Swallow the (Captain) Hook

Well, we made it.  Sorry to leave ya’ll hanging (from the old days of serial novels when they would leave the protagonist hanging by his fingernails from a cliff –cliffhanger- and you would have to wait til next month to buy the next installment to find out what happened).  We are all safe and cozy at Eastern Shore marina (it’s a working marina so we feel right at home) across Mobile Bay from Mobile in a little burg called Fairhope on the banks of Fly Creek. The Fly Creek Café is a stone’s throw away (I wonder:  how big does a stone have to be to be a rock?),  with colored lights and a guitar man in the evening.  How quaint. Fairhope was organized in 1894 by the “Fairhope Single Tax Colony”, followers of Henry George and his single tax philosopy:  “Single Taxers hold as a self-evident truth (I wonder: isn’t truth always self-evident even though we can’t handle it?)  that all men have equal rights to the use of the earth…)”.  Google this- it’s interesting- although it smacks of dirty rotten low-down Marxism. 

     Jan is in Norco, LA (just west of Nawlins) playing nursemaid to her brother Gary who is quite sick.  The Decker’s are some of the finest people I know- Gary, who suffers his afflictions with courage and (mostly) good humor ( even though being a diabetic he can’t have ice cream), and Jan, who always thinks of others before herself.  The salt of the earth ( oh, Jan can’t have salt). "Life is mostly froth and bubble/ Two things stand like stone: /kindness in another's trouble,/ Courage in your own." I’m very busy sanding and painting the masts in preparation for erecting them ( I avoided that one, Bill).  Then we’ve got to tune the rigging, work over the engine, fix the shower drain, get charts, etc. etc.  So we think we’ll swallow the anchor here in Fairhope for a few weeks instead of cruising west past Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, Cat Island, Lake St. Catherine, Lake Pontchartrain, to N.O.  From here, we’ll probably cruise east along the Fla. panhandle to Carrabelle or so, and then go offshore to Venice, Fla. to miss the lowlands of the Fla. armpit, home of the great institution FSU- Go Seminoles. It’s just possible that the 35 knot NW winds and 9’ seas of the past weeks have had a sobering effect on me (which is very good) and instilled a desire to have everything shipshape before we wander out on the Gulf.  Bawwk- bawkk- buk- baawwk.  

"Wah IS that thing"

Barefootin this is fun!'

This is no fun

Dave earns his moniker

Jan's fixer-upper

Here pelican watching is a great pastime and we saw dolphins on the trip over.  People’s are fishing here alla time.  One night I saw a guy on the dock with a bright light shining down in the water and he was pulling a fish up with every cast.  Most he’d toss back but a few were keepers. I must go to school on this salt water deal.  Unless something exciting happens at the docks here it might be a few weeks until we slip our moorings and continue this saga.  In the meantime all of you stay warm and be good.  If you can’t be good be careful.  Peace, out.             D&J   abd S/V Visitor