Janurary 5, 2016 projects North Palm Beach, FL

Today I took laundry to the marina laundry facility again.  I’m not sure what we would have done for 2 weeks if we didn’t have Bob and Olivia as such gracious hosts.  We may have started doing laundry by hand.  I also was able to catch up on my blog.

Dave worked on projects with his new parts that he bought yesterday.  He mounted our stern dinghy light onto the 4 foot PVC pipe.  Next he will have to make a mount on the stern of the dinghy.  He plans to use a fish rod holder for it to can stand in.   Of course that will come in handy as a fishing rod holder, too.

Dave has been debating on whether to have fresh water or sea water for our wash down at the bow.  Today he disconnected the wash down pump from the fresh water.  He will change that to sea water in a future project.  After cleaning your anchor and chain with sea water, you can always get a bucket of fresh water to do the final rinse.  The way it is set up now, we waste a lot of fresh water rinsing mud and seaweed off of our anchor and chain that just came out of sea water.

Then he spent some time on the SSB getting weather forecasts.

January 4, 2016 North Palm Beach errands

This morning, Dave rearranged out aft cabin.  He changed it from a guest room back to a garage.  At least we can make room for at least one person to sleep there.  And being a teenager, Devyn appreciated having a place where she could sleep in while they were here this weekend. 

About 1:00, we went to shore via Bob and Olivia’s boat.  Dave has been having trouble downloading the updates for our charts with the sketchy wifi we get at the boat.  So he brought both our mac and PC to update at their boat.  After he had one running (only one 3 prong plug), we joined them to run errands. 

We went to Home Depot.  Dave needed 4 feet of  PVC pipe to make a taller pole for our light on the dinghy.  The way the aft white light is now, it shines in your eyes.  So he is going to mount that higher.  And it will be easier for others to see.  Well, you can by PVC in 2 foot or 10 foot sections.  So we bought the 10 foot, had them cut it, but had to take both pieces with us.  They wouldn’t even throw away the 6 foot section for us.

He also needed a drill bit, a socket and a brass fitting.  We decided to pick up another car charger for our phones.  I think we left one in the U-Haul truck we rented to help Dave’s mom move. 

Then we went to Walmart.  We had a few odd items we needed, like replacing expired medications in our first aide kit.  Then I picked up only a couple bags of groceries.  We are pretty well set to go to the Bahamas, so it is mostly perishable items that we are consuming before we leave.

We went back to their boat and Dave started the other update on the other computer.  While he was doing that, I taught Bob and Olivia how to play Left, Right, Center with 5 dice and 5 quarters.  There is a game you can buy called LRC, but you can use regular dice too.  For those that are interested, you start with 5 quarters each.  The first person shakes all five dice.  They pass a quarter to the left for each 6 they roll, a quarter to the right for each 5 they roll, and put a die in the center for each 4 they roll.  If they roll a 3, 2, or 1, those are safe.  Then the turn passes to the left.  Each person rolls the same number of dice that matches the number of quarters they have, but 5 is the most you would roll, even if you had 8 quarters.  So if you only have 3 quarters, you only roll 3 dice.  It continues until there is only one person with dice.  They still have to roll to be sure they are safe.  If on their last roll, they have to pass to the right or left, the game continues.  If the last roll if a 4, the money goes in the center and a new game is started with double the winnings.  Or you could divide it our and start over-make your own house rules.  If their last roll is a 3, 2, or 1, they win the money in the center.  What makes this game so fun is that you could be out, but get back in if someone passes you a quarter.  They really  liked it.  We played 3 rounds.  I won the first round.  The second round ended with the last quarter going in the middle.  Then Bob won the last round, so he won a double pot.  Of course he loved it.  Since they didn’t have any dice on their boat, I left 5 with them. 

Then we decided to go over to the Sandpiper restaurant on the marina property for their happy hour.  We had a couple beers, their firecracker shrimp and smoked fish dip appetizers.  Of course, they knew Bob and Olivia by name. 

It was probably 6:00 and dark by the time we returned to our boat.  We have an LED light hanging in our cockpit that automatically comes on at dusk.  But we didn’t have our anchor light on or a light with us in the dinghy.  So we are glad that we anchored close by. 

Janurary 3, 2016 Church and other boats anchored out

Jan 3, 2016
This morning, Dave took me to the dinghy dock landing about a mile from the catholic church.  It thought I was doing good getting there at 10:50 for the 11:00 mass.  Then I saw the sign out front say the mass was at 10:45 and when I reached the door, they were singing the processional hymn.  Good thing I over estimated the time it would take. 

