Spring

There are some people who sniff contemptuously and say that year round summer is all very well but they'd much rather live where there are seasons. These are of course the same people who end up groaning about all the snow and mud that precedes summer. They are welcome to it. I know spring has sprung because my skiff is back at my dock behind my house:Snowbirds like to use their boats during the winter because, poor things, they know no better but the waters are cold, 70 degrees or so (19C) and winter winds ruffle the waters all the time. Far better to haul your boat and devote your time to riding a motorcycle, boating is for the summer months.The hassle is getting the boat ready, and because I leave my 14 foot Dusky in the water all summer long I paint the bottom with anti fouling which requires sanding first, a foul job, and then painting which is almost as bad. Bottom paint is monstrous expensive as it contains copper but I got a couple of tins at sixty percent off this year. It was red which is a bit bright for my taste, but needs must and I slowly covered last year's black leftovers:Luckily I won't be seeing this view too much this summer except when I'm swimming and then I shall cheer myself up by remembering the deal I got on the red bottom paint...
The other rite of spring is changing all the little fiddly bits that make the engine go. I skipped the impeller this year but I may do that later. I did clean the starter which was giving me fits last fall, and I spent a happy hour trying to get the brushes back the way they came out without losing any springs or breaking any wire connections. Eventually it went together and so far the electric starter seems to be working...for now. Luckily my experience with boats is such that I like to go small and simple where possible and three years ago I bought a 25 horsepower Yamaha with a built in pull start so my back up is ready to use any time electrons let me down. And they will, believe me, around salt water electricity goes walkabout all the time. I put my tools away, cleaned up the clean up:And towed the trailer down to the community launch ramp at the end of the street. That's quite the round trip when I'm on my own. It's a bit like ferrying the wolf the lamb and the cabbage across the river. First I tow the boat to the ramp. I leave the car in the lot after the boat is the water. Then I drive the boat down the canal to my dock. I get my bicycle and ride back to the launch ramp. Then I secure the bike to the boat trailer and drive back to my house. Then I park the empty trailer:I give it a fresh water rinse, park it for the summer and rejoice in the knowledge that my boat should be ready to give me six months uninterrupted service:The only problem is that spring has sprung in Florida and that means honking winds are sweeping the islands, as they do until calm and thunderstorms come with the advent of summer. So I have yet to take the boat out into Newfound Harbor for my first swim of 2009. Call me fussy (and I'm sure the winter visitors would) but I hate swimming in rough water. It's not easy coping with Florida's seasons, but we struggle on.

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We were mad to risk it but we went out one windy afternoon and here's an update: the waters were warm and the waves smooth. Our first swim of 2009 was delightful. Not a snowflake in sight and still it was refreshing and invigorating.

Layman's Summary

The San Francisco Chronicle's Sean Olender (what's in a name?) published an article on Sunday April 9th at SFGate, the California newspaper's online home, that pretty much summarises my Obama irritations in easy-to-understand-terms. Here's an excerpt:
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The administration and the banks keep talking about a credit crisis, but there isn't one. Banks are lending. If you want a mortgage and can afford to pay it back, you can borrow at low rates today. You can finance a car at low rates for seven years. But most Americans don't want more debt because it is a debilitating path to poverty. The average American family already pays 14 percent of annual income in interest to banks.
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To fix this fake crisis, there are fake discussions about what the government must do. The endlessly recycled plan to buy "troubled" assets isn't to get banks lending again, because they haven't stopped lending. The plan seeks for taxpayers to buy worthless assets at high prices to absorb rich investors' losses. That's it. It keeps coming back as a different plan, but with that same goal. There is no goal beyond that one goal: keep rich people from taking losses.
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Obama and his economic gurus all chant, "Credit is the lifeblood of the economy," but they don't mean credit. They mean debt. Imagine the president saying, "Debt is the lifeblood of our economy. We desperately need to get more American families deeper in debt." That's what he means, and that's what these bailouts hope to do.
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It's time the President understood that we all understand, that he is screwing us even as he talks about climate change, stem cell research and a nuclear free future. All good stuff, but if we are economic serfs at home none of that means anything at all to us.

