Im calling it 3.5 lay days because we got in so early on Feb. 3, shortly after 1 pm. We strolled Mallory Square and Duval Street -- the heart of the islands tourism. The cruise ships tie up at Mallory Square. The buskers perform there. The town is jammed with tourism. Countless bars (someone said 400), restaurants, shops (chi chi and otherwise), B and Bs, and boats selling trips to fish, sail, look through glass bottoms, dive, snorkel, or jet-ski etc. Most of the  B and Bs and restaurants are in former homes in residential neighborhoods. There are also many larger hotels, new and old.  This town is SO changed from my navy days here, the two months of August and September of 1965.  Possibly this had something to do with the season. Then it was hot -- the seaweed that washed ashore rotted on the beaches giving off  sulfurous fumes that peeled the paint off houses!

When a hurricane came through, my ex and I were ordered to evacuate the little cinder block house we inhabited and stay in the navy school, perhaps the sturdiest structure on the island. We parked our little red Triumph Spitfire on the navy bases baseball field, which was on high(er) ground. I went looking for the squat hot cinder block apartment where we lived but sometime in the last 50 years it had been replaced, with a larger more upscale structure.  It was right down the street from a large parcel of land that was all boarded up in 1965.

When next I visited this island, in the mid 80s the Bar Association Section meeting was held behind those boards -- in the newly renovated Marriott Casa Marina Hotel. The original Casa Marina had been built by Henry Flagler, at the end of Flagler Avenue. The road, Highway 1, which ends (or begins) here, was not a road 100 years ago, but a railroad. The Casa Marina is now a Waldorf Astoria Hotel after an additional renovation.

It was from the beach of the Casa Marina that I had my first sailing lesson, only five minutes long and not long enough: we capsized the Hobie cat several times, righted her, beached her on off-limits property of the Navy base and told the hotel to come and get it and us -- a better solution than going the other way -- to Cuba. And I learned through that experience that I needed lessons to become a sailor.

We were on a budget back in the mid 60s. Movies on the navy base and reading of the NY Times Sunday edition were our primary leisure activities plus swimming in the base pool and shopping at the PX.  The Jewish high holy days took place during our time here. In my Ensigns white uniform my ex and I attended the local synagogue, which has long since been replaced by a larger modern structure. The congregation raised funds by offering ritual honors to those who could afford to buy them. One man gave his honor "to the Navy boy".  Later, my ex said: "Hes taken!" when the gentleman, a local merchant, tried to introduce me to his daughter. Another merchant invited us to the post-prayer feast at his home following services. There I ate my first gefilte fish, home made by his black maid. My father was right! I didnt know what I had been missing.

The island was at a nadir in the 60s which I imagined got worse when the navy shut its base and pulled up stakes here. Duval Street was undergoing a repaving job which lasted most of our two months. Sloppy Joes, on Duval, Hemingways favorite bar, was a stop for us then, no trouble finding a place at the bar.

But I have been told that it was the departure of the navy which created the start of the tourist boom here. One thing remains the same: the roar of navy jets taking off from the naval air base on adjacent Boca Chica Key, due east of here. LOUD! Another thing is new -- I dont recall it in the past: as in the Caribbean nations, chickens roam the streets, their crowing ringing out in the night. you might call them free range chickens.

OK, Roger; enough nostalgia!

We visited "The Little White House",  Harry Trumans favorite retreat during and following his term of office. We enjoyed an excellent informative tour by docent Rene. The navy came to Key West early in the 19th century, long before Florida was a state, and created a base to fight our enemy -- pirates!

The place had become a submarine base and when President Truman was ordered by his doctors to take his first vacation after many months in office
-- in a warm place -- Key West was chosen. The position of base commander being vacant, that officers residence was used. The President loved it here and the navy improved, expanded and redecorated it for his future use. Other executives have used it too, most recently, Collin Powell, as Secretary of State, to work out the settlement of the Balkan War. The place was sold to a developer who wanted to develop Tank Island, across the harbor. He needed easements and the State said: "Sure, IF you fix up the Little White House and give it to the state as a tourist site."