After church and walking back, Dave picked me up.  It really felt good to go for a walk.  We stopped at another boat in the anchorage that we recognized.  The boat belonged to a man we met in the Abacos last winter.  He was crew for us in the race we participated in.  We visited about an hour about where we both had been since last April and what our future plans were.  He is going to help crew a boat with a couple he met from England.  They just passed through the Panama canal.  He is going to join them there then sail to the islands in the south Pacific with them.  There are all kinds of opportunities out there. 


Ok, here is a funny story of another boat in the anchorage.  While I was at church, Dave was sitting in the cockpit working on the computer.  He noticed a power boat anchored up wind from us that was dragging anchor and heading towards our boat.  He was about to sound a horn to get the boater's attention when he saw a guy come up buckling his pants.  He moved the boat further away from us and reset the anchor just by dropping it straight down, not really setting the anchor, and headed below again.  Well Dave figured the guy was just going to the bathroom and stopping only long enough to do that.  Well it started dragging anchor and moving near us again, because he didn't really set the anchor.  All the while, Dave sees his head popping up occasionally to check where they were positioned.  Pretty soon the guy comes up again bucking his pants and right after him a lady appears.  They bring up the anchor and take off.  I guess this is where you have a "quickie" on Lake Worth.

January 2, 2016 Good bye to good friends

After a a casual morning, we went to shore about 10:30 with the Killion’s small amount of luggage.  Bob and Olivia had friends at Sanibel marina near Cape Coral that called yesterday to discuss their boat problems.  Their air conditioner’s sea water pump had gone bad.  Bob had a spare and wondered if Brian and Jackie could take it home with them.  Then their friend would pick it up.  No problem.

Then to be sociable, and as a thank you for letting the Killion’s be their guest so they could park at the marina, we all played a game of Chase the Ace for $1 per person.  The Killions had fun learning the game.  But it was taking too long to play it to completion.  So we decided to let the person with the highest card win with the next hand.  Olivia won!  She seems to be so lucky with this game.  And she gets such joy out of playing it (and winning). 

We were going to go to Walmart and lunch before the Killions had to leave at 2:00.  Since it was now a little later, we just went out for lunch.  Then they dropped us off and headed home. 

We headed back to the boat and hung out with no brain projects.  Dave sat outside to try to get a better wifi connection and updated charts.  I worked on clearing up my photos.  After going though so many extra hard copy photos before moving aboard, I am trying to stay on top of deleting photos on my phone and in the computer.  Plus it takes up so much storage on either of them.




Brian ended up delivering the part to the friends in Sanibel.  They had to pick up a car that was being worked on and he was close anyway.  He enjoyed touring their $480,000 boat that was for sale.  It was a power yacht with 3 cabins, a full kitchen, full living room and a huge navigation area inside.  It's fun to see how some of these people live.

January 1, 2016 Lake Worth, FL

Happy New Year!
Being good examples for 17 year old Devyn, we went to church at 11:00.  Afterwards, we stopped at Publix to pick up something to grill on the boat today, plus a few odd things I needed.  We went back to the marina and visited with Bob and Olivia for about 30-45 minutes.  They are such gracious hosts. 

We had thought about taking the boat somewhere today, but by now it was about 3:00.  So we decided to just stay put and enjoy each others company.  We grilled brats and chicken to cover a couple meals since our timing was so off already.  The guys enjoyed talking boats and whatever.  And the girls enjoyed playing games and talking about whatever.  I introduced them to Tenzi, a new game I bought in SD in November.  It is a dice game with 10 dice per person.  Jackie had the great idea of putting a towel over the table.  It cut down on the noise, but also the dice didn’t bounce off the table.  And since we were playing in the cockpit with an open walk trough transom, it cut back my worrying about a die going overboard.

December 31, 2015 Change in weather and plans

Dave listened to Chris Parker’s radio broadcast this morning.  He usually predicts the worse case scenarios.  We discussed the pros and cons.  After feeling equally good about staying vs going, we decided to stay.   The vision of our heavily provisioned boat pounding the waves at anchor wasn’t very pretty.  If we were wrong about staying, oh well.  We would get to enjoy another week in Florida.  If we were wrong in deciding to go, we could damage our boat or our bodies.  We are anxious to get there, but there was nothing we had to be there for THIS WEEK.

Dave had just talked to Brian Killion in Cape Coral, FL yesterday to tell him we were leaving.  We give them our “float plan” whenever we are moving the boat.  And Brian said “if you change your mind for any reason, let us know.  We’ll come spend New Year’s with you.”    So…Dave gave Brian a call about 9:00.  About a half hour later, Jackie called to work out the details.  They couldn’t leave until later, but would still make it tonight between 8 & 9:00.  We have spent New Year’s Eve with the Killions for YEARS.  We went to their home in Cape Coral the last 2 years.  And before that, they would come to our home in Rapid City. 

Now we had to ask Bob and Olivia for another favor.  And yes, it would be no problem to register them as guest of theirs so they could park in the marina parking lot and access our boat through their slip.  We really owe them.

I spent the day going through our ditch bag.  We purchased a Sirius Signal this year.  It is a battery run light source that replaces the flares.  It can be used several times when you see a  boat or airplane.  A flare is lighted and over with the chance that no one saw it.  The food and water are in good shape.   We checked all the batteries in our VHF radio and GPS and our spare batteries and added batteries for the Sirius Signal.  We replaced Dave’s prescription drugs with new ones.  I put our medical kit in a ziplock bag.  Funny the things you think about each time you go through it.  We’re going to add sunglasses and hats now that there is more room.  And we’re going to add an additional strap that would easily attach to the life boat.  Because this bag would sink to the bottom of the ocean with me hanging on to it.

I am also putting together a list of things we would take if we had time to gather things. Then you don’t have to think about it at the time.  We have a dry bag that we could add phones, wallets, passports (we already have copies of them in the bag) clothing, extra food and water.  The movie “the Jerk” comes to mind.  “and all I need to take is this, and this….”  You have to know that everything on the boat could be lost, and you have to wrap your head around that and be ok with it. 

Our navigation area (nav station) has a counter top meant for laying charts or a computer for navigation.  Well, when we are stationary, this becomes a work bench.  There are tools and parts for whatever Dave is working on at the time.  But when we are moving, this table gets cleared off.  It looked a little dusty in the corners, so I decided to clean off the surface.  That let to “what’s in this compartment” and this one, and this drawer.  So the 5 storage areas were gutted and cleaned.  You know how you have those drawers that collect all kinds of things that you don’t want to take the time to put away in the proper place?  Well, now that’s done.  I don’t think they’ve been organized since we moved aboard 2 years ago. 

We went to shore to pick up Brian, Jackie and Devyn Killion about 8:30 pm.  We came back to the boat and visited until midnight.  Then we went out on the deck of the boat and watched fireworks all around us.  Lots of people were shouting Happy New Year and used noise makers from the surrounding condos.  But the coolest was the trumpets that sounded from some of the big yachts in the marina. 

Happy New Year!!

December 30, 2015 Last minute projects before crossing

Checking our many weather sources, it looks like tomorrow will be a weather window to cross to the Bahamas!!!  So it’s time to tie up loose ends.

I made an egg dish in muffin tins this morning that we can just heat and eat while at sea.  Then I called another boating friend that we met in GA, Gloria, to get some local knowledge about the Bahamas.  She and her husband have been going there for years.  She is from West Palm Beach.  We asked her details about checking in to customs at Walker Cay instead of Green Turtle Cay, as we did last year.  We just hope they will be open on Saturday, Jan 2.  We can’t leave the boat until we have checked in. 

Today, Dave tore apart the saloon area to chase down a small leak in our CruiseRO water maker.  The pump in question is in the bilge under our dinette table.  He had to take down our table and pull up the floor boards.  There are two long membranes in the shape of tubes about 3 feet long and 4” in diameter that the sea water is forced through by a high pressure pump.  Dave pulled the membranes out into the open so he could check it out and watch is as the water maker ran.  The only thing he found were loose fittings, which could all have added up to the small amount of water we were seeing in the bilge.  So he tightened all the fittings and put everything back into place.  He also noticed that there were a couple hoses in an area of friction that were showing some wear.  So he repositioned those before they could be damaged.  It just reminds you that you have to check things periodically, even if they are hidden.

While the water maker was running, he moved on to another project.  Our out board motor for the dinghy is mounted on a piece of starboard on our stern.  We have seen starboard bend and then break with a rudder in the past.  So Dave reinforced the starboard with a piece of aluminum.  He broke a drill bit in the process.  He coated the aluminum with Lanacoat so it wouldn’t rust. 

you can see the curvature of the starboard motor mount

coating with Lanacoat

nicely reinforced

About 6:00 this evening, I was checking with Gloria on one other thing about crossing to the Bahamas.  She answered, but also mentioned that there was a change in the weather.  When Chris Parker’s report come out this evening, he was warning of strong gale force winds that could hit the Abacos by Monday and last all week. 

We discussed the pros and cons of leaving vs waiting and decided to sleep on it.