My destination this time around was the Nest Keys in the southeast quadrant of Everglades National Park. For Gertie this would be a piece of cake at about a 20 mile round trip. While I had no intention of kayaking all the way there and back, I did want to paddle the surrounding water. The harness that was rigged up to Gertie's stern cleats had my little blue Mainstream Jazz riding high and dry behind. Upper Nest Key has one of the few island beaches in Everglades National Park and it is a designated overnight camping area (though one has to reserve a site and pay a fee). As the REACH YOUR BEACH guy I had to see it just because it was there. The island is also home to some very unusual and incongruous architecture that rises ten feet above sea level that I had to see for myself. My routing had Gertie passing very close to a small, shallow body of water completely surrounded by land. It looks like an atoll and is named Little Buttonwood Sound. On the map below it is just under Boggy Key. It seemed that I had heard something about Little Buttonwood Sound before; it looked awfully familiar and for some reason made me think that I had been there before and thereby hangs this tale.
THE INCONGRUOUS ARCHITECTURE OF THE NEST KEYS
In February of 1988, six city slickers from New York, Chicago, Toronto, New Orleans and Milwaukee cast off into the wilderness, north and east of Islamorada on a rented houseboat named the "Roger B". The motley crew comprised Bill Rickman, Kevin McCaffrey, Joe Friedman, Chris Keen, David Schwartz and me. We were all booksellers and had finished a series of meetings in Miami for the ABA (American Booksellers Association) and most of us were in no rush to return to winter weather. At the end of the voyage everyone received a souvenir paper chart of the route and the location of the three overnight stops along with a couple of photographs. When Little Buttonwood Sound tickled my memory I looked around the house and garage to no avail for that souvenir chart of the "Voyage of the Roger B". I emailed Kevin and within a few days after finding the chart in his storage locker he confirmed that Little Buttonwood Sound was indeed where we had spent our second night on the "Roger B". From October 1982 until May 1990 the funniest situation comedy on television was simply called "NEWHART" and the lead character was an owner of a small Vermont Inn played by Bob Newhart. A stand-up comic whose signature act was one sided telephone conversations, he had a long successful run playing a psychiatrist in a previous series a decade earlier. Most regular characters on the new show such as Tom Poston (the caretaker in the video) were hilarious and among them were three brothers named Larry, Darryl and Darryl. To appreciate this check out the link. The Larry, Darryl and Darryl Brothers. The brothers were somewhat simple to put it mildly and played beautifully to Newhart's signature dead pan style which twenty years before had been introduced by another terrific comedian - Bill Cosby. "Noah...how long can you tread water?".
After a series of mishaps, misadventures and plain stupid tricks it became clear to the members of the motley crew of the "Roger B" that they had more in common with the Darryls than with Jacques Cousteau and so that is what we called each other for the duration of the voyage and as it turned out for the duration of our lives. To each other, each of us is his brother Darryl even to this day. A handful of other Darryl adventures followed this including a pedestrian hike across the Mexican border at Yuma AZ where nocturnal helicopters searching for soggy spined swimmers in the Alamo canal reminded us of the movie Apocalypse Now as Schwartz barbecued his signature rack of rosemary lamb oblivious to the chaos around him. In addition there was a hike along the ridge of Catalina Island above Avalon and a sail boat charter in the San Juan Islands with a bar run to Friday Harbor.
We loaded up with beer, booze, groceries and cigarettes in Islamorada. A much greater percentage of people smoked in those days (myself included) and Chris who was from Toronto had Export A's which were right up there in intensity and strength with the Gitanes and Gauloises of France. Joe Friedman and I soon thereafter quite smoking with the help of a New York psychologist who used hypnotic therapy. I mention the cigarette pack which was bright, forest green because none of us had navigation instruments and over the next few days the straight edge of the hard pack of Canadian cigarettes became our parallel rule to connect marks on the chart which we gleaned from the red and green navigation markers that mysteriously appeared from time to time. And so was born a new sailor as Kevin wielded the cigarette pack like a surgical instrument and plotted courses that could have taken us to Cartagena if we had let him have his way. These days Kevin is an award winning documentary filmmaker ... Everything you didn't know you wanted to know about Cajun Food. He lives 13 1/2 feet below the levee of Lake Pontchartrain and as a result must be the only person in the world to race his J24 past his own rooftop. Chris drove the boat as he had some experience with power boats on Canadian lakes. I was strictly a sailboat guy and any engine over 8 horsepower was likely to induce vertigo and blood rushing to my brain. I was put in charge of music and played the recently released album by Paul Simon called "Graceland" over and over again at loud volume and I still associate "The Boy in the Bubble" with green, milky water, wind, waves, dolphins and Darryls.
