February 16, 2009.

Today’s forecast was for west winds at 5 to 10 knots in the morning. It was supposed to build into the teens before a front came through late in the afternoon bringing winds from the north northwest at 15 to 20 knots.

So we all pulled our hooks and set out southward at 0800. As soon as we were clear of the reef strewn approach to the anchorage we had all sail set and we shut the engine off. I figured that we could put up with some light air sailing (read that as slow sailing) for a while since there was the promise of more wind to come later in the day and our planned day was only 40 miles.

When I saw that the other boats in our group were pulling away from us I realized that there was an alternative train of thought on the matter. It seemed that the rest of the group had once again opted to motorsail the entire way. They wanted to get to the next anchorage before the wind picked up, and here I was looking forward to the wind picking up. It never even dawned on me to scurry on my way to get the hook down before the breeze started. Maybe I’m wired wrong, I dunno.

The trip south involved crossing an area of coral heads known as the Yellow Banks. The water on the banks is generally 10 feet deep and some of the scattered coral heads stick up several feet. They don’t break the surface and you can’t really tell a tall one from a short one until you’re upon it, so it’s best to dodge em’ all. This involves having someone stand on the bow and point the way through. Christy actually enjoys this duty so she stood out there for the forty minute trip across the banks. I was glad when it was over, as the banks always make me nervous. Sometimes you’ll dodge one head then another and you’ll find that you’ve put yourself in a spot where you have to go straight over one. Last year when we crossed the banks a sailboat ahead and off to the side of us hit one pretty hard. There was no harm done to the boat, but it still sits there in the back of my mind. One guy’s glancing blow may well be the next guy’s disaster.

We started the day doing about 4 and a half knots and our speed slowly built to 5 and a half by early afternoon. The wind was supposed to keep building but suddenly we found ourselves down to less than 4 knots. This period of time is known as the calm before the storm. We had been beam reaching and now that the wind was petering out, the boat was beginning to roll from side to side as the seas had a bit of a swell and there wasn’t enough breeze to keep the sails full.

I still wasn’t willing to start the engine, so I had to go to the bag of tricks. First, I tied a long preventer from the end of the boom to a cleat at the bow. This immobilized the boom and solved the problem of the mainsail slamming.

If you’ve been following along you might remember that we have a Veranda Racing Products item on board, The Boat Pole of Incredible Speed. I used to use the extended boat pole as a whisker pole in light air to keep the genoa from collapsing. While we were in South Carolina I found an eleven foot long piece of bamboo that I thought would work even better so I grabbed it. I put the bamboo in place and the genoa was held out to where it couldn’t spill any of the air that it caught. So, we picked up three quarters of a knot and stopped both sails from slapping. Life was good again.

I was keeping an eye on an ominus looking wall of clouds that were gaining on us. After an hour or so I decided that I better reduce the amount of sail we had up. I dropped and stowed the main and got rid of the new and improved Bamboo Pole of Speed.

Approximately 15 minutes later the front slowly overtook us. The winds built to a steady 20 knots and we were pretty much running dead downwind. We had to sail off the wind a bit to keep the genoa full but after an hour of sailing at over 7 knots we gibed towards the anchorage. We ran in under headsail alone and when we were about a mile out we realized that we’d better start the engine. Oops, almost forgot.

The anchorage is in the Bahamas Land and Sea Park system so there are moorings available, but there’s also room to anchor if you opt to. When the front overtook us it caught the rest of our group just as they were either anchoring or grabbing mooring balls. From the chatter on the radio it seemed that nobody really enjoyed the experience. From what they were saying, the anchorage was completely exposed to the wind and rollers and was pretty rough.

When we got close enough to see the anchorage I was more than disappointed. All the moored boats were bucking wildly at their respective moorings. We weren’t ready to resign ourselves to several hours of being pounded. Even if the wind clocked to the northeast during the night the northwest swell would still be slamming into the anchorage for hours.

We headed down the coast a bit further and watched as a small catamaran headed into an alternative spot that we were considering. We watched as he dropped his anchor and started thrashing wildly in the rough water. Our options were dwindling when Christy said “Can we hide behind Elbow Cay?”. It was right there, just a mile away, and it runs east and west which would offer great protection so it was off to Elbow Cay.

It was at this moment I decided that we should furl the genoa, probably a mistake. The big sail had held us fairly comfortable as we traveled parallel to the large, close set swells. Once the stability of the genoa was gone we were treated to a very rough and rolly ride down to and around Elbow Cay.

Once on the southern side of the cay the waters surface laid down and became much more doable. We snuck up as close as we dared into the lee of the cay. We dropped the hook in 12 feet of water and put out 120 feet of chain.

The waters surface was smooth but there was a nasty swell coming around the cay. We dampened this uncomfortable side to side rolling motion by attaching our anchor snubber at the starboard bow and stern. This turned the boat broadside to the wind, but facing the swell. The swell is still there, but with the water rolling under the boat from bow to stern it was much less noticeable.

February 15, 2009.

The anchorage at Goat Island turned out to be very pleasant. Once the hook was down Christy and I did a bit of snorkeling, we had a fabulous Mahi Mahi dinner compliments of BiBi, and turned in for the night.

The plan was to be up and underway by 0630. By some twist of freakish fate I was up early and had all the boat systems checked early. We hoisted the mainsail and sailed off the anchor at around 0615.

It seemed that everyone else was a little worried about making our next anchorage before dark. They all motor sailed off over the horizon while we were content to beam reach along at 6 knots under glorious skies. The wind ended up dying at about 1230 so we were forced to start the engine and motor for the last 4 hours of the day.

Since we’d already checked into the country and nobody really needed fuel there was no reason to go through Nassau. Since we were coming from the north we just head straight to Rose Island. Rose Island is due east of Nassau and boasts a wonderful anchorage along its southern shore.

When entering from the north the approach looks to be a little dicey. There are a string of tiny islets that run from the western tip of the island. You have to take the boat through a specific gap and then turn hard to port and hug the southern shore for a mile and a half until you come to the anchorage. Of course, there are no channel markers or anything crazy like that.

We were hugging the shoreline along the south side of the island and heading towards the anchorage. The charts show 12 feet of water along this route. That meant that we had close to 7 feet of gin clear water under our keel. One minute everything was going along nicely and then there was a horrible snapping sound. It turned out to be the sound of my ass slamming shut when I glanced down at the depth sounder and it said we only had a foot and a half under us. It seems that there’s a hundred yard shallow section that’s not reflected on the charts. We made it into the anchorage just fine and cocktails over on Solitaire were never so welcome. Best of all was that Jay on Far Niente had cleaned his Wahoo and had enough fish to give some to everyone.

February 14, 2009.


Happy Valentine’s Day and yes I did remember to buy a card. We were up and underway by 0730 for a 60 mile trip across the Northwest Providence Channel to Great Harbor in the Berries. This channel is kind of like a tributary to the Gulf Stream and can be nasty at times. Fortunately, today was perfect for making the crossing.

It was a little cloudy and cool as we headed out but the day blossomed into a perfect day. The forecast was for light winds dead on the nose so we were expecting to motor all day. The wind ended up being about 25 degrees off the nose so we were able to motor sail. Having the sails up provided a huge boost in speed over ground as we were fighting an adverse current for about half the day.

We were only an hour or two into our day when Di on Far Niente announced that they were having fish for dinner. Jay had hooked and landed a large Wahoo. Shortly afterwards, Jerry on Bi Bi announced that we were all having fish for dinner as he had just landed a 48 inch Mahi Mahi. On Veranda we got plenty of exercise by reeling in one huge clump of seaweed after another……all day.

Today was another one of those days that AIS played a huge role. At one point I was tracking 12 ships on the screen. Even in daylight when you spot one of these big ships it can be very deceiving as to what you’re actually seeing. Throw in several ships of various sizes, various speeds and multiple courses and it can be a bit nerve wracking. Several times crossings went much smoother just because we could see exactly what the huge ships were doing. Even with the AIS one freighter had me a bit worried. He was making 22 knots and approaching from our starboard quarter. We were on intersecting courses and it looked as if it was going to be a close crossing. I ended up hailing him by name on the radio and he immediately replied. I told him I was one of the 5 small sailboats off his port bow and I wanted to know if he was going to be crossing our bow. I didn’t really care how we crossed, I just wanted to be sure somebody on the ship had an eyeball on us. Plus by chatting with him he would realize that I’m a prince of a guy and he would have reservations about running over and killing a prince of a guy. He replied that he was aware of us and would be crossing our bow with a CPA (closest point of approach) of nine tenths of a mile. I know that seems like a good margin, but out on the big ole’ ocean, that’s about the size of a city block.

Our chosen anchorage at Goat Cay had an easy approach and offers decent protection. As soon as the hook was down Christy and I were both in the water. I used the opportunity to scrape some tiny barnacles off the propeller. Then we took the dogs to a nearby deserted beach. Molly and Tucker loved it and spent most of the time running back and forth sans leash.

On our way back to the boat we stopped in to see each of our traveling companions and compare notes on the day. The one thing I noticed that we have in common is that many of us seems to be a bit sunburned. True to his word, Jerry gave us a huge bag of Mahi Mahi fillets when we stopped by. Christy had a recipe ready and served up a fabulous fresh fish dinner.

February 13, 2009.

As they say in the Bahamas, Veranda done reach. We timed our arrival perfectly to coincide with the Lucaya Marina’s 0800 opening. We opted to come to Lucaya as there is a Customs and Immigration office within easy walking distance.

