We have arrived!!!

Just a small post to let you know we have arrived in Provdenciales “Provo” in the Turks and Caicos.  We have had boat problems, weather problems and time problems, but we have overcome each challenge and are here.  Expect more blog entries even in the past as we have has many adventures so far, and they need to be documented, but it has been a tough time to get here.

We are here though.

Farewell to Bimini

 

We stayed a new marina this time call Blue Water.  It was a nice marina with docks in good condition.  The had pretty good Wifi access as well, although I had to sweet talk the lady in the office for the code, as she usually keys it into the individual laptops herself as an added measure of security.  I told her that my boat has a fixed system and with a tilt to her head she nodded and wrote it down for me. It was much better than the highjack signal from the next marina over.

It was sad to learn that Sara’s End of the World Bar was closed for good.  There was speculation that the rent was high which is funny as it is also known as the Sand Bar since the floor is literally sand. There were many businesses closed down since the last time we were there as the tourist dollar has been quite elusive for the last couple of years.

On another note, the musical entertainment from Bimini Stevie S, is in some legal problems and is currently incarcerated so there was no more “Shake it Up, Shake it Up” live at Big Johns.

I spent the entire weekend trying to figure our my dinghy problems.  I had this motor serviced early last year and only put on about 2 hours of operation since then so I was really bummed when it did not start.  I pulled the cord so many times, that I wore through my skin on two fingers of my right hand and one finger of my left. I cleaned the carburetor about 6 times, dumped my fuel and refilled the gas tank, changed out the spark plugs and finally got it to start and idle.  I took it on a test drive and by the time I came back it would not idle and eventually it would not start.  So I loaded back onto the swim platform and decided to deal with it in Nassau where there is a Yamaha dealer.

We finally got over to Sandra’s place to visit her as well as our friend Nikia.  Nikia has been a little busy as she now has a new daughter and a new husband.  We met him the last time we were in Bimini and he seemed very nice. Once we drank every beer Sandra had in the restaurant, including the extras that were brought in for us, we decided to kidnap (willingly of coarse) Nikia as we promised our friends from “The Office” we would go to their boat for cocktails and food at 5:00PM.  It was after 6:00PM when we left, but there was a huge downpour as well as a small plane crash on our end of the island.  I heard the plane in the clouds just before we heard about the crash.  Unfortunately there were some casualties in the crash, but we don’t have many details on it.

I went to “The Office” first with 2 bottles of wine as an apology.  As I was talking with John and his guests Neil and Carol, it turned out that Neil was a Navy test pilot and our neighbors Any and Jennifer actually bought a house from them back in 1974.  It is amazing to actually see the six degrees of separation hit real close to home.  If you want to follow their blog it is http://2010Bahamas.blogspot.com.

As we were preparing to leave the marina we got a knock on our boat with our slip neighbor informing us that the power pedestal we were plugged into was on fire.  Our plug was burning as well.  We extinguished the fire (right after I put some clothes on) and I decided to reel the cord in and deal with it in Nassau.  I knew I had spare plugs on board, so we just ran the generator for now.

 

So that was our send off so we left Bimini with less things working that when we arrived.

Back in Bimini Again

Today was not so great.  I started out by sleeping in until 9:00AM.  It was great.  BJ burnt me ….ahemm made be breakfast to start the day.  The plan was to cleand the dinghy (dink) make sure it runs, and change the chock placement on the swim platform.  We almost lost it coming across.

So let’s see how did this day go…I cleaned the dink.  It looks really good now.  I was excited and ready to go.  I took the engine into Yamaha last winter, so it should be good to go.  I went to offload it from the swim platform, and guess what? It goes up, but not down.  After some troubleshooting, I found a broken wire for the down button.  I fixed it, and wa la it worked.  So I lowered the dink into the drink and tried to start it.

It started eventually and I thought I was home free.  Then it died. I tried and tried but could not get it started.  It had been a while since I ran it, so I removed the carburetor and gave it a good wash.  The tubes for the accelerator pump were clogged and there was a fair amount of debris in the bowl.  For once I had the right tools for the job (experience from the last cruise where the damn thing did not run). I have had it.

I found water in my gas tank so I replaced the gas with the good Bimini gas.  It must be good since it was $4.75/gal. Still no start. so I decided that it must be water in the system and I would just have to flush it out.  I wore through my skin on 3 different fingers on every hand and it is still not flushed out, so I thought I will replace the spark plugs as the last owner left them for me.  They were the wrong kind – one digit off on the part number.  Our slip neighbor Hank suggested I go to the general store which is about the size of our master stateroom (BJ’s comparison but not far off).  Ella actually not only had the spark plug in question, but seemed quite knowledgeable about the use of them. II bought four and changed out the two in the dink.  Still no luck, so there was nothing to do but give up for the night.

I figured a good boat cooked meal would change my attitude, however, when I broke out the new grill that I just bought, the adapter for the propane was not included.  Their advertisement, was no assembly required so I did not think to rummage through the trash to find this piece. I ended up cooking our steaks in a pan, and created a potatoes au gratin lobster Oscar sauce with fresh local lobster. Everything was done on the boat and I really need the grill to work for the rest of the trip.

