I Got Lucky

Ready for home

2009-12-18T17:11:00.003-05:00

Lucky is all buttoned up and ready for transportation back to California. It was exactly a year ago that she was placed on the truck in Alameda and such a lot has happened since then.

As Steph mentioned below, I've spent the week since she left for Myrtle Beach getting Lucky ready.

Sunday I went on a sea trial with Jefory (head mechanic) and Louise to check the new drive. All ran well, we managed cruise and WOT RPM settings, no abnormal sensor readings or noises. It was a little rough out there, so we cut the planned trial short by an hour and came back in. With Louise's help I pumped out the black water tank. The fresh water tanks were almost empty already, so didn't need any further draining.

Monday was a very busy day for me. An early haul out allowed me to get on the two main tasks for the day sooner rather than later. The trim tabs needed to be looked at and all the stuff on the hardtop needed to be removed. The lads at All Point Boats looked at the trim tabs. Out outboard starboard trim tab ram had stuck closed. replacing all four cylinders solved the problem and they were done by 3pm. Meanwhile, I had everything off the top before dark. Mike came over and washed down the boat.

Tuesday I took off the propellers and protected the shafts with grease and plastic bags. I also loaded the boat with everything from the hotel except a few clothes. Dinner with Louise at Coconuts rounded out the day.

Wednesday the shrink wrappers came and started the job. It took them about a day, spread over three, to finish the job. We hope that by wrapping the tender separately it'll hold up to the journey better. Dinner with CJ and Margie was bittersweet. I'm going to miss them.

Thursday was fairly quiet, between prodding shrink wrappers to get on with it and watching the rain. I had a nice dinner with Sean and Louise. Five hours passed in the blink of an eye!

Here we are, Friday. Lucky is wrapped. All the bills are paid. The bags are nearly packed. My flight leaves in 3 hours. Its all over.

For tax reasons, Lucky isn't being shipped until the beginning of next year. She'll have spent the whole of 2009 out of California, so I'm not liable for property taxes. She should arrive in Alameda before the end of January.

Heading Home

2009-12-18T12:55:00.003-05:00

I can’t believe that this adventure is coming to its end. It’s a humble reminder of how fast life moves along…

Our last week has been a quiet one. I am in SC, celebrating a early holiday with my Mom. We’ve had a wonderful week together. We’ve been quilting and quilt shopping, cooking, eating and talking. I couldn’t ask for a better week. Martin has stayed in Ft. Lauderdale to wrap up the work with Lucky. I think that he’ll be blogging about his week though I can summarize by saying that he spent some wonderful time with Sean & Louise, CJ & Margie and got Lucky sea-trialed, hauled, cleaned and shrink-wrapped. Martin leaves tonight for home and I follow tomorrow. We’re both in a bit of shock that we’ll be back home, together, in just over a day!

We'll definitely continue the blog through the end of the month. I think the year adventure should include our return home and readjustment, it should be interesting ;-)

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Back in Florida

2009-12-18T12:35:00.002-05:00

We had a great time back in Ft. Lauderdale after Curacao. I’m late blogging so I’ll just give a quick review. We found a wonderful hotel just off the beach downtown. It was also right around the corner from the Hugh Taylor Birch Park and down the street from the Galleria Mall. So I had great jogging and shopping grounds :)

Our friends Sean and Louise were in town and we were so excited to get to see them! We last saw them back in January in Naples. They live in a Neoplan bus and tour the country so we’re always happy when we get to meet up with them. They had just done a dive certification in the Keys but Louise had to finish up a couple exercises - we were so happy we got to join them! We had a great time and Louise finish her cert! One big difference from Curacao was that the water was Cold. Who would think that 77 could feel like ice water! We saw some wonderful critters – a very friendly sting ray that swam with us and a gorgeous cornetfish. We have some great pics up (the best is the one above)!

We drove out to Naples and spent some time with Sue & Armando and the kitties Blu & Tru. I’m so glad that we had enough time to visit with friends and say good-bye!

Of course we also go to see Margie & CJ a few times while we were back. Martin and I agree that meeting them was one of the highlights of our year. We're both incredibly sad to leave them!

The week and half went by incredibly fast. In addition to seeing our friends, Martin spent a bit of time at the boat yard as they finally replaced the cursed drive with a new and improved version (yay!) I made plans to fly up to visit my Mom on the 12^th and Martin stayed on to complete the last sea trial and then see to it that Lucky got shrink wrapped and ready to go.

Our final week in Curacao

2009-12-01T10:39:00.002-05:00

We were so busy the past week that I posted a couple of individual blog entries below (east-end diving and ATVing). We had such a crazy busy week and it was wonderful! I've posted a ton of pics too so you can see as well as read about it.

When we came to Curacao in June 2008 we met a couple from Denver - Chris and Andrea. There were staying at another dive resort on the island and had come up to Westpunt for the day. We met at Sol Food (of course!) and ended up diving together after that. We've kept in touch since then and were so excited to realize that we'd both be coming to Curacao for Thanksgiving. We just had the best time hanging out with them all week! They are fantastic divers (Andrea's a kick-butt photographer too) and they are a lot of fun to be with :) Thanksgiving was Andrea's birthday too which made the day all the more special.

So our last week we did a lot of diving! In addition to the east end dives we went out on the boat again to Watamula, did 2 night dives at Alice in Wonderland and dove the fisherman's beach behind Sunshine & Davids' for our last dive. On that last dive we swam with a school of 16 squid (awesome!) and found a pipe fish in the sand. It seems like every dive we made we found something wonderful...

On Friday, Martin and I visited Derrick and Ans down the road to visit their puppies. They have 8 pups that are Rottweiler/Mastiff mixes. I almost brought one home for my kittie George (just kidding, kind of of, they were soooo cute...)

We had Thanksgiving at Sol Food with Sunshine, David and the Bees. The dive shop gang came over later for pie and ice cream. We got to sing Happy Birthday to Andrea too. Sunshine put on an incredible spread of food (as usual) and I made my stuffing. It was a great dinner. The only downside to the day was that at some point during the evening/night, a creep snuck into our apartment and stole Martin's laptop. That sucked and we wish much bad karma on the thief...

We had dinner at Sol Food each night over the weekend and enjoyed hanging out with the Bees and Andreas, Bryan, Dave and Toni from the dive shop. Our last night in town was Andreas's birthday so we got to sing again! I especially enjoyed listening to Martin, Bryan and Chris. The 3 of them got on well together and I enjoyed the good-humored teasing :)

Somewhere in there we also went to happy hours, had the Bees over for dinner, sat and chatted with David and Sunshine, played with Chaos and Nez, cuddled with Meo, Martin biked with the Westpunt Riders and I got to jog on the mondi. This had to be one of our most active months of the year!

As I sit here in Ft. Lauderdale looking back I can't even express how grateful I am for this past month (or how sad I am to have left...) Thank you to all the wonderful people we got to share it with and special thanks to Sunshine & David for making our stay feel like we were at home (well, a warmer, sunnier, divier home :)

ATVing on Curacao

2009-12-01T10:12:00.002-05:00

On Saturday we set off on a non-diving adventure with Chris and Andrea and had a BLAST! Sunshine recommended Eric's ATVs down in Wilhelmsted - they were awesome! I was a little nervous about riding an ATV. The first and only time I've driven one was at my Dad's old house in upstate NY. If I remember correctly, I promptly drove it into a tree :) Well, I managed quite well but one other guest on the tour (a Dutch or German guy) didn't fare so well. And did I mention that the trees here all sport inch-long thorns? (see pic of the day 3 Mondi shots) There was blood involved. Ouch!

Anyway, it was so, so much fun. We drove a bit on the streets in town, then on back dirt roads to the Aloe Farm and Ostrich Farm for a drink. We toured a cave and hiked up to see a gorgeous view of the eastern coastline. Then we headed to the windmills and stopped at a small cafe near Playa Canoa which is the only beach that can be surfed on the island (there are small breakers there). We were hot and grimy, (actually filthy), by the end and were all wearing super huge smiles. We have a lot of pics up from the tour.

After the ATVs we headed home and stopped at Daniels for lunch with the Bees (we affectionately call Chris & Andrea "the bees" because of her siggie on scuba board :)

Just another day in paradise...

Diving the East End

2009-12-01T08:11:00.002-05:00

Adventure Diving! On Monday our friends Chris and Andrea came to Curacao. We met them here back in June 2008 and were so excited to find that we were all going to be back here for Thanksgiving week!

They are avid divers so Sunshine planned an adventure for us all. Sunshine, David, Chris & Andrea, Martin and I drove down to Wilhelmsted to meet Neils and go on a 2 tank dive on the other end of the island. We piled into a zodiac and made the hour boat trip out to the tip. The seas were pretty high - maybe 5 feet at the point, and it was decided that it was too high to be able to get us back into the boat so we changed dive locations. Even in the "smaller" seas it was quite the adventure getting ourselves back into that boat - very different experience riding in a zodiac rather than a big power boat :) (see pics!) We did the first dive along a wall with a ton of soft coral. It was gorgeous. We had our surface interval in a lagoon, snorkeling and looking at huge starfish. Then we went back out for our second dive. This dive was along a very steep wall. We came across a total of 3 nurse sharks (fairly rare in Curacao). At the shark area we spotted a HUGE porcupine fish swimming with it's baby. None of us has ever seen such a huge puffer. It was at least 3 feet long! And then, doesn't a manta ray cruise by out in the blue! It was incredible! The only downer was that it was trailing a mooring line with a big coke bottle on the end of it :( (pic above).

It was an awesome day- awesome people, fish, diving...

Bait Ball

2009-11-23T10:09:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we went for a dive at the house reef at Ocean Encounters West called Alice in Wonderland. We descended to about 50 feet and saw something out in the distance. It was a large school of silvery fish (about 5 inches long) swimming in a tight circle, it's referred to as a "bait ball". The fish swim like this for protection from predators. These bait balls can be seen getting herded herded up towards the surface where dolphin, sharks, larger fish and birds feed on them. We descended down to about 70 feet and went out away from the reef a bit to see it. It was sooo cool! At one point the ball began moving upwards and we found ourselves in the middle of hundreds of swirling fish. Luckily we had our camera and got some great pictures! (see pics dated 11-22-09) We were hoping something large would come to feed on the fish but we didn't see much. One very large silver fish that came and went. It was a really thrilling experience. The pic above was taken from inside the bait ball.

Running in the Mondi

2009-11-23T09:46:00.003-05:00

I took my camera out yesterday morning and made a photo journal of my run. I wish I done this in Ft. Lauderdale too where I got to run to the beach and see the sunrise over the ocean. Here, I run into the "mondi" (shrub forest) and see the sunrise over the hills. The mondi is like a desert with reddish soil and lots of cacti. All the plants seem to have thorns of some kind. You have to watch not to let anything brush your face or you'll pay! There are 2 trails I've been on so I ran each a bit to get pictures. One is a mountain bike path that David created for his Westpunt Riders. The other is a dirt road that goes along the coast to Watamula, a point at the tip of the island where there's a very popular dive site you can go to by boat.

There are 2 things I couldn't get pictures of in the mondi. Until this week there were very tiny delicate lavender flowers. It hasn't rained in a couple of weeks but maybe they'll come back out before we go and I'll get a picture. Then there are tiny lavender butterflies that look a lot like the flowers that I couldn't hope to get a picture of. I'm amazed at the amount of life that you see out there in the desert. I've seen lizards, a snake and several rabbits. See pic of the day(3) 11/22/09.

Another week flown by...

2009-11-20T07:59:00.003-05:00

Our dive at Porto Marie on Monday was great. We met a few of Sunshine's friends and enjoyed a beautiful reef. One of the people we dove with is a photographer (Stan) so we have a couple really nice pics on our pic of the day(3) and see the pic above! We usually like to stay for lunch at Porto Marie but there was serious construction on the bathrooms going on there and we couldn't deal with noise so we left. Then we got a little turned around finding the main road home and just happened to past this awesome Dutch pancake restaurant called Daniels. We had a great lunch!

This week we studied and then did part 1 of our search and recovery class with Toni. That was actually a lot of fun! We learned to navigate by compass doing specific search patterns and how to raise heavy objects using a lift bag. We then used our new found skills to lift a tire out from under the pier where it had fallen :) Toni found the minuscule baby drum fish in the tire. It was about 3 mm long. Amazing! We also spotted the small seahorse that was just found hanging out just off the pier. He seems so vulnerable just hanging out on the sandy parts but he's been there all week. He's hanging right next a big octopus in a coral rock so I hope he doesn't become dinner one night! We have the second half of the class tomorrow - 2 new search patterns and lifts to conduct.

We took a day off on Wednesday. All the classes had us a bit tired out! We went into town with Sunshine, David and Dave and saw 2012. Then we stopped at a roadside place and got "lumpias". Deep fried spring rolls. Those were delish and not terribly weight watcher friendly I'm afraid. I also had to work on my resume a bit that day. I seem to have completely forgotten that I will be going back to work soon and that having a resume might be a good idea! Thank you Judy for helping me pull it together!

Yesterday we went for a dive on the house reef at OEW. Then we headed to town to grocery shop. I'm making the stuffing for our Thanksgiving dinner so I got the makings for that too. Then there was a barbecue at OEW in the evening so we went and hung out with the gang down there in the evening.

Today is Friday and we are lounging around, planning on diving at Cas Abao today. There is a lovely beach and small cafe/lunch place there. It's crazy busy on the weekends so we're going today. And of course it's Friday so all the fun at Sol Food begins this evening. That means lots of the guests from All West Apartments and the Lodge will be by (people we meet at the dive shop and barbecues) as well as the staff from OEW. The weekends are so much fun here!

So we've been really, really busy! In addition, I've been able to get up early in the morning and go running up in the mondi pretty regularly. I think I'll bring a camera next time and get more pictures. Martin has been mountain biking every Tuesday and Thursday evening and is now able to keep up with some of the smaller boys :) I don't want to even think about the fact that we have only 10 days left!

On a side note: the mechanics fixed the port drive and took Lucky out on a sea trial earlier this week. The port drive exploded. It's destroyed and needs to be replaced. Can you say "defective part"? What more can I say? Hopefully Martin will blog more about it when he's calm enough to address it!

Rescue Divers!

2009-11-16T09:06:00.002-05:00

It's Monday already, our time here is half through. I can't believe it! A month sounded like such a long time but it's going by waaay too fast.

We had a great time at Moon Restaurant last Wednesday. Then Thursday Martin and I went diving at Habitat Curacao, a dive resort down the coast a ways. We weren't all that impressed with their house reef, ours (Alice in Wonderland) is much prettier :) We studied more on Thursday and then went to a neighborhood party with Sunshine & David in the evening.

On Friday we began our Diver Rescue Course - see the pic above. Poor Martin got a bit too much sun on his head and had to go for creative solutions :) Dang, but that was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated! Our instructor, Dave, was fantastic. We met on Friday and went through the theory and then took the written exam. We only spent about an hour in the water reviewing self-rescue skills. Saturday we were in the water all day going through 10 exercises. We learned how to bring up an unresponsive diver, how to approach tired and panicked divers and how to tow them all into shore/to a dock. How to do rescue breathing, take off our own and their equipment and get them onto dry land. It's not that easy! On Sunday we worked through 4 simulations or scenarios. They were like our final exam. During one, bringing back an exhausted diver, some divers on the dock didn't realize it was a simulation and one stepped right in to help. I was impressed with the man's calm efficiency. I hope I'm that good now :) He got a chuckle when we explained that we must just be very good actors! Today is Monday and I'm so sore. I had double calf charlie horses last night - that was fun... It just goes to show how physical the class was I think. I learned more in this course than any other that we've taken so far. It really makes you think outside of yourself and gain a different perspective. I'm very, very glad we took the class. I hope we never need to use the skills we learned but we're better divers for knowing them.

As for other classes, we have 2 night dives to finish for our Night Dive Specialty and then Tuesday and Saturday this week we'll do the Search & Recovery class with Toni. It's a very productive month for us!

Today we have to read for class tomorrow and we're going diving at Porto Marie, meeting up with Sunshine and some of her friends. Tomorrow morning we'll have class, I think just for half day.

It's paradise here. We're both extremely happy :)

Lovely Curacao

2009-11-16T08:21:00.002-05:00

Let's see, what have we been up to since last Friday! We had a wonderfully social weekend at Sol Food. The dive shop folks come over and we really enjoy hanging out with them and getting to know everyone better. They are such an upbeat, fun group of people! Martin and I have not been going crazy diving but are averaging about 1 a day. We went out on a dive off the beach near the house and I found ANOTHER seahorse. I'm so very proud :) This one was a gorgeous bright yellow. We also had our first night dive (first of 3 for a specialty class). I wore my new hood and was very glad - it's both warm and keeps the little water bugs and nasties out of my hair. Lights under water attract as many little creepy things underwater and out of water. We saw an enormous lobster (easily would have fed 6 ;) and an eel that was hunting. No octopus but we'll be doing a few more night dives so hopefully we'll see one.

I was slowed down a bit Sunday and Monday with headaches. I realized that I forgot my Excedrin Migraine and Naproxen (1st line of defense before the heavy hitters...) so we went to a drug store here. Over-the-counter drugs are behind-the-counter here but psyche - you can get prescription strength Naproxen! Monday was my birthday. That was the day of our night dive and then afterward there was a big group of people that came over for a special spaghetti dinner. (Bryan, manager of the dive shop, has his family visiting for a week.) So we joined them and had a really nice evening and lots of cake! Tuesday was Sunshine's birthday. Since she cooks all the time I made us all burritos (hey, I'm not a culinary star...) and we sat out on the patio and had a wonderfully relaxing evening in the breeze.

Tuesday morning we went diving with Ocean Encounters West on a 2-dive boat dive to the Sponge Forest and Watamula dive sites. There was a really strong current so they were drift dives. I enjoyed them - it's a challenge with the strong current. I'm also taking sudafed for my ears and have found that when I take it I can get down right away - no hovering at 20 feet in ear pain - it's Such a relief. Thank you Sandra for that wonder cure!

Today is Wednesday and we've stayed in studying all day. We have our Rescue Diver Course all day Friday-Sunday and have to do the theory work before then. It was a long study day! We're heading down to Wilhemsted this evening with Sunshine, David and Andreas to have dinner in town. I'm looking forward to it!

Loving Curacao

2009-11-06T16:57:00.003-05:00

Life is good, very very good! I just took this picture off of our balcony :)

We arrived in Curacao late Monday night. Sunshine & David greeted us and we talked til late. We had a warm welcome from Meo the cat as well. He slept with us all night. I thought the mosquito netting would bother him but he didn't seem to mind at all! On Tuesday we went for a dive with Sunshine, David and some ladies from the American Women's Club. It was a great dive and I was so psyched - I found a big black sea horse hanging out in some black coral! My training with Sandra in Ft. Lauderdale is showing ;) Tuesday afternoon we went into town and did some grocery shopping. We had to wait on produce though. That arrives by ship on Thursdays so Sunshine picked up our produce for us when she went for her shop on Thursday afternoon. Between availability and the 45 minute drive to town, shopping takes a little more planning than at home.

I went out with David one morning to walk the "pups". (The pups are actually 2 young - huge and lovey fila brasileiros). He showed me the "mondi" (bushland forest) where he's cleared miles of mountain bike trails. The next morning I was able to head out and get a run in up there. I'll have to get some pictures and post them on the pic of the day (3). David has started a non-profit mountain biking group for the local boys here called Westpundt Riders. Martin went out riding with them last night on their weekly ride. I was happy when he returned - walking and not too bloody :)

Yesterday we studied hard and then today went and finished our first specialty class - Enriched Air. Now we can dive with nitrox tanks if we want (more oxygen than air). This gives you more time under water or less of a wait time above water for multiple dives. We won't use nitrox much but it'll be great to be able to when we want it. We've also signed up for the Rescue Divers Course, and both Night Dive and Search & Recovery specialty classes. We're front loading our stay here with classes since the dive shop has a huge group in the end of the month. This will give us time to practice what we learn too.

A major disappointment - the Disco Dive was canceled. And I even had a black sequins jumpsuit to wear over my wetsuit - what a shame! We have so much schedule already - Monday is our first night dive, we're doing a 2 dive boat trip Tuesday morning and then our Rescue class all weekend.

Sol Food opens today for the weekend (Sunshine & David run a restaurant here Friday noon - Sunday evening). It smells great right now. I think a bunch of the people from the dive shop will be coming over for dinner tonight. I'm looking forward to it! It was so nice to see everyone again. It's so unusual to visit twice in only a few months. I'm looking forward to getting to know the dive gang better!

Leaving Fort Lauderdale (oops - delayed post!)

2009-11-06T15:59:00.001-05:00

I thought I had posted this but I hadn't...so better late than never...

Happy Halloween! OMG - November is here!

We've had a great week. Once again we went diving with Sandra and Dan. This time we found a white-nosed pipefish (pretty rare it seems), and a gorgeous flatworm that was reproducing and spliting in half (that pic didn't come out on my camera :( The Ft. Lauderdale Int'l Boat Show on Thursday was Incredible! We went with CJ and Margie and Sandra and Dan met us there too. Holy cow! It's HUGE. We visited several vendors that people wanted to check out. We toured Cronki, Viking, Lazzara, Tiara, Nordhavn, Selene and Grand Banks boats. It was a great day but very, very hot. We lost the gang earlier on from the heat but we couldn't leave! Never having been before, we were enthralled :) The show was also only a mile and half from the hotel so we could walk home afterwards (traffic was an absolute nightmare!). We got to see the new 60 Nordhavn - Wow. Martin and I are thinking that maybe one day, several years from now, we'd like to cruise again and we'd definitely get a trawler and go further afield. The Nordhavn's are more ship than boat and the 55 and 60 foot models are incredible. (The 60 is the exact same boat as the 55 with an additional 5 feet in the cockpit). It was awesome to get to actually see one! I'll put some pics up on "pic of the day 3".

Speaking of boats - since we wrote last week we've come full circle. We had the sea trial the day after I posted and there was a "miracle". Lucky appeared fixed! It seems it was the trim tabs causing the tilting and overheating at full throttle. We were thrilled! Martin was waiting to pay up and get a detailed mechanics account to post about the Lucky saga.

Then we had a very unwelmcomed shock yesterday. We went to the boat to drop off some stuff (we've moved practically everything from Lucky to the hotel so it's time to start moving it back - we leave on Monday). The mechanics were there finishing off the work so we could go pay up and be done. The last check is the oil and *surprise* there was water in the port drive. Don't really have the words for how that felt. Martin was, livid? Jeffrey, the lead mechanic (and owner) has assured Martin that they'll take care of it while we're gone, as well as the cost. This means a haulout, reentry and sea trial - all without Martin there. Yeah, Mart's not thrilled. But we have to do it or there's no chance of Lucky be "fixed" before we head home.

So now on to our next adventure - Curacao! I'm sooo excited to have an entire month to explore and dive there. It's such a good thing that we planned this, it's a perfect way to end the year! We have Wifi there so we'll be on line and continuing to update the blog!

Swimming with a Manatee!

2009-10-23T12:33:00.004-04:00

No, the pic above is a Sea Robinfish but first - Martin swam with a manatee out in the wild - how freakin' cool is that??? Yesterday we went diving with Dan & Sandra. It's been windy and the ocean is too high to go out so we all stayed at the bridge. Martin & Dan were free diving and Sandra and I were scuba diving. Martin & Dan meet up with 10 ft manatee that hung out with them for about 5 minutes. Amazing! They also found themselves swimming with a school of 6 eagle rays! Sandra and I missed the big critters but did find a Sea Robinfish (pic above). It's the creepiest thing ever! It has these appendages like front feet that they can move like fingers to turn over rocks and find food yet it's a fish. Yikes! I'm really amazed at the bridge area. It's just a sandy, kind of ugly space under water and you would never guess that such amazing and rare animals live there.

We also went to the Leonard Cohen concert last Saturday. Wow. It was an amazing, professional, classy show. I just can't believe that he is 75 yrs old. He has so much energy, vitality and wit, it shines through on stage. His fellow musicians and singers are incredibly talented. He sang and also read some of his songs as poems. I was laughing one minute and moved to tears the next. The show was 3 hours long of performance (and a 20 minute or so break in the middle). Even Martin (who was rather dubious about the show) had a great time. Absolutely wonderful!

On Sunday we went to Naples and visited Sue & Armando. It was a great day spent with great people :) We checked out a new English Pub that Martin gave the thumbs up to. We then watched a very strange-yet-funny movie, Burn After Reading. We had a nice afternoon catching up and getting kitty love from Tru & Blu. We finished off the day with stone crab claws for dinner (the season just opened). I'm going to miss Sue & Armando sooo much. I'm so thankful we've had the opportunity to be so close by and to see them.

Yes, I'm starting to really feel that the end of this magical year is approaching. I just can't believe how fast 10 months has gone by. We leave in just about a week for Curacao for November, then a few weeks more and we'll be home. I even have a return date for work, January 11th! Ooh, that's going to be a rough adjustment :) (Don't worry Judy, I'll get back in the flow quick ;) Okay, no more thinking like this or I get all freaky and sentimental.

So for the rest of our time in Ft. Lauderdale, we have more diving planned, the huge Fort Lauderale Boat Show next Thursday, and at least one more sea trial with Lucky (tomorrow). Oh, and we signed up for a Disco Dive in Curacao. It involves disco clothes and doing the hustle - at depth - can you say, excited???

Cooling Off

2009-10-17T14:33:00.002-04:00

Wow - it's finally supposed to cool off a bit in steamy Florida. While the rest of the country has been experiencing fall, we've been hotter and steamier than summer. But tomorrow's high should be 75! We're finally getting a break, yay!

This past week we've been pretty busy, socially and with Lucky. Here's the run down!

We had CJ, Margie, Sandra and Dan over for Martin's chili the other night. It was so much fun (and so filling ;) I got to see Sandra's pics of an octopus eating a crab - she's an awesome photographer! We have plans to go out diving with them again, hopefully this Wednesday. Thursday we went to see Hangover. Meh, not bad as comedies go...

We have some fun plans for this weekend. Tonight is Leonard Cohen in concert - woo hoo! I'm soooo excited! And tomorrow we're going to Naples to visit Sue & Armando. It was Sue's birthday this week and I'm really looking forward to seeing them again!! We're planning on riding bikes around town and then having a lovely stone crab dinner (or at least Martin is planning on that, he's a stone crab junky).

As for Lucky... Martin and I took her out on a sea trial on Friday. I haven't been on Lucky (moving) since June and I was all nervous! We did fine though Lucky didn't perform up to hopes. At 3400 rpm she's fine. That's slightly above our usual cruising speed. So that's really good! But when pushed full throttle - not so good. The port engine runs about 20 rpm shy of the starboard and overheats. The worse is that Lucky leans really, really badly to the left (at full speed). It kind of freaked me out. Martin says it's because the port engine isn't performing as well as the starboard so she "tilts". We debated letting her be as she is - so we can't run her full throttle - at this point who cares?

But then this morning (the drama just doesn't end), the head mechanic wanted to see Lucky and he and Martin found she was massively down in coolant. So it's boiling out of the engine. This can't be left alone. Sigh. So the work continues. Flipping raw water pumps between engines, blah, blah, blah. Another sea trial early next week but it'll be Martin and the mechanics. I'm good for now :)

Photo Phrenzy!

2009-10-14T14:39:00.003-04:00

In case you've missed it, we've added yet another link to pictures on the right. Steph's been such a busy photobug that she's maxxed out Picasa Web Albums again.

Update from Fort Lauderdale

2009-10-14T14:22:00.004-04:00

Life in Ft. Lauderdale is HOT! We are coming to the end of a 3 week heat wave - that should be broken this weekend - yay! We've been getting some relief from the heat by diving with Dan & Sandra quite a bit. I've updated the Pic of Day 2 through 10-11-09 and had to start Pic of the Day 3! Sandra and I go scuba diving under the Blue Heron Bridge in Lake Worth and Dan & Martin free dive either by the bridge or out at the channel to the ocean. Our days on Gladius with Dan & Sandra are always fun with lots of sun and laughs. Friends of theirs often are aboard too. After a couple of hours diving we head to one of the many restaurants that have docs you can tie up too. I wish we had more of that in the Bay Area! The bridge area is a unique eco-system (river and salt and shallow) and there are amazing critters there - some that are typically very, very difficult to find elsewhere. My favorites are the batfish and burrfish. The pic above is the burrfish.

We've also been able to spend lots of time with CJ & Margie and the pups - always a Wonderful time! This Thursday we're having everybody over for some of Martin's Magnificent Chili - I'm really looking forward to it! We have settled into a very comfortable life here. I'm still jogging, even with the heat. I got a water belt that has helped a lot. I had a bit of a freaky morning this Monday. Jogging up the beach I saw police and then saw a dead body. He had apparently washed up in the night, rip. CSI is one of my favorite tv shows but I prefer fiction in this case :( Martin is still hanging in there doing the Shred with me. We've been cooking a lot and are still making use of the beautiful outdoor grill and seating area here at Kira-Mar. I recently discovered quinoa and am exploring new recipes... Hm, I guess that's all that new this week!

As for Lucky, things continue to move along and she may be fixed! Racor bowls were cleans, a thermostat adjusted and today the gas tank was emptied and cleaned (apparently we got back fuel somewhere in the Bahamas). Weather permitting we'll be taking her out tomorrow for a major sea trial.

Living in Fort Lauderdale

2009-10-03T12:48:00.002-04:00

We're overdue for an update! Martin and I have had a great time the past few weeks. We've been settling in and working on our attitude adjustment and doing very well :) We've moved most of our kitchen stuff off of Lucky and into the apartment (I call our hotel suite an apartment). We've been doing a lot of cooking and using the grill outside by the water. I'm still running (up to 50 minutes now!) and I even have Martin doing Jillian Michael's Shred with me - getting healthy!

The highlight of our time here is that we get to spend lots of time with Margie and CJ. We've had them over for dinner and we've gone up to Delray to visit them a few times. We're going to the movies too. We discovered that if you go to a matinee on a weekday that you're the only people in the theatre and it's kind of cool. We each get to pick which one on alternate weeks. So far we've picked 2 winners - Julie & Julia and The Surrogates.

We also met another wonderful couple, Sandra and Dan. They are very close with Margie & CJ (and tons of fun too :) and live a bit north in Lake Park. We spent a great evenig with Margie, CJ, Sandra, Dan and their friends Frank and Stephanie last weekend. Pomegranate martinis and sushi - a lovely night! Sandra and Dan are avid bikers and divers (scuba and free diving). Last Sunday we went out with them and did a little of both (free and scuba) off of their boat and it was awesome! We saw a batfish - one of the strangest and coolest fish I've ever seen. Sandra is a professional underwater photographer and has a gift for finding allusive critters. She has a book that is coming out soon and I can't wait to get it. (I found the pic above online but had to show you what this thing looks like!) I think Martin is very, very interested in learning how to free dive. He's lucky because Dan is one of the best and has offered to teach us!

This week we also went to Butterfly World with Margie and CJ and had a great time. There's an aviary there and bug museum as well (CJ and I weren't so into the spiders.) I tried to get good butterfly pics but they are tough to get on film... I did put a few photos on the pic of the day 2 though (birds and flowers mostly). One frisky lorikeet drew blood - but my finger and I survived!

We have several fun things on the agenda for October. We got tickets to see Leonard Cohen who is actually performing right in Ft. Lauderdale (thank you Anne!) I'm soooo excited! And the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is the last weekend of the month. It's the biggest in the country. There will be a Nordhavn 60 there to check out, drool... Then there's the alligator park, monkey jungle, botanical garden and seaquarium still on the list too.

Tonight we're having dinner with Margie & CJ and maybe Sandra and Dan, at Runway 84. It's a restaurant near where we had been staying (close to Lucky) that is shaped like an airplane. Excellent and abundant Italian food. Tomorrow we're going out with Splashdown Divers for two boat dives with Sandra, Dan and a bunch of their friends. It feels so good to be out doing fun stuff!

Work continues on Lucky. Martin is there now with the mechanics doing some kind of a test. We're still crossing our fingers that she'll be fixed by November 2nd when we leave for Curacao. Speaking of Curacao, we are so, so sad to hear that Natas, the old man pit bull (16 yrs old!) of Sunshine Getaway has crossed the rainbow bridge. He was an awesome dog, RIP.

So that has bee life in Ft. Lauderdale this September since our return from home! We'll be back with more adventures soon... :)

A Mechanical Mystery

2009-09-22T19:38:00.005-04:00

So Stephanie's already told you about our woes with Lucky. Now it's my turn to provide some technical details.

The short version

Lucky still has a power issue on the port engine. The mechanics don't know why.

The long version

Last we left it, we had replaced the bad injector, everything looked good and we were waiting to replace the secondary fuel filter cover before going out on a sea trial. Friday morning Neil and his new sidekick, Eligh, came and replaced the fuel filter cap and got ready to go. everything was looking good. Fuel consumption was back to normal and no vibration was evident.

We headed down the new river. All the way down, everything looked good. Once I got past the twisty bits, I upped the RPM to 1000. Still no vibration. We headed out the cut onto the Atlantic. Conditions were rougher than the last time, we 2 - 4' waves. Nevertheless, once past the markers, I pointed us into the waves, dropped us down to 600 RPM and waited for Neil's signal.

Last time we went out I ran the throttles up gently, taking maybe 15 seconds to walk both levers to the fully open position. This gave Neil difficulty in matching reading from the engines to each other, as the readings are taken every second. This time we "slammed" the throttles and let the engines wind up to their maximum RPM in their own time. Much to our surprise, the port engine max'd out at 3350 and the starboard was 3530. Not only was the port engine not spinning up to maximum RPM, but the fuel consumption was 25% higher than the starboard. When we throttled back to 600, this increased fuel consumption continued. We repeated the test a few times, going into the waves and with a following sea, walking the throttles and slamming them. The same result in all cases. Lower RPM and higher fuel consumption on the port engine, exactly where we were before the injector was replaced.

We came back in. On the way back I ran at 1000 RPM to maintain around 5 knots heading up river. There was noticeable vibration. A little experimentation confirmed that it was coming from the port engine and not the drive.

Back at the dock, Neil executed one more test. Using the plug in computer, he ran a "run up" test. The computer, by revving up the engine, can some how calculate the maximum compression each cylinder was able to maintain, stated as a percentage of the design pressure. Volvo's specifications require each cylinder to reach 83% of maximum and the difference between the lowest and highest to be no more than 10% for the engine to be acceptable. Number 2 cylinder was 100%, but number 6 - the cylinder that had the bad injector - was only 60%. The others were in the 80's. We also ran the test on the starboard engine and all the cylinders were in the high 90's.

It was late on Friday and none of us had had lunch, so we called it a day with the plan to come back on Monday and look into the cylinders with a boroscope.

Monday came and Junior showed up in the morning to remove all six injectors. They were going to be sent to an injector shop to be tested. Later that day Brent showed up with the boroscope and we had a look. The theory is that if the bad injector had been putting more fuel into the cylinder than it should, the excess fuel would not have burnt and run down the cylinder wall, washing away the oil. This would allow excess wear from the piston to the cylinder wall to occur. This wear is very easy to see. The cylinder walls have a fine crosshatching etched into them. This crosshatching holds the oil and allows the piston rings to seal. excess wear would be evident by the crosshatching being worn, or gone, and there should also be vertical scoring. The cylinder looked fine. In fact, there was no discernible difference between any of the cylinders.

Where does that leave us?

In short, where we were two months ago. A lot had been fixed, but there's still an issue with no obvious cause. Brent thinks there still may be a compression issue with cylinder 6 - maybe a stuck piston ring - but wants to test this "the old fashioned way". So he's going to rig up a pressure tester out of an old injector and we'll try this later in the week. Meanwhile the injectors are being tested and a sample of oil was taken that, after analysis, may show fuel present. This would be another sign of a leaky cylinder. We'll know a little more by the end of the week.

Learning to Let Go

2009-09-19T20:40:00.005-04:00

Well folks, the cruising days are over. It's been a really difficult weekend, though it's also been very enlightening. Martin and I have done a good job of communicating and working through our situation together (even if I do say so myself!) The upshot from the sea trial on Friday was bad. I don't know the details, but it's highly likely that Lucky needs to be hauled out Again and this time - have her port engine taken away. It IS as big a deal as it sounds.

So the cruise is over. We've been discussing Australia but it didn't feel right. It took a few days of really thinking about things and being very honest with ourselves to come to the conclusion(s) that we have:

First, Lucky needs to get fixed in Florida. We can't take her home til she works. If we go to Australia it feels good: "FINE, we'll just leave and party somewhere else, pth!" But that's not very productive. And our heart isn't in it and that would be too wonderful a trip to go on if we weren't completely present. Second, we need something to do/look forward to this fall. We can't spend a total of 6 months living this way. Third, on some level, we are getting tired after 3 months of this. My friend Sue called it, "travel weary", I think that fits. No home, no itinerary, no goal.

Ironically, I've worked at the Osher Center for 7 years. I've been listening to "learn to live in the present moment" woo woo for years. Okay, now it's time to embrace the woo! :) We've been living for "next week" for 12 weeks. Not settling into the hotel, not exploring the area, not accepting that we LIVE in Fort Lauderdale. Okay, I don't like Ft. Lauderdale but hey, make the best of it, right? Where are those coping skills? What happened to positive reappraisal? We need to live it, not talk it, people!

So here's the deal. 1. Seize the moment! Hey - we get to live in Ft. Lauderdale until November 2nd! Let's move back into the nice room at the hotel and rent it for a month rather than extend every 3-4 days. We can visit the butterfly garden and take day and over night trips to see Sue & Armando, snorkel with manatee, visit the everglades... I can rent my own car so I'm not trapped in a hotel and I can grocery shop on my own and go have lunch with Margie! 2. Maybe we can get Lucky fixed in 6 weeks. If we give it 6 more weeks, maybe we can have the boat ready to ship home before we leave for... 3. Curacao! We adore Curacao so let's go! Our week there in August was the highlight of our summer. We'll spend the month of November in our favorite vacation spot. What a great place to spend my birthday and Thanksgiving! It's only 3 hours away and it feels like home. No travel weary woes. 4. We'll have December to either continue to work on Lucky or ship her home and make it back right on time.

Martin and I are fighting a sense of loss, we really wanted a year of living and exploring on Lucky. We both wanted nothing more than to head to Lucaya, Bahamas with Margie and CJ this fall. But fate had other plans and we can suck it up or be sad for 3 more months. The former makes more sense!

An update!

2009-09-17T12:59:00.002-04:00

So while Stephanie was writing and uploading her post below, she was ignoring her phone that was telling her I'd called and left a message.

Note to self: Don't leave phone on silent mode in different room.

If she'd picked up my message, her post may have been a little different.

Yesterday, Neil performed a test on the injectors, that deliver fuel into each cylinder. Unlike gas engines, diesel engines do not burn all the fuel they take from the tank and some fuel is returned back to the tank. The test involved measuring how much fuel was being returned from each injector. He has this nifty little rig that has a hose connected each injector to a small measuring cup. You can then measure how much fuel is being returned by each injector. This should be a certain amount at idle and a differing amount, either too low or too high, indicates various injector issues.

We turned the engine on and watched the fuel slowly creep it's way up the hoses to the measuring cups. All, that is, except on the injector furthest aft. In it's hose, the fuel was barely moving, indicating that the injector wasn't taking any fuel at all. The problem was obvious and a new injector called for. When Neil pulled the injector it's tip was dry. As it should have been wet, it was definitely malfunctioning. A few calls later and a replacement was found in Michigan and overnighted.

By the time I had arrived at the boat this morning, Neil had replaced the injector and had both engines running. Fuel consumption on the port engine was now slightly lower than the starboard, rather than 20% higher. A good sign! There was no vibration in neutral, so we went out into the river to check with the drives engaged. No vibration with the drives engaged, either! So things are looking really good!

Neil advised going out on a full sea trial today. There were still a few things needing attention. The fuel delivery tubes needed to be replaced and they'd sent the wrong type. These steel tubes connect the common rail, a cylinder containing diesel fuel pressurized to some ridiculously high amount - 36,000psi or so - to the injectors and should be replaced whenever changing any injectors. Having the fittings blow at speed would be really bad. Neil also noticed that the priming cap above the secondary fuel filter wasn't priming. This could cause air to leak into the fuel line which could also cause performance issues.

So we'll do the full trial tomorrow. I'll post up when we're done, but it's looking really good!

Back from CA and trying to make decisions!

2009-09-17T12:03:00.002-04:00

We had a really nice time back home! I got a few pics - of the cats, house, a party and my friends absolutely adorable baby girl. I need to get back in the habit of taking pics again. I attended my first "festschrift". It was a one day conference on coping and emotion, a tribute to Susan Folkman's immense contributions to the field. I'm so glad I was able to go! I also got to see my friends and co-workers and the new office space (we've been moved).

It was a busy week of smogging and registering the car, trying to keep my COBRA, ordering cat meds, attending birthday parties and barbeques, visiting with good friends and hanging with my kitties. The fur-kids definitely remembered us after our 4 month absence but I must admit, they seem somewhat apathetic about our return. I think they are going to miss Ghislaine a Lot! Bean had a check up and her health is very good while her attitude is back to cranky :)

We are back Kira-Mar hotel in Ft. Lauderdale. There is an usual high tide right now (the lunar "perigee" as the moon gets really close to earth) and it's wild - at high tide (around 6am and 6pm right now), the river raises so much that the streets flood! We got a good pic of outside our hotel last night.

So the latest sea trial (Tuesday) showed that we still had 1 engine problem and 1 transmission problem (vibration). Yesterday, the mechanic figured out the engine issue and it's pretty easy to fix (bad injector?). The vibration remains a mystery and likely means getting hauled out again.

Martin and I have been having a series of long talks about what to do and if we should put "Plan B" into action. "Plan A" is ideal and what we really want to do. We want to get back on Lucky and go to Delray and then the Bahamas with Margie & CJ. But, if Lucky can't get fixed "soon" we need to act. We had a Wonderful 6 months and are hooked on boating but we'd like to finish out the year with a bang rather than a drizzle in Ft. Lauderdale. If Lucky is a lost cause, we're thinking Plan B - 1 month in Australia, and then 1 month in Curacao. This would put us back state-side in early December. But when and how to decide if she's a lost cause? We've had almost 3 months of thinking "maybe she'll be set to go next week". We could easily do this right to December it seems. We need a cut-off, drop dead date. We're making this October 1st which means we should know by end of next week.

It's actually a really difficult decision to make. We had dinner with CJ & Margie last night and then swung by the boat. I'm so tired of hotels, I just want back on the water, back on Lucky, back cruising with our friends. I'm a bit surprised at just how much I enjoy living on Lucky - being outside all of the time, the smell of the water, the freedom to head out and explore whenever you want (weather permitting of course :), meeting new people and talking "boating", hoping to see a dolphin! Even the rocking that used to make me sick eventually came to feel comforting in a weird way.

Well, we should have it figured out by next week. Our October 1st deadline is quickly approaching and we are going to have to make a decision. Martin is with the mechanics now, probably being told we need to haul out. We'll be back and keep you updated as things unfold! Oh the drama.... ;^)

Grounded!

2009-09-13T19:31:00.003-04:00

This is what happens when 370hp of irrestistable force meets immovable rock through a bronze interface.

I'm writing this sat on my bed in my house in Redwood Shores, CA. We've been home for about 10 days catching up on mail, friends and cats. It's been a nice trip. The house is fine, all the toys work and we managed to catch up with almost everyone. I should have written this blog last week as I've quite the 'splaining to do, but I've been putting it off. Stephanie has finally kicked me in the rear enough times that here it is.

Those of you on Facebook already know and the picture above might clue you in, but the day before I flew out of Florida I managed to run aground. There's a first time for everything and it happens to every boater eventually. Ten days ago it was my turn.

It was Wednesday afternoon, two weeks ago. The mechanics had put all the engines and drives back together and we were going out on a sea trial. As you may remember from the last time, this involves going down The New River to the Intercoastal and then taking the Intercoastal south to the Port Everglades cut and then out to sea. No problem. We'd done this a few weeks earlier. Despite meeting The Jungle Queen, a large Mississippi style paddle steamer at the tightest bend in the river, we negotiated the trip down river without stress. It was merging into the ICW (Intercoastal Waterway) where the problems occur.

When negotiating the waterways, there are marker posts showing the places to go. While there are many different kinds of signs on the marker posts, the two predominant and most important are red triangles and green squares. The red and green markers show the location of the deep water - the channel. The reds marks one side of the channel, the green the other. To stay safe, you travel between the two colors. Pretty straight forward, really. The complications start to arise when there's only one colored marker visible. You need to go on one side or the other, but which one? As you'd expect, there's a convention followed and a simple mnemonic to remember it.

"Red, Right, Return".

When you are "returning", keep the red markers to your right (and by implication, the green markers to your left). You are "returning" when you are entering inland waterways from the sea or going upstream. You are returning home. The ICW is a special case as it winds it's way along the eastern seaboard. Sometimes downstream, sometimes upstream, sometimes "on the outside". As "Red, Right, Return" has little bearing and even less consistency, the convention is that going southbound, red is right. It's pretty straight forward. The confusion arises where the ICW crosses or joins a river or cut. At this point there's a profusion of markers, some marking the ICW and some marking the river and the two conventions collide. If you're traveling downstream and make a left to go south down the ICW, or are heading north up the ICW and make a left to go upstream, the conventions switch and you have to pass between two markers of the same color. Better make sure you know which two to pass between, right?

So here's a link to the official NOAA chart for Ft Lauderdale

and here's a link to a Google Map, where I've superimposed both the red and green markers, along with my fateful track.

You can see from the satellite photo, that there are two very obvious shallow spots where the New River joins the ICW. Groundings are so frequent here that Towboat US hang out here waiting. In fact, we didn't need to wait at all and were pulled off the rocks within 30 minutes of hitting them.

I can't excuse what happened. As pilot I should have been aware of our route the whole time. Unfortunately for me, we were at low tide. Another 30 minutes and a foot of water and we would have sailed clear over them, probably none the wiser.

I spoke to the mechanic on Friday. In the end we need 4 new props, 2 new prop shafts, seals and 2 new clutch packs. Add in the labor and I be lucky to get change out of $10,000.

*sigh*

We fly back to Florida tomorrow afternoon. I have the boat lift scheduled for Tuesday morning and the mechanic will be on hand. Once we're back in the water we go out for a sea trial again. Hopefully we'll not hit anything and the engines and drives will operate as we hope - no overheating and reach full RPM of 3600 - and Steph and I can resume our journey.

Lucky Update

2009-08-28T18:31:00.003-04:00

The port drive showing the newly added seal plate. This should stop water getting into the drive in the future.

It's been a week since Lucky was dropped into the water and a lot has happened. Sort of.

On Friday, International Marine Diesel's lead tech, Neil, came on board and ran a bunch of diagnostic tests to try and work out what's going on. End result - better go for a sea trial. As a safe guard, Neil "shimmed up" the oil pressure relief valve on the port drive so that it would maintain slightly higher pressures. He wanted to be sure that when we went out, the drive wouldn't be starved for oil. It was getting late on a Friday, so we planned on doing that Monday morning.

On Monday, Neil showed up at 10 am, reasonable early by mechanic standards, and off we went. I'd been stressing over this all weekend and hadn't got much sleep Sunday night. as it turned out, the trip down the river was stress free and reasonably uneventful. The tide was coming in, so idle kept us going at a sedate 3 knots, which was fine by me, and I had plenty of time to react to oncoming traffic. The only boat of note was a 95' yacht. I was well prepared as I'd been listening to the captain talk to traffic ahead of us and the bridges. When he showed up around a corner, I had plenty of space to jockey aside. We were out in the ocean by 11. Nice and flat, the seas were less than 2' coming from the north east. I pointed her in that direction and we were off. Up to Wide-Open-Throttle and back a number of times as Neil used his little HP hand-held, plugged into one engine or the other, for data capture. we were able to get the port engine up to 3200 and the starboard up to 3400, but both engines overheated, showing 205 degrees coolant temperature. They should maintain 185, even at WOT. As for the drive, all though it showed low oil pressure at low RPMs, once the RPMs were above idle, the pressure came right back to normal. Once he'd got all the information he needed, we turned around and headed back. An uneventful trip up river and we were docked by 12:30. I moved Lucky into another slip, getting her closer to the shore and a stern-in, starboard tie-up, so I could put the tender back on the swim platform.

Neil came back on Tuesday and I got the full scoop. Both engines are over heating. Cause most likely due to heat exchanger fouling. Bearing in mind we replaced both fuel coolers for the same reason, it seem likely. So Neil had come to pull both heat exchangers, that use sea water to cool the engine coolant and both charge air coolers, that cool the compressed air going into the cylinders. As for the low oil pressure in the port drive, he didn't know and Volvo hadn't got back to him yet.

Meanwhile, I was having electrical issues. There was still a lose battery cable showing ground when it should show +12v and the generator wasn't starting up. An electrician came in Tuesday afternoon and we were able to solve both problems. The battery cable only showed ground when the "Helm C" breaker was on and further investigation showed that the spot light was the culprit. It's never worked right (always popped a breaker) and I've never needed it, so we unplugged it from it's breaker. I'll solve it another time or just pull the whole thing off. The generator needs a new emergency stop switch. The original was corroded. Another victim of salt water intrusion. To be safe, I replaced the breaker just above it as well. I had to order the switch, it should arrive next week.

The underwater lights were installed, but couldn't be tested as they were lacking the correct fuses.

To finish off a full day, I moved aboard. Stephanie would be horrified at the mess, but if you promise not to tell her, there's no reason why she should ever find out...

Not much happened Wednesday and Thursday, other than the electrician finding out that he needed insurance to work in the yard. I decided that if the engines were having all these issues with raw water cooling, then the A/C condensers were probably needing a little TLC as well, so I went out and purchased the makings of a flush system (hoses, pump, fuse, switch).

Today has been a busy day. Neil came back and took the transmission from the port drive. After pouring over schematics, they've decided the only way for the drive to show low oil pressure at idle but not at load is for one bearing in the main shaft to be leaking oil. The transmission is pretty trick, in that it used the oil pressure to engage the clutch and two channels in the drive shaft to move the oil up the drive to the top side of the clutch pack. At idle, when these channels are closed, there's only one thing maintaining pressure from the oil pump, and it's this bearing. So they're going to replace the bearing. It'll take over a day to replace the drive and the four coolers, so we're planning on another sea trial next Tuesday. All being well, everything will check out and I'll be off to CA with a lifted heart!

Once Neil left, I used my jury-rigged flush system to flush weak acidic solution through the raw water system of the A/C condensers. I flushed the acid through for 2 hours, then followed it with a fresh water flush. We have four condenser units, connected to two raw water pumps. Today I flushed the most important - the main cabin - and the other condenser attached to the same pump, the aft cabin. It meant turning the A/C off for the afternoon, so I retreated off the boat into "The Captains Lounge", a very nice lounge with TV, leather sofas, kitchen and wi-fi, while that was going on. Based upon the color the solution turned - a mucky brown - they needed the clean. I was able to reconnect the units correctly and turn on the A/C. It might be my imagination, but it seems a little more effective :-)

In other good news, the electrician finally showed up with the correct fuses and we were able to verify that they work! I look forward to seeing them in full glory later tonight.

Taking it Day by Day

2009-08-24T09:46:00.002-04:00

Well, Lucky is back in the water! And our port engine AND port drive are not working. Yup - the drive that we just spent 8 weeks servicing. So...

I'm heading back to SC this evening to visit my Mom for a week. Martin is moving back aboard Lucky tomorrow. He's out with the mechanics doing a sea trial today. We had plans to go home on September 3rd. I'll now be home on the 1st. Martin still plans on returning on the 3rd, unless hell freezes over and Lucky is fixed and working before then, in which case he'll head back to CA a bit early as well. Sorry for dripping sarcasm but this is getting really, really old! We'll return to Fort Lauderdale on the 14th and see what happens then.

We haven't been up to a lot to report on the blog. Martin spends his days on Lucky with mechanics and electricians and I hang out at the hotel. I'm getting back into running, doing the "couch to 5K" program, a 10 week program to get you running a 5K without walking. I've been run/walking for a few years so I thought it'd be cool to get back to the serious jogging! I start week 5 this week. I'm very proud of myself for getting up at 6:30am to head out before it gets too hot to run! It'll be cooler in SC and at home so I'm looking forward to that.

