Purple Golf Cart: The Misadventures of a Lesbian Grandma (15 page)

I requested this move to Key West from my company. Several of the people in the office where I worked in Jacksonville used cocaine. It felt too risky for me to stay there. I was never a drug user, had never even seen cocaine, and didn’t want to be around people who were using it, especially when it put my livelihood in jeopardy. My company had recently hosted a retreat in Key West which rekindled my desire to live there. We had clients there but no office or staff, so I requested the transfer which was granted. (Tough work but somebody had to do it!) My houseboat would serve as the company base of operation.

I was excited about moving to Key West. I loved that island, the one place where I felt whole, felt connected to my self and my space. And I was as excited about the trip itself as I was about the prospect of being in the Keys. Mmmmmm….I could taste key lime pie every time I thought of this adventure. I couldn’t wait to get started.

My boat wasn’t exactly outfitted for a trip of this length. I had no radio, no depth sounder, no anchor for the grassy bottom of the Keys. I didn’t know these were important items—yet. I had passed the Coast Guard captain’s license course, received a license to pilot a 50 ton vessel (how big is THAT???), and was now a commercial captain who was totally, thoroughly inept. Miley and I stocked the
Curious Wine
with what we thought were the essentials, a case of Captain Morgan spiced rum and a case of merlot. We had plenty of food, a full tank of drinkable water, an empty holding tank for the toilet, and several reserve tanks of gas.

We also had a couple of four-legged pirates aboard. Farley, of course, was the resident working cat. And Fluffy, Miley’s mother’s dog. We had custody of Fluffy because Miley’s mom was once again vacationing in Florida’s Lowell Prison for Women due to her ongoing problem with embezzlement. Fluffy, we were assured, was trained to do his business on paper. He wasn’t, which was a big logistical problem as we slowly made our way south down the Intracoastal Waterway, the ICW.

We left Jacksonville Beach Marina at 7 A.M. on a Monday and pulled into the St. Augustine Marina around 4 P.M. that afternoon. The ICW is very narrow between Jacksonville and St. Augustine, almost wild and pristine. There weren’t many houses built up at the waterfront, just quaint old-timers fishing off rickety docks, waving their weather-beaten hats in our direction as we passed by. It was a perfect day—well, except for that sailboat incident that morning. Our first night out was spent docked at the municipal marina in the Old Town area of St. Augustine, just under the Bridge of Lions.

We might have been able to get farther down the ICW than St. Augustine that first day but we had to stop to walk Fluffy—on dry land—twice! Fluffy, as it turns out, had absolutely no interest in pooping or peeing on paper. Walking Fluffy meant we had to find an island in the ICW or dock at a public marina, then encourage ol' Fluff until his job was finished. Docking and going ashore was easy. Finding an island proved more challenging because we had to throw anchor, inflate the 12’ dingy, and row to Fluffy’s personal potty stop. Every day, all the way down the ICW to Key West. Ten days. Damn picky dog!

The ICW is a protected waterway with a 12-foot ditch in its center, dug out by the U.S. Corp of Engineers to accommodate large private yachts that traveled up and down the eastern seaboard of the U.S. The mainland is on the western side of the ICW while Florida’s barrier islands—Jacksonville Beach, St. Augustine Beach, Daytona Beach, West Palm Beach, Miami Beach, and other “beaches” in-between—line the ICW on the eastern side. There are only a few areas along the ICW where open ocean is visible. We didn’t go there.

Our second night out was spent in the Daytona municipal marina. Again, another lovely day on the ICW with nothing more serious than trying not to kill the dog that kept needing to pee. On day three we found ourselves in the widest part of the ICW, the Cocoa Beach and Cape Kennedy/Canaveral area. We could see the launch pads of the Cape, disappointed that there were no rockets attached at that time. A pod of dolphins swam along side the
Curious Wine
, almost as an escort through the wide, somewhat choppy Indian River which is the name of the ICW at that particular point. By mid-afternoon we entered Sebastian Inlet and down a very narrow jungly waterway that reminded us of The African Queen adventure with Bogey and Bacall. I was Bogey. Miley was Bacall.

“Hey! Ol’ cap’n drivin’ this bath tub. I’m crazy ‘bout ya.” Miley was not much of a Bacall but I appreciated her efforts.             

“Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.” I raised my glass to her, never mind that it was from an entirely different film.

We docked at Vero Beach Marina for the night. It was that evening that our small Honda generator quit. I don’t know why. It just died. Its death was unfortunate because it kept the refrigerator, coffee pot, and other kitchen appliances working while we were under way or anchored out at night. (In marinas, though, we simply plugged into the dockside electricity.) Luckily, we still had plenty of Captain Morgan and wine which needed no refrigeration.

We had turned off the clocks and removed our watches before we left Jacksonville, deciding to eat, sleep, and wake whenever we felt like it, when our bodies said it was time, and not by clocks that guided our work-a-day lives. Miley continued her nudie tanning atop the boat as she had that day on the St. Johns River when we were buzzed by Navy jets and 12-year old boys in a sailboat regatta. It was an effective method of getting the draw bridges to rise—erections, if you will—without ever needing to radio, which was validation that a radio, or rather, the expense of a radio, just wasn’t necessary.

Smacking into a couple of boats notwithstanding, I had one serious near-miss on the way to Key West and one actual accident while in Key West. The near-miss happened as we were cruising through West Palm Beach. The ICW is narrow there with multi-million dollar homes on either side of the waterway. Each home has a cement seawall at the base of the property. A very large and sleek deep-sea fishing yacht, maybe 60’ in length, whizzed past us, illegal in that low-wake zone. Jumbo jack-ass was going way too fast, his wake bouncing off the cement walls and coming back into the waterway, tossing my pontoon houseboat around like a cow in a tornado! Things went flying. Dishes broke. Fluffy pooped—finally—on the paper (and the carpet). There was no name on that boat and no state-required license numbers so I figured it for a drug runner. Welcome to South Florida. Luckily, except for a few tossed items and some shot nerves, we were okay.

We had left Jacksonville on a Monday morning. It was now Friday afternoon as we cruised into the Miami section of the ICW—Biscayne Bay. I knew I didn’t want to be out on Miami’s main channels on the weekend—too many boats—so we spent the weekend at the Miami Beach Marina.

I remember Miami Beach Marina from my childhood. My grandparents lived just blocks from it on Bay Road, just off Alton in South Beach. I’d often walk down to the Marina and marvel at all the boats back then. Big ones, little ones, sail boats, power boats. The Port of Miami is there as well, just inside the channel to the Atlantic Ocean, called Government Cut. The north side of the Cut is the southern-most tip of Miami Beach where Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant still operates. That area is all condos now but back in my childhood it was the famous Miami Beach Race Track where my Dad bet on the horses that, he says, put me through college. The south side of Government Cut is the elite Fisher Island. I loved to watch the big cruise ships and the small private boats move to and from the ocean as I sat on the docks in the marina as a kid—and now here I was, on my own boat in that same fascinating place.

We pulled into the Miami Beach Marina late in the afternoon. An adorable young Caribbean guy named Billy helped us at the dock. After trying to maneuver into the designated slip, and smacking into yet another big-ass sailboat, I finally got the boat docked for the weekend. Once settled, I collected the materials I needed to do fiberglass repair to fix the two holes in my pontoon. (I could have used a book entitled Fiberglass Work for Dummies but this was years before the Dummies series.)

Billy, it seemed, was smitten with Miley. She was an attractive sailor with a hearty cleavage, a great smile, and a deep all-over tan on her small body. By dinner time, a dozen roses had been delivered to the
Curious Wine
for Miley from Billy. She invited Billy aboard the boat to explain the, uh, situation.

“Billy,” she started slowly. “The flowers are beautiful and you’re so sweet, but, uh, Ronni and I are together.”

“Isn’t she your mother?” Billy innocently asked. Miley’s words had not registered, but Billy’s did. I could have killed him!

“Oh no, my mother’s in prison. Ronni’s my lover.”

“Oh… OH! Oh shit! I feel so stupid.” Even with his beautiful mocha skin, we could see him blush.

“Oh, no, Billy, it’s okay. Stay for dinner!”

“Stay for dinner? Is it, uh, okay with Ronni?” Sure, why not? I thought. I can poison you.

He stayed. He even helped me with the fiberglass repair work. We actually had a lovely evening as the sun set over the skyline of downtown Miami. Billy regaled us with stories of his adventures in the Caribbean, and we told him what it was like to be a couple of lesbians on the water.

