2/27/15
Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

First, happy 2nd birthday to our granddaughter Caedance!

We love you and miss you, as well as all of our kids and grandkids. I can’t believe she is 2 already. We are bummed about missing out in the celebration.

There hasn’t been much exciting going on here. The weather has been great and we have been doing work in the mornings and then relaxing in the afternoons, as it has been getting hot (sorry northern friends). Our new batteries are installed and it looks like we could be getting to use our friends car for a few days starting next Monday. We plan to take the old batteries back to Walmart and then do a Costco run in Miami. Other than that we have been working on teak refinishing and our taxes (that sucks), thinking we will attempt a run to the Bahamas in the first weather window in March. Right now it doesn’t look good for the next 2 weeks, but we have been getting ready. We got a sim card for my iphone that will work there, giving us voice and data, and we bought our Bahamian courtesy flag. For those who don’t know, when you get to a foreign country in your boat, you fly a yellow flag – called a Q flag or quarantine flag – from the starboard (right side of the boat) spreader until you clear customs and immigration, at which point you fly the courtesy flag and take the Q flag down. You must fly the courtesy flag until you depart. If the weather window doesn’t open pretty soon, we’ll probably just start moving north…very slowly…as we need to be above the Florida line before hurricane season, and we are also renting a house with the kids and grandkids at Kure Beach NC the first week in June.

You folks up north…keep warm. We are not missing the mess that you are dealing with. We are missing all the people though. Looking forward to seeing everyone on our next visit.

2/22/15
Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

The weather has started to turn for the better. Winds have died down and shifted to the east, and the temperature has been close to 80 the last 2 days. This is the normal winter pattern and it is a welcome site. Our sympathies to friends and family up north who are dealing with a nasty, nasty winter, and I am sure the worst we had here would be a delight to those folks. All I can say is…move south! If I had known how much better this is, I would have pushed harder to get here sooner.

We had a fantastic couple of days with our extended family members Jim and Linda. They are some of the best people you could ever meet in this world, and we were delighted that they made the trip here to spend some time with us. We went to Key West yesterday and hit all of our favorite spots. Here we are at the Green Parrot:

We also stumbled upon this really cool Banyan Tree:

We wish they could have stayed longer.

Also thanks to Jim and Linda, we had the new batteries for the boat before we needed to pull the old ones out. That gave me the chance today to charge them up and make sure they are ok before going through the pain-in-the-ass effort of changing them out.

We heard on the cruisers net today about lots of people finally getting a weather window to make a run to the Bahamas, and several of our friends that have been waiting in the Miami area are also going too. There is a lot of discussion here at Harbour Cay about making the next move, some going to the Bahamas, some moving slowly back north. Maris and Linda on Amekaya left Saturday, and Mark and Jane on Average Looper are leaving Tuesday. There is an element of bittersweet in all of this, as we have made new friendships and have enjoyed spending time with everyone here. At the same time, it is exciting to think about the adventures to come and checking out new places.

As for us, we are still planning to shove off to the Bahamas early in March, hopefully after getting some solar panels installed. Stay tuned….

2/20/15
Marathon FL
Posted By Bill

Frequently, non-cruisers want to know what it is like to live like this. Yesterday was so typical that I thought it was a good thing to blog about to help people understand the lifestyle.

If you follow the blog you know we have a battery issue. I did all the research and decided to go with Full River AGM group 31 batteries, and buy them from a discount battery dealer in Miami called DC Battery Specialists. Our friends, that we consider family, Jim and Linda, have been wintering and doing a cruise in the Fort Lauderdale area during the last 3 weeks or so. They wanted to stay in Marathon for a few days to see us and are on their way as I type. Now you have the back ground info.

Our original thought was to rent a car in Marathon, take the current batteries back to Walmart, get our money (if we can) back, pick up the new batteries in north Miami, hit a Costco, and come home. This will take all day, and the refrigerator and freezer on the boat would be without power . Not a huge deal, but less than desirable.

Then Tricia’s friend, who lives in Key West, offered her car to us for several days so we didn’t have to deal with a rental…very generous. We made a plan, and then her daughter had some car trouble and we had to abort…no problem…she would set it up for another period.

Yesterday, Jim called and asked if they could pick something up for us on their way down. I asked which way they were going to go, and it turned out that DC Battery is less than 1/2 mile off their path. So I call DC and ask if someone else can pick them up…yes they can. Then check with Jim to make sure he is ok with going there…yes they are. In the mean time, DC sends me an invoice and tells me that the batteries have to be paid for before Jim picks them up. Oh…and they don’t take credit cards. We can pay via money wire, ACH transfer or depositing a check into their account at a Bank of America Branch. I try a money wire or ACH from our bank accounts, but all of them have a 2 day process. Then I try brokerage accounts, which allow you to wire for no charge. So I call DC back and tell them that a wire would be the mode of payment. They told me that it would probably be a day or so before it processed through their system…bummer. Finally, I see on Google that there is a Bank of America branch in Marathon a couple of miles away. I call them to make sure they are open, then call DC back to see if that will process fast enough, and it looks like it will work.

As an aside, we have been hauling 40 pounds of rolled coins that we grabbed in our haste when we left Ohio 5 months ago. So I get a backpack, load up the coins, ride my bike in the 28 knot winds to the bank. They take the check and gladly exchange the coins for dollars (and didn’t even charge me a fee). I stop by the grocery since I am right next door and pick up as much stuff as I can carry back on my bike. I ride home in the 28 knot winds, call DC to make sure the money hit the account and that the batteries would be waiting for Jim, and let Jim know that we are all set.

I started this process at 9 AM and it is now 4:30 PM. It has taken an entire day to buy batteries and go to the grocery.

We will still have to get a car to take the existing batteries back to Walmart, but having the replacements ahead of time will allow us to run the boat systems while we do the return. As crazy as it sounds, I feel really good that I got all of these things to line up, and save the crap in our freezer and refrigerator when we make the return at Walmart! It was a very satisfying day!

2/20/15
Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

We knew it was coming…and it did.

As stated before, this has been an abnormal winter in the keys. North winds that last for days on end with high wind and chilly temps. This one was forecasted to be an ass kicker with winds over 30 knots several days over the course of a long weekend.

We were invited to cook out with 4 of our new friends at Harbour Cay Club the night before last, and in spite of the cold and wind, we had a great time. Then the shit hit the fan and we were blasted by 35 knot winds out of the northwest all night. We had white cap waves rolling into the docks. I awoke around 2 to check out the dock lines, and I stood on the dock watching our 42 foot 23,000 pound boat repeatedly rise up and smash down into the oncoming water. The rise and fall was easily a range of 5 or 6 feet. I stood bewildered about how to adjust the lines to reduce the stress on the boat, but after a couple of adjustments just let it be.

The next day continued the same. The winds abated to the 25-30 knot range and then 20-27 knot, and the boat smashing stopped. The rocking and rolling did not. Our friends Jim and Jackie, stopped for a visit from their place on Big Pine Key, and they took one look at the boat being tossed around, and said “let’s just sit in the car and visit”…good move! Actually, you get used to the motion after awhile, but if you have other options, you usually take them. We had a fish fry at Harbour Cay last night which was really good eating and social time. It was downright cold for the keys, but we had some protection from the wind and everyone wore jackets and long pants. Then it was back to the boat and another night of little to no sleep. Temps went down into the mid-50s.

Today, the wind shifted to east-north east which protects us from the seas and also breaks the wind some. The worst is over and temps will be back to normal tomorrow. If we had to endure this crap on a regular basis, we would be dirt dwellers, believe me.

2/17/15
Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

We have been here at Harbour Cay Club for just over 2 weeks. Our original plan was to make an attempt to go to the Bahamas in March, or head to the Dry Tortugas and possibly up the west coast of Florida. Before we leave, we needed to get some boat work done, with top priority being new batteries, solar panels and teak work. Being sick for over a week put us a bit behind and now we are looking at crunch time if we want to leave the first of March. We have the battery thing worked out in our heads, and the solar solution has been narrowed down…we just need to execute on those. That leaves the teak, which we started back up on 3 days ago. There is a lot of teak on the exterior of the boat and when it is finished, it looks very nice. We have been stripping the old stain off (Sikkens Cetol) for the last 3 years, mostly letting nature help us out, but there are still areas to strip, so we have been working hard to finish it up. We also did some sanding, followed by cleaning the wood with a diluted bleach and liquid Dawn mixture. Finally, we will wipe the wood down with a solvent and lay on the Cetol. We are going to use the Sikkens Natural, followed by Sikkens Gloss to give it a varnished look. The weather here is perfect for doing the staining (called bright work in the nautical world). There is not much humidity, the temps have been in the 70s, and we don’t have to worry about dew or bugs. Here are some pics to give you the idea: