Landlubbers

We are temporarily living on land. We have docked the boat in North Carolina, rented a car and made our way back to Michigan. Ed has some work and we had some business to attend. It has been fabulous to visit with friends and family but I do miss Freedom! We have had a busy schedule and are having a great time!

Good call!

What a display by mother nature.

We dropped anchor north of Georgetown, SC around 7pm. Grilled some chicken and showered. Just after dark, the super moon rose in the east very brightly while lightning lit the sky to the west. We spent 5 minutes watching the show and then it was time to prepare for the onslaught as it was becoming obvious the storm was heading right for us.

We were anchored in a good spot but pretty exposed to winds. I let out an extra 50' of chain to improve our scope. Also made sure everything was tied down, took down the flag, closed up the bimini enclosure, etc. Soon, the first wind gust hit at 30 knots. We saw a lot of 30+ and a few 40 knot gusts. The boat was pitching back and forth and heeling over quite a bit. The lightning surrounded us. Many of the flashes were long and blindingly bright. The light show lasted at least an hour. Of course there was rain, heavy at times but thankfully, no hail.

We saw the radar picture of what the storm looked like over the ocean where we would have been if we sailed overnight. It grew much bigger! That would have been 'interesting'.

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Bok Bok Bok

We chickened out!

We were going to sail overnight to Southport NC. Reports yesterday were a slight chance of showers. Overnight they raised it to 50% chance of showers & THUNDERSTORMS overnight. We passed.

We took the ICW instead and anchored north of Georgetown SC. But you knew that because you're following our spot tracker, right?

This should only add one day to the trip. But we will use more fuel. That's progress for ya

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Fern to Charles

As in Fernandina Beach, Fl to Charleston, SC. Fernandina Beach looked like a great little town. A good place to come back to in the future.

We headed out of the St. Mary's river inlet around 8am Wednesday. Now we have some idea of wind against tide. The wind was blowing in around 15 knots and the current was flowing out of the inlet at around 2 knots. That built up some good steep waves. We were stuffing the bow regularly. But no big deal for our 30,000 lb boat, unless you get seasick easily.

The plan was to day sail to St. Simons Island; but once we got out into the open ocean, we decided to go all the way to Charleston. This is about 160 miles, a basic 30 hour run, give or take. The seas were a bit lumpy but nothing serious. We've done much worse on Lake Huron.

We spotted at least a half dozen pods of Manta Rays swimming just below the surface, very close to the boat. We're seeing far fewer dolfins now. Still no sharks; that we can see anyway!

We always fret about overnight passages but this was pretty tame. We made it to Charleston Maritime Center around noon, just in time for slack tide. Reports are that it has a strong, difficult current running so our timing was great. We refueled and tied up by around 2pm and spent the afternoon relaxing and getting a bit of laundry done.

Saturday we rode the bikes into Charleston. What a beautiful city, so well preserved. Such a stark contrast to Detroit where by comparison, there is almost no preservation.

Our stay this time will be quick as we need to take advantage of good weather and get moving again north. But we'll be back.

Saturday morning, the tide is favorable for a run out of Charleston harbor, past Fort Sumpter, and north to Southport, SC. This will be another overnight run of about 130 miles. We figure on arriving around early to mid morning. We have anchoring options moving up the ICW depending on how tired we are. We're in travelling mode now and hope to keep up the pace into Oriental, NC.

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Making tracks

We left Fernandina Beach this morning for St. Simons, Ga. But conditions are good to keep going to Charleston SC overnight. We'll just stay a day or two and then get going again. We want to be in Oriental NC Monday to park the boat while we drive to Detroit.

We'll loose internet soon off coastal Ga.

Spot tracker is on.

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Tales and Cocktails

We have met some great people on our cruise. We have learned a lot and had some fun. We ran into a great couple in South Beach. Jane and Ben taught us a new tradition. We managed to finish off a bottle of Sailor Jerrys while aboard their motor sailing vessel, Old Rosie ( we did not drink the whole thing in one night). The tradition on Old Rosie is to have the couple you finished the bottle with sign the label. They have a special place to hang these labels.

We ran into Old Rosie again in Fort Lauderdale and wanted to return the favor. They showed up, wearing their Margarita hats!
Yes, we did enjoy the margaritas AND finished a bottle!

No more lollygaggin

I picked up a very nice gig in Detroit the last week of May. So we're going to get as far north as reasonably possible and rent a car to drive to Detroit. Looking forward to the visit.

We left Ft. Lauderdale Monday for Palm Beach. Palm Beach to Ft. Pierce Tuesday, south of Cape Canaveral Wednesday, Canaveral Thursday, New Smyrna Friday, into Daytona Beach Saturday and north of St. Augustine Sunday nite.

We're passing through a lot of interesting places. St. Augustine looked especially interesting. We'll stop in some other time. The plan is to get at least to S Carolina by mid May and hopefully further north. I'm looking for a good place to park the boat for 2 weeks.

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Pavlovs Manatee

There is nothing tastier to a Manatee than fresh salt-free water. I have watched them push and shove to get a few precious drops. We have a saltwater anchor wash down hose. Yesterday morning as Ed was hosing the anchor and chain a big Manatee came swimming by. He was very unhappy that we had saltwater spraying through the hose. The big lug could not help himself, he kept coming back to verify that it had not changed to fresh water each time we turned the hose on. Pavlov would have been so proud.

Solar

We rented a car for a day to buy the solar panels and do some shopping. Got almost everything done in 22 hours then back to enterprise. We were concerned about overheating so we arranged for a mechanic to do some work on the cooling system too. I figured 4 maybe 5 days to complete the install and a few more things. We finished almost everything in 10 days, just in time for severe storms to come through, so we stayed 2 more days.

But now we have 240 watts of solar. We were running our generator almost 3 hours every day when we sat at anchor. This should cut that back to 1 hour every few days! Yea!

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Ft. Lauderdale

We've been thinking of installing some solar panels and a good supplier is located in Lauderdale. So we decided to stop here to do the work. We went a few miles up the New River to the city owned Cooleys Landing, right downtown. The amazing thing about sitting here is the parade of megayachts. There are major repair facilities further up this narrow, twisting river. At least a dozen 100'+ yachts would pass by every day. Some beautiful machinery and some gaudy crap too. Amazing sights.

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

SoBe II

South Beach is amazing. I've never seen so many outdoor cafes. Must be thousands. The art deco architecture goes on for miles.

We met Wally aboard Gypsy Wind and Ben & Jane on Old Rosie. Wally wants us to go to Cuba with him next year. Wally would be great fun, but sorry we'll have to pass.. Old Rosie's name was lifted from a Bob Seger tune. It became apparent Ben didn't name the boat after his wife! The 4 of us took our bikes on a long ride all thru South Beach. A perfect place for bikes, a great day of sight seeing, dining and goofing off.

After a very quick, fun week, we decided we'd better get underway before we spend all our money on lunches & dinners! We stayed off the beach, too much skin. I don't like seeing women in skimpy bikinis cavorting in the sun.

Next stop Ft. Lauderdale, a short day sail up the coast. Got yelled at by the water cops for trying to use the ship channel while cruise ships were present and got yelled at again in Lauderdale for circling around while waiting for a bridge opening; got to close to where there were no cruise ships!



Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

More of Chris Critters

In Key West the roosters rule the roost

Is this a seal?

Critters

Chris here. I have a few pictures to share of some of the critters we have seen along the way. I hope you enjoy them. Santa dogs in St Pete:
An Egret:

Some Ibus
Heron

Lizards

I wanna go to Miami!

We've rounded the corner and are now headed north. We left Marathon for Rodregiuz Key on Sunday. Anchored out there for the night and continued on Monday morning. Had some rain in the AM which we welcome to wash the boat. The afternoon was beautiful. Arrived Miami via Government Cut around 4pm. We had to stand off to wait for the cruise ships to exit; homeland security. But they reopened the cut before the last one was out. So we had to make room for a very large ship. Not a big deal since the cut is huge. Dropped anchor around sunset. Then moved to a better location Tuesday. We're right off Miami Beach, near the police dock. We can tie to the launch ramp for access to the city. First stop, Burger n Beer Joint! 1/2 lb. Prime angus beef burger, all the trimmings and duck fat fries! Oh yea, a beer too. Yummmmm! Easy walk to publix and Fresh Market. We decided to hang out for several days. We'll take the 25 cent bus down to South Beach this afternoon for some sight seeing and dinner.

More 85 degrees and sunny weather! Life is excellent!

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Fail

The McGyver in me failed with the depth finder. As I suspected, the keel, rudder, propeller turbulance messed with the depth finder. No joy. I could have mounted it off the side of the boat and that would have worked...if I had a pole long enough to rig to the side stanchions and reach down to the water. The painters pole would have snapped under the strain if I extended it that far.

