Goodbye, Miami Beach, hello, Germany! (And how about them commas anyway?)

before

after

Somehow I lost 30 degrees centigrade on my way from Miami Beach to Germany. How could that happen? It was summer yesterday!

Caught red-pawed: neighbor identifies mysterious car burglar in Stuart, FL.

A resident of NE Ocean Blvd provided Stuart Police with the description of a person that broke into a car parked at the beach fleeing the scene of the burglary on Saturday 27th at 3:17 p.m. That description led to the suspect's arrest at 5:12 p.m. the same day when the suspect was seen at a Pink Peanut Restaurant at 384 Oak Street by Officer John Mueller. Officer Mueller placed the suspect at the crime scene and recovered personal property belonging to the victim from the suspect.

Officer Mueller arrested Furry Jim Nibbler (DOB 8-15-2008) of Jupiter, Florida. Nibbler was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and nuts, burglary and possession of stolen property. He is being held in the Martin County Jail on $ 16,980 bond. 

Fröhliche Weihnachten, family!

Last night I had a really hard time writing my "merry christmas" post. We had been to the James Island Holiday Festival of Lights the day before yesterday and I had edited a little video with all those crazy, colorful lights and the good old Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit" - which matched the psychedelic experience of driving through the enchanted county park pretty well. What a cool video! I was so proud of myself. Then I got doubts about the copyright of the song, my server didn't let me upload any videos at all, my laptop ran out of power, my camera did the same, I tried to write something witty and ironic like "wish you all have a white christmas" with a picture of myself under a palm tree, but it didn't feel right - so at the end of the evening I was pretty upset. I sat down and thought about what I really felt and wanted to write about. And there it was: It is Christmas day, I am here on a beautiful sailboat with the captain I love - and I miss my family. I wish I could pack them all in a big old suitcase and ship them here. Because they are cool. They are funny and loving and wonderful, just look at the pictures. So - no intelligent, witty, ironic stuff tonight, just the truth: I wish you were here.

"Beating around the bush" or: The linguistics of menstruation.

As a copywriter who oftentimes has to squeeze the most complex information in a three word headline, I'm always curious about how other people deal with limited space. One of the most interesting subjects to me are the signs in public ladies' restrooms (or "women's toilets"?). Most of them favor political correctness over clarity and thus really beat around the bush. "All feminine products" – does that include lipstick, high heels and hair ties? The term "foreign materials" makes me think of biohazard and sounds as martial as "feminine protection". Please send in the special forces to take care of those alien subjects. I wonder if sign writers are all male and find using the expressions "tampon" or "sanitary napkin" embarrassing. Let's be crazy. Let's break a taboo! TAMPON, TAMPON, TAMPON! Isn't that amazingly accurate? I say: There is no such thing as a bad word. Period.

All that jazz! A French night out in Charleston.

And I thought I had escaped Europe! Our taxi cab dropped us off right in front of Mistral restaurant on 99 S. Market Street and it looked just too inviting to not go in. The food was French and great (it's been a long time since I last had goat's cheese), as were the wines and cocktails and the espresso... After dinner we were too stuffed to move, so we wandered over to the bar and listened to the Dixieland band. A perfect night out in Charleston and still so much more to see and do! Sigh. Oh, did I mention we had a spectacular lunch at The Palmetto Café the other day? (This is a rhetorical question, of course I know I have NOT mentioned it yet.) Just read what they say about themselves: "The Palmetto Café epitomizes the wonderful Charleston juxtaposition of lazy tranquility with cosmopolitan glamour" - as wonderfully as they construct their sentences they craft their dishes. I had the most entertaining and delicious  deconstruction of a salade nicoise: frisee lettuce on the right, olive tapenade in the middle, quail eggs on tuna tartar on the left - spectacular.

I think you were wrong, xyz camera store on xyz street in Charleston!

