Fat Albert

No, we're not watching old cartoon reruns, I just thought I'd pass along the latest new term we've learned. When we were traveling in the lower keys, we noticed a large blimp above us at one of our anchorages. It seemed very strange, as blimps are usually seen above important football/baseball games and other big events.

We use more than one cruising website to keep up on changes along the Intracoastal. The sites post things like shoaling(channel filling in, so it's not at posted depth), construction delays on bridges and such. This morning, someone had a post, telling people that they could find the lower keys anchorage I referred to by looking for the Fat Albert. Of course, there were many replies as to what a Fat Albert was(glad I wasn't the only one scratching my head on this one). Here is the reply that was posted:


Fat Alberts are what the locals call US Navy radar balloons. They are almost as large as a blimp.

The Navy puts these huge balloons up on tethers from a base near Newfound Harbor, and uses them to watch for drug flights, or unauthorized flights from Cuba.

The only trouble is these things regularly break free from their tethers. When this happens the Navy scrambles a could of F-14's out of Boca Chita Key, and they shoot down these 16 million dollar balloons with million dollar missiles, so their secret equipment doesn't fall into Cuban hands. Your tax dollars at work in the Florida Keys.


You truely do learn something every day!!