Don't Fence Me In

There is a Higgs Park inland of Higgs Beach though it is all part of the Monroe County parks system, and most people refer to the whole complex as Higgs Beach. The County has offered it for free to the city but the the city of Key West has politely declined citing the cost of upkeep. I used to bring Emma here for walks when she was still frisky enough to put one paw in front of the other unaided and we spent many happy hours pottering around and flopping in the shade, my yellow lab with her nose and I with a magazine for amusement. I don't come back much since she died; I have no reason to, but other residents do, they have lots of reasons.The park is open technically from 7am to sunset, and people come and go all the time, by car, looking for a quiet place to park:Some people bring their animals to the dog park:Others walk their dogs around the main body of the park:The dog park was built using private money (sixteen thousand smackers worth as I recall. Oh happy, wealthy days!) a few years ago and it caused a cloud of controversy. Change always does. I wasn't too fond of the idea of breaking up the park into component pieces but I've come to terms with all the fencing. The dog park itself isn't necessarily a place where huge amounts of exercise take place, other than tail and jaw wagging:The dog area is fenced off into two separate spaces, for big dogs and small and they have facilities too for drinking (dogs) and sitting (people):Outside the dog area is a sprawling stretch of grass dotted with some organized activities behind their own fences. Astro City is a kid's playground, a sand box where adults are not allowed unless accompanied by a child:Remember this is the town where there is nothing for children to do...and, they say, not much for adults either! You hear that all the time...They could be out practicing their tennis strokes at the nearby tennis courts, bocce at the bocce ("bocci" in Italian-American) courts across the street, or even if they are alone they can bounce a tennis ball off the practice court here at Higgs Park behind it's own safety fencing:Some people come to walk or run the paved roadway around the edge of the park:Students come to find a quiet spot to do some studying in the sun:Higgs Beach has made a bit of a name for itself as the place where "local subjects" come to hang out. With the whole country (planet) going through grim economic times it's not very nice to pick on homeless people but in Key West there is a certain population of vagrant types who better fit the description of hobos- traveling homeless people who hang out in public places and enjoy the amenities provided by the county and city - soup kitchens, free sleeping areas and so forth. Enough of these travelers have taken over the picnic tables at the beach that the county, in whose jurisdiction the park lies, has stationed a Sheriff's Deputy to keep order. There has been a pretty much permanent winter encampment at this table in the park since I can remember:But as I wandered the park one recent afternoon before work I saw lots of empty picnic tables available for anyone to use across the park:One step up the social ladder, if you can call it that, are the winter visitors who enjoy living out of their vehicles and they too spend daylight hours parked around Higgs Beach:Others park their cars while they..walk their dogs... ...some buggers park their motorcycles under the palm trees, imagine that!...while some mobile snowbirds get onto the whole camping out in winter ethic:Every time I mention coconut palms Scooter in the Sticks marvels which makes me rather self conscious about these non native trees. But their hairy fruit is available all over the place for those that want fresh coconut:The mature trees around my house are producing massive great clumps of nuts too, so pretty soon I'll be drinking more coconut milk than I can decently manage. Monroe County has left over coconut chippings apparently:I'm thinking about hitching up the trailer to the Nissan, not the Bonneville, and picking some up for myself. Higgs Park is also where the county keeps their maintenance fleet. In some places large wheeled vehicles like these are a common sight. But as there's no agriculture in the Keys tractors are mostly used for stuff like beach clean up, not ploughing fields. In front of the tractors you'll see the horse shoe courts for people to use, unless they get the idea there's nothing to do in Key West:There's a back entrance to Higgs Park from Casa Marina Court which is open 24 hours- not wide enough to get a car through after they lock the main gate on White Street at 7 pm, but big enough for a scooter or even a Bonneville with some care and no saddlebags:Making my way back to the parked Triumph I passed the bird sanctuary, which is a pond in summer when it rains, and a muddy depression in winter when it doesn't:And then in the middle of the park is one final fence surrounding a shed and an antenna which is some sort of beacon for the airport or something. It seems a bit old fashioned in the age of GPS but I have no clue about these things:I guess the Feds get a bit snippy of you mess with their beacons, as would I if you were to do the same to the Bonneville. It was untouched when I returned after my circuit around the park:Looking good I thought.

