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Latitude:27.34440
Longitude:-82.67892
GPS location Date/Time:02/27/2013 00:23:11 PST

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Latitude:27.67718
Longitude:-82.74218
GPS location Date/Time:02/26/2013 19:28:58 PST

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Capt Larry and the Lagoon

Tuesday I drove down to Capt Larry’s house in Bradenton for an evening of reminiscing.  Like me, Larry has history in the Virgin Islands.  More specifically, for a time he hung out in Benner Bay, which was known by locals as the Lagoon, and that’s where I lived and worked for most of my many years on St Thomas. 

The Lagoon is on the south east coast of St Thomas, about a mile by road from Red Hook.  In the time when I was there the business of the Lagoon was boats and people who lived on boats.  There were two medium sized marinas, a boatyard, a few charter boat companies, a fuel dock and convenience store, a couple restaurants, and of course - bars.  Several bars.  The best known bars were the “Lagoon Saloon” and “Bottoms Up”.  The best way to get to either bar was by dinghy.  Both bars were roughhewn and authentic.  There was none of the pirate pretense that is now so common.  These were genuinely pirate.  These were not places where blender drinks were served.  Bottled beer, shots and well-drinks was all they served.  If tourists found one of these places and wandered in, they might make the mistake of ordering a blender drink.  When that happened the tourists were told, “You’re in the wrong place.  Get the hell out of here.” 
 
For those of us who were there in the ‘80’s, we look back on those years in that place as a special time in our lives.  It was a community of boat bums, rascals, drunks, Rastas, mediocre musicians that got better the more we drank, pot heads, wanted men, unwanted men, and generally colorful Caribbean characters. 
 
Oh, the stories we can tell…and others we can’t. 

People there lived in the moment.  The past, prior to finding the Lagoon, was not something we spoke of.  The future was not something that concerned us, and we certainly didn’t plan for any.  The comparatively well-heeled among us lived on boats in a slip at Compass Point Marina or Independent Boatyard. .  But many others avoided the cost of marina fees.  They lived on boats at anchor or on moorings that for the most part were unregistered and illegal.  

And it was a community.  It looked after its own.  Example: there was Hat-man Jeff, who lived on the remains of a broken boat that a storm had driven into the mangroves.  The boat would have sunk if it wasn’t stuck up on the mangrove roots.  Jeff was called Hat-man because he had one trade.  He collected palm fronds and weaved them into hats, which he’d sell to tourists in Red Hook.  Hat-man Jeff had a dog named Charlie that was his constant companion.  It was known that Charlie was the smarter and more responsible of the two.  Speculation was that Jeff had done himself permanent damage though too many psilocybin mushrooms.  When word went around that Charlie had been sick, and there was now a veterinarian’s bill that Jeff couldn’t pay, the hat was passed at Bottom’s Up and the vet’s bill got paid.

Another example: if some stranger, looking like he just got off the plane, was heard to be asking questions about someone in the Lagoon, immediately the assumption was that he was a Fed - IRS, FBI, INS or - god forbid - DEA.  Word would quickly get around and the guilty would sail off for a couple days at Jost Van Dyke in the BVI.  It was amazing how much business dropped off in the Lagoon when there was a suspected Fed in the neighborhood.   People would stop showing up to work - if they had any - and you could find empty bar stools when there should be none.   

My first job in the Caribbean – entry level marine mechanic - was for a charter boat company in the Lagoon called Bimini Yacht Charters.  My last job in the Caribbean - captain and charter yacht management - was for another charter boat company in the Lagoon called Trawlers in Paradise.  Between those jobs I worked at other charter companies, worked as a free-lance charter captain, did yacht deliveries, and skippered yachts for private owners.  I sailed the East Coast as far north as Newport, Rhode Island, and I sailed down island all the way to Venezuela.  But I always found my way back to the Lagoon.  That’s where my pal Scary Gary would be, Ingrid and her young son Alan, Gorm and Anna Hilting and their son Dennis…to name just a few.  While we were there it was home.  Now Gary is in Portland, Oregon.  Ingrid and Alan are back in Germany.  The Hiltings sailed off and settled in North Carolina.  We don’t see each other often but we are in touch.  When we get together inevitably conversation turns to our time in the Lagoon and people we knew there.      

