Sailing, fishing and windsurfing

Eventually my parents figured out the whole sailing thing.  Ran aground a few more times, but it's all a part of the process.  We eventually anchored in the Big Basin off of the Lorelei in Islamorada.  The Lorelei Tiki Bar became our home.  We discovered people dropped coins and jewelery in between the cracks on the dock.  Especially by the washer and dryer units and the cigarette machine.  We'd be on our hands and knees between people sitting at the bar.  I think they were used to us and drunk so they paid no attention to us.  Eventually, it became a war between my brother and I.  Always fighting over who got a certain spot.  He was smarter than I was and bought something called a grabber.  I was still putting together two straws with a stick of gum.  I stole the grabber at one point and he began locking it up.  Then of course there were the celebrities that hung out there at the time.  Baseball great Ted Williams was always there as he lived down the street.  Robert Garner and George Hamilton frequented while in town shooting a movie.  John Denver frequently went out fishing from there.  And of course George Bush Sr. later on fished from there as well.  I have a story about him but I'll save that for later.  Finally, my parents decided they had enough sailing experience to cross over to the Bahamas.  We pulled up anchor and sailed away.  We anchored off of some of the islands on our way up the coast, fishing, swimming and actually taking baths in the ocean.  We sailed up to West Palm Beach and anchored off an island called Peanut Island.  It was surrounded by a beach with thousands of pink clam shells and a hill in the very middle with a pine forest.  We played there for a few days before it was time to cross the ocean.  This is where I discovered I get sea sick.  I remember we put messages in a bottle, tossed them in the ocean and I proceeded to puke.  So we spent several nights in our tiny boat and little outboard motor with our cat and dog trying to get to the Bahamas.  The dog at one point fell in and we had to turn around to rescue him.  After several attempts my parents realized they did not know what they were doing and we headed back to Islamorada.  My brother and I were home schooled up until this point.  So after a long break of not going to school we had to get up early, dinghy in and walk to the bus stop.  After awhile we ended up docking our boat at the Lorelei and living there for quite sometime.  My parents and their friends would have sailing regattas.  I think it was my dad that started the water balloon fights.  All the boats would sail up close and chuck water balloons at each other.  My dad ended up rigging a balloon launcher off of the stays of the mast with a plastic bowl and elastic bands.  One time I went to go launch it when the wind shifted and the boom hit me knocking me into the water.  I was very afraid of open water and specifically remember being terrified until they could come back and get me.  You have to move your legs to stay afloat but want to curl up into a little ball to try and be less desirable for the sharks.  Often my parents and their friends would anchor their boats off of Cotton Key (an offshore island) to celebrate the holidays.  It was so much fun jumping from boat to boat getting into every one's liquor cabinets.  Special times with my dad that I remember the most were spent fishing.  I specifically remember one day catching 40 snapper and just having a blast.  There was a barracuda that kept eating our fish and at one point I was reeling in my fish I had hooked as fast as I could so the barracuda would not get it only to have it's head hit me in the face as the barracuda had bitten it in half.  We used to take our little boat out to the shallows and snorkel to catch lobster with a net and a stick.  We became experts at finding them and it was almost addictive.  We always turned it into a competition.  Who had the most and the biggest.  Back then you could also often see what they call lobster trains.  This is a line of hundreds lobsters going out at dusk to feed.   My parents bought a windsurfer which my brother and I would take out.  The feeling of being that close to the water and going so fast with the saltwater spray was incredible.  You tend to get tunnel vision and block out everything around you.  It is a natural high and all you can focus on is going faster.  Sometimes dolphins would come up and swim with you.  It was a little scary at first because they were so much bigger than you, but you just kept going.  You tried not to turn or move much because you did not want them to leave.  We got so good at it and were asked to do a photo shoot for a windsurfing book.  I think we were 11 and 12 at the time.  My parents then decided that "Lawanda" was too small of a boat for us and bought a 35 ft wooden Bahamian ketch named Taniko.  My parents made plans to sail to the Bahamas in Taniko with two other couples and their boats.  They were very experienced sailors and had already been several times.  Alot more preparing went into the process this time.  They decided exactly where we would sail across from and also began cooking and canning meals such as chicken and meats.  This time we were really going to do it.