Category Archives: Weather

June 2018

by

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

The Next Adventure

by

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!

 

The other blog

by

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.

Storms

by

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:

No automatic alt text available.

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.

 

Cape Fear: Fresh Water issues

by

Just a really quick update here.

I started the water pump and found the water was flowing from the front of the boat. It had to be coming from hoses going to the front head.

Our front head is… a closet.  While it functions perfectly, it has a brand new Jabsco pump toilet and everything except MOST of the electricity works up there, the important stuff like water, toilet and bilge pump wiring functions.

This means I have removed a LOT of bulky items from the “closet”.  Coats, my wet suit, canes (JoAnne and both have used them for walking in the past, and I keep them around “just in case”, lol.  Three times breaking my right ankle taught me the hard way), there is a big bag of “dirt” used for the composting toilet sitting in there, some tools, and stacks of TP in the bags as well as paper towels, tarp and we store the unused heaters in there as well.

After I removed everything I crawled into the bathroom upside down and looked into the “undersink” area and immediately found the problem.

This is a Chinese built production vessel.  The Chinese are pretty good at building things, stealing designs and making knock offs, and pretty good at plumbing.  This boat is built with copper pipes, fore to aft plumbing the sinks and fresh water.  Fortunately, it doesn’t get exposed to sea water.  The water tanks are plumbed with plastic hoses, plastic connectors and various adapters connecting everything together.  Some of it is haphazardly thrown together appearing as afterthoughts”.

The copper pipes going to the sink are held in place by a pressure fitting, with a rubber washer that presses the pipe into place as you tighten the nut.  The apparent constant pounding on the front of the boat in the waves yesterday forced the pipe from it’s connection, which in turn released the pressure at the front of the boat, telling the pump to engage and it complied by forcing all the fresh water in the main tank out, into the under-sink area, down into the bilge, and the bilge pump simply did it’s job keeping sloshing water out of the bilge and outside the boat where it actually belongs.

The repair was simple.  Remove the washer and nut and the metal washer, inspect everything, clean the connection and put it all back together, retorque the nut into place with the washer (I’d have put in a new one, but this was was not worn and appears to have been recently replaced since just before we bought the boat).  The other side, I re-tightened.  Turned on the pump and viola! Water pressure again. I really need to look at a foot pump though. haha  Took about two hours of work removing things and repairs, and another week putting it all back together (all that stuff has to go somewhere!)

So, other than losing 60 gallons of fresh water through a failed plumbing connection and about 8 pounds of water from our bodies through other means best left undescribed, I’ll say we’re “none the worse for wear”.  JoAnne is a bit dehydrated today which isn’t good for her.  I’m “over” that for now, but am still constantly hungry dispite a half price burger and full priced pint of beer yesterday evening…. I’ll get some more food in me and look at the wiring up front.

We’re going to stay here at least once more week.  Need to wait on our new credit card, I want to do some digging through things we have and see if we can’t eliminate a few things.  Lighten the load so to speak.

We haven’t made a decision to stick with it, but we have been receiving a lot of encouragement from friends who’ve been through (and are actually going through now) similar issues.

I have learned that we’re both more “fair weather sailors” than we are old salts or hardcore-round-the-Horn people.  I have ALWAYS known that the ocean demands respect, and I do. But, when it comes to rotten weather predictions by using the collected data I feel like I should have known better than to go out yesterday.  JoAnne did.  And I went back to bed for two hours, dozed off and awakened thinking I was going to “call it a day” before we went out.

But, I didn’t do that.  I’ve ALWAYS trusted by instincts and the few times I didn’t turned out badly for me.

That kind of mistake, taken in small doses is usually just dumb.  Downright dangerous though, when combined with the Sea, Weather and second guessing oneself.

Unlike the giant ships that disappear at sea, we came home.

No matter what we do from here on out, I’ll not venture down a coast in the wrong conditions again.

 

Fair Winds, Friends!

 

Rick

Christmas 2016

by

Hi everyone.  Thought I’d try to get in one more blog post before the end of the year.

It’s been a long, challenging year for us. In fact, two challenging years.  (I already posted a message for Christmas on Facebook, and will probably restate a few things here so if you think you’ve read it before, you might have).

In 2009 we decided to learn to sail, and eventually to become cruisers.  JoAnne and I have read literally a couple of hundred books over the course of time since that day we made the decision.  While all of them were helpful, some were stories, fiction, true adventure, and books about storms.  All of them helped prepare us for everything we have encountered and a few things we’ve yet to (and don’t want to) encounter.

Last Christmas we were sitting in Colorado with our kids and Grandkids after JoAnne’s back injury.  We thought more than once we wouldn’t get back to the boat and would have to sell her.  But, things didn’t turn out like that.

We’ve traveled back and forth across the country about five times since July 2015, for medical appointments, visiting and due to injuries.

This season we moved the boat to Cole’s Point Marina, where we worked on the boat.  We added solar panels, repaired the refrigeration, I had already added a new stove, refurbished the sails, repaired many little things, added a composting toilet, removed a broken electric toilet and replaced it with a Jabsco pump toilet.  I’ve added strip LED lighting to the main cabin area (and will add some to the forward cabin in time, along with some new wiring I’ll pull in when I have an opportunity).  We’ve eliminated a few things (not enough).  We’ve picked up an inline water filter to remove the bad tastes and to take water aboard.  I’ve made a water catchment device to collect rainwater, picked up a propane heater for the cabin, as well as an electric heater.  We’ve worked out how to make the wood stove work properly.  I’ve rewired the nav station, radio gear (neatened it all up and added a special power strip for DC radio gear.  Eventually all the radio gear will be tied there).  Oh, and I varnished about 80% of the woodwork aboard Adventure.  I have been testing some varnish.

I certainly am missing a few jobs we did.  I’m sure I’ve forgotten something.

A few weeks ago we ran into some more alternator problems (which I documented) and had that repaired and discovered a LOT of other issues on the engine which we also had taken care of.  During the work, I had the mechanic teach me a few things since I was paying and arm and a leg (I know why pirates have hooks and peg legs now…).

