Long time, No Sail

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When last you saw us here, we were in the South Harbour Village Marina near Oak Island. A hurricane kicked the marina’s butt, displaced us from our home and I had to have the boat moved to a distant marina, while JoAnne was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer in late August of 2020.

Since that time we stayed with a friend on the island (Pam) who was renting a place there at the time, later we went to Colorado for a few weeks, then returned, and we eventually rented a place ourselves. Right after she finished Chemo for her third time through, in March of 2021, we had found a home on the island to buy – which I did.

In the mean time, I decided to move Adventure to Georgetown, SC, thinking we could get even closer to the Bahamas when we sail again. Unfortunately, things haven’t worked out.

I sailed down with the help of Jay Beard, also a sailor (s/v Knot Working) on an overnight journey, which actually went very well. We sailed all the way down, and wound up in the marina, but the fuel is fouled, and I haven’t had time to clean it.

As of a couple of weeks ago, I put Adventure up for sale. Why?

Because JoAnne had a 4th time through cancer…. which lead to some dangerous blood pressure levels.

On the 17th of November, JoAnne suffered a seizure, and a stroke. She has been hospitalized since then. She has a tracheostomy, and is having some cognitive issues (but many seem to be clearing up now), and can’t walk yet, or do certain things. There is no way she will ever sail Adventure again.

Thus I decided to sell her. Today a deal was struck. The new owner is going to be transferring money to me today and in a few days we will meet at Adventure, so I can finish the deal and hand him his papers, a few items that go with the boat and remove a few things that belong to JoAnne and I that we have yet to retrieve.

For now, I will leave the ad up for Adventure on Facebook, and we will close it out when the deal is completed.

In the mean time, this blog will remain online as long as I live for others to reference and read.

Today is a sad day for me, for we never completed the quest to get to the Islands in the Caribbean, but my promise to JoAnne to “Give her Islands” has been kept. Our new home is called “Adventurer’s Landing” and is located ON an ISLAND. Oak Island, NC.

I’m proud to have been able to sail such a beautiful, well-found vessel with my wife, partner and first mate, JoAnne Renee Donaldson.

I dedicate this blog to her, with all my love, heart and soul.

I love you JoAnne. Get well soon.

Thus ends our sailing journey. For now. Perhaps one day will will once again find ourselves out there, but it won’t be on Adventure.

Hurricane Isiasas

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For over a week prior to this storm, we prepared our boat and I worked on several others.

I busted my ass prepping boats.  I locked things down, I took down canvas, solar panels, I took down or tied off lines, I added extra lines.  I did everything humanly possible except hauling the boat out somewhere because that really wasn’t a good option at the time.

What  I didn’t do (at the last minute, though considering it) was to move the boat off the T head where we sat, into a deeper inside slip in the mud, like I did for Dorian.  Should have, could have, would have… doesn’t work.  But, it would have merely saved me from being on the T head, and not from the damage we had from the wind.

At the LAST minute we decided to stay on the boat instead of evacuate, because up until the hurricane passed Georgetown SC, it was  STILL going inland and we’d have been ok.  In fact it wasn’t even a Cat I hurricane until near an hour before it hit us.Then it hit.

The majority of our damage was caused by heeling over against the dock.  The marina wasn’t as luck.

South Harbour Village Marina, bought last October by Safe Harbor Marinas, was devastated.

Almost an hour into the strongest winds (which never exceed about 80 mph) the marina broke up.  D dock broke loose and came inside on or near C and B docks.  Some of us believe, based on the positioning, D took out the pilings on the inside of the Transient Dock.

On the East End of T Dock, were three large windage vessels.  We believe the weight of thos on the end of the dock finished the ripping of pilings, many of which were old and rotten it seems, judging from the floating pieces in the water after the fact.  T Dock came inside as well, basically locking and trapping all the boats.

B dock turned into a Question Mark, our end headed toward A dock, and then when the winds and tide reversed, we moved backward, but by the B dock was broken in many places, several boats were scrunched together, and some had lost their swim platforms.  Some had holes.  One was under B dock.


Photo Courtesy of John Thomas
and his drone

Adventure is in the above shot, on the lower right.  Directly off Adventure’s Bow is Bucketlist, both of us were on the END of B Dock on the T head.  The dock to the right of Bucketlist is a portion of D dock.

There were no real injuries that night, other than bruising by bouncing off things getting off the boats.  We came through pretty well.

Some people came out from the condos to help those they felt less able to assist themselves.  Many people were scared.

All in all, though, everyone survived.  No severe injuries.  There were no boats in our marina sunk.  They all stayed afloat.

In the aftermath, some folks decided to tell me and my wife she shouldn’t be on a boat.

Well, I’m about to address this to anyone reading this.

What my WIFE decides for her is for her to decide.  Advice is fine, but insistence on telling someone they “shouldn’t be doing something” isn’t up to anyone but ourselves.

Let me be CRYSTAL CLEAR here.  I DO NOT make, force or coerce JoAnne to be on Adventure.  It was her decision to buy a boat, and ours together to move aboard, and our decision, together to do so as a couple.

Our lives are in OUR hands and no one else’s, and it’s not for others to tell anyone what to do, or how to do it.

Whether it be this idiotic “mask mandate” some over reaching “governors” have attempted, or telling others they shouldn’t be on a boat – simply is not your right to do. It’s NO one else’s business where we live or how we live, whether a boat, RV, a house on the side of a mountain or a damned jungle.

My wife makes her own decisions, I make mine. Her decision was to move aboard a boat.  Her decision, now, remains to STAY on that boat as soon as she is back in the water again.

Adventure is our home now.  Home is where the heart is.  Home is where you drop your anchor, or tie your dock lines.

I’m sick of those who think they can dictate what others do or do not.

Aftermath:

Adventure is currently on the hard.  She has a few thousand dollars worth of cosmetic damage.  The rig has two chain plates I’m having a rigger examine and give me an estimate, but over all, the glass work is scratching and scarring in one area, rub rail was destroyed, as was a portion of the toe rail on the port side.

The boat was NEVER in danger of sinking (though someone was telling people on the phone that boats were sinking around them, including mine, this wasn’t the case).  Our ship is well found and would have fared much better a long way from land or sitting in the mangroves.  She has no other damage.

What she had was a badly cleaned bottom, that I pay good money to divers to do.  That is something that will be taken care of shortly.

I’m not only sick of people who think they can dictate what others do, I am sick of “professionals” who lie about their work, do only a portion of it, and charge you top dollar for jobs they don’t really accomplish, and there are SEVERAL such “professionals” who’ve done just that and continue to get away with cheating people out of money.

I’m finished with such people, and finished with hiring people that can’t give you what they promise.

 

Basically, again, it’s nearly ALL superficial damage, not affecting the operation of the vessel.  We had the pretty scroll work broken off in the last image, however, I saved that piece.  You can see the steel from the rub rail there, which I also rescued.  The teak rub rail was removed in sections, and screws bent and broken, so part of the damage will be to repair the glass work, reinstall rub rails and steel, and  to check and replace the two damaged turn buckles and inspect the rigging for stability.  (To me, climbing part of it, it appears intact and strong, but the turn buckles are damaged and the chain plates need inspection and so do the through bolts).

The marina didn’t really take much action at all after the storm.  They didn’t check on people, they didn’t ask how anyone was, they didn’t bring ice down, they didn’t really do anything to mitigate further damage, and they didn’t bring fenders, lines or anything to the folks on the docks.  It was three days before “Corporate” came in and someone started making decisions.  The Manager quit.  The guys that remain are good people, every one of them, so for that matter was the manager, but I think their hands were tied, and didn’t know what to do.

As I was really the “First One” that needed to be moved, when they cut the T dock open, they towed me out.  My engine was not working right (turns out, one of those “professional things” hadn’t be done well and my prop was full of barnacles and other wild life).  I was towed out across the way to the marsh area and anchored the boat for three more days until I could be towed to the haul out spot in South Carolina, 40 miles away.

I’m not going into any more details on who did what, when, where or to whom, but suffice it to say, JoAnne and I have gone out of our way for many people, over and over and over again.  Only two people stepped forward to help me when I actually, finally ASKED for help.  Brian and Ian.  To those two… if you need something, you know how to reach me.

I’m not going to change who I am for others.  I’m here for my wife first, and I’ll continue to be that guy who offers to help.  But….. there’s a part of me that realizes others only look out for themselves first, and others later, and you must count on YOU alone in the end.

JoAnne and I have had a long discussion about our ship, about our plans for the future and about what we will do.

And what we will do, is continue to live aboard Adventure as long as God allows us to do so; it’s not what others think of us or our abilities, it’s about what WE know we can do, and what we can’t do.  No one else knows us, as well as we know ourselves.  No one knows about things we’ve gone through in our lives, people we’ve saved, people we’ve helped, mountains we’ve climbed, monsters we’ve faced down – both real and in our lives.  And no one, NOT ANYONE can make our decisions for us.

So to our friends that doubt us… don’t.  Don’t stop being our friends, but please stop telling us to give up.

Finally, I’d like to mention some very special friends of ours whose boat was hauled out in the same place as Adventure.  They were in the middle of the disaster in Southport, NC and the last thing we heard evacuating our boat was her calling for help.  I was no longer in control of what I was doing and was worried about ensuring JoAnne’s safety and that of others who’d come onto the dock to “make us evacuate” (even though we knew the boat was fine) and we were scared for them.  Found out early the next morning they were ok.

They are going to sell their beautiful boat, but not because of the hurricane, it was planned beforehand.

So to Gloria and Todd, we wish you well and want you to go on as you have, strong, safe and happy, together.  You two have had a profound impact on our lives and we can only hope you continue to do so in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to 2020

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This particular blog has been going since 2012, so eight years.  I started blogging about this adventure in about 2008 I think, and you can see those original pages by, you guessed it, going to the “About” section, and looking at the old pages.  Somewhere, there’s an old blog still up but inactive.

We started our sailing adventure in 2008, sitting in a hot tub, discussing “retirement”, that story is on the pages I mentioned above, so won’t go into the details.  (But, it’s here.)

Basically, we started our sailing in San Diego aboard a Catalina 30, called “Karina Del Mar” while attending an ASA school there, at the “San Diego Sailing Academy”, earning our ASA certifications for coastal cruising, basic bareboat etc.  Later, spending many hundreds of hours sailing our little Macgregor Venture (25′ sloop) on the lake in Pueblo, Colorado.

“Winds of Time” served us well for our learning.

In 2010, we chartered for the second time, the first time being the boat in San Diego.  We chose the British Virgin Islands, and a company called Tortola Marine Management and the boat was a Jeanneau 41 called “Wombat”.  Spent two grand weeks there, ten of them sailing the islands, including Anegada.

Today, we live aboard our adventure – called, Adventure.

s/v Adventure

Adventure in the ICW

Since we acquired her in 2015, we’ve lived aboard (after a short stint to let winter pass on the East Coast) and a couple of times for return to Colorado for medical issues for JoAnne.

We’ve added a generator, water maker, repaired numerous issues with the boat, and dealt with many, many engine issues.  I’ve added the equipment for me to be able to dive the boat myself (including my new air compressor, regulator and a few needed items).  We’ve added new lights of different types (LED), some very bright ones for down below for cooking, cleaning and so forth, and repaired or replaced others (and I have to repair on over the nav station now, because it’s out…)

A couple of months back, we had a run away engine.  I’ve documented that here as well as several other entries on the blog.

A few days ago, I received my fuel pump back, which was so bad the rubber seals had rotted out and were breaking up into little pieces.  The device has been refurbished, like new, and I reinstalled it yesterday.  It took 20 hours to get it out, and five hours to put it back in.  I have not, yet, finished putting everything back together.

I’m taking a “back break” today.  Tomorrow I will continue, and reconnect all the fuel pipes going back to the pump and injectors, repair some broken things and probably get some new hose to replace the stuff on the coolant tanks.  There’s also a broken temperature sensor I’ll need to replace, and several pressure hoses to the oil cooler.  In other words, another 5-10 hours for me to put it all back before I can try to start the engine.

On the bright side, I am now getting very good at understanding the engine, and how to take things apart and put it back together.  One day, not in the too distant future, I figure there will be an engine rebuild in my future, and I feel as though I might be able to tackle such a thing myself now.

I hope to have everything back together in a week or so, and test the engine, and take the boat out and drop anchor over night, and maybe go on south for a few weeks or the rest of the winter.  It will depend on whether the weather holds out for us or not.  Not sure that is going to happen, but, we’ll figure it out.  If nothing else, we’ll do a Spring time run to the south and come back this Summer.

Not going to make any more firm and hard plans or put it out to the Universe, because when we do, something always happens.

Anyway, this is the first entry for 2020.

We welcome the new year with a renewed hope that things will be better this time around, with new engine parts, and repairs, and the hope that we can accomplish something wonderful this time around.

Just remember though, if you think you can’t do something, you’ll never get it done.  If you believe you can, and you try, you will surprise yourself at what you can accomplish.

Happy New Year everyone!

 

Perky, the Little Engine that Could

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This is the story of Perky, a Perkins 4-108 diesel engine who lives inside a Happy Sailing Vessel named Adventure.

When Adventure was a few years younger, Perky came to live in Adventure because a previous owner of the Vessel wanted a better engine than was in the boat.

Perky was newly rebuilt according to the previous owner. Perky appears to have about 900 operating hours since his rebuild, truthfully not even really “broken in”.

A year ago, Perky got sick and ran away. Not from home, but because he had too much oil, which was really oil plus diesel. Eventually, the sump filled and caused Perky to run away – a bad condition for a diesel engine, and the only way to shut this condition down is to remove air from his air intake.

A mechanic came in to make Perky well, charged us a lot of money to make it work right. Pulled injectors, pulled lift pump, stated lift pump was the problem, and supposedly rebuilt that pump.

A year later, and less than 20 more hours on the engine, Perky ran away again – because the Captain forgot to check the oil level before starting the engine a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t realize the oil levels had grown way over where they should have been.

So – after shutting Perky down, the Captain changed the oil. And removed the lift pump and checked it. It had NOT been “repaired” nor, even “rebuilt” or “replaced”. It was the original pump and parts inside. The Captain found out from Perkins they don’t even make rebuild kits any more.

It wasn’t leaking, but the Captain decided to change it anyway, as a new lift pump was only 25 bucks.

The oil, unfortunately, continued to grow.

So, now the Captain pulled the injectors from Perky and took them to a reputable place to test them. The test went well, but one of the injectors, number 2, failed. Without any significant pressure at all, it shot fuel out like a garden hose. Stuck open, or leaky, or whatever.

Injector #2 was rebuilt by the nice people at Diesel Parts of Carolina, brought back a few days ago and reinstalled with the other injectors.

The oil was removed, oil filter removed and changed, new oil added to the engine.

Yesterday, Perky fired right up…. with a little help from the Captain bleeding the air out of the fuel lines of course. The engine ran nicely.

The oil levels were checked every 15 minutes for about two hours with no noticeable change in levels.

This morning, after the engine had cooled over night, the oil levels were again checked.

And they seemed a tad higher than they were after the initial oil change. But not much.

And certainly not as much as the level had risen after the lift pump change.

So, Perky seems happy, but the Captain is still not quite happy.

Tomorrow we will run Perky once more for a couple of hours, bring him up to temperature, and check the levels again. IF the oil levels continue to increase, then we have no choice but to pull the injectors again and do a compression check, and if that is going, pull the Fuel Injection Pump and have it serviced.

We hope the problem is corrected. But, the Captain won’t be happy until we know for sure.

Tune in soon for the conclusion of “Perky, the Little Engine that Could”!

Engine run up today

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Treating this entry rather like a log book today.

Started engine at 0950 local time here in Southport, NC. I did this after diagramming the fuel tanks, the fuel return lines and marking the tanks again (the old markings are fading). I also cleaned the tank tops of dirt and dust, cleaned the floor panels before replacing them, along with all the interior of the mounting for the panels.

I double checked oil levels today, they are normal.

I made sure the return line is opened to the #1, Aft tank, as that’s where I’m pulling diesel from.

Transmission levels fine.

Coolant fine.

Engine started hard (it’s very cold today, was in the mid 30s this morning. It’s 46 now.

Engine did start though, without any problems, other than taking three cranks.

Checked raw water flow. Good.

I brought engine up to running temperature, 160* F and that took 24 minutes.

Pressure was high (almost 80 psi) at start, but as temp increased the oil pressure dropped to normal.

Brought engine up to 1200 rpm for 10 minutes.

Put at idle speed (about 980) and put in forward gear.

Brought engine up to 1100 rpm in gear at dock.

Pulling against docks now strongly, remained engaged.

Has been running 25 minutes in gear with no issues. (1035)

Oil pressure: 40

Engine Temp: 160

Charge: 14.5

Engine running smoothly at this time. Listening for timing or engine speed changes. Seems steady. (1040)

(Listening to Margaritaville Radio, because I’m sick of the cold)

Ok… 1055, engine shutdown.

Temp, oil pressure, voltages all the same as above. Engine didn’t vary it’s tone or speed from 1100 rpm. All systems “nominal”.

Going to wait a bit to let oil settle, and take a reading. Then will read it cold later today again.

Edit: Checked it as it is cooling, and oil level seems higher than it was. Will let it get totally cool before testing again. Also did an oil blotter test; this is where you place a drop of the oil from the dip stick onto a piece of paper and let it absorb into the paper.

In chemistry, this is called Chromatography. They have gas chromatographs, but I don’t have one of those. I’ve got paper. So I did a cold and warm drop test on the paper and marked it. I will do one more drop test when the oil is cool again. So FAR, it shows it pretty clear of any contaminates other than soot.

Trying to leave…. Hotel California

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JoAnne and I have been here in Southport going on Three years.

Don’t get me wrong, we really LOVE this town. We love the people, we’ve made a million friends. We know almost everyone.

But, we also spend last winter in Colorado. And the winter before here on the docks. And this winter is upon us now….and… we’re still here.

Every time we try to leave, something weird happens.

Engine issues. Cancer. Engine issues. Fuel issues. Fire extinguishers. Engine issues. Did I mention ENGINE ISSUES?

Last Tuesday we were supposed to leave. JoAnne woke up coughing, sneezing and feeling like crap. Ok, she has a weakened immune system from the two separate chemos (each lasting 6 months) she’s had to go through.

I cancelled the trip.

The week before we found out the cleaning on the boat bottom wasn’t really as well done as it could have been. And the prop was severely fouled. I dived the boat myself and the prop was clumped. It had been cleaned a couple months before. Should NOT have had LARGE barnacles, but it did. Ok, I didn’t clean it, but someone else did. They came out, checked it and said it was “VERY FOULED”.

Company said “Oh, in two weeks it can get that way….”

I don’t believe that. I have sat in these waters for over two years and WATCHED the accumulation, so I know the amounts. Beside the point though.

This time, after cancelling the trip, I started the engine in the afternoon to run the prop (to keep it clean). The boat moves fine under power, still tied to dock, I could move her forward and back.

Ten minutes in, the engine ran away.

I ran below, tried to kill with the kill cable, no luck. I removed the side panel to engine, grabbed a tupperware lid, ripped the air filter off, was immediately splattered with black, hot oil, and slapped the lid over the mouth of the air intake, shutting the engine down.

After cleaning up the oil and checking the oil levels I found the oil was WAY over the amount it was supposed to be.

Now… let’s go back exactly one year, in September 2018. One of the reasons we didn’t leave then was… you guessed it, an “Engine runaway”, then a hurricane which gave us pause, and finally, JoAnne having to go back to Colorado for her Chemo after her recurrence of cancer.

I’d called in a mechanic that I knew. Charged me quite a bit of money, told me the “lift pump” was shoving diesel into the crank case. Removed it, and “rebuilt it” supposedly. ALSO, removed and pressure tested the injectors (supposedly).

Back to a year later, in the here and now. The oil levels were at TWO GALLONS. And it was full of diesel. Not good.

I immediately suspected the lift pump. You know, the “rebuilt one”. In checking I found it is difficult to get the parts to rebuild one (and why, because they cost 25 US dollars!!!!)

Ok…..two gallons of oil, mixed with diesel means I literally have about 3.5 quarts of diesel in the crankcase. I pumped it all out, and disposed of it (properly, at an Autozone near by). I ordered a new lift pump, which came yesterday.

I installed it today. I’ve since changed oil. Run the engine up to temperature. Put it into forward, reverse and left it under stress for 1/2 hour while engine came up to temperature of 160 degrees.

I check the oil levels and they are normal. Before heating, after heating, and I’m about to check them again after cool down to ensure its not collecting diesel.

There are a few places the diesel can come in. 1) Lift Pump, 2) Injection/Governor pump, 3) clogged fuel return line, 4) injectors themselves, 5) a ‘ball valve’ in the heater unit.

I have replaced the lift pump, because the more I look at the old one, the more I do NOT believe it was touched, repaired, replaced (it’s the original one) or refurbished.

The injectors were removed, cleaned and pressure tested (supposedly, did I mention that?) a year ago. Shouldn’t be leaking.

During my study of this engine – remember, I am NOT a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination – I found the stuff above. I also think I have found I do NOT have a pre-heating unit, not anywhere I can see it. AND while I do NOT think I have a clogged return fuel line, I’m remembering a certain mechanic asking me where my “return lines go, and where’s the valve” at one point. I do NOT believe I’ve checked that….

Since the TIME BEFORE LAST when he visited. So, to morrow I will be checking all of that.

It occurred to me, if the return line valve was closed before, it would explain why the engine ran away, not once, but TWICE now.

So, I learned a lot. Never trust anyone else on your engine. Always know everything about it yourself, even if you pay someone else to do the work. Always CHECK everything yourself (which I KNEW, but was too lazy to do). ALWAYS know your own stuff better than anyone else.

Also learned a lot about diesel engines. Actually, pretty simple creatures. They need air, and fuel to work, along with compression. Not much else. Ok, oil in the sump and coolant in the tanks, working, moving parts and all that stuff, but it all works together so neatly!

Two books I’ll recommend though, “Troubleshooting Marine Diesels” and “Marine Diesel Engines” by Nigel Calder and Peter Compton, respectively, if you want to know how diesel engines work.

There’s no book to tell you to do things a certain way in life. How to deal with mechanics or riggers. There’s no book out there to tell you how to know in what order to do everything you need to know how to do on a boat.

Oh, there’s LOTS OF BOOKS on various subjects, but there is only ONE thing that is going to teach you the right way to do something. To prevent screwing up, you need experience. You get experience by screwing up a few times.

Delayed again :(

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We were all set to head out this morning. Relatively calm inside and supposed to be pretty nice out on the ocean.

Unfortunately, I didn’t double check my blood pressure medications last week as part of the checks I was going though. On Saturday evening I got a text message from Walgreen’s saying my prescription was due. It was too late to go over on Saturday evening by then, and of course, I went in early Sunday.

They processed it yesterday and it is delayed because the prescription had “expired”. Basically, they have to contact the doctor to reauthorize my meds for 90 days (called a “vacation fill” I think).

They finally sent another text yesterday about noon or so saying it was “delayed” and awaiting the doctors. I waited until 7pm last night hoping the doctors would fix the problem by 5 pm Colorado time. That didn’t happen.

It is now 10AM in North Carolina – so 0800 in Colorado. Hopefully they will get it set here shortly, and we can either squeak out of the marina or just go tomorrow morning on high tide.

Money Matters

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Today I looked at our bank accounts.

A few days ago, we spent over 3000 on doing a new dodger, bimini and adding some stuff like grab rails, and mounts for the solar panels above the bimini (instead of THROUGH it like the previous set up).

Our poor, little checking account takes a pretty good hit every month from the marina bill. Next month it will be boat insurance, and also our storage locker. December, car insurance. We get a really good deal on the storage locker though. We pay a year in advance and get a month free. So, next year, we should be good until December or even January!

Today, my first Social Security check made it into the bank, just a few days after my military retirement check. A whopping “boat buck”, plus a little bit. We think of a “Boat Buck” as an amount that, should something break, we’re going to end up spending about $1000 on it (whether up front or for parts, labor, time, extra parts, trips to the store for MORE parts, etc).

Other than me working in the marina, this is our first real income in forever. Five years nearly. The marina wasn’t much. Maybe a few hundred bucks a month at most. Ice Cream and Beer money usually.

(Our income now consists of my military retirement pay, plus SS, not a LOT, but good enough.)

In December, JoAnne can apply for Social Security. That should give us enough to live on month to month. We still have out little “nest egg”, sitting there, drawing interest too!

When we retired, we hoped to go for five years, without working, from funds from our house. And, we have, or close enough anyway, along with multiple cross-country trips, massive medical bills and insurance costs for the boat and car. I took the marina job because it was 1) something to do, 2) I can do it with my eyes closed, 3) It’s not difficult, 4) it’s fun, 5) my commute was 3 minutes walk to the office/docks from my boat.

Everyone who is interested in becoming a cruiser asks “How can I survive? What can I do? How can I make money?” They also ask numerous questions of us about how we do things, how we make money, how can we live without a television (very well, thank you) and they insist on knowing about bathrooms….

A lot of people work their way up and down the coast, or around the world, taking on odd jobs and various other ways. Some folks, they just have it made with lots of cash in the bank, drawing interest from a previous life of proper investing or rental incomes. We don’t have those things.

And lots of people take the “easy way” out, by creating visual/video appealing Youtube sites and monetizing them. More power to them, but, I don’t click on them. I read a rare few blogs myself, but I don’t watch monetized sites, or click on the stuff. I HATE, utterly DETEST Ads. (I’ll explain why in a moment.)

People who have the artistic ability to create informational videos abound, but not all of them are very good at it. Some get lucky and actually make money. Most do not. And the amount of work it takes to shoot video, edit it and put it all together in a viewable format is more than I want to deal with sitting at my lap top. I do enough of that writing and reading. I honestly don’t want a desk job on my boat.

Then there’s the thing with “Internet ads”. Most sites, Youtube included, can be monetized, so that ads show. My issue with ads is simple. Almost every one has to “pay” to access the Internet. We are paying for “bandwidth” (another concept I find ridiculous, having worked in IT for years) and find themselves throttled (slowed down) after so many gigs of data pass through. Because… why?

So Internet providers can pull more money from retired people, and young people alike. There’s NO need to throttle a service. Ever. Limit the incoming stream to x-amount all the time, so they can watch a movie or whatever, BUT, don’t limit it at the end of the month under the implied rule “were’re trying to make it fair for others to get data too!”

That’s BS. Back to ads. Ads use bandwidth too. If you’re watching television or listening to radio, that is a FREE service, paid for by ads. The Internet is a PAID service, paid by you. Why do *I* have to pay for an ADVERTISER to feed me data, using MY data stream? They should be paying ME to view ads. Give me free data every time to feed me a BS ad, and I’ll still ignore your ad.

I don’t personally find it polite for people to stick ads on everything, and therefore this is one of the reasons I avoid video blogs 99% of the time. I’d rather read a book or read a blog. (This text-only entry is about 2-3 kilobytes of data).

Most people wait until they are old, like me, to retire and move on into retirement spending their savings. Younger folks, I’ve found work their way around the planet on boats. They spend time in a place, find they have some particular asset that makes them “wanted” in a particular market, such as bar tending or working in a marina (something I can do, the marina thing, not bar tending).

Others do odd jobs, cut hair, they do wood work, sell hand made items like jewelry and wooden carvings.

If you’re on a boat, there are monthly fees on things, regardless of what you do or don’t do. You have to pay for fuel, propane, gasoline, water, bottom cleaning, top cleaning. Even if you do most of the jobs yourself, you still need to eat, keep warm, get cool, buy products, spend energy many times even moving your boat.

Most of us today, in modern times, do NOT give up our engines no matter for the old days when there were men and boats to pull you into the water ways. Those times and people aren’t here. I can’t sail out of my slip easily due to the weight and size of the vessel, so I require fuel and an engine. Otherwise, I have to get some local friends in dinks to pull me out, or use lines to warp out of the area and into the ICW. Not fun, and not cost effective.

At WORST, I could call SeaTow and ask them to come and move me out to the water way, but I’d not do that. So, we all pay for energy somehow.

How do we make money? We have a retirement income. But, I’m looking at an alternative. Above I mentioned something about “bottom cleaning”. Our boat gets full of wild life on the bottom after a few weeks and it costs me anywhere from 100 bucks a month to 175 bucks every quarter to clean the boat. I have to call a dive service to do so. They aren’t cheap. And they are pretty much the only “game in town” around here.

They claim to give “discounts” for those who do monthly service, but…. the math goes like this:

$110 * 12 = $1320 monthly
$132 * 6 = $792 bi-monthly
$175 * 4 = $700 quarterly

Typically, I call them every three months. They do a “one time cleaning fee” or 175 so for 700 bucks per year, someone comes and cleans my boat, checks my zincs and so forth. They will not give me a quarterly contract, because “You don’t use your boat enough”. Hmmmm

So, I don’t see a SAVINGS by going with monthly, I see more outlay for cleaning if I went to monthly. And I am not sure about someone having the nerve to tell me “You don’t use your boat ENOUGH” to qualify for a quarterly thing?

This brings me finally, to my actual point – if you’ve stayed with me long enough here, and I hope you have, I will be diving my own boat for cleaning from now on. The cost of the equipment is LESS than the “quarterly fee” I’ve been spending.

I have the skills, time and ability to dive the boat myself. Except, I don’t have all the equipment other than my snorkeling gear I need. Today, I hit the “buy” button on a few extra items I need. A surface air supply (compressor and tank), fifty feet of air hose, first stage regulator, a diving hood (to keep critters out of my ears) and an inline oil/water separator for the air supply.

I will eventually need a full wet suit (for diving in the cooler waters here in North Carolina) as well as a battery to power the compressor for diving. I figure I can stick the gear in my dink, row over to someone’s boat, tie off, kill the AC on the dock/boat and dive the bottom, or do my own any time it’s not terrible weather, or too cold (I’m not diving cold waters or weather, I’m getting too old for that stuff now).

But, in five dives, I will have paid myself back for the gear. Anything after that is simply money in the bank. And I don’t have to do other’s boats. But, I don’t have to pay for mine any more either.

I’ll spend time practicing on my own ship when we get further south in a month or so, in clearer water.

If you’re a cruiser reading this, how do YOU make money? Comment and let us know what you do, and think!

Time to go catch a fish for bait for crabs!

s/v Adventure: 7 Oct 2019

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Found and replaced some missing nuts and washers this morning on the engine. One set on one of the engine mounts had “rattled” off apparently, down inside the pan. Had to hunt with a flashlight and reach into the deep, dark recesses beneath the engine to retrieve them.

Had purchased a couple of sets of spares yesterday, and wound up using one of the new nuts. Found the other, can’t reach it at the moment, my arms don’t fit down there.

Tested the transmission levels today, started engine, brought her up to operating temperature, put the engine in gear and stressed it forward and backward… pushing water very well.

Shut down engine, and tested levels, and they are right.

I believe I’m losing transmission fluid through the oil cooler assembly at higher operating temperatures under pressure. It’s not a LOT at a shot, but it’s enough that after many hours, I need to add fluid.

I think I will end up having to replace the cooler (a double cooler set up).

Hopefully, we’re going to get our provisions together in a couple of days, take care of some things in the area like our storage locker, and a tire giving me fits, and then do a test run of the engine.

Might just come back, drop our temporary crew member off at the docks and kick off and keep going if we have everything ready for the trip by the time the weather is good enough to do an engine test run.

Watermaker:

Just ran the water maker. Last time was a nearly empty tank (a couple gallons left in it) on 28 September 2019. Filled the tank in about 5 minutes under three hours.

Today, we started the maker at 1350 hours local. The machine ran for 1 hour and 40 minutes and the tank “popped”, letting us know water was full. The tank makes a noise when it is full, I assume one of the sides bulging out slightly. JoAnne also observed noise at the air pressure relief behind her seat, and the over flow began flowing into the bilge.

So… 21gal/hr * 1.66666 hours = 34.99986 gallons of water

It took us 9 days to use 35 gallons of water from our tanks. That’s pretty average for us, when not taking showers on board (which is extremely rare for us to do). The calculation is for the amount of water produced per hour (nominal 21gph) and the time is the number of hours in decimal format for how long it actually took to fill the tank. So, 1 hour, 40 minutes is roughly 1.66666 hours. Multiplying those numbers gives me the quantity of water produced over the time period.

(At some point, I’ll calculate the exact amounts of water, gasoline, wattage used and probably soup up the solar panels a bit along with the generator! Actually, the solar isn’t used for the process, but, I like being able to keep the batteries charged using them, and I know the DC side uses almost 10 amps. So, that was almost 20 Amp hours!)

High pressure side ran at just under 700 psi

Low pressure side at 8 psi, and went up to 20 psi as the process continued.

A check of the filters shows they need to be pulled out and cleaned. I’ll use those a couple more times (after I clean them tomorrow and do a system flush with fresh water) and then when we arrive in clear water, I’ll swap the filters out for new ones. Not sure how long they can be used for before you are supposed to change them.

We did keep popping a breaker for the lift pump for some reason. But after I started up the high pressure pump it stopped. I assume the lift motor was working a bit too hard.

Electrical:

Today I ran the engine, mentioned above, and used the bow thrusters to check them, pushed bow out a bit. Noticed that the battery charger has kicked in, I assume due to the use of the thrusters. Also, as a result of the low pressure pump doing it’s thing. It draws about 10 amps while running.

The fridge draws five pretty constantly.

We also run several DC fans on warm days like today, so the power draw adds up. The system is currently charging at about 80% and it’s not “ready” yet, like normal.

I did check the batteries a couple of days ago, added water to them, and checked a few random cells for charge (they were good).

I also have replaced a double pole, double throw toggle on the battery meter, which I thought was broken, showing low readings on the meter. When I tested the output on my digital meter, it read normal (at 13.5vdc) so I assumed the wires or switch bad. Replaced several connectors, cleaned some connections and replaced the switch and things were fine.

Last night, I noted the meter was reading low again, and yet with a digitial meter, it was reading fine.

Checking things a few minutes ago, I noted the power system is charging, and the meter reading is normal, showing a charge on-going. The secondary (old) Xantrex meter still in the circuit is also showing 13.70 vdc, which means the system is charging.

Not sure yet if we have a flaky connection back in the battery bay or what yet. I’ll find it eventually though.

I’ll double check the voltages on the batteries, and probably test all the cells before we decide to do a shake down next week. Shake down will likely be next weekend or just before or after the weekend (to avoid the fishing vessels and the guys who don’t know how to drive their boats).

My Life as a “Captain”

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Sea Captain is a rough, tough name.  Because, Sea Captains are rough and tough.  I suppose, I’m rough sometimes, and usually pretty tough.  But, I’m no “Sea Captain”.  I’ve lived aboard Adventure for over four years.  To be honest, I’m not really even a “Captain” or licensed ship’s master (though that might change in the coming months).  I am the “Master of this Ship” though.  We (the ship and I) have an agreement now.  I maintain her, and she’s stopping hitting me in the head, tripping me and doing bad things.  She still throws things around sometimes in little tantrums though.

I’m actually “certified” through the America Sailing Association on several levels; things that most people, with a little common sense, can do, study and get “certified”.  Almost anyone can take classes and pass the tests, and a lot of people do so, sometimes without common sense.  Some people never bother.  They have money, they buy a boat, pretend to be a “Captain” and wake smaller vessels, marinas, fuel docks, can’t figure out which way to go when coming head on, make bad decisions sometimes endangering others and so on.  Perhaps those are the folks that spend their money on someone else to do the varnishing?  I don’t know….

But, people around the marina, the Coast Guard, the marina patrol all call me “Cap” or “Captain”.  JoAnne calls me “Captain” occasionally, though rarely.

Being a Sea Captain is a rough, tough thing.  Not for any reasons you might imagine though.  When I started this blog, oh so many years ago, it was to document things we did, places we’ve visited and one thing I promised myself and my readers was to keep it “Real” — tell it like it is.  Because there are so many wonderful blogs and video blogs out there that tell it like it ain’t.

Not that they LIE.  But, they don’t tell the WHOLE truth all the time.  Don’t get me wrong, they show the great parts of living aboard a boat, the awesome places they visit, the beauty of the world, the cool people, and great friends they make.  These are all good things.

Leaving out the bad days, nights of anchor dragging, stormy seas, crappy boat performance, the jerks you meet out there (along with all the great people) is a kind of “lie by omission” to me.  Perhaps in our blog due to our actual LACK of travel sometimes, it gets boring or repetitive.  I get that. But, it is what it is.  Being a boat “Captain” isn’t an easy job even when you’re actually being a captain and sailing the boat.  On the other hand, it’s great fun.

Adventure is a wonderful, beautifully designed, boat made from fiberglass and she contains a massive amount of wood both above and below.  A lot of teak. She was designed, we believe, by William Garden, built in a Taiwanese shipyard in Taipei, Taiwan.

Her full keel is a dead weight displacement at 19,000 lbs.  Her total weight/displacement puts her as a 16 ton ship.  Her rig is that of a ketch, two masts, main and mizzen.  She has four sails, a working jib, a 150% Genoa, main and mizzen sail, all of them are roller furled sails (main and mizzen in-mast).

She has three solid anchors.  Two CQRs, one at 60lbs and one at 45lbs, 150′ nylon rode and 280′ of 3/8th BB chain on the 45 pounder.  The smallest anchor is a 19 lb danforth used as a kedging or stern anchor (rarely used).  No, I won’t get into the “anchor argument”.  It is what it is, and we have what we have, and I’m not switching anchors because some know-it-alls on the Internet, sitting at their arm chairs tell me “CQRs Suck”.  Mostly, they don’t suck, mostly every anchor ever invented has pros and cons.  At least it’s not a giant rock with a hole cut in it to tie a line too like the Greeks used, right?

Adventure is a well found Pirate Ship that any wannabe Pirate would be both proud to sail or live upon.  She handles well, even in crappy weather and big seas.  It’s just that the Captain of this boat is more difficult to handle… the seas that is. I’m still looking for a place to mount the cannons though.  No cannon deck….

I can sail her, alone if need be and JoAnne can sail her too, but has problems with the sheets sometimes.  I think that is more a perception thing than a physical thing.  This boat is significantly larger than most of the boats we’ve sailed (Except a 42′ Jeanneau called “Wombat” in the BVIs a few years ago) so it can be daunting to stand on the deck or cockpit moving at 7 knots under all sail with a short handed crew of two.

I’ve gotten sea sick at least twice.  The First Mate, JoAnne, she’s a tough cookie too.  Fought and beat back Cancer twice.  Broke her back once.  Has given birth to six children.  Broke a leg once.  Multiple stomach surgeries.  Has put up with my shit for 42+ years now, so she’s a very tough First Mate, and I love her dearly.  But, she too, gets sea sick.

So much of my “being a Captain” of a boat is spent cleaning, sanding, varnishing, repairing things, building new things from parts, varnishing, installing systems (new water maker!) and did I mention “varnishing”?  Also trying to make things easier for us.

Of late, I’ve spent a couple of weeks working on sanding and varnishing.  That’s a tough job in the heat and humidity of North Carolina.  Installing the water maker wasn’t a piece of cake either.  I had to remove a large, 30 gallon water tank and replace that with the water maker system.  I think it was a good trade off though, since we rarely used that tank.  It was our reserve water, really, and we rarely did more than flush that tank out every couple of months to add new water.

On the bright side, we can now make water using a generator.

Installing things is a “Captain” thing to do, otherwise, you pay someone else to do it.  That’s not fun….  If a Captain has a crew who is capable of doing a particular job, the Captain will delegate the authority to accomplish the task.  The First Mate can’t do most mechanical things well, if at all.  She just doesn’t really see mechanical things in a way that she can fix or repair them.  But, she’s a wonderful cook – and I will even call her a “Chef” though she refuses to accept that title (without professional training).  Sometimes, amateurs are better than professionals anyway, and no matter what she thinks, she a Chef in MY mind.  She’s also the “Provisioner” and pretty much in charge of the inside of the ship, except the engine. And other mechanical things.  And anything broken.  HA!

She can do a little electrical stuff, because she’s an Amateur Radio Operator, but I prefer to do that stuff because, it’s what I did for my whole life.

Thus, I do the mechanical work, electrical work, plumbing when required, I paint, I sand, I varnish, I do sewing, of sails and canvas, I do marlingspike work (ropes, lines, replacing old lines with new).  I do dock work, deck work, I remove fittings, I replace fittings, I fix fittings… Soon, I shall even become the boat diver and clean the bottom of the boat myself. (That’s another thing that bugs me…. as the wild life here grows quickly, and the local guy doesn’t have a lot of competition so charges a lot for a single boat cleaning job).

Again, the cost of maintaining a boat is significantly more than a house.  Of course, you sometimes spend a lot of money on new windows, doors, appliances, and so on in a house, but you don’t have the salt air tearing it all apart internally most of the time like a boat.  Your house, unless you live in California or Japan, doesn’t move at all.  Ours moves constantly, so wear and tear on everything from dock lines to antichaffing stuff.

Our “window replacement” was the bimini and dodger as of two days ago.  It wasn’t a cheap thing, but it’s pretty.  It isn’t glass, but Esenglas.  Not shingles for a roof, but a canvas covering.  The cost was about the same as I would have ended up paying for a new garage door or several windows in a house.

But, it is nice. The solar panels are better mounted, we have new grab rails and I’m happy with it.  But I didn’t do it.  Perhaps the next time, I can do it myself.

Over the four plus years aboard Adventure, we spent two of them cruising and taking off for Colorado for cancer treatments and two compression fractures in JoAnne’s back.  So, over the course of time, we spent about 9 months off the and the rest on it.  A full year of that was cruising around the Chesapeake Bay, and down from New York to here in North Carolina.

We don’t have as much distance under the keel as some do.  We haven’t visited all the cool places some have.  Times though, are a changin’, so it is said.  I’m going to order my surface air supply systems and a few things like a regulator in a few days.  The Varnishing is nearly complete (for now, more will take place under way).  Water maker installed.  JoAnne is making lists of things for provisions.  We’ve considered staying a couple extra weeks (based on weather, and the Steed Bonnet race) and that’s up in the air at the moment as well.

Truthfully, there’s nothing now, not even hurricanes harrying the area to prevent us from setting sail in a day or two other than extra food.  This weekend I’ll go through my lockers one last time, hit the storage unit, repair a tire on our car, remove crap from the dock box and do final tests, and a short day sail to check on things.  Jay Beard has volunteered to go along for the shake down.

In the next two weeks, we have parts coming in, and strapping down of things to accomplish, grocery stores to visit, rum to replenish and perhaps… a day or two off to rest up before the departure.

As you can see, the “Life of a Captain” isn’t all “Partying”.  It’s more like being a Slave to a ship that rarely moves from the docks, but demands a significant amount of attention each and every day.

Move, though, we will.  To the South.  Somewhere.  Anywhere.  Out there.  That a-way.

Then I can be a Tough and Rough Sea Captain again.

Maybe.

If I don’t get sea sick.

I’ve got to head this boat south pretty soon
New album’s old and I’m fresh out of tunes
But I know that I’ll get ’em, I know that they’ll come
Through the people and places and Caldwood’s Rum

  (Manana, by Jimmy Buffett)

Note:  Most of blog entries on the windsoftime.us site (also see this link if for some reason the domain is down https://thewindsoftime.wordpress.com) are pretty boring, talking about the things I do on the boat, to the boat and in the boat.  But, Adventure is a ship, worthy of so much more than sitting idle at the docks like she does.  Soon, we will make her Happy Again.

Bimini and Dodger, More Varnish and Sanding

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Bimini:

Just prior to Hurricane Florence last year, I made an error on leaving my solar panels and bimini in place.  Well, sort of an error.  I knew that the windage would be high and the bimini was mounted under the solar panels, and the posts holding the solar up went THROUGH the bimini.  I also realized how damaged and aged the bimini was.

Leaving it up was a recipe for disaster if things got bad.  Taking it down was a recipe for disaster because of age.

I left it up.  We “lost a solar panel” off the top.  The wind ripped it loose and dropped it, fortunately, on the deck of the boat where it remained until I returned after the hurricane in October last year.  I easily repaired the small amount of damage and observed the bimini wasn’t in great shape, but survive.  It had a couple of small tears in it.

This time, as Dorian approached, I removed EVERYTHING from the deck.  We pulled Adventure into the marina, deep inside up near the containment bulkhead and positioned her inside a shallow slip at high tide, so we settled into the mud when the King Tide fell off.

Dorian hit with a whisper of winds (40 knots perhaps on shore here), the eye wall missing us by a good 30-35 miles.  Adventure came through fine.  The bimini however, as well as the dodger have seen better days.  So, I never reinstalled it.

About a month ago, I ran into a canvas guy, David from “Custom Canvas” out of New Bern.  He gave us a quote for lowering the bimini, creating a new bimini and dodger (no enclosure this time) and adding a few extra pieces.

The steel was lowered at one visit.  Another visit resulted in several more measurements, some grab rails and the bows over the top of the bimini top on which to mount the solar panels.

David was here a few days ago, installed the bimini, and subsequently, I installed the solar panels in a preliminary location – which, might move slightly back soon.  I am not sure I like them exactly where they are, and I want extra room for the boom to swing by the top of the bimini.  I’ll work that out later.

Dodger:

He is returning today, to bring the dodger, which for the uninitiated is the part that covers the front of the cockpit, and “dodges” the spray and waves that can wash over the front of the boat at times.  We had the top of the dodger lowered as well, so that I can now re-learn climbing in and out of the companionway getting whacked in the head.  But, the point was to allow JoAnne to actually see over the TOP of the dodger now.

Before, when driving the boat, she could never get a clear view in front of the boat.  She had to duck down and look through the dodger window, or stand on her tiptoes to see above it, while leaning over to see past a sail.  Not fun for her, I assure you.

We dropped it down about 5-6 inches and had her stand behind the wheel.  When she was happy with the height, we stopped cutting.  I’m concerned I’ll have a few knots on my head, climbing in and out in the next few days once installed, but eventually, like Pavlov’s Dogs, I’ll learn.

Sand and Varnish:

Over the course of the past months, I’ve spent roughly 30 hours sanding wood, washing it, and varnishing.  I have about 90% of the teak done – on the top of the boat.  I haven’t touched the rub rails, or the plaques on the boat topsides yet.  And I haven’t done any varnishing to the aft deck (the whole aft of the boat is a raised, teak platform which covers a large storage compartment, containing our propane tanks and extra “stuff” we don’t want to leave on the deck, like pumps, parts for the emergency tiller, etc)

That deck will likely take a third of a quart of varnish alone for a single coat.  I’ll likely finish that first coat today or tomorrow.  After it hardens, I’ll be hitting the wood all the way around the top of the boat, once over, a complete boat wash, taping and varnishing the second coat.  I plan, if time and weather permits, to get some of the deck paint done and to fix a couple of leaks so the outside of the boat should be ready in less than two weeks.

Given the heat of the day, and humidity, I’ve tried to apply varnish in the right time of day, temps and humidity, but I’m here to tell you, this is an impossible task unless the boat is moved inside a building in a controlled environment.  So… it’s called “going with the flow” (of varnish, which flows off things, down tape, drips everywhere and is constantly being cleaned up).

After all that work, the boat looks amazing though, and in the end, it makes JoAnne smile at how pretty the boat is.  I makes my muscles ache when I see it….. But, I still like the varnished wood.

I plan to get about five coats on if I can, with fine sanding in between, and then do “touch up” coats after a few months to keep it looking nice.  It’s less work to do that, than to let it get down to bare wood.

Someone asked me the other day about sanding the boat and then varnishing it, then sanding again.  They have an all-Clorox-Boat, so I explained that it is supposed to take down the bubbles or ‘nibs’, and raised rough spots, and give the next coat something on which to cling.  They were impressed I knew so much about varnish (HAHAHA, little do they know, I just had to look it up to explain it to them!)

Side Note: Our friend Jason has also been sanding and sanding and vanishing and washing and sanding and varnishing as well.  I believe he completed his last coat last night.  The boat rails look amazing.

Storage Locker and Provisions: 

We have a storage locker.  I pay for it a year in advance.  It’s due in November I think, so I’ll be going over to write them a check for another yet, and going through my locker to pull out a few things and bring to the boat, as well as remove a few more things from the boat we won’t need.  I want ‘parts’ that I can use to repair things, even if makeshift if necessary, and I want heavy things off the boat I can’t use while under way (certain electrical tools).  We have little A/C power available except for the generator during cruising, and I’ll reserve that for the water maker most of the time, but will bring my battery drill, a saw and my small electronic tools, and the engine tools.

Also I have a sail in storage I need to bring back, and we need our water, diesel and gas cans back on the boat.  Need a way to carry extra water if we can’t make it or catch rainwater, diesel because I HATE docking at fuel docks and gas for the genny.

In a few days we will need to being picking up food to provision the boat.  We’re going to get a month’s worth of things, mostly long term storage items like canned foods, along with perhaps a week (whatever JoAnne decides can work for us) of fresh items and we will refill things as we go down the coast this time, instead of having six months worth of stuff on the boat this time.  Before we hope to Bahamas we’ll do a big food, beer and soda run (yes, we drink soda!) and stock up on things that are expensive in the Islands.  (Toilet paper, paper towels, etc)

We don’t use many paper towels (instead we buy cheap white cloths from the hardware store and reuse them) and tend to use the marina heads when we stop in them instead of the boat, but offshore… well, anyway….

JoAnne had her medical check up on the 9th of September.  We’ll have to work something out for one in December, and I think we’ll be calling back to her doctors here in NC to get advice on that subject when we get closer to the time.

My last obstacle is the Borg-Warner Velvet Drive Transmission.  Over the past couple of years, it’s given me fits.  Seemingly it stops “working” and then “works”.  We have determined that its simply a lack of transmission fluid, but where it is going, we’re unsure.  It’s not in the bilge, and I don’t think it is mixed in with the few drops of oil in the catch pan under the engine.

Someone suggested it is going out under pressure in the heat exchanger perhaps, once the engine reaches temperature.  I tend to agree since I’m not finding leaks anywhere else.  If so, then the solution will be to remove and replace the heat exchanger that is connected to the transmission.  I’ve identified the unit, and the hoses, but am not sure it there is a way to “test” for leaks at this point.  Meantime, I need to keep extra transmission fluid on the boat.

I’m sure I’ve missed something. I usually do.  But, that’s ok, I’ll figure it out when I come to it.

In the mean time, I rarely if ever do this, but I want to remind folks that I’ve written some books and I’d love it if some of you would take the time to read and review the books on Amazon.  I’ll drop the links at the bottom of this page.  One book is a couple of years old, and is about “Survival and Communications” and is a primer for people who don’t know much about radios and radio communications.  Call it a “Prepper Book” if you like.  It’s in Digital Format ONLY and I won’t be doing it in hard copy because it’s simply too expensive.  And if you’re a Prepper, then you know you’re NOT going to grab 200 of your favorite books and stuff them in your bug out bag.  You need to KNOW the information, knowledge is power. Don’t carry a book, carry your brain around with the information inside.

The other book is a SF Adventure/Thriller, “Aftermath’s Children” set in the not-too-distant future, and you can read the description online at Amazon.  That book is in both digital and hard copy formats.  You can find all three versions of the books at the link below.

https://www.amazon.com/Rick-Donaldson/e/B00Q514LD0

I invite you to buy it, read it, review it and if you get the hard copy, and we pass by, I’ll sign it for you.  The second book in the series is being completed soon.   Please, drop me a line at Adventure.Rick.JoAnne@gmail.com or r.daledonaldson@gmail.com if you buy a copy!  Thanks!!!

 

SeaWater Pro – Makin’ Water

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Making fresh water from sea or brackish water is turning out to be kind of fun.

Our water tank is getting low, so I fired up the water maker. This is only the third time we’ve run it for a good length of time, and figured it was time to make sure things work well.

We’re on Shore Power at the moment because we’re in the marina. Tide has hit high tide at about 8:15 this morning, and flowing out now. I was trying to get this done at high tide to prevent pulling in mud or silt from the floor of the ICW. The water is brackish.

So about 9:25 we fired up the rig, I adjusted things so it is creating water and running at 21 gpm. The contaminate level is at 110 most of the time so far.

We’re running it for slightly less than three hours today to fill the tank and to ensure no problems are found.

No leaks. No problems thus far. It’s been going for just under two hours. Should take three to fill the tank to capacity.

The ICW is flowing out right now at around 2.5 knots of current and I really wanted flowing water going past us. Helps eliminate standing muddy water and stuff floating near by the intake. Keeping a constant flow of water is a good thing.

Checking the strainer shows the incoming water is clear, nothing of note in it, no critters I can see and no debris or dirt.

The main filters are clear, with a small amount of “dirt” showing in the first filter (20 micro filter).

My only issue is that I don’t know the quantity of water in the tank. We normally fill with a hose or using water cans, and when we reach ‘full’ the tank will make a popping sound. I don’t think that is going to happen this time.

I suspect I might have to install a gauge of some sort or a see-through tube to the tank to let me know my levels. I’ll ponder that another time. I know though, when we hit “full” the vent will begin to vent the extra water into the bilge so that will be my indicator for the time being.

My friend Kevin, when I told him about the installation walked over to the garden hose by his boat and picked it up saying, “I have a water maker too”. Kevin has been sailing his whole life, and I know he probably understands the difficulties of getting fresh water in some places. Others know that throwing money at a problem offers a temporary solution, like just purchasing the water.

I prefer self-sufficiency over total dependence on others. Sure, I still have to have electricity, and to get it I have to run a generator. But a gallon of gas will run the generator for ten hours or so, producing 210 gallons of water if I ran it the whole time.

Gas (here) is about 2.89 a gallon. Water is free.

In the islands, gas is more, and the water isn’t free. Unless you catch it from the rain. Which we can also do. Right now, gas is about 1.20 dollars a liter in the Bahamas (roughly). Water is running from 6-7 dollars a day to as much as $20 to fill your tank. Since the hurricane went through, I don’t know what they are charging at the moment.

Options….. we all want options.

A gallon of gas in Bahamas is about $4.80 so, still slightly cheaper to produce the water using the generator than to purchase it and haul it back back forth in the dink to me. Less work too. I HATE pulling into marinas and running the engine constantly. So… to me, it’s a convenience thing.

As I’m typing this, we’re right at two solid hours of running the system. The noise isn’t too bad and the unit is under the settee. I open it up for air (motor can get warm) so it’s a little louder that I like, but tolerable.

We should have produced 42 gallons of water at this point, and my vents aren’t yet venting water, so that’s good. The bilge doesn’t have any water in it at the moment either. So that’s good too. Contaminants are at 117 ppm. Still good.

Just as a refresher here, pure sea water should produce fresh water, at about 200 ppm. Less than pure salt water will produce water at lesser numbers. (We have seen it from 65 – 120). I think the difference is whether the tide is rising or falling.

If rising, then mostly we will see fresh river water coming back into the ICW from the Cape Fear. As it rolls out again, it will be more saline from having mixed with the incoming sea water from the tide.

If we ran clean water through (that might be high contaminates) it should run much less than the 85 number above. The FDA says about 600 ppm is ok for human consumption. A chart is provided below.

What is the acceptable TDS level of drinking water?

By the way, our drinking water goes through a Seagull Carbon Filtration system at our galley sink. Most of the time the water coming out of the regular faucet is fine, has no smells and tastes ok. We use the filter system for the fresh water, just in case.

Our tanks (now singular) are treated about about every three months with enough bleach to sterilize the tank internally and the hoses. In general, I’ll open the tank faucet to allow water flow, run the hose into the input (on the deck) and run it for awhile to ensure flushing the tank. Then add the chlorine, and flush again in a couple of days. I usually flush most of that water through the bilge to keep it clean as well after a couple of days. Most of the chlorine is dissipated by then.

The water maker needs to have the system flushed every few days as well with fresh water, which is also run through a carbon filter to remove chlorine (and typically, I just connect a garden hose straight from the shore power pedestal to clean the filters and the Reverse Osmosis (RO) filter.

At exactly 3 hours in (I knew the tank was almost empty) the system started blowing water into the bilge, indicating the tanks are full. I brought the system pressure down and turned off the main pump motor, allow the lift pump to continue for a few months, then powered it down. Now, I have the garden hose attached to the carbon input filter, and am flushing the RO out.

So, there you have it. Our first solid, real production of water from the ICW with our new water maker, filling the tanks, tasting, drinking it and using it. I’ll let you know if it kills me. HA!

The water, by the way, coming through the system is clear, sweet and has no smells or odd tastes. I consider this a success.

Canvas, Bimini, Monthly update

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A few days ago, I ran into a man who does canvas work.  He also bends and cuts the steel. Had a chat with him about things, and decided to make some changes.

We’ve not been terribly happy with my “makeshift” solar panel mounts because they were made partially of aluminum, on stainless steel (not a good combo in a salt air atmosphere, but it was what I had at the time).  Also, the ancient bimini wasn’t in the best spot, and I ended up putting holes in it first with a soldering iron (to melt the threads together) and washers and screws through it, to hold the solar panels above the bimini.

Another thing that has bugged me since day one on the boat was the fact the main boom was so high up.  In looking at other vessels of my type, with similar in-mast furling, I noted most are lower than mine (significantly) and I can’t find a reason for the boom to be so high other than missing the bimini.

As it turns out, the height on the steel was close to 7.5 above the sole of the cockpit.  About 2.5 feet above my head.  Also, mounting the panels there put them in danger of the boom sweeping them off, so sailing on  run was something I was extremely cautious of doing, ever.  An unexpected Jibe would have ripped the panels off, perhaps the bimini and bent the steel.

