Miscellaneous Pics Underway

Just a few miscellaneous pics I had on my camera for your enjoyment this Saturday evening.

Our friends' Bristol 38.8 Skimmer leaving the anchorage at Middle River

Sunrise at Middle River as we left the anchorage to head for No Name Harbor

A section of the almost continuous skyline between Ft. Lauderdale and Miami

We were heeling so hard that I was looking way up in the sky from the low side of the boat.

One of several races along the coast. This one was just north of the lighthouse by No Name Harbor in the background.

Miami skyline from our mooring ball at Dinner Key

1000 sailors a day …

… manage to put up a whisker pole without bending it in half. I would not be one of them.

The day started out pretty well. Instead of enduring 2 more days of ICW / opening bridges travel to get from Lake Worth to Ft. Lauderdale, we took advantage of a weather window to jump outside. One day. Only 2 bridges. No debate. Kintala scooted out the channel on the ebb tide, doing better than 7 knots. Once turning south there was enough wind to fill the jib, but not enough to give the WesterBeast a rest.

A couple of hours in we came upon a small gaggle of sport fishing boats spread out over a couple of square miles of ocean. There are several reasons to give sport fishing boats a lot of room. People who take a million dollars worth of equipment out and burn a couple of hundred gallons of fuel just to catch a few dollars worth of fish, look at the world in a way that is beyond me. I'm never sure what they are going to do. It also seems that sport fishers, so long as they have a line in the water, are considered “commercial fishers” and thus are the “stand to” boat. It doesn't matter if they are actually charter boats who make money by taking people out to catch fish that are never going to make it to market, or if they are just rich people out playing for a day. They will still act like “commercial fishers” and drive anywhere they like with little regard for anyone else in the area. They also drag hundreds of feet of line behind their boats, line that is impossible to see. And, as we experienced a few weeks ago in Stuart, when a fisher person has something on the line pretty much nothing else that might be going on in the universe matters to them because they are catching a fish!

So, when one of the gaggle appeared off our port bow, heading north to our south, I turned to starboard just to give him room. A minute later he turned to port, and started closing in on our track again. Okay then. I turned further to starboard, now getting really close to the wind and risking back winding the jib. It was enough though, we had plenty of room, except he turned toward us once more and was now closing rapidly. Not okay then. Maybe he had caught a fish and wasn't paying any attention to where his million dollar boat was going? In any case he had put us in a bit of a bind. Just before I turned again to let the sail do what it may, he fell off to turn parallel to us. He was close enough that I could see the captain holding a phone in one hand. With the other he was waving toward shore and shouting something that sounded like “Go away, go away.” Which, in hindsight, seems kind of funny. I was making every effort to "go away" as he tried to run us down.

At least, I think that is what he said. At that moment I was sharing my own view of the last few minutes, along the lines of, “Please gentle fisher man, would you consider putting down your phone and steering your boat in such a way as to keep us from crashing into each other?” (Okay, maybe not exactly along those lines.)

Anyway, if you happen to be a couple of miles off shore and a few miles south of Lake Worth, and happen to see a sport fishing boat named Great Day, you might consider giving it an extra wide pass. Its captain is apparently a bit of a wanker. If you happen to be a person who enjoys chartering a million dollars worth of equipment and burning a couple hundred gallons of fuel to catch a fish, maybe there are better places to patronize than Great Day Charters? Surely there are companies who employ captains who are much more professional.

About the time Great Day disappeared over the horizon the winds faded to the point where the jib started to flog. We have been working out some new rigging to make poling out the jib less dramatic. This looked like a good day to test it out, but the deck monkey failed the test and managed to trash the pole. The test that came next was getting the bent pole back on deck. While struggling to get that done, a pod of dolphins showed up. I think they were getting a laugh from the deck monkey antics on the good ship Kintala. But here is the thing about dolphins. Even when they are laughing at you they bring along some magic. Even better, Deb had sent a float plan to Daughter Middle. Daughter Middle sent a message back stating that Grand Kids 5 wanted dolphin videos. The dolphins, including at least a half dozen mother / baby pairs, might have heard them and so came by to make some kids smile, staying with us for hours. And yes, we got videos.

In spite of it all the day turned out to be a really good day. Thanks to the magic of dolphins.

ps: As it turns out the deck monkey made less of a mistake than originally thought. According to Forespar (who made our pole) the one we had was several sizes too light for a boat Kintala's size. It is a bit of a surprise that it lasted this long.

Not too bad ...

This morning's inside boat temperature was hovering around 50 degrees. Jeans and sweatshirt to go with the morning coffee, the wind hasn't picked up yet, the sky is brilliant blue and reflects off sparkling water. Boats are leaving Middle River with others stopping by for a day or a week, the insurance company thinks that the hurricane season is over, and Deb's book has been published. This past summer has finally receded into memory. Most of what we recall now is the good stuff (so long as we don't look at the bank account); having Daughter Eldest and family close at hand, boat chores with little helping hands, singing "BOOM" back at the sky. We made many good friends we hope to run across in time yet to come and places far away, as cruisers are wont to do.

In a week or so Kintala will be heading south to Biscayne bay for no other reason than to play around for a couple of weeks. Come December the plan is to pick up a mooring ball, close up the boat, and head to St. Louis for the arrival of baby girl grand-kidlet latest. It has been a long time since Daughter Middle, Daughter Youngest, and Families were within hugs reach...too long. Then it will be time to wait for a weather window and follow friends east, across the Gulf Stream and back to the Islands.

Even though we are still in the States this, right here, right now, is what we worked so long to achieve. While not the first time we have found it, during our first year of cruising the "finds" were glorious but fleeting. There was a day here, a couple of days there, a few weeks in the Islands. But when I factor out the nearly four months spent tied to a pier working on broken boats, the ratio doesn't seem too bad for beginners. We knew the first year out would expose gaps in our boat prep, and sometimes things like The Bear just happen. Which has me wondering.

We know, and have heard, of people pulling the plug on their cruising life after a year or so. I will admit, during our first year, to having a bunch of thoughts of "this is not fun" myself. And while I have no doubt that they are doing the right thing for themselves, I also have little doubt that our second year is going to be noticeably different from our first. The outside jump to Miami is a day sail now, having done it enough times to know what to expect. The jump to the Island the same. We will wait for a weather window we like with little thought as to how long it takes or who else might go when we don't, or doesn't go when we do. The most pressing thought right now is looking forward to trying out the new furler rig for the staysail. In the mean time, we will explore the southeast coast of Florida with a bit of ease and confidence we did not know last year.

Not a lot more, as we are still newbies who have also learned that the ocean is big and sometimes plays a little too rough for us tiny human beings and our itty-bitty boats. (Think Pee-Wee players in the Super Bowl.) Still, it is pretty nice to be in a good place, looking forward to the next year.  And it only took us (roughly) 2,649 days to get here.

Calibration

Kintala has been anchored in Middle River for a couple of days now.  Actually, she has been anchored, re-anchored, and anchored again (for a total of six times).  I would like to say we were just practicing as it has been months since the last time I pitched the hook off the deck.  The truth is we are out of practice at visualizing how all the boats will move with the wind and the current.  And it didn't help that, right in the middle of what is after all a pretty tight area, one boat set both stern and bow anchors, and so doesn't swing.  That kind of messes things up for everyone else.  Eventually we settled back into a place just a couple of boat lengths from the first place we tried.

A few hours after settling into that last / first place, storms rolled through that got a little gusty.  While Kintala held fast, a friend's boat pulled free and ended up settled neatly against a dock.  All is well, but they moved on to a mooring ball for a while.  Maybe Middle River kind of likes sailboats.  This is were Kintala dragged last fall and ended up sitting peacefully tied to a dock at the end of a canal.  It is all good when a boat drags and nothing gets damaged and no one gets hurt.

Deb and I, but mostly me, fell into a kind of fugue state almost the moment the anchor hit the bottom for the first time.  For hours I just sat in the cockpit and watched the world swing slowly round us.  Several times the idea of doing a post floated by, was ignored, and floated away.  Thoughts of doing some easy boat work, trying to get the dink running better, or even just splashing around in the water to fend off the heat, were equally unsuccessful in prodding me into motion.  It was like the tension that has been holding me together was suddenly released, and I wasn't sure what to do without it.  For months now, literally since the day after we got back from the Islands, needs and difficult decisions have driven each day right to the limit of what we could do.  It was relentless and became our "new normal".

We are back to our normal normal, and it is taking a bit of adjustment.

Sure they will ...

Yesterday was a good day. The Beast came to life and Kintala was a going concern once again. But the engine run came late in the day and didn't do much more than prove the Beast still had life in it and that the cooling system wasn't spewing raw or fresh water everywhere.

That last was a bit of a concern and the reason the engine run had come so late in the day. For, earlier in the day, spewing fresh water had proved a bit of a set-back. It wasn't spewing really, more like drooling out of the seam between the exhaust riser and the heat exchanger. The seam held together with the shiny new studs and supposedly sealed with brandy new, high-tech, gaskets. It was also the very first thing assembled and thus at the bottom, if you will, of the pile. Getting to it meant taking everything off that we had spent the day before putting on. That was the bad news.

The good news was that, when it comes to mechanical things, the second time one does a thing often goes much, must faster than the first time. I indulged in a few moments of deep depression while watching the drip of cooling fluid, heaved a sigh and a few choice words, then accepted my fate and reached for the ½ inch wrench to start the proceedings. An hour or so later the unit was back up on the bench. A couple of hours after that it was hanging back on the engine.  With the hope of avoiding taking the thing apart a third time to fix a drool, two low tech, home made gaskets were installed and reinforced with ...

Permatex 

ULTRA BLUE

No Leak Silicone Gasket

Guaranteed Not To Leak.

