Hellcats of Calico Jack

People are always asking us if we encountered pirates during our travels on Wild Goose. Yes, they’re out there, we did encounter them, and that tale will be part of this blog someday. But, I thought I’d divert a bit and tell you story

-a true story-

according to the history books. Let me know what you think about the divergence.

Anne Bonny & Mary Read

This is the story of two unusual pirates who pillaged the Caribbean Sea in the 1700’s- Anne Bonny and Mary Read. They were known as the Hellcats of Calico Jack and their secret would shock the courts and become the subject of many legendary ballads.

Anne Bonny

Anne was the illegitimate child of a prominent Cork, Ireland attorney and his housemaid. Disgraced and disgusted, his wife left him, so the attorney packed up his new family and immigrated to Charleston, South Carolina. He bought a plantation and became a very successful businessman and planter. To his dismay, young Anne was untamed and volatile. She snubbed the proper young men of Charleston and married a worthless sailor named James Bonny. The couple fled to the pirates' lair of New Providence (now Nassau) in the Bahamas.

Mary Read

Mary was born in London and was also illegitimate. Her mother dressed the young child as a boy and portrayed her to be the male child and legitimate heir to a wealthy couple whose son had died. The two received a small stipend for a few years. Mary continued the ruse by joining the Royal Navy as a cabin boy aboard an English warship. In the 1700's, a doctor's examination was not required before enlistment and men aboard ships rarely bathed. It was easy for a woman to hide her identity. Fierce and ruthless, Mary climbed the ranks in the Royal Navy with a reputation for excelling in the use of hand weapons.

Calico Jack Rackham

These two women would ultimately meet on the pirate ship run by the legendary Calico Jack Rackham. Handsome and daring, Rackham dressed in brightly colored clothing and strutted like a peacock. He openly courted the feisty Anne Bonny and, on a shadowy night in 1718, Anne tucked her hair into a cap, dressed as a man, and fled with Calico Jack aboard his sloop, Revenge. Anne was a capable deck hand as well as an accomplished assailant with either a pistol or cutlass and she became a valuable second mate. The crew never dared to question her.


Meanwhile, Mary signed on with an ill-fated Dutch merchant ship bound for the West Indies. Rackham, Anne and their pirate crew overpowered the merchant ship in the Caribbean and Mary signed on as pirate crew rather than walk the plank into the sea.

Calico Jack's Signature Flag

Disguised as men, Anne and Mary were known for their violent tempers. Mary had secretly taken a lover, a shipmate on the crew to whom she revealed herself as a woman. When an irascible crewmember challenged her secret lover, Mary knew her lover could never win a fight with this man. She stepped in and began insulting and belittling the crewman until he agreed to a duel. At dawn on a sandy beach, Mary and the irascible crewmember stood back-to-back. They walked fifteen paces, turned and fired. Mary’s shot was accurate and deadly. The crewmember lay on the beach bleeding, two shots in the center of his chest. The duel was over. Mary was unscathed and her lover was still alive.


The nefarious careers of Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Calico Jack Rackham and their crew came to a sudden end in October 1720. Lying at anchor off Jamaica's coast, the crew was below deck. They were all drunk, celebrating a lucrative plunder. All, that is, except for Anne and Mary.



A British Navy sloop glided alongside the pirate ship and sailors began to board. Anne and Mary ran topside to battle the invaders with such ferocity the Navy sailors retreated to appraise the situation. The navy crew eventually prevailed, arrested all aboard the pirate ship and took them to Jamaica to stand trial. Lieutenant Barnett, the sloop's commander, testified that "none among the pirate crew were more resolute, or ready to board or undertake any thing that was hazardous than the two hellcats with pistols and cutlasses fighting wildly on the deck that day”. 


He noted that both were screaming at their shipmates to "come up and fight like men". In desperation, he recalled, one of the hellcats raised the hatch and fired a pistol among the cowardly pirates hiding below, killing one and wounding another.

Calico Jack and his crew had become famous and the trial attracted a large crowd spilling out onto the courthouse steps and beyond. The gawking mob cheered as it was announced that Calico Jack and his crew were sentenced to hang for their deeds. Their cheers were followed by shock when the next announcement proclaimed two heavily shackled pirates had stepped forward and said, "Milord, we plead our bellies." By law, the court could not take the life of an unborn child by executing the mother. A quick doctor's examination proved the inevitable. The Hellcats of Calico Jack were indeed women and both were with child.


