Hot Pink Tank

We are In Vero Beach Florida. Decided to stop here again on our way back north. We like the mooring here and it is quiet and peaceful.  Went to beach yesterday, city bus comes right through here and picks us up and then drops off is right at beach front.  It is nice when you don't have a vehicle.  After the beach we went in search of ice cream.  Found an ice cream shoppe, it was delicious, my second cone was anyway.  I was trying to juggle stuff around in my hands when my cone fell out of my hand and landed upside down on the floor.  I hadn't even had a bite yet.  Man did I laugh it was hysterical. Joe just looked at me and said Mary Mary Mary. The wonderful clerk at the counter made me up another one free of charge.  There isn't a day goes by that something happens.
While provisioning yesterday I came across a scuba shop.  Now if you remember I got a red scuba tank for Christmas.  But we needed another one so we can dive together. I found one at a good price I called Joe and he said to go ahead a get it.  Well you see my scuba equipment is pink and the red scuba tank just clashed with my stuff so I bought a hot pink tank.  Have to look stylish even when diving.  I think I will let Joe have the red one.  Joe just shook his head that I got the pink one.  Oh well!!!  He also said that if his tank was empty he was not going to be seen using my hot pink stylish tank and that if that happened I would have to scrape the bottom of the boat.  We will see if that will happen.

Starfish

We are out on the Atlantic today sailing north in the Gulf Stream outside Miami sailing towards Ft. Lauderdale.  It is sunny and 80 winds are about 5 to 10, we could use a little more.  Joe just informed me that our depth is 875 feet.  We have been in Miami and Key Biscayne for the last three weeks enjoying the wonderful weather and spending time with our sailing friends on Spindrift.  They left Monday to go back to Virginia Beach where they both live.  We miss seeing them in the mornings. Did I mention they had a runaway dinghy too.  Yes it ran away from their boat.  After that they could not tease us about rescuing ours after it ran away.  Had some good times with Rick and Sandy we plan on getting with them next fall and heading out to the big blue yonder.

Spent most of our anchored time in No Name Harbor, a popular cruisers stop going to and from the Bahamas. It was a nice calm anchorage but there was always one boat partying and playing their bang bang music way toooooo loud!  Last night was no exception. The beach in the park here is nice there is a shelter here, restrooms, a washer and dryer and an outdoor shower ( cold water, activated by a pull chain) refreshing after snorkeling or hiking. Park contains the original Cape Florida lighthouse, which we got to go up inside and get a birds eye view from the top.  Quite an amazing sight from 90 feet in the air.  It was 109 steps to the top,  good work out.  We did some snorkeling and found some conch and giant starfish, I will include pictures.  Mostly sea grass beds not too much coral but some small pieces and some sponges.  We did spend 2 and 1/2 days at Dinner Key Marina where we had the awesome experience (sarcasm) of being on a mooring ball there,  it was like being on a 36 foot rocking horse on springs.  Key Biscayne is not very protected on that side of the bay from any direction.  We endured only because our mail was being sent to the marina, and we were off the boat as much as possible.  Dinghy rides in were wet and rocky.  We will not stay there again.

 Internet has been non consistent here so it is hard to post my blog.  

We began to replace the starboard stern cleat but due to limited space to get our drill in the lazzarette we have put that on hold until we can get a smaller drill.  So we are without a starboard cleat right now.   All other boat project are on hold until we get electric to run power tools. 

The other morning we were sitting in the cockpit reading and our boat neighbor on their Beneteau 48, Buoyant, Lee and Heidi from New Jersey, Lee was tring to get his motor on his dinghy we were not paying too much attention but we heard a splash.  Joe looks up and says is that what I think it sounded like.  And yep Lee dropped his dinghy motor in the water and it sinks to Davey Jones locker.  Lee went and sat down didn't say a word.  About 10 minutes later Joe goes over and offers to dive down and recover the motor.  He gladly accepted help and Joe was successful in recovering the motor about 1/2 an hour later.  They offered to take us to lunch which we accepted and had a wonderful time over wine, beers and good food.   We have decided to put a lifting bridle on our own dinghy motor so this does not happen to us.  

