.....the crazy ass things we do? We do them for your benefit. We aim to entertain and please!
:-)
Thursday, December 15, 2016
List from hell update
Generator:
Not as bad as we thought.
But on pins and needles while we waited for Keys Disease to sort itself out with the guy who was to look at our generator.
Finally, our hero and boat guru extradonaire, Boat George tackled the problem himself. And since he has some serious mad skills---fixed our generator.
There really is not enough money in the world to have this guy in our corner.
The heat exchanger header was leaking and the bolts stripped. Previous asshat owner used some sort of silicone to try to seal it and it did not work. So as it gave out it started leaking saltwater, thus corroding crap until we tested it and voila. Alarms go off and genset shuts down.
Below are the before and after pictures of what it looked like.
And speaking of stripped threads, we had to have the ones on our water tank fixed so that we could properly install the new tank indicator on the one tank. Got tired of it saying full and then run out of water in the middle of our shower.
We don't know what to do about dear old Zeus. The marina didn't want it sitting in front of the boat so they placed it in the barn for us.
Not as bad as we thought.
But on pins and needles while we waited for Keys Disease to sort itself out with the guy who was to look at our generator.
Finally, our hero and boat guru extradonaire, Boat George tackled the problem himself. And since he has some serious mad skills---fixed our generator.
There really is not enough money in the world to have this guy in our corner.
The heat exchanger header was leaking and the bolts stripped. Previous asshat owner used some sort of silicone to try to seal it and it did not work. So as it gave out it started leaking saltwater, thus corroding crap until we tested it and voila. Alarms go off and genset shuts down.
Below are the before and after pictures of what it looked like.
 |
| The silicone used instead of proper gasket. (grrrrrrr) |
 |
| After soaking and cleaning. |
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| Reinstalled on the generator. The threads for bolting it back on also had to be fixed since they were stripped. |
And speaking of stripped threads, we had to have the ones on our water tank fixed so that we could properly install the new tank indicator on the one tank. Got tired of it saying full and then run out of water in the middle of our shower.
We don't know what to do about dear old Zeus. The marina didn't want it sitting in front of the boat so they placed it in the barn for us.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Night Moves
Now here's the part of our story where Kim makes Tim SO pissed off at her that she wonders: a) is he going to throw me overboard? or b) get to land and file for divorce immediately.
Answers: a) No. Because I can see in the dark and he can't. b) It was considered, but safe arrival, awesome docking job and a few drinks settled him down.
What did sweet little ole me do? I suggested that we blow all the way home and not stop at Boca Grande. We'd only have a little night sailing to do (oh, and entering our channel.)
He okayed it and off we went. And it got dark. Really, really dark. And he started freaking out. I'm at the helm, I have got a good grasp on all the ATONs and anything else that might be out there. The shrimp boats are lit up like Christmas so I know I won't have to worry about them.
But he can't handle it, he goes down below to....evidently second guess what I am doing. Flies back up, blinds me with the iPad and says YOU ARE HEADING TOWARDS SHALLOWS.
Sigh. Thanks for destroying my night vision. It'll only take 20 minutes to get that back and we are 10 minutes away from the channel.
Also, ASK ME WHAT I AM DOING. I was navigating back to our course to the channel waypoint, but you are looking at your Navionics on the iPAD that has a 5nm lead line to it. I was over a nautical mile from where it even got to 12 ft. SHEESH.
Squabble #1 ensues. Me: Stop distracting and blinding me. Him: YOU NEED TO HAVE INFORMATION! (he was not his normal self at this point)
I see our channel marker (which um....floats, not on a piling at the moment) then I realize....oh crap, where is our track from when we head out? Oh, shit just got a lot more difficult.
So Tim completely wigged out by now turns the boat away from the channel and I run down to get our high power spot light and our radio sets. Now this is going to be a true test of marital communications and relations now.
Tim throws some way points to line us up with the channel, I get positioned on the bow and start doing a sweep of the area because I know there's 3 anchored boats and also, the channel splits in two and we need to head....left. (we didn't)
Squabble #2 over headsets ensues about how stupid this is and he should have never agreed to this.
