The List and The Pile

While Tim works away at fixing things and making money for the privilege, I've been working away at fixing things and trying not to spend too much of the money he's been working so hard to make. My list of 34 items (still being added to by the way) has six nice check marks on it, all for just one week so I'm feeling pretty good. And this not even including the first two days that I spent trying to finish my taxes which hardly count as a boat project.

After the taxes were finished, I started out with a pretty easy day of small projects - removing the solar cockpit rope light (which was starting to act wonky and getting sticky) and replacing it with four new Luci Lights, installing a switch protector on the solar master switch in the aft cabin which somehow a jacket kept finding and turning off), re-routing our power cord so as not to trip up the 80's+ gentleman trying to get on to the neighbor boat, and fabricating a shelf support for the middle of our electronics shelf which somehow always gets overloaded and was starting to sag.

Day two of boat projects was supposed to be a very easy day of sewing. For those of you who don't own boats, you never, ever say Easy and Boat Project in the same sentence. It's guaranteed to jinx it. The chafe guards I wanted to make were easy as projected - rectangles of the awesome (did I say awesome?) boat blanket material that Sailrite sells with a strip of Velcro down one side. You only need the hook side of the Velcro because it sticks right to the boat blanket. Now we have chafe guards that can be installed after the lines are secure instead of trying to feed the lines through the vinyl tubing we were using before. The vinyl tubing slid down the lines, but the new boat blanket ones cling to the lines, can wrap around two lines together, and the fabric breathes, keeping the lines from getting moldy. I loves me some boat blanket.

The next project was supposed to be a very simple cover for the windlass to keep the rain from filling up our bilge. The windlass has a decent hole where the chain goes through the deck and the water just pours down there when it rains. I fashioned a bonnet of sorts out of a scrap of leftover Sunbrella, with space for the anchor chain and tie-down rope to pass through. It was very much like Tim's job - up to check the fit, down to sew the fit, up to check the fit, down to fix the fit, etc. etc. In spite of the extra time it took to fit, all in all I was pretty happy with it, except for the fact that the base of the windlass is only about 1/2" plate and it's not really high enough to grab the elasticized edge of the bonnet. This means that the hole is only partially covered if the bottom edge slips off the base. Can't much be done, so it is what it is.

The day finished out with a repair to our dinghy deck storage bag. Once the dinghy is folded up and wrapped up in the cover, there are two elastic cords that drawstring the ends shut tight. The elastic cord had rotted, like all elastic does in the tropics, and needed to be re-strung.

This is only half of the pile

Day Three found me in the bilge. We've talked about moving the fridge drain into the shower sump box in an attempt to get the bilge dry. This discussion has involved looking at options for adding one of the enclosed shower sump boxes instead of the open top one that we have (that smells funky). Since we are installing a new bilge pump and moving the old one into a secondary position, we're still not sure how the whole arrangement is going to look yet. As a temporary solution, I ran the fridge drain into the existing sump box with the addition of a plastic thru-hull into the box. Works great, so at least that water will be out of the bilge until we decide how to route the other hoses and pumps.

Next week will almost certainly be mostly in the bilge with a short break to install a '12V cigarette outlet in the cockpit for the new iPad mount that's coming later in the summer. If Tim is the Worker Man then I guess that only leaves Powder Puff for me...

Now where's that new set of flex-head wrenches I bought??

Weekend?

Something that goes “under the RADAR” as it were...being a Worker Man means doing a lot of, well, work. Just today I climbed up on the “roof” (not sure what they call it) on a Sport Fishing boat to check out why the port spot light doesn't work. Turns out it is the bulbs, at $123 EACH. There are two in each light, $246 worth of bulbs will be what it takes to fix that thing. (Which is why I don't live on a Sport Fishing Boat.) Then I climbed down into three different places on that same boat, one in the salon, one in the engine room and one in the aft lazarette, in order to check out the bilge pumps. With that job squared away, at least until the bulbs arrive, it was off to an Island Packet and its new house and start battery install.

