SAILING VESSEL  AD~ASTRA

Ft. Myers Beach to Key West —March 2001

Part 2

We were tired, smelly, and hungry.  After checking in we took showers we walked down the dock to a rag tag old outdoor bar called Schooners something apparently named for the many replica and original large two and three masted schooners moored adjacent to it.  A grizzly old guy was playing guitar accompanied by a long haired upright base player.  He was either a ways into his cups or doing a fair imitation of someone who was.  His songs were fairly dry and darkly humorous and interspersed with sarcastically slurred chatter between them.  They spoke of the pleasures and pitfalls of life in Key West . 

He was pretty funny.  I even sprang for a couple of his CD’s.  One was entitled Grettastits and featured a nude torso of what I assume were the same.  One memorable tune described a lady with “the biggest butt you ever saw” The final track was “Somewhere over the rainbow...”

We had forgettable fried grouper fish and chips and then left shortly after his first break.  Next we headed to Sloppy Joes, a favorite haunt of Earnest Hemmingway.  After a we ordered drinks, an strange blond headed guy in shorts and an orange t-shit began playing a lime green electric guitar and accompanied by a rhythm machine doing strange and bad covers of the Beatles,  Jimmy Buffet, and Stevie Ray Vaughn.  He was so bad he was good.  After a while we persuaded tone of the two bartenders who were sneaking shots of Jeagermeister, to change the TV’s from golf to final four basketball.  After what seemed like hours, he finished his set.  Next a great band four piece band began to play some wonderful music.  The lead guitar player was incredible they had a very good drummer, and very strange looking base player who kept rolling his eyes and bobbing his head back and for the like he had a neurological disorder.  The fourth member did a great job playing sax and Kenny Gee clarinet and had a great set of pipes to boot.  They did awesome covers and some great original stuff.  I didn’t buy their cd’s but got their web page.  We hung out there until after the game was over and then at a break wandered down to Malloy Square to watch a beautiful if bland sunset. 

The locals take street theater to another lever here.   Trained dogs, cats were everywhere; one couple even had a pig. Houdini imitators escaped from straight jackets and wrapped in chains while hanging from their feed from 20 foot high tripods.  Statue imitators were the rage.  A gold plated Elvis with a dog, a bicycle and a boom box was on one corner.  An all white statue of liberty stood frozen until someone tipped her which caused here to ring a triangle. A pretty boy in cutoffs was spray painted metallic silver.  He stood motionless until someone dropped a tip in this bucket. Jugglers, trick bicycle riders, and a guy herding cats competed with the sunset of the packed pier’s revelers.  Assorted schooners, tourist boats, sailboats, fishing boats, and jet skis ambled along the pier.  It made for quite a show.

After the sunset, we headed to the Hog’s Breath Saloon to watch the rest of the final Great Eight game.  The sound was off because a pretty good guitar player sang songs on the little outdoor stage. A young couple had a helped their just walking baby do an imitation of the dancing baby to the beat of his songs. 

Next we headed to Mecca , Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville Café and t-shirt shop. David had a Cheeseburger in Paradise and I had a grilled tuna sandwich with red beans and yellow rice.  The band never appeared so we headed back to Sloppy Joes to see a second set of the 4-man band.  They were really rocking now.  People were dancing between the tables.  One group had 2-inch long glowing light sticks in their mouth. Another lady danced like a professional in more ways than one.  Since I didn’t get much sleep on the way down, I turned in early and crashed at 2100.  I woke at 0330 fully rested so I lay there reading for an hour.  I snoozed a bit but woke again at 0500 so I decided to go for a walk.  The town was amazingly quite at that hour unlike it had been then night before.  Only a few souls were up going to work on their bicycles, sweeping the streets, washing the spilled beer from barroom floors, pumping out port-a-potties, and picking up the trash. One poor sot was sleeping it off on a cramped bench.  Another was staggering along slowly moving from light post to parking meter for support.

I stopped by the pier for a juice and to read the paper.  I noticed that my first leg flight home on Comair would probably be cancelled due to a strike. That was just what I needed.

I got back to the boat by 0700.  I quietly unpacked my bag of tools and planned my day.  Finally David awoke and I could attack a few projects with more gusto. I took the rusty solenoid off and checked the balky head once again.  It pumps just fine on wet bowl but was very very hard to pump on dry bowl. The battery terminal covers didn’t fit.  Oh well.  Soon we walked to a Marine Hardware store where I got a fishing lure, 100 yards of 150# test monofilament line and a hand reel.  Now we are ready to fish.  Next it we went to West Marine where I bought a new solenoid and a new head pump.  Finally I went to and adjacent Ace Hardware where I got a plumbing snake.  The last stop was the lumber yard where I got a gang plank and 2X4 for a fender board.

All the shavings from redoing the teak had settled into the propane locker drain clogging it.  It took fishing it with the snake from both ends several times to clear it. The new battery terminal covers didn’t fit either.  The barometer I ordered was smaller than the one that didn’t work.  I must have size issues.  Next I put things away and straightened up the boat while David got some sandwiches at the marked at the end of the dock.  It was nearly 1300 by the time we slipped the dock lines and headed out.

We had very light winds so we motored and drifted out off Key West .  We dropped the hook and went for a swim. We had lunch and listened to some music. I even managed to snap a picture of the boat from the water with a waterproof disposable camera.

Finally the wind picked up just enough that we could sail back.  As the sun was setting, we were sailing past Mallory Square .  One of the traditional schooners was sailing by and announced on the radio that he was under sail alone and constricted by draft.  We were closing on a collision course. Even though I was sailing too and had the right of way, I started the motor and luffed the sails so he could pass ahead of me.  I was impressed at how well Ad Astra handled the light air.  She did just fine.

I got up early the next day and made the flight without a hitch.  It had been changed to 5:30 AM . It was a great trip and Ad Astra preformed admirably.