So Long 2015

You were a pretty good year.

Merry Christmas

It's A Boat, Senator

The USS Milwaukee, an advanced littoral combat ship and the most recent vessel launched by the U.S. Navy, lasted less than three weeks in the water before a problem involving metal filings in its lubrication oil caused it to suffer a “complete loss of propulsion.” The $362 million ship had to be towed into port for repairs.

The incident sparked an angry statement from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Reporting of a complete loss of propulsion on USS Milwaukee is deeply alarming, particularly given this ship was commissioned just 20 days ago,” McCain said in a statement. “U.S. Navy ships are built with redundant systems to enable continued operation in the event of an engineering casualty, which makes this incident very concerning.

Me thinks John has never owned a boat.

Complete article here ... http://finance.yahoo.com/news/navy-362-million-ship-needs-111500822.html

Capt Tony's

If these walls could talk ...

No, we're not in Key West, but we were a while back. (yes, I like the fuzzy shots)

Gonna be another Christmas in Memphis — It's been warm there and we're hoping that holds out a while longer.

Blue Beach

Breezy Day At The Beach

and the sky was filled with kites.

Fall Colors From Our Past

 Joe Wheeler State Park — Alabama

The Tennessee River

Just Pics

and now we've lost Milt...

 A great guy with a kind soul. 

We'll always treasure Milt's friendship, remember his laugh, and often think of the long conversations we had while walking our dogs and telling stories.
Dooby Dooby Doo

Milt and his much loved Abby — Sunset Bay

The Dude abides

Will the circle be unbroken

By and by, by and by?

Is a better home awaiting

In the sky, in the sky?

Rest in Peace, my friend

Great News!

Seems the blow turned before hitting the Exumas and all is well there. onSpot Sat Net never stopped working which is a good indicator of the weather. Compass Cay never lost power and Little Halls Pond reports, "Everything good!".



And today Joaquin seems to be taking the preferred Northeastern route. (Unless you in Bermuda)

No reports yet from Long Island, Rum or Cat. There will probably be some extensive damage on those islands.

Another bullet dodged.

Exumas Are Probably Being Battered

All personal weather stations are down...
Said to be a Cat 4 at this point...
onSpot WiFi's Sat Network is still up and running, but no one is online...

The last weather report before the Wunderground Personal Weather Station stopped broadcasting.

100mph with gusts to 127 — Not good.

It sucks to be in the Exumas right now.

===================================================

Although... Over Yonder Cay has just started reporting again.

The Pipe Creek area has either been spared or hasn't been hit yet.

We vote for spared

This explains onSpot's Sat Net still being up and functional.

A Long Time Gone

The real reason for our trip back to Memphis?

It seems the City of Memphis, NARAS, and the Memphis Music Foundation all put their heads together and decided to award Larry Raspberry and The Highsteppers a Brass Note On Beale Street.
This one was a special award. As a member of the Gentrys, (Remember "Keep On Dancin"?), Larry had already received a note a year or so earlier.   —

— but the foundation wanted to specifically to show him and the Highsteppers some love.
The Highsteppers were and are still some of the top players in the business. I was proud to be one of them in my time and honored to be asked to come back home and stand up with this fine group of musicians as we received our recognition.

What a night.          

                                                             

It's been a long time gone, alright — 33 years to be exact — it was a blast to see this many friends and old band mates in one place at one time; sadly a few are no longer with us.

This brass note will be embedded in the sidewalk somewhere along Beale Street where it will stay forever.

It's quite an honor.

Good friends , Jim Gaines and Sandy Carroll were there to help celebrate and return the favor. 

Jim, a Grammy Award winning engineer and producer and Sandy, a singer/piano/songwriter, made the day even more special. Both have received Notes on Beale for their ongoing works.

(Photos I took at their award ceremony.) >> https://youtu.be/YfHVtEgS-BI

Photo by Dan Wiseman

It was a great show, a great crowd, and hell of a lot of fun.
I'm not a reunion kinda guy, but this was worth the drive.

Did I join in and play bass?      Nope — opted out — just shot photos and hung out instead.

Let the players play.

For me... it truly has been, 'A long time gone'.

Cheers,

Istaboa

P.S — To the guys: More pics from the night will be posted as I process them.

