Island Paradise

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The Sinking of the Vandenberg

THE GEN. HOYT S. VANDENBERG AT A GLANCE :

The ship is 520 feet long, 13,300 tons,100 feet tall at its highest peak.

The keel will lie on sand and hardbottom at 140 feet. The 10 by 30 feet crow's nest platform and the dish antennas will be only 40 feet from the surface. Most of the deck structures will be at 50 to 90 feet. Seven by 10 foot holes will offer access to the top four decks. Eighteen stair towers, elevator shafts and cargo hold shafts will offer vertical access.

A new marine life habitat this ship will be the most spectacular artificial reef ever prepared especially for diving. There will be plenty of very divable structure at depths of 40 to 140 feet. Shallow structures include the 30 by 10 foot crows nest, perfect for beginning dive classes, the great 40 foot dish antennas, and the tops of the bridge and communications center.
The 25 foot tall rudder and prop will be a fantastic deep dive at 140 feet. The four open decks at approximately 70-100 feet will be penetrated horizontally with 8 by 10 foot openings on each side, and vertical elevator shafts, cargo holds and stair towers. The vast structure will teem with marine life, inside and out.

Following an 1,100-mile voyage and more than a decade of planning and acquring funding resources, the Florida Keys newest artificial reef, the ex-military missile tracking ship Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg arrived in Key West Wednesday.
The Vandenberg is docked behind the USS Mohawk, at the East Quay Wall in Truman Annex Harbor.
Final preparations to sink the ship is beginning. Project organizers said the scuttling should take place sometime between May 20 and June 1, about six miles south of Key West in 140 feet of water in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
That work primarily involves the cutting of hundreds of large holes on the ship’s decks and sides to help ensure the vessel sinks in an upright position.
Public tours of the Vandenberg will not be allowed due to safety concerns, but people can see the ship at Truman Waterfront while it is docked at the East Quay wall.
A security fence will prohibit onlookers from getting too close to the ship, but there will be plenty of viewing access, said Key West city spokeswoman Alyson Crean.
Sometime before June 1, the same procession of tugboats will lead the Vandenberg back out of Key West's main ship channel and to a location about six miles offshore.
Once in position, and held there with more than 30 tons of steel anchors, the Vandenberg will make its final voyage -- 140 feet to the bottom of the ocean.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

A Day in Paradise

Key West is a city in Monroe County, Florida, United States.

The city encompasses

Key West the namesake island, the part of Stock Island north of U.S. 1 (the Overseas Highway) (east), Sigsbee Park (north, originally known as Dredgers Key), Fleming Key (north), and Sunset Key (west, originally known as Tank Island). Nearby Key Haven (northeast), the part of Stock Island south of U.S. 1 (east), and Wisteria Island, better known as Christmas Tree Island (northwest), are in unincorporated Monroe County. Both Fleming Key and Sigsbee Park are part of the NAS Key West and are inaccessible by civilians.
Key West is the county seat of Monroe County.
Key West is known as the southernmost city in the Continental United States. It is also the southern terminus of U.S. 1, State Road A1A, and the East Coast Greenway.

Key West is 129 miles (207 km) southwest (229.9
degrees) of Miami, Florida, (about 160 driving miles) and 106 miles (170 km) north-northeast (21.2 degrees) of Havana, Cuba. Cuba, at its closest point, is 94 statute (81 nautical) miles south.
Key West is a seaport destination for many passenger cruise ships. The Key West International Airport provides airline service. Hotels and guest houses are available for lodging.
Naval Air Station Key West is an important year round training site for naval aviation due to the superb weather conditions. It is also a reason the city was chosen as the Winter White House of President Harry S. Truman.
The central business district primarily comprises Duval Street, and includes much of the northwest corner of the island along Whitehead, Simonton, Front, Greene, Caroline, and Eaton Streets and Truman Avenue.

The official city motto is "One Human Family."