TTFN

Day of the Iguanas and horses

Let me back up a minute from the last blog post.  When we Left Lake Worth Joe decided to change head sails from the normal 120 to the 150 jib due to the lighter winds.  Well the jib is buried in the v-berth under our bed and is a pain in the ass to get to.  But Joe was determined to use that sail so he tore up the bed and the entire boat he was also digging into the quarter berth for something I do not remember.  While we are underway he takes down our 120 and proceeds to put up the 150.  Well as all things go it did not go smoothly.  He pulled it up then it would stop and twist the track. Then he tried again and again and again and again etc.  A few choice words were floating back to me at the helm while this process was going on.  He was traipsing back and fourth from bow to stern trying different things to raise the sail.  He took a break in there somewhere to get water and cool down both his body and his temper.  He finally switched something around and forced it up and then it was too long.  We had never put this particular sail up on the boat before.  He then had to take it down again and remove the cables.  I think he had it up and down a total of 8 times but he finally succeeded. And I was not too happy about the mess he had left the cabin in so he cleaned that up after we stopped for the day and he made the bed too.  I was not going to do it I did not make the mess!!! 

Upon getting to our most rocky and lumpy anchorage in Miami we headed out in our dinghy for a look around they have canals here through the city so we could dinghy close to the grocery store or even get closer to the beach.  It is really cool, did not know that about Miami.  Next day we go to this small Island, Bell Island we found out later, near our anchorage I take my camera because we see a monument there and we are curious.  We beach park the dinghy get out and start to explore.  It has a nice beach area and paths that go into the palm trees and sea grapes.  We are just walking along and Joe is in front of me well I see something dash out of a hole in the ground and run up lickety split up the nearest palm tree.  It scared the shit out of me but I got a look at it it was a green iguana about 25 to 30 inches long.  I guess the live on the island and they have grown huge.  After I yell at Joe about what I saw we look up in the palm tree and we can just see his head.   After a few minutes we hear another one.  We then start walking slowly and stopped talking so loud.  I break into my australian accent about us stalking and finding giant iguanas about 20 minutes later Joe sees an iguana kicking sand out of it's den so we sneak up on it and I have my camera ready,  it's a big one about 30 inches, I get some great shots till he runs away into the bush.  Crique it was fun mate, that's a little Australian lingo, lol.
About an hour later we go to get a few provisions, we dinghy up the canal,  across the street from Publix walk across and shop walk back across the street and we are done.  Easiest provisioning we have done yet. we see more iguanas laying on the ledges of the canal getting some sun we even see one coming out of the drain pipe.  Later that day we are going to dinner and we show Rick and Sandy the iguanas near the canal.  When they went to Bell Island they did not see any.  We have since seen more, even today we moved to no name harbor and they are running all over the place.
We took one afternoon and walked down to the infamous South Beach with Rick and Sandy.  Wow were there tons of people there.  Could have been that it was Easter week?  HMMMM. We were also privileged to see part of a Grand Prix horse jumping event that was being held right there on the beach.  They set up a big arena right on the beachfront it was free to watch.  There were horsemen and women from all over the world participating even former Olympians.  What a great thing to happen upon during our stay in Miami.   I will post pictures of Iguanas and horses later.  TTFN

Rocky days

It has been a busy week for us.
First we got Draco ready to leave Stuart.  We are  heading for the keys.  The weather window is good so we are taking off.  Leaving with our buddy boat and now good friends on Spindrift.  Rick Flack and Sandy Parrish (and dog Twinkles).  First stop was Peck Lake a good anchorage, we have been to before, about 2 hours away.  We anchored here for afternoon and evening.  Joe and I went and walked on the beach looking for turtle nesting sites and the DNR had several marked out no hatching's yet. Left next day early and headed for Lake Worth still on the ICW, about 30 miles.  Had to go through 6 bridges and some pretty tight quarters with some very large boats.  Some of the boats were headed home from the West Palm Beach Boat Show. We anchored for night and took dinghy over to Peanut Island, took a long walk around the Island.  Found out later it used to be an emergency bunker for President Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis.  Went back to boat and Joe put on his snorkel gear and went under the boat.  While we were at Peck Lake we heard a scraping sound under the boat and though we may have caught on something but the underside of the boat was clear.  Joe scraped the barnacles off the prop and we were good to go.  Next morning we left at 7:15 A.M. and headed out the Lake Worth cut to the Atlantic Ocean we were finally going to get off the ICW and do some ocean sailing.  Sun was coming up on the clear horizon as we motored Draco out into the blue green ocean the winds were about 5 out of the north but we hoisted sail anyway.  Put a preventer line on the main and turned south.  As the day went on the winds got a little better and clocked around to the ENE but we got rocked buy some pretty serious wakes from bigger boats.  Things below went flying but we found out what we needed to stow away. We went about 50 miles at 4 to 6 miles per hour it took all day, motored into Ft. Lauderdale into Lake Sylvia.  OMG you should see the huge mega yachts and homes around the canals in Ft. Lauderdale. It was a long rocky day.  Looked at charts cooked dinner and went to bed early.   Didn't have the energy to launch the dinghy and look around just drooled in passing.  Next day got up left at 8:00 A.M. headed for Miami.  No winds today so we motored the entire way.
Going to bed will finish the rest of story which gets better tomorrow.  TTFN.

St. Pat's Day

Still in Stuart Florida waiting for a weather window to head south to Keys.
We rented a car last week and drove to Savannah to see Tim, Morgan and dog Zelda.  It happen to be St. Patrick's day so we went downtown to see the 2nd largest St. Patrick's Day parade in the USA second only to NYC.  Tim's Army unit ( Go Calvary!) were marching in the parade.   We only stayed for part of the parade then we headed to where Morgan works then went and had Cuban food.  No corned beef and cabbage for this girl,  blah.  Joe and Tim repaired our truck and Morgans car while we were visiting  I cooked and baked and took care of Zelda, she is a 5 month old German Sheppard, and a brat.  Just like having an overactive 2 year old that does not know the word no. But she is a cutie when she wants to be.  Sunday here at the Marina they had an end of season party. All of the people who spend the winter here are heading back north complete with burgers, dogs and $1 beer.  Today I sanded teak on the deck and put some varnish on it.  Only 4 more coats to go.it is not hard just takes time and a lot of taping.  Going over to our neighbors boat tonight they pulled in a couple of days ago and the have an Islander 36 like ours.  We do not see many of our model boats here.  It is cool to see what they have done to their boats and get new ideas for ours. So this is a short blog today.  TTFN

