2009 Log
2/15 to 2/28/2009
This is our log for 2009; our other voyages are in Prior Voyages.
We plan to post and update at least weekly. We move the older portions of the log to history; pages accessible at the bottom of the page. Join our voyage!
Updated on 01/28/2011
|
2/16/09 - Got up to a rising sun in a cloudless sky. Just cool enough last night for a little dew. Last day of the show. As we ate breakfast scattered light showers approached. It is official, Jake the Rooster has been exiled from Neenah after months of consternation, publication, negotiation, and litigation. Took so long that in hindsight Bill's thinking "Should have bought a pet fox." Monday was a slow day though we sold one of our highest priced products... that was neat. Most conspicuously absent were Latin and South American buyers. Strictly Sail in Chicago saw an attendance drop of only 3%. It is going to be interesting to see the numbers for the Miami show. Several new boats were sold, hopefully financing will be available. We understand that most of the deals in Annapolis soured when the buyers couldn't get loans. We had Maeve and Bradd over for dinner after they packed up their booth. Soon we'll likely be going our own ways as they meet up with their kids in Lauderdale before heading to Cuba and we prep for the Bahamas. 2/17/09 - Another cool sunny day. By 1 pm solar and wind had fully recharged our battery bank. We tried running the 110v water heater off the inverter but decided the draw on the battery bank was too high. Ten minutes of engine time heats the water quite nicely. We're taking a down day, lying at anchor and reading while we enjoy the cool temperature and sunshine. Sampatecho headed to Lauderdale for a new boom, having broken their original one in Cuba. Two of their kids will join them there for a visit. Brad Abbott, Ames Point Boatworks, sent me photos of the Bremer 25 I helped build two winters ago for use in an article I'm drafting. It turned out to be a beautiful boat (as one would expect of an Ames Point project). Bradd & Maeve took us to dinner at the Miami Yacht Club near our anchorage. Great meal and reasonably priced. The club is not pretentious, made up of real people. 2/18/09 - Beautiful morning with a light breeze, Buddy joined Ruth in the cockpit for her early coffee. Wind all night resulted in our batteries being only 41amp hours down, about 60% the normal drop. I took the dinghy to South Beach, visiting Ariel to she how she was fairing (well) in Miles and Laureen's absence. Later in the day we moved AA, anchoring across the channel from Ariel in a spot we've used before. If past experience is an indicator we should have a police visit tomorrow making sure we understand their 7 day anchoring limit. At the marina Don told me the story of his friend that sought refuge from strong winds with another vessel in a small lagoon nearby only to have a homeowner come out and tell them they couldn't. The boater replied that as he understood maritime law he was legal. When the homeowner started threatening him he called the marine police. The homeowner went ashore and called the land police (both sets of officers from South Beach PD). Two patrol cars and two patrol boats quickly arrived. The police acknowledged the rights of the boaters... the irate home owner waited until dark then turned on a high intensity spot light, illuminating the boats all night. Due to high winds the boat stayed there 7 nights. (The landowner has a local reputation as being a wacko.) 2/19/09 - Steady wind kept the batteries' tanks from draining much - 51 amp hours. A sunny cloudless morning greeted us. Today I worked on Ariel's dinghy chaps. We towed the dinghy to Flagler Memorial Island and did a test fitting on the beach along with a rough cut on the lower panels. Tomorrow will be a sewing day, probably the next day too as the dinghy is proving to be a hard fit. We learned that another WI friend is preparing for breast cancer surgery... our prayers are with her - they appear to have caught it early. She's a strong, positive lady - a critical factor in recovery. The wind came up early evening as it switched to the NW, another cold front coming. They are forecasting nights in the low 40's for Miami. Diesel heater time! As the wind switches north we may move again for more shelter. 2/20/09 - Wind from the north swung us into shallower water resulting in a few gentle bumps and nudges last night as AA played with the bottom. After lunch we moved to an anchorage by Flagler Memorial and 10.5' of water. Worked on the dinghy cover, it is turning out to be a gnarly job, a learning experience,,, I have learned. Tomorrow I should be where I thought I was 4 days ago. We talked to Maeve & Bradd in Lauderdale via phone, two of their kids are aboard and the boat is getting prepared for a run to Cuba to further help their hurricane ravaged friends. Hope we can get together and see everyone before they head to their respective destinations. We really like this anchorage by Flagler Island. It is pretty and the island is great for pulling the dinghy up and working. The monument lit up last night about 9pm. It was beautiful, white with a slight cast of pink. The shadows cast on the column by the statues were striking black against white. 2/21/09 - Puffy cotton balls drifted across the cool dawn sky this morning. We turned on the diesel heater last night but it didn't get cold enough for it to fire up... perfect sleeping night, only got down to 49. A couple of power boats anchored near us during the night. Spent the day on chaps. They are finally shaping up. Tomorrow should finish them off. Sure would attack them differently next time. Ruth got in some beach glassing and exploring on the Flagler Memorial Island. She found a few treasures to add to her collection. 2/22/09 - Very calm last night, virtually no wind to charge our batteries. We may have to run a short time today for hot water and to top the batteries. We're still figuring out a pattern of usage and generating. One thing for sure, we could easily manage it so we did not have to run the engine. Currently we're still energy hogs, the coffee maker is the worse, followed by the computer, then the remaining lights that are not LEDs. I worked on the chaps for about 4 hours and took the rest of the day off to read with Ruth and listen to the music. We've had some great Latin music the past two days and nights. Karaoke is apparent big here and the boats have microphones as part of their mega sound systems. Some of the Spanish singers were great, some looked great in their tiny bikinis... others were just inebriated. Only drawback was they went from 10am to 3am. 2/23/09 - Woke to an overcast sky. We ran the engine for the first time in a couple of days while we made coffee as we felt the solar would not be up to par and we wanted hot water. I was able to finish the chaps by 2pm. While I did final fittings and sewing Ruth glassed the island finding two burger beans from Africa. It is amazing that they arrive on this little island all the way from Africa. The two beans are perfectly sized for jewelry, a great find. While she was glassing Ruth cleaned litter from the island. A group of men working on the monument told her she should get a medal for her efforts. She felt rewarded every time she found a broken bottle in the kids wading area, imagining what would happen if someone stepped on it. We moved back to anchor off Sunset Harbour Yacht Club and returned Ariel's dinghy. There are a couple of small details to finish after I discuss them with Miles. For a first time revealed picture of Miles' dinghy in chaps - look right. 2/24/09 - A couple of light showers woke us last night (on the boat we're much more aware of weather than we were on land). Speaking of weather, we've started watching the fronts and the gulf stream in preparation for planning our crossing. We took it easy today. I did a couple of boat maintenance tasks and we cleaned the interior ending up with a small box of stuff to give away. Then it was time for a redraft of a home page for another party's website and reading. A manatee wandered by in search of some good grazing. Apparently she felt the pickings were better further along and didn't linger. I still marvel that ancient sailors thought they were mermaids.... oohhhh nooo! 2/25/09 - Partly cloudy, windy and cool; another cold front moved in last night. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee grabbed Ruth by a nostril and dragged her our of bed. Read Obama's speech... interesting. One issue was excessive debt, one solution was to free up lending... okay... doesn't that create more debt? Definitely have an interesting 4 to 10 year period ahead of us. I guess Ruth and I are doing our part, staying debt free, using a fraction of the fuel we use to (no cars, house, electric utility), investing in solar and wind for power. Not enough room for the whole population though. On a lighter note, it looks like Congress has declared primates illegal as pets. I guess there will be "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" (a children's book) We had our visit from the South Beach Marine Police today giving us notice of the city's anchoring ordinance. After modification of terminology relative to our navigation status we signed it. The officer was courteous and friendly, proving helpful information on where to fuel and pump out. I sympathize with their issue of inhabited derelict boats while wondering at the idiocy of their solution. Such is the burden of being master of all you survey. Finally back on line! 2/26/09 - Our IBM crashed again. This time it appears to be the hard drive failing during read. I was able to run a check-disk during a boot before it started thrashing again. I think the drive controller is having issues. I’m writing this portion of the log in MS Word on our new laptop, hoping to be back on line soon. Sampatecho arrived at our anchorage south of the Venetian causeway around 4:30. After they were settled in we joined Bradd, Maeve, Echo, Patrick and Lara for dinner. They'd caught a king mackerel while sailing down from Lauderdale and prepared it for dinner. Excellent! We had a nice evening catching up with the kids' lives and meeting Lara, Patrick's girlfriend. Today dawned sunny and windy. I was able to pick up a weak WIFI connection with our new laptop; enough to read our e-mail but not enough to download Avira (antivirus) and FireFox (browser). Need to get them on before I load the rest of our software. Miles and Laureen arrived from Wisconsin mid afternoon, it was great to see them again. Laureen looked and sounded good. They’ll be staying in South Beach for a few days exploring the area with Don & Suzie while we head north for a few days. 2/27/09 – Another month almost gone… hard to believe how fast they pass by. We had 10-15 knot winds all night, waking to a beautiful blue sky with a few scattered cotton balls scurrying about. We sailed north with Sampatecho, headed for Boca. What a great ride, 7 to 9 knots over ground in 3 – 4’ waves. 32 miles on a pint of diesel – doesn’t get any better than that. By 4:30 we were in Lake Boca rafted off Sampatecho. We stayed with them until dusk and then moved into John & Nell’s so we could get our old laptop to Steve to see if he could correct the drive problem. Our copy of FrontPage, our web publishing software, is on that one so we are mute without it. 2/28/09 – I repaired a torn seam in John’s dinghy cover and dropped off our hard drive an old laptop before we headed for Lake Boca for the Hillsboro Inlet Cruising Club’s attempt at a Guinness world record circle raft-up. By 3:30 we had closed the circle with 73 boats. It was something to watch the 4 quadrants build until they were finally swung in place to form a circle. The Goodyear blimp arrived and photographed the event for the record book. Kewl! It’s the most people I’ve ever had come to my birthday. We partied until we dropped. Some of us dropped earlier than others. John’s newest dock tenant, David and Donna were near us in the raft with their new 36’ Seawind 1000 catamaran. Our Way, AA and Sampatecho were rafted side by side. |
Click on the photos for an 8" x 10" view. Use Back to return to this site.
Bremer 25 I took on as a project at Ames Point Boatworks
B25 interior looking forward
Flagler Memorial island near South Beach
Clearing reveals statues
Sunrise illuminates the statues
Looking across anchorage toward Miami
Flagler party time...
...all along the beach
Exclusive! Miles' dinghy (dingy?) in chaps
Circle raft appears a blimp approaches lake Boca
Raft was in upper right corner of the lake
Blimp eye view of complete 73 boat raft, we are at 110 degrees (up is 0)
Echo & Nell at raft-up
A pirate looks at 66
Some pirates just age better
Raft-up photo taking
|
2009 Logs
| Boca Raton, 1/1 to 1/15/09 | Boca Raton, 1/15 to 1/31/09 |
| Boca Raton to Miami, 2/1 to 2/15/09 | |
|
|