After consulting with JoAnne, and Dave (the man who runs Custom Canvas, out of New Bern) we decided to go ahead and hire him to assist.

The changes will be as follows:

  1. Lower the boom (in a good way! ha ha) several inches, actually almost 18″ to be exact.
  2. Lower the bimini top to a few inches over MY head (I’m 5’9″).
  3. Rebuild the dodger and bimini
  4. Add stiffeners to the dodger, bimini
  5. Add grab rails to the bimini which will double as a holder for two new bows over the top
  6. The bows will give me a mounting point 2-3″ above the bimini (no more holes in bimini)
  7. The dodger will cover the hatch correctly
  8. Bimini will have a window (had one before but was unusable due to age)
  9. Stiffener will be at Mizzen mast
  10. Dodger will cover the lower part of the cockpit, with an Esenglas panel to cover the upper part to bimini

Lowering the boom will give me a bit better sail shape than I was able to get.  However, I will have to definitely add a preventer and consider using the topping lift to prevent a sideways SMACK across the bimini.

Solar panels can be moved around now more forward or back as needed.  My alternate/backup small panel will remain movable from side to side of the ship hanging from the mizzen rig to keep it on the sun-side most of the time.

We’ll finally have some new canvas on the boat.

Over the past few months, I’ve done little things here and there. JoAnne and I have gone through most of the “Junk” we have and pulled some off the boat and placed in storage, and pulled things from storage and put on the boat.  We still have “too much stuff”.  We get to do a very good going-through of the boat in the next couple of weeks to empty anything we simply don’t need or can’t use, place in storage and ensure we absolutely have parts we CAN use on the boat for repairs and emergencies.  I am down to one tool bag (and a small one for small tools for electronics stuff).

JoAnne has pared down the other things like cooking utensils and so on.

But we have shade and a water-maker.  I want to have the forward cabin usable for a guest or two – though we don’t foresee that any time soon.

Other items:

Someone went by and it appears they have punctured the dingy (one of the tubes).  Why?  Not sure, but it’s kind of impolite to do such things.  And expensive.  So, one of the things I had to do was locate the repair kit for this dink (I have a couple of repair kits, one for rubber dinks and one for the hypalon dink we currently own) and I’ll need to hoist the boat, soapy-water-the-hell out of it to find the hole and clean and repair it.

Transmission is an on-going pain in the rump.  Borg-Warner, Velvet Drive.  Moving the boat before Hurricane Dorian, I discovered (too late) that the transmission wasn’t quite right and I think the fluid has gone where ever it goes, again.  Had a devil of a time trying to get the boat into the slip, ended up pulling in forward, and not backing like I wanted to do.  Going to dig into that tomorrow morning and see if it’s simply a fluid issue.  Friend Kevin says his does exactly the same thing; leave it sit without running for a few weeks and you have to re-add fluid.

This one didn’t USED to do this.  But it does now.  /sigh

Today is Friday the 13th of September 2019.  I get my first “Social Security Check” next month on the 9th of October.  (I thought it would start this month, but they apparently don’t think they should, so whatever).  When that check starts, we will have our “income” doubled. haha  JoAnne gets to apply for February.

Where are we going?

We don’t know honestly.  Marsh Harbor was on our “sail to” list, but due to a Cat 5 Dorian – not now.  We aren’t setting plans, destinations or schedules.

We’re going to provision for a month and a week or so of perishables.

Our plans are to go somewhere, cruise like we were before, head south(ish) and head for some islands somewhere.  We do have places like BVI, USVI, Turks and Caicos in our sights.  Whether we get there or not, remains to be seen.

The challenge has been thrown to us to go.  So, we meet the challenge!

Let the Winds of Time blow over our heads

SeaPro Reverse Osmosis Watermaker

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Well over a year ago I was doing research on water makers – reverse osmosis water makers specifically.

I wanted a modular system, and had found one, but the price was about 5-6 thousand dollars.

I also researched building my own, and found I didn’t really have the time and money to slap-dash something together, only to find parts wouldn’t fit and I couldn’t make it work.

Then, one day I came across SeaWaterPro and decided to contact them.  My first contact was with Mindy at SeaWater Pro.

I asked her a lot of questions in both email and messenger.  Eventually, I was convinced for the cost of the system (1/3 the cost of the RainMan system at the time) I’d go with it for a test.

The system was modular, and I could build it into the boat in a piecemeal fashion, because as everyone knows, boats are limited on storage space, especially cruising vessels like our own.

As luck would have it, I purchased the kit over a year ago, and things began to happen.  Engine issues, hurricane Florence and JoAnne was diagnosed with a return of cancer.  In September last year we prepped the boat for Florence, and headed for Florida, storing the water-maker and most of our important things, expecting that Florence would make landfall as a Category four, here in Cape Fear Region.

She didn’t.  Fortunately. (Read more here: Hurricane Florence)

In the end, we returned to Colorado, then back here to the ship to prep for winter, as we’d spend it there.  Time got away from us.  Six months in Colorado in the winter time, staying with my wonderful son, Nick.  I know we probably stressed him out though we tried very hard to stay out of his hair the whole time.

Eventually, in April we returned.

I started devising ways to install the watermaker in the boat.  Over the course of the next few weeks, I ended up making the decision to remove the 30 gallon stainless steel tank sitting under the settee, and replace it with the watermaker.  The system would JUST fit in there.

Video of device in operation.

In fact, I could with relative ease, plumb the hoses and tubes I needed for input, output, overboard discharge, and electrical wiring under the seat.

Throughout it all, I kept in contact with Mike, the designer of the system, and he responded rapidly with both answers to my questions, and advice on various issues I had.  Being an engineer myself in another life, it wasn’t difficult to understand the system, how it worked, but some things were rather vague for me – because I wasn’t familiar with the system yet.

Installation took me about two weeks, along with another delay of several days due to heat in the boat (the temperatures and humidity got to me).

When I finally plumbed everything I did I pressure test and it leak like a sieve.   This was not the system’s fault, but mine. I had forgotten to use teflon tape on all the junctions and found I’d only applied it on some of the junctions.  Disassembly was easy because I installed it so I could remove various parts, especially the pre-filters, for changing and cleaning.

Mike actually ended up shipping me some new parts due to the length of time from when I had originally ordered the system to present.  He upgraded several items at no cost to me, which I sincerely appreciated.

A 1 hp electric motor and high pressure pump instead of his original design went into the boat.

I had to go buy a few extra feet of plastic hose to route the output, and I had to change a few fittings to get the right hoses in the right places.

In the end, I fit all the parts except the lift pump, and strainer under the settee.  The lift pump and strainer are in the forward compartment under the Vee Berth, right next to the intake through hull.  The saline overboard discharge also runs forward to an existing through hull above the water line.

There were no holes cut into the boat to do the job. I spent about 10 hours doing the install from scratch.

The second test was done under generator power.  I wanted to run the machine off the generator, as I will do on anchor.  I need to do a longer test to determine exactly how much gas it takes to fill my 60 gallon tank, but that is for another day.

I fired up the lift pump, let the system fill with water, checked for discharge water, and then fired up the pressure pump.  Next you turn a pin valve to increase the pressure.  At about 475-500 PSI the RO filter because to produce water.

The first bit (roughly an hour’s worth of run) must be run off to ensure the preservatives are removed from the RO filter.  The device is adjusted to be a steady 21gpm (on my system) and when that part was finished, I began running fresh water to a bucket, and checking the Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) meter.  It showed a consistent 78-88 reading.  Checking with Mike once more, I found that because we are in the ICW and brackish water, we will run that low.

Pure sea water should run around 200 ppm, and FDA standards state that anything under 650 ppm is safe to drink.

When finished, I ran fresh water (from the outside faucet) through the (provided) carbon filter system to 1) remove chlorine, and 2) to flush the RO filter to prevent bacterial growth.

I have run the system twice in the past two weeks with very good results, as well as having plumbed the fresh water directly to another, already existing host to the 60 gallon tank down in the bilge.

I will include pictures later – probably tomorrow, as I’m just too tired to figure out where I put them all right now and upload them!

Over all, I give this system a 4.6 out of 5 stars….

Customer Service: 5.0

Documentation: 4.5

Equipment: 5.0

Functionality: 5.0

Difficulty of Assembly: 3.5

 

Documentation is mostly images, and probably works for most people, but the images do not necessarily show the exact parts in MY kit.

As to difficulty of assembly, the system is NOT hard to put together and make function.  The hard part is really based on your particular needs, space availability and your own technical ability.  While *I* can assemble nearly anything, including radio systems from scratch, and many mechanical items and devices, I also can read schematics and engineering documents.  Not everyone has these abilities, or would have to work harder to accomplish the same thing I did.  It might take longer.

But, Mike and Mindy have provided EXCEPTIONAL Customer service, responding instantly in some cases to emails, and in enough detail to help me figure out my immediate problems.

My final email to Mike was “Ok, it’s all installed and working.  Any further advice to give?”

Mike responded with, “Yes, take your boat to the Bahamas !! “

Now that Dorian has gone through here, and I’m back in my regular slip, it’s time to run the machine again, make some water and do a few more tests, but at this point, I’m extremely happy with the system.

 

April through May 2019

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When we came back to the marina, we were happy to see our boat.  We both missed Adventure very much.  Had the bottom cleaned by the local divers, and found out there was a LOT of hard growth on the bottom, where she tends to settle in at low tide.

Adventure from SHVM docks (Image by Nancy)

We cleaned up the boat and emptied all the extra crap because we had to make room for two crew members who had planned to go with us towards the Bahamas for a couple of weeks.  In the end, that didn’t work out, as they had other things happening in their lives which precluded them from going along.  But, the four of us took Adventure out and put up the sails the second we left the marina and put her through a pretty good shake down cruise for the day.

Unfortunately, we hit the mud, which slowed us, and the wind blew me into the neighbors boat.  Small scratch, but’s it’s going to cost a bit to fix.

Adventure performed extremely well, and we wound up doing a bit of a “show boat” past the marina under nearly full sail (minus mizzen), and got a video and pictures.  I’ll try to post those.

Adventure entering ICW from Cape Fear River Near American Fish (Image by Jen)

Adventure, Sails dropped, under engine power (Image by Nancy)

Adventure Flyby (Video by Nancy)

On Monday the 6th of May we’d planned to leave.  We both woke up to zero winds and looking at the various weather apps decided not to go.  Some of our friends argued with us about it, but we’ve had enough of making a decision, being talked out of it and/or second guessing ourselves.  We stood our ground.

On Tuesday though, we knew it was light in the morning and would pick up, so we were going to head out.  About 45 minutes prior to departure, I had all lines off but two to make it easy on the deck crew (our friends) and started smelling something “wrong”.

Going below, the transmission was shooting transmission fluid out the side.  I thought the seal had gone bad.  I spent several days trouble shooting and cleaning the pans out below the engine.

Finally, on Friday, I verified 100% the problem.  The shifter lever was the culprit.  Inside is an O ring that was probably worn.  Yesterday, Saturday 11 May, I tore into the thing.  It was easier than I expected, but it took me quite a few hours of research and downloading the manuals and trying to find any sort of instructions on disassembly.  I was unsuccessful at finding any videos.

The hardest part was keeping hold of a tiny ball bearing and screw that threatened to shoot out of the housing and down into the bilge.  I put a powerful magnet there to catch things, which saved me having to hunt for the ball bearing when it actually shot out and stuck to the magnet!

I pulled the guts out and looked and sure enough, the O ring was worn badly, and cracked.  When I tried to remove it, it broke in two.  I took the stuff to Napa who had the right parts.  $1.47 later, I had a new O ring and one spare.  I expect I should never have to do that again, but at least an O ring doesn’t weight much.

After reassembly, everything seems to be running well, no more leaks.  I’ll check the levels today and probably have to add a little bit to the transmission.  As they say, it’s best to run between the lines and have less than more.

With a bit of luck and weather planning we can still get out of here for a couple of weeks for some kind of adventure.

Sometime in June, JoAnne needs to go in to see a doctor, get a chemo port flush.  So, we’ll also have blood work done as well and pass that data on to her oncologist back in Colorado.

Today is Mother’s Day.  I took JoAnne breakfast and coffee in bed.  Of course, I do that almost every day anyway, but I got to tell her Happy Mother’s Day that way.

Today, there are storms coming through in a few moments.  Look like they will last an hour or so at most, and blow off.  More stuff is coming from behind, but will be hours and hours before it’s arrival.

The waves and winds do not look too good for tomorrow to go outside.  We’ll keep our eyes open for a weather window though.

Hurricane Florence

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Back in September, we had to deal with two life threatening conditions.

The first was a possible Category 4 hurricane (Florence) headed straight for us.

The second was JoAnne’s CA-125 numbers rising.  The CA-125 is a particular cancer antigen they use to determine if there are ovarian tumors growing in her body.  The previous June we noted the numbers had begun to increase.  I think it was late August or early September we had another test performed (it’s a blood test).  The numbers were trending upward.

When we start prepping for the hurricane I doubled-checked our insurance, then removed sails, stowed things, removed important-to-us items, stored things in a storage locker on shore, packed the car and prepared to run.  The night before or the morning of our departure JoAnne received a message from the doctors telling her she needed to come back to Colorado and begin chemo within a few weeks.  Sooner if possible.

We had a PET scan done here in the North Carolina area, and it was determined she indeed had two areas of concern.  One, the one that frightened us the most was a nodule on her left lung on the upper lobe.  The second was a small area that lit up the PET scan, between liver and kidneys.  The lump on her lung was about 1 cm in size.  Significant in that it seemed to be growing rapidly.

We departed on Wednesday morning, with no particular destination.  She called her brother, Paul, down in Tampa Bay area and asked if we could visit for a time during the hurricane and he was more than happy to see us.  So, we headed east and south along the pre-staged hurricane evacuation routes;  there was no turning back once we got out of town.  We had to leave.

We basically had said good bye to our home, Adventure, unsure if we would ever see her intact again.  We figured insurance would help us replace her, or something similar if it came down to that.  But, we have no allusions about such things.  Insurance companies are notorious for NOT paying out on such claim, even with full replacement insurance like we have.  (Note that after being hit in Cobbs Marina by a power boater, while we were docked, we no longer carry just liability insurance.)

The trip south was uneventful.  We arrived. visited with Paul and Cathy, and waited with bated breath as we watched the weather applications on our computers and tablets.  The forecast Cat 4 never happened.  Florence did, however hit at a category 1 and destroyed several marinas to the north of our marina.  We lost a few pieces of the marina (and there is still some damage to this day).  Our own boat suffered minor damage (I could not easily remove the bimini as it has solar panels over the top of it, and I didn’t have enough time.

I had double and triple lined the boat to the pilings and dock, extra fenders and strapped the dock box down to the dock.  It didn’t move and was fine.  Adventure exploded a fender or two, stretched some lines and we got a couple tears in the old bimini.  Minor damage considering some people lost their boats north of us.

We tried to come back… but, roads were out, blocked, bridges were washed out, floods were everywhere and getting back to the marina would have proved problematic with a lack of fuel in the area.

So, onward to Colorado it was.  We saw her doctors, and set up appointments and a chemo schedule.  Finally, we heard people were getting back to Southport, and we had a three week down time before chemo began.  We hightailed it back to Adventure to clean up, repair the damage we could and prep the boat for the long winter of being away from her.

We simply left the boat in “hurricane prep” mode, and I dumped water tanks, and ensure nothing would freeze inside (the weather here rarely gets to freezing and when it does, doesn’t stay low enough for long enough to freeze the water).  With the boat cleaned and ready for winter, we secured her once more and drove the 2000 miles back to Colorado for the fifth trip since June (For anyone keeping track, that’s 10,000 miles in three months, not counting the side trips, and the hop down to Florida, which was roughly another 1600 added in there.)

JoAnne began the chemo in November.  Her chemo would be different this time.  On “Day One” she’d have all the medicines to prevent nausea, plus two chemicals to fight cancer, one was carboplatium and the other gemzar (and I don’t know if I am spelling the two correctly, I’ll fix that later).  Then on “Day Eight”, a dose of gemzar only.

Unfortunately, things began to go wrong.  She had a tooth infection, and wound up having an extraction, and going on antibiotics, thus preventing the Day 8 chemo session.  Instead three weeks later, the session and count down began again.

Day one of the second chemo session went well.  Her blood counts however, did not do well.  Again the day eight session was cancelled.

Each “session” was three weeks apart.  By this time it had been several weeks.  Session three was supposed to go as a Day One chemo infusion, then Day eight would be gemzar followed by Neulasta.  (Neulasta is a chemical they give to kick your bone marrow into high gear to produce white blood cells, and because they were so low, she really needed to get that shot).

Unfortunately, her numbers were so bad, her platelet count was extremely low, red and white cells very low, that it was dangerous for her to be out in public even.  So, they gave her the Neulasta shot, which is actually administered by a tiny robot module stuck to her arm.  It is loaded, armed and placed, then sticks a person with a small needle, to inject the drug 27 hours after the chemo is completed.  So, we have to monitor the device for beeps, lights and infusion.  When it is completed it was my job to remove the robot.

Her blood cell numbers began to look better, but her platelet count continued to spiral downward and would not recover.  We were very concerned.

Platelets, for those who are not well versed in medicine are required for clotting your blood.  So a small cut can bleed profusely, and a larger would could become fatal in moments.  You need to get the platelets back up to a normal number.

We watched the numbers, as she had tests weekly now, so another drive to the hospital, 45 miles round trip sometimes twice per week, we were at the hospital.

On Session Number Four, things start to appear normal.  We went in and her infusion went well.  She did not receive her Neulasta shot yet, as they wished to do the Day Eight Gemzar infusion.  She did get red blood cells.  We did that eight days later, on a Wednesday.  On Thursday we went in for blood work and she wound up receiving platelets as those numbers were still extremely low.  They gave her two units and then checked.  Then gave her two more.

Earlier that morning she had noticed a small blemish on her face.  It had gotten larger.  Then we noticed numerous small, red dots, resembling measles on her arms and legs.  We showed the nurses who then became very concerned.

At five PM, when we should have been out the door on the way home, her doctor ordered her admitted to the hospital.  She was “Neutropenic“.  This is a condition that results in low blood cell counts.  Her platelets were practically missing, and a hematologist was called in.

She was put on bed confinement because if she fell or was bruised in any way, should could hemorrhage.  The lack of white cells may have resulted in sepsis and could have killed her.  She was in danger.

Four days in the hospital later, they had given her some drug to prevent her body from killing off the blood cells they were giving her.  Apparently, her “Super Power” is killing foreign matter inside her own body.  Except cancer.  Her immune system was killing off the platelets they were giving her.  They had to give her red cells and platelets once they stopped the body from killing it off.

In a couple of days she was feeling better, color had returned, the spots were gone and she was ready to go home.

The Gemzar was the culprit.  They stopped giving that to her altogether, and stuck with the carboplatium.

Session Five and Session Six went without a hitch, other than lowered blood cell counts, and receiving the Neulasta shot on time 27 hours after each chemo session.

Three weeks to the day after the last chemo, like our regular clock-work schedule, we visited the hospital for a blood draw.  Fourty minutes later, we were in the PET scan area.  The numbers were back in 20 minutes.  All great.  Everything back to normal.  Except her red blood cells.  We think she is a bit anemic from all of the chemicals and she’s working to fix this with diet, supplements, and so on.  Tomorrow, on Friday, we’d get the PET scan results.

On Friday… we saw the doctor himself.  He was stern.  He didn’t smile.

Then he said, “Well, the PET scan results came back.  We see absolutely no sign of the cancer.  The nodule on your lung is just gone.  The other area isn’t light up.  We DID see some cells around your lung, but, they are not lighting up as if they are cancer.  It looks very good.”

JoAnne and I high-fived.

Wednesday the following week we were packed and were headed out.  First stop was going to be Omaha area, to visit our son Jeremy, who had moved up there and was working.  The car was completely packed and we sneaked out to avoid waking Nick, who had graciously allowed us to stay there for the whole medical adventure.

We left the key inside, went out the garage, secured the door with the electronic system and got in the car.

I put the key in and …. absolutely nothing happened. The car was dead.

We went ahead and got some assistance from the guys, and jumped the car.  Left jumpers on for 20 minutes, and the car started right up.

We drove to Nebraska without killing the car once.  That night we stayed with friends, and the car was fine.  Started up a couple of different times.  Next day we left for Missouri, pass through all the flooded areas, but no car problems.  Checking the car that night when we arrived in Richmond, MO, I found the battery voltages were not at a normal 13.8 after running all day.

I assumed the battery had a bad cell.  I went to Walmart because, as it turns out, some engineer is sitting there getting kickbacks on battery changes in the Dodge Journey.  The battery is NOT under the hood.  It’s not in the trunk.  It’s NOT in the back seat.  It’s under the left, front fender, kind of inside the engine compartment, but to get it, you must remove the wheel, the shroud covering the inside of the fender and then reach WAY up inside to unbolt the battery holder and cables!

Ok… 4.5 hours later at Walmart, the next issue happened.  All of the mechanics except one young kid, had walked off the job leaving my car sitting on the lift, tire off, and battery not looked at.  I, needless to say, complained.

At the end of it all, I personally reinstalled the wheel, taught the kid how to drop his lift, and made sure to Quality Control check his battery installation (because, he didn’t tighten the cables, and didn’t install the bracket to hold the battery down… which might have turn the car into a dangerous missile…..)

I went in to pay for the battery, and the lady at the counter apologized and said “No charge today, Sir, have a good day”.  Just like that.  Free battery?

Cool.

Unfortunately, nothing in life is free.

On Wednesday two days ago, we left Asheville, NC en route for Southport North Carolina, about a six hour drive, give or take.

Everything went very well, except the construction, the crazy drivers and accidents scattered across the region.  JoAnne routed us down and off some of the freeways to avoid accidents.  Somewhere around 501 near Myrtle Beach and a couple of miles before the turn to highway 17, the car began making horrible noises.

Then a “battery light” came on.

Uh oh….

I pulled into a random parking lot.  I grabbed my multimeter which I am going to start carrying around on my belt like a TRUE Nerd from now on, and measured the out put of the alternator.

11.5 volts DC.  Hmm… that’s not normal.  Should be 14.6vdc or so.  Yeah, alternator is NOT charging.  Also some ‘grindy’ noise was coming from the engine.  I listened carefully, and decided it was either an idler wheel, or the tensioner, along with probably the alternator failing.

With the battery at under optium voltage, and after discovering that it would cost 200 bucks just to tow the car around the corner, and have it “diagnosed” (not fixed, just tested), I thanked the lady I’d spoken too and said, “We’re going to try to make it to the marina.  It’s only 52 miles….”

We killed all the power inside, anything charging inside was removed, radio killed, and I illegally ignored my turn signals and avoided stepping on the brakes.

This battery was brand new, and free.  I was going to drive it into the dirt.

And we did.

We arrived a few moments after 5 PM, an hour later than we thought.  At the corner of Fish Factory road and Long Beach Road, I again broke the law.  The light was red.  But, the car was freaking out.  Weird lights on the dash were coming on.  Beeps and buzzes from the dashboard I’d never heard before met our ears.  I made an illegal left turn against a red traffic light.  Of course, there were no cars, and no traffic as the bridge is still closed…. I then, for the third time that day, broke the law.

I went 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.

The car died as I backed into an open space in the lot.

The last bit of momentum took us to the curb.  The car died.  We were home.

That evening I came down, checked the boat, batteries and put the bed together.

Next morning I called the place that had worked on the car last June on the alternator (see, wasn’t the FIRST time we’d had issues). They have the car now, it was towed there yesterday afternoon at 2pm.

He called me three times this morning.

Diagnosis:

  1. Alternator shot, but under a lifetime warranty.
  2. Tensioner wheel is failing, bearings coming out

A new alternator is on order and will be installed Monday morning, along with a new tension wheel and mechanism (probably the spring).

Should have the car back by sometime Monday afternoon.  The cost will likely be 300 bucks, give or take a bit.

(That’s all labor, and perhaps a bit for the parts).

I will NOT be surprised if the brand new battery isn’t shot too.  We’ll find out soon enough.

 

Today is Friday, 5 April 2019.

Nothing in life is set in stone.  Not even those “Death and Taxes” people talk about.  You might avoid both if you’re smart, careful and even, at times, courageous.

One thing in life is certain though… if you don’t try, you can not do.  JoAnne is a tough chick.  She’s a lucky lady and she’s extremely courageous. She is my super hero.  Used to be my Dad was my “hero”.  But, after 40+ years with her, I’ve seen her face death with a smile and overcome it.  I’ve seen her pick up a margarita a few hours after chemo and say “Why not have a little fun? I deserve a margarita!”

I’ve watched her cry quietly over this awful disease. Not for herself but for, the perhaps “missed chances” at things.

I watched her face light up when she holds our newest grandchild, Lincoln, and hug the other grands, and the great-grand daughter.

I have spend sleepless nights myself worrying about her, caring for her, getting her things, bringing her coffee in bed in the mornings and just being there to hold her when she wants me to.

Life changes, but you can either accept things as they are, or you can make your own plans and make your wishes come true.

Cruising life isn’t always about pretty anchorages, great sailing days, and seeing dolphins.  Yes, those things happen.  But, so many other bloggers and video bloggers show you all the “good stuff”.  No one shows you, or tells you how much work it is to get ready for a hurricane, hoping it misses you by a long distance, and how much worry it causes you when you can’t be there to “protect your ship”.

We live our lives now around this boat and each other.  It’s not always positive.  Broken cars, engines, plumbing, leaks, hard rains, strong winds and sometimes broken facilities where you’re visiting, poor service at places (See Walmart above, there’s way more to that story than I actually told you) and even things like “uncontrolled dogs” that some cruisers bring ashore all work to dissuade a person from continuing.

We’ve been LUCKY on a lot of issues.  We’ve also probably paid out a LOT more money than we had to at times.

But, I don’t think either of us would trade this life for a sedate house on a hill in Colorado again.

The best thing?  Coming “Home” to “Welcome Home” messages from our dock friends.  Our extended family.

And to that end, this little thing goes out to Kevin, Debi, Jay, Tina, Pam and Charles – a few of that extended B Dock family.  Thank you for all of your thoughts, prayers, and looking after our boat, worry for us, staying in touch, checking my batteries in the boat (Jay), and watching over Adventure during the hurricane (Debi and Kevin).  We can’t thank you guys enough.  (By the way, I’m probably gonna need a ride to the place to pick up my car Monday… anyone? LOL)

This weekend and week coming up, I will be getting the boat ready for an extended trip.  At this point, we have Abacos and Marsh Harbor in our sights.  JoAnne, more than anyone in the world right now, deserves a break, an island, an island drink, a beach and a vacation.

I’m going to give it to her.

 

 

December 7th, 2018

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Today is also Pearl Harbor Day.  I suppose it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything.  At least here.

I’ve posted on other blogs, facebook, and our FB groups, but not here.

So, here’s December’s post.

Tonight, we go see our Granddaughter, Cassie, in a play, Death of a Salesman (I think).  High School rendition, so should be interesting.

JoAnne has been through two chemotherapy sessions.  A portion of each of those two were cancelled due, mainly, to low blood cell counts.  The first session was about six hours long. The second part of that session was supposed to last an hour, and was a week after the first infusion.  Unfortunately, she was suffering suddenly from a tooth ache, which turned also into an infection… likely due to lowered white blood cell numbers.

The second session last week on a Thursday went well.  But her blood work on this Wednesday (5 December) showed her white, red blood cells and the building blocks for those things (along with other chemicals I’m not as familiar with) were at a very low level.  Thus, they cancelled the second infusion (which should have been yesterday).

They want to give her a drug, called Newlasta, which will help to regenerate white blood cells, but it takes 14 days to function, and they need to give it after the second infusion.  So, that’s become a problem.  Now, she gets one more blood draw in a week or so (next Thursday), and then a doctor’s visit on the following Monday at which time we will be asking some questions, and hopefully there will be a “new plan” to get this accomplished correctly.

The next infusion will be after the doctor’s visit.  The GOOD news in all this, is the CA-125 blood test (Cancer Antigen test) is showing a drastic reduction in count.  It went from just over 70 to 50.  Her last tests over the course of time have been, June 2017 the CA-125 was 21, and a year later, this past June was 50.  This caused concern with us and the doctors.  In August it shot up to the mid-60s, and therefore the PET scan was ordered.

The PET scan showed not one, but TWO areas of concern.  An area somewhere between her liver and kidneys and a node on her left lung.

The next CA-125 tests were 68 and then 71 in September and October respectively.  (I might be off on the dates, exactly, but you get the gist of it).

In between all of this (September to Present), we’ve made three trips across country, back and forth, ran from a hurricane, visited Florida and came back to Colorado, where the chemo has commenced.

Two sessions are through, with some complications, but still plugging along.  We’re still very much alive, and still “Adventuring” when we can.

