Day 95 - Sophie — Captain Father John

Miles cruised 0, fuel purchased $0, slip fee $133, daily high temperature 84*f

When in Key West on Christmas Day what does one do? Everything is open for business. None of the bars, shops or restaurants close for the holiday. We took a nice walk around the harbor and went swimming in the Galleon pool. We ate dinner on the boat and then took a stroll over to Grunts to hear Henry and the Bubbas play good ole rock and roll. Henry’s friend Kathy was there. Kathy pointed out that a 70 year old band member was hitting on Kim the 28 year old bar tender. The bass player is currently married to his fourth wife. Amazingly Kim seems to have an interest in the geezer. We will watch this play out over the next few weeks.

The Bubbas at Grunts.

The Bubbas will be playing at Margaritaville on Duval Street for the next three nights so we know where we will be. Denise and Sam arrive on December 27 so guess where they will be that night?

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We met one of the paid crew on the classic sailing yacht Sophie in the hot tub at the Galleon. He is from western Massachusetts so we chatted him up. He mentioned that Sophie has a reclusive owner and they are sailing to Cuba on a humanitarian visa on Sunday. They are only going for one week but the insurance underwriters have charged a full year premium for the ryder.

For Jan Stenbeck, a Swedish lifelong sailor who went to Harvard Business School and who worked at Morgan Stanley in New York, chasing the America’s Cup had been a longtime dream. In 1983, after Conner lost the Cup to Australia, Stenbeck later told friends, ”I just felt joy.” He bought the committee boat used in that race, Black Knight, and built a 90-foot replica of the America’s Cup yacht Endeavor in 1994, and named her after his daughter Sophie. She is a modified J-boat design. The original Endeavor was 127′ long.

Mel Fisher (August 21, 1922 – December 19, 1998) was an American treasure hunter, best known for finding the 1622 wreck off of Key West of the Spanish Galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha named after a shrine in Madrid for protection. He discovered the wreck July 20, 1985. The estimated $450 million cache recovered, known as “The Atocha Motherlode,” included 40 tons of gold and silver; there were some 114,000 of the Spanish silver coins known as “pieces of eight”, gold coins, Colombian emeralds, gold and silver artifacts, and 1000 silver ingots. Large as it was, this was only roughly half of the treasure that went down with the Atocha. The wealthiest part of the ship, the stern castle, is yet to be found. Still missing are 300 silver bars and 8 bronze cannons, among other things. In addition to the Atocha, Fisher’s company, Salvors Inc., found remains of several shipwrecks in Florida waters, including the Atocha’s sister galleon the Santa Margarita, lost in the same year, and the remains of a slave ship known as the Henrietta Marie, lost in 1700. There is a shipwreck museum in Key West that displays many of the artifacts found on these ships.

Mel Fisher

The Atocha

Carl (Chef) Wooden – quote of the day.

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. – Warren Buffett