It says so right on the tube twice – just in case you didn't see the “NO Leak” subtitle.  It wasn't clear if they really meant it, or if they were just trying to convince themselves (and me) that it would actually work.  But the short engine run at the end of the day proved the advertising.  The wet stuff stayed in the wet stuff tank.  No drips.  No drools.

So today started with a longer run to: a) check again for leaks and, b) warm up the oil for changing. The oil change part didn't happen because it was soon apparent the engine was getting too warm. In spite of the impressive spouts of water gushing from Kintala's port side exhaust, the water temperature gauge climbed right up to 200 degrees and showed no inclination of stopping there. Cue the deep depression once again.  (All gauge readings, by the way, were confirmed with a CEN-TECH infrared thermometer. That thing has become one of the “go to” tools when it comes to troubleshooting. Don't leave the dock without one, even if you don't have a WesterBeast hounding your life.)

Ed Note: And you might want to buy two so you don't have to rescue yours from the galley where your admiral finds it extremely useful to test bread making liquids and pizza pan temps...

Careful to let things cool off a little (the engine, not me) before removing the cap, I did a post run check of the coolant level.  (Having boiling hot and pressurized fluid explode out of the expansion tank of any hot engine will really spoil a day.  I speak from painful experience suffered years ago - and still grimace a little when popping the cap.)

The level was down a little.  Not unexpected. Getting the air out of old marine diesel systems, both fuel and coolant, is a constant source of problems. We really struggled with the engine in Nomad, that thing driving me to near distraction with the gymnastics required to get all the air out of the cooling loop. Something Deb kept reminding me of as I jumped to my normal conclusion that the Beast had come up with yet another way to ruin my day.

Something I grew more sure of with a top off and another run … with the same results. And again. Finally, with a bit of a desperation showing though my normal cheery self, I pulled one of the hoses off the engine that feeds coolant to the boat's water heater. Green stuff was pored in the open end until it flowed all the way around and back out of the engine. It didn't take very much, but it did take some. Then, with the engine running for the fourth (or fifth – I lost count) time, I bled a little air through the valve at the top of the thermostat housing. That puppy gets hot and sits close to a running belt. Some care is needed to get all of ones fingers back whole and unscorched when playing this game, but it worked. The engine settled at 178 degrees, even dropping a little with added RPM.

So tomorrow, with just six days left before Kintala needs to get out of Cooley's, we will try once again to heat the oil and get it changed.

I'm sure things will go just fine.

Sure they will.

Heat exchanger, round 2 ...

I started wrestling with the WesterBeast again today. That was supposed to happen yesterday but it was just a bridge too far. There was never any thought that cruising was going to be “retirement” (in spite of this blog's name). The work involved is just too demanding, there is too much potential risk, and too many win-it-or-bin-it decisions, for this to be anything like easy living. But once in a while a day comes along where I just can't man-up and get to work. Yesterday was one of those days.

I was still planning on working on the Beast when I ran across Friend James. James is the marina's resident “wooist”. If you want to know about what is going on in the ether, why the Mayan calendar was correct about the end of the age, how to cure almost any disease with the proper herbal tea and a “healing attitude”, what happens now that the solar systems is passing through the galactic plain, who is really in charge of the world, or when the aliens may arrive to lead us all to true enlightenment, James is the man in the know. Though I am way too much of a hard-nosed ex-street fighter to climb into his starship, we enjoy volleying back and forth in spite of our vastly different world views. And even taken by the woo, James is a better person than just about anyone I can think of in either politics or business. James is never going to hurt anyone, making him a pretty upright human being so far as I am concerned.

Then I walked over to Publix and made use of their hi-speed Internet connection to watch hometown hero and multiple-times World Champion Valentino Rossi win the Italian MotoGP, his first win in more than a year. After that Deb and I spent an extraordinary evening with new Friends Frank and Audrey. They are graduate alumni from the Civil Rights Movement and current environmental activists. Hearing their story and listening to their hopes for the future for their grand children and mine ranks as one of the five top conversations I have ever enjoyed. I don't generally give our species much of a chance. But if people like Frank and Audrey win the day there may yet be hope that our grand kid's inheritance will include air they can breathe, water they can drink, and oceans they can swim in. All in all it was a great day, but I didn't get anything done on the WesterBeast.

So today it was back in the ring to take another swing. Several people have mentioned that taking the heat exchanger off without removing the exhaust riser is difficult. (And they were right!) Getting it back on, they suggested, is well nigh impossible. For a while it looked like the naysayers would be proven wrong. Less than an hour after starting work the heat exchanger was hung on the bottom of the exhaust riser. All four nuts were started on their respective studs and awaiting proper torquage to be applied. Alas, said torquage turned into a problem. None of the nuts felt “right” and the aft inboard one, the one most difficult to reach, was clearly not a happy nut. After much internal debate between the cruiser who really needs to get this job done, and the aircraft mechanic who can't let things go, it was decided the exhaust manifold / heat exchanger assembly simply had to be removed. The naysayers were two for two.

Contemplating pulling the exhaust riser caused all kinds of consternation. First and foremost is that the exhaust gasket is an $80 – $100 engine bit. Another fear was that touching anything on the WesterBeast will surely lead to many other things needing “touched” as well. A fear well founded.

Six fasteners hold the exhaust riser to the engine, four studs and two cap screws. Two of the four studs came out of the engine. One of the studs that holds the intake muffler was already pulled out (I just lifted it out of the hole), and the exhaust gasket was indeed thrashed, though it wasn't me who did the thrashing. Apparently this is, minimum, the second time this gasket has been pressed into service. As for the studs for the heat exchanger, the reason for going down this path in the first place, they appear to be too short. Deb is currently sourcing the proper paper gaskets and I am considering the use of low profile nuts and lock washers, but it may will end up that replacing all of the studs with new is the only proper fix. At least the one stud I feared had been put in backwards, and thus trashing the riser, turned out to be the wrong stud; -18 / -18 instead of -18 / -24. Still installed by a Fool, but at least not as bad as it could have been.

By the end of the day both the heat exchanger and the exhaust riser were sitting on the bench waiting to be installed. By any reckoning that is a pretty big step backwards, particularly since the days are rapidly counting down to the killer-rise-in-dock-fees deadline. But this is cruising and, more to the point, this is me cruising on Kintala. Truth to tell I had a nasty hunch this was where today was going to lead all along.

Which may be why I took yesterday off. Once in a while even a tough guy needs a break from taking a daily beating. I am way too far down the road to be a tough guy any more, and this run of daily mechanical boxing matches going back to The Bear, has about done me in.

Maybe I need a glass of herbal tea and a trip through the ether.

gypsy muse ...

The relentless drive of getting the boat ready to go again is in a bit of a pause. We are awaiting parts from various places near (the heat exchanger in a shop nearby), far (traveler parts from the North East), and further (electronic bits being shipped from China – thanks for not bothering to mention that Amazon). We are still working every day.  The projects are less intense but still make life aboard better. Deb is making storage bags so I can get my tools under control, and reorganization of the tool area in progress. After years of working out of a very well organized rolling tool chest about the size of a basement freezer (I had two of them) it just drives me nuts to have to rummage through piles of tools tossed in drawers looking for the only socket that will work or an odd-ball pick. Boat projects take twice as long as land projects anyway,  Searching for tools with slippery fingers, greasy bolts between my lips, moving this out of the way to look in that, dents my otherwise sunny disposition and sours my normally positive view of the world. It also makes long, tiring days longer and more tiring.

While she works on my tools dilemma, which I think she is doing more for her own sake - making me easier to live with in "project mode" - than for mine, I have been replacing some rotting wood trim and sealing leaks in her galley.  Also, we have a whole new set of killer dock lines ginned up from a discarded (but still perfectly sound) anchor rode, and I am continuing on with the Spanish-lessons-that-will-never-lead-to-me-speaking-Spanish. (At least that is the way it feels.) All of which has served to remind me …


… we are living a pretty good life. For all of our struggles during this 2014 Hurricane Season in Florida from Hell, we are still on the boat. There is no time clock to punch, no demented boss to try and keep happy (Deb's old one, not mine).  There is no Board of Director Politics that will decimate a life on a whim (my old one, not Deb's).  Compared to our old economic standing, which was pretty good before the Boss / Board world dumped its radioactive waste into our lives, we are now near the bottom of the income pile. But that's okay. We don't need much, don't want much, and are very happy to be out of the Boss / Board empire.  Indeed, during my moments of sunny disposition and positive view of the world, it seems likely that the empire is flaming out in a spectacular fashion, which cheers me up to no end.  The further away we are, and the sooner it engineers its own demise, the better.

Our friend Guilles left the marina yesterday, escaping the rising flood of dock fees. He has become a good friend, another of the many we now count floating around this part of the world. Along the dock many other new friends are working as hard as we to get going.  Some are thinking of heading to the Islands this winter, several thinking of the Abacos after hearing about our time there last winter. S/V Kintala and her crew, though bruised and battered and economically challenged, may yet find a way across the Stream come winter, and find friends to call on once away.  What we can't get done on the boat before going will simply not get done.  But last year, running on the little generator, without an auto pilot, and living under a tiny bimini, was nothing but grand.  And we do have a nice solid foredeck and a new staysail furler.  The jug board is pretty, the main traveler should be like new, various leaks and rots are gone.  There is no reason next year can't be as grand as last.  And all this coming and going and planning and making do has served to remind me of another thing …

… in spite of it all, I love belonging to this band of gypsies.

... out where we belong ...

The Dow Corning 795 box showed up today. The box itself was too short for the tubes, so someone had punched four holes in the end for the nozzles to hang out an inch or so. Honest, I wouldn't think to make something like that up even if I was trying. The good news is the tubes managed to make the trip without being damaged and leaking 795 all over someone else's something. So we had sealer to near finish two projects today. (And we will not be buying anything from showerdoordirect.com again.)

The project completely finished was bedding the aft cabin's port port. (Couldn't resist.) Deb removed it weeks (and weeks) ago. But she couldn't do the glass work needed with the kids living with us; not everyone loves the smell of resin in the morning. Then other things came up. Then we used up all the 795 on board doing Bear projects. But today was the day. That port was covered up for so long that we both got used to how dark it was in the back cabin. Now we can get used to how bright it is again.

Ed note: This was my first solo fiberglass repair job rebuilding the completely rotted out opening. I'm pretty proud of it!

Traveler sans sheaves before final assembly.

The port was one leak that we had back there. The main sheet traveler was the other. I pulled it off yesterday and tossed the rotted 1/4 X 1&1/4 X 50 untreated teak some yahoo installed when they moved the traveler from the coach roof to just aft of the companionway. Then we went shopping for parts. At a place called Seafarer Marine it cost us 3 whole dollars to have a custom piece of star board cut, and it took them about 3 whole minutes to hand it to us. In addition they have a whole store full of all kinds of do-dads, tools, and good prices on things like solvent and resin. I think I found a new favorite place.

No more rotten teak spacer under the track.

Before you say it, yes, the non-skid needs painting. It's on the list.

But we came up empty on new sheaves for the traveler. West Marine had 3 of the 8 we needed, but the price seemed a bit high, and what good is three out of eight? Then we got prices from Rig Rite who is the sole distributor of the now defunct Nicro-Fico traveler line and West Marine looked like a bargain. The total suggested price for the 8 plastic wheels that fit is somewhere north of $400. Yeah, like that's going to happen. I'll gnaw new ones out of old skateboard wheels before I'll take that beating. For $400 I'd expect pieces made of solid bronze and polished so bright they would be seen by astronauts.  But the rail is bedded tight and pretty on a new slice of star board, so the biggest part of that project is done.

I think I'm going to take tomorrow off. Someone said something about it being a holiday weekend, good enough excuse for me.

I was sitting in the cockpit this evening watching the parade of boats go by on the New River. Ever wonder why it is that the bigger the boat, the smaller the swimwear adorning the young ladies riding the bow? I guess they used up all the money putting gas in the thing, though someone once told me the smaller the bikini the more the cost. I suspect that is true on several levels.

There was a bit of a breeze leaching some of the day's heat out of the air. Ducks splashed into the water around the boat and a line of big winged cranes coasted down the opposite shore. Once in a while we see a manatee around, but I do miss visits from dolphins. I am a bit jealous of cruising friends we know who are hanging out on a hook somewhere, exploring different places and not near as near land as is Kintala. But all in all, as tired as I am of this dock and the endless work list yet to go, I know the places to be that are worse than here are far, far, more numerous than the places to be that are better than here.

Getting a couple of projects done or near done reminds me that we are, in spite of how it feels some days, making progress toward getting back out where we belong.

No more "BOOM"

Champaigne on the bow and in the water for Neptune

Around 0900 this morning we officially notified King Neptune that S/V Obsession had passed into history to be replaced by H/V (Hybrid Vessel) The Floating Bear. His forbearance on new ship and crew was requested with the proper sacrifice of bubbly offered.  At 0915 Husband to Daughter Eldest tickled The Bear's engine to life, and at 0930 we eased away from Cooley's landing, did a pirouette in the New River and headed outbound. With a new air draft of less than 10 feet we didn't bother the 7^th Street bridge tender as we coasted under his domain with air to spare.

Searching for a bit to find an engine RPM that felt "right", The Bear settled into a 2100 RPM cruise making about 4.5 knots, even pulling the 12' hard bottomed tender, Eeyore, on a short tether. Roughly 938,700 revolutions later we nosed up to mooring ball No. 34 at Dinner Key, secured a couple of lines, and The Floating Bear was home.

Given all the work that we did, the trip was a mechanical snoozer. I think the engine is making a little too much smoke and a little too little water. By the end of the day my ear was picking up a little more exhaust noise, so there are some things that still need a good look. Minutes after securing the engine one of the two brand new, properly wired and "ARMED" bilge pumps kicked on. The new stuffing box needed a bit of a snug, not unexpected after 7 hours of continuous running.  I made a late day visit to the lazarette to shut off the drip.  Rudder bearings are a bit snug, and there are still a couple of minor interior leaks.

"How," you might ask, "would you know that?"

Well, though the trip was a mechanical snooze, weather wise it was a different issue. Half way down the ICW, somewhere around Bakers Haulover Inlet, we were watching the sky get darker and the lightning flash.  A storm thundered by one side, another passed by the other side, but the third caught us just as we cleared the Venetian Causeway Bridge. From there until we were well clear of the Rickenbacker Causeway the rains pounded The Bear as if to test her ability to stay afloat. The winds howled and visibility dropped to a couple of hundred yards. It was easily some of the hardest rain I have ever seen.  The Bear was mostly dry inside, didn't seem to mind the winds much, shrugged off the waves, and just kept muttering along.

Daughter Eldest and Grand Sons two had taken the car south to do some pre-school preparations and avoiding having two young ones on board for what was nothing short of a sea-trail. They were waiting for us when we arrived.  So, after waiting out some more rain, Deb and I made like normal people and borrowed their car to get back to Kintala. We will head back down to Coconut Grove tomorrow ... sometime ... likely not very early ... to finish up a bit of wiring that was left undone and return their wheels. Public transport will get us home and there is a pretty good chance we are going to take a few days off.

On the one hand it is a huge relief to have The Bear back to where she needs to be for the reasons she needs to be there. Deb and I can now focus on salvaging our cruising plans, figuring out where we want to be in a year and how we can get there. The work list for Kintala, now somewhat truncated by budget and time constraints, can be addressed. These have been some stormy seas since Kintala returned to the States. The stress of the voyage is showing.

On the other hand – well - during the official Name Changing Ceremony this morning Grampy T got choked up around the part of watching over the newly renamed boat and crew as they set sail. Dema had to take over. It reminded me that this was yet another "cruiser good-by".  Christopher and little JJ will not be clambering around Kintala like they have been for the last several months. Daughter Eldest and Husband will be concentrating on other things a day's sail away (though only an hour by car). That part of my heart isn't as far away as those in St. Louis, but they aren't just down the dock anymore either.

Tough as these past couple of months have been, I am going to miss singing "BOOM" at the sky. It isn't nearly as much fun without little voices joining in.

Try keeping a toddler still for a cellphone picture...

Peeking out through the mosquito netting - the first night back on the boat.

A few days ago - the Bear starting to look a bit more like home again.

Home Sweet Home. The end of the channel at Dinner Key

One year in ... sort of

Yesterday was one of those days where being far away from the family still living in St. Louis made my heart hurt. I sat in the chaos that is The Floating Bear and remembered Michael Jr's head butts, reading Kali to sleep for naps (though Grampy T often faded first) little Gussie's final good-by cuddle, Catherine and Mary's missing tooth smiles and questions about us leaving and the teary final hugs from Amber and Melanie ...

... then, sight still a little blurry, I went back to work. My Ft. Lauderdale / Miami family remains in a bit of a bind. It is good to be here helping them over a bump in the road, giving them a chance to get their own journey back under control and part of my heart is here as well.  Waking up to little JJ peaking under the covers of my current sleeping spot on the starboard side settee and calling out "I see you!" isn't a bad way to start any day.

Getting Kintala's journey back under control should probably be higher on the list of things I worry about. But it isn't. When the smoke clears from this current brush fire Deb and I will assess the damage, inventory the available resources, make some decisions, and do what we have always done; keep going.

It occurred to me that it was just over a year ago that our old Tartan put Boulder behind her and headed for the haul-out pit across the lake. Though I didn't start the count of our cruising days until we set sail from Oak Harbor (274 as of today), the day we left the sailing family at Boulder is the day we set out to go cruising.

The boat and her crew have come a ways since then. We are still a long way from being master craftsmen in the sailing / cruising world, but we have certainly reached journeymen status. (Though I am still surprised when someone asks my advice on anything cruising related.) It should be fun, being back underway without everyday being full of "firsts". New things are exciting, but there is a lot to be said for having a clue.

There is also a curiosity as to the shape our cruising life will take now that the first steps are in the log. This past year has been lurching from crisis to crisis: the hull repair at Tradewinds; rudder, rig, and near sinking at Oak Harbor; the endless beating at the hand of cold fronts coming down the ICW; storms and tornadoes in Oriental and Charleston; the engine break-down in Oriental.

Then there was the triumph of our time in the Islands. We got there and back all of a piece and all on our own. Kintala crossed the fearsome Gulfstream twice. We made some good decisions and fell in love with a good place in the world. Then Deb and I sailed back to the States and headlong into the storms of The Thing in PA and then The Bear. Perhaps the longest continuous stretch of bad weather we have experienced in the four decades plus we have traveled together.

When they say cruiser's plans are written in sand at low tide, they are not kidding.

What this next year will bring is anyone's guess. Which is true for all of us, everywhere, cruiser or land's man. The only sure thing is that Kintala, even burdened with the occasional day of a hurting heart, has started her second year by holding her bow to the waves to see what comes next.

Rain delay

(Admiral and Co-owner of The Floating Bear, and my Daughter Eldest, has absolutely forbidden me working on the boat today. So I thought I would see if this computer still worked and maybe scribble a few words born of yesterday's efforts.)

Florida can be a difficult place to get work done, and someone should do a serious investigation on how it got the name, "The Sunshine State". Pure marketing propaganda would be my guess. The rain came again this morning. It was that special kind of Florida rain that thunders straight down in torrents that would near drown anyone foolish enough to look up and try to take a breath. Which meant trying to rebed the missing port in The Floating Bear had to be abandoned. In fact all work had to stop since the tarp had to go back over the cabin to cover the myriad of other open holes yet to be addressed after all of the sailing hardware was removed. Trying to do major boat work in a Florida summer is to take a graduate class in patience and adaptability.

For a while Grand Son JJ and I, both already soaked to the bone, sat on the cabin top under the sun cover and sang "BOOM" back to the sky whenever it sang "BOOM" to us first. We watched the occasional mega-yacht go by, windshield wipers slapping back and forth, and called out "Big Boat" to the ducks paddling around the pier. Ducks don't care about the rain. Fine for them, they don't have ports needing to be installed.

After a time it became clear that the forecast for a sunny day with a slight chance of rain was more marketing propaganda. The Floating Bear was buttoned up and the crew dispersed for lunch and hair cuts. I still hope to get the cabin mostly sealed today with the hope of getting the boat "dock side livable". (Ed note: didn't happen.) She has shore power and one battery bank. The rest of the electrical work can wait. Plumbing needs plumbed and the glass work in the cabin has priority. There are still weeks of work to do, and Kintala is waiting in the wings for her own projects to get started.

It would seem that, after a short taste of the cruising life last winter in the Abaco Islands, Kintala's journey has taken an unexpected turn. She has moved just once in the last three months and isn't likely to move again for at least three more. Our friends in lake Carlyle will do far more cruising this summer than will we. Basically we have taken up residence in a hurricane hole on the New River, just at the end of the Ft. Lauderdale River Walk, and become journeymen shipwrights. Work is now an all day, daily affair; but one that is depleting the cruising kitty rather than adding to it. The future is a little uncertain.

As much as we all hate to admit it, the future is always a little uncertain. We are not cruising in the usual sense, but we are still on a journey. We still live on the boat, relaxing by sitting in the cockpit and watching the water world go by. Though, according to Blue Chart, the far bank is about 180 feet away. This is a pretty small water world for a blue water cruising boat. We are working far harder than our old land jobs used to demand, and the toll on my 59-year-old body (Thank you all for the good Birthday Wishes!) is higher than it used to be. Kintala's interior is a bit of a wreck; now home to six people, two of which radiate the endless energy of young boys. That is also a harder on my 59-year-old body than it used to be.

But I get to sit on a sailboat cabin top, laughing at the ducks with my two-year-old grandson, cuddling to stay warm in the cool rain, and sing "BOOM" back at the sky.  

Long Days

Sometimes you just have to take your smiles wherever you can get them.

Yin and Yang

Photo courtesy of Brian Prugh

The repair / modification / refit of The Floating Bear has flung me into a yin / yang world. Taking this abused, neglected, poorly built Papa Oscar Sierra of a sailboat and turning it into a safe, more comfortable home for Daughter Eldest and Family is a really worthwhile project. It is also kind of fun, and more than a bit of a challenge.

Then again, we did not go cruising to spend 10 – 12 hours a day of a Southern Florida summer trying to salvage a disaster boat and turn it into something useful. Killer restraints on budgets and time don't add anything to the experience. Every dime spent has to be squeezed out of an already thin account somewhere. Until The Floating Bear is habitable some of the people I love most in the world are basically homeless.

So sometimes I can be found humming and content as I tear up rotten floorboards and tear down equally rotten headliners. Just hours later I can be found groaning in pain as badly fiberglass burned arms torture me through yet another sleepless night. The dink commute to work is normally the hardest part of the day with me at my lowest. There is so much to do and so many disasters to avoid. Glass work outside in Florida heat and humidity, grinding and laying, fairing and sanding, in full tyvek gear and full face breathing mask, ranks near the top of the miserable job list. Crawling down into a sun-baked lazarette to work on a totally screwed up drive train may rank even higher. Florida thunderstorms pop up and undo hours of prep work. It is hard to look forward to a day like that.


The dink ride home is the highlight of the day. Decisions got made. Work got done. The Floating Bear is just a little bit less of a disaster. (Though that would be hard to tell from looking at her unless one has been involved in projects like this before.) My old body is sore, hands chafed and often bleeding at bit, but that is what happens when one wrangles bad stuff into good. And I have to admit I enjoy the camaraderie of tough men doing hard work, something completely lost to the white collar, air conditioned crowd.

Dennis Carter is from Nicaragua. He laughs at my Spanish and lays down some of the prettiest glass work you will ever see. Freddy is rumored to be a crack addict trying to keep it together. But he would work any CEO in the country into the cardiac ICU if they tried to match him grinder for grinder. He doesn't talk much and is surprised that I treat him as an equal.

For it seems I have become a bit of a story. This is a yard of mega yachts and 80' sport fishing boats. Owners step out of air conditioned BMW's and Mercedes to complain to managers. The skilled people actually doing the work rate hardly a glance. Then there is me. The word is out that I used to fly jets, that this is my "other" boat, and that I am paying serious bucks to sweat and grind.
Which, to the skilled, makes me either bat-shit crazy or just plain stupid. They haven't decided which yet and, truth be told, neither have I. But this is a thing that has to be done and maybe being a little of both is the secret to making it to the end.