We had a pretty good dinner on Lenes birthday at "Flaming Buoy".  The original proposed name was "Flaming Buoy and Hot Grill." Key West, like Provincetown, has a lively gay segment of its population.

We had breakfast at "Blue Heaven", highly rated and decent and a lunch in a very nice retro Chinese restaurant (when have you last seen Chow Mein or Chop Suey on a menu?) because we were cold walking home during the rare all-day rain. We do not eat deserts so we were not able to patronize a desert restaurant named "Better Than Sex."Its menu has suggestive double entendred names.

The rain came after the day I scrubbed ILENEs topsides. I used FRS to get the rust stains out near where the anchor rode has been shedding pieces of rust. It worked well.

We visited the two iconic sites of Key West:

We had a nice dinner aboard with Alice and Danny. Well, left over sausage, pepper and onion with pasta, red sauce and cheese, plus salad, wine and fresh fruit. No one went to bed hungry. Alice is a friend of Lenes from NY, now living in North Carolina and married to Danny. I had never met either of them before. They are here on a land vacation, found we were here via Facebook and we got connected. Lovely people and a nice evening.

Ernest Hemingways house was a repeat tour for both Lene and me, though we had each visited it in the past with others. The crowd there reminded me of  the Sistine Chapel in July. Another excellent informative and entertaining docent with what might be called Key West attitude.

One of the 45 six toed cats that have  the run on the place, on the marital bed.

His study in loft above the caraige house where he worked from 6 a.m. each day and wrote most of his books

Papa Hemingway surrounded by his  four wives, one of who bought this house for him.

And while the light house has been here since the mid 19th century, it was not on the tourist list until recently.  Unlike the lights of Scotland described in a book review in a recent post, this one was set way back from the sea, on high ground, and made of brick. It was decommissioned in the 1960s. The  picture of it is from the Hemingway House balcony. We climbed the 88 steps and saw the museum in the keepers house.

We will be here in the Bight for a few more days.

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We took in our dock lines at 7:30 and were anchored in Marathon at 3:30, sailing all but the first five and last fifteen minutes of outing and ining. The winds were forecast from the north at ten knots which meant no big waves, because they have to build up from south of the Keys. The wind did come from there eventually, and nicely, with a steady fifteen knots; we were making near eight knots at the end.
We had full sails up throughout, but the early part of the passage was troubling. The wind had too much of an easterly component so we were close hauled on port tack and I was envisioning the point where we would have to tack to avoid the shoals at the south side of Hawk Channel. And relative wind varied frequently by 25 degrees and between eight and fifteen knots requiring very frequent trimming of sails and course changes to get what speed we could make out of the wind and avoid the tack if possible. But no tack was needed in the end.
We were passed by s/v Liberty, which had been docked near us in the Key West Bight Marina. I hailed her to thank her for passing us on the gentlemanly leeward side. We avoided motoring, though it meant some 2.5 knot stretches. I find that once I switch on the "iron genoa" to assist us, it stays on far too long, its noise degrading the pleasure.
We communicated with s/v Autumn Born and they were arriving in Marathon too, but from the east. We saw them anchored outside the harbor to the west of the island, where it was rolly, and AB weighs twice ILENE. AB is in the safest possible place: with lots of room around her to let out 100 feet of chain in ten feet of water, as compared to the small crowded but more protected anchorage area inside. We dropped three times before we found the right spot, and have 60 feet of snubbed chain out in 12 feet of water. Good holding, tested by winds over 20 knots the third night.
In the channel we passed s/v Liberty again, somewhat stuck in the sand south of the channel. I said I would come out by dink to help once we were anchored but she broke herself free less than a minute later and followed us in. We were hailed by the crew of s/v Saint Somewhere, who we had tried to help up in Titusville, and later by Dean and Susan of Autumn Born, who were dinking in to register and get on the waiting list for a mooring. The winds have been so constantly from the north that people waiting for a window to hop over to the Bahamas are still waiting and not leaving.
Dean and Susan stopped by for wine and cheese on their way back to their boat. I love talking with Dean and save up my questions for him because he is so knowledgeable. I was pleased to able to give back a bit by showing him our experiences in the Marquesas Keys and Boca Grande Key. They will be going to Key West soon to meet family, and plan to take a mooring up in rolly Garrison Bight.We did not go to shore to register until the next day because that first night we had no need for anything the shore had to offer, and we also saved one nights dinghy docking fee, almost $18. The waiting list for a mooring is now longer than when we were here last month so there was no need to go ashore to get ourselves on the list because we will be leaving before anything becomes available. We had the last of our paella, watched Downton Abbey and called it a night.
We had a dinner with Dean and Susan and two other couples at Burdines, a very casual restaurant above the fuel dock the next night. Ilene invited herself and me and they had a table for eight.
Next morning I cleared all the "stuff" from the aft cabin to our bed in the forward one to provide space for work. I topped up the seven batteries with distilled water and prepared for the arrival of Alex