The fate of Anne Bonny and Mary Read is questionable. Some accounts say Mary became ill in prison and died before giving birth. It’s thought that Anne was released after delivering her child and she and the child eventually faded into the shadowy ballads of time.


The newspapers of the day did report on one of Anne Bonny’s last tempests. Bonny was allowed to watch as Calico Jack resolutely walked to the gallows to meet his death. Rather than pleading mercy for her lover, she defiantly walked forward, spat in his path, and scornfully reproached,

"Had you fought like a man, 

you need not hang like a dog!"

Pete's Pub and the Little Harbor Blaster

There are two things that excite the soul-Infinity and Finity. On an island you have both.

Bar at Pete's Pub

Those were the words of Randolph Johnston- artist, sculpture and philosopher-after he sailed to the Bahamas in 1951. We first discovered the incredible art of Randolph Johnston in Little Harbor where he and his family settled. Inside the harbor just beyond the sandy beach is Pete’s Pub, a wild and raucous outdoor bar that looks like it’s made of driftwood held together with boat lines. Hanging from the rafters are colorful burgees and flags, old license plates including one from Texas that says ‘Go Play’, t-shirts, bras, lacy panties and the names of hyndreds of people who have had the pleasure of playing and drinking in this fun place. Pete is the son of Randolph Johnston and has lived most of his life on this little spit.

Southern entrance into the bay

Little Harbor is a small, protected harbor located on the southeastern end of Great Abaco Island in the chain of Bahamas Islands called the Abacos. The harbor is tiny and you may have to wait for a rising tide for the boat to clear the low water shoal at the entrance. 

It was a gloriously sunny Sunday morning, about 72°, and I sat inside an abandoned wooden dinghy in front of Pete’s Pub just watching the comings and goings of the boaters in the harbor. 

“How about a bowl of Seafood Chowder for breakfast?” Pete shouted to me from the bar. “Besides, I could also use some help seasoning this meat and getting it into the pit.” I crawled out of the old dinghy and figured I’d just have to work for my breakfast.

Headache in a glass!

Preparations for the 'once-a-month but sometimes more often or not’ Pete’s Pub Sunday Pig Roast swung into action. Pete is in his late 40’s, short and a bit round, but boyish and light-hearted in demeanor. He’s an artist, chef, bartender, proprietor, and handy man around here and he loves a party. Pete scurried about as we seasoned and prepared the food for the afternoon event. I sipped the chowder, surprised at how good it was as a breakfast treat. The pig roast is a popular tradition and the small harbor fills quickly with boaters ready to drink and party from morning until way past sunset. Pete’s specialty libation is called a Little Harbor Blaster. It’s a combination of five different rums, some fruit juice, a piece of pineapple speared with a paper umbrella and a ready-made headache.

As we worked smearing the rub on the pig’s skin and putting it into the pit to cook, I asked Pete what his father was like.

“To understand my father, his philosophy and his sculptures, you’ll have to read his journals and diaries,” he said. He stopped and pulled off the heavy welding gloves that kept the smoldering embers in the pit from burning his hands and went into the gallery. He emerged a few moments later with a small pile of well-worn, leather-bound journals.

“Here, read these,” he said, piling the dusty journals in my arms with a challenge to “learn about the past in order to accurately appreciate the present”.

Nine Stages of Man

“Modern man yearns for Eden.  Is it possible to go back to such a beginning?” Randolph wrote in his diary during their long voyage to the Bahamas. “I don’t see myself as an exile but as a seeker, a survivor. Until you recognize that life is a limited engagement, you never experience every minute intensely.”

I mulled over the words of Randolph Johnston as I feasted on roasted pig, toasted with rum drinks, and partied with other cruisers. I was hooked; fascinated by a brooding man whose Gothic artwork revealed so much of mankind. And I was also intrigued by his son whose own artwork was portrayed not in the Gothic, but in the reality of the ocean and its creatures.

 In one of his journals, Randolph described Pete as “the rebel’s rebel, the individualist’s individual, the implacable foe of regimentation in any form”. It sounded like a typical father struggling with a typical rebellious teenager. I wondered what Pete thought of this.

 “My life has been a mixture of Swiss Family Robinson and Shakespeare, Beethoven and Einstein. I’m a jack of all trades and master of none. Here in Little Harbor, we didn’t have much opportunity for formal schooling, so my parents gave my brothers and me volumes of classical reading material and music.”