20 December should be our “half way point” on Chemo.  Meaning she is starting the third session.  Whether or not we get some stuff tacked on at the end, we’re not sure yet, but we’re going to be checking on that when the doctor’s visit comes to pass.  That will, if things go well, give us 3 more sessions or nine more weeks with chemo in those nine weeks, healing and doctor’s visits, blood work and dozens of miles on the car back and forth to the hospitals.

In the mean time, we miss our ship, Adventure, very much and find ourselves wishing for the house to rock us to sleep at night.  Instead, we have cold, snow on occasion, next door neighbors who can be loud (in the middle of the night for some reason….) hundreds of people everywhere, and us trying to avoid germs. HA!

Tonight, as I mentioned, we’re going to a HS play, where we will likely be exposed to a lot of germs again, because people always cough, sneeze and aren’t the cleanest of creatures.  JoAnne will bring a mask just in case, but hopefully won’t have to use it.  Not, that we honest believe that a mask is going to actually STOP germs from getting into your system anyway.  Doesn’t seem to help at hospitals where there are super bugs…

In the mean time, she’s been crocheting, reading and helping run the various Sailing and Cruising forums she is Admin on, and I’ve been re-learning Morse Code (I’m very rusty at it), and have built two radios to work on Ham Radio frequencies (20 and 40 meters) but haven’t an antenna to connect, and I’ve also been writing a complete role play game campaign for “Stars Without Number” ( a role playing game, set in the milled of the year 3200, in space for some friends in the Southport area).  All of this to “keep busy”.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really have room, nor the time, to grab my charts and sit down and work out courses for the Bahamas and beyond, but I figure it’s likely better to do that just before we go.  At this point, we’ve decided that if we can get back in late March, we will plan a trip down to Bahamas for the Spring, and head back before Hurricane Season hits… and we have a couple of friends who want to go along, who are both sailors.  It will help immensely to get us all there safely, and through that big hurdle of “several days of sailing”, so we can head home on our own when the time comes.

Last thing, I’m personally working on is my Celestial Navigation again.  I really want to grasp that stuff.  I think I’ve mostly got it, but now, I really need to practice it.

That is all for now, friends.  Until next time, Fair Winds!

 

 

September/October/November

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I have already related to you the mess we had with insurance over medical problems.

We came back to Colorado, and then after getting that straightened out, we saw JoAnne’s oncologist, and dates were scheduled.

As luck, or perhaps fine tuning, would have it, we had a three week hiatus in which to make another trip across country.  We wound up traveling back from Colorado to Southport.  We stopped (as usual) to visit our friends, Mike and Cindy, as Cindy is preparing for her starring role in “A Bad Year for Tomatoes” in November.  (As of this writing, she did opening night and the second night’s play.  This Friday night and Saturday should be their final curtain.)

We stopped around Tennessee and we wound up at Southport late on the evening of our arrival.

The boat was pretty much a mess.  Books and other things not nailed down flew around during the hurricane.  A solar panel pulled loose from the top and fell to the deck, ripping wires from the connectors.  Fortunately, it wasn’t much of a mess, the books were cleaned up, the batteries checked, and we stayed with our friend at her apartment for a couple of night until I could clean the interior of the boat up.

We spend the next week doing minor repairs, and prepping the boat for the winter, dumping our water tanks and removing any remaining food stuffs to the car, to return that with us to Colorado.  Why not use it there?

I repaired and tested the solar charging system.  We had a major water gusher under the sink where our Seagull Water filter system resided, and had worked itself loose, releasing pressure when turning on the pressure water system.  We move a few things to storage, removed a few winter clothes and after about a week on the ground there, set out again for Colorado.

This time, we took a few extra days, as there was no rush.  We stopped again with Mike and Cindy and spent a full day assisting in the set build for the play at the local VFW Hall in Richmond, MO.  I helped Cindy with her lines and we had a good time hanging out with them.  The day we left, we both had colds, and were kind of miserable.

So, we stopped in Kansas for the night instead of making the long, eleven hour run from Richmond back to Colorado Springs.  We spent the night got up late, traveled and arrived back here.

Over the course of the last week, we’ve been to multiple doctor’s appointments, been in and out of two hospitals and visited most of our kids.

A couple of days ago, our fourteenth grand child was born.  His name is Lincoln Alan Dale Donaldson, and he was 5lbs & 15oz.  He’s have a few breathing issues apparently though, and is still in the hospital until they can get him breathing correctly, even perhaps giving him some  red blood cells to help as he seemed slightly anemic.  Otherwise, he seemed healthy.  His mom and dad (Lana and Patrick) are quite proud!

Baby Lincoln

 

Yesterday was the beginning of JoAnne’s chemo.  She has six sessions.  They are 21 days long (scheduling, not that many days in a row!.)

The first day is a lot of chemicals, drugs to prevent nausea. etc.  The second set in the first session, will be 7 days out from the first day, and will be a short session to give her another dose of one of the chemicals.  Then it starts over again on Day 21.  This will go on for six total sessions, or about 18 weeks, interspersed with doctor’s appointments, blood work and other tests as needed.

We are hoping this particular chemotherapy doesn’t make her lose her hair like the first one did, but we’re prepared that it will, just in case.  She has some hats and scarves, like last time.  The chemicals are somewhat different this time as well, and her doctor said that people do not lose their hair “as much” with this type.

JoAnne is a tough cookie.  She fought this last time and managed to beat it back for four full years, she never really even got ill as some do, through chemo, and she worked the whole time last time.  This time, we’re completely retired and have nothing to keep us from fighting this all the way through.  She’s going to get plenty of rest in spite of herself! ha!

JoAnne, the First Mate of the Sailing Ketch, Adventure!

 

We both want to tell you folks, those who are already out there and follow us, and those thinking about it, as well as our friends who are comfortable in their homes, snuggled up by the fireplaces, drinking their hot chocolates, or martinis by the fire:

Stop living life the easy way.  Don’t pass the opportunities that come your way.  Don’t live day-to-day and Check-to-Check.

Do NOT let life pass you by while you’re “waiting for retirement”.  Don’t sit on your butts, thinking about all the things you’re going to do “When I don’t have to work again”.  Do NOT wait for “enough money” (because you will NEVER HAVE ENOUGH MONEY!) to do the “RV Thing”, “buy a boat”, “go horse back riding”, “Mountain Climbing”, “Paragliding or skydiving”.

Just don’t wait.  Do it.  Sit down and make that list of things you want to do, and then check them off, one at a time.  Save some money, go do one, pick a date, do another.

Life isn’t lived while you’re “waiting on it to catch you”.  Life is lived when you grab that bull by the horns and wrestle his big ass down into the mud and hog tie him, then jump up and win that trophy.

The day JoAnne gets her walking papers from chemo, we’re headed back to Southport without meager belongings, and we’re going to empty out the Vee Berth, put everything we don’t need in storage (winter clothing, parts, junk pieces, extra crap that we “might need one day” and all the stuff that weigh us down, collect a couple of friends as crew and we’re setting sail for the Bahamas.  Yes, it will be near the beginning of Hurricane Season.  Yes, it might be the BEST sailing time.  Yes, it will be relatively spur of the moment, pretty much “unplanned” and absolutely not the “right season”, but you know what?  It’s well past time to do it.

We made a decision awhile back that we were going to live our lives, and do the “medical stuff” around life, not live our lives around the “medical stuff”.  I’ll keep JoAnne safe, and healthy, and make sure she sees the doctors when it’t time, but we’re not sitting on our asses waiting for a “day, date, season or proper time” any longer.

To our friends Kevin and Debi – skippers of their own ships, be prepared, we’re coming for you, we need a crew! (Don’t be surprised if you get shanghaied!!!!!!!!!

 

 

The Dance

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limbo

noun (1)

lim·bo | \ ˈlim-(ˌ)bō  \
plural limbos

1: often capitalized : an abode of souls that are according to Roman Catholic theology barred from heaven because of not having received Christian baptism

2a: a place or state of restraint or confinement trapping travelers in an airless limbo—Sam Boal

b: a place or state of neglect or oblivion proposals kept in limbo

c: an intermediate or transitional place or state the adolescent occupies a special human limbo—New Republic

d: a state of uncertainty The graduate was in limbo for a while, trying to decide what to do next.

e: a dance or contest that involves bending over backwards and passing under a horizontal pole lowered slightly for each successive pass

Last month I spoke about our lives in the last few years, the boat, JoAnne’s cancer and right after that we were put on alert watching Hurricane Florence form off the coast of Africa and make the long trek across the sea, to finally visit the USA.

In the few weeks after publishing that entry in August, I spent a lot of time cleaning up the boat, getting her ready for the fall trip to the Bahamas.  Then Florence formed, and it appeared to be heading right for Southport, NC.  The news was all over the place on possible hit locations, the NHC was all over the place, the Spaghetti models were everywhere.  The only thing that was accurate was my own predictions that it would hit somewhere between Myrtle Beach and Beaufort, NC.  And I was accurate about that part.

JoAnne and I started preparing the boat for a hurricane, and finally on Tuesday just before it hit, we also received a call from her oncologist’s office back in Colorado.  We had four weeks to return to begin a treatment plan.  A PET scan had been ordered and taken care of the Friday before.  The doctors read the scans and decided she had some “area of concern” which the oncologist believed to be a recurrence.

On Wednesday morning, of “official, mandatory evacuation” and in light of a probably Category Four hurricane hitting full on in North Carolina, near to us, we packed the last of our belongings we’d not place in storage and I started the car, looked to JoAnne and said, “Where too?”

We had no idea where to go, which way to run or who would take us in for a few days.  With the car running, we called her Brother down in Florida and told him the situation, and he had us come to stay with he and his wife for a few days.  We knew we wanted to return to the boat before heading back to Colorado, and probably hit our storage locker once more for cold weather clothing, usually kept in storage in the summer.

We spent a week in Florida visiting with friends and her brother.  When we attempted to return to North Carolina, the rivers were just cresting, roads were out, flooded and bridges damaged, roads closed, and basically those who got home to Brunswick county were already close in, and had an idea of which roads to take avoiding the dangerous conditions (and road blocks).

Many made it home, but we could not. Our time was running out.

We made for Colorado.  Friends are caring for our boat, which suffered only minor, external damage.  Lost a solar panel, the bimini and it was damp below.  I have plans to head back there once we get JoAnne settled into a routine.

This past week was a mess with the doctors and insurance.  We argued with both for hours, until finally, the insurance company told the doctor’s office what we’d been saying all along; we do NOT need a referral to her oncologist (since she has been seeing him for four years) and we’re on Tricare standard which does NOT require ANY referrals for ANY outpatient care.

The doctors also told us, that there were two areas of concern, not one.  One area on her lung, and another somewhere between kidney and liver, very non specific.  We will find out how specific that is on this coming Tuesday.

Another CT scan was performed a few days ago, after the battles with Insurance and the Dr. office, and we now have more information.

Friday she was called and told that she will be commencing chemotherapy soon, after a port is installed and we see the doctor once more so we can work out a schedule and plan to fight this.  He told the caller to tell JoAnne that the lung issue is a “recurrence” rather than a new form of cancer (lung cancer perhaps).  He was unsure prior to the CT scan, but is more confident of his diagnosis now I suppose.

(Personally, I am NOT more confident yet, and have questions.)

At the beginning I put up a definition. The definition was for the word Limbo, a word I used in the previous blog entry from August.

Limbo, from the definition is a place… without a destiny or destination.

It’s also a dance…

Kind of like life.  Life is a dance or journey.  You never know when you’re young how the moves go.  You have to be taught.  Some of us, like me, never learned how to dance, I just listen to the music.  But, there are times when bending over backward to accomplish something important is how you get it done.  Going in the wrong direction to reach your destination can get frustrating.

Our destination is, and always will be, to sail the islands, from the Bahamas on to the rest of the Caribbean.  We have found that life isn’t really a “dance”, but a journey without a true “destination”.  The “Dance” part comes in at successive times in life, when you’re worried, when you’re up against some seemingly insurmountable task and just about ready to give up and quit, you Dance.

It can be a jig, a limbo, a foxtrot, or the twist.  Whatever it is, at the end, you will come out stronger, better, and more in tune with life.

JoAnne and I had a dance the last few days with Life.  It wasn’t a journey, it didn’t turn out to be a destination, merely a diversion.  We talked and discussed this dance, and found that we have decided that we will no longer live our lives around medical issues, we will deal with them around our lives.

After we get the plan in place, we’ll have about three weeks before the next chemo session.  This will give us time to travel back across country, see our boat, repair the damage, prepare her for winter (by dumping water, checking engine etc) and collect the Colorado Clothing we’ll need, and then return to our family and support system here.

Adventure has proven she can and will survive whatever Nature throws at her for now.  It’s not her time, and it’s certainly not OUR time.

So to our friends in Southport, Kevin and Debi, we thank you for looking after our home, Adventure, and WE WILL BE BACK SOON!   To our family, Especially Nick and Levi, thank you for your support.  To those we left behind in the disaster, you will rise up stronger.

And for us…. We’re going sailing again, very, very soon.

 

Cruising, without going anywhere

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I suppose the idea of cruising in a sailboat (or any boat for that matter) entails travel, seeing new places, meeting new people, having new experiences and generally involves the movement of your boat.

As JoAnne and I have discovered though, cruising the world at a SLOWER pace than most, we find that we make friends easily and tend to keep them, and we don’t have to move too much to do so.

Over the past three years we’ve traveled a lot, both by car and boat.  We’ve been to places we’d never been together, made a lot of new friends, and found places we really enjoyed being… including Southport, NC.  When we landed here, we thought we’d be moving further south as soon as possible, and that never happened due to a variety of problems.  Everything from medical issues in our family, including my youngest brother, to engine issues, car problems and general circumstances conspired to keep us tied to, and in South Harbour Village Marina.

We’ve become so accustomed to being here, that when we were requested to leave the really nice slip we were in (due to the private owner selling it out to someone else) we felt like we were being evicted.  We moved only a few slips down and remained on B-Dock where many of our friends live on their own boats.  We even have a B-Dock group on Facebook for all of us to post things and to help one another if necessary.

Over the past year and a half here, I’ve worked for the marina.  There were three reasons I took the job.  The first reason was because I needed to take up some of my time, the second for the fun of it, and the third was for a little beer money or to offset the cost of the slip.   The last doesn’t really do both, but, it’s sufficient I suppose.  I left a job that paid me over 5 times what I make a dock hand here at the marina (including tips), so if I wanted a job that made a lot of money, I might have found something different.  Mostly, this was for fun (and I even explained to the Dockmaster, “When this is no longer fun, I quit!) and it has been a lot of fun.  But it’s really not my life, nor my lifestyle, nor is it something I will continue to do.

I don’t feel like I want to “die at work”.  The truth is, I think we’ve heard Mother Ocean calling to us again.

We do have a deadline too.  JoAnne has been cancer-free since August of 2014.  We bought Adventure in January 2015, one year after her diagnosis.  She spent months going in every three weeks to chemo, then the following Sunday morning to get a shot to help her white blood cells regenerate.  She worked through all of it, albeit, with a few less hours than was normal.

She found this boat in November of 2014 after she was declared cancer-free.  We did the survey, and eventually I wound up having my own medical issues after buying the boat.  We still managed to beat mortality for a bit longer, and got to the boat, moved aboard and starting moving the boat south.

We spend long periods of time in places that we like, moving around only when necessary or when we truly HAVE to sail.  We like it here, but again, we both need more, and to move on.  And we’re not getting younger.  In fact, JoAnne is seeing a rise in her blood work numbers about cancer.

Over the past few months, since June, her CA-125 blood test has been coming back elevated.  It spiked, and in fact, doubled since last year’s test.  The oncologist ordered a CT scan, and found nothing.  Other tests have been performed, all showing “no problems”.

Right now we are working with local doctors, and they with Colorado doctors to set up a PET scan to determine if there is a recurrence of cancer.  We will have three choices then….

  1. We go back to Colorado if there IS a recurrence and go through whatever necessary treatment is available, designed to combat this hateful disease.
  2. We take crap off the boat we don’t need, put food and water aboard that we do, and we set sail for the Bahamas.
  3. If the “recurrence” isn’t great and it’s not time for chemo or other treatment, we still go (and this is what’s really up in the air at this time).

What we don’t know is how long we get to go for, how long treatments take (we can guess of course), or the outcome of such treatments.  We don’t know the outcome of the PET scan, since it hasn’t been accomplished as of yet.

So, we’re hanging in Limbo right now, waiting for doctors and hospitals to arrange things and get going on this, get it done and let us know the situation.

Right now, I’m ready to quit my job to be here until she gets her medical tests done, so I’m always available for her.  But, I don’t think I’ll do that yet.  We also know she’s in good health, and good spirits, and has no issues at all, so we’re at the point of thinking this may be the place here blood work is going to “settle down” and stable for now.  At least that’s my hope.

No matter what happens in the next few weeks, we will be making our trip to the Bahamas somehow.  We prefer it to be IN our boat, under our own power, without the help of airplanes, or cars, but we don’t know yet.  We also want to go back to the British Virgin Islands, again, in this boat rather than by plane.  It’s going to happen, it’s only a matter of when.

I have a few things to do with the boat, nothing at all critical.  She’s ready to go now, with the exception that I have a slight exhaust leak in the manifold, which probably is a relatively easy fix I think (gaskets most likely) and I want to work on a water maker system I have purchased, but haven’t even unboxed it yet.  We can likely get away without using it, but, I’d like it on the boat for “just in case” at this point.

Other than that, a simple clean sweep of the boat, stowing things, and getting the deck mostly cleared is all we really have left to do to get out on a long voyage.  We can leave here in minutes if necessary, though somewhat unprepared for a long trip, but short hops maybe.  We’ve hesitated on starting provisioning again, due to the above medical issues keeping us waiting.

I guess, in a way, long term cruising or “extended cruisers” have to make a lot of compromises about everything from readiness to weather, to their abilities to medical problems.  We are, I suppose not what some would call “cruisers” because we’re not constantly moving with the boat, but we are in so many other ways.

This town has captured our hearts.  We love it here, so even if we run down the coast, or down Island we will be returning here, no matter what.

I hope all our friends, family, fans and followers will keep JoAnne in their prayers and thoughts for good a good medical report.  Thank you all for reading.

Fair Winds and Following Seas,

Rick

Sad News from a friend

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Bear with me a moment, because I have to introduce why I am posting.

I’ve been searching for information about the boat we own, called “Adventure”.

She has had three names I’ve been able to find through USCG Documentation, and owned by three people according to the USCG.  Or course, this presupposes the boat has been Documented all along, and I suspect that this might not be true.

The first owner I can determine is James A. Mallon, and the boat appears to have been named “BESHERT”.    I guess technically, it means “Preordained” or “Inevitable” really, and there are explanations having to do with “Soulmates” associated with the word “Beshert”. Since I don’t speak Yiddish, this might be all wrong, but, to me, it’s close enough and probably meant that to that owner.  I can find little information on Mr. Mallon (except that he may have been a CEO for a large banking institution).

The next owner purchased the boat with the name “DUNA”… which, honestly none of us have an idea what it means exactly.  Mr. Richard Stapleton was the previous owner before us, and is the real reason I am writing today.  Mr. Stapleton retired from the US Government, as I did, a few years back, and had to sell the boat, he said, due to knee replacement surgery.  He felt unsteady doing things on the boat after said surgery.

Dick Stapleton sold us the boat knowing we were planning to eventually be “World Cruisers” and we’ve honestly worked toward that goal, but have thus far been only “Coastal Cruisers”.  Over the course of the next two years and a couple thousand miles we’ve moved the boat up and down the East Coast of the United States, exploring the Chesapeake, and Delaware Bays, Potomac River and managed to make it to Cape Fear North Carolina.  A little short of the original goal.  That goal remains, and we have decided it will happen, starting with Bahamas this season.

Two years ago, our friend and the previous owner of Adventure (Formerly Duna) began a battle with cancer, not unlike my wife’s own fight.  A few days ago he posted that he had made the decision to give up the treatments.  Here is his letter in full.  (Note:  I’ve asked for permission to reprint it, but there has been no response yet, but, that’s understandable, and since it is posted on FB mostly in public,  I’m going to put it into the blog anyway as it is important to us all.)

 

Dear friends,

A little over 2 ½ years ago, I wrote to update you on the progress in my fight against cancer, and a few of the many ways in which Andrea and I have taken advantage of the weeks and months of life – well enjoyed. I must write to you today to say that that battle is nearing its end.

We made the decision to stop treatment last week. My body is telling me it’s tired, it’s time to rest. I began in-home hospice care this week and for the first time in years, I won’t have to go to a doctor appt. or hospital visit every day. It’s time to relax.

When I initially wrote, one year into that journey, I expressed my appreciation for knowing there was an end date as it let us reset priorities; less about getting the car washed and getting to Costco and more about shared experiences like travel, time with friends and family and visits to smell the roses at the New York Botanical Garden.

With Andrea’s unflagging support (itself a full-time job) and Hackensack’s wonderful care and experience, I reach the end of this journey with my bucket lists overflowing. Whether through work or shared interests, you have all touched me in some way and enriched my life.

Thank you, my dear friends, for being a part of this wonderful life.

I welcome emails or FB messages, and Andrea will make sure I see them all. I may not respond personally but please know I appreciate the love and support I’ve already received.

-Dick

With a heavy heart, I post this… While I did not know Mr. Stapleton well, I knew him well enough. He was, like me, a person who dedicated a good portion of his life to this Great Country, and was a sailor, like myself and my wife, JoAnne.  Our paths never crossed in our respective jobs, but, I certainly know of his dedication in his position with the Department in which he worked.

Through Adventure, the ship he sold us, I continue to learn more about the heart of others.

For JoAnne and I, the future is blurry, no one knows what is coming tomorrow or the next day, usually.  But, we intend to do our best with what we’re given.

Jimmy Buffett said it best;

“Let those winds of time blow over my head,
I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”

Fair Winds and Following Seas, Richard Stapleton.  I salute you, Sir.

June 2018

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At the beginning of June, JoAnne and I had to make the long, arduous journey across 4000 miles.  Ok, well, 1980 miles to Colorado and back again to North Carolina.

We had the annual doctor’s appointments to go do once again, post chemo/cancer checkups for her, and a quick heart check up for me.

We arrived on Monday evening, 11 June at my youngest son’s house.  We were exhausted after stopping in Kentucky to hit a family reunion, and then in Missouri to spend the night with some friends before traveling on to Colorado.

The next morning we made it downtown to the hospital to do blood work for JoAnne.  We had a bunch of appointments scheduled throughout the week.  But, Tuesday night would become “Early Wednesday Morning of the Storm from Hell”.

At about 2:00 AM on Wednesday, the sky opened up.  It began to rain.  Then small hail fell.  When the first large piece of hail hit the roof, I thought we were being bombed.   Indeed, we were.  By the sky.

Hail the size of softballs began to pelt the neighborhood.  I hear my son yell from his room and made my way there, amid the explosive sounds of massive chunks of ice hitting the front and roof of the house.  His large windows in his bedroom were gone, rain and hail pouring into the broken panes.  We grabbed some tarps to throw over the inside to help prevent too much more damage and I managed to get JoAnne out of the room as our windows shattered.

Going down stairs and outside on the protected front porch I observed total chaos.  Car and trucks in the area were being smashed to pieces by the hail.  Trees (new neighborhood, so very small ones) were being stripped of leaves and then of their branches.  The front yard was covered in hail, some of it the size of tennis balls, all the way up to softball sized hail.

We were up until nearly four in the morning waiting for the storm, rain and wind to subside.  I don’t think there were reported tornadoes but the cell certainly was powerful enough to have dropped one.  I checked as best I could in the darkness for wall clouds, funnels, and so on without venturing out and getting killed by hail.

I watched as the rear window on our car was hit directly with a large hailstone, which at first I thought exploded.  Later when the hail ceased, I went out to check the damage and it had been the window shattering into a million tiny pieces.  The glass was scattered from the car to the street and sidewalks.  There was glass in the front seats.  It had literally exploded.

Since we only had liability on the vehicle, insurance wouldn’t even look at it.  I ended up buying a car from my son (which was a spare after he’d purchased a new one) and gave the other to my daughter (who had the time and ability to work on replacing the damaged windows, mirrors and other parts that were badly messed up).

Fortunately, my son’s vehicles were all in the garage.  Every, single car that was sitting outside suffered minor to severe damage, some vehicles completely totaled.   The fences in back looked like someone had shot holes through it was shot gun slugs.  Roofs on neighboring homes had been punctured all the way into the ceilings down below, the hail was hitting so hard!

To my knowledge no one was injured, but I’m pretty certain some cows out around the area probably were killed that night.   I’m sure that animals suffered greatly out there.

We needed to borrow my son’s car the next day to get to the rest of the appointments, and I ended up simply buying the car from him to fulfill our schedule over the next two weeks.  All-in-all, most things went well.

We did find that JoAnne’s CA-125, the blood work to check for tumors, had more than doubled, which gave us all a scare.  A CT scan was ordered and they found no sign of cancer.  However, the doctor wants up back in September.  There’s more to this story, but I’m not going to fill it in at present.  I will mention there are other things that can cause an elevation in the CA-125 numbers, and we believe at the moment that something did just that.  We plan to see some local doctors here in NC to have more tests performed to make the final determination about going back to Colorado in September.

I discovered I have a slight leak in my “New to me Heart Valve” that was put in in May 2015.  I wonder if they had a 10 year warranty program?  Probably not, so perhaps I can find something like “Leak Stop” I can drink…. perhaps more bacon?  I dunno.

On a better note, we managed to get back to North Carolina unscathed by any more freak storms, after stopping back in Missouri and spending several wonderful days with our friend Mike and Cindy.  We also stopped in Ashville and visited with a couple of friends there, did some beer tastings in some of the breweries and then finally headed home to Southport and our ship, Adventure.

Upon arrive, I checked our batteries, as I’d left them on the smart charger (the new one I put in after the fire) and they were in excellent shape, not over heated, had not lost much water from the cells, and the status was very good.  The boat however, needed a decent washing again.  Mold appears on the outside often.

I went back to work about the 9th of July at the marina here, and found I’d not forgotten anything I needed to remember…. except to get up for work in the mornings.  I wasn’t late, but might have been had I not had JoAnne wake me up to tell me my alarm was going off (for fifteen minutes).

Now, JoAnne has some appointments scheduled here to go in for a new check up locally, and we’re going to be making a decision about Colorado or Bahamas soon.

In the mean time, a few days ago, I managed to drop my phone into a sink, with water running.  It was a klutzy move on my part, as I was trying to grab a pair of sunglasses I’d dropped, fumbled those, and smacked the phone sideways and into the sink.  I didn’t catch either the glasses OR the phone.  DOH!

I immediately grabbed it out, shook the water away from the charging port and earphone jack and we removed the battery as quickly as possible.  Still, the phone’s mic and the Home button ceased functioning.  I opened it up and dried it (It wasn’t really damp inside anyway) and placed it, you guessed it, into a “bag of rice”, purported to help dry phones due to rice’s ability to absorb moisture.  I don’t really think it worked.  But the phone DID seem to work better the next day.

Yesterday, we drove to a place in Wilmington to have the phone repaired.  They ran it through a drying machine (for three hours) and apparently attempted to “repair” some of it. They got the Home button working, but broke the other two buttons.  The microphone is still dead.  And they supposedly backed up my data, but deleted all my pictures.  All 2000 of them, including the hail damage and my favorite images of JoAnne (Dummy me, I’d forgotten to back it up before I left!)

Grrr… Well, on the way back… the car started acting up.  We hit some major puddles on the way back and things got wet.  I suspect the electronics in the car (I’m really having issues with electronics and water, huh?) got wet and when we arrived here in Southport, to stop at a store, the car wouldn’t start back up.

It growled funny at us and eventually, after five or six attempts it started up.

However, there was another sound.  Coming from the air conditioner unit.  We believe the bearings on the device are shot.  We’re supposed to drive to Myrtle Beach today for a concert, but apparently, that’s a bad idea.  Instead we’re riding with friends and I’ll get parts on order for the car on Monday.

So the last two months have been “One thing or another”, as usual for the “Adventurers”.

One last thing before I go.

We have been discussing a “Watermaker” for the boat.  We’ve done the pros and cons, including the costs/return benefits and realize we probably wouldn’t ever save enough money making our own water but still want the ability to be independent of having to buy it in islands or have to purchase a dock for the night to get water.  We have been staying here in Southport on a dock and DO have access to water, which is great.  And for the last 5 days, we’ve had enough rain to fill our tanks several times, but setting up a catchment without a real need isn’t fun or convenient.

Over the course of our research, we found several places and most of them were $5000 USD and up.  There are a lot of folks who are DIYers and build their own stuff.  While I have the ability to do so, I usually don’t have the time to sit and measure, design and find all the parts.

In comes a company called Seawater Pro and owner, Michael.  He offers a “kit” that consists of all the pieces you need, including a lift pump, the gauges, and hoses, the reverse osmosis filter, prefilters and the pressure pump required to get you started.