So on to plan B. We re-anchored outside the harbor & called the local West Marine. They have a type of depth finder that can drop in replace the existing display. But, I have heard contrary opinions if the old transducer will work with the new display. The only transducer available for the new display requires drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat. I can't work that fast! So I took a chance that the new display would work with the old transducer.

Launch the dink, run to a marina, pay $8 to tie up for an hour (everybody has their hand out around here), walk a mile to the West Marine, discuss options with the manager for a half hour, buy the depth finder, walk back to the dink, run back to the boat, temporarily hook up everything in a manner that would allow return, EUREKA, rewire everything permanently, tie up the dink, go motor around for a while to test, re-anchor, clean up, relax and wait for tomorrow to get underway. Hope we get another great sunset tonite I can actually enjoy. And pray this solution works long term.

Now if I could only figure out what is causing the tach to act up...

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

The Great Escape

3 long weeks stuck in Marathon is enough. A nice place, but when you expect to spend 1 week and are boxed in for 3, it gets frustrating.  The wind is finally going to switch direction after 3 weeks of continuously blowing out of the east, the only bad wind direction. So it's time to git!

But, earlier this week a boat with an extra tall mast caught a telephone wire that drapes across the entrance to Boot Key Harbor, which pulled the wire about 5' lower. It was set to 65' at high tide. We need about 62' plus another foot for the whip antenna. The wire is now 60' at high tide and 62' at low tide. Now what?

A few guys went to the bridge next to the wire for an elevated view to spot for us. We waited for dead low tide at 1630 (4:30pm) to make our escape. The lowest droop is right at the channel so if you go around the droop, you gain elevation...but the channel shoals to about 5' very quickly and we draw about 5' 6" and this is at dead low tide! Truly ZERO room to spare.

So we cut through the bridge, forced a small power boat out of our way and listened for the guy on the bridge with a radio to tell us how we looked. Looking up from our boat doesn't tell anything. We've gone through 90' bridges and it looks like you're going to hit it. I turned left after the bridge toward the shallow water and then turned back as soon as I heard from the spotter. I didn't know it at the time but he reported that I hit the wire with the top 1" of my whip antenna! Another boat after us caught the wire with their mast and were lucky to be able to maneuver back off the wire while not running aground. Oh, the wind was blowing 15 at our back pushing us toward the wire. Oh, another minor issue; the depth finder decided to crap out! So when I was heading to the shallow water, I was blind to the depth. That's why I turned very quickly as soon as I got the word. But we made it and we're now anchored in the open ocean behind Boot Key ready to sail east in the morning.

AT&T is wrangling the only barge in the keys big enough to fix the wire. They'll be there in another week. And, BTW, the wire is no longer in use and this is the third time in 2 years for this sort of issue. Lots of unhappy people stuck there another week. We felt like Steve McQueen in the Great Escape. We made it under the wire!

As for the depth finder, we still need one. During a most fantastic sunset over 7 Mile bridge, I scrambled to McGuyver a backup. I have a little fishfinder in the dingy. I removed the finder & the transducer from the dink. I have a fiberglass painters pole for extended reach scrubbing. So I cut off the end of the pole and mounted a stainless 1" bracket I have in the parts bin. Bolted the transducer to the end of the pole and tied the pole to the swim ladder. Spliced on a cigarette lighter plug to the power wire and instant depth readings! I just hope the turbulance from the boat, engine and exhaust don't interfere with the readings. Stay tuned!

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Dirty dink

This is what the bottom of our dink looks like half cleaned...after 3 weeks in the water at Boot Key Harbor. Most of that is crusty barnacles that have to be scraped with a putty knife.

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Hey, it's not all cocktails & sunsets

We've reached Marathon in the Florida Keys. This will be our farthest point south. Time to head east & north. But the wind has been strong out of the east every day now for 3 weeks. We need 2 days to sail to Miami and there is no place for a deep draft boat to hide from an east wind. So here we sit. We did take a side trip to Key West but mostly we hang around here and work on the boat.

Some of the projects we've been working on...

The varnish on the teak needs regular refreshing. I recoated the trim around the cockpit and about 1/3 of the toe rail. Sand, wipe, varnish, resand, wipe and apply a second coat of varnish.

