Finally Warm in Key West

We've gotten to the point where we can't quite keep up this tourist pace any more so we decided to finally take the boat out for her maiden sailing cruise. As we've told many of you, the person we bought the boat from had never taken the sails out of the sailbags and in the several years we've had it we only had parties on it in the driveway. A neighbor in the marina gave us some charts and we motored out of the marina. Admiral Brenda hoisted the sails but when she went to lower the rudders they wouldn't go down. Since the boat won't sail very well without rudders we motored back to the marina and discovered that Captain Woody had reversed the lowering and raising ropes when he replaced them back in the summer. The next day we headed out again but when Admiral Brenda raised the sail the knot connecting the halyard to the sail came untied, the halyard went over the top pulley and the sail came down. We were determined though so we motored back in, removed the boom, lowered the mast, reinstalled the halyard, restored the boom and mast and headed back out. This time everything went smoothly on our downwind trek by Fleming Key. When we turned to tack back we went to lower the swing keel but it wouldn't lower. We couldn't make any headway without the keel so we motored back. Since Admirals outrank captains, Captain Woody swam under the boat to free up the keel. The water was freezing but at least most of the dead fish were gone. The keel came free and seems to be okay now but high winds have kept us in port since then.

This week we went to the other really nice beach in Key West at Fort Zachary Taylor Park. It's at the west end of the island and is great for watching the sunsets. The picture shows the beach and the view looking out from the beach cafe in the woods. The cruise ships go right past it and very close.

We visited the East Martello Museum this week. It's the other part of the Civil War fortification the Yankees started but didn't finish on Key West. This museum has a lot of Key West history – the years of the lucrative sponge trade, the 29 cigar factories in 1876 which produced 62 million cigars per year as well as many bizarre events such as Count Von Cosel who fell in love with his patient Elena Hoyos. After she died in 1933 from tuberculosis, he dug up her body and for seven years attempted to bring her back to life in his laboratory. When he was finally caught, it was the national media event of the year. I'm surprised he kept at it because the picture of her after seven years didn't look too good. He only got a misdemeanor with his 15 minutes of fame. Another item from the early 1900's is Robert the Doll who was given to a young boy by his Haitian nanny. The boy claimed it was a voodoo doll and when he was accused of mischief he would say “Robert did it.” “Blame it on Robert “ is still a common expression here.

The turtle museum in front of Turtle Kraals restaurant tells the story of the big industry that turtles once were to Key West. A kraal is a corral where they kept the live turtles until they processed them. But it's the same old story – they pretty much wiped them out before the government put a stop to it.

Brenda decided she would have her picture taken with the snake this week. Strangely enough no margaritas were required before the snake event but several after.

On one of our walks through Key West Bight we were fortunate to run into Doug Bennet. He writes the blog “This Week on the Island” ( http://thisweekontheisland.blogspot.com/ ).We, as well as many Parrotheads across the country, have lived the tropical life vicariously through his blog for years. We recognized him by his two lovely huskies. He says that's the way it always happens.

This is a collage of amusing sites we've seen on our walks around town. We looked in at the Southernmost Hockey Rink but the ice had melted. The beer dyed t-shirts were not selling at all. I think that's because most guys are do-it-yourselfers with that type of clothing.

A really nice place to get an overall view of Key West and also the sunset is the roof top deck of La Concha Hotel on Duval. It's open to all after 3:00PM, when coincidentally the roof top bar opens. Here's what you can see.

And the sun goes down again. Finally we are

Warm in Key West, Woody and Brenda High