We paid up our bill here through 6th January and decided to stick out Christmas here.  One of the folks sailing down from Canada we’re friends with (Rosemary and Joe, aboard “Winds of Change” were coming down and so JoAnne invited them to dinner.  Turned out other boats were traveling with them.  We thought two, then it was actually four boats total.

So the dinner turned into a pot luck.  Then more cruisers and liveaboards near by joined into the dinner.  All told, on Christmas Eve we had about 15-18 people (I never counted them up), and one boat’s couple left to visit relatives so they missed the dinner.  Others joined in and everyone brought food, drink and stories.

Over all, a grand success.  JoAnne was worried about putting something like that together.  I’m not sure why.  She has always fed an army (usually doing ALL the cooking herself, raising five children, usually having boarders in the house, and random neighbor children who ALWAYS were there for dinner almost every night).  So, whatever trepidation she had vanished as she turned on her “Chef Skills” and made a giant pot of stew which likely would have fed everyone in the marina that day with a side of rice.  Fortunately, there was plenty more food than we could ALL eat.  Everyone brought something, from sloppy joes to stew, to small “sub sandwiches” to enchiladas and bottles of wine and rum.  I was shocked at the amount and quantities.  I tried a little bit of everything and had two full bowls of stew.

“Winds of Change” happens to have been the name of our first boat, our Macgregor Venture.  So when we saw the name on the group, we had friended them on Facebook immediately.  After all, we share a connection.  The boat name, and now the Leaky Teaky boats, ours the Transworld 41 and them the Formosa 41.   It was wonderful to get to meet them in person finally!

I have to say that I still like our center cockpit a bit better, though I think sailing from the aft of a sailboat this big might have a few advantages over the CC.  I can’t tell you though, what those might be.

All in all, this year traveling from the Potomac in late October to here has been relatively uneventful compared to last year.  Although, we have gone aground a few times, we’ve bumped some pilings, and I have some small damage on the port side where I caught a pole in the water, the engine conking out…. we haven’t really had major issues.

Yes, it was stressful coming down the ICW.  I was at ease going outside and motorsailing at night, but I always worry about all the things that can “go wrong” out there.  I worry for JoAnne’s safety much more than mine (because, quite honestly, I’d done some really dangerous things in my life and while the majority of them I wouldn’t want to repeat, I understood what I was doing, and knew I could die).  Sailing in the ocean is one of those things.

You understand it.  You know you can die.  But you also, always, concentrate on the moment in time, staying alive, staying safe, staying on course, going there you’re going and knowing you have options to handle almost anything.  Even, right down to closing down the hatches and doors after taking down sails and putting out a sea anchor, then hoping the boat will ride out whatever you hit.  In almost all cases, a boat will do fine.  It’s generally the crew who can’t handle it.

We have one issue on our boat.  JoAnne isn’t really able to run the boat alone.  I’m worried she will injure her back again and she has been prone to falling in the past so I won’t put her in danger.  That means I tend to do everything on deck, though I have been letting her toss lines out, and put out fenders to get used to doing it again.  So running a “shift” isn’t too easy, unless I set things up and let her stand watch, let the autopilot take care of things until the wind changes or we have to tack.  Then she can wake me if I’m sleeping and I can do the work.

This basically means for us, sailing straight to Florida isn’t going to be easy.  From here at five knots it would take us about 65 hours (give or take where we pull in).  And just two of us doing it.  Then we have to count on the engine from time to time to charge batteries if the sun isn’t out (solar, remember?)

Therefore we’ve come up with muliple plans to get south now.  From here we are planning to sail straight down to Jacksonville area.  And as we go we’ll make changes to our thinking based on the conditions we encounter and how tired we get.  We’re going to try it in pieces as well.  So, we’ve picked a half dozen distant spots to pull into if need be to anchor and rest.  We’ve also planned part of the route inside as well.

We have many options from here, but the main goal, to “get south and to warm” is the priority.  That and using the engine the least amount necessary, anchoring when we need to, and staying warm.

So as the year closes on us, we are shooting to be in Florida not later than about 3 weeks from now, whether we can move more quickly, or slowly will depend on a lot of factors including the weather and my ability to take us long distances on the boat.

To this day, I am not ready to lie down and sleep with the boat moving.  So, I’m probably going to have to learn that skill next 🙂

I want to wish everyone a “belated Merry Christmas” as I’m posting this the day after.

And I want to give everyone something to consider for the New Year.

Many people make “resolutions” to accomplish or do something important in the New Year.

I made a resolution never to make resolutions a long time ago, so I don’t do that.  But I do make plans, I do set goals, even if they are in my head and not written down.

For the cruisers, the dreamers and the wanna-be cruisers who’ve not quite gotten here yet, I’m going to give you a secret.

The secret to success is “perseverance”.

That is the secret ingredient to “success”.

If you have a dream to move aboard a boat and go cruising, you will have to work at it.  You will have to plan.  You will have to make decisions, some easy, some difficult.  You will have to write your notes down.  You have to learn to sail if you don’t know how.  You have to work your ass off.  You have to practice.  You have to learn new skills.  You have to travel a bit, you have to stay home a lot, you have to spend some money, and you have to save money.

With out laying out a map for you, I’ll tell you this:

  1. Make a plan (Do you want to cruise full time, or part time? Do you want to just travel the Chesapeake?)
  2. Get your skill set together as you go, every day work on it (Can you sail? Learn! Wood work? Plumbing?)
  3. Study hard, study sailing
  4. Save your money.  Spend it wisely on learning, important books you need (Use the LIBRARY, it’s FREE!)
  5. Pay your bills.  ALL Of them.  Eliminate them.  If you use a credit card, PAY it off EVERY MONTH.
  6. Have your goals written down and check them off as you go.  Once you get one, check it off. (Then go back and pat yourself on the back!)
  7. PERSEVERE!  Do NOT give up.  Do it.

Adversity has a way of weighing people down, depressing them, making them believe they can never get up again and sometimes adversity will literally break your back, bones, make you sick and leave you in pain.

Pain is the one thing that tells us we’re still alive and we should be doing something else.  Find a different route.