We spent the next few days roaming the island, exploring the caves, snorkeling in a nearby black hole, browsing the gallery, carving our names into the rafters of Pete’s Pub, and inspecting the broken old lighthouse. It’s like finding Gulligan’s Island with Gulligan himself behind the bar and Maryanne’s undies hanging above.

Mark securing a coconut

Coconut Bowling

Mark climbed a coconut tree and managed to knock down a coconut without breaking his body. We passed the time by playing coconut bowling on the sandy path leading across the spit to the ocean side.

 Sunsets were spectacular, the rum superb, and the cultural value invigorating.

Life an ocean, time a wave, and every soul a drop

 That's the philosophical genius Randolph Johnston. I wish I had thought of that! 

High winds, a swinging cat and....Crazy!

With the wind pulsating like a giant fan continually alternating between high and low, we work above deck unfastening everything that can be removed, eventually stowing it all in the small cabin below. Hurricane-force winds can rip even the most securely rolled and tied sails from their lashings and shred them within minutes. No one talks much. Even the typical chatter on the VHF radio is quiet. Everyone works with a nervous busyness, dealing with his or her own private fears.

Eventually, all of the sails, diesel fuel containers, lines, cushions, long aluminum booms and loose hardware make their way to our living space below deck. The tiny cabin starts to look like a cut-rate hardware store and has a musty, damp smell. The only space left is a narrow path to the propane stove and a similar one to the head. We’re all exhausted so we try to find a spot big enough to lie down and get some sleep before Bertha arrives.

The heavy wind and rain starts about midnight. Bertha is less than 75 miles from Great Abaco Island. Wild Goose wallows in the growing swells and jerks against two of her anchor lines while the third line lies slack, trailing out of sight underneath the boats’ keel.

Samantha swinging in the fruit hammock

Samantha, Tracy’s cat, begins to look for a stable platform. Suddenly, she leaps into a small hammock hanging in the galley that holds our fresh fruit. The hammock swings freely with the motion of the boat. Samantha seems content to rock in sequence with the motion of the boat rather than fighting to hold herself in one spot. The four of us have learned to live in rhythm with the boat rather than battle the motion of the boat.

Mark reminds us we must take a triangulated bearing every half-hour to confirm our position has not changed. When it’s time to take our first triangulation check, Mark slides the hatch open and pokes his baldhead outside. The wind drives raindrops into the cabin that feel like sharp darts and Mark is unable to see in the stinging rain. He ducks back inside and closes the hatch with a snap; so much for great plans. I mop up the puddles with a towel while Mark begins digging in a locker.

I don't know what
you're laughing about!

 “Ah ha!” he declares like Sherlock Holmes finding a clue. He puts on a red cap and pulls a mask and snorkel over top of the cap. He looks like a cross between a space alien and a cartoon character.  With protective gear in place and the snorkel mouthpiece in his mouth, he once again opens the overhead hatch and emerges into the rain victorious. The bizarre scene is elevated to hysterics when Mark garbles the triangulation angles through the snorkel and we fall across the sail bags laughing. He turns and stares through the lens of the diving mask with indignation until Tracy snorts a suppressed laugh and grabs the spreadsheet from the table. Still giggling under her breath, she records the numbers. The angles to our stationary objects on land remain the same as the previous day and, for the moment, we’re staying in place. Mark huffs back into the cabin without looking at any of us.

The winds inside the rotating hurricane alternate between 75-80 mph sustained and blasting gusts that exceed 110 mph. Each gust of wind brings a deafening sound and the boat shudders. As each gust of wind subsides, the sustained winds now feel like a short lull with an eerie silence only to fall victim to the next gust.

It’s been four hours since Bertha began and the anchors on Wild Goose hold firm to the bottom. The wind suddenly stops as the eye, or center core, of Hurricane Bertha crosses over the island. Blue skies reign overhead, but after the deafening noise and constant lurching of Wild Goose, the sudden quiet seems foreboding.  Harried boaters and islanders emerge from the burrows of their safety and check for broken equipment or damage. The local merchant serving as central command reports on the radio there are no injuries and only one boat has blown onto the shore.

As quickly as the wind stopped, Bertha begins to blow about a half hour later and this time from the opposite direction. Wild Goose wallows back and forth raising her bow and thrusting against the two forward anchors before shifting her stern and pointing her nose into the new direction riding hard on her previously slack anchor.

