Equipment Failures – Page 2 – Have Wind Will Travel

Solar Panels Bring the Blues

May 6, 2015May 8, 2015anniedike

November 7-9, 2014:

After our racy rendezvous with the Sundowner crew in NOLA we were itching to get back out on our boat. Now that we had our slick solar panels installed and (presumably) working, it was time to take them out for a test run, and what better time than the Pensacola Blue Angels Homecoming Show in November! Several of our boat buddies were planning to get out for it, too, so it was quickly decided we would all get together for a massive raft-up. We were five-deep at the Fort baby!

From left to right:

1. s/v Edelweiss, a well-kept 34′ Sabre, is often packed to the brim with the Armanis — two veterinarians with (now) three little ones in tow. Did anyone call for a doctor?

2. s/v WindWalker, a 38′ Morgan, belongs to our trusted diesel engine mechanic, Johnny Walker (yes, that’s really his name, feel free to make all the associated Jim Bean, Jack Daniels jokes you’d like – he’s used to it), and his beautiful wife, Cindy. (While this is my absolute favorite picture of Johnny and Cindy, don’t doubt it, rain, shine or cold – these two are always smiling!)

3. 5 O’Clock, a 45′ Gulfstar, being the largest boat in the bunch often plays the role of “mothership” and is Captained by the only and only (you know this guy, he’s practically a celebrity in our world), Bottom-Job Brandon! His rocking wife Christine and their (now) two little salty sailors round out the Hall crew.

4. s/v Plaintiff’s Rest and it’s fine-looking crew need no introduction, really. Admit it, it’s only the best-looking boat in the bunch.

5. And, last but certainly not least, s/v Pan Dragon, a classic 36′ Pearson, is the pride and joy of our Broker-turned-Boat Buddy, Kevin, along with his incredibly entertaining wife, Laura, and their (now) two little ones seen here doing what they love to do — just “hang around” on the boat.

I will say Phillip and I are exceptionally lucky to have fallen into such a fine group of sailing comrades when we purchased our boat back in 2013. All of these Captains are sharp, talented sailors, each with a different area of expertise and each having proven their willingness time and again to help us out when we’ve found ourselves faced with a difficult boat project, and vice versa. It’s also great to see the lot of them (which with all of the “nows” you might have recognized has recently grown – three new additions in 2015 alone!) get their boats out just about every weekend they are able with the whole crawling/cradle crew in tow. I wouldn’t trust myself to keep a potted plant alive on the boat and here they bring their actual living, breathing, arms-and-legs munchkins aboard and show us all it can (and should) be done. Families can cruise too. They’re really impressive.

Having all five of us lined up for this phenomenal weekend was a pretty epic feat. But, when the Blue Angels come home, folks in Pensacola tend to get together for the event. And, because the Blue Angels fly over their home base, the Pensacola Naval Air Station, for the homecoming show, we knew we would be right under the flight path anchored out near Ft. McRae.

Here comes one now! Zzzwweeehhhhh!

See? They flew right over us! I kept trying to snap a cool shot of them coming by the boat but they kept breaking up, zipping around, looping and coming out of nowhere. Those suckers are fast! (And loud.)

After about 84 missed shots (give or take), I finally caught them right where I wanted them. Just overhead. Check out the money shot! BOOM.

Hull No. 193, baby! That’s us! It looks like they’re only 20 feet above our mast. While I can assure you, they are much higher, it doesn’t sound or feel like it when you’re watching them zip overhead. Zwweeehhhh!!

(Thank (and like) the Blue Angels Facebook team for the wicked pics!)

The show was jaw-dropping. “Hold on to your drink, Cap’n!”

First Mate rockin’ the rubbers!

They even put on an evening show (which they had not done in years) at the Naval Air Station. We could catch glimpses of it (and hear the roar of the flaming big rig) from our boats.

In all, it was an incredible weekend spent out on the boat with an amazing group of friends.

And, best of all, the solar panels performed beautifully. While we felt good about the Velcro adhesion, just to be safe I had taken some time back at the dock to manually stitch the panels on through their corner grommets with some green sail twine.

You can see it on the corners here:

Those flat little panels were expensive! While it was highly unlikely, I wasn’t going to risk them flying off in some heavy winds. They also proved extremely productive during our weekend out, pumping in (just about as we had expected) approximately 8 amps/hour.

It was truly gratifying to watch our amp hours go DOWN during the day. We were definitely pleased with the input and thrilled with the results of a long and tedious project. Life was good … for a brief moment. I swear that dern boat likes to toy with us sometimes. Right when you think everything is running smoothly and everything about boating is awesome, the boat likes to throw a little wrench in things just to, you know, keep you guessing. After our amazing weekend out on the boat, we woke Sunday to an awe-inspiring sky, sipped on coffee and decided we would ease the anchor up about mid-morning to enjoy a beautiful sail home.

That was the plan anyway, until we tried to crank the engine and ——— Nothing, nada, flat line. We couldn’t even get a click to turn the glow plugs on. Our starting battery was completely dead. The boat seemed to think it was funny.

It’s not funny, boat.

Luckily, on our boat, we can flip a switch to combine the house batteries with the starting battery, in situations like this, to pull from the house bank in order to crank the engine. It’s not really good for the house batteries because they’re intended primarily for deep cycle use, but if you’ve got to crank, you’ve got to crank. So, that’s what we did, and she started right up, which was a good sign. That meant it wasn’t an engine problem just a battery problem, but it was still baffling. What gives, boat?

Thankfully, we had a whole host of boat friends nearby to help us run through some things and troubleshoot. Assuming our starting battery was still good (which, being only a year old, it was pretty safe to assume it was) the primary difference was the solar panels. Once installed, they were essentially “on” all the time. Meaning, any time they panels were in the sunlight, they were pumping in juice. While the MPPT charge controllers regulate the influx of power to make sure the house batteries do not get overwhelmed by the solar input, one option kicked around the group was the possibility that the solar input may have overwhelmed the alternator and caused it not to re-charge the starting battery while we were motoring over to the Fort on Friday.

Back home, we took the starting battery the following week to several different Auto Zone type places to have it tested, and each time it passed with flying colors. The battery was good. That left the panels. We decided to install switches under the aft locker next to the MPPT charge controllers to allow us to turn the panels off when we were running under engine power so as not to confuse the alternator and allow our starting battery to re-charge.

It was a pretty simple job and (we hoped) would be a pretty easy fix to our crank problem. The next couple of times she cranked fine, and we were sure to turn the panels off when we were under motor and turn them back on again once we killed the engine if we wanted solar input. Life was good again. Until …

Yes, again. Such are the joys of owning a boat. Seemingly randomly, after several times cranking without incident, the minute we had some family in town and invited them out on the boat for a beautiful, brisk day sail, she wouldn’t crank. It was clear we

had a serious boat battery mystery to solve. And, I swear the boat thought it was funny.

It’s not funny, boat.

Captain Sherlock and I were hot on the case. It simply had to be “elementary.”

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The Mishap Recap

February 4, 2015March 10, 2015anniedike

May 20, 2014:

So, this sailing stuff? Nothing to it, right? It’s just ropes (which we call “lines”) that control sails which make the boat move. That’s pretty basic. But, then, there’s also the engine, the batteries, the thru-hulls and sea cocks, the water tanks and pressure systems, the propane and solenoid, the steering wheel and rudder, not to mention all of the instruments, gauges and meters.

Okay, maybe it can get a little complicated, but the good news is, when you get down to it, most of those complicated-sounding systems really are basic when you take the time to dissect and understand them. Meaning, most of them can be fixed on the fly, as long as you have the right parts, or parts that “will do” (we call this improvising).

During our trip to the Keys, we found most of the “issues” that occurred on the boat were operator error (sorry boat!) and most were fairly easy to fix once we figured out what had gone wrong. We chalked these up to “lessons learned” and felt it may help other cruisers out there to pass them along.

1. The Lazy Jack Snap! Before the trip, we had a new stack pack put on for the main sail with a new set of lazy jacks attached to the spreaders to hold it up.

