Key West - Dock Visit

Crosroads of the world?

One of the fun parts about cruising are all the fellow cruisers you meet along the way. He has the same first name as I do, Bob and we saw him pull into a dock a few slips down from us. It was blowing pretty good that day, in the 20's at least and they (he has one crew member) made the trip non-stop from Miami to Key West when the winds were gusting in the 30's, they had a wild ride - no motoring for them! They saw speeds of 8 to 9 knots all the way.

A long ways to Albany!

He stopped by this afternoon for a chat since they were leaving for Sarasota tonight. It seems he decided to buy a boat one day, never having a boat before, and wound up with a Beneteau 461 - not bad for a first boat! He had more information about the fatal accident aboard Appledore from one of the crew where a rigger was aloft and fell to his death. It turns out that his girlfriend was holding the lines on deck around a cleat and she thought she heard him say, "Let go" (so he could reposition himself for another task aloft). Well, he didn't say that and when she let go, he started an uncontrolled fall, hitting the deck from about 50ft high. Seeing him falling, she then tried to grad hold of the line but, of course, could not - it was moving too rapidly and she burned the flesh off her hands. He later died in the hospital. It goes without saying that he also had no safety line - just stupid. You only get once chance when in that position, why not have a safety line!!

A rare pencil tree, only seen in Key West

So we talked on and on through the afternoon, very pleasant. The two of them left around 5:30 pm for points north on the west coast of Florida. We prefer sailing in daylight but then we don't go as far as they do in one sail. The high winds are due to abate somewhat on Sunday and settle down more on Monday when we'll go out for a sail ourselves with Bill and Ruth McKeever along for company. I have cable installed so I'll be watching the Giants in HD, won't get much done Sunday.