For now though, it doesn't feel like there is an end. Just another day, another task, a dink ride in and a dink ride home when the day finally ends. Each day has some yin and some yang. Some tasks go well. The keel repair is nearly done, the rudder work is forging ahead with parts arriving, old thru hulls are sealed, the compression post step is repaired. The old floor is gone and most of a new one is fitted.

Other tasks are still an uphill slog. Removing the worn shaft coupler was a monster and the new stuffing box is going to be a couple of days late. We still await word on the usability of the old shaft. No decision has been made on the new prop. Work has yet to commence on the wiring / bilge pumps / gray water tank / new head and holding tank install. Only half the cabin overhead is ground and ready for paint. There is still some deck hardware to remove, one exterior grab rail broke and will have to be repaired; there is soft and rotten wood everywhere. The spot where the old mast step folded down the cabin top is going to be more of a task than hoped.

 Another dink ride. Another day  Yin and yang.

Dashed Dreams and Pooh-isms

It starts as a thought. Sometimes it's as nebulous as a fleeting image amid the shifting colors and shapes that frequent our closed eyes, those ones in that few moments between the sigh of stretching out in bed after a long day and the blessed descent into deep sleep. Sometimes it's a nagging poke in our busy, workaday consciousness demanding attention when we have little to give, plaguing us like a fly at which we swat, irritated.

The Thought falls on fertile ground. The thought lurks in the darkness of the fertile soil, tenuous little shoots breaking through the hard shell of the seed to take root, small ones at first that will grow with water and sunshine.


The Thought becomes an idea. The Idea can't be ignored. It's a force to be reckoned with, pushing aside meetings, appointments, to-do lists, and schedules. You begin to hear musings like, “What if?” and “Maybe we could...” and “I'll look on yachtworld.com, you know, just to see what's out there...”


The Idea becomes a dream. The Dream is all-encompassing. It involves your desire to live with less: less of a carbon footprint, less money, less “stuff” as an encumbrance, less stress. It might involve looking to travel. It might involve looking to escape. It might mean looking for a place to live with a view. You look at big boats you can't possibly ever hope to afford. You look at boats with all the comforts of home. You look at staunch blue water sailboats because you aspire to be Joshua Slocum. You pour over maps and glossy magazines with pictures of white, sandy beaches and aquamarine waters. Your umbrella drink is already in your hand as you swing in the hammock in the shade of a coconut palm.


The Dream becomes a plan. The Plan is usually the oft-intoned 5-year plan. Five years to look for and buy a boat, to take sailing classes, to purge yourselves of “stuff”, finish out your employment, move aboard, and cast off the dock lines. Ambitious? Yes. Doable? Yes.


In the same way as the seedling, this process is fragile and fraught with opportunities to fail. The process requires a mind open to new possibilities, to adventure, to change. It requires constant care. It requires thoughtful and careful choices, and it requires a tremendous amount of luck. Remove any of these and the beauty of a dream can fall by the wayside like so much refuse.

Our kids came dangerously close to this cliff yesterday. We hauled The Floating Bear out at a local marina in Ft. Lauderdale where they had made arrangements with a local mechanic to fix some of the more pressing issues so they could get on their way to their lives in Coconut Grove. The news was bad. In fact, the news was about as bad as it gets. The boat needs much more work than they anticipated, much more work than they have the financial resources to pay for, and even the mechanic who would be the beneficiary of the large check advised that our money would be better spent on another boat rather than the current money pit that is The Floating Bear. The Dream spiraled downward ever faster as the afternoon turned into evening and conversations became less hopeful.


Right around this time, as Tim and I walked back from the marina lounge, we happened to stop to chat with our friend Gillis, a full-time resident at the marina. Not being financially or emotionally involved in the drama of the Bear, he was able to offer some rather sage advice. He asked what their goal was.


Epiphany. We had lost site of the goal. The kids' goal was to find a sustainable, affordable way of living that would allow them to pursue their dream of writing and painting. While they love the idea of a sailboat and its way of fitting into nature in such a way as to compliment it rather than destroy it, they don't need a sailboat right now. They need a place to live. The Floating Bear didn't need to be The Sailing Bear.Very nearly all of the major repairs were related to The Bear's ability to ply the waters elegantly with canvas. Desirable? Yes. Necessary to reach the goal? No.


Discussions picked up this morning. Ideas were flung around, modified, tested, held up to the light, and some discarded. A hint of hope sifted through the conversation. The Dream began to be restored and a new Plan evolved. Tomorrow the Bear will begin the transformation from sailing boat to floating home and, as it is the home of an artist, a writer, and two small Pooh fans, it will undoubtedly be as creative as the original Floating Bear.  The Bear's days of sailing are over, but like its namesake, I think The Bear will carry her family safely through the floods that have been threatening, and when passersby exclaim that something (the mast) is missing from The Bear, they will have Pooh's words handy for retort: "I ought to say," explained Pooh as they walked down to the shore of the island, "that it isn't just an ordinary sort of boat."