Last Thursday we went to a happy hour at the marina and had a tour of a 62 foot Nordhavn - what a gorgeous boat! Martin and I had a lovely walk along the beach on Saturday and celebrated Lucky being in the water with a dinner at 3030 Ocean. Wow, that was awesome! Last night we saw CJ & Margie and said goodbye for 3 weeks. I'm going to miss them!

I feel badly leaving Martin here but we both think it's for the best. It takes some stress off him to know I'm not going crazy at the hotel. (It's so hot here that daytime activities are pretty limited. I wish I were a beach person!) He'll be able to chill out in the evenings and not have me bouncing around like a puppy, "what are we doing now, what are we doing now??" :)

As for the technical difficulties with Lucky, I have to leave that for Martin to write about. My expertise is limited to - oil pressure in drive low, big problem. Engine sucking too much gas, could be big problem. Not very enlightening, I know!

Getting Wet At Last!

2009-08-20T15:29:00.005-04:00

Lucky is in the water after 52 days on land, yes, I counted! I just spoke with Martin and the engines turned over and no water is coming in from anywhere (she had a lot of holes drilled into her - looks like they're all well sealed!) This is the good news.

The bad news is that the port engine still seems to be burning more gas than the starboard. We aren't necessarily surprised, this issue was never diagnosed or addressed since she has to be in the water to run the engines (but we couldn't run the engines because the drive had watery oil and that had to be fixed before the engines could be run - you see the conundrum...) It was hoped that with the drive fixed and new alternators, super-chargers and all the rest, that it would simply correct. Eh, well, maybe not.

The plan is to take her out on a sea trial tomorrow morning with an engineer. Hopefully he'll be able to figure out what is going on with the port engine. Tomorrow afternoon the electrician needs to finish up a few odds and ends as well.

In the meantime, theoretically, engine work can be done while we're in the water so we're looking at moving aboard Saturday/Sunday - though that could change if there are any "revelations" tomorrow. Once the engine is fixed we'll cruise up to Delray to stay until we return home to visit on Sept. 3rd.

*We're coming CJ & Margie...really, really...we'll be there soooon.....*

Fortunately there's a boat show and happy hour tonight at the marina - a welcomed distraction :)

Quick Update - Getting Closer!

2009-08-17T09:31:00.005-04:00

I thought I'd post a brief update. We were supposed to splash Lucky today but they sent the wrong part on Friday. So we are hoping the correct "supercharger" will arrive today, then we could get Lucky in the water tomorrow or Wednesday.

The next possible adventure is Hurricane Bill. We will leave Lucky at the marina where we are now if the hurricane looks like it's going to come close. The marina is located well up the river and is a good place to weather a storm. Oh the adventure never ends ;-}

Seriously, we're so close to getting Lucky in the water, we're almost there. The new hotel is bright and sunny, has a pool and an oven (yay - I baked quiche yesterday!) I'll post pics today. It's a very pleasant place to hang out. There's a farmers market down the road on Sundays with incredible home-made hummus, we found an awesome sushi restaurant we can walk to, and of course, our friends CJ & Margie are close by...

In other news, we bought our tickets for our visit home - 9/3-9/14. I'm looking forward to visiting with friends, cuddling with my fur-babes, attending Susan Folkman's festschrift, getting my hair cut, and teeth cleaned!

We'll update again soon, hopefully from the water!

[ps: here's the definition of "festschrift" from answers.com, I hadn't hear of it before talk of Susan's:

Festschrift (plural ‐iften)a volume of essays written by the disciples of an eminent scholar or writer, to whom it is presented as a tribute on a special occasion such as a birthday or retirement. The custom and the term (‘celebration‐writing’) originated in German universities in the 19th century.]

Back in Ft. Lauderdale

2009-08-13T14:18:00.002-04:00

On Tuesday Martin and I went to the Ostrich Farm on the other end of the island. It was a very interesting tour. They are such strange animals - funky looking, a bit stupid and frankly, tasty...we had lunch there too :p Tuesday night we had a really nice evening going out to dinner with Sunshine and David. I was so sad to leave on Wednesday. Sometimes you visit a place that just "fits". That's how I feel about Curacao. The combination of the tropical island, wonderful people, the great apartment, and gorgeous diving - I can't wait for us to go back again!

We arrived back late afternoon yesterday in Ft. Lauderdale. We're staying at a new hotel/suite. It's located downtown on the waterway and it's sunny and bright with a full kitchen. I like it a lot more than the other place though Martin has a longer drive to the boat. We found a vegan restaurant last night and had a tasty dinner - Martin was very surprised but he really liked it! Then we went shopping at Whole Foods - a healthy return.

Unfortunately, I've been smacked with a horrible headache today. I'm getting paranoid - thinking that it's Fort Lauderdale. Maybe the weather? Barometric pressure? The last one was 4 days long, I'm hoping this one is short lived. So I'm hanging at the apartment and Martin is off to the boat to check on the progress. I'm sure he'll be blogging soon with an update on Lucky!

Treasure hunting aka diving

2009-08-10T18:35:00.002-04:00

We've been having a wonderful time relaxing at Sol Food and diving. Diving is a lot like a treasure hunt - you go as slowly as you can searching for all the wonderful and elusive critters out there. On Thursday we did another dive at Alice in Wonderland to double check equipment. Good thing too because Martin's regulator blew another O-ring! Luckily Andreas was there and he was able to diagnose and fix the problem. We had a really nice dive and saw our first turtle.

Friday we went to Porto Marie about 20 minutes south of the apartment. It's a beautiful beach with a restaurant. We did a morning dive, had lunch, and then went back for another dive. The reef/wall drops down to well over 100 feet. It's very deceptive. You cruise along and suddenly realize you're much deeper than you'd thought! We kept to our profiles though and had a great time. We saw a string ray, a couple very large moray eels and several drum and trunk fish (all in the pics).

Friday night there were several people eating at Sol Food including some of the OEW crew. We had a nice time chatting with a visiting family and a couple from Holland who are here on their honeymoon. We also solved a mystery. Yesterday, while diving Alice in Wonderland, Martin and I came across an inflated yellow duck tied to dive weights at about 35 feet. When we asked at dinner we got blank looks from the OEW crew and teased quite a bit with questions like "what kind of drugs do you like to dive on" and " Were you narc'd?" (if you dive deep, around 100 feet you start to "narc'd" - feeling/acting/reasoning like you're drunk...) No one has ever seen a blow up duck in the water! We were having quite a laugh when (luckily) the honeymoon couple arrived just then and said "oh, you saw our duck?" Whew, I thought Mart and I may have been suffering from a joint hallucination :) Well, their last day is tomorrow, so it's a no dive day, and we have officially inherited the duck to use as a navigation aid - yay :)

Saturday we went to town with David to run some errands and then we went diving at Playa Largo. It's a gorgeous dive off a remote beach. I found an octopus in the shallows (pic)! Saturday night we hung out with the crowd at Sol Food and had another great evening.

Sunday we went on a morning boat dive with OEW. On our way out we encountered a large pod of dolphins with babies! Then we dived Lagun and saw our first post-larval juvenile smooth trunkfish. They are the size of a large pea! Toni the dive master found the first and I spotted the second. Very cool but we weren't able to get a focused pics. Then we got back in the boat and Tuki the captain pulled aside so we could pick up some garbage floating in the water. It turned into a rescue at sea as there was an iguana floating on a bottle. We backed up into the rock face and let him go (see pics). Off to Watamula, the next dive site. There are outrageously gorgeous corals there and Martin found a sea horse! It's a real prize to find sea horses since they are pretty rare. Sunday evening was another great time hanging out with the OEW crowd.

Today we went to a pancake brunch at Daniels with Sunshine and David. They're pancakes ala Dutch and were great. Then we went to Playa Cas Abao, hung out on the beach for a while and then went for a shore dive using our duck as a navigation aid :) We found a balloon fish, a couple great file fishes and then Martin spotted the "pea" as we call it and got a great pic.

Today is our last dive day (you aren't supposed to dive 24 hours before flying). So tomorrow we're off to the ostrich farm and will enjoy a day on land!

Loving Curacao

2009-08-06T08:23:00.005-04:00

Martin and I are so happy to be back at Sunshine and David's in Westpunt, Curacao! We came here last year in June and stayed for 10 days. We had such a wonderful time that we knew we'd be back - though we didn't think it would be this summer! We arrived yesterday on Insel Air. We rented a car and headed for the house. The whole gang was here, Sunshine, David, the pups, and the cats. Andreas came by later in the evening and we had a nice dinner on the back patio. In the morning Martin and I checked in at Ocean Encounters West (OEW) dive shop and opened an account. Then we went to town to the grocery store (35-40 minute drive) and got provisions for the week. In the afternoon David joined us and we went down to Playa Kalki for our first dive of the trip.

Oops - major equipment malfunction - not a good thing. Martin had a bad O-ring in his 1st stage regulator. OEW's manager Brian was able to replace it. Then I tested my set up and my BCD got stuck in "inflate" mode. Um - not good! Thank God it happened on shore and not under water. The schrader valve was corroded and once again, Brian was able to fix it. We like Brian a lot! So after an hour and a half in the sun we got our gear on and jumped in. David is a very patient man! The reefs are incredible here. Much larger and more populated than the Bahamas. And of course - no sharks. Apparently there's a hammerhead that passes through from time to time but he's rarely spotted, so much the better. We spotted several trunk fish, a drum fish and a small eel among many other critters. I've taken a few pics of the apartment and the pets - I'll be posting many, many more! Once we're back comfortable with diving Martin will be taking lots of fish pics too.

In the evening there was a birthday party at Sol Food for Julie, who works at the dive shop. We were invited and had a great time. We got to know everyone a little and hear fun stories. We have a reputation for being the "24-pounders" from last year (long story of messing up on the weights we thought we'd need.) All the new people we meet say "Oh - you're the 24 pounders"! :)

It feels so good to be out of the hotel in Fort Lauderdale and "outside" as well. The house is totally open - windows, huge sliding doors (see pics). There's air conditioning in the bedrooms but we seldom need it. While it's hot here, the trade winds blow constantly and make it comfortable. It also blows the mosquitoes away so you can enjoy being outside in the evening. Yesterday I thought I spotted a bananaquit (the "sugar birds" from Warderick Wells, Bahamas). We put a bowl of sugar out and sure enough - they're eating away on our balcony!

This morning I woke up to lots of birds singing and roosters - lots and lots of roosters. They sound like a stadium crowd when they get going in the morning. Now I'm sipping coffee, watching the bananaquits have their breakfast and enjoying a nice breeze while Mart sleeps in a bit. It's gray and overcast so the temp is cool(er). I think the rainy season is normally July so maybe we're going to have some late showers. The clouds reduce visibility but I don't think we'll have to cancel our diving today. We're planning on 2 mellow shore dives, at least one again at Alice in Wonderland (the OEW house dive). We want to be very sure that our equipment is working well before we head out to a remote area to shore dive! Rain or shine, it's another wonderful day ahead, life is good.

Yard work done, engine work not so much

2009-08-03T18:00:00.001-04:00

So all the yard work is done subject to the final "does she sink" test when we drop Lucky back into the water. We'll be able to test the underwater lights then as well. Turning them on out of the water will cause them to overheat, so we left the ballast and bulbs out to be safe.

I've posted a few more pictures here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mmorris/YardWork#

No pictures of the new canvas, I'm afraid. Once we'd put up the canvas and got it fitted correctly, we immediately took it down. No point risking it getting damaged while in the yard. We'll put some pictures up once we're out of the yard.

The engine work, however, has not gone so well. the pulled drive needs a new clutch pack and there aren't any available anywhere. So we have to wait for the manufacturer to make some, send them to Volvo who'll send them out to us. Current estimate is August 10th. Hence our trip to Curacao.

Once the part arrives, it shouldn't take more than a day to fix the drive. Then another half day to put her back in the boat, followed by another day to do all the engine work. Then we can put her in the water and go for a test drive. That, unfortunately, means going all the way out to the ocean. Once we're out there, if she doesn't need to be hauled out again, I'll leave her in Bahia Mar. No point coming all the way up the river just to go back out again.

We have internet access in Curacao, so expect an update or two while we're there.

Change of travel plans - we're outta here :)

2009-07-30T15:32:00.003-04:00

So the bad news first - the drive is damaged from having water in the oil and we need a specific part that apparently doesn't exist at this moment - they are being made in the factory! Our mechanic has 5 Volvo drives waiting on the same part. Volvo says they'll be finished in production, shipped and arrive on August 10th. Uh huh. So, that was the straw that broke the keel as it were. All the work to the boat itself is done and paid for. We have about 1 days worth of engine work to do and are hoping that will happen tomorrow or Monday. Lucky can't go into the water without the drive so she's officially beached until the part comes in. Martin has spent the last month, every weekday and some weekends, in 90+ heat in that boat yard. It was really disheartening to hear that we had another {minimum} 2 week wait.

And so, the good news - we're leaving! We decided that we have to get out of the hotel. Last June we went to Curacao and stayed in an apartment in Westpunt at Sunshine Curacao, owned by Sunshine and David. We loved it and had the best time. We're always talking about going back and wouldn't you know it - we are the luckiest people ever! The apartment is free from 8/1-8/15 and though we had to really search (thank you Sunshine for the airline info) we were able to find last minute tickets to Curacao. So we leave on the 4th and return on the 12th. In another stroke of luck, one of the dive masters we met when we were there, Andreas, just returned to Curacao from Germany yesterday! We are so looking forward to the warmth of the people, the serious pet love from Chaos, Nez, Jack and Nates (dogs) and Mio and K2, (kitties) that live at the house, Sunshine & David's incredible food at their restaurant Sol Food on the weekends, and the awesome (Shark-free!!!!) diving. We'll have lots of wonderful pics for the pic of the day when we return. Woo - hoo !!!

Now to brush up on my Papiamento... Bon Dia...

One Month in Fort Lauderdale

2009-07-28T22:14:00.001-04:00

Well we're still here! Today is the 1 month anniversary of moving into the hotel. Work on Lucky is progressing - the canvas work is done - we now have a real bimini shade structure and a clear wall that can be put up behind the helm area so that space can be air-conditioned/heated as necessary. Our new batteries are installed and the several other jobs are done as well. There remains a few little things and the big thing - the drive and engine. Once the drive is back and in place we can get back into the water! We may know more about when that will happen tomorrow. We're keeping our fingers crossed for "within a week from now".

So how have we been occupying our time, you ask? Martin is still at the boat during the day but we've had quite a busy social life lately as well. We had dinner with Jack & Barb last week and got to see their house. It was great to see them again and Barb is an Excellent cook - yum! Then on Friday we had drinks with Geoff and Iza aboard Dreaming On, a gorgeous sail catamaran in the marina with us. They had engine trouble and then were struck by lightening so they have been hanging there for a couple of months waiting on repairs. Another couple came as well and we had a really nice happy hour. They will be our "neighbors" when we get back in the water and I hope we'll see more of them. On Saturday we drove out to Naples to visit Mike & Jackie's son Paul, his wife Sarah and their daughter Imogen. Paul and Martin are the same age and grew up next to each other. They hadn't seen each other in about 10 years so it was really nice to be able to visit. We spent the day on the beach (see pics) though the sky all around us was dark and threatening. It was strange weather! Then we went out to dinner with some friends of theirs. It was a really nice day. Sunday, Mart and I went to see Transformers at the IMAX. That was cool! Harry Potter 3D is coming there next week - that's a must!

I've been busy working out and taking advantage of the treadmill here at the hotel. I've even lost a bit of the "boat weight" from this winter (thank God). I'm also getting lots of quilting blocks cut and ready to be sewn on the boat - ah the life of leisure :) We're really, really ready to be back on Lucky and heading north to Delray! We'll post as soon as we know when that will be happening.

Still Hanging in Ft. Lauderdale

2009-07-21T19:45:00.001-04:00

Hey everyone. I haven't written in quite a while so I thought I'd send out a quick update. I spent a week in Myrtle Beach with my Mom. It was awesome! I rarely get to visit her in the summer and it was nice to be able to enjoy the beach and boardwalk and get outside together. We had a great week spent relaxing, walking to the beach, checking out quilt shops... I wasn't as good as I should have been with the camera but I did get a few pics! The week spend by and suddenly it was Friday. Martin spent the week at the boatyard, in the heat, overseeing the work being done. Um, yes, I'm feeling a bit guilty!

On Friday night Martin and I celebrated my being back by going to an Italian restaurant down the street. Whoa... It was very cool. I think we stepped onto the set of Goodfellows! We were looking around trying to pick out the big bosses ;-) Saturday Martin and I went up to Delray to visit CJ & Margie. They have a very hard job in this heat. We went to a great restaurant for dinner and, as usual, had a wonderful time with them.

The last few days have been very mellow. I've been fighting a headache that has been dragging on for days and Martin has been very sweet to me while I mope around drugged up. They rarely last more than 4 days so the end has to be near.

Tomorrow night we have plans to have dinner at Barb & Jacks house. We're looking forward to seeing them!

As for the boat...work continues and progresses. Martin is there every day pushing to get people in and get the work taken care of. If we were out of town I think Lucky would be on blocks months while this work goes on. Things always come up that take the work crew away and they have to be pulled back to finish up jobs. Yesterday a sailboat in the marina was hit by lightening - just as work was finishing up repairing it from a lightening strike Last Year. Holy cow. Two strikes in 2 years! I'm glad we don't have a mast!

Yard work update

2009-07-12T10:48:00.002-04:00

Its been a week since work started on Lucky and a lots happened. I've uploaded a bunch of photographs and you can see them here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mmorris/YardWork#

I've also replaced all the lights in Lucky with LED bulbs, including replacing the red "night vision" ones over the helm with blue ones.

So a lot of work has been done. Still to be done:

wire the lights and transducer
re caulk the rear hull seams
new pop-up cleats on the transom
new batteries
install low level bilge pump
replace seal on engine room hatch
reseal salon hatch
install rod holders for the bimini top

and that's just the stuff I remember. I'm sure there's other things we're having done. There is a list and we will be checking it twice.

No sign of the engine guys since Friday. They should be coming in next week to make a start. As well as replacing the prop shaft seal on the port drive, they're going to:

remove the crank shaft fly wheel and get the rust sandblasted off.
replace the Volvo Penta strainers with Groco on the vacuum side of the impeller
replace all the plastic pulleys with new, steel ones
put in two new alternators (I've managed to get two of the four reconditioned)

Once the engines are back together, we'll be able to put Lucky back in the water and finish off any remaining work in the marina.

The canvas guys were a no show this week, but they assure me they'll be in on Monday to make the patterns for the aft curtain. We'll see. They've already taken a deposit so I'm a little stuck. I'm having the yard apply pressure to keep them in the game. There's something about canvas makers....

Visiting...

2009-07-09T09:28:00.002-04:00

So far everything is going really well in Ft. Lauderdale. Martin is overseeing the work being done on the boat (and doing quite a bit of it himself as well!) Our room at the hotel is nice, I love having a kitchen, and the location is perfect, only a mile or so away from the boatyard.

Along with the boat work, we've both been doing a lot of visiting! We had dinner with Jack & Barb who just returned to Ft. Lauderdale from the Bahamas. It turns out that Coconuts is one of their favorite restaurants too. While sitting at dinner I had a "moment" when I looked up and realized that "Arioso", the megayacht-from-hell with the sea plane was docked right in front of us! It's a small world...

We went up to Delray on the 4th to celebrate with CJ, Margie and her sister Diane. We had an awesome time with them (as usual). Their house is absolutely beautiful - colorful and happy and right on the water. We had a great dinner and then went to the beach with thousands of other people - it was a huge local event. CJ showed Martin how to dig a "sand couch" and we all settled in to watch the fireworks in comfort. It was a great day.

On Sunday I took the car and headed to Naples to visit Sue & Armando for a couple of days. We went on a 20+ mile bike ride, chatted away over wine, and I got lots of kitty love from Tru & Blu. Sue & Armando are wonderful, the time passed way too quickly. While I was away Martin hooked up with Peter, a fellow Tiara owner whom we met in the Bahamas.

Now I'm back in Ft. Lauderdale but leaving this evening to go visit my Mom. I feel a bit guilty - Martin is out in the heat every day at the boatyard, but there just isn't much of anything I'm qualified to do there... I certainly can't complain that I have time now to visit with friends and family. Fortunately, CJ & Margie have promised to come down and check in on Martin while I'm away :) I'll be back by the end of next week and we're hoping that Lucky will be ready to get "splashed" then as well.

Being in Ft. Lauderdale this time has been a completely different experience from our first "pre-Bahamas" visit. I can't believe how many wonderful people we've met - and to be able to stay in touch and see them - well, life is very good.

Getting stuff done (to Lucky)

2009-07-05T16:59:00.010-04:00

Getting hauled. Again.

So this turned out to be much longer than I thought. Be warned...

We're at Lauderdale Marine Center, a huge boat yard on The New River, just by I-95. We're here to get a bunch of work done on Lucky. We mentioned before the issues we've had with the port engine.

There should be plate covering this seal

Well, we also have an issue with the port drive. It seems there's water in oil. I don't check the oil in the drive very often as, like a car, the transmission isn't going to lose oil very quickly, if at all. Unlike an engine, where oil can leak past the pistons and go up in smoke out of the exhaust, transmission oil will have to leak out to go down. Any leak would be evident by an oil sheen on the water or drops around the drive in the engine room, neither of which are evident. Another reason is you have to let the oil settle for 12 hours to get the correct level. Anyway, after our long passage from Nassau, I checked the oil and low and behold, the oil had turned white, evidence of a water leak. According to the mechanic, there are four possible causes for a water leak:

- a corroded oil drain plug, which sits under water at the bottom of the drive

- a bent prop shaft

- a corroded prop shaft

- a leaky seal

All four require a haul out to get at the bottom of the drive, as does an oil change anyway. So we've hauled the boat. Turns out the cause is most likely a leaky seal. Prop shafts are fine, as is the drain plug. Behind the prop shaft is a seal to prevent water intrusion. This seal has failed. The cause of the failure is a missing seal plate. I was one of the early adopters for the IPS drives and the original drives installed are the IPS-A model, numbers 650 and 651, so pretty early models. In the later version, IPS-B, a plate was added in front of these seals to protect them from water pressure, which causes the seals to fail. This plate should have been added in January when we had water intrusion fixed the first time, but wasn't. The starboard drive hasn't had this issue as it's an IPS-B, a replacement for the original IPS-A that self-destructed last summer. The IPS-B drive, btw, has a serial number in the high 6,000s. So they've made quite a few since mine were first installed. What's not yet known is whether the drive has suffered any damage from the water. They're going to scope the drive on Monday. In addition the water inlet and outlet fittings are leaking on both drives, so they've been pulled for replacement. Also on the list will be a replacement of both solenoids, used to rotate the drives when turning, to a newer version.

The cause of the engine issues - low power, higher fuel consumption - is still unknown. On Thursday the mechanic, Roy, took off the superchargers, belts, pulleys and alternators. The superchargers were taken back to the shop to be scoped for water intrusion and electrolysis damage and got a clean bill of health. The pulleys need to changed out from the plastic version we have installed to the new metal ones and the belts will be changed. On checking the alternators, one was found to be dead and the trigger wire between the two sets corroded off. The trigger wire ensures that both alternators on a given battery bank (engine or house) charge at the same time. I dropped the alternators off at a local battery place to be reconditioned. The battery guy, David, isn't sure what he can do as Volvo Penta doesn't sell components within them separately. David will clean and recondition as best he can. With any luck, he'll be able to salvage at least two, if not three. At $1,000 a pop, the more he can save, the better!

This strainer needs to be replaced with one less prone to leaks

Another piece of engine work I'm going to have done is changing out the raw water strainers. Volvo's design and location of the strainers has had a nasty habit of popping the top, pouring salt water over the belts and drives, which then gets sprayed throughout the engine room. A fix for this is to put Groco strainers on the raw water hose and remove the Volvo Strainers entirely. Not only does this have the advantage of removing a flawed component, it also puts the strainer on the vacuum side of the impeller, which will protect the impeller from damage. A fix many D-6 owners have done, apparently.

So while the boat is in the yard, we're having a bunch of other work done:

Transducer mounting block under the hull, soon to disappear

Transducer from the inside. Behind you can see one of the float swtches to be replaced.

Transducer splice box. The wire going in comes from the electronics at the helm. The new transducer will be spliced in after installation. The box is mounted square, it's the picture that's crooked!

The transducer mount is leaking while under way. The transducer is the depth finder, which uses sonar to find the distance to the bottom of whatever we happen to be floating on at the time. It uses sound, in exactly the same way sonar in submarines work. The leak is allowing some salt water into the bilge, so this needs to be fixed. I'm having the old transducer removed and a new one put in. As supplied by Raymarine, the transducer comes in a mounting block, which is attached to the bottom of the hull through two large bolts, one of which also holds the transducer in place. Over time, water pressure on the block causes the threads to shift a little and water can get in. Instead of using the mounting block, we're going to "glass" (using fibreglass and epoxy resin) the transducer so that it's flush mounted to the hull. This will involve cutting the transducer out of its mounting block and making a mold for an internal mounting block so that it sits vertically. To simplify installation, we've put a junction box in the engine room and spliced in the cable from the helm. No need to re-run the cable if a new transducer needs to be installed. I'll be keeping the existing transducer as a spare, anyway.

You can see light between the two fiberglass pieces of the hull. This seam needs to be re caulked.

Not only is there water coming in through the transducer mount, but there's also water getting in from above. Even on dry land, we're getting water building up in the bilge whenever it rains. I spent an hour in the engine room on Thursday during a massive rain storm looking for leaks and found two. One is where the transom shower head sits in its mount. A door with gasket over the area should solve that. There's a seam between two pieces of the hull, the side hull and the transom "wings", that's letting in a lot of water. We'll get that re caulked. There's also a small leak in the through bolt for the starboard IPS zinc, so that will get re caulked as well.

The water intrusion also showed up another issue. The aft bilge pump float switch has stopped working. The float switch tells the bilge pump when to start pumping, so it's pretty important. We're going to replace all the float switches - forward, mid, aft and engine room - with a more reliable "ball in a glass tube" version. The aft bilge doesn't remove all the water. It leaves about an inch of water when it's done, as the hull forms a shallow "v". I'm going to have a manually operated "dry bilge" pump installed which will allow me to remove the last few drops. It'll have a remote suction head on it that will also allow me to pick up pockets of water elsewhere in the bilge as well.

