​But what a winter it was!

I say this based on the scientific evidence of my own senses: nearly every North Country local I've spoken to this spring says something like "You know, I don't MIND winter, but this year—" 

Plus the sand-dunes at the side of the road indicate how much the roads were plowed and sanded.

Plus, a bit of unpurged water burst pipes under the house. 

​Plus porcupines ATE the top of two of my largest and most productive pear trees. One of which had a 4-foot-tall fence perimeter, just to keep the various pesky varmints at bay.

I suspect the heavy snowfall piled up above the fence. A bit of thaw-and-freeze gives a surprisingly hearty crust to deep snow, and I imagine a porcupine simply wandered around until reaching the pear as it poked  unprotected through the snowy desert.  

​And oooh! ahhh! All that sweet, sweet inner bark ripe for the snacking! 

Yes, they are adorable, porcupines. And sadly, it's true that when the inner bark is chewed so thoroughly, the tree's sap cannot rise above the damage.

So yes, my heart is a little broken over my 10-year-old pear trees reduced to sad 4-foot-tall stumps that may or may not live to sprout again. Alas sweet pear trees, I knew you well. 

Springtime has its own theme music, naturally.
​
It's catchy, ear-wormitty, and all the cool kids are singing it at the top of their lungs.

(Cornell's Merlin app for the bird identification win.) 

One of the many persistent pleasures of the season is the annual gathering of the cards.  

In the autumn, we refresh the batteries and memory cards in our many game cameras.  We document their location (because sometimes we forget), and wish them well as they watch over and record the events of the next few months.

I suspect they have a lowest-operating-temperature limit, but they have yet to disappoint. They offer us a sample of what we missed.

Like the bright, bitter days when the wind whips ice-crystals into snow devils. 

Or when it's  gloomy and snowing and snowing and snowing.

The highlight reel follows. Please disregard the dates; we never reset them.

Zero trees fell on Would-Be buildings. The camp is mercifully holding out against rodent incursions. The chimney is not blocked.

The waterline proved quite fixable, and nothing ate the electrical lines at the wellhead.

We have a woodshed full of fuel for the little wood stove, and the satellite dish found its azimuth without pause. 

We recognize and are grateful for the astonishing good fortune that gets us here. If it must, let it snow.

To get a sense of my favorite skipper's 2026 Everglades Challenge,  you could just watch this video clip from Nate "Natedog" Villardebo on repeat for 94 hours, 8 minutes, and 22 seconds. 

And a glorious sunshiney adventure it would be.

You could alternate with the following video from Jahn Moresailesaid's pre-race delivery to Fort DeSoto for a little variety on the 327.07 miles.

At the risk of encyclopediaing this trip, TwoBeers' adventure went a bit like this:

Spotting Andyman and Natedog coming in Rabbit Pass, TwoBeers paused on his way out of Check Point 2 by Chocko Island so he could buddy-sail with them.  

Was he short of navigation? I ask. Nope, the tablet AND the Garmin were operational.
He just wanted to hang out? Yeah.

​Plus Andyman lent him his extra paddle, since of course the pedal drive had busted 13 hours into the adventure.

As it turned out, that nice long kayak paddle, a back-up to the pedal-drive, was still in the van. Oops. ​

Zygote made it to the entrance to Flamingo, Check Point 3, first of the three, but did not enter the tiny pass. His tracking dot paused. I figured he was waiting for a favorable tide. 

So when I woke up at 5 to see he'd moved, but not very far, I was a little concerned. Maybe his anchor dragged, I thought.  Then at 6 his dot was crawling again, only it seemed erratic. Hmmmm.  

At 630, I was actively worried. Twobeers appeared to be sailing AWAY from the checkpoint. Lack of sleep can do terrible things to a person. Not just to the racer, but to the ground control as well, to be honest.

At quarter to 7, I did the thing: I called the Checkpoint captain at Flamingo.  Hi, I said, hey, I'm a little concerned about TwoBeers. Could they see him? I was worried that my skipper might be losing his ever loving mind. I think I actually used that phrase, a nod maybe to Bones on classic Star Trek. 

