Friends lifting the kiddush cup for the wine blessing…

Last evening we enjoyed a beautiful Shabbat celebration and meal on a yacht. The weather was perfect… the company grand… the conversation stimulating… and the laughter raucous… It was a once in a lifetime experience. Actually, I am hoping it wasn’t. I am longing to do it again… soon…

After our Shabbat meal, we sailed by Palm Island and Star Island and saw some homes of the rich, famous, and not-so famous, along the shoreline.

One interesting house we saw was the Italian, American gangster, Al Capone’s island home. You know the story well–his lifestyle of crime lead him to a kind of island hopping he had not planned on… from the glory and heights of Palm Island to the lowly and shameful Alcatraz Island, off the coast of San Francisco.

Here is another interesting island house we saw–the original home of Betty Crocker who was in reality William Crocker–who helped make the fictionalized Betty Crocker famous. Here’s the story. 

Oh and btw, here is my place… funny that I have to take a picture of it from a chartered yacht…