2010 Log
3/1 to 3/15/2010
This is the current period of our log for 2010. At the bottom of the page are links to this year's pass weeks; our earlier voyages are in Prior Voyages.
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Updated on 03/24/2010
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3/1/10 - Beautiful cool morning with light winds - makes crossing very tempting if it weren't for the 25 knot winds expected later in the day. Ruth & Buddy felt a need for new scenery so we followed Sampatecho north to Lauderdale. The wind was from the north so we motored there making water as we went. Once a watermaker is in service it needs to be used frequently or flushed and pickled. We arrived in Lake Sylvia by 4pm, finding the channel had changed so we had to cross it near the entrance. We anchored near a yacht of 20 something's having a butt baring swimming thong revue and promptly had a drink while we dug out reading material - yah... that's our story. 3/2/10 - A wind advisory and Sampatecho's incoming guests nudged us into Los Olas marina. The last thing we wanted was to drag into one of the large yachts moored along the rim of this small lake. We got into the second slip assigned at the marina. There was no way the wind and current were going to let us into the first. I aborted two tries. I helped Ruth haul several week's laundry to their beautiful laundromat. About 11:30 it started sprinkling, the leading edge of the front had arrived. While we had heavy rain, lightning and strong wind gusts we never got the intense storm they'd forecast. By 4pm the front was half way across the gulf stream. It would not have been a good place to be. By mid afternoon our weather was clear and sunny with gusty winds. Crawford and Yasmin arrived from England, brought to Sampatecho by Patrick and Lara. We all had dinner aboard. Great to see them again; it has been two years. 3/3/10 - Clear and windy this morning; the boat got rocked pretty good several times by gusts last night. We elected to spend a second day at the Los Olas Marina due to strong winds. Ruth took advantage of the opportunity to wash a couple of quilts. I finished my article and added a photo selection to accompany it. 3/4/10 - Clear and cool though the wind was down. We caught the 11:15 bridge and moved to Lake Sylvan. Sampatecho joined us about an hour later. Ruth did a final proof read on the article, then I submitted it to Cruising World. Time will tell. Later in the afternoon we went over to Sampatecho II for a name changing ceremony. They felt the need to do it right to exorcise mischievous spirits that had been playing with the boat's systems. When we arrived the boat name was taped over so Neptune wouldn't recognize it. A small paper boat with the old boat name was burned and the ashes committed to the sea in a boat part. The Neptune, each of the wind gods and the Sun were called on to recognize the new name. Each was toasted with Champaign as were all the guests. The covers were taken off the name Sampatecho II so Neptune would know and favor her as she sailed his seas. We had an excellent dinner after the ceremony causing me to comment it sure was easier buying an un-named boat... not to mention cheaper as I viewed a dozen empty Champaign bottles. Neptune should be pretty mellow in the morning. 3/5/10 - Clear, cold and windy - again. Two Excedrin cleared the fog in my head. The first order of the day was to check weather for a crossing... maybe Tuesday. Then it was time to update the web log. Checks with the weather gurus and Miles indicate Tuesday may be our best upcoming window for crossing. We'll position ourselves in Miami to join Ariel for a dawn departure. I worked part of the day on a boat review and photos for another magazine. Ruth cleaned and decorated the boat interior one cabin at a time so I could photograph it. I'm on a roll at the moment... now to see if anything gets published. Lasagna and garlic bread for supper, mmhhhh. Nice meal after a cool day. 3/6/10 - Another cool clear morning, 46 degrees, actually warm if we were in WI. With a nice warm cup of coffee we could actually sit in the cockpit and watch the world wake up. We motored up the ICW the 17 miles to Boca for the Hillsboro Sailing club circle raft-up. No record this year though 47 boats joined in the raft. We're next to Sampatecho, Our Way and David & Donna's cat, Camira. Perfect day and night to do it so we're thinking it's another reflection of the state of the economy. Met a lot of nice folks. 3/7/10 - Woke with 46 other boats, still rafted as the sun came up after another cool night. I checked our GPS to make sure we were in southern Florida... it says we are. Folks started stirring as the sun rose, donning hats and coats to have coffee in their cockpits. We motored to Marina Sol Bu, visiting John & Nell and checking progress on the project I started with John; it's looking good! A manatee came into the canal, taking residence under Camira. Everyone got to feed her fresh water and pet her. what a wild experience to watch 5 year olds pet a 1,200 lb sea creature and watch her roll over so we could pet her chest. She hung around for 45 minutes. Even better, she had no scars from boat props. We had a Costco roasted chicken and a movie night. Then we stopped by Sampatecho to wish everyone well as we'd be leaving at dawn to meet Ariel and cross. Great day with fun family! 3/8/10 - We caught the 7am Palmetto Parkway bridge after leaving John & Nell's. We hit it right on time. After we'd passed through and the bridge closed a gal started berating the bridge tender for always opening early. The tender noted it was 4 minutes after the hour. The gal started yelling he was wrong. Another boater called saying it was 4 after, I radioed going on 5 minutes, mark. Her response "We're a yacht." Someone noted it was still 5 after. You had to be there. Funny, the day before I'd noted to Rick that we seldom saw manatee's. We must have seen a dozen as we motored to the Hillsboro Inlet. We were off Miami at 12:30, late for our meeting with Miles so we turned toward Bimini. A little later we learned Miles had been delayed and was behind us. Enroute a coast guard cutter intercepted us with their version of 1,000 questions. We must have passed as they decided not to board us. At dusk we approached the North Rock light at Bimini's northern tip, learning that it was not working. No sweat, our GPS guided us around it. We radioed Miles to let him know. We slowed on the Bimini bank to let Ariel overtake us more quickly so we could run together all night. It was a busy night... Ruth and I alternated watching and sleeping; it works great for us. Miles was wired and up all night. Met sailboats, freighters, fishing vessels yachts - for a while I thought we'd gotten on highway 41. At the Northwest Passage we were overtaken by a small freighter that was having a problem realizing he was overtaking us - not meeting us. After talking to him on the radio and realizing he still thought we were meeting and passing port to port AA and Ariel both made abrupt turns to get a long way from him. 3/9/10 - Sunrise, we'd just run the Northwest Passage in the dark. This is one of those spots on our C-Map chip that causes GPS crashes... it did, about five of them. Blind, great way to cross a reef in the dark. Ariel was running just ahead of us so I could follow them if all else failed. Thank you Miles: I would not have attempted it without a backup. All in all it was a great crossing! By noon, 200 continuous miles and 31 hours after our departure we were in a slip at Harbor Club Marina, waiting for Customs and Immigration to clear us in. All went smooth; we celebrated with chicken sandwiches and fries at the Colonel's Place (KFC). Normally we'd have broken this down to 4 days with stops at Miami, the bank and Chub Cay enroute to Nassau. I took a short nap to finish up my watch rotations. Not a bad run though both Ruth and I didn't have our land legs as we walked on stable surfaces... looked like drunken sailors. Movie night tonight, Ruthie picked up a great $3.00 value, "Untraceable". Sure was action packed and scary. 3/10/10 - I washed the boat this morning while Ruth went to the market for milk, hot dogs and frozen veggies. Then we moved to a fuel dock where we waited 2 hours while a sport fisherman took on a thousand gallons of diesel, whoops another 3 grand. After taking on our miserly 49 gallons we headed for Alan Cay about 2 hours behind Ariel. They went to Highborne Cay and took a slip anticipating bad weather through the weekend. We crossed the yellow bank, finding the submerged coral heads spaced well apart and easy to see. We grilled ribs and had a movie night. Ruthie has done a great job of stocking us up on $3.00 vids. Great night! 3/11/10 - Cloudy and windy morning. We headed to the Exumas Park around 10am. We were able to motor-sail the first hour and a half then had to stow the sails as we turned into the wind. Sometimes I think "On the Nose" would be the best name for the boat because that's where the wind normally is. The sky cleared during our 35 mile run, turning into a nice day. We checked in at the part around 3:30, lingering to talk to the gang a while and to trade for some new books. Ruth noted it was good to be back here. 3/12/10 - Strong winds pinned us on the boat for a day. Read, watched DVDs and wished I was 30 again. 3/13/10 - South winds in the low 20's last night and this morning. Emerald Rock moorings at the Exumas Park got fairly bouncy. I worked at the park today. I was late in the morning due to trying to get an internet connection so I sharpened every chisel, repaired screw drivers and sharpened drills. During the afternoon my task was replacing the screens in sliding patio doors - just like being at home. Ruth & I delivered a donation of flashlights from Cruising Solutions to the park staff. They were really pleased... said flashlights were on their wish list. I reminded them that Sampatecho first introduced us to the park and the concept of volunteering for park projects. 3/14/10 - Heavy wind and rain last night made sleeping in the Emerald Rock mooring field pretty rough... now I know what laundry feels like. It was too rough to take the dinghy to the park to work. It calmed down later and we took the dinghy to North Harbor to check out an outer mooring we'd been assigned. When we arrived another boat was getting ready to pick up the outermost mooring... we suggested they pick up ours as it was too late to move that day. We ran into Alex and Irise, they invited us to dinner on Alaeris. We accepted and brought wind and snacks. Irise made an excellent pasta dish and we had wine, followed by a bit too much wine. We went home but didn't properly secure the dinghy so it drifted off. Ruth found it with the Q-beam and I went swimming. By the time I got to it I was hypothermic and over-served. My body wouldn't obey my brain and I couldn't get in the dinghy. I couldn't stand in the surf and was being royally beat up. Ruth lost track of me so she put out an all stations on channel 9, Andrew and Henry responded and dragged me out of the water. Henry says I was shaking like a wet dog. They brought me and the dinghy back to AA where Ruth wrapped me in quilts and tossed me into bed. Close call! 3/15/10 - Another beautiful sunny day - great to be around to see it. We got a mooring in the north harbor and moved up to it. Alex and Irise stopped by later in the day to say bye, they would be leaving in the morning for Bell Island. Would we like to come along. We said thanks but we were waiting for Ariel and I wanted to go thank Andrew and Henry for saving me.
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The cast prepares for the ceremony
The old name is toasted
Name ashes collected in a piece of broken stanchion
First of many offerings to Neptune
Captain calls on Neptune
A toast to the sun... the dolphins will all be drunk tonight
New name revealed to Neptune
All hail Sampatecho II
The Railton brothers...
Annual Hillsboro Sailing club
raft-up in Lake Boca
John & Nell invited us to the party - kewl
The sun greets us about 2 hours after we passed through NW Passage
Lots of bare space, where's the camera?
Lofton said it was okay for Ruth to feed the Banaquets for him.
Barry looks over the table he helped Tom build for Owl |
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View our prior 2010 Logs
| Boca Raton, 1/1 to 1/15/10 | Key West, 1/16 to 1/31/10 |
| Miami, 2/1 to 2/15/10 | Miami, 2/16 to 2/28/10 |
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