Bill -
I was both surprised and happy to hear of your extensive sailing
experiences and to verify that other Amphicarites are also real sailors too.
Regarding Tony Horowitz's tome about Captain Cook's voyages, in December we were
in
Kittyhawk for the Centennial celebration of the Wright Brother's original
flight. Though the final day may have been a bust when the craft didn't stand a
chance of flying, the week long event was fantastic. (Our Kitty Hawk trip was
the
reason the Mount Dora flyer didn't get sent to Tommy of Tampa until December
19th, and then on to the president, because we left for Kittty Hawk right after
the Mt. Dora organizational meeting as had been planned and of which Tommy
and Lynne were aware. Though I knew of the 15th deadline for ads and articles, I
didn't know it applied to insert flyers, since they required no typesetting
etc. in the club newsletter. Any rate, I was duly castigated and given more
than the appropriate lashes with the Cat's tail as you'll recall, especially for
intentionally ( ! ) mispelling some members' names in the Flyer.)
Anyway, In Kitty Hawk, a couple of my YANKEE shipmates spent some time
with us, as we had room in our RV, and one of them gave me a copy of Horowitz's
book. It doesn't surprise me that you are only half was through its lengthy
pages, but I likewise found it fascinating. The most impressive item to me
(among so many interesting items) was that Cook was the very first European or
"foreigner" of any persuasion to visit Australia and encounter the Aborigines.
That had to be overwhelming. Nearby New Zealand had already been encountered by
Polynesians, at least, and some degree of language interchange could be
accompolished, but in Australia, there was zero language in common. It reminded
me
very much of our experience in New Guinea when in the highlands (Wahgi Valley).
8 of us "of European descent" which included 7 YANKEES and an Australian
Patrol Officer (while on a 100 mile overland hike in semi-controlled territory
where actual headhunting was still going on,) encountered natives who had NEVER
seen so many "white people" before and had to have been surprised that there
were so many in the world. Previously, they had seen 1 or 2 Patrol officers at
a time. These half million natives had only been discovered 24 years earlier
living literally in the stone age and actually using stone axes.
Unforgettable.
On the subject of Kitty Hawk, though the press played up the fiasco of
the "non-flight" on the 17th (which in my opinion was an inexcusable exercise in
futility and poor judgement) there were many worthwhile things to do and see
in the week leading up to the 17th. The fact of the matter is that the actual
replica (as with the original,) was only marginally flyable and absolutely
required a minimum of 15-20 knots of wind in order to stand a chance. The
forcast
from Friday December 12th on was for rain on the Sunday the 14th and
Wednesday, the 17th which came to pass exactly as predicted. However, the
"powers that
be" in their infinite wisdon (and unquestionably they knew the flying
requirements and situation better than I ) elected not to fly on Friday or
Saturday
or Monday or Tuesday when there were feasible wind conditions that made a
flight possible, but waited for Wednesday at 10:35 am when there was no wind
and
an absolute drenching downpour.They finally tried at noon when the rain abated
with prdeicatble and embarrassing results.
Just the same, I and many others listened to the likes of Bob Morgan, who
was the Captain of the famous "Memphis Belle" B-17 who is now in his 80's but
his tales were fascinating along with numberous other aviation dignitaries
and fantastic displays. Entrance to the event required individual daily tickets
and the 35,000 (increased from an original 30,000 !) tickets for the Wednesday
December 17th date were apparently purchased in large numbers by
corporations, etc., because they were all gone by October 15th and of course
that day
turned out to be a loss. The tickets originally only cost $10 a day, but on
e-Bay I saw them offered for as high as $500 a pair !
The only connection of this note to Amphicars is that it involves
watercraft, but I know that many of our fellow club members have wide ranging
interests and will likely find some of this information interesting. We just
returned
from our 7th Annual Mount Dora Swim-In and for the 7th time in a row, had
superb weather in the low 80s and a record number of Amphicars as we also had a
record number of "Woodie cars." In both instances, both with the Amphicars and
the "Woodies," this is annually the largest assemblage in the southeastern
United States and of course, the Mount Dora setting and combination of bots,
Amphicars and wolodies makes for a sensational show. As always, the Amphicars
were the real crowd pleasers and people just couldn't get enough of them. Our
banquet overflowed and Hugh and others regaled us with spellbinding anecdotes.
Vic "Splash" Nelson
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