Chris and Jay's Odyssey: Friends, Peacocks and Parks

It seems most everywhere we go Jay knows someone he served with in the Coast Guard and south Florida was no exception. We took a couple of days, headed to The Keys and visited with Gary and Jane Nelson whom Jay knew from when he lived on his sailboat in the Virgin Islands. They live in a comfortable home on a canal where Gary keeps his powerboat, for his fishing forays, in the town of Tavernier located just south of Key Largo on Plantation Key. Jane told Chris about lots of places to visit, both in Florida and other parts of the country, one of which was the Miami Zoo. We enjoyed a delicious dinner at a local seafood restaurant, visited with some of their colorful neighbors, one of whom lives in the community across the street that has a grass, aircraft landing strip. The Nelsons recommended we feed the Tarpon fish at Robbie’s Marine and Geological Park, so we headed a little further south and pulled into their parking lot. Unfortunately we were unimpressed with both the food offered at their waterside restaurant and with the fact that we had to pay extra just to walk out on the pier where the Tarpon were fed much less pay for the fish to feed them. So, we said “No thank you” and headed back to the RV Park.

These ladies used their fish to feed the tarpon and the multitude of pelicans that were permanent fixtures on the dock.

On another trip to The Keys we enjoyed spending time with Jay’s friend from St. Thomas, Larry Connor, and his wife Sharon. On the way to their home, we stopped at the gallery of underwater photographer, Stephen Frink. He travels around the globe on assignment for national scuba diving magazines taking photographs for their covers and feature articles. Most of the photos in The Keys Visitor Center magazine were taken by him. Browse bins scattered throughout the gallery contained mounted prints and we were mesmerized by the slide show of his brightly colored images playing on a 42”, wall-mounted TV.

All homes and boats require a certain amount of ongoing maintenance and RVs are no different. We discovered the trees in Savannah not only poked a hole in our roof, but also bent a rod on an awning assembly that covers the kitchen slide. A couple of trips to the RV store for parts and a few hours later we had it repaired. We considered filling the roof cavity with a ship deck prism and the search was on. After Chris scoured the web for one more affordable than $250 and coming up empty, we conned Jessica into driving us to Fort Lauderdale so that we could rummage around the chandleries. We did come across some, but they were either strictly decorative, rectangular and too big, or mounting hardware was not available. The duct tape was holding, so we abandoned the search for the time being.

This resident, RV Park peacock insisted on digging in Chris’ pots of herbs and salad greens.

While in Fort Lauderdale, we dined with Quinn Corbett, a former Virgin Island drinking buddy of Jay’s. Quinn is a cook on a 100’ charter boat that was having the finishing touches completed of adding an additional 12’ to the stern and a complete interior remodeling. He showed us how his brand new magnetic stove top and flush, wall mounted steamer worked. We’d never seen anything like it in an upscale home, much less a boat. The ship chartered for about $50k per week and clients included Matthew McConaughey and other notable celebrities. We went to dinner at a haunt Jay used to frequent in his boating days, of which he raved about the food. Afterward it was obvious to us that it had changed management or at least cook staff because the fare paled in comparison to its former glory.

Where had the month gone? New Years was a few days away and we hadn’t even visited the Everglades, Key West and other attractions in the area. It seemed there was always something else to be done and the month flew by. We knew we could not extend our stay at the RV Park, so we had to start scheduling more fun days.

Jane Nelson had highly recommended visiting the gallery of Clyde Butcher, an internationally acclaimed photographer best known for his Ansel Adams-like black and white, large format photos of the Everglades and the Big Cypress National Preserve. His gallery is less than a mile from the Visitor Center of Big Cypress and we stopped on our way there. Chris was amazed to see photographs of him in the field with his cameras, one of which holds a 14” x 20” negative. The gallery’s walls are covered with dozens of framed 24” x 48” black and white prints of stunning images. Surprisingly they are not giclee prints, but created with traditional darkroom techniques by exposing the negative onto photo paper and processing it just like in the old black and white film days. We saw a photograph of Butcher in his lab doing just that. These spectacular images sold for thousands of dollars each and would be too large for the walls in the average home – at least in ours. Smaller prints were available for sale in both giclee and traditional film processing but the difference in quality was vividly apparent in favor of the film technique.

Big Cypress Preserve is essentially a huge cypress swamp and was fairly anti-climactic for us. We arrived about mid-afternoon, toured the miniscule Visitor Center, and listened to a Ranger talk about alligators, given by a young girl originally from Maryland, as we gazed at several of them sunning themselves on the bank of a small canal below the deck on which we stood. Then we hiked the first few hundred yards of a trail before it was covered by water. Unbeknownst to us there are few roads into the swamp, they are heavily pocked and, unless you don’t care about replacing your suspension, the rangers advise avoiding them. We were told the best way to experience it is by boat. Well, maybe next time….

Some of the alligators as seen from the Preserve deck.

A view of the Preserve from the trail. All that you see stands in shallow water.

We visited Big Cypress and the Butcher Gallery on New Year’s Eve and got home in time to attend the scheduled Beach Party celebration at the RV Park, but being the old fogies that we have become, and feeling a little tired from our day trip, we stayed home New Years Eve and enjoyed a movie. Big finish to 2009, huh?

After the New Year we squeezed in a ranger guided canoe trip before leaving for a few days in Key West with Jessica. So, on a sunny, blustery, unusually chilly day (actually this was beginning to be the norm) we headed to the launch site at Nine Mile Pond in the Everglades. An interesting mixture of a family with two teen-age children, middle-aged and older couples, and single men and women occupied the half dozen canoes of our excursion. Not far into the narrow, twisting channels winding through stands of mangrove, we felt blessed that we’d volunteered to bring up the rear and make sure no one got left behind, as the occupants ahead of us mistakenly thought they were paddling bumper cars. It seemed at every bend in the trail, and there were many, several canoes were engaged in a traffic pileup. There was much laughter associated with these gatherings but, we, being the sailors and boat handlers that we are, failed to be quite as amused as they. After a while we did lighten up and laughed at the absurdity of it all and enjoyed the day immensely.