Gil at Flamingo assured me that I was doing the right thing by calling. It was, he told me gently, too dark for him to see anything (damn Daylight Savings Time), but that he'd take a look as soon as he could. As we talked, Jeff's tiny blip on the map turned around and started creeping toward to Flamingo.  ​

45 minutes later, an unknown number called: Gil made Jeff talk to me to assure me that he was compos mentis. My skipper sounded cheerful and still determined to get to the finish. Tom Ray, bless his photographer's eye, posted a lovely proof-of-life photo on Facebook. 

To the Finish Tuesday to Wednesday morning
From Flamingo, the wind was out of the northeast at around 7, making it a beamy reach, and while both Andyman and Jeff tried for the eastern route, there just wasn't enough water. Being short on navigation power, Twobeers decided to shadow Andyman. They faffed around for a bit and then pointed their boats along the conservative southern route across Florida Bay. 

SailorKing and Possum, leaving Flamingo at the same time, did not faff around, having already decided on the southern route. As Jeff said, "They slaughtered us."

Without water in the ballast tanks, Zygote struggled to stay upright once the breeze gets up over 10. This is a fact that the boat had made abundantly clear to Jeff, but was much less obvious to his buddies Andyman and Natedog aboard their Highlander, Bubbles Up.  

Why was Jeff going so slow? What was wrong with him?   A flurry of text messages ensued as the two boats poked across Florida Bay.  Andyman and Natedog did not like the look of things. They were going to hover around Zygote. They told Jeff to anchor up, hop onto their boat, and come back to finish after a rest on shore.  

Jeff eventually demonstrated the ballast issue, filling a tank by hand while Andyman held the bowsprit of Zygote on the stern of Bubbles Up. With a full tank, Zygote headed off like a bolting quarter-horse, but, alas, had to dump ballast to tack and resumed moving at a glacial pace.

So the two traveled as a caravan for a while, the sun slowly sinking in the west. At 8:45, as  Bubbles Up nipped through the cut at Toilet Seat pass, Zygote missed the cut and ran solidly aground.  Andy hopped off his boat and came over to help push Zygote off the bank, but to no avail.

​The tide was rushing out.

​I betook myself to the busy restaurant, ordered some soup to go, and after casing the establishment and gauging lines-of-sight, I told the counter staff about my quest. They laughed and said, it's the same tile in the women's.

Saved from sketchy lurkage, I visited the tile and crossed one thing off my list. 

Later, hunched over my bowl of açaí sorbet (you don't know what you are missing), I wrote a blog about the start, and then idly hit refresh on the tracking sites for a while before embarking on the second round of packing: This Time It's Overland.  

​Clothes for me, clothes for Jeff—not forgetting shoes for himself, because THAT's a rookie move—the food I'd rather not rebuy for the next few days, beverages, blah blah. The usual accoutrements of a family vacation, plus the supportive gear for the boat trailer (a recent Facebook marketplace deal, which means also a bit of a wildcard in terms of roadworthiness) and our matronly creeper van. 

On the race tracker, the gang of boats went from one big blob of overlapped names to a slightly more stretched out list: as one might expect, a couple of catamarans worked to the lead early, with Spawn (Go Moresailesaid! Go DSea!) right there in the mix.

​Not too far behind, Zygote was hanging tough, and as the breeze faded, on came the paddlers.  

The race is unique in many ways, though the idea of racing a 20-foot-long beach catamaran against a racing kayak against a roto-molded trimaran against a...well, it boggles the mind. No, there is no handicapping. It's a mad dash. Anyone can win the event overall, though each boat is also scored in its division.

At ten at night, with the first couple of boats tagging Check Point 1, I got a text from Jeff. His tracker placed him near Stump Pass. "A f#@$ the pedal drive broke."  Another unique aspect of this event is that you can double up your propulsion: sailing and rowing, for example. Plus, you can pump and ooch and scull, all of which is frowned upon in traditional sailing competitions.
​
Zygote was built for solo sailing, and since rowing presents a real navigational conundrum (where are we heading?), Jeff worked rather hard on installing a pedal drive. It's a nifty contraption, with a belt (not chain), and a flexible driveshaft, and a two-blade propeller. He pedals while sitting on an inflatable seat, giving himself a magisterial view of the horizon ahead, as well as extra boat speed that helps when needed. It worked great, until, evidently it did not. ​

Still he looked pretty cheerful as he checked into Check Point 1.

Sunday, Day 2:  Oooh! bonus! Daylight Savings Time. Suddenly it's dark at 7 in the morning. Sarcastic enthusiasm!

It's a drive to Key Largo, and the traffic is only going to get worse. Mid coffee-brew, I get a text from my good neighbors with a photo. Somebody is dumpster-diving at the construction site, they thought I should know. 

Messages start dinging on my phone before I reach to the highway.

I do the thing where you look at your phone at a red light and decide whether anyone needs a real answer or if they can wait until I stop to check the hubs of the trailer.

They can wait till I can check the hubs. 

It's an uneventful drive, mercifully. Almost no maniacal driving incidents (I did avoid Miami, which helps my odds), and the forest fires from last week were extinguished, perhaps by the rain from last night.

Navigating by intuition: even though I really enjoy the southern old Route 41 trip across the Everglades, randomly (is it? is it ever random? Is it the Burnt Toast Theory?) found myself tootling along 75 Alligator Alley. A gorgeous day, and the hubs of the trailer stayed out of the hot zone. Yay!  ​

It's such a relief to get to the aqua road dividers of the Overseas Highway. I've gawked at  4-foot-long iguanas basking along this stretch into the Keys, but thanks to the recent cold snap, and perhaps to my better driving impulses, I don't spot a single one.

Jeff calls as I'm passing Gilbertson's Resort asking me about the timing of the tides at Caxambas Pass and Indian Key Pass. Another unique feature of the event: outside communication is permitted, even welcomed. We can't meet them and resupply the racers, but we can talk to them about the weather et cetera.  ​

I don't even ask how he un-buggered that situation.  ​

​Then he mentions how much water he pumped out of the hull. He pumped until he got tired and there was still water in there. The boat was feeling sluggish, he tells me, and going downwind, he caught the first water over the bow. I hold my tongue.  We know there's a leak.  It wasn't much of a leak, according to his pre-race discussion. I'd held back from nagging him yesterday about checking on it.

To set the scene, when TwoBeers says he stopped bailing before the boat was empty because he was tired, that's — a thing. There's not a lot of quit in the man.

​I take a deep, calming breath: I'll be sure to remind you to pump it out, I say. Yeah, he says, good idea.

Then he narrates through what he calls a "twirlybird death spin," when Zygote doesn't have enough way on to steer, but the tide causes the boat to pirouette slowly — a 360 degree spin — before another bit of wind comes along.

​He uses such phrases as, "whee!" and "here we go."​

Does my laughter have a slightly hysterical edge? Pshaw!

How was supper, I ask. Oh, he says, I had a beer and I drank a breakfast shake and just fell asleep. 

I might turn and burn at Chocko he tells me. Or I might anchor out and get some more shut-eye. This is heartening news. Shows his judgement is good despite having (she counts on her fingers) less than 6 hours of sleep in the past 31 hours.

We say goodnight, and I snuggle back under my air-conditioned covers.  

Day 3: Monday after sunrise A beautiful day in the Florida Keys. There is nothing quite so tropical as a sunrise down here, where the boisterous morning wind is soft with moisture and the white coral dust is as dry as chalk on my flip-flopped feet. 

More anon...

Every year a bunch of misfit toys——I mean non-motorized adventure vehicles——make their way to the high tide line of Fort DeSoto Beach in St. Pete, and on the first Saturday in March, they take to the water and head South.

My favorite skipper built two of these vessels.

Designed by OH Rodgers, and built mostly by Jeff and OH, but with assists from a squadron of friends, two boats, Spawn and Zygote, set sail on—respectively—their 13th? and inaugural Everglades Challenges earlier today. They have 300 miles to go until the finish line in Key Largo. 

They are equipped with a lot of safety gear, personal locators, sweet treats, bottles of frozen water, and on one of the two at least, a couple of beers.

From my perspective on shore, it's heartwarming the support both the Spawn team and my own TwoBeers gets. There's a crowd of well-wishers and curious folks. They had a kinda paparazzi swarming them, which is just cool. 

Plus for Jeff, this means supportive stablemates who waited to be sure Zygote made the leap into the water. 

