5/2/16
Vero Beach, FL
Position: 27 39.257N, 080 22.280W
Posted by Bill

I forgot to mention in the last post, that when we arrived in Allans/Pensecola Cay, we passed the 5,000 nautical mile/5,754 statute mile mark since we left to go cruising 2 years ago. I am not sure how exciting that is for anyone but me, but it was a milestone for me.

On the 28th, we left Allans/Pensecola and stopped at Great Sale Cay, a great place to stage to go back to the States. The holding is great, there is lots of room for boats, and the protection from wind and seas are excellent, except from the south or west. We just hung on the boat, trying to relax for the 2 day trip back to Florida and getting the boat ready for offshore passage. One thing that was a must do was the prop shaft packing gland adjustment. We had been getting more than normal water levels in the bilge for awhile, nothing major, and it wasn’t getting worse, and I isolated the source to the packing gland, so I kept putting it off. It isn’t hard to adjust, but we have to take all of the stuff out of the aft berth, a.k.a. the garage, to get access to it…a major pain in the butt. The prop shaft packing gland is the point at which the propeller shaft goes through the back of the hull and into the engine compartment. There is an adjustment nut pushes packing material (goretex) tight around the shaft to keep the water from coming in. After time, due to wear, the nut needs to be adjusted to reduce the amount of water coming in. The water flow was getting worse the last couple of days, and I didn’t want an issue with it going across the ocean and Gulf Stream, so I bit the bullet while anchored at Great Sale. It is in a very tight space, and I had trouble getting my wrenches in there. Mark came over and helped, and we took care of business (thanks again Mark).

The next day we left Great Sale around noon and headed across the Little Bahama Bank to Memory Rock, a break in the reefs where the bank meets the Atlantic Ocean. The wind was so calm that the sea looked like glass. We were in 15 feet of water and you could see everything on the bottom in great detail:



The starfish in the last picture was probably about 6″ wide. It was mesmerizing to just sit and watch the water go by. I also saw a couple of large sea turtles and a dolphin that checked me out from underwater, then surfaced behind us. It helped pass the time. By dark we hit the Memory Rock cut in the reefs and headed into the ocean. We took a heading of about 270 degrees to compensate for the north flowing Gulf Stream current. There were several large cruise ships and a tanker that crossed our path through the night so we had to keep on our toes. The winds were low and the seas were 2-3 feet…not too bad! As we got into the stream and up until we hit Florida, the wave period got to be really short and it was uncomfortable, but certainly not anything like some of our passages where we had large waves and a nasty sea state. We hit the Fort Pierce inlet around 9:30 AM and motored up to Vero Beach, one of our favorite stops on the ICW. The trip lasted just over 24 hours and 135 nautical miles.

Yesterday, we took a walk to the beach and hit some bars for rum runners and such. We met up with our good friends Hayden and Radeen on Island Spirit at Waldos, for some drinks and great people watching! Today we took the bus to get liquor and groceries. It was nice to have such a great selection of food and drink, something we missed while in the Bahamas. Now we are doing laundry and looking forward to the hamburger special at Mr. Manatees tonight for dinner. Tomorrow we start the trip north. If we travel the ICW (intracoastal waterway) everyday without stopping, we can be in Southport in 11 days, but we will stay a few days at our favorite spots like St Augustine and Charleston. We expect to be in Southport within 3 weeks time. We hope you will continue to follow along!

2/25/16
Tarpon Basin, Key Largo FL
Posted by Bill

After arriving 2 days ago, we ventured into Key Largo by dinghy. There is a nice public dinghy dock, with trash drop off, and a short walk to stores, restaurants and bars. The first order of business for us was to get a new hose for the anchor wash down. We bought a new one in Beaufort SC in November, but when I plugged it in to the wash down system I found that there were dozens of holes (or cuts as it turned out) in the hose, resulting in a salt water shower that covered the entire boat! We really need the anchor wash down as it is used to hose off the anchor chain and anchor when we pull the anchor up. Otherwise, the crap on the chain goes into the anchor locker, eventually finding it’s way into the bilge and stinking up the boat. We hit a hardware store just across the street from the dinghy dock, bought the hose, and then proceeded to happy hour a couple of doors down at D-Hookers. Great wings, and stiff drinks!!!! Here is the gang:

Everyone came over to our boat for a nightcap when we returned, and we enjoyed a great evening at anchor until a short sprinkle chased everyone home.

The next day, after breakfast in the cockpit, we went ashore again and walked to several stores about a mile away, and then worked our way back as we checked out the bars we came across, hit happy hour at a couple of them, and beat it back to the boat to ride out an impending storm front. Around 9 PM it started and around 11 or so, the wind shifted. The winds picked up into the mid 20’s after midnight and I checked the anchor about every hour. When the wind shifts, the anchor will pull out of the sea bed and reset most of the time, but you have to keep an eye on it to make sure that it did set properly. We held fine until my 5 AM check, and I noticed that we had dragged about 500 feet toward shore. The anchor had reset, but it looked like I didn’t have enough chain out (scope) to take the winds we were getting. I started the engine and let out more chain, and we were sitting nice and tight in the sea bed. This is the first time we have dragged like that since we left the Great Lakes. Today we are planning to move up into the next basin, Blackwater Sound, and anchor next to a really great bar called Gilberts. It is very well known and regarded as a great place to eat and party.

As promised, here are some pictures from Toilet Seat Pass that we checked out a couple of days ago:

2/23/16
Florida Keys, Tarpon Basin
Position 25 07.416N, 080 25.863W
Posted by Bill

Well, building up to yesterday, we saw a weather window to get to the Bahamas for this Wednesday and we left the grip of Harbour Cay Club yesterday morning. A bit of a false start though. We are traveling with Mark and Jan on Island Bound (same that we traveled with to the Bahamas last year), and Bob and Cat on Sea Lyon (friends we met a year ago at Harbour Cay Club. We all fired up our engines around 7:00, said our goodbyes to the many friends we have at Harbour Cay Club, and started to untie the dock lines. Then I noticed that the alternator light was on, meaning that the alternator was not charging the batteries. If you remember from previous blog posts, we have had intermittent issues with this system and I isolated it to the voltage regulator. It was behaving until we got ready to shove off. So, we told the other two boats to go on ahead and we would hopefully resolve the issue and catch up. We helped them with their lines, and after 20 minutes or so of troubleshooting, I decided to replace the regulator. Fortunately, we bought a spare, and after figuring out which wires went where, we started the engine up and had a working charge system! Yay! I did the rest of the install and we got off the dock just and hour and a half later than our friends.

Our original destination was an area called Tarpon Basin, about half way to Key Biscayne where we will cross to the Bahamas, but due to our delay we wouldn’t make it before dark. The others were good enough to take their time so we could catch up, and we opted to anchor on the Florida Bay side of Tavernier. Position 25 00.287N, 080 32.900W. It was a delightful anchorage, calm and quiet.

Next to where we anchored there is a cut called Toilet Seat Pass. People have taken decorated toilet seats and hung them on poles all along the sides of the cut…it was hilarious. Of course we had to check it out in the dinghy, and when I get time to download the pictures I will post them in another post.

Waking today, we saw that the weather window we thought we had, had slammed shut…too rough for our liking, so we decided to slowly work our way north through the Keys and Biscayne Bay until another opportunity presents itself. We made our way to Tarpon Basin and anchored just in time to escape a major squall. After the fronts move through we will launch the dinghy and find a Tiki Bar on shore!

It is nice to be on anchor again and moving. Our stay at Harbour Cay was really nice except for the crazy weather, but we like being on the move after sitting at dock for 2 1/2 months. Nothing like a beautiful protected anchorage to renew the soul!

Solar update: The panels are performing very well and it will save us from using the generator to charge the batteries every day as long as we get adequate sunlight!

2/10/16
Harbour Cay Club, Marathon, Florida Keys
Posted by Bill

A few days ago we finally got a break in the weather and took a day off of boat work. We gathered with several other boats here and took our dinghys over to Boot Key Harbor (close to where we did the mangrove caves). We went all of the way out of Sisters Creek for a peek at the Atlantic Ocean, then back to several bars on the water for an old fashioned dinghy pub crawl. A good time was had by all!

Next project: Macerator pump. If you follow the blog or you are a boater, you know that normally when you use the heads (bathroom), the waste goes into a holding tank. At some point you need to pump it out, and most marinas in the US have pump out stations that suck out the waste and dispose of it legally and safely. When you are at sea, or in most areas of the Bahamas (or the Caribbean), you turn a couple of valves and pump the heads directly overboard. Several areas in the Bahamas have changed the laws and will not allow you to discharge overboard at port, however they don’t have a pump out system. If you are in the Bahamas any longer than 3 weeks or so, you don’t have enough capacity in the holding tank to get back to the states for a pump out. Most boats that travel the oceans have a pump out system on board that will pump the holding tank out and discharge overboard. This is called a macerator pump and it is used in open seas or areas outside of port where pumping overboard is allowed. We did not have one because our boat was a Great Lakes boat, and it is not legal to have a macerator. We learned that we needed one last year when we were in the Bahamas, so we put one in. The project involved taking off old hoses, putting in a new pump (with the electrical work), a bunch of new hoses, and several new valves. Working with hoses, especially old ones, really sucks bad…especially waste hoses. Needless to say, I was dreading this project quite a bit. Here is the holding area where we had to work…a before picture. Here I temporarily added a new valve (on the left) to start the planning process:

The thick black hose running down the middle was one that had to be removed. It was the original overboard discharge hose from the heads, and was over 20 years old. It was fused to the fittings. It took several hours to remove it, finally having to be cut off. It took every bit of strength from my arms and left horrible black and blue marks. That was a full day’s work. Prior to that effort, I spent a couple of days planning the install, then a day to wire the electric components for the pump. Then a couple of days to cut the other existing hose, add all of the hoses and valves, including re-engineering the install when we ran in to some unforeseen problems. But now we are done!!!!! Here is the after pics:



Sanitation hose is very stiff and difficult to work with, so we used a more expensive new hose called Raritan Saniflex that was very flexible. It really saved the day! Hats off to Raritan.

On Superbowl Sunday, Matt and Shirley from Sofia Jeanne drove down here to Marathon. They are staying at a house that Kurt and Sharon from Byrd Ketcher rented on Duck Key. Mark and Jan on Island Bound are here at Harbour Cay Club with us, and we all went to Duck Key for the Superbowl. It was a great reunion of all of us who traveled the Bahamas last year together. Everyone has become extremely great friends, and it was really fun to be back together again.

We got together again on my birthday, and will try to spend more time together before Matt and Shirley leave.

We only have a few more projects to get done before we are ready to cross to the Bahamas. Now we just need to get some favorable weather. People we know that have been in the Bahamas are getting their asses kicked over there, and we have had our share of rough weather here too. The next 10 days do not look good, but we will keep our fingers crossed.

2/1/2016
Harbour Cay Club, Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

Except for a recent trip to see family in Bradenton Florida, we have been either dealing with the weather or working on the boat. Cruising boats are like houses in that there is pretty much constant maintenance work that needs to be done. Some of it is just daily minor things, or just plain cleaning, but there are also larger tasks and projects. The major differences seem to fall into these areas:
1. A house does not move (unless you’ve got serious problems). Many times stuff breaks while you are underway and it needs to be fixed to keep moving, or keep from sinking. Sometimes at anchor or even at a dock, the waves can bounce you around to the point that you can hardly work on something.
2. Most things that need working on in a boat are tucked away in a small locker, or are hidden behind a bulkhead or liner. You have to be nimble and sometimes a contortionist to work on something. Many times you cannot see what you are assembling or dis-assembling, and you are blindly feeling around as you work.
3. Most of the parts you will need can’t be purchased at a hardware store or a Home Depot. More times than not, there will not be a store within an hours drive that has what you need.
4. Replacement parts are three times more expensive than a home repair item.
5. As a cruiser, you usually don’t have a car, so you need to walk or ride a bike to get something from a store.
6. All of the tools and spare parts are stored somewhere in a locker, with everything else that you have stowed away. For most projects, just finding and getting all of the tools and parts out of storage takes at least an hour.
7. Weather makes more of an impact on when you can work on some things in a boat.

A great example of a project that requires good weather, wind and waves, is when you have to ascend the mast. Our friends Mark and Jan on Island Bound (great boat name…isn’t it) set out to repair their wind transducer recently. The transducer is at the top of the mast. Most crews that have to hoist someone up will sent the female up the mast (lighter and the guys have more muscle for the winch grinding).

Of course, you can’t have a good project unless you have some bystanders to supervise…lol…freinds Jeff, Bob and Tim:

Marathon is a good place to be when you have to do boat projects. Most marinas or anchorages are within walking distance to the West Marine store and Home Depot. There are also specialty service providers for any boat system (canvas, sail making, engine repair, plumbing, air conditioning, solar, wood working, pipe and metal work, electrical, etc…) within walking distance or a bike ride. We get most of our parts on the internet and have them shipped to our marina, but typical project will involve several trips to West Marine and Home Depot.

This season, the weather has been crazy. It is the dry season here in the Keys, but it rains about every 3 or 4 days this year. Also, the fronts that bring strong north winds have been rolling in about every 5 days, which is much more frequent than normal. They have also been stronger and last longer than normal. It has really impacted our ability to get our projects done in the month of January, and we are way behind schedule. This is normally where we prep the boat for our voyage to the Bahamas, and we have several things that are “must do” to make the trip.

The first project we tackled was putting a stern light on our dinghy davits. The davits hoist the dinghy up and down, and hold it in place when it is not being used. When raised, the dinghy obscures the factory installed stern light, which means boats behind us cannot see us at night…not good! So we ordered a bracket and the wire to put one on the davit cross bar. In the first attempt to install the new light we found that the mounting bracket came with the wrong diameter clamp. We had them send the correct one, waited another week for the weather to cooperate and then tried again.

I ran the wire down the davit arm and through the stern cap rail where the solar panel wire goes through the deck. This was the easy part, and I was glad to not have to make another hole in the deck.

Then I had to wire the light in. This involved emptying the cockpit locker. It holds a lot of stuff and takes 20 to 30 minutes to unload. It can’t be raining when you do this. Then I climb into the cockpit locker, locate the wire to the factory installed stern light, and locate the best spot in the wire to splice in the new light. This took the better part of 90 minutes, along with much contortionist efforts. Then I splice in the new light and re-tie all of the wire ties to make a secure installation….another 90 minutes to 2 hours. Then another 30 minutes to reload the locker.

Next, we tackled replacing one of our air conditioners. The boat has 2, one smaller than the other. The evaporator coil on the larger one started to disintegrate, and based on age and cost considerations, we decided to replace it. The factory that makes our brand is in Fort Myers Florida, so we picked it up on the way to Bradenton. It was virtually identical to the old unit which we hoped made an easy replacement. The old unit was installed behind the port side settee, taking up the better part of 2 storage areas.

The de-install involved draining the hoses, removing the wire ties that hold the wires and hoses down, and removing the electrical box (on the right in the first photo). Then disconnect the AC and thermostat wires from the electrical box. Then remove the screws holding down the air conditioner and pulling it out of the locker. It was heavier than shit and had rusted really bad (not quite sure why). Every stainless steel component in that locker had rusted, including wire tie screws and hose clamps. It made a huge mess:

Here is the new unit:

Tricia did a great job of getting the locker prepped and then we put in the new unit, attached the hoses, attached the electrical wires, and then turned it on. It started up and I realized I didn’t open the through hull valve to let the cooling water in, so we shut it down. After opening the valve and trying again, the unit wouldn’t start. I tried a few things to no avail and since it was happy hour time, and I was exhausted from a full day of working in the lockers, we quit for the day. Yesterday (the next day), I started by tracing the power. I de-installed the electrical box and found a loose AC wire. I got it back on, but the unit would not start. Now I do not like dealing with AC current. I am very comfortable working on DC systems, but not AC. I asked our friend Mark (who is very skilled with electrical stuff) to double check my wire connections and show me how to measure AC current with my meter…we had power to the box. We took the cover off of the box and found that a 30 amp fuse had blown. Mark had a spare (we did not), and after replacing it, the unit fired right up and generated cold air!! Yay! I tied all of the hoses and wires down and checked for water leaks…all good. The second day only took about 2 1/2 hours to get to a completed project.

With most projects, when you get one done, you find two more. When we were in Bradenton, a front with very high winds blew in, slipped one of the fenders on the boat, and slammed the side of the boat into the dock piling, resulting in this mess:

This one is beyond my skill level and we will have to get someone to repair it.

1/22/16
Harbour Cay Club, Florida Keys, Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

We meet so many different kinds of people in this lifestyle, and it is one of the really cool things about cruising. You meet people from all walks of life and varying degrees of investment in the cruising lifestyle. One of the things that I like best is that most people don’t talk about their life before cruising unless you ask, and there is not a lot of how much do you have or not have, how big your house is, or how expensive of a car do you drive. Most people just kind of meld together as a community in a level playing field, helping each other out with what ever they can offer when someone is in need. I wish society and the world in general was more like this. I think a part of it is that living as close to nature and the sea as we do tends to humble you, and help you see beyond the societal facade that has been created in the more economically advanced countries. It is very liberating and puts life in true perspective.

A great example of the diversity of people that we meet came most recently. We met a young couple, Tom and Vanessa, that was staying in our marina on their 27 foot sailboat. It didn’t have a lot of the amenities of most of the other boats you see, like running water, refrigerator, stove, but it allowed them to travel through the keys and conduct business (he is a professional photographer…and a very good one…let me know if you need someone and I’ll hook you up). We got to be good friends with them and really enjoyed their company. They were finishing up some work here and heading north to the next job, so they put the boat up for sale. They must have good Karma because it sold just before they had to leave. They sold it to a group of 3 street performers from Key West who have never owned a boat or sailed one. They were taking it to Key West and planned to live on it with their 2 dogs. Tom took them out for some lessons and they had a friend of theirs who knows how to sail, help them take the boat to Key West. They were very young and fit the image of a typical Key West street performer, and lived a very different life than most people, so they stood out in our marina. We talked to them a few times and they were very nice, respectful people.

They left the other day with seven people, three dogs, three kayaks and a bunch of personal affects, all in a 27 foot sailboat. Our friends Hayden and Radeen helped them get out of the marina using their dinghy to tow their bow, and a bunch of us wished them luck, and saw them off. Many were worried about them making it to Key West, us included, and they agreed to let us know that they made it. At first you might think …. these guys are crazy! I know that it is not something that I would be comfortable doing, but hey, that is the beauty of it all…to each his own. They are out there experiencing life, leveraging the resources at their disposal, and I respect them for it! The coolest thing about the whole event was that, despite the fact that they are at opposite ends of a spectrum, people were not judgmental and were genuinely concerned for their well being. I point this out not because I was surprised by it…the people here, like most cruisers are wonderful; but because this is very different than what happens in society at large. I just wish we could make this mentality as contagious as the flu and spread it around the world.

We later heard that they made it without incident and are looking forward to checking out their performance the next time we go to Key West.

Pics:

1/18/16
Harbour Cay Club, Marathon FL, Florida Keys
Posted by Bill

The weather in the Keys has been very abnormal this year. First off…this is the dry season, but we have been having several days of rain every week, sometimes every day. It has also been much cooler. The average high is in the low 70’s normally and we have had many days in the 60’s. The worst of it has been the northerly fronts. In a normal year, a front will move in with strong north winds every 10-14 days, and within a day or two the wind will move to the northeast and then east. Winds are usually only blowing into the mid 20’s (knots) or high teens and then within a few days will go back to the normal 10-15 knots. This year we have had fronts move in every 5 days or so with winds into the 30’s, and they have been sticking around with a northerly component for 4 or more days. We are well protected here in the marina unless the winds are from the north or northwest, in which case we get waves rolling in to the marina that will rock you senseless. In the last month we have had a couple of the fronts with extreme weather, winds over 40 knots. The last couple of days we had one come through with a max of 47 knots (54 MPH), and then 2 days of 30+ knot winds out of the northwest and north. Needless to say, we got our asses kicked. It is just now starting to move a little to the east and calm to under 20 knots. When these conditions exist, the front and back of the boat pitch up and down rather wildly and a distance of up to 4 feet. Very hard to sleep, or even stay on the boat, or even get on and off the boat. This does not do it justice, but here is a still shot of the scene:


We had 2 and 3 foot waves rolling in! The people who live here full time in the marina are saying that this was the worst they have seen it here. Our friends in the Bahamas had an encounter with winds of 70-100+ knots, causing boats to break loose from anchor, running into other boats and crashing on rocks and reefs. This is why we don’t go to the Bahamas early in the season. It has been crazy. The experts are blaming it on the strong El Nino in the Pacific.

The weather has put a severe damper on our ability to get our boat projects done in preparation for traveling to the Bahamas. Our goal was to go early in February as soon as a weather window opened, but we need to get the work done before we can make it.

We took a day off Saturday and went to Key West to visit Kurt and Sharon on Byrd Ketcher, and Mark and Jan on Island Bound (the other Island Bound). Kurt’s sister and her husband were staying with them, so we all went out bar hopping and had a great time. Random street scene on Duval:

Since we don’t have a car we had to take the bus. There was a seafood festival in Key West so the bus was crammed full of people, to the point that it seemed dangerous. Tricia got a seat and I stood by the rear door. A short, fat guy crammed in in front of me with his large ass pressed into my crotch. It was like getting a lap dance for the 2 hour trip to Key West…not a fun time for me! We both got a seat for the ride back but had to stare at this guy the whole way:

The joys of public transportation!

This week we are renting a car and driving to see Tricia’s sister Diane and her husband Mark. They rented a house in Bradenton FL and we will visit for a few days. On the way there and back we will pick up a new air conditioning unit that I need to install, and make runs to Costco and Walmart to provision for the Bahamas.

1/9/16
Marathon, FL
Posted by Bill

Today we took a break from boat projects and took our dinghy over to Boot Key to explore the mangrove tunnels. Our Harbour Cay friends Jim and Lanny led a flotilla of dinghys under the 7 mile bridge, through Boot Key harbor and into the mangroves. The tunnels are very narrow paths through the mangroves and are marked by private buoys and orange painted branches. You really have to know where they are. Most of them are accessible only by kayak, and we encountered areas that were just wide and tall enough to let us get through. It was great fun!

Path we took to where the tunnels were:

Lanny pouring mimosas to toast our departure:

Dinghys getting ready to depart:

And we are off:

Motoring through the canals and creeks of Boot Key:

Entering the tunnels:

Working our way through the mangroves. Most of the areas where very narrow and low, and we had to frequently duck down and pull ourselves through:

After several hours…making it out:

And then we motored to a local bar on the water, Dockside:

On the way back, we stopped at Sunset Grill for a few happy hour cocktails:

And then we had happy hour and watched the sun set at the tiki hut at Harbour Cay Club:

A great day! Thanks to Lanny and Jim for leading us there and through the tunnels. We would never have found them on our own.