winch pulls the trap in and tears it
apart. Therefore, as one trap had been landed, the previous trap that had been brushed clean of sea growth,
opened and its contents emptied, baited and closed was dumped overboard. There is no time to relax because as
soon as one trap is processed it is again time to snatch the next float line. Besides the fact that these traps are
heavy, especially toward the end of the day, they may need some extra nails or some other repair and time is of the
essence.
The same basic system is used to land stone crabs. Only one claw is removed and the crabs are put back to
regenerate a new claw. This can be a dangerous business, the stone crabs are not particularly fast but they are
incredibly powerful. With seemingly little effort, they can pinch off a broomstick handle and if placed in the bucket
with a big feisty blue crab, the slower stone crab will just reach out and obliterate the blue crab into so much mush
with one pinch. More than half of Eduardo’s family gave testament to the stone crabs powerful claws with their
missing fingers.
Above is a stone crab claw that measures 2 1/2 –inches from the inside of the two pincher points and
easily slips over my wrist. This is in our collection of memorabilia from when we caught and collected all
we could eat from our two private traps.
I was eager to see just how this fishing process was done and Eduardo was happy to take me along. A strange thing
was that Eduardo’s wife, Magaly, packed him a lunch in a brown paper bag the same as the one Jane packed for
me. I opened and ate Eduardo’s, it was a big lunch and so I passed it around to Eduardo and his father not knowing
I had the lunch packed for both of them and they were sharing my one single lunch. Another surprise was the
thermos of coffee; it was Cuban espresso style. A half a cup will make you talk fast and your eyes bulge out. Well, I
had a couple of cups before I realized my heart rate must have gone over 200 beats per minute. Did you ever
wonder why the Cuban’s talk fast…it’s that high-octane coffee that revs them up!.
This same trip Eduardo was saving all of the brightly colored small tropical fish that came out of his traps to sell to a
dealer for some extra cash and I helped. At the end of the day we were all astonished to find that the tub of tropical
fish was nearly empty. Upon closer inspection, the mystery was solved. There in the tub was a small grouper.
Grouper are renowned for literally inhaling their prey and in glutinous quantities. Eduardo just laughed at my foolish
ignorance. As you can see, I can still remember after all these years that groupers are just eating machines capable
of putting away a volume of eats their own size.
Jane and I got to be very good friends with Eduardo and his whole family. They frequently visited us aboard Dursmirg
at anchor and we were invited to dinner at their home where Jane learned many of the culinary secrets of the Cuba
cuisine from Eduardo’s wife, Magaly. Cuban pork with garlic sauce, marinated fish and tostones (fried plantains with
garlic), were just a few of those memorable specialties passed from generation to generation back in Cuba.
Over the years Jane still prepares those exotic dishes and we have an opportunity to reflect back to some of the
very best times and nicest people that made the best memories in our lives.
*
Hans and Sige Grothjahn boat name Fantysea, from Toronto Canada. On March 7th 1976 they signed our
logbook. This young couple had built their own Ferro-cement sailboat and they were of Danish origin.
We shared the common bond of having built our own boats and also of choosing Ferro- cement.
On the west coast of the U.S. Ferro-cement boat construction was immensely popular but this type of boat
construction was still a novelty most places that we traveled along the Atlantic.
*
Ray and Char Antiel came to visit us all the way down from Duluth, Minnesota. They had both been in
several of our Power Squadron classes and we attended a number of the social functions together sponsored by
the Power Squadron.
They definitely wanted to look us up because finding an anchored out boat anywhere in Florida could be a real
challenge but down in the Florida Keys detective work was involved. It certainly helped that we had such a distinctive
boat because once seen Dursmirg was hard to forget.
Ray and Char owned and operated a bakery back in Duluth and were very interested in sailing. They had
assembled their own kit sailboat and derived a great deal of pleasure from it. It was just small enough to make long
range sailing trips a challenge but Ray told us he aspired to do as we did with our Dursmirg and eventually have a
boat large enough to live aboard comfortably and cruise.
They said that they couldn’t breakaway from the family and business but that they were living our dream with us.
We never did hear if they finally fulfilled their dream…at least they had one.
*
Bruce and Jean Chadwick; We first met Bruce and Jean at Marathon while they had their two masted schooner
Charlotte Jean up and dry docked for their annual “re-fit”.
Jean did most of the physical work and Bruce made the rounds of the local coffee shops and bars…his hanging-out
places. Bruce was fully in touch with the marine-scene and he knew all about us even before we met.
Bruce had a laid-back type of personality and didn’t take things too seriously. Back in Muskegon, Michigan, Bruce
had been a turkey farmer and gone bankrupt three times then a superhighway was put through his area and he just
happened to have a gravel pit. Bruce promptly retired to the sea and didn’t even look back as he played his part of
the salty sailor.
Bruce promptly paid us a visit when we first dropped our anchor at Boot Key.
Bruce was the party organizer everywhere he went and we along with everyone in the anchorage were invited to a
cook-out on the back deck of an old wooden shrimp trawler owned by Paula and Don who had converted their
trawler into a dive boat. (They dove for lobsters in the Cay Sal Banks in Bahamian waters, which lie between Cuba,
The Florida Keys and the Bahamas.)
Bruce was in all his glory organizing group gatherings and when he saw the size of our vessel Dursmirg, he couldn’t
help himself. We became the party destination anytime “Loose Bruce” was in the neighborhood.