Once again, the scop must have been working overtime because I am still pretty chill about this.
Tim, slow down, and remember the two things we've learned.
"Don't approach anything faster than you want to hit it."
"The difference between an ordeal and an adventure is attitude. So let's have an adventure."
He wasn't amused.
So, now the scene is set. Tim on helm, dodger completely caked over with salt spray (not that it mattered). Kim seated on the bow with the spotlight. Pitch black. Oh, and the chartplotter is over zoomed.
So below is a little graphic on how it went.
A-Waypoint set. We are heading in. Light is shining off of the channel markers beautifully. We can do this!
B- Kim: Um, Tim. Did you miss the turn off? Tim? I think we are not going the right way.
Tim: OH SHIT. We are heading to the Navy Base. Hold on, I'm going to turn around.
Kim: Wait, let me check. Nevermind.
Tim: Up here I am going to turn the nose of the boat to what I think is our channel marker. Let me know when you find it.
Kim: WHAT? There. There it is one o'clock.
Tim: I can't see shit.
Kim: Watch your depth, veer starboard a little bit until I tell you to stop. Wait. What was that?
Tim: We grounded. Let me get the keel all the way up. We're good!
C- At this point, we have the seeing eye dog routine down. Feeling better, seeing more lights. Tim's freakout is now about DEFCON 3. and then....
D--Kim: Here's the entrance.
Tim: Where?
Kim: HERE. HERE. Markers 1 & 2.
Tim: There?
Kim: Yes. Wait. No. Just go straight!!
Tim: I don't think we should.
Kim: (shines light in water) It's deep enough! Go now!
And by the hair of our chinny chin chin. We slid through the shallows into the nice deep marina.
So to explain that last bit. I told Tim there's the entrance markers to the marina. He started turning, not sure what he was looking at. I started getting very concerned that he'd want to back up or something and the current would pin us up against the channel marker. So, I told him to go. Luckily, it was high tide, the boat keel was up making us draw 3.25 feet and we slipped in with most likely millimeters to spare. Not the best move, but I did fear the worst.
If we had grounded, we figured out later, the boat doesn't list. The keel goes up in the trunk and we have a skeg in front of the prop. We wouldn't have just sat flat bottomed like jackasses waiting for SeaTow to come. We were going slow so we wouldn't have got damaged. Just our ego.
We show up at our slip (after being completely fried I thought there was another boat in it--our marina has been known to do that) and completely nail our docking with the help of the guy chartering the Jeanneau next to us.
Big smile to Tim--see? I knew we could do it.
He is still not amused.
Answers: a) No. Because I can see in the dark and he can't. b) It was considered, but safe arrival, awesome docking job and a few drinks settled him down.
What did sweet little ole me do? I suggested that we blow all the way home and not stop at Boca Grande. We'd only have a little night sailing to do (oh, and entering our channel.)
He okayed it and off we went. And it got dark. Really, really dark. And he started freaking out. I'm at the helm, I have got a good grasp on all the ATONs and anything else that might be out there. The shrimp boats are lit up like Christmas so I know I won't have to worry about them.
But he can't handle it, he goes down below to....evidently second guess what I am doing. Flies back up, blinds me with the iPad and says YOU ARE HEADING TOWARDS SHALLOWS.
Sigh. Thanks for destroying my night vision. It'll only take 20 minutes to get that back and we are 10 minutes away from the channel.
Also, ASK ME WHAT I AM DOING. I was navigating back to our course to the channel waypoint, but you are looking at your Navionics on the iPAD that has a 5nm lead line to it. I was over a nautical mile from where it even got to 12 ft. SHEESH.
Squabble #1 ensues. Me: Stop distracting and blinding me. Him: YOU NEED TO HAVE INFORMATION! (he was not his normal self at this point)
I see our channel marker (which um....floats, not on a piling at the moment) then I realize....oh crap, where is our track from when we head out? Oh, shit just got a lot more difficult.
So Tim completely wigged out by now turns the boat away from the channel and I run down to get our high power spot light and our radio sets. Now this is going to be a true test of marital communications and relations now.
Tim throws some way points to line us up with the channel, I get positioned on the bow and start doing a sweep of the area because I know there's 3 anchored boats and also, the channel splits in two and we need to head....left. (we didn't)
Squabble #2 over headsets ensues about how stupid this is and he should have never agreed to this.
Once again, the scop must have been working overtime because I am still pretty chill about this.
Tim, slow down, and remember the two things we've learned.
"Don't approach anything faster than you want to hit it."
"The difference between an ordeal and an adventure is attitude. So let's have an adventure."
He wasn't amused.
So, now the scene is set. Tim on helm, dodger completely caked over with salt spray (not that it mattered). Kim seated on the bow with the spotlight. Pitch black. Oh, and the chartplotter is over zoomed.
So below is a little graphic on how it went.
 |
| Read the events corresponding to the letters below. Red line represents our path. |
B- Kim: Um, Tim. Did you miss the turn off? Tim? I think we are not going the right way.
Tim: OH SHIT. We are heading to the Navy Base. Hold on, I'm going to turn around.
Kim: Wait, let me check. Nevermind.
Tim: Up here I am going to turn the nose of the boat to what I think is our channel marker. Let me know when you find it.
Kim: WHAT? There. There it is one o'clock.
Tim: I can't see shit.
Kim: Watch your depth, veer starboard a little bit until I tell you to stop. Wait. What was that?
Tim: We grounded. Let me get the keel all the way up. We're good!
C- At this point, we have the seeing eye dog routine down. Feeling better, seeing more lights. Tim's freakout is now about DEFCON 3. and then....
D--Kim: Here's the entrance.
Tim: Where?
Kim: HERE. HERE. Markers 1 & 2.
Tim: There?
Kim: Yes. Wait. No. Just go straight!!
Tim: I don't think we should.
Kim: (shines light in water) It's deep enough! Go now!
And by the hair of our chinny chin chin. We slid through the shallows into the nice deep marina.
So to explain that last bit. I told Tim there's the entrance markers to the marina. He started turning, not sure what he was looking at. I started getting very concerned that he'd want to back up or something and the current would pin us up against the channel marker. So, I told him to go. Luckily, it was high tide, the boat keel was up making us draw 3.25 feet and we slipped in with most likely millimeters to spare. Not the best move, but I did fear the worst.
If we had grounded, we figured out later, the boat doesn't list. The keel goes up in the trunk and we have a skeg in front of the prop. We wouldn't have just sat flat bottomed like jackasses waiting for SeaTow to come. We were going slow so we wouldn't have got damaged. Just our ego.
We show up at our slip (after being completely fried I thought there was another boat in it--our marina has been known to do that) and completely nail our docking with the help of the guy chartering the Jeanneau next to us.
Big smile to Tim--see? I knew we could do it.
He is still not amused.
Heading home. Forecast lied. It always lies.
So, with our nifty little Delorme Satellite tracker we can download forecasts to our iPads, and the Park Ranger also posts.
Well, in whatever planet they were on, they forecast 17kt wind from ENE and 2 foot waves.
Not quite.
More like 20 kt winds and 5 foot seas at 2-3 sec intervals. On the nose. On the nose. On the nose.
And the queasies started with me. ShitShitShit. I think it was I was expecting the worst and it was coming to fruition. So, mental started it up.
I ate some Cuban crackers (seriously, there's a reason why you find Cuban crackers and sea sickness meds by an abandoned chug--they work!) Chilled for a bit and the queasy went away! Holy crap, YAY SCOPALAMINE!
So we spent our first 6 hours just bashing away through open water. We knew it would start calming down about Rebecca Shoal Light because the water shallows out. In retrospect--we should have gone of the wind just a bit and thrown up a bit of canvas to create a less crappy ride. But....we didn't.
My anchoring dude--I was channel chick, so I had the helm--did not make sure our decks were clear before leaving, so our snubber danced all over the deck. We expected to lose it as we dived into the swells, but it rode the entire trip home.
Well, in whatever planet they were on, they forecast 17kt wind from ENE and 2 foot waves.
Not quite.
More like 20 kt winds and 5 foot seas at 2-3 sec intervals. On the nose. On the nose. On the nose.
And the queasies started with me. ShitShitShit. I think it was I was expecting the worst and it was coming to fruition. So, mental started it up.
I ate some Cuban crackers (seriously, there's a reason why you find Cuban crackers and sea sickness meds by an abandoned chug--they work!) Chilled for a bit and the queasy went away! Holy crap, YAY SCOPALAMINE!
So we spent our first 6 hours just bashing away through open water. We knew it would start calming down about Rebecca Shoal Light because the water shallows out. In retrospect--we should have gone of the wind just a bit and thrown up a bit of canvas to create a less crappy ride. But....we didn't.
My anchoring dude--I was channel chick, so I had the helm--did not make sure our decks were clear before leaving, so our snubber danced all over the deck. We expected to lose it as we dived into the swells, but it rode the entire trip home.
Thanksgiving Day
We spent a lovely day just hanging out. I actually got in the water...COLD COLD COLD. Explored the fort, and went hiking around the island where it shoaled in 10-15 years ago.
Later that evening I took a turkey breast that had thawed out and cut it into filets for Tim to throw on the grill. Roasted some potatoes and made some stuffing. VOILA! Thanksgiving dinner.
After dinner we were hanging out in the cockpit and big yacht decides to have a fireworks show. SO SO GLAD we were upwind from him. Everybody starts sounding off with horns and airhorns.
Five seconds later, Ranger Simon comes over the VHF. Boat in the anchorage. CUT IT OUT.
Whoops. Five more seconds later, HONK, BOOM.
And out come the flashing lights of the Ranger Patrol boat. Uh. oh. I better get more wine and watch this.
NOBODY FESSED UP. It was awesome. He came over to us, recognized us as dumbass dinghy people and said, hey, can you do me a solid? If it starts up again, get on the radio and tell them it's Thanksgiving. Give the ranger a break. Sure.
I really wanted to get a picture of him leaving our boat with the lights still flashing, but I didn't want to test his good humor with us. We might need to have him pick us up from the middle of the ocean if we take our dinghy back out.
Later that evening I took a turkey breast that had thawed out and cut it into filets for Tim to throw on the grill. Roasted some potatoes and made some stuffing. VOILA! Thanksgiving dinner.
After dinner we were hanging out in the cockpit and big yacht decides to have a fireworks show. SO SO GLAD we were upwind from him. Everybody starts sounding off with horns and airhorns.
Five seconds later, Ranger Simon comes over the VHF. Boat in the anchorage. CUT IT OUT.
Whoops. Five more seconds later, HONK, BOOM.
And out come the flashing lights of the Ranger Patrol boat. Uh. oh. I better get more wine and watch this.
NOBODY FESSED UP. It was awesome. He came over to us, recognized us as dumbass dinghy people and said, hey, can you do me a solid? If it starts up again, get on the radio and tell them it's Thanksgiving. Give the ranger a break. Sure.
I really wanted to get a picture of him leaving our boat with the lights still flashing, but I didn't want to test his good humor with us. We might need to have him pick us up from the middle of the ocean if we take our dinghy back out.
 |
| Without a motor, yeah, pretty much all its good for. A bird perch. Early Thanksgiving morning. |
 |
| Standing on Garden Key pointing toward Grassy Key. This area is shoaled in pretty well now. You can see our dinghy nicely upwind of Elysium. |
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| On Thanksgiving, I strolled on my private beach. What did you do? |
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| If you expand, all the birds you see above the island are frigate birds. |
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| Conch sculpture. |
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Monday, December 5, 2016
Reanchoring--with more windlass fun
After our difficulties with rowing the big rubber ducky from our current anchoring position we decided to move to a position that we'd be closer to the beach and easier to dinghy back to. (with more wind protection.) We cleared it with the ranger the day before.
So, off we move up to our new spot. Once again, crazy ass windlass and I accidently jammed it because I thought we had 200 ft of chain, but we only had 100 feet before it turned into this crazy gnarled up join with regular nylon rode, and hold up! The rode isn't attached to the BOAT! Seriously, you would have thought we checked that before. it's nicely coiled up and hanging, so if it had got ripped loose, just a snarled mess of rode would have jammed the windlass, but crap!
(And this is why we are doing our sailing off shore in baby steps)
So, with some careful planning an manuevering (thankfully, we DID have more wind protection) we got the windlass unjammed and plans for either repainting our chain or just getting a longer chain rode.
Once set (again) our sojourn to land was much easier. We were just off what I started calling Dry Tortugas International Airport because of the seaplanes, but I just love watching them. Not a problem. They had plenty of room, and absolutely no qualms about taking off between boats.
So, off we move up to our new spot. Once again, crazy ass windlass and I accidently jammed it because I thought we had 200 ft of chain, but we only had 100 feet before it turned into this crazy gnarled up join with regular nylon rode, and hold up! The rode isn't attached to the BOAT! Seriously, you would have thought we checked that before. it's nicely coiled up and hanging, so if it had got ripped loose, just a snarled mess of rode would have jammed the windlass, but crap!
(And this is why we are doing our sailing off shore in baby steps)
So, with some careful planning an manuevering (thankfully, we DID have more wind protection) we got the windlass unjammed and plans for either repainting our chain or just getting a longer chain rode.
Once set (again) our sojourn to land was much easier. We were just off what I started calling Dry Tortugas International Airport because of the seaplanes, but I just love watching them. Not a problem. They had plenty of room, and absolutely no qualms about taking off between boats.
Some info about Dry Tortugas (and PICTURES)
This is for people who want to visit the Tortugas/Fort Jeff on their own, either by their own boat, or bareboat charter (and yes, there is a company that will let you do it-surprised me, too)
Upon arrival by boat to the Tortugas you will need to check in. Usually you can find the park ranger who will walk you through the process, but if not, there is an area at the ferry dock where you can check yourself in. Super simple process.
You will pay your park fee which is $10/pp for up to 7 days. That has its own drop box. You keep a portion of the envelope as your receipt.
Boaters will have to fill out a boat permit. This is free. As the park ranger explained to us, it's like a float plan for while you are in the Dry Tortugas. How long will you be here? Where will you be? (Loggerhead Key, Garden Key, etc.) how many people.
Also, they will post a daily weather report including marine weather. (which was nice, because our Delorme weather report lied to us.)
So, if you don't do that, the Park Ranger will either hail you on VHF or come out with the forms. They make it very easy to do.
While the ferry is at the fort, the only restrooms will be closed and you will have to go to the ferry. Evidently an agreement they have.
Long time ago there used to be restrooms at the ferry dock, but they turned those to changing rooms and they have self composting toilets.
Once you spend your ten minutes checking in, the park is open.
Or, if you have no motor on your dinghy you spend the next 20 minutes carrying your dinghy to an upwind position from your boat.
But, when you get that done? Oh, que magnifique!
Upon arrival by boat to the Tortugas you will need to check in. Usually you can find the park ranger who will walk you through the process, but if not, there is an area at the ferry dock where you can check yourself in. Super simple process.
You will pay your park fee which is $10/pp for up to 7 days. That has its own drop box. You keep a portion of the envelope as your receipt.
Boaters will have to fill out a boat permit. This is free. As the park ranger explained to us, it's like a float plan for while you are in the Dry Tortugas. How long will you be here? Where will you be? (Loggerhead Key, Garden Key, etc.) how many people.
Also, they will post a daily weather report including marine weather. (which was nice, because our Delorme weather report lied to us.)
So, if you don't do that, the Park Ranger will either hail you on VHF or come out with the forms. They make it very easy to do.
While the ferry is at the fort, the only restrooms will be closed and you will have to go to the ferry. Evidently an agreement they have.
Long time ago there used to be restrooms at the ferry dock, but they turned those to changing rooms and they have self composting toilets.
Once you spend your ten minutes checking in, the park is open.
Or, if you have no motor on your dinghy you spend the next 20 minutes carrying your dinghy to an upwind position from your boat.
But, when you get that done? Oh, que magnifique!
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| Oh, what a pretty girl. |
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