We didn't know it then, but we were zigging and zagging and burning cheap gas to no end in and around the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) that connects Miami to Key West on the "Bayside". Especially after my recent trip I have no idea how we ever found where we were going, let alone how we found our way back. In retrospect, since we weren't really going anywhere, it didn't matter much and we got there (which really was no where), which is entirely consistent with the Darryls' theme of the voyage of the "Roger B".
"It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road"
It is a pleasure to report that on the morning of Tuesday November 19th, 2013, just shy of 26 years later, the water had exactly the same milky green complexion. As with most sailing yarns, this one could go on and on and I need to cut to the quick. Toward sunset of the second day out, we entered the calm bay of Little Buttonwood Sound seeking an anchorage for the night, A very large power yacht was leaving the Bay through the narrow cut at the same time and the Captain shouted across that he had been unable to find a good holding ground for his anchor and thus he was not going to stay the night. The Darryl's of course had no idea what he meant and confidently thought that was his problem. When we threw the anchor off the bow, it disappeared in the ground underwater. BTW, the water wasn't much more than two or three feet deep throughout the sound and one had a clear view to the bottom. With the anchor out of sight, we knew we were good and proceeded to debate all the big issues of the day, drink some whiskey and beer, play poker and retired to our respective bunks.
When I awoke I knew instinctively that something was wrong. The tree branches coming in through the windows were an indication as well. Apparently, we had been blown ashore during the night. During our orientation for the houseboat rental, the manager (and much of the literature) made it clear that any ingestion of mud into the boat motor would result in fatal damage for which the renters' (read Darryls) would be held liable. So one's first instinct which was to gun the sucker out of the mangroves was off the table. I quietly slipped over the stern deck into the water with the hope that I could pull the shallow drafted vessel back out to deeper water before the others awoke and pretend like nothing had happened. Unfortunately I promptly sunk to my armpits in the white muck. Luckily I had hold of a line or I might have been like one of those guys going down the pit in those old Tarzan movies. Always in the back of my mind .
After pulling myself back up on to the deck of the boat and having a discussion with the crew as to our least expensive options we decided to all get in the water and pull the "Roger B" out of the mangroves. Though six of us hauling a line over our shoulders like Volga boatmen ought to have resulted in some advantage none of us could get a purchase in the mud and we were not able to move the boat even an inch. Back aboard, Schwartz opined on the nature of leadership and how any single person could lead five other normally smart people into mud up to their armpits to risk their lives for a rented houseboat. One of my favorite movies of all time is Fitzcarraldo by Werner Herzog in which the protagonist played by Klaus Kinski carries out an audacious scheme to manually haul a steamship across a mountain to link up to an Amazon tributary that flowed to a different watershed in the opposite direction.
Subsequently over the next five or ten years our own little week-end excursion in Florida Bay took on epic proportions with each retelling and we dubbed it "Fitzbernardo" with me cast as either Klaus or Larry depending on how far you wanted to take the metaphor.
Chris radioed the boat charter office, apprised them of "Roger B"'s predicament and they promptly sent out a tow boat, the cash fee for which would be our responsibility. The towing service was called "Blackbeard's Towing" . This is one of the things I like about the Keys. They are populated by iconoclasts, pirates, descendants of marine salvagers, "square grouper" fishermen or just plain folks who tried to get as far south from the rest of our country as they could. Square Grouper the movie they make no bones about the fact that you are about to get robbed so you might as well grin and bear it. When you know its coming and you can accept the fact that getting robbed is merely a one sided commercial exchange that this time is not your favor, its not so hard to swallow. This towing service could have been called Sunshine Towing or Dependable Marine Services, or Acme Towing but no it was named after a pirate and we were about to get robbed. After having agreed to $125 he then charged us $150 ($300 in today's value), because he could to move the boat less than ten yards. Importantly the Darryls' were free to pursue their adventure. We said good bye to Little Buttonwood Sound and headed out into the Bay looking for more adventure.