At a recent a recent ASA Instructor’s meeting I was introduced to another captain who had spent time in the Caribbean.  This was Capt Larry who now has a house down in Bradenton, Florida.  At first Capt Larry and I talked about our years in the Caribbean in generalities, but as we realized we had both been in and out of the Lagoon, our conversation grew more focused on dates and people we knew and where we had worked.   We realized that our paths had crossed before.  We arranged to stay in touch and to meet again.  Which is how I came to drive down to Larry’s house on Tuesday with photo albums I have from my time in the Lagoon.  Larry pulled out one of his albums as well.  We swapped stories of our time there and of people we both knew back then.  Meeting Capt Larry has been a rare treat.  The Lagoon was such a special place and time and to know someone else who knew it the way I did is gratifying.     

My other passion

I've roadraced motorcycles over many years - in the midwest back in the early 80s before my years in the Caribbean, more recently on the west coast before coming to St Petersburg.

I haven't participated in races here in Florida, but I get away for track days when I can, which is not often enough. These days are as close to a day at a Top Gun school as I'll ever get.

I hope to get to the track for a weekend near the end of January. Soon I'll begin another 6 day cycle of teaching ASA courses, so I spent this morning going over my Yamaha R6 racebike making sure it will be as ready as I am.

DVD library for sailors

Must haves: "Master and Commander" and "Captain Ron"

"Silver Linings Playbook"

This weekend, unlike so many, Cathy and I are both at home.  I’ll need to go to the marina to take care of a couple arriving and departing charterers, but I won’t be out on a boat all weekend as I often am.  Cathy will need to go into the office for a while to play catch-up there, but at least she’s not out of town.  We’re having a rare weekend mostly together, and so last night we went to see the movie titled above.  What a terrific movie!

The title refers to the survival strategy of the protagonist (played by Bradley Cooper) who is released form a mental institution and must now learn to cope with life’s challenges: how to rebuild a relationship with his estranged wife, and how to engage, without seeming crazy, a world where people are in their own way all a bit crazy.  His journey is simultaneously comic and pathetic.  Along the way he reluctantly becomes involved with a woman (played by Jennifer Lawrence) who, after being victimized by life’s vagaries, is also struggling for sanity.  Together they find a strategy to cope, heal and love again.

The script and acting are both brilliant.  The film is hysterically comic and universally human.  Everyone has their own wounds from living in a crazy world.  Everyone has scripts in their head, scripts written to justify and protect themselves. These scripts are like music heard by no one else.  They trigger movement and behavior that can seem inappropriate, but which is congruent with their script.  As wounded individuals living in a world of wounded people, our challenge is to understand our own scripted music and develop strategies for coping with those in others.          

Reading

I’m in constant battle to keep up with reading that arrives in the mail: The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Cruising World, Roadracing World, Soundings…  There’s a stack of these in the living room that I can never get to the bottom of.  Today, a rare day off from work at the marina or out on a boat, I had the luxury of several hours of reading to shorten the stack, even if temporarily. 

I read a wonderful article in The New Yorker (Jan 7/13) by an author whose articles I enjoy reading regardless of the topic – Daniel Mendelsohn.  The topic of this article was a retrospective of his long appreciation of the writings of May Renault and of his relationship with her.  Renault wrote many best-selling and critically acclaimed historical novels based in Greek antiquity about Socrates, Alexander the Great and many others.  When Mendelsohn was still in high school he began writing letters to Renault, who then lived in South Africa.  That began a correspondence between them which, while infrequent, lasted for many years until her death in 1983. 

The article became a story of Mendelsohn’s own growth as a writer, an academic of Greek classics, and as a homosexual. 