We are invited to cocktail hour tomorrow in “The Office” which is the boat we were tied up in front of in Savannah.  They are in front of us now.  More to come.  Sorry about no pictures, I am working in it.

We be in the Bahamas mon

Preparation

We spent the entire day finishing our provisioning for the trip. The boat is about an inch below the waterline when the fuel is topped off. Thursday looks good as the seas are supposed to be 2-3 ft. We went to West Marine (twice), Boat Owner's Warehouse (BOW), Super Target and the liquor store. Then one last stop at Whole foods for an opportunity to throw down stupid money for average steaks, which were the last food item we needed. After all of that I treated BJ to a great Cuban/Spanish restaurant we found a few years ago named Catalina. The owner and the rest of the staff are over-the-top gay, but the food is excellent. We had Mario (the owner) cook for us so he chose the entire meal with only one request of no chicken from me. We had an awesome array of Cuban food including beef empanadas, ham croquettas and some sort of roasted meat with a tamale mixture. It was great. We then had a skirt steak and a grouper with the most succulent shrimp on top of each. I MADE BJ try the tres leches (Three Milks) dessert because it is a Spanish tradition. She loved it, but there was so much food at dinner she could only entertain about 3 bites.

Crossing

OK, after some last minute shopping and a horrible experience at Gold Coast auto rentals we were ready to go. It was about 1:00PM but hey, it was supposed to be great seas with 2-3's. I saw those 2-3's right before the 3-5's and the waves were stacked up. It beat the hell out of me and the boat. I have got to take it easier on the ol' ESWEET! After 3 hours of an extremely rough ride, we showed up here in Bimini. We got checked into customs, paid our fees and halleluiah we were in the Bahamas with 30 days to go to the wedding. So far so good. This crossing was the worst weather we had so far on this trip, and was probably one of the worst crossings to date. I wanted to turn southeast to try to ride the tiny troughs, but the CG was conducting a live fire exercise and we had to stay at least five miles away. We were only about 7 miles away at the time.

First Night

We usually stay at Big Game, however due to some financial problems they are closed down. We had a choice to be up at Bimini Bay, but it is too snooty and we like the locals here very much, so we stayed here in the south of North Bimini. We are walking distance to most of the bars and stores, however BJ wanted to see our old friends Sandra and Nikia, so we hitched a ride with a guy who turned out to be Nikia's nephew. They are all so related here, I don't know how they date. We had a great but brief reunion with both of them and we headed back to Alicetown for the rest of the night, and the nightlife as well. We retired fairly early as we were both worn out from the previous few days and the crossing.

First Day

We spent the day organizing and cleaning. I actually got up to the top of the boat and cleaned and waxed it. I am not a great fan of heights especially since the Bahamians never heard of a "No Wake" so there were huge wakes rolling in while I was up there. BJ cleaned the cockpit and the dog as well as a bund of stuff in the cabin. The most important part of the day, was that we got a little sun burnt since we were both in swim suits in the great weather. Still not hot yet, but upper 70's and mostly sunny. We should be heading out on Monday as a small front is upposed move through this weekend. I have a couple of more chores to do before we leave, and we are going to "Hi Star" tonight for a special guest singer from Nassau. It looks to be promising……..

More to come with pictures, hopefully tomorrow.

Poised and Ready to Cross

We holed up in Ft. Pierce last night and revisited a great little Tiki Bar at the marina. That was the first attempt of crossing 3 years ago when we were in Sweet Caroline. We ultimately turned around when we were about half way through the cut because the waves were so big. BJ's eyes were huge by my recollection and since she had never been on a trip like this I chose to move further south and wait for a better window. The Staff at the City Marina is by far the best. We had to pull into a typical tropical slip where there is no floating dock and you have to lasso the front pilings and use 6 lines to secure the boat properly. BJ was loud and obvious when she stated it had been a while since she had to do this type of slip so the dock hand volunteered to jump on board and give us a hand. It was kind of humorous because I took my time and eased into the slip, extremely cautious as not to put any more dings in the boat than I just had repaired. Once I landed and we secured the boat, I saw a sport fisher come in at about 10 knots in reverse and turned 90 degrees into his slip without any room to miss. It made me realize that it has been a while since I maneuvered in tight marinas as well.

We have been having a few boat problems in the last couple of days. When we left Port Canaveral, I could not get my genny started, and my port motor would not start as well. I finally got my port motor started and just left without the genny. It is a good thing I installed an inverter before we left, so as long as we do not need HVAC, we are fine. When we got to Ft. Pierce, we fueled up. Afterwards, my STBD motor would not start. When I got into the slip, I tried to start everything and it all worked great. The plan was, if everything started this morning we would go, if not we would stay and I would tend to all the motor problems. Well, everything started just fine this morning, so away we went.