Cayo Hueso (pronounced [ˈkaʎoˈweso]) is the original Spanish name for the island of Key West. Spanish-speaking people today also use the term Cayo Hueso when referring to Key West. It literally means "bone key". It is said that the island was littered with the remains (bones) from an Indian battlefield or burial ground. The most widely accepted theory of how the name changed to Key West is that it is a false-friend anglicization of the word, on the ground that the word "hueso" (pronounced [ˈweso]) sounds as if it could mean "west" in English. Other theories of how the island was named are that the name indicated that it was the westernmost Key, or that the island was the westernmost Key with a reliable supply of water. Many businesses on the island use the name, such as Casa Cayo Hueso, Cayo Hueso Resorts, Cayo Hueso Consultants, Cayo Hueso y Habana Historeum, etc. In 1763, when Great Britain took control of Florida, the community of Spaniards and Native Americans were moved to Havana. Florida returned to Spanish control 20 years later, but there was no official resettlement of the island. Informally the island was used by fishermen from Cuba and from the British Bahamas, who were later joined by others from the United States after the latter nation's independence. While claimed by Spain, no nation exercised de facto control over the community there for some time.

Conchs
Many of the residents of Key West were immigrants from the Bahamas, known as Conchs (pronounced 'conks'), who arrived in increasing numbers after 1830. Many were sons and daughters of Loyalists who fled to the nearest Crown soil during the American Revolution. In the 20th century many residents of Key West started referring to themselves as "Conchs", and the term is now generally applied to all residents of Key West. Some residents use the term "Conch" to refer to a person born in Key West, while the term "Freshwater Conch" refers to a resident not born in Key West but who has lived in Key West for seven years or more. However, the true original meaning of Conch applies only to someone with European ancestry who immigrated from the Bahamas. It is said that when a baby was born, the family would put a conch shell on a pole in front of their home.
Many of the Bahamian immigrants live in an area of Old Town next to the Truman Annex called "Bahama Village."
Major industries in Key West in the early 19th century included fishing, salt production, and salvage. In 1860 wrecking made Key West the largest and richest city in Florida and the wealthiest town per capita in the U.S. A number of the inhabitants worked salvaging shipwrecks from nearby Florida reefs, and the town was noted for the unusually high concentration of fine furniture and chandeliers that the locals used in their own homes after salvaging them from wrecks.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Key West Sights

Looking toward the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Side

Higgs Beach

Cruise Ship leaving

Salt Pond Tarpons

Smathers Beach

Key West from the Gulf

Rebecca Shoals Lighthouse early 1900's

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Around Town

Atlantic Side

Key West Lighthouse

Stock Island Shrimpboats

Smathers Beach

Sunset Key

Fort Jefferson

Conch Shells

Sunset View from Within the Island

Looking For Supper

Sunday, March 8, 2009

When Hollywood Came Calling

It was 1959. Cary Grant and Tony Curtis were in Key West filming Operation Petticoat. I got to watch. I was 10 years old.

From Wikipedia:

Operation Petticoat is a 1959 comedic film directed by Blake Edwards, and starring Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, and Dina Merrill.
The film tells in flashback form the story of a fictional World War II American submarine USS Sea Tiger, sunk in the Philippine Islands during the opening days of World War II. Operation Petticoat follows the adventures and tribulations of the sub's skipper (Grant) and his crew (including Curtis as a deviously mercenary supply officer), as they first try to repair the sub and then reach Australia for the necessary refit. The voyage includes various detours along the way, including the acquisition of a group of stranded female Army nurses, an attempt to sink a Japanese ship, and a hurried stopover to overhaul and repaint the sub which quickly goes awry.
Other members of the cast includes several actors who became television stars in the 1960s and 1970s: Gavin MacLeod of Love Boat and McHale's Navy as Yeoman Hunkle, Marion Ross of Happy Days as Army 2LT Colfax, Dick Sargent, (later to star in the series Bewitched), as LT Stovall, Arthur O'Connell (The Second Hundred Years), and Gene Evans (Spencer's Pilots}
The movie was written by Paul King & Joseph Stone (story) and Stanley Shapiro & Maurice Richlin (screenplay). It received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Screenplay.
The film was produced with extensive support of the Department of Defense and the United States Navy. Most of the filming was done in and around the since deactivated Naval Station Key West, Florida...which substituted for the Philippines...and Naval Station San Diego, California.