If you want to sail, do it.  Start small if you have too (I didn’t, I am glad I didn’t.  I started on a 30′ boat and went SMALLER to a 25′ boat for practice, and the 25;’ boat was like a part of my arm when I stepped aboard).  Getting on to a bigger boat like this ketch at first will be daunting and probably stop one from sailing without a very good instructor.

I’ve been teaching myself how to sail this boat.  She handles differently that a fin keel, from a sloop and from a dinghy.  She handles much differently that my little Venture did.  She has a mind of her own and I’ve had to learn to tame her, and make he go where I want her to go.  It’s difficult to do with no books on the subject and only the meager knowledge I gained from an instructor and sailing my own sloop.

The point, though, is don’t give up.  Continue.  Persevere.

That, folks, is the secret to success.  You just take that and apply it to your set of circumstances.  YOU are the one to make it happen.

All our best for a Happy New Year – and I mean the whole of 2017.

We’ll see you in the Warm.

Rick and JoAnne

(PS I will add images into this a bit later, so check back when you have time)

 

 

Hurricane Matthew

by

Against the odds, against the forecasts, and against the models a massive hurricane has formed in the Caribbean Sea.

This morning when I checked it had been upgraded to a Category 5.  It is sitting in the southern Caribbean Sea, south of Jamaica and appears to have taken a slight left turn, and will probably, quite suddenly swing northward on a collision course with Jamaica, the across Cuba, and onward into the Bahamas.

The conditions were really NOT all that conducive for forming such a massive hurricane which is why I said “against predictions” above.  But, predictions, humans and computers programmed by humans are fallible.

Right now, the various models show the path taking a plunge to the north, through MOST of the Bahamas and on up the coast.  Since yesterday evening, that has changed slightly and models are showing it moving north and then pushing eastward.

I’ve been watching some fronts moving across the states which might prove to save the day.  If the timing is right, and I say IF, the two fronts should converge around Tuesday and push the hurricane east ward.  Unfortunately, there is also a pretty big High sitting off the coast and that might cause some problems.

I’m not a meteorologist but I’ve studied it enough over the past 40 years to have a bit of knowledge on the subject.  JoAnne and I storm chased and spotted for the NWS in Colorado for about 20 years.  So we have a bit of background in mesoscale events.  This is not meso.  This is massive.  Synoptic observations and data are easy to get these days, but I’m again, no expert in reading it all.

My “take” on this hurricane is that it WILL blow out over the Atlantic after reaching the Bahamas.  It will weaken after hitting Jamaica because going over land reduces it’s power.  It will build a bit, but hit Cuba further weakening it.  By the time it hits Bahamas I think it Cat 3 or even a Cat 2 is all it will be.  With LUCK and timing, the fronts should be above it and pushing outward to the East.

The Earth’s rotation as it travels north will also cause it to spin out away from the US.  And prevailing westerlies.

At this point, I HOPE I am right.  And I hope that the folks in Bahamas, Cuba and Jamaica all fare better than a category 5 will give them….

In other news, we’ve had rain, rain, rain for the past week.  Either in Richmond where we visited a couple of days for my eye check up, and all the way here to the boat.  Lots of rain.  We had super high water a couple of days ago, washing over C Dock and some of the others.  We’re on a floating dock, so the only issue we had was a dinghy full of water because SOMEONE forgot to pull the plug when he hoisted it onto the davits.  Fortunately a kind neighbor noted something amiss and went over in his dinghy and pulled the plug for me.  Normally, I remember to pull it, but for some reason I just spaced it.  THAT is the kind of thing that sinks boats.  Not remembering the little things.  Live and learn.

Windows still leak somewhat, here and there.  I think I have discovered one of the major leaks though.  I believe at this point water from rain is coming in through the traveler area in front of the cockpit.  I can’t pull out the stuff due to the building of the boat.  I think I can seal it though.  As to the windows, I don’t have the right gasket material and not too sure where to get it. So, I thought I’d do an experiment.  I cleaned out the old, dried up gasket from one of the portlights and used RTV in the place where a gasket should be.  I let it cure and sure enough, it works.  Not the best thing, not permanent, but it DOES work in a pinch.  So…. I’ll keep a few tubes of that stuff around for emergencies.

Front area cleaned up, and I can walk in there, I can access the anchor locker if needed, I can move stuff out of the forward head easily now and we can use that bathroom if necessary too.  Hung our walking sticks, and some other long items up front from bungie cords.  Tools accessible now.  Front name plates are varnished, the red paint is on them, and at some point I can paint in the name of the boat on the forward plates…. maybe it will quit raining for a few days this century….

Plans now include a trip to a military commissary for paper products (TP, paper towels, plastic trash bags to store things) and of course “boat alcohol”.  LOL.  Cheaper, no taxes, but it’s a long drive.  While we still have our car.

Our friend Kurt has promised to store our car for this winter/spring coming up until we come back this way.  So we have that going for us.

I have a radio modification to perform on one of my rigs before we bug out.  And I’d like to install the vhf/uhf rig some where in the boat where I can get power to it easily and get an antenna up on top somewhere.  Might put that off awhile.

Eyes were pronounced “awesome” by the Doctor.  I am 20:25 unaided by glasses, but do require reading glasses for up close.  Can’t focus that close now.  I can free dive soon if I want, or use a mask.  So I’m good again, and I can SEE.  Wow.  Just wow.

Basically, all the BIG jobs are done.  Just the little stuff.  And waiting out hurricanes.  I recall at this time last year, we were sitting in Galesville, Maryland awaiting Hurricane Joaquine which was making a bee line up the coast…. and was very similar to this one, except it started further north, went west, and then turned suddenly out to sea and never threatened the coast at all.  Almost exactly a year ago today….interesting isn’t it?

Fair winds.  Catch you on the next update.

Rain again…

by

I am glad I didn’t remove some port hole rings yesterday evening. It’s been raining since about 4AM.

Of course, it’s damp, chilly, yucky outside.  Taking a glance at the radar this morning shows a heavy line of showers moving East from Interstate 23 to my west, over me.  Appears like they are developing right there and pushing directly at our location.  Means it will probably drizzle all day.  No deck work today.  But I think I can do some stuff down below in the engine.  Or try anyway.