At this point you need to be reminded that everything I write is true, as this next bit does strain credulity. While at anchor on our last night out in the "Roger B" we were all still awake well into the early morning hours. In the damp, cold, pre-dawn haze, a ghostly figure was spotted coming from behind a neighboring island and walking in the shallow water. Indeed it was an eerie sight worthy of a horror movie as it looked as if the monster of the deep was walking on the water and headed directly for us. Schwartz who often exhibited paranoid symptoms under a wide variety of circumstances was sure this fellow was going to kill us all and hijack our boat. I reassured David that there were six of us and one of him and he was not likely to be successful. We helped the man on board. Apparently he had been out late poaching and his boat engine had broken down and had been stranded. He was soaking wet, his teeth were chattering and he was shaking with the cold of the February night undoubtedly suffering from hypothermia. We wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and offered him a hot cup of coffee which he could barely hold. We asked him his name and he replied "Darryl". Our howls of spontaneous laughter echoed throughout the bay for a very long and awkward time. Subsequently we had to explain to the poor real Darryl that we were not laughing at him but as he had never heard of Bob Newhart he couldn't get the joke and we remained embarrassed until we dropped him at a place along the highway on our way north out of the Florida Keys.
This is my last post of 2013 but you can get a preview of my first project of 2014 by following this link Cape Romano . Between now and February I need to get back to Dismal Key to shoot some video with my new helmet cam. I wish everyone a healthy, happy and prosperous new year and hope that this series of posts will help each of you find the gunkholer within.
We loaded up with beer, booze, groceries and cigarettes in Islamorada. A much greater percentage of people smoked in those days (myself included) and Chris who was from Toronto had Export A's which were right up there in intensity and strength with the Gitanes and Gauloises of France. Joe Friedman and I soon thereafter quite smoking with the help of a New York psychologist who used hypnotic therapy. I mention the cigarette pack which was bright, forest green because none of us had navigation instruments and over the next few days the straight edge of the hard pack of Canadian cigarettes became our parallel rule to connect marks on the chart which we gleaned from the red and green navigation markers that mysteriously appeared from time to time. And so was born a new sailor as Kevin wielded the cigarette pack like a surgical instrument and plotted courses that could have taken us to Cartagena if we had let him have his way. These days Kevin is an award winning documentary filmmaker ... Everything you didn't know you wanted to know about Cajun Food. He lives 13 1/2 feet below the levee of Lake Pontchartrain and as a result must be the only person in the world to race his J24 past his own rooftop. Chris drove the boat as he had some experience with power boats on Canadian lakes. I was strictly a sailboat guy and any engine over 8 horsepower was likely to induce vertigo and blood rushing to my brain. I was put in charge of music and played the recently released album by Paul Simon called "Graceland" over and over again at loud volume and I still associate "The Boy in the Bubble" with green, milky water, wind, waves, dolphins and Darryls.
We didn't know it then, but we were zigging and zagging and burning cheap gas to no end in and around the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) that connects Miami to Key West on the "Bayside". Especially after my recent trip I have no idea how we ever found where we were going, let alone how we found our way back. In retrospect, since we weren't really going anywhere, it didn't matter much and we got there (which really was no where), which is entirely consistent with the Darryls' theme of the voyage of the "Roger B".
"It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road"
It is a pleasure to report that on the morning of Tuesday November 19th, 2013, just shy of 26 years later, the water had exactly the same milky green complexion. As with most sailing yarns, this one could go on and on and I need to cut to the quick. Toward sunset of the second day out, we entered the calm bay of Little Buttonwood Sound seeking an anchorage for the night, A very large power yacht was leaving the Bay through the narrow cut at the same time and the Captain shouted across that he had been unable to find a good holding ground for his anchor and thus he was not going to stay the night. The Darryl's of course had no idea what he meant and confidently thought that was his problem. When we threw the anchor off the bow, it disappeared in the ground underwater. BTW, the water wasn't much more than two or three feet deep throughout the sound and one had a clear view to the bottom. With the anchor out of sight, we knew we were good and proceeded to debate all the big issues of the day, drink some whiskey and beer, play poker and retired to our respective bunks.