Since the water was still rough outside, we again continued down the ditch, only now it is almost all populated so we came mostly at 7 knots. It is amazing that the manatees seam to really congregate around the most expensive homes, or at least that is where most of the no wake zones are. We hit West Palm Beach around 1:30PM so we decided to keep going. We then passed Delray Beach where we saw John Massey cruising around in his whaler while we were waiting for a bridge opening. We kept heading down to Ft. Lauderdale even though it was getting dark.

We finally got to our dark marina without any signs or markings on the docks except from the shore side, when I went to turn on the bow thruster and amazingly enough; it did not work! Luckily I was just getting prepared in case I needed it so I backed into our slip without incident (or bow thruster). We got a helping hand from our slip neighbor, Dave who owns Living Large, a nice 45' Carver that we met 2 years ago in Highborne Cay, Bahamas. He had (and still has) the best kept boat in the world. I have often thought that if I could get Executive Sweet that nice, it would be a lot of hard work.

So here we are in Ft Lauderdale with one day to finalize our provisions before we cross the pond to the Bahamas. I am sorry the eloquent descriptions and sarcastic whip are missing from the post, but I am tired and just wanted to get everyone up to date.

Sunrise Marina…Where’s the sun?

Here is a quick post to keep you up to date on our progress. We left St. Augustine Yesterday morning. The weather forecast was not very good for the ocean and there was a small craft advisory in effect, so I (being the ever-improving prudent mariner) chose to stay in the ditch. I had a long time to evaluate my decision as it was very narrow and there were tons of private docks lining the banks. I was stuck doing about 7 knots most of the way. We had to be in Port Canaveral for a business dinner engagement, so once we were in Daytona Beach, I decided to shoot out of the next inlet (Ponce Inlet) and test the waters so to speak.

The forecasts were pretty close to being accurate as we started in 1-2's; worked our way through the 2-4's and finally back to 1-2's but the waves were stacked up on top of each other. It was pretty miserable for about 2 ½ hours, but we got into our slip and were tied up by 4:00PM. We are staying at the same marina/restaurant (Sunrise Marina) as we did 2 years ago when this was our first port of call back in the US. We had a great time last time so we were happy to see it again.

We had a fantastic meal last night a Milliken's Reef. It is a new restaurant here at Port Canaveral and was excellent. I had a wonderful Chilean Sea Bass, and BJ had the Snapper Hemingway which was a parmesan encrusted fillet of red snapper.  They were both outstanding. We will be here for a couple of days because the weather looks really bad. It is supposed to be cold and windy for a while. We will use this time to finish organizing the boat and install the new ice maker that was delivered to the boat yesterday.

So we are tucked in here for a while. I will update the blog as we make our plans.

A Great Recovery

OK, after such a hectic ending to a slow start yesterday; we had a pretty good day. By pretty good, it meant that we got about 2 hours of sleep total from all the commercial traffic going by us at the dock and I meant that it took an hour to get from the Hyatt in Savannah to Thunderbolt Marina so we could fuel up. The good news is: I was going to just leave this morning without checking out and have Karen phone in my credit card number, but someone came and said I needed to register with the front desk, so I got caught. I went to the elevator to the lobby and saw a flyer to reconnect with your significant other for this Valentine's Day, February 13^th, 2010. I got to the front desk and said I wanted to check in and check out at the same time. She was obviously not happy with the fact there was no one there to greet us so she let us slide with no payment necessary. Good thing since their 50 amp circuit breaker kept popping and I could not properly heat the Executive Sweet. So as a token back, I mentioned that Valentine's Day was on February 14^th every year and that they may need to change their signage. She was grateful, and I was out of there.

We did not get out to the ocean until around 1130 in the morning, so I set my sights for St. Augustine, FL instead of Cape Canaveral which is where we need to be by tomorrow. The water was very smooth and almost lake-like until the last hour where it actually rose to 1-2's with some moderate chop. I was so happy to see that my chart plotter is off by one hour so instead of coming in at 1730, we got in at 1630. That offered the opportunity to give the boat a quick wash down (no soap), get fueled up for tomorrow and take care of the other duties of the captain and the first mate.

After a great shower by each of us, we walked the frigid walk through the beautiful downtown area of St. Aug. We had a great meal at a wonderful Spanish restaurant called Columbia Restaurant with great food. This has been a great place to eat every time we get down here. So now I am ready to get some great sleep and get on down to Cape Canaveral tomorrow.

Elvis has left the dock….and he was scared

We finally left the dock. We were cruising out of the Charleston Harbor around 3:30PM when I says, "it looks pretty smooth here in the harbor, let's run outside to Hilton Head." For those of you with weak stomachs please know that we are safe and tied up at the dock here at the Hyatt in Savannah, GA. Just look at the map on the right, and stop reading. Just tune in again tomorrow.

For those brave souls that have a need for more, continue on reading.