Often after reading a good writer I think not only about the topic; I’ll recall certain words and phrases used.  Among the phases I came away with from this article were in a letter from Renault that Mendelson quoted.  Referring to the writings of immature authors: “Impermissible allowance of self-pity” and “earnest humorlessness”.

Running

The St Petersburg Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon is February 10^th - just over four weeks away.  I signed up to do it more than a couple weeks ago, but haven’t gotten very serious about preparing for it - until this morning, when I did an hour long run. 

It was my first hour long run in several months.  I felt like my pace was slow.  The ankle that was such a big problem for me this time last year recently flared up again.  I ran carefully, as well as slowly, to protect the ankle.  But today, it wasn’t an issue. 

After today’s successful run and then a shower, I sat down over my calendar and plotted out a training schedule to get me to the February 10^th event.  My goal is to do the half marathon in 1 hour and 45 minutes.  I’ve planned runs on alternate days until the event.  Most of those runs will be shorter than today’s, but I need to do another hour long run, two 1 hour 15 minute runs, and two 1 hour 30 minute runs.  So long as I can stay injury free, I’ll get it done.  

More interst in the Key West Race

Last evening I met with two of my former students, Pete and Don.  They’re graduates of my six day ASA 101 - 104 program.  I remember them both as good students and sailors, as well as fun guys to sail with.  Oddly, they are ex-brothers-in law who remained like brothers beyond the tenure of their marriages. 

They'd come to St Petersburg to meet with me and to talk about the possibility of getting involved in either the annual regatta from here to Isla Mujeres Mexico at the end of April, or the regatta to Key West in mid-May.  As I posted earlier, I've already got another group of former students who have committed to the Key West Race on the Jeanneau 50 with me as their skipper.  If not for that prior commitment, I'm confident that Pete and Don would commit to the event with me as their skipper.  Instead, they are now contemplating doing the race on a smaller boat along with two friends and fellow sailors.  My former students may well become fellow competitors.     

 I hope they pull it together to do the race.  It would be very gratifying for me to see former students take on the challenge, have that experience and boost in their confidence.  Beyond that, there's a selfish reason I hope they do it.  You see, Don lived in Key West for many years and worked there as a bar tender.  He was Bar Tender of the Year there once, and in Key West, that's saying something!  Don has offered that if we wind up in Key West together, he will be my guide to the local insider’s haunts of Key West, which promises to be insanely fun. He's also promised that since he still knows all the cops in Key West, he'll be able to keep us from getting arrested.   

Last week's teaching gig.

Last week’s six day cycle of instructing ASA 101 through 103 went very well.  My students were three guys from the Orland area who were buddies who had sailed Hobbie catamarans together.  They came to me with a good understanding of nomenclature, points of sail, tacking and gybing already in place.  This made my job easy and allowed us to accelerate the program. 

After just one day sailing the Hunter 31 “Knot Now”, we moved up to the Beneteau 37 “Business II” for close quarters handling, docking, anchoring as well as my standard challenge to find and navigate us into Little Harbor Marina for lunch.  That exercise is one I usually have my students on day four.  These guys were ready to tackle it on day three. 

That allowed us to spend the remaining three days of the program on the Jeanneau 53, which in turn allowed us two overnights on that spacious thoroughbred, and allowed us to expend our range beyond where I typically get in the course of ASA 104.  We had moderate to light wind in sunny warm weather.  We wished for more wind, but managed to see over 8 knots speed over ground with what we had. 

Along with the room and performance that comes with the Jeanneau 53, we also enjoyed the ship’s entertainment system.  It consists of a very large HD TV screen, digital antenna on the masthead, DVD/CD player and radio with Sirius Radio, so we could be tuned into Margaritaville all day long.  But what my students loved best was the “Captain Ron” DVD I’d brought along.  They watched it twice and were then bandying lines from the movie back and forth.  Yes, we had a hoot, and they learned a lot while doing so.  By the last day I was out of decision making process.  They sailed us back to the Vinoy Marina competently and with confidence.