Took a picture of a pretty wooden boat being splashed this morning.  She has been being worked on this week, paint, polish etc.  I wish I had the time, money and energy level to do all that.  It’s all I can manage to sweep right now, lol  The weather is gross and depressing.  On the other hand, unless the boat is sitting up on the hard, that sort of thing isn’t getting done anyway.  Sitting on the hard would difficult on JoAnne, she’d have to climb a ladder or stairs to get on the boat and it’s high up in the air.  So, not gonna….

Guess I better get up and do something.  I am just enjoying my coffee this morning. 🙂

Rain, Rain, Go Away…

by

Wow.  It has been raining cats and dogs, chickens, horses and occasional bears for three days straight here.  Our trip up to the new marina was wet, coming home was wet.  We’ve pretty much been confined to the boat for two of the days.  It was so cold here yesterday and the night before that I had to break out the HeaterBuddy.

It’s a cool little device (ok, a WARM little device) that uses the little propane tanks (up quickly, about 2 hours) to heat up the cabin of the boat.

I pretty much killed 1.5 tanks keeping us from shivering.  The sun is finally peeking out abit from some clouds, and the radar was showing that we should be getting some clearing, though weather reports are still saying a 60% chance of rain.

We’ve really taken two days off from doing much of anything.  I’ve not really been motivated to do much in the wet, chill air.  But, with the sun coming out, I think we’ll go get something other than my horrible cooking (we had rice with canned chicken meat in it last night… which I spiced up pretty well with Frank’s Red Hot sauce).  I’m thinking maybe fish or oysters or something about now.

What we haven’t done is the laundry.  We have a bag full.  I’m not worried, I think I still have some underwear I can turn inside out…. 🙂

Today I DID do measurements in the aft head for a new composting toilet system.  We’ve been looking at C-Head, Nature’s Head and Airhead.  I’m partial to the Nature’s Head.  Or was.  Until I drew a picture of the bath room, the foot print of the shelf the toilet sits upon, and realized that all of them are too tall.  Except the C-Head.  I’m not happy with it’s design.  On the other hand, I haven’t found anyone who has said bad things about it either.

Looks like we’re going to go with the C-Head because of the height.  The height on the other two is 20-22″, and the cabinet doors are at 17″ to the cabinet frame, and 18.75″ to the bottom of the door.  The C-Head, with the cut out bottom will be 15″.  And it will sit on the shelf which serves as a step down.

More on that later… when we move, I get the stuff ordered and start installing it.  Be prepared for a blog post with more than a sufficient amount of “sailor talk” when that happens.  Might want to cover the kiddies eyes for that one. lol

s/v Adventure Post-Winter Status

by
Rained lot last night, lightning and thunder for a few hours on and off. Washed the boat off. Was covered in dust out on the deck, but that’s all gone now. Now, when I have time (I don’t know when that will be, lol) I’ll have to get out and wash the topsides down, and put on some wax. Boat needs it badly.
 
Some of our lines were out over the winter time and faded some. I don’t think any of them are too worse for the wear.
 
Bow platform needs some varnish. I only had time to get two coats on it before we had to rapidly depart, most of it is worn off already. I’ll do a light sanding and recover that soon. I did bring my sander with me this time so I can use it to do the rails around the boat and get them sanded quickly and efficiently instead of working a foot at a time and killing my shoulders.
This morning we had drip coffee from our new coffee maker.  The only thing wrong is that it’s only an eight cup pot. Making it like I usually do, with three little scoops of coffee makes it too strong.  So, I’ll try tomorrow with 2 scoops and see how it comes out.  I wish the pot were bigger but that was what we found.  I wanted a stainless steel pot instead of glass, as I broke the last glass one in the sink before we ran off to Colorado.  This one should last longer.
After doing a quick trip around the deck in the rain this morning, everything looks good.  There’s some chaff on the stern line, and the dock master added a second line for me after the big storms moved through here a few weeks ago.  We also had a fender blow up in the strong winds, but we had some aboard so he also added one.  I’ll need to go get replacements now.  And perhaps some fender covers or something.  I saw where someone bought golf shirts to cover his on facebook.  The shirts were much cheaper than the fender covers, and it’s time to start being more frugal.  We still have one more trip across country coming up in July.
Today I’ll open the battery compartment and run checks on the electrolyte (I did voltage checks yesterday and the batteries were charged properly so I assume the electrolyte is doing ok, but I want to double check it).  The boat has been on trickle all winter and the checks I did last were six months ago.  That reminds me, time flies when you’re having fun.
When we leave Colorado it seems like we’ve been gone forever when we go back.  But when we’re on the boat time goes so quickly.  It’s been a year on the 13th of May since my heart attack.  That seems eons ago, but traveling to the boat last July seems like a few weeks ago and not months.  Staying in Colorado from December through April – four months – seemed forever because we couldn’t DO anything.  The boat was too far, and we have a car, but we didn’t get to do a lot.  We traveled a  couple of times, but not enough to make it seem like we were seeing anything new.
The trip across country took us about three weeks, stopping to visit friends and family.  But, again it seemed too short.  Now we have a lot of boat chores to do to prepare for moving, BUT, at this point, I’m going to take my time doing it.
We have to drive up to see the marina tomorrow.  We’re going to see it to verify it’s where we want to be for the summer.  Once we do that, then I’ll work on the logistics of getting our boat there, and our car there.  We want both available for the summer.  Then we have to work our storage for the car while we’re gone to the Bahamas.
I guess the Bahamas is where we’re strongly leaning to going for this fall and winter season.  JoAnne might have different ideas too, but we’ve both looked at Florida and Bahamas.
We decided to “take the day off” today because we did travel three weeks without much of a break, driving for 5-9 hours each day, stopping and visiting and going places eventually tires you out. haha  However, even taking the day “off” we’ll likely run up and do laundry today, and I’ve got some stuff to move and re-arrange in the forward compartment.  JoAnne wants to work on the aft head and empty the cabinets, go through our stuff there and throw out unused things and make space for towels and other stuff there. Mostly, I am trying to get some blog posts in because they help me remember things I’ve forgotten.
Speaking of forgotten….what was I going to say? Oh, yeah, my heart issues…. Led to certain medications.  One of the meds I take is a statin, it is called Atorvastatin.  It is also known as Lipitor.  Some of you know it’s used to block production of cholesterol.  I’ve got to take it because during the surgery last year they removed parts of my heart, the aortic valve (which was deformed) and replaced it with a tissue valve (apparently from a pig, because I crave bacon now, lol).
Taking the drug is supposed to prevent me from plaque build up in my heart, arteries and so forth but it has a side effect of making me forget things short term.  My short term memory is messed up.  Before we left the boat I had stopped taking it because I ran out and they wanted $900 bucks for the prescription which I refused to pay at the time without insurance.  We have insurance now, but it still costs me 20+ bucks for the one (and 20 for another and more for the blood pressure meds).
So… I go back for a physical in July and I’m going to chat with my doc about trying something other than this drug.  My cholesterol has NEVER been high, ever.  So I want to get something that will do it more “naturally”, like certain vitamins.
Back to the boat.  This marina did take care of our boat for the most part.  I don’t see any other damage from other boats, they made sure our oars stayed attached to the dinghy in the wind storm, and all the other things I mentioned, plus checked battery levels several times for me.
The boat probably needs a pressure wash, but I’ll hold that until next marina.  That reminds me, I need to call them and chat and let them know we’re coming up tomorrow to check the place out and get a tour.  I already have a slip assigned there, but I want to look at the channel in person and the turns I have to make coming in.  It looks tight on the charts and on the satellite view.   And getting into the slip might be a problem, but the water is about 12′ deep there so I fell good about that.  Also, floating docks.  We will never again stay at a fixed dock and in the Bahamas I’ll just plan to anchor out most of the time.  They have pretty high tides there (last time we were there, we had to climb ladders to get in and out of the boat we stayed on).
I want to say HI to some of the people who have asked for me to write more. I’ve gotten comments and/or emails saying “write more”.  The best one was from someone at my former work who said she enjoyed following us without having to do all the work herself. haha.  So, Susan, this post is for you! haha (Now, just imagine all the stuff I’m NOT talking about having to do!)
JoAnne and I want to thank everyone who visited with us across the country, especially Paul and Cathy, A’lice and Larry and Mike and Cindy who put us up for a few days while we visited.  To Stephen and Judy, thanks for inviting us to the perfectly timed pot luck at your marina in St. Augustine!
Lastly, to our Daughter Kristy and her Husban, Carlos;  Thank you for everything, for putting up with us, and letting us stay with you while mom’s back healed.  She is still not at 100% and we’re not sure if her back will ever get back to normal but without you guys we’d have had to sell the boat and move back, get jobs and be mediocre people again. haha.
Onward and upward… I’ve got things to get done so time to run.  See you next entry everyone!