Photo by Dan Wiseman

 

Surf's Up

The Mississippi River

Yesterday, Acting like tourist at home, we walked to Beale St; enjoyed the Gumbo at Blues City Cafe, stopped at the Peabody, then Ubered over to the new Bass Pro Pyramid to check it out.

This is a shot looking south down the River that takes in all of downtown and both bridges.

The Bass Pro is way over the top. Quite impressive, actually. We even went bowling at Uncle Buck's  lanes in the Pyramid.

If you're in Memphis, check it out... You certainly can't miss the huge Pyramid next to the River and the ride to the top is worth the 10 bucks. Have a cocktail while you're up there.

Memphis In The Meantime

Lets go to Memphis in the meantime baby
Memphis in the meantime girl

Maybe there's nothin' happenin' there
Maybe there's somethin' in the air
Before our upper lips get stiff
Maybe we need us a big ol whiff

If we could just get off-a that beat little girl
Maybe we could find the groove
At least we can get a decent meal
Down at the Rendez-vous

'Cause one more heartfelt steel guitar chord
Girl, it's gonna do me in
I need to hear some trumpet and saxophone
You know sound as sweet as sin

And after we get good and greasy Baby we can come back home
Put the cowhorns back on the cadillac
Change the message on the cord-a-phone

But...

Lets go to Memphis in the meantime baby
Memphis in the meantime girl

 Within the lyrics of this tune, John sings of going back to Memphis to escape the glitzy/ritzy atmosphere of Nashville, though he will eventually go back because...
As you can see, we're back in Memphis for a few days. It's great place to come home to — Funky Old Memphis. Seems like everywhere you look there's a photo asking to be taken.

Music in the streets followed up with excellent food, Downtown Mempho's definitely as authentic as it is flat out cool. 
Last night was dinner at Five Spot,  Fried Chicken Skin BLT?  It's worth it.

Cheers,

Istaboa

No reason, just liked this little gif and thought I'd post it.

 

Erika!?

It's appears Erika has dissipated and is now nothing more than a weak, wet blow.
Much to chagrin of our weather prognosticators, Erika never cooperated with them. We appreciate it.

In an email from our friends aboard 'Irianna':

Double tied to dock and opposite finger in Blue Haven marina Provo... Had gusts to a lil over 40 kts at about 1730 y/day. We stayed on the boat figuring if we lost shore power, we have a gen set to run all.... I would have gotten off the boat if it had been a bigger storm.

We currently have 20-25 kts and rain. The strange thing that stumps my pea brain is that the wind Only varied about 10 deg all throughout... SE wind .... relentless since March!

They're weathering it out in the Turks & Caicos. Nice place to do so.

Walked down to the beach this morning. A very nice morning. Playing with my iPhone.

"Can't Find My Way Home" written by Steve Winwood — Performed by Nathan East

Calm Before The Storm?

Hope not...

I hate hurricane season.

This morning, the Atlantic was still. Not a breath of air made things hot, but smooth.




Hmm... It is that time of year — again.

Wonder what tomorrow's forecast will say—??—

Odd Shots

View from the new dining room at Staniel Cay Yacht Club

A fun night.

Tucker, Kerstin, Julissa, Kim, Natalie, and Maddy flew to the states yesterday. They're staying in the area so Mel and I had dinner with them last night.

Tuck looked good and the girls are growing up to be very pretty young ladies. 

It was good to see them all.

Odd Shots

May have posted this already.

Pipe Creek fly over

Odd Shots

bahamas2015.zip

Good Morning, Jupiter

Woke early this AM and took a walk on the beach. It was a glorious sunrise so I captured a moment to share.
This snippet is close to the inlet where two young boys disappeared yesterday.
It's windless and quite still this morning.

Odd Shots

Walking the boys along the beach at Joe Cay Cut, I happened upon this small coral. With a full moon tide going out, this little invertebrate was about to be high and dry; it wouldn't have survived.

More bahamas2015.zip

So we took it back to Compass and placed it amongst a garden of mature Brain Coral that live under the docks. Hopefully it thrives in it's new surrounding.

Coral Transplant.

Dem Damn Drones

Fisherman in San Diego casts for and hooks a drone, but it gets away.
Nice cast, though!!

Odd Shots

The street market in Nassau.

Crab Corral 

Odd Shots

Istaboa's very prominent bow.

At night, the glow from the large yachts underwater lights conveys just how clean and clear the water at Compass is. There's probably 15 feet of under our bow.

With flash.