I wish the engine room was the only place for water leaks. No such luck. The window on starboard side of the helm and the hatch in the main cabin both leak, so they're going to be fixed as well. The helm seat window was re caulked on Thursday, a cheaper "let's try this first" approach than removing the window. So far, through two massive rainstorms, it's held up.

I can't deny it any longer. The batteries need to be replaced. We have 8 batteries in total, 5 house and 3 engine. All are size "31", which helps keep their weight down to a svelte 70 pounds. I'm going to replace the existing Deka wet cell with Deka AGM (absorbed glass matt), as AGM batteries seem to do better in a marine environment. Maintenance free, to boot! At $200 a pop, they're not cheap but with an expected life of 3 - 4 years turn out to be one of boating's cheaper maintenance issues. Less than a tank of gas, when all is said and done.

After much consideration, we've decided to keep Lucky after the trip and truck her back to San Francisco. We've learnt a lot about boating in the last 5 months and figure we'll make far more use of her than we had in the past. So looking further than this year, we've added a bunch of "nice-to-haves" to the list.

Location of lights from outside of the hull

The port light will be behind all these hoses and wires, just to the right of the discharge hose

The center light will sit right where the bilge pump is now. We'll move the bilge pump back and make room for it by tidying up the AC and watermaker raw water inlet hoses.

There's actually quite a bit of room for the starboard light. The engine exhaust doesn't go all the way back and is cool while the engine is running - an advantage of a wet exhaust.

Probably the least practical, but the most fun, are underwater lights. Three 50w halogens, on the transom, under the waterline pointing backwards. They'll illuminate fish or, in the murky waters of San Fransisco, just "look cool". They use the same HID bulbs in car headlights, so plenty of light. I must remember to talk to the electrician about putting in a timer switch as well as an "on-off" one. That way we could have them come on automatically when we're away from the boat!

One thing we've both noticed is that we need a pair of transom mounted cleats. When tying up to fixed docks, it's hard to keep the stern steady as well as make allowances for the tidal change. Most boaters use stern cleats and cross them, putting a line from the starboard dock to the port cleat (and vice versa). The extra length allows for tidal changes and the boat remains centered. Doing this with our existing gunwale mounted rear cleats causes the lines to rub over the upholstery. I've already had to make repairs once. So we'll have a couple added. Easy enough to do, though it might require additional reinforcement behind the hull. I'll let the yard guys make that call.

I'll be the first to admit that my boat work is not the prettiest. That includes the mounts I put on for the dingy. So we're having the guys centre up the main rails - yeah I got that wrong as well - and pretty it all up.

The bimini top I made is looking pretty rough as well. It's too heavy and has slowly started to come apart with all the wind and rain. So I'm having a light weight bimini top made. It'll still zipper into the slant zipper, but will use uprights in rod holders to support the rear corners. It should be a lot easier to put up and take down, as well.

While the canvas guy is working anyway, we've decided on something else. While visiting Sharon Ann in Warderick Wells, we noticed that they had put a removable "wall" behind the helm seat. This allowed the air conditioning to actually work and made the helm space usable during inclement weather. So we're adding one. It'll have rigid panes of Plexiglas, a door, and be easily removable. One of the specifications is that we must be able to store it in the aft cabin, so that will have implications on the width of the panels. I'm actually quite excited about this, as it'll allow us to use the boat all year round once we get back to San Francisco, even on those cold spring days.

To save on battery consumption, I'm replacing all the G4 halogen bulbs on Lucky with LED versions. Same Lumen output - 120 - but a fraction of the power consumption, 2.4w vs 10w. As the main cabin alone has 10 lights when on, this is going to add up! Going through Lucky I counted 37 lights down below and 11 over the helm. While I'm at it, I'm going to put blue bulbs in place of the red bulbs over the helm. This should match the underwater lights nicely. Lucky's getting bling!

So that's the list. So far. I'm sure the list will grow. I find it hard to say no to a good idea if it's been suggested. :-)

Living on Land

2009-06-30T18:40:00.001-04:00

It's been a busy few days in Ft. Lauderdale so far. On Monday, a Volvo mechanic came out to take a look at the boat. We have a few issues that need to be addressed including water in the port drive (an issue "fixed" in January in Naples), a dead alternator and a fuel error on the port engine. Yesterday we went down the river to the Lauderdale Marine Center. It was an exciting trip down a narrow river - we ended up encountering a huge barge and the Jungle Queen - oh the excitement! The marina is right next to the work yard where she'll get pulled out and we thought it best to just get there asap and be done with the travel.

Today, we moved into a suite at the Candlewood Suites and rented a car. We have a kitchen and full fridge here which is great because Lucky won't be hooked up on land and we would have lost our fridge/freezer goods. It feels weird to be back on land, it's been a couple months since we were home. I felt like I was abandoning Lucky in the nursing home of marinas (the boats there are all getting worked on...) But it's nice here and tomorrow we move into a 1 bedroom suite - yahoo! We'll have a big tv with a DVD player (no more Lost episodes on the computer screen), fast internet, and 2 big rooms - Mart and I live close on Lucky, space is nice ;-}

Martin will post about all the things we're getting done in more detail. He spent the day on-line and on the phone arranging for several people to come by tomorrow. We'll pull Lucky out of the water in the morning and then the fun begins!

In the meantime we have lots of fun stuff planned! We contacted Jack & Barb (whom we met in the Exumas) and the timing was perfect - they returned home (to Ft. Lauderdale) today and we're meeting them for dinner at Coconuts tonight. We're driving up to Delray on Saturday to spend the 4th with CJ & Margie (and pups/parrot). The boat yard is closed Friday-Sunday for the holiday so we plan on playing and getting some miscellaneous things done.

In the next couple of weeks Mart will be hovering over mechanics and I may be off visiting :)

Updated Route

2009-06-28T22:30:00.003-04:00

We've had a busy few months! When I see it all in one place I'm quite amazed! We're only half way through the trip as well. At some point I need to add up all the line lengths to get an idea of the distance we've gone.

Link is on the right.

Back in the USA

2009-06-27T16:20:00.003-04:00

We made it back! We had a quick and uneventful trip across the gulf. There wasn't a wave in sight, what a difference from the last time we crossed! It was crazy busy in Ft. Lauderdale when we arrived - a sunny Saturday afternoon...

We tied up, washed the deck, took a taxi to customs and cleared in and left a message with the mechanic. Now it's a rainy afternoon, the thunder is cracking and we're beat...nap time.

We've made it to Cat Cay

2009-06-26T18:19:00.004-04:00

We're almost back to the states. We stayed at Hurricane Hole for 2 nights waiting for the seas to calm down. Our time at Hurricane Hole was very quiet, especially after Atlantis. The last couple of days at Atlantis we met a bunch of people and toured a couple different *gorgeous* boats. Ute and Mark spent hours giving us a detailed tour of their 58 foot Kady-Krogen (see pics). Oh my God it's incredible! We also got to tour the 58 Tiara that Martin has been lusting over (another Wow!) The owners, Kurt & Amy, invited us in and we had a great evening having drinks with them the day of the tour and the next evening too! We met another couple on a 43 Tiara like Lucky, Peter and Angela, and had a drink with them as well while we discussed the boat and boating. Ah-hem, we had to dry out at Hurricane Hole after all that socializing. Seriously though - we've met such nice people and had such a great time! It's weird, the first time at Atlantis we were there for over 2 weeks and didn't meet a soul...

Our last 2 days we chilled, had lunch at the Poop Deck, did laundry, and I sat around dazed and confused on Imitrex. We had a couple serious lightening storms come through. This morning we headed out before 8am and found we were leaving with the Marine Max floatilla - dozens of boats all leaving the harbor together - it was kind of cool! (see pics) We were able to maintian 17 knots which isn't too bad (just under our sweet spot of 21). Just before Cat Cay we hit a serious rain storm (again see pics). After watching a dozen lightening strikes hit the water around us I was more than happy to drive out of it and into Cay Cay Marina.

It's really, really hot so we're hiding inside until sundown and then we'll check out the restaurant here. We've heard it's really nice. This is a private island so you can't leave the marina grounds (or stay more than 2 nights). I find that kind of weird.

Anyway - we're off tomorrow morning for Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale. Martin and I are both terribly excited to have use of our iPhones again :)

Navigation part 1

2009-06-23T17:49:00.001-04:00

The first of a two part post, I thought I'd share a little on how I navigate. The second post will detail how I use the electronics (auto pilot, moving maps, radar) when piloting Lucky. This post will explain how I set waypoints and routes which I use while piloting.

In much the same way you'd put an "x" on a paper map to show where the closest Starbucks is, a waypoint is the same for electronic maps. Put a string of "x"s on the map and join them together - like a dot-to-dot drawing - to show how to get somewhere and you have the paper version of a route.

The picture at the top of the post shows me doing exactly that. The route shown is the part of the route between Cat Cay and Ft Lauderdale where we'll have to go through the cut between Gun Cay and Cat Cay, probably the trickiest part of the whole passage. Unless, that is, the Gulf Stream decides to throw 8' seas at us unexpectedly.

To create this route I use my laptop, running Raymarine's RayTech software. This is a free download that works much like their E120 screens but I can use a mouse and keyboard for entry. Plugged into the USB port is a special CF Card reader by Navionics that not only allows me to use standard CF cards, but also the encrypted CF cards that hold Navionics charts. Trying to read a Navionics chart in a standard CF reader will, supposedly, format the card. At $500 a pop, I'm not about to experiment to find out! One advantage of using the chart chip in this manner is the chart I use to plan the route is the same chart I'll be viewing on the E120 screen will piloting.

Although I plot the route using the electronic charts, I plan the route using the best paper charts I can find. For the Bahamas, that would be the Explorer set of chartbooks.

Once plotted, I pull out the Navionics chart chip and put in a blank CF card. The RayTech software then allows me to export the waypoints and routes onto the card in a format readable by the E120. Putting the CF card, now with a data file on it, into the E120 allows me to import the file into the plotter.

Its a pretty straight forward thing to do and well worth the 30 minutes or so it takes to do each time we're planning a passage.

Weather turns bad

2009-06-23T16:19:00.002-04:00

What a surprise. We make plans to travel and the weather turns bad. This after a month of ideal conditions for crossing.

We were supposed to leave Nassau today, crossing the Tongue of the Ocean and the Bahama Bank to Cat Cay. Instead, we're staying two, maybe three additional nights. There's a huge frontal system over Florida and The Bahamas that has kicked up wind and sea conditions beyond our comfort level.

Its crazy here at Atlantis. They're expecting 30+ boats today as part of a Marine Max (a chain of boat dealers) expedition. Along with the incoming, loads of folk here want to stay to wait out the weather. Normally this isn't an issue as the weather that prevents boats from leaving also prevents boats from arriving. The Marine Max crowd, however, are coming from The Abacos, NE of Nassau, and the conditions are more clement in that direction. Clement enough to enable them to make their crossing.

We've been fortunate to get another night (tonight) here in Atlantis and then two nights at Hurricane Hole, the marina next door. Sea conditions should have calmed down enough by Friday that we can leave, though we're hoping we can be going on Thursday. Both Cat Cay and Bahia Mar have been told we're waiting for a weather window and are fine with us coming in "whenever".

We'll post here when we know a little more.

Sigh. I guess we'll just have to go have another "Miami Vice" to sooth our anguish. ;-)

Having a wonderful time at Atlantis

2009-06-23T09:20:00.003-04:00

Our visit at Atlantis has Flown by! We had such a great time, I can't believe it's time to go all ready. CJ & Margie arrived on Wednesday and Meliza came in on Thursday. On Thursday we all went to the Cove Buffet for the first time (on the opposite end of the resort). It's the nicest buffet I've ever seen! It was fun to introduce my "old" and "new" friends to each other and better yet that we all had such a great time together! After dinner we headed to the casino. I've never gambled before but we were at the single deck blackjack table and I just had to give it a try :) What a blast! I started with $20 and ended and hour later with $25. A 25% return in an hour - not bad (and a free drink...) :) It was a great night filled with laughs...

The past few days we've spent some serious time relaxing, sitting by the pool, and drinking lots of fruity rum cocktails. We took Meliza on the river ride and we walked a bit around downtown Nassau. It was so awesome to have Meliza here, I just wish she could have stayed longer. I also got a lot of awesome pictures and no more pink streaks! Meliza brought me my new camera - the one CJ & Margie told me about. It's freakin' bomb-proof. It's tiny, 10 mp, shockproof, waterproof to 33 feet and has tons of awesome features. I got it half price because it was green instead of black or silver. How cool is that?

We have been laughing for the past few days over what a "hit" Mel has been here at Atlantis. It seems like there were three times the number of gulf carts cruising by our boat since she arrived. And one employee kept saying something to us every time we passed him (frequently) but neither of us could understand what he was saying. Then we were walking with Martin and the guy said the same thing... Martin exclaims - did you hear what he called you?? "Choco-liscious". Seriously, he is calling Mel "choco-liscious" every time he passes her. Oh my God. But of course now I can tease her relentlessly :)

Now it's Monday... but it feels like a gray, kind of lonely Sunday afternoon, you know that feeling? Mel just left and is on her way home. CJ & Margie are back in FL, they arrived safely yesterday. It feels like the end of a very long and wonderful vacation. I miss our friends and I'm sad to be leaving the Bahamas. It feels a lot like when we left Key West, only more so. How weird to have another 6 months of adventure in front of us. I have to keep reminding myself that there's still so much to come. We're living in such an alternate reality to have so much time and so many adventures. We are incredibly lucky.

So, Martin and I are chilling out, preparing for heading back to the states. It's gray and windy, a little more comfortable than the hot, hot sunny days we've been having. We are going to walk over the bridge and get some more supplies for the trip back. We have a windy day tomorrow, expecting 4-5 foot seas in the tongue of the ocean. It'll be a long day going to Cat Island (about 8 hours at our new and reduced speed). We'll refuel there and stay the night and then head to Ft. Lauderdale on Wednesday. It looks like we'll have calm seas across the gulf stream (yay!)

Departure Update!

We have been able to get another night here at Atlantis so we'll be leaving tomorrow and arriving Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday. The seas are pretty high today after a heck of a storm passed through yesterday. Luckily, it delayed traffic coming in too - so we can wait out the waves until tomorrow when it's supposed to be much calmer...

Norman's to Nassau

2009-06-16T22:28:00.002-04:00

We had a really nice day at Norman's. I took my first solo excursion on the dinghy! I was able to get it up on plane and didn't wipe out... With CJ's help I was able to get it anchored and everything - okay, not completely "solo" but still :) I went with CJ & Margie to walk the pups on a little cay with nothing but a palm tree on it. We noticed some Ocean Trigger fish and a sting ray coming in close to the shore of the island in very shallow water. Suddenly there was a shark and no ray or triggers. The shark came right up in only a couple feet of water! The current was really strong (we were at mid-tide) which was good because usually the pups go for a swim around the island - well not any more! We think it was a sand shark because it was much darker than the reef and lemons and definitely not a nurse.

The anchorage was very rolly from swell but Martin and I have definitely gained tolerance for the frwapping noise and roll. We woke in the morning and it was incredibly hot and humid. By 10:00am we had another big storm (see pic). We watched a barracuda that was hanging out under and around our boat, then waited for the thunder storm and rain to pass and headed to Atlantis.

The past week or so we've had very calm winds and we had a very smooth passage up to Nassau. We were able to maintain 2600 rpm and 14.5 knots. It's a bit slower than our normal 19-20 knot cruising speed but at least we can still get on plane. We got fuel and docked at Atlantis around 3:00, just in time for another incredible downpour. Once that was over I did 3 loads of laundry and then we had dinner at the buffet. The lull is over at Atlantis - it's absolutely packed. I think there's only one slip free in the marina and it's 2 over from us, hopefully that will be Pazzia's slip tomorrow!

Its not a boat if it all works

2009-06-15T09:45:00.001-04:00

That's what they say and its pretty true. While we've had our share of issues since we left Naples, our 6 weeks in the Exumas has really caused things to breakdown. My guess is that its hard on boats down here. You're anchoring a lot, which is always harder on a boat than being at a marina "plugged in". We've also been on the boat a lot more, so more things get used. Lucky has held up well, but there are a few things that need to get resolved.

Most worrying, and the reason for our plans changing, is the port (left side when looking from the back) engine. Leaving Staniel Cay to go to Little Pipe Cay I noticed the port engine couldn't maintain RPM. Our Volvo Penta D6 engines are rated at 370hp each and should be able to reach 3600 RPM at wide open throttle. I usually run at 3150, or 90% of WOT, as I'd read that that's the best load to run a diesel engine at. I noticed two things about the port engine. The RPMs were fluctuating around 3100 and it was running a little hotter, 195F rather than 185. From Little Pipe all the way to Warderick, I lowered the RPMs to 3000 and both engines ran fine, though the port engine came up to temperature (185F this time) quicker than the starboard engine. Mentioning this behaviour to CJ when we were all anchored at Hawksbill, he suggested we change out the fuel filters, which we did. I also checked the props for dings, but they are fine. Leaving Hawksbill today I found I had to lower the RPMs yet again. There's definitely a trend happening and it's not good. So rather than try to get the engine fixed in Nassau, we're heading back to Ft Lauderdale. While I have the mechanics in, I'll have an oil and filter change performed as well. Let them deal with disposing of 10 gallons of oil, rather than me!

An interesting update occurred today since I wrote this. A Lazzara LSX 75 pulled in next to us. They have 4 IPS 600 drives. I've lusted after this boat ever since I heard of them. Anyway, I chatted with the captain and he thinks there could be three reasons. A blocked air filter; an issue with the drive; or a blocked/faulty injector. There's no smoke, so a bad injector is less likely. The air filter is easy to check and replace. The drive oil temperature hasn't been too high, but if there's an issue the oil will appear black. So the captain, Brad, is coming over in the morning to check the air filter and drive oil and then we're going to call his mechanic in Ft Lauderdale. Hopefully, I'll be able to provide an update before I post this.

Update: Replacing the air filter helped a little. The engine is still burning more fuel and running hotter, but less than before the change. I Haven't been able to run the engines under load, so we'll find out more today when we leave for Normans. No smoke and the drive oil seems fine, so still no real idea. It looks like we'll have to run back to Ft Lauderdale to get it looked at. I got some good recommendations for mechanics from the captain, so hopefully we'll be able to get it sorted.

While in Ft Lauderdale, I'll be able to take care of a few other things.

Our house batteries are dying. we have five huge batteries that should provide 350 Ampere Hours of charge. This is a lot - enough to boil our kettle for a day and a half. Instead, we're down to almost nothing after a night at anchor with nothing except fridge, hot water heater and anchor light on. We have to run the generator at least twice a day now. Compare this to January, when we could run a whole day on only one three hour generator run. Talking with other boaters, a four year life seems about right, so it's time to change them. These things are not cheap and very heavy, so getting help putting them in will be required. I'll also take the opportunity to change out the three engine batteries as well.

Our tender mount works well with one slight problem. The bow roller and winch aren't in the center line of the rollers, making it more work than it should be to take off or put on. So I'm going to move the shoes that hold the rollers to the swim platform back about 6 inches. This will have the added bonus of letting the tender lie flat on the rollers, rather than a little tilted as it currently sits. This is going to involve some drilling and epoxy-filling work, stuff best done where there's a well stocked West Marine down the road.

The watermaker is behaving itself. It is still struggling to get the salinity down, but given enough run time gets there. So we've taken to running it every two days for 4-5 hours, rather than every day. Once disconcerting thing is a Salinity Probe Failure that occurs after the generator has been on for more than 5 hours or so. I guessing that vibration from the generator has knocked something a little loose. So I'll probably order a new one when we're back Stateside, as well.

There's a slight leak coming from where the depth finder has been placed through the hull. Nothing dangerous, but it upsets my "dry bilge" sensibilities, so if we need to be hauled out, I'll have the yard fix it.

Leaving the Exumas

2009-06-15T08:44:00.002-04:00

I'm feeling really sad that our time in the Exumas is coming to an end. This is a very special place. It's so remote and quiet and the water is so gorgeous. Even though the photos are beautiful, I don't think they capture the beauty and serenity completely. There's a sense of community. I think that most boaters here appreciate how unspoiled it is, and respect the parks effort to maintain the area as a national treasure. The Bahamians are so nice. Among the cruisers, whether staying for weeks or months, by sailboat, trawler or fast boat, you feel a comradery with others who are living the same lifestyle. You have a lot in common even if you're strangers - we all have generators, engines and plumbing systems that break down, shark and snorkeling stories, advice on a beautiful anchorage to try out, and where you can do laundry. It's interesting to hear how people have come to be living on a boat, full time or part time, and what their experiences have been. I had been worried that there would be little to do and that I might get bored. Well that hasn't been a problem! There's so much to do, most of it play (and repairs and cleaning) but mostly play. We've hiked, biked, swam, snorkeled and explored by dinghy. We have met some absolutely wonderful people and enjoyed happy hours, bonfires and dinners. I've read over 12 books and have quilted a several blocks... We've had far more access to the internet than I had anticipated.

Living out here, even for just 6 weeks, can change some of your perspectives. I've come to be thrilled by a store half the size of a 7/11 - but stocked with tomatoes, carrots, eggs and yes, ice cream! The air conditioning on at 77 degrees now feels really cold. Sharks are as awe-inspiring as they are scary looking in real life :) I like raw conch, snail, whatever. Salt water doesn't feel all that sticky and gross. It doesn't seem at all strange to get up at 7:30 so you can hear a weather report on the radio. Dogs on boats are really cool and make the boat a home. TV is completely unnecessary, however, DVDs rock. And finally, daily life doesn't have to be frantic for you to feel "productive" and sleep like a log at night.

And we have learned so much. We anchor without fear of dragging, I'm quite good at plucking a mooring ball loop out of the water with a boat pole, Martin can sneak Lucky into a tight marina slip sideways without anxiety and I've pretty much figured out how to deal with the lines to tie down at a fixed dock. We both use the radio liberally now (and I even remember to switch off "16", the working channel). Martin has learned a ton about many of systems on the boat (reappraisal there - things break down but you learn so much from these experiences!) My talent of waking up instantly if I hear strange sounds (ie George puking) works with water drops hitting the boat. Martin and I can close all eight hatches, drop the bimini, pick up the rugs and pull in the snorkel gear in under 5 minutes, at 4am no less! I don't get an upset stomach when the engines turn on, now I get excited to see the next place. And when we go slow and get beamed with waves and roll, I kind of enjoy the motion instead of getting terrified. At least 4 foot chop doesn't scare me any more and I've learned that other boaters don't like 8 foot seas any more than we do. Oh, and I've learned how to make awesome deviled eggs (it's my specialty now, which I bring to all potlucks and dinners!

We had planned on 6 weeks here and then 6 in the Abacos (more or less). It has been 6 weeks and it's time to say good-bye. Poor Lucky is limping and we need to start our way back to Ft. Lauderdale. Hopefully we'll be able to return to visit the Abacos in July or in the fall. I'm happy that we don't have to shoot straight back - I'm looking forward to seeing Meliza and staying at Atlantis on our way!

Highborne Cay Marina

2009-06-15T08:29:00.000-04:00

We've had a great weekend at Highborne Marina. Friday evening we had a barbque and an early night thanks to the mosquitoes - they grow them huge here! Saturday we spent on the beach and Mart and I played on CJ & Margie's jet ski! It was awesome - and it goes faaast. In the afternoon we toured a 1999 50 ft Nordhavn that is here at the marina. It's for sale, hoping to sell end of 2010. Oh she's lovely... Then we all had dinner on Lucky - Martin prepared a new pasta dish that was great. Sunday we hung around the boat, sat reading on the beach for a while and generally enjoyed a lazy Sunday...

We're heading out to Norman's this morning to meet up again with CJ & Margie (they left yesterday). We have one night there and then we're off to Atlantis. Margie and CJ will be in Atlantis (arriving Wednesday) for a few days on their way back to Florida and of course my friend arrives Thursday!

I got pictures of the shark and barracuda that were swimming with CJ & Margie - Yikes! They're in pic-of-the-day2 under 6/11/09.

Here's the screen we get from Highborne Marina when we go to log in...

WiFi Internet Access is restricted to Marina guests

Contact the Marina Office for a Username and password.
Internet access is $10 USD per day.

Note: If the 'Net seems slow, please keep in mind that you're on a boat, in a marina, in the Bahamas, on a Wireless signal, on a satellite link 22 thousand miles each way from the Internet. In short, even at it's best, the service will be slower than it is from any of the hard-wired services on the continents. So, while you're waiting for that web page to load, take a minute to look out the window and imagine how many people are sitting in their office staring at a picture of where you are! (grin..)

Mechanical Probs...oh my!

2009-06-12T15:09:00.003-04:00

We've been having some excitement on the technical front. I guess people weren't kidding when they said that boating involves a lot of repairs! Martin will blog in more detail about this but the end result is that we're thinking of going back to Fort Lauderdale after Meliza's visit rather than heading to the Abacos. We can get the issues addressed and then we'll head back to the Bahamas and tour the Abacos in July/August. So just a little detour!

Hanging at Hawksbill Cay

2009-06-12T15:00:00.002-04:00

We've just gotten in to Highborne marina after a fantastic 4 nights anchored at Hawksbill Cay with Pazzia. We arrived at Hawksbill on Monday and found CJ & Margie anchored there. The anchorage is beautiful and we were able to get close up to the beach. It's a rolly anchorage but the weather turned once again and we had almost no wind for 4 days. We had hard, hard rains at least once a day but once they'd passed it was back to calm water. We did a lot of snorkeling and on Wednesday we circled the whole cay. The north end is a huge shallow sand bar, so light in color that it almost looked like a dessert or sand dune. We weren't sure that we could cut through to the ocean but with the jet ski scouting ahead we were able to in the dinghy as well. The ocean was so calm! We saw several barracuda in the water on the ocean side. We also found a gorgeous area to snorkel. One day Martin and I also went on shore and hiked the two trails there. We got to walk on the beaches we'd seen from water the day before. Once again we had a fantastic time with CJ, Margie and the pups. We had dinners and happy hour and a great time exploring around the cay together...

We both headed to Highborne Marina today. We had another rain storm in the morning and then headed out. The marina is packed with people and we're way out on the end so we have to pass everyone when we go to see Pazzia or to the office/store...so we've already met a ton of people :) And...there's a 50 foot Nordhavn here that CJ scoped for us - it's for sale! We're hoping to meet the people on the boat and get a tour!