The only “con” to this system is, it’s in pieces and runs on AC power (120 volts) because it uses an inexpensive pressure washer system as the pressure pump.  That means AC power is required (something most people don’t have unless they 1) have generation, 2) are on a dock, 3) have a heavy inverter – mine is dead now, due to the fire a couple of months back) and it just doesn’t seem “easy” to use.

However, I’ve spoken to Michael on the phone a couple times and on FB with one of the representatives from the company and was convinced that this might be our best, and cheapest option.  So I went ahead and discussed this with Michael at https://seawaterpro.com/ and decided to purchase the kit.

That will be the subject of an upcoming blog entry in a few weeks I hope, sooner if I get the car running and my phone back to 100%.  So, stay tuned for more on the water maker, because I will feel better being able to rinse out my bathing suit with fresh water, in the Bahamas come November and December this year!

(and shower, if I want…. )

More to follow on the Watermaker.

Here is a video for anyone interested in checking it out.  https://youtu.be/6SYHVs-uZE0

(By the way, I am sorry about no pictures of the hail

Boat Repairs (again) and thoughts on others’ misfortunes

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A few weeks ago we experienced first (on a Monday) being told we’d have to move out of our nice slip to somewhere else, second, (on a Tuesday) a fire (in the inverter/charging system), and third, (on a Wednesday) a runaway engine.

Over the course of the last few weeks with the help of a local mechanic, we figured out the engine issue – a crack in a gasket which sucked in some oil and cause the engine to go nuts and speed up.  Also the fuel pump required (after that) a rebuild of the thing, replacing an diaphragm.

I removed and rewired the boat so I had AC applied back to the systems where I needed it, and have installed a new charger for the system.  It is not yet “permatized”.  I need to mount it to the bulkhead, and hardwire it into the system through a breaker.  Right now it’s plugged into a wall socket on a temporary basis.

The slip issue was something we couldn’t fix.  The slip was privately owned and the owner decided, without notice to sell it, requiring us to move.  The problem is, now I’m in a supposedly 50′ slip and sticking out into the fairway.  Not cool.

We’re also riding in the mud again.  Again, not cool.

So this has prompted me to request that the marina find us another long-dock slip and get us into ASAP.  That is moving slowly.  Or perhaps not at all.  I don’t know.

Now, I am rethinking remaining here.  We are in a tenuous position on this dock, having had to back into it to even be able to get off the boat safely… the finger pier is only 25′ long and bow sprit-to-gangway is 33′.  Thus, we can’t get off the boat safely if we pull into the dock.  Backing in has placed our cabin against the dock, where people walk past all evening, make noises and so on.

I have been calling around in the south to locate a marina that might be a little better for us, but they are all vastly more expensive, sometimes double and triple the cost of this one.  Many don’t allow people to live aboard their boats either.  Some do for an excessive fee.  Others don’t care one way or the other (and it is dependent upon the state, county and local rules).

I have several good places and we will examine them individually soon.  The marina manager doesn’t want to lose me as an employee though.  Perhaps something will be worked out soon.

In the mean time we’re examining our options to just go to a mooring ball, live on the hook awhile, or find another marina to “call home”.  We want to be further south anyway, and be able to access the ocean so, it’s going to cost a bit more no matter what we do I think.

We have a storage locker with a few things in it, which will have to come to the boat, a boat box on the dock (for things we move in and out of the boat) that I’ll need to get rid of, a car, which might have to go into storage for a time until we find a place to bring it.   We need the car to get back and forth across country (flying is not for me any more and is significantly more expensive than travel by car; renting a car is out of the question for long trips, also too expensive).  Everyone wants your money, don’t they?

Over the course of the past few weeks, we went south to Charleston (Twice now) taking our friend Kevin down to retrieve his truck after he brought a boat back up from there and delivered it here.  We went this past weekend to hang out with our friends Alison and Daniel aboard Equus, for a couple of evenings.  We had a good time talking and hearing about their trip to the Bahamas.

I went sailing with Norm from the marina when he took his 94 year old Grandfather out and helped out on the boat.  His grandpa has been sailing since he was about 4 or 5 years old.  He took the tiller and had a grand time.  I stuck to running the jib sheets while Norm handled the main.  We might go out this Friday for awhile too (Norm, myself and one other).

This brings me to the last thing I want to write about here… the Couple from Colorado, who hit something in the water a few months back, lost their keel and sank their boat.

(See: http://www.tampabay.com/news/Couple-whose-dream-boat-sank-finally-set-sail-on-new-adventure-_168471537)

(See also: http://www.tampabay.com/sold-everything-to-sail-the-world-boat-sank-next-day)

The Facebook groups and forums are all over these people.  Some folks in the groups are so judgmental of the couple over this accident.  Yes, it was an accident.  Yes, people have accidents all the time.  People make mistakes, all the time.  Sailors are prone to accidents – though we all strive not to be the cause of one, they still happen.

Articles written about these folks cast them in a bad light, give others a chance to say how “stupid” they are, or “inexperienced” or just nasty things.

What I have come to learn about most of these forums is that 90% or better of the people in the groups have very little “cruising” experience.  A few do, sure, but most are day time, fair weather sailors who spend the majority of their time polishing the gelcoat on their boats.  Some of them brag about having had to “spend time paying their dues” on boats as crew, or under the tutelage of “masters”, and yet, still put down the people who are simply trying to live their dreams.

Granted, not everyone jumps in feet first without knowing how to swim, but a few do.  And they WILL learn the hard way how to do things.  We took sailing courses and spent a few years gaining experience before moving aboard our cruising vessel, Adventure.  And neither of us had crossed “oceans” before – nor have we yet.  We’ve spent extensive time in the Chesapeake, and in the Atlantic coming down the coast, sailing offshore near Cape Fear and a lot of time motoring the ICW in this boat.  Every day, you learn something new. Every time you make a mistake, you learn NOT to do that again, or what to watch for next time.

Life is a journey, not a destination.  Cruising too, is a journey, not a destination.  We don’t expect to set a schedule any more.  We don’t try to beat the weather now, or the night, we deal with it.  No one should be dissuaded about pursuing their dreams because a few nay-sayers are angry over circumstances beyond the control of the dreamers.  No one could have predicted their keel would fall off, they’d hit something, or lose all their property.

On the other hand, Common Sense says one must be prepared for every contingency.  Like, not sailing with a fin keel that is bolted to your boat.  Or taking all your cash with you.  Or any one of a dozen other little things that happened to that couple.  Common Sense, however, isn’t common  I suppose and  I can only hope that this couple learned from their mistakes, and they do not make them again.

We wish them well on their journey, fair winds and following seas–and hope they accomplish what they’ve set out to do.

And I sincerely hope that Facebook Groups begin weeding out the negative ninnies and nay-sayers that “know it all”, because of all the unhelpful things and people out there, they are the worst of the worst.

Florida – by car

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We sat around discussing what to do a month or so back after a failed attempt to depart for the Bahamas.

Spending the day and well into the night sailing a long tack (40 miles total) off shore only to manage to make five nautical miles off shore gave me a reason to want to give up on sailing again.  That was a short lived thought though.  We sailed nicely under most sail and it gave me a lot of night experience, which was great.

Our extra crew member was disappointed, but he took off for California a few days later (and sooner I think than he’d originally intended).  But, in the end, all was good.  We got back in our own slip the next day and we’re back on the docks.

Our discussion turned to doing a road trip, which both of us are always up for.

So, contacting our son, who had wanted to meet us in February anyway, JoAnne and Nick planned a place to stay, dates, and so forth.  We also contacted friends there, and made a decision also to look at a second boat (maybe because it was supposed to have a new engine in it).

On the way to Florida, we were passing through Brunswick, Ga, and the car started acting weird, right after fueling up.  Finally, she sputtered and died at around 75mph going south on I-95.  We coasted almost two miles on the side of the road to get us closer to an exit, and presumably a tow truck.

I checked the car, the computer system, the gas (thinking I somehow stupidly put diesel into the gas tank, which I had not) and couldn’t figure it out right off.  It seemed like perhaps the ignition system was acting up, but I kept going back to the fuel system.  Eventually, we found a place that would take us ASAP and got a tow, and were towed to a little place within three blocks of four hotels.

As it turned out, the fuel pump failed.  Not sure why, but it did.  Ended up getting it replaced.  Wouldn’t get the parts until next morning, so we hiked with our bags to a hotel.  On the way out to hike to a place to eat, we spotted the street sign on the street the Hotel was located.

We spent two weeks and a few extra days bopping around from Ft. Meyers, to Tampa, to Largo and back over to St. Augustine.

Yeah, we’re cursed to remain in “Southport” forever, methinks.  Every time we’ve left Southport, something has happened to bring us back there.  Everyone says we’re fated to remain in Southport, NC.

Even our car seemed to find a home named Southport…. :rollseyes

We visited our friend, Ray (and his son, Dakota, as Ray’s wife, Amanda was out of town for work), the cats and peacocks down in the Ft. Meyer area, as he had a steel ketch he inherited.  I was considering buying it, but it wasn’t exactly what we expected, and I couldn’t see an easy way to move it. The engine likely had not been run in about 10 years.  Probably not a good engine at this point.  The rigging was pretty loose, a lower spreader having been rotted out and fallen off, leaving the majority of the standing rigging wiggly.  So, that was a “no”.  We did get to see Lake Okeechobee, rode on Ray’s boat, and found some cool Mexican food there.

We rode on Ray’s boat to see the sailboat, down the ICW towards Okeechobee.

We visited about half dozen breweries, ate out a bunch, JoAnne and the boys cooked at the AirBnB in which we stayed.

We had never stayed in a place like that.  Nor a place like this one in particular.  I’ve honestly never seen a place like the “Casa Loco”.

There is nothing better, sometimes than a picture, which it is said is worth a thousands words.  So, without further ado, here’s a few thousand words.

I’ll just leave those there.  The last one is the kitchen.  Those are Jello/cake molds, on the ceiling.  The second to last is the bathroom door…..

The bedrooms were covered in freaky “masks”, African, Spanish, Mexican, Demons… you name it.  I can’t imagine small kids sleeping in this house without having severe mental issues afterward. haha

We four, Nick, Levi, JoAnne and I, spent time on the beach, visiting places, friends and having a good time.

After “Casa Crazy” we went to stay with JoAnne’s brother, Paul and his wife, Cathy and met the new poodle pup named “Buddy” who is a biter. He nipped Paul, JoAnne, Cathy and me, drawing blood from all of us.  He’s a good dog, but he’s got to learn not to bite.

From Largo/Tampa we headed over to St. Augustine to visit with our friends from South Harbor Village Marina in North Carolina aboard “Enamoored”, Herb and Jan.  They left at the end of February, about the time we left, to go down to St. Augustine, and they found a nice slip there in the town.  We couple reasonably have walked from their boat to most places, if Jan and JoAnne both were up to the walking.  Instead we drove a lot to breweries and out to eat.

We visited Hurricane Patty’s, at River’s Edge Marina, and could see our friend’s (Stephen and Judy) old slip from where we sat to eat (they are up north somewhere now).  We had visited St. A’s before a couple of years back and stopped at River’s Edge to check the place out.

We stayed two nights with Jan and Herb and headed out early in the morning headed home for Adventure.  We discussed stopping at a hotel one more night (for a big bed, showers, hot tub, pool, and just to decompress) but that never happened.  I guess I owe JoAnne a night in a nice place somewhere with a big bed, showers, hot tub pool, or just decompressing. Haha!

Finally, we arrived back at our marina, tired and relatively warm.  That changed quickly because, well, apparently winter is nuts and it keeps coming back to bug us.

All in all, our adventures don’t have to be aboard “Adventure”.  We have just as much fun in the car as the boat, and it seems like it’s easier to do some times.  But, I don’t think we’re giving up the boat any time soon.

The last thing for this entry is a purely mercenary event for me, so bear with me one more moment.

Back in November, I published my first SF novel, the first is a series called “Estrellita Chronicles”, first book is called “Aftermath’s Children” and was a very, very long time coming.  I started writing that book in 1985 or ’86.  It was a collective work based on a role playing game that I ran as Game Master with friends back in the early to mid 1980s.

The book has been sitting around in mostly completely form now for many years, but I published it on Kindle.

This week, I completed the set up for paperback books, and yesterday (Friday, 9 March 2018) I posted the last files, cover changes and information for the book.  Today I finally got the price set properly.

So if you like Science Fiction and are interested you can get the book either as a digital version for Kindle (or kindle app, or Amazon Cloud reader) or paperback.  I’ll post the links here.  Normally, I don’t advertise anything with the blog at all or ask for anything, but I’d sincerely appreciate it, if anyone reads the book they write a short review on Amazon.  Here are the links, top one is for the paperback, the second for the digital version for Kindle.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1973270501/
https://www.amazon.com/Aftermaths-Children-Estrellita-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B077BFKQ5W

This is my Amazon Author Page:

https://www.amazon.com/Rick-Donaldson/e/B00Q514LD0

This is my author blog:

https://rddonaldson.wordpress.com

Please visit those and leave comments, and PLEASE do a review if you read the book, it helps to bring the book into focus for those visiting Amazon (and helps get me sales, and by the way, I make a couple of bucks off each book, not as much as you think an author makes!)

Failure, Disappointment and Frustration…. or was it?

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We were set to pull out of the marina as the tide was falling.  I had 15 minutes to play with before the water would be too thin for us.  We waited for one of the crew’s family to come and say good bye and to meet us.  We had cut it pretty close, but we were getting out.

The morning was chilly, but nice.  The wind was clocking around though in the afternoon and I wanted the last of the north winds to take us down the coast as rapidly as possible under sail.  I knew if we waited until the afternoon we would be tacking a LOT to go to the Southwest.

At 0905 I put the engine in reverse and some friends tossed the lines to Nick, our new crew member.  He put the lines away and I began backing out and hit a bump.  Mud, and the water was thinning.

“Crap,” I thought.  Then there was a horn behind me where there had not been a boat a few moments before, and a shout from one of the marina guys, Norm, asking me to pull back in the slip.  I yelled back, “Trying to get out before I can’t!”

He said, “Pull in, they are going for a pumpout!”

Katy B, a large power vessel wasn’t stopping, so I pulled back in.  In a parking lot, the guy going behind you has the right of way.  So, I treated it like a parking lot and pulled forward, knowing full well we weren’t getting out now.

They cleared us, and I began backing and slammed into the mud.  Too shallow now.  Cut it too close.  Darn.

A quick check with the crew, JoAnne and Nick, told me we were going to try again.  But as tide was coming back in around 1300.  That didn’t set well with me because, honestly, I knew the winds were going to clock.  They really wanted to get going on our journey.  So, we ate some lunch, and waiting for Nick’s family to return once again this time to see us off the docks, and bring a friend who had come to visit them.

At 1315, we backed out on a rising tide.  I still hit the “bump” behind our slip and after a moment of hesitation, I brought the bow around and we motored smartly out of the marina with people waving to us, yelling “Fair Winds” and “Good Luck!”

The ICW was quiet, the winds were beginning to drop, but I hoisted the main as we got a little ways out of the marina to use what there was, about 7-9 knots to help propel us down the water way, along with the engine chugging along.  Engine was just fine.  No overheating issues now.

A couple of miles later we rounded a bend and headed into the Western Bar Cut.  I’ve done it a few times now in both my boat and Jay’s “Knot Working” so have learned it better.

Before we go on…. let me tell you another short story.

One week before, on a Friday (bad luck they say) we departed and wound up with overheated engine, rainy morning, crappy weather, and made it to the lighthouse when the engine overheated badly.  I called for a tow, from SeaTow who brought us home to our slip.

So, we’re not really unfamiliar with bad luck.

Back to the story.  This is the third or fourth attempt to get out of here and head south.  Each time, something odd has happened.

On this day, things were going great.  We were in the channel headed out, but now, by the time we hit the Western Bar and were under main sail and engine, the winds were turning against us.  We needed to go directly Southwest.

We sailed on, passing our friends Jay and Kevin who went out earlier in the morning when we pulled back into the slip.  They waved, took pictures and wished us luck.  We kept going.  After 30 minutes we were almost to the light house, to the place we’d had to turn around last time.  Winds were now fully in our faces on the bow.

I can’t change the winds, so I did what any sailor would do, I tacked and adjusted the sails and we took off at almost five knots.  I pulled out all sail, and managed almost 6 knots.  Good, faster than I though.  Course looked good, but we would be going right towards the shipping channel entrance, so I worked out a tack in the other direction and tried to gain as much SW direction as I could.  Not going well.

When we got to the buoy out there, we tacked back and headed toward shore. At the end of the tack we’d gained roughly 1/2 nautical mile.  Winds were picking up too.  Tacking back in another 30 minutes gained us another half mile.  On the third tack I realized while we were sailing well, it was not going to get us very far.   I started considering going back in.  Or going down the ICW.

Neither one sounded appealing.  And everyone voted to go on.  I restarted the engine and aimed south, figuring our computer applications told us winds would finish clocking back out of the north soon (by about 1600).  Motor sailing against the wind is not really my favorite thing to do, but I’ve gotten pretty good at it.  Except today.

We were making 2 knots most of the time.  So I started “tacking off the wind” and trying to use the sail, doing shorter tacks so we didn’t head into shipping lanes or too close to shore.  We watched a gorgeous sunset and the Southwest wind had a long fetch before us.  After another hour, we were pounding into and out of waves, as they built first to 3, then 4 feet.

JoAnne began to get ill.  I’d sent her down to rest (she’d taken medication that was making her sleepy, so she was laying down).  Nick had gone down to sleep for a couple of hours so he could join me in the cockpit at 2100 or so that night.

I put the boat on autopilot, looked around and seeing nothing went below to double check on the engine.  Oil smoke was burning off the engine and filling the cabin.

At that point I decided it was time to turn around.  So about 2000 hours local time I awakened them and told them my decision.  I suspect they were both disappointed, but neither let on.  I brought the boat back around and Nick joined me in the cockpit to help me watch for traffic.

We slogged against currents coming out, and falling tides (again), into a bright, moon-lit night, looking for markers.  At the last moment I decided against attempting the Western Bar in the dark and headed for the secondary shipping channel, giving me plenty of water, but adding 3-4 miles on our trip in against the currents.

I contacted Jay and he and Kevin would meet us at the transient dock (after they determined there was a slot open).  We arrived about 2340 and tied off on the T-dock for the night, hoping to move in the morning.  Nick decided to go home, called his parents who picked him us, I connected electricity and we still had SW winds.  They never switched to come from the North.

The temperature was beginning to drop, but wasn’t uncomfortable yet.  About 0145 Sunday morning something awakened me.  It was the wind.  It had finally clocked around out of the north and was blowing hard.

It was the wind I was hoping would be there about 1400 the day before to propel us south.  I’d have taken us in at Little River or on to Charleston, SC.  Alas, that didn’t happen.

The next day early on, one of the other boats was coming back in under tow, the marina was a bit mad at me for taking up the only slot, but I couldn’t get in at low tide (and I was NOT going to get up at 0500 to try to bring the boat in after what I’d just been through, exhausted, bringing the boat back in the ICW in the dark).

Fortunately, we came up with a solution and put him on the inside against the bulkhead.  Apparently, they didn’t want to try getting him into his slip.  Though, a week before, SeaTow put me in MY slip….

So… there are some lessons here.  But, I’m not going into them all right now.  Suffice it to say, I’ll make my own decisions from now on about moving the boat, no one tells me.  We go when *I* know it is ready.  Not before, not after.  I’ll wait for a good weather window, not an “OK” weather window.  I won’t start off again without having the right tides in the right places… and so many other seamanship things I already KNOW I should do, and discounted some of them.

Never again.

Today, it’s 18 degrees here.  We’d have been near Charleston, SC, with no heat (very little, propane heater, wood stove are insufficient at sea).  We have electric heating on the boat right now, but requires AC power.  Only have that running generator or shore power.

After all was said and done, I made the correct decision to come back in because had I not, three of us would have been exhausted, tired and freezing, and perhaps a danger to ourselves and others.

Apparently, some delays are simply meant to be.

Delay… Again

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Sometimes life throws things at you and you fall down and get up and try again.  Sometimes, people just give up and quit.

JoAnne and I have been at this marina a whole year.  We’ve made wonderful friends, traveled by car everywhere, and we’ve sailed out in the Atlantic a few times now.

Last December I was ready to quit and sell the boat, and move back to Colorado.  Then my brother got very ill, so we kept the boat on the transient docks here and went north to Michigan where he was in critical condition in ICU.  We waited around about 10 days until we knew he was getting better.  Then we came back.

We’d had major engine issues, gotten our asses kicked, sea sick, had to deal with travel and a sick relative.  We were exhausted, tired, and really not ready to continue.  So we stayed here.

In October this year we thought we’d get out.  Then the “Great Fire Extinguisher” recall started.  Technically, it started before that but we didn’t hear about it, except as a fluke through someone else’s blog entry.  So, I made my calls as soon as I knew (which was early November).  A month later, we’re still awaiting at least one of them.

Over the past two months we’ve had three aborted attempts at heading out.

Once because of weather.  The second time due to fog and light winds.  Today, 7′ plus waves and small craft advisories (and listing to the commercial traffic in the shipping lanes, I’m glad we aborted this morning).  Big rolling waves coming in.

JoAnne, who can and does get sea sick in the wrong conditions (short period waves)  said “Nope”.  So, that was a nope.

Nope means Nope.  So, for all my friends giving me crap for “Still being here”… understand that I’m not a cruiser so I can put myself through hell every few weeks.  I’m a cruiser because I live on a boat, I DO move the boat (however occasionally that might be of late) and we are going to continue cruising.

It wasn’t in the cards.  Winds are right, the waves are too big for us in close right now.  Once we get back out there, it will be fine, but until she is 100% ready and I don’t have to worry about her being sea sick, then we’ll go.

We have a couple of requirements.  The first one is we want to SAIL, not MOTOR all the way to Florida. So the winds have to be mostly right, and the weather has to be conducive to get us out of Cape Fear.  They don’t call it “Cape Fear” for nothing.  Listening to some of the ships talking about 7 foot rollers was enough for me.

ICW is too shallow, I hate it.  At some point we’ll get out and go south, but today is not that day.

There’s always tomorrow.  Or Karaoke.

Fire Delay

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During our safety checks we discovered all of our fire fighting gear was under recall.  How nice.

We’re trying to decide if we want to go with possibly bad, definitely recalled fire extinguishers.

Kidde has recalled more than 130 models of their fire extinguishers.  All six of ours, of various models are on the list.

According to Kidde, they may function, or they may not.  They are recalling them (8-9 million of them apparently) due to the fact they COULD fail.  Having worked with Quality Control in the past I imagine they did some destructive testing to determine they have that many models, based on the plastic handles, and they have indeed had at least one death associated with one of the models.

That means they are attempting to mitigate other dangers to the public from their equipment.  The cost must be enormous.

So, do we stay another possible 20 days and then go south, or do we run south with the herd and try to get to Bahamas in the right windows?

I understand Kevin (a friend on the dock) has a $1.00 bet we will be here for Thanksgiving.  Not sure I want to see him win that bet. 🙂

I have more extinguishers than are required (I believe I’m required three for my size boat) and we have two for the engine, one for each cabin, one for the galley and a spare (I keep two in our cabin).

So, the chances of ALL of them failing in an emergency are pretty low.  But, I don’t want to ship out and leave a huge box of a half dozen extinguishers sitting behind, and I need to ship back the other six.

What would you do?

Edit: By the way, here is a link for you to go check your own equipment!

https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2017/kidde-recalls-fire-extinguishers-with-plastic-handles-due-to-failure-to-discharge-and

 

T minus 16 Hours and counting

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High tide occurs here at the marina in the morning about 11:10. About 10:56 am at Southport.

We’re planning to pull out of here a little after 10 AM tomorrow.

Our friend Jay will go out to get fuel in the morning, and then we will pull out as well afterward and head down the canal.  John Sparrow and Lizzy Swan aboard the S/V Black Swan will pull out as we come through.

The three boats will be headed out into the Atlantic for a trip down the coast.  Jay and “Knot Working” will return to his slip after guiding us through the Western Bar Cut, because JoAnne and I have never gone through there yet, but he has.  So we will use his local knowledge to learn that.

Then we will sail south. We have a loose plan to get to Georgia in two days and the winds appear favorable for us to do so.  We won’t go more than a few miles off shore 3-15 and we’ll try to remain in phone contact on and off.

Brunswick Georgia is one of the places we’re looking at pulling out of the ocean for a day or two of rest before deciding on our next leg.

Bahamas is our ultimate destination though.  We have considered everything from Marsh Harbor to Eleuthera at this point.  We’ll decide as we go I guess.

Anyway, this is my last entry for a day or so.

Fair Winds!

The Next Adventure

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Life to us, is an Adventure.  From deciding to go to islands for a week or two, to climbing around in the Grand Canyon, to exploration of Yellowstone.  We’ve traveled back and forth across this great land of ours, and around the world a few times to get to distant locations.

Thus, choosing a life of “cruising aboard a sailboat” wasn’t too difficult of a decision, except that we didn’t really KNOW people did such things until we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do when we “retired”.

Becoming “retired” became an adventure, just getting there.  Getting enough money put away for a few years of cruising (which has rapidly been eaten up by everything from boat issues to medical issues, and just getting health insurance – which took well over a quarter of what we had put away initially) was an adventure.

Since we started this part of our lives, we’ve been back and forth across the US from Colorado to the East Coast, Northern States, almost ALL the Southern States and all up and down the East Coast to as far north as MD and DE.  Haven’t made it to Maine (again for me) yet, but it’s on the list.

Today we completed one of the logistic nightmares that every cruiser goes through from time to time.  Provisioning for a long distance journey, to help us be free of having to do a lot of grocery shopping.  JoAnne and I argued a bit about “how much”.  We decided finally upon a “three month supply” of dry goods and canned foods to give us the chance to travel and not worry so much about finding anchorages where we could find stores.  She’s planning to bake bread, make soups, and I’m planning to catch fish.

One of the things I need to do is finish putting things BACK together in the forward compartment.  We had it all set up and arranged, but we had to move stuff around again, and I have tools out again, etc.  So, once that is done tomorrow we can depart any time.  I want to make sure we’re watered, oil and fluid levels checked and motor out of the marina, raise the sails and head out to the Atlantic.

I had to deal with insurance issues the last few days as well; trying to get information is sometimes difficult. Our insurance expires in December, and I wanted to make sure it’s going to get renewed on time and had to send multiple emails to get anyone to finally respond with the answers I sought.  I am not sure why I have “boat insurance” on this old boat, but, it is our home and that’s the only reason I can think of offhand.  A lot of people believe you should have it, as many believe it’s ridiculous.  I’m in the “ridiculous” camp.

Medical is the same way.  Expensive, unhelpful, and it sucks your bank accounts dry.  But, we have it because she wants it (she had cancer, so far, she doesn’t and it hasn’t reoccurred).

But – the real “Adventure” starts in a day or so when we can pull out of the marina again, with a clean bottom oil changes, new charts in the plotter, and my paper charts and plotting equipment with me in the cockpit.  Yeah, I use paper.  Yeah, I use the plotter to give me a good idea of where I was, and where I am going, but not so much to guide me through life, or the sea.

I do have my sextant, and will get a few chances to practice again.  It’s been a long while since I pulled it out and I’m going to have to refresh my memory on how to take a noon sight again.

And the best part is… I am NOT going to starve.

JoAnne has plenty of food aboard.  Including my precious peanut butter.  Who needs bread when you have a spoon?

Weather is supposed to be nice the next few days, albeit, chilly in the evenings.  Winds are light and variable the next few days.  I’m looking for 12-15 knots to use to get me south.

And we’re sailing.  I’ll power the engine up to get us out of here and maybe through the Cape Fear river inlet, but the sails are going up as soon as possible and the engine is going off for as long as I can keep it off.  We’ll take turns on shifts and we’ll try to get a few good hours of sleep each day, on opposite shifts.

This will be our first multiday passage, so we’re going to go for 24 hours testing ourselves and if that works out, another 24, then another, until we arrive at a nice destination.

For our friends who’ve given up on us going back out, I will say…y’all ain’t seen nothing yet.

 

Fair Winds!

 

Time to Go! Last Minute Things

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Last minute things….

Check on Boat Insurance (Check).  Get provisions (Working). Do oil change (Scheduled). Check on SeaTow membership (until 11 November good).  Add Water.  Add fuel if needed. Wonder what we forgot.

That’s just a small list there.  A lot of other things have happened in the past two weeks since returning to the ship.  Those things included putting sails back up, and unstrapping the in-mast sails from the mast (hurricane preps before we left of course).  Cleaning out items we really don’t need on the boat.

