A Good Weekend or a Bad One?

Normally, winter here in Florida equates to really great sailing weather. Last year we enjoyed a great week during Thanksgiving when we sailed to Tarpon Springs and then on New Year's Eve we anchored out with friends for the holiday. Needless to say, none of that happened this year as it's been one of the worst winters on record as if anyone needs me to remind them.

But, since summer will be here before we know it, we're trying to anchor out as often as we can before we become 'marina bound' yet once again. And now that I think about it I realize I've forgotten how lucky we are that the Gulf is easily accessable and that we have many anchorages nearby. We can go out sailing for the day, come in to the bay to anchor for the night, and then spend as much time on the hook as we want the next day as we can motor home within an hour.

Lately we've been anchoring out in an attempt to test our solar panels and wind generator and a couple of weeks ago we finally had success. So this past weekend we headed back out knowing we would have a totally relaxing and peachy keen time.

 

You can't go wrong with breakfast mimosas in the cockpit.

along with sausage, eggs, toast, and french press coffee.

We spent the evening in the cockpit since it was so calm and we also had a full moon. During the night the wind kicked in and by morning Windy our wind generator was hard at work keeping our batteries charged.

Here our gauge reads 15 amps. We saw it hit 18 several times. Wow! Our batteries were charging at over 14 volts, more than we get on shore power.

So, yes, it was a beautiful evening but if you know Hans and me you know something surely had to go wrong. We towed the dinghy behind us because I wanted to use it at the anchorage so I could scrub the port side of the Knotty Cat. I can't do this in the marina since there's a boat right beside us. About the only thing I managed to accomplish with this little plan was to pull more muscles in my arms than I knew I had. Even though it was a calm day the water was very choppy due to all the weekend/St. Patty's Day traffic (I love power boats that roar through anchorages zipping past boats and totally oblivious to our pesky anchor chains) and I tried very hard to balance in the dinghy in order to scrape some old tape residue left over from last year. One moment I'd be poised above the sticky mess and the next I'd find myself far below it. I slammed up and down, up and down all the while clutching the deck in order to balance myself. I actually felt myself getting sea sick and finally gave up. We then hoisted the dinghy onto our foredeck so we wouldn't have to tow it back to the marina the next day which was probably the smartest thing we did all week end.

Why do propane tanks always seem to kick when you're especially starved and in the middle of cooking dinner (of course you don't realize this until you open the oven door an hour later and dinner is still raw)? I'm happy to report we have a spare tank and I had remembered to buy potato chips. We finally sat down to dinner at our little cockpit table and I was starting to feel really good about being at anchor when WHAM! something hit me square in the face. I was soaked and when I opened my eyes I saw the cockpit covered in purplish/red splashes and my wine glass rolling all over the floor. My hair, shirt, and only pair of good shorts (cream colored and why I wore them to anchor out I have no idea) were soaked. WTF! Hans looked stunned and then said the wrong thing, "That's not a proper holder for that wine glass." because in the process of standing up he'd swept his big German arm over the helm pod which happens to have cup holders which happened to be holding my very full plastic wine glass, and while I know nothing about physics, his hand caught my glass in such a way we had ourselves a perfect storm. It looked like a massacre had taken place. Thank God for Krud Kutter and I mean really, since every time we turned around we were finding dried red wine stains, and one squirt of that stuff took care of it. Later that night I discovered even the back of my head hadn't escaped and my hair was matted with dried wine. I said the hell with it and went to bed.

When I woke up on Sunday morning I found I ached all the way to my armpits thanks to my boat cleaning efforts, but hey, that's what mimosas are for. Shortly after breakfast when it became very apparent that the 25 knot winds ripping through the anchorage had indeed arrived about 8 hours sooner than predicted and were not going to go away, we decided we may as well head back to the marina.

We probably should've gone in as soon as we woke up but I'm the one who resisted and kinda hoped the wind would die down. All I wanted to do was sit in the cockpit, listen to 'Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me' on NPR, and read my latest library book. But there's something about relentless wind (even though the wind generator was doing its thing) that gets on my nerves and I agreed we may as well head back in.

We bounced through the bay that by now had white caps and I sincerely hoped that it wasn't blowing too badly in our marina. But it was and I was really glad the dinghy was out of the way and we wouldn't have to deal with it in the water. Normally as soon as we get to the entrance of our marina and start down the alley (as I call it) the wind seems to disappear as we're very protected here. But even though it wasn't as windy as it was out in the bay it was still blowing something like 16 knots and my heart started to race when I saw a line of boat masts tick-tocking in their slips. Hans warned me we needed to get this right the first time as once he started backing into our slip I would need to snag and hold tight to the line on our starboard side piling or we'd slam into the boat to port. I had the line in hand but I had to work my way around our dinghy's outboard which is secured at the stern of the Knotty Cat. No way could I keep enough tension with just one hand and for the moment it took me to get around the motor we were hard on the port side piling. Not such a bad thing as this kept us off the boat next to us and Hans used it to pivot on while I got both hands back on the piling line. Even with putting everything I had into it while walking the boat back into the slip, Hans had to hit our engines hard to keep her from sliding sideways in the wind. Luckily a couple from down the way showed up just then and while I was still pulling for all I was worth up front Hans was able to toss them a stern line and they helped fend us off. And just like that we were in.

And if I thought my arms hurt earlier... when we were finally all tied up I realized my fingers felt like someone had tried to pull each one out of its socket.

Wilbur loves to go sailing but it seriously wears him out. And please, no more bouncy seas!

Of course there's always the work involved getting things back in order after being out. Reconnecting to shore power, running all the hoses, cables, etc... that we use in the slip, hosing off the anchor (which had more gunk on it than I've ever seen, we were really dug in), rehanging our sun shade, and getting things back out that we store while underway. Finally, and not until all that was done, I got my shower. I walked into the salon feeling very clean and happy that my hair wasn't dyed red from the wine when I saw Wilbur crouched in that all too familiar puking pose. On our tiny piece of carpet. Of course I didn't get to him in time so instead of one huge pile of gross puke to clean up, I now had a huge pile plus the trail he left when I tried to get him off the carpet. Hans had been sitting just a foot or so away from him and never saw this coming and I was just waiting for him to say that carpet is not a proper place for a dog to puke.

But when you think about it, our solar panels soaked up the sun, our wind generator hummed in the wind, our anchor light glowed all night and didn't drain our batteries, the refrigerator never had to be turned off, we enjoyed a beautiful night complete with a full moon, we didn't drag at anchor, the cockpit didn't suffer permanent wine stains (nor my hair), we got back into the slip under pretty crappy circumstances without any damage, and Wilbur got a thorough cleansing.

At the end of the day I guess you could say we did have a peachy keen time!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Still motoring along the GIWW (Gulf Intracoastal Water Way)

A typical evening aboard the Knotty Cat.

I'm sitting on our settee in the salon area which is also where we sleep each night. Wilbur may appear to be small in this picture but you wouldn't believe how huge he can become during the night. I swear he triples in size, oozes all over the place, and we wake up with him taking over more than half of our sleeping space.






I mentioned yesterday that we planned on zipping through the Franklin Lock at 9 AM so we could get on our way. But we weren't prepared for the poor man who docked next to us to run aground. Kevin is working solo and trying to get his newly acquired boat from Maryland to Texas, and even though he only draws a bit over three feet, he's already run aground too many times. Until yesterday he's been lucky enough to get himself off, but then his luck ran out and the Lockmaster at Franklin told us he'd hold the opening for us if we'd just give this poor guy a tow.

Well, the Knotty Cat tried her best but she just couldn't free him. We tried to pull him off by using both our port and starboard stern cleats but he never budged a bit. I'm pretty sure TowBoat US could do it but we felt like deserters as we entered the lock without him and went on our merry way.


We ended the day at Tarpon Point Marina. It's a beautiful place to stay and the staff is friendly beyond belief. We were pretty far away from the actual marina but it seemed like someone was always on hand with a golf cart to get Hans to and from the office.

We actually left Wilbur on the boat (with our new A/C) and ventured over to the tiki bar just a stones throw away from us.

It's that little gazebo over yonder.


They had $5.00 appetizers, and buck and a half drafts. We ended up enjoying an hour or so there before we came back to a wonderfully cooled down boat.


Our Knotty Cat at the dock.

We motored a good 37 or so miles today and found ourselves at Palm Island Marina, just in time for a typical Florida thunder storm. And once again we were greeted by a fantastic staff who helped us dock.

Poor Wilbur had a hot day today and finally felt like he could relax with the A/C. Keep in mind this is also our sleeping area.

Can you see why I don't get a good nights sleep? Wilbur tends to spread out and take up far too much room with his pitty dreams (paddling feet mixed with gulping and kerfluffeling noices), and I wake up with yet one more odd and unexplained bruise.

We hope to get another 40 or so miles under our belt tomorrow, but the port engine is having some smoking issues and we also have a ton of bridges to get through.

The cruising life is never boring. Believe me!

Updates and pictures.

Wilbur used to have a doggy bed in our apartment and we called it his lair. It's where he would take any contraband he could pilfer from trash baskets and what not. We knew as soon as we saw him slink into his 'lair' that he was most likely being a bad boy.

Here he is in his new lair (under our settee in the salon area) which is where he likes to go when he gets hot or we give him an empty water bottle to torment.


This is the marina we stayed at in LaBelle. It's not really a marina as much as it is a dock that can hold up to eight boats. By looking behind Hans, you can see how much use it's had recently and why we didn't bother to dock Mediterranean style and just pulled up along side.

BTW, those weeds or lillies or whatever they are make a great place for all the crockigators to hang out! They are freaking scary and even though I've tried to get pictures of them, they rarely do much more than break the surface of the water.




The sign we decided to ignore. For a brief moment we thought we were busted when someone on the dock called out an Ahoy to us. Luckily it was just a very nice man who'd spotted us from the LaBelle Bridge and being a boat lover, he had some questions for us.

Part of the fun of cruising is meeting a lot of nice people.

Although this reminds me. When we were at Labelle Marina yesterday and were in the process of docking, a man came out of no where and caught the dock lines I tossed to him. He asked us where we were from and upon hearing 'Pittsburgh', he turned on his heel, and without a word stalked off not even giving me a chance to tell him how cute his yappy little chihuahua was. Hans didn't help matters the next day when he ran into Mr. Happy and his yappy dog and said, "What a handsome boy he is, what's his name?" Mr. Happy snarled, "She's a girl and her name is Cocoa." "Oh my, isn't she pretty!" Hans exclaimed, but Mr. Happy wasn't having any of it and once again stalked away.
He's literally the first southerner I've met who still hates us Yankees!






Do we pay attention to signs?

Of course not!









We had plenty of time this morning so we left Wilbur on the air conditioned (yet starting to heat up already) boat and walked to the Coffee Shop in Labelle for some breakfast. I didn't take any pictures of the interior but I loved it!! All very chic and espresso-ish! We each had a sausage egg and cheese biscuit sandwich with our coffee and they were delicious! It's far too hot to use the galley right now so it was the first real breakfast we've had in a week. Do I dare tell you that I eat a cold Pop-Tart every morning? And since it's so hot I don't even make coffee. And coffee is something I normally can't do without.







We were going to go through the Franklin Lock at its 4 PM opening today but ended up arriving two hours early. However, right at the lock there is cheap dockage at a campground.
A government run campground, and don't get me started on things that are run by the government!
Oh, what the hell, here goes anyway! A couple of days ago we thought we might want to stay here in order to zip through the 9AM lock opening and Skipper Bob had info that said to call three days in advance in order to get one of these wonderful slips. We called the number and were told to call another number, which we did, and son-of-a-gun we were told to call yet one more number, and the rather rude and stupid sounding woman who answered said she had no idea what we were talking about, and hung up on us.

So today when we realized we'd be stuck for two hours waiting for the lock to open, we called the number again. Of course we were told to call another number, and when we did, we lucked on to someone who must be new and naive, and forgot that she worked for the government, because she was very nice and said, "Take any slip you want and pay at the office."
I won't go into the particulars of how adventurous it is to dock in a storm but we finally got tied up and $24.00 later (that includes electric), here we are for the night.



This squirrel was absolutely furious when Wilbur (on his leash) pranced past it. It chattered up a storm and I've never gotten this close to one in my life. It didn't care one bit when I took its picture and I probably could have gotten closer but there's this thing called rabies that was in the back of my mind.











Wilbur wants to know what all the chatter is about.






















"Mama, did you hear what that creatchter said to me?"

Poor Pitty.
















Hans and Wilbur enjoying the air conditioning this evening.


Tomorrow we hope to zip through the Franklin Lock and work our way toward Tarpon Point. At that time we'll once again be dealing with currents and tides, something I surely haven't missed here in the Okeechobee Water Way.

Living as a Couple on a Boat. Part I

I realize a lot of people believe that living aboard a boat is the epitome of the romantic dream. Bloody Mary's at sunrise, cocktails as sunset, feeling like you could reach out and touch the fat whip cream clouds that glide on by during the day, or snag one of the zillions of stars that hang over your boat each night. Days are spent lazily adjusting sails as you silently cut through the water.
And I'm sure anyone reading this and who's spent any amount of time on a sail boat is splitting a gut right now.

But let's talk about about docking the boat, lifting the anchor on the boat, and (gasp) attempting to make repairs on the boat, as a couple!

This particular post will address docking the boat which is very much at the bottom of my 'let's have fun' list. Winds, currents, and narrow slips have created many heart thumping moments for me.

Actually, my issues with fenders (while docking) are something new. In the first two years we owned this boat we almost always tied up at the same docks so of course I knew exactly where to place the fenders. The thing is though, that no dock is ever the same. Some are floating and therefor the fenders have to hang way over the side nearly at water level, while some docks are fixed and depending on the tide, the fenders might need to be just over our deck. This means that each fender needs to be retied to the rails which isn't a big deal but when you only catch sight of your dock moments before tying up it can be quite a race.

A few days into our trek on the Intracoastal we were quickly approaching a dock when Hans told me to toss the fenders over the side. I realized that it was a floating dock and that our fender lines needed to be lowered but I hadn't had a chance to touch even one when he yelled, "What are you doing up there?"


Me (quite incredulous): "Getting the fenders!"

Hans: "What the hell's taking so long, just drop them!"

Me (wondering if he could possibly be serious): "They need to be retied, they're too short!"

Hans: "Just throw them over and get that bow line ready!"

Me (not sticking my tongue out and retying a couple of fenders anyway): "I'm going, I'm going!"

Afterward, Hans was very puzzled and once again asked me what the hell I'd been doing up there.

Me (quite angry by then): "I was doing my hair, that's what!"

Hans (genuinely puzzled): "Really?"


The only reason I didn't throw him overboard is because he knows how to parallel park the Knotty Cat and I don't.


A similar event occurred in Swansboro, North Carolina when, during a rain storm complete with gusting winds and strong currents, we shot into Dudley's Marina like an Indy Five Hundred race car. One second Hans was telling me to drop the fenders and the next second he was yelling, "What are you doing? Don't worry about the fenders! Throw them the bow line!" But we had swooped in so fast that one of the guys on the dock actually reached out and snagged the line leaving me to run as fast as I could to the stern where I'm embarrassed to admit that that line promptly got hung up on an old GPS antenna (BTW, that antenna is going to get ripped out as soon as we get back on board after Christmas). With Hans putting our girl into reverse the helpers were finally able to secure us.


If I ever win the lottery I'm going to buy a ton of fenders and tie them at every possible level they'll ever be needed.


That should give me plenty of time to do my hair while docking.