Thursday, December 29, 2011

Christmas and our cross-Florida travels

Day 42 - 48 (Sun, Dec 24 - 29): The Holidays… we had a great time this year connecting with new and old friends. On Christmas eve, we packed the car with goodies (a new mermaid for Rosie, Dobbie and snacks) and headed south to West Palm Beach. We arrived at Rosie’s house mid afternoon. We had a great evening talking about our adventure thus far and old times with Rosie, Aldona, Jovan and Mieki. All creatures “great and small” seemed fine and happy. Puffy and crew were in great shape. I am a little worried about Harry Spotter. He is a senior citizen (he is 12 yrs old and the experts say green spotted puffers live 10 yrs) and his heath looks a little worse. But, all good for now. Emma is in rare form. She is loving her new “outside” freedom. She is catching butterflies and lizards. She has really adjusted. Admundson is also doing well. He had an incident and received a nasty cut on his shoulder but it has healed and he is wearing his Smite (bragging scar) with pride. All good and we can’t thank Rosie enough. She has done an amazing job helping "everyone" transition.


Now for Mr. Dobbie. He was in rare form. He really didn’t bond well with the other cats so he was cranky. Christmas day we woke up early, had a nice cup of coffee and talked. Then, someone left the outside door slightly ajar. We thought (except for Rosie) that he had gotten out. We spent the entire day roaming the neighborhood and remote areas looking for him. I walked and walked, uncovered snakes, lizards  and any number of neighborhood cats but no Dobbie. I kept recalling how my brother’s cat, Sammie managed to find her way back to his apartment in Ft. Myers from Captiva island. I thought for sure Dobbie was on his way back to the Cape. He loves his boat and has completely embraced her. He is simply not happy when he is off the boat. Well, we determined that he was not around and decided to have Christmas dinner (a traditional Lithuanian feast). About 7:30pm Mr. Dobbie strolled out. He had been tucked up in closet shelf. He had to have heard us calling…I am sure. Had we looked in the closet multiple times… yes. But all was good. Dobbie was back!





After Christmas, we headed back to the marina and Gaia. We wrapped up some projects that needed to be done prior to our crossing and tested the tolerances on our new shaft and cutlass bearing repairs. All were within tolerances, so one thing left… take Gaia out and test her in the ocean.

On Wed., we headed to St. Pete to see Brad, Gina, Rachel and Bryan. And, to get our new drivers’ licenses. Fun at the DMV… It is always so nice to be with my family. I hope we get to spend more time together in the future. I so love the time we have together. Rachel is beautiful. She is turning into such an amazing woman. Gina and Brad were great. Mr. Bryan was m.i.a. He had a painting class. I can’t argue with that, now can I?



Standing Still in Cape Canaveral

Day 28 - 41 (Sat, Dec 10 – Friday Dec 23): For this entry, I will share highlights of being on the “hard.”

That is boat terminology for dusty, hard work, climbing ladders, exhaustion and dealing with no fridge. Anyway, after arriving at Cape Marina we had Gaia pulled on the following Tues. I took Dobbie and we did some errands. Patrick and Thomas (a great new friend from Denmark) took Gaia from her stall to the travel lift. By the time I arrived back at the marina, Gaia and Patrick were in the power wash area. Gaia was having her hull sprayed. Then, over to our spot in the yard where we would do the work. As it turned out, Gaia had some blisters. They were the smaller, less invasive types but none the less, they needed to be cared for. Within the next couple of years, when we have her pulled again for maintenance, we will have to have her hull sandblasted and a new barrier coat applied. But all good for now, we took care of draining almost all of the ones we could find. Sealed them with West system and then we painted the bottom. Wow that was a lot of work.



We also found that our cutlass bearing desperately needed to be replaced. And like all boat projects, one thing led to another. We needed a new shaft and while we were at it, we had our prop coated in the nicest of nail polish for Gaia. Supposedly her “nail polish” would keep barnacles from attaching and would improve the performance of our prop (Prop Speed). What the heck just more “Boat $s.” Patrick frantically made calls to try to find someone to help with the work. We needed a pro. As it turned out, Mike who is the project manager working on several “big” boats that are undergoing renovations on our dock, offered to help Patrick. He was amazing. Let me share a bit of what transpired…for those less inclined to read technical manuals and details of boat work, please skip to the bottom :)
It was evening, late after his daily boat work job ended. And Mike was positioned over our bilge in the back of Gaia with a PULLER device. One thirty second of an inch by one thirty second the flange moved, as he cranked and persuaded the flange. 4 hrs later, it was off. We then were able to pull the shaft and get to work. The next tricky part was removing the actual “gland.” Good grief, I though the flange was the difficult part. We finally, determined how Gaia’s inner plumbing was set up. And, removed the inner tube. Then, Patrick ran around Cape Canaveral collecting all the new parts. I could go on and on and on but I will spare you. We reassembled Gaia, learned there were still some aspects that needed to be tended to after being back the water and had her “splashed.” No leaks…. YEA!!! Back in the water. Dobbie was quite happy to be back to normal too. Amazing how he knew what normal was. Patrick once again, worked his behind off as we all did to make this happen.









My idea was that we would get Gaia back in shape; Patrick had other plans/projects. One replace macerator and two do the final install of our single side ban radio. And did I mention how many tools these two projects would take… Melt down… and this is when the “relaxation and glamorous part starts?” Needless to say the next two days were devoted to cleaning, organizing and returning all of the 100 billion tools back into their rightful places. I feel better now. But, my reputation for being the “cheerful lady on the green boat” has been tarnished.


Finalizing details and of course spending a bit more… boat units stinks... but it is all needed to ensure a safe and fun passage to the Bahamas. On the fun side, Patrick a new BC and I got a beautiful green sea kayak and a new scuba regulator. Ahhh all that is left is to wait for a weather window. Oh yea, and to the last part of the job I mentioned above… measure the tolerances on our new shaft… and, we will go ICW for the last leg of our journey south to West Palm or Lauderdale. Ughhh, safety first and everyone says we should really test Gaia out before we head back out offshore. More bridges and locks…




Monday, December 12, 2011

To Canavaral

Day 26 (Thurs, Dec 8): Almost there. Today we would do our next to last leg of the journey to Cape Canaveral and where we would have Gaia pulled to paint her bottom. We headed out from Daytona to Titusville. I again, did the majority of the driving. The tedious following of the narrow ICW is not Patrick’s favorite thing to do. I am pretty good at following the magenta line on the chart plotter and on his laptop (remember my favorite piece of equipment on Gaia now). The day started out nice but the wind built by the time we were ready to pull into the marina, once again it was blowing pretty hard. Patrick did a very nice job getting Gaia into her slip. We showered and headed out to dinner. “Chops” is our pick for restaurants thus far on the trip. Incredible chef. The food was very, very well done and they were not over priced.  
Being here is kind of bitter sweet for Patrick given the state of our aero space industry. He remembers the shuttle and what this area used to be like, the hopefulness and optimism. Now, most of the businesses are closed, the town feels a bit like a ghost town. Very, very sad. Everything goes in waves or tides, I am sure our country/world will get things/priorities back on track. I just hope it doesn’t take too long for folks to realize science, caring for one another and the planet is what has to be the priority. Enough about politics but I am an optimist. We will see the light.




ICW to Daytona

Day 25 (Wed, Dec 7): Once again, the weather turned. I talked Patrick into doing the last two legs of our journey south back inside on the ICW. We headed out for Daytona today. Nice day but very windy. Would have been another extremely rough day out at sea. The ICW was much calmer. Just tedious. And, for the first time we met rude sail boaters. Gaia makes good speed when we are motoring. We were simply radioing ahead and letting some of the slower boats know when and where we would pass them. One guy, speed up, raced us, tried to put up his Genoa to keep ahead of us and probably red lined his engine. What a jerk. Then, we got to an anchorage (the weather once again started to get nasty at sunset) and boy were the residence of that anchorage foul souls. One tried to run us aground with his advice of where to find a good place to anchor away from his boat and another was just plain rude. We pulled up and headed out to our original plan at the Halifax Marina. It was blowing but Patrick did his most amazing job of maneuvering Gaia yet. He had to turn her in a very tight fairway in 18 knots of wind and rain. We made a second pass at the slip and Gaia was in. Wow, the locals on their boats even came out to cheer Patrick on (or like in auto racing, witness the destruction – which in our case, did not occur). He got major kisses for his performance. Simply incredible.










St. Augustine

Day 24 (Tues, Dec 6): We headed out from Fernandina to St. Augustine. I talked Patrick into doing smaller hops for the remainder of the trip. This was what it was supposed to be. It was a beautiful day. Perfect finally. Sunny, some wind but not too much, and the waves were smaller 3-5 feet with the dominant period (the time between the swells) much longer. What a day! Now, for getting into the harbor at St. Augustine. Not recommended but the city is cool. Coming in we saw waves behind us higher than Gaia… we were surfing. Not recommended. And, the charts did not show any of the markers…OK, the ones that we could see. Some weird type of weather rolled in and completely diminished visibility. It was the afternoon and sunny but we could not distinguish color, hardly shape. We stayed close to the markers and once again, Patrick was amazing. The force was with him. How he managed to get Gaia in that inlet still amazes me. Class A or maybe B inlets from now on. Once in, we took a mooring ball. The city was beautiful with Christmas lights. We launched the Kraken and dinghyed over to Blue Moon. We have been keeping pace with her since we were in Norfolk. Very nice folks and their trawler was quite nice. We then, headed into town for dinner. Nice outside restaurant and a live music. It was magical. Did I mention how much I like Christmas lights in palm trees!!! Oh, and before heading back to Gaia we got a cab and did the all important Frangelico and Cat Litter run. Patrick and Dobbie both happy.