Out and about!

 Hey!

    So it's Betty's BDay here shortly and she has not had the fun of the living on the boat part of boating as of yet. Lots of work but little reward. So we took off the other day headed for no where in particular in no particular hurry. I delayed leaving for a day simply because it was late in the morning and freaking hellishly hot. No big deal. The front AC works just fine. That's the one 25K unit that keeps the salon and all the other not stateroom areas cool and quite comfy. 

    I still need to replace the rear 10K unit that maintains the stateroom temps. I am waiting for the Annapolis sail show next month to look at replacements for that one. There is so little room in that compartment, makes the hole the generator fits in look spacious. However as someone else looked in there and remarked on how much room is available in there. Different prospective. I was in there working on the fuel lines not to long ago and it is tight. 

I think I have mentioned this before but Steel Breeze is a wind machine, meant to both harness the wind for movement and ventilate the boat while at anchor. Well the ventilation part doesn't work very well when you are tied to the dock and the wind is anywhere but from the bow of the boat. And the movement part doesn't work at all when there is >5 knots TWS. 

So we made it off moorings with no issues and puddled down the Potomac and made it to Colonial Beach, a little place we've been meaning to stop by for some time now. We're headed to Leonardtown later today, maybe. The very last time we took off for an actual trip somewhere in Amadeus we were headed to Leonardtown. Never made it, had a zero wind day, and I started freaking out cuz the engine was being balky. So we should be able to complete that trip either today or tomorrow. That only took 3 years and a new boat. 

It's breakfast burritos time. Then some discussion of the days activities. As we appear to be the only transient boat we have 100% use of the golf cart here at the marina. Found a great little restaurant that did excellent sushi and a great steak last night. 

HOME!!

Happy Dance! Happy, happy, joy joy! WOO!

So when I started this particular evolution I expected it to take a couple weeks, no more than a month. I packed like I was going on a quick four day hotel based excursion. Yeah that was a mistake. It's been since mid February and it has been a difficult time both emotionally and financially. There has been more than a few really great times, matched of course by the extremes of bad days. Most of my bad days were induced by hugely high expectations of the boat actually working, followed almost immediately by the crash when something else breaks, or the fix I tried didn't actually fix the issue. Those match some of my costliest days. Oddly enough the corollary is much the same, large sums of money are usually required for joy, at least in boat repair world. HUGE Thank you Betty for awesome support! I think this trip was harder on her as there really wasn't anything for her to do but listen to me whining about the latest broken this, that or the other. And convince me not to either sell it, or burn it to the waterline.

Once I got out of LMC Betty and I puttered down the North Fork of New River to Fort Lauderdale City Marina, which was right off the beach area and had a great week, doing nothing, nothing at all. I was having a serious brain lock deciding how to progress, was just not able to decide. Do I go outside? ICW? Where to anchor, which marina, how many fuel stops, where is the fuel dock, and is the weather going to support my plan? Either to much or to little information warring with insufficient personal experience. So while fighting my version of brain fog Betty and I decided to hire a professional Captain to both deliver the boat and maybe teach me a few things along the way. It was a great decision! The captain came with an extra crew member so that lessened the work load for all of us. It actually ended up that they mostly did the boat stuff, and I watched. Occasionally relieving one or the other when I wanted to drive. Which TBH is mainly sitting in the helm seat watching the ocean pass by, monitoring the gauges, looking for AIS targets, and looking for other boats that don't have AIS (Automatic Identification Ship) installed. Such a great system, it tells you ship name, speed, direction, and the little computer tells you if that other boat is going to intersect with your chosen bubble of space which in our case was 2 miles. I found it amusing that in the giant, mostly empty, ocean how many boats ended up close enough that we had to maneuver to avoid collisions. I did have some great days while out offshore, it was mostly fun, with only a couple days of OMG!! WHY AM I DOING THIS?

So things I learned:

Sailboats are highly resistant, almost allergic, to set schedules. 

Attempting to adhere to a set schedule causes you to take the boat out on days you should realistically stay tied up, make some hot chocolate and curl up with a good book. 

Ten foot ocean waves are murder on your boat, body and peace of mind. Really takes the pleasure out of pleasure boating.

Moderately bad weather on the ocean will induce anti sailboat trama. 

Sailing a small large boat on the ocean is a noisy endeavor. 

Having a wave top slam into the bottom of your bridge deck sounds like a cannon shot and feels like the boat is about to come completely apart. 

The brown water in the ICW will stain your boat brown as well. (Hope that washes off)

The bugs in the Dismal Swamp and Great Dismal Swamp are truly of nightmare inducing proportions and quantities. And seemingly all of them want your blood.

Florida is infested with both blood sucking no-see-ums that come right through the screening and Trumpists. The bugs are easier to tolerate.

Few things are more frustrating than to have a dodgy engine.

Volvo-Penta engines are the red headed step children of the boat mechanic world.

Long distance cruising in the open ocean is for the most part boring.

And the follow on, everything is calm and peaceful till it devolves into chaos at the blink of an eye. And it seems like it's always chaos!

Nothing good ever happens at 3:00 AM!

Marathon Harbor daily boaters net is just a bunch of old folks huddled around their VHF kabitzing.

There are a bunch of people living in what looks like floating junk yards down in the Florida Keys.

Got to keep the dinghy filled with air or it gets floppy on the hangers.

You can, and I have, run aground in the marked channel.

People who say they have never run aground are lying.

Everything is stupidly expensive, mainly because these are very small lot items. Not many companies make this stuff and the boating community is small there is no real economy of scale.

I hate crab pots. I know crabbers have the same right to use the waterways as I do, but still...

Provisioning a sailboat is a difficult and learned process. Not being able to run down to the local grocery for a forgotten whatever is a difficult adjustment for me.

Somebody always has a bigger, fancier boat/widget and loves to talk endlessly about it.

I can't honestly say I had a great time, it certainly wasn't a vacation. I learned a lot about how things work in the marine world. Most boat fixing companies are really only doing support things, it's not like taking your car to a mechanic. You need to be able to diagnose your own issue and occasionally you can get a mechanic to do the work, but mostly you are on your own. At least the companies with which I interacted. Met some interesting people, and some not so stellar examples of humanity. So really about the same as shore based life. There is just a lot more opportunity to meet and greet and that is very different from my onshore life.

I was compiling my boat repair list this morning, it's a very long document. I still need to compile and record my detailed expenses. I am not looking forward to that.

Anyway for now I'm tied up to a floating dock in a weirdly difficult spot, and catching up on sleep, Betty time, and the endless boat list. And laundry! Trying to plug back into the daily routine of shore life.

Attached is the single most fun minutes of the trip.

Another night offshore

55 Miles off Georgetown North Carolina, it is 10:00 at night the moon is full, it’s 117 miles, about 14 hours, to Morehead City our next scheduled stop. We are puddling along at some 8 knots with a following sea and wind wavering right to left and back again but right on our butt. Not really a good point of sail for Steal Breeze. The boom is swinging and shaking the boat with every excursion. It is reefed in as tight as it will go, but there is just not enough wind to pin it in place. The main sheet is twisted around itself so that will have to get pulled out and unraveled. We have got preventers rigged, but still. This is our third overnight, and second on this leg, engines are running, which really is the only thing driving us, the jib while pinned out is only adding a knot or so to our speed. The swells are mostly light, but it’s never still. Prior to leaving Fort Lauderdale I figured I had reached my level of incompetence and hired a captain and a crew member to run the boat up to Virginia. After some 2.5 months in various yards, with parts and other fees it was time to get this trip completed. Home port is still 463 miles away, 2 days and 13 hours from now, but we still have to get past Cape Lookout and Cape Hatterus. Deadly dangerous places.