It was such a great plan. Leave, go outside, be at the fuel dock in Hilton Head right around 6:30PM. They are closed, but I called ahead and made arrangements so they would be there at 7:30AM tomorrow morning. Great plan. The seas were around 1-2 with a light chop. They started to get to 2-3's and finally they leveled off at 2-4's. With that in mind, I decided to aim for a point closer to shore so we could get into smoother water and maybe kick it up a notch to try to beat the darkness. It worked. I kicked it up to over 27 knots and we were flying. The next thing I noticed was a bank of really skinny (shallow) water. Then it happened, twice, my depth sounder quit sounding or listening or something because one minute we were in 500+ feet of water (or so it said) then nothing. I saw the bank getting shallower so I started to go out to get more water underneath us. I finally found a path through the bank to the channel so I took it. Meanwhile the sun went behind the horizon and it got really dark. We were heading into the channel when I saw a large blob on the radar (not in the right place because it is not calibrated) and thought it was a freighter in front of me. I should have thought "what is a freighter doing going into Hilton Head" but I didn't so keep reading.

On the VHF radio I heard "Trawler entering the Savannah River by markers 14 and 15, please answer of channel 16." I did not answer because A.) I did not know what the marker numbers were since it was dark; and B.) I was not going into the Savannah River. Then there was a light shining on me. So I noticed the freighter was outgoing and not coming in. I started to move to the extreme right of the channel, still confused about the lights on his ship, and the next thing I knew there were 5 prolonged blasts (which is DANGER in boaters speak). I then looked again and noticed the freighter was on the extreme left (my right) of the channel on a direct collision path with the ol' Executive Sweet. I made a quick turn to port and went to the extreme left of the channel out of his way. After an on-air ass chewing from the captain of the freighter, I thanked him for looking out for us and made an astounding epiphany: There is freighter traffic. I am not going into Hilton Head! I AM going into the Savannah River!

So, here we are at the entrance to the Savanna River. There is not a marina for at least 10 miles. It is pitch black, and freezing. I was not sure what to do as I was trying to find a marina on the electronic charts of the Furuno, which responds incredibly slow since the firmware upgrade that went pretty smooth this morning. I looked back and saw another freighter was coming in behind us. So what to do? I could go back out the channel, hit the open ocean at night and circle south around the island to Tybee Island, however, I have never been to any of those marinas after I return from the open ocean and go up a creek which I did not know if it was marked very well at night. Or, try to anchor in the dark near a shipping channel. Or turn around and follow the inbound freighter up the river and go to Savannah which is at least 10 miles out of our way. The latter won out over all other. We followed the freighter and found our way to the dock here at the Hyatt.

After getting help from some fellow boaters on the dock, we were talking (in the freezing cold) when the woman, Carol said, "I know that name Executive Sweet." I said that we were in the Bahamas a couple of years ago, when the revelation came out that we were about 2 boats away at the Exuma Docks Marina in Georgetown, Bahamas. She said "You're bald!", so I took off my beanie to show it to her. She remembered us by my baldness and BJ's bikinis. They are heading back so we will probably run into them again.

Bj just finished cooking my clam chowder, we are settling in for the night, but I thought the first day should be commemorated with our fist blog entry of the trip.

Happy New Year

Well after a loooong night that we spent over at Dave's house, we started our final packing of the boat.  The neighbors all came to help us transfer food, clothing, and other stores from the house to the boat.  It would be nicer if we could do all of this heavy lifting during high tide as our ramp goes almost straight down at low tide, and it gets quite slippery with the cold rain.  We picked up our Indian food sauces as well and got some recipes from our favorite Indian restaraunt; Nirlep. two more days as we should be off.  The weather promises to be cold and dreary so it is all the more reason to shove off soon.  I think the count is down to 45 days until our planned nuptuals. Just a quick note to keep you up on the progress.  More exciting times to come; soon.

Getting Ready

OK, so we are making real progress in the boat preparations. Things are starting to get organized and we are just about ready to provision her. There are a few more maintenance items to take care of, including fixing the guest head's shower for the second time. I just spent 2-3 hours yesterday on it, and it worked fine this morning but not anymore.

I am trying to use a new feature on the left hand side of the screen. I will attempt to post our Lat/Long in Google Earth so you guys can follow us on our trip. I know sometimes it is hard to figure out where we are and how far we have traveled. This is still experimental, so if it fails, I will let you know. If you have any problems, just let me know, and I will try to fix it.

We should be leaving by the end of the weekend, which should make the neighbors happy as they wanted a bon voyage bash before we go. Hopefully it will be soon. The weather is really turning cold, so I want out of here soon. More Chores to come….

Christmas is over, where are you?

OK, so we have not left yet. We are still trying to leave before New Year's, but you never know. I calculate that as long as we leave within the next 2 weeks we will still be in the Turks and Caicos (TCI – new vocabulary folks so I don't have to type as much. To catch you up, the boat had an electrolysis problem which required a haul out and a lot of work. The electrolysis destroyed the outer [rectangular] tubes of the hydraulic swim platform which had to be remanufactured since the lift has been discontinued. The boat is back in the water, and we are working hard to get it ready for the long journey.