Oh! And I have another shark story - second hand. It seems that sharks don't *always* take off in fear or indifference from people... CJ & Margie were snorkeling off the jet ski when a 4-5 food black tip came by - right up to the back of the ski. It just so happens that you can only get back onto to the ski from the back so Margie panicked and tried the side but couldn't do it...She finally frantically scrambled up by the back. CJ followed and then put his camera in the water and snapped a few pictures. The shark was right there, very curious about the ruckus no doubt and hanging out. (A curious adolescent?) Margie, after my own heart, went back to the boat and had a stiff drink!

I want to also explain that I have a great respect for sharks. I don't believe in killing them, fishing them or fining them. They're just doing their thing...I simply recognize that I need to do my thing as distant from their thing as I can :)

Off to Hawksbill Cay

2009-06-08T08:58:00.002-04:00

We've had a great time at Warderick but after a week here, we're feeling the itch to move on. (I am going to miss the bananaquits though!) Yesterday was a quiet day. It rained until late afternoon. When it got a bit clear we jumped in the dinghy and made a tour of the south side of the island which we saw on our hike. We chatted with CJ & Margie too - they went up to Hawksbill yesterday.

This morning it's raining *again*. I had to smile when Michelle at the office said "it's never this rainy here this time of year". It's been the same the whole trip - an unusual weather year... The good thing is that they've downgraded the forecast winds for the weekend from near 30 mph to <20. Sustained 30 knots would simply not be fun, at all. It also looks like we have some sun in the forecast too.

Our itinerary for the next 10 days is very weather-dependent. The mooring balls at Hawksbill or getting a slip at Highborne are the best options if we have serious winds. We would also like to stay at Norman's again but that anchorage is best with easterlies. So we'll be playing it by ear. We are due back to Atlantis in Nassau on the 16th. My friend Meliza is arriving on the 18th - YAY!

We'll be online if we stop at Highborne or can access it at MacDuff's...if not, we'll see you the 16th!

Enjoying the Routine

2009-06-06T16:56:00.002-04:00

We've been at Warderick as long as we've stayed anywhere since leaving Nassau. We really like it here. Life has a bit of a pattern to it. It's sunny, it's cloudy, wonder if it will rain? At 4:00am it's very likely the storm will hit and all hell will break loose. When the sun is out we go snorkeling at least once a day. Or maybe to the island for a hike. We have the radio on all the time now. We've met enough people that it's fun to listen in and see where people are and what they're up to. We can keep in touch with CJ & Margie too as they're just a few miles south of us. Boats are constantly coming and going from the moorings and passing us in their dinghies waving. Most evenings have been social, gathering on someone's boat or on the beach, or porch of the park headquarters in rain. The people we've met are so interesting - everyone has a cool story of what they are doing here and how... We have internet which is awesome, especially when it rains. And I adore the Sugar Birds - they've become quite comfortable on the boat.

Yesterday was a pretty sunny day. We had business to take care of in the morning (it involves pumping out, don't ask). When we were back from that little trip into the sound, I gathered my courage and we grabbed the snorkel gear and off we went - right back to where ol' reef shark was. I jumped in and stayed in. I was so proud :) That done, we headed back to the boat and got ready for dinner. Barb & Jack came over and we had a really nice time. (They headed out this morning on their way back home to Florida.) Then at 4:00am all hell broke lose again - pounding rain and wind and lightening. It was an early morning for us. The sun was up and out by 9:00 though so we did the hike we've been wanting to do - all around the island. You walk across the north end to Boo Boo Hill and then hike the coral cliffs down the eastern side. Cut over to the west side and walk inland paths from beach to beach. It was gorgeous and took 4 hours. We saw several tropic birds (I took a pic to try to show their tails, they are so beautiful), several mockingbirds, many curly tailed lizards, and a hutia ("who-tee-ah" guinea pig type rodent) scared us to death making a racket in the palms. we're both pretty exhausted right now...but preparing some chicken salad for the happy hour social on the beach in a couple of hours. Every Saturday there is a 6 O'clock social on the beach.

We've decided to stay here until Monday. Then we'll head to Hawksbill Cay. Margie & CJ will be arriving there Sunday or Monday too. I'm so excited to see them again! There are really high winds forecast for Thursday and Friday. It looks like something a bit nasty is blowing in. So we'll try to get a spot at Highborne Marina for Thurs/Fri nights. If they are full we'll stay at Hawksbill I think. It's a mooring so we won't drag even in high winds...it might just be a little uncomfortable.

Lots o' sharks & happy hours

2009-06-04T12:16:00.001-04:00

So, I tried to convince myself that sharks are more frightened of me than I am of them so they run away - therefore the chances of running into yet another one - in pretty shallow water no less - was minimal. Not! Martin and I went snorkeling in the mooring area at Warderick. There are beautiful coral heads and huge lobsters there. Unfortunately there also was a huge, 7 foot shark as well (reef or lemon, not sure). This time I was able to stay calm enough to grab Martin and make sure he saw too and we sloooowly made out way back to the dinghy which was tied to a snorkel mooring that seemed very, very far away. Splashing attracts sharks as it mimics a fish in distress - so you Have to stay calm and not make a mad dash. I don't even think the shark looked our way - he was swimming at the bottom doing his thing and ignoring us. I'm almost happy that we are *once again* having horrible thunder/lightening/rain today because I have an excuse not to get in the water. So, the next sunny day I know I have to get back in or there's a good chance I may hang my snorkel gear up for good and never look back...

After that excitement we came straight back to the boat - I wasn't about to go anywhere deeper to snorkel and all the sites here are deeper... Then a boat came into Warderick - a 43 foot Tiara, Sharon Anne. They tied up right next to us so we yelled over that we thought they had good taste in boats :) We met Len and Sharon in the afternoon and they gave us a tour of their boat. Their’s is a few years newer than Lucky. It's fun to see how someone else has decorated the same boat and how they are using the storage areas, etc. We had drinks on their boat and then we all went over to Island Lady, a 50 foot motor/sailboat of Bennet and Jan's. They invited us, and Jack and Barb over for happy hour. It's the first time I've been on/in a sailboat. It was gorgeous and more spacious than I would have thought. We had a nice evening chatting with everyone. Later in the afternoon another 2 Tiara's pulled in - a 55 ft and a 38 ft. It looks like a Tiara Rendezvous here now!

Martin and I were talking this morning about how nice it is here. You are moored out so you have some space like an anchorage and it's been wonderfully quiet at night. But you have a community here as well and the beach where people can meet up... I hope they weather turns back to sun soon!

Well speaking of, a boat in the harbor just announced over the radio to organize a happy hour at 5:00 on the beach or headquarters’ porch if it's raining...as everyone should be "boat crazy" by then Yay!

Martin and I are about to dive into the back storage room and pull everything out, take inventory and repack. It's getting crazy back there and a rainy day is as good as any to work on it.

Sugar Birds at Warderick Wells

2009-06-03T10:04:00.002-04:00

We're staying at the Exuma Land and Sea Park headquarters at Warderick Wells now. The mooring field is really neat - there is a very narrow channel that loops through the bay. The mooring balls are set in a line throughout. You can see from the pics out the layout looks with several boats here. While pulling into the mooring field, we were happy to see that Searcher was still here. Then, as soon as we began to tie up...the bananaquits came. They are also known as "sugar birds" and they're the only critter in the park you're allowed to feed. I had my bowl out and ready before we got here and oh they are cute!! They'll sit on your hand, come into the boat and check out the kitchen, bedroom... They're fearless little things! And when the sugar runs out in the bowl, they approach the doorway/hatch and tweet their heads off. It's not just my cats that have me trained it seems.

Monday, our arrival day, was another rainy gray day. We watched the birds, read, and of course - we're on line! In the evening we headed over to Searcher and had dinner with Jack and Barb. She's a great cook! It was a really nice evening.

Tuesday was a much better day weather-wise and we took advantage of it. We went up to the rangers station and checked in with Michelle, a volunteer who works every day checking in with boats entering the moorings throughout the park. Then we went on a hike to Boo Boo Hill and beach. Since we still had sun in the afternoon we headed out to Emerald Rock for some snorkeling. The coral heads are marked with mooring buoys which is nice, you can just tie up and jump in. We found a big grouper and a gorgeous trigger fish. The water there is really shallow so I wasn't afraid of sharks...

In the evening there was a bonfire on the beach. We had a good time hanging out with Jack & Barb, Jan and Bennet of Island Girl, and 3 men from the BDF (the Bahamian Defense Force). They are the Bahamian Navy. They were really nice guys and it was interesting to learn about the BDF. Here in the park, they help to enforce non-poaching laws and protect the park along with their regular duties. After a few rum punches we headed back to Lucky in the dark in our dinghy - all of 100 yards. Mart grounded us on a shallow sand bar but we were able to push off - doh! ;-)

Posters Note: another post by Steph that I've had to post. For some reason as yet undiagnosed, my computer is better able to post to web sites (Blogger, Facebook) when we have a slow connection. So this may continue for sometime. It could be the external USB antennae we're using. When we're with good connectivity and wi-fi (so I can try using the internal antenna as well, I'll be able to narrow things down a bit). In the meantime, check for the "STEPH" label.

Just what and where are the Exumas? (long post)

2009-05-31T20:52:00.005-04:00

I thought it would be good to provide a map of the Exumas and a little information to help everyone understand where we are and what we're up to... I should have posted this a while ago but honestly, I've kind of been learning as I go. I finally feel like I have enough of a clue to share it! Please understand that this is me talking. It's not scientific and I probably have some facts wrong. But it should help give a little better understanding :) I've taken some info from The Bahamas Cruising Guide and Stephen Pavlidis' The Exuma Guide.

The Exuma Cays (where we are):

The definition of a "cay" is: A small, low island composed largely of coral or sand. Also called "key". (thanks wikipedia). The Bahamian cays are made of limestone and coral. They are low lying - the highest hill in the Bahamas is just about 200' high on Cat Island. The cays are no more than 100' high. I can't find info on the exact size but a cay is smaller than an island. The Exumas is a chain of about 365 cays stretching north to southeast, the northern tip is about 35 miles southwest of Nassau, New Providence Island. I found a great map - see above. (I think you can click on it to make it bigger.)

All the cays we have visited, and are going to visit, are on the map except Pipe Cay and Cambridge Cay. Pipe lays just north of Sampson Cay and Cambridge is north of Compass Cay. There's a lot going on between Warderick Wells and Staniel! We have visited the northern and central Exumas, from Allan Cay to Staniel Cay. Along this route there are 4 marinas, at Highborne, Compass, Sampson and Staniel.

Flora and Fauna (what to look at and what not to touch)

The vast majority of the cays are not inhabited. Many of them are also private islands and you can't land on them. There aren't a lot of indigenous animals on the cays. There are rats, bats and hutia (look like guinea pigs), frogs, snakes, many types of little lizards (my favorite is the "curly tailed lizard") and iguanas found only on a few northern cays. There are many kinds of land and sea birds including hummingbirds, owls, thrushes, mockingbirds, bananaquits ("sugar birds"), pigeons, seagulls, tropic birds (in the spring) and osprey. We don't need to discuss the flys, mosquitoes, noseeums, sandflys, black widow spiders and scorpions. The plants are mostly cacti scrub brush, flowers and small trees. Of note is poisonwood (think evil poison ivy-like) and the small silver topped palms that seem most numerous. The epifauna and epiflora (all the good stuff in the water) is too numerous to detail here. The sharks and stingrays are pretty big and you see them from the boat a lot.

Water Depth (when to travel in shallow areas):

What the map doesn't show is that the water to the west of the islands is the Grand Bahama Bank, running right up to the south side of Paradise Island. The water here is anywhere from 1 foot to 30 feet deep. The water to the east of the Exumas is the Exuma Sound and it's up to thousands of feet deep. so depending on what direction the wind is coming from, we can go up and down on either side - getting from one side to the other through "cuts" in between the islands. In general, the bank side (west) is safer since the waves can only get so big given the shallow water. The danger lies in the very shallow areas where rocks and coral may be sitting just under the water. This is when you need to "read" the water - you can approximate the depth of the water by the color. (Martin has posted on that below) By the way, you need sunlight (and polarized sunglasses) to do this so it's not advisable to travel into shallow areas/anchorages on cloudy days.

Currents & Tides (snorkeling):

There are a lot of very, very strong currents in the Bahamas because of the shallow bank. People die here because they are swept away by currents. So you need to have a basic understanding of what they are and what they mean.

Every 6+ hours the tide comes in and out. So a huge amount of water from the ocean flows - squished through the cuts onto the very shallow bank. Then 6+ hours later it all shoots back out. This is in fact why the water is so clean and beautiful here - it's exchanged constantly and all the crude flows out to sea. All this blue and green is just what ocean water looks like - clean and shallow.

The tide is "low" twice a day and "high" twice a day. There is a 2-3 foot difference between low and high tide here. It's enough that you have to step up, or hop down, to the dock depending on the tide. It's also enough that sometimes we can't enter or exit as area unless we're at high tide because the water is so shallow.

The current is strongest right in between low and high tides. Exactly at low and high tide is referred to as "slack tide". This is the best, and sometimes only time you can snorkel some sites, especially those near cuts. This is why we snorkeled once a day at Cambridge - at high tide since it was in the early afternoon when we were there. CJ & Margie have mastered drifting with their jet ski so they can snorkel more often when there is current. We haven't figured this out with the dinghy since the engine hangs over and it's more difficult to manipulate.

Whew. That was a long one :)

Navigating by Color

2009-05-31T19:27:00.004-04:00

We're all used to navigating using a map (or a chart if afloat). Most of us even combine the map with a GPS to get an up-to-the-second birds-eye view of our location. Since we arrived in the Bahamas however, I've had to learn a new technique - color. That is, the color of the water.

The water here is exceptionally clear. Its not unusual to be able to look down into 20' of water and see the bottom as clear as a bell. It's also very shallow. Huge areas are less than 20' deep and all the interesting parts less than 10'. There's a limit to the accuracy of both charts and GPS and that limit is far greater than you'd like to trust when your props are concerned. Hitting bottom is not good and if the bottom is rocky, can make for a really bad day, so its something to be avoided.

So when we nose into an anchorage, I use the color of the water to tell me where to go. It's called VPR - visual piloting rules. Our boat goes 3' 8" below the water (aka draught), the deepest part being our props at the back.

Deep blue water is over 30' deep - in the case of the ocean thousands of feet - and is no problem as far as depth goes. Between 30' and 20' the water turns a lighter shade of blue. The Bahamian Bank is mostly this color. 20' - 10' and there's another color change, this time green. Between 10' and around 6', the water is a light green-blue. Less than 6' and its white. While 6' is still plenty deep enough, there's no way to tell how shallow it goes, so its to be avoided.

These colors assume a white, sandy bottom. Grass makes everything look darker, as do cloud shadows, so you need to keep an eye on the chart to have a rough idea of the depth. Also complicating things are rocks and coral heads. These show up as black blobs. Unless the blob is moving, in which case its a stingray or a shark. Reefs usually show up as brown patches.

So the rule is, stay out of the white and avoid black and brown. I also keep an eye out for the tide when anchoring as a 3' drop when at 6' will ground us out.

When we're heading in or out through a shallow channel, Steph is performing her "Titanic" impression, standing at the bow, keeping a look out for rocks and coral heads.

Back at Sampson Cay Marina and back to rain

2009-05-31T18:33:00.002-04:00

Dang but we're having a lot of rain! We left Cambridge this morning at about 10:30. The forecast called for isolated squalls and since the sky was looking pretty gray, we headed out hoping to beat whatever was coming... We went outside the bank and down the Exuma sound side (deep) because the water was calmer to the east. We headed back into the bank via a large cut and bam - we found ourselves heading into a squall - along with 4 other large motorboats. We were all pretty close to each other and hauling butt southward toward Compass Cay and Sampson Cay marinas. It was pretty impressive to see a big motorboat out about 4 miles with lightening shooting down into the water about a mile off of it. I say "impressive", Martin wouldn't use that word exactly...

Well we got here safe and sound. And we got laundry tokens and internet hook-up and even had lunch. (I have to say, we had a fine time in the restaurant as well.) Hopefully the rain will back off tonight and tomorrow we'll be able to get fuel for Lucky and the dinghy and be off for Warderick Wells. Today - we're having another cozy day in the boat and enjoying having internet and of course, updating our blog! (blogger likes me again - I can post now)

Moored at Cambridge Cay and Snorkeling with a shark! (5/28-5/31 Thursday - Sunday)

2009-05-31T14:26:00.004-04:00

Another new experience - we took a mooring ball at Cambridge Cay. Grabbing the mooring ball and figuring out how to attach the lines wasn't too bad. After one evening we figured we hadn't done it quite right as the lines were hitting the anchor, so we got out the binoculars, looked at the other boats and figured it out. There's that learning curve again :)

Cambridge Cay is part of the Exuma Land and Sea Park. We'll be in the park for the next week or two. The moorings are $20/night so you dinghy over to "mailbox cay", fill out an envelope and pay in the box that's there. The park warden comes by at least once a day to check on everyone (and they told us about some snorkeling sites). We snorkeled the Sea Aquarium and a 6-7 foot nurse shark came by. You would not believe how fast I can get my butt into a dinghy - Martin was amazed. He didn't hear me yell his name but he figured what had happened as the blur-that-would-be-Stephanie flew into the boat. Nurse sharks, by the way, are "harmless". They are totally not aggressive and people snorkel with them all the time. But apparently I was traumatized as a child by watching Jaws and no shark that is bigger than me is getting close without me experiencing shear terror... Our routine now is that Martin jumps in, scopes out the waters and gives a thumbs up to signal "no sharks". Then I get in and am totally preoccupied looking into deep water :) We also snorkeled the Rocky Dundas, another cave in a rock that is beautiful. Then we snorkeled the Coral Garden and saw a 4 foot grouper and 2 HUGE lobsters. Martin did get a pic but it doesn't show the scale - these guys were about 2 1/2 feet long with such long legs! You can tell that we are in the park now - a no-take zone. The fish are all so huge…

We got to do a bit of walking on land too. We went onto Cambridge and walked the north and south trails. The north trail cut across to Bell Rock (see pics). The sand here is so fine that it's hard to walk on - you sink up to your ankles. Then we went to the south beach near the Coral Garden and walked through to another beach. We got to see what the plants look like on the Cays - tiny palms and poisonwood that you are supposed to stay very, very far from. We also went exploring looking for a natural pool that CJ & Margie told us about on the tip of Compass Cay. They gave us good directions and we found Rachel's Bubble Bath - very cool.

Last night we had another brute of a thunder/lightening storm. We woke up at 3:30 - it was amazing! We stayed up for an hour watching it as it passed. I've missed these storms living on the West coast though I think I'm going to get to see plenty of them this summer.

This has been a beautiful place to stay but oh - the neighbors! A 128 foot megayacht named "Arioso" came in the same day we did and moored right next to us. They have many water toys and get this - an airplane. So we get to sit in the quiet, looking out at the blue waters ... and get buzzed by a plane, repeatedly, all day long. We can locate the boat using AIS (ask Mart…) so we’ll be sure stay clear of them from now on.

We're spending tomorrow night at...you guessed it - Sampson Cay ;-) It's the only marina here with: laundry, internet and fuel. We had a close call today when we realized the dinghy was on empty when we were out cruising around Little Hall's Pond Cay. CJ told us about the cay - it's owned by Johnny Depp and you can see cameras all around island. (We had a nice tour of the island and did make it back to the boat.) So we'll post these blog entries, update the pic of the day, wash the towels and fuel up the dinghy before heading to Warderick Wells on Monday.

Posters note: Another post authored by Steph and posted by Martin. Don't worry, I'll be posting up some horribly technical, jargon-filled narrative soon. I know my fan(s) are anxiously awaiting one...

Having a wonderful time at Pipe Cay (5/25-5/28 Monday - Thursday)

2009-05-31T14:23:00.001-04:00

We anchored out for 3 nights with Pazzia between Pipe Cay and Little Pipe Cay. It was absolutely beautiful and one of the most fun times we've had so far! The weather finally cooperated. At times the water was so calm, no wind, no rolling but a slight breeze... Every now and again a big thunder/lightening storm would blow through but they were always quick. We loved anchoring with CJ & Margie, they are so much fun and so full of life! We packed so much into a few days and we have tons of pictures. CJ & Margie shared photos with us so I've updated the "pic of the day" back to 5-17-09. Putting them into Picassa made me smile, I think you can see in the photos just how much we've enjoyed the past week with our new friends.

Let's see, what we've been up too... We explored Pipe Creek on the dinghy/jet ski. (Pipe Creek is the area amongst a stretch of islands between Compass Cay and Sampson Cay. there are several cays here.) We did a lot of snorkeling and did a "drift snorkel" for the first time hanging onto the jet ski as we passed by the reef. We saw 2 porcupine fish - my favorite with those big eyes. We found a shallow sand bar filled with sand dollars and sea shells. I never realized how fragile the sand dollars are, I hope at least a few of them make it home with us. We shared dinners and cocktails with CJ & Maggie and enjoyed the company of Chorizo and Saucisse. Margie and I got stranded - beaching the jet ski on a sand bar in low tide. We saw 2 baby black tip reef sharks in 6 inch water while waiting for rescue. The Sampson Cay store gets it's provisions on Wednesdays so we went in to stock up on produce. I know, I know, I said we wouldn't be back. But after my temper calmed as we discussed it...and the fact that there aren't many options when your transportation is a dinghy... ;) That morning we woke up to a mean thunder and lightening storm and to find that the winds and currents had conspired to somehow bring Lucky & Pazzia very close. It was an exciting morning! It's all in the pics...

Martin and I have discovered how useful a jet ski is to go off exploring and snorkeling. They are fast, go into incredibly shallow water, you can drift dive and they handle rough seas better and faster than a dinghy. We're left thinking that a jet ski is far more practical than a dinghy as long as you have waterproof clothing. We figure you can bungie a large dry bag to back (like a motorcycle) so they can be just as useful for provisioning... Hm, food for thought :)

Our next stop is the mooring field at Cambridge Cay. CJ & Margie are going to anchor at Big Majors (the cay with the pigs). We'll both be heading north to be in Nassau around mid-June so we may meet up again at anchor - I really hope so! We'll definitely be visiting them in Florida this summer!

Posters Note: Steph's having "Blogger issues", so I've posted this on her behalf.

New picture album

2009-05-31T13:48:00.002-04:00

We've been prolific with our picture taking this last week. I blame the influence of CJ (who's never without a camera in hand). So prolific, in fact, that we've maxxed out the number of pictures Picasa allows in a web album. So Steph has slaved away and created a second album called "Pic of the Day 2". You can find the link on the right.

Sampson Cay - Thunder & Lightening & Rain

2009-05-25T08:33:00.003-04:00

Okay - after 3 days of thunder and lightening, the excitement is over and we're okay with the sun coming back!

We spent the last three nights at Sampson Cay Marina. The marina is very clean with a good store, laundry facilities and showers. Unfortunately, we've had a disappointing time here. While a couple of people at the marina have been very nice, the restaurant staff managed to intimidate us (and our friends) away from having the "audacity" to eat there! (A drag since it's the only place to eat, other than your boat...) We had a great dinner on Friday and then it was all down hill. Not to belabor the point, it's just too bad - the facility is lovely but the attitude wasn't, and we won't be coming back here.

The marina was a minor thing though. We had such a great weekend! With Pazzia and Searcher as our neighbors on the same dock we had a wonderful weekend. We hung out, got to know each other better, walked the pups and got to see Falcy (CJ & Margie's parrot) "do the chicken" which is a parrot dance :) Friday we enjoyed a great dinner together. Saturday we all got together for an impromptu barbeque with rum punch... Yesterday we were getting very tired of the rain so we decided to head out between storms to try to snorkel. We got caught in one heck of a downpour (see pics). We found a monster-sized starfish and a great time! Then we had CJ & Margie over for a chicken curry dinner.

I'm really excited about the next few days - we're going to anchor out with CJ & Margie and the pups. We woke up this morning to NO wind and blue sky and it's absolutely gorgeous. We're heading just a couple of miles north to an anchorage off of Pipe Cay. Our plans include exploring by dinghy and serious snorkeling.

I was just thinking this morning that this trip is going so well and living up to all of our expectations. Martin dreamt of sitting alone at anchor in turquoise water, off a gorgeous beach, swimming and snorkeling. I fantasized about exploring the islands, meeting interesting people, making friends and enjoying the "cruising lifestyle". I feel so, so fortunate - we're doing it all and enjoying it all...

Okay, we have one hour to hit the store for fresh produce, batten down the hatches and head out before the tide gets too low… We’ve kind of forgotten about our temporary “itinerary” so I don’t really know when we’ll be on line again but I’m sure it won’t be long!

Updated route

2009-05-23T12:12:00.002-04:00

I've updated the route to include our trip back to Nassau and our recent Exuma explorations. If you have good connectivity, I highly recommend switching to satellite view for the Exumas. You get a really good idea of the water, islands and marinas.

I also add a little commentary for each stop and passage. Click on the symbol or line to read.

Thunder and Lightening

2009-05-21T14:04:00.002-04:00

Today is the first really "bad" weather day we've had here but I'm loving it! It's been raining all day with lots of thunder and lightening. I miss that on the west coast! It's nice to have a relaxing day after our fun night yesterday.

Martin and I went to dinner at the Fowl Cay Resort restaurant with CJ & Margie. We got picked up at the marina on a nice 29ish foot boat. We went by Pazzia and picked up CJ & Margie and then headed for the restaurant just north of the Big Major anchorage. There was only us and one other couple, a really nice British couple celebrating their 20th anniversary. The food was great and unlimited wine...but the company definitely made the evening! I just love CJ & Margie. Their boat name says it all in Italian - "Pazzia = crazy, lunacy" :) The ride home was Awesome! The same guy drove but this time in a local skiff - a big hollow boat with no lights, seating for 2 and nothing else. I'll try to get a picture of a similar boat later. He was taking himself and another employee home to Black Point after dropping us off (about 5 miles south of Staniel). So I stood in the boat and held on to a rope attached to the front so I wouldn't fall over and we went flying back -lots of stars but no moon, with no lights - just racing through black water in the dark on warm/humid night. It was soooo cool.

