Memsahib's Voyage

To Molly’s huge chagrin, Memsahib is not our only boat, but part of a growing fleet, given my addiction to all things wood that float.

Some of our readers have asked to know about my boatbuilding habit and to see some pictures, so a new page has been added at the top of the blog, “The Kessinger Fleet.”

My friend Pat Harris, upon learning that I would be a swinging bachelor in Key West for a week, strongly suggested that I go down to Duval Street and check out the action during the first big week of Spring Break, starting with  President’s Day.

So I dutifully got on my bike and headed toward chaos.  But I stopped first to fortify myself with a Cuban Sandwich and cafe con leche at 5 Brothers Grocery, home of the best Cuban in Key West.  It was fantastic.  But how can a Cuban sandwich in Key West be all that much different from a Cuban at a New York deli, since by definition a Cuban has the same ingredients — roast port, ham, yellow mustard and dill pickles, all pressed to mold everything together on a grill?  I think the secret is the bread.  Cuban bread is slightly sweet and very soft — so you get the classic Chinese taste combination — salt, sweet, hot, sour.  And since on Memsahib we consider pickles a vegetable, it is a well-balanced meal.

But I digress.  Duval was crowded as usual and I fired up the camera in anticipation of the crazy pictures I would send back to Pat — probably too racy for this family-friendly blog.  Only to find that the average age of the wild female Spring Breakers was something between 71 and 76, the range depending on whether you count those with walkers as active players or on the DL.  There was not a co-ed in sight, and I walked for three blocks.  Obviously, school might be out, but the cruise ships were IN.

Then I had a frightening thought.  Some of my co-generationists were hitting the sauce pretty hard.  What if some crazy old coot yelled, “Show Me Your ***s!” And what if some crazy old cootess DID!

I ducked into Sloppy Joes Bar to steady up.  Sloppy Joes was Hemingway’s favorite bar, and it is dedicated to his fishing and drinking exploits.  I really wanted — and needed — a Papa Doble, Hemingway’s favorite drink.  I was disappointed to find out that even at Sloppy Joes, a great drink that is basically a lot of rum amd a little lime and grapefruit juice, has been tarted up with soda,  sugar and maraschino cherries, and for all I know, an umbrella.  So in honor of another great writer,  ranconteur, sportsman, and man-among-men, I had a double Mount Gay and tonic, the Ray Gaulke Doble.

5 Brothers Grocery — Home of the best Cuban sandwich between Miami and Havana

The wild Spring Break scene on Duval Street

Spring Breakers DRINKING ALCOHOL at 3 in the afternoon!

Sloppy Joes — touristy, but how is anyone who has read every word Ernest Hemingway ever wrote going to stay away.

Inside Sloppy Joes — spring breakers with an obvious taste for literature

Molly came down to visit (two days late because of the Connecticut Blizzard) and we were having a great time touristing when a horrible attack of sciatica literally turned John from walking into crawling right on Duval Street.  But a trip to the emergency room for a cocktail of muscle relaxants and pain killlers and a visit to a clinical massage guy fixed him up.  He was able to go home with Molly for a week in Connecticut to unpack and see friends, so Sparta and I are on our own.

I am still a big fan of Key West on my fourth visit:

— It’s a beautiful tropical island with Publix, West Marine and Home Depot, which to the cruising sailor means a lot.

— I’ve never had a bad meal here.  The fresh seafood and Cuban influence lead even the tourist traps to a new standard.

— Duval Street.  It’s a strange mix of Bourbon Street honky tonk and perfectly preserved Key West/Bahamanian architecture.  14 blocks of tee shirt stores, Coach-type stores, pizza joints and gourmet, country western and Cole Porter.

Before John’s attack we did the Hemingway House tour (a must), Southernmost Point and Duval Street.  Our home base changed from the boat to the DoubleTree Resort, a great find — very nice hotel away from the noise of downtown and quite reasonably priced.

Best of all, it’s never cold here.  The lowest temperature recorded is 41.  A huge cold front ripped through Friday and is freezing the oranges up on the mainland, but we’re still in the low 60s.

Molly the Cuban Coffee Queen. I actually like it better than Greek — the same rocket boost, but you don’t end up with all that sludge in the bottom of your cup.

John and I always point out that we’ve been South of the Southernmost Point, since we sailed right by it coming into Key West Harbor.

Hemingway’s beautifully preserved home. He lived there from 1931 to 1940.

Hemingway’s writing room, where he wrote A Farewell to Arms, Snows of Kilamanjaro and all the Nick Adams stories.

John with one of the 45 six-toed cats that are descendants of Hemingway’s “Snowball.”

Yup. Count ’em.

Sparta’s Hemingway cousin. No sitting rule only applies to humans.

Duval Street. If you do the Duval Crawl and have a beer at each bar on the strip, you will have had 66 beers. Yes, it’s been done many times.

Key West, our home for the next month, marks an important turning point for Memsahib’s Voyage.  We just finished mile 4,000, so we’re well over halfway home.  We’ve been heading south and west for the past six months, and now our courses will be east and north.  Once we’re out of Keys, it will be hard to find wilderness.  We’ll pretty much be running up heavily-populated East Coast, with a few isolated spots still remaining — the Georgia islands, Outer Banks and southern Chesapeake.

Phones and Internet work, and it’s easy to find supplies, but I haven’t heard a deep South accent in a long time and the pace of life around us is speeding up, although things are still pretty quiet on Memsahib.

We found a very nice,  reasonably priced marina that’s part of a condo development on Stock Island, one island over from Key West.  Perhaps not the world’s most glamourous location next to the County Jail, but away from the craziness of Key West.  Molly is finally out of the Great Connecticut Blizzard after getting stuck for two days, and we plan to head into town for some significant tourism while she’s here.

On our trip down from the Everglades we stopped in Marathon, cruising central for the Keys.  The sailing world has activity hubs all over the world (Annapolis, Newport, Isle of Wight) and Marathon is certainly one of them.  It’s the southernmost ultra-protected harbor in the U.S. and hundreds of boats come down in the fall, pick up a city mooring and don’t leave until spring.  We stopped to get fuel and watch the Superbowl, since Eric Brazil has made John a stone 49ers fan.  We were fortunate that the very nice people at Burdine’s Waterfront let us tie up at their fuel dock since they figured (correctly) that everyone would be watching the game, not buying gas.  Other than that, there was not a slip or mooring available in all of Marathon, first time we’ve ever had trouble getting a berth.

Other than working on the boat and poking around on our bikes and John’s scooter, our only big activity has been fishing.  We finally broke the Kessinger Fishing Curse with a charter captain who knew where the fish were and had this giant, red secret-weapon reel that he claimed always led to fish if it was on the boat, whether actually used or not.

Amazing Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida Keys.

John coming in from a downloading session ashore. John seeks hi-speed wireless the way other kids try to find drugs, so I’m lucky, I guess.

Cruise ship row as we entered Key West Harbor. Can you hear me thinking, “Please, please don’t move til I get past.”

John latched onto a big amerberjack after we got done catching snapper.

John’s big fish.

My little fish. We caught about 24 of these yellowtail snapper. Delicious eating one night with a mango-tequila glaze and the next teriyaki-style over rice.

Sunset Marina, Stock Island, Key West.

Memsahib in her berth for a well-deserved one-month rest in Key West.

We wanted to spend some time in the Everglades, so we pulled six miles up the Barron River into the little town of Everglades City, the headquarters for Everglades National Park.

With some trepidation we stayed at the famous Rod and Gun Club.  It has a somewhat mixed reputation among Loopers since it is really set up as a hotel rather than a marina so the services are pretty sparse (e.g., lights in the bathroom didn’t work the first two days).  But the place is such a well-preserved piece of Everglades ancient history and the people are so nice, that all-in-all I think it was a good pick.

The Rod and Gun Club was for decades the personal lodge of Barron Collier (as in Collier County), the hugely wealthy founder of the New York City transit advertising industry and a real estate developer who once owned a million acres of south Florida property.  He thought Everglades City would become the next Miami, and got that one wrong, but the little real estate schemes he called Naples and Marco island did rather well for him.