The trip over went fairly well. We were sitting staged at the inlet waiting to go and Far Niente, Solitaire and My Destiny made the 4 mile trip down to the inlet from North Lake Worth. We pulled our hook and fell into place behind them with Calypso dropping in behind us. The crew of Bi Bi were taking naps and overslept and had to really hustle to catch up with the rest of us.

Lake Worth is a crappy place to cross the Gulf Stream if you are headed south to the Exumas. Usually you would like to travel straight east or even a little north as you cross the Stream. But we’ve got to play the cards that we were dealt.

When crossing the stream you can’t just steer a direct line from point A to point B. Normally when departing to cross the stream you pick a target about 20 miles south of where you would actually like to end up. If the rhumb line to your intended destination suggests you will be steering 090 degrees what you’ll end up doing is picking a spot 20 miles south and setting out on that that heading. So instead of steering 090 you might be steering 115 degrees.

This enables you to get south a bit before the stream intercedes and starts to drive you north. Once the stream starts to affect your course you maintain the 115 heading and allow the stream to sweep you northward while you still make progress across it. The worst thing you can do is turn into the Stream in an effort to fight the current. At some point as you cross the stream the speed of the current slows a bit and you once again start to make progress towards your goal.

We started out with 2 strikes against us. Our real destination was to the south of us and we ran into the edge of the Gulf Stream about 2 miles offshore. The first strike meant that we would have to pick a spot 20 miles even further south which had us heading almost directly into the Gulf Stream. This means your boat is slower because of the current so you’re in the stream longer allowing it to have its way with you even longer and you’re making very little progress actually getting across the Stream.

When we got out the inlet we headed south to our chosen spot. The problem was that we started to encounter the Gulf Stream when we were only 2 miles offshore. This slowed us way down and we didn’t getting any of our “southing” done.

It took us an agonizing 4 hours to cover the first fifteen miles. The chartplotter was telling me that at this rate it was going to take us over 30 hours to cover the 82 mile trip. Finally I found a sweet spot and I altered my course to travel more directly across the Stream. The downside was that this allowed the Stream to drive us quickly northward but it did enable us to slip free from its grip a bit quicker.

Finally after about forever we were free of the stream and able to turn onto the correct heading for Lucaya. The side benefit of this was that we were able to shut the engine off and sail for almost 4 hours. The wind predictions were for light winds dead on the nose and we actually got a bit of wind so the trip wasn’t a total waste.

The entrance to Lucaya is somewhat sketchy. The charts put the sea buoy in one position while a pamphlet put out by the marina provided a different latitude & longitude for the mark. We found it and played follow the leader and made our way slowly inside the protected harbor. The harbor is a long winding affair with little room to maneuver but each boat proceeded slowly allowing the boat before it to get their slip assignment and get situated. Things went well and all the boats were tied up by 0845.

The check in with Customs and Immigration went smoothly. We’re planning to move over to the Berry Island chain tomorrow so we spent the day window shopping and getting ourselves re acclimated to the Bahamanian weather and accent.

Lucaya
is a charming little town that is built to cater to the tourist trade. There’s a casino and hundreds of shops and stalls selling local and imported crafts.

February 11, 2009.

We’ve spent a few nights anchored in Lake Worth just waitin’. Christy and I would have preferred to travel a little further south to Miami as it would give us a better angle to the Gulf Stream, but there were bigger things to consider.

The Local Boaters Option or LBO card, as its known. Possessing an LBO card will enable us to re enter the country anywhere along the southern coast of Florida without actually having to show up in person at a Customs & Immigration office. If you remember our entry last year, I thought I might have to bail Christy out of jail, as the Customs “official” was a major league asshole. He was definitely tripping on the power invested in him by the United States government. It was an episode I’d rather not relive so this is where the LBO card comes in. For those lucky people that possess “the” card all it takes is a phone call to customs. I'm surprised that there's not a line of smugglers waiting to get an LBO card. You call em’, report that you’re back in the country and viola, you’re done. That’s it, oh yeah, and it’s free.

The only draw back is that you have to make an appointment to go down and get the card but once issued its good indefinitely. So instead of traveling further south we sat and waited for our Wednesday afternoon appointment with customs. Of course, our appointment was in the same building where the “episode” took place, I figured, what are the chances that we’ll be dealing with the same “official”?

Fortunately, we had a completely different experience this time around. After passing through the metal detector we meekly approached the security glass and rang the bell. I told the officer that responded that we were here to get our LBO cards. He said “do you have an appointment?” I said “yep” and he jumped right on it. The guy couldn’t have been nicer guiding us through the process. I think he was actually pretty impressed with Christy’s organizational skills. Some time ago she took the time to organize all of our boat paperwork into one giant binder. Its all there, documentation, insurance policy, passports, radio licenses, written waste management plan, DAN insurance, birth certificates, state registration and the list goes on and on. He wanted Driver’s Licensees, boom, no problem. Documentation, no problemo. Passports, got em’ right here sir. We were in and out in no time.