I know I have been remiss in keeping the blog up, and our life has been full, especially during the holiday times. I will try to keep all of you up to date more often. Our neighbors have been so wonderful, it is hard to explain. We have not had time to socialize outside of our neighborhood since there is so much going on in the hood. The Chinese gift exchange; the illumination walk; the holiday decoration contests between all the neighbors; the cul de sac parties, the Patrouski Christmas eve party with the food and the best clam chowder in the world.

So here we go, we will try to get ready and get going. Stay tuned for more updates.

They Call Me Capt’n Bri

It is finally official. I have achieved my 100GT Near Coastal Master's Mariners license. After years of putting it off, it only took the USCG 6 days to approve my application. I am still waiting on that actual printed license, but I am in the system so it must be on its way. It only took about 3 days for me to get my TWIC (Transportation Worker Identification Credential), so I am registered with yet another government agency that says I am OK. I just need to convince my neighbors of that, but that is a different blog.

I am still working on the technology piece of linking my phone with my computer so I can upload photos easier. Here is one of them. I was trying to get the sunset, but it really did not show up well.

I realize I have been neglecting the progress of my boat preparation, but rest assured things are happening. I will try to get a catch up blog out soon, with the progress and pictures. I have started my research into visiting the Turks and Caicos today and there is a lot to know without a lot of information. If you want to see some beautiful pictures, I just ran across this blog today and they are gorgeous. Well, back to more research…

Briman

USCG Licensed 100GT Master

Changing the Oil Changer

I had no idea that changing the location of the Oil Changer would be that complicated. One phone call, and two visits to the local rubber and gasket company netted the extensions I needed to move the changer. For those that are not familiar with the 480DB set up, the oil changer is mounted horizontally on the inboard stringer with the hoses mounted into the center passageway down in the bilge. The valves get accidentally opened and the hoses take up room in the aisle way. So I decided it needed to be moved to a more convenient location. It looked like it would fit on the bulkhead behind the transmission, but the sea strainer for the generator was mounted there. So I decided to swap the locations and mount the oil changer in a vertical orientation so that the hoses were straight down and no longer in the aisle. I had to extend two of the four hoses by adding a 1.5ft of oil resistant hose. After I tightened ALL of the connections, the oil stopped leaking into the bilge.

The sea strainer was a little complicated as the stringer is not a straight vertical surface, so I had to cut a spacer for the top of the strainer and I could only get one screw in the bottom bracket, but it is in securely now.

I have since continued on my quest for a clean bilge. There is 12 years of oily, smelly and dirty grime everywhere. I am using the best degreaser in the world, which is called Tuff Enough. This is the best stuff I have ever used when it comes to degreasing. It has my executive seal of approval for this, but I can only find it in Florida so I use it sparingly. Even with the overhead of the bilge up and out of the way, I cannot get into all of the spaces outboard of the main engines, so I hires one of my neighbors to help me clean. His name is Parker. He is about 13 and probably does not weigh 80 pounds. He came over with no shoes and a clean outfit. He left with grease literally from the balls of his feet to the top of his head. He can really fit into some small spaces. He helped immensely.

I have since repainted my motors and tomorrow I plan on more cleaning and painting of the bilge itself. Someday I will get it to my standards of cleanliness. Until then, that is where I will be. My turbos are not expected until at least Wednesday, so I get 2-3 more days cleaning the bilge. That is all for now.

Engine Room Pics

The Preparations Begin

OK, here we are in September of 2009 and I am starting to get ready for another southern journey. While I did not start early enough, I did however, start at the end of August, so hopefully we can be ready. The problem is: I have a lot of plans for this cruise. So here is what is going on:

Maintenance:

• I had a mechanic do a routine checkup on my main motors and here is what we found so far:
  
• The turbines need rebuilding – In Progress
  
• The Impellers need to be replaced – Done
  
• The Valves need adjusting – Done
  
• The Starboard Motor needs a new exhaust Gasket – Done
  
• Starboard Motor after-cooler to be cleaned – Done
  
• Both Oil Pan Gaskets need replacing – Done
  
• Major Field Day in the Bilge – In Progress
  
• All Engine Hoses need replacing – Done
  
• Generator Starter needs replaced – In Progress
  
• Generator has heavy smoke under load – In Progress
  

  
  

Modifications/Improvements:

• Bilge Area
  
  • Install Mirrors on outboard sides of the engines – Material bought, In progress
    
  • Update Bilge lighting – Not started
    
  • Relocate Oil Changer (which requires relocation of Generator Sea Strainer – In progress
    
  • Design and install Water Maker – Research only. There will be more posts on this one.
    
