| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 52 |
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YACHTERS, THE GOOD, BAD AND THE UGLY: JOHN GRAY
John Gray; We first met John and his brother aboard their 25 foot neat little fiberglass Swedish Alban, The Old
Coot with its underpowered ship shaking Volvo diesel engine that shook the little boat at idle and vibrated it
unmercifully at full throttle.
Back in the fall of 1972 we all were transiting the Erie Barge Canal.
On one very cold and blustery late fall day when a screaming north wind came straight out of the Arctic Tundra
kicking up seas on upper New York’s Finger Lakes we transited together.
This was a slightly bouncy ride for Jane and I in our 20 ton displacement boat Dursmirg. For John and his brother in
their buoyant as a ping-pong ball little fiberglass Alban that bounced, bobbed, and bucked like a bobber in the
rapids the Finger Lakes with their north to south fetch as long as several of the Great Lakes were wide brutally
battered them.
These long narrow glacial formed lakes had tall steep banks that funneled and accelerated those Arctic blasting
winds and whipped them into screaming cyclones that brought down trees and kicked up the seas.
This was a for real Siberian Express wind storm and as Jane and I prepared to dock that evening in a narrow
protected channel cut, a substantial oak tree blew down in the canal almost across the bow of our Dursmirg so it
would be good to be in a relatively snug harbor and tied securely to the bulkhead. Control of the vessel under these
conditions is marginal at best.
John and his brother tied off our stern and we introduced ourselves.
The next morning early we had a fuel truck deliver us a load of diesel fuel to our boat at dockside. The kind
attendant at the New York Department of Transportation dock where we had tied for the night and taken warm
showers was extremely helpful in phoning the fuel company for us, and sure enough the service was exceptionally
expeditious.
This freezing cold morning greeted us with a substantial layer of white glistening frost that covered our entire deck
but inside our Dursmirg with two inches of Styrofoam insulation we were snug and warm. As I peered out from our
companionway I noticed that our neighbor’s boat was also covered with a similar covering of frost…yes, it was
bitterly cold, but we are warm and snug in our well insulated cabin.
We invited John and his brother over for a cup of hot coffee and a chance to get the frost out of their bones but they
declined and expeditiously got underway.
We didn’t meet again until several months later in the warm waters of the harbor at St. Augustine, Florida where we
were again neighbors.
This time John was residing in his new bay front home and invited Jane and I over to meet his wife Mary and get
acquainted.
This is when we got to know this straight arrow who had just retired from a long career as an executive job for
Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York where he had been active in local politics.
John and his wife Mary were not rogues or social misfits or ever square pegs. So, just how did they get into this
story? And why did they wind up in this town, notorious for creatures of abstract, obtuse and abnormal social
behavior.
Well, they got into this story because of their contrast from the norm.
What is normal here is on a sliding scale tipped radically off center in this stagnant little suck-hole known as St.
Augustine.
When John had a chance to actually look the town over and find out what a strange place he actually settled in he
became a little bit paranoid and even went to the point of painting his windows shut.
John later wrote a very nice and flattering story about Jane and I and our trip south to Florida which can be found in
Volume 1 of Travels of Dursmirg.
Straight arrow John was mostly an armchair want-to-be sailor who had read most every marine publication and
studied the maps of the rivers, canals and lock systems of nearly all the navigable waterways in America.
In August of 1974 John and his brother took their folksy little 25 foot Swedish Alban with its vibrating Volvo diesel
engine that economically putt, putt, putted along on a waterway trip up the east coast of America through the
Intracoastal Waterway and stopped to visit Jane and I as we spent our summer at Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.
We all had a great time visiting the Island and meeting the locals and I believe that this stop was a highlight of John
Gray’s boating adventure. When John and his brother finally returned back to St. Augustine in the fall of that year
John discovered that this was enough boating to satisfy him and sadly he never used his Old Coot again.
You knew you were a real Florida sailor when you used your own homemade conch horn to signal for
opening the bridges.
next chapter
John Gray; We first met John and his brother aboard their 25 foot neat little fiberglass Swedish Alban, The Old
Coot with its underpowered ship shaking Volvo diesel engine that shook the little boat at idle and vibrated it
unmercifully at full throttle.
Back in the fall of 1972 we all were transiting the Erie Barge Canal.
On one very cold and blustery late fall day when a screaming north wind came straight out of the Arctic Tundra
kicking up seas on upper New York’s Finger Lakes we transited together.
This was a slightly bouncy ride for Jane and I in our 20 ton displacement boat Dursmirg. For John and his brother in
their buoyant as a ping-pong ball little fiberglass Alban that bounced, bobbed, and bucked like a bobber in the
rapids the Finger Lakes with their north to south fetch as long as several of the Great Lakes were wide brutally
battered them.
These long narrow glacial formed lakes had tall steep banks that funneled and accelerated those Arctic blasting
winds and whipped them into screaming cyclones that brought down trees and kicked up the seas.
This was a for real Siberian Express wind storm and as Jane and I prepared to dock that evening in a narrow
protected channel cut, a substantial oak tree blew down in the canal almost across the bow of our Dursmirg so it
would be good to be in a relatively snug harbor and tied securely to the bulkhead. Control of the vessel under these
conditions is marginal at best.
John and his brother tied off our stern and we introduced ourselves.
The next morning early we had a fuel truck deliver us a load of diesel fuel to our boat at dockside. The kind
attendant at the New York Department of Transportation dock where we had tied for the night and taken warm
showers was extremely helpful in phoning the fuel company for us, and sure enough the service was exceptionally
expeditious.
This freezing cold morning greeted us with a substantial layer of white glistening frost that covered our entire deck
but inside our Dursmirg with two inches of Styrofoam insulation we were snug and warm. As I peered out from our
companionway I noticed that our neighbor’s boat was also covered with a similar covering of frost…yes, it was
bitterly cold, but we are warm and snug in our well insulated cabin.
We invited John and his brother over for a cup of hot coffee and a chance to get the frost out of their bones but they
declined and expeditiously got underway.
We didn’t meet again until several months later in the warm waters of the harbor at St. Augustine, Florida where we
were again neighbors.
This time John was residing in his new bay front home and invited Jane and I over to meet his wife Mary and get
acquainted.
This is when we got to know this straight arrow who had just retired from a long career as an executive job for
Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York where he had been active in local politics.
John and his wife Mary were not rogues or social misfits or ever square pegs. So, just how did they get into this
story? And why did they wind up in this town, notorious for creatures of abstract, obtuse and abnormal social
behavior.
Well, they got into this story because of their contrast from the norm.
What is normal here is on a sliding scale tipped radically off center in this stagnant little suck-hole known as St.
Augustine.
When John had a chance to actually look the town over and find out what a strange place he actually settled in he
became a little bit paranoid and even went to the point of painting his windows shut.
John later wrote a very nice and flattering story about Jane and I and our trip south to Florida which can be found in
Volume 1 of Travels of Dursmirg.
Straight arrow John was mostly an armchair want-to-be sailor who had read most every marine publication and
studied the maps of the rivers, canals and lock systems of nearly all the navigable waterways in America.
In August of 1974 John and his brother took their folksy little 25 foot Swedish Alban with its vibrating Volvo diesel
engine that economically putt, putt, putted along on a waterway trip up the east coast of America through the
Intracoastal Waterway and stopped to visit Jane and I as we spent our summer at Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.
We all had a great time visiting the Island and meeting the locals and I believe that this stop was a highlight of John
Gray’s boating adventure. When John and his brother finally returned back to St. Augustine in the fall of that year
John discovered that this was enough boating to satisfy him and sadly he never used his Old Coot again.
You knew you were a real Florida sailor when you used your own homemade conch horn to signal for
opening the bridges.
next chapter