Boat is running well, engines are performing well, using a bit of oil from the port sail drive, and I despair of ever getting those things right. We are well provisioned and just running on a minimum time route to Tantalon Marina where we will port the boat while waiting for a closer slot in Occaquan. We figured fuel economy on our previous overnight and it is an excellent one gallon per hour with both engines running at cruise speed, 34 straight hours of run and just a bit over 34 gallons burned. Which is quite amazingly frugal. And simple math. So that part at least is working well.

Tried to raise the spinnaker earlier today, which was a complete bust. Had a bit of a timing issue getting the main sheet in the block and led back to the winch, which allowed the sail to twist itself around the jib stay. That took about an hour to resolve and the considered opinion of all was to not try that again. In looking at the sail itself it looks like it will need to be replaced. It has been mended quite a few times and is generally in poor shape. We’ll lay it out in Morehead City and give it a better inspection.

One amazing thing that happened today was a pod of dolphins decided to accompany us for 20 minutes. We got up on the bow and watched them frolic, till Breeze got annoyed and kicked off the autopilot. Mad scramble for the cockpit and got her back on course, and eventually the autopilot stayed engaged.

I have found that so far sailing is pretty boring for hours and hours, then it’s instant chaos. Nothing good ever happens at 3:00 AM. The boat never steers straight, always swinging back and forth, rising and falling, slopping about. But we’re doing much better than a call I heard earlier about 5 people in the water who evidently couldn’t get back in their boat. It’s been a very busy day for the Coast Guard. Two other Pan Pan calls, someone sinking and someone else run aground.

Anyway, it’s late, I’m going to catch a few Z’s and come up later to stand with whoever has the watch.

Out of the yard!

 So finally! Got out of the yard last Friday. This time, everything worked as advertised. Engines ran, transmissions, well did transmission stuff. All the navigation gear worked! I'm just pumped! We didn't go to far, just down the South fork of New River, then down to the ICW. We got a berth at Las Olas Marina, a Fort Lauderdale city dock. Three blocks from the beach, Betty finally got her toes in the ocean and wandered about on the sand. I plugged the boat in as I have still not fixed the generator. And after a little tinkering, got the Air Conditioning to work! I am astonished.

We were going to leave this morning, however, while working on the boat I pulled a muscle in my back and that has been a misery for me. Stupidly enough I didn't hurt myself actually doing the heavy work, but trying to move the mattress to get to a tube of grease. So we took today off, and spent much of the morning planning our next few days for travel. We are ever so hopeful we can get to Titusville in the next 6 days and drop the boat for a few days. I really want to go home for a bit. While this has been an interesting time, I want to take a few weeks off, regather my attention and then gather my resources and either hire a delivery captain or finish dragging it up the coast myself.

We are going to have to drive the boat, rather than sail as the wind is just not going to cooperate, and we have a schedule we need to keep. And sailboats and schedules are just not a real thing. 

So short entry this time, but more once we actually get moving. 

Can this get any worse? Or how I spent my Earth Day

 Still at LMC. Still floating. It's been a down week, not doing much really, reading books, eating. Well not much eating. Need to go restock. Worked on the generator, it was having overheating issues. Found the drive belt very loose. As the belt was loose and had been ground down to half it's usual width I replaced it. Found the impeller, which is on the back side of the cooling water pump and very nearly inaccessible, and managed to inspect that as well. It was in excellent condition. Then spent a good 1 1/2 hours putting it back together. For some reason this has a non geometrical shape. It's four tiny screws and a cover! So it took a while, tiny screws in a very small space. Pretty normal for boat work. But the engine space is a suite of rooms compared to the generator space. Ran it didn't see any water leaks, or other issues so wrestled the shroud back on to it. We have been having some unusually overcast days down here and the solar panels were not keeping up with the usage, and the powers that be have assigned us a space that is very far from the single pedestal that you can plug into, and no extension cords are forthcoming. So I needed to run the generator to charge the batteries as well as make some hot water for showers. Showers are a lovely thing down here in the land of stinky pits. After a while the divers, who had been working on the boat in the well next to me and wanted to know if I had any known leaks? I looked at the water and there was quite a sheen, nice oil slick going on. I do not have any leaks that I was aware of, particularly fuel or oil for that matter. I shut off the generator and stuck my head under the boat. The compartment drain for the generator hole had a nice ooze of oil coming out of it. That is certainly not good. Wrestled the shroud back out of the hole and saw oil in the compartment, not a lot of it, but there shouldn't have been any. Got some diapers, manufactured towel things that only absorb oil and oil products, and started soaking up the mess. Looked at the dipstick on the generator and saw it was down maybe a pint. :(

So that pint went into the river. The divers called their hazmat guys and soon had a couple booms to contain and soak up the free floating oil. All in all not as bad as it could have been. I did a postmortem on the generator and as near as I can tell I popped the valve cover gasket on it. Another major system on the boat that has failed. The booms stayed in place till this morning and the oil had either dispersed or been soaked up by the booms. Happy Earth Day Momma Earth. That little incident went on the bill, another $1500. :(

I had been on the schedule for a Thursday, April 22nd, haul out, however I was extended. This place is full to the brim and there is no room in the inn. Anyway I have a new one for Monday @ 10:30, hopefully then I can get this show on the road again. Really I just need two engines so I can station keep at the bridges and sails that hold onto the masts. Food storage, usual. Then I can go. I've been stuck here for about a month now. Not what I expected.

I thought about fixing the transmission then calling it quits and listing it for sale, but I really need to get it out of here first. 

So that's it for this episode of this Old Busted Boat.

This is getting stupid

 Hello and welcome to the very occasional updates from my continuing adventures in trying to escape Florida. I'm still in LMC, using their incredibly terrible WIFI, while floating this time. When last we chatted I was stuck on the hard and very annoyed. Well this time I'm stuck on a floating dock, still very annoyed. We got to move exactly 20 feet. We always seem to get the 7:30 time slot for hauls, which I guess is because this is an unscheduled effort. Hard to schedule break downs. 

We got our transmission rebuilt and reinstalled, a little easier than the disassembly process. I got some straps and hung the engine from a 2x4 we "found" and chopped to size. Same old same old as far as parts go, I ordered a new ring gasket to seal the ocean out of the boat on Monday. Most sailors say that it's the best place for the ocean to be, and I agree. Anyway the site said they had them in stock, so I paid extra for 2 day shipping, otherwise it's 5-7 days. I needed the parts for a Saturday rebuild, so Friday I wandered over to the chandlers shop, the fine folks that charge you $10.00 a package to accept and sort your mail. No part. Called the place, went sort of like this:

Website moron, "Oh we sent you an email letting you know it was back ordered."

Me, "Your website said you had it in stock for immediate delivery. And I don't have an email."

Website moron, "Oh we're so sorry, we can't be held responsible for errors on our website! You know computer errors."

Me, frostily, "When can expect my parts?"