The lines also cleated off at the boom, and our riggers had left some surplus in the lazy jack lines in case we needed to loosen them for any reason. Good idea, we thought … at the time. But, when the time came where loosening the lazy jacks would have actually been a good idea, thinking about the tension in the lazy jacks was one of the last things we were doing. Unfortunately, during our first night offshore, when we were heading from Pensacola to Port St. Joe, we ran into some rough seas–winds in the high teens and rolling five-foot seas all night long. Water was crashing over the bow, spraying us in the cockpit and the boat was beating into a steady southeast wind. The sails were taut, full to the brim all night long, likely pressing hard on the new lazy jack lines, but we didn’t know it. We heard plenty of cracks and bangs during the overnight passage, but it’s hard to tell–in the dark of night– if the sound you heard was just a normal ‘boat groan’ or something actually breaking. You handle the boat the best you can and try not to worry about her too much (key word being ‘try‘). But, sometimes you wake to find, in the rough winds of the night, that something did actually break. For us, it was the lazy jack on the starboard side.

Kind of a bummer. But, we figured they must call it a “lazy” jack for a reason, right? It must be the lazy way. Surely people have been raising and lowering their sails for centuries without these “lazy lines” to help. I mean, you have to ask yourself–What Would Columbus Do? (Back in 1492). He’d flank that sail the old-fashioned way, and keep on a-keepin’ on. So, that’s what we did. Until we got a little lazy …

Next leg of the trip, Phillip had the great idea to re-raise our busted lazy jack line with the topping lift for the spinnaker pole.

You see? Improvising. Once you know how the systems work, you can then use them in all the wrong ways to achieve whatever result you’d like. It’s a product liability defense lawyer’s dream! So, what did we learn? Be sure to check the tension in your lazy jack lines when your sails are full. If they’re too tight, the wind in the main can bust the line. And, if something breaks, don’t mourn. Look around! You may find something else on the boat that can serve its purpose.

2. A Spun-Out Jenny Much like the suicidal strung-out version in Forrest Gump,

just outside of Tamp Bay, we found our Jenny, too, was busted. During a fairly mundane furling of the Jenny, you might recall the pop we heard, followed by a clattering rainfall of ball bearings on the deck. Sadly, the spinning halyard for our Jenny broke in two while we were cranking her in. One half remained at the top of the mast, and the other came barreling down the forestay, flogging our Jenny and letting her pile down in a useless heap on the foredeck.

DOH!

Why did this happen? After some serious research, troubleshooting and second opinions, we decided it was caused by pulling the halyard up too tight at the mast, causing the shackle to pull into the throat at the mast and putting tension on the bottom top part of the halyard, which should be allowed to spin freely. A thorough review of the manual for the furling system was quite helpful in this regard (as most manuals are). I’ve said it plenty of times but have no qualms repeating it. Keep all manuals in a single, organized location and refer to them often. It’s amazing what you can learn from … I don’t know … the folks who built and designed whatever Godforsaken contraption you are cursing at the moment. We had dropped our Jenny prior to the trip to have the UV cover re-(re-)stitched and figured we must have pulled the halyard just a tad too high when we raised the Jenny back up.

Back then, we were also furling our Jenny in using the large winches in the cockpit. It was easier that way, but it was also deceiving because the winch is so powerful. If there is an inordinate amount of tension in the line, pulling by hand you’re going to feel it. Pulling by winch, you may not, and you’ll power right through it, likely breaking something in the process. I think there’s some appropriate saying I could insert here about a cannon and a mosquito. However, I believe a more vivid example (sorry Confucius) would be a surgeon who operates not with his hands but with a remote-operated backhoe. Are you going to let him in your abdomen? There is simply no substitute for the human touch. How does it feel? How hard is it to pull? Conway Twitty would agree. Don’t be shy. Sing it with me! “I want a man with the slooow hands … “

Luckily, we were able to get the Jenny repaired in St. Pete by a talented and resourceful rigger, who ended up having the exact halyard we needed (which had been discontinued) in his self-proclaimed “Sanford & Son boat part yard” (a.k.a. his shop). And, what did we learn? Don’t tighten the Jenny halyard too much. Refer to your manuals. And, when feasible, opt for the “slow hand” over the powerful pull.

3. Never Let Go of the Halyard! Have I said that one before, too? Then why the hell do we keep letting go of it? I’m not sure exactly. All I can say is when you’re up on the deck, riding your boat-of-a-bull as it’s bucking over waves and focusing all of your mental energy on the simple task of staying on the boat, you just kind of forget about that little thing that’s in your hand–the all-important halyard. I guess think of it like this–have you ever accidentally poured a glass of something on yourself when you turned your hand to look at your watch? Why did you do that? (Because you’re brilliant like me, of course!) And, also, because your brain just kind of forgot you had a glass in your hand. Well, same thing can happen with the halyard. When it comes to you grabbing something to keep your scrawny arse on the boat in the middle of pounding seas, your brain just kind of checks out of the whole halyard-holding process and forgets about it. And, then … You let go! Of the halyard! And, the minute you do and see that halyard start swinging around, you curse yourself! Stupid brain! Why did you let go of that?! It just happens. All told, we’ve done it four times, three of which required Little Miss First Mate to ascend the mast to retrieve it:

Once in Carrabelle (when we first dropped the Jenny to re-stitch the UV cover and pulled the halyard back up afterward, thinking it would magically drop back down when we needed it to–turns out we were wrong). Up you go, Annie.

Once in St. Pete (when the Jenny halyard busted, it left half of a mangled halyard at the top of the mast, which again would not magically come down with a little (or lot of) shaking). Up you go, Annie.

Once mid-sea, on our way into Clearwater when we accidentally let go of the main halyard while trying to raise the sail at night and it snaked its way all the way up the backstay to the top of the mast. Up you go, Annie.

And, the fourth time? Well, that retrieval was more of a fall than a climb, but I did get it back! Unfortunately, I busted the lazy jack line on the port-side (and a bit of my arm and knee) in the process.

Moral of that story? Never let go of the halyard. But, if you do, don’t be a hero trying to retrieve it. I guess the best advice would be to not do dumb things. But, we are human, and I am a blonde, so … it’s just going to happen. To lessen the frequency, we did come up with a better main halyard-rigging system in which we never un-clip the halyard from the main sail. We just re-route it down and back up to maintain the tension when the sail is down.

And, thanks to the Captain’s spiffy fix of the lazy jack line on the starboard side, we knew just how to fix the one I’d busted on port. This time with the halyard for the spinnaker.

Although I will say we were running out of spare lines to use to hold up our lazy jacks. It’s a good thing we were headed home by then.

4. Book Swap Mojo. One final lesson–not so much related to rigging as reading–but just as valuable. The Book Swap Mojo phenomenon. If you uncover a great book at one of the free marina book swaps,

be sure to give it back to another free marina book swap down the line when you finish reading it. If not, the Book Swap Gods will learn of your insidious hoarding and leave you with wretched book crumbs like this at every marina book swap to come.

Read it. Enjoy it. Then give it back.

While we learned plenty of lessons on the trip, these were just a few that stood out for us, particularly because of the valuable insight they provided in terms of rigging and equipment failure, and how to (try to) avoid them, overcome them, or improvise around them if we, or other sailors, found ourselves in the same predicament in the future. But, the biggest lesson learned? Mishaps are just going to happen. No matter how cautious you are. No matter how much care you take to try to prevent against them. Things are going to break. Things will have to be repaired. Things are going to slow you down and hold you back. So, what do you do? Keep sailing, of course. Keep getting out there and bumping into things.

And, in my case, keep writing about them. You never know when you might just have enough colorful tales and Conway Twitty bits to cobble them all into, I don’t know, say–a BOOK. One that might be coming out real soon. Big things are happening over here, followers. Be excited …

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Don’t Worry … We Can Pump Gallons Out at a Time

October 15, 2014October 15, 2014anniedike

April 30. 2014:

So, we’d done our homework. We knew we had a Lasdrop stuffing box and that it wasn’t sup-POSED to drip. We also knew the guys at Gasparilla Marina would be sending a mechanic back out to our boat early the next morning to follow-up on our leaking stuffing box so we grabbed a bite at the Waterside Grill — buffalo shrimp, grilled grouper (plate and sandwich) —

enjoyed a sliver of sunset over the marina,

and crashed hard on the boat. We woke the next morning, though, to excessive buzzing, dinging and chirping of our phones. It seemed the masses were trying to reach us. After ignoring the first few, we finally lulled ourselves awake to see what all the buzz (no pun intended) was about. And, that’s when we got the terrible news. Our home port of Pensacola had endured 20 inches of rain in 24 hours. There was extreme flooding with inadequate drainage. Many homes were flooded, cars submerged, roadways engulfed. It was unreal.