  • Design and install Scuba Tank compressor
    
  • Fix water intrusion from the transom locker
    
  • Organize poles in transom locker
    
  • Hook up STBD tank to generator
    
  • Organize storage
    
• Salon and Interior
  
  • Replace Carpet – Not started
    
  • Replace wood flooring – not started
    
  • Mount TV/DVD in Master Stateroom
    
  • Install TV in Guest Stateroom
    
  • Design and install phone system
    
  • Possibly design/install cabinetry in "L" room
    
• Cockpit Area
  
  • Relocate Water bib
    
  • Permanently install Water filter/softener
    
  • Install Tackle box
    
  • Create permanent line storage
    
  • Create Scuba Tank Holders (4)
    
  • Install subwoofer and amp
    
  • Design and have cockpit canopy installed
    
  • Teak flooring (as money allows)
    
• Bridge/Helm
  
  • Redo fiberglass for helm
    
  • Design new CPU based navigation system
    
  • Install TV
    
  • Install SAT Data/VOX
    
  • Replace all speakers
    
  • Possible replacement of forward isinglass
    
  • Teak flooring (As money allows)
    

I am sure there are a lot more items but I thought I would start with a list now. As I complete each job, I will post articles and pictures to describe each trial and tribulation. I am starting the blog early to ensure that I have all the tools necessary to post. That way there should be no delay once we start. More to come later.

briman

 

Swimming with the Fishes

We are still here at Bimini Big Game Marina. We have been around the island a little and found a lot of our old friends. We saw Sandra and Nikia as well as some other friends. BJ got a ride from Stevie S, the Plain Jane of Bimini and he has a new album out that I guess I will have to buy. She was returning from a long walk with Simba; who just discovered her first goat. She was very curious and so was the goat. We have laid pretty low since we got here and have been doing a lot of cleaning on the boat and trying to figure out all of my electronics. Luckily the Satellite TV has been great, we just don’t have local channels. That is yet another project I have to work on. We have, however successfully watched Shrek 3 on Pay-per-view. BJ has figured out the Washer/dryer combo on the boat, so we can now change clothes. At least I can, as BJ brought one swim suit per day for this entire voyage.

Yesterday, we had lunch up at the Big Game restaurant, when someone asked if that was out dog roaming the docks. Normally she does not leave the boat without us there, but we left the super-duper-Brian-enhanced dog ramp from the boat to the dock. She must have the extra confidence now that I have made it more stable and less abrasive to the boat, since she used it. We put her back on the boat and continued to eat and have a couple of Kaliks in the afternoon. All of the sudden someone asked again if that was our dog. I searched the docks with my eyes as fast as I could, but I could not see Simba. Then I saw her: swimming in the marina. She was swimming in the water pictured below while we were dining up in the balcony shown.

She must have tried to get off the boat again without the ramp and fell in. Luckily she is a great swimmer. She swam over to a ladder that I climbed down, but it was too awkward to balance and lift her about 6 feet from the water to the dock. We spotted a small fishing boat on another dock, so I went to the boat’s swim platform and Simba smoothly and with great speed swam over to me, where I could lift her up and over to the dock. Needless to say she had a great day with her walk, swim and a bath.

Tonight we will be grilling out on the boat. We have already paid off the security guard so it should be ok. Hopefully Arthur brings us some lobsters and a conch shell for BJ so she can blow it at sundown; a Bahamas tradition.

Herb Update:
For those of you that don’t know we decided to grow some of our own herbs so we can cook with them on this trip. It is a hydroponic system and BJ gets really excited when she sees significant growth. The chives are really growing fast as is the parsley and basil. My only complaint, is that the grow light is so bright is looks like a nuclear power plant in the cabin at night, so now I cover it at night.

Bimini

Well, last night we received our first visitors, albeit it was not really planned. Mac McComb and Brian Steffes (Canada Brian) are on a quick boondoggle to Florida and had no real schedule so they stopped by to see us in Ft. Lauderdale. We had Rock Star parking at the New River downtown marina. We were basically parked at the Riverwalk shopping complex which is also about 2 blocks from the downtown party district and quite close to the Las Olas shopping and eating district. We spent a little too much time at the Coyote Ugly bar after spending too much time the Briney Waterfront, which did not make this morning the most pleasant morning.

After the fellow continued on with their journey to the Keys (they think), we headed to Peterson’s fuel barge. It is a great concept as the barge holds 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel and can park in any water 20 feet or less, or just tie up to another boat. We took on about 340 gallons which is a far cry less than the 3000 gallons going into the 100+ boat on the other side of the barge.

We left Port Everglades around 12:00 noon. The seas were around 2-3 feet, which is a lot more than the 5 previous forecasts but a lot less than our previous experience so we took it and ran. We only ran at 18 knots since the boat has been under major stress with the trips we have taken so far. I tightened up every nut, bolt and screw that I could find, and it seemed to keep everything together much better. The seas never laid down so it was a bumpy three hour run to Bimini.

As we started in between South and North Bimini, the water got smoother and the scene became familiar. We saw Sara’s End of the World bar with the worlds best Lobster pizza; the bar that Stevie S. plays live music after the Compleat Angler burned down; the Customs house and finally the Big Game Marina which is where we are staying. We liked this marina last year because of the location. It used to be the place to be here in Bimini until a new resort went up at the very north end of North Bimini. It is really nice with great docks and facilities, but a little “yachty” and as far as you can get from the End of the World (bar that is).