Speaking of that, I was at the storage locker yesterday. Holy cow.  Where did ALL that crap come from?  Why do we have all that crap?  This isn’t a house, it’s a boat.  I don’t have a garage.  I did pay for a storage locker for a full year.  That will give us time to get rid of everything in that locker we decided we truly didn’t need, or at least the big, bulky, heavy items and things that won’t fix or repair the boat.

We ordered a few things too and await their arrival (today or tomorrow I believe).  New bathing suit for JoAnne, some scrabble pieces (as we’re missing a few in our ancient set) and some other items for the boat.  I decided to have someone else do this oil change for me, so I can be sure it’s right this time.  Turns out we were given bad advice about certain oils to use, by a certain mechanic.  The weight of the oil is apparently too high for this engine and causes significant blow by.

I found that the proper oil will NOT make it smoke as much.  We will find that out later today.  I’m not a mechanic, but I do understand the physics of engines like this, and I gather that we’ve had the wrong oil in here since we had the first oil change accomplished.  The other reason for letting someone else do it, is that I do not have the container/pump assembly I need to pull it out, and no real storage space for one if I did.  So, we’ve filled most of our areas with important things like spare parts, some tools, the clothing we need and food.  We should be self-sufficient for roughly three months once we depart, needing only occasional watering.

We will try to do rain catchment and see how that goes.  I’ve tested it at the docks and in theory, and practice it works well.  However, doing so under sail might be a bit problematic.  We will see.

Today I saw on Facebook that it has been exactly Two Years ago since we found ourselves somewhat “stuck” in Norfolk, VA, in a place that we didn’t want to be, and nothing but bad things happened there.  We made friends, and somehow managed to upset some of them over one of my postings on the blog.  I’m not going to reopen wounds, other than to say, two years later, I stand by my original posts on the blog here.  Friends or no friends, one person’s experience may be different from another’s, and my purpose here is not to blow rainbows and BS up people’s butts, but to tell what we personally go through.

Everyone’s mileage WILL vary.  That said, onward.

We’ve set a tentative date of 1 November to pull out, but of course, that will be based on the weather.

We’ve also NOT set our exact course, or chosen the path to take us to the Bahamas.  I did originally plan to sail out of Cape Fear, cross the Gulf Stream and head south to Marsh Harbor, but there is some trepidation on both our parts for doing this.  We’ve not done a multiday crossing yet, and perhaps this is too much until we get in the swing of things.

So, instead, we will probably take a tack southward and stay well off shore for a few days, but close enough to run back in if we get too tired, or have issues.  Boat issues are the one thing that constantly have plagued us, and while we can abandon ship in an emergency and have an EPIRB, radios, emergency ditch bag, and things to keep us alive while rescued, this is NOT how anyone wants to spend their evening, morning, or night.  Instead, we want a lazy sail to the Bahamas, and therefore we’re going to endeavor to do so.  This means we WILL still do a multi-day crossing, but not too far away from being able to get to land if required.  I trust the boat and most of the systems, but I don’t trust the sea and the magic it works on everything.  Like breaking things when you least expect it.

Things break even if you inspect them.  Even if they are brand new.  Sometimes things you expect to break never break.  I’ve come to the conclusion that you can engineer the perfect vessel, at whatever the cost, and eventually, something is going to fail when it ought to have lived a full, healthy life of sixty more years.  Therefore, I trust the boat to float, and me to keep checking on things.  And to be prudent.

Once we get our minds wrapped around multi-day travel off shore, we’ll change the way we do things, but small, baby steps I guess are best.

The best part?  I do NOT have to RUSH myself in a straight line, against the wind on the nose to attempt to beat darkness to drop an anchor to be safe.  I can be safe right on my own vessel, moving however slowly in the general direction I wish to go, without running a motor, creating smelly fumes, heating up everything, and spending money on fuel.

I’m rather looking forward to a successful, stress-less, sailing excursion.

We have wracked our brains on how to keep dry good, well, dry.  Salt, sugar, flour, corn meal.  Plastic baggies work mostly, but salt is still killing us.  Our friend Mike, in Missouri showed us a handheld device from Walmart that sucks the air out of bags (special bags) and I just got a brilliant idea to try it with containers.  We need something to hold the amount of sugar, flour and such we use on a daily basis so we’re not constantly unpacking everything, taking what we need, resealing everything away under seats and in compartments.

So, we might try that. I’m sure others have come up with methods for combating humidity, but we’re still figuring things out.  Remember, we lived at elevation and in very dry, desert climates for the past quarter century.  Colorado rarely has issues with salt chunking up in the shaker.  Not so, on the coast.

JoAnne will be starting her “provisioning run” in the next day or so.  Everything else is pretty much done (except of course, the Vee Berth is full of loose items again, as I have been working on the boat here and there, have tools out again, and cushions, etc)

Last week, Friday, I removed all of the enclosure from the cockpit, except the dodger, and the upper Isenglas. I want to be able to climb in and out more easily, and of course, there’s that vision thing – being able to see all the way around me at night is helpful, if not critical.  The old Isenglas is in dire need of replacement but I can’t really justify the cost of it.    There are a lot of things that should be “replaced” but none are critical to the operation of the boat.  Except one.  The furling line on the mains’l.  That, I will replace when it needs repair.  I have the line to do it, but I’m not going to pull the sail out, drop the main, unroll everything, reroll everything, and put it all back the way it was before I started. It’s about a ten hour job.

At some point, the furling line will need replacing, and that’s when I will finally drop the main (like a regular main sail, instead of furling) and replace the halyard, the furler and do a few other minor jobs all at once.  Even at sea.  Shouldn’t be much of an issue.  Except storms.  I have no plans to have battles with Mother Nature.  She will win.  I have two other sails I can have up anyway.  So, I’ll leave it at that.

We have gone over things verbally, and on our various lists and I believe now we’re ready.  After the oil change, I’m considering taking the boat out. There’s a race this weekend.  I’m not much a racer, but it’s the Stede Bonnet Race.  I don’t believe we will win anything, and I seriously doubt we will be able to move the boat in the light winds being predicted, but what the heck?  It’s a ketch named Adventure, so why not?

Not sure we want to mess with it though.  We will see.

Today is the 24th of October.  The first is 7 days hence.  Winds are predicted to be (at this time) light, variable, out of the North and Northwest (1-8 knots) and swell from the SW at less than 3′.  A very CALM day for moving, but probably too light to move US.  If we choose that day to depart, we might make more headway in the ICW and head for Little River.

Final decision will be made much closer to the day of departure and when weather predictions are more accurate.

 

Until next entry, Fair Winds to All!

 

Bahamas Bound

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We’re watching the weather now, looking for a window.  However, the boat isn’t quite ready.  We’re decluttering our cabins, removing extra things that won’t be required for a trip.  We want to lighten our load of junk (How in the HELL do you collect junk on a boat??? I think most of the stuff I’ve taken off isn’t really necessary for the boat, just conveniences we use day to day.)

A trip to Colorado last month was to visit my doctor and renew my Blood Pressure prescriptions.  After the heart attack and open heart surgery a couple of years ago, no more chances.  We also got to visit our new, baby Great Grand Daughter!  She is beautiful and her parents are good kids. I hope they do well in life and raise that baby well.

Image may contain: 2 people, people smiling, eyeglasses

Two proud Great Grandmothers meeting Chloe

Back at the boat we started the work to reverse all we did for the hurricane watches, putting sails back up, untying all the things we tied down, strapping down things that we don’t want moving about, and removing a few other things from the boat like some of our winter clothing we won’t be needing much in the south.

I hope to have all the little chores done by Wednesday or Thursday this week, and JoAnne will be doing some grocery shopping while I finish up engine work (cleaning, tightening, checking fluid levels etc) and make sure all the rigging is good.  So far, so good.

The primary plan is to head for Marsh Harbor, Abacos and range in and out of that area to see things.  We may take some time to go down the coast too though, and we’re planning at least one “shake down” cruise before we set out into the ocean again.

That’s all for now.  More to follow later.

Loss of a Friend – Guy Bernardin – Circumnavigator

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“I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and as the wind on the morning of April 24, 1895 was fair, at noon I weighed anchor, set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had been moored snugly all winter. The twelve o’clock whistles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead under full sail. A short board was made up the harbor on the port tack, then coming about she stood to seaward, with her boom well off to port, and swung past the ferries with lively heels. A photographer on the outer pier of East Boston got a picture of her as she swept by, her flag at the peak throwing her folds clear. A thrilling pulse beat high in me. My step was light on deck in the crisp air. I felt there could be no turning back, and that I was engaging in an adventure the meaning of which I thoroughly understood.” – Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World, 1900.

EDIT 21 March 2018: I have received numerous questions regarding Guy’s boat.  A boat was spotted off the coast of Honduras recently, and many believe it to be Guy’s boat.  I’m inserting the only image I apparently took of the boat, zoomed in on the aft end of the vessel.  The boat is a 40+ foot racing sloop, known to have a 7′ fin keel, and around a 60 foot mast.  The image does NOT show the new wind generator that I assisted him in installing a day or so before his departure.

To be CLEAR, his boat was found off the coast of Cape Cod, about 400-700 nm out from the area, in either September or October of 2017.  The date it was discovered is unclear.  The boat was intact and no one was aboard.  Given that he disappeared somewhere off North Carolina right after departure (in July) I venture to guess this is about right giving being set up north bound currents.

There is NO WAY the boat found in the Gulf of Mexico would have been Guy’s “Crazyhorse”.  The Gulf Stream doesn’t take boats to the south off the US Coast line, and no way it could have found it’s way into the Gulf of Mexico.  The image I saw of that upside down boat had two small keels.  Not a fin keel.  (End of Edit)

Above image of Crazy Horse, and the stylized “Horse Head” on the back of the boat.  I apologize for the quality of the image but I was taking pictures of a departing boat and only caught the back of his boat and slightly out of focus.  – RD

On the 16th of September I took a leave of absence from my marina job for six months – until April anyway.  Maybe a bit longer.  We did a quick (month long) road trip and returned last evening from the road to Colorado and back.

Our whole purpose for being on this boat is to go places.  Our boat has sat here for most of a year, December 2016 until now.  We had some bad experiences with the water, waves, wind and weather and took a break, but it’s time to go again.  For awhile I was of a mind to sell the boat and get back on land.  I don’t like JoAnne getting sick, and having experienced sea sickness myself, I don’t want her to be ill ever again.  However, we aren’t giving up quite so easily.

But, we need to move, we need to go, we need to see things.  Life is short and if we sit here, we waste our chance to see other parts of the world.

Nothing has driven that idea home more accurately than the sad news I received a few days ago.

A few months ago an older man came to the Marina here at South Harbour Village.  His name was Guy (pronouced as Ghee) Bernardin.  He was in his 70s.  He was aboard an older boat by the name of “Crazy Horse”, a racing sloop.  The boat was in need of attention, and he’d just purchased the vessel for a non-stop race around the world.

Guy and I quickly became friends.  I helped him on several occasions with lines and moving things around for him.  He had another friend named Larry Brown who came to visit and stayed with him for a few weeks while working on Crazy Horse.  Larry and I spoke often as well, while various parts were refitted on the boat.

Sometime in June I had asked if I could interview him and write an article for the local paper.  He refused at first stating that he was leaving soon for France to go back to work on his other boat, a Spray (Slocum) replica.  I found out more of his story in that conversation – that in 1998 he had completed a three year, round-the-world tour which duplicated for the most part, Joshua Slocum’s original trip.  He explained that the boat was steel, and he was going back for some refit work.

The Interview was never to take place as my wife and I had also gone home in June to do medical appointments and other things.  Guy was ready to depart save for last minute things when we returned.

When we returned, I saw Guy infrequently, but I did chat with him on and off.  I assisted him in installing his wind generator a couple of days before his departure sometime in late July (I do not recall the date, and didn’t write it down).  I know he left and came back in with either engine or steering issues, or perhaps the weather bothered him.  I never got the chance to ask, as the following morning he was gone again and I never heard from him again.

Sometime in August (about a week or so after his departure) I wondered how he was doing.  Then I heard a rumor about a radio call for help and some people were saying they thought it might have been Guy.  I did not hear the call.  I don’t know the details of the call, who made it or why. I completely discounted the idea it was Guy.  He was, after all a seasoned traveler, sailor and knew what he was doing.  I never believed anyone actually heard the call themselves and were guessing (which they likely were).

I forgot all about it.  Until this past week.

JoAnne and I had to go back to Colorado for a few days.  A message came in from Norm at the South Harbour Village Marina while we were traveling with friends, asking if I had heard the news about a friend who had been in the Marina for awhile this past summer.  I received the sad news that he was missing and his boat had been found.

A few minutes later I had an article mentioning him and learned that his fate was not what I would have expected.

I was shocked, and to this day I am still in shock I believe. I’d written off the original rumor of the radio call because I felt it couldn’t have been Guy, it couldn’t have happened to a world cruiser, racer and a man who was very good at what he did.

Guy Bernardin went missing sometime in August we believe, somewhere off the coast of North Carolina, close to us. His life raft was aboard, the boat intact as far as I can tell from the article.  I have little information on what might have happened to him but have first hand experience on his boat.

“Crazy Horse” was a typical racing sloop, designed in a minimalist fashion, but there were narrow decks, running rigging all over the place to the cockpit, a scooped stern, easy to have fallen from there, life lines were short to the deck (no more than a foot probably) and little to grab onto.  Guy told me he had not had time to install jack lines when I questioned him the last time I spoke to him.

Guy Bernardin

We were raising the wind generator mast and he was putting in bolts and connecting the final wires.  I asked him about the jack lines, and he said that it was something he had not bought and probably wouldn’t require them for this part of the trip.  I didn’t question his wisdom on this for I knew he was experienced.  The image below was taken just a couple of days prior to installation of the wind generator.  I was shooting images of boats going through the fairway and happened to catch the stern of Crazy Horse in this one.

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Crazy Horse on RIGHT of Image above

It is now very apparent that Guy, while experienced in around the world cruising, a six-times around the Horn man, and a seasoned racer made a mistake that anyone could make.  He didn’t think anything bad would happen.

According to the article (Written in French), the boat was recovered with no one aboard.

For those who know the story of Joshua Slocum (and I hope all Sailors know it, if not, read it) Slocum traveled solo around the world, with an old wreck of a boat he rebuilt from the keel up.  A completely “new” boat from the old boat rose of the “ashes” (ok, sand actually) and he proceeded to travel the world, visiting exotic locations and becoming a very famous man in the late 1890s.

Bernardin sailed a steel boat called Spray around the world, following the footsteps of Slocum over a three year circumnavigation.

Like Slocum, Monsieur Bernardin disappeared at sea.  Unlike Slocum, Crazy Horse was found without it’s Captain. Spray was never located.  Today we can only assume the worst for Guy.  He never finished his last voyage.  At least I tend to believe he wished to complete it with success, not in the manner it ended.

So, to sailors everywhere…. do your best.  Never skimp on safety, know your limits.  Know that any little thing can kill you out there.  I’m sure you all know this, and I’m preaching to the choir, but seriously, I’m tired of losing friends like this.

Fair Winds, Guy Bernardin, where ever you are now.

 

Sail: disappearance of the navigator Guy Bernardin off the American coast

Guy aboard the Slocum Spray Replica

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http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2017/10/05/guy-bernardin-lost-sea/#.WdxRdryap7Y.facebook

http://www.lepoint.fr/sport/voiel-disparition-du-navigateur-guy-bernardin-au-large-des-cotes-americaines-03-10-2017-2161787_26.php#

http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2017/03/08/fifty-year-anniversary-spiritual-journey/

https://www.amazon.com/Sailing-Around-World-Retraces-Slocums/dp/1574091484

https://books.google.com/books/about/Sailing_Around_the_World.html?id=sAA6uNUnKYMC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Sabatical. Retired.

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I am on sabbatical now.

Ok, not really.

I retired from the military in 2002.  I quit my job at the Missile Defense Agency in 2015.  I took a job with the marina in March 2017, and stopped working on September 16th until next April when I will return to the marina.

So, I suppose I can legitimately call it a sabbatical.

My friend,  Jay calls his boat Knot Working, so could just say “Not Working” but Sabatical sounds cooler.

We’re doing our last road trip before the cruise south.  Long trip, seeing family,  friend, brew pubs, eating good food, having fun.

Back at the boat, I’ll be spending several days putting all the running rigging back together,  sails back up, filling tanks, removing extraneous gear we won’t require, and storing things we won’t need on the boat.

JoAnne will be working on provisions for the trip, probably three months of standard canned foods and things that last awhile as well as flour, sugar and things we use for baking.

I haven’t written for a time due to hurricane prep, as Irma and Maria were headed our way, so this is just a quick, short entry to remind the worls we’re alive.

 

More to follow in a few days.

 

The other blog

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As some of you know, I have a second blog I started in conjunction with a group I run on Facebook.

It’s called “Sailing and Cruising: Preppers”.

Rather than reiterate or copy what I wrote over there, here’s the link to the latest entry today:

https://sailingcruisingpreppers.wordpress.com/2017/09/13/hurricane-irmajose/

I would urge folks to go read it.  Agree or disagree with my opinion, it’s important to me that people learn from history, they learn from mistakes, and they learn skills before they need them.

I wrote a book called “Basic Survival and Communication in the Aftermath”.  The “Aftermath” is that thing that exists when it’s all over.  Disaster, zombie apocolypse, hurricane, asteroid strike.  You name it.  Any sort of thing that befalls some portion or all of the human race, putting them into survival mode.

Maybe people pooh pooh such things as science fiction.  The truth is that disasters DO happen. We know for instance dinosaurs once walked this planet.  Giants who ate one another, and whole trees in one sitting existed.  We have found their bones.  We have found their skulls.  We know they were….

We also believe they were eventually killed off in a rapid extinction, perhaps by as asteroid hitting the planet.  That is, of course, the belief of science today, and while not 100% certain, it definitely has a good following, even from me.

The point though, is that these mega critters had all they could eat, and lived the “good life” as critters go.  And suddenly over a few decades, simply ceased to exist.  Human beings aren’t very large.  We’re not very powerful.  We’re not all that tough as creatures go.  We do have civilization, technology, good (and bad) eating habits.  We live in a world of other humans.  We mostly get along.  We mostly don’t kill each other for lunch (though there are a few times it’s happened).

But we, like the dinosaurs, populate this planet in abundance and dependence on the planet’s resources.  The two recent hurricanes prove that we’re stronger than we look and resilient, yet, dangerously dumb at times.

Many of my prepper friends ask me about my book, mentioned above.  They ask why it’s not in a paper format, because, you know Rick, when the EMP comes Kindles and digital media will be no more!

Here is why.  It kills trees to make a book.  Books wind up in garbage cans or burned as a fire starter when the end comes.  It isn’t the BOOK that is important, it’s the KNOWLEDGE inside said book.

Reading and knowing information is all we as a race have.  Understanding things.  Knowing HOW to do things in both a technological manner and a primitive manner are what keep us alive.

That you can take a computer, get the weather from it and know where the hurricane is, where it’s headed (with in a reasonable guess anyway) and know which way to go to get out of the way is one thing.  Gazing at the sky and seeing after noon clouds building and knowing a thunderstorm is in the making is more important in the hear and now, than the hurricane five days out though.

Knowing how to pick up a few things in the woods, and start a fire that night to keep you warm, in the shelter you made with your own hands – it’s THOSE things you should know.  Sure, you might have a cell phone to call for rescue.  Sure, you MIGHT be able to get a chopper to come pick you up from the mountain with one.  If they battery isn’t dead, if you’re in cell service range, if the phone isn’t wet, and and and…. etc.

The fact is, sometimes, one must stop, drop and roll to put out a fire on their body, or duck and cover from a nuke attack.  Sure, those things are few and far between, but it could happen.

So can hurricanes.  Category V hurricanes.  And denuded Islands happen.  And flooded land in Texas could happen.  Earthquakes in California could happen.  Typhoons in the Pacific can happen.  And knowledge is forever in your head when your book blows away in the rain.

Final thoughts here, do yourselves a favor.  Do not be normal.  Don’t follow the masses.  Don’t believe everything you see on TV, hear on the radio or read on the Internet.  Believe instead, in yourselves.  Believe you can be better than you are, that you can do things no one else can do.  Because, friends, you can.

Read.  Learn.  Understand.  And then Teach.

Travel Planning

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We’re planning our first major trip right now.

I’m a world traveler, and always have had to do trip planning, logistics, coordination with others, set up hotels, rental cars, quantities of equipment and many other things for entire teams of personnel traveling to other cities, states and countries.

Somehow it seems that the devil is in the details though when it comes to boats.

Safety is the very first, most important, and critical priority so most things have to be considered there first.  But there are so many other things to take into account for a trip involving multiple days at sea – something we’ve not yet done – that I’m getting lost in the planning. (Not really, but it is certainly different when you’re doing all the planning and a lot of the physical labor involved too.)

We are still working on the interior of the boat, to include removing all the extraneous things we THOUGHT we needed, but haven’t used in a year (or two, in some cases).  I never wanted to have to be able to store anything in a storage locker and yet, we rented one for a full year a few days ago.

I’m starting to move things over to it (a car load of larger items that have absolutely no use on the boat under way were moved yesterday).  Today, I’ll be removing everything from the V-berth and beginning a paint job inside.  I want to clean and paint the forward cabin for visitors who may come to stay with us along the trip in the Bahamas.  It will also afford me the opportunity to put my hands on each and every item in the forward cabin and call out “Yep, nope, throw it out”.  lol – to myself anyway.

I do need to go through the through-hulls again, look each one over, and ensure they are good to go, no danger of anything breaking, sticking or being no use when you need it most.  I’ll start in the front.  The paint is to make things “cleaner” and easy to wipe down inside.  Some areas have never had a coat of paint, and some have only a simple primer coat.  Some have nothing (down inside the bow for instance).  Not sure how well I can paint in there, but we shall see.

I have one more fan to install in the forward cabin if I can.  It only takes a few moments, but, it’s a pain with all the stuff in there right now, so it’s not been done.

Once the area is painted and dried, I can move the cushions back, and we can store a few things in there like our extra beer and soda we’re going to provision, paper products (paper towels, toilet paper) and a few small items (a tool bag).

JoAnne hopes to pare down our clothing to necessities and a few nice things, a couple of items for cold weather (*we hope to be leaving before it gets horribly cold in January!) and she’s going to be collecting and going through our clothing, removing unserviceable items and we’re replace as required.  There are two lockers in the middle cabin that bug me.  I have some electronic parts in them which I probably don’t need on the boat for the trip but do not wish to throw out or give away.  I’ll be collecting things together and storing them ashore.  That SHOULD give me a couple of places to store more food for this trip. (Canned food for veggies and things that spoil easily).

I have already looked at our trip and planned a course or two for Abacos.  We have a couple of contingency plans, so that if something goes wrong, we can turn and head back to the States and get into a bay someplace to do repairs or whatever.  But, basically, this should be a pretty straight shot right to the Bahamas from Cape Fear.  About 415 nm from here, straight line distance of course, without tacking much.  If the weather window is right, we ought to be on a pretty good tack anyway all the way down.  I’m still trying to work out the weather patterns for October though.

We are starting to make sure all our required paperwork is in order, I have to renew my insurance about October time frame, I need to make sure we have no outstanding bills, our slip is taken care of for us, and our car is ok to be left alone for a few months.

This is, if all works out, a six month trip to the Bahamas and perhaps the Florida Keys and then back here.  This will be our first major multiday trip.  Neither of us have done it before, but we think we’re mostly ready.  Time will tell.

 

 

Cabin Top Painting and other projects

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Since we’ve owned Adventure she has needed a paint job.  We had the bottom done in NY when we got her, and she’s probably in need of a true bottom job soon, but we’ll wait until next year to do it.

But the top… the deck, the sides of the cabin walls, bow sprit and a few other areas have been in desperate need of help.  I cleaned the boat about once every two weeks, and she was dull, the white ‘wiping off’ on my hands, feet, legs or knees as I’d touch or crawl around her.

Last year, the bow sprit was in evil shape, messy with a mildew that ran the length of the sprit, some areas of wood showing through.  After testing the sprit for integrity (and after hearing one of the sister ships had a rotten sprit) I decided to clean and paint the bow sprit.  I did a bunch of research on paint and found everyone recommending this or that, at the cost of hundreds of dollars a gallon.  I lived in a house I owned for 25 years and successfully used all sorts of paints on the outside of the house, and interior as well.

Certainly, something in these magical marine paints must be made of gold I thought.

Turns out many are a type of oil based paint, and some are epoxy based.  The two part paints usually go on the bottom.  Thus, I will reserve judgement on those for now.

After a year the paint I used on the bow sprit still looks great.  It was simply an oil based exterior house paint and it has held up well to smashing waves, a few dozen rain storms and the sun beating down on it day in and day out, cold and heat as well as ice a few times have assaulted it.  Yet, it still looks great.

Now, the top side of this boat is wooden, with a very thin coating of fiberglass and gelcoat.  Which, as I pointed out, was well gone from a wax job.  I thought to wax the boat, but there are some extremely thin areas along one side where something has rubbed it down to wood.  I decided to try the same oil based exterior house paint on the cabintop.  Instead of going with a messy mixing job, I opted for a simple, oil based, gloss white.

After thoroughly washing the boat’s top, and cleaning off some mildew that was laying in wait on the dark side of the boat (North side as we sit in our slip) and making sure it was very clean, I found no spots that needed sanding, because, frankly the boat is weather worn on top.

Next I taped off my grab rails, rigging parts mounted to the deck top, hatches, portlights and the edges of the non-skid (which is a light tan color).

I thinned the paint slightly and rolled it on in all the large surface areas, and went back over with a brush in the difficult-to-reach places, around hardware, wooden grab rails and mast steps.

The boat… looks amazing now, compared to what she did look like.  I’m considering a second coat, but a single cover should be sufficient.  I will now wait and see how well this wears.

I need to do a couple of repairs along the port side in the non-skid deck surface and one large chunk of “missing” fiberglass on the starboard side.  There’s a divot about an inch by inch-and-a-half that was dug out of the deck by something (not sure what, when or how it happened) and I need to fill that again.  Been hesitant to do so with the rain, heat and humidity though.  Once I get that figured out, I’ll likely do the deck surface in some new, non-skid.  Not sure when I will do it though.

Other Projects:

After looking at a lot of options, I’ve done some power calculations and decided we can get by for this cruising season to the Bahamas with two solar panels.  But, I want four to give us the right amount of power.  Unfortunately, there is no place to mount them.

I contacted a local “tower builder” here in town.  He has a good reputation and has been recommend by more than one person.  Unfortunately, we’re running out of time to get it accomplished this year.  It won’t be cheap work either, I don’t think.  But, perhaps I can put something together.

The idea is to move my two solar panels to a rig on the davits and add two more, for a total of 640 watts of solar power, as well as put a mounting post for a wind generator off the back of the rig, out of the way of the mizzen boom.  After speaking to him, he said he could accomplish anything.  But, he’s going through some medical issues.  This week, he had a stroke.  So, I am not sure he will be able to do any work this year now.   If he can, great.  If not, I will hunt for someone else, or I will work out some kind of temporary rig to move the panels off the bimini.

Bimini:

It is really, really old and needs replacement.  Plus, I’ve punctured it with holes for the brackets for the solar panels.  Which means I either repair or replace it if I move the panels.  I’d really like a new one up there to be honest.  Maybe a white one to keep the sun off our heads.

Wind Generator:

It’s on the list.  A 550 Watt generator will, along with 640 watts of solar be plenty to keep the batteries topped off, and we could even add a few things after that, like a….

Water Maker:  

We’re looking at the Rainman Water Maker, the DC version.  They sell three versions, all portable, don’t have to be mounted anywhere, and perfect for what we want to do.  They produce enough water to keep our tanks topped off in most areas, as long as we have the energy available to run it.

Butterfly Hatch:

The big, butterfly hatch in the center of the main cabin is a beautiful thing.  We can set up an air scoop to bring air down below, open it up for air, uncover it for light.  But, it’s ugly in another way.  It is now, except for some grab rails, the only piece I have not worked on and varnished.  I need to take it apart to do the work though, removing the metal, the hinges, doors and sanding it down first.  It is dire need of a makeover.  That might happen in the next week if I can find a few nice days to get the sanding accomplished.

Last words:

I have to go through the engine, and I need to order some spare parts (for a toilet for instance) and a few minor things, but otherwise we’re ready to “go” soon.

We have too much stuff though on the boat.  We’ve been slowing removing extra junk from the boat, but I sincerely do not want to get rid of it. There are spare nuts, bolts, screws, washers and a lot of other things I want to keep, but really don’t require them on the boat right now.  So, we’re considering a cheap storage locker where we can remove some weight, store those items in a safe, dry location and have access to them when we return in the spring.

It will clear out our Vee Berth, giving us room for some traveling companions if necessary, and a place to sleep for visitors.   In roughly six to nine weeks, depending on the weather, we’re planning to head for Bahamas.  The trip out will take a few days and we will sail outside away from shore and down to Marsh Harbor area.  We’ll tell you more on that as the plan coalesces.