Bruce fitted out his vessel with traditional rigging. His schooner Charlotte Jean used all manila standing and running
rigging with wooden “dead-eyes” instead of turnbuckles. He was at the time even fitting Charlotte Jean with a “yard”
to deploy a square sail. It looked like Bruce was trying to create a make-work job out of sailing.
Every year all his rigging had to be renewed because it couldn’t stand up to his vigorous sailing adventures. The
manila, besides becoming unlaid or losing its twist, would be heavily chafed and weather deteriorated by the sun.
(Nylon, Dacron and stainless steel were of the 20th century; Bruce and his Charlotte Jean were not.)
After his annual re-fit Bruce literally “hit the deck running”. When Charlotte Jean returned to the water it was up and
down the coast. We had many reunions with Charlotte Jean at St. Augustine, Melbourne, Miami, Marathon and Key
West over the years. Bruce and Jean later made a two-year trip that included an Atlantic crossing with winters in
Spain and Portugal.
*
Dr. Locke and his wife Esther; aboard their big trawler Tonga II who we describe in this volume, chapter 3,
Melbourne came to Boot Key but tied to the dock at Boot Key Marina adjacent to the boot Key Anchorage.
Jane and I were happy to be together again with this lovely couple we had just met on the Indian River south of
Melbourne.
Though we had a wonderful time together, we had not really gotten to know them well. Now we would get to hear
their sailing story.
What brought this subject up was that their old sailboat named Tonga just pulled into the harbor and anchored off
their stern. This brought tears to Esther’s eyes and she just had to tell us their sailing story; many years back they
were sailing south from New York off the New Jersey coast when a hurricane destroyed their vessel and they were
rescued at sea by a passing freighter. Dr. Locke said that he had made up his mind that he wasn’t going to let this
one experience wreck their sailing lives and purchased a new boat within two weeks named Tonga.
They set out to sea again for many happy years of cruising and lived aboard their Tonga until they became too old
to sail. They reluctantly sold their sailboat, moved on to a trawler, and continued their cruising life.
Now that we were neighbors, we had many get-togethers and had Christmas dinner aboard Tonga II.
Esther was writing a book of their adventures that she was illustrating with her own drawings, which we felt were very
good.
Her heart wasn’t in the book because they had just discovered that Dr. Locke had colon cancer and that his days
were numbered.
A great sailor and a wonderful man…we miss these few very special kind of people that inspire everyone they meet
and make everywhere that they go better.
I can’t tell the story of our visits to Boot Key without mentioning the one place that all of the sailboaters
from the anchorage shopped at; Pinellas Sea Foods and fuel docks.
Situated on the entrance channel leading to the Boot Key anchorage, this enterprise catered to all boaters and
especially those in the commercial fishing fleet. Pinellas Sea Foods had the cheapest fuel to be found anywhere,
when it was available. When boats pulled in for fuel, topping off your water tanks was never a problem. Water in the
Florida Keys was extremely expensive and many times not available. (Commercial businesses carried on a
competition to have the biggest and most powerful water pumps and literally sucked the water they wanted and
required for their business out of the water lines. It was not uncommon to open the water tap in a residential home
and hear the loud sucking sound created as every drop of water was being extracted. The prudent homeowner
would then quickly close the tap to prevent too much air from entering the pipes because that only delayed the time
when the water would return at low demand times.)
The tumbled down dock and unpainted sun bleached office building of Pinellas Sea Foods gave the appearance of
a struggling mom and pop operation that eked out a living selling fuel and anything else the local fishing fleet
needed at wholesale prices that nobody in Florida could match. We did a lot of shopping there and if they didn’t
have what you wanted it would be in the next day. (Note; ten years later Jane and I got to know the owner, Mr.
Kinney and his partner Jim Aligood who owned Pinellas Sea Foods at 1301 Southeast Bay Street, St. Petersburg,
Florida that merged with the Red Lobster Restaurant chain. We docked our commercial shrimp trawler Secotan
there in the winter of 1982. I have written a story about our shrimp boat Secotan and it is posted on our web page.)
Back to Marathon; the docks surrounding Pinellas Sea Foods were where the mid-keys commercial fishing fleet
fueled, iced, fitted out, docked and sold their catch.
The Cuba influence was very apparent here because they had an advantage that was almost impossible to compete
with. Their advantage was that the whole family got involved when it came to build and mend the lobster traps and
eagerly took part. The same went for other work and maintenance. There was plenty of jealousy that then erupted
into violence, but the Cubans had nowhere else to go so they just had to stand their ground. (This made me think
back in time to the days of the California gold rush took place. Chinese immigrants mass migrated and took any job.
Hostilities broke out and xenophobic hatred reared its ugly head…the reason…the Chinese worked too hard.)
Jim Muller and Leigh Durrence
Here I will give a brief account from the log book of Dursmirg of one of our many passages down into the
Florida Keys;
Jane and I anchored Dursmirg in West Palm Beach harbor where we would make a pre-planned rendezvous with Jim
Muller and his fiancée Leigh Durrence. (Jim Muller and his travels aboard Dursmirg are written up in both volumes 1
and 2 of Travels of Dursmirg plus there is more to come in volume 4.)
