From New Orleans, we drove to Florida for the Seven Seas Cruising Association’s annual meeting. We got our fill of speakers and exhibitors and hanging around with sailors. There were many sessions on HF radio communications that we hope to use when we’re at sea or in remote places. Nearly everything we might want is available on both SSB Marine band (not free, but can be used for business purposes) and HAM (free, but does not permit commercial use) radio channels. Fortunately, there are now good radios that can operate on both types.

The good part is that once it all works, we should be able to get information about weather and destinations, and, even more importantly, should be able to get email at sea. The bad part is that the email will be painfully slow�maybe a half hour for sending/receiving email, and that doesn�t include big attachments…OK, I’m really not sure exactly how slow it will be, but I’m sure it will be way slower than dial-up internet at its worst. The other bad(?) good(?) part is that all three of us now have to study for HAM licenses.

We also learned about sailing with cats and dogs, how to keep your boat smelling nice, cruising the Caribbean, French and Spanish for cruisers, and snorkeling or scuba for fun and food. Diana Jessie, who writes for 48 North, was great in person, and we enjoyed a refresher course on weather with our NOAA guru, Lee Chesneau.

One real highlight was a chance to visit with Meps� Dad and hang out in Florida. He hosted us in his tiny rental apartment, which seemed like a palace to us. We saw his new townhouse (under construction), swam, went to the beach, and even took a short hike.

Best of all was that Meps and her Dad used the recently unearthed recipe for the late Esther’s Turkey Cheese Pie. It was wonderful, and well worth the effort. I cannot say for myself, but those who had eaten the original claimed this was just as good.

TURKEY CHEESE PIE (including the original typos and comments)

3 medium onions
1-1/2 cup buttery cracker crumbs
1-1/4 cup cooked turkey pieces
1/3 cup butter
1-1/2 tablespoons shortening
1 cup milk
3 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
2 cups grated chedder cheese

Set oven 350 degrees. Cut onions to thin slices to make 2 cups. Roll about 44 but. tas. crackeres into crumbs to make 1-1/2 cups crumbs. Cut turkey into small pieces. Melt butter. Add to cracker crumbs stirring until all dry pieces are moist. Pat crumbs firmly onto sides of a 9 inch pie plate with spoon. Chill for 30 min. Melt shortening. Add onions and cook until tender but not browned. Heat milk until a film forms across the top. Beat eggs until bubbly. Stir milk salt, pepper and cheese into eggs. Put turkey over bottom of cracker crumbs crust. Top with onion rings. Pour over egg cheese mixture. Bake for 30 minutes and garnish with pinsheel made of halved crackers and pimento slices. This pie will serve 6. Which is not enough.

Less than two weeks after we arrived in New Orleans on Cayenne we�re off for another road trip. This time it is a bit different�now there are three of us (Brian joined us), and we�re in Brian�s van, which is far more comfortable than peepcar, and since we�re in a hurry and have three people to drive, we�re making a 13-hour drive in one day. We�re driving to Melbourne, Florida for the Seven Seas Cruising Association annual meeting (or was that party?)

So since we aren�t yet ready to go sailing (See the latest on the Log of Cayenne) we�re off to a sailing club meeting where we get to hang out with sailors and talk about cruising and communications and all sorts of stuff. Of course some of the folks at the meeting will be here on their boats and dinghy ashore for the meeting instead of this driving stuff. We’re at least enjoying a brief vacation from scrambling into and out of small grungy parts of Cayenne, with the wonderful bonus of staying with Meps’ Dad in Vero Beach!

On a sunny (hot! hot! hot!) Sunday afternoon, we finally arrived at the boatyard in New Orleans. As we drove across the dusty gravel yard toward Cayenne, our new home, a tired, dejected fellow slouched his way across our path, hardly lifting his head to see who was about to run him over.

I was out of the car before we’d stopped, launching myself into a big sweaty happy bear hug. Just a few days before the one-year anniversary of his haulout, Brian’s crew and reinforcements had finally arrived.

The boat sat where I had last seen her in February, looking bigger than I remembered. Red on the top, gray on the bottom, she loomed over us. Bold white lettering on the bow proclaimed “Cayenne,” new since I’d last seen the boat.

It’s been a couple of days now, and I’m getting used to the rhythm here at the yard. The place is full of dozens of boats, some being worked on and some just sitting and waiting. At any moment, someone might drive up, jump out, and suddenly start working on a boat that had seemed abandoned.

The boat lives in an environment of air, water, and land. The land is gravel and dirt and pathetic grass, with boats and trucks and tools everywhere. A couple of hungry yard dogs wander about looking for handouts and the best place to lie in the shade. The water behind the boat is like a driveway, with regular visitors. This morning’s arrival was a houseboat owned by a couple from eastern Washington that had just come down the Mississippi. A few hundred yards away, on the larger, deeper canal, we watched the departure of the Atlantis, the vessel that discovered the Titanic. Our airspace was plagued this evening by a 737 doing touch-and-go landings, over and over. More pleasant were the huge flocks of migrating birds that swirled upward on thermals and then launched themselves across the sky to the next updraft.

From Ohio, we drifted south through Kentucky and places that felt impoverished and truly foreign. People parked their cars by the side of the highway, selling their personal belongings. I�ve heard of yard sales and garage sales and moving sales, but this was the first I�d seen of car sales. We passed through �hill country,� Tennessee and Virginia and North Carolina, where the accents became thick with twang. Stretches of the highway were named after different country music stars; I�d never heard of most of them.

In eastern South Carolina, we stopped to visit my brother, Steve. We drove his Camry (what a treat, after Peepcar�s miserable suspension) to a huge grocery store, but were appalled at the size of the produce section. When we discovered that the few fruits and vegetables they carried were already shrink-wrapped and packaged in plastic, we walked out in disgust.

Steve took us up into the mountains, stopping along the way to show us the bucolic fishing cabin he�d once lived in on Bush pond. It was a far cry from his current apartment living, where annoying neighbors are offset by a nice jacuzzi and swimming pool. We drove up and up, not as high as even the passes in the Rockies or the Sawtooths, but into country where the hillsides were carpeted with leaves in gold and red and green. From Caesar�s Head, where the fall colors merged into the blue ridges, we clambered down into the rock formation known as the Devil�s Kitchen. Then up to Whitewater Falls, where we picnicked and hiked down to the bottom of the falls. The crashing water over the rocks reminded me of a hike we took in Brazil.

Our time with Stevie was too short, and too soon we were headed across Georgia and Alabama. About once an hour, we passed a pair of derelict vehicles that made Peepcar look shiny and new. They had a rope between them and the second one was always spray-painted �IN TOW.�

The heat was stifling. We switched to shorts, our clammy t-shirts sticking to our backs. After a month of reading out loud while I drove, Barry finished reading �Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix� and took over driving. We were almost there.