God Bless America Lollipop

New companionway doors

Rebecca, Carlie, Chuck, Joe

The weather here is still being most cooperative in the 80's almost everyday which makes living aboard so much easier.  The boat projects have continued.  After the 11 inches of rain we received here two weeks ago, and all the leaks we had, we decided to re seat all of the side stays, all the experts say this needs done every 3 to 5 years, when it rained the other day again we did not see any leaks so maybe that solved the problem, we can only hope. We finished up the new companionway doors that we built in Ladys Island. It is so nice not to have to pull the hatch boards out everyday. Complete with smoked acrylic windows and screens we can see right into the cockpit from below.  Now we just swing the doors open.  We put pull apart hinges on them so we could remove them whenever we want.  They look great.  Joe finished hooking up the hot water heater to the engine so now when we run the engine each day to charge the battery banks we have hot water.  He also changed the oil and cleaned the fuel filter system, I made myself scarce when he is doing that.  Last Wednesday we took the boat over to the fuel dock, Joe put on his dive gear and went under the boat to replace the zincs and scrape the bottom.  He said it wasn't too bad, that was good news, we will have to bottom paint this summer though and that means we have to pull the boat out of the water. We also took on water and washed the boat down.   Our water tanks hold 50 gallons of water and if we conserve we can last 2 weeks.  Which is not too bad.  We also have 2 - 5 gallon water containers which we fill also when needed.
Last week I got my hull cleaning products, buckets and scrubbers out put everything in the dinghy and cleaned the entire hull of the boat.  Took me a couple of hours the wind was blowing 15 to 18 so it was kind of wavy during the process but I finished what I could.  I could not get the black streaks off the sides so when we go to provision next time I will have to get something to clean those off.  Then Draco will get a much needed wax job.  After that is done it is on to sanding and staining the teak on the outside of the boat, 2 hand rails and an eyebrows and the teak around the companionway so it won't be too bad.  The maintenance project list is getting shorter at the top but we keep adding more to the bottom. it is nice to cross some off the list but the list never ends.
We had visitors last week as well from St. Louis. Our niece, Rebecca, nephew, Chuck and our great nephew Charlie came to see us, they were enjoying the Cardinals training camp in Jupiter Florida.  Only about 30 minutes away, they drove up and spent the night on the boat with us.  Charlie is 3 and he talked and talked, I think he will be a Cardinals fan for life.  He would be telling you something and then blurt out GO CARDS!!!! then he would continue on with what he was saying.  We were walking in downtown Stuart with them on Friday night and Charlie starts singing God Bless America. A few people looked at him and some even joined in the singing. We all got a good laugh out of that one.  Next morning when we were raising the flag on the boat we let Charlie pull it up and we all joined in singing God Bless America.
For some unknown reason Charlie was calling us all lollipop when he was playing peek through the hatches at us on the boat.  His little blonde head would stick through the forward hatch and say hey you lollipop,he was so cute. We had some tootsie pops on the boat so before he left I stuck one in his pocket and called him a lollipop. I hope he can have candy???  They left early on Saturday so they could get to the Cardinals batting practice and game against the Twins then they were heading for Tampa.  The time together was too short and we did not get to take them sailing but we hope they come back soon. Thanks for coming to see us.  That's all I have for today.  TTFN

Run away Dinghy!

Hey All
Well we survived and cleaned up the almost 11 inches of rain we received in Stuart on Saturday. Not all of it ended up inside the boat but we had some significant leaks. Wow what a deluge.  Next morning the laundry area here was waiting room only but we are now clean and dry inside the boat.  Our dinghy during the storm accumulated all that rain,  It was running out the back it was so full we ended up bailing it out with a bucket and we decided not to waste all the fresh water so we got the boat soap out it was still the raining but not as hard, we scrubbed, washed and rinsed the dinghy down then we started on the side of the boat we scrubbed off some black marks and rinsed it down with the fresh rain water from the dinghy.  When you are cruising you have to be creative at all times.
Oh the run away dinghy story (we really do need a name) we came back from shopping and I tied off the dinghy as usual, can't blame this one on Joe, to the side of the boat, we were going back in to shore in an hour.  I came on deck and no dinghy I called down to Joe and said where's the dinghy.  He came on deck and our dinghy was gone it ran away from home.  We looked around the mooring field and see it floating about 100 yards of our stern.  Oh and it had our brand new scuba tank in it that Joe bought me for Christmas.  I look over to our friend and boat neighbors, Rick and Sandy, and see they are getting into his dinghy and I waved him down he motors over and when I asked he if he could go get our dinghy we all have a good laugh.  They were kind enough to rescue our no name transport and bring it back home.  The 3 of them had great fun making jokes all night about our run away dinghy.
We left Stuart yesterday and headed about 15 miles south to Peck Lake, It is just off the ICW we anchored here not before we ran aground hard in 6 feet of water, our draft is 6.3.  ARRRGGHHH!
Other boats anchored here saw what happened and came over in there dinghies to offer assistance.  We tried to back off we tried to go forward finally other cruisers in their dinghies got our bow line and got us turned around and after about a 45 minute ordeal we were freed up and found and anchorage in deeper water.   Me and another guy were pushing the boat from our dinghies from behind.  It was our friend Rick who finally got us pulled free.  We sure did put on a good show for all the people anchored here.
It is a short ride to the shore, which is a nature preserve, jump onto shore walk about 50 yards and we are on the beach on the Atlantic ocean.  Going to beach today with a picnic lunch and a blanket.  DOLPHIN
focus Mary focus.  TTFN