Storms

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Over the past three or four days we have had some large, wicked storm cells move through the area.  I had just emptied the dinghy of rain water yesterday morning and helped our friend Jay of Knot Working off the dock for his trip south.  (Jay ended up coming back a few hours later due to some rigging issues, a lazy jack that got lazy and a stack pack that, well… wouldn’t stack.)

Mean time, the water was pumped out using a small bilge pump I keep around, attached to a solar panel.  Doesn’t a quick job for me, at 800 gallons per hour, it will empty the dinghy quickly.

The rain hit hard yesterday between 4 and 5 pm and it was… to say the least a HEAVY downpour.

Fortunately, I’ve repaired a lot of the little leaks and have now placed new paint on the deck and topsides of the cabin.  It needed it badly.  There was no wax left, and if you touched the surface the white would rub off onto your hands.  I think the pain helped to bead the water up and roll it off the sides now.

So this morning I wake up to this little image:

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Not nice, but perhaps not bad, yet.

Harvey, the red X on the lower left is already a “remnant” of a hurricane.  Disturbance 2 (Invest 92) is on the center and aiming at Bahamas.  Disturbance 3 is headed towards Bermuda.

Harvey has a chance to restrengthen in the new few hours and regain it’s notoriety as a tropical cyclone once again.

The other two each have a roughly 10% chance of cyclone formation in the next 24 hours.

I watch “Mike’s Weather Page” and NOAA, as well as the various “spaghetti models” tending to rely more heavily on the EURO model.  I also look at the US weather patterns and the fronts and highs/lows coming across along with their timing with the arrival of a storm system.  It’s not an exact science for me – since my training is mesoscale and not things like hurricanes, but I’m learning.

Below is an image of the various models and how they are coming together:

 

And this is a satellite image of the same region over the past few hours.  Obviously, it isn’t quite to the point of rotation, and if it makes landfall before that starts, it will weaken significantly and dump a lot of rain, some straight line winds and make a mess of things in the Bahamas.

So for my friends currently in the Bahamas, keep your eyes and ears open.

 

Minor Blog Changes

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I made some minor blog changes to get our friends a bit better connected.

On Facebook, we have a FB Page for the s/v Adventure.  I have now linked this blog with that page, so that when a post (such as this one) gets posted up to the blog, it will also be linked through Facebook.

Facebook is, in my opinion pretty stupid these days, but I use it because I have several hundred friends who whom I like to touch base occasionally, and unfortunately, it’s really the only social media thing that works well right now.  And that all our friends happen to be on (or most).

I run several blogs actually, and FB is connected to each of those as well, through various means.

For our family and close friends, it IS the easiest way to stay in touch, and many don’t follow the blog directly, but can see the messages I post on the blog through FB.  So, it works.

I will be inviting all my friends to the page over on FB, and all they have to do is “Like” it to see the messages pop up (supposedly).

I also am now running the “Sailing & Cruising: Preppers” group on Facebook as well.  It is linked to a blog too.  So, if anyone following this blog is interested, here’s the link for that blog, and you can go to the group site on FB and join.

https://sailingcruisingpreppers.wordpress.com/

On a Happier Note

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Last entry I talked about Renata.  I did that because it occurred very recently and more recently than this week.

This week, we took a week off for birthday and anniversary celebration.

I turned 60 this past week, and JoAnne and I have been married now for 40 years.  As I said before, I am not sure how she has put up with me this long, but I’m very happy she has, and proud to be her husband.  I did a quick Facebook post honoring her, posting images and a statement.  I would try to recapture it here, but it will simply repost on FB and I’m sure a lot of people are tired of seeing it now. haha.

We did a little road trip, traveling to Georgia to see Stone Mountain, something JoAnne has wanted to do for some time now.  We spent a couple of days in a very nice hotel there.  We also visited a local restaurant here on Oak Island, called Swain’s to try their sea food.  It was ok, not the best I’ve had, but not the worst.

We found a nice brewery near Atlanta and tested several beers.  All of the beers were very good.  I tried five tasters and wound up with my “standard go-to beer”, an Irish Red Ale, which was so smooth, it made Killians (not my most favorite, but one that most will know) taste like cheap crap.  (Which, I suppose, technically it is after so many craft brews under the bridge.)

The only thing of note on the trip (other than a good time) we had was a massive amount of rain yesterday.  Torrential downpours throughout the day made traveling difficult and cost us about an hour or so of time in going so slowly at times.  At one point, we couldn’t even see ten feet in front of us and were doing 25 mph behind a large truck so I could see his lights and keep an eye on the road lines.  Going off the road would have been very dangerous and probably we’d still be stuck, as there was water flooding the sides of the roads and median.

Eventually, we made it back here, and surprisingly, we had very little leaking going on in the hard rains.  I had placed a large tarp up to reflect the sun off the decks a few days back, when it was choking us with heat and humidity, which actually helped reduce the heat, and apparently the leaks.  So I now know most of them are coming from the top of the main cabin somewhere.  I’ll continue looking for them.

Turning 60 sounds awful to some.  Especially you younger folks, right?  I’m sure many can’t even imagine being this old.  I certainly couldn’t when I was 30 and in the military.  I figured I’d never make it out alive anyway.  But, I did.  And I have made it past several dangerous things in my life, including a nearly “heart stopping” heart attack.  We’ve both had our share of dumb and awful things happen to us over the years.  An accident once in Colorado nearly got us both killed.  A guy ran a red light.  My “quick thinking” and previous “training” I’d had years before kicked in and I managed to put more car between me and him, than had been between him and JoAnne split seconds before.

The car was destroyed, as was his own vehicle.  JoAnne was injured but not anywhere nearly as severe as it would have been had I not acted.  We’ve had two “butt kickings” out “there”, neither of which was really all that bad, but it did give us a deeper respect for the ocean, and the weather.  Mother Nature will surprise you when you are not watching closely.  A boat is as good as it’s master.  Sometimes though, a boat is better than the Master’s skills and the skipper can do almost anything stupid and survive.  Except if they don’t care for the boat correctly (as in the last blog entry).  Eventually, doing nothing at all, can kill you.

Cancer tried to get her.  My heart tried to kill me.  Together, we’re stronger than ever before, but also, we’re more wary, we’ve slowed down, and realize that while we want to go-go-go, we can’t-can’t-can’t hurry.  Taking our time and eking out as much from life as we can takes not only courage, but perseverance, and thinking, reasoning and time.  You can’t always just rush in and get it done.  Sometimes, you seriously need to step back and evaluate what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and how you’re going to do it.

Setting sail is easy to do.  But, when you live aboard, it’s more difficult, because you become comfortable leaving things laying about, sometimes you don’t take all the precautions you would in a seaway, like wearing your flotation device or keeping your radio on all day/night.  You don’t have your wind equipment turned on constantly and tend to guess the wind speeds from experience.  You don’t always remember to close certain hatches at a dock… until it rains hard and you were away from the boat, and your bed gets wet.

You sometimes get bugs in the boat, even though you try hard not to introduce themselves, or you take precautions against them.  But, you learn, you cope, and you deal with everything.  From an emergency, to simple day-to-day things.  And sometimes, you watch as someone else’s dream sinks beneath the waves, helpless to help them.  And yet, you go on.

As to the boat, and the ants…. they seem to have fled or died finally.  We have tried two different kinds of ant traps, both of them seem to be attracting those left and both having different sorts of poison in them, they have pretty much left.  I have seen no sign of any of them since our return yesterday evening.

Our plan at this point seems to be – because we do not set hard dates now for anything – to try to get a good weather window sometime in October, to depart for the Bahamas.  The plan is to head south, outside the Gulf Stream, and sail directly to Marsh Harbor.  We will probably use that as our hub to explore as much as we can see in three-six months time there, and return to our “home” here by not later than April, to try to catch decent winds and weather.

All of that depends on the boat, the crew, the skipper here, and our ability to accomplish it.  I am extremely confident of our ability to accomplish it.  I’ve seen “Lesser Humans” come through here who’ve accomplished more.  No, I’m not insulting them, I’m stating the obvious.  Younger people with much less experience than we have now, having accomplished wondrous things that we have not. We can, and we will do them though.

At 60 life has become shortened.  Time on this planet is meted out in moments and memories and we intend to make the best of them.  We don’t want to wind up stuck in a dock for the rest of our lives, living like the crew of Renata, watching as our home sinks beneath the waves due to lack of hope, caring or whatever finally took it’s toll on Renata.

While time is slowing ticking away, we are still learning, as are all people, every day.  Each event is a learning event.  Each day is a time to reflect on your skills (or lack thereof) and move forward.  Tomorrow is a new day, with new learning events.

A sailor never becomes a complete expert in everything they do, but they surely have skills that most can only dream about.  Sailors KNOW what they know, and know there is much they do not know.  Sailors are not afraid to test the waters, sail the tides or do without things they would like to have, but do not.  Sailors learn as they go, and they pass on to others as they can.  This sailor never stops reading, never stops learning, and will never give up.

 

A Sad Ending

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First, I want to say “I’m sorry” to the folks who make comments on the blog posts, and I forget to check and approve them right away.  Sometimes, I get away from the blog for a few days or even weeks at a time because it’s not always the first thing on my mind, every day (which, for a wannabe writer is saying I’m perhaps not as focused on writing as I might be).

On to the actual blog post for today though.

This past week and month has been both a blast and blur.  We had our 40th wedding anniversary on the 5th of August.  It also happened to be my birthday as well.  The main milestone is that I am still alive after all these years with JoAnne and she hasn’t killed me yet.   I’m happy for that.

But more, I’m happy that we are both still around to enjoy the dreams that took hold ten years or so ago – sailing and living aboard a ship, in this case, the sailing ketch Adventure.

This boat has been, I’m positive, several others’ dreams before us. I know the previous owner had similar plans and designs as us.  I know of many people who talk about, but never quite make it to the place we have made it too.  I also know many give up on their dreams when they become difficult.

I believe JoAnne and I have “found our stride” and will continue to walk this world a few more years trying to continue to stretch these dreams into reality.  Living on  a boat is difficult, but easy.  It has it’s ups and downs sometimes daily, like that tides.  Your dreams of living aboard and seeing the world can be blown about by everything from the light breezes to hurricane force winds.  You can watch others’ dreams die.

Sailing Ketch Renata, now at permanent rest

We watched one die this last month as a ship called “Renata” sank finally.  She was an old ferro cement boat.  The couple aboard her were elderly, and apparently had little income other than, we think, a social security check.  They landed in this marina a few years ago, due to some unfortunate circumstances and literally became “stuck here” as money was tight, and I personally believe, their hearts were no longer in it.

The boat sat at the docks for years, collecting crud on the bottom, plant and animal life.  A few weeks ago, she started taking on water, though I believe, knowing the design of the boat, it had been taking on water for months and months prior to the fateful day that landed her under water.  The boat had broken loose on two occasions, being saved both times by marina personnel and people standing by that assisted (including, the last time, friends of ours who happened to be sitting at the docks at the same time Renata broke loose most recently in a wind storm). The first time she broke loose was during Hurricane Matthew, last year.

One evening, the owner, Jerry, contacted the marina and mentioned that his boat was “leaking”.  It went from bad to worse over a few hours.  I believe the hull finally became dangerously soft in places and began sending water into a crack, which likely (I’m guessing, as no one has seen the hull for sure to determine the exact cause of the sinking) caused the crack to enlarge.  Smaller pumps were tried, and eventually, TowBoatUS came in with a huge pump and tried to keep the boat floating. Towboat, the marina, the owner and the USCG made a series of decisions to protect the ICW.

Had the boat sank on the outside dock where she was located, she’d have heeled her masts over to cover most of the ICW canal, thereby becoming a danger to navigation.  Taking her up into the creek was out of the question due to the draft (and apparently had been tried once before, which may have led to originally crippling the boat).  Finally, the decision by the USCG was made to put the boat over in a shallower area, off the canal in such as manner as not to block that canal.

The boat remained afloat for a full 24 more hours before it sank suddenly at about 5pm the next day.  The couple have since been assisted by marina people, live aboards and locals in the area, collecting enough money to get them sent back to their native Ohio.  Both vehicles they owned (neither in good repair) were towed by a trucking company to them in Ohio a day later.

That day, a couple of sailors lost their home, and their dream to the deep blue.  It could happen to anyone, even the best of us, or the worst of us. It can happen to expert sailors when something goes dreadfully wrong, or it can happen to the novice with minor mistakes.  But, it happens all to often.

Watching the Internet talk about these things, and especially Facebook and Social Media and the condemning of these people who have unfortunate events occur to them tells me the human race is rather callous sometimes.  Even I feel as if they could have done more to prevent what happened, instead of relying on the rest of us around them to rescue them.

But, in the end, even the naysayers stood up and helped.  For that, I am grateful, because it tells me that humanity isn’t completely doomed.

I will help anyone as I can.  And I hope if I ever am in need of assistance, my fellow sailor will stand up and lend me a hand if needed.  Judging those folks on the Internet, where your “anonymity” is promised but not guaranteed, is simply atrocious behavior.  For those around the marina and community who talked about these people behind their backs constantly, I feel only sorrow and shame for their behavior and words.

Because they were elderly, I had little doubt they were unable or incapable of making knowledgeable decisions for themselves, which by itself would have been no worse had they lived in a home somewhere instead of a cement boat.  But because they were in a ferrocement vessel that was slowly losing integrity, the remarks beg the question of “Why did no one attempt to help them before?”

I can’t answer the question either.  I didn’t know their whole story until after the sad ending, and even now, many pieces are missing.  Now that I know much more than before, I feel bad for not being able to help sooner.  Then, the days we passed them on the docks and said Hello to them, receiving only a grunt, or sometimes not even acknowledgement we were there says a lot about the way others treated them.

If you’re standoffish, or downright rude in your treatment you might not be acknowledged in return.  Some were rude here, and treated them rudely, but they too, treated others in kind.  So, honestly, I can’t say what would have become of them later in life, had the boat not sank.

Today, I understand they are back in Ohio, under care of their children.  I know nothing more of their circumstances than what I have mentioned here.  I don’t know how long they lived on the boat, where they started from, where they went or how life will go for them in the future, but I can only hope their children brought them back with open arms and will show them the love they have missed for so many years being alone and away from humanity (whether by choice or not).

We’ve had dozens of cruiser friends pass through, all happy in their lives, doing what they wanted to do more than anything.  We’ve watched a few start their journey, and traveled with some who were barely days along in theirs, as we moved into the first and second year of our own journey.  All have been happy in what they were doing, a few with trepidation, some ready (including me more than once) to hang it up and return to a normal, quiet, less rolly life in a house, and not an anchorage or marina.

But for the folks in this story, their days of travel are finished.  They have swallowed the anchor, not of their own choosing.

Fair Winds to Jerry and Dorthy of Renata!

Back at Southport and Adventure

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We arrived back to the boat a couple of days before the 1st, sooner than we’d planned but still in plenty of time for the beer contest.

Beer:  We brewed our first beer on the boat, which I apparently neglected to mention in previous blog entries.  Mostly I didn’t want to give away what we were making, what type, or how much, so the judging could be fairer.  I’m not sure that happened anyway.

The beer was an America Amber category, and we moved it to a specialty beer category (Fruit, 29B I think).  We had a red beer (still in Amber category) with cherries and honey.  The hops were a specialty hop – and for some reason the judges didn’t like the hops with the fruit beer.  I suspect had we simply made it a Red Ale, it would have likely come in First or Second.

The judging was taking place between the 1st and 7th with the get together and announcements on the 8th.

Surprisingly, we didn’t even place.  I won’t complain though.  We had a lot of people taste and test our beer and we had good reviews all the way around, including one person who said “I’d buy that beer”.  Too bad we didn’t win, he might have had the chance to buy it at Check Six.  Don’t think we will enter another contest there though.  I don’t think I liked the way things were judged.  Granted, I’m not certified as a judge, but I know good beer, and I know how to judge it.  Sometimes winning isn’t necessarily a good thing.  We’d have to give our recipe out.  Think I’ll refrain from doing that for awhile.  🙂

Ants: I’ve been fighting ants on the boat:

Image result for Science Fiction ants

Not the godawfulbigones like in the movies, but somewhat more docile, and a tad smaller:

Monomorium minimum
Monomorium minimum casent0173040 profile 1.jpg
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Formicidae
Subfamily: Myrmicinae
Tribe: Solenopsidini
Genus: Monomorium
Species: M. minimum
The little black ant is a species of ant native to North America. It is a shiny black color, the workers about 1 to 2 mm long and the queens 4 to 5 mm long.  They are present in almost every region of the USA, and most of Europe.
From what I’ve discovered, they can live in the Earth in little built up colonies of up to about 2000 individuals, or they can get into cracks and crevices in your home, in the walls, under and in the house – or in my case, the boat.  They are living apparently between the teak wood making up a vast amount of the inside of the ship and the fiberglass walls.
They can have multiple queens in a single colony and they generally don’t get very large colonies.
Hosing them down with chemicals is rather out of the question.  Bug bombs won’t penetrate into their living areas.  And spraying chemicals that could conceivable kill me around the interior of the boat is, for me a No-Go.  Also, the aerosols used can be flammable and on a boat, explosive.  We use sparkers on the stove to ignite the burners.  So being sure all the fumes are out… not a good idea.
I know from previous research into this stuff, that boric acid will kill most insects.  Mostly, all they have to do is walk through it and they ingest it.  It desiccates them from the inside out.  It is an abrasive and works on their exoskeletons.  It has an effect on their nervous systems as well as it disrupts their intestinal digestive systems.  The best part about boric acid (and borax) is that they eat it, return it to their nests and feed their young and the queen(s).  Who, in turn, die.
I am, I believe dealing with not one, but two colonies of ants in the boat.  One colony lives forward in the boat, the other in the galley area somewhere behind the wood.
We tried boric acid powder, which has had no effect on them.  I tried the Tero type traps which are a liquid, and they spill and make a mess.  The first time I put one of those out, the ants went after it instantly.  And then stopped after a day.  I think they figured out not to eat it.  Or they weren’t returning to the nest to get “helpers” to come get the food source.
Others I’ve spoken to on Facebook swear by that stuff.
Yesterday, I picked up some Raid ant baits.  They are four small traps with a different sort of chemical inside called Avermectin B1.  It too, is a nerve agent and will disrupt their bodies after they ingest it.  It is a small enough quantity that they will take the food source back to the nest, and like the other stuff feed it to the young and queen, who then die.
Last night within thirty minutes of putting out the traps, three in the Galley and one in the forward cabin, all four traps were covered.  Ants were coming out of tiny crevices under the wood to get to them.  And they were going off in force only to return later with more ants.  Eventually the traps each had somewhere around 100 ants on them.
This morning, there is not a single ant floating around in the Galley.  The forward cabin however, in the floor tells a different story.  There are still dozens of ants scurrying to and fro to get to the food source.
I have to assume that one colony in the front is MUCH larger than the one in the back.  And the one in the Galley has been wiped out, or at least pushed back to the brink of Apocalypse.   I can only hope.  I also hope there are no “Prepper Ants” who are going to come hunt me down in the middle of the night.
“I am AntGirl, you Killed my Momma, prepare to die!”
Or something like that.
We think that any ants that survive will eventually die due to starvation or, they will come out and get the traps and die from the poison.  I hope they are gone within a few days.  We will keep you posted.
Cleaning and Preparation for Sail:  I went back to my regular part time job at the marina, and have been scheduled a few hours, and a few days off each week to work on the boat to prep for a sailing trip in a few days.  We’re thinking of either just sailing out for a few hours and knocking the dust off the rigging, or even heading for Georgetown for a day or so and then coming back.  Weather permitting.
Unfortunately, the heat and humidity have been stifling.  I need to reinstall the jib (I took down before departure from the boat, to prevent any wind incidents, ripped sails etc) and put all my running rigging back.
I also need to drop the main, replace a line going to the furler.  I’m sure it will be fine, but it’s getting old and somewhat worn and I don’t like the idea of it snapping at a critical moment in time, like, say a storm or something similar.  You always have things go wrong when they shouldn’t, and keeping equipment right helps prevent cascade failures.
But, man, that’s a lot of work in this heat.  But it’s got to be done too.
JoAnne has a lot of things to stow.  I have to remove a few things from the forward cabin and will probably just stow it in the car.  We’re considering a small storage locker to move a few things too (larger things which we probably do NOT have to have on the boat right now) and a few things we can just remove altogether.  We have two coolers, both of them can come off the boat, though JoAnne and I are at odds on that. I want them off, she thinks they should be here.  We’ll come to some conclusion sooner or later before we leave for the Bahamas.
I’ve removed most of my tools from the boat and left a small bag with a few.  But, honestly I don’t need my power tools when traveling.  Just at the dock.  I DO want some of the heavier wrenches just in case I need them to repair something I’ll need them for (like an engine!) – and they are, unfortunately, heavy as well.
Then we have dirt for the composting toilet.  Not a lot, but it’s bulky.  Can’t seem to locate coconut coir around here.  Not sure why.  Supposedly it’s more compressed and can store better.  I have yet to see it or locate any.  I hate ordering things over the Internet without being able to see them.
Wind Generator: Think I have decided on a wind genny.  More on that next time, if I buy it.
So, in conclusion here… ants.  They are hateful little things, getting into everything.  But, they can be controlled and eliminated if you are persistent I think.  Beer making on the boat is a difficult task, but we can do it.  It’s just that there’s not that much room and it takes both a steady hand, and steady water ( like that of a marina) to make it work.
Catch you all on the next entry.

Medical Check Up time

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A few days ago JoAnne and I left behind our boat, and headed for Colorado, on our way for blood work and Oncology checkups.

Across the country, we stopped in Kentucky to visit some of my relatives on my Mom’s side of the Family.  The Martins.  We ran into a lot of cousin, uncles and aunts, saw my Granny’s old house, which is still standing in the midst of chaos in the countryside.  I don’t expect the house to be there much longer as there’s a big fight over it between the family and some local doctor buying up all the land to develop it.

Long ago, that was a few acres of land that belonged to my Granny and Grandpa but it’s almost all gone now, as is the “quaintness” of the Appalachian upbringing I experienced as a child for a few years.  I used to wander in the woods down there, and cross the “New Road” (which is an OLD road now) to get the creek to fish or swim, and regularly get my butt whipped for going there. (We weren’t supposed to, but it never stopped us from going.)

Today, a Walmart stands near by, schools are bigger (and no longer a two-story brick building that I went to in 2nd and 3rd grade), town is a bit bigger, and there are housing developments around.  A lot of the old houses that were there when I was a child are gone.  The “woods” is much smaller than it used to be now, and of course, the hills are mountains to me any more after living for 25 years in Colorado – where mountains are massive, but still not as large as the Himalayas are (where I’ve visited and climbed).

In fact, the whole world has become smaller, more compact and familiar whereas Kentucky has become a less-than-familiar place for me.  But it was wonderful seeing relatives I’ve not seen in years.  I even managed to see my Uncle Rudy and Aunt Jenny (Rudy is my father’s older brother, and is at least 83 years old now).  He reminds me of my Dad in many ways.  Dad is gone now, for a few years, as is mom, so it was nice to reconnect to the rest of the family.

After the Reunion, we made our way to Colorado, stopping one night in Missouri at a dumpy hotel off the beaten path.  Then, next day into Fountain, Colorado and my son’s place.  We’ve managed to see all our children but one who is in Denver, most of the grandkids and visit with old neighbors.  The day after we arrived we went in for JoAnne’s blood work to be accomplished, and of course had issues with the doctor’s office.

They (CSHP) have decided that if you don’t see a doctor there in one year, you’re no longer a patient.  I guess that poses a problem for everyone who is healthy and sees a physician once a year for a checkup and physical.  After a bit of argument, and a request to talk to our regular doctor, they conceded the issue was theirs and wrote the paperwork out for the blood work (which had already, previously been arranged, but they didn’t appear to want to do it).  Dr. R. did the orders, and blood was drawn.  Then we had to wait a week for the oncologist to get it.

Yesterday the week was up, we appeared at the appointed time to see her Oncologist.  We saw the PA, and not the surgeon, but that was fine.

JoAnne’s numbers for her blood work were fine.  Maybe 2 points higher than last time.  Nothing significant.  No physical issues.  JoAnne got a clean bill of health from the doctor’s office, and we set up an appointment for next year.  Another milestone is past us!!

We head back shortly for our ship, after laundry, some more visiting and some celebration.

October-November time frame is our planned Bahamas departure time.  We hope to go there for 4-6 months, and then back to our slip in Cape Fear.  Lots of planning and lots of work to do before then!

Adventure awaits!

Milestones

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I hesitated to post this today, but… exactly two years ago today I had a heart attack.  The following Monday (19 May 2015), I would be in cardiac surgery for open heart, aortic valve replacement “procedure”.  (Edited – I thought today was the day I had the surgery.  My wife reminded me it was Wednesday the 13th the attack occurred.  Oh well, so much for memory, right?)
I also hesitate to use the word “procedure”, but that was their term for it. It was a mind numbing, very humbling experience to have your chest cracked/sawed open in surgery and for people to be touching your inner workings, in particular your heart.  I honestly didn’t believe I was coming out of surgery alive at that point.  I’d said good bye to everyone I could, just in case.
JoAnne and I had previously set a date to leave Colorado and move aboard Adventure on 1 June 2015. On 11 May 2015 I had turned in my resignation.  On 13 May I was driving home and experienced a heart attack. Not a classic heart attack, but a sickening feeling, nausea, cold sweats and heart “palpitations”, along with trouble breathing. I pulled the truck over, knowing something was wrong (but what, I was not sure) and called JoAnne thinking I might never see her again. I knew it was my heart, but there was nothing “classic” about what happened, and nothing I could do sitting in the truck on Highway 94 outside of Colorado Springs, 40 minutes from home and ten minutes back to work (and worse, going through security to get back in.  Then, there was the issue with calling an ambulance and eventually getting my truck home…. but I digress).
The aortic valve was calcified, and deformed from birth (I knew that part and had for a couple of years, and also knew I had a “heart murmur” all my life). I also knew that some “day” I’d have to have that “procedure” but didn’t expect it for 5-10 years.
I think the stress of selling the house, quitting my job to “retire” and getting rid of all our “stuff” probably brought on the attack.  I was, after all moved out of the house and we’d already gotten a good price, signed on the dotted line, and had gotten rid of 90% of our “stuff”, bought the boat, and we were moving aboard soon.  It was a very stressful time for all of us.  The kids too, because we’d moved in with my daughter and son-in-law and their three children, into their tiny (at the time) house.
I was terrified of the surgery and honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought, but you can never say something like that is routine.  Many people die on that operating table for various reasons from the anesthesia to not being able to restart the heart.
But, here I am today.  Alive, and well, and very likely in better shape today than I was before the heart attack (and don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been in ‘bad shape’, never been overweight, I’ve always exercised and even exercised the day I had my heart attack).
I went on to recover in pretty much record time.  Six weeks after I left the hospital I went back in for a check up and they released me to go back to work (with a few restrictions on lifting of course) and I stopped to visit the nurses who had cared for me so well at Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs.  One nurse hugged me and cried… she told me that it was extremely rare to see a patient return looking so well in so short a time, and most of them never saw the same patients again ever, or if they did, it was due to them returning to the hospital in even worse condition.
JoAnne and I went on to move on to the boat in July 2015.  Slightly over a full month from our originally scheduled time.  Since then, we’ve had a lot of adventures on Adventure.
Today, I racked our first batch of beer made on the boat.  It won’t be the last, and we’re starting a second batch in a couple of days. (We have an ulterior motive though, we’re entering a home brew contest through Check Six  (https://www.facebook.com/CheckSixBrewingCompany/) located in Southport, NC.  I highly recommend a stop there if you like beer.
We won’t stop living our lives because of medical issues.  We’ve been slowed slightly, but getting back up to speed has been fun.
JoAnne went through her own bad experiences with cancer prior to my heart attack.  It wasn’t a cake walk either, but she’s doing fine.
I suppose, in the end of it all, life is how you lived, and are remembered.  It’s not always about how you die.
I believe that people who want to do something with their dreams need to stop right now, evaluate just how much you want that dream to become a reality.  Think it over carefully.  Judge how difficult it would be to start that dream, or the realization of that dream and then write down a plan to make it happen.
It is very, very important you write it down.  Then read it every few days.  I’m serious.  If you have a written plan to follow, you will soon discover you can break it down into smaller, achievable chunks.  If you want to set sail into the sunset, go around the world, or visit the Bahamas, or fly to Europe on a vacation, then by golly, do it.  Don’t wait for “retirement” to happen.  Because, retirement my friends NEVER HAPPENS.  It will never come for some people, they won’t make it there.  Others will be infirm medically by the time they “arrive” at retirement.
Tomorrow is NOT the day to start. Tomorrow never comes.
Right now, this minute is the time.  Write your plan for your dreams.  One year, five years, ten years – and plot your course for how you will arrive at your dream.
Make the dreams happen.  Don’t wait for them to come to you.