The Island Packet is on the hard, meaning up the ladder, and down, and up, and down. It needs custom cabling made for both the hot and ground sides of the new house and start battery bank. It also needed a big new hole drilled and finished between the two battery boxes and, of course it needed the three new batteries hauled up from ground to deck level, and one old battery hauled back down. (Boss New tasked one of the younger members of the team to help me with that one.) I didn't count how many times I went up and down that ladder before lunch today, maybe 10? When not on the ladder I was working up-side down and inside-out, moving batteries, pulling cables, and drilling holes all in the aft cabin of one of the smaller Island Packets.

Right after lunch I got pulled off the Island Packet to go up the mast of...something...to take a second try at fixing the anchor, steaming, and deck lights. The first try, yesterday, had the fixture falling apart in my hand while swinging in the Bosun's chair some 30 feet off the deck. The second trip aloft was to replace the light fixture with a new one. The latest, greatest is an LED thing made of PLASTIC. Sounds cheesy but is actually a pretty good bit of kit. Drill the old one off, drill a couple of new holes, and rivet the new one one in place. Not quite as easy as it sounds while hanging aloft, but not bad either. One should be careful to rivet the new one in place so as not to have it positioned wrong side up, with deck light illuminating the top of the mast. (Yes, it is embarrassingly easy to get it wrong, even if it is only a 5 minute fix. Boss New, keeper of the crane controls, got a good laugh at that one. My guess is I'm not the first one to have to do it twice.) New light in place – properly oriented – and tested...still no lights.

Rats'n – frats'n.

At this point one needs to look for voltage at the new light fixture, but the crane was needed to step a mast a few slips away. I was assigned, (since I was already on that side of the basin) to help. So, back on deck, undo all the do's needed to go aloft, and help wrestle a mast in place. Then, after said mast was once more supported by stays fore, aft and top, relocate crane, redo the undo's, and go aloft yet again; this time armed with a volt meter.

No volts could be found, even though there were volts there the day before when the fixture fell apart in my hand. Consensus? Mast wiring is shot with either voltage or, more likely, ground, being a hit-or-miss kind of thing.

Back at ground level and run to the parts counter for a roll of 14-3 wire and some ring connectors. Gather up stuff and tools that need to go aloft and store / secure in such a way as to make sure they stay aloft, and get lifted back up the mast. A light bulb, as it turns out, will float for a while if, for some reason, it doesn't manage to stay aloft. (You can guess how I know that and I am sure glad it wasn't one of the $123 ones.) Un-rivet new fixture, pull old wires out of mast while pulling new wires into mast. (Next time get Boss New to lift one a bit higher so pulling wires up isn't being done over one's head. Twenty-seven feet of 14-3 wire being dragged straight up a mast, and through all the other junk that is in a mast, gets surprisingly heavy.) Run new wires, re-rivet fixture, strip and connect new wires, and try lights...yes, light! As it happened the floating light bulb was the same as the one in the old fixture, one that was perfectly willing to shed lumens when provided with the proper voltage. It is better to be lucky than good, and I didn't have to make a separate trip to the parts counter.

An aside, the man who runs the parts counter is utterly fluent in both English and Spanish, and is very good at what he does. Which means he is an absolute Nazi when it comes to accounting for everything that goes on a customer's boat. He wants wiring measured out in inches, every connector accounted for, and counts out rivets, screws, nuts and washers one-by-one. He has stacks of books full of parts lists, and will find anything that can be found if it is used on a boat. As an ex-Director of Maintenance, I love the guy. If you are a customer hoping to be treated fairly on your bill, you will love the guy as well.

Of course the deck light came on with the steaming light switch, and the steaming light with the deck light switch. With no wire code on the boat side harness, and all power wires colored red, it was a 50/50 shot at getting it right the first time. It was an easy fix that didn't require going aloft yet again. Once done the floor could be closed at the base of the mast, the boat could be locked up, and it would be called a day.

So today I was in and out, and on and off, of four different boats, spent close to two hours aloft, and tangled with wiring, rigging, and plumbing. Yet, given the experience level of some of the other people in this yard, it isn't likely I was even close to the most productive one of the bunch today.

In my old world of fixing and flying airplanes, being “perfect” was just barely good enough. I wasn't perfect today but, fortunately, a quick re-rivet and one replacement bulb isn't too bad. And now it is the weekend, something that doesn't mean a lot to cruisers but is sure a nice thing for a Worker Man.

NOTE: If one has to work aloft, sitting in a Bosun's chair that is hanging off a crane is the way to go. Boss New wanted to know if I was comfortable with heights. Comfortable? For the first time in days I was sitting easy while working on something. Of course dropping a 2 pound drill on a customer's deck from 30' is a concern. But, as they say, everything in boating is a compromise.

Worker Man

My Grand Sons (4) all play at being a “Worker Man”. They have tool belts full of plastic toys, tools they use to hammer plastic nails and turn plastic screws. They have hard hats, high visibility vests, and safety glasses they wear while at work. They will stop everything at the passing of a truck or train, and will gaze with wonder – for hours – at any crane, grader, front loader, or dump truck that is crane-ing, grading, loading, or dumping. The people who operate, repair, and build such wonders are, in the eyes of Grand Sons (4), some of the coolest and most important people on the planet. That makes me kind of happy since I am a worker man once again.

I don't work on cool stuff like cranes or dump trucks, but sailboats are an acceptable stand-in.

The first boat I tangled with, on day one, was an exercise in frustration. Boss New threw me a softball to get started: wire up a newly stepped mast. All the wiring was there, I just had to sort it out, hook it up and test it out. Sorting and hooking went a little slow as I fumbled with the parts room etiquette and searched for tools still looking for permanent homes in various tool bags. But testing? I couldn't get the lights to turn on, and went searching hither and yon for the missing voltage. It was at the switch panel but went missing somewhere between there and the mast step. Not just one light, but steaming, masthead, and deck lights all. Which was total weirdness. These are three simple circuits, battery hot to switch, switch to mast step, up mast to lights, back down to ground. How could the voltage go AWOL on all three in a run as simple as that?

That was an assumption on my part; there are few wiring diagrams on boats. Any that do exist are likely useless, the boat having been modified, hacked on, hacked up, and spooged for decades. Clearly I was missing something easy and stupid, some kind of spooge skunking away with my electrons. Near the end of the day I had to admit to Boss New that his New Guy wasn't making much progress. After a few moments of thought he remembered that boat having a second switch panel located in the cockpit, up high on the hard Bimini on the port side.

A second panel? To turn on the lights one has to go below to throw one set, then go back to the cockpit to throw the second set? Now that is some special kind of spooge there. I found the lurking panel, threw the switches, and nothing happened. I checked the fuses in the panel, all good, threw the switches again just because, and still had nothing. The search was interrupted by the end of the work day. Worker Man new (that would be me) made the short walk home with the problem giggling in the background and whispering “You are missing something stupid simple...stupid”. It was not a good way to start a new job.

This morning I let the lights lie for a bit while I traced down the VHF antenna wire, affixed a new new connector to the boat end (not sure why it was cut off, and the cutter didn't bother to mark which of the two coax cables, TV and VHF, was which) and went to check the radio. The VHF isn't located at the nav station or the helm, but on the starboard side of the companionway. Picking up the mic to test the radio had me staring directly at a third switch panel for exterior lights, mostly hidden under the mic wire hanging from the VHF.

The switch panel in the Bimini was a total red herring - double spooge if you will - taking up space but doing nothing. The switch panel in the companion way was the secret sauce, releasing the pent up potential. There was nothing wrong with the boat at all, or my work. I just wasn't pushing all the right buttons. I can fix it, but I can't make it go? Spooge.

