Sail Felix

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist......" General John Sedgwick , killed in battle, 1864 Ok , the quote doesn't fit the blog entry today, but I thought it was funny. More on the story of Sedgwick at the end. We've been settling in to my Mom's beautiful house here in Port St. Lucie, and basking in the novelty of newness. It just feels strange being in a new house with new appliances, new fixtures, new everything! Don't worry Mom, we're treating it better than we would our own! There's more than a little culture shock moving from Deltaville , VA down here to Port St. Lucie, where we have a Publix , a pharmacy, a Walmart , Arby's , and everything else significant, all within a quarter mile of us. We'll miss all of our friends, family, and good people in Virginia but not the cold and snow. After looking at numerous oil leaking, dilapidated, wrecked, junkyard destined cars; I fin ally found my 4 wheeled machine. A '96 Chevy Blazer

"My Karma ran over your dogma."- Anonymous This one goes in the "true, but hard to believe" file. We were at West Marine this morning picking up bottom paint and a few other items when we noticed a black pouch on the floor by the checkout counter. I picked it up and told the girl at the register "It looks like somebody dropped their pouch, if there's any money in there it's mine!" I flipped it open and there was a wad of $100's!!! About 150 of them!! No I.D, nothing else. My name's not Earl, but I know when Karma is testing me, and we gave the pouch over to the manager to put in the safe while we tried to track down who lost the pouch. The most likely customer was a German guy who had just bought a dinghy, but the store didn't have any contact info for him, just a vague idea that he was leaving soon on a boat he just bought, and he may be at a local marina. We drove over to the marina where they thought he may be, and sure enough two

There are three faithful friends--an old wife, an old dog and ready money. - Ben Franklin If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - Mark Twain Just to sweeten the thought of moving back to Florida, it's been blowing a blizzard since last night. Probably 10 inches of snow on the ground right now and poor Chief can hardly make his way through the shoulder high (for him) snow. We had a harrowing ride to Tappahannock from Deltaville last night in conditions where we never saw pavement the whole way. Flipped over SUV's , trucks in ditches, cars on their backs, and sections of the highway shutdown for emergency crews. It took us 2-1/2 hours to navigate the 45 miles, and we only slid off the road and had to get pulled out once. Felix was lifted out of the water two days ago, winterized, and now the fun part of cleaning her up begins as soon as we can get back to Deltaville and clear th

What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue. ~Thomas Paine Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss. ~Robert Heinlein From Article 1, section 9 of the United States Constitution: No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state. No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another: nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one state, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another. I think the writers of our Constitution were being very clear in their intent on that last line. nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one state, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another. So how can a Florida registered vessel, owned by a Florida resident, legally be charged duty (property tax) simply because it is temporarily in the waters of the State of Virginia on January 1st? The Middlesex County tax collector has informed me that Felix's owners will be ch

Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. - Carl Sandburg Selling Felix, not quite as romantic as Sailing Felix. We've never been afraid to make bold moves, and so once again we are picking up the large brush and repainting the canvas of our lives with the color of change. I've been offered a marketing job with a growing manufacturing company (yes, some things are still being built in the USA!) in Palm City, FL. We'll be hauling Felix out of the water in the next week or two, winterizing her, and listing her for sale with a local yacht broker. We'll be packing up and moving to my Mom's house in Port St. Lucie, until we can find a place of our own. Work starts the first of the year, so we've got 3 weeks to move and get settled in. Ho, Ho, Ho!! Merry Chr