Website moron, "I'll have to call you back with that once I reach my warehouse sales people. Is this a good number?" 

Eventually an email arrived in my spam folder assuring me that they should have them back in stock by Wednesday-Friday latest and would then happily ship them, 2 day. It's currently the next Friday, FEDEX says it was delivered Wednesday, there is no parts for Steal Breeze at the chandlers office. I am about to rage quit this entire enterprise.

I examined the ring gasket we took out, it seems to be OK. only has the beginnings of a crack about 1" long and really just a scratch in the thickest part of the gasket. With zero other option I reused it. Which just means this fall I need to do this entire operation yet again. Go figure.

So my splash day was Tuesday. We were completely ready. Got up early, wandered down to the yard, topped off the water tank. We had already provisioned Monday. Figured we could go three or four days and my next scheduled stop with stores was only 2 days away. As if...

Tuesday morning was like almost every day down here, humid as all get out, expected sunny, slight breeze, mid 80's swarming no see 'ems. Terrible sailing weather as there is just no wind, but I was going to motor anyway. Got in the lift, headed for the well, no issues, as there just aren't doing this process. The guys here are very knowledgeable and the only concern is where my underwater protrusions are, and obviously we can see them on land. The whole process takes about an hour. I figured I could still make the ICW on the rising tide, even though I have to wait till 9:00 when the bridges will open, rush hour for all the land lubbers after all. 

Got dropped in the well, Started the engines looking for leaks and what not. Huh, got a bit of spray coming from the bottom of the port engine raw water impeller, the one we tore apart, looks like I set a hose clamp to low, we use two stainless hose clamps for redundancies sake, and the bottom one was way to low and I managed to miss the end of the steel connector for the raw water pump and crunched a hole in it. Really not much of an issue. The ring gasket is not weeping, everything else looks good. Put the engine in forward, YA! Propulsion, did the same to the starboard engine, the one we haven't touched. Same result. All is fine in my world. The lift operator finishes lowering the straps to the bottom and I nudge the engines into reverse to clear the well, figure I'll tie up for a couple minutes, trim my raw water hose and re-clamp it and then be off north! Weee! Yeah, no.

Slide the throttles into reverse and immediately notice I'm twisting again, port is working, starboard, not so much. Huh? Gave it a bit more throttle Suddenly hear a huge BANG! and the starboard prop starts doing prop stuff. HUH? Get it straightened back out and slide out into River Bend. Back into forward, same, turning to starboard. Huge BANG and the starboard prop starts turning. This is not good. I can not afford to snap the only drive shaft left in the world, so I yell at the guys that I'm coming in to the floater next to the well. They grab lines, and pretty much tow me in and tie me up. I start calling folks to help diagnose my new issue. Spent the rest of Tuesday feeling sorry for myself, and getting very annoyed, Wednesday was spent taking stuff off, trying this, that and the other and we all agree it's my clutch. As you can imagine I am royally pissed at this point. Start making calls for parts, yeah, ended back at the Volvo distributor, I can say that they know my number now. They send me an exploded diagram of every engine they ever made and I find my needed parts. Volvo is very, very proud of their cone clutch. So yet another boat buck and change for parts. 

During my pity party Tuesday I went to fix my raw water leak. Pretty simple. Slice off about an inch of the inlet hose, jam it back on and make sure both clams are in the correct place. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. Like my luck runs that way. Started old port side up and water is getting sprayed out of the weep holes behind the pump. It's about 1/2 the amount of water as previously, so I at least got the hose part done right. But the seals behind the raw water pump, that keep the water in the circuit have failed. If it isn't one thing it's yet another. Ordered some more parts. Parts arrive Thursday while we are scrubbing the yard garbage off the boat. While we were sitting there on the hard the boats on both sides of us were being sanded and repainted. Bottoms mostly. Black dust on everything. Plus greasy foot prints, bird poop, just the usual. I was up on the cockpit cover cleaning the solar panels and the rest and noticed my drains, well they were not, you know draining. Spent a few hours taking that system apart and cleaning out some sort of algae or mold or some god awful gunk out of about 1/2 of it. This is supposed to be the vaunted fresh water recovery system. Basically when you are way out and it rains you can let the first 10-15 minutes run through the system to wash off the gunk from the cockpit cover, salt and whatnot, then stick it in the fresh water tank and conserve it. I wouldn't recommend using this current system. Yuck! While there is a filter at the end before it goes into the tank, I shudder to think what this would taste like. And frankly it's very difficult to clean out the fresh water tank once it's been salted with biologicals. I gave up on that after a good couple hours. The entire system of pipes will need to be replaced, just can't get them clean. 

Have been doing research about fixing the transmission while still in the water, loads of googling. Very little in the way of results. Figure how hard could it be? Take the top off, remove the split ring holding the whole thing together, pull the bearing out, replace the cone clutch, bolt it all back together. Yeah, no. Volvo in their engineers infinite wisdom have created a perfect trap. The split ring in nestled in a washer with a groove in it so as to trap those parts together. Much more researching, come to find out there is a way to get this done. As long as you have access to a welder, steel, and a bending machine thing. The final contraption then has to be welded to the main shaft then you can compress the washer down 1/2" to fish the split ring out, then you know just cut it off and grind it down. Yeah I have no access to that. Volvo suggests placing the entire transmission in a press and doing it that way. Which requires taking the entire sail drive leg out of the boat. Exactly what we struggled with last week. I swear to god I'm going to burn this thing to the water line. Spent the rest of the day making various adjustments and diddling with the linkages in a vain attempt to get the stupid thing to work. Not my day for cobbling crap together. 

So the long and the short of it is I'm trying to get scheduled for another lift, 3rd in three months, forth if you count the aborted one from last week, so I can split the stupid transmission and take it over to Yacht and Diesels and have Tom rebuild it for me. I have the parts, shouldn't be more than another boat buck. Plus yard time, hotel, and food. I'm seriously pissed that a good chunk of our provisions are going to rot in the fridge. Can't live in the boat while it's on the hard. So yet another week in Florida. Supposed to rain this weekend. I'll be sitting here. I think tonight is another bourbon night.

As always comments are open should you so choose. Stay tuned for the further adventures of the never ending Florida trap.

Can the dream survive this? Even more fixing of the boat!

 So last time I left you we were in Key Largo, fixing the raw water loop. I was able to complete that and only made one error. The holes on the heat exchanger go DOWN not up. Anyway I was able to resolve that with out having to lift the boat out again.

Previously I had noted the channel leading to the lift was narrow, and not a lot of markers. So the inevitable occurred, I grounded. Really did it this time. Managed to try to back myself out of the mud and just got stuck deeper. Had to call TowBoatUS again to get me off. They responded in a few hours and drug me out of the muck. Then finally we were off! A wonderful day, nice north breeze, 4 foot waves, with 2 feet of chop, so they would all line up occasionally and we would get a 6 footer out of the deal. Not really a bad day, till the wind kept freshening and the waves kept building, and they are all coming from directly behind me. We were headed to the nearest inlet, into Boca Raton Lake. Got to play with the giant container ships going past the Port of Miami, about 5 miles off shore. They stayed well away and never really got close to us at all. With wind and wave, and a nice boost from the Gulf Steam we were hitting some 10 knots when we would surf down a wave front, but for the most part we chugged along at 8 knots. No sails up, I was in a hurry trying to make a schedule. Only saw one other boat out there, and he was just flying along on engine power. 