After we got back to the boat Christy took care of some internet business while I paid some attention to the anchor windlass. We had to move the boat this morning to an anchorage nearer the customs building and the windlass moved about as fast as a condemned man on his final walk.

We had been on a mooring for almost 2 months in Vero Beach and when we arrived in Lake Worth it was the first time the anchor had been deployed in quite a while. I figured that there had to be some corrosion in the wiring somewhere, so I went about troubleshooting. I found the ground wires connection to the windlass to be a corroded mess, so I redid it. I also found that the wiring on the back of the foot switch was completely rotted so that needed some attention as well.

Now we’re sitting here staring at the clock, waiting to get underway. Its been about 2 weeks since the last weather window for a crossing so there’s a lot of boats scattered around.....waiting. The wind has been cranking here for several days but is due to abate and change to a more favorable direction tonight. We’re going to give the seas an opportunity to lie down and we’ll shove off on Thursday afternoon at 1600 hours. The trip to Lucaya should take about 14 hours so we should be arriving just after dawn. The entrance to Lucaya is fairly narrow and we’ve never been there before so we definitely want to make a daylight approach.

We’re anchored just inside the inlet so as soon as we pull the hook we’ll be out the inlet and into the ocean. The boat on the left in this photo is a typical 40 foot cruising boat the other boat is not so typical. The anchorage here is really filling up and it seems that there are going to be a couple dozen boats leaving at various times during the day. As of right now we’ll be traveling with 4 other boats to Lucaya. A couple of the boats are planning to motor and some are going to give sailing a shot. We’ll just have to see how it all pans out as to how far we get strung out.

February 9, 2009.

We were up and underway at 0700 in an effort to escape Velcro Beach’s grasp.

Our original plan was to stop for the night at Peck Lake. The early start meant that we would arrive there by 1300 hours. Since we were making such good time we decided to keep on going right through to Lake Worth.

At the previous evenings cocktail party we picked up another boat that decided to travel with us. So now its Veranda, Solitaire, Far Niente and Bi Bi. Pronounced Be Be, not bye bye so I’m not really sure what to say say about that that.

Anyway, we had 9 lift bridges to negotiate with most of them opening on request but a few are timed. There were a few that only opened on a rigid schedule so we did spend a bit of time sitting in front of bridges waiting for them to open. It was cloudy early on but turned into a beautiful day.

We had the hook down in the Lake Worth anchorage by 1640 hours. The weather looks like we should have a chance to cross to the Bahamas on Thursday evening. We’ve decided to head across from here, rather than going down to Miami, so we’ll sit here for a few days. Then we’ll move the 4 miles south and stage just inside the inlet so we can pull the hook and head straight out.

February 8, 2009.

We left Vero Beach at 0800 and turned around and headed back 20 minutes later. We had a bit of a problem in the engine room. We had one of those smells that nobody ever wants to smell. When I opened the engine room door there was a lot of steam coming from the exhaust elbow, or so it appeared.

On a boat the “exhaust pipe” is actually made from a heavy duty rubber hose. To keep it and the muffler from melting, engine exhaust gases are mixed with seawater to keep the exhaust system fairly cool. The water is introduced through the exhaust mixing elbow. The average life of these elbows is probably 5 to 7 years as they eventually rust through.

Just before the elbow our engine has a straight piece of pipe about 2 1/2 inches in diameter by 14 inches long. Inside that pipe are uncooled hot exhaust gases. In an effort to keep the pipe from superheating the engine room, its common practice to wrap the pipe in a heavy fiberglass bandage as an insulator. The wrapping looks like an ACE bandage, made from fiberglass or maybe even asbestos, I dunno. Our bandage was evidently wet as it was steaming like crazy. The water had to be coming from the elbow…..or did it.

We went back to the mooring field and once again grabbed a mooring ball. I set about unwrapping the heat shield and instead of finding a rotted elbow, everything looked solid, as it should be. The only explanation that I could come up with was that the section of pipe had been sweating so badly while we were sitting in Vero Beach that it had actually saturated the wrapping. When we started the engine it was just dissipating the condensation as steam.

So after an hour of troubleshooting we slipped our mooring and again headed out, for another 20 minutes, before we once again turned around and headed back. I was starting to sense a disturbing pattern.

This time it was a new smell, accompanied by wisps of smoke from burning oil coming from the engine room. After picking up yet a mooring, I delved into the problem. There was no longer any steam coming from the elbow, this was something else. It turned out that 2 of the 4 bolts that hold the valve cover in place were slightly loose. This allowed a fine trickle of oil to run down onto the hot exhaust manifold resulting in the smoke we were seeing and smelling. This was pretty easily fixed but Christy and I were pretty mentally exhausted from the 2 false starts so we decided to get a fresh start on Sunday morning.