Sailing Like Gentlemen

The fact is, when people tell you they're "going sailing" they are in point of fact "going motoring." Landlubbers are frequently astonished to learn sailboats have engines at all. I refrain from pointing out that technically speaking a sailboat is known to the authorities as an "auxiliary sailboat." That is to say, it has an engine to help things along when the breezes fails. Which is quite often as it happens. Furthermore most people know that a sailboat can't sail straight into the wind, so there is an arc of about one hundred degrees wherein you have to use your auxiliary to make progress. For those of you trigonometrically challenged there are three hundred and sixty degrees in a circle so a sailboat can only sail in approximately 260 of them at any one time. If you start to add up the amount of time the wind isn't blowing with the amount of time you want to go in the direction from which the wind is blowing you discover to the amazement of the sailing novice that more often than not the engine is running while the auxiliary sailboat is under way. Which thought puts me in mind of sails I have taken and enjoyed..

......................................................... Racing Catalina 22. ..............................................................

My wife had been out sailing before I met her and after we got married I hatched a great plan to get her back out on the water. We bought a Catalina 22, a basic modest sailboat with a large open area (cockpit) and a small cabin. It was well used but came with a competent 7.5 horsepower Honda outboard to provide the critical auxiliary power. I got in the habit of quitting work in the afternoon (I was the morning news reader at a radio station which got me out of bed at an ungodly hour) and instead of taking a nap I rode my Yamaha down to the harbor and took my Catalina out of the slip. It was a perfect boat for one, easy to handle and no trouble at all. By early afternoon in summer the northwest winds are howling down the California coast produces big waves and bigger swells and giving the warm air a cool breath from the icy ocean waters up north.

.........................................................Capitola, California..................................................................

Outside the exposed entrance to the Santa Cruz harbor lies a point known as Steamer Lane famous in surfing circles and this knob of land gives meager protection to small boats sailing between the harbor and municipal wharf a half mile to the north. My plan was to turn south to Capitola five miles away, sail south with the northeast winds behind me, drift through the anchorage looking at boats in the protected waters off Capitola Beach, and by the time boredom set in the evening land breeze would kick in producing east winds out of the Salinas Valley. Those evening breezes pushed me back to the harbor before dark, where I could step off the boat and be home before my wife got out of her law office. ...............................................Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor Entrance........................................

One Sunday afternoon after I'd had the boat a little while we both went sailing. The wind was honking but I was confident we'd have a pleasant afternoon out on the water. We motored out through the harbor breakwaters our mainsail (the one at the back) reflecting white in the pale afternoon sun and as soon as were out I put the tiller between my legs and raised the foresail (the one in front) quickly and efficently. I pushed the tiller to the left, turned the boat to the beach and allowed the sails to fill. I turned around to turn off the outboard and pull it out of the water ( for greater sailing efficency) when I felt the Catalina heel (lean) sharply. The wind was kicking up. By the time I was facing forwards the boat was creaming towards the beach both sails ballooning from the force of the wind that was now blowing from astern (from the back). Shit! I said out loud to a sharp look from my wife. Oh nothing dear. I threw the tiller over and let the sheets go, the sails ballooned some more as the ropes keeping them taut suddenly went slack, and the boat turned back towards the wharf.

.............................................................Santa Cruz Wharf...................................................................

I pulled in the sheets tightening up the sails. The boat started to heel most alarmingly. We ploughed wildly towards the wharf, pushing aside the waves thundering underneath heading towards crashing destruction on the beach to our right. The boat leaned over further and further, my wife's eyes got bigger and bigger and pretty soon we were standing almost vertically in the boat, leaning back against the bench with our feet braced on the opposite side of the cockpit. I held the sheets in my hands, ready to let go and release them from their respective clamps should things get any stronger. The tiller was fighting me like a very annoyed mule kicking me in the groin and swinging wildly keeping time with the waves pushing under the boat. Great isn't it? I said through gritted teeth but my wife's brain power was taken up by what was showing through her eyes and she could only nod mutely. I wondered what to do next. The usual northwest wind had obviously backed a little and instead of being deflected by the headland was blowing straight into the harbor mouth and pushing all before it. The Catalina kept going and I watched the rigging wondering which piece would go first under the awful strain and awhat would I do when it did.

And then suddenly we were in the wind shadow, the lee of the point and rather than go crashing helpless into the side of the wharf we levelled off and started to slow down. I threw the tiller over as soon as we regained our footing, took a tack around the end of the wharf and sailed splendidly into the calm blue waters off Cowell's Beach. Families were picnicing, toddlers were splashing in the tiddler sized wavelets lapping the sand. All was well with the world. My wife grinned at me and said that was fun. I would have been scared if you hadn't loooked so happy. For once in my life I was tongue tied and limited myself to nodding cheerfully while I tried to look busy with the slack sails and dormant tiller. It was years before I told her it was among the hairiest rides I'd ever taken. Previously, sailing single handed I had composed myself to die like a gentleman as suggested in the sailing literature, whenever things got out of hand. My wife made it clear she has never had any ambition to die like a gentleman, and would appreciate my cooperation in seeing to it. Thus it was we motored a lot more and sailed a lot less than we might have done and I found it easy not to blame myself for our motoring habit. I was just being a good spouse I'd tell myself as I reached for the starter button, suppressing the innate adventurer as I rolled up the foresail, who would otherwise much prefer, he says, to sail on his ear.

(Photos are stock non copyright photos as I have temporarily mislaid my own supply of sailing pictures.)

Garrison Bight By Night

My wife stopped by work and because she has gotten so much grief previously for not bearing gifts when she comes by the Police Station she had the great good sense to call ahead and asked what we needed/wanted. It was not a stimulating evening in police dispatch, after two weeks of riotous spending, Spring Break appears to have fizzled out, so I was very grateful for the large con leche. The side effect was that at two am I was hardly in the mood to compose myself for a nap, the coffee combined with eighteen hours sleep on my night off...so I went out and took pictures.When in doubt photograph the Bonneville. I decided to walk around Garrison Bight Marina and see what I could see. (If you want daytime pictures check March 23rd 2008 or use the search function because there are lots of entries for this body of water). The Palm Avenue Bridge is a convenient high point on a flat island. Crossing it though, means taking your life into your own hands as thirty miles per hour (50km/h) is just a suggestion at two in the morning:The view from the top makes New Town look quite delightful at this ungodly hour:The view underneath the bridge is a bit more eerie. Without flash:Worse yet, with flash!The navigation light designed to keep boats off the bridge supports was dark and leaped out at me in the reflection from the flash. I dislike flash lighting, perhaps because mine is a basic integral flash unit and I'd rather use the gorilla pod to allow for a slo-o-o-w shutter speed.Around Key West it's known for obvious reasons as the "Fly Navy" building but it's official title is the Bachelor Officers Quarters. It's an enormous pile clearly visible across the city from the upper decks of a cruise ship docked at the Westin pier. Garrison bight is home to the relatively new dinghy docks that are where people who live on the city moorings on the flats to the north make their connection to land. A new shower block is being installed and splendid floating docks provide secure dockage for dinghies ( if they are properly locked):Curt and I had a few escapades around here in the good old days long before the city offered moorings and docks for our dinghies. Harrr, in them days (the late eighties) we made our own moorings and snuck the dinghies in where we could (the bushes across from Burger King were a good spot) and we talked like pirates. Not really but it was fun for a while to live on the fly in Key West. Nowadays there is city sanctioned parking for scooters and bicycles:
And even this ghastly contraption, a Chinese attempt at catching the brief craze for covered scooters. It actually runs and I've seen it around town, but whether it keeps the rain off I couldn't say. I hope it does because in the aesthetics department it is decidedly lacking:Back to the water, a quick shot of the boats on the seawall:A splash of color in the night (I kind of assumed they were empty, but anyway I'd just filled the Triumph at the all night gas station):And back to work where I discovered to my annoyance that all hell had broken loose briefly while I was out at lunch. I was glad I had a pleasant hour taking some random pictures to make up for missing the excitement.