"I'm sorry, this is an OLD CAMERA. They don't make chips that size anymore. I would really upgrade to a new camera", the lady behind the counter told me. Could that be true? Did she actually manage to make me feel bad for working with totally outdated equipment? Yes, she did. Embarrassed I put my old friend Digital Ixus 500 back in my day pack and left the store with one of their catalogues. I didn't want to buy a new camera. I like my "old" camera. It works just fine. Only the 256KB chip had died yesterday. Humm. Crestfallen I walked through the beautiful city of Charleston and looked in grief at all the great photo opportunities I was missing: rocking chairs on sunny porches, lemonade stands and fire trucks, white fences and lazy cats, people at street corners, christmas ornaments in palm trees, and... and... and... and then I found a 1 GB memory card at Walgreens. Perfect size. I knew it! I was so happy and so upset that I couldn't take any good pictures anymore. Just look at the one above: a house, a palm tree - and a giant lamp/phone/power cable post? Incredibly bad. I dedicate this picture to you, xyz camera store on yxz street in downtown Charleston! Enjoy!

Things I'd hate to be eaten by while sleeping on a pristine beach. 1. The horseshoe crab.

Things I'd hate to be eaten by while sleeping on a pristine beach. 2. The left-handed whelk.

Barnacles of death - when seafood strikes back

I don't quite know how it happened but when we left Georgetown at 7 am, we suddenly ended up in a little flotilla of five boats.  Awfully nice to be part of the herd and have someone you can follow without even looking at the charts... But after a couple of hours the fleet dispersed and we took a turn off the ICW at mile 448 into Price Creek - and found the loveliest anchorage ever. Since the currents were pretty strong (we were right at the inlet), we picked one of the deserted mooring balls close to the beach. It was quite obvious they hadn't been used in a while: the lines were totally covered with seaweed and barnacles. Of course I found out about the barnacles only when I pulled in the line and they bit my fingers. Cirripedic assholes. That hurt! I was really thinking about cutting the line of the cleat, boiling it and turning the little suckers into a nice juicy clam chowder. Look at this:

Ouch! Probably those crustacea are just sick of being eating and are waiting for an opportunity to pay us back. I don't care. I wanted them to suffer. So I humiliated them by strictly ignoring the pain, making faces at them - and showing them the finger. Haha, I win! Marine lowlives.

(Don't get me wrong: I love seafood. As long as it behaves like food!)

When he was offered the spot on the baton, ...

... Carl knew this year's Christmas parade would be his artistic breakthrough.

What I got for my 36th birthday: a giant cockroach...

... a beautiful dead possum...

... and a bucket of steamed oysters.

... and not to forget the champagne and pickled shrimp! Thank you, Rock and Maggie! And thank you, Philip, for the wonderful day at the beach!

Good morning, Georgetown, rise and shine!

New entry in the country charts: "Our Great Love Ended Just Like A Small Town Sidewalk"

She was only seventeen and just out of school

I was lonely thirty-two and worked like a fool

And when we fell in love we knew life wouldn't be a cakewalk.

We got married in the church at the end of her street

Our love grew stronger and we made ends meet

And we laughed and played and danced and talked all night.

Chorus:

Tell me, what has happened to the candles and cards,

What has happened to our loving hearts?

Our great love ended just like a small town sidewalk.

Tell me, what has happened to the kisses and smiles,

What has happened to our loving minds?

Our great love ended just like a small town sidewalk –

A sudden stop and no safe spot to cross the road.

 