Gonna Sail Right Out of Colorado!

by

Well, it finally happened.  Winter came to Colorado.  I understand there was about 17″ of snow in places.

But fortunately, on the 13th of April, JoAnne and I were well on our way out of Colorado watching the blizzard conditions move into the state via radar.  In fact,  we were sitting in Richmond Missouri with our friends, Mike and Cindy, drinking wine and watching the weather on the computer screens.

We visited with them over the weekend and saw a kids play down in Higginsville, a production of Peter Pan.  Interesting, but it could have had a bit more practice. 🙂  After that, the plan was to head south in Missouri to see our Grandson, Gage, who is somewhere around the St. Robert’s area of the state (where his mother has apparently abandoned him, and yes, to all my family, I said it).  Neither the mother or father are currently fit to keep children or help them… but I’ll not air all the dirty laundry on my blog.  Suffice it to say, Gage should have come with us, but he’s with a temporary foster family whom we checked out a bit and they seem to be pretty OK people.  Gage has the ability to call us or his aunts and uncles at any time and we will come get him if he so wishes.

We stayed one night, visited with him and took him to dinner then dropped him back off before dark (mostly because the area he lives is sort of in the back woods and I wanted to be back to the hotel before it was too dark, as the GPS didn’t work very well in the area).

The next morning, Tuesday, we headed for Nashville.  Actually, the original plan was to head for New Orleans, but we found we were far enough east that there was no easy roads to take us to New Orleans.  We’d have been driving 2 lane roads for the next two days.  So, instead, we decided that Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry was the target.

Tuesday evening we wound up in Clarkesville and stayed there for the night, next morning we extended our stay an extra night so we could drive to Nashville and visit the town.  We went through Opryland and a backstage tour, took pictures and had dinner at the Opry Mills mall.  Then downtown for a visit to Broadway where we walked through some stores and had a couple beers in Margaritaville.

On Thursday morning we headed for Tampa Bay area to see JoAnne’s brother, Paul.  We made it to Lake City and made sure to leave us only 3 hours drive so we could arrive early in the day on Friday.  The hotel in Lake City (a Hampton) was wonderful, a very nice one, and likely the nicest one we’ve stayed in on the trip.  We arrived at Paul and Cathy’s in Largo at about 12:30 pm.  It has been a nice trip, warm almost all the way, one day of rain (which caught us the morning we left Richmond and chased us on and off) but sunny, and almost no clouds for most of the trip.  We did have some rain move through while we were in Clarksville but nothing significant, at least not like Houston was getting!

We’re currently visiting with Paul and had hoped to catch up to some friends in Ft. Meyers area, but so far no one has responded to the messages on Facebook.  Perhaps they forgot, are too busy or just don’t want to see us.  🙂

We’re here, at least through Monday (tomorrow) into Tuesday morning.  Then we will make our plans to go east to Green Cove Springs.

Update for March

by

I know that I’ve not written much of late, but we’re not really doing much.

JoAnne continues her doctor’s appointments, and physical therapy for her back and she’s healing well.  We are ready to go back to the boat now, but she isn’t finished with her appointments.

A big one is coming up at the end of March, where she sees both the back doctor and the oncologist.  She’s having her chemo port removed at the end of the month and we’re planning to be leaving sometime in the beginning of April.

