Mail and Old Friends

We heard that Keeling Time was back in the states from the Abacos. In fact, they made port just 20 miles up the coast from St. Lucie yesterday at 0730. We decided to take our Autoprop parts that arrived this morning at 0930 and sail to what we hoped would be cleaner water at Fort Pierce. It was an easy, albeit hot, very hot, day. We made it to Fort Pierce at 1430 and were assigned a slip only one boat away from Keeling Time. As we tied up, Rick came to the slip to help tie up. We have not seen him since helping push off in Corpus Christi almost two years ago. Much has happened along their way including a lightening strike that fried all ships electronic and electric parts and a mystery hand that stopped them mid Gulf. They have managed to put thousands of sea miles under her keel and do not look any the worse for wear, not does Keeling Time.

Poozak is kind enough to forward our mail, assuming we are in a place long enough to receive it. As we were going through the mail pouch yesterday, it occurred to me that this event is duplicated every day somewhere in the military. I remember eagerly waiting for the mail bag to fall from the sky and then distributing said mail to the troops. Bear and I were going through the stuff that needed shredding, those unsolicited checks that if cashed, subjects the dummy that did it to unbelievable interest rates, and separating the good stuff. The shredding, by the way, is the ships bilge coolie with scissors hovering over the trash can. Given enough of that stuff, one can get blisters on the scissor fingers, but the bilge coolie consistently cuts small random confetti. That's a good thing. The stories of ships passing at sea exchanging mail bags could not be more vivid.