2009 Log
2/1 to 2/15/2009
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 02/19/2009
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2/1/09 - Super Bowl Sunday. We started the day sewing on the gennaker. It's all together again, needing only a 55' stitch down the luff tape to complete the projects. 15 seconds to tear it and 5 days to put it back together. Kind of like a car wreck. What a game! We enjoyed a super party at Marina Del Sol with 4 couples... drinks and great grazing. 2/2/09 - Rain early this morning flushed down the boat. This morning I did the last 55' hem on the gennaker and loaded it into its snuffer with Ruth's help. The sail is now in its turtle and snapped on the deck, ready for future use. I started another boat project, moving the chart plotter at the helm to a more readable position. Ruth and I got the plotter out and the handrail off so I can get them fit by a stainless steel fabricator. While the handrail is off I will refinish the cockpit table. Today I got the first step done, rough sanding. 2/3/09 - Bright sun woke us, but we could see dark clouds all around. John dropped me off at Ed's to measure some canvas for his boat. When we were finished Ed drove me to Phillip's Fabrication so they could look at a project I needed done. I'd taken the rail off the table and found a stainless fabricator to make modifications to move our GPS chart plotter to a more usable location. We've had to double up on the helm when the water got skinny... one of us steering and the other reading the chart plotter in its awkward position. Scott and I came up with a solution so I left the rail and GPS with him. 2/4/09 - Another sunny day. I dissembled the cockpit table so I could refinish it while the rail was off. I was able to get it sanded and a coat of epoxy on all surfaces. Scott called to let me know he'd already finished the rail. Very nice surprise, he'd estimated it would be done Monday. Ruth and I borrowed John's car and picked up the rail. Scott had done a nice job, adding adjustability we hadn't envisioned. We can hardly wait to get it remounted... a 6 year headache will be gone. I joined John at the Boca Pilots' Club meeting in the evening. Very interesting, the speaker was one of the 5 remaining pilots that had flown the Hump, carrying supplies into China during WWII. There were 178 volunteers in the Flying Tigers, fighting Japan before the USA got into the war. 2/5/09 - Sunny, clear and cold (38 degrees). The diesel furnace kicked in last night keeping the boat nice and toasty. We went hunting for the Social Security Administration office again. We'd had three mis-directions from Google Map that had taken us to places where the office didn't exist. The third was this morning but office employees in the building knew where the SSA was. We finally got that task done. Surprise, the motor vehicle department was next door. We needed to get Florida driver's licenses so we went in. Not today... you need to bring your old license and your passport to get a FL license... passport? Wisconsin is part of the USA, isn't it? Back at AA we got all the epoxy on the cockpit table and did a test fit of the GPS. Everything looked good, now we need to get the varnish on the table and the whole mess put back together. It is going to be great to have the GPS in a usable position. Bradd & Maeve hosted a dinner of grilled lamb - it was great! What a cool way to finish the day... good food, good friends and good conversation. 2/6/09 - Cold gray morning. Started the coffee and gave thanks for the diesel heater that had automatically kept the boat toasty all night... just like home! I worked on the table all day, getting a coat of varnish on all surfaces. I also started re-assembling the table with Ruth's help, pulling up the last bit of wiring needed for the GPS, and reloading the aft locker I had to access to get at the wiring. Ruth walked over to Super Cut to get her hair cut and thinned out. Says she left more on the floor than she brought home. I think it looks good... she's feeling ugly. Careful boy thar's traps in them thar thoughts. We distracted her with a video. 2/7/09 - Got up to a clear windy morning. The heater didn't run last night so the boat held enough heat to fight off the cold. Bradd & Maeve needed to run down to Lauderdale so we tagged along. Gave us a chance to see the city through their experiences. We stopped at a great wine shop and Costco, starting the process of provisioning for the Bahamas. Back at the boat, I got another coat of varnish on the table. One more to go, then we'll wait 3 months and add another. The finish already looks inches deep. Great to have the table restored! 2/8/09 - Another cool overcast morning. It's warmer though, the heater never fired up last night. I started the day by steel wool sanding the cockpit table teak and applying a coat of varnish. This will be the last one for about 3 months. Then we mounted the GPS and made a door for the old GPS cutout, now serving as a new storage shelf. Anyone who has helmed AA will realize what a big improvement this new GPS location is. I finished the day rebuilding wind generators with Bradd and John, a great learning experience for me. Now I know how that whirling fan collects those little electrons. Evening became dinner with Maeve and Bradd and drinks with John. Tomorrow we split to go our separate ways for the Miami boat show. 2/9/09 - Light overcast this morning with 10-17 knot winds. Warmest morning in a week. Sampatecho headed out about 11am, enroute to an anchorage near the Miami show. We'll join them tomorrow night. I went up John's mast, removing the damaged anchor light fixture. There's a new one due tomorrow morning. Ruth talked to her doctor... she's been tracking high blood pressure readings. He read the readings she e-mailed and sent her to WalMart to pick up a prescription and scheduled an appointment for our return from the Bahamas. We are really glad we found this clinic. They are great folks and are willing to work with us long distance as long as we monitor what they tell us and do our 6 month check-ups with them. I haven't had a doctor spend as much time consulting with me since I was a kid in a very small town. 2/10/09 - Warm, windy and overcast this morning. We were slated to head for Miami late morning but put it off to finish mounting a new anchor light on Our Way. As is usually the case on boats the job turned out to be a lot bigger than the result should dictate. New mounting holes had to be drilled and the wiring changed so the new fixture would be mounted. By the time the project was done Miami was out of reach in daylight. After we got the new light in place we found we had a ground faulting. I tracked it to a loose wire at the base of the mast, just about where I expected to find it. Now the new masthead light and the steaming light worked, but not the deck light. This time I sent John up about one third of the mast to change the bulb (I'd looked at it during the morning and couldn't figure out how he had it set up). He couldn't get it apart so he had to cut the wires. After looking it over I gave him a part that will resolve the problem. Tomorrow we head out. 2/11/09 - Again a light broken overcast at dawn that quickly cleared. Last night we listened to the wind whistling in the rigging and the neighborhood dogs barking (full moon?). After helping John install the deck light socket we left at 10am on high tide. We motored down the ICW to the Hillsboro Inlet. As we headed out an incoming sport-fish warned us to batten down. It was ugly, SE win pushing 5-6' wave against an outgoing tide. Spray covered the whole boat as we rose over and dove through standing waves. I'd expected bad but not nasty. Once on the ocean it calmed down a little - 4-6' waves with an occasional pair of 10-12 footers. The wind was 25 degrees off our bow so we motored all the way to Miami, arriving about 6:30pm. I sure could tell I hadn't been at sea for a couple of months. In an anchored we had a great dinner courtesy of Bradd and Maeve on Sampatecho! 2/12/09 - First day of the Miami Boat Show. The Strictly Sail portion was quiet, though it was VIP day an many may not have opted to pay the premium to get in. We sold a lot of lights and little else. By the end of the day my stander was broken and all I wanted was to sit down! Got an e-mail from Karen at Good Old Boat, they had a request from The Mainsheet to republish one of my articles. I gave them the okay to release publication rights. After sundown Jeff brought bulbs for us to test in AA's light fixtures. We're looking for a LED solution for our tube lights. We found one that will work for all but the two reading stations where we need more lumens.. 2/13/09 - Ruth and I greeted our 16th wedding anniversary with coffee in the cockpit while listening to the tropical birds calling across the waterway. The area is populated by jungle species that escaped the zoo and bird ranches during the hurricanes. Close your eyes and you are in the Amazon. The show was better attended today and we moved more products - not much in the higher dollars though. It's going to be interesting to see what the weekend brings. The shuttle buses between the coliseum and Strictly Sail were interrupted much of the morning when their route was blocked by an apparent suicide. 2/14/09 - Another perfect weather day for the show. A Saturday, Valentine's Day brought better crowds. We worked 10am to 4:30, leaving as the crowd wound down. 2/15/09 - Beautiful morning, we had coffee as we sat in the cockpit and listened to the jungle serenade. By 10 we were at the show. The crowd was down from Saturday... not a great show. We met a lot of the other vendors... reminded me of some of the machinery shows I worked in past lives. Ruth and I left early, we were overstaffed for the crowd. Buddy like getting out in the cockpit early and watching the boats go by. What's been really cool is that we are at anchor producing with wind a solar all the energy we need, short of 15 minutes of engine time in the morning to make coffee and heat our water system. Very nice! If we were onboard controlling things we'd do even better. Time to fire up the grille, chicken tonight! |
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Cockpit table stripped, square cutout is old GPS home.
Table teak pieces drying
Refinished table with GPS mounted
New storage under cockpit table
Door closed - securing storage. The GPS is protected by a modified cover.
Tube fixture in saloon
Fixture with LED solution from Cruising Solutions
Dusk settles over our Miami anchorage
Cruise ship alley, just south of our anchorage
Small sailboat traveling without a mast, one wonders what their story is... |
2009 Logs
| Boca Raton, 1/1 to 1/15/09 | Boca Raton, 1/15 to 1/31/09 |
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