This also worked out pretty well for Solitaire and Far Niente as they both were dealing with annoying problems as well. They had been right behind us as we left the mooring field and returned both times. Solitaire discovered that their bottom and prop had grown quite a collection of barnacles and they were only able to motor at about 4 knots. Jay from Far Niente has been having some issues with his outboard engine.

So we all ended up putting the extra day in Vero to good use. I hopped on the bus and did some running around to NAPA and the hardware store, Solitaire had a diver come and clean their bottom and Jay changed his fuel for the outboard.

As luck would have it there was a cruisers cocktail hour planned for that afternoon. After getting back to the boat I completed my repairs and we went to the party while my repairs were “drying”.

The party was loads of fun with at least 40 people in attendance. Afterwards we went back to the boat and fired her up. I put her in reverse while she was tied to the ball and we ran her at cruising RPM’s for an hour to see how the repair would pan out.

Things looked good so we’ll try to break away from Velcro Beach again in the morning.

February 6, 2009.

Okay, its time to go. We’re finally provisioned and ready to hit the watery trail.

Since we installed the new freezer and refrigerator we have about 4 times the amount of freezer space available to us than we used to have. We already had a shitload more meat in the freezer than we brought last year, but still it wasn’t full. So we went to Publix one final time to try and top off the freezer. Christy was able to snag 8 pounds of chicken, 8 pounds of ground turkey and a huge London Broil. We got back to the boat and vacuum sealed everything and put it all into the freezer with absolutely no room to spare.

I took the jugs up to the gas dock and topped off the diesel tanks and filled all of our gasoline containers. Now all we have to do is hit the dock in the morning to pump out the holding tank and top off the fresh water.

After that we’ll once again be underway. We plan to head about 40 miles south to Peck Lake. The next day we’ll continue on to Lake Worth and the day after that should find us in Fort Lauderdale. Once in Fort La-Ti-Da we’ll take a close look at the weather for a suitable window to cross to the Bahamas.

If nothing looks promising we’re planning to continue another 20 miles to Miami. In Miami there’s a good anchorage where we can sit comfortably and wait for a good weather window.
There’s also easy provisioning so we can replace whatever we use while we wait for weather.

So we will continue to update whenever we can, because Veranda is off for the Bahamas……..

February 2, 2009.

We’ve been pretty busy everyday getting ready to head to the Bahamas. There’s been a bunch of little niggling repairs and the ever present provisioning.

When I installed the watermaker a couple of months ago I never hooked up the electricity. Since we were here in the states I was hesitant to commission the watermaker, so I just didn’t bother. I had all the parts so it was time to get to the electrical portion of the installation. It was only 2 short runs of wire and the installation of a breaker.

The high pressure pump is located under the v berth right next to our bow thruster. The bow thruster uses a huge shot of electricity for very short periods of time. This means that the wires that run from the batteries to the bow thruster are very heavy duty. I decided that since the watermaker also uses a good bit of power that I would piggy back it off the power supply to the bow thruster.

Since I was at it, I decided to remove the fuse block for the bow thruster and change it over to a breaker as well. So after a little bit of creative construction I had a custom bracket to hold the pair of breakers. We are now the masters of creating drinking water where before there was none.

The governor that controls the generator shit the bed again, but I was able to fix it in a few hours. Then there was the gasket on the oven door, sewing covers for the jerry jugs, rebedding stantions to stop leaks, repair of the damage from the Island Packet ramrodding, removal of the ICW mustache from the hull, repair the running lights on the dinghy and the replacement of a hatch gasket on the main cabin. Like I said, it’s just been a parade of little things, but we seem to be in good shape.

Christy finished up the majority of the provisioning today. That was the easy part, putting it away was the chore.
Not having the bikes on board really did free up an amazing amount of space and made things much easier. Just a few random odds and ends and we should be good to go.

It’s not all work and chores though. Jay and Di had us to dinner on Saturday night and then we attended a SuperBowl party on Sunday at Nancy and Jim’s house. It really was a great game and complimented the food and company very nicely.

January 29, 2009.

As you all know we’ve been sitting here, with our plans up in the air for a few weeks, but we’ve made a decision and we are once again, Bahamas bound!

So, the first order of business was to take an inventory of exactly what we have on board. This year we will have to provision for the trip in a week, as opposed to last year where we had months to prepare. It’s not as easy as it sounds, as we have supplies crammed everywhere. The V berth looked as if someone put everything from your garage into a clothes dryer and ran it for an hour. So we spent this afternoon removing everything from the V berth.

Christy had a brainstorm and called Jay from Far Niente to see if we could leave our bicycles in their garage while we’re overseas. Jay said “no problem”, so I put the bikes up in the cockpit so we could really see what kind of room we’d have available. Once everything was cataloged and restowed things looked much better. We try really hard to keep a running inventory of all the spaces that we have for storage. We keep an ever changing list of what’s where. Each locker, shelf, cubby, bin, hanging hammock, bilge and various nooks & crannies (which are not much bigger than an English Muffins) has a list of contents. You wouldn’t think that it would be that hard to locate anything on a 42ft boat, but let me tell you……

Christy spent the better part of the day emptying every locker. She inventoried canned goods, paper towels, tooth paste, engine oil, pretty much everything. While she was busy at that, I ran to West Marine to pick up a few last minute items. We also received a few of the things that we’ve ordered through the mail.