The only real worrisome part was making the inlet to Boca Raton Lake. Had to turn 90 degrees to wind and weather and puddle in cross ways to everything. That was a bit disconcerting, but I had faith in the boat as well as the autopilot. As we got nearer the inlet though it got a bit hairier. Not really sure how much they dredge these entrances and there are rocks piled on either side of the inlet, scary. Breaking waves coming across the beach area, more scary! So we got bounced around quite a lot till we made it across the bar and into the inlet. I was pretty happy I didn't end up surfing sideways down the breaking waves.

The time for the much dreaded first bascule bridge. I was having quite a bit of issue controlling the boat, wind behind, tide out going and was just fighting everything. Didn't seem to have much engine control either. Got sideways in the channel and just dropped anchor to give me some time to get it together and call the bridge. My information was the bridge was on a every half hour opening schedule. When things finally quit being scary I was able to call them for the next opening, which was on demand, so I asked, they raised, I upped anchor and got my first look at Boca Raton Lake. Place was jammed with boats and people. The edges of this lake are rather deep, but the center is full of spoil, rocks, sand, concrete, whatever. The center was shallow enough people were standing is less than waist deep water, drinking and playing with their kids. The deepest area was stuffed full of boats, and I'm still having issues controlling the boat. Pulled into one area, just to close to other boats, so I ended up heading to the southwestern most edge, right off the channel and dropping 125' of chain in 4 feet of water. Winds were up the 20 knots sustained and 30 knot gusts. Couldn't find a dinghy dock as we just settled down for a semi calm night. Well we would have had I taken the correct precaution of closing the side hatches prior to setting out in the morning. So the beds ended up a bit damp. Took that all apart and slept in the salon that night. John just moved into the spare room. 

Next morning we just upped anchor and headed to the next bridge, opens every 1/2 hour. Got there a bit early and worked on station keeping. I'm going to have to learn this skill if I'm headed up the ICW after all. Again really having issues controlling the boat. This is all very low speed stuff so it's all engine control and no rudder work. It finally dawns on me that I am having more than not being able to steer the new boat issues. I get past that particular bridge and try at the next, same issues. I happen to be at a wide spot in the road so to speak and drop anchor. Figure I lost a propeller or something. So I dig out my dive gear, drop in the water and peek under the hull, no both props are there. The port side is folded, the starboard side is spread out. SO I try just the port engine, forward, reverse, huh no prop wash. Did the same to starboard and yeah, loads of wash and boat moves. Ok this is bad. Called TowboatUS again and started the long process of finding a yard with a lift to get me out of the water. Had to get towed all the way back to Fort Lauderdale at a charming place called LMC. Says they are the largest yard in the USA. Well they are certainly more expensive than any place I've used as of yet.

After about a 9 hour tow we arrived in the yard, place was closed, it's Friday night. Not great. Had to up my personal liability insurance to $1,000,000.00 so they would allow me access to their amenities. Got tied to the dock, put the wet sheets out on the lubber lines and settled in for an uneventful weekend. 

Monday while juggling way to many things, trying to find parts, worrying about a mechanic, I didn't put my wallet all the way into my front pocket. My wallet is a combo iPhone holder/wallet. Yes dumped it right in the water getting on the boat. The dive supervisor was nice enough to suit up and dive for it, and did actually retrieve it from it's watery grave, however my venerable iPhone 7 didn't remain waterproof and died. The diver refused payment, which was incredibly nice of him, as he stated "I did this just last month!". So I now have a nice new iPhone that lives in my pocket with Velcro over it. 

They pulled me out of the water Wednesday morning, first opening in their lift schedule, meanwhile I spent Monday and Tuesday looking for a mechanic to help me diagnose the problems. Really got tired of hearing, "Nope we don't work on those." I have a Volvo Penta engine, transmission and sail drive leg. MD 2030 B engine, 102SD drive leg, and a M22? transmission. You'd think I had hand built these things with the help I was getting. I finally called the Volvo Distributor and they said they would send out a tech to look. They wanted to bill me 4 hours, which would have run me over $1,000.00. This includes travel time. However the tech was on site, told his boss he was just going to peek at it and there would be no charge. Nice guy! The diagnosis was that with water in the oil the shifter was unable to move the clutch cones though the complete cycle and so was slipping. Ok, how to fix? Pretty simple, just tear the bottom out of the drive leg, replace the seals, and put it all back together again. Really after it was done it wasn't to hard, just a problem of sourcing parts. Each of the seals is like $45 and from the drawing I saw came in a set of two. Well no they don't. I do have to have two, but they are not sold together. I got one from the distributor and ended up meeting some nameless guy in a parking lot in west Palm Beach for a clandestine parts exchange on a Sunday afternoon. Weird. 

Anyway the tear down and rebuild, once I had the parts, and this skips over the billions of phone calls to various places try to track them down, was actually fairly simple. One of the mechanics that works at the yard helped with pressing a part that was jammed on the prop shaft, and generally was a pretty decent guy.

Monday rolls around and we are topped up with water, and ready to drop back in the river. I let the lift guy know I needed to test my port side engine before he dropped the straps off me and off we went. Long story short, yeah that didn't fix anything. No propeller spin, no wash, no move. Back onto the hard we go. I don't want to start the whole complaining of expenses for this sort of thing, because we signed up for this, and I knew everything about boating is not cheap. But honestly I'm burning $300.00 a day, $180.00 for the boat sitting and $120.00 for the hotel room as we aren't allowed to stay on the boat while it's out of the water, plus food, transportation, and parts. 

So obviously I'm having an issue with the transmission. I took the top off of it and started poking around and trying to turn things and the main shaft that takes the power from the engine and links it to the drive leg just kind of comes out in my hand. Well this is not good. Look at the bottom of it and it's twisted off. Snapped, with a nice spiral crack running up through the hardened metal for one of the many bearings in there. 

Well this is bad. First I need to find the part, then I need to fix the part, and this is way out of the scope of the manuals on the boat. My son in law came down Saturday to help take the thing apart, and frankly I couldn't have done it with out him. We located a guy that does rebuilds and he thought he might have one, in fact he was sure he did, just had to remember which shelf it was on. We drove over to his place Sunday after we finally managed to get the transmission out of the boat. 

                                                    

That's a car way back there for scale. Well he didn't have the correct one, I'll spare you the huge amount of searching and phone calls, but Volvo doesn't stock the busted shaft, it's been out of production so long the used ones are about gone and the one new replacement transmission, next version by 2, is in Sweden and costs about $12,000.00, when all is said and shipped. Includes an adapter plate! Woo. However my rebuild guy, owner of the pile, has a friend, who has an entire transmission, so the shaft is the same and he is getting it overnighted to him for delivery tomorrow. Says I'll have my rebuilt transmission Friday. I have a scheduled lift appointment at 7:30 AM Tuesday. Next opening isn't for another week.

Had to leave the boat this morning as the catamaran next to us is having epoxy coating applied, the fumes are deadly, and caused my lungs to go into immediate halt mode. Thank goodness for rescue inhalers.

I really had no idea this could be so difficult. Finding parts, getting competent mechanics, finding a yard with a lift wide enough. I mean if anything is going to destroy this dream Betty and I have had, it's going to be this. 

As always comments are open should you wish to avail yourself. Thanks for reading!

Fixing the boat part II

 Key Largo, Sunny 68, windy

I've got that enormously annoying Beach Boys song running on continuous loop in my head. Frustrating. I mean it's a great song and all, but after a billion repetitions, nothing survives that...

We got into the yard a few days ago. After a difficult night out in the offing the yard owner called me on the phone and talked me down his hand cut channel. Just two poles used as range markers, basically line up the two poles and chug up his channel. As if. The poles are white, and the dock behind them is also white. Huge fun that. Anyway I managed to make it in, even in the crosswind without grounding. Score! We sat for quite a while as another smaller mono-hull was in the slings getting a nice pressure washing. I kind of think if boats were sentient it would be akin to having a long hot needle shower, scrub off all the gunk and get the skin nice and shiny. That took a while, then the lift slowly moved it to it's new location and the crew started blocking it. Little did I know the yard crew also took off for lunch. Come on guys! You could have told us so we knew we also could take off for the same. And a few beers. But a few hours later we hand walked the boat into the well, the straps went under, using the drawings provided in the owners manual. Important to have the slings in the right place. I've got transducers, sail drives and rudders under there, plus the hull is slightly rounded. Don't want the beastie to fall out of the slings, that would be very bad. However nothing bad happens, just a normal lift of 16,800 pounds. Junk and some sort of stinging red algae gets washed away, then we settle into our cradle for a bit of tear apart. We started the process at 11:00 or so and walked away around 5:30. It's island time here folks. Most of the time it is just to hot to move quickly. Unfortunately my instant inspection of the sail drives show the water inlet holes are clear.

So as I have noted I have some issue on the starboard (right) side with overheating, something with the raw water loop. Raw water is sea water that floods into the sail drive through 6 smallish holes, three per side. This cools the drive shaft and then because it is below the water line and there is a nifty hole in the top it is collected and sent to the impeller, which imparts a bit of pressure. This lifts it to the heat exchanger, that works like the radiator in your engine taking the heat from the coolant and then is ejected into the exhaust knuckle, cooling the hot exhaust gasses, which then mix in a canister which in turn is then ejected overboard. It really is a pretty simple set up that allows the use of heavy duty rubber hoses rather than the solid metal of a car exhaust. Usually this is a pretty easy fix, most of the time the the impeller, a small rubber wheel with fins that pressurizes and pumps the raw water, has lost some of it's fins and is not providing the right amount of water to the heat exchanger. That is easy to resolve and doesn't require a haul out. I have 5 replacements on board. However, simple this isn't. But there is no oil in the coolant, and no coolant in the oil, so I didn't blow a head gasket. I only have one of those on board. That is a major plus. So the only thing to do is take each piece of the loop out, inspect and replace until a problem is found. 

I feel bad for John as this is his stateroom and it is torn up once again. This time his bed is in the head and tools are scattered all over the place. When we bought the boat I was semi pleased with the tools the owner had left behind. However trying to actually accomplish anything with a plastic tub of rusty beat up tools is very time consuming. I had of course brought my trusty tool bag with me, however Volvo-Penta's are metric and all I have is American Standard. So after fighting with my tools, and taking three times as long to do anything I give up in frustration and call a Lyft to take me for a jaunt down to the auto parts store, then CVS for meds. 

Guy shows up and off we go. I try telling him what I need to do, however he speaks as little English as I do Spanish. He totally understands "Advanced Auto Parts", plus this key is very narrow, so we can point and chatter as it comes up. We literally walk from one side to the other here on a daily basis, takes like 15 minutes. We race into the store and load up on tools, wrenches, sockets, etc. And hope he is still there when we get back out. He is! Score! On to CVS while he is telling me stuff I don't understand, I got to get better at this communication thing. Anyway after spending way more than I wanted to on drugs to keep my lungs doing lung stuff we get back to the yard. Ok this is so much easier. I think I see ya nodding off over there, so the long and short of it is that after taking each piece apart we find nothing. This is not good. Everything I have done so far could have been done while bobbing about at anchor. I do not want to take the sail drive out of the boat and disassemble. I'm looking around for something else to take apart and look at the inlet valve from the drive and start the laborious task of taking that apart. It's just a little valve with an elbow on top, but it is of course in a difficult place to get tools into much less turn them. Take that apart and finally! There is a small piece of something hard jammed in the elbow. A good twenty minutes later I've managed to wiggle it out of the elbow and figure it stopped a good 50% of the water flow into the system. This is in keeping with the decreased water flow we noted as well as the obvious overheating. Thankfully I could not have removed this part had we not been on land. PHEW!

I am so happy. Obviously not thrilled with a unscheduled lift, but hey, it's part and parcel of boat life. Now we start replacing the stuff. None of this is particularly difficult, just the usual issues with clearances and what not anyone who has ever worked on an engine will tell you about. It's just that knees are old, my previous lifestyles exertion was on par with drifting plankton and I'm doing hours of engine space squats. My butt, if it doesn't fall off, will look fabulous! However with the way I'm dragging it around it'll probably have scrape marks on it as well.

 Boats are wonderfully engineered ventilation machines, when swinging at anchor most of the time you are faced directly into the wind and all the hatches are designed to act as wind scoops. However in the yard you point where ever the lift drops you. So it's hot and stuffy down there. Cramped, just the usual stuff. We are waiting for parts and can then complete the rebuild. I have also got a bit of an electrical issue on the port side. Seems that engine is not producing power out of the alternator. This is not a make or break thing, the starboard engine also has the same alternator and regulator, plus as I've replaced the start battery on the generator we can run that for charging the house batteries. And the starboard engine also produces hot water! And a nice warm rinse off after a sweaty day sailing is always nice. As I do not want to unpickle the water maker and only carry 100 gallons of water showers are a very quick thing.

We are currently room hopping at the hotel I mentioned previously. The people here have been very nice, friendly and very helpful. Frankly trying to live on a boat that is not in the water is pretty darn uncomfortable. Can't run the generator, or the engines, and of course no air conditioning. Which frankly I'm learning to live with out. But having the staterooms torn apart while fixing this bit or that makes it a bit of a challenge. So yeah we're glamping. Having a flush toilet and unlimited hot water has it's advantages. Beats the porta-potty and garden hose in the yard.

Winds today were from the northeast, 20 - 25 knots. Which is of course the direction we want to travel in, so hanging here in the yard is pretty sweet, much better than bashing into the wind and waves endlessly tacking while making little forward progress. Catamarans are not known for being able to sail close to the wind, so tacking back and forth is the only way to make progress, but it is slow, I mean even slower than our normal cruising speed. If you want to know what sailing on one of these wind machines is like, go out to your car, start it and put in in drive, then just idle your way to where ever you want to go. It is a very slow process. Of course until you get close to stuff that is hard. Then it's slow but inevitable. Not much in the way of brakes on these things. 

That's it for todays thrilling update, thanks for reading, comments are enabled if you should so choose.