Bit of a funny story, actually, when we arrived Saturday, we found Zygote nosed down nearly to the surf line. Evidently, she slipped her hobbles and skidded down the beach overnight. It was the nervous work of moments to put idle hands to work and hoist her back up the high tide line.

Delayed briefly by in incoming freighter, the fleet waited like a good dog getting a treat, and when the horn sounded, Jeff gave a bit of encouragement and Zygote made a run for it.

Only to slew to starboard off the rollers.

The boat is carbon fiber reinforced with fiber glass, but she is a little hefty when she hit the sand.

The event really is a challenge: it's a challenge to GET to the beach, what with building and outfitting and making time.

​And it's a challenge to get off the beach: for instance, by rule, only the boat's crew is allowed to push the boat into the water.   None of the spectators is allowed to help, so we watched with bated breath.

Note how his stablemates, Dave "DSea" Clement and Jahn "Moresailesaid" Tihansky, who are sailing Spawn this year, give him legal assistance. Waiting for Zygote to clear Spawn's pathway into the water, they watch until Zygote is in the water before stepping in. 

Once the boat hits the water, the other WaterTribe rule comes into play: WaterTribers can always render assistance to one another. So that's when the Spawnsters help gather up the rollers (all beach gear has to travel with the vessel) and bring it out to Jeff so Zygote doesn't head out unmanned into the briney blue.

Shortly thereafter, Spawn took to the water without incident, moving with almost matronly grace down to the water and out over the horizon.

And now we hit refresh on the tracker.

Again. And again. 

And again.  

​Knock wood.

A boat building project like Zygote seems to move so slowly—months passing with only the mold finished, seasons of laying carbon fiber, months of sanding and gluing, and endless weeks of sanding and painting, long long days of bolting on hardware—and then, capering about like a squirrel on crack, the project is—must be!—done enough because the day is here.

The Everglades Challenge, an unsupported adventure race  that starts at Fort DeSoto in St. Pete, FL and finishes 300 or so miles later in Key Largo, FL begins at 8:30 on this coming Saturday, March 8. It's the event at which my favorite skipper (known in this race as TwoBeers) has been aiming all of his time and energy in building this new single-handed OH Rodgers-designed carbon-fiber sailboat.  ​

Thanks all y'all for coming along on this adventure!

Has the boat been pedaled? Yes.

And how about sailing?  

The sails come hot off the presses from Doug Fisher Performance sails in Sarasota, and while yes, they are the same vivid FEMA blue that those of us in the hurricane splash zone recognize as tarps, the main and jib are in fact a very cutting edge blend of carbon fiber and dyneema.

And if that sounds like a foreign language, imagine if you will the ceramic tiles on the outside of the space shuttle. Those exotic tiles are as far from the cozy, homelike bathroom tiles  as far as these carbon fiber fabrics are from the soft, mildew-prone canvas of classic sailing yachts (oh, be still my Master and Commander heart).  

As Hobie Cat sailors learned in the 1970's, a float (or bob) at the top of the mast can often keep a boat from flipping all the way over. It's called turning turtle when instead of reclining at 90 degrees, a boat goes all the way over, revealing a pale belly to the sky. 

During their misadventures in the Gulf, even the mighty Eye of Horus, as we called the bob at the top of Spawn's mast, was unable to defy gravity.  When brought back upright, the Eye had a squint, having been compressed by the 30-or-so feet of seawater. It's been a little on Ninjee's mind.

So for Zygote, OH cooked up what looks like a torpedo, or maybe a rogue weather-balloon, to affix to the top of the mast. It's made of flotation-filled carbon fiber; I've been irreverently referring to it as the Knob, but the name has yet to catch on with the rest of the team.

I mean, it's thematic, right? Zygote adjacent, one could say.  Oh well, I'll entertain suggestions if you have 'em—=particularly if the entertainment goes beyond my 12-year-old's humor.  

Now, we're off to help locate spare belts for the pedal drive. Wish us good luck!

As ground control to Major Tom, I have been busy doing my bit, which includes acting Purser, Supply Sergeant, Commissary, Provisions Specialist, and Cheer Captain.  

So many boxes have arrived on our doorstep.

And we have merch!

We have tees, long-sleeve cotton, and some tech shirts. Let's contribute less to the micro-plastic problem, no?  Hit me up by email if you want a shirt. They cost me around $20 each to make.

Muchas gracias to Cindy C. for the tee-shirt press!

Meanwhile, over at the biolab, Zygote's pedal drive is still a work in progress. (pedal-to-propeller! Has potential for use in making a vat of margaritas!).

As you no doubt remember, all means of human propulsion are permitted. So if he so chooses, my favorite skipper can ooch, pump, row, push, swim, pole, or gondola-wise propel the boat. 

And everyone enjoys that part of a build. Thanks for the photos, Bill!

The mast is nearly all rigged, minus a few refinements like the special hook to loop the distal end of the main halyard so it doesn't slip and sag. 

The paint job is close enough for now. Some pinholes and more sanding await future TwoBeers. 

​The navigation lights are still in original packaging.
Reflective gator-tape is still on the roll.

The boat logo is just waiting for a warm, dust free day to be applied. The storage bags are in a holding pattern, as himself thinks he might have plenty of storage without them. 

We'll see. Fingers are crossing in preparation. 

The mast has been up.
​It's a carbon fiber A-Cat mast shortened from 30 to around 27 feet. Muchas gracias to Ben Hall for that!

The rudder gudgeons are bolted and glued in place. 

Am I reaching for zygotish metaphors? Maybe, but the boat's identity is ripening. 

Wha? 

To differentiate the new boat from the old, the old team versus the new, and who's on first, here's the lineup:
​
In this year's Everglades Challenge, my favorite skipper, TwoBeers, will be racing on Zygote, while his erstwhile partner Jahn "Moresailesed" Tihansky and Dave "DSea" Clement will be racing aboard Spawn of Frankenscot. 

While checking the WaterTribe tracking map, understand that familiar cheerful green Frankie face will be attached to DSea and Moresailesed, while Jeff's Zygote program will be marked by an aqua square o beer.

It looks like this tiny on the map:

If you like, you can click on the photo to link to the WaterTribe map site.

More details will follow as they develop.  

Frankenscot won its division in the 2014 Everglades Challenge, finishing fourth overall in the 300-mile adventure race before retiring. ​

Its logo featured the monster created by Dr. Frankenstein sporting a Tam O Shanter as a hat-tip to the vessel's Scottish heritage. 

Alas, retirement for Frankenscot was less, "going to live out his days on a farm" and more "pauper's grave."

​Frankenscot ended up in a thousand pieces and was buried in the county's landfill for fiberglass.

We pause here to salute the unnatural creature.

With lessons learned from that first adventure race and the Frankenscot build, the team of TwoBeers,  Jahn "Moresaileesaid" Tihansky and designer OH "Ninjee" Rodgers promptly started in on the next generation:  aptly named the Spawn of Frankenscot. 

After the 2025 race, my beloved TwoBeers said, "I'm thinking about doing a solo challenge."

Okaaaay.

"On a new boat."

Alrighty then.

Cue the third generation of OH Rodgers/TwoBeers collaboration.
Designed to perform with sporty speed, but with a bit of forgiveness built in, the latest generation has been taking shape at the same mysterious laboratory that gave birth to Spawn.  

This barky shall be called the Zygote.

Zygote son of Spawn if you will. 

Quick bio review: a zygote is the result of two haploid cells joining up in a fertilization event.  

Updates, merch, and more to follow!

sing it:
It's beginning to look a lot more/
Boatish.
Everywhere we turn.
Take a look in the barn and then 
It's glistening once again.
With thwarts and tanks that hold...

The new barky will be a sloop much like our beloved Spawn, but designed for a solo voyageur to adventure his way from St. Petersburg to Key Largo on the first weekend of March. 

​I am not going to deny there IS quite a bit of Flex Tape in the manufacture of this new boat. 

Did you know that Flex Tape comes in a gallon bucket and can be applied by brush? 
Indeed it does, and it's a widely accepted standard in the industry. 

The project, like all such endeavors, has involved lots of fiddly parts that gobble up a lot of time for seemingly little return.

And everything seems critical: rudders, centerboard, beams, plumbing, water tanks. 

But then the fiddly bits slot into the larger structure and Shazam! it looks rather like a boat that will be ready to sail in a couple of months. ​