On my way back from the store I stopped to take a few pictures of these pelicans chasing some dolphins. When I went up to the marina to catch the bus I saw them and they were still at it when I got back an hour later. The dolphins were swimming in lazy circles and it seemed that they were antagonizing the pelicans who reacted by chasing after them. They even took off and flew just a dozen feet or so and plunged into the water in an attempt to “get” them. The dolphins would in turn circle back under the pelicans and “goose” them into the air again and again.

January 24, 2009.

It seems that we’ve survived another Florida cold snap. Thank god because I don’t know if I could take another night sleeping with the dogs. Its like sleeping in a running clothes dryer full of hammers. Little feet and elbows everywhere.

We’ve had some questions about what we eat while we’re living on the boat. Living on a boat doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to make big sacrifices in the food department. Well, I guess it would depend on the boat, but we enjoy most of the modern conveniences that land folk do. We have a refrigerator and freezer, a microwave, a 3 burner stove and oven, a toaster oven and a BBQ grill. The biggest difference is that all our “conveniences” are pretty much dollhouse size. It takes a little getting used to but really, we eat the same types of meals as we did on land.

The weather was warm enough today that while we were walking to the open air Farmers market we were down to shorts and T shirts again. The vegetable market is about a 1 mile walk out towards the ocean. The selection was great and we picked up corn on the cob, green peppers, green beans, lemons, snow peas, broccoli, limes, scallions, mangoes and a cucumber. Evidently, at one of the stands they let one of the Mexican guys write the signs.

Speaking of food, the other night when Christy was going to grill some chicken breasts it was so cold she decided to bake them in the oven to help heat the boat. Dinner made both my tummy and my toes happy.

Tonight we had some grilled salmon with rice and a vegetable medley after a first course of steamers. So we’re once again warm and as always, eating well. Bon Appetit!

January 22, 2009.

The last time I wrote I mentioned that we were also being affected by this cold air mass hovering over much of the country. Last night the temperature plummeted to about 32° outside. The temperature inside the enclosure seems to stay several degrees warmer than that even at night. The lowest temp I saw inside the enclosure was about 38°.

So, with this round of low temps that meant that everyone on board would be spending the night below decks. Molly and Tucker usually spend the night topside unless the temperature is going to drop below 55°. So along with Molly and Tucker, boat plant Bob and the Five Spices were brought below for the night.

We lit the Candle of Warmth along with the Lantern of Incredible Balminess and watched in horror as the thermometer continued to drop. In a last ditch effort to keep from getting frostbite, I put on my pair of socks. I only have one pair of socks on the boat so when Christy saw them come out of the drawer she knew it was serious. Sock Time, it’s a lot like Hammer Time but without the entourage and the ridiculous pants. (<~obscure MC Hammer reference)

Since we’re not on a dock, connected to shore power, that means that we have no heat. We could run the generator to run an electrical heater but running the generator all night is out of the question. We did have a portable heater that ran on a one pound bottle of propane. A lot of boats have them and swear by them. The bottle only lasts for about 4 hours but it’s good enough to heat up the boat and get you through the night. We HAD one. I happened to walk past ours and spotted flames shooting up from the adjustment knob so we returned it to Home Depot the next day. Having a small uninvited fire breaking out on the boat was enough to cure us of wanting another Mr. Heater, Lil’ Buddy portable boat heater on board.

We knew that it would be really cold so we let the dogs sleep with us in the aft cabin instead of on their bed in the salon. In the past we’ve tried to cover them up but they end up with no covers, shivering uncontrollably. They can’t seem to grasp the whole concept of “covers good, cold bad”. So we tucked em’ in with us and they stayed warm all night in spite of the temperature dropping to 46° inside the boat.

The sun was brilliant once daybreak arrived. Immediately the temperature inside the cockpit started to climb, eventually making it into the seventies. Boat Plant Bob and the Five Spices spent the day basking in the sun along with the rest of us.

We have one more night of cold temperatures and then were supposed to have a warming trend. So I guess tonight will be a lot like last night but maybe just a bit warmer, maybe?

We were treated to a glorious sunset looking out over the mooring field.

January 20, 2009.

Yes, we’re still here in Vero Beach. We got the last of the results back from our various doctor’s examinations this morning. Everything looks good so now we can reexamine our itinerary for the immediate future. We were beginning to feel as if we might become permanent residents here.

