The Peters Visit Key West

Our second set of visitors, Vern and Pauletta Peters came with restaurant reccomendations and after testing them out, we have added Michael's restaurant and Sarabeth's for breakfast to our must do in Key West list. There is way too much to do, so they have to come back to finish seeing Key West, but they left with an armload of T-shirts and a conch shell, which they promised to blow on their DC balcony.



We discovered a new way to have a great time in Key West...the annual "Wrecker's Cup". The race began as a simulation of the origins of Key West as a thriving community. Back in the 1800s, ships often ran aground on the unmarked Florida reefs. Salvage companies set up in Key West in great numbers, to rescue passengers and to salvage the cargos. Tall lookout towers were built and the call, "Ship ashore" rang out across the island sending slavage crews aboard schooners racing to claim the floundering ship as "theirs", oh, and to rescue passengers and crew. The Wrecker's Cup" still has a 1/2 dozen local schooners racing from the port of Key West to a part of the Reef, Sand Key, which is mostly basically under water. In addition to the schooner's about 30 other boats race. There are no rules, except the rule that you can't whine and there are no protests allowed. Boats heckle each other on the radio, etc. It's a fun day. So we raced the boat (which I swore we'd never do) with friends Vern and Pauletta and fellow sailors and friends Luke and Jan Sands. Perfect day with winds of 15 knots. The race was all down wind, which was a disappointment to Pauletta, so we treated her to a close hauled screaming upwind tack, all sails flying, on the way homee, and she loved it. At the end of the race, while dousing the code 0 sail, we even performed a rescue of our own, as Rick's beloved Mt Gay Rum, Chicago to Mackinac race hat blew overboard. We saved the day with that rescue.