The Sea Tiger in the movie was portrayed by three different American WWII era submarines:
Queenfish (SS-393), in the opening and closing scenes (circa 1959), in which the "393" on the conning tower is visible,
Archerfish (SS-311), for all the WWII scenes where the boat was painted the standard gray and black,
Balao (SS-285), for all the scenes in which Sea Tiger was painted pink.

Plot:
The film is told in flashback form as a recollection of RADM Matt Sherman (Grant), the fictional Commander of Submarine Forces Pacific in 1959. His is the story of the fictitious World War II American submarine USS Sea Tiger, which he has boarded early that morning in 1959, prior to its departure for the scrapyard. Having served as the first commanding officer of Sea Tiger, he takes a seat in his former captain's stateroom and begins reading his personal log, beginning with Sea Tiger coming under Japanese attack while pierside at the U.S. Naval Base in Cavite during the opening days of the Pacific War. Sunk at the pier following an air attack, the story then follows his crazy adventures as then-LCDR Matt Sherman, and his crew. The story also includes the role of a new replacement, LTJG Nick Holden (Curtis), a line officer and former admiral's aide with minimal sea duty experience who offers himself as an opportunistic and self-styled "supply officer," as they try first to raise the sub and then sail it to Australia for the repairs necessary to re-enter the war. Holden, also a self-styled "idea man," signs on because he wants to get out of the Philippines before the Japanese arrive, and because he thinks he can work a better deal for himself in Australia.
Along the way they pick up a contingent of female Army nurses stranded on another Philippine island. LTJG Holden sets his sights on one of the nurses, 2LT Duran, even though he is engaged to a wealthy woman back home. Meanwhile, LCDR Sherman has a series of embarassing encounters with the very well-endowed but clumsy 2LT Crandall.
Sherman, Holden and the crew are eventually forced to continue on their journey with the sub painted pink after plans for a quick re-paint of the sub go awry (Not enough red lead or white lead undercoat primer paint is available to paint the entire sub either color, and so all the available paint of both colors is mixed together; and then the Japanese find the sub before the regular gray overcoat can be applied).
The pink sub becomes a target for an American destroyer force whose commanding officer is convinced that it must be Japanese. Grant saves the sub by firing the nurses' bras, panties and nylons out a torpedo tube. The garments rise to the surface, 2LT Crandall's bra is snagged by a grappling hook and taken aboard a destroyer, and it is soon evident to the destroyer crew that the submarine is American.
The story ends with RADM Sherman aboard Sea Tiger on the morning he has had to sign the final order directing her decommissioning and eventual scrapping. He is met by the current commanding officer of Sea Tiger, now-CDR Nick Holden, as he and his wife (the former 2LT Duran) and their sons arrive at the pier. Holden asks the admiral if there is any reprieve for Sea Tiger's fate. Reluctantly, he says there is none...but he adds that a new nuclear-powered submarine is about to come off the ways...also named Sea Tiger...and that the new Sea Tiger is Holden's next command. Sherman's wife (the former 2LT Crandall) arrives shortly thereafter with their daughters. Running late, the ever clumsy former Lieutenant Crandall/Mrs. Sherman manages to bump the family station wagon into RADM Sherman's staff car, which then locks bumpers with a Navy bus immediately in front of it. The bus then drives off with the staff car behind, with Sherman's chief petty officer/driver yelling and chasing after it. Holden, standing on Sea Tiger's sail, chuckles at the humor of it all as he maneuvers the sub away from the pier on her final voyage. Sherman looks longingly and humorously as the sub sails away, backfiring and belching smoke from its one troublesome diesel engine that was always a source of consternation to Sherman when he was in command years prior.

Historical Basis:
Some of the plot points of the movie were based on real-life incidents. Most notable were scenes set at the opening of WW-II, based on the actual sinking of the submarine USS Sealion (SS-195), sunk at the pier at Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines. Commander Sherman's letter to the supply department on the inexplicable lack of toilet paper, based on an actual letter to the supply department of Mare Island Naval Shipyard by Lieutenant Commander James Wiggin Coe of the submarine Skipjack (SS-184), and the need to paint a submarine pink, due to the lack of enough red lead or white lead undercoat paint.

Operation Petticoat was: