There to here

Sunrise leaving Great Harbour Cay for the crossing

“Department of Homeland Security”...that name has always seemed like “1984” speak to me; something some addle brained bumbler came up with to try and assure other addle brained bumblers that he was in command and doing something useful. It is hard to say if the actual organization is less “Big Brother-ish” than the name implies, or if it is more. In any case the Miami office gave me 24 hours to check in after we got back to the States. I got a new passport since they had issued my local boater card (also called the SVRS - small vessel reporting system) which, somehow, made me a security risk again. So I dragged my weary bones out of the berth the morning after a 35 hour, 140 nm passage, caught the mooring field shuttle, took a couple of different buses over to the Port of Miami, walked up the stairs to the office, and handed The Man my new passport and my old local boater card.

Sailing the first 18 hours of the crossing

He poked around in the computer at his desk, which is likely linked up with every other government computer in the world, along with the computers that my bank, phone, and Internet providers use. And, if someone so chose, I am sure that at least some of those government computers can look at everything on my personal computer. I guess he added some kind of comment to my file about me having handed him my new passport (which they obviously knew they had issued to me) and my old local boater card (which – equally obviously – they knew they had issued to me). Then he handed them back to me and sent me on my merry way.

What I thought odd was that The Man, like everyone behind the bullet proof glass, was dressed in the full black ninja outfit, combat boots, and with a very serious looking weapon strapped to his hip. He, and his compatriots, were obviously very serious people, warriors, those not to messed with; the ones who appear out of the night, breach the barriers, kick the asses and take the names. Since we are constantly told just how deep is the danger we are all in, how close the bad guys always are, one would think the Department of Homeland Security could find some capable clerks to poke around in the computers and make the notes, and let the warriors go about their warring.

Then again, maybe the Department of Homeland Security dresses their capable clerks up like ninjas and lets them carry guns because someone has to look the part. The real warriors, the ones who do the actual ass kicking and name taking, likely don't dress the part. Instead they wear the same kinds of clothes the bad guys wear, carry the same kinds of guns, get the same kind of haircuts, and lurk in the dark places the bad guys lurk. They pick up the rumors, run down the hints, and search though the murk to figure out what the bad guys are planning. They board the ships that need be boarded and force open the shipping containers that need to be inspected. They follow the money, listen in on the suspected phones, rummage through the suspected computers, and stalk the dark recesses of the web and the world.

It almost has to be that way because making a middle aged white guy, who has already signed on for a background check, drop by the office just because he got a new passport is a waste of everyone's time. If the powers that be actually regarded that as some kind of real security the bad guys would have taken over the place a long time ago.

I say “almost” because, well, it might all be a bit of a sham. How else would they pry literally trillions of dollars out of our collective pockets to pay for “security” while under-funding virtually every social program in the country? Americans are generally pretty good folks. We wouldn't normally let kids go hungry, sacrifice our own kid's education, close down research into weather and physics and space, trash the environment, and condemn veterans to homelessness and poverty. Normally. But where the money goes that we would have spent on those things, other than buying ninja suits and serious looking guns, is secret. Most of what they say they do is also a big secret. I know that the Congress and the Senate are supposed to serve us by keeping an eye on such things, but when was the last time any Congressman or Senator did anything in the public's interest? I guess your view of the sham percentage in all of this rests on just how much you trust the Congressmen and Senators to do the right thing.

Sunset the end of the first day

The 35 hours, 140 nm passage from Great Harbor to Dinner Key went pretty well, if an average speed of four knots can be described as doing well. Truth to tell, having Miami in sight for more than 6 hours before finally dropping the hook was starting to get on my nerves. We were doing barely three knots at that point, the Beast struggling to push us against the Gulf Stream. We had a small problem rolling up the jib again and, again, that was an 0300 in dark, dark, morning thing. Even though we were pulling it in because the winds had died away to near nothing, it still rolled in up funky. While trying to fix it later the furling line got all snagged up, again.

So, on the way home from the DHS we stopped by West Marine and dropped about $200 on new blocks. Back at the boat we rearranged the furling line run and added the new hardware. We also noticed that the spare jib halyard, the one we have hauling around aloft for four years without ever using it for anything, lay really close to furling block at the top of the sail, and that it could easily hang up the whole operation. Since we have the spinnaker halyard for hauling the Ding and the anchor (if necessary) there seemed no good reason to leave that potential problem hanging up there.

So this morning I dropped it, only it didn't drop the whole way. The end, in free fall from the top of the mast, somehow managed to tie itself around the upper spreader as it fell. And I mean tie, as in an honest knot, not just snag as one might guess. How that happened is beyond me, except that Kintala still hates me on some days. And, some days, I hate her right back. Fortunately we picked this morning to move from the rolling, pitching, ugliness that is the Dinner Key mooring field in a southeast wind, to the serenity and quiet waters deep inside No Name Harbor. Untangling the wayward halyard was an easy, 10 minute foray aloft on a boat sitting as still as could be.

Land Ho! Miami on the horizon

After that, the deck was secured and the Ding went overboard. We need water, a bit of food, one LPG tank filled, and a good night's rest or two before heading south once again. From anchored off Great Harbor Cay to the weekend party that is No Name Harbor...sometimes we go pretty slow, but it is hardly ever dull.

No-Name Harbor, Kintala front and center

The lineup of boats waiting to depart for the States in the morning

Our neighbor in the anchorage at Great Harbour Cay

The last of the pretty turquoise water pictures for a few months. Stay tuned for more!

Just to be sure

As Deb mentioned we spent the other day working though the Department of Homeland Security's Local Boater application process. With it, getting Kintala and her crew back into the US will be considerably less of a hassle. Basically it works by making sure we are "in the system", identified, finger printed, photographed, and issued another I.D. Number. This new number has been added to my Social Security number, Passport number, pilot's license number, and aircraft mechanic license number, all already stored in government files somewhere. I'm sure my new number, along with all the other numbers, will be cross-referenced (somewhere in the NSA's super computers – did you know they will probably get the very first quantum computer?) to my bank account numbers, cell phone number, cell phone numbers of people I have called and who have called me, user names and passwords, this blog, e-mail accounts, Internet browsing records, my training records for the years I flew (particularly after 9/11), the Coast Guard's paperwork on Kintala, all of my 1040s over the years, and probably a list of my High School detentions. (Long list, that one.)

Such effort on the part of the history's most powerful military / security apparatus, spender of literally trillions of dollars a year, and all to keep an eye on a middle-aged White Anglo Saxon ex-Protestant (WASeP?) who hasn't hurt anything bigger than a fly in several decades. Sometimes I wonder just who it was that sat in those committee meetings and decided that retired people living on sailboats were such a security risk. Then again, my guess is the powers-that-be have become so paranoid that every single person on the planet is now considered a security risk. It seems a lot of Americans have joined them in that delusion.

I'm glad I don't live that way.

Those that do can rest easy tonight; secure in the knowledge that S/V Kintala and her crew will not be bothering anyone. The Department of Homeland Security is keeping a close eye on us just to be sure.