When I awoke I knew instinctively that something was wrong. The tree branches coming in through the windows were an indication as well. Apparently, we had been blown ashore during the night. During our orientation for the houseboat rental, the manager (and much of the literature) made it clear that any ingestion of mud into the boat motor would result in fatal damage for which the renters' (read Darryls) would be held liable. So one's first instinct which was to gun the sucker out of the mangroves was off the table. I quietly slipped over the stern deck into the water with the hope that I could pull the shallow drafted vessel back out to deeper water before the others awoke and pretend like nothing had happened. Unfortunately I promptly sunk to my armpits in the white muck. Luckily I had hold of a line or I might have been like one of those guys going down the pit in those old Tarzan movies. Always in the back of my mind .
After pulling myself back up on to the deck of the boat and having a discussion with the crew as to our least expensive options we decided to all get in the water and pull the "Roger B" out of the mangroves. Though six of us hauling a line over our shoulders like Volga boatmen ought to have resulted in some advantage none of us could get a purchase in the mud and we were not able to move the boat even an inch. Back aboard, Schwartz opined on the nature of leadership and how any single person could lead five other normally smart people into mud up to their armpits to risk their lives for a rented houseboat. One of my favorite movies of all time is Fitzcarraldo by Werner Herzog in which the protagonist played by Klaus Kinski carries out an audacious scheme to manually haul a steamship across a mountain to link up to an Amazon tributary that flowed to a different watershed in the opposite direction.
Subsequently over the next five or ten years our own little week-end excursion in Florida Bay took on epic proportions with each retelling and we dubbed it "Fitzbernardo" with me cast as either Klaus or Larry depending on how far you wanted to take the metaphor.
Chris radioed the boat charter office, apprised them of "Roger B"'s predicament and they promptly sent out a tow boat, the cash fee for which would be our responsibility. The towing service was called "Blackbeard's Towing" . This is one of the things I like about the Keys. They are populated by iconoclasts, pirates, descendants of marine salvagers, "square grouper" fishermen or just plain folks who tried to get as far south from the rest of our country as they could. Square Grouper the movie they make no bones about the fact that you are about to get robbed so you might as well grin and bear it. When you know its coming and you can accept the fact that getting robbed is merely a one sided commercial exchange that this time is not your favor, its not so hard to swallow. This towing service could have been called Sunshine Towing or Dependable Marine Services, or Acme Towing but no it was named after a pirate and we were about to get robbed. After having agreed to $125 he then charged us $150 ($300 in today's value), because he could to move the boat less than ten yards. Importantly the Darryls' were free to pursue their adventure. We said good bye to Little Buttonwood Sound and headed out into the Bay looking for more adventure.
At this point you need to be reminded that everything I write is true, as this next bit does strain credulity. While at anchor on our last night out in the "Roger B" we were all still awake well into the early morning hours. In the damp, cold, pre-dawn haze, a ghostly figure was spotted coming from behind a neighboring island and walking in the shallow water. Indeed it was an eerie sight worthy of a horror movie as it looked as if the monster of the deep was walking on the water and headed directly for us. Schwartz who often exhibited paranoid symptoms under a wide variety of circumstances was sure this fellow was going to kill us all and hijack our boat. I reassured David that there were six of us and one of him and he was not likely to be successful. We helped the man on board. Apparently he had been out late poaching and his boat engine had broken down and had been stranded. He was soaking wet, his teeth were chattering and he was shaking with the cold of the February night undoubtedly suffering from hypothermia. We wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and offered him a hot cup of coffee which he could barely hold. We asked him his name and he replied "Darryl". Our howls of spontaneous laughter echoed throughout the bay for a very long and awkward time. Subsequently we had to explain to the poor real Darryl that we were not laughing at him but as he had never heard of Bob Newhart he couldn't get the joke and we remained embarrassed until we dropped him at a place along the highway on our way north out of the Florida Keys.
This is my last post of 2013 but you can get a preview of my first project of 2014 by following this link Cape Romano . Between now and February I need to get back to Dismal Key to shoot some video with my new helmet cam. I wish everyone a healthy, happy and prosperous new year and hope that this series of posts will help each of you find the gunkholer within.
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