We continued on our way on Monday morning, actually getting out of the marina without mishap. We cruised south on Biscayne Bay, past Bayfront Park where I used to watch the fishing boats as a kid, past downtown Miami, and the fabulous Viscaya residence of American industrialist James Deering who lived there in the early 1900s. We stayed to the right of the channel where the water was rather shallow, making it easy to see the flora and fauna swimming beside us as we made our way past Homestead and into Card Sound. 

Unlike Biscayne Bay, the ICW in Key Largo is very narrow. The houses on either side of the channel are quaint, seafaring-looking, almost like a colorful tropical fishing village. It was nearly dark when we got to Tavernier Key so we decided to throw anchor in the Tavernier hurricane hole for the night. Hurricane holes are generally places near land surrounded by mangroves or other trees where boaters could anchor or tie up and be safe from big storms. Anchor space surrounded by mangrove trees, as this spot was, worked well in the Keys. I threw anchor and we settled in for the evening, toasted our good fortune, then went to bed.

In the middle of the night, as we slept soundly, there was a jolt and a loud CRASH! Something banged against the side of the boat! We jumped up from bed, stomachs in our throats, trying to figure out what in hell was going on! Fluffy barked like crazy. Farley flew under the couch.

The moon was full so it was easy to see what had happened. Our anchor hadn’t held so we crashed into a stand of mangroves. I used the wrong anchor! It couldn’t bite into the sand as it was designed to do because the sand was completely covered in long grasses. I needed a different type of grass-holding anchor. I didn’t have one. Who knew?

There were at least twenty wrecks in that hurricane hole, according to the nautical charts. We were incredibly lucky that we didn’t get our anchor hooked on one of those old wrecks, that we didn’t float out into the open waterway, that there was no damage to anything but our nerves. After we surveyed the incident, I started the engine and drove us to the nearby condominium that backed up to the hurricane hole. It had a dock with a sign that read Private! No trespassing! No docking unless you live here! I docked. We slept outdoors on the roof of the boat, taking watch turns, just in case someone called the police. As soon as the first ray of light was visible, we were out of there!

From Tavernier, the ICW opens up, with U.S. 1 and the Atlantic Ocean to the left as we headed toward Big Pine Key and ultimately Key West. The expanse of water to our right—Florida Bay—was as far as the eye could see and as turquoise, almost white, as you can imagine. We saw pods of dolphin along the way and even schools of flying fish.

“Miley! Look! Over there! Flying fish!” They weren’t actually flying. They looked more like they were scurrying on top of the water for maybe 50 yards before diving back down into the waves which were really just ripples.

“Ronni, I think it finally happened. Sun stroke. You need a rest. I better drive for a while. You take a nap. Get out of the sun.” I wasn’t IN the sun! I was inside the boat where the pilot station was situated.

“No! Really! Watch! Flying fish!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah….Wait! Hey! You’re right!”

Later that day, a good distance from land, we threw anchor, took off our clothes—what little we were wearing—and went swimming in the warm tropical salt water of the Keys.

Farley was doing pretty well on the trip. He had his litter box and his food so he was content. Luckily for Fluffy, there were many mangrove islands along the way where we could tie up and walk him on the sand. He didn’t like it much but he did his business on cue. As we continued toward Key West on our second day out from Miami, Fluffy let us know he needed to go. The only place in sight was a small island next to U.S. 1—Ohio Key. It was too shallow to pull the
Curious Wine
up to the shore, and there were way too many jellyfish to try to safely walk to shore (which we usually did in the Keys), so we inflated the dinghy as we’d done all the way down the ICW from Jacksonville to Miami. Miley and I carefully got into the dinghy, Miley holding a squirming Fluffy while I tried to keep us balanced. Neither Miley nor I relished the idea of coming into contact with all those jellyfish. Fluffy, however, must have thought they were pretty interesting because he stood on the very edge of the dinghy, barking resoundingly into the water. Visibility of the hundreds of jellyfish surrounding us was easy in the crystal-clear water, which brought back memories of when I was stung by a man-o-war in Miami Beach when I was very young. No thanks! We finally got to shore. Fluffy did his thing, then back into the dinghy we went, back to the boat that was being protected by Farley the watch cat. We survived the Day of the Jellyfish!