Boat ownership, fixing your boat in exotic locations

 On the hard, Boatyard, Key Largo , FL 64, sunny

Well we made it this far. Seems to be a major activity to just get the boat a couple miles. We upped anchor in Marathon a few days ago and took off for the next leg of The Big Float 2021. We were headed for Key Largo but wanted to do it in two easy bites. Usually boaters do it in one 18 - 20 hour day, but John and I have decided that we don't want to do any more overnights or late night arrivals. So we headed for channel 5 bridge, the area behind is supposed to be good holding for our anchor and easily done. So I got out in Hawk Channel and raised sail! OMG!~ Finally the sails came out of the bags and up the mast. Again my sail handling skills are not the best, but this boat makes it stupid easy. I had wind over the starboard rail about 60 degrees off the nose pretty variable at 8 to 16 knots. Not the best point of sail, but pretty good. Have to watch the jib tell tales and adjust frequently, but we were able to turn off the engines and just let the wind take us. Started to show my friend John who is accompanying me on this trip how to do the sails. Or at least what I keep doing. Work the tell tales, tell tales are little 6" strings of yarn, red and green, that are affixed on the trailing edge of the mainsail, if they are all streaming back we are using the sail properly. The jib tell tales are a little different, they are set more in the body of the sail and I have a little plastic window so I can compare the two. Sails are not parachutes you launch into the wind and just let them pull you along. The sails are built to resemble wings when they are properly filled, and work exactly like airplane wings. So because they are made of fabric rather than metal you have to make sure they stay wing shaped to get the best usage. Except when you are running straight down wind, then they are just big sheets capturing the wind. Anyway, I quickly got the hang of working the tall tales, it's a bit fussy to get the high ones and the lower ones to both fly properly on the jib, but just making small adjustments to the jib sheet, the jib sheet is the line that controls the angle to the wind of that big sail, I am able to trim the sail to it's best shape. So that's what we did. We were making 4 to 5 knots in the highest winds. This is why we have this thing. A floating 3 bedroom 2 bath condo, that the wind will blow us around the world on while relaxing in luxury. There has been very little of the luxury part as of yet. 

We get to Channel five bridge and I decide to go under the bridge to check out the supposedly great anchorage behind an island. Instant panic! Neither engine will start! This is a major worry. So leaving the boat just bobbing around in the water I marshal my resources and start troubleshooting. Batteries are charged and in fact are receiving charge, no lines are disconnected. Lots of rushing to and fro, both staterooms are torn up as the engines live under the beds. About 30 minutes later John points out that I have the throttles locked in full reverse. I do this as Volvo Penta says that allows the props to fold in and reduce drag while sailing. So dumbass lesson 300? Put engines in neutral, both fire right up. Under the bridge we go babying Ole Smokey. There are so many crab pots. We get behind an old ruined hotel I think it was, or someone's failed mega mansion, and drop the anchor, get it set in a 4 knot tidal flow. I set my little anchor app and shut off the engines. YAY! End of the first of hopefully many such days. I put out about 175' of anchor chain in 6' of water. Way more than called for, but I'm being cautious. Celebratory beers are drank and we look forward to a mostly restful nights sleep. Around 2AM my anchor alarm goes off, I hate that little beep beep beep. I get up go on deck and the wind has picked up some and we have turned in the tide. And the anchor is dragging. Ok nothing around but the innumerable crab pots, so I just let out all 300' of chain. Reset the alarm and watch. Seems to be doing better. Go back to bed, not much sleep after that little excitement. Up around 6 for a quick coffee and then push on to Key Largo! Got the engines started, T-handles down, throttles in neutral, preheat, bam! Start! Woo!

Head back towards the bridge dodging crab pots. I've got like 300 yards till I'm in the restricted area next to the bridge when disaster strikes. While turning the boat to miss the next upcoming rows I don't allow enough time for the aft end to clear the current row. Boats don't turn like cars do. In the car your front end pivots on the rear wheels. We've all been doing this for so many years we don't even think about it. Boats pivot on the center of their keels, this is an important thing to keep in mind while maneuvering. I hear banging noises from the port side and the port engine dies. I know instantly what has occurred. Go get the dive gear I got in Marathon and over the side I go. It's a mess. I've got three floats and accompanying line firmly wrapped around the propeller and shaft. Trusty knife in hand I start the laborious task of cutting all this away. I rigged a line from the starboard sugar scoop to the port side so I don't get swept away from the boat in the tide and start cutting. What seems like hours of diving later I get most of the mass cleaned off or at least two of three floats chopped away. There is a chunk of line with float firmly wedged between the back of the prop assembly and the fairing for the sail drive that I just can't get out. It's important to note here my lungs are crap. 45 years of smoking has taken it's toll and is making a hard job extremely difficult. I have barely enough wind to blow my snorkel free of water, so I keep swallowing sea water, which makes me puke. Yeah that's a fun thing. During a break to get what little wind I have back John suggests running the engine in reverse to dislodge the line. Seems like a great thing to try. So we do. Remember that line I had strung from port to starboard? Yeah me neither. Fired up the engine and in reverse we go, float pops free and floats away, but the engine dies again. WTH? Over the side I see my rescue line has now taken the place of the float that now headed to sea. Can't yank it out and it is firmly in the same spot. I'm defeated by my own line. Yet another self own. 

I get out of the water and do a quick rinse while trying to rest for the next herculean effort while mentally berating myself for doing another stupid thing. Finally a light bulb appears over my head. I have a TowBoatUS membership I bought in conjunction with my boat insurance. I call them and they say they will send a boat and if a diver is handy will include that. Score! While we wait I made some breakfast burritos and am happily munching on one when the boat appears a while later. Really nice guy, young and competent, reminds me that I am old and not so competent. Tows me over to a little protected beachy area a mile or so away. He wanted to tow me to the nearest resort and then let me handle the issue, because that's what they do, tow. However that resort doesn't take catamarans. So he gets on his to small shorty dive suit, that doesn't fit, and over the side he goes. 30 - 40 minutes later he manages to clear the port engine and goes to start on the starboard engine. That just has a mass of nylon line on it. 5 minutes later we are done, and I've got a mass of junk on my deck. Yay!

Engines started and props flailing away we are off. Manage to clear the deadly crap traps and we are back in Hawk Channel, turn into the wind and raise sail. Wind over the starboard beam about 170 degrees 7 to 8 knots and I try to go wing and wing for a sweet downwind bash to Key Largo. We have found a yard there that has the equipment large enough to straddle Steal Breeze and get her out of the water so I can safely work on the cooling system for Ole Smokey. We have lost about 4 hours so we really need to get going. I figure I'll set the sails and then run the engine to give a bit of speed boost and we might make it. Except the sails absolutely will not hold in this lite wind. Tons of banging, swinging booms, flapping sails, and I just give up. Fire the engines into the wind, drop sails and then take off. About 5:30 we pull in behind Rodriguez Key, a lump of nothing sticking out of the water by the yard. The anchorage which is usually pretty full is almost empty, high winds are predicted in a few days and currently everyone is running for better shelter. Currently the winds are sweeping from land out to sea and there really is no good place to lay protected. Put out every inch of chain again and hope for the best. Not much sleep, we drug another 150' in the night, big wind, tidal flows, just not going to stay. Anyway we made it to the yard the next morning, spent 5 hours getting the boat out of the water, blocked and set. There is a story there as well but I have to get to work. High winds forecast for the next couple days so we are tucked in a nice 50's hotel across from the yard. Thank you Betty for finding this for us. It's nice. I'm not feeling well, not taking care of myself properly. I'm exhausted after 12 hours sleep, stiff and sore and grumbling. But the yard is calling, boat work never stops. 

