Last week I was pedaling along the ocean front on my way to make coffee for the 6 o'clock meeting when I saw this outfit tying up, so I stopped and visited for a bit.
Of all people, I was chatting with 'Mr Right' from the 'shipwreck' page. He was giving the owner of this 40' Warrham cat a hand sailing down from Jax via the Okachobee waterway. It was a 4 day passage from Fla to CZ and they were waiting to check in with Immigration and that crowd.
Last year I read a book entitled 'The Mosquito Coast' or 'Cruising the Mosquito coast', something like that. It was about a family sailing from Miami to San Blas, and had this neat map on it's flyleaf. Notice the Tropic of Cancer, about 200 miles North of Cozumel. This is the northern most point of the sun being directly overhead at noon in Summer. The longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and the northern boundry of the 'Tropics'.
I'm not sure if the Warrham left Florida from the Dry Torgugas or Ft Meyers. In any event this will give you a idea how things are laid out. Note the compass rose for orientation.
Here is the 'Sailing to Yucatan' excerpt from Wm F. Buckley Jr's. great sailing book "Atlantic High".
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Atlantic High
by William F. Buckley Jr.
Sailing to Yucatan is less than a transatlantic labor. Indeed, Miami-Yucatan is less than Newport-Bermuda. But you achieve the feeling of having slipped away to a remote and thoroughly foreign country, and as a matter of fact you have.
When you dwell on the distance between the Dry Tortugas (the final U.S. departure point) and Mujeres Island (the nearest Mexican point of land) - 290 miles - you need to fight the feeling that your outing has been on the order of driving from San Diego to Tijuana. It is more than that for several reasons. Not the least of these is that lying in wait for you if your attention flags, just a few miles to the south, for over one half the distance, is the dragon Fafnir, guarding the forbidden treasures of Cuba. How far offshore from Cuba, I asked my friendly patron at the State Department, must I stay?
"They assert three miles of territorial sovereignty, and twelve for customs," I was told; but it does not do to tease them in the matter, as Lloyd Bucher, commanding the Pueblo, did the North Koreans. On no account slip past the twelve-mile limit.
"What happens if you do?"
There´s the rub. Anything can happen. One day a little Cuban coast guard vessel will politely usher you back out of Gulag waters. But another day the same vessel will take you to port, seize your boat, and submit you to a large dose of the People´s Hospitality, for days, maybe even weeks, depending on the temperature of international relations and the caprice of the Maximum Caudillo. The mere presence of Castro's over one hundred miles or so of coastline is bracing, in the morbid sense that the Berlin Wall is bracing.
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A few days later I went out to the marina North of downtown to draw the cross and place a stone on the site of the 500 peso coin find when I spotted that Warrham again. They are beginning outfitting plans for the snorkeling trade. They had a similar boat they were renting before but it was wrecked by Wilma.
On the way out to the marina and back the police had one side of the road cleared of traffic for the bike portion of a Triathlon. I waited until the return trip to cut over to a launch ramp area to take a look at this 'one-off' VW beach buggy. A couple of beach divers use it to get their gear to the beach. Similar to my using the Triciclo to dive on the Gorgonian Flats and La Villa Blanca Reef, down South. This buggy has way more style and just look at the comfy seat!
For ~$25 I ordered a pair of Navy style dungarees from a tailor down my street and was just a little late arriving to pick them up this afternoon so I hit the nearby Super-Mas market for some things and spotted this Monarch butterfly taking a break in the parking lot.
In closing, I was about 15 minutes late for the full glow of this sunset from the AA Clubhouse roof.
'We're only responsible for the effort, not the outcome.'
=)
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