Queen Relaxes Aboard Her Yacht Off Coast of Florida

Queen Elizabeth II took a break Saturday from the formalities of her state visit by relaxing aboard her yacht off the Florida Keys.

The two-day sail aboard the 412-foot Britannia was to be a restful interlude between last week’s busy ceremonial agenda in Washington and Miami and the second half of the trip, which will take the queen to Tampa, Fla., Texas and Kentucky.

The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, planned later in the day to tour Ft. Jefferson, a Union prison camp in the Civil War. The historic fort is on one of the most isolated points of land in the United States--the Dry Tortugas chain of coral islands about 70 miles west of Key West, Fla.

The islands are protected as part of Ft. Jefferson National Monument and are accessible only by boat or seaplane.

Dr. Samuel Mudd, sentenced to hard labor at the fort for setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, helped stave off a yellow fever outbreak that felled the prison surgeon.

The queen’s yacht is scheduled to arrive Monday morning in Tampa, where she is scheduled to bestow an honorary knighthood and medal upon Persian Gulf War leader Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

But there will be no flourishes, nor even a brief ceremonial tap on the general’s shoulders with a sword during his initiation into the British Order of the Bath.

“The queen will give him the insignia, which consists of a badge and a star. She will simply hand it to him,” a spokesman traveling with the queen told reporters.

The identical award was given to Gens. Mark Clark and Matthew B. Ridgway following the Korean War. Other honorary knighthoods have been awarded to prominent Americans, including former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

On Friday night, the royal yacht was the venue for a lamb dinner for 60 guests, including former Presidents Reagan and Gerald R. Ford.

Earlier in the day, the queen visited an inner-city junior high school and kept a stiff upper lip during a rain-soaked garden party at Vizcaya, an antique-filled, 70-room Italian Renaissance mansion on Biscayne Bay.

Security was tight in south Florida, with Secret Service agents on duty and Florida Marine Patrol boats cruising the waters.

It is the queen’s third state visit to the United States and her first tour of Florida.