ABC News – Powerful Floods Tear Through Pensacola

We started making frantic calls – checking on friends, family, the office, the condo, other boat owners. It was a mess. And, it was so ironic that everyone had been calling often checking on us as we were out making passages, crossing the Gulf of Mexico, putting ourselves in the path of potential storms and yet home is where she decided to strike, while we were tucked safely in a marina in Gasparilla. We felt a slight tinge of guilt that we were sound and secure while others back home were dealing with such damage and loss. We weren’t even sure yet about your own place or our cars. We just did what we could remotely and set our sights on making way back to Pensacola.

We got on the phone with the guys at the marina and they sent out a sprite little stick of a man (stiff breeze would have blown him over) to come check out our stuffing box. But, he was sharp, friendly and super-knowledgeable. You could tell he’d been working on boats for a long time. That’s just the kind of guy I want sticking his hands up under our transmission. Guy cracked me up though. Just before he bent over into the engine room, he snapped back up real quick and said “Better empty my pockets first. Don’t want these dumping into your bilge.” And, then he proceeded to set not one, but two packs of cigarettes and a lighter on the nav station. I’ll bet that’s a one-day supply for this guy.

He maneuvered some things around, wiggled it – just a little bit! – and said he was able to create a decent seal. One he thought would hold well enough to get us home. You mean, no haul-out?!? We were certainly relieved to hear that news. But, we were certainly going to test it to be sure. We decided to crank her up and go for a test run. Much like the crossing we did last year when we were catching and dumping transmission fluid back into the transmission, I found myself again, hunkered down next to that noisy engine, watching a drip.

But, that was fine with me. I’d much rather have an engine that’s running but requires a little drip supervision than one that’s not. So, I busted out the all-important boat tool used last time to capture the name on the stuffing box – my PHONE – and did my best to capture the drip so we could accurately time it and see what we were dealing with. I caught three drips in 30 seconds, meaning roughly 10 seconds in between each drip. In the video, I move the flashlight beam to indicate each drip. Riveting footage I assure you …

After watching her under various amounts of load, we determined the box was dripping roughly every 5-7 seconds at idle, every 10 seconds under moderate load and every 20-25 seconds under heavy load. The more load that was on her it seemed the more pressure on the box which created a better seal. So, on average, one drip every 10 seconds when the engine was running? We figured that was probably common, if not less, than the intended drip on most stuffing boxes designed to drip. Certainly something our bilge could handle, assuming we found ourselves having to motor a lot on the way home. If we were able to sail most of the way – no issue at all. So, we decided to go for it. We were going to make our way back home with the very minor dripping-dripless and address it once we got back.

As usual, we had been discussing the stuffing box ordeal with some fellow cruisers and our broker-turned-boat buddy, Kevin, offered some sage advice. While our electric bilge pump was working fine (in fact, its frequent automatic activation is what helped us uncover the leaking stuffing box in the first place), Kevin suggested it might be a good idea to check our manual bilge pump(s) before leaving the dock. Just … in … case. Smart man, that Kevin.

While Phillip always tells me the most effective “bilge pump” you can have is a motivated sailor and a bucket,

we thought it best to follow Kevin’s advice and check on our other mechanical bilge pumps. The manual pump in the cockpit,

and, the almighty Thirsty Mate!

It seemed the Thirsty Mate was working fine.

That thing sucks. In the best way possible. And, I rigged up a hook on the end of it that attached to the drain in the sink in the head so it could be used single-handedly by a crew member to pump water out of the bilge and into the sink to drain out (in case Captain’s holding the helm, and I’m doing the sucking – a likely scenario if we found ourselves really taking on water). So, Thirsty Mate – check!

Unfortunately, we didn’t have the same luck with the bilge pump in the cockpit … The suction was incredibly low and we didn’t think any water was actually making it out of the boat.

After some troubleshooting, we were sure there was some crack or poor connection in the hose from the pump at the helm to the bilge that was hindering suction (like a straw with a hole in it). We decided to get a new hose for it. Not that we planned to re-run the hose under the cabin floor and back up to the cockpit before we left, just so we would have a secure hose that we could connect to the pump in the cockpit and hand-feed down to the bilge just in case we had a sufficient leak, and the electric bilge pump went out, and we couldn’t sufficiently drain it with the Thirsty Mate. A lot of prerequisites there, which sufficiently met our concerns for getting back under way. Some friends, however, didn’t seem to have the same reaction. I explained our situation via text to a few non-boating gal pals of mine, advising them we did have a small leak, but we were able to pump “gallons out at a time,” so we felt it was fine to head back out into the Gulf, and THIS was the reaction I received:

GALLONS?!?

She mentioned experiencing something similar to “heart palpatations” at my use of the phrase “gallons at a time.” Where’s your sense of adventure? I’m kidding. I have some really great friends who worry a great deal over me, but in secret, they live vicariously and they know they love it! ; )

We felt good about it. One drip every 10 seconds, no haul-out and no costly mid-trip engine repair. Yee-haw! Let’s go! The only downside was that the marina said they couldn’t get the manual bilge hose we needed until the next day, so it was one more day in Gasparilla, which was fine with us. I will say, the marina there is pretty impressive. Hundreds of boats just stacked up on shelves like toys. The scale of it kind of blows your mind.

Those are all 18-20 foot center consoles sitting on the shelves like dolls. And, they have this HUGE forklift that plucks them out of the water like they only weigh ten pounds.

It’s so cool I filmed it for you!

And, you’ll find it highly entertaining to know that I forgot about the whole “Just Cause” conclusion in the video until I was just now re-watching it, thinking the whole time … Oooh, ooh, I know what I can say as the caption for this video — “Why did I film this … ” I’m so good I beat mySELF to the punch sometimes!

So, after all of the pumps were checked and our hose was ordered, we decided to clean up and hit the town! Or … the … Waterside Grill at the marina. But, hey, that counts. Look out Gasparilla!

It’s Happy Hour on the Plaintiff’s Rest!

Peel-and-eat shrimp, a fully-dressed hot dog and live music out on the deck. It doesn’t take much to suit us. After a few glasses of wine and a hearty dinner, we sauntered around the marina in high spirits,

entertaining ourselves with inSPIRed but obvious observations:

“How many you see there, Cap’n?”

In all, we were thrilled to have received good news about our stuffing box situation and excited to start making way the next day – one drip at a time. Look out Venice! We’re taking this inspired-but-obvious act on the road!

Good to the …

October 8, 2014October 13, 2014anniedike

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re probably right, but be patient. We’ll get there.

April 29, 2014:

While the run-aground in the ICW was certainly not fun (and quite embarrassing on my part) it, thankfully, was a very minor graze with a soft bottom and one that we were able to ease off of fairly quickly. And, while I know I deserved some of the scoldings and finger-shaking I received as a result, I’m not sure I agree that it rose to the level of demotion from my position as First Mate as one of our followers opted for (you know who you are!). But, I tell these tales so that hopefully some of you fellow cruisers can learn from our mistakes and, on the rare occasion, brilliant discoveries! It’s all about getting out there and doing it – mistakes included. But, assuming the demotion was in order, we’ll see if this little diddy can salvage me. I call it – Redemption of the Selfie!

So, still maintaining our slight trickle from the stuffing box around the propeller shaft, we motored our way into the Gasparilla Marina so we could have our leak inspected. And, you would think, by now, with all of the docking debacles we’ve encountered, we would be pros at docking. Well, we are better, but I’ll tell you, I’m just not sure anyone can actually call themselves a “pro.” You just never know what kind of conditions you’re going to face with the wind, current, pilings, finger docks, etc. There’s always some element to contend with that can turn your perfect entry into a … well, a cluster. As we made our way into the marina and found the slip they had assigned us to, we knew we were going to be contending with some pilings.

I even called the dockmaster to see if he could send some guys over to help catch some lines (Captain decided not to be too embarrassed about it, knowing my knee was not 100%) but, unfortunately, they were all on the other side of the slips at the fuel dock (a good 10-minute walk from our slip on the other side). So, it was the Captain and I, easing in … While we would have loved for it to have played out something like this.

Voila!

Sadly, that’s NOT what happened. After debating it a few times and exchanging a couple of confirmations (“midship first? stern second? then bow?”), we went for it. The wind was coming across our starboard deck, so we had decided, as we were easing in, to put a loose midship line around the second piling to keep us from hitting the dock on the port side. A grand idea at first …

But how loose is is too loose? Or, more importantly, not loose enough? You’ve got to cleat to the boat it at some point or it has no purpose, so I lassoed the pole, pulled out about 8-10 feet, cleated it and hobbled back to the stern to try and catch the piling on the starboard stern. Unfortunately, though, it seems my “8-10 feet” was not enough and as Phillip eased forward, the midship line pulled taut, causing the boat to … well …

Like I said, a total cluster. Thankfully, we were able to push off the port piling, back out and try again. This time we decided to forego the midship line, catch the stern on the way in and then run up and tie off the bow. Well, run, hobble, crawl – however I could make it happen. So, we tried again.

This time we caught the stern fine and start to ease forward. But, do recall that other element I mentioned. Ahhh, yes, a sailor’s best friend (or worst enemy at times). THE WIND!

The wind was pushing our boat over to the dock on the port side and we had yet to tie a line to hold the bow off. Without a friendly set of hands on the dock to catch a line, I tossed a pile of the starboard bowline onto the deck hoping it would stay put until I could get off to tie it.

Thankfully, the pile landed solidly on the dock, and I took off to catch it!

“Here I come to save the DAAAYYY!” Yes, that is what I sang to myself as I leaped.

Luckily the pile remained, I was able to grab it, tie it off and keep our boat off of the dock on the port side.

Whew! Have I mentioned before how much I hate docking – period – but particularly at new places??

With the boat secure, the Captain set to contacting the guys at the marina to have them come out and look at our leaking stuffing box. A young guy came out pretty quickly, jumped down beneath the engine and started pulling and wiggling the stuffing box, as Phillip and I kind of stood there, hovering, exchanging worried looks.

“You see something?”

He came up slowly, with a sullen look on his face, wiping the oil from his hands tediously, without saying a word. I took this as a bad sign. Like a doctor who’s about to dish out some really bad news. He told us he tried to tighten the hose clamps but he thought the seals were going to have to be replaced. Which meant … a haul-out. A haul-out?? Mid-TRIP?!? And, they’re so freaking expensive, too. The haul-out alone can sometimes cost 3/4 of a grand, not to mention the labor and expenses that will follow repairing the seals. And, anytime you haul-out, you always want to try and get as many “haul-out” requisite projects taken care of then to get the most of the hard-earned dollars you paid just to see your dripping keel, but that means more repairs, more time, more labor, MO MONEY. That was some pretty bad news. But, Guy No. 1 did say he wasn’t 100% sure and he was going to have his supervisor come out – the head mechanic at the marina – to have a look as well. A second opinion? Uhhh, yes please! Send in Guy No. 2!

It was nearing the end of the day, so we decided to get cleaned up while we waited for the head honcho, John, to come out and check out our stuffing box. The shower facilities at the marina were really nice, and they had a great Captain’s Lounge with TV, AC, books, wifi, coffee, etc. We also saw they had a little restaurant, the Waterside Grill, which we decided would suit us fine for dinner. After a long day-and-a-half of passage, we were ready to shell out a few dollars to kick back and let the friendly folks of Gasparilla bring us platters of fish & shrimp! When I hit the showers, a ‘body check’ confirmed that, a day-and-a-half since “the fall,” and the arm and knee were still showing signs of a collision.

I know, pretty right? The knee still had a little pain when bending and a funny ‘pop’ upon extension but, otherwise, was functioning reasonably well. The arm was functioning fine but was swollen to about twice its normal size and pretty hard to the touch. Just weird … No broken bones, though, so no complaints here. I’ll take functioning-but-weird any day.

When I got back to the boat, the head mechanic, John, was just leaving. Thankfully, he left us with better news than Guy No. 1. John said he thought it might could be adjusted, maneuvered somehow to sufficiently slow the leak to allow us to get home. It would just depend on what kind of stuffing box it was. So, THAT was our homework assignment. We had to find out what kind of stuffing box we had on there. Guy No. 1 had told us previously he could barely see the label on it from underneath the propeller shaft, but he couldn’t get a good enough angle to read the whole name. We searched our bag of instruction manuals to see if there was one for the stuffing box. (As I have advised before – always keep every instruction manual for every piece of equipment you install on the boat – you never know when they might come in handy). Unfortunately, no dice. We couldn’t find any paperwork on our stuffing box. We had to lay eyes on the label. But, the label was on the bottom of the stuffing box, facing down and there was only about a 2-3 inch gap between the label and the hull.

We broke out the little mirror that we keep on the boat.

I call this a mechanic’s mirror. We use it to look underneath things we can’t get under, much like a mirror under a car.

Super handy piece of equipment to have on a boat. But, the problem was, this label was too far underneath the stuffing box for the mirror to allow a reflection. The last thing you could see before the face of the mirror was lost under the transmission was just the tip of the label. We needed a new plan, so I got to thinking … I don’t know if you did this as a kid, but we used to make and buy those little boxed-mirror gadgets that allowed you to look around corners or over walls?

Nifty! Thankfully, though, my brother’s hair didn’t look like that. Or this …

But, we were HUGE Inspector Gadget fans!

(Doo-bee-doo-bee-doop. Inspector Gadget! Doo-bee-doo-bee-doop. Bum, bum. Whoo hoo! I know you’re singing along! Click HERE to reminisce further).

And we all know Penny secretly rocked that show.

“I’ve got it Uncle Gadget!”

Okay, so I digress. But, I did get a little Gagety with it. I started thinking about those around-the-corner mirror devices and started looking around for another mirror. While two mirrors would have worked fine, the first thing that caught my eye was my phone and that’s when it came to me. The selfie app! Now, not only could I view the image via the mirror function on the phone (a.k.a., the “selfie app”) but this way I could capture it via photo to confirm, show to Phillip and keep for our records. I positioned the phone under the stuffing box, tilted just enough to provide a reflection on the mechanic’s mirror so I could see what the screen on the phone was capturing.

I took a few (dozen) missed and blurred shots, but I was getting closer.

There! See? You can almost see it there. A few minor adjustments, taps on the cell phone screen to auto-adjust and BAM!

I got it. Good to the … LASDROP! It was a Lasdrop stuffing box. Now that we had a name, we could get some dinner at the Waterside Grill, relax and check back in with John in the morning to see about a solution for our leak. See? Good selfie training CAN be an important skill to have on the boat! I know my fellow blogger Dani would agree. Redemption of the Selfie!!

On that note, let’s end on a selfie montage, shall we? Let this play in the background and enjoy … All Byyyyy Myyy-seee–heee-eelllf:

If It’s Called a Dripless, You Would Think It Wouldn’t …

October 1, 2014October 8, 2014anniedike

April 29, 2014:

Uh-huh. Go on. Say it. DRIP. We found while motoring that morning that we had a steady drip coming out from the stuffing box around our propeller shaft. The stuffing box is basically a seal around the shaft of the propeller to keep the water that’s supposed to stay outside of the boat … OUTSIDE of the boat.

While some stuffing boxes are designed to drip slightly when the shaft is turning, to cool the shaft, others are designed not to drip at all. Hence the name — dripLESS. But, ours was doing more than dripping. We had a steady trickle when the shaft was turning and a slight gush upon manipulation – think more of a heavy flow than light. We needed some protection!

Close …

While stopping the leak was a priority, until we could get to a marina to troubleshoot and diagnose, we certainly wanted to maintain the leak. It was dripping right into the bilge, which is not a problem assuming the bilge pump is working fine. We were certain ours was because the automatic pump actually seemed to have been kicking on a little too frequently during our last day or two in the Keys, a pattern we now knew was attributable to our dripping dripless. But, we decided to try and capture the trickle before it made it to the bilge to reduce the load on the pump in having to frequently dump the bilge. This called for the handy little pads we keep on the boat that I like to call “diapers.” Fancy name, I know. They’re those oil change pads you get at Auto Zone, CarQuest and the like.

We keep a roll of them on the boat and one always stuffed forward of the engine to capture fluids that might drip from the engine (particularly oil) before they can make it to the bilge.

There’s one!

We used them to capture the transmission fluid when it was leaking during our first Gulf crossing. You might recall the duct tape and Dasani bottle fix … good times!

Seeing as how we had a fresh new leak, we put a fresh diaper in to catch the water trickling in around our stuffing box.

Ahhhh .. that’s better. Motor-all-you-want protection!

We were making our way up the ICW by Sanibel Island where we had planned to spend a day or two at Costa Cayo.

But, that’s the thing about plans … They seem to all go to pot when you’re boat’s leaking! Granted, our leak did seem manageable. It was just a trickle (for now) and whatever made it past the diapers was only going into the bilge, which was pumping out fine as needed, but still. A leak is not something you just want to shrug your shoulders at, say “Ehhh” and keep on cruising. I believe it was a really smart man who said: “If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen out there.”

Brilliant.

So, immediately our priorities changed from finding a neat, new anchorage along the ICW to finding the closest marina possible. Turns out that was in Gasparilla – ironically, where we had our survey/sea trial for the boat back in April, 2013.

Here, we were a year later, bringing her back in, but this time we were hoping it would NOT require a haul-out!

Unfortunately, it was pretty tight in the ICW and we did not have favorable wind to sail, so motoring was the only option. Much like when we had the transmission leak, we were taking turns kneeling down by the engine, watching the drip, and making sure it was remaining JUST a drip. We were making good way through Pine Island Sound and expected to make it into Gasparilla around mid-afternoon.

All was well, right? You would think. Until I made just about the stupidest mistake I have made on the boat. Well … aside from the recent slap on the deck. But, it involved that … kind of. So, we’re motoring through the ICW. Nice and easy, plenty of depth, plenty of fuel, our drip was just dripping and our marina was just a few hours away. Nothing to it. Phillip set the Otto so he could go down below to — take care of some business (that’s all I will say) — and left me to watch our course on deck. To his infinite credit, he showed me the red and green markers in front of us and told me where to keep the boat. Easy peasy. But, this dumb mate decided to do something I will never again do when I am manning the wheel alone. I made a phone call. I know what you’re thinking. Wow … that shouldn’t be too hard. Drive a boat and talk at the same time? Okay, but do recall that I am unfortunately blonde, so walking and talking gives me a little trouble.

Me? I know …

But, apparently driving the boat and talking have proven to be the real challenge. I decided all was well on watch so I could take a moment to call some folks to catch up and let them know we had made it back across the Gulf just fine (well, despite the slight leak issue). But, I didn’t realize at the time that I hadn’t yet actually told anyone the story about my fall. I can safely say it was certainly a frightening, eye-opening experience, one that had left me battered and shaken and thankful to at least be upright, walking and conscious. I was re-living it again for the first time while talking to my Dad. I’m up on deck talking and sort of re-enacting my out-stretched hand for that damn swinging halyard, “I was reaching out, Dad, on my tippy toes, and … “

when I hear Phillip shout up from the head — “Annie, what was that?”

“What was what? I’m just up here talking on the phone.” (stupid First Mate)

“No, THAT. I feel it. Annie, we’re hitting bottom!”

SHIT.

I hobbled back to the cockpit as fast as I could and glanced at the GPS — 5.4 ft. SHIT! While engrossed in my fall story, I had let us drift out of the ICW onto a shoal. I turned the wheel sharp to starboard hoping to pull off. The boat grazed the ground, groaned and started to list to port. I could hear Phillip scrambling up and I knew what I had done. I hollered into the phone “Dad, I gotta go. We ran aground.” SHIT. I was apologizing profusely when Phillip came up. It was just stupid, and I had done it and here we were. But, thankfully we had been here before – running aground is just going to happen when you’ve got a big, honking keel down below. While it’s best to avoid it, of course, it also helps to know what to do when it happens. We had unfortunately hit bottom coming into Clearwater, on our way down to the Keys.

That time, Phillip threw it in reverse and I hung way over the lifelines on the port side to tilt the boat off the shoal. This time, we decided to take it one step further. We swung the boom all the way over to the port side and I hung all of my weight from it. The knee might have been giving me trouble, but the arms were functioning! With the wheel all the way to starboard and the boat listing to port she finally started to ease off and move forward. Within a minute, we were off and motoring forward again. I was sick with guilt, embarrassment, anger. I was SO MAD at myself.

One of my favorite all-time books growing up by the way. (John – you remember this one!). As a kid, I would get SO MAD at myself when I couldn’t do something right. I would stomp and huff and get in a real nasty funk about it – an all-out, over-exaggerated one-woman pout show. I’m sure it was wildly entertaining to those watching me. But I was MAD.

I apologized profusely over and over. Phillip was great about it. He knew it was a mistake and that I was incredibly sorry but we decided – no more phone calls for Annie while on watch. She just can’t handle it … But that did remind me to call my Dad back and let him know we were alright — disaster miraculously averted again. I’m sure hearing me say “we ran aground, I gotta go!” followed by a *click* was not very comforting for him, but he seemed to take it in fine stride. “I figured you were alright. You usually are,” he said. A true statement and a common one he made when I was growing up, typically when I fell off of things as I seemed I did a lot back then too. But, knowing me as well as he did, he told me “It was an accident, though, Annie. Don’t get in funk all day about it.” Good advice. I apologized to Phillip just a couple more times and pouted (just a little) as we made our way into Gasparilla.

I mean … a near-death drop, a leaking boat and a run-aground. What else was in store?

Bonnie the Bunny

July 9, 2014July 10, 2014anniedike

April 20, 2014:

Tomorrow was it. We were going to head out around daybreak to make our final passage south to the Keys. We were beyond excited. We spent the morning cleaning and readying the boat for the next day’s passage – re-tying the fuel cans we had filled the day before, re-checking the fluids we had topped off, taking out the trash. You know, real exciting boat stuff. We were planning to meet our buddy Johnny and his wife Cindy around mid-morning to make a mega run to the store for provisions. Cindy had driven down to spend the weekend with Johnny and had been nice enough to offer us boating bums a ride to the store before she left. Don’t mind if we do! Knowing we weren’t going to have to haul our supplies back pack-mule style, we made quite the luxurious list and even planned our attack from produce to paper products. We were going to get all Supermarket Sweep on them – matching sweatshirts and all.

Yeeeeahhh!

But, sadly … as ready as WE were to do some serious grocery shopping, it seems the rest of the world wasn’t ready for us. We found Ft. Myers tends to take their Easter pretty seriously. Every place was closed. Every … single … place. We drove by Publix. No. Target. Closed. Winn Dixie? Shut-down. I hate to say it, but we finally ended up at the all-American icon of convenience shopping. Mmmm-hmmmm. Wal-Mart. You can always count on old Wally World to be open. We each made our rounds and packed Cindy’s little car to the brim. And, of course – what do you always want to do after grocery shopping? EAT! After planning for and picking up everything we would need to cook and eat for the passage and the following week, all we could think about was food. We stopped at this little McGregor Cafe in Ft. Myers and scored pretty good.

A juicy Rueben sandwich and a lobster cake salad.

Yum! But, the best part was our waitress. Bonnie … the Bunny.

You see? As much as I love to write fiction – I really don’t have to make this stuff up.

Bonnie (“the Bunny”) pranced around the entire time sporting fuzzy purple bunny ears and offering up what she called her “Special Bunny Peeps Cake” to any poor customer who couldn’t turn her away. She even suffered it on the entire wait staff like office birthday cake.

When I walked through the dining area to go to the restroom, there were ten of them in there, at least, all picking with plastic forks at pieces of neon peep fluff on their styrofoam plates. They would stuff mouthfuls in their cheeks and give Bonnie an exaggerated “Mmmmm” smile-and-nod when she would walk by, telling them “It’s my special recipe! I make it every year!”

It was … hilarious.

After our big venture to all of the closed stores, we headed back to the boat and packed her up for the next day’s passage to the Keys. We still had some beautiful afternoon hours left, so I decided to bust out the old inflatable SUP and get to it.

See Annie pump.

Pump Annie pump!

Whew! I tell you. I love that my SUP is inflatable (so we can break it down and stow it down below) but she is a chore-and-a-half to blow up. By the time you’re done, the thought of paddling is exhausting. But, somehow I managed!

I tossed her in the water and set to it.

Go Annie go!

Ft. Myers had lots of residential inlets where the houses are all waterfront along the seawall and you can paddle around in each of them, checking out peoples’ boats, backyards, pools, houses, etc. I love paddling around nice waterfront homes. I like to imagine all the costly upkeep and maintenance they must require and bask in the contentment of living on a boat!

And, I was feeling pretty content … that is, until I returned to the boat and Phillip told me the engine wouldn’t crank. Say what? We’re leaving for the Keys tomorrow. Could you repeat that?

But, sadly, it was true. The engine wouldn’t fire – at least not on its own battery. Luckily, we have two different battery systems on our boat. One battery system is dedicated to starting the engine while the second bank (the house batteries) is much larger and equipped to run all the other systems on the boat. We also have a nifty device that allows us to combine the battery systems together if necessary by the simple flip of a switch. When we combined the circuit and pulled from the house batteries, the engine would crank, but she would not fire from the starting battery alone. Errgghh … What did I say about those big waterfront mansions being more trouble than they’re worth? Well, forget that. We had boat problems!

We traced the connections and wires from the alternator to the battery combiner (which regulates which set of batteries get charged) and found the inline fuses for the starting battery had blown.

This meant the starting battery was not getting a charge when the engine was running. This was good news because it was an easy fix. Replace the small fuses and we figured we would be in business. Then, all we needed to do was run the engine for a bit to be certain the starting battery was in fact charging.

We replaced the fuses, combined the batteries and cranked her up. Everything was running great. We had water coming out of the back and plenty of gas to give the boat a charge, so we let her purr. It was just about dusk, so we poured a couple of glasses of wine and headed topside to watch the sun set.

Ahhh … Isn’t she beautiful? We sipped from our glasses and drank in the pink horizon. Life was tranquil and serene. Everything was perfect … until the alarm went off. Yes, the ALARM. A high-pitched, shrill tea-kettle whistle rang out from the cockpit. Phillip and I jumped up, knocking over our deck chairs and glasses as we scrambled back to the helm as she shrieked angrily at us. It was the high-temp alarm. Picture a car steaming on the side of the road.

It meant our engine had overheated. What next?

We immediately shut her down so she could cool. But, we were stunned. What in the heck had happened? Our temp had been holding fine. Water had been spouting out the back. Then all of a sudden it overheated?? We didn’t know what to think. After she cooled a bit, we got back down in the engine room and started checking out the heat exchanger, making sure the seacock (that allows raw water to pull in to heat the engine) was open and working fine, basically just troubleshooting … again …

But, while we didn’t find any obvious issue with the cooling system on the engine, I did notice something on the battery combiner that we had missed before. There was a little green clip that plugged into the combiner that had apparently wiggled its way out of its slot. This little guy:

Who the heck knows when that happened – likely when we were beating our way into Charlotte Harbor during our last horrendous night in the Gulf – if I had to wager a guess. But, the good news is, we spotted it. An easy fix. Just push her back in. *Click* And THEN our engine battery would get a charge. I can’t stress enough how important it is to know your own boat. Tinker around on it, try to troubleshoot things yourself, try to fix things yourself (to the extent possible) and, basically, just piddle around with the systems. I, personally, like to sing this while I do and recommend you do too:

Phillip won’t admit it, but he secretly digs that tune!

It’s amazing what you’ll learn. Most of the systems on the boat are really simple if you just take the time to figure them out, and the confidence you’ll gain in handling everything on the boat yourself is easily worth it. So – take some advice from Julia Andrews and get to know her!

And, while I say that, as much “knowing” as were doing on our boat that evening, we were still totally stumped by the engine overheating. Phillip jumped in and checked the seacock through-hole on the hull of the boat to make sure there wasn’t some trash bag or something caught up in it.

Nothing. We let her cool completely down, checked the coolant levels and the seacock (again) and decided to re-crank and see what happened. We both sat in the cockpit watching the heat gage like a hawk.

Still sipping our wine, of course. I mean, we’re boat people, but we’re still cruisers …

Thankfully, though, she held at her standard operating temp of 180 degrees.

To this day, we really can’t tell you what happened. The most likely explanation is that something got temporarily sucked up against the through-hole under the boat and the engine could not pull water in to cool itself. Then when we shut off the engine, the suction stopped and whatever it was floated away. We suppose … That’s all we could do. Was suppose. But, it was getting late and, either because of, or despite, all our efforts, the boat was currently running great and was ready to get under way the next morning. So, we supposed ourselves right to bed to get some rest for the passage tomorrow. We were just a 24-hour run away from the Keys!

No Autographs Please!

July 4, 2014July 4, 2014anniedike

April 19, 2014:

I don’t know if I’ve ever said this before, but for those of you out there who think cruising is all cocktails and sunsets, I can assure you it’s not. Owning a boat is a lot of work. You may recall our “million mile march” through St. Pete to pick up a portable pump from the Back-Door Marine Supply Guy to change the engine oil. As the previous day in Ft. Myers had been devoted primarily to getting the dinghy to crank, the next bright and sunny day was committed to changing the oil in the diesel engine on the boat. Fun, fun!

It was definitely time to do it, though. With all of the motoring we had unfortunately had to do to “weather” the weather in the Gulf, we were well over our allotted 50 hours, so we set to it.

It certainly was a cleaner job, though, with our new, smaller plastic oil pump.

The oil dumped right in, and we were able to seal her off and plug the tubes nicely with Q-tips, so no mess!

We also checked the raw water strainer to make sure she wasn’t clogged.

Unfortunately, she came out looking like a love-child mix of Bob Marley and Medusa.

Yipes! It was definitely time to clean her out as well and we noticed a significant difference in the flow rate of the water exhaust on the stern after we did. Let’s just say she had a lot more “oomph” – I believe is the technical term.

We also checked the sacrificial zinc on the heat exchanger. He was almost toast!

Because the metals that are immersed in seawater in the heat exchanger create a battery, that also means they lead to corrosion. If you’re interested, read more HERE. And, this little guy is meant to take the brunt of that. He corrodes first (hence the term “sacrificial”) and then we replace him with a new soldier so the other, more important metals, don’t corrode at all. Or so the theory is.

That is one battered warrior! Thanks Zinc!

We also checked the fuel filter as well.

“Umm … sir, I definitely see some build-up here.” It was time to change that as well. Not much of an issue, but when we began to disassemble the housing for the secondary fuel filter, we ran into a slight issue.

The connector ring broke …

But, never fear! That’s why we carry back-ups! And back-ups for our back-ups! I got my little First Mate fingers back there and fixed her right up.

Good as new!

We then cranked her up to make sure everything was running just right, our engine was maintaining temp, water was flowing out of the back (this time with “oomph”) and that our oil level was right where it needed to be. All systems were a go, so we hopped off the mooring ball for a bit to head up to the fuel dock to fill up and dump our oil. The Diversified Yacht Facility there was huuuggee!

They had handfuls of 100-foot yachts stacked in there like toys. It was incredible. They were also very friendly and got us filled up (water and fuel), dumped out, scrubbed up and everything in between. We were ready for our next passage for sure.

We were thinking of heading out the next day, Sunday Funday!, to make the jump across the Gulf to Key West, but our buddy, Johnny, whom we were meeting up with in Ft. Myers, was going to wait to make the crossing on Monday, so we decided to suffer another day in Ft. Myers Beach – ain’t life tough …

The minute we got the boat back on the ball, we cleaned up, spruced up and made a right proper to-go drink for shore:

Phillip: “I’ll have an ‘Oh Shiiiit’ please. Heavy on the rum!”

Annie: “You got it Cap’n.”

We trolled around downtown checking out the local tiki bars and scenery.

And, the local wildlife as well …

I think this one may be extinct real soon …

Then the craziest thing happened. We were walking on up to Petey’s Upper Deck, above the Matanza’s Inn, when this guy on the dock hobbled humbly up to us and asked “Are you Annie, on the Plaintiff’s Rest?”

I mean … Total record-scratch moment. Errrruunnnhh (or however you spell a record scratch sound?).

“Excuse me?” I asked, thinking I surely had never seen this man before and didn’t know how he could possibly know me, or my boat …

“I’m friends with Bob,” he said. “McDonald. He got me hooked on your blog.”

Eek! A real live blog follower? An honest-to-goodness fan? And, he’d spotted me on his very own in Ft. Myers Beach?? The fame went instantly to my head.

Okay, I wasn’t that bad … hopefully … but I was certainly smiling from ear to ear. Here he is – Capt. Doug on the s/v Puffin!

He’d been “on the ball” in the Ft. Myers mooring field for about six months and has been following our blog for quite some time. He was a great guy – a lot of fun – and certainly living the right kind of salty life there in Ft. Myers Beach. Like many in the boating community seem to do, he offered to help us with anything if we needed it or provide us names of fellow mechanics, riggers, etc. if we needed any work done in the area. We had a big time chatting with him about ‘old blog times’ – the original Gulf Crossing and other debacles. He was great. Thanks Doug!

And, you’ll be happy to know I wasn’t too celebrity about it. I gave him an awesome autograph, which I’m sure he’ll hang right on top of this one:

See? Didn’t go to my head at all …

After the exciting celeb sighting, Phillip and I hit the deck! Petey’s Upper Deck for their famous Key Lime Coladas.

Mmmmmm …

Those things were awesome. And, totally calorie-free I was told. Or, was it calories don’t count at the beach? I can’t remember. Either way, they were incredible. All three of them!

We finally met up with our buddy Johnny Walker on the s/v Windwalker who was making the trip down to the Keys with his son, Jeremy. Say hey Johnny!

Johnny is an incredible diesel mechanic, a life-long boater and fellow die-hard cruiser. He’s also just a few months shy of 72 and still living on his boat and living out his dream. No matter what story we told (and I’ve got some really tall ones – hacking off our dinghy in the middle of the Gulf, fixing a transmission leak with a Dasani bottle and some duct tape … ) it didn’t matter, Johnny had heard it three times before and knew of someone who had done the same thing in 6-8 foot seas with one arm tied behind his back. The man was full of colorful tales. Oh, and spare parts as well. No matter what minute little part we may have noticed was having an issue on our boat, he had three of them and was happy to share.

See – here he is now: “Oh, I’ve got one of those. I’ll drop by your boat later and bring it to you.”

Johnny was a trip. Beyond generous and full of spunk. And, that’s his wife Cindy, a real salty survivor. She’s been through some serious times on the boat with that man. Her stories, and her perspective, rather, actually impressed me the most. She can remain calm through anything. That’s the kind of gal you need on a boat. She had drove down to spend the weekend with Johnny in Ft. Myers Beach during his trek to the Keys with his son, so she was just staying a day or two. (But, that meant she had a car! A real, live car, which also meant a full-fledged trip to the store for us the next day! You know how we love our provisions!).

We had a big, hearty time hanging out with Johnny and Cindy, scarfing up their great greasy pizza at Petey’s. (Which I was also told did not have any calories). We continued to tell tall tales until nightfall, then we dinghied on back to the boat and crashed hard, yet again. This beach living is rough!

The Back Door Marine Supply Guy

June 10, 2014anniedike

April 15, 2014:

After our leisurely stroll through the Dali museum in downtown St. Pete that morning, it was time to focus on some boat chores that afternoon. We were in the market for a portable oil change kit. While we certainly hadn’t planned on motoring as much as we had already on the trip, you know our philosophy on plans. With the various mishaps we had experienced with the sails (losing the main halyard and the failure of our Jenny swivel shackle – both of which we had decided were the product of operator error – poor boat!), we’d had to motor more on the trip than we would have liked. But, that’s what she’s got a motor for I guess, so …

The manual for our engine recommends changing the oil every 50 hours. We knew we were going to cross that threshold soon, so we needed to have a pump and canister ready when the time came. While we have an oil change kit at home, that thing is a bulky, messy, metal beast that looks like an offspring of the Tin Man:

Face it Man, he’s definitely yours.

We keep it in a big rubbermaid container because everything in it is covered in thick, sticky oil. It just wasn’t an item we really wanted to pack on the boat for a month-long trip to the Keys. But, we now found ourselves in need. Phillip had been researching and talking to some marina supply folks in the area to see if we could find a local shop that carried a portable oil change kit. We were either going to have to pick one up there in St. Pete or down in Ft. Myers for sure. The cleanliness of the oil in the engine easily trumps the inconvenience of a big oil change tub on the boat.

Luckily, Phillip found a local marine supply shop in St. Pete that had one. And, since we had the afternoon off after our journey through the incredible world of Dali, we decided to venture out and get it. And, as it always seems, our ‘venture’ quickly became an ADventure.

As you know, we traveled to the sensational city of St. Pete by boat. Which means, when we venture away from the boat, we have to travel by foot, bike or cab for supplies and provisions. Sadly, Google maps steered us wrong that day and we ended up walking about eight miles to and fro across the city searching for an Auto Zone that no longer seemed to exist (at least not in the prior location). And, ignorant of the monumental trek we were about to make, this dumb mate wore a cute little pair of summer flip-flops that weren’t really up for the task:

I know, cute right? Perfect for the museum, noooot so much for the Million Mile March. These dogs were barking! About mid-way through the trek, I finally just kicked them off and resigned to sport some wicked Wal-Mart feet for the rest of the venture.

And, don’t pretend you don’t know what those are …

Yeah, I’m not afraid.

But, we did finally make it to the marine supply store. Wait … I’m sorry. Warehouse. The Marine Supply Warehouse. Yep. There it is:

A small door in a duplex with a sign that read:

Well, the Captain wasn’t afraid.

He marched right in there.

And, man, when they say warehouse … what they really mean is … 500 square feet and three aisles:

It was no West Marine, but they did have the oil change kit we needed and plenty of other boat goodies. And, while the Back Door Marine Supply Guy that ran the shop was pretty knowledgeable,

he’s one of those types that will always answer your question with a question:

Customer: “Hello, sir. We need an oil filter, a Puralator L30001. Do you have one?”

Supply Guy: “What are you going to use it for?”

Customer: “To change the oil on our boat.”

Supply Guy: “What kind of engine do you have?”

You see what I’m saying. It’s like you have to answer his three magical questions before he will grant you the wish of the product you’d like to purchase.

But, nice guy – after the inquisition – and he did hook us up with the oil change kit we needed, so he’s tops in my book. After the epic pilgrimage to his back door, though, it was clear there would be no more walking for this crew. The Captain called us a cab, which arrived a prompt forty-five minutes later (speedy!) and we hitched a ride back to the other side of town to pick up the oil and filter and some other provisions for the next passage.

“Auto Zone, please.”

Once we made it back to the boat, we were pleased to find the new oil pump fit nicely in a locker under the vberth. No more big, oily rubbermaid container for this crew. We now travel full-time with oil change kit in tow. So, the St. Pete pilgrimage really paid off. We checked the radar and forecast for the following day and decided we would head back out into the Gulf tomorrow and try to make the approximate 24-hour run down to Ft. Myers, this time, hopefully, without any sail issues.

We ventured out one last time to the downtown strip in St. Pete for some drinks and dinner.

I ordered up the namesake “Tryst” cocktail at the Tryst Gastro Lounge, a fun, up-scale contemporary bar on the downtown strip. Both the drinks and the atmosphere were superb.

We then enjoyed a hearty St. Pete last supper at the British Tavern, The Moon Under Water, which began, as any good British meal should, with a stout painkiller and a beer,

We then devoured a tabbouleh and lamb starter,

and polished it all off with a shepherd’s pie and fish and chips. This crew was going to be full (stuffed actually!) and well-rested for the trip tomorrow.

And, in case you didn’t know, a fun aside about the origin of the name “Moon Under Water”:

Accept the Queen’s Shilling by “fair means or foul” and you’re recruited into the British Army? And, they bury it in the bottom of a drink?! I would have been a goner for sure. I always make it to the bottom of a drink!

After several ‘bottoms,’ we made our way back to the boat and tucked in for the night. Having had our fill of downtown fun in St. Pete and feeling extremely lucky to have stumbled upon such a quick and affordable fix for our furling Jenny (thanks again Steve!), we were excited to get back underway.

“Phillip, do you hear that?”

“No, what is it?”

“It’s the Gulf calling. She wants us back.”

In the Hands of Heisenberg

June 3, 2014June 2, 2014anniedike

It wasn’t ten minutes after we hung up with Steve that we had the engine cranked and warming. We were pulling our dock line off of the mooring ball to head over to the SMMR, Inc. shop on Salt Creek so Steve could have a look at our busted Jenny swivel.

We could tell Steve was real sharp over the phone. He knew immediately what had happened to our Jenny shackle and the likely problem we were going to have fixing it. The ball bearings weren’t really the issue. Steve had plenty of them lying around the shop that he could use to replace the ones that had fallen out of our shackle. The real problem would arise if our shackle turned out to be too damaged to be re-assembled. If it was in fact broken beyond repair, we would need a new one. And, while we do have an incredible, sturdy, wonderfully-built old boat, she is still an OLD boat, and the harken furling system that had been put on her was decidedly outdated. Meaning, a new shackle likely wouldn’t fit on the old foils that were put on our forestay for the old harken system.

The foils are thin metal plates that are fitted on the forestay to allow a snug fit for the Jenny halyard and a sturdy frame for the luff of the Jenny when tacking.

Our Jenny’s quite the tacky gal!

We were hoping for the best as we motored on over to Salt Creek so Steve could have a look at our shackle. Now, I will say, I was fully expecting to encounter many a salty sailor-type when we met Steve and his crew. You know, some old rough-handed, leathered, weathered riggers:

Okay, maybe not that old, but something along those lines. I certainly wasn’t expecting Walter White.

But, that’s who we got! I swear Steve Smith was a spitting image of everyone’s favorite close-shaven meth chef:

See?

And, he was every bit as smart and resourceful, too. Steve was amazing. He took one look at our busted shackle and knew just what to do. He was going to have to unpin the forestay from the pulpit to get the shackle off so he could see about repairing it. Steve had us loosen the backstay to ease the tension on the forestay so he could get it off.

It was strange to see the forestay disconnected from the boat. While I know Steve is an incredibly knowledgeable rigger, it still gave me a stomach ache to see him unpin her and let her go free and dangling. She is just such a crucial piece of rigging. The life of our Jenny was certainly in his able hands. Once Steve got the shackle off and had a good look at it, he agreed with Phillip that it was possible the sir-clip would be put back on and the ball bearings replaced it might be alright. He wouldn’t know, though, until he got in there and started re-assembling her and, like I said, he already had several boats lined up that day for rigging repairs. But, he started eyeing it curiously, turning it over and around in his head, and said:

“You know, I think I may have one of these in the shop.” I mean … really?? An old part that nobody makes anymore? The life-saving swivel piece that could save our Jenny? Just lying around the shop? Phillip and I got our hopes up as Steve walked back to the shop. And, then he emerged!

I’m sure Steve wasn’t as overly dramatic about it as I remember it, but (to me) he looked like the bad boy from the final scene of The Breakfast Club – his hand thrust defiantly into the air.

Except he had a swivel shackle in it! Hallelujah!

Steve – likely sensing my budding excitement – to us the shackle he had found was the Unit 2, and ours was the Unit 1, so there was a chance it wouldn’t fit. (All, I could think, though, was “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance it could!”).

And, despite his already full line-up for the day, Steve rolled up his sleeves and set to work on us immediately. Steve slid the “new” used shackle around the foils on our stay and it was a perfect fit. I’ve never seen anything fit snugger (on something that wasn’t a Kardashian).

Steve told us, “Now, we’re real proud of our old used crap around here,” as he was re-securing the shackle. “I’ll have my wife look it up and see what price we can give you for her.” They only asked $100 for it. IT. A part no one makes anymore, that we couldn’t order or buy online. A part that was going to mean the difference between our hanking on a whopping oversized Jenny the entire trip or furling her – and – that meant we weren’t going to have to have a whole new furling system put on either during the trip or after – and Steve was only asking $100. We had priced out a new swivel (which may or may not have fit on our old foils, and they ranged anywhere from $400 to $500. Phillip and I would have easily paid a pretty penny for Steve’s “old used crap,” but we were even more thrilled to pay an ugly one.

“You bet, Steve. Slap her on there!”

And, so he did. Within an hour and a half of us pulling up to Steve’s shop in Salt Creek, and even with other boats lined up that day that he had to get to, Steve had our stay put back on, with a good-as-new shackle for the Jenny and we even raised her a time or two and furled her back for good measure. Phillip and I were stoked! Steve really went the extra mile. He noticed the splice on the Jenny halyard was a little thick and caused the line to catch in the throat at the top of the mast, so he cut it off and tied us a halyard knot in it. He also noticed that the end of the jib halyard we had purchased for the trip wasn’t whipped at the end, which just didn’t sit well with him as a rigger. He whipped out his whipping line and sodder tool and whipped us right up. Even gave me a free lesson in whipping that I put to good use later. We couldn’t have been more impressed with Steve. We’re almost as big of fans of his as we are of Walter White.

With our Jenny fully repaired, raised, furled and ready to go, Phillip and I motored back to the Vinoy Basin with smiles the size of Texas. It was around 2:00 p.m. when we got back, and we cracked open a beer (okay a cocktail for me), and kicked right back there in the cockpit to admire our furled Jenny.

All in a day’s work!

The View From Up Top

May 30, 2014anniedike

April 14, 2014:

You guessed it. Another mast climb. After we let our hair down and painted St. Pete red on Sunday night, Captain was quick to wake on Monday morning and put this crew to work!

Thankfully, this time we were able to use the main halyard to raise me, which is faaarrr more reliable that the spinnaker halyard we had to use last time to retrieve the main halyard. That thing scared the Bejeesus out of me. (Yes, that’s a word – quite the fitting one here). I think we stretched her three times her length last time. And, having the boat tied securely to a mooring ball while I ascended (as opposed to swaying like a treetop in the wind mid-sea) made the climb infinitely more comfortable.

“Look Ma! No hands!”

In light of the vastly improved conditions, I took some time this time to get some footage! I give you … the view from up top!

Such a great shot! I love the view of this boat from up top. She’s beautiful from all angles!

Thankfully, I made it up this time without any issue. It was a nice, easy ride using the main halyard. As part of our preparations for the Keys, we had replaced the old main line with new VPC hybrid braid and what a difference! I don’t think she stretched one bit while hoisting my heavy bottom all the way to the top.

I even got some footage from up top!

Video HERE.

What I find incredibly entertaining about this clip, though, is while I’m up there is Phillip’s one-line dialog: “What about the piece that broke?” I mean, I’m up there risking life and limb climbing this mast (what seems like day after day on our sailing adventure) and the one time I try and take thirty seconds to capture it on film, Phillip is still all business. “What about the piece that broke?” he says.

NOT: “Man what a great climber you are, Annie.” “Wow, you look like a real pro up there, Annie.” “Go ahead, take all the time you need up there, Annie.”

NOPE. It’s “what about the piece that broke?”

Like I said … a real slavedriver. Yeaaahhh … He’ll regret that later …

Much like the piece of the shackle that had come down (the swivel portion), the “piece that broke” (the part that connects to the Jenny halyard), it didn’t seem to have any obvious defect. I shimmied it down and Phillip inspected it down on the deck. He said it seemed the sir-clip (aka c-clip) had just popped off, which caused the shackle to come apart, allowing the swivel part to fall, and the halyard piece to remain at the top of the mast. But, we were still missing some bearings, so repairs were certainly in order. I also pulled off what looked like some marred black plastic at the top of the foil on the forestay.

We also put the inner forestay back in on the way down. You’ll love this … So, if you recall, our inner forestay busted during our initial Gulf Crossing when we were sailing the boat back from Punta Gorda, FL home to Pensacola, FL and we had a new one put in as part of our Keys preparations. Well, the darn thing banged around like a banshee the first week of the trip and drove us crazy. For that reason we decided to take her out when I had to climb the mast the first time to get the main halyard down.

Yeah, I can just imagine what you’re thinking (and saying to yourself with an imaginary pat on our heads): “Poor little novice sailors. You will learn.”

Don’t worry. We were doing that to ourselves. When Jenny had her crack-induced fall-out and busted, we said the exact same thing to ourselves. “Oh, no worries. We can just hoist the staysail and keep on cruising.” Except that we had taken down the forestay for the staysail. I know … real brilliant like. But she was banging! And, I’ll tell you, with sailing, if you’re not out there screwing up and learning from your mistakes, then you’re not really sailing. So, we chalked it up. “Might as well put that back up while you’re up there.” Which we did. Lesson learned. Make sure all of your safety and back-up gear are always ready, rigged and in working order. You never know when you’re going to need them.

The great news was, we made it back up and down the mast a second time, safely, and we now had both busted parts of the Jenny down, as well as the Jenny halyard. Done and done. Hopefully no more mast climbs this trip. But, we had even better news. Once we got down and situated, Phillip got on the horn with the folks at Embree Marina who our previous owner had recommended in St. Pete, and they referred us to a local rigger – Steve Smith of SMMR, Inc. We gave him a call and, while he had a few boats already lined up to work on that day, he asked us if we could motor over that morning so he could have a quick look at our Jenny shackle and give us a diagnosis. We told him we were tied up to a mooring ball in the North Vinoy Basin and, turns out, he was just a short hop out into the bay and around the bend, up Salt Creek.

“Uhhh … you bet Steve. We’ll be right there!” We readied the boat and headed out.