We are now checked into customs and immigration. Yes, Simba is checked in too. Even though this is the big Saturday night, we are laying low trying to recover from last night, and catch up on a lot of little things, like the blog.

Happy New Year!!!

Today we slept in. Last night was a blast. We spent the day doing a little spot cleaning and I spent the day writing and updating the website and blog. The website still needs work, but I will work on it as we go. We will be here for the next 3 days due to predicted high winds. We are trying to get to Del Ray Beach by this weekend to visit BJ’s friend Mac. It is close enough to Ft. Lauderdale that we can hopefully pick up the rest of our necessary supplies.

Simba is still not up to par and has not eaten that much since we started this trip. Hopefully she does not have an aversion to the flavor of her favorite food, since we have a lot of it on the boat.

We tried to find a gypsy restaurant for lunch today, but turned around before we reached it. We will try find the gypsies again tomorrow. We did, however, find a really nice restaurant here on Anastasia Island called Zhanra. It is a play on words for Genre. They have tapas and art. BJ’s Chicken quesadilla was reportedly better than the Banana Cabana on the Island Of Palms, SC. The food was excellent and we plan to go back tomorrow night for a Chicago blues band.

Not much to report today as we are just taking it easy.

New Year's Eve

We took advantage of a nice day to reorganize and clean the boat. Well not the whole boat just some of it. It was a nice day in St. Augustine. We had dinner last night, and lunch today at the Conch House Restaurant. The food is pretty decent. So far the best item is the blackened fresh grouper with the parmesan red potatoes. I would stay away from the “award winning” conch chowder. It is supposed to be spicy and was forewarned by our waitress. It was not spicy, and really did not have a lot of flavor. There were more green bell peppers than conch in it. The baked mahi-mahi was good, but the shrimps and scallops that accompanied it were way overcooked. It took me three tries to get a bottle of wine, as apparently we were operating off an old list.

The boat listed heavily to starboard and is leaning to the aft pretty steep. We tried to get more organized than we readjusted our heavy items in the process to counterbalance the list we had. I have to make a point that Searay did not really design the storage lockers in the boat very well. All of the big lockers are on the starboard side, along with the refrigerator and freezer. We filled the freezer with at least 30 lbs. of meat in Charleston. BJ and Bill spent several hours with the vacuum sealer that Terry had given us. All in all, we balanced it a little better, but it is still not perfect. I am even considering adding artificial ballast to offset the lists, but I really do not want to ADD weight to the boat.

I took the sunny warmish opportunity in the afternoon to wash the boat. It was obvious that that has not happened in a while. I did not do an excellent job, but I got a pretty thick layer of grime off of it.

I then went to West Marine to try to get parts to repair different systems. They did not have much, in the way of supplies so I basically came back with a hose and some snaps. We discovered the snap-in canvas floor runners before we left, and I am going to install the snaps in an attempt to save the carpet. I feel obligated because on the initial name changing ceremony, our neighbor Jennifer offered to clean the extremely stained carpet in the salon. Not only did she keep to her word, but she cleaned the carpet in the entire boat. A big thanks goes out to Jennifer from the ‘hood.

We ate a nice Filet Mignon with beef and mushroom risotto next to fresh broccoli florets dinner at Café ESweet before we went out to party at the marina bar to ring in the new year. BJ was a big hit (imagine that) with the band and the other partiers. We danced the night away to some funky sounds from the Brian Turner and Rip Tide Band. As we got to know the band members, we learned that the guitar player Brian Turner’s son and was just visiting from California. He left us his contact information and when we went to hi myspace page, he is really a very talented blues guitarist. If you are interested check out http://myspace.com/thebenrobinsonband. I am sure he would appreciate it and I think his music is great.

Cast Off!

Well we got underway today, finally! Thanks to Terry and Bill, we had the formal name changing ceremony around 11 o’clock last night. This is very important as Neptune needs to be appeased with much libation in the form of champagne poured in precise timing and direction as I gave the water and wind gods our request for good fortune under the boat’s new name: Executive Sweet.

We are about a week late in our departure so to make up for that, we decided (or it was decided for us) that we would take a trip with about a weeks worth of adventure. I gained a lot of experience on today's trip so I will share some lessons learned here.

The Plan
Cast off from home port Mt. Pleasant, SC
Arrive in St. Augustine Florida (around 229 miles, as the boat goes)

Reality
Arose at 0500 to take last minute items to the boat and check the weather. At around 0530 I went in to tell BJ that maybe we should either wait one day, or go down the IntraCoastal Water Way (ICW). Going through the ICW, or “the ditch" (yes even the acronym has a nickname) is painfully slow and would take about 3 days to get to St. Augustine. Not only that, but it is often narrow with lots of obstacles so if we did the ditch, we would have to wait until the fog lifted. Oh, I did not tell you about that. We woke up to less than ¼ mile visibility due to dense fog. BJ decided she had gotten up early for once so we should not waste that occasion. We cast off at 0615 just in time to get over the shallow hump in front of the house. I did not notice the reduced visibility until we hit the Wando River. There I realized that the fog was as bad as the weather channel had predicted. I just put on the new radar/chart plotter the week before, so I did not really know how to use it efficiently. Plus the radar did not check out properly in the sea trials and the echoes are reading about 0.1 mile closer that they actually are which is better than the other way.