By late afternoon, the sustained winds moderate to 55 mph and gusts clock in at 90 mph. Although the wind hardly seems moderated, I’m relieved to think it’s almost over. My relief is short lived when Mat stands up and proclaims he suffers from cabin fever and claustrophobia. To relieve this malevolent condition, he’s going on deck to take a shower. He starts peeling off his clothes.

  
“A 50-mph wind can blow a person overboard,” I lecture. Mark is no help standing in the open hatch looking like a space alien as he hunts for triangulation points.

“Anything is better than a jail cell,” Mat insists. “Besides, you’ve been complaining about the locker-room smell in here, so I’ll do my part by taking a shower on deck in the rain.”

Donning a bright blue harness that fastens around the chest and connects to a safety line, Mat grabs a bar of soap and heads up the stairs and out onto the cabin top. Standing naked in a pressure wash of driving rain, he sings Willie Nelson’s “Crazy” at top of his lungs like Pavarotti on stage at the Met. Horns blow and voices shout over the radio encouraging Mat’s opus.  It seems everyone could use a little levity at this point.

Evening arrives and Bertha bids her good-bye. The final tally for Marsh Harbor: two sailboats blew onto the shore inside the harbor, scores of homes and businesses had significant damage and six people were injured. Wild Goose and her fledgling crew persevered Bertha’s attack unscathed. It was our first test, one of many over the next six years and forty-thousand miles we sailed aboard Wild Goose. Hauling the sail back up the mast, we prepared to leave Marsh Harbor and continue our cruising in the Bahamas Islands. I know there will be other rounds to battle and more storms to endure, but now that I’ve met Bertha, I have a new confidence that stems from experience. Just the same, I’d prefer not meeting another wild Bahamian named Bertha anytime soon.

Conch, Beer and......a Hurricane!

There’s been a lot of publicity this year about hurricanes especially after Irene blew through the Bahamas, crossed North Carolina Outer Banks and terrorized New York City. Many people ask if we ever encountered a big storm while we cruised on Wild Goose. Yes, we endured a hurricane in the Bahamas. “Whoa-what was it like?” they ask. Well, let’s start from the beginning.

Yum! Fresh conch from the shell

Snorkeling in the clear Bahamas water

We had only been cruising about three months when we picked up both of our children in Key West, Florida and headed for the Bahamas. Tracy brought along her cat, Samantha, who never really warmed up to boat life. It was to be an exciting summer vacation from college, although it was a little heavy on the excitement end. Official hurricane season is June 1^st until November 30^th with the majority of the hurricanes in the Bahamas occurring in August and September. With that in mind, we sailed across to the Berry Islands, a stirrup-shaped chain of tiny islands, called cays and pronounced “keys”, on the northeastern edge of the Great Bahamas Bank. We leisurely fished and snorkeled our way through the islands learning about the Bahamian culture and their relaxed way of life.

Weather looks great---now

Although the weather was fantastic where we were sailing, forecasts were looking a little grim. An early July tropical storm brewed out in the Atlantic Ocean. We made our way to one of the few somewhat safe harbors in the Bahamas, Marsh Harbor, in the Abaco Islands. 

Great hangout-Sapodilly's Bar & Grill also called Dilly's

Our first stop once we anchored the boat was the profound base of local knowledge and weather, Sapodilly’s Bar & Grill. It’s a magnet that draws thirsty boaters from the harbor with loud reggae music, bright colored lights, and the local Bahamian brew, Kalik. The weather is always a favorite topic among boaters and today is no exception. The tropical storm has intensified and is now Hurricane Bertha!

Waiting for Bertha

You may not have ever heard the drone computerized voice, affectionately known as Iron Mike, over the weather radio, but it sounds like a cross between Donald Duck and Orson Wells. 

“Hullo all stations.  This is a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency weather alert.  At fourteen hundred Zulu, weather advisors upgraded the tropical storm in the Atlantic to Hurricane Bertha.  Bertha is traveling in a generally northwest direction at approximately twelve miles per hour and is located 385 miles southeast of Great Abaco Island in the northern Bahamas.  Winds may increase to 115 miles per hour over the next twelve hours.  Anyone in the path of this storm should take necessary precautions to seek safe harbor.  Stay tuned to this station for further weather developments.”

 “What does he mean ‘traveling in a generally northwest direction’?” I plead to the Bahamian bartender.  Locust, plagues and hurricanes were never part of our original plans and I need more specific information. “Can’t NOAA pinpoint a hurricane’s direction better than generally? And, winds may increase to 115 miles per hour? Is there a may not or perhaps a when?” 