With luck everything will go well and her last checkup left us smiling.  No sign of cancer, her blood work came back good and she’s feeling great.  Except the back.  Which is significantly better than the day she fell.

We have located, thanks to our friend Kurt Seastead (S/V LoKee) a marina along the Potomac River up about 8 NM from the mouth of the river/Chesapeake Bay where we will bring the boat in late April to accomplish some major refit we need done.

Included will be replacement of at least one of the electric heads with a composting toilet.  We will install a wind generator.  We will repair or replace the refrigeration unit as necessary and I’ll put in at least one small solar panel (and hope to get our permanent panels put in though).  One other small job I need to do is to get the bow thruster working again.  It would be really nice to have it working before I head up to the marina from Norfolk because it appears tight in the slips and it would help significantly to back the boat into the slip.  The full keel and prop walks makes it very difficult to back in a straight line anyway.

Our trip from here will start in Fountain Colorado and we’ll make stops along the way back, detouring to various places.  We have a grandson we want to visit in Missouri as well as our friends Mike and Cindy, JoAnne’s brother Paul who lives in the Tampa Bay area, and JoAnne wants to swing through New Orleans as well.  Plus there are a few friends in the Ft. Meyers area who we’re looking forward to seeing one afternoon as well.

I have one marina to visit in Florida to check out – though at this point we’re considering NOT using Florida as a home base any more due to the recent laws of “no anchoring”.  How in the world a state that is surrounded by waters thinks that this is a good idea to run off the thousands of cruisers who spend several million dollars in a year, I have no idea.

I won’t wax politically on this blog but suffice it to say that government is getting too big for it’s britches and I don’t care which side of the equation on which you find yourself, it’s BAD for us all.  And these decisions by the Florida state legislature are going to kill the tourist industry until they reverse this law.  Except for the small group I have seen in Florida who actually live in the state who somehow believe this won’t affect them, almost every cruiser I’ve spoken too in the past few months have decided to cross Florida off their list of places to visit now.

Today in Colorado it is supposed to be in the 70s, and my son-in-law Carlos is throwing a BBQ and the smoking of the meats has begun.  I’m headed off to the store for some bread and beer….

 

Sandy Hook and Atlantic Highlands

by

JoAnne and I came in, under tow to this area last Saturday. We were at Coney Island and the engine shredded the belt. We didn’t get the engine repaired until Tuesday, late. The Mechanic was Bill Lloyd of Lloyd’s Repair. He does “house calls”, as a mobile mechanic.

Bill was helpful, showed me a lot of things, gave us some advice and did the repairs – finding the correct parts. The adjustment bracket had broken before. Was the wrong size. The belt shredded, it was too long. The pulley on the alternator was too small. The engine stop was broken as well because was previously repaired by a couple of guys with duct tape…. no more comments there.

Anyway, Bill helped to repair all of that for us. His rates were very reasonable and he was very helpful. I STRONGLY recommend him if you’re in the area and need help.

The moorings here are $50.00 a night and there are showers, a launch to pick you up and drop you off.

The launch drivers are all very nice, helpful and give you directions and advice if you need it.

We have spent the time here moving stuff around, rearranging things to be more logical and I cleaned some of the deck finally. We added more water, I’ve rowed in and out a few times to collect water and gas for the generator. I needed the upper body exercise too. Speaking of which, they were really “worried” about me at the cardiac care and rehab place. Wanted me to stay on a “few weeks”. I laughed and said I’d be getting more exercise than just walking. While I am not getting as much cardio as I’d like, I’m damned sure getting plenty of exercise now. More than I could have hoped for.

I’ve not put on a lot of weight, but I’ve put on muscles. I’m almost back to 100% of where I was prior to the heart attack. By the way, I feel good – except the aches and pains from cracking my skull, shins, elbows, knees, chin, nose, back, front, bottom and top…. lol

Last night it rained pretty good. We had left the boat opened up and went up for a beer and met with Judy and Ron of Spartina, a pretty little trimaran, sitting in the harbor here. They are leaving tomorrow morning as well and heading south. We took their advice and waited through today because of the wind shifts. It did shift out of the north last evening though and is either North or North East right now (so it’s shifting still).

We’re hoping for a good run down the coast and hope to make 5-6 knots under sail… we’ll see. Wish us luck. This will probably be my last entry for a few days until we get back in close enough for cell coverage or Wifi someplace.

For those asking… Yes we’re hams. I’m N0NJY and JoAnne is KB0IRW. We do NOT have either VHF/UHF or HF up at the moment, those were not high priorities which prepping to get the boat out of Stony Point and right now it’s not too high of a priority (though it is coming up the list of things to do pretty rapidly) so we won’t have it up unless we get into trouble, then I’ll slap something together fast (it is what I used to do for a living, emergency communications and military tactical stuff….) so not to worried at the moment.

Sometime in the very near future though, both HF will be online as will the 2meter and 440 rig.

Atlantic City is our stop in point if we can’t make Cape May. Cape May is our current destination. Delaware Bay and the C&D canal is out tentative destination on the way to Chesapeake Bay. Once in Chessie we’ll look for a place we can anchor and explore a bit. We have to get in touch with our friend Phil and get him to meet us someplace.

Also, we’ll try to meet up with Bill, the broker to helped us purchase the boat (and sell for the former owner). Hopefully we can do all of this without any more giant issues. Then, from that point on, we’re aiming for Florida to go see JoAnne’s Brother, Paul. He lives in Tampa area and whether we drive across by boat in the ICW, or by car, or have them come get us is currently up in the air.

If we have to go across by car, we’ll look for a place to store the boat for a few days and maybe get some minor work accomplished. Otherwise, we’ll try to cross the ICW through Okeechobee – which we’ve had opinions about from several people, all of which are divergent… some saying ” no problems” and others saying “don’t do it”…..

The trip across country

by

JoAnne and I have travelled several times across country in the last 38 years. But this time we’re doing it to get to our last, new home. The ship.

As of today, starting in Colorado Springs and ending in a place called Reynoldsburg OH, we’ve travelled 1611.3 miles. That includes some side trips to Hermann, MO, a trip to Liberty, MO and some side trips around Cincinnati, OH.

We picked up some salmon over in Liberty at the Sprouts, and brought it to the Sause family for dinner one night, a side trip to a winery in Hermann to add some bottles to our collection for the boat and we had to travel back and forth in Cincy to meet up with Ryan, go to dinner, find out hotel (a couple of different times) and so forth. So the mileage isn’t all straight travel.

Tomorrow we meet up with Bob, our friend from WAYYYYY back in the White House days and his wife for dinner.

On Monday evening we hope to be in Woodbridge, VA to meet with another friend of the family, Phil at his place.

We are hoping to leave Wednesday and likely be in Stony Point NY around Thursday or Friday (taking our time, pulling a trailer, and then finding a hotel in the area… the latter being mostly likely the most difficult thing we have to accomplish, other than paying for the boat storage, painting and maintenance).

I did create a new photo storage area… if I can remember where it is, so we’ll post some images.

We have NOT taken any photos with friends. Most of them we aren’t going to post images of. Some, like me are rather reluctant to place images up, and for the protection of my friends I won’t do that 🙂 — There’s a good reason for this, which I will not explain on this blog, but suffice it to say the lot of us have had government jobs, held positions we would rather not go into details about or don’t want to have our faces all over the Internet.

Fortunately for those of you reading the blog, I’m one of those free spirits who simply doesn’t care all that much and my “enemies” know how to find me anyway 🙂

LOL

Ok, back to the regularly scheduled blogging.

Tomorrow we get to see Bob for dinner. We have not, to the best of my recollection seen him in 25 years, and JoAnne seems to think it was when we travelled from DC in 1989 moving to Colorado. That means that every time we move to a new home, we get to see Bob I think. Perhaps he and his wife will come see us on the boat next time? We shall see 🙂

The good old Ford F150 is hanging in there with 206467 miles as of tonight. The trailer is handling the trip well. I’m not so sure about my guitar which keeps getting shoved into the truck bed under the shell. It’s pretty hot so, I’m hoping it’s doing ok. I tuned it a couple of days ago and it was off a bit, but was holding it’s notes pretty decently.

Ryan – my friend Ryan whom I had never met until a couple of days ago, is an awesome young man. (I say that because I’m turning 58 in a few days and he’s significantly younger than me), He is, like we are, beer aficionados. While JoAnne and I like to make beer, Ryan likes to buy various types of beers, taste test them, and even post some reviews of various beers.

Before we left, he basically loaded us up with several bottles of various types of beers that he recommended to us. I’m currently enjoying a Bell’s Oberon, from Comstock Michigan. It’s a wheat ale, rather fruity, a little hoppy and a little spicy. Very good stuff!

JoAnne happened to run into a six pack of Root Beer…. ok, well, not really Root Beer. It’s “Not your father’s root beer” – a hard root beer, 5.9% alcohol by volume. I am NOT a fan of Root Beer, however, I tasted it and it was… very wonderful. I can see me making a hard root beet float with it, lol.

The weather, with the exception of a few night time thunderstorms through the travelling has been pretty hot. We’ve had a couple of 100 degree F days. We did have quite a storm come through in Kansas on the way to Missouri, but nothing too bad.

Let me see, what else. Wifi has been a bit of a pain in the behind a few times. We couldn’t get it on our phones more than once and even had to reset our phones a couple of times due to lack of data connections. T-Mobile said they weren’t sure what was happening, but helped me fix things. The idea of our phones is to be able to use them as a hot spot when nothing else is available.

We can’t stay in hotels forever – and we’re hoping to be to the boat by this coming weekend if not sooner.

I’ll write more in a few days.

2015, the Year of Adventure

by

On Friday, 9 January 2015 I made my way through snow, ice and fog to downtown Colorado Springs.  I had some issues doing my online banking.

I worked for several hours in the morning to get everything right, correct, all the T’s crossed, I’s dotted, signatures, dates and so forth.

But, the bank, God love ’em, screwed me again.  Every time I’ve tried to get the accounts right, move money and keep things in an organized fashion, something weird happens.  Friday, it was the final Wire Transfer I needed to make to complete the purchase of a sailboat.

Not just any sailboat, the very boat my wife and I have dreamed about for the last six years.  In fact, she’s exactly the boat that has been envisioned by us both in waking daydreams and long sails in the Caribbean in our night dreams.

The old name of the boat isn’t really important any more.  She’s lived her last year sitting on the hard in a marina in New York and therefore whatever she was before has been washed away by the tides.  We knew her name a few weeks ago, right after I went up for the survey.  JoAnne and I had discussed many things, but the name was not one of them.

In fact, as the blog is called we knew years ago we would call the boat “Winds of Time”.

When I returned from the survey I was talking to her about something and she said something about “going on an adventure”.  JoAnne loves to say that when we get in the Jeep or Truck to go across country or explore something.  In fact, she usually waits until the car is in drive and rolling down the hill from our home to say, “We’re on an ADVENTURE! YAY!” — or words to that effect.  It’s always cute and makes me laugh.

So the thought occurred to be after seeing the boat in person that her real name had come out and not only was it NOT going to be “Winds”.

Of course, yesterday was proving to be an adventure in and of itself.  Bad weather, ice, snow, fog, cold and the bank couldn’t help me fix the problem.  Thus I left work a bit early, jumped in my truck and set off to slide my way from the Air Force Base to home to grab a check book, and then slide my way south and west to downtown to find the bank.  Ended up parking three blocks away from the branch office (this is a large investment bank and of course, there is only one branch here; and I’m lucky it is, otherwise I’d be driving to Denver, or Kansas City or some such place).

After arriving there, the young man that helps me with account information met me in the lobby and proceeded to help me get the wire forms together and eventually, late last night I received word from the broker in Annapolis that everything was finished.  The official close date is Tuesday.  Monday though, we will close as everything is in place.

USCG documentation is being worked for me by a nice lady in West Virginia.  The Delaware Registration will be worked in a few days when the sale is officially complete (and the lady in WV sends me the MD title to get to MD — yeah, even the paperwork has been an ADVENTURE).

