Part Three


The next day was more of the same but with much fewer thunderbumpers.
We got the anchor up early and started motoring off to the south and
west, directly into the south and west wind.

This was the famous Hawks Channel. And being sandwiched between the
keys and the outer reef, we had a highway in the sea to travel.

Picasso and Ron were getting nervous about the coming passage under
the bridge at Channel Five, which would get us onto the Florida Bay
side of the Keys. So the charts were out and we were all three into
them. Two of us are dyslexics as I mentioned before, and Picasso sees
two of everything out of her left eye.

"How many fingers am I holding up Picasso? No, fourteen is an
incorrect answer dear." When I told Talina about this she drawled,
"she could stand on Wednesday and see the Sundays on both ends".

So you can imagine how fun it was for our group to navigate. We could
see that with the wind working against us, and no sailing, two things
were clear. We were not going to make it inside before dark, and we
did not have enough fuel to make it around to Isla Mirada in any
event.

The great thing about cruising on Sweet P is that every so often these
plates of food come up out of the galley, with very little warning.
And it's always good. You really didn't have much of a chance to get
hungry.

Adept in the kitchen, Chef Picasso fouled but once. I didn't see the
act itself but witnessed only the aftermath. I heard… "****",
followed by some really artistic additional language which I don't
really want to repeat here, and when Ron and I looked down the
companionway to see what was attacking Picasso, we saw her sitting on
the cabin sole with several cans from the pantry scattered about her.
"I'm alright," she said, but she was rubbing her eyes pretty hard. "I
maced myself with the cooking spray", she admitted finally. "It's
just vegetable oil" she said getting up, and added, "I picked a bad
day to quite swearing." Ron and I left her alone after that, biting
our tongues and trying to make sympathetic noises. I must say the big
plate of "Shepard's Lunch" that came up shortly was first rate.

Of course Ron and I greeted such offerings from the galley with the
standard, "Mine? Mine? Mine? a'la Nemo.

At last we decided our best anchorage was going to have to be
Rodriguez Key. We solved the fuel shortage problem with a cell phone
call to towboat US who agreed to bring us out a couple jerry jugs.
With Sweet P's draft we did not want to risk the shallow channel
leading into the fuel dock. Guess that's one way to collect on the
value of your towing insurance eh?

We swam and snorkeled around the boat. The visibility was not so
great and not much to see anyway. Picasso had a new rope ladder for
getting back onboard the boat. The thing about rope ladders is that
they look deceptively easy to climb. I had already gone thru the
motions of trying it in the back, hooked over a winch and a cleat, but
the undercut of Sweet P's stern allowed the ladder to hook inward.
Awkward boarding to say the least. Well no one would listen to me
about where we should try the ladder, oh no, so I let it go and let
Ron sort it out for himself.

But, and it's a big butt.

::Bravo Foxtrot::

While Captain Ron was attempting, and failing I might add, to climb
that rope ladder, I slowly and quietly swam forward where I scrambled
up the anchor chain hand over hand to Sweet P's bowsprit. Ron was
surprised, to say the least, when I offered him a hand getting aboard.
"You butt face! How in the hell did you get up there?" He he!

A black line formed to the west north west and the most ferocious
burst of wind hit the anchorage. And this was announcing the arrival
of a horrendous down pour, a solid looking wall of static to blot out
our view of paradise, and eat it. I watched the few neighboring boats
dance on their anchor roads like toy boats on strings, while Sweet P
eased back and forth behaving like a lady. Proactive anchoring or no,
I stayed in the cockpit with Picasso, ready to fire the iron geni if
need be. "Don't worry boss, they comes on ya quickly and they leaves
ya just as quickly".

As it turned out, that initial 40 knot burst fell off to 30, 20, and
then back to the background wind of 10-15 knots, back out of the south
west again. The clouds were clearing as the sun went down, treating
us to yet another great sunset. No more static, "I can see clearly
now".

Ron caught a great picture of me looking pensively after the storm as
it moved off. It's true we get stressed while cruising. Thing is,
it's a good kind of stress, the kind you win against and you get
stronger. In urban America you don't win ever, the stress is constant
white noise and it eats your soul. Oh it's true that you can fight a
holding battle with yoga or prayer or jazzercise or hostess twinkies,
but you can never win. I was watching the storm recede and I was
thinking, "I was ready; I'm still here; I win".

Tow boat showed up with our fuel after the storm moved off. The crew
(keys style) was about three sheets to the wind having ridden the
weather out in one of the local watering holes. Their dog, which did
not like thunder nor the coming dark, kept trying to jump ship onto
Sweet P. And with those smells from the galley, who could blame the
critter.

After another fine dinner, Picasso sprawled in the cockpit with one
leg over the combing and hat tilted down over her eyes. "Who am I now
guys?" she asked, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

Ok, I resemble that remark! What can I say… I'm alert when I need to
be, and I know to rest when the opportunity arises. And she did say,
"make yourself at home" didn't she? He he… good one Pic.

Not too much happened the rest of the way in. We had our usual
consultations over the charts, turning the thing this way and that,
until finally giving in to Ron's better map reading skills. We did
have a hand bearing compass but it did not seem to be working so
Picasso float tested it… it failed.

I was talking about the rainbows we had been seeing so many of, which
reminded me of the song at the end of Fifty First Dates, a version of
Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and Ron happened to have this wonderful
"Brother Iz" song on his MP3. So while I helmed Sweet P thru a forest
of rainbows, I listened with a tear in my eye to that hauntingly
beautiful music. Sublime

::SNAFU::

We passed under the channel five bridge at around high tide but with
the wind blowing water onto the bank, we enjoyed high water all the
way into the anchorage… except one little 4 foot deep spot. In our
defense, that spot is marked 7 feet right on the chart. While we were
stuck on that spot, now and forever known as "Picasso's Landing", Ron
and I saw a big old lobster just out for a stroll across the bottom.
How do they know when it's not season and how did they know we were
not Cajuns? You know, I heard somewhere that they could solve the rat
problem in New Orleans by telling the Cajuns that they were good to
eat but out of season…

We got off with the help of Picasso's friend who we radioed on the
VHF. He came out in his dink and scouted deeper water for us, which
was thankfully down wind. And with a burst of sail power for once,
which had the side benefit of healing us over (get it?) and lifting
Sweet P's keel from the grass, we made the final several hundred yards
into the anchorage with no worries.

What a fantastic time. It's all as I promised it would be in the
prologue:

"…a beautiful fun happy time, an exercise in emotional hygiene and a
lesson in growing closer."

Love

George


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