Vespa Commute

I've found that it doesn't much matter which vehicle I use to get to work, be it the car, the motorcycle or my wife's Vespa 150. I pretty much have to leave the house by ten minutes after the hour to get to work by ten minutes before the hour, door to door. The only exceptions are middle of the night rides for overtime when I'm on the Overseas Highway when most people are one hopes, asleep. Those are the times I can ride straight through and knock a few minutes off the commute. Passing doesn't do much overall, as one tends to get held back further up the road by another clump of cages ambling along admiring the scenery and failing to get a move on. Of course passing is fun but that's another sotry.So I decided to be a bit more conscious of the differences between commuting by Triumph or by Vespa ET4 on my 26 mile stretch of Highway One. I enjoy riding the Vespa and as my wife has been having some work related shoulder problems she hasn't left it at work and I've been taking advantage of it under the house to ride it around a bit. The ET4 has become something of a Vespa classic as it was the first automatic four stroke Vespa built by the company known for it's manual shift two stroke workhorses. At the time it was a radical Vespa and thus much criticized by a lot of people including myself.My wife's alabaster 2004 150cc is no longer built though the engine and transmission are still used in it's replacement the LX 150 (LX is 60 in Roman Numerals and is designed to denote the Italian factory's 60th anniversary). The LX 150 has an eleven inch front wheel which has to make the front end of the Vespa a lot less twitchy, and I have to say that's the first thing I notice when I transition from the Bonneville to the ET4, the front wheel feels very light. Which doesn't stop me from riding it altogether too fast, shown here indicating 56 uphill over the Niles Channel bridge:The distinctive oval headlight is reproduced in the slightly weird flying saucer shaped handlebar cover which contains the speedometer, fuel gauge and a selection of idiot lights. The headlight is quite powerful enough for night riding which is good for me as half my commute is in the dark. I have always enjoyed having a windshield on my motorcycles, and I use a 22 inch Parabellum on the Triumph. For the Vespa I bought an Italian Cuppini shield which isn't very big but it does push much of the wind aside and seems to make the scooter a little faster on the flat. However a full size windshield on a scooter with just twelve horsepower would rob it of a lot of speed especially into the wind so this has to be a compromise. My wife likes it and notices the relief it gives from wind in her chest too.We bought the ET4 in 2005 for around $3500 as I recall, when our house was worth a lot more too, halcyon days! It had 240 miles on the clock and was fully accessorised, with top case, floor mat lock and helmet. I think the woman who owned it dropped it at slow speed as we subsequently found a minor dent in the steel leg shield and I suspect she simply lost her nerve. Her loss is our gain and we now have nearly 6,000 miles on this little gem:

I was buzzing home from work last weekend and I got stuck behind a car doing just around 50 something miles an hour (the Vespa speedo is about ten percent optimistic). The big drawback to a 150cc engine is that it is almost impossible to pass a vehicle that is just under the limit. Sometimes the distances are just too short and other times the asshole, realising he is being passed by a moped, speeds up and makes for a chaotic moment on the highway. In this case I stopped at the gas station at the end of my street to fill up (1.7 gallons/ 7 liters of premium) and the car I had been tailing pulled up too. The driver got out and started staring at the scooter.

"How many miles to the gallon do you get? " he asked, the usual opening question.

"About 70, " I replied though my full, face helmet. The lack of a full windshield prompts me to wear a full face helmet on the Vespa.

"And you can cruise at 60 miles per hour?" he said, leaving the question hanging.

"Evidently," I replied, putting the pump away. I'd been following him since Mangrove Mama's and he knew I'd had no problem keeping up. Harley Riders hate it when they find themselves tailed by the pansy little scooter:

And sometimes people in cars, ignoring the fact I'm doing 60 will pull ahead just not to get stuck behind a stupid scooter. One of my colleagues coming into work one evening in his police cruiser pulled alongside at a traffic light on Stock Island and rolled down the window. " Hey, that thing goes pretty fast!" he said. I'm sure the other drivers watching the exchange thought I was in trouble for some reason. What they didn't know was I have the ability to make his life hell all night if I feel like. I was amazed he recognized me in my helmet riding my wife's scooter, but cops are smart like that.Happily it's hard to break the speed limit in a 55mph zone on a Vespa 150, so I hadn't been breaking the law in front of him, but he was surprised at how well I could keep up on the four lane section of Highway One. Vespas, even simple carburetted ones like the ET4, are fast as well as solid and comfortable. And the ET4 also sports weird oval mirrors:

Plus the scenery is just as good from the seat of Vespa as from that of a Bonneville or even a Harley:

And then I get to look out of the Communications Center windowat the top of the Police Station all night and see my little cream colored Vespa 150 ready to take me home:

I like the Bonneville because it has the ability to pass others easily, it doesn't notice headwinds and it engenders more respect from other road users. But the Vespa makes a welcome change from time to time and I'm really glad my wife enjoys owning and riding it so we can justify having it in our lives. It's definitely a keeper.