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AND SO IT IS CHRISTMAS

12/24/2014

Posted by Monty

This our 11th day here at Boot Key Harbor. We have managed to find our way around pretty well, and are getting settled in.

Of course, something broke. In addition to the bilge pump project and the starter bendix project, the charge controller on the solar panel went out, taking our house bank of batteries with it. I guess the diode that keeps the batteries from discharging through the solar panel at night failed. It took a couple of days for me to figure out what was going on, and by the time I realized what the culprit was it had discharged the batteries down past the point of no return.

Astute followers will remember these were the batteries we just replaced in Beaufort, SC, less than 60 days ago. I never could get a very good charge on them from the beginning, and really feel they should not have failed even with the slight abuse I gave them. I bought a hydrometer (a device that measures specific gravity in the battery acid) to test them, thinking maybe a single cell had gone out in one of the batteries and we could take it out of the circuit and run on the other one. To my astonishment, all 12 cells showed absolute zero charge. I suspected my tool at first, but a check of my starting battery proved the tool was working correctly. An email to Deka, the manufacturer, goes unanswered to this day. So much for cheap batteries.

As we were out doing our morning walk, I noticed a local business that specialized in electrical and refrigeration on boats and homes. A quick discussion with the extremely knowledgeable owner of SALT (Sea Air Land Technologies) reinforced my diagnosis of the problem. In addition, it turns out he had some very gently used AGM (absorbed glass mat) batteries at a price that was very good. After a trip back to the boat for measurements, we became the proud owners of said batteries. After installing them, and on our second night, they are performing flawlessly. I have ordered a new charge controller, and am unhooking the solar panel at night until it arrives and can be installed.

Carol is learning to single hand the dinghy. I am now a passenger in our trips to shore. She has not soloed yet, but that first flight is imminent.

And so, it is Christmas Eve.

Longtime friends and family know that I have struggled with this holiday for many years. I have railed about the commercialization of it all, and how no one (at least very few) seem to remember what the holiday is really about. The retail industry (of which I was recently a part) drives the season starting earlier every year (even before Halloween). I participated reluctantly in it.

This year, all that went away.

You can't get much simpler than this when it comes to Christmas decorations. The stress from flailing about to get ready for the event and all of the planning and organizing that accompanied it is totally absent this year. To my surprise, I have mixed feelings about that.

I do miss the family. Parents, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters and friends. In the end, that is all we really have, and if we are still out here next year, maybe we will make different plans. So to all of my friends and family we wish you a Merry Christmas from the sunny Keys.

It's been a heck of a year. Freezing January weather on the boat that sunk, not allowing that to sink our plans as well, the refit of Sea Bird, our first journey, more cold, and finally warmth and sunshine. My core temperature has finally risen past critical mass so that I am no longer afraid of a little cooling trend.

And maybe, just maybe, my Scrooge heart is thawing. Just a little.

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MARATHON (NOT A RACE)

12/18/2014

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Posted by Monty

Carol's log notes state we departed Rodriguez Key on 12/13/14 at 7:30 am with temperatures of 56 degrees. Seas were choppy at 3-5 feet. We motored and motor sailed down the Hawk Channel 45 miles and pulled into Boot Key Harbor around 4:00. Another cold day, mostly because of the wind, and my internal core temperature that has steadily been decreasing since we left Vero Beach. We picked up a mooring ball and took the dinghy into the office to check in.

The entrance to Boot Key Harbour

The mooring field

While we were getting settled with the office, we learned the Christmas Boat Parade was that very night, and going by our mooring. So we got squared away and watched the parade. It was awesome, but the pictures I took from a swaying deck were not.

This was the best of the lot. I will not subject you to the rest.

I feel like we have, at last, arrived. This place is so agreeable. We did have to wait out a couple days of chillier weather, but even so I ditched the long pants. For the past few days the high temperatures have been in the mid seventies and lows in the mid sixties. The tropical sun during the day keeps you plenty warm enough, and should you begin to overheat, a couple of minutes in the shade with the (north, of course) wind will cool you off sufficiently. Nights are excellent sleeping weather.

I have been doing a couple of boat projects. Bearings from NAPA (to repair a frozen bilge pump(remember the boat that sunk? I'm kind of freakish about working bilge pumps.)) are a bit of a challenge when NAPA is not within walking distance. They deliver to the marina at no charge, but the counter guy on the phone could not cross reference the part numbers on the old bearings. "Why don't you just bring them in and I'll match them up for you." OK, no problem. So it was bus time.

After studying the routes, I thought I had it. I'm a relatively intelligent person, right? I took the bearings and set out on the dinghy. Landing the dinghy and walking up to the bus stop (Carol had elected to forgo this adventure), I was encouraged by the presence of a few locals sitting under the shelter having a few beers and waiting on the bus. After some engaging conversation, sure enough, the bus pulled up. None of the locals got on. Hummm...

Nonetheless, after purchasing my day pass from the driver and telling him my destination, he dutifully dropped me off in front of the local NAPA store. They were able to match two of the bearings but the other one, of course, had to be ordered. Thankfully, they agreed to deliver it to the marina the next day.

Coming out of the store, I noticed the Marathon Welcome Center next door. Worried about my interpretation of the bus schedule, and seeing no bus stop sign, I went in and was assured by the nice lady behind the counter that the bus would stop, in approximately 20 minutes, at "that corner". At the appropriate time, sure enough, the bus came around the corner. I stood up, picked up my bags, and presented myself at the curb in my best "can I get on the bus?" attitude.

The bus blew by me without even slowing down. I could hear the turbo on the diesel spinning up. Hummm....

Calling Carol and getting the name of the local taxi service given to us by the helpful people at the marina during check in, I called Bob Narley Taxi. (Yes, really. Bob Narley.) "No problem, mon," said the voice on the other end of the phone. Minutes later, I was picked up and whisked back to the marina in a very efficient and relatively cost effective manner. Bus schedules aside, evidently I don't look like a customer.

Since then, we have been doing a lot of exploring, via dinghy and on foot. There are a few good restaurants nearby. The grocery store and Home Depot are within walking distance (no, Lowes is not). We took the dinghy out to a beach that looks very nice. West Marine is handy. We want to go to Sombrero Reef (a state park) to snorkel. We'll get to Key West for a day (more bus adventures?). Meantime, it just feels good to not be on the move.

I have started storing my hat on top of the covered radar display. This freaks Carol out, as she thinks it looks like something masked from a horror movie.

All sizes of boats are on the mooring balls around here.

Every once in a while, people come sailing through the mooring field.

Pretty cool, really.

And the sunsets are amazing. Someone blows a Conch Shell horn every day when the sun disappears. Again, pretty cool.

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WRITTEN IN THE SAND (AT LOW TIDE)

12/12/2014

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Posted by Monty

Plans. You write 'em and then the tide comes in...

So we decided not to go home for Christmas. Too many logistics. We would have to go back north to Titusville to find a place to put the boat. Three weeks of no progress towards warm weather. A decent piece of change, by the time all is said and done. And in our world, money really does equal time.

So we changed plans. We decided to make posthaste for Boot Key and Marathon. Where (it is said) the weather is always warm, the water is clear, and the sunsets are the biggest draw of the day.

Lets get up to speed.

12/4/14
Vero Beach was crowded, with most boats on mooring balls, and some rafted two and three to a ball. This allows more boats to be packed into the available space. We left and motored down the waterway in gusty conditions to Port St, Lucie and up the Okeechobee River and anchored in Hogg Cove. I chose this spot to get us out of the wind, still coming from the north. Spent a peaceful night in front of some very nice homes, sharing the anchorage with only one other boat.

12/5/14
Up anchor around 8:30 after breakfast and went down to North Palm Beach and anchored in Lake Worth. This is a very popular place to stage for crossing over to the Bahamas. Just north of the Ft. Pierce inlet, the lake is surrounded by high end homes and condos, as well as marinas stocked with very large boats. We landed the dinghy beside a bridge and walked the block to Publix where we provisioned. We waited here for the weather offshore to settle, as the next stretch of the waterway has approx. 22 opening bridges we would have had to go through. Offshore, the waves were being whipped into a frenzy by a northerly front coming through.

12/7/14
The weather finally calmed down enough so we could get out into the ocean for the trip down to Port Everglades (Ft. Lauderdale). Once we started we were committed, as there really is no other good place to duck back in from the ocean. Although the winds were still from the North, we had a pretty good trip down. We went out past the three mile line so we could empty the holding tank, and I noticed the farther out we got, the rougher the waves were and (more importantly) the more our SOG (Speed Over Ground) dropped. We were doing six knots through the water and only four and a half over ground. As I eased closer to shore our SOG increased. It turns out the Gulf Stream is only about six miles from shore in this area. As it flows north, we were beginning to see the effect.

We did manage to crank out some canvas. As we were going south, the NORTH wind gave us a little extra push into Ft Lauderdale.

It was Sunday afternoon, and everyone was coming back in. And waiting for the 17th Street Bridge to open. It was...crowded. We had to reset anchor in Lake Sylvia three times before I was satisfied the anchor was set and we were not too close to other boats. Lake Sylvia is another popular place to stage for a crossing to the Bahamas. It is unusually crowded this year with people waiting for the NORTH WIND to subside.

12/11/14
After three nights, again waiting on weather, we left for No Name Harbor on the south side of Miami. This is mandatory offshore passage for us, as there is a bridge just north of Miami that we cannot get under as we are too tall. After crossing Biscayne Bay for fuel and a pump out (something we were unable to arrange in Ft Lauderdale) we dropped the hook outside of No Name as it was too crowded with people waiting for any wind OTHER than from the NORTH so they can cross over to the Bahamas. We had a somewhat rocky night due to passing boat wakes, but managed to sleep well.

Today we left and went down the Hawk Channel to Rodriguez Key, where we carefully anchored on the south side so we would be sheltered from the predicted 15 to 20 mph NORTH WIND that is supposed to arrive tonight around 9:00. If all goes well, we should make Marathon tomorrow.

We plan to stay a month or more there, exploring the area and Key West. Snorkeling should be good, I need to do a little boat work, and it will be fun to have a "home base". Carol is tired of constantly being in "travel mode" and, to tell the truth, this road warrior is a little weary as well. The weather is due to moderate over the next week, so maybe I can reacquaint myself with my flip flops. Heck, maybe we will see winds from...dare I say it?...the south!

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VERO BEACH

12/1/2014

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Posted by Monty

This place is really nice. Really.

We got here around 2:00pm yesterday to sunny skies and 72 degrees. We threaded our way through the well protected harbor where the boats were rafted up on mooring balls two and three apiece. Instead of joining the horde, we anchored just north of the mooring field in about 7.5 feet of water. We launched the dinghy and checked in with the office at the marina, just to get the skinny. (As we were anchored the marina has no authority, but we have no access to facilities. That’s fine, we were still making plans as to length of stay, etc.) It turns out there is no room here to leave the boat for the time we will be home for the Christmas holidays, so we returned to the boat to formulate a plan. Much research and many phone calls later, we determined that the whole south of Florida was reserved this year. We decided to return to Titusville, and made reservations there for the time we will be away. Logistically it’s probably the best choice anyway, given its geographical location to the airport we will be leaving from.

Having put that behind us and deciding to spend a few days here, we loaded back into the dinghy and motored over to the Riverside Café for lunch. It’s a neat little place right beside the marina with a dock where we tied the dinghy. After that it was back to the boat for a sound night’s sleep, punctuated with a shower towards morning.

Today we paid the requisite fee to the marina and were granted use of the facilities, including the dinghy dock. We then caught the bus into town. It picks you up right at the dinghy dock and is free. (Not only for the marina, but for the entire system, I believe.) We went to a shopping center that included, among other things, a West Marine and Publix, where we provisioned. We also had some excellent Chinese food for lunch. After schlepping our stuff back to the marina, loading it on the dinghy, and packing it onto the boat, we spent the rest of the day relaxing and reading. Showers moved in but the temperatures remained moderate, and Carol wore flip flops for the first time in a long while.

I can’t plan that well.

As we were leaving the boat I realized I had on boat shoes, after all. Oh well.

I intended to, really.

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AND SO IT IS CHRISTMAS

MARATHON (NOT A RACE)

WRITTEN IN THE SAND (AT LOW TIDE)

VERO BEACH

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