This morning we woke up to gray skies and lots and lots of rain. I met a couple yesterday when I went to the Blue Store (where I scored the last avocado!) who are cruising on a trawler. Martin and I sat at the bar with Barbara & Jack in the afternoon talking and they invited us over to see their boat. So this morning Martin and I headed out to the anchorage at Big Majors. You can see from the pic how lovely the weather was as we headed out in the dinghy! Their boat, Searcher, is a 42-foot, 1984 Kadey-Krogen that they've remodeled. It's so homey and there is so much space! Hmmm, I definitely like the trawlers... We had a really nice visit and Barbara made fresh conch salad as a snack. I've never had it (Martin absolutely refuses to eat it - the conch is raw and he calls them big snails). I was pretty anxious about tasting it but it was great! Very much like ceviche. We were going to swing by Pazzia on the way back but were soaked within seconds so we waved hello and came back to enjoy a lazy, rainy afternoon snuggled up in Lucky.

Pizza, Pigs and Lionfish

2009-05-20T13:13:00.003-04:00

Just a quick update - I posted some fun photos on the pic of the day today. A few of the pigs at Big Major Cay yesterday. We brought them our organic garbage. It got exciting when one tried to climb into the dinghy. We didn't get a photo of that, Martin and I were too panicked trying to escape, but you get the idea! Some more pics from dinner last night at Club Thunderball with CJ & Margie. Martin and I walked up and were shocked to find out that it was a solid 30 minute walk on the winding roads. We're used to walking but really, it's HOT here. We were the only ones who didn't get there by dinghy, car or golf cart. On the way, some cruisers took pity on us and after they dropped off their wives, they came and gave us a lift in their cart :) The walk back was at night in the dark with a ton of stars, it was cool (and downhill) and Awesome!

The wind has calmed down some so this morning we went snorkeling at Thunderball Grotto where they filmed the James Bond movie. It's a cave in a rock - incredibly beautiful. (The pictures came out much darker than it actually was in the cave). AND I spotted a lionfish outside the rock and CJ & Margie were there with their spear - one less lionfish - yay! It was creepy too because it wouldn't die - a fish, speared on stick out, of water, and it just kept moving and moving... Yikes! I'm going to try to find a spear this afternoon. I would love to be able to "give back" by taking out some of these invasive fish!

We have a chilled afternoon ahead (spear shopping?) and then a fancy dinner up at Fowl Cay this evening. Life is sooooo good.

Staniel Cay

2009-05-19T13:18:00.004-04:00

Hello from Staniel Cay. Wow - it's so different living on the hook with no one else in eyesight...compared to staying at a marina! We arrived on Sunday. Staniel Cay Yacht Club is a nice little marina (about 15 slips). The office/bar/restaurant is all wrapped in one and is a very popular spot. I had read in one of the guides that the small mega-yacht crowd hung out here but we've found the opposite - salty cruisers, fisherman and very friendly locals hanging out, drinking and joking around.

It took us a bit to figure out that the bar tender was also the office manager but once we did...we moseyed up to the bar, checked in, got internet and ordered drinks :) Then we were very pleasantly surprised to see CJ & Margie walking in! It was great to see them again and exchange generator stories (they were in Highborne where we met them because their generator had broken and missed them in Normans because we were back in Nassau...) We made reservations for dinner at the restaurant (you have to reserve by 5 for the 7:30 seating - most of the restaurants request this, including MacDuffs). We had a few drinks with CJ & Margie and made plans to have them over for dinner Monday. The rum & pineapple drinks were Strong, it was an early night!

Monday we explored the island. It's about a mile long and 1/2 a mile wide. There is a community here so the streets are paved and it's easy to get around. We checked out the 3 markets on the island (Blue Store, Pink Store and Isle General Store). We picked up some tomatoes and Bahamian bread and circumnavigated the island. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera. The views on the west and north sides are gorgeous. It's cloudy and a bit rainy so we decided not to snorkel or go out in the dinghy, we have plenty of time for that later in the week. Then we had a great time with CJ & Margie in the evening, sitting out on the back enjoying Martin's spicy chicken curry.

Today we woke up to pouring rain but the sky is already clearing and the winds are supposed to calm down by this evening as the front moves through. We've made reservations for a nice dinner on Fowl Cay for tomorrow evening. We also checked out the dive shop yesterday and will go by this afternoon to plan a day of diving. We heard at ad on the radio this morning for a happy hour followed by an all-you-can-eat pizza/pasta dinner at Club Thunderball on the north end of the island. That sounds worth checking out! We're rocking and rolling pretty badly so I have to limit my computer time - no better way to get seasick than typing away down here.

Lionfish

2009-05-18T16:41:00.003-04:00

Sara had a great comment - I'm sorry I didn't explain about the lionfish! Lionfish are a species of fish originally from the tropical Pacific and India Ocean. They were first seen around Florida in the 1990s. The "invasion" probably began with people throwing their aquarium fish out when they got too big for their tanks. They have poisonous barbs and have almost no predators in the Atlantic so their population is exploding and spreading from South Carolina down to the Caribbean. They are very aggressive carnivores and eat everything in sight - they're basically decimating the indigenous coral reef fish populations where ever they show up. Environmentalists are really concerned that on top of warming waters and over fishing, the lionfish could tip the scales for ecological disaster in the mid-Atlantic.

Most cruisers here know about them and when legal, people will kill them if they find when they're out spear fishing. Organizations like Reef and NOAA are trying to greatly reduce the population from Florida waters by killing and trapping them. We were told last night that there's a movement in the Bahamas now to teach people how to eat them (and I just read this in the article linked below). If they're good eating that should help reduce the population a bit! So even though I hate killing things - I turn a bit vicious when I see these things all over the place.

I was looking around for some internet info to post here in case anyone wanted to read more and found a fantastic Smithsonian article that was just published this month:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Invasion-of-the-Lionfish.html

Shroud Cay (Wednesday - Saturday)

2009-05-17T18:03:00.002-04:00

Shroud Cay was our first stop within the Exuma Land and Sea park, only about 4 miles, as the crow flys, from Norman's Cay. The winds were really picking up so we chose what we hoped would be the most sheltered anchorage, this is also one that Hal from Naples had told us about. The rock and roll wasn't very bad at all which was surprising - the wind was literally howling through the boat. The forecast was for strong winds for a few days so we decided to stay put since we were reasonably comfortable and didn't know how sheltered the anchorages would be to the south. There isn't much to do on land, so we had a very mellow few days. I was able to get back into my workout routine (yay videos!), enjoyed the Nickelback songs I downloaded while we were in Nassau and devoured about 4 books. We also enjoyed the company of a resident seagull, Max (named for the human/avian hybrid in a book I was reading - nope, not reading classics at the moment :). Max came by every evening for dinner and brought some friends the last couple of nights (see pics). While there aren't many gulls, there are beautiful tropicbirds. They look like large terns with long flowing tails - gorgeous!

The first day/night we were all by ourselves, not a boat in sight, it was amazing! Thursday we took the dinghy up into the northern creek to visit Camp Driftwood which was built in the 60s by a hermit/sailor. The point was later used by drug agents to spy on the drug smuggling at Norman's Cay to the north. The views are gorgeous (see pics). We re-anchored closer to shore in the afternoon as the wind was really picking up. A few boats came that afternoon, a few to the mooring field south of us and 2 to our anchorage but they all left the next day. Friday afternoon we took the dinghy up to MacDuffs for lunch, about 4 miles north at Norman's cay. It was easy getting there with the wind to our back and Rough returning - soaking wet! But well worth the trip. It's a cozy little restaurant/bar and there always seems to be a few people there for lunch. There are few dogs to keep you company too, I bonded with the old chihuahua, Pepper... Our last day we did some swimming/snorkeling but there wasn't too much too see - lots of sand and turquoise water. (Unfortunately we did spot a lionfish.) It was relaxing and beautiful but I think my tolerance for the lone, slow life is much less than Martin's and by Saturday I was itching to move on!

Norman's Cay (Tuesday night)

2009-05-17T18:00:00.003-04:00

We left Tuesday for Norman's. The wind had picked up quite a bit and we had plenty of chop on the way down but it wasn't too bad. We arrived at Norman's and anchored almost exactly where we were last week. The anchorage was quite full by nightfall with about a dozen boats. We dove the anchor and took the dinghy out to see the airplane wreck on the south side of the island. Norman's Cay is somewhat notorious for it's drug-smuggling history. The wreck that sits in very shallow water was delivering sod to the island, and supposed to leave with cocaine but something went wrong, and now it's an island attraction! (see pic) Today, the cay is inhabited by a few people and there is still an airstrip on the island. We saw several small planes and helicopters coming and going.

Tuesday evening was the most uncomfortable night we've spent yet on the hook. The winds kicked up and we were a rolling. I couldn't sleep on my side because the boat would roll violently enough to flip me over onto my back. Sigh. It was a long night. No surprise then that we cut our time short and headed out to Shroud Cay on Wednesday morning.

We're Off to Norman's (Again!)

2009-05-11T21:01:00.002-04:00

We're fixed up and ready to go and very excited to be heading back to Norman's Cay tomorrow. We definitely made the best of our long weekend in Nassau and had a really good time (despite both of us being a bit uptight about having to come back ;-) The internet connection here is great and we were able to catch up with friends and family on skype. We called Bahama Divers and set up a refresher course for Sunday morning and a one tank afternoon dive. Saturday night we checked out a restaurant I read about in a local magazine. We went to Shogun Revolver that night and Wow! It was one of the best meals we've ever had. Think Gary Denko's...that's how great it was. We did the chef's choice menu with wine/sake pairings. Dang...did we get tipsy! I have a great photo of Martin in pic of the day. (Shhh, he hasn't seen it yet...)

Sunday, somehow, we felt fine, and went to our class/dive. It was a shallow boat dive (only 35 feet at it's deepest) and was a great refresher ("lighthouse wreck" just off the north end of Paradise Island). We saw lots of midnight parrot fish - big, blue and gorgeous. (They drove through Atlantis on the way back and I got some more pics of the resort from the water.) Now we're back into the flow of things I can't wait for Staniel Cay where there's a dive shop. We had a nice dinner on the boat afterward. This evening we went to the Green Parrot after walking into town to buy boat parts and groceries.

For the past couple of months our nightly indulgence has been watching Battlestar Gallictica. Last night we finished up season 3.0 and found out who 4 of the "final 5" are. For people who don't watch much tv we have become AVID BSG fans!

Generator fixed!

2009-05-11T16:22:00.003-04:00

So we got a call at 9:30 this morning from the generator folks. After a quick phone diagnostic, the mechanic was on his way. Traffic must have been a little slower than anticipated as it took him a little longer than expected to arrive, but by 10:30 he was down in the engine room unbolting stuff.

He quickly determined that the impeller was turning, so my fear of a crunched pump was unrealized. A little more sleuthing didn't turn anything new up. While watching him work, I was looking straight down on the top of the pump and noticed a slight gap between the rear plate and the pump housing. Once the mechanic tightened down on the bolts, the pump was able to draw water. So there was an air gap that prevented the pump from pumping water.

Unfortunately, now there was water spraying everywhere. Once the pump starts to turn, it pressurizes the water and that was enough to force it out. Taking the whole pump off the generator allowed him to tighten down and make sure that both plates were securely in place. Once the pump was back on the generator everything worked fine!

So we're back to the Exumas tomorrow.

We went shopping for some more groceries and I took the opportunity to get a few spares:

pencil zincs
secondary fuel filter
oil filter
oil
coolant

I already have a few of these, but extra can't hurt!

Mechanical Issues

2009-05-09T15:23:00.006-04:00

Shot water impeller

Between the watermaker and the generator, we've experienced a few mechanical problems. Unfortunately, they're been in the two systems most conducive to anchoring out.

Firstly, the watermaker. Last we left it, I'd briefly mentioned that it had become bio-fouled while we had been in Ft Lauderdale. Sea Water has lots of little organisms in it. They're at the bottom of the food chain and allow for the huge diversity of life we see in the oceans. This life thrives in warmer weather and after leaving Biscayne Bay the temperature must have warmed up enough to allow the little critters to blossom. The watermaker automatically replaces the sea water with fresh water at the end of each watermaking session and then replaces it every five days. This had proven effective at preventing bio-growth since I installed the watermaker last September. However, I guess the temperature had warmed up enough to overcome this. I've since reduced the fresh water flush interval to three days, but the damage has been done. Despite many attempts to clean the membrane, there must still be critters in there. Unless we run the watermaker at least once a day, it struggles to desalinate. Eventually the salinity will come down, but it takes time. If we run it everyday, it's only about 15 minutes. Miss a day and it can take over an hour. If that wasn't enough, the diversion valve is sticking. This is a relay operated valve that diverts the product water (the desalinated water) into the water tanks once the salinity comes down enough. Fortunately, our unit has a switch that allows me to manually operate the valve. So now I go down and move the switch once salinity has come down to around 800 ppm. It's a pain and I need to remember to turn it back after the run, but we're able to make water and that's the important thing. When we get back to the east coast, I'll be able to order a replacement valve and membrane and these issues will be behind us.

Secondly, the generator and the reason behind our unexpected return to Nassau. It stopped working the day we arrived at Normans Cay. When it errors it blinks a light with the reason why. In this case, seven blinks meaning raw water flow impeded. Unlike car engines, whose coolant is cooled by air passing through a radiator, marine engines use raw water (the water the vessel in floating in) passing through a heat exchanger. Not only does this water cool the coolant (and hence the engine), but it also passes into the exhaust and cools that down as well. Losing raw water flow is worse than losing air flow over a car's radiator and the engine shuts itself down quickly. At first I thought it was the same issue we experienced in Allen's Key - something sucked up the intake. Not to be. The strainer and hoses were clear all the way to the raw water pump. I even got a mouth full of sea water when I sucked on the end of the hose, just to make sure. So I took the impeller out. The impeller spins inside a sealed housing and pumps the water through the system. As you can see, ours was shredded. It was near it's end of life and the shock of being run dry must have been enough for it to give up the ghost. I didn't have any spares for the genset (yeah, yeah. I know...) so back to Nassau it was. The only other alternative was to head down to Georgetown, which was even further away.

We arrived in Nassau, refueled and docked. We immediately headed over the bridge and hit all the marine stores. It was looking grim when we hit success in this small "hole in the wall" repair shop called Albert's. I also took the opportunity to get a few Raycor primary fuel filters for the generator as well. After lunch I descended into to heat of the engine room - the engines were still over 120 degrees from the run up - and got working. After replacing the impeller I was still getting the same error. So I checked downstream from the pump. There's always the possibility that pieces of the impeller get stuck in the heat exchanger and impede water flow. The exchanger has end caps that can be easily removed to check for this, so I did. No bits of impeller, though there were a few pieces of zinc from the zinc anode protection. I removed them and then checked flow by blowing through the hose leading into the exchanger. No blockage and I could hear faint gurgles as the air I was blowing through percolated through the water still in the exhaust. I put everything back together and tried again. No go. Rechecking the impeller, I noticed it was dry, which implies it wasn't spinning up at all. watching the strainer carefully during another attempt confirmed it. No water was flowing at all. So the pump is broken. I called Cummins and they gave me the address of the local authorized dealer and service outfit. I called at 5:55 and, not surprisingly, they're closed. Someone answered and I arranged for the mechanic to call me first thing Monday morning. Hopefully that doesn't mean 2pm Tuesday afternoon. If I've not heard anything by Monday afternoon and calling back isn't helping, I'll give Albert's a call and see if they can come down to look at it. Albert's say they can get any part in 48 hours, so I'm optimistic we can get it fixed before we leave for Staniel Cay this weekend.

Updated Route

2009-05-09T15:20:00.002-04:00

I've updated the route with our brief trip to The Exumas. It's worth switching to Satellite view (look for the small button in the top right) and zooming right in. You'll get a great idea of where we've been. The water really does look that blue!

Detour - Back in Nassau

2009-05-08T18:22:00.001-04:00

Well, we are back at Nassau, in Hurricane Hole this time. Our generator conked out at Norman's Cay yesterday. Norman's is incredibly beautiful. We arrived, put on our snorkeling gear and checked the anchor, then swam to shore. We had lunch at the Norman Cay Beach Club, aka MacDuff's. The anchorage was calm and gorgeous. Then we tried to make water and found that, well, enough said, we're back in Nassau.

Martin will post details I'm sure but my "lay" understanding is that the raw water is not flowing through the system. Martin looked and the impeller was trashed. There are 5 marine stores in Nassau and we found the impeller at the last store. Talk about anxiety... Anyway, we got the part and Mart put it in and...still not working. The same error that it's the cooling system. So after trying all afternoon, it won't work. We've called a local dealer but of course, it's Friday evening and they said they'd call Monday. The weather is perfect and calm - no wind for the first time since we got to the Bahamas and we're in Nassau.

Spirits are very low here.

Hanging Out at Highborne Cay

2009-05-07T11:21:00.002-04:00

We arrived at Highborne around 1:00 Tuesday. We check in, signed up for internet, dropped the dinghy off the back, had lunch and took the bikes out to tour the island. It felt great to get back on them. The island is really beautiful. The island is privately owned and it looks like there's a lot of construction going on. The Cay is about 3 miles long so it's easy to get around on the bike. Most people in the marina use golf carts.

Life back in a marina is lovely and hot! It' so breezy when you're anchored out, we'd forgotten how hot it is on land, especially in a "protected" marina which by definition is "protected" from wind and waves. We grilled some our fabulous mahi-mahi last night and Martin gave a try at his verson of Bahamian peas & rice (it was great). It's our favorite new dish, made with rice and beans called pigeon peas. The marina is small and runs along the shoreline so people walk by all the time. We enjoyed chatting with people all afternoon. We met a couple that used to have the exact same boat as Lucky. They were so funny - they said that after a 3.5 week trip then turned her in for a 55 foot Viking. When we told them we were living on Lucky for a year their eyes popped! Really, I don't think Lucky is That small, it's certainly no smaller than my 220 foot studio in Berkeley...

Wednesday we got up well rested from a very peaceful and quiet evening. We had to sleep with the hatches down and air on - there are "noseeums" here. I've never experienced them before - yikes. How can something too small to see bite so well? This morning I went to the end of the dock where the fish cleaning area is. This is where the fishermen clean their fish and the nurse sharks, sting rays, needle fish and gulls hang out for scraps. I got some great pictures! Then we went snorkeling at Octopus Garden on the north side of the cay. We tried a couple of other sites but 2 were on the east (ocean) side and not calm enough for the dinghy. We saw a HUGE lion fish. It's the first time I wish we spear-fished. Then we could have taken care of it. They are eating up all the reef fish in the Bahamas and Caribbean and it's a sad thing to see.

This morning we are heading out to Norman's Cay. We had a nice morning chatting with some other cruisers. CJ and Maggie and their 2 mini-dachshunds are neighbors and they're heading down to Norman as well. In fact, we met a few people heading south and expect to see them again. We noticed several boats here that we saw up in Atlantis - we're all making the southward cruise.

The web was down last night so I'm going to post this quickly before we check out. The pic of the day is updated as well. We'll be back in a week or so!

I found the website for the Exuma Land & See Park this morning and got a ton of great information. Here's the link if you're interested: http://www.exumapark.info/

Dinghy party at Allan's Cay (5/2-5/5)

2009-05-05T14:04:00.004-04:00

Hello Exumas! We left Nassau Saturday, late morning for a 2 hour cruise through mildly choppy, emerald green water. We arrived around 1:00. It was our most comfortable passage to date. We arrived to the familiar anchorage with the iguana and 3 catamarans at anchorage. It's beautiful here! The anchorage we're in is surrounded by 3 cays - Allan, SW Allan and Leaf Cays. It's rated a E in our Skipper Bob guide (A is most sheltered and G is not sheltered at all with current). The predicted 10-15 knot winds feel much stronger at night and we've been rockin' and rollin'. We've found, however, that it's still within our comfort level. Actually, I don't know if it's any less than at Biscayne Bay but I think we're starting to get used to the movement and "frwapping" noise and are sleeping right through it now. (I do get a bit motion sick though when I try to write the blog and it's rolling).

Our first day here was a lot of fun. Martin got the snuba working and I went for a snorkel. We did a visual check on our anchor and found it good and buried in about 7 feet of water (see pic). We took the dinghy out and toured around the cays (pronounced "key") and breezed by Ship Channel Cay where we went with Powerboat Adventures. We found another beach on SW Allan Cay (a tiny little cay) that had a few iguana on it as well. It's warm but the breeze is cool and blowing so the boat is very comfortable and the mosquitoes get blown away before they can reach the boat, yay.

By evening, there were 12 boats in the anchorage, several cats, a few sailboats and us. As it got dark, we noticed a dinghy driving around to all of the boats. We hoped we'd be visited as well and wouldn't be excluded because we're a powerboat! Happily, Bruce and his daughter came by to tell us they were hoping to get a few people out in their dinghy's around 9:00 to raft (tie up together) and anchor...everyone bring your own booze. We happily accepted the invitation. Only 4 boats decided to come by and 1, a group of 3 Australian men, were simply too drunk (or "pissed as a nit" as one man exclaimed) by 9:00 to hang with the group :) So we had the family from Wanderlust and another 3 people from Racontour and us, rafted together. We had a nice time, talking mostly with the Wanderlust folks because we were right next to them. They began from their home in South Africa 11 years ago and have been cruising ever since! They picked up an American friend and a cat, Benji, along the way. Their daughter has lived on the boat over half of her life! We enjoyed talking with them about their lifestyle, travels and experiences.

Day 2 was been a bit more frustrating and from what I understand, very typical of cruising. Our water maker, which I have named Lucy (a temperamental Lucifer from hell) decided to stop working our first day anchored out in the Exumas (when we need it most!) Martin has done everything he can and we're now producing water at a salinity level of about 900 which is drinkable but nearing the edge of potability. We run the generator when we run the watermaker and it stopped working this afternoon as well. After Martin pulled a black plastic bag out of the intake pipe, all was good. So we are up and running...but we've had some fumbles along the way.

In the afternoon a fishing boat pulled up and anchored near us. The captain yelled over "dolphin?" We said sure and dinghied over. They had caught several coolers full of dolphin fish (mahi-mahi) and were giving some away to make room for the next days catch. I smiled and asked if they could please tell us how you clean such a thing...and they cleaned it for us ;-) I did watch and in theory, know how now, but I'm pretty sure I'd end up with shredded fillets rather than the perfect ones he produced. He cleaned 2 big fish for us and then we rode over to Wanderlust to see if they'd like some. They took some, their cat Benji got his own fillet, and we are left with our portion - about 4 pounds of fresh, caught-this-day mahi mahi fillets. This life is turning out to be tough! Veronique showed me how to put the fillets in a ziplock bag, submerge it underwater, squeeze the air out and zip it shut with about 2 teaspoons of seawater in it. I sealed up 6 bags and our freezer is officially full. Grilled fish for dinner tonight!

The most ironic part of being here is that I was really worried about being isolated and not meeting people. Well, we've met and talked with more people in the first 24 hours on the hook at Allan's Cay than we did at Atlantis in the 3 weeks we were there...

Day 3 at Allan's Cay was another lazy, rolly day. The Wanderlust family came over and said goodbye, they're off to Norman's Cay which is our next stop after Highborne. We took the dinghy over to Highborne Cay (a couple miles away) and checked out the marina. It's really nice and we decided go tomorrow for 2 nights. We can explore the island and even rides our bikes and they have internet! There's a store there so we bought some lettuce and then headed to SW Allan's and fed the iguana. Back to Lucky, the water maker worked (still at about 900 but she's working). Then we watched as 2 sailboats came in together and anchored on top of us. Very strange - it's a huge anchorage with 9 boats in it and they anchored about 40 feet off our bow. After a few hours, we don't know why, but one tried to pull up his anchor, almost rammed the other boat, Martin threw a fender on in fear of a collision, and there was much yelling on deck between the couple and they headed to the other end of the anchorage. The other boat started spinning around in circles so they pulled up and joined their friends. Apparently the current is very different a few yards away...but we're glad they moved because they were too close and if anyone dragged anchor it would have been nasty. Oh the excitement!

A note about living at anchor...here are a few important things:

The dinghy is your life-line - it's how to go anywhere or do anything.
Without a water-make you'd be sticky and salty all the time, everything you do involves salt water and you want to rinse off a few times a day so water usage goes up.
It is nearly impossible to do "lunges" (think workout video) in a rolling anchorage, workouts need to be adapted to conditions or you tip over.
The radio is a great source of entertainment. This is how the radio works: You call people on channel 16 on the radio and then pick a new channel to talk. Ie:
Luckyt: "Wanderlust, Wanderlust, Wanderlust. I Got Lucky".
WL: "This is Wanderlust".
Lucky: "Wanderlust, go to 19."

Now you both switch to channel 19 and have your conversation. So during the day, you leave the handheld radio "on" and listen as people come in and hail other boats, then you switch channels and listen in. Okay, there isn't much to do ON the boat so I guess you get very interested in everything happening Around the boat :)

We've just arrived this afternoon at the marina at Highborne Cay - we'll be here for 2 nights and have internet so we'll post again before we leave. My first thought sitting here at the marina is this - I really enjoy anchoring out - more than I thought I would, but it's NICE to sit still, in the quiet, and not roll, ahhhh.

Our (subject to change) Itinerary

2009-05-05T14:01:00.000-04:00

Now that we aren't meeting Richard at Staniel Cay, we are reworking our Exumas trip. We have until mid-June to explore the Exumas. My friend Meliza is coming to visit us in Nassau (yay!) and we'll be staying in Atlantis. From there, we don't know if we'll return to the Exumas or head north to the Abacos. We're planning a loose itinerary, an outline, for the next several weeks, all dependent upon weather, anchorage conditions, what there is to do and how much we like where we are. I've poured over Steve Pavlidis's chart books, the Skipper Bob guide, Lena Bea's blog and several Bahamian guide books. It seems most cruisers follow a similar path - going to the best anchorages and seeing the main attractions at each cay. We're only planning as far south as the first inhabited island with a small community - Staniel Cay. If we have time, we may explore further south. This is (approximately) what we'll be up to over the next 6 weeks. We may not stop at all these stops - some can be accessed by dinghy from other cays, but these are the main attractions...