The line above Alexs head is how we keep the door of our aft head, the cats head, open and stable, so it does not flail and break itself from its hinges as the boat moves.

who installed and tested the "combiner" which will charge the starting battery automatically, whenever we are making electricity, but disconnect it from the house bank whenever we are not.
During the 9:00 am net on Channel 68 we announced our arrival and so did Tex and Maria of m/v "Heaven Sent", their 46 foot Grand Banks trawler on which they live. They belong to the Harlem and the Huguenot YCs, Tex is a Past Commodore of the Harlem. I later asked if anyone could lend me a set of feeler gauges to check the alignment of the flexible coupling that I had to install and Justin, of s/v "Selkey", from Cork, Ireland, responded and brought the tool over later and explained to me how to use it. Lene went ashore and did some shopping in the supermarket, while I set to work on the flexible coupling.

It is an ingenious device, attached by four forward facing bolts to the flange at the aft end of the transmission, and attached by four more bolts facing aft to the flange at the forward end of the propeller shaft.

It has two metal bars, one visible in the photo, that will hold it together if it shatters, so the shaft wont slide out of the hole in the boat through which the shaft rotates if the coupling shatters. But its purpose is to shatter if you hit something hard. By shattering it is supposed to prevent your transmission from shattering.
The first thing I noticed was that the new bolts installed in the old coupling by Deatons Yard in North Carolina were smaller in diameter than those that came with the new sealed unit from the factory. This is not good.
Well at least the spacing of the holes from each other through the flanges matched the spacing of those holes in the new unit. Hooray! And the new larger diameter bolts fit through the holes in the flanges. Hooray!  But this means that since North Carolina, we have been motoring with smaller diameter bolts in larger diameter holes, which is never a good thing and may have been the cause of the vibration, or contributed to it. But the new bolts were fractionally longer than the old ones so that when I got them installed they rubbed against the transmission housing. This was very bad; its just not going to work. What to do? Washers on the bolt head aft end of those bolts would place them far enough away I thought, so I took the whole thing apart again. But the washers were larger in diameter than the nuts, preventing my wrench from gripping the nuts to tighten them. What to do? Alex was doing his thing for us and suggested that I could bring my 17mm wrench in to his shop next morning and grind down the sides of the wrench, and narrow them so it would fit. But during the night I thought of two alternative solutions: (1) use smaller diameter washers, or (2) grind down the ends of the four bolts. Time for another consultation with Dean. Grinding the bolts was selected and Alexs electric grindstone made quick work of it. I put it all together again for the third time (it does not permit the removal of parts without complete dis-assembly, because there is just not enough room to get the bolts out). Having tested with the feeler gauge, it looked right and we turned on the engine and put it in gear, briefly. Im hoping the problem is solved. Time will tell when we use the engine to propel us for real.