With the fog so thick, I did not want to go in the ICW because it is too difficult to navigate and the radar was not 100% calibrated, so we slowly headed out into the Charleston Harbor using one of my newly added equipment: the fog horn. We cruised out of the harbor at 9 knots and turned south, where I tried to use my recently plotted route and new autopilot. It did not work as I thought it would, but I managed to program the autopilot to go to a waypoint that I marked just outside of St. Augustine, 211 statute miles away. Once we were finally out in the big water and I got used to (trusted) my radar, we went ahead and brought her up to 22 knots heading south. There were 1-2 foot rollers, so it was not that bad.

The fog finally lifted at 1040, but the waves were now running 3-4 feet so the ride got a little uncomfortable for the crew. We learned that Simba is not short for Simbad the sailor. I looked down to the cockpit and told BJ that I thought the dog was seasick because she was kind of foaming at the mouth. Since we were in heavy seas and the sea spray was coming in the cockpit along with the diesel fumes, I figured that Simba would more enjoy the bridge of the boat so BJ carefully coaxed her up in between the sudden rolls and jerks of the boat in the now 4 foot waves. That decision may not have been the best because after about 15 minutes, she left her breakfast in the corner of the helm, although she seemed to feel a little better after that although she shed profusely. I wish I had as much hair as she left behind in the cockpit and bridge area.

It was a long day in really rough seas. At one point I think there were 6 footers and they were stacking up onto each other, which made it very difficult to find any type of trough to steer the boat into. BJ and Simba spent the entire day laying down in the front of the bridge.

Me on the other hand, was learning a new skill; how to find and dodge thunderstorms using the radar. There were several thunderstorms on the way down, and that is particularly significant and the winds around these storms were stronger and they shifted directions often, which make the waves larger and more unpredictable. At this time we had to slow down to 20 knots in an attempt to keep the boat from hitting down too hard. I had no idea what the cabin looked like in these seas. We spent over a week loading it up, and there is a lot of stuff everywhere, I just hoped it was everywhere that we placed it

When we were about 9 miles from the inlet, the fuel gauges read empty, but my fuel log that I had been keeping indicated that I should have had plenty of fuel. I noticed something on the radar, but I could not really see anything because of the glare from the sun glistening off the water. I then saw what looked like a bunch of fish or something jumping out of the water so I slowed down to identify it. When I came off plane, my starboard motor quit and my bilge pumps started to run. I restarted the motor and had BJ steer the boat towards the waypoint. We were in pretty rough seas since a bunch of afternoon thunderstorms had just passed by, so going down into the bilge was not an appealing thought, but I needed to know how much water we were taking on, so down I went. Oh I can’t tell you how great diesel smells when it is hot, noisy and I am trying to balance myself from the 3 foot waves hitting the boat abeam to, and I am leaning over moving parts trying to find the source of the water that is pouring in from the outer stringers. I narrowed it down to a leaky stuffing box from the port side rudder, and it wasn’t leaking enough to stop our travels.

Now that I was back at the helm, I started getting nervous about the fuel gauges reading “E”, so I finished the leg at about 18 knots which gave me the best mileage on plane. At this time, we decided to start calling marinas. We wanted to stay at the municipal marina so we could walk to the historic district of St. Augustine; however they were completely booked for the New Year’s weekend. I tried another marina and there was no answer. So we decided to get fuel at the municipal marina and figure out where to go from there. Just as we cleared the inlet, a massive thunderstorm hit and reduced visibility to next to nothing, so I was driving in a strange port using GPS and uncalibrated radar only. I finally found the marina, passed under the Bridge of Lions and tied up at the fuel dock. The diesel price was $3.63 per gallon and after the reconciliation; I was about 40 gallons off with my crude fuel log so I will have to make some adjustments to how I calculate fuel burn for the future.

While fueling, a man came by and said to try the Conch House Marina since he just cancelled his reservation of his 32 foot boat. It was worth a shot, since all other marinas were booked, and BJ did not really want to anchor off. We had a little luck as it was the cancellation that allowed us to move over to the Conch House Marina on the back side of Anastasia Island. We pulled in the pitch dark and found our slip and a couple of dock hands standing by. We will probably be here for 3 to 4 days due to a cold front coming in with a lot of wind. We need the time to get the boat situated anyways, so we will make good use of our stay and enjoy ringing in the New Year here in St. Augustine.



The Conch House Marina

This is a real nice marina with an extremely helpful staff. There is an on-site restaurant, a little bar, and a motel. The ship’s store is not very well stocked, but there is a West Marine store less than a $10.00 cab ride away. There are fuel docks here, but I already fueled up so I did not look at the prices.