1. Allan's Cay (3 days) - anchoring, iguana and snorkeling
2. Highborne Cay (2 days) - marina, hiking, biking and snorkeling
3. Norman's Cay (~1-2 day) - anchoring, snorkeling a plane wreck, island exploring and lunch on the island
4. Shroud Cay (?) - anchoring or mooring, creek to explore by dinghy, hiking on island
5. Hawsbill Cay (?) - mooring, gorgeous island
6. Warderick Wells (at least few days) - mooring and/or anchoring, Land and See Park Headquarters - hiking and snorkeling
7. Compass Cay (?) - marina, beautiful hiking and walking trails
8. Sampson Cay (1 day) - marina is well protected - check it out
9. Big Major Cay (?) - anchoring, feral pig colony
10. Stanial Cay (~ few+ days) - marina and/or anchoring, inhabited island with restaurant and bar. Lots of snorkeling sites accessible from here.

(For our non-boating friends: "mooring" means there is a "mooring ball" floating in the water attached to the bottom that you tie the boat to. It means you won't hurt the coral or sea grass below and that you won't drag your anchor. There's usually a small fee but it's much cheaper than a marina. All the moorings above are in the Land and Sea Park to protect the environment there.)

We're Off...

2009-05-01T18:13:00.003-04:00

One last post before we head out! We've had a great 24 hours - dinner at the Poop Deck last night, reading at the pool today. Life is very good. Our biggest struggle right now are mosquitoes, the buggers manage to get in even with screens over the hatches and they Definitely find me much more tasty than Martin! We are feverishly working through season 3.0 of Battlestar Galactica in the evenings and geeks that we are, we're obsessed :)

The other day we noticed signs around the pool area that said, to paraphrase, "if you're sitting or walking around this area then you agree to be filmed" (we didn't sit anywhere near that area!) Today, while on route to our favorite river raft ride, we saw the film crews and actors as they were filming. It's a reality tv show called "The Superstars". It's like Dancing with the Stars but sports rather than dance. we took a couple pics of what we saw and put them on the pic of the day. We don't have a tv so we won't see that episode!

Lucky is almost ready to go. Martin has done the requisite engine/systems checks and plotted our course on the GPS. I've done the usual cleaning/straightening up that I like to have done before we head out. We only have 34 nautical miles to go (about 37 miles). We can finish packing up tomorrow since we aren't supposed to leave until late morning. According to our guide book, you want to wait until the morning sun is not in your eyes so you can see the coral heads and shallow water. I've also been reading about the Exumas, the Exuma Land and Sea Park, Thunderball Grotto (snorkeling/of James Bond film fame) and Staniel Cay and I'm getting really excited.

I'm looking forward to life on the anchor and what it will be like. It should be more bug-free, very quiet, gorgeous and surrounded by a swimming/snorkeling pool... It will be a challenge to not run the air except for the few hours we run the generator to make water each day. Plugged in at the marina we keep the temperature on the boat at a comfortable 78 degrees. We'll be very careful about garbage production and dumping biodegradable foods overboard since we'll be paying about $2.50/a garbage bag to get rid of it. I think we'll be swimming a lot more, hopefully using the snuba and even scuba. I'll try to keep up doing my exercise videos since I won't be doing much jogging...

Here are a couple of websites with info on the Exumas and where we'll be going... There are islands with iguanas, another with wild pigs that greet you by swimming up to you in the boat as you arrive, the park has tons of aquatic life with fantastic snorkeling. Oh, and the water is filled with sharks ;P

http://www.bnt.bs/parks_exuma.php
http://www.bahamasgateway.com/staniel_cay_exuma_bahamas.htm

We'll post again as soon as we can!

Last Days in Atlantis

2009-04-30T17:01:00.003-04:00

Martin and I are enjoying our last few days at Atlantis. It's practically deserted here compared to earlier in the month. The weather is also much cloudier and cooler - perfect temp actually! We spent yesterday doing what most tourists do here - lounging at the pool, reading a book and drinking a couple of Miami Vices. It was a lovely afternoon and so exhausting we both needed naps afterward! It was a little too cool to play in the water but maybe tomorrow...

We had some dissapointing news yesterday - our friend Richard will not be at Staniel Cay mid-month. We're both sad that we won't be meeting up with him. We do have a reservation at the marina though and there is a dive shop there. So, hopefully we'll be able to do some scuba diving - I can't wait!

We're leaving on Saturday when the weather will be fairly calm. I'm a excited and a bit nervous for the next 6 weeks - it's going to be so different! We'll be traveling through the Exumas until mid-June. We should have internet at Staniel Cay and in the south at Georgetown but in between we'll be on the hook and much more isolated than we've experienced so far. I have notes from another cruisers blog (the Lena Bea) that I've printed out to look at. Funny, they were here at Atlantis 1 night while we were gone! They are our size so they may have even been docked right next to us. It would have been fun to meet them since I've been following their blog this winter...

As for our blogging, we'll keep writing blogs and taking pictures and will post up chunks when we can.

Oh, and I just found this pic on my camera and had to post it - he's just too cute and I thought I took a pretty decent picture :)

Returned from a great visit home

2009-04-27T18:36:00.002-04:00

Martin and I had a wonderful time back home. We got to visit with friends and catch up on various appointments (luckily, Martin, and I, had mundane dental appointments ;-)

I wasn't nearly as good at taking pictures over our time at home but I did manage a couple and posted them to the pic of the day. Of course, several are of my "fur-kids". Bean is doing great and George is no longer angry at me. Ghislaine and I had to work at figuring out how to best pill Bean with the evil foaming-at-the-mouth pill she needs once a day. I think we figured it out but oh the trauma/drama! George has a bit of a hip gimp, I think it's arthritis, but he's his very happy, playful self and is totally in love with his new Mom!

We arrived back at the boat yesterday afternoon. Lucky is in good shape with only 1 slight mishap. One of the stern ties that went under the boat rubbed itself right in two. I guess it had been very windy here. A neighbor came by and took the tie off and reworked it for us so Lucky wasn't moving around too much. We thanked him with a bottle of red wine...I Knew there was a reason we have to keep well stocked in alcohol ;)

It feels a bit weird to be back. Just as I was a bit reluctant to head home because life was so comfy on the boat, once I got home, I got quite comfortable with friends and cats... Now we're back in sunshine and blue water. It's a bit of a readjustment to the quiet and solitude. Atlantis is relatively deserted compared to before we left. We were told this is a slow period following spring break. It's very nice and will give us the opportunity to get in some serious water rides without long lines before we head out!

We've extended our slip rental through Saturday (they had been booked after the 29th but had cancellations). It's very windy this week with calm expected toward week's end and hey, we thought we'd try to hold out so we could have a calm passage to Allen's Cay. We'll be going right back to where we visited with my Mom. We have a pic of the boats anchored out next to the iguanas...that's where we plan to go next.

For the next few days we'll enjoy Atlantis, do a bit of grocery shopping and stocking up and get ready to head out on the next leg of the journey...

Homeward Bound

2009-04-13T08:58:00.003-04:00

We're leaving for California in a few hours. We should be home tonight. When we planned this trip, we included going back home 2 or 3 times to catch up with mail/appointments/friends/cats.

Steph went home last month, but I haven't been back since we left in January. It's going to be nice to have all the comforts of home fora while. I'm looking forward to unlimited hot water showers and playing with some of my toys (zoom, zoom).

I doubt we'll be posting while we're home. Unless, that is, you'd like to hear all about my dental appointment?

A Week Gone By Too Quickly (long post!)

2009-04-12T12:55:00.004-04:00

We have had so much fun this week! Wednesday was our chill-out day since we knew Thursday and Friday would be action-packed. We enjoyed lounging on the boat and reading. We checked out the Green Parrot bar and grill next door at the Hurricane Hole Marina and caught a gorgeous sunset while introducing Mom to Martin's favorite drink: the Miami Vice aka Pain In The Ass.

Thursday we went out with Stuarts Cove on a snorkel excursion. The bus came at 8:00am to take us to the opposite end of the island. We snorkeled 3 sites. The first was Mom's favorite - the reef dive. She has a good eye too and pointed out a lion fish in the reef. This is an invasive, non-native fish that is wreaking havic as it pushes out native species. They are amazingly pretty (and poisonous! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionfish). We saw a lot of yellow-tail snapper, sergeant majors, blue tang and parrot fish. The second site was a bit less exciting but it was interesting to see a small plane wreck. Then we went to see the sharks. The site is over a large ship wreck, about 40 (I think) feet below. They put out a line and you get in and hold on. You're instructed not to kick and splash or make any loud noises. The yellow-tail snapper swarm around you (as they do at all the sites) because they know they'll get fed. There were several, at least 7, large reef sharks swimming below. They stayed down at the bottom for the most part while we floated above. After you get out, they feed the yellow-tail snapper and the fun begins. These fish, about 10-12 inches long, swarm around and splash and go crazy. This attracks the sharks that come up from below and eat the snapper. That's when you get why you're not supposed to splash and yell - yikes! It was really cool! We were all very proud that we were able to get into the water and glad that we did - they are amazing creatures. The day was fantastic and we found ourselves back at the boat early afternoon. We spent the rest of day warming up (the water was COLD) and chilling out.

Friday was Mom's birthday and our Powerboat Adventure day. We headed out at 8:30am on a fast speedboat. We left for Allen Cay, about 30 miles SW of Nassau. Allen Cay is known for its iguana ("Bahamian Dragons") http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclura_cychlura_inornata. We were given 20 minutes and several grapes. You go onto the beach where dozens of iguana are waiting, and you feed them. I loved these guys and couldn't help but post way too many pictures of them. Then we took a quick trip over to Ship Channel Cay which is owned by the Powerboat people. They have a nice facility there where they serve you lunch and there's an all day open bar. We discovered another tasty tropical drink called "Mango Madness". They had the afternoon packed with activities that you could participate in.

The highlight for sure was the stingray feeding. You line up in a row on your knees so the water is up to about your hips or waist. They give you strips of raw fish that you hold between your fore and middle fingers. When the stingray swims close you put your hand in the water palm down and the stingray swims over your hand and sucks the fish up. It's AWESOME! The rays are pretty big, about 3 feet wide and gentle. They brush against you and feel like soft rubber. One kind of swam up and sucked on my leg! Kind of scary and very cool. They don't suck very hard - no hickey :)

Next was the shark feeding. They take the wahoo (fish) scraps (from our lunch) and thread them on a rope. They throw them out and the sharks come in and eat them. They grab the rope and it looks like they are "shark wrangling". This is mostly for the benefit of the video they shoot but it also pulls the sharks up into 2 feet deep water and you see them very close up. There were a couple of nurse sharks, several reef sharks and a very large lemon shark.

Then we did a drift snorkel. The current is very strong between the 2 cays there so you enter the water and then drift down to the end. You have to kick pretty hard to get out of the current and to the island before the current runs into the sea. The snorkel was pretty but you move really quickly so you don't see as many fish. Of course you Do see lots of sharks because they just got fed and a few are still hanging around. We were actually closer to sharks on this snorkel than the day before!

Afterward, we had lunch and hung out on the beach. We got to see the island pig, Stoner and the goats that live on the cay. They had a nature walk after lunch but we opted to chill out and read on the beach. Then we headed home. It was such a great day! And we got a video of the afternoon that is awesome - showing us feeding the stingray and snorkeling... I was really happy that Mom got to see a bit of the Exumas and the more "natural" parts of the Bahamas as well as the busy urban area here at Paradise Island/New Providence Island. We took a lot of pictures - up on the pic of the day.

An added benefit was that we also got to see the passage to Allen Cay and the anchorages there. This is exactly where we'll be going when we get back from our visit home - yay - now we know to bring grapes :)

Saturday was a sad day because Mom left in the morning. The airport here was insane since it was the end of spring break for kids and a holiday as well. Thankfully, Mom got home no problem. My only regret is that the week went by way too fast and I wish Mom could have stayed much longer...

Happy Birthday Mom!

2009-04-10T19:38:00.002-04:00

Today is my Mom's birthday! We're having a wonderful time (week) celebrating. Today, we fed stingrays, snorkeled with sharks and laid on the beach with pigs... We have it all documented in the pic of day :) http://picasaweb.google.com/stephmaurer/PicOfTheDay#

Visiting with Mom

2009-04-07T20:38:00.001-04:00

My Mom arrived Sunday. I went and got her at the airport which is on the other side of New Providence Island. It was a nice cab ride - I got to see a lot of the island and learned a lot from talking with the cab driver.

Since it was early afternoon we decided to jump right in and start out by taking a tour of Atlantis with bathing suits on - Martin and I felt that a ride on The Rapids would be a good intro for her :) Then we just chilled out together with sangria a great dinner that Martin cooked.
Yesterday we set out to see Atlantis again. We toured the whole park, rode The Rapids and another scary ride involving an intertube and blind drop in a tube tunnel. We checked out the ponds and aquariums. It was a long day in the heat and sun. Somehow Mom's intertube managed to flip in a rapid and she had to swim it. The rides also take a toll on your butt - the low point in the tube... Poor Mom, in less than 24 hours we managed to get her all bruised up and exhausted!

We knew the weather was turning today so we planned to visit Nassau figuring it would be better to walk the city in cooler weather. We were so lucky - it poured early this morning and then the rain held off all day. The water ferry was quite an experience with the big waves in the harbor. We decided to take a regular taxi back! We toured the city, checked out the Queen's staircase (cut into rock by slaves in the 18th century) and the ruins of Fort Fincastle. We found a great Greek restaurant and then went to the Straw Market and bought some beach towels.
It was a great afternoon to chill out and stay in so Mom and I watched Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Now the bread is baking and smells soooo good in here. I think we'll have a quiet night in.

We have lots planned for the end of the week as the weather clears. On Thursday we have a snorkel trip scheduled. You snorkel in 3 locations - a reef, a wreck and then, if you want, with sharks. Mom and I may watch the 3rd site from the boat :) On Friday we're going to the Exumas on an excursion. Originally we had hoped to go and anchor out for a couple of nights with Mom in the northern Exumas but after discussing it, Martin and I decided it wasn't the best plan. The seas and winds are too high today and tomorrow, we don't know where we're going and we're worried that an anchorage may be to rockn' rolly for my Mom who doesn't have sea legs like we do... So we're going with a local tour group on a day trip. We'll get to feed the Bahamian iguanas and snorkel. Mom will also get to see the more remote areas which are much more common to the Bahamas than the city here.

Ah, the bread is done...

Atlantis at Paradise Island

2009-04-07T16:30:00.003-04:00

Greetings from Atlantis... The Atlantis resort is located on Paradise Island which is just a bridge away from New Providence Island and the Bahamian capital, Nassau. Wow, this place is incredible! I've put up some pictures of the complex here and I'll be putting up more over the next few days. We've been here now for about 5 days. It took us 3 just to get around the resort without a map! If you look at the website, http://www.atlantis.com/ you can see more of it. It's amazing and HUGE. There are over 9 pools, more than 20 restaurants, 5 hotels I think (different buildings), a casino and several water rides. Most impressive, however, are the aquariums. They have sharks, manta rays, sting rays, groupers, all sorts of reef fish. I've put a few pics up of these as well. There are dolphins here but I have issues with captive dolphins so we haven't checked that facility out. It's ridiculously expensive and absolutely gorgeous...

The marina here holds about 60 ships, mostly sized for megayachts. Until yesterday we were, by far, the smallest boat here. Dang! Another similar Tiara came in yesterday along with a 38 foot Silverton so now it feels more "normal" on our dock :)

We are docked at the far end of the marina so we have a nice walk to get to the main area and it's quieter being away from the action. The facilities are beautiful though our slip is a bit rockn' rolly from the boats passing in the harbor and the dingies flying through the channel.

The first couple of days here Martin and I just wandered around. We made sure to wear our bathing suits so we could dunk in on a water ride when it got too hot. It was really warm here, unusually so from what some locals have told us, up in the mid-90s. We tried to be good, but we're both pink and peeling all ready!

Paradise Island is about 7 miles long and quite narrow. Most of the island is divided into private chunks - resorts where you need ID to get (like Atlantis). It's a bit of a Disney Land-type place. A fantasy vacation land... I don't think any Bahamians live on the Island.

We also walked over the big bridge to New Providence Island a couple of times to check things out on East Bay Street. We found several boating stores (looking for water maker supplies/chemicals - no luck there), found a grocery store and bought a Bahamian pay-as-you-go cell phone. You know we're not far from home - we passed Starbucks and Kentucky Fried Chicken on our walk. We had a great lunch (you could pick out your fish from that morning's catch) at the Poop Deck restaurant.

The buildings and streets in Nassau are a bit run down but the buildings have all been painted pretty pastel colors. It's not a place to bike so we're keeping to our feet. Half the cars are right-side/half left-side steering and driving is on the left. There's a ton of traffic and it's crazy! All the Bahamians that we've met have been really friendly. It's customary here to greet everyone very politely with "hello, how are you today?" I think it's considered quite rude not to greet people everyone you meet.

On Sunday my Mom arrived. It's GREAT having her here! That is deserving of another post, however, and we are about to enjoy this cool, gray afternoon with a movie... I'll be back soon...

Watermaking 101

2009-04-05T13:26:00.009-04:00

Since we arrived in Bimini last Sunday, water at the dock has stopped being free. There's a meter at the dock and we're charged for every gallon we use. In Bimini Bay Resort the charge was 65c / gallon, which can add up pretty quickly. Here at Atlantis, its 25c / gallon. With an average daily use of 30 gallons, this adds up pretty quickly. That's before any boat washdowns as well! So it was time to use the water maker in earnest for the first time. We'd used it a couple of times at both anchorages, but we didn't really need to. We could have managed if we waited. Not so in the Bahamas.

When I turned the water maker on in Bimini, I got a "Replace pre-filter" error on the control panel pretty quickly. That was only the start of the problems. I'll go through the sorry tale in my next post, but for the problems to make sense, I'm going to give a little insight into how a water maker works. For the uninterested, here's the elevator car summary: Water makers take salt water and push it through a filter, removing everything but the water. What's left is pretty pure drinking water.

Those of you who wish to continue riding up with me to conference room, please stay. For the rest of you, I believe "TGIF" is just about to start down the hall. Save me a cold one!

The water maker we have is a Spectra Newport Mk II. There are several brands of water maker that are highly regarded out there and Spectra is one of them. I chose Spectra as they're a local company, based in San Raphael, just north of San Francisco. All the comments about water makers agreed on one thing. Get the highest capacity one you can. You'll need to run it less. After measuring all the spaces in the engine bay, the Newport Mk II was the largest I could easily fit. At 17 gallons / hour with an average current draw of 15 - 20 amps, it was plenty for our needs.

Through hulls

The first thing a water maker needs is access to raw water. Raw water is the stuff the boat floats in and is obtained by sucking it up through a hole in the hull. Of course, you don't just go putting holes in boats. Not without sinking them, anyway. Into the hole goes a fitting called a through-hull. This has a ball-valve in it that can be closed if the hose attached inside the boat comes off (or springs a leak). I didn't want to put a new hole in the boat, so decided to tap into an existing raw water line. I chose one of the air conditioner raw water intakes. You can see the new hose I put in below, it's the clear hose with a white spiral. There was a black hose originally. You can still see the original hose for the other A/C raw water pump. On the upper right, you can see the raw water washdown pump through hull. This through hull is a smaller diameter and not large enough for the water maker's needs. In the middle of the clear hose you can see the bronze fitting that goes to the water maker. Note all the double hose clamps. Very important when you're dealing with hose connections below the waterline.

Raw water strainers

From the through hull, the raw water passes through a strainer. This is a very coarse filter that stops the big stuff from going any further. Not much in the strainer, despite 30 hours of running. You can see the strainers for the A/C raw water just above and to either side of the water maker strainer. The one on the left is labeled "ARG-750-P". Directly down stream are the two A/C raw water pumps. raw water pumps should always be downstream of the strainers.

Boost pump

The first water maker pump is the boost pump. It's job is to move the raw water through the strainer and the two pre-filters and to the feed pump. It needs to be placed below the water line. The waterline, by the way, is about where that big white conduit above the boost pump is. The yellow switch allows me to change the mode of the boost pump. In the left position, marked "run", the pump takes water from the through hull. You can see the clear hose from the strainer attached on the upper left. When switched to "service", the pump takes water from the fitting on the right. This allows me to run chemicals through the system when cleaning or storing. You attach a standard hose to the fitting and lead it into a bucket containing the chemicals. I'll get into this in my next post. The middle position, "off", isolates the pump and allows me to remove hoses and filters without water coming in through the through hull. I usually close the through hull ass well. The raw water is pumped into the clear hose with a red stripe and sent to the feed pump.

Feed pump module

This is the electronic heart of the water maker. Not only does it contain the feed pump - the large pump that ups the water pressure to around 100 psi - but it also contains the gizmos that determine whether the water is drinkable or not. First things first, though, and the raw water passes through the pre-filters. These are two filters similar to your car's air filter, that remove particulate matter from the raw water. The water enters on the right - you can see the other end of the hose coming form the boost pump - passes through a 20 micron filter and then a 5 micron filter. At this point nothing larger than 5 microns across is going any further. A micron is 0.00004 inches. By comparison, the diameter of the finest human hair is around 17 microns. One of the many things the water maker measures is the pressure drop across the pre-filters. If this is too high then the water maker stops and I have to replace them. The filters are made of some kind of plastic and can be easily washed using my raw water washdown hose. From the feed pump, the now pressurized water is sent to the clark pump and membrane.

Membrane and Clark pump

Here's where all the real work is done. The final filter that turns clear salt water into clear drinking water. The black tube with "Spectra" on the side contains a semipermeable membrane filter. This is the ultra fine filter that allows water through but prevents the salt from passing. This is known as reverse osmosis and requires pressures in excess of 350 psi for salt water. This is where the Clark pump comes in. The Clark pump is a pressure intensifier. Using a sort of leverage system, it uses ~90% of the feed water to increase the pressure of the remaining 10% to the 1000 psi required to force the water through the membrane. The water forced through the membrane returns to the feed pump module for testing. The remainder is discharged overboard. If the water has been desalinated enough, less than 750 parts-per-million of salt, it's sent to the fresh water tanks. Otherwise it goes back to the membrane with more water from the feed pump. You can see the discharge hose leading off to the left. This can be removed and another hose attached that leads into a bucket when servicing. By putting both the discharge hose and the service hose into the same bucket, a closed loop is formed that allows the same liquid to be circulated through the whole system. This is how it can be cleaned or stored. I'm not quite sure why, but the membrane filter gets slowly better at filtering out the salt, so there's always a little lag before fresh water is being made.

Collection point for discharge

Here's a nice picture showing you where all the raw water taken into the system eventually ends up. It's either drinkable, in which case it goes through the blue tube from the feed pump module into the fresh water tank, or it's not, in which case it goes overboard. The large cylinder with all the tubes is a collection vessel that allows drainage from all over the back of the boat to go out of one hole in the back of the boat. The clear tube on the lower right of it is the discharge tube from the membrane filter.

Carbon filter

After the water maker has finished running, there's one last task to be done. A fresh water flush takes place. Sea water has organisms living in it. Sitting at the bottom of the marine food chain, these organisms allow for the amazing variety of life in the sea. If left to themselves and absent the presence of their natural predators - say, if in a nice water maker - they grow. Voraciously. So to minimize this growth, the water maker replaces all the water in the system with fresh water. Water it's just made. 9 gallons of it. So you can see why a larger water maker is better. With smaller water makers, you need to run it for over an hour just to make the water its going to use during the flush. In our case it's the first 30 minutes of water production. The membrane has one deadly enemy. Chlorine. Even the small quantities found in normal tap water will destroy the membrane in a few minutes. To protect the membrane, all the fresh water goes through a carbon filter to remove the chlorine. This filter needs to be replaced every 6 months, hence the date of replacement on the filter case.

Fresh water pumps

These three pumps are the fresh water pumps for Lucky. The two nearest provide pressurized fresh water to all the taps and showers in the boat. When I moved them here (they were originally where the membrane and clark pump are now) I added a third that is used only for the fresh water flush. Thus way I can turn off the fresh water in the boat, relieving the pressure in all those hoses, while still leaving pressure for the fresh water flush. It minimizes the number of potential leaks in the pressurized system when we leave Lucky for any period of time. When Lucky was trucked across the States, only the water maker and this third pump where on. All other systems had been turned off. As delivered, the water maker is programmed for a flush every 5 days. As it turned out, this isn't long enough. When I went to use the system in Bimini, I discovered significant biological fouling in the pre-filters which had spread to the membrane as well. This has caused issues with quality I'll go into in my next post. I need to do something, but in the meantime I've reduced the period of fresh water flushes to 3 days. When we leave for home, I'm going to fill the system with a growth inhibiting storage chemical to prevent this from happening while we're away.

So that's it. Fresh water making as I understand it. The system works well and is easy to operate but, as I have come to discover, it does require more maintenance than the documentation states. Feel free to add any additional information you have in the comments.

Updated route

2009-04-05T12:48:00.002-04:00

I've updated our route in Google Maps to include our passage to Nassau. When I see it on a map like this, I realize just how far we came from Bimini. Yowzars!

Bean Update - She's doing great!

2009-04-03T14:53:00.001-04:00

I've had a few people ask me about Bean's health so I thought I post a quick note. Bean had a vet appointment today and Ghislaine says that the staff are just thrilled and still amazed at her recovery. The little miracle cat! Her heart is stable and she will continue with her heart meds. I really can't express just how grateful I am to Ghislaine for taking such wonderful care of my sweet Bean! :)

Passages

2009-04-01T20:50:00.002-04:00

We are at the Atlantis Marina in Nassau. Its quite the place and we'll be sure to blog about it soon. Stephanie's started calling it Fantasy Island.

We left Fort Lauderdale Sunday and passaged 50 miles to Bimini. Today we left Bimini and passaged over 130 miles to Nassau. Both trips were quite the adventure.

From Fort Lauderdale to Bimini, we travelled south west across the gulf stream. Crossing the stream can be a non-event or it can be a fatal mistake. Our crossing was somewhere in between. Conditions were forecast to be 2 - 4' building to 4 - 6' which were higher than we hoped for but seemed reasonable. Well, we certainly know better now, don't we? Optimistically, we (OK, I) felt that if we left early enough, we'd be across before any building started to take place. Hah! Even though we left at dawn, we hit 2 - 4' almost immediately outside the channel. By the time we were in the Gulf Stream - 15 miles off shore - we were in 4 - 6' waves with the occasional 7 footer to rattle our fillings. It was choppy and we were going into the wind, which meant slamming into the waves head on. It's hard to judge wave size, but their effect is more important. For our crossing, a 4' wave meant a splash of water on the windscreen. A 6' wave was water over the roof and a 7' wave was water everywhere!