I called Barrack today to congratulate him on the whole inauguration thing. He was pleased to hear from me and made sure to tell me that he would see to it personally that my retirement funds would stop shrinking and once again become the pillow of comfort that I had grown accustomed too. I just hope it happens before I turn 90. He had to get off the phone rather quickly as he said he had to help Joe get Mrs. Biden out of the punchbowl before she starts blabbing to Oprah again.

The brutal cold snap that has enveloped most of the country has reached us here in Vero as well. The sun was out today and it was warm enough but the temperature is supposed to dip to about 32 degrees for the next few nights.

Last night we attended a party held at Jay and Di’s house. It seems that Nancy has a knack for putting together themed parties and The Far Nientes offered to host. It was a Key West theme party. Everyone who attended had been sent an email invitation with a list of ingredients to bring.

Upon arrival you picked from a hat to determine what job was yours for each course. The job choices were Host, this job seemed to be the best as you got to sit on your ass and pretty much schmooze with everyone. Another job was Bartender, which meant that you made any and all drinks and made sure nobody went dry. Next was Wait Staff, you set the table, filled the plates, served the food and washed the dishes. The fourth job of course was Chef, that’s right, if you drew Chef, you were cookin’.

So for the appetizer course, I drew Chef while Christy drew Bartender. Fortunately, for all involved the teams were set up to be boy / girl. Tessa drew the job as my co Chef. That worked out pretty well because she’s actually cooked a meal before so that gave us a huge momentum boost in the kitchen.

The appetizer on the night’s menu was Cajun Jerked Shrimp. When you pulled your job from the hat the recipe for your entrée was provided along with instructions. So, I dumped the seasoning into a large bag of shrimp, shook it up and then placed the shrimp on skewers, then I took the skewers out to the grill while Tessa started to make the “goo” for dipping. While we were slaving away in the kitchen everyone else really seemed to be enjoying themselves. Once the shrimp were grilled and the goo was ready, the food was served. No, not by Tessa or I, we had staff for that. The Wait Staff took over and served up the shrimp, the Bartender kept the glasses full and things went great and the Hosts seemed happy.

While the Wait Staff cleaned up the dishes, jobs were drawn for the main course. This time I drew Chef, again, damn. Luckily, along with the job assignment we were provided with the recipe once again. This time Christy was the fortunate one who drew the job as co Chef. The entrée was baked Mahi Mahi smothered in lemons, oranges and onions served on a bed of rice.

Simultaneously the Salad Chefs prepared a large mixed green salad that was a huge hit. In spite of the crowd in the kitchen, as the Wait Staff washed dishes and the Bartenders worked furiously the meal was perfection personified.

After dinner was completed, the dessert jobs were drawn. This time I drew Bartender, YES, a job I feel comfortable in. It was pretty easy too as it seemed that while I’d been slaving away in the kitchen the rest of them had been hittin’ the bottle pretty good. Just top up this, refill that, it was smooth sailing. I might have hit it a bit myself because for the life of me I can’t remember who the dessert Chefs were. The dessert on the other hand, I’ll never forget. A wedge of Angel food cake surrounded by coconut sorbet, lemon sherbet, fresh papaya, fresh mango, fresh kiwi and pineapple slices.

It turned out to be a great night full of laughter, food, friends and fun.

January 12, 2009.

I spent the morning jugging some water back to the boat. Then we went down to the local pub so I could watch the Giants throw the season away. It wasn’t as disappointing as I thought it might be, and now I have next Sunday open. Stupid football.

As I’m sure you know, we do an awful lot of reading here on the boat. I’ve been reading “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. The eldest girlchild gave it to me for Christmas and I’ve just gotten to it. The title sounded interesting so I was looking forward to it. It turns out that by the History of Everything the guy is talking about the freaking universe, including our planet, the stars, galaxies and all the space in between. Don’t let me get started on quarks and the fabric of time. It’s a damn science book that’s evidently been written by the king of the nerds.

The first thirty pages of this book almost killed me. It might be the driest, dullest thing I’ve ever attempted to read. It’s as painful to read as if I had sand in my eyes. By the time I got to page 60 I was hoping for an aneurism.

Then a funny thing happened, I can’t put it down. No, I didn’t have a stroke. It’s actually been pretty thought provoking. It’s the first book that I’ve ever read that I’ve stopped reading to interrupt Christy in whatever she’s doing and said “Did you know…….?” It’s turning out to be a great book and I highly recommend it. You’ll love it, as long as you don’t kill yourself trying to get through the first few chapters.

On a much lighter note. There’s a guy down at the far end of the anchorage that rows his dinghy back and forth every day. Today there was a light breeze from a favorable direction so he popped open an umbrella. He used one of his oars as a rudder and sailed the length of the anchorage with surprising speed. Kinda Mary Poppins goes cruising.

January 7, 2009.

Its been a few days of routine maintenance for us among other things.

The other day Jay asked if I would mind being hauled to the top of his mast to reinstall his anemometer (wind speed thingy). Its kinda funny but when I was a kid I hated heights. I worked as a carpenter for a few years and my feet used to ache when I got down off a roof. My feet actually had cramps from my toes trying to dig through my boots in an effort to get a better grip on the roof.

