Spencer's Boatyard

Robert Duvall's line about "the smell of napalm in the morning" from Apocalypse Now comes to my mind when I pass a working boatyard. I love the smell of drying fiberglass resin, the mixture of dust and copper bottom paint hanging in the air. I like the chaos and the sense of new things rising out of the old and worn. I like boatyards because I know boatyards from many years experience. Ask any boater and they will tell you hauling out is the most stressful part of ownership, watching one's precious hull swaying around in the slings, out of its element. I remember it well, to quote that other movie chestnut, sung by Maurice Chevalier.Spencer's Boatyard lives in a corner of Garrison Bight Marina and it's a left over from a more industrial time in Key West. These days there are three haul out facilities left in the Lower Keys, Spencer's and two on Stock Island. How it is that Spencer's has survived into the 21st century in a town that is remaking its image so rapidly, is a mystery to me. But here it is apparently thriving:Thriving is a word I use advisedly though one can never be sure, but the yard seemed full of work even though the facilities are not "polished"This yellow boat I've seen swinging to a mooring just off the docks at Spencer's and out of the water its lines as attractive as when the boat is floating, and that's a rare attribute:The smooth lines of the shear offset the angular lines of a nearby Swedish built Vega 27, a small sailboat notorious for making long journeys. It doesn't look like much but its an amazing machine, and this one has to be at least 30 years old:One thing about hauling your boat out is when you get to paint that toxic copper bottom paint on the hull to discourage growth the result is instant good looks. I mention this because I am giving my skiff a coat of paint this week in hopes of going swimming next week and I look for the same result. Instant, creamy smooth, improvement:The yard is right off Palm Avenue, the street that bisects Garrison Bight marina with a bridge through the middle. Spencer's is on the north side of the bridge but is blocked from the open water by 50-foot wires at the entrance to Garrison Bight so big sailboats can't get in. But there are big honking motorboats in here awaiting attention:And tell me this massive prop won't be a glowing bronze work of art when it gets cleaned off and fresh green bottom paint is applied to the fiberglass bottom of this beauty:To one side of the yard you will find the Key West Sailing Club which is not the Key West Yacht Club (that's the expensive one!):No this is decidedly not the expensive one. When I lived in the city I was a member for something ridiculous like $10 a month, and I could take out any of their 17-19 foot sailboats for a spin. That was one advantage of living in the city, nowadays I like to be at home and drive my motor boat, which is the advantage of having a dock at your house:And this is also the end of the yard that holds the facilities. The thing is, when someone who lives on their boat hauls out they need to continue to live on the boat- it is their home. Which means they need to do their ablutions in the yard. These facilities were more than usually...rustic:In our years sailing together my wife suffered some pretty gruesome shower blocks but I think this might have been a bit much even for her.

But there again in an active yard everything tends towards the chaotic, including work benches and project areas which are melting pots of paints and chemicals and poisons:And though it may look like chaos to you, to some intrepid boater, in the midst of all the stuff lies a critical component for the very project he is working on in his cabin. So out he pops like a prairie dog, pops down the ladder, grabs the thing, nods to the stranger while exchanging a pleasantry about the weather, and finally pops back out of sight:Indeed checking aloft one can hear the halyards clanking against a nearby mast (a halyard is the rope one uses to raise and lower a sail), a sure sign the wind is picking up:And check out those clouds! This had all the makings of a classic summer squall, the wind got fresher and cooler and small waves starting building across the enclosed waters of the Garrison Bight Lagoon:And the clouds raced across the sky and the waves raced across the water pushing weeds and trash into the seawall at the yard:

Half of me wanted to be snugging down my boat, and then sitting in the cabin listening to rain pelting down on the deck. There's no feeling quite so snug as a decent anchorage or a secure berth when bad weather hits. The rational half of me wanted to get the hell away on the motorcycle before the big fat wet cold raindrops hit from the clouds. The dog wanted me gone too:I got to Mile Marker 9 before I had to stop and put on my waterproofs for the rest of the ride home. And that too is a snug feeling, tucked inside a waterproof cocoon with big heavy slugs of rain splattering down around you and your motorcycle. Different strokes, same good feeling.