Circa 1959/1962 there was a TV series on ABC called The Adventures in Paradise adapted from a story by James Michener. Featured in the series was a 90 foot schooner named TIKI and the venue was the South Pacific i.e. Tahiti in the Society Islands. Boats of this type often change ownership and about ten years later she was operating as a charter boat in the West Indies. At about this time (1972) I had joined a sailing club working out of City Island in the Bronx run by a U.S. Coast Guard certified captain whose name was Ted Charles (now deceased). Ted was a real character who resembled Phil Silvers with his bald head and glib delivery. When he wasn't on the water he sometimes had a gig playing piano in a Greenwich Village club and once told me that he had sat in with Benny Goodman on a New Year's Eve midnight show. Must have been a blast. One Sunday in the middle of Long Island Sound he stopped engines and we drifted with the current while he threw inner tubes over the side and we had a water ballet rivaling that of Billy Rose. But the real excitement came when I learned that Ted had become part of the new ownership of the TIKI and he invited me to join him some time "down island" and that's when the adventures in paradise came closer to home.
(To be continued)
tjs
No comments:
Post a Comment