Catching up with posts time

Been having a few months of 'how can I clone myself so I can be 5 places at once' experience.

Then I realized the world couldn't handle 5 of me and I gots to stop over thinking everything.

So, here come some updates, not necessarily in chronological order, but in the order I can find the relevant information.  ;-P

So a few weeks ago, our piling finally got replaced, yay us!  Lessee, only six months after the hurricane.

They squeezed in a mighty big barge to do it.

Now we'll have to get the boat over their to add a hook to drape dock lines.  (Accessories not included.)

The Hunsinger Guide to Grounding your Boat

If ya gonna do it....own it.

We have always been well aware of the vagaries of our channel, narrow, shallow and unforgiving.
There's the main channel, and then it branches off to our channel and the commerical marina. That's when it gets weird.

And our channel is not marked well at all, in fact I did find an older chart that proves that it is missing a very important ATON.

However, one of the reasons we chose our Southerly is because we did like the variable keel and grounding plate aspect. Because we are doing some serious skinny water sailing here. Oh, and hurricane, yeah, that thing, rearranging the bottom and such.

So, what went wrong. I was at the helm, and I am mad at myself for some seriously rookie mistakes.
To sum it up: I WAS AT THE HELM. I HAD THE INFORMATION, I NEEDED TO BE IN CHARGE.

But, nope, this time I thought I'd be a team player.  So, Tim, who usually is NOT on the deck was a bit freaked out because since we approached from a different way and since he was on the deck, it all looked very unfamiliar to him.

He keeps calling out, slow down, keel up you are going the wrong way.  I did tell him that it would be fine, just keep a hand for the boat.  But he insisted, and since I am not always the best team player, I thought--well maybe he sees something I don't.

So, I slowed TOO far down (I own that one) and keel was too far up and big old blue baby is now at the whims of the breeze, wave action and current which are all currently on the beam.

And she went sideways, in a hurry, and we went from 10 feet of water to 3 feet of water..just...like...that.

Tim is stubborn at the best of times, and he thought he could get us off.  It took him a bit to realize that I had called it--time to involve TowBoat US.

At one point, we could have had it, but Tim didn't have faith when I said keep backing up.  For some reason he had got really disoriented at this point of what was where (and why I harp to study your charts constantly).

So, game plan in place.  We bicker alot, but when it comes time to put emergency plan in motion we got each other's back (not that this was an emergency, but the tide was rising and we would have been pushed deeper into shallows, it wasn't going to rise enough for us to get off ourselves until 11pm that night).

So, Tim calls TowBoat US and I drop our anchor, we tried to swing it out, but awkward and heavy.  I did suggest that one of us (Tim) walk the anchor out until about 5 feet of water and we could possibly pull ourselves off, but Tim wasn't getting into the water and I wasn't sure I could get our heavy ass anchor/chain set in.  Both of us really wished we had a dinghy, we could have pulled ourselves off.

So, we waited about 30 minutes for our rescue, which doesn't look bad because we don't heel over when grounded, we just sit flat bottomed.  (Cue in Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls--our grounding theme song now)

After our tow showed up it was get the bridle on and we slid back into deep water like we were on greased skids.  He pulled us for a little bit I think to help rinse off any sand in our prop and rudder and followed us back in for the paper work. 

Long story short--from here on out more communication before we reach the channel.  Whomever is at the helm will need to let the other crew member know what their plans for approach are.  EVERYBODY needs to understand what is going on so there is no 'you are going the wrong way' assumptions. Make sure you are not TOO throttled down.

Last but not least....make sure your tow insurance is paid up.  :-)

New additions to the Hunsinger boat rulebook

1.  From here on out, we shall NEVER let somebody sight unseen handle our boat, move our boat, look funny at our boat.  Never.

Our boat needed to be moved to have the generator replaced and a boat captain (supposedly from Boat US) moved it for us.  They were also SUPPOSED to contact Tim and have a chit chat with him about the boat. Nope,  and evidently said Capt. and/or crew didn’t go to “how to tie off a boat” school because when I got to the boat last night I almost didn’t have a way on.

High tide and the boat is three feet from the dock.  I am tall, but come on folks.

So it turned into a tug boat really hard (my back says, gee thanks) get ladder down, tug really hard again and do this Spider-Man swing maneuver over onto ladder.  Oh, and it’s dark out. NO lights.  I planned for how can I fall in the drink without concussing myself.  Success. Heart rate through roof.

Now, to retie boat.  First, trip over extra dock lines that weren’t stowed away or even nicely coiled up.  Roll my foot on more dock line and power cord, grab for lifeline, but our usually not used gate is WIDE open.  WTF?  Averted going into drink again (one hand for the boat).

Start working on dock lines and evidently our boat mover didn’t go to cleat hitch class either.  I thought I was going to have to involve a marlin spike or knife.  Holy sweet crap, really, really pissed by now.

Now, if a so-called professional captain moves your boat, you’d think he know not to do all these things? Right?

So, from here on out, boat doesn’t move without us knowing the person.

2. Make sure anybody on boat doing work doesn’t think they are doing you a solid by leaving the A/C on.

After finally accessing the boat, get down below, doing my routine fire up the boat. However, A/C pump and salon A/C are on. But, but, but....not working.  Oh, blown breaker, I got this. Get off boat, recheck all connections. Get back on boat.

Realize, oh, they left our A/C on.  While we are not here, so its been running for almost two weeks, which means, the strainer is clogged.  Clogged strainer, pump overheats, shuts down, blows breaker.
Our pedestal is still in dubious working order since the hurricane.

At this point, I am not digging all the crap out of the work room to pull up floor panels to access the thru-hulls.  70 degrees with winds from the north, boat was just fine.

Next morning, I dig out everything and the seacock was CLOSED.  What?  Who the hell is doing work on my boat?  They must have thought they closed the generator seacock, they are same size and side by side, but closed the a/c. Forgot? Who knows.  So, open it up, and yes, despite being closed, it was jammed full of all sorts of nastiness.

Very grateful our a/c pump has a great thermal switch off, it saved it from burning up, and possibly burning the boat down.

Moral of this story: Leave note that a/c does NOT remain on after job is finished.

Ironically, all that work, and I haven’t been running the a/c (Tim not on boat obviously....)

Have boat, will break it.

Not me! Not me! Not me!

Okay, only one thing can be attributed to my spouse and his need to use the power winch in inappropriate manners.

So-----here goes: DON'T USE YOUR JIB SHEET POWER WINCH ON THE JIB FURLER. PERIOD.  Especially when the sail is under load, like 20kts under load.  The captain got demoted to Gilligan after that maneuver, but our furler guardian angels came and were able to fix without too much dent to our pocket book.  (and I got to sit there and smirk while they went to Tim--WTF did you do THAT for?)

But in my lovely husband's defense, he breaks the boat, I usually work on breaking myself.  Boat heals faster.

So our most recent trip, maybe because our luck has been SO fabulous lately, Tim suggests we try our windlass out before actually anchoring in a 2kt tidal zone.  Okay.

So what is supposed to be down only goes CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK. Anchor doesn't move. Shit.

After some debate, we still decide to go anchor out at Bahia Honda, there's absolutely no wind and if we can get the anchor and chain down and set, the boat will be fine.  Windlass is working in the UP position just fine.

So after three tries, we get anchor, some of it to do with the fact that Elysium handles like a tank, good in choppy waters and wave action, but not when you are trying to anchor amongst other boats and two bridge spans.  Of course, when we go to shore, the peanut gallery was there with their commentary.  To my credit, I didn't even say stuff it.

We did get some grief from the tour boat, but we were not blocking his way and he was in a twin screw pontoon--he could stuff it.

More pics of Bahia Honda later...  oh, and we are 0-2 in anchoring without incident in Bahia Honda. It's not a hard anchorage, but it seems to make our boats go...um, no.

Fun with VHF

Tim went down and upgraded our VHF to one that will have DSC/AIS receiver, it is SUPPOSED to be able to work with our chart plotter, but I haven't really figured that out.

Our new VHF comes with two wireless handsets, that can also---wait for it---double as walkie talkies on the boat.  Think intercom system.

So we tested it, and I was getting testy, nice honey, but I'm sort of helming the boat through a busy area right now so can we play with these later.

Tim goes down below to lay down---THINKING that the VHF was still in intercom mode--but I had switched mine over to be a VHF because......I was in a busy area and was listening for those all important "all concerned vessels should stand by on 16" which means anything from the Fast Cat Ferry, USCG big boy ships, cruise ships, or one of the 14,000 excursion boats that leave from downtown Key West.

Weeeellll, evidently......when you switch one handset back to VHF mode, they BOTH switch.

Annnnnnddddd....evidently, my spouse was down below broadcasting on 16: "That's why I got these, so we can talk"  (quote/unquote)

He comes back upstairs laughing his ass off because he realized what he said went out on 16.

I'm very happy he didn't decide to say something MUCH worse.  Which is a good reason that we are keeping our 'no alcohol while' underway policy enforced.

Speaking of gadgets.....

Google Chromecast.  At first I thought it was going to be a big bust, two hours trying to set it up, only for it to stop talking to my iPad.  Really pissed me off.

Then Tim says, I'll give it a try.  Oh boy.  No, all he had to do was turn everything on, and it started talking to his iPad. So I tried my iPad, it worked.  Evidently, it wanted 48 hours to think about it.

So, as an owner of Google Chromecast and Apple TV....Chromecast is very good for the boat, basically it runs over WiFi--Netflix, HBO Go, ESPN Go, and whatever else you've paid for through your cable provider, no matter where your cable provider is.  If you don't have cable, you can enjoy Netflix.

Apple TV...it has its own built in processor, so it has it's own interface, there are also lots of things you can view through Apple TV (and your music) that aren't available on Chromecast. All through WiFi again.

Price:  ChromeCast $35.  Apple TV: $100.  If you want to transfer to a TV, either is good.

***

A couple of weeks ago, Active Captain's weekly Defender special was the Eartec Simutalk wireless headsets.  I showed to Tim, he immediately said: I want those for Christmas.  So, we got them for Christmas, had them directly shipped to the marina.

In a word? Awesome.  They have various setting, but you can set them for transmit/receive.  When we anchored, effortless, after the many attempts of failed hand signals, it was so nice to just talk at a normal voice. Especially on a 46 foot boat with a dodger.  Each mic has a boom cover, so Tim couldn't hear the wind at all.  However, I did hear: OH SHIT, we are in 6 feet of water. No worries, keel up.  (I swear he is doing this just to play with the keel)  However, lesson learned, stop looking at the chart plotter, look at the depth meter.

Coming back and docking, same thing, headsets on, talking through which lines I'll grab and when I have them on. And a polite, "Oh dear, please do not hit your numerous thrusters when I am trying to get off the boat."

Sunken boats and grounded boats

When I arrived last week, I noticed a sunken fishing boat in the mooring field between our marina and the NAS channel.

A few days later, we had an abnormally high tide.  Evidently the fishing boat still had enough bouyancy that the extra foot of tide sent her adrift and she caught the current.

So, we take off and I noticed the boat is gone, I told Tim, hey they must have salvaged it, that would have been cool to see.

Ummmm.....no.  Since I'm the channel expert, I'm usually helming us out into open water.

I look ahead, and told Tim oh, shit. There's the fishing  boat.  RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHANNEL.

Of course, that sent my spouse into a spazout about derelict vessels and hazards to navigation.

Fortunately, we were able to scoot around it, but we both were wondering what will happen if it gets into deeper water.

 

 

Returning, we decided to see if we can nose into our slip, so I went about prepping the boat accordingly.  I give the helm to NotSoMuchTheChannelMaster.  As I am tying off fenders, the spouse says, I think we are dragging something.  I look over the edge and see in startling clarity the bottom of the channel and fishes waving up at me.  Uh, nope, honey, you are grounded.

There were two things, he got to close to the one edge and our keel must have been further down than we thought, so hit the button, raise the keel and off we go.  Very soft grounding thankfully or I might have been launched off the front of the boat, at which I would have walked to shore and met my spouse soaking and pissed.

Our second point of merriment is getting Elysium into our rather narrow marina entrance, turning into the current and trying to make a hard left required some inventive use of the thrusters again.

We arrive back at the slip and had a welcoming crew, of course, Tim did his world famous get two lines on the boat and then off to chitty chat with our visitors. Sure, honey I'll be more than happy to get the rest of the boat tied off by myself.  However, the guys too pity on me (or maybe it was my inventive use of foul language) and we got her situated.

All in all, a good day. 

Commissioning the boat....finally

After we sold Hemisphere Dancer, we put all our crap in a storage locker in Key West. Knowing that yes, we would be coming back. Using almost heard of restraint, we waited an ENTIRE year before purchasing Elysium. (Who may or may not sometimes be referred to as Lizzy M, or just Liz)

We had a delivery captain bring her on down, and I was struggling with providing them with enough stuff for the galley and bedding, knowing full well I already have it in the locker. We brought things from home and he purchased a few things, some of which will be coming home with me because I have this thing with glass aboard my boat. A Pyrex baking dish might not break if it were to go flying, but it would probably break my foot. That's just my luck.

The boat yard pretty much tried to do everything the last week she was there, even though they had her for six weeks. Tim was there to oversee/project manage/help. Granted, the boat yard did find some things that had the potential of being show stoppers, but they also dinked around too much.

After a fairly uneventful delivery, the lady sits at berth at the Key West Harbor Marina. Whoo hoo.

So, back to the storage locker. Even though the management goes around and periodically WD 40s our locks, ours still managed to freeze up. I had had a long day travelling and wasn't in the mood to fight with it, so left it. This morning I came back with a can of WD40 and went medieval. Turned out that the entire door needed WD40. So, here I am looking like a spray paint artist going to town. With the high wind, I was covered in WD40, the rental car was, it was great. Finally, the lock unlocked and the door opened. Hey, all our crap is still there!

Amazingly, we also did a well thought out job of packing and storing it. The vacuum seal bags, the dryer sheets, the moth balls, the extra wrapping,  all our stuff seems to be very much intact, mildew and odor free. It also helped that no hurricanes hit Key West this year and got the sheds wet.

But....I recall that HemiD was a two cabin sloop. So, how the hell did I wind up with enough bedding to outfit the QE2? HOLY CRAP. Some of this will wind up getting donated.

Open the next container....hey, Tim and I were wondering where all those shoes went. What possessed us to keep them in a storage locker in Key West? Huh.

Next container...Holy crap! The illuminated palm tree lives!

Next container...BINGO! Hair dryer. It's 65deg in Key West, I need a freaking hair dryer or get pneumonia.

So, I still have several containers to go, Tim gets to figure out his tool situation when he arrives. And maybe, just maybe...the weather will warm up.

The latest gadget

Since we have a delivery captain taking the boat down, Tim wanted an opportunity to track her (with our captain's blessing, of course).

He's been eyeballing this gadget at West Marine for some time now, so he finally bit the bullet and bought it.

DeLorme inReach.  The unit itself is about $300, and you can get a monthly plan starting at $15 for starter plans to the next one up $35 for unlimited checkpoints, etc.  We can cancel after one month until we use it again for a passage.

It has the ability to send messages, and you can track it online.  Very nice.

So, we've started it today as the boat heads south. Our delivery captain has been sending us text updates all day (I think he's having fun).

This will also be handy for my parents and whomever we designate our point of contact for our float plan.