Anyway, now it doesn’t bother me anymore so up I went. The reinstallation was straight forward and was over quickly so I used the opportunity to take some pictures of the anchorage from the top of the mast.
As you can see from the photos most of the boats really rely on solar power to keep things running.

Today while Christy went to shore and did laundry I went about the business of changing fluids. I changed the engine oil, the transmission fluid and the oil in the generator. After I was done I picked Christy and the clean laundry up. After a quick lunch we were going to hop on the bus to take care of a quick errand but something came up.

The weather. Luckily we checked the weather radar before we left the boat. There was a really nasty line squall headed our way. It looked ominous on the radar and the text forecast was babbling on about possible 50 knot winds. Since we’re rafted up to two other boats on a single mooring we thought that we should stick around just to make sure things went okay.

When the wind first hit the boats were all facing southwest. In an instant we were all facing northwest. The initial gusts were so violent that all three boats heeled so far to port that our fenders popped out from between the boats. I had just enough time to reset all the fenders before the rain came.






The wind and rain only lasted a half hour or so and after that the sun popped back out and things went back to normal. We did see a gust of 45 knots but for the most part the wind was between 20 to 25 knots so all in all it wasn’t so bad.

January 2, 2009.

First off, Happy New Year everyone. Things are going along nicely here in Vero Beach.

Jay and Di picked us up and we all went down to a huge marine salvage shop. It was mostly geared towards powerboats but a lot of the items they had crossed over and were of interest to us sailors.

The place was comprised of 2 huge warehouse like buildings connected together with another acre of larger parts located outside. We’ve been to a couple of really cool places like this before but this place put them all to shame.


There was aisle after aisle of gauges, water and fuel tanks, hatches, hardware, bimini frames and sunbrella. There was just so much to look at we spent at least an hour wandering around.

We decided to celebrate our News Years Eve in a little bit of an unorthodox fashion. We met up with Jay & Di from Far Niente and Jeff & Tessa from Inamorata at the Riverside at 1800 hours. The Riverside Café is a great waterfront pub that we can easily dinghy to, but the whole staying up until midnight thing was going to be a problem though. We’re just never up that late so we decided to do things a little differently. Instead of celebrating midnight Eastern Standard Time we opted to have our toast at Greenwich Mean Time. That meant that midnight was at 1900 hours EST, perfect. Celebrating New Years on Zulu time had us on our way home just after 2100 hours. Personally I think it’s a habit that all sailors should adopt.

Once back on the boat I settled in to do a little reading and Christy headed off to bed. Just as I was about to turn in the VHF came to life. A vessel broadcast a Pan Pan. A pan pan (Pronounced Pon Pon) is the second most serious of the three safety notices that you might hear on the VHF.

The first and least serious is a Security call. (pronounced securi-tay) You might broadcast a Security Call if you were in a narrow area with a bad current and you wanted to tell other boats that you were about to transit the area. This way if there was a tug and barge about to enter this tight spot from the other direction then he would be aware of your presence. That way he could speed up and get there while you’re still in the tight spot and scare the hell out of you. At least that’s the way it often seems.

The third and most serious call is the Mayday call. (pronounced helppp!!!) You only use mayday if you’re in imminent danger such as fire, sinking, heart attack onboard, etc. You need help….NOW. You broadcast a mayday and everything stops and everyone listens in case they’re in a position to help. We’ve heard mayday calls that have mobilized Navy and multiple Coast Guard assets.

On this night however I heard the following. “Pan Pan, Pan Pan, Pan Pan…. hello all stations this is the good ship Carnival Sensations starting man overboard maneuvers at position yada, yada, yada.” That was it, just one time and the guy was calm as hell. The guy didn’t say it was a drill or practice he just said that they were starting man overboard maneuvers. About 3 minutes later the Coast Guard called him and asked him if it was a drill or did they really have somebody fall in the water. The guy answered that they did indeed have a crew member fall off the boat and it was not a drill.

The Coast Guard asked a bunch of questions and learned that a 26 year old member of the ships entertainment had fallen off the boat. There were a half dozen people that saw him fall and one had the brains to throw a life ring over the side. The radio exchange was agonizingly slow and was on the verge of putting me to sleep.

I finally went to bed and found the incident on the internet the next morning. The Coast Guard had sent a small plane, a helicopter and at least one boat to search the area. Since the incident had happened 21 miles offshore they were looking north of where he had fallen because the edge of the Gulf Stream was right there.

I read somewhere that this was the seventh person to fall off a cruise ship this year. Kind of hard to believe that so many people fall off those big ships. This guy fell over 80 feet to the water. Hitting the water from that height would be pretty violent so I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t drown even before the ship turned back for him. They Coast Guard looked all the following day and nothing was found.