Later all y'all. Love to Betty and all that are following. Hoping for better news on the stupid engine. 

Time to breath and take stock.

Anchored Marathon Florida 

72 degrees, North Wind 6 mph, light chop

Well it's been an interesting couple of weeks. The covid numbers seemed to be declining and we were running out of time to stay in Florida. Florida has some interesting rules about boats in their waters. All carefully created to suction the most dollars out of your pocket, while still making you feel like a second class citizen.

So we ran down to Moss Marine in Fort Myers Beach, FL, great place, terrible place as well. The people are friendly, helpful, seemed competent. The facilities were spotlessly clean, the docks were floating, which just makes being tied up easier. They had a nice ships store, basically a marine focused 7-11, lots of beer and other consumables. The dock floats with the tide so you don't have to have extra line out to handle tidal changes. Pump outs were $5.00, with additional $5.00 tip, cuz man I don't want to do that job. Pump outs are when they bring a giant vacuum to the boat and suck your waste water into their sewer. The only water that is treated in this fashion is the waste water from your toilet. Gross, but hey, keep the waterways semi clean so the giant corporations can foul them. So I had my first pump out, not much in there. The marina is super expensive, at least to me at this time. I don't have a lot of experience with marina life yet. So that was the great part. 

John and Linda flew to Virginia and we all drove down to Florida. Lots of rain slowed things so it took 2 days. Spent a week eating to much, drinking way to much, and trying to figure out how to stand up a floating home. New things we learned, boat fridges and freezers take at least 24 hours to cool and stabilize. Taking a shower on a boat requires 50 amp electrical service and cold showers still suck. Generators are amazing things and then you don't need shore power, but they are noisy and can kill you from CO2 exposure. Has already saved my bacon once. So we cooked on the boat, shopped at the Publix, or at least had them deliver, which is a newer thing to us, as a result of covid of course. Anyway the people that live and vacation here are stupid. Flat dumber than a box or rocks. My unscientific survey showed less than 1/2 wearing masks and zero thought of social distance. What ever, the local government doesn't care so there are few if any restrictions down here. Just come spend your money and should you happen to catch a deadly pathogen, they don't care. 

Due to work and other requirements Betty had to return to Virginia and Linda to Texas so that left John and I to do the boat moving. So here's the terrible part about Moss, the current in the channel where it is located. Can be as high as 4 knots. And rarely going in your direction. Makes getting out of slips hard and the scariest thing I had done to that point. I read the water wrong, left John fruitlessly struggling to control an aft end that was not going to cooperate, meanwhile on the port side the boat was drifting towards my neighbor, peacefully slumbering in his boat and getting myself trapped behind a piling. Some boat hook work later my watches heart alarm beeping away I got the boat levered up next to it, I then sprang to the helm and got us moving backward trying not to slam into the metal pilings that the docks float up and down on. Missed that and got free of the slip. Next error, I tried to turn the boat around to early, the current caught the boat and floated it slowly and inevitably into the giant cone pilings. Thank goodness those are wood and I have a stout rub rail, I still have splinters on it a few days later. But we did get clear and  headed for the Gulf! Finally after so many years of reading, saving, thinking, and dreaming the day had come. And it was a fine day. The boat itself was performing relatively well. Starboard engine was smoking a bit and the port tachometer wasn't reading. But hey, small issues according to my boat broker and surveyor. I had planned on a short leg to Naples Florida where we could recoup, tell war stories and take on fuel and water. I had looked at Active Captain and my charts, weather, etc. Seemed doable. Ok couple uneventful hours later we pull into the channel and start heading up, it's a couple hours at our plodding 4 knot speed, but plod along we do. This particular channel is very busy with a speed limit of 30 MPH, which on a boat is flat screaming. First place recommended is a shallow little bay right inside. Well only room for one boat and some dude is in there fishing and yelling at people on the VHF as they rip through the entrance channel, 5 MPH there. Ok I was told there are 4 others further up. Certainly have room for little old me and failing that there is the mooring field. SO very long story short, only found one of them, and it was jammed full. Called for ball, I'm way to big at 40' x 20' for their space. So the entire trip was a bust. Turn around and start plodding back. Poor planning on my part entry 12 or so. Ha, river bar crossings while the tide is at ebb is stupid scary. Waves are so hard to judge from the cockpit till your riding a bucking bronco. The guy behind me stopped and watched my crossing then turned around and zoomed back to his safe multibillion dollar home. Back out to the Gulf where conditions have deteriorated a bit. Mind you I'm still not sailing, Just motoring along getting a feel for the boat. However I had prepared in Moss before we cast off to sail. Took the covers off the sails, removed the halyard holders that keep them from slapping the masts, etc. Have called my broker and the previous owner a few times about the smoking engine and have determined that if it was overheating the alarm would have gone off, if there was water in the fuel both would be smoking, so it is something in that engine, at this point I'm betting a blown head gasket. I look at my charts and decide to head to Marcos Island. That was a foolish mistake. This is a big boat. There aren't a lot of facilities that can deal with something this large. Channels are narrow, wind and tide are what they are.

