| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 63 |
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YACHTERS, GOOD, BAD AND UGLY: THE WANT TO BE'S
ROBERT E. HELFNER, WIFE CAROL; boat Amberjack from the Chesapeake Bay.
The Amberjack was a distinctive vintage classic sailing schooner that just looked like it belonged to some real
authentic salty ocean-going rogue sailor.
Little old St. Augustine systematically attracted these two social misfits, Robert and Carol like a magnet picks up
tacks.
Just how Robert came into possession of this lovely classic sailing vessel was more than questionable, especially
considering his sub-normal metabolism rate and his blitzed out cannabis state of mind.
Robert dressed the part of the saltiest of sailors and at first glance gave every impression of being a real hands-on
blue-water trans-ocean sea-captain from his Top-Sider sneakers to his stainless steel pocket knife hanging from his
belt by a nautically back-spliced rope lanyard and sporting an oversized fid.
A full bushy-bristly beard and his go-to-sea maritime props made Robert into the kind of person you would
automatically assume had the basic threads of seamanship sewn into the seat of his pants.
Robert was a polished imposter and a convincing confidence man and of course these are the very people that
worked so hard at making a plausible presentation that you just had to believe.
Robert only fooled the other people that were want-to-be sailors because when he displayed his vessel handling
abilities he was a foolish fumbling dysfunctional neophyte totally incapable of ever being real sailor.
Robert may have been a clever and crafty guy who was just hanging out, but a sailor he was not!
This faker completely missed the mark when it came to perfection…perfect ass-holes make the grade
unscathed…but you must be solidly a 100% ass-hole. 99.9% and you will eventually flunk out of this game as this
near perfect Robert was about to discover.
Jolly-Roger-Robert and his partner kleptomaniac Carol had a small shake-down racket going that went like this; he
would park their classic sailing schooner that had an enormous bow sprint slung with dangling rodes and protruding
anchors at the City Yacht Pier fuel dock and then wait for some poor victim to collide with him in the swift cross
current and then sue for pumped-up damages.
The suspicious thing about this caper was the extensive attention to detail and careful documentation that Robert
recorded with photographs.
These crafty con-artists seemed to sustain themselves with their maritime flimflam business because they always
made sure that they had a lawsuit pending. Florida and St. Augustine were tailor-made for their scam.
Practice makes perfect and these people worked and connived at their con-job business with polish and persistence
playing the part with limps, insurance collars and whatever else it took to make their case and collect the lawsuit loot.
We witnessed them pigeon-hole local people into signing dubious depositions and testimonials with remorseless con-
job crassness.
Like Roma gypsies Robert and his wife Carol were among other things uncontrollable kleptomaniacs and my wife
Jane even caught crafty-crass Carol unremorsefully wearing the stolen blue jeans that she had taken from Jane’s
washing machine at the Yacht Pier in broad daylight.
I am still amazed at all of the different kinds of social misfits that by and by sailed into St. Augustine in the 1970s.
They drifted into and they drifted out of town, but they all made the place into a distinctively different realm like none
other anywhere.
The more I think of the little joke I used to make about St. Augustine back in those days being an open-air insane
asylum the more I think of people like Robert and Carol.
They came aboard our boat Dursmirg August 3, 1977 and signed our guest book
STEVE FUHL and his wife were definitely burned-out spaced-out social misfits that drifted down the waterway from
Charleston in a small very non-descript old wooden sloop.
They first anchored in the bay, got acquainted and sailed south headed for the Bahamas Islands with a contingency
of local boaters as tag-a-longs.
The first time water came over the bow heading out the inlet at West Palm scared Steve got cold feet…headed
directly back to St. Augustine, tied up his little wooden sloop and moved ashore permanently.
Out of touch with reality they had been “want-to be hippies” and “want-to-be-boaters”. But in actuality they were of
the cannabis crowd that wanted to fit into any group and didn’t have what it took to be self reliant...dependency was
their thing.
It became immediately evident that Steve and his Mrs.’s had been spoiled brats as children and then never grew out
of that state of self-centered what’s for me attitude.
When Steve drifted into town from near Charleston, South Carolina aboard his small traditional wooden sailboat he
and his wife anchored out in the bay amongst the real boaters hoping that some nautical magic might rub off on
them.
Steve was a big strapping guy in his late twenties and his wife just medium but when they stepped into the world
where self-reliance held the key to survival they foundered.
They could fake the salt water sailor routine while walking the dock but out to sea when Mother Nature put some
spindrift on the wave tops Steve hit the panic button and headed for his security blanket in the harbor or at the dock.
Steve soon took a job over at San Sebastian Marine up the San Sebastian River working for the owner Mr. Jim
Evans.
At the same time Jane and I had an arrangement being the night watchmen while living aboard our vessel Dursmirg
docked there.
During the days we were away working on our apartment building renovation. We were at San Sebastian Marine for
over a year and a half until we completed construction of our own private dock.
Steve later brought his little wooden sailboat over to the San Sebastian Boatyard after his one and only splash of
spray that came over his bow for permanent dumping and dockage.
Boats and boating had rapidly lost their appeal and there would be no more living aboard after that; in fact I don’t
believe he ever used the boat again. Big Steve and his Mrs.’s were now permanently anchored to the shore by
choice.
It didn’t seem to matter that Steve knew absolutely nothing about boats or boating and possessed positively no
maritime expertise…at least he did give his boating dream a chance and that is far more than can be said about
most dreamers.
It seems like I should have more to say about these two social misfits that were sucked down the Intracoastal
Waterway by a process approximating osmosis into little old St. Augustine, but there it is and they were definitely
part of the 1970s St. Augustine drop out connection.
***
CHRIS CARNES; In the realm of social misfits and rogues, burnt our beach bum Chris was right up there with the
most outlandish of St. Augustine’s high-times hard core laid back lovers.
For blitzed-out far-out cannabis smiling Chris party-time was all the time, as he continually reminded one and all;
“When you snooze you lose.”
When we first met Chris he signed the guest book aboard the Dursmirg, October 1973.
Chris was hanging out at the City Yacht Pier where he tied his old time, 40s vintage 30 foot sports fishing boat
named Scout that was of dubious origins and sat dormant at dockside.
Chris had a party partner in the sport-fishing boat at the time named Thomas Greenhalgh.
Playing the part of “The Salt Water Cowboy” crazy Chris was in for lots of spaced-out high times.
Chris made an ongoing game out of everything all the time and spun his chicks along into a perpetually
uninterrupted bash of merrymaking revelry.
Clowning Chris’s perpetual carnival on his Florida dream-boat attracted young cuties and want-a be bunny girls like
Debbie Kochner and Kathy Brooks plus any other drop-ins that wanted the endless blitzed-out party routine that was
a high times laughing lark.
The lark laden atmosphere aboard Scout never had a serious moment, not a worry in the world with no pain or any
strain the stress-free free-lovers floated along as long as the high times momentum spun on. Slick chicks and
dissipated Chris, at “30 something” already had hit the down-hill skids.
Not an achiever, not a doer and definitely not a pillar of the community, Chris couldn’t give a hoot.
The only suspicious part of Chris’s existence was who was financing his blitzed-out perpetual party.
In the last days of his boating career we heard that Chris was at Harbor Town Marina at Hilton Head Island, South
Carolina several years later.
According to the marina owner he was thoroughly pissed-off with Chris who had been just hanging out at Harbor
Town Marina where he had ran up a huge dockage tab and then silently vanished stiffing the disgruntled owner.
Crazy Chris made it as a social misfit but couldn’t quite make the cut as a rogue.
As the years passed by Chris had witnessed his salvation, seen the Divine way and become self-righteous.
His holy deliverance drove him to hand out religious tracts because he had found Jesus!
ART LUNDBERG; A salty looking sailor who dressed and smelled the part with Topsider yachter shoes, faded worn
jeans, a Greek sailors cap and of course his stainless steel pocket knife on a back-spliced lanyard with a
conspicuously large marlin spike.
Salty looking Art arrived in town aboard a very expensive yacht heavy laden with expensive extras that he claimed to
own but couldn’t maneuver. Art’s boat handling abilities made him look like he was a first-timer venturing out on a
maiden voyage aboard a rent-a-boat and it was getting away from him. I use the term sailor loosely in Arts case...if
you had an outfit you could be one too!
Art came to town claming that he had lost his expensive inflatable dinghy, put in an insurance claim and quit sailing
then and there…suspicious behavior from the start.
Considering the expensive yacht Art came to town aboard and his questionable insurance claim his standard of
living was beach bum poor and stunk of some kind of shady fraud.
Fraudulent suspicion hung heavy over this would-be or want-a-be sailor whose credentials and origins were colored
in dark shady silent noncommittal vagaries and his only apparent connection to the sea was his fishy appearance.
Art sighed the guest book aboard the Dursmirg March 1975
Art slipped off like scummy bilge water down the scupper into a hangers-on existence sinking lower and lower each
time we encountered him.
In order to raise a little cash Art tried to sell us an old beat-up had-been VW van that was a real proverbial “toilet”,
rusted and brakeless refusing to start. Jane and I looked it over and decided that it had less than zero market value,
turned down Art’s pleading eyes deal and that was the last we ever saw of the imposter and social misfit Art
Lindberg.
Still standing as a constant reminder in St. Augustine’s downtown park is this open air British built slave market
dating from their occupation in the early 1800s.
CHAPTER 63 YACHTERS, GOOD, BAD AND UGLY; THE WANT-TO-BE’S
next chapter
ROBERT E. HELFNER, WIFE CAROL; boat Amberjack from the Chesapeake Bay.
The Amberjack was a distinctive vintage classic sailing schooner that just looked like it belonged to some real
authentic salty ocean-going rogue sailor.
Little old St. Augustine systematically attracted these two social misfits, Robert and Carol like a magnet picks up
tacks.
Just how Robert came into possession of this lovely classic sailing vessel was more than questionable, especially
considering his sub-normal metabolism rate and his blitzed out cannabis state of mind.
Robert dressed the part of the saltiest of sailors and at first glance gave every impression of being a real hands-on
blue-water trans-ocean sea-captain from his Top-Sider sneakers to his stainless steel pocket knife hanging from his
belt by a nautically back-spliced rope lanyard and sporting an oversized fid.
A full bushy-bristly beard and his go-to-sea maritime props made Robert into the kind of person you would
automatically assume had the basic threads of seamanship sewn into the seat of his pants.
Robert was a polished imposter and a convincing confidence man and of course these are the very people that
worked so hard at making a plausible presentation that you just had to believe.
Robert only fooled the other people that were want-to-be sailors because when he displayed his vessel handling
abilities he was a foolish fumbling dysfunctional neophyte totally incapable of ever being real sailor.
Robert may have been a clever and crafty guy who was just hanging out, but a sailor he was not!
This faker completely missed the mark when it came to perfection…perfect ass-holes make the grade
unscathed…but you must be solidly a 100% ass-hole. 99.9% and you will eventually flunk out of this game as this
near perfect Robert was about to discover.
Jolly-Roger-Robert and his partner kleptomaniac Carol had a small shake-down racket going that went like this; he
would park their classic sailing schooner that had an enormous bow sprint slung with dangling rodes and protruding
anchors at the City Yacht Pier fuel dock and then wait for some poor victim to collide with him in the swift cross
current and then sue for pumped-up damages.
The suspicious thing about this caper was the extensive attention to detail and careful documentation that Robert
recorded with photographs.
These crafty con-artists seemed to sustain themselves with their maritime flimflam business because they always
made sure that they had a lawsuit pending. Florida and St. Augustine were tailor-made for their scam.
Practice makes perfect and these people worked and connived at their con-job business with polish and persistence
playing the part with limps, insurance collars and whatever else it took to make their case and collect the lawsuit loot.
We witnessed them pigeon-hole local people into signing dubious depositions and testimonials with remorseless con-
job crassness.
Like Roma gypsies Robert and his wife Carol were among other things uncontrollable kleptomaniacs and my wife
Jane even caught crafty-crass Carol unremorsefully wearing the stolen blue jeans that she had taken from Jane’s
washing machine at the Yacht Pier in broad daylight.
I am still amazed at all of the different kinds of social misfits that by and by sailed into St. Augustine in the 1970s.
They drifted into and they drifted out of town, but they all made the place into a distinctively different realm like none
other anywhere.
The more I think of the little joke I used to make about St. Augustine back in those days being an open-air insane
asylum the more I think of people like Robert and Carol.
They came aboard our boat Dursmirg August 3, 1977 and signed our guest book
STEVE FUHL and his wife were definitely burned-out spaced-out social misfits that drifted down the waterway from
Charleston in a small very non-descript old wooden sloop.
They first anchored in the bay, got acquainted and sailed south headed for the Bahamas Islands with a contingency
of local boaters as tag-a-longs.
The first time water came over the bow heading out the inlet at West Palm scared Steve got cold feet…headed
directly back to St. Augustine, tied up his little wooden sloop and moved ashore permanently.
Out of touch with reality they had been “want-to be hippies” and “want-to-be-boaters”. But in actuality they were of
the cannabis crowd that wanted to fit into any group and didn’t have what it took to be self reliant...dependency was
their thing.
It became immediately evident that Steve and his Mrs.’s had been spoiled brats as children and then never grew out
of that state of self-centered what’s for me attitude.
When Steve drifted into town from near Charleston, South Carolina aboard his small traditional wooden sailboat he
and his wife anchored out in the bay amongst the real boaters hoping that some nautical magic might rub off on
them.
Steve was a big strapping guy in his late twenties and his wife just medium but when they stepped into the world
where self-reliance held the key to survival they foundered.
They could fake the salt water sailor routine while walking the dock but out to sea when Mother Nature put some
spindrift on the wave tops Steve hit the panic button and headed for his security blanket in the harbor or at the dock.
Steve soon took a job over at San Sebastian Marine up the San Sebastian River working for the owner Mr. Jim
Evans.
At the same time Jane and I had an arrangement being the night watchmen while living aboard our vessel Dursmirg
docked there.
During the days we were away working on our apartment building renovation. We were at San Sebastian Marine for
over a year and a half until we completed construction of our own private dock.
Steve later brought his little wooden sailboat over to the San Sebastian Boatyard after his one and only splash of
spray that came over his bow for permanent dumping and dockage.
Boats and boating had rapidly lost their appeal and there would be no more living aboard after that; in fact I don’t
believe he ever used the boat again. Big Steve and his Mrs.’s were now permanently anchored to the shore by
choice.
It didn’t seem to matter that Steve knew absolutely nothing about boats or boating and possessed positively no
maritime expertise…at least he did give his boating dream a chance and that is far more than can be said about
most dreamers.
It seems like I should have more to say about these two social misfits that were sucked down the Intracoastal
Waterway by a process approximating osmosis into little old St. Augustine, but there it is and they were definitely
part of the 1970s St. Augustine drop out connection.
***
CHRIS CARNES; In the realm of social misfits and rogues, burnt our beach bum Chris was right up there with the
most outlandish of St. Augustine’s high-times hard core laid back lovers.
For blitzed-out far-out cannabis smiling Chris party-time was all the time, as he continually reminded one and all;
“When you snooze you lose.”
When we first met Chris he signed the guest book aboard the Dursmirg, October 1973.
Chris was hanging out at the City Yacht Pier where he tied his old time, 40s vintage 30 foot sports fishing boat
named Scout that was of dubious origins and sat dormant at dockside.
Chris had a party partner in the sport-fishing boat at the time named Thomas Greenhalgh.
Playing the part of “The Salt Water Cowboy” crazy Chris was in for lots of spaced-out high times.
Chris made an ongoing game out of everything all the time and spun his chicks along into a perpetually
uninterrupted bash of merrymaking revelry.
Clowning Chris’s perpetual carnival on his Florida dream-boat attracted young cuties and want-a be bunny girls like
Debbie Kochner and Kathy Brooks plus any other drop-ins that wanted the endless blitzed-out party routine that was
a high times laughing lark.
The lark laden atmosphere aboard Scout never had a serious moment, not a worry in the world with no pain or any
strain the stress-free free-lovers floated along as long as the high times momentum spun on. Slick chicks and
dissipated Chris, at “30 something” already had hit the down-hill skids.
Not an achiever, not a doer and definitely not a pillar of the community, Chris couldn’t give a hoot.
The only suspicious part of Chris’s existence was who was financing his blitzed-out perpetual party.
In the last days of his boating career we heard that Chris was at Harbor Town Marina at Hilton Head Island, South
Carolina several years later.
According to the marina owner he was thoroughly pissed-off with Chris who had been just hanging out at Harbor
Town Marina where he had ran up a huge dockage tab and then silently vanished stiffing the disgruntled owner.
Crazy Chris made it as a social misfit but couldn’t quite make the cut as a rogue.
As the years passed by Chris had witnessed his salvation, seen the Divine way and become self-righteous.
His holy deliverance drove him to hand out religious tracts because he had found Jesus!
ART LUNDBERG; A salty looking sailor who dressed and smelled the part with Topsider yachter shoes, faded worn
jeans, a Greek sailors cap and of course his stainless steel pocket knife on a back-spliced lanyard with a
conspicuously large marlin spike.
Salty looking Art arrived in town aboard a very expensive yacht heavy laden with expensive extras that he claimed to
own but couldn’t maneuver. Art’s boat handling abilities made him look like he was a first-timer venturing out on a
maiden voyage aboard a rent-a-boat and it was getting away from him. I use the term sailor loosely in Arts case...if
you had an outfit you could be one too!
Art came to town claming that he had lost his expensive inflatable dinghy, put in an insurance claim and quit sailing
then and there…suspicious behavior from the start.
Considering the expensive yacht Art came to town aboard and his questionable insurance claim his standard of
living was beach bum poor and stunk of some kind of shady fraud.
Fraudulent suspicion hung heavy over this would-be or want-a-be sailor whose credentials and origins were colored
in dark shady silent noncommittal vagaries and his only apparent connection to the sea was his fishy appearance.
Art sighed the guest book aboard the Dursmirg March 1975
Art slipped off like scummy bilge water down the scupper into a hangers-on existence sinking lower and lower each
time we encountered him.
In order to raise a little cash Art tried to sell us an old beat-up had-been VW van that was a real proverbial “toilet”,
rusted and brakeless refusing to start. Jane and I looked it over and decided that it had less than zero market value,
turned down Art’s pleading eyes deal and that was the last we ever saw of the imposter and social misfit Art
Lindberg.
Still standing as a constant reminder in St. Augustine’s downtown park is this open air British built slave market
dating from their occupation in the early 1800s.
CHAPTER 63 YACHTERS, GOOD, BAD AND UGLY; THE WANT-TO-BE’S
next chapter