I’m normally a patient person, but right now I could leap across the bar and put a stranglehold on that radio in an effort to squeeze out more information. The bartender nods and opens a handful of beer bottles. Most of the tourists have already left the island, abandoning their tropical vacation for the safety of the mainland. The rest of us have a boat either anchored in the harbor or docked at one of the marinas on the island. With Bertha traveling in our general direction, we must make a decision.

 

We head back to the boat and discuss our options. We could leave Wild Goose anchored in Marsh Harbor and fly back to Texas; we could pull the anchor and sail to Florida to search for an empty docking spot and take the chance Bertha will not follow us there; or we could stay aboard the boat and ride out the hurricane here. It’s a formidable decision affecting all four of us and no one wants to make the decision alone. So we vote. It’s unanimous. Wild Goose is our home. She’s tough, well-built and the thought of leaving her to face the storm alone seems unbearable.

We’ll all stay aboard Wild Goose.
Bring it on Bertha!

Ominous 

-----TO BE CONTINUED-------

Wimps, Cheeseburgers and the Duval Crawl

If you’ve never been to Key West, Florida, it’s well worth the effort to get there, especially if you’re tired of snow, cold winds or just need a break from everyday life. You can fly into Miami and drive south on US Highway 1 crossing bridge after bridge, island after island (called keys) for about 130 miles until you reach historic Key West.

Clouds were getting heavy and dark and the winds were picking up as we readied the boat to sail from Dry Tortugas to Key West. Our son, Mat, and several of his friends had joined us for some diving and fishing in the area. We had a great time, but as the sky began to look more ominous, Mat’s three buddies came on deck looking suspiciously sheepish.

“We think we’re going to take the fast ferry boat to Key West and meet you guys there. Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine in Key West until you get there in a couple of days,” they said. Not one of them could actually look us in the eye, but you could tell they were quite unsure whether we or Wild Goose could make the passage in one piece. I looked over at Mat. He shook his head slowly.

“Not me, guys. I’m going with my mom and dad. It might get pretty rough and I think they could use the help,” he said. My eyes teared up a bit. Though he never showed it, I knew that Mat always worried about us on the boat. He’s an excellent sailor and knew the boat almost as well as we did, but he also knew it’s a big ocean out there that can swallow a small sailboat.

We put the guys on the ferry with a few teasing words like “wimp, but don’t worry about it” and maybe a “chicken-shit” or two, but I knew it was the best choice. Rough seas are challenging enough without having three seasick and puking guys aboard.

We eased out of Dry Tortugas and set a reefed main and half-furled jib. It’s easy to reef your sails in moderate seas, but if you wait until the wind is intense and the boat is pitching back and forth, a trip forward on the deck becomes a risky venture. Experienced sailors will tell you the old adage ‘a reef in time’ means the time to reef is when you first think about it. We had a few hours of good sailing before the seas began to kick up. I went below and secured the last few objects that could become flying projectiles in a storm and cooked an early dinner.

Slowly, the waves began to increase in size and the wind began whipping the crest of each wave into a watery nebula spewing a salty cloud of mist across the deck and dodger. The waves had a short period meaning there wasn’t much distance between each wave. Steep, quick waves occur when the wind is against a current. We had an easterly wind blowing against the Gulf Stream headed in a westerly direction. Instead of rising on the front face, easing over the crest and riding down the back side to the trough, Wild Goose rose up on the wave, crested and hit the face of the next wave. Bam! The bow struck the water like a belly-flop and the boat shook throughout her hull. It sounded like a gunshot traveling through the cabin. She seemed to stop for a few seconds as the noise and trembling dissipated through the water, and then took her place to travel up the next wave and start the process all over again.

At one point, Mat looked up at us and said, “Do you think we’ll make it?” Until that point (and even afterwards), I had not given the possibility that she might break apart a second thought. I trusted Wild Goose. That was good enough for me.

Dominique, The Cat Man

We pulled into Galleon Marina in Key West and Mat’s friends were on the dock with plenty of beer and promises of margaritas later that evening. We strolled along Duval Street (called the Duval Crawl) popping into Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville for a Cheeseburger in Paradise and watched the famous Key West sunset from Mallory Square Dock. The sunset celebration at Mallory Square each evening is a spectacle of jugglers, psychics, animal acts and weird happenings.

 As the sun dipped beyond the horizon, a spectacular glow of bright orange and pink loomed across the sky. A man whipped by the crowd on a motor scooter wearing nothing at all but a pair of tennis shoes. The crowd whooped and hollered and loved every minute of it.

 That’s Key West for you!

No Phone-No Address-No Service

Back up a few years to the golden age prior to cell phones, at least prior to affordable and accessible cell phone coverage. It may seem like ancient history to some, but it was only about 15 years ago that cell phones were creating nightmare phone bills for users who dared to travel outside of their home area.

VHF is the boating equivalent of a party line

On Wild Goose, we didn’t have a cell phone. Actually, we had no phone at all. We had two radios. One was a Very High Frequency (VHF) radio that has a useful range of about 25 miles. It’s the most common radio among boaters, easy to use, and it’s monitored by the Coast Guard. If you’re within range, the VHF is the radio used to chat with other boaters or call “mayday” for help if you’re in trouble.

Beastly little guy, isn't he?

The other radio was a beastly little guy called a Single Side Band (SSB) radio. If it was clear, the gods were aligned and you were patient, you could communicate with someone who also has a SSB on the other side of the world. We listened to BBC and Voice of America on the SSB, often our only means of getting the latest news. We learned a lot about world events in Europe and Africa, but very little about American events. Not a bad option.

The Dreaded Telephone Booth

The dreaded telephone booth

In order to communicate with family, friends, business people or vendors, we used the ubiquitous pay phone. It’s a dinosaur in today’s technological age (have you tried to find one lately?), but it was an effective and necessary means of communication back then. Pay phones were usually located on a busy street corner attached to a telephone pole. If you were really lucky, the phone might be housed in small structure big enough for one skinny person and had a bi-fold door that blocked out maybe 10% of the traffic noise. They were called telephone booths. Either way, you were never guaranteed to reach the person you were calling. In fact, most of the time we desperately tried to call our kids from the dreaded telephone booth and check on their well-being only to get the dreaded answering machine. Over the years, I bonded with their answering machines (remember those?) since I communicated often with them and threatened to buy the inanimate box a Christmas gift.

Where Are You??

The worst part of using a pay phone was trying to order something. Whether it was a much-needed boat part, a new pair of shoes or a book, the situation usually went like this:

Ride 'Em Cowboy thru the wind & waves

• Inflate the dinghy and putt-putt through wind, waves, rain or baking sunshine to shore
• Inquire about the nearest pay phone and walk there to stand in the wind, rain or baking sun trying to hear over the diesel truck just passing
• Hold a phone book (remember those?), manual or pad of paper while dialing, then dial your 56-digit (seemed like it at the time) phone card number. Get it wrong and repeat process.
• Operator (remember those?) answers and puts you on hold or redirects the call so you wait in above mentioned conditions
• “Can I help you?”
• “Yes, I’d like to order …..”
• “What is your home address?”
• “I don’t have a home address, just a PO box.”
• “I must have a home address. Where do you live?”
• “I live on a boat.”
• “Where do you keep the boat?”
• “Right now I’m in ….. but I’ll be leaving in four  days, so I need this shipped ASAP.”
• “OK, I’ll see what I can do. What is your phone number?”
• “I don’t have a phone.”
• “Let me get this straight. You don’t have a home address, you live on a boat that has no home address, you have no phone and you want this in two days because you’re going, uh, away. And I’m supposed to ship this where?”
• “Well, general delivery at the post office usually works. Can you get it here by day after tomorrow?”
• Click----they just didn’t buy my story. I’m sure they thought I was homeless, using a stolen credit card and wanted, for some ungodly reason, to buy a bilge pump.

 Come to think of it, I must have looked homeless standing in the above mentioned weather conditions, shouting into the phone over the traffic noise, holding a bunch of papers that are blowing, baking or getting wet, and wishing I could slump into a dejected heap before I called them back and tried once again to explain my situation. 

No home, no phone, no service-at least not easily.

Dry Tortugas

We eased Wild Goose out of the harbor in Ft. Meyers, Florida and set our sails for a west southwest track hoping for favorable winds and the predicted clear skies. We were headed for Dry Tortugas, our nation's southernmost park. The park covers about 101 square miles, but most of it is water, and contains seven small islands, called keys, that are only a few feet above water. It's a 14-20 hour sail from Ft. Myers on the west coast of Florida depending on the wind, so we left in the early afternoon planning to arrive well before dark the next day. We put our fishing poles out on rod holders and made a bet as to the time we'd catch the first fish. Being the sneaky little devil that he is, Mark knew about what time we'd cross from the deep Gulf water into the shallower waters approaching the keys. We caught a Spanish Mackerel about 10 am as the depth sounder showed we were in about 30 feet of water and, of course, Mark won. And who ever said sushi for breakfast was not a good thing? It was fresh and delicious!

