Blue water and smooth sailing

    I was on Marco Island in January scoping out the marina's and getting local advice on the upcoming trip to Key West. I asked a local salt if there was anything special I needed to know about the voyage. His response was to point south and say" Go that way".

 

We left Marco at 7:00 on calm seas which got even more calm as we sailed south. Other than dodging crab pots the trip was totally uneventful. We saw dolphins, sea turtles, fish feeding sprees, flying fish and only two other boats in 90 + miles of open water. We all got a lot of sun sitting out on the front deck and simply enjoyed the ride.

  Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms while living above the showroom of a Key West Ford dealership at 314 Simonton Street  while awaiting delivery of a Ford Model A roadster purchased by the uncle of his wife Pauline in 1928.
Hardware store owner Charles Thompson introduced him to deep-sea fishing. Among the group who went fishing was Joe Russell (also known as Sloppy Joe). Russell was reportedly the model for Freddy in To Have and Have Not. Portions of the original manuscript were found at Sloppy Joe's Bar after his death. The group had nicknames for each other, and Hemingway wound up with "Papa".
Pauline's rich uncle Gus Pfeiffer bought the 907 Whitehead Street house in 1931 as a wedding present. Legend says the Hemingway's installed a swimming pool for $20,000 in the late 1930s (equivalent in 2006 to $250,000). It was such a high price that Hemingway is said to have put a penny in the concrete, saying, "Here, take the last penny I've got!" The penny is still there.

One of the more than 50 polydactyl cats that live at the Hemingway house. This particular cat has seven (two extra) toes on each paw.

During his stay he wrote or worked on Death in the Afternoon, For Whom the Bell Tolls , The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. He used Depression-era Key West as the locale for To Have and Have Not — his only novel set in the United States.

  I am returning home to Ohio for 3 days starting today so the blog will not be posted again until Saturday. My crew is not complaining about being left here in Key West.

This was the water as we left Marco Island and was the roughest seas we experienced.

Seas like this are a power boaters dream and a sail boaters nightmare. Our neighbor in Key West    (a 42 foot sailboat) was becalmed for 10 hours on his way in.

The water just keeps getting prettier as we travel south.

I roasted a turkey while underway. This was supposed to be our Easter dinner but the extended oil change prevented me from fixing it yesterday. Turkey, mashed potato's, homemade gravy, and sweet corn, yum.

                                    

Key West Bay.

This cruise ship was leaving as we entered port.