With nothing left to do but add the TV coax connector I had this job on the run. But the boat needed to be moved so I was sent to a second mast wiring job. This one went easier since there was only one switch panel. With that done I went on to installing a macerating pump in the same boat, and while waiting on some fiberglass epoxy used to fix mounting blocks for the pump and “y” valve to cook-off, went to work sorting out the wiring to install a new house bank and starting battery. This boat was delivered to its new owner with but a single battery – so the engine could be started. Of course this “starting battery” was located in the house bank box, so there are wires running where they shouldn't, jumper wires not jumping anything at all, and a 4 gauge red wire running forward to a settee locker that just ended in bare copper, apparently lying around doing nothing.

As it turned out the other end of that wire was hooked to the main BAT switch post #2, making it about as hot as possible; an accident waiting to happen. It is gone now, the last bit of work done before day number 2 came to and end.

A day that, looking back, went a lot better than day one. I am still finding my way, the New Guy who takes lunch with the Spanish Guys, just to listen to them talk. (I asked and they don't mind.) I'm learning which doors the workers are allowed to use. (Yeah, I think it is a little weird as well. Deb can walk though the front door to order a part, but I'm not supposed to walk though it to pick the part up. The world is full of minor bits of weirdness.) The mechanic's golf carts go into a garage of their own, the last one of us in for the night pulls the big door shut. (Stuffed full of expensive personal tools, the extra security is appreciated.) There is a lot of laughing during break and lunch, the usual gruff humor of people who live in a world far removed from the air conditioned office buildings and the cubicles that fill them. A world were being bone weary at the end of a day is the cost of making a living, hands nicked and scratched, legs sore from climbing and stooping and walking. The yard is much like the maintenance hangers of the aviation world, except without walls or roof, and I think I'm going to fit in okay.

If I can't be a cruiser for a while, being a Worker Man is the next best thing.

Settling in

This part of the ICW has some remarkable homes.

Kintala settled into her slip at the Snead Island Boat yard Wednesday afternoon. After motoring away from Blackburn Bay and stopping at Marina Jacks in Sarasota for fuel, water, etc., we cleared the bridge into Sarasota Bay, put the Beast to rest, and romped northward at 6 knots in post cold front winds. There are two lifting bridges between Sarasota Bay and Tampa bay. Since all bridges frown on people sailing through them, we tucked away the jib and motored through. Once in Tampa bay we sailed as far as we could, making it into the Manatee River before being too hard on the wind to keep going under canvas. The Beast went to work, pushing us up the river, through the tiny opening into the yard, and between the piers. It was a good effort on the part of the Beast as, by that time, the spray from the raw water pump was getting serious.

Now THAT'S a mooring ball.

Don't tell anyone that the new mechanic came limping in, nursing a failing engine.

There is no way to avoid that fact that we are now, officially, “between cruises." This will be home base for a while. The hope is we will spend as many weekends and holidays as possible exploring the Tampa bay area, anchoring out like we did in little Nomad on Carlyle lake. That will mean parsing out boat jobs in such a way as to keep Kintala mobile, that is, after we get her mobile once again. That may be a few weeks with pump, alternator, tachometer, wind instrument, inner forestay repair, and replacement staysail furling being things to do before we leave the dock even for a weekend.

Deb's new wheels. No, no grandbabies. The trailer is for laundry and groceries.
Kintala rests in her slip in the shady background. Shade is good in FL

With the main focus being proving my worth at working on other people's boats, it is likely that my efforts on Kintala will go a little slow for the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, we are settling in, shore power is on, the Dink is folded up and stored away, sheets are already tied up. We have to get used to dock and boatyard noises. This weekend we will try to get some of Kintala's most pressing projects started, though there is some weather inbound.

My first official day as a boat tech is Monday, but I got my golf cart / mobile tool box today and started to move in. It felt a little weird, hauling tools off of the boat and setting up a new work space. It will take a few weeks to know what tools will be the hardest used. For the time being it looks like I'll be the new spark chaser in the yard with mast wiring, battery installs (including re-configuring battery banks and boxes) and pumps being on the list of the first three or four boats to deal with. Already the “customer stories” have started. My favorite is the new owner who thought his Max Prop needed adjusted since the engine would only turn a max of 2500 RPM instead of the rated 3200; though he did note a boat speed of 7.5 knots. The boat also idled at an indicated 50 RPM, about 700 RPM too low. In fact the engine will not idle at 50 RPM regardless of what the tack might say – something the owner / captain simply didn't know. In any case an electronic (and calibrated) tack showed the engine making the 3200 RPM. No problem with the prop, the tack is 700 RPM off.

Then there is the older Island Packet with its first-time-boat-owner. The boat was delivered with just the starting battery installed, no house bank at all. In fact we are not even sure where the house bank was located as there is a cut-off hot battery cable in the wrong locker, and no other battery cables are in evidence anywhere on the boat. Did the Broker explain to this new owner that he was getting married to a boat whose very DC electrical heart was missing? In any case we will be installing a fresh heart and sending the new couple off to live happily every after.

Another owner had his boat hauled for the hurricane season, went to unhook his batteries, and lit up the inside of his boat by throwing sparks everywhere. He decided that someone from the yard, someone who owns an "insulated wrench", should take care of it. It looks like that someone will be me though, (again, don't tell anyone) I don't have an insulated wrench in my box anywhere. I guess I can come up with some electrical tape if I need to make one.

Though my head is making the transition to being a boat tech / live-a-board / dock dweller, my heart still lies offshore. Just off the boat yard is a popular anchorage. I can look “out there” and see home. I'm hoping the view will help keep me focused, working to keep bosses and customers happy, filling the bank account so we can be on our way … one of theses days … once again.

Post-storm sunset in Blackburn Bay.

Still getting there

We spent last night anchored just south of the Tom Adams Key Bridge. Manatees and dolphins greeted Kintala as the hook settled into the bottom. It was a good place and we debated staying there today since storms were in the morning forecast. Isolated though, mostly just rain, so after the fog lifted we sallied forth. Just a few hours and barely 16 nm along, it looked like it might have been a better choice to let Sally be. There was still nothing much showing on the radar, but the air felt uneasy and full of the potential for mayhem. I was pretty sure the sky was up to something that the forecast had missed.


Unfortunately there are few good places to stop along this stretch, particularly for boats that draw 5 feet. We passed one at Venice FL that was just not viable; shallow and stuffed full of hulls that had that permanent look about them. A couple of miles further along Blackburn Bay was the next chance, the charts showing just 4.9 feet at mean low tide. (Exactly what Kintala draws.)

The only thing I like less than skinny water is being caught flat footed in big winds in a narrow channel with no place to hide and no room to anchor. The hair on the back of my neck was insisting that Blackburn was the only real choice. We crept out of the channel and tossed the hook with the depth meter reading ZERO point ZERO part way up a rising tide. In Kintala that means there is 18 inches or less under the keel. It is a 1.8 foot tide. Sometime in the next 12 hours we are surely going to bump.

The first line of storms went by with gusts in the 30+ knot range and lighting falling close and loud all around. Not bad given that we were settled in and secure. It would have been a near nightmare had we been between the Venice Avenue and Hatchet Creek bridges, a place we had just passed through. At 0.3 nm long by 86 feet wide, with no docks, no space to anchor, just rocks and trees and bridges; it would be hard to imagine a worse place to come face to face with a thunderstorm.

The second wave just passed, mostly rain and thunder. The next is due within the hour and looks to be the meanest one of the day. Once it passes, rain will be on the menu for much of the rest of the night. Last night's anchorage would have been a better place to ride this out but we pushed on, so this one will have to do.

Mostly we pressed on simply to get this part of the trip over. Being in Bradenton, not getting there, has taken over our thinking. And, truth to tell, Kintala will be limping a bit when she finally gets settled between the piers. Foot sore, if you will, having been on the move, more or less relentlessly, since leaving Oak Harbor nearly 8 months ago. Along the way we have stopped to fix only the things that had to be fixed in order to keep going.

As a result, the Beast is dripping water from the inside seal on the raw water pump. (That pump is only 8 months old, and was the warranty pump for the new one that failed right out of the box. At the moment Jabsco is not very high on my list of lovable manufacturers.) The alternator bearing squeals once in a while, the tachometer has died, and the throttle and shift cables are not giving off warm-n-fuzzies while they do their thing. There is a new vibration that might just be stuff growing on the prop, but my thinking is the cutlass bearing will have to be replaced before heading out to the big once again. When the Beast is run too hard, the front seal on the v-drive dribbles brown goo onto the engine diapers. That, rumor has it, is a pretty common failure on the Walter v-drive and it seems that several decades has not been enough time for them to find a cure. (Walter V-drive has never been on my list of lovable manufacturers.)  Maybe Jabsco called Walter for a recommendation on a seal?

I would love to find and slay the small oil leak (different than the v-drive goo leak) that has eluded detection so far.

The wind instrument is dead, killed by a bird in Stuart. The stern nav light died all on its own. There are water leaks in the cabin that need plugged, a staysail furler that needs to go away, a bent jib pole that needs un-bent or replaced, running rigging that needs re-run, and the down-stay under the deck below the inner forestay has a couple of broken strands. The seal on the rudder post drips, mostly on a port tack. We need to install some LED strip lights in the V-berth, refinish the cabin sole, and get serious about some bright work inside and out. There is still only one anchor on the boat, though we do boast 200 feet of chain. A new gray water tank waits to be installed, one with a lid to keep the stink out of the boat. The non-skid needs painted and the hull has several scars from more than two years of constant cruising.  The boat speed indicator has croaked and the old GPS at the nav station, the one that tells our IAS receiver where it is, is finally starting to fade.

One might think we just bought this thing and haven't started working on it yet.

Deb will carry the load for a lot of this since I have a day job fixing other people's boats. (And spending other people's money!) Weekend's and evenings will see me up the mast or buried in the Cave of the Beast. And, to give you some idea of just how demented I might be, I'm kind of looking forward to it. Oh, I still hate my boat, and my boat still hates me. But Kintala has carried us far and hasn't killed us yet; getting her somewhere near to “right” has grown into a bit of an obsession. I want her to function as well as she looks, and I want her to look a little better as well.

The third wave went through while I was typing the above, with wind gusts over 40. Not sure how much over 40 since the wind gauge is toast, but it takes a good puff to push Kintala over on her side like that. The lightning was closer and louder and I wish there were a few more inches of water under the keel. But I made the decision to "go", and this is where we ended up.

One more day, maybe two, and “getting there” will turn into “being there”.

Heading home...

Ponce Inlet canal into Punta Gorda's interior network of canals

Kintala and Kai Lani in Punta Gorda

Kintala is resting easy at Friends Dave and Dee Dee's dock, tucked away in Punta Gorda. Her crew is tucked away in their very nice home a couple of hundred feet away. Out back is a pond and a pool, the A/C keeps it cool and dry inside. We have known Dave and Dee Dee since our early days on Carlyle Lake, long before they moved their base of operations south. They were witness to my early attempts to dock Nomad or settle her into the weekend raft up. So it was a bit of a hoot to work our way down the canal and settle into the dock next to their Catalina. Hints of times past, up to and including me misjudging the winds and bumping Kintala's stern into Kai Lani. Oops, sorry about that.


We have settled into a wonderful visit of stories, laughter, and good conversations. One evening we went out to enjoy some free music where ad-hock blue-grass groups formed for a while at various points in the local park. They would stomp out some songs, then the musicians would wander off to form new groups. I have but a passing interest in blue-grass, and some of the groups could have used a drummer to help tie the rhythm together. Still, smiles and toe tapping where the universal response to the music. One banjo player was good enough that a few of us followed him around while he joined first one group, then another. At one point another banjo picker walked up to him and laid down the first nine notes of Dueling Banjos. His expression was a priceless one of “Are you serious?” He demurred, was provoked a few more times, sighed, tweaked a tuning peg, and LIT IT UP with the effortless ease of a true master. It was blue-grass magic, something I never suspected even existed. (Even though I grew up in the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains.)



Later, we stopped by an Irish bar for a brew. On stage was a two-man team, guitar and violin, playing music whose roots lay some 4000 miles east of were blue-grass was born. About the third song in, they started laying down alternating riffs, each with a quicker tempo than the one before. The guitar player was good, but the violin player was a certified magician in his own right. His fingers blurred as the notes flew off the strings and filled the room. I've never seen or heard anything quite like it, beauty in motion that made the heart both sing and hurt a little. And I'm only ¼ Irish.

There is so much bad news coming from land these days that some of us non-land dwellers, once in a while, catch a small case of the smug over not being much of a part of it. But the bad news isn't the whole story. In fact it isn't really the majority of the story. Its just the part of the story that makes the headlines. This visit has reminded me that there is a lot of magic on land as well. There are quiet,
good-natured people who are artists and musicians, people who can lure the magic and then share it. They can light up the night with it, or fill a room.

The anchorage off Gilchrist Park in downtown Punt Gorda

In the next day or two Kintala will set off for a last, short, jaunt to Snead Island. It will be a bitter-sweet couple of days. When we arrive we will be, for all practical purposes, land dwellers once again. There will be a time clock and schedules, things that will have to be done by such-and-such a date. It will be hot, dirty, and (at times) just a pure grunt effort to hang on until the end of the day.

There will also be new friends to meet. Old friends and family will visit once in a while. I hope to learn a bunch of new skills while using the ones I already have to the benefit of our customers. We will be in one place long enough to learn our way around. Maybe I can find some places to use what little Spanish I have, expand on it, and actually stumble into being almost conversational.

This short visit has reminded me that Bradenton really can be “home”, at least for a while. And there will be magic to find there as well.

Punta Gorda Photos

The moon setting on one horizon at Sanibel Island

The sun rising on the opposite horizon

Crazy traffic on the ICW behind Sanibel Island

From our visit to the Peace River Wildlife Center where they rehabilitate injured and sick birds and turtles.

Love, love, love these birds.

Babcock Ranch Preserve in Punta Gorda

Babcock Ranch Preserve in Punta Gorda

This guy was about 6 feet long and eyeballed us for quite a while

 

Florida is full of beautiful flowers and trees

And, of course, beautiful sunrises and sunsets

And good music everywhere...

Dolphins, Alligators, and Hitchhikers

Some photos and video from our trip between Crawl Key and Cape Sable in Southwestern Florida. It should be noted that you have no phone service for most of the way between these two locations.

It's impossible to overstate the amount of crab pots in the Gulf of Mexico along the West coast of Florida. I am told that if you go more than 20 miles offshore that you will avoid them, but these pots were over 20 miles offshore and in 26 feet of water. Some of them are so tightly packed together that it's like a minefield. Some of them have anchor lines that are too long and the line lays just a foot or two under water at a flat angle.Sometimes it's impossible to navigate between them as a result and you have to go way out of your way to go around but, as you can see, sometimes the lines can stretch for a mile or more.

I walked over a half dozen of these tracks, distracted by looking for shells, before I realized what I was seeing. These gators are huge. The tracks left the mangrove thickets and crossed the sand to the water, then return tracks were evident. I have to do more research on these reptiles, but I would not want to meet one in person. This is not a place to take a moonlit walk on the beach!

This gator was going from the water back to the mangroves

Two tracks side-by-side, one going toward the water and one returning.

This guy stopped to take a break. You can see the print from the scales on his belly where he rested it in the sand.

I laid y sunglasses by this footprint so you could get a feel for just how large these gators are.

While seeing the gator tracks up close and personal was amazing, I much prefer my sweet, happy companions, the dolphins. These bottlenose ran with us for over an hour. Some of them were the largest bottlenose we've ever seen and they were jumping completely out of the water.

We had a Least Tern spend part of the day with us on the bow pulpit. He took a rest and groomed his feathers,
but when we brought the jib in he took off.

If you're tired of sunset progression pictures, then move on. I never tire of watching the sun go down from the boat.