Sailing and Cruising: Preppers (Facebook Group)

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Over the years I’ve gone to training courses I was offered including winter, desert and jungle survival.  Some of them sucked worse than others.  Also, over the years I became what is known today as “a Prepper”.

A Prepper is someone many people look down upon because they collect food, water, learn survival techniques, and “prepare” for a somewhat sketchy future in the “Not-Too-Distant-Future”.  Whether they call it a Zombie Apocalypse, “The End of the World as We Know it” (teotwawki) or “The Stuff has Hit the Fan” (shtf) is not really relevant.

All preppers have some inner belief that something can go critically wrong in a moment of time which in turn will bring the end of Civilization.

The truth is, such a thing may never happen.  Or it might and we may never know it happened.

For example, an errant asteroid might strike the Earth, without us first discovering it (or being informed of it’s presence).  It could cause local damage or world wide damage.  Surely it will cause world wide panic when or if it is discovered.

A smaller, local scale disaster might befall us.  For instance in the United States we have “Yellowstone”, a wonderful Nation Park, which is known in the past to have been a very, very dangerous place more than once.  At least four geological events have occurred there causing major destruction.  Fortunately, the last one was about 640,000 years ago, long before humans are known to have roamed the Earth.

Yellowstone is past due for another event.  It could literally destroy the United States as an entity.  Ash and debris covering half the planet could bring about a massive temperature drop, causing a small “ice age”.  It could gum up the works across the country or around the world.  We just don’t know the extent of the damage that might be caused.

The human race might self-destruct and start a nuclear war, from which few of us would be insulated.

As a boat owner, extended cruiser and live-aboard, I have considered these things and tried to “prepare” for the worst.  Before we lived on the ship, we lived in Colorado, in the midst of five US military installations within “nuclear blast range”.  We figured if we were hit by the Russians, we’d have an extremely low chance of survival because we worked at separate installations  with 40 statute miles between us.  So my wife and I had set up our home as a survival place.

Even though we were pretty sure the house wouldn’t survive a multi-megaton blast on NORAD (in visual range of the house, where we lived on a hill, with nothing between us and NORAD) we hoped at least the basement would survive.  We kept a pantry when the children were growing up, food for months and months.  We installed a Hot Tub for fun and water supply.  We set up shelving in the basement that could double as sleeping cots and had plans to put in “fall out insulation” (which would have been in the form of dirt in sand bags to help prevent radiation from penetrating to the basement level).  We never finished that job of course and eventually sold the home.

Today, someone asked the question:

Any doomsday sea preppers out there? With the civilization seemingly inching closer to collapse, nuclear apocalypse and what have you, has anyone offered any thought as to how this will effect us sea people? Cruisers are inherently self sufficient, but we do in the end rely on mother earth and functioning societies to provide us with shelter, food, medicine, tools, parts, communication etc. This is a non political post btw, and feel free to delete if it doesn’t meet the groups standards. ⛵🌅

Now, me being me… I decided to respond and posted a couple of items.  But then I checked and found no such group, at least not a public group I could see.  There might be one, there might not, but there certainly is NOW.

I created the group called “Sailing and Cruising: Preppers” because there is a perceived need for such a group.

I added a few friends, and notified most of them of the addition, but interestingly enough, only a couple others have joined at this point, even after I posted the link.  I expected with all the experts there, they would flock in. 🙂

In any case, IF you’re reading this now, and might be interested, and of course are on Facebook, the group is there now and you’re welcome to join.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SailingAndCruisingPreppers/

See ya there!

 

 

S/V Adventure Video Tour

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I think I posted this before, but because it’s one of Kurt’s most watched videos, I’m going to post it again… with comments.


This video was shot by Kurt A. Seastead of s/v Lo-Kee.  He is currently doing a refit of his boat.

Adventure was purchased in January of 2015 by Rick and JoAnne Donaldson (that’s us) for a long term cruise and travel.  The boat had a few things wrong with it, but over all, she floated.  The equipment was old (and mostly still is), but it all worked.

Some of the comments on the Youtube video included comments about how “sloppy” I am. 🙂  Another comment was about how dangerous in mast furling is (or perhaps could be?) and that the person writing the comment would NEVER use it.

I’ll make a few of my own comments.

I’m currently working part time in a marina.  I’m handling boats coming through from the Caribbean and Bahamas headed north.  I count the number of in-mast furling rigs I see daily.  I see no less than 5-6 out of 7-10 sail boats.  I find it interesting that there are so many who’ve traveled oceans with these rigs so far.  I have traveled IN the ocean but not crossed it yet.  But so far, the only issues I’ve had with the rigging was having to replace all the halyards and make sure the proper maintenance was performed on the rig.

The boat came with the rigging installed.  I’m not going to undo everything just to make a couple of people happy so they can assume they are right.  The truth is, if the rig gets jammed, the sail can be lowered and treated like any other main sail.

I wonder how many people who make claims about how “bad” something is, have actually used those pieces of equipment.  I venture to say “Almost ZERO”.

As to my “sloppiness”… We had not cruised before we bought the boat, except on bare boat charters and a smaller boat in lakes using our trailer to get there.  Out of necessity we packed lightly, moved the boat and sailed, but generally for 2-3 days at a time.  We couldn’t get enough stuff on the boat to support us.  That included food and water (rather important items).

We also LIVE on this boat, full time.  We don’t have a house, don’t want to waste money on “storage units” we will never visit.  Have no place close by to store things with friends and honestly, don’t want to do so.  There is certainly only so much room on a boat.  We have spare parts for a lot of things.  We have tools to do repairs (and tools take up a lot of space, but without them, we’d be lost).  Tools also can keep me working when necessary to earn some money, because, I know how to do a LOT of jobs.

So one person’s sloppy, is another person’s “organized chaos”.

Also note that we had been on the boat LESS than three months when that video was shot.  We’d owned the boat less than a year and moved aboard in August 2015.  We were still learning how and where to store things.  It was somewhat haphazard at the beginning.

Truth is, we have gotten rid of a lot of things, BUT, we still have clutter and things we can’t yet part with, and until we can find smaller, like items to replace things we use we won’t be doing that just yet.  We have significantly reduced the weight of several items though and we now have a car at our “new marina home port” so we use it to store extra tools I won’t need when cruising.

There are things on this boat a lot of people wouldn’t want.  I’ll give you a little idea.  Composting toilet (a lot of people HATE them, but have never used one.  A lot of people swear by them. I’m still in the middle on this).  OLD electronics.  I have very old radio, doesn’t do AIS.  Broken radar, I’m not paying 2 grand for a new one.  Old, but functional chart plotter (old…. is 1990s, updated firmware for 2009 and no more support).  But it has brand new charts (days old now).   We have no microwave.  We have no freezer.  We DO have a working refrigeration unit (I repaired the ancient one and it works fine).  We have a gas generator (Honda 2000eu version) which people hate because it uses gasoline.  (A lot of people have a gas motor for their dink…../shrug).  We have a propane engine for the dinghy (hard to get propane I hear…. so far, so good, no problem with that).  We have a NEW stove and oven (ok a year or so old now) but my wife loves it.

And so on.  I’m absolutely CERTAIN that if you’ve ever been on and sailed a sailboat something in that list will make you cringe.  And some of you will think “Cool, I use one of those!”

Here’s my point, and the point of re-posting the video once more.

Everyone has their way of doing things.  We each have an idea of what we like, don’t like, and how we would do it, and how we would NOT do it.  You, me, him, her, doesn’t matter.  There are people who wouldn’t GO in a sailboat, because they are power boaters.  We have some who pick at us calling us “Blow Boaters”.  I take it as a compliment, and point out the price of fuel, and the wind is free….

We’re on this journey because my wife wanted to travel.  We think it is a neat way to see things.  We love meeting people.

We’re not on this journey to please ANYONE other than ourselves.  Perhaps that’s selfish, but after 60 years on this planet, doing everything for everyone else, I’m a little peeved at armchair sailors and snobs who nit pick everything anyone else does “because it’s not how *I* would do it”.

A few years ago, I stopped visiting Cruisers Forums, and Sail Net (and I HELPED form sail net!) because of the armchair sailors who would denigrate others for what they considered “dumb questions”.  There is a large group of people out there that are at work every day, getting up, going to work, going home, and logging into the computer – and on weekends they go out to their marina where they store their boat, they climb aboard and drink “sundowners” and wake up with hangovers.  On Monday they go back to work.  During the week they call some company to go polish their boat or wash it, and pay through the nose for the privilege of sitting on the dock on weekends drinking their Bud Lites – but during the week, they bitch and complain about all of us who actually live on the boat, go places, and make due with significantly less space than they have, no or low income, squeeze Lincoln until he screams and buy our cheap beer at the grocery store, and our liquor from the local markets.

They do this because they feel as if they are better than the rest of the cruisers out there.

I’ve yet to meet a long distance cruiser who has a perfectly clean, perfectly cared for boat, that isn’t somewhat cluttered, full of extra “stuff” they “need” (hoses, extra lines, pieces of “small stuff” – that’s bits of twine and line for those of you who might not know that), tools, the odd “silver tea service” or plastic wine goblets.

You know why?  Because they are out there doing their thing, being happy and not complaining about how the other half lives.

Kurt and I are discussing a remake at some point.  A follow up video to this one.  It will address some of the questions you all have, assuming we find the time and can connect somewhere to do it.  But, it will also be real, personal and it shows the truth.

The fact is, I write this blog on the same basis.  I tell it like it is.  Not how you want it to be.  There’s no such thing as a perfect boat, day, trip, travel, or location.  There’s rarely a perfect day of sailing (it happens, but it’s not often).  Extended cruisers sometimes pick up jobs.  They sometimes have to stop and work for a living.  Sometimes they travel and are out of contact for weeks at a time.  Sometimes they even catch fish.  Sometimes they get hurt.  Sometimes, unfortunately, they can die.

I write about everything.  Good. Bad. Ugly. Fun.  Doesn’t matter.  I enjoy writing about our Adventure(s) and what we go through.  I was beat up by a once-friend on Facebook because she disagreed about how I presented my store about a marina.  We had a ROUGH time there.  We had a lot of things go wrong.  Most of them happened when we were not even at the boat.  And yet somehow having these bad things happen and writing about them upset this lady to the point she de-friended me.  I was, in her eyes “putting down her marina”. /Shrug

As I said, I’m not here to please anyone else.

Kurt wanted to do the interview above.  It was impromptu, we had not really cleaned up the boat after having been traveling for a few weeks. The wife was off doing laundry.  I was going Kurt the tour.

So, sometimes, sloppiness is a perceived thing (mostly to OCD people who have a penchant for correcting where someone sits their coffee cup) and equipment issues are almost ALWAYS, ALWAYS based on 3rd hand, biased reporting by people who have zero personal experience with them.  I’m sure that a lack of spit and polish on the bronze pisses people off to no end. 🙂

When it all comes out in the end…. If we have a good time doing what we’re doing, why would anyone be upset?  Except for the people in Florida that don’t want over night anchoring because, well, they are armchair sailors and boaters and honestly don’t know anything about how the other half lives.  They just don’t want to see us in the waterways.

If we all had to please everyone around us, all the time the task would be to ensure everyone is happy.  And you’re not.

That is not the way to live your life, friends.

Go out and be happy.  If you’re going to sail a boat, do it.  Don’t complain about how others do it, how they live, that their equipment isn’t like yours…. be happy we’re different.

 

 

 

Blog Entry for April 2017

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First, my apologies to everyone who has been so diligent in reading the blog entries and not seeing one since January or so.

Second, not making excuses, but I’ve been pretty busy and I’m going to remedy the situation right now.

I’ve been pretty busy working a part time job in the marina, as well as on the boat.

On the boat, I have been working on varnish and fiberglass, some major (attempts) at cleaning and a few minor things like doing repairs as I need to.  I’ve gotten to MOST of the teak and have three coats of varnish on them.  I’ll be adding another when I have a few days to work on it, when it’s not scalding hot, or raining and blowing hard.

I did some glass repair work on the side of the cockpit the other day.  I’m not sure about this damage I discovered – hidden under a “fake boot stripe” (I’ll get back to that in a moment).  Along the top deck, where the house part rises from the deck, there’s a wall built around the cockpit.  The coaming with a kind of removable door/wall in the cockpit has a straight crack along the length.  It appears to me that something hit the boat and did some damage in the past, though I’m at a loss where the hit could have occurred unless the boat was dropped or smacked against something like a lift.

When we bought the boat in New York, a surveyor didn’t notice or mention any problems and I don’t recall them.  Before we left Colorado in July of 2015 to collect the boat, we had a bottom paint job done by the marina.

Worst of the worst of the places we’ve been at, this marina.  I called them and asked specifically about the paint, the type, how it was applied, and asked about them touching up the waterline and boot stripe.  I paid for paint, their time and an extra $300 bucks for the rest of the work to be accomplished (this included zincs etc).

When we arrived, only two zincs were installed.  The paint was haphazardly sprayed on, and intake grids were blocked by paint runs throughout the holes.  I couldn’t find an indication where the “boot stripe” was painted/cleaned up.

It wasn’t until I made the painter come look at the boat and clean up the mess they made that they showed me the “boot stripe”.  A maroon strip of “tape” had been placed on the boat on the cabin top, along both sides.

So, when I was doing my work the other day and removed this stupid “tape” (and tape it was, a colored, stick-backed maroon-colored tape) I discovered this crack running the length of the starboard side of the cockpit and just forward of the cockpit in the coaming.

The crack was very “clean” like a break, but it wasn’t perfectly straight like a razor, but kind of jaggedy.

I ended up not being able to determine the cause, why it was there or even if they had attempted a repair (as it appeared to have some silicone material in it).  I used my dremmel tool to remove the gunk, take it to the inner wood core, clean it up and have reglassed that part of the boat.  I still need to sand and eventually paint this part of the boat.

As to varnish, I spent a few days cleaning, sanding, wiping, sanding, wiping, cleaning and then varnishing the cap rail, taffrail  most of the wood around the boat.  I have NOT finished (and have barely started) on the platform.  I have completed three coats and will probably do two more, though I’m not sure yet.  In any case it looks wonderful.

The topsides, near the waterline had a horrible, brown stain.  I guess the stain has a name.  It’s called the “ICW Mustache”, some people call it other names, which are not repeatable here.  I had a few names for it, I won’t repeat either.

Anyway, we found that by using a small amount of toilet bowl cleaner with some water in a spray bottle worked wonderfully to remove the stains.  I spritzed it on, went over with a soft bristled brush and it was gone in seconds.

I’m in the slow, laborious process of waxing the hull now, a little at a time to prevent this from happening in the future.  I’m not going to haul the boat this year and likely not next eitgher, so I’m working from the dink on and off.  A little here, a little there.  When I get tired of one job, I go do another.  And so on.

Being inside the marina as opposed to sitting on the transient dock is much better, and thankfully, cheaper too.

At this point we will likely remain here through October and depart sometime in November for the Bahamas (destinations to be determined) and stay from 3-5 months, depending on our ability to remain there.

Working at the marina has been a mix of very simple to very difficult tasks.  I’ve done everything from repair the ramp for the golf cart we use to collect and move trash to the dumpsters (about a quarter mile away) to changing flats on the cart, bringing in boats, pumping fuel (diesel, gas) to selling ice, oil and collecting money, making change, putting up and taking down flags, handling the radios, coordinating slip assignments and boat moves during the dredging.  Dredging was a royal pain in the rump too.  Everyone hated it.  Even the dredgers appeared to hate it.  The poor manager here was inundated with constant complaints about noise to hating to have to move their boat for the dredgers to get their work done.

The dredge kept breaking.  Things kept floating away.  You name it.  Thankfully, the dredging is finished.  We’re slowly getting boats back into their proper slips, a few here, a few there.

The manager has called me in for extra hours several times to assist with various things.  So, a few extra bucks is ok.  I’ll feel more comfortable when the retirement pay kicks in from the military in a few months though.

Midges.  AKA No-See-Ums.  They are demons from hell.  I hate them, and I will kill them all before I die.  I’m apparently having allergic reactions to them.  I get welts on my skin when they bite me, and they LOVE my blood type I suppose.  If there were ever a true vampire, midges would be the creature.  I am reasonably certain that the vampire mythology was built around these tiny insects.  They run away in bright sun normally, come out when there is dampness in the air, and buzz around incessantly in your face, your ears, up your nose and somehow find places to bite you that is completely covered with clothing.

Deet does NOT help.  So far, I’ve tried a dozen things.  Today I used, Picaridin, a type of “Off” type stuff, which actually worked for about 5 hours today.  The rest of it doesn’t seem to work.  Home remedies, lemoneucalyptus whatever that is, somewhat worked.  I’ve not yet been bitten by a mosquito, however, another of the creatures on this planet I’ve been trying to destroy my whole life because my body has begun to absorb deet to the point I feel I need it….. ok, maybe not true.

We went to Michigan in late January to go see my brother in the hospital.  He is doing significantly better now, even though he doesn’t remember us being there.

We went for a day sail with our friend Jay aboard “Knot Working”, a 37 Beneteau.  Beautiful boat, turns on a dime (ok, maybe a half dollar, and certainly in less than a full boat length I think – whereas we turn on two or MORE boat lengths given the conditions).

At some point soon, we hope to get out of the marina for a day or two, do a sail or two on our boat.

Finally, we’re going to try brewing beer in the next few days.  Will be the first time for us to do that since we moved aboard.  We will see how that goes.

 

Working for a Living

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I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about life being a Journey, not a Destination.

Hope you read it.  Because it certainly is true.

I started a job here at the marina a few days ago.  Had about 8-9 work days so far, part time.  I clean the docks, check boats, power towers, take out trash, open the “store”, close the store and a few other things, like handy-man things.  I’ve repaired the golf cart ramp a couple of times, moved oyster shells, rocks, bricks, old wood, dirt, cleaned bathrooms and collected cans for some local charity.

It’s actually… FUN!

The best part?  Cleaning bird poop off the docks.

Yep, no kidding.  I get to be outside, walk around, walk past all the boats, check lines, discover problems, fix things… but the bird poop is the BEST!

It rots wood, and looks like… ummm…. crap. LOL  It’s a crappy job, but someone has to do it!

Seriously, it’s nice being outside, and not staying inside the boat all the time.  I get to meet new people all the time as well.

We are going to stay here for a few months, head down to the Bahamas and then come back after a few months.

So, I’ll invite our cruiser friends to South Harbour Village Marina to stop in and say “Howdy” over this season.  We’re looking forward to the transients like us, passing through, headed north.  A few are still headed south at this point, but some are already passing through on the way north.

I’ll see you on the docks!!!!

Fair Winds!

Life is a Journey, Not a Destination

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Extended Cruisers… that’s what we tell people now when they ask us where we live.  We get questions on where our house is (the boat).  Where do we live?  How do you cook? Where do you go to the bathroom?  Where do you shower? What do you do when you get tired of being on the boat?  One person asked us “Do you use sleeping bags every night?” Another asked us about doing laundry.  Everyone asks “Where are you going?”  Even other cruisers ask that question, including me.  We’re all curious about how everyone else deals with life I suppose.

I think all of us in the cruising world have these questions asked at one time or another and very likely as we were entering into the world of cruising, we all might have asked the same questions of others, or of ourselves.  At first, it’s fun explaining it all to people.  Eventually though, it can be tiring.  Not in a bad way, but in a way that shows you’ve answered the question a thousand times and you get the point you try to reword it more efficiently, using less words, or just simply shrugging your shoulders when you haven’t the energy to respond again.

It isn’t that the questions are stupid, inane or silly.  They want to know, and you have to tell them. So you do.

One day perhaps, I’ll write a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for Cruisers to pass out to anyone asking them questions.  Or maybe not.  Because everyone is different.

Speaking of “different”.  JoAnne and I started this “journey” almost 10 years ago – actually, I don’t remember the exact date or year any more.  A lot of water has gone under the keel since we started.  For the past two years we’ve cruised “Differently” than others.

Most people pick a destination and go.  They get there as fast as possible, barring difficulties, and they stay long enough to enjoy the scenery, a pub, a beach bar, a beach, fishing, or simply meeting new people.

For two years we’ve “cruised” down the coast, running into trouble – we might call it “Adventure” but most call it trouble.

From broken engine parts, to broken engine, broken halyards, dead and dying batteries, leaks, busted hoses, pipes and lines, getting hit more than once by other boats (one time being rigging and bow being severely damaged), to getting beat by the Chesapeake Bay and Cape Fear River Inlet we’ve persevered.  We’ve gotten up each time and kept going, albeit, slowly.

Plodding along at a snails pace from New York to Norfolk, Norfolk back to the Potomac River and then Potomac River as far as North Carolina.

We’ve been here in Southport for about eight weeks now.  On 6 February 2017, it will be just over eight weeks.  Throughout the time on the boat, we’ve also been off the boat traveling around the country.  We’ve made trips (several) back to Colorado.  We traveled from Colorado to Missouri, Tennessee, Florida down one coast and back up the other.  We’ve traveled around the DC area, throughout Virginia, back and forth and up and down.  I am guessing because I haven’t figured out the distances yet, but, we’ve put on 25,000-30,000 statute miles traveling by car and boat so far.

We loved the Northern Neck of Virginia – but it was remote.  We made good friends there.

Southport has been different though.  Not just the people.  Not just the place.  A combination of everything.

We have fallen in love with the place.  That doesn’t mean we want to live her forever.  But in the two months we’ve been here, we’ve made a lot of friends, met a lot of cruisers passing through, including some friends we’ve met elsewhere.

For the past few days we’ve been debating moving on.  We are here late enough in the season that if we depart now, we can still get to the Bahamas for the Spring.  Do we stay or do we go?

Yesterday, I went through Active Captain, sent emails, made phone calls and wrote up a budget based on our cruising kitty’s contents.

We can move on and still have enough money, assuming nothing goes wrong from now until we locate a place to go.  But every marina we contacted gave us “No room at the inn” or were willing to ask us for more than normal to hold a slip for us to use.  One of my fall back plans was mooring balls.  I found some, very inexpensive places. No living aboard allowed though.

The cost of staying at a slip here versus Florida is a shock.  Double in almost all cases.  Except certain places on the West Coast of Florida. But, there are a lot of places we won’t “fit”.  Can’t get in.  Canals too shallow, fixed docks to climb out of the boat at low tide (JoAnne simply can’t do that now).

Last night we talked about staying for awhile, enjoying Southport, and perhaps even working a bit to regain some missing cash from the Kitty.

I had three job offers yesterday in the space of an hour, without even asking.

Yesterday afternoon, the dock master told me he “found me a slip if I wanted it”, and told me if I was interested, he was looking for another dock hand.

This morning we made the decision.

We are going to hang out here a while longer.  Enjoy the beer over at Check Six Brewing Company, our friend’s company and probably try to throw a few bucks back into the bank.  The health insurance is (pardon the pun) bleeding us dry at this point and working to offset it even a little will keep us floating (another pun?) for awhile.

This is not truly what I wanted to do, but it seems to make sense.

For everyone wondering about it… no we’re not staying forever.  I told the Dock Master that October we would leave, or November.  But we might come BACK as well the following season.  He thought that was a good plan.

So, not technically “swallowing the hook” yet.  Just going to test the air and see how it smells for awhile.

Anyway, my son, Nick reminded me this morning – Life is not a destination, it’s a journey.  He’s right.

We’re Free People.  We do not have anyone to tell us what to do, when to do it, where to go, or how to accomplish what we do.  We CAN come and go as we please, when we please and where we want.  Complications are something that life throws at you constantly (case in point, running north to get my car from Virginia, going all the way to Detroit to see my brother in the hospital, even if he couldn’t see me).  That along with our own personal medical histories, we have to be sure we’ve got insurance for a bit longer.  Boat and car insurance.  Money to eat…. yeah, life’s complications.

To all our followers (I think there are three of you now) no worries.  I’ll still write here, I’ll still keep you all up to date.  And let me say something about why I actually do this blog.  Please follow along a few more minutes.

Why do I write this blog?

For all the years prior to actually doing this I read everyone’s blog.  I sat sometimes awaiting a new entry on a few of them.  I read EVERY book I could get my hands on, either buying, borrowing or shopping them online on Kindle.  I read grand tales of Blue Waters, great fishing stories, scary weather stories, and I read every thing in Cruisers Forums, Sail net (I helped start Sailnet, did you all know that?  Then got kicked off of it because some people didn’t like my political views, haha).

Through out it all, I found very, very few stories of what REALLY happens to people or the gory details of daily life on a boat, hanging upside down in the bilge with a finger blocking a hole while trying to reach back up to get a mallet to pound in a wooden plug.

What I DID encounter on the forums was a smattering of good, quality information interspersed inside of a lot of hollow knowitallness from many armchair sailors.  Oh, I am sure they weren’t all arm chairing it.  Many did live on boats in marinas and I found most RARELY ventured from the docks.  They polished their boats daily, cleaned the stainless steel, painted the bilges, and plumed the depths of their Sundowners in the evenings.

I look around at my ship – and ship she is, big, beautiful and ungainly in a marina, but wonderfully agile and quick upon the sea under sail – and look at the dents, dings, weird, dirty spots I can’t seem to clean off, a few gel coat spots that probably need redoing and see the Dock Queens in this place (most of the boats haven’t left in months or years) and wonder what I am doing wrong.

I’m on the boat working on this or that ALL the time.  JoAnne broke her back on a dock, slipped and fell on another and lost a pair of glasses.  I’ve cracked my head on things and drawn so much blood, my long bones and marrow are having troubles keeping up the replacement blood cells.  No one else writes about these things.

No one tells it “like it is”.

I find that both appalling and fascinating.  Over these last few years of doing all the reading, I rarely came across a story or blog, book or tale of all the terrible things that happen to people.  When I chose at one point to tell about the things that happened in one certain marina, I lost friends over it.  They misread into my words that I was complaining and believed I was denigrating the marina and not telling the story.

I’ve had a difficult time putting some things into words since then because, frankly, I don’t like upsetting people and especially not real, true cruisers.  But, telling this story is my way of leaving something for my kids to read and think about long after we’re all gone and dust (or fish food).

I write because I have a passion for writing.  I don’t do it for money (ok, I have one published book.  Makes me about 3.75 a month….) and I have other books waiting in the wings for publication, but it’s not about money.  Never has been.

I don’t advertise on the blog like so many do.  I don’t think it’s fair.  Advertising permeates everything. Our phones, our Facebook accounts, email, television, radio, in-your-face in the stores, malls, on the sides of the roads and for cruisers to plaster their pages with “ads” to “Buy our book!” irritate me I guess.

I write because I like to, I like to tell the story.  I want people to know, beyond any doubt that anyone can cruise.  Anyone can become a sailor, and a good one.  But you have to work at it, and it is NOT easy.  It’s NOT going to come to you like magic.  And no destination is as pristine as made out by many books and articles.  There are problems ANY where you go.

Human beings are simply put, pigs sometimes.  They throw crap everywhere.  The water is full of plastic and junk and I daily pull things out around the marina.  But, humans can be kind, considerate, helpful and just all-around, wonderful.  They don’t have to throw junk in the water and pollute, but they do.

Because cruising today is NOT what it was twenty years ago, we are not on the “cutting edge” of visiting places.  Boats aren’t any longer seen as “strange, new visitors from a far away place”.  Boats are, unfortunately, considered a “Cash Cow” and the inhabitants are considered “wealthy”.  Except those on derelicts.  Who are considered by everyone to be “scum of the earth”.  This is a wrong assumption, but sometimes it’s true.

The truth about cruising is there are good and light things, and deep, dark secrets.  Some places we’ve seen have people doing drugs, drunks everywhere (I suspect those are the cruisers actually haha) and dirty, sinking boats. Other places have beautiful, spotless Dock Queens who never move.  Wonder why they look so nice?

Then there is us, and Adventure.  And almost EVERY OTHER extended cruiser we’ve met.  All of our boats aren’t the best, well kept.  They are sometimes messy inside.  They are sometime dirty outside.  We have too much crap.  Too much in the lockers, too much in the forward cabin.  Too much on the deck.  Lines everywhere.  Old lines. Not new, pretty braided stuff.  Junky “look what I found in the trash” lines sometimes.

This is the stuff I write about.  I do it because… honestly, I want people to see what it is like.

I don’t always tell the whole story either.  There are no words for some things that would not offend a lot of people (try talking about composting heads in mixed company and you will grasp what I mean!)

I hope that folks enjoy what I write, and I’ve had a few tell me they love it.  I’ve had a small number that hate on me.  That’s ok.  Everyone has an opinion.  Some are just wrong, that’s all 🙂

I will let you all know in a few days how it’s going and whether or not we can “hang” at this for awhile in Southport.  If you get here, let me know.  We’ll meet you on the dock and greet you!

Fair Winds

Rick