Stow away on the Waltzing Matilda

I have a stow away of the rodent variety aboard, not a cute little mouse or a squirrel. I have a smallish black rat that chews things up, has been into the dog food and tried to chew a hole through the companionway drop boards to get out. One night while sailing the rat came up on deck and ran right into Mattie's head, Mattie woke up and just sleepily looked at the thing as it ran back inside. My first trip to shore in Key West I went to a hardware store and bought a rat trap. It was odd looking at the trap section, they had all kinds of “humane” and live animal traps, there was even a selection of electric zappers but the good old fashioned spring one were stashed in the corner and hard to find, but they only cost $4 each. Since I set the trap I haven't seen or heard the rat, hopefully it left my boat and swam to some other place.

It was good to get out sailing again, I hadn't been sailing for two months and I missed the sea. The day I left Islamorada there was no wind at all, the Straits of Florida were mirror smooth and I had to run my motor all day, the only wind was after dark when a squall moved through. I dropped hook I the open to spend the night then headed into Marathon the next day, I knew a cold front was coming in and I don't like nasty weather. Boot Key Harbor is well protected and I stayed there for 36 hours. When I left I had a 6-10kt following wind, not much speed could be made with that so I decided to put up my spinnaker, I've only used it once and want to learn how to use it more. That big sail made a big difference, I was making 4kts during the day then as the sun set the winds picked up and with the tail current I was making 6-7kts! (very fast for Waltzing Matilda). I had already decided to sail in the dark so I had the tide to my tail as I entered Man of War Harbor,as I approached the Key West channel the wind had picked up quite a bit and I realized I had to get the spinnaker down, as I stared slacking that clew lines the spinnaker began to flog and then POW! I broke a halyard, the head of the sail dove into the water and the sail wrapped under my keel. That happened last time too. The moon came up as I made my final turn into the harbor, that made it easier to see the water taxi that almost ran me down, I had the right of way but he had a steel hull and was much heavier, rule of tonnage is one never to break.

I have a much better attitude about Key West this time and am having better adventures because of it. After buying the rat trap I went to Simonton Park beach and drank beer with the homeless guys, I bought the beer and they keep and eye on my bicycle and kayak, it's like the neighborhood watch program. While on the beach I spotted a really cute girl by herself on the pier, well she wasn't by herself when I spotted her, some guy was making really pathetic attempts to hit on her. Mattie was running around like crazy getting covered in sand and kept jumping in the water then rolling in the sand, the cute girl noticed this and as she was leaving I made certain that our paths crossed to get a closer look, she commented about my dog having boundless energy. I spotted her again later at an open air restaurant dining alone, I stopped for a moment and told her to find me when she got done eating and with in the hour she was sitting next to me on my favorite boardwalk bench. This woman was wonderful, recently graduated with a electrical engineering degree and was a great conversationalist, plus she hadn't heard any of my corny jokes. We wound up drinking $1 PBRs at a “No Dogs” bar with Mattie secretly on my lap. I wanted to show her this really funky little locals spot that got surrounded by hotels. We wound up wandering around in the courtyard of the Hyatt looking for the funky place but couldn't find it, we did find a really nice big swimming pool and I was feeling pretty sticky and dirty so swimming was in order. We spent the rest of the evening noisily hanging out on the finger pier near the fancy yachts, the security guard stopped by and asked us to keep our voices down but never kicked us out. We parted ways for the evening and made plans to meet up the next day. I took her for a sunset sail on Waltzing Matilda the next evening and she flew home to start her new job.

Temporary romances are a dandy thing to have and something that has greatly been lacking in this voyage, fond memories of grand adventures should have plenty of romantic interludes.

I'm here for a week then headed back to Islamorada.