(Side note:  When you name your child “Barron Gift Collier”, it must be a sign that you’ve got things pretty well mapped out for him.  I have never seen a cop roust a homeless guy and say, “Hey, Barron, let’s get moving.”)

The Rod and Gun Club looks like a movie set for a millionaire’s lodge, but it’s all very real, so it’s fun to eat there (good food, even our alligator appetizer), play pool in the billiard room, and just sit around in the comfortable old lounges and imagine the past glory of the place.  Collier used the lodge as a winter-time draw for politicians, writers such as Ernest Hemingway, movie stars, big game hunters such as Ernest Hemingway, business tycooons, and did I mention,Nobel prize-winner Ernest Hemingway.  They rather like the Hemingway connection here.

The highlight of our stay was an airboat ride into the Everglades.  We saw a lot of wildlife, and boy do those babies move!  Our guide was a third-generation airboat jockey, and really knew his stuff, getting us into some impossibly narrow places and running us OVER the muddy spots to get way into the mangroves.

Last night coming down to the Keys was in the Little Shark River, basically the only useable anchorage for deep-draft boats in an 80-mile stretch.  We heard all kinds of noises coming out from the Glades on a perfectly starlit, warm night, so I was secretly glad that we hadn’t pulled too far up the river.

Going up the river to Everglades City, you pass hundreds of these Mangrove Islands

The Rod and Gun Club, Everglades City

Rod and Gun Club interior features a handsome dead animal motif.

Dining room at the Rod and Gun Club

R&G billiard room. John and I played (poorly) every night.

John and friend at the airboat place

Tourists heading for the Glades

Eight-foot gator about two feet from the boat

Family of racoons came down to the boat to see if they could cadge a snack

This guy jumped on oour boat for a free ride back to the dock.

Mangrove Forest Primeval

They run the boat up to about 20 mph on these straight stretches and it feels like 100

Anchorage, Little Shark River, the Everglades — you can’t get any further from Block Island physically or mentally than this

Sunset, Little Shark River, the Everglades

Our airboat — even fully loaded it will go 30 miles per hour in 8 inches of water

Sorry I have been so long between posts, but we just got through the Everglades, where Wi-Fi and phone signals are non-existent.  Mangroves, ‘gators and critters galore, but no megabits.

On our way south we made a brief stop in Fort Myers to replenish our groceries and see the Edison Museum and Edison/Ford winter estates.  Then a quick stop in Naples before entering the Everglades.  And again, the constant theme of contrast which makes this trip so interesting.

Edison was a master of the physical sciences and shrewd businessman, but he was also a naturalist, avid camper, fisherman and garden designer (with his wife Mina).  His winter home is one of the most attractive I have ever seen, all porches and windows and vistas out to the gardens and river.  It is made of all local, natural materials and just oozes a cool and relaxing ambience.  It is not a large home, by today’s standards, but comfortable and tasteful without austentation.  The Ford house next door is basically a large farmhouse, cleverly designed to be open to the breezes wherever they come from.

Then we went down the coast, and around the corner to Naples and mile after mile of hedge fund austentation.  Naples is so ritzy that you can’t even anchor, since I guess boats might spoil the view at cocktail hour.  I tend to think they improve the view, but whatever.

Yes, it’s fun to look at the big palaces, but I just don’t think think plywood and reinforced concrete can compare to the Edison style.  And these big barns must cost a fortune to keep cool versus porches, doors and windows.

The kitchen’s and heated “den” are to the left, the “cool” part of the house is to the right

Edison’s beautiful, comfortable winter home

Edison’s swimming pool

Edisons very simple winter office

Edison’s dining room. Herbert Hoover ate here.

Ford’s house. All porches in back by the river. French doors open the house all the way front to back.

John calls this one “Barbie’s Dream Mansion”

Same architect did the Nebraska State Penitentiary

Don’t they get lost in there?

Gotta have lions

Mega ranch — this is an older one and actually looks more appropriate to the area