Today I awaken, a few dollars poorer, but richer for a beautiful sailing vessel.

The bank got things together.  I got things together.  The broker got things together.  The seller got things together (in fact today he delivers a pallet load of equipment to a storage locker for me, spare parts and so forth). In fact, everything finally came together late last night.

Today, JoAnne and I proudly introduce our new boat, a Formosa 41′, full keeled, heavy displacement ketch;

Adventure

Adventure_Sailing

The picture is from a few years back, with the previous owners I believe, sailing down the Hudson River.  Yep, that’s the Empire State building in the background.  With a bit of luck in a few months, we’ll add our own images as we sail past Lady Liberty further down river.

4544358_20140118225751893_1_XLARGE

Picture of the interior, looking forward. That’s a wood pellet stove on the starboard side, a kerosene lantern in the port foreground.  The wood is gorgeous.  The insides need a good “clean”, dusting, wiping down and perhaps some oil for some of the wood.  The companionway ladder needs a bit of varnish.  Most all of the teak on the outside needs work.

The bilge needs a good pressure wash, a float switch needs replacement and the majority of the running rigging, in particular the halyards should be changed out.  The sails need some work, but eventually we will replace them with a new set.

The standing rigging is in good shape – but I need to get a rigger to the top to do a close up inspection of the head (change lights, and a few minor things).

Obviously things like the zincs need to be replaced, some hose clamps changed out and a couple of lights and switches are broken.

All minor maintenance issues for me.

It was negative 10 degrees when we did the survey.  The boat was on the hard.  We really couldn’t run the engine up but my investigation with the marina staff says the boat ran fine when they put her on land and winterized the vessel.  So, all that remains is filters, oil change, some fresh diesel to make her run.

The bottom should be painted and the boot stripe put back on properly. (The bottom has been soda blasted and was smooth, no blisters and the hull is very sound).

All in all the previous owner took decent care of her.  He was ready to move on (and I guess away from sailing), and we’ll be ready to move aboard and travel as soon as we sell the house this spring.

Fixin’ to begin to commence to start….

by

My mother used to berate my Dad sometimes with the phrase “Imagonna” when she wanted to remind him of something he said he would do, and had not gotten around to doing it just yet.  She’d be upset with him and would be the one to remind him that he wasn’t doing whatever it was with this caustic remark of “Imagonna”.

But Mom had a way of telling us kids she was going to do something, eventually, if we asked her. She used “I’m fixing to begin to commence to start…” meaning to us, she’d get around to it when she was damned good and ready.

On Wednesday last week I spent the better part of eight or night hours actually sitting on an aircraft to head to the location of the boat I’m looking at.  On Thursday morning I sat at breakfast with the surveyor and discussed our attack plan.

By Thursday evening, I was convinced.

It was cold, negative 10 degrees below zero when I arrived and looked at the boat for the first time in person.  I’d “driven around the area” using Google Street view, but couldn’t quite see the boat from the location the Google car had turned around.  So, no sneak previews for me.  Only the images the seller had sent to me via the broker, and those on the various ads I could find.

There was ice on the deck.  The deck covered with tarps.  Did I mention it was cold?  Colder than Colorado, that’s for sure.

I had a “Wow!” moment when I first saw the boat.  It was just as beautiful, if not more-so than the images told me.  In fact, Confucius had it wrong when he said “One picture is worth a thousand words”.  The images tell a lot, but when you’re in person and all you can say is “Wow” I guess that says something too.  A lot.

My second “WOW” moment was on deck.

My last one was when I climbed down the ladder to the cabin.  That was more of a “Triple Wow!”

Basically, the survey went well, everything we checked out was good.  There was some “bad” too though, but mostly things I can deal with without having to resort to professionals.

The most important part was coming away from the survey having watched a professional examine the boat, taking notes and taking pictures and knowing his evaluation would give me the confidence to go forward.

We stand awaiting the survey report and in a short time we’ll “be fixin’ to begin to commence to start” our trip to the Islands.

More to follow….

Buying a Boat

by

We just were notified that the Seller of the boat we’re interest in has accepted our offer.

<faint>

Ok. I’m better now.  Time for a survey.  Surveyor is notified, will get back to me shortly with possible dates.  I’ll get back with probably flight and hotel information.

 

With luck weather won’t be horrible.  We’ll likely waive a sea trial.  Too late in the season.  Speaking to both insurance companies and the surveyor, they can do the best job on the hard anyway.  Short of ensuring the boat doesn’t sink, or masts don’t fall off in waves.  Anyway, at this point, I’ll take it. Spoke to a mechanic at the marina who worked on the boat when the boat was hauled.  Said he took care of tightening bolts, checking some hoses and clamps and then winterizing the engine and it starts and runs fine.  He was not sure of the oil changes or any of that.

I’ll personally check that stuff out.  No responses on any maintenance logs, and I doubt I will find any.

On the good side, I’ve spoken to several people who have been on this boat, seen it and even know the owner.  He gets high marks for being picky about the boat and caring for it at this point.  But thus far, I’ve seen only pictures and pictures might be worth a thousand words in the mind of Confucius, but I prefer seeing something in real life, living color.

Stay Tuned.

Storm Chasing

by

Spent about 20 years storm chasing Mesoscale disturbances.  Have started watching hurricanes, if only through charts, maps, satellite images and computer data for the past 3-4 years. So I’m watching this new disturbance off the north east coast of Venezuela at the moment.

Looks to me, from all the weather charts I looked through this thing will probably develop to tropical storm level but the huge High Pressure system in the Atlantic might break into two pieces pushing west and east and forcing the storm system to move north across some of the Islands then push north east into the North Atlantic.

I’m no meteorologist of course and far from an expert on this stuff – but am trying to get better at it.  Let’s just see what it does.

 

This live satellite loop tracks the movement of the disturbance and shows the showers and thunderstorms approaching the Lesser Antilles.

 

Accuweather is saying something similar to me.  I think the storm will head to the right most path in the image below, at least roughly – affecting eastern PR but no further west.