Thank you, and thank you to the rest of you who commented. I agree that the fingerboard is a bit cramped. I try to press strings down with fingertips pointed straight at the board. Sometimes it works just fine, but there are chords I just don't manage, such as straight A major, which is next to impossible to get right. As a barre chord, it's easier. What I like about the Southcoast E to E tuning (strings 4,5,6 one octave up) is the haunting kinda high pitched sound and tone. The re-entrant quality of that tuning makes the instrument an instrument in its own right...in my opinion, anyway. It's not a miniature guitar, and neither is it a uke in the traditional sense. It has its own voice, so to speak. And besides, I love blues on nylon strings, which I think more players should try...
I had classical guitar lessons for a very short while when I was a kid, but never got the hang of it. When I discovered blues, I listened to a lot of old acoustic blues guitar stuff, like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake and the like. Later, I discovered the great John Fahey, Leo Kottke, Peter Lang and other American Primitive Guitar heroes. Nowadays, I listen to Daniel Bachman, the guitar duo East Of The Valley Blues and others. When I try to play guitar myself, I feel clumsy, and almost never get it right. The guitalele, however, fits me like a glove. I really, really like it.