So now we are headed south still, Marcos is a bust, wind is up, sun is setting and the chop on the Gulf is stupid. Only two or three feet but really close together and all slamming into my aft end. So the boat is quite lively and very noisy. wind is south 15 - 20 knots, perfect sailing wind. But we decided to continue to motor, smoking engine and all. Night falls. OMG it is so dark. I tried to sneak in behind Marcos Island, but keep hitting rapidly shoaling bottom, backed out of that, moved a mile or so tried again, still no luck. And really you have to appreciate I'm moving at 5 MPH here, give or take. So it takes a good forever to move a mile. Meanwhile I'm sideways to the wind and waves. Lots of pounding and boat movement. After a few of these attempts I figure this is just not working and I'm going to end up aground or something stupid. John and I do a quick huddle and I decide to head out, get some sea room and just puddle through the night. We do exactly that, taking turns sleeping as we can while the boat just gets hammered. The chop is worse than wave action because it is so steep and the period between waves is so close. So lots of waves slapping the bottom of the bridge deck, big booming noise and serious movement. Winds stayed about 15-20 all night. Started easing around dawn. I mean the boat was never in any danger, it was just an unexpected over night with an inexperienced Captain and crew. Poor planning number 300? Anyway the next possible anchorage is way south. Anyway back to my smoking engine. Nice white smoke. I went below and found that we had used approximately 1/2 tank of fuel overnight or the gauge is busted. (edit: gauge is busted) Serious issue. I had expected fuel to be as plentiful as on the interstate, and as easy to get. Wrong. So my jerry cans are empty. I'm really starting to think I am a complete moron. Anyway I shut old smoky down, and I think I am getting the time correct here. Sun finally rises and things calm down. Wind drops exactly as predict wind said it would and starts to clock around to the nose. New emergency, very little power on the boat. Huh? Evidently the ram for the autopilot takes a bunch of power, and I have every piece of electronics on board turned on to navigate, and the one engine I've got running seems to have a bum alternator. Lovely. Try to start the generator, no go, look at the battery switch and it's on house, switch to it's own start battery and pray it has a charge, and yay! Generator starts! POWER! Chalk up one win for a difficult start. Then I decide hey, sail time! We've got 7-10 knots, on the nose but I can tack. We tacked Amadeus a bunch on the bay. I'm good at tacking and frankly this boat has push button tack. And a self tacking jib. Sweet! Wrong again. This boat is many things, but a racer/cruiser like Amadeus it just isn't. And frankly my sail handling skills are not the best. So remember back a few lines when I said I got the boat ready to sail? Took the flopper stoppers off stuff, unzipped and otherwise removed the covers? In the night while getting slapped around the halyard (lifting rope) for the mail sail got wrapped around some bolt or clevis pin or something way the heck up the mast. I can only raise the main about 4/5ths of the way up the main mast. Ok, lets get the jib up, that was a piece of cake. I am loving power winches. So now lets get them wing shaped and start this thing moving. 3 hours of struggle later I've tacked 3 times, moved forward maybe 1/2 mile and am supremely frustrated and really wondering about my chosen retirement activity. More my sail handling ability than anything else, which has so far been lacking. I've not hazarded the boat or the crew, but man this is hard. Anyway I finally get the sails drawing and I'm making max 2.8 knots in 7-8 knots wind with no real chop. Little kids walk faster than this to go to school. But really I have no schedule, except we don't want another overnight on the water. We're getting tired and fuddle brained. We both are happy the boat is not heaving about, John more than I, I expected this sort of movement, not to this degree, but the boats not in danger, just got to be careful moving about. Look around and consult my broker, whom I'm having a very love/hate relationship with in my head, but he was extensive local knowledge and I'd be a fool to ignore that. He suggested an anchorage at little shark river, but there is no fuel there. I'm getting very worried about the fuel situation now and we've been motoring for like 2 days. There is no wind. I mean seriously. At a few points during the day I'm looking at 0.0 knots of true wind. The gulf is mill pool flat. All you can see for miles are billions of long line fishing floats. Serious folks. I hate these indiscriminate killers. Miles long lines, buoyed every 100 feet or so, with a line that supports a miles long killing machine of baited hooks. The guys set them out and some period of time later go pull them up. They take what they want and throw the rest over board. All dead. The only thing good about these is that the line of hooks is deeper than my keel and my propellers. I just have to dodge them so they don't go down the middle of the boat or at either of the hulls. Watched that happen and about had a heart attack when it got beat up by the prop. All I could think of is getting a line tangled around my only working prop and killing the engine. Getting USTowboat out to drag you back is not a cheap experience. OK really the only thing I have found so far that was inexpensive was the pump out in Fort Myers. Whatever, I signed up for this. 

Puddled down 1/4 the length of Florida at walking speed and rejected the anchorage at Shark River cuz no fuel, no nothing really, headed to Marathon. Figured out how to make an end to end track on the chart plotter, set the autopilot to follow said track and we're off. Just have to watch the hours and hours of fishing lines. No wind, serious heat. Pass the Everglades, serious worried here, I evidently can't transmit on the VHF, and no cell service. And an iffy fuel gauge. Sun setting and chart plotter says 9:30 to Marathon. We've spent fruitless hours trying to find a mooring ball, slip, t-head anything. Nope the Inn is full. OK, I'll just find a spot in the local anchorage, Boot Key Anchorage and drop my hook there. Motor under the Seven Mile Bridge and it's like 8:30 with hours to go. It's quite a thing being out at night. If you are out far away, it's no big deal, in close maneuvering? Yeah whole different ball of wax. And we're very tired and hot and sticky. I have literally never drank that much water in a day. Neither one of has eaten more than a few bites of this and that, just not interested in food. Water yes, food blerg. Trying to decode the signals at night in unfamiliar waters, scary. I keep seeing this thing, red, red, green on high, red. Conforms to no light pattern I'm familiar with. And it appears to be moving or not. Very puzzling. Eventually as we get closer I realize it's the bridge marking lights. With my tired eyes and lack of seeing land bound things for a few days it's hard to keep from thinking it's moving. I can see cars going over the top of it, either white red, or red white depending on direction, but it is so confusing. But I trust my track I laid out and just keep puddling. It's achingly slow going, 3.8 knots max. There are series of lights marking the lead in, turns to set up the boat, and then we are there, I turn off autopilot cuz what fool allows a machine to control during that time, and charts are stupid wrong. Which is good, I laid the track down the middle, right through a bridge pile, not a good idea. So we made our first bridge crossing in the dark. Scary, but my heart monitor (Apple watch) didn't go off. Another win! From here it's a hour and half to my chosen anchorage. As we do the radical turn towards the key I'm trying to spot marker lights, can't for the life of me find them. I see them on my chart, but can't match that to my surroundings. Not good. But the bridge is right behind me, there is only one opening for crossing, so I can't be to far off. As we are on approach I'm trying to make out the boats anchor lights against the background of all the city lights. Ha! I can't tell anything from nothing. My eyes are tired, my brain is foggy and I have the remnants of the adrenalin fizzing in my blood from the bridge. I just can not tell what I am looking at. This is very scary. Enough, I leave the boat on autopilot, and god I love that thing I wanna seriously new one for Christmas, like next week, and go forward to undo all the stuff that keeps the anchor attached to the boat. Walking John through what I need him to do for me, and then go back to the cockpit. About 1/2 mile closer and I still can't tell what the heck I'm looking at. That's enough for me. I turned it into the wind, crept forward a few hundred feet off my chosen path and start the process of anchoring. While I have never done this in real life, the process is pretty simple. Stop and hold in place, drop enough chain so you think it's on the bottom then creep backwards laying chain behind you till you have 5 to 7 times as much chain out as you have depth under you. As I am all alone out where I am, for reason's I'll get to, I can be generous with my chain usage. Not like I am going to swing into anyone cause I've got to much scope out. Boats on anchor spin all the time as wind and tide change, so you have to have confidence you are well set. Chart says sand bottom, cool. We start, all is going great till we get to the creep backwards part. Catamarans are well know for their extreme maneuvering ability. Two engines spaced 20 feet apart make them very easy to control. The rule for us newbies is to hold the throttles with your thumbs out, the direction of your thumb indicates the direction either the front or the back of the boat goes. So all is great, except I have one engine. Now the autopilot has been driving the boat for the most part and has been showing the heading offset all day. Once I put it in reverse all it wants to do is drive in a backwards circle, whatever, drop 100 or so feet of chain and try to go backwards to set the hook, evidently it set cuz we're still here. Now this is a terrible anchorage, no one who isn't exhausted chooses this. I'm exposed to all the wind, all the tide and so many boat wakes. Which makes this very uncomfortable. Last night was a mill pond, today, not so much. But we got the hook down and set. Celebratory cigars, a beer and a little bourbon were consumed. Seeing as the genny was running anyway, I turned on the hot water heater, shower sump pump, and anchor light, the sugar scoop lights, turned off the running, steaming lights, and crashed. Got a pretty decent nights sleep. Got up a few times to check stuff, but got a decent nights sleep. Went to get creamer for my coffee, and a diet coke had froze and exploded all over the fridge, went to open the freezer and the damn hinge busted. Got that open and turned down the freezer temp, it was set to max? Now we are on the hook, in a terribly rolly anchorage, a bum engine and I'm running out of ideas. My levels of optimism have refilled with a good night's sleep and I'm going to have some yogurt while I listen to my genny chug. Later all y'all.