Jim and Leigh would arrive in West Palm Beach aboard the Am-track train. At a pre-designated time, Jim and Leigh
disembarked the train with a mountain of luggage. Now we had a logistics problem transporting this pile of luggage
that gave the impression of an African safari out to our anchored boat…we would be the pack bearers. With a relay
system I used our 8-foot Bingy Dinghy to shuttle the mountainous and heavy pile of packs plus Jim and Leigh out to
Dursmirg at anchor.
Here I must mention that of all of the visitors we ever had aboard Dursmirg that Jim Muller was by far the most well
organized and methodical of all. Jim had an inventory system, outline and check list for each and every fishhook,
sinker, and multitude of other items he packed along. There was never anything that Jim took along or threw in to
his packs on a whim, everything he brought he used and he unquestionably was the best and most knowledgeable
fisherman we have ever met. When Jim was along we ate seafood and lots of it…so, thank you Jim!
This year we set out together for a fishing, sailing, beach combing and sightseeing trip that took us on an offshore
sail from West Palm Beach to Miami. Next we explored Biscayne Bay and then sailed the Hawk Channel to Marathon,
fishing as we sailed.
This trip is how we would wish all sailing get-togethers would go…just great fun, good sailing and a fabulous time
with Jim’s fish and Jane’s great cooking. This made for a lasting good time memory.
(When we were toiling at building our boat, dreams of this kind of lifestyle were what inspired us to press on. Like
Jane’s little brother Joel said; “Is it really worth it?” My reply; “Yes it really is”.
Walter and Cynthia Perry
Jane and I first met this outlandish and eccentric couple in 1975 when they spent the winter at the St. Augustine
yacht Pier aboard their 34-foot steel sloop Z-Walker. (read about that experience in volume 4)
Eccentric Walter stood an imposing 6 foot 6 inches and had recently retired from the computer company IBM where
he had been a research engineer. Always fiddling with gadgets he seemed to over engineer some things like his
gimbaled battery box or his double insulated universal coupling for his propeller shaft. On other things he showed
almost no signs of a positive thought process. For example; the main shore power cord for his boat had no plug, just
bare wires jammed into the outlet box. One day as Jane and I came to visit the Perry’s aboard Z-Walker I jokingly
told Walter that I had just seen that somebody had actually connected their boat to shore power with no plug. Walter
got a straight and somber face and proceeded to explain to me that this type of connection actually had less
resistance than a plug. (This was definitely the absentminded professor syndrome. Rube Goldberg engineering
refined!)
His wife Cynthia had just retired from her secretarial job at the university back in Poughkeepsie, New York. She had
the handicap of a partially paralyzed leg from childhood polio and walked with a noticeable limp. In spite of this
handicap she and Walter went everywhere by bicycle. I still cannot understand just how Cynthia managed to ride her
bicycle because she actually had to take her leg and lift it onto the bicycle pedal she could push with her right leg
but could not lift it and had to somehow rely on her other leg to make the pedals go around. Bicycling is how Jane
and I got to spend so much time with them. We also went everywhere by bicycle.
Walter was dangerous on a bicycle because he paid absolutely no attention to anything around him and that
included traffic that I believe he expected to clear the way for him. Jane always gave him a wide berth because if he
happened to wander into your path his huge size could be devastating to the other party in a crash.
At Marathon they took dockage at Hanley’s …this was the same place that Linda Schill (Bubba’s wife) worked with
the go-fast cocaine Cubans.
Besides bicycling extensively together almost everyday we spent time out sailing aboard Z-Walker on Florida Bay.
This is where we encountered another one of Walter’s engineering marvels. He determined his boats speed with a
stopwatch. Here is the system that Walter worked out; Walter sat on the bow of the boat with his stopwatch and his
Hewlett-Packard scientific calculator, (a very expensive state of the art devise at the time.) He would throw
overboard a crumpled up piece of newspaper and with someone in the stern to holler “mark” as the paper passed
by Walter recorded the lapsed time and calculated the vessels speed.
Walter told us that he could even listen to his engine and count its rhythm and from that calculate the engines
revolutions per minute…You can see we always had many amusements with Walter.
Walter refused to swim with any clothes on so we had a hard time finding secluded places to suit Walter.
Besides eccentricities, he took frugality to unprecedented levels of cheapness. One day when we went out sailing
with them they told us not to pack along any lunch it was their treat. Therefore, we did not and the lunch for all of us
was a very small box of dates that Walter doled out one at a time rolled in sugar. We damn near starved to death!
*
Dr. and Mrs. Charles Virgin from Coconut Grove (we were anchored at Sand Key in Biscayne Bay, the Dr.
came to borrow matches and we saved his trip, April 11th 1976) He was an expert on local woods and identified
many of the pieces that we had collected from the area.
next chapter
The following entries are taken from our Dursmirg logbook and I have then added some personal information so you
can get to know this interesting mix of visitors to the Boot Key anchorage back in the mid 1970s.
Gary and Marge Thompson; from Union Lake, Michigan, boat name Aquarius,
a 40-foot Brown designed trimaran was homemade by Gary and Marge Thompson December 1975 Boot Key.
Gary was a retired building contractor from Michigan and hooked up with younger Marge. Gary with his snow-white
full head of hair and full bushy beard to match gave the appearance of being Marge’s father with his “bring-em-
young” mentality.
In this harbor of social misfits they melded in and found their niche. I couldn’t picture them in any other environment.
After launching and fitting out their Aquarius, their escape plan was implemented. South, directly south down Lake
Michigan to Chicago, and then the Chicago River to the Mississippi River and then down stream to Lake
Pontchartrain, near New Orleans is where they sailed after leaving home. This is where they spent their first winter
away from ice and snow in their new homemade floating home.
Although, their vessel was 40-feet long and amply wide on the beam, the living quarters were confined to a very
narrow center hull of the three-hulled trimaran. You have to be in love in order for a relationship to survive a voyage
and then a prolonged time in the constricted confinement of a little house, much like camping in a narrow hallway.
Well, they survived and ultimately moved on drawn like a magnet attracted to metal
down into the Florida Keys. They then made the Boot Key anchorage their homeport for the next several seasons.
With several compromises to their compact living conditions they were rewarded in other ways that made their
trimaran exceptional in speed and shallow draft. This was definitely not the vessel to bang off sea walls or pilings
and choppy seas could splinter it into so much matchwood if not expertly piloted.
This, the only trimaran in our anchorage community, stirred up much controversy and discussion.
It wasn’t until Jane and I ventured out on a day sail with Gary and Marge in search of conch and witnessed the
spirited high-speed performance, (15-knots sailing with the jib alone), did we think of our Dursmirg with full sail
laboring to do 8 knots in the same 16-knot breeze.
Old Gary and youthful Marge Thompson who escaped the work-a-day world on their homebuilt trimaran
Aquarius had the same desires of new adventuresome frontiers.
Tom and Betty Wilson from Oracle, Arizona and their boat name Road Runner January 1st 1976. They launched
their little live-aboard sailboat at Boot Key and then sailed the Florida Keys. (They had a small sailboat that they
trailered to various places in North America and then did some live-aboard cruising and when their vacation was
over they just drove home to Arizona down the highway with their boat in tow …very neat!)
*
Woody and Marsha Watron and their wooden Norwegian sloop rigged sailboat Freyja. We first met up in
North Carolina in the fall of 1972 when Jane and I were making our maiden voyage south aboard Dursmirg.
We weren’t the only sailors at this little back woods fish camp that evening. Besides Woody and Marsha aboard
Freyja another couple, Stewart and Nancy Force, schoolteachers from Jacksonville were bringing their newly
purchased sailboat home from where they bought it on the Chesapeake Bay. Each weekend Stewart and Nancy
would go and bring the boat a little closer to their homeport.
It turned out that Jane and I were picking up our mail in this little town and were shocked to find out that money we
were expecting to arrive didn’t come in.
The group wanted to go out for pizza so Jane and I literally shook the piggy bank and went through all of our
pockets to find every stray penny we had. It was determined that we could afford a pizza so out we went. Later that
evening we all gathered aboard Dursmirg for tap beer, we had a keg in the bilge and the spigot was in the galley.
And that was how we first met Woody and Marsha.
Woody was a good sailor, he could get anywhere under sail alone using his roller furled jib and fancy sailing
maneuvers. Later he delivered boats to the Virgin Islands from St. Petersburg, Florida where they were built. When
food stamps became available, Woody got his share and loved to flaunt them at the supermarket where he took
great pleasure in using them to purchase the very best cuts of beef. A note; It didn’t bother several of the lazier
boaters that were taking advantage of food stamps in the Boot Key Harbor that winter season to grab everything in
sight especially when they figured that the government was fighting a fraudulent war. Those food stamps just from
this one little harbor were costing the taxpayers more than $2,000 a month.
*
Ed Weber; boat name Caribbean Sunrise February 7th 1976 (Ed arrived this year by motorcycle and spent a
couple of weeks living aboard Dursmirg with us. Ed and I rode his “crotch rocket” motorcycle to Key West from
Marathon, not my idea of pleasure…I would rather take my chances on the high seas than hang on to that speeding
missile.
We had a very good time with Ed this trip, swimming, diving, fishing, cooking, eating and drinking samples of Jane’s
fabulous wines. Ed’s all time favorite was sassafras but he loved it all.
Ed would visit us many more times in the years that followed and we made a number of visits to visit Ed in his New
Hampshire estate that includes a private fishing pond and his airport that he calls, “Candia International”.
*
Brett Hollerith and his boat named An Jan, a black 36-foot teak Cheoy-Lee Lion. This sleek spotlessly kept
vessel sailed into Boot Key Harbor with a single-handed sailor aboard. (Brett had both hands but he was sailing
alone.)
There wasn’t an ounce of fat on his slight well-muscled and wiry frame. Brett Hollerith agilely and nimbly handled all
functions of his boat without any wasted movements all very naturally and without fuss or confusion making his
maneuvers like a well rehearsed routine. Not dressed to conform to any stereotypical image of a sailor but definitely
making a counter-culture fashion statement with his well-worn last generation cotton creased and wrinkled to the
extreme plaid shirt and khaki cut-offs.
His big smile and friendly disposition made him part of the group and as soon as he settled in with his anchors down
he had his Avon inflatable dinghy overboard to test the social environment of this different dimension in the sailing
community.
We invited this new guy aboard and noticed that Brett had parked his shoes and it would be some years before we
ever saw him wear any. He carried a little leather zip up purse for his pipe, tobacco and lighter and who knows what
else.
Well into his fifties his hair was mostly gray, maintained at a minimum, in the Albert Einstein style and he sported a
full bushy beard.
Barefoot Brett below in the galley of his lovely and elegantly crafted vessel An Jan.
Note the superbly crafted and hand carved woodwork coupled with very nautical bronze
embellishments.
Jane and I soon became long time friends and loved what Brett was doing. His boat, the Cheoy-Lee Lion is a classic
vessel that features the most intricate and artfully crafted teak wood joinery perfected with classic oriental attention
to detail, putting it in a class apart and above all others.
Brett kept his life aboard as simple as he could. He used a bucket for his marine head and his shower. Almost all the
foods he cooked he cooked in his cockpit over a wood fire in a small Weber cooker. In his sparse galley, a single
burner gimbaled primus kerosene stove was used to heat tea and pop popcorn. Brett consumed almost everything
that he ate raw which included much of his seafood. He would drag his clothes behind his boat to launder them. As
basic and simple as Brett lived aboard, everything he had was thoroughly worn and heavily used though neatly kept
and functional. A curiosity that revealed his taste for quality and an artful appetite for distinction was the
meticulously hand crafted bronze letters and designs fabricated in bronze in oriental type script he meticulously
inlaid into his galley dinette. The words “An Jan” were always kept brightly polished to a mirror shine. This eye-
catching adornment was obviously something that Brett took great pride and satisfaction in.
Barefoot Brett at anchor aboard his meticulously painted, varnished and polished, An Jan. Brett made
An Jan his only home for a number of carefree vagabond years.
Jane and I didn’t think too much about Brett’s financial condition because he appeared to live a Spartan life style
existence apart from the fact that he arrived at Boot Key harbor aboard the most valuable vessel to anchor there.
Our first winter down in the Florida Keys we did find it a little curious that Brett made a undisclosed two month trip to
somewhere and just went to a local marina and had his boat pulled out and dry-docked before he flew away. This we
considered to be very expensive and extravagant. The truth later came out that Brett was wealthy. (It turned out that
Brett’s father was a lawyer from Greenish, Connecticut hooked up with the company that put the lead in gasoline
(lead tetra ethyl).
Over the years, we would rendezvous, sail and visit countless times. Many an evening was spent in the cockpit of An
Jan roasting oysters we had collected together. In Marathon, Miami, the Indian River, St. Augustine, and finally at his
lovely waterfront home up the St. John’s River at Green Cove Springs, we would meet to share our mutual memories.
(Note; Brett met his present wife Janis when she sold him a 110 acre tract of waterfront land on the St. John’s River
which he later donated as a wild life refuge and sanctuary.)
*
Eduardo Cordoba and his family; wife Magaly and children, Lissette and Maggie;
A story of Boot Key harbor just would not be complete without the story of the Cuban fishing community.
Anybody that has struggled and starved to achieve a goal will be able to equate to the huge family effort we
witnessed in a vacant field adjacent to the Boot Key anchorage where Eduardo Cordoba and his Cuba family of
recent refugees pulled together to make a success of their lobster and stone crab business. Mom, pop and the kids
were all there. With the most basic of tools and materials, little by little, trap-by-trap the stack grew larger in time for
the lobster season to begin.
The Cuba refugee community faced a social environment that openly worked against them with xenophobic
resentment that slammed the door of equal opportunity in housing and jobs. They were resented for a number of
reasons, one of which was that they just worked too hard. (Our friend Eduardo Cordoba told us of his very first job
upon arrival in Miami. He went to work cleaning as a janitor at a hotel out on Miami Beach…because of his
punctuality and strong work ethic, within 6 months he was trusted with the keys to the place.)
Well, the whole family started their new life in Florida from the humblest of beginnings. Eduardo’s father began
commercial offshore fishing in a little open boat not 20-feet long. With the entire family working together they
gradually and frugally saved until they could own their own home, commercial fishing dock and ultimately Eduardo
would build with his own hands a 50-foot fiberglass boat powered by a new Caterpillar diesel engine capable of
carrying 200 lobster traps at a time.
Eduardo Cordoba at the helm of his new lobster boat.
Out to sea and on the job pulling lobster traps, this is a view of the back deck where Eduardo’s two
nephews pull the traps and process the catch.
Dockside unloading the day’s catch. The wooden crates are full of lobster and represent a very long day
of hard work that started long before sunrise. This dock is Eduardo’s own private dock and before he
was able to purchase this dock space he had to off load his catch in a vacant field by dinghy from his
anchored out fishing boat.
His family started commercial fishing in Florida with a boat that was not as long as this new boat is wide.
(I must admit that the Cubans are definitely the gutsiest boaters I have ever met. They would venture out across the
Gulf Stream to the Cay Sal Banks and back to fish in the most unseaworthy vessels, boats that I would have serious
reservations about crossing the harbor in.)
We witnessed several times the good-hearted and openly friendly gestures that the Cuban fishing community made
to any of the anchored out boat community; the use of a dinghy or even assistance with a ride or a tool lent. They
just naturally were there…no questions asked or thanks expected.
One day I left early to go out fishing with Eduardo and his father at their invitation.
This was hard backbreaking non-stop work pulling traps with their little winch just barely capable of doing the job.
The wooden traps were constructed of ½ by 2-inch strips making a box 30x 20x18 inches that needed continuous
cleaning, repairs and were weighted with cement so when waterlogged made for some muscle to handle them. A
black polypropylene floating line called pot warp attached a distinctively painted multicolored and numbered float to
each trap. (Each fisherman had his own distinctive float paint job and number so there is no mistake whose trap is at
the end of the float line) The trap pick up is a two-man job but we have seen Eduardo perform this maneuver by
himself.
Here is what happens on a lobster fishing boat; with one person at the helm and the other using a gaff to hook the
float line, it is snatched and then dropped into a deep-v capstan that grips the float line. The capstan then does all
the work of pulling the trap and even has an ingenious divider that automatically dumps the float line out of the
capstan head before it makes one complete revolution and begins to spool on top of itself. Whoever designed this
system was surely a clever chap. So, the water logged trap soon surfaces and lands on a side deck. Here dexterity
and instant reflex are needed to flip the float line out of the capstan before the winch pulls the trap in and tears it
apart. Therefore, as one trap had been landed, the previous trap that had been brushed clean of sea growth,
opened and its contents emptied, baited and closed was dumped overboard. There is no time to relax because as
soon as one trap is processed it is again time to snatch the next float line. Besides the fact that these traps are
heavy, especially toward the end of the day, they may need some extra nails or some other repair and time is of the
essence.
The same basic system is used to land stone crabs. Only one claw is removed and the crabs are put back to
regenerate a new claw. This can be a dangerous business, the stone crabs are not particularly fast but they are
incredibly powerful. With seemingly little effort, they can pinch off a broomstick handle and if placed in the bucket
with a big feisty blue crab, the slower stone crab will just reach out and obliterate the blue crab into so much mush
with one pinch. More than half of Eduardo’s family gave testament to the stone crabs powerful claws with their
missing fingers.
Above is a stone crab claw that measures 2 1/2 –inches from the inside of the two pincher points and
easily slips over my wrist. This is in our collection of memorabilia from when we caught and collected all
we could eat from our two private traps.
I was eager to see just how this fishing process was done and Eduardo was happy to take me along. A strange thing
was that Eduardo’s wife, Magaly, packed him a lunch in a brown paper bag the same as the one Jane packed for
me. I opened and ate Eduardo’s, it was a big lunch and so I passed it around to Eduardo and his father not knowing
I had the lunch packed for both of them and they were sharing my one single lunch. Another surprise was the
thermos of coffee; it was Cuban espresso style. A half a cup will make you talk fast and your eyes bulge out. Well, I
had a couple of cups before I realized my heart rate must have gone over 200 beats per minute. Did you ever
wonder why the Cuban’s talk fast…it’s that high-octane coffee that revs them up!.
This same trip Eduardo was saving all of the brightly colored small tropical fish that came out of his traps to sell to a
dealer for some extra cash and I helped. At the end of the day we were all astonished to find that the tub of tropical
fish was nearly empty. Upon closer inspection, the mystery was solved. There in the tub was a small grouper.
Grouper are renowned for literally inhaling their prey and in glutinous quantities. Eduardo just laughed at my foolish
ignorance. As you can see, I can still remember after all these years that groupers are just eating machines capable
of putting away a volume of eats their own size.
Jane and I got to be very good friends with Eduardo and his whole family. They frequently visited us aboard Dursmirg
at anchor and we were invited to dinner at their home where Jane learned many of the culinary secrets of the Cuba
cuisine from Eduardo’s wife, Magaly. Cuban pork with garlic sauce, marinated fish and tostones (fried plantains with
garlic), were just a few of those memorable specialties passed from generation to generation back in Cuba.
Over the years Jane still prepares those exotic dishes and we have an opportunity to reflect back to some of the
very best times and nicest people that made the best memories in our lives.
*
Hans and Sige Grothjahn boat name Fantysea, from Toronto Canada. On March 7th 1976 they signed our
logbook. This young couple had built their own Ferro-cement sailboat and they were of Danish origin.
We shared the common bond of having built our own boats and also of choosing Ferro- cement.
On the west coast of the U.S. Ferro-cement boat construction was immensely popular but this type of boat
construction was still a novelty most places that we traveled along the Atlantic.
*
Ray and Char Antiel came to visit us all the way down from Duluth, Minnesota. They had both been in
several of our Power Squadron classes and we attended a number of the social functions together sponsored by
the Power Squadron.
They definitely wanted to look us up because finding an anchored out boat anywhere in Florida could be a real
challenge but down in the Florida Keys detective work was involved. It certainly helped that we had such a distinctive
boat because once seen Dursmirg was hard to forget.
Ray and Char owned and operated a bakery back in Duluth and were very interested in sailing. They had
assembled their own kit sailboat and derived a great deal of pleasure from it. It was just small enough to make long
range sailing trips a challenge but Ray told us he aspired to do as we did with our Dursmirg and eventually have a
boat large enough to live aboard comfortably and cruise.
They said that they couldn’t breakaway from the family and business but that they were living our dream with us.
We never did hear if they finally fulfilled their dream…at least they had one.
*
Bruce and Jean Chadwick; We first met Bruce and Jean at Marathon while they had their two masted schooner
Charlotte Jean up and dry docked for their annual “re-fit”.
Jean did most of the physical work and Bruce made the rounds of the local coffee shops and bars…his hanging-out
places. Bruce was fully in touch with the marine-scene and he knew all about us even before we met.
Bruce had a laid-back type of personality and didn’t take things too seriously. Back in Muskegon, Michigan, Bruce
had been a turkey farmer and gone bankrupt three times then a superhighway was put through his area and he just
happened to have a gravel pit. Bruce promptly retired to the sea and didn’t even look back as he played his part of
the salty sailor.
Bruce promptly paid us a visit when we first dropped our anchor at Boot Key.
Bruce was the party organizer everywhere he went and we along with everyone in the anchorage were invited to a
cook-out on the back deck of an old wooden shrimp trawler owned by Paula and Don who had converted their
trawler into a dive boat. (They dove for lobsters in the Cay Sal Banks in Bahamian waters, which lie between Cuba,
The Florida Keys and the Bahamas.)
Bruce was in all his glory organizing group gatherings and when he saw the size of our vessel Dursmirg, he couldn’t
help himself. We became the party destination anytime “Loose Bruce” was in the neighborhood.
Bruce fitted out his vessel with traditional rigging. His schooner Charlotte Jean used all manila standing and running
rigging with wooden “dead-eyes” instead of turnbuckles. He was at the time even fitting Charlotte Jean with a “yard”
to deploy a square sail. It looked like Bruce was trying to create a make-work job out of sailing.
Every year all his rigging had to be renewed because it couldn’t stand up to his vigorous sailing adventures. The
manila, besides becoming unlaid or losing its twist, would be heavily chafed and weather deteriorated by the sun.
(Nylon, Dacron and stainless steel were of the 20th century; Bruce and his Charlotte Jean were not.)
After his annual re-fit Bruce literally “hit the deck running”. When Charlotte Jean returned to the water it was up and
down the coast. We had many reunions with Charlotte Jean at St. Augustine, Melbourne, Miami, Marathon and Key
West over the years. Bruce and Jean later made a two-year trip that included an Atlantic crossing with winters in
Spain and Portugal.
*
Dr. Locke and his wife Esther; aboard their big trawler Tonga II who we describe in this volume, chapter 3,
Melbourne came to Boot Key but tied to the dock at Boot Key Marina adjacent to the boot Key Anchorage.
Jane and I were happy to be together again with this lovely couple we had just met on the Indian River south of
Melbourne.
Though we had a wonderful time together, we had not really gotten to know them well. Now we would get to hear
their sailing story.
What brought this subject up was that their old sailboat named Tonga just pulled into the harbor and anchored off
their stern. This brought tears to Esther’s eyes and she just had to tell us their sailing story; many years back they
were sailing south from New York off the New Jersey coast when a hurricane destroyed their vessel and they were
rescued at sea by a passing freighter. Dr. Locke said that he had made up his mind that he wasn’t going to let this
one experience wreck their sailing lives and purchased a new boat within two weeks named Tonga.
They set out to sea again for many happy years of cruising and lived aboard their Tonga until they became too old
to sail. They reluctantly sold their sailboat, moved on to a trawler, and continued their cruising life.
Now that we were neighbors, we had many get-togethers and had Christmas dinner aboard Tonga II.
Esther was writing a book of their adventures that she was illustrating with her own drawings, which we felt were very
good.
Her heart wasn’t in the book because they had just discovered that Dr. Locke had colon cancer and that his days
were numbered.
A great sailor and a wonderful man…we miss these few very special kind of people that inspire everyone they meet
and make everywhere that they go better.
I can’t tell the story of our visits to Boot Key without mentioning the one place that all of the sailboaters
from the anchorage shopped at; Pinellas Sea Foods and fuel docks.
Situated on the entrance channel leading to the Boot Key anchorage, this enterprise catered to all boaters and
especially those in the commercial fishing fleet. Pinellas Sea Foods had the cheapest fuel to be found anywhere,
when it was available. When boats pulled in for fuel, topping off your water tanks was never a problem. Water in the
Florida Keys was extremely expensive and many times not available. (Commercial businesses carried on a
competition to have the biggest and most powerful water pumps and literally sucked the water they wanted and
required for their business out of the water lines. It was not uncommon to open the water tap in a residential home
and hear the loud sucking sound created as every drop of water was being extracted. The prudent homeowner
would then quickly close the tap to prevent too much air from entering the pipes because that only delayed the time
when the water would return at low demand times.)
The tumbled down dock and unpainted sun bleached office building of Pinellas Sea Foods gave the appearance of
a struggling mom and pop operation that eked out a living selling fuel and anything else the local fishing fleet
needed at wholesale prices that nobody in Florida could match. We did a lot of shopping there and if they didn’t
have what you wanted it would be in the next day. (Note; ten years later Jane and I got to know the owner, Mr.
Kinney and his partner Jim Aligood who owned Pinellas Sea Foods at 1301 Southeast Bay Street, St. Petersburg,
Florida that merged with the Red Lobster Restaurant chain. We docked our commercial shrimp trawler Secotan
there in the winter of 1982. I have written a story about our shrimp boat Secotan and it is posted on our web page.)
Back to Marathon; the docks surrounding Pinellas Sea Foods were where the mid-keys commercial fishing fleet
fueled, iced, fitted out, docked and sold their catch.
The Cuba influence was very apparent here because they had an advantage that was almost impossible to compete
with. Their advantage was that the whole family got involved when it came to build and mend the lobster traps and
eagerly took part. The same went for other work and maintenance. There was plenty of jealousy that then erupted
into violence, but the Cubans had nowhere else to go so they just had to stand their ground. (This made me think
back in time to the days of the California gold rush took place. Chinese immigrants mass migrated and took any job.
Hostilities broke out and xenophobic hatred reared its ugly head…the reason…the Chinese worked too hard.)
