Intermissions
One thing I did not expect from this experience was how much the intervals between the sailing would be part of the sailing.
We left Saint Mary’s inlet in Georgia one day at noon and sailed down the coast of Florida. On the first night we saw a SpaceX rocket taking off from Cape Canaveral. We sailed all that next day and night and arrived at the Ft. Pierce inlet as the sun was rising. Tim’s sister Monica and her husband Charlie came out to the jetty at dawn to watch us come in, and welcomed us warmly with fresh donuts and coffee, not to mention a social welcome party. It was a very sweet landing. We left Billy at their house in Vero Beach and flew north for some Christmas time on land in New England.
Billy on the dock in Vero
In January we returned to Vero. We dropped into the quotidian life of another family. Last spring, it was our friends Brian and Alison and Jackson in Portland, Maine, while we readied Billy Pilgrim for this voyage. In October it was Tim’s parents, Tom and Sue, in Annapolis. Now it was Monica, Charlie, and their daughter Isabel. They were extremely tolerant and generously provided us with a comfortable set-up at their house. The boat was cozy on a dock in the backyard, so we could work on it during the day. We changed the oil; we added a satellite phone; we tended to a dozen other items on our maintenance list: recalcitrant pumps and neglected surfaces. Dolphins and manatees visited the dock; pelicans plummeted from the skies occasionally to snag a stray mullet. Inside the house we had our own cushy suite; we were loaned cars; we shared delicious meals. I even got the joy of communing with their cherub of a dog, Rico. But what was particularly charming was being able to watch Tim and Monica, adult siblings, savoring the luxury of time for extended conversations. They could wander in and out of topics, sometimes interrupted by dinner prep and phone calls, but they could then return to reminiscing their way room by room through their grandparents’ house, the feel of the flocked wallpaper, the angle of the recliner, the location of the Christmas tree. I heard stories that Tim had related decades before emerging from Monica’s mouth, two witnesses to a shared history with divergent conclusions. It was a beautiful thing.
Miami bound
We left before it was too much of a good thing, and headed south, one more overnighter. In the middle of the night we passed the part of Florida where I had lived for a significant chunk of my life. It was hard to recognize landmarks in the dark from a few miles offshore, but certainly gave me something to reflect on there in the wee hours. By the time we were off Miami’s South Beach, the water was glowing aqua. Miami is really a place unto itself. We navigated Government Cut, past the little ferries sprinting between the MacArthur Causeway and the very exclusive Fisher Island (where Oprah and Julia Roberts, among other celebrities have lived). We could see downtown Miami in the distance, the steel trojan horses that lift the containers off ships in the port, and the cavalcade of behemoth cruise ships in the foreground. They are the size of vast tenement buildings, and it’s hard to imagine a less appealing way to travel during a pandemic, but clearly people are willing to do it.
That first ship is .19 nautical miles long.
At the end of the channel where the cruise ships ingest their passengers, we got turned around by the Miami Marine Patrol boat. I don’t know if they were worried the ships might inadvertently crush us, or that we might have nefarious plans, but either way we had to go all the way back past the ships again, so I don’t know how that helped anything. Eventually we made our way under a series of bridges and around to anchor by the Miami Yacht Club. Our friends Jenny and Hans are members there, and we were happy to have a comfortable place to land. Yacht is a very tricky word. It conjures images of the bemonacled Monopoly guy, or Thurston Howell III. And it can be that, but it can also be a humble little sloop like Billy Pilgrim. The Miami Yacht Club is definitely not a snooty organization; it’s as comfortable as well-worn jeans. We had a base from which to experience Miami, wifi, and a place to shower (it’s always a bonus if we don’t have to spend Billy’s water supplies!). We got Covid tests (negative) and spent quality time with our friends (positive!). We celebrated Hans’ birthday at a spectacular restaurant (Red Rooster) with amazing food and world-class art on the walls. We had sweet and powerful Cuban coffee. We ate a fabulous lunch with a dear friend at Versace’s erstwhile mansion on South Beach. We saw all ethnicities and sizes of people wearing all kinds of wondrous colorful and body-positive outfits. And everywhere we went, there was a soundtrack of pulsing club music. Miami is its own special world.
And to set ourselves up for our pending crossing to the Bahamas, we left the Miami Yacht Club to tank up with diesel and water. It perhaps would have been a better errand for a weekday: we ended up out and about on a sunny Saturday in Biscayne Bay. All around us were enormous slick and sometimes sinister power boats, decks littered with well-oiled bodies, music throbbing from each hull. Swarms of jet skis buzz in and out between boats like jacked-up mosquitos. There are conflicting wakes coming from all directions; there’s impatience at bridge openings. The regular rules of the watery road don’t seem to matter. We got our tanks filled and navigated the insanity of vessels until we found ourselves a relatively tranquil spot to anchor. It took us a little moment to calm our nerves from the clangor of the day. We have to get our hearts in order and ready to cross the Gulf Stream and enter an entirely different world.
This is what we came for.