One evening, we dinked over to Heaven Sent, (sorry for the fuzzy piture of this beautiful roomy boat). It was

 a long 1.5 mile dinghy ride, to the far eastern end of the harbor where Heaven Sent is tied up to the seawall.


The adjacent boat was s/v Liberty, which, we learned, is being single handed by a lady from St. Augustine.

I have known Tex and Maria since 1990 when I joined the Harlem. We had some wine before walking to a local restaurant, Dockside Tropical Cafe, one of several here that has live music. But every table was filled except one picnic table outside -- close enough to hear but not see the music. We ordered but later cancelled the order because the wait would have been at least an hour and it was cold out. Back at Heaven Sent, Maria cooked up a very fine dinner and we did not get back to ILENE until after ten pm, late for us.
Next day was a Family Fun Fest at the adjacent City Park. Lene had volunteered us to help the kids make projects with materials and tools donated by Home Depot, but when we got there they had too many volunteers and we were released. A wide variety of things for kids to do.

Our final dinner was at Lazy Days, just past Burdines, the nicest restaurant we visited in Marathon. Valentines Day, hence a rose for every lady. We had the pleasure of introducing Tex and Maria from our Club to Dean and Susan and Earl and Cathy, of s/v Seeker, who we had been introduced to by Dean and Susan in St. Augustine. Maybe Dean and Susan were starting to think that we had no friends other than those they introduced us to.

Susan, Kathy, Earl, Lene, Me, Maria and Tex (Photo credit to Dean)

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We ended up with eleven days in Key West or west of here and found we liked a lot in this town. Ilene was here in the late 70s and fondly remembered snorkeling on the reef a few miles south of the Island. We were told that, running from Miami to here and beyond, it is the third largest coral reef in the world with Australias being first and I dont know about the second. And we have had remarkably little time in the water and no snorkeling since October due to coldness, dirtiness or windiness. We booked passage on the catamaran Sebago,

with its severely raked 70 foot mast. Captain Neil

took her out to his mooring near but not on the reef. Anchoring would destroy the coral. Neil is from Zimbabwe, married to a Kentucky girl and has lived in Key West for 18 years. I enjoyed talking with him during the ride out and back.
Sara was the cruise director who welcomed the 30 of us, took care of us and taught folks how to snorkel and poured the wine on the trip back. I regret I did not take her photo earlier, before her sweatshirt blocked the view of her lovely bikini.

The snorkeling was fun though not nearly as luxuriant of fish or corals as several sites in the Caribbean we have visited. Im thinking that we saw about eight species of tropical fish including the brilliantly multi-colored parrotfish. And one more species. About 2.5 feet long, round in the body, about 4 inches in diameter and silver colored with a down turned mouth: yes, barracuda! First a pair and then a single one later.

I visited the old Custom House, near Mallory Square,

now the museum of art and history. The new Custom House is part of the "Post Office -- Customs house - Court House" which looks to have been built in the 1930s.

The museum had a lot about Hemingway and fishing, but I stayed with the history section in the little time I had available.  For one thing, Flaglers railroad, now the bed of Route 1, operated  only from 1912 until it was washed out by the hurricane of 1935. It being the depression, a lot of folks were put to work on rebuilding it as a roadway for cars and trucks, which was completed by 1938. Flagler, former partner of John D. Rockefeller, had to borrow money to complete his Railroad and never came to Key West again after the gala opening, dying at his mansion in Palm Springs a few years after that.
And the USS Maine

which was sunk after an explosion in Havana Harbor, had followed a familiar route: From New York, where she was commissioned in 1895,  to Key West to her last port, Havana, in 1898. She was 324 feet long, with a beam of 27 feet and her maximum speed was only 17 knots. Hammerbergs figures were 306 in length, 30 wide and she could do 30 knots, albeit for only a minute, all out, with most everything shaking itself to bits. Only 91 of her 350 men survived, some of them in being nursed in hospitals in Key West.

Dinner at El Siboney, Cuban and named after a native American tribe. It was such a lovely evening to stroll back to our boat across half of the west end of this island; warm but not hot, groups of folks walking peaceably, music wafting out from bars and private homes. Our menu selection was a mistake, however.  Or was it?  Paella Valenciana. It was quite tasty but it required an order for two ($42), with an hours advanced notice, was the most expensive item on the menu by far and is not Cuban. The problem was that they served enough for six people! So we had our next two dinners from doggie bags. Six can dine for $42; quite a bargain!
We took in the sunset at crowded Mallory Square and saw the schooner Hindu sailing out through the sunset.

This was followed by an inexpensive dinner at Carolines, at Duval and Caroline Streets, a block from this landmark.

Amazing how many of the places have live music, blaring out into the streets.

I toured the USS Ingham, the most decorated Coast Guard cutter in history. Launched in 1936, she was not decommissioned until 1988, 52 years later. She was well served by her officers and crew, and better still -- lucky. The Maine was not lucky! Hammerberg (only very slightly smaller) lasted only about 20 years and was constructed very cheaply. I had not known this but Coast Guard cutters were used like destroyers on convoy duty in WWII. Ingram killed a German U-boat and was then reassigned to the Pacific. With her 5 inch 38 gun,

she also served off Vietnam and helped save lives during the Mariel exodus from Cuba. The familiar, pleasant, characteristic odor of a naval vessel remains in her, 79 years after her birth!  She served as McArthurs flagship in the Philippines, which may account for her uncharacteristically large Captains quarters.
 I searched for the Sonar School I attended. I learned that it closed in the late sixties and its function transferred to San Diego.  Only the air branch of the navy now occupies the island. The MP guard was very polite and interested in my story but no one is allowed on the base without active duty military ID.  Later I learned that when the navy left, the building had been torn down.

My navy friend, Hugh, inspired by my burst of nostalgia, posted an article with photo on Facebook about how he and a sonarman won the Key West inter-service sailing regatta of 1967.
Walkng through town as we did daily we noticed a sign on St. Pauls church on Duval announcing that the Friends of the Library were having a speaker, David Garrard Lowe, on Dorothy Parker, the acid penned female member of the Algonquin Club between the world wars. I love that sort of thing and we went and enjoyed the lecture. "Every morning I brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue." Or maybe you will like this one better: " If all the women who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, it wouldnt surprise me a bit."
Next day we visited the Tennessee Williams Exhibit at the Gay and Lesbian Welcome Center. He was born in Mississippi, educated in the Midwest, traveled the world, died in New York and is buried in Missouri. But as an adult he made his primary home in Key West  where he had  a long standing relationship with a younger Italo-American man, who died shortly before Williams did.
So we ended up staying here eleven days and met Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker and Tennessee Williams. Lene was blah at first but ended up loving this two by four mile island.

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After fueling (33.25 gallons at 2640 engine hours) we cast off at 8:30 and were on a mooring north of Key West by 4 pm.  What a wonderful day of sailing. The wind was from the north and created a nearly beam reach over our starboard side, without big waves -- because the Keys blocked them.

I was impatient to put up sails, as I always am, but the Admiral wanted to put things away, have breakfast, etc. And a good thing because when we turned into the wind to put up reefed main and genoa, we were passed by s/v "Fur Ellise", a Hunter 38.

ILENE being longer, and hence faster, we made friends via VHF radio without having actually met Kevin and Mary Ellise, when we soon passed them. Under sail, our speed increased from about five knots under motor to 7.5, peaks of 8.3, under sail. Later the wind got lighter, we shook out the reef but they augmented their speed with the engine and passed us. But we caught up again when the wind picked up before we both furled sails to head north, all around the west end of Key West, to the large spacious mooring field east of Fleming Key. There we took adjacent mooring balls. During all of this passing and re-passing they took the best pictures of ILENE, underway, with full sails, she has ever had. One of these will go up on the walls at the Harlem, where, until now, we have not had a good enough photo. Which one of these two do you think is better? The first shows non-optimal sail trim, with the main not having enough "belly" in her yet.

This mooring field seems secure. We have two lines through the moorings eye, one to each side of the bow. But we are completely exposed to the northern wind which is kicking up waves around us. It is rolly.

As we approached Key West I noticed a large structure which seemed to be leaning over like the tower in Pisa, above the tree line.

When we got this close it was revealed as the stack of a cruise ship. And she came out through the channel as we came in, so we stayed out of the channel to give her room. I dont know when cruise ships started coming here but they were not here in August and September of 1965 when I was at the navy school here, learning to kill submarines.

Next day we dinked in to find the office where we paid our $18/day mooring fee and then to the dinghy dock. The office and dock are far apart and hard to find. We trekked over to the main Key West Bight where the marina in the heart of town is, to look over the slips and changed our reservation dates. There we met the folks of s/v "Into the Mystic" who we had last seen in Portsmouth VA. We also saw the schooners "Appledore" and "Hindoo", plying their excursion sail trade here. We had last seen them in 2013 in Camden, Maine and Provincetown, Mass, respectively, where they work in the summers. Lunch at Turtle Krall waterfront restaurant and a hike to the Publix preceded a taxi ride back to the dinghy dock with food. There we took wasted showers. Why wasted you might ask? Because the wind was "UP" on the way back to ILENE, kicking up waves that resulted in a pretty thorough salt water rinse.

A "discussion" took place, repeatedly, during most of the day, about whether or not to sail to the Dry Tortugas. We have given up on Cuba for this year. The new arrangement does not really relax the old rules except that the US government will not examine your paperwork very closely. In other words they invite visitors to lie. I could say that we were going for "educational" purposes, being a lifetime learner, or for "journalistic" purposes, because of the blog. But the regulations are clear that education applies to a matriculated student in an accredited school and journalism is much more formal than an amateur blog, however well written, if I do say so myself. So no Cuba this year, but what about the Tortugas?

Lene does not want to go for fear that we will face the continuation of strong wind in our face on the return passage. She also argues: "Why sail 120 miles for only a one day (two night) stay in windy conditions not ideal to the enjoyment of a tropical isle." And I have to count among my blessings the fact that my beloved is on this eight month sail with me; many wives just wont go. Dont push your luck Roger. So even though the forecast winds looked good (to me) for one day out, another day there, and the third day back, I finally figured out that Lene just didnt want to go. And a compromise miraculously appeared. Marquesa Key is only about 20 miles in the direction of the Tortugas. It is now our next destination and the furthest from home that we will go in our own boat during this trip. There is a high speed ferry which will take us to the Tortugas on a day trip. It departs at seven a.m. for the three hour trip and gets back to Key West at five p.m. Only $160 per person which includes breakfast, lunch, a guided tour of the fort and snorkeling. We are thinking to take this trip, though to me, it is just not the same as sailing there yourself. It is the same way that we visited Saba Rock in the Caribbean in 2012. So Im feeling a bit like a mountain climber who intended to scale a peak "because it was there" but has to content himself with only reaching the last camp before the dash for the summit. Life is a series of compromises and I have a lot of blessings to be thankful for. But still....

A lot has changed on Key West since 1965, with the construction of huge malls with big box stores, but some lovely older housing remains.

NOTE: We will have no internet, or phone connection during the next few days.
Here are Kevin and Mary Ellise, after our mango sweet potato pancake breakfast; sorry, I couldnt get this picture to go in at the correct space.

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