RICHARDSONS, WEINBERGS 
and A HAAS OR TWO--

One of life's pleasures is visiting old friends.

Sue and I recently enjoyed a hat-trick of such visits in the Port Charlotte area of Florida’s west coast.

Longtime friend Dave Richardson and his wife Cathy (above) are shown along the canal behind their home with their yawl-rigged, sailing vessel Essay partially visible behind them.  She is 38.5’ in length and displaces 15 tons. 

Essay does.  Not Cathy.

They bought the boat in the Houston area in the summer of 2004 and lived there in a motel and later on the boat as they prepared to sail her home to Port Charlotte, FL.  That trip was a sail of nearly 1,000 miles.

Dave doesn’t remember how long it took but quipped, “Cathy really liked marinas.”

The crew included son Joe from Houston to near New Orleans, then Cathy from there home plus Cathy’s Yorkie Dweezel.

Sailing adventures since have been mostly around the huge Charlotte Harbor and one very special romp to the Bahamas from early November 2005 to March 2006.  On that trip they went over with two other boats but returned solo.

It was a challenging experience Dave mused,  “… beating into a narrow channel between two islands in the Bahamas after the crossing from Marathon with no engine and the port rail in the water so far the waves were sloshing against the cabin windows.”

The engine failure turned out to be a faulty oil line.

Dave describes his most pleasurable sailing experience “…heading south in the Gulf of Mexico on an all-night sail watching big, fierce Orion chase little Mars across the night sky and over the horizon.”

He continues to regard the buying, restoring, and sailing to the Bahamas as a highlight of his life.  “I still smile everytime I look at the old boat.”

Dave first appeared on the blog last summer when we visited Schoenbrunn Village near New Philadelphia, OH together.  My friendship with Dave dates back to our mixed doubles golf league era when the children were just growing past needing baby sitters.  He owned and published the Bellville Star in those days.

Pat Haas, Sue Brooks, Dave Weinberg, Pat’s husband Dick and Dave’s wife Cheryl are shown in the lower photo.  This view is in the lanai of the Haas home in Punta Gorda with the screened pool behind that and their canal in the background.

Pat was in the medical office management field with Sue for many years and Dave and I worked together when I was doing commercial photography for his employer, the Gorman Rupp Co.  Dave’s wife was a few years behind me at Mansfield’s John Simpson Jr High School.  Small world!

The canal systems of both the Richardson’s and the Haas’s connect to Charlotte Harbor then the Gulf of Mexico.  The Haas’s enjoyed boating on Lake Erie for years and had a boat in FL as well.  Fogeyisms understands there may be another Haas boat in the future.

We tip our hat to their collective and marvelous hospitality!