We made it to Bimini, but the boat took a beating. We had a few cupboards pop their doors and the door handle to the forward cabin fell off. Clearing customs and immigration was very easy and we got a 12 month cruising permit. So we're set for the whole year!

Today we left for Nassau. We knew this was going to be a long trip. 130 miles at cruise is over 6 hours. Leaving Bimini and heading north along it's west side was easy going. We rounded North Rock and entered the bank. Once we cleared from the lea of Bimini we had head seas of 2 - 4' chop. Not especially comfortable, but we are pretty used to this by now and cruised along. While crossing the Bahama bank to the Northwest Channel, we didn't see many boats but we did hear them. One exchange is worth noting. We were about 6 miles from the channel when we over heard a powercat going east talking to a sailboat going west about conditions in The Tongue of the Ocean. The Tongue of the Ocean is this stretch of water in the middle of the Bahamas that goes as deep as 9,500 feet! The normal entry into the Tongue when heading east is through the Northwest Channel, a relatively narrow - about 5 miles - gap between the rocks of Andros to the south and the shallows of The Berry Islands to the north. Conditions change dramatically when you leave shallow water of 20' and enter the deep stuff. The sailboat reported 6 - 8' swells with a 1' wind chop on top. Steph and I looked at each other. We hadn't got a backup plan - shoot for Chub Cay perhaps? The cats were talking about threading down to Andros and looking for an anchorage that would shelter them from the SW wind. They already had at least one sea sick passenger aboard and weren't having a good time of it, having dropped their speed down to 6 knots to try to lessen the bumping. I got on the radio and established that we were ahead of them by about 6 miles. I told them we were going to poke our nose out and would hail them to let them know the conditions. So we entered the Tongue. I was expecting the NW Channel to be bad, but was pleasantly surprised by the relative calm. We entered the Tongue and conditions were pretty much as the sail boat had reported. There was 6 - 8' seas. They were rollers but spaced closely together - about 8 - 10 seconds apart - with a little chop on top. Having the waves so close together meant I needed to reduce speed down to 12 knots. That two hours to go suddenly became three and a half! I got back on the radio and reported to the power cats. I'm not sure what they decided to do. We, on the other hand, decided to press on. We chose our closest approach to Chub Cay as our "go/no-go" point. That would be in an hour. By the time we got there we had been able to up the speed to 15 knots and decided to press on. It was not comfortable, though better than Sunday's experience. Lucky handled things better down below as well. Either that or we're better at battening down. we lost a clock, a ceiling panel and one of the restraining bolts for the life raft. Not too bad and I see a use for that blue Loctite I got in Fort Lauderdale.

As we approached Nassau Harbor conditions improved and we could both breathe a sigh of relief. You need to get clearance to enter the harbor, so I hailed Harbor Control and gave them our details. One slight hiccup occurred when I was asked for Lucky's documentation number, which was in a folder under the bed in the cabin behind the door whose handle hadn't been put on yet, which had slammed shut and now couldn't be opened. Doh! Fortunately I remembered about putting the number on the floor of the engine room, so could look through the hatch and call off the numbers. Needless to say, the handle is now back on the door!

Tomorrow we're going to refuel, fix the few things that need it and explore Atlantis. Friday we may go into town in search of a cheap, pre-pay Bahamian cell phone. We may even pick up some more baked chips for Steph since she's been mourning the crushed bags since Sunday.

North Bimini

2009-03-31T11:18:00.004-04:00

We've been enjoying our quiet stay in Bimini (there aren't even any shrimp to crackle-pop in the night). There is little to do here but relax and explore. It's nice :)

North Bimini is a long, skinny island, about 7 miles long and 700 feet wide. There is a main road that traverses the length of the island. Since I jog about 5 miles it was a great way to explore. I ran through both towns, Bayley Town and Alice Town and then returned. Bimini is pretty underdeveloped. It's definitely not a "touristy" area. Everyone seems really friendly, almost everyone I passed smiled and said hello. Of course, it may also be that no one here jogs (I didn't see anyone else...) so maybe I was a bit of a novelty :) But everyone at the resort is really friendly too.

The Bimini Bay Resort is huge and located at the very northern end of the island. From what I've seen I think it's the most upscale place here. I think it's been open for about 2 years but it is still largely under construction. It's really beautiful with colorfully painted buildings, 3 restaurants and 2 pools. It seems that it would provide a lot of jobs for the local people. Unfortunately, there's no one here so some of the restaurants are not open or they have limited hours. It's almost eery that there are so few people. Martin and I got a cocktail (the Pain in the Ass is called a Miami Vice here) and walked to the west side of the island/resort to the infinity pool to watch the sun set. We were the only ones there! (See pics of the day...) I can't describe how gorgeous, calm and quiet it was and we were alone! This place is a honeymooners dream...

I don't think that Bimini is a destination location for boaters but more of a stop over between Florida and the rest of the Bahamas. There are 2 marinas at the resort. We're at the far north one and there have been 3-5 boats here on any given day. Most stay a night and then leave. No doubt, the developers of the resort are trying to change that and draw people. With it's proximity to Florida I would think that it's doable but I think they are charging quite a bit for the rooms and with the economy what it is... The marina is pretty reasonably priced. We were offered a golf cart to rent when we got in but we declined - for $90/day we thought we could walk or bike the island! (oh, and the next boat in the marina - right next to us - was offered $70/day (!) but he declined as well.)

We took the tender out for a tour of the area. We headed south along North Bimini to South Bimini. We toodled around the north side of South Bimini and found a waterway that went into the island a bit. This part of the island, from where we were on the water, looked abandoned. Old marinas falling apart, boarded up homes. There were lots of birds (see pics) and it looked like it had once been really lovely. We didn't visit the island proper and I wonder what Port Royal is like on the south side.

The waters around the island are too beautiful. We haven't gotten out to do and snorkeling and unfortunately I don't think we will. We've suffered a big blow - the water maker has broken just as we need it. Martin will blog more about this. He is working away trying to diagnose the problem. If he can, we could order parts to be shipped to Nassau, or we could pick them up in CA when we're back. Water is terribly expensive here (.45/gallon in Bimini and .25/gallon in Nassau) and of course, we can't anchor out for any length of time without a watermaker. Our tank holds 120 gallons. Martin and I go through about 30 gallons/day when we aren't being overly "conservative". So we could probably do 5 days comfortably with no boat washing. If we can't get it fixed before my Mom comes it should be okay too. We will still be able to anchor out for a few days with 3 people.

We're planning on leaving at dawn tomorrow for our 120 mile trip to Nassau. It will be our longest passage by far and should be pretty calm and easy going. The rest of today is for working on the water maker, battening down (with lessons learned...) and making lunch for tomorrows trip... Hopefully we'll be able to walk the island again and catch another gorgeous sunset.

Broadcasting From Bimini!

2009-03-29T14:34:00.001-04:00

We made our first blue water passage! We left this morning at 7:00am even thought the forecast had gotten a bit worse, calling for 4-6 seas for sure, with higher waves in areas of squalls. Our plan was to get the heck out of dodge early before the winds started picking up and the thunder storms were to begin (early afternoon). It took us about 3 hours, door to door.

It is at times like these that you learn things about yourself. I learned that a) I am stoic (meaning I don't shriek) in the face of fear, b) I close my eyes when frightened, even if that means for 30 minutes at a time, and c) I'm thankful that Martin does not close his eyes in 6 foot seas as well! I also learned that you can pee in 3-5 foot seas without killing yourself even though it severely tests the efficacy of seasick pills.

In truth, I don't think the passage was all that bad but also in truth, I was really scared. This part of the learning curve required grappling hooks for me. We hit seas as high as 6 feet and it was "choppy". Martin assures me that I have yet to experience "rollers" or rolling seas. I think it would be nice to roll rather than smack... One in particular was memorable because it hit us "beam side" - meaning at 90 degrees and we then kind of slid down it sideways. I think that's when the air freshener and dish detergent took flight, or maybe that's when the cabinet door came unhinged and spilled it's contents across the floor :) Maybe why the heavy plastic crate tipped over, saved an ill fortune by falling onto our store of potato chips and pretzels? The constant banging also loosened a faucet handle and door handle, both of which we found rolling across the floor. The shower caddie took a dive as did the hand held shower head. Poor Lucky looked ravaged by the time we got in. I think Martin and I only earned a "C-" in Battening the Hatches 201. Well, now we know...and I'm sure we can by chips in the Bahamas, though I don't know that they'll be baked...

The relief I feel is overwhelming. We crossed the golf stream so that big "first" is over.
We are 1/3 of the way to Nassau but it's the toughest third. The winds should die down over the next few days, the banks are shallow and our 2nd leg of the journey shouldn't be bad at all.

We've now checked in at immigration and the marina. Ate lunch. Now there is a pool, thatch-covered chairs and a bar that awaits us...

Arrived!

2009-03-29T12:58:00.002-04:00

We are in Bimini. We'll blog later at greater length but, for now, here are the bare details. We left Fort Lauderdale at 7:15 am and arrived in Bimini at 10:30 am, so not a long passage. It was rough. Rougher then either of us were really expecting. 4 - 6 seas in the stream that hit off our starboard bow. Enough spray was thrown to require the use of the windshield wiper for most of the trip. As we neared Bimini, the seas became rougher, with white caps in evidence, and they came from the starboard side. This made for a pretty wild ride for the last half an hour.

Once we passed into the channel it was easy and we made our way to Bimini Bay resort without incident.

Clearing was exceptionally easy - having the paperwork all filled out before going definitely helped - and we got a 12 month cruising permit.

More later, but for now we both need to go get a drink (or three!)

Sunday?

2009-03-28T20:37:00.003-04:00

We've been compulsive weather watchers for the last few days and tomorrow is looking likely:

SUNDAY

SOUTHWEST WINDS 15 TO 20 KNOTS. NEAR SHORE...SEAS 2 TO 3 FEET. WELL OFFSHORE...SEAS 2 TO 4 FEET BUILDING TO 4 TO 6 FEET. INTRACOASTAL WATERS A MODERATE CHOP. CHANCE OF SHOWERS AND SLIGHT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS.

NOAA is pretty optimistic when it comes to forecasting weather more than a few days out, so those less than 2' seas always seem to transform into 2 - 4 and then 4 - 6 with a small craft advisory the closer it comes. Sunday's weather, on the other hand, has been pretty consistent since Thursday. So we're hoping nothing changes before the next update during the night.

We've "battened down the hatches" and have prepped for an early departure tomorrow. Unless there's a small craft warming in effect, we'll leave at first light - or as soon as we can get up, anyway! If conditions get too sketchy, we'll turn round and come back. The marina here in Ft Lauderdale is prepped. If we're here at 3pm on a day, we get charged for the night. If we're not, they'll check us out and email me the final amount.

We'll have wi-fi in Bimini, so whatever happens, you'll hear it here first!

Holding in Fort Lauderdale

2009-03-28T17:53:00.003-04:00

I can't believe it's been a week since I posted last. We've been in a holding pattern and are now at the point where we are packed and ready to go every night, checking the 10pm then 3am forecast to see if it's safe to leave. NOAA is always overly optimistic and as the time approaches, wind speeds seem to increase along with the seas. Right now we're planning on leaving tomorrow...unless conditions worsen...

We've done a few fun things this week. We went out for a dinner cruise on the Jungle Queen the other night. The Jungle Queen is docked right across the way from us and every day, 3 times a day, we hear the captain talking to the tourists as they leave and the horns as they come and go. So we decided to go for it! You take a 45 minute boat ride north, up the river to an island. There you have a barbque dinner and a short (30 min) talent show (ventriloquist and magician...) It was very sweet and we and we had a good time.

We have a really nice new neighbor at the marina. Andy is from Sausalito, CA and is cruising in his 43 foot Nordhavn. Oh my God, is that a nice boat! He gave us a tour and I melted. The Nordhavn is more of a "ship" than a boat and it's gorgeous. I had to wipe the drool off my chin. I had to post a pic on the pic of the day. Andy is a very experienced sailor and just recently moved over to the trawler (he just got this boat). It's been great talking with him!

The beach has been busy this week too. There is a Christian Hard Rock Concert going on right now across the way so we don't need to play the radio ;) We walked up to take a look and talked with the police there. The other day we went for a walk and there was a bit of mob scene on the beach. Martin (and a few other men) got accosted by a group of kids so we came back to the boat. The police today explained it was a 1/2 day for local high schools and there was a "throw down" planned between rival schools on the beach. It turned into something quite nasty. They said it happens fairly regularly, sigh.

Last night we took the water taxi to downtown and got tickets for the IMAX theatre to see Monsters v. Aliens, in 3D. We enjoyed the movie and then had a really nice dinner downtown. Between buying the tickets and waiting for the movie we had a couple of hours so we walked along the riverwalk to look at boats. We happened by a 43 foot motor cruiser similar to ours with a different set up for their tender and the owners came out while we were looking. Joslyn and Simone are from Montreal and have been cruising the coast. They have long-term cruising plans. We had a wonderful conversation about the pros and cons of different kinds of motor yachts. They are sold on the Nordhavn 43 trawler - exactly like Andy's. They seem like a really fun couple, I wouldn't mind bumping into them again in our travels and getting to spend some time getting to know them! It was fun to find another couple that had a similar idea as ours (long-term cruising though they are longer term than us!) and who also started out in a similar boat.

Interestingly, we were all on the same track that the 43ish foot fast motor yachts make excellent weekend cruisers but for seriously long-term liveaboards, they may not be optimal. The discussions we've been having lately revolve mostly around the pros and cons of displacement speed boats v. planing boats, the comfortability of the types of boats at varying speeds, how well stabilizers work, benies of fore and aft cabins, etc. I'm getting into the boats :) I can't wait to see more as we go along!

Okay, back to battening down the hatches, gently storing the gin and vodka I bought today, doing yet another load of laundry... Maybe we'll be writing you next from Bimini!

Or maybe not

2009-03-26T11:40:00.003-04:00

We were getting a little suspicious last night as, while we made our final preparations for the passage, the wind was still howling.

Low and behold the forecast was updated during the night to conditions unfavorable to crossing. Can you say "Small craft advisory"?

This morning's forecast confirmed we're going nowhere today:

REST OF TODAY

SOUTHEAST WINDS 20 KNOTS. SEAS 3 TO 5 FEET NEARSHORE EXCEPT 5 TO 7 FEET IN THE GULFSTREAM. NORTH SWELL 2 FEET. INTRACOASTAL WATERS CHOPPY IN EXPOSED AREAS. SLIGHT CHANCE OF LIGHT SHOWERS.

It's looking possible for tomorrow:

TONIGHT

SOUTHEAST WINDS AROUND 15 KNOTS. NEAR SHORE...SEAS 2 TO 4 FEET. IN THE GULF STREAM...SEAS 5 TO 7 FEET. NORTHEAST SWELL 2 FEET. INTRACOASTAL WATERS A MODERATE CHOP. SLIGHT CHANCE OF LIGHT SHOWERS.

FRIDAY

SOUTHEAST WINDS 10 TO 15 KNOTS BECOMING 15 TO 20 KNOTS. SEAS 2 TO 4 FEET. NORTHEAST SWELL 2 FEET. INTRACOASTAL WATERS A MODERATE CHOP. SLIGHT CHANCE OF LIGHT SHOWERS.

Of course, there's always the possibility - the more pessimistic would say probability - that this will change. There is a front coming through Sunday and that usually gives a small window just before it passes when the winds veer to the South and then to the west. Then the front passes and the winds come from the north. Right now they're predicting Monday for northerly winds.

So I think we're on "day-by-day" standby. We must be ready each day to go the following day and check the forecast before we leave. Not easy. A lesson in patience for us both.

Tomorrow is the day!

2009-03-25T20:22:00.002-04:00

We're "going for it". We're crossing the gulf stream and going to Bimini.

At least, that's the plan. The NOAA forecast is less than ideal:

SOUTHEAST WINDS 10 TO 15 KNOTS. SEAS 3 TO 5 FEET. NORTH SWELL 2 FEET. INTRACOASTAL WATERS A MODERATE CHOP. SLIGHT CHANCE OF LIGHT SHOWERS.

While we're not happy with the conditions, we're a little under the gun and have decided that it's doable. Our ace in the hole is the fact we can always turn back if the conditions get too much. It's 55nm (about 60 statute miles) "marina-to-marina". So about 50 miles of open water. The gulf stream is about 15 or so miles off shore so we'll get a good feel for conditions well before we're in the middle of it. According to the charting software I use, it's a 3 hour journey, so hopefully we'll be done by lunch.

The marina here in Fort Lauderdale is OK if we come back, so we have our fall back plan in place.

We're going to be staying at the Bimini Bay Resort while in Bimini. It's at the north end of the island at the end of the channel, about 1.5 miles north of Alice Town. We'll be there until Tuesday or Wednesday. We're due at the Marina in Atlantis on Wednesday. We can make it in one (long) day from Bimini. Alternatively, we'll leave a day earlier and spend Tuesday night in Chub Cay at the south end of the Berry Isles. That knocks about 50 miles off the trip. We'll decide based upon how much we like Bimini.

We'll have internet there, so we'll let you all know where we are tomorrow!

Meanwhile, I've filled the tanks with the last free potable water we're going to get (water maker water from now on!), we've stocked up on fresh fruit and are battening down the hatches!

Water emergency resolved!

2009-03-22T11:54:00.002-04:00

Who was it said that you should fix an emergency every day before breakfast? Robert Heinlein probably. It's the kind of thing he writes.

Well, I fixed mine for today. I was sat on the "L-couch" by the helm with Stephanie. She had just got back from her run and was having a drink and finishing up the podcast she was listening to while running. I was having my breakfast prandial cup of tea. We heard a "thump" that sounded like it came from inside the boat. I popped downstairs and heard the water pumps going. Uh oh. Not a good thing. Opening the hatch to the hold I was greeted by a cloud of steam and the sound of running water. Uh oh.

Quickly turning the water pumps off at the breaker panel, we emptied the hold. As it was wet, we had to move everything outside. Once emptied, I could get down there and dry it out and look to see what had happened. Regular readers will remember our shower leak episode. I didn't mention it, but I solved the problem by re-plumbing the shower. Yes, you've guessed it. My repair gave out. One of the hose-to-joint connections had given out on the hot water line, explaining all the steam. I effected a repair, this time using two hose clamps. I'm surmising that the heat from the hot water made the clamp less effective as none of the cold water connection - of which there are many in my water maker installation - have broken loose. Of course, I may not have tightened the hose clamp enough in the first place. There is one other joint in the hot water line, behind the shower fitting, which I'll look at later today and double clamp.

One advantage of having to empty out the hold. I got a good look at all the stuff I've been putting down there. Quite a lot. It needs reorganizing. A job for later this week, I think.

Rainy days in Fort Lauderdale

2009-03-21T13:37:00.002-04:00

I thought I would post a quick update though it's been a very quiet few days. It's been raining (hard) and in a way it's been very nice. We've been staying inside reading, gaming, quilting and relaxing. I think it's especially welcome after the intensity of last week.

We had a lovely evening last Thursday that was very unexpected. There was a party here at the marina, it was a vendor-style party that was set up like a wedding reception. We took advantage of the open bar, got a tour of a beautiful 74-foot Fairline power boat and enjoyed a capoeira demonstration and aerialist performance. We also met and spoke with some other cruisers that are here at the marina.

Yesterday afternoon/evening there was a break in the rain so we turned Lucky around and took off the tender. Then we drove downtown via the river for dinner. It was so nice! We learned that there is a dock master downtown that moves/watches the boats. You tie up and are off... It's so much easier (and safer) than riding the bikes.

We were going to go explore the ICW and the river via tender today but we're waiting out the second rain so far. Tomorrow may be a better day for that. In the meantime, Martin got an antenna for my computer and it's so much easier/faster to surf!

The update on the home front is all good. Ghislaine said that Bean is getting stronger every day, eating well, and has learned how to use the little pet stairs to get up on the bed and couch. George is over his tantrum, sleeping next to Bean and also using the stairs. I'm very happy :)

The gulf stream is high through next Wednesday but the trend is going in the right direction. We're hoping for the end of the week...

Back on the boat

2009-03-18T16:41:00.004-04:00

I left Tuesday night and arrived this morning back to a rainy Fort Lauderdale and a warm Martin. It was really, really hard to leave and say goodbye to Bean & George. Knowing how wonderful Ghislaine is with them made it even possible. It also eases my mind that we'll be back in just a month. George is having a time of it - he's so mad at me he growls. I guess leaving him in January, returning and giving evil-vet-smelly anti-Christ Bean so much attention and then taking him to the vet to boot put him over the edge. Luckily, he has his French Mom whom he adores. I'm sure he'll have forgotten how irritated he is with me by time I return! Bean's recovery continues. She's our little miracle kitty for sure. She can walk, jump, and climb, all very carefully and weakly but without pain and is improving daily. She's using the litter box, has an appetite, fights getting pilled and voices her very strong opinions once again - all good signs that Sweet Bean is back. I have some picks of her on the pic of the day. Looking at them I just can't believe how bad off she was and how quickly she's recovering.

So we're off - NOT! It's rainy and gray in Ft. Lauderdale and the marina in Boca is full so we're staying put til or through the weekend. The 8 to 10 foot seas in the stream might be a bit too much for us. We'll keep watching the weather and at some point head to Miami to await our passage.

Learning to be flexible is an important lesson for both Martin and me on this trip. You can't control the weather, your health, the health of your loved-ones or pets... How bad can it be to be "stuck" on a beautiful boat in Florida for a few weeks? ;-) We're planning on keeping a low profile for the next few days. I'm going to rest up, chill out, start running again and get rid of the hives that mysteriously appeared this weekend. And Martin is just thrilled to have me back, his boat-bachelor days were a bit boring (or so he tells me, it IS spring break in Ft. Lauderdale...)

I think I see a bit of wine and sangria in the future too.

Slam!

2009-03-17T11:43:00.002-04:00

That's the sound of a weather window closing in your face.

A front is moving in today. While it dissipates mid week, it's allowing a region of high pressure to build north of here. This is going to cause strong winds from the north for the rest of the week and over the weekend. Really, really bad news. By Friday NOAA is forecasting rough seas in the gulf stream and a brutal day on Saturday. 9 - 11 feet waves. According to NOAA "waves are expressed in the terms of the significant wave height, the mean or average height of the highest one third of all waves", which means there will be even bigger waves out there. In fact they estimate 1 in 100 waves will be 50% bigger than this estimate. So we're talking big waves out there this weekend.

I'm not sure what we'll be doing yet. Steph and I will talk it over when she gets back tomorrow.

Bean's Progress

2009-03-16T15:19:00.004-04:00

Here is the latest on Bean! It's been a crazy week of up and down emotions and lots of uncertainty but as it stands today, things could not be better with Bean. She has beaten the odds and is on her way to recovery.

To sum it up: Bean got a fever and was then found to have severe heart disease. While at the vet, she threw a clot to her spine. She was paralyzed and in pain. We brought her home and in 3 days she has made an incredible recovery. She is far from out of the woods and not 100% but the clot has dissolved. Her long-term prognosis is still not very good, her heart disease will not improve. But for now, she has a quality life and is a very, very happy cat. And I'm very, very happy too!

Here's what the past few days have looked like:

Sunday: Ghislaine takes Bean to emergency vet. 106 fever, given lots of fluids. No diagnosis

Monday: Goes to regular vet. Fever, fluid in lungs, needs oxygen tent. In critical condition. Viral or infection of heart or pancreas?

pm: Goes to specialty clinic. In oxygen tent, light fluids.

Tuesday: Fever coming down, still needs oxygen, light fluids, spiked glucose. Stable condition. Viral infection?

Wednesday: Fever resolved, glucose spike resolved, very weak. Stable condition but concerning that she still won't eat. Begin force feeding. Viral infection?

Thursday: Fever resolved, paralyzed back legs. Won't eat. Critical condition. Diagnosis: Severe heart disease has thrown clot to the spine. No clue what caused fever. Some chance that clot may dissolve in time. Prognosis extremely poor. Steph comes home.

Friday am: Bean comes home. Very weak, paralyzed. Licked tuna juice but won't eat. Vet not happy we're taking her home. Bean, on the other hand, seemed very happy to be home - purr-baby.

afternoon: Won't eat. Drinking well. Pees on doggy diapers. Purrs lots.
pm: Back legs are warm again. Ate tiny bit. Peed when put in litter box.

Saturday early am: Back legs are moving, able to curl up.

am: Wobble WALKED to corner of room and peed. My bad, didn't have litter box nearby. Licks food, not really eating. Drinking well.

pm: More alert. Ate a tablespoon of food. Try to guess when she needs to pee, she goes when put in litter box.

Late pm: Left downstairs for 5 minutes before being brought up to bed. Was found on stairs. Walked across entire house and up 5 stairs. She had no intention of sleeping downstairs alone at night!

Sunday am: Walking around a bit - not wobble-walk now but old man strut. Stretched back legs weakly. Drank tuna juice. Won't eat.

afternoon: Using litter box on own. Licks food, won't really eat.

pm: Walking a bit. Alert. Won't eat.

Monday am: Bean is hungry! She ate more than a tablespoon of wet and then went for kibble. No pain meds required today. Vet visit. Vet staff can't believe recovery. Bean showed off by jumping onto the couch seat in office! They took the tubes out of her paw. Vet says Bean is one of a very lucky few. Happy, Happy, Happy.

So Ghislaine and I are trying to plan out the next week or so while she gains her strength. She is still weak and can't navigate going down stairs too well and jumping is limited. So we have a kitty condo where she can be kept safe and sound (will post pic when back to FL). Thank you Anne! And we have pet stairs for the bed and couch for when she is ready to use them.

I can't even describe how grateful I am to Ghislaine for taking such good care of my kids and for being so willing to go the extra mile in taking care of Bean! And thanks to all my friends for caring so much, it means A Lot :)

My plan is go back to Fort Lauderdale on a red eye tomorrow night. Unfortunately, I've noticed that George is limping on his back leg, it's subtle but it's there. So we're going to the vet this afternoon. Please let it be a muscle strain... Will report back on George when I know more.

update: just a muscle strain for George we think. Sigh of relief.