Alert-Barracuda
The water in the park is a beautiful azure blue covering a white sandy bottom. We could easily identify the coral reefs that can be deadly for the hull of a boat and were able to wind our way through the hazardous reefs and shoals to anchor in a small cove at Garden Key. As we inflated our dinghy to go to shore, we noticed a visitor in the shadows under our boat. A 6-foot barracuda decided the shade of our boat was a nice place to hang out. He didn't seem to be intent on causing any harm, but he certainly was intimidating. Our daughter, Tracy, refused to get into the water. Over time, she became comfortable diving with barracuda, but not that day!

The islands were originally named Los Tortugas (The Turtles) by Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon. He took an incredible 160 sea turtles from the area (no wonder the sea turtle population is endangered). Since the islands have no potable fresh water, charts later listed them as Dry Tortugas. A lighthouse was erected to help ships navigate around the low islands.

The government decided to build a fort on Garden Key. Construction on Ft. Jefferson was begun in 1846 to help protect the US shipping channel from pirates. The United States government never completed Ft. Jefferson when, after 30 years of building massively thick brick walls, they realized new innovations in technology and warfare rendered the walls vulnerable (does this sound familiar even today?). The fort remained in the hands of the northern army during the Civil War and was used as a prison for deserters and war criminals. The most famous person held at Ft. Jefferson was Dr. Samuel Mudd. Dr. Mudd was convicted of conspiracy after assisting John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Another interesting tidbit: Dry Tortugas was the last fueling stop for the USS Maine in 1898 before she mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor a few days later. It was one of the precipitating events causing the Spanish-American War and has always been a controversy over who was responsible for her sinking.

The fort is now a national park and you could spend hours exploring all of the gunrooms, casements and magazines.

Drum, Fife & Hoop Skirts
Every evening, the park conducts a ceremonial Civil War flag ceremony at sunset. We were asked to participate. Tracy and I donned long hoop skirts and hats and Mark wore a military uniform and played the drum while a park ranger played the fife. We climbed the stairs to the top of the fort marching to the sound of drum and fife and lowered the flag. I guess Tracy and I were there just for decoration because about all we could do was try to keep our hats on our heads and our long hoop skirts from blowing over our heads and carrying us over the edge. We did receive a large round of applause from the visitors below, so I guess we performed sufficiently as Civil War patrons.

Alert-A New Bird Species
The area is famous for bird watching and we unknowingly presented quite a stir among the 'twitters' or birdwatchers. Mark always likes to put out plenty of scope (or rope for you non-nautical types) when anchoring. In order to find just where your anchor is located, you tie another small rope to the anchor and attach a floating buoy, usually a round, brightly colored ball. Mark liked to attach an old rather ratty looking duck decoy to our anchor-"it just looks more realistic", was his justification. After a few days, we noticed hordes of people looking at our boat through binoculars from the island. It seems the twitters had just discovered a new species in the islands and were simply all 'atwitter' about it. Oops...

If You're Planning To Go
Ft. Jefferson National Park is one of the least visited national park in the country and one of the most unusual. Besides the fort, you can snorkel in the those azure waters surrounding the area, go fishing, and even buy some souvenirs from the gift shop. But, here's the kicker. Unless you want to take your own boat out there, you'll have to find alternate transportation. It's available by ferry or by seaplane (which is a big kick if you've never landed in the water by plane). You leave from Key West, Florida another great place to visit.

Over the few days we stayed in Dry Tortugas and snorkeled on the reefs surrounding the area. We even did some nighttime snorkeling (another kick if you haven't done it). We saw a lot of tropical fish, barracuda (Tracy finally realized she wasn't going to be eaten after all), and turtles. Diving with sea turtles is like watching the Bolshoi Ballet. They glide through the water seamlessly moving their flippers in a graceful and unhurried motion. Their nose points straight ahead as if they're on a mission and they barely notice we're in the water with them. Little did we know that these creatures would become very important to us and we would return one day to help insure their survival.

Cheers,

Bunny