Rice, moss and oysters: a daytrip to McClellanville

If I were a tree, I think I would be a live oak. The ones we saw today were certainly having a bad hair day - and that's exactly what I'm having 7 days a week. On our way from Georgetown to McClellanville (yes, we drove with the top down) we stopped at Hampton Plantation historic site. Lucky us, it wasn't really overcrowded there, so we could walk through the gardens and sit on the porch in the sun in perfect privacy. We took a lot of pictures of the trees overgrown with Spanish moss which would have made them look like ghost trees if it hadn't been so awfully sunny today. Despite the name, Spanish moss is not biologically related to either mosses or lichens, it is a flowering plant that especially likes live oak and bald cypress because these trees have high rates of mineral leaching and thus provide nutrients to the plant. I'm so happy I have finally found my spirit epiphyte! My botanical soul mate! Hang on, my hairy friends! Of course the Spanish moss wasn't really the main attraction at Hampton Plantation. We walked out on the boardwalk into the former rice field and peeked inside the mansion which unfortunately is only open Thursday thru Sunday. Or was it Tuesday thru Saturday? Whatever - when we were there, it was closed. Rice cultivation (that had started in South Carolina in the 18th century) has created the economic prosperity of the area. In 1850 alone Hampton Plantation produced 250,000 pounds of rice! Of course this was only possible with the cheap labor of that time. Whole families of slaves worked in the rice fields - and it must have been a very hard and unpleasant work when you consider that even today the management of the park warns visitors of snakes, wild boars and nasty bugs. 

Now to something completely different: oysters. I'm not sure if oysters and I will ever be good friends, so I certainly like the local attitude towards these slimy little creatures. They are food, and that's it. You go oystering like you're going fishing, nothing fancy or posh about it. In McClellanville I even saw an oyster shell recycling truck - in Germany that would be like a public recycling bin for Moet & Chandon bottles! Oyster shell recyling is actually pretty important, because the oyster larvae have to attach to a hard substrate in order to survive and develop, ideally another oyster shell. So replanting oyster shells helps ensure there is a suitable habitat for further generations.  

Sunny Christmas Parade in Georgetown

A huge parade for a little town! I have the feeling this cute, harmless little place has a lot more to offer than you think... Or more than I think... I will find out and keep you posted... 

How about hibernating, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina?

If there is one thing that has a devastating effect on style and length of an article, it is the combination of freezing one's ass off and a bad internet connection. Right know I'm standing in the companionway, my upper body out in the cold cockpit, my feet in the warm cabin below, because this is the only position where I can pick up a wi-fi signal. Arrrgh, there you have it, my brain just froze! But never mind. This is kind of a strange place here anyway. Myrtle Beach is also known as "America's beach playground" and Barefoot Landing naturally combines beauty and nature with fun and excitement for the entire family. I was very excited about the alligator park across the parking lot, but it was closed, and about the House of Blues across the parking lot, that looked really cool, but was pretty empty, and Alabama Theater, but I didn't feel like a Christmas Show, so we just had dinner at the dock. I wonder how all these places survive in the winter, must be tough when you can't just go hibernate, but have to keep your doors open and your smile up. Speaking of hibernation - I'll go to my warm nest for a couple of hours now. See you in the morning!

Where am I? It's Monday, so it must be Swansboro.

So glad we weren't out in the fog but docked all day!

He's playing my song...

Morehead City. Pelicans vs. Dolphins: 36 - 5.

On our way down the ICW to Morehead City the sea suddenly turned from a gray blue into a crisp clear green. It had been a beautiful, calm, sunny, perfect day already, when five dolphins appeared right beside our sailboat and really made my day. Pretty funny that I just didn't know how to react. First thing I did was jump up and down, let go of the helm (which I really shouldn't do...), clap my hands and laugh and point. Then I walked up to the bow, got down on my knees, reached down to the water in order to touch them and made loud "eee-eee-eee-eee"-sounds I thought would attract them. What was I thinking? I know what I was thinking: "DOLPHINSDOLPHINSDOLPHINS!" - that's what I was thinking. What's the name for that disease again? A temporary blackout caused by the presence of large marine mammals? Humm. The dolphins really seemed to enjoy riding our bow wave, but I'm pretty sure they secretly think we humans are stupid. Which of course is not true, because we are the ones that have nice sailboats and cold drinks and they don't. And then there were pelicans. Yeah, pelicans. Actually I feel quite sorry for them, because nobody ever mentions them in their blog like "And then the first three pelicans appeared right beside our boat and I went absolutely crazy!" Sorry, pelicans. Maybe when we're finished with the dolphins everybody will find out that you are the real cool guys. Just wait another decade or too. I'll keep my fingers crossed.