Jim Muller and Leigh Durrence
Here I will give a brief account from the log book of Dursmirg of one of our many passages down into the
Florida Keys;
Jane and I anchored Dursmirg in West Palm Beach harbor where we would make a pre-planned rendezvous with Jim
Muller and his fiancée Leigh Durrence. (Jim Muller and his travels aboard Dursmirg are written up in both volumes 1
and 2 of Travels of Dursmirg plus there is more to come in volume 4.)
Jim and Leigh would arrive in West Palm Beach aboard the Am-track train. At a pre-designated time, Jim and Leigh
disembarked the train with a mountain of luggage. Now we had a logistics problem transporting this pile of luggage
that gave the impression of an African safari out to our anchored boat…we would be the pack bearers. With a relay
system I used our 8-foot Bingy Dinghy to shuttle the mountainous and heavy pile of packs plus Jim and Leigh out to
Dursmirg at anchor.
Here I must mention that of all of the visitors we ever had aboard Dursmirg that Jim Muller was by far the most well
organized and methodical of all. Jim had an inventory system, outline and check list for each and every fishhook,
sinker, and multitude of other items he packed along. There was never anything that Jim took along or threw in to
his packs on a whim, everything he brought he used and he unquestionably was the best and most knowledgeable
fisherman we have ever met. When Jim was along we ate seafood and lots of it…so, thank you Jim!
This year we set out together for a fishing, sailing, beach combing and sightseeing trip that took us on an offshore
sail from West Palm Beach to Miami. Next we explored Biscayne Bay and then sailed the Hawk Channel to Marathon,
fishing as we sailed.
This trip is how we would wish all sailing get-togethers would go…just great fun, good sailing and a fabulous time
with Jim’s fish and Jane’s great cooking. This made for a lasting good time memory.
(When we were toiling at building our boat, dreams of this kind of lifestyle were what inspired us to press on. Like
Jane’s little brother Joel said; “Is it really worth it?” My reply; “Yes it really is”.
Walter and Cynthia Perry
Jane and I first met this outlandish and eccentric couple in 1975 when they spent the winter at the St. Augustine
yacht Pier aboard their 34-foot steel sloop Z-Walker. (read about that experience in volume 4)
Eccentric Walter stood an imposing 6 foot 6 inches and had recently retired from the computer company IBM where
he had been a research engineer. Always fiddling with gadgets he seemed to over engineer some things like his
gimbaled battery box or his double insulated universal coupling for his propeller shaft. On other things he showed
almost no signs of a positive thought process. For example; the main shore power cord for his boat had no plug, just
bare wires jammed into the outlet box. One day as Jane and I came to visit the Perry’s aboard Z-Walker I jokingly
told Walter that I had just seen that somebody had actually connected their boat to shore power with no plug. Walter
got a straight and somber face and proceeded to explain to me that this type of connection actually had less
resistance than a plug. (This was definitely the absentminded professor syndrome. Rube Goldberg engineering
refined!)
His wife Cynthia had just retired from her secretarial job at the university back in Poughkeepsie, New York. She had
the handicap of a partially paralyzed leg from childhood polio and walked with a noticeable limp. In spite of this
handicap she and Walter went everywhere by bicycle. I still cannot understand just how Cynthia managed to ride her
bicycle because she actually had to take her leg and lift it onto the bicycle pedal she could push with her right leg
but could not lift it and had to somehow rely on her other leg to make the pedals go around. Bicycling is how Jane
and I got to spend so much time with them. We also went everywhere by bicycle.
Walter was dangerous on a bicycle because he paid absolutely no attention to anything around him and that
included traffic that I believe he expected to clear the way for him. Jane always gave him a wide berth because if he
happened to wander into your path his huge size could be devastating to the other party in a crash.
At Marathon they took dockage at Hanley’s …this was the same place that Linda Schill (Bubba’s wife) worked with
the go-fast cocaine Cubans.
Besides bicycling extensively together almost everyday we spent time out sailing aboard Z-Walker on Florida Bay.
This is where we encountered another one of Walter’s engineering marvels. He determined his boats speed with a
stopwatch. Here is the system that Walter worked out; Walter sat on the bow of the boat with his stopwatch and his
Hewlett-Packard scientific calculator, (a very expensive state of the art devise at the time.) He would throw
overboard a crumpled up piece of newspaper and with someone in the stern to holler “mark” as the paper passed
by Walter recorded the lapsed time and calculated the vessels speed.
Walter told us that he could even listen to his engine and count its rhythm and from that calculate the engines
revolutions per minute…You can see we always had many amusements with Walter.
Walter refused to swim with any clothes on so we had a hard time finding secluded places to suit Walter.
Besides eccentricities, he took frugality to unprecedented levels of cheapness. One day when we went out sailing
with them they told us not to pack along any lunch it was their treat. Therefore, we did not and the lunch for all of us
was a very small box of dates that Walter doled out one at a time rolled in sugar. We damn near starved to death!
*
Dr. and Mrs. Charles Virgin from Coconut Grove (we were anchored at Sand Key in Biscayne Bay, the Dr.
came to borrow matches and we saved his trip, April 11th 1976) He was an expert on local woods and identified
many of the pieces that we had collected from the area.
next chapter
Eduardo showing off his new 3406
Caterpillar engine. This is the boat
that he and his family completely
built with their own hands and
efforts…an accomplishment to be
very proud of.
Caterpillar engine. This is the boat
that he and his family completely
built with their own hands and
efforts…an accomplishment to be
very proud of.