One of the burners on our 3 burner stove top has never worked right. Now, a second one stopped working. One burner just isn't enough. I called the factory, they haven't made stoves in 10+ years. No parts at all for the back burner but maybe something left for the front one...called back with the last thermocouple for that stove in existence! $50 & an hour of work and we avoid having to spend another BOAT unit. BOAT unit? What? Everything for a boat seems to run in multiples of $1000. BOAT = Break Out Another Thousand. The pilot light in the oven also quit so I pulled it out and cleaned the orifice with a needle. The stove is propane and that means tank refilling. Strap the 20 lb tank to the bike rack and run it up to the fill station. 

The 12 volt refrigeration I installed in '08 is working great. But we also have a parallel system that is engine driven. I upgraded that in 2010. But engine drive systems are notorious for leaks and this one is no different. The leaks are very hard to find. I spent several hours here to no avail.

Chris regularly spends time waxing parts of the exterior. We use a cleaner/wax first and then a hard paste wax. Tedious labor but the boat looks good for it. She's also done several touch ups to her excellent canvas work. We bought a second bike and that means a second zippered bike bag was needed. Nicely done.

We're tied to a mooring ball for $125/week instead of at a marina for $125/day. But we have to shlep jugs of water almost every day. We don't like using the communal bath house so showering aboard plus dishes & drinking water is about 10 gallons per day. So we go to the marina office and fill 2 or 3 5 gallon jugs, bring them back & poor them into the water tank.

Our 10' dingy is our mini van. We run it to the dingy dock at the marina to gain shore access. We keep our bikes there to extend our range.

Publix & Winn-Dixie groceries are about a mile away. We bought new backpacks at K-Mart to carry dry goods and we use soft sided coolers for cold stuff. Chris needed a new USB to 12 volt cigarette plug to charge her I Pad. That was a 4 mile bike ride to Radio Shack. Good excercise!

Our wind generator had an obnoxious rattle. I climbed up and removed the nose cone and put some putty inside it. Snapped it back on and it runs much quieter. I just wish it provided more power. I'll estimate it provides no more than half of our electricity. The rest we get from a little Honda generator that powers 2 40 amp battery chargers. And of course the honda needs refueling and oil changes.

The honda also powers my hookah. Not that kind! A snorkel for shallow diving. This harbor is very warm water with very high growth. So I had to dive under the boat to clean it. No bottom paint works well enough in these conditions. This was my first time using the hookah, I'm not comfortable breathing under water. Very stressful. I'll get used to it, I have to. But I didn't do a very good job first time out, I need to get back down. The water is VERY murky and I couldn't see squat. We need to take muriatic acid to the dink bottom, stuff has grown FAST on it also. A project for tomorrow.

The engine tachometer started bouncing and battery charging from the engine was erratic. Removed the alternator and took it to a shop for testing. Works fine. But it had the wrong size pulley! Changed that and reinstalled. The bouncing tach problem went away...for a while! It's back and I need to dig further to fix it. We need to have full charging capability when underway.

Now you know why I post pix of cocktails! The definition of cruising "fixing boats in exotic places".

We're off to the Wednesday evening meet n greet where I can make some more enemies!

E

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Key West

We took the bus to Key West on Saturday the 25th. We have friends Tom & Brenda staying there so we met up with them for a quick tour and a great lunch dockside. Spent the afternoon wandering the streets, then sunset at Mallory Square. Not quite the freak show I was expecting. We watched jugglers, sword swallowers, fire eaters and the sunset. Off to dinner at another great open air restaurant. The dining scene is much better than I expected, I figured tourist trap food.

After dinner we headed to the famous Sloppy Joes. Usually I stay out of tourist traps but Tom & Brenda knew Pat Dailey was performing. Pat spends the winter in Key West and the summer at Put-In-Bay, party central of the Great Lakes. Twas fun listening to his mix of Great Lakes songs & tales and his bawdy banter. The performances of a few of the ladies in the crowd was worth the trip alone. A few more cocktails didn't hurt either!

Gettin late, havin too much fun, we missed the bus back to Marathon and stayed at T&B's place. Excellent hosts for sure. To top it off, breakfast at a little French restaurant! Again, The food was excellent.

We missed one of the buses so we stopped in at the Green Parrot, last bar on A1A. We almost passed up the next bus 2 hours later to continue soaking in a great jazz band. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon. Our whirlwind trip ended with a long ride back on the bus with a cast of local characters.

Thanks again to Tom & Brenda for their hospitality.

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Am I crazy?

This blogging is beginning to feel like I'm talking to myself.

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom