Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% Society: vanityfair.com

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% Society: vanityfair.com

Mommas....

I was doing chores on the boat last weekend, sweating my ass off in the midday heat chasing down a short in the bilge pump circuit, when an odd, recurring "phoosh" led me up on deck to investigate. In the water, a few feet from Moon, a momma manatee and two calves were making circles around the dock. She looked at me for a moment, measuring the threat that I might pose to her kids, I suppose, and then went back to her lazy loops between the boats.

I went back down below and grabbed the video camera and got a few minutes of her nursing the kids while what might have been daddy manatee drifted nearby. The folks that live in the marina said they hadn't seen her for several weeks, and had assumed she and the babies had moved out of the sound and into the Atlantic.

This momma probably weighs close to a thousand pounds, nearly as much as a full grown grizzly bear, but she and the rest of the manatee clan are quiet and peaceful creatures. They exude an innocence and calm that can be quite tranquilizing, and I spent an hour or so hanging out on the dock watching them paddle around the lagoon. I sprayed some water from the hose for them, and after drinking their fill they headed out toward the sound.

It won't be long before the water here warms up to the point that she'll want to head out looking for cooler places, leading the family through the sound and out into the open water where she'll need to decide whether to head north around the island and into Biscayne Bay or south to the cut at Tavernier Key that leads into Florida Bay and the gulf........

Satellite photos of the Gulf show the slick smearing farther by the day from the location of the leak, and it's only a matter of time before the loop current picks up the oil and sends it toward the Keys. I've read that the oil could reach the Keys by mid-June, and if the flow from the leak doesn't get stopped soon there could be enough oil to cover the seagrass beds and mangroves that are the feeding grounds for manatees like these, as well as all of the birds, fish, turtles, crabs, lobsters, eels, and corals that make the Keys the paradise that it is.

There is certain irony to the fact that this accident happened right before Earth Day, isn't there?

And tomorrow is Mother's day.

A day that we set aside to honor, pamper, and cater to Mothers, whether they are our own or not. I am blessed to have had a kind, smart, funny, and caring mother, and I am certain that most of the good qualities I posess as a person today are due mostly to her good genes and better example. I miss her tremendously, but I feel her presence often......

I'm also lucky to know some amazing, strong women who are exceptional mothers to their own children, and the world is a better place for their presence in it.

There's a sad parallel between Earth Day and Mother's Day, isn't there?....we set aside a day for honor and respect, but too often go back to our normal habits and ignore or forget all of the reasons those special days were created in the first place.

I hope everyone has a happy Mother's Day, including you, momma manatee.

And I hope that we all can remember to make every day Mother's Day, and Earth Day, because they both deserve it, and so do we.....

Night Pour

Sunrise

Sunset

Catching up....again

But enough about me.......

How are you?

Help for Haiti

I read today that more than 200,000 people are thought to have been killed in the earthquake in Haiti, and another 1.5 people million are homeless. It's impossible to sit here and not want to do something to help, so at work we've started a fundraising effort to have some quick impact and have also started brainstorming about other ways to help with the longer term needs. If anyone has any ideas about either approach please let me know. Everybody probably already knows how to donate money for the cause but I added a button for the Red Cross just in case.....

Kids and dogs

Change of command

Saturday was a sad day at the Crazy Cave, friends and neighbors....I rowed out to Reprieve for the last time that morning under a clear blue sky. I've known for a while now that with my move to Orlando there's just no way I would be able to give her the attention she needs. For the last several weeks I've been looking for a new skipper for her, preferrably someone who has kids and loves to sail but just doesn't have the means to get into a boat. With the limited time I'll have in the next three years I'll be spending time on Moon getting her ready for The Trip, and I just can't let Reprieve sit on her mooring without being there to do the maintenance she needs and keep her in good shape....which was made abundantly clear when I got out to her. The pirates had been there some time over the last two weeks, broken the hasp on the companionway, and looted her. They took the outboard, the VHF, the CD player, the batteries, and one of the solar panels. They made off with the portable depth finder and anemometer, the inverter, boat hook, tool boxes, compass, barometer, clock, light fixtures, life jackets, charts, dishes, food, and rum. Damn it they took the rum! They also took a couple of changes of clothes I had stashed in the hanging locker and all the back issues of Latitudes & Attitudes magazine. And left beer cans and cigarrette butts in the cockpit. It hurts, man. It really hurts. It's bad enough that I'm letting her go to someone else, which, corny as it sounds, feels almost like I'm betraying her (although she's going to a good man). But for her to have been violated like this in the last days that she was in my care, after as much fun and escape as she had provided me, just ain't right. I'm not normally one to wish ill to anyone else, but I hope those bastards get drunk on that rum and fall down go boom. They did leave the sals, though. And two anchors and all of the sheets & halyards and the tiller. She still sails! And the man who's taking over her care and command is a good guy, a lifelong Keys person who will enjoy her and take care of her. I'm sure he and his kids will have many adventures on her, and she'll take good care of them along the way like she did for me. It was hard to leave her and row back to shore, but as I watched her shrinking in the distance behind me I remembered the many great sailing days, peaceful nights on the hook out in the bay, and calm afternoons sitting in the cockpit with a book or just daydreaming over the rail.....

Here's a memory, one of many, of sailing her on the bay...it was a beautiful day with winds pushing 20 knots. I had spent the night at Nest Key and was on my way back to the anchorage. She was running free, a reef in the main and the skinny jib on the forestay, perfectly balanced and holding her course like she new the way home.

Fair winds little friend.