December 26th

We spent several days in green turtle at Miss Blue Bees bar and Pineapples, enjoying the people and learning more about the island.  Kevin loves the Goombay Smash at Miss Blue Bees's and even brought a liter of it for the trip home.   I was talking with Miss Viola (Miss Emily's grand daughter), her daughter is also a massage therapist and would like to meet with me online and discuss essential oil products
Monday we move to Manjack Cay and meet the owners, Bill and Leslie.  Leslie and I spent several hours talking about bush medicine and she showed me all the native trees and plants they use for healing purposes.  Later in the day we did their nature hick to the atlantic side of the island and went to the beach, then did a dinghy ride throuh the creek that runs the middle of the island.  I would suggest this island to any and all cruisers , it was wonderful.
Wednesday went left early in the morning for Great Sail Cay and spent the night before heading to Mangrove Cay the next morning.
Thursday was off the Mangrove Cay waiting to cross back to the states.
Friday (Christmas day) we left at 0200 and set sail for Fort Pierce, the seas were 2-4 foot rollers with occasional 5 foot, winds were 6-10 knots out of the SE.  We made it to the inlet and anchored around 1700, we were tired, stinky and hungry.    Our friends Dave and Lisa, on board Scallywag were waiting for us in Ft. Pierce.  They came over for drinks and snacks.  Dave was introduced to a Goombay Smash and really liked them, so much he was calling them Gumby smashes at the end of the evening.
Saturday morning we left around 0730 to head home, up the ICW and Dave and Lisa left around 0400 to go on the outside up to port canaveral.  We arrive home around 1330 and went to the airport to clear immagration.

December 20th, 2015

We are anchored still in Green Turtle.  This morning Kevin spent time working on the Generator again.  He has narrowed the problem down to a faulty connection on the engine stop selonid with a corroided wire connection.  He has temporarliy fixed it, enough to use till we get home.  His second project today was Jarvus (our auto pilot), the on off nob came loss while making our crossing and he thought maybe the shaft was broke.  Once he took the front off he found the set screws had losen and the threads for the knob to connect the shaft were stripped so he was able to re connect and tighten the set screw so we can use it on our crossing back. This too will need to be replaced.

We have looked at the weather for cast and it looks like our only weather window to return will be Saturday the 26th, so we will be leaving Green Turtle Tuesday morning and start Island hoping back to Great Sail Cay by Christmas day and start our crossing that night.  If all goes as planned we will be state side by the evening of the 26th.

Today is Sunday and everything is closed, so we are doing cleaning and just hanging out, we may dighy in to town later this afternoon or not.  The winds have been blowing steady out of the NE at 25-30 knot for three days now and it should ease up by Tuesday.  Temprature has been about 77 the last few day, which has been very nice.  Well I must sign off for now.  Happy sailing and fair winds to all and to all a good night.

We Made it

We have made it to green turtle Cay.  My last two post would not send so this will be our update.  Im currently at Pineapples bar in Green Turtle boring their internet.  We had a great crossing and made it to Mangrove cay around 1930 on tuesday night, then Great sail cay on wednesday afternoon.  Thursday we motorsailed to Crab cay and then made the run to Green Turtle on Friday, anchoring around 1330.    The wweather has been in the mid 80's most of the week and we have been swimming .  A front came through today dropping the tempature to 73.
There is a funeral in town today so we are hanging at the only open place for lunch and internet

Making Our Cross to the Bahamas

Tuesday December 15th 0700
We are just making our way out Lake Worth Inlet, the winds are 5 knots due E, waves are about 2-3 feet rollers.  Seafari left about an hour before us and we can just see them on the horizon.   Its a beautiful morning, with Captain Kev on first watch.
1200 we are about 2 hours from the outer bank of White Sand, just north of Memory Rock.  The winds have been about 10 knots out of the SE, waves have increased to about 4 feet, but still a great cross, we are motor sailing to the bank.  Once on the bank we hope to sail to Mangrove Cay and anchore for the night.

Holding for the weather

We are still anchored at West Palm and waiting for the weather to cooperate.  Our plan is to leave at day break tomorrow and make the cross, so this will be my last blog until we find a spot with internet service.   I will keep making my daily post and then submit them when we have service, so several may come at one time.  When you click on the link with facebook, just scroll to the bottom of the page and click the home button.  That will take you to the full blog.   So I'm signing off now and Merry Christmas to all.

Day 2 of our Adventures at Sea

Where to begin, I quess with a correction from yesterday.  We did have one set back last night after dinner.  Our generator would not start and Kevin was up till about 2200 hrs last night.  He has not completely figured out what happened, but some where between the selinoid and the starter something went wrong.   So there was no movie last night.
As for today, that is a different matter all togeather.  We pulled anchor around 0830 and started our run for West Palm Inlet, on the ICW (Inter Coastal Waterway) for you land lovers.  I believe Seafari was about 30-45 minutes behind us.  The morning was uneventful until we reached Jupiter inlet.  As for those who have made this trip, you know exactly what I mean.  The first two bridge heading south were fine, but then we reached Indian Town Bridge. AKA the Bridge tender from Hell.  Several years back we had a 3 hour wait at this same bridge.  Today the bridge tender said he would hold the bridge for us, then he proceeded to close it just as we were ready to start our approach throught and informed us we would have a half hour wait.  So we waited.  In the mean time we hear Seafari going throught the previous two bridges.  They were still a ways back when he started opening the bridge and said he would not wait for them. SOOOO, we took our sweet time at a fast 2 knots to get throught the bridge.  By the time we got throught there was not enough time for the bridge tender to lower on Seafari.  As you maybe asking your self what did the tender do, well he yelled at us to go faster and we just kept inching along, then gave it full throutle as we got clear of the bridge.  It was a sweet revenge.
We have made it to our anchorage, just south of Peanut Island around 1530.  The weather report is still showing very high winds and seas for tomorrow, so we will just stay here and rest up, prepare and stow for a offshore cross and leave very early Tuesday morning.  I have added a few picture for todays run.

Day 1 of our adventure at sea

We are setting sail on board Serena Rose, with our neighbors Rich & Laura on board Seafari.  There was a wonderful bonvoyage party for us last night, compliments of our neighbor Ed.  The party lasted until about 11pm, when several people had to be escorted to their boats (due to large consumptions of rum and beer). Suprising enough we left around 0730 this morning, with Seafari about 20 minutes behind us. The winds finally picked up in the afternoon so we could motor sail from Vero Beach area.  The only exciting thing that happen today for us, was we scrapped the Wabasso bridge while going under it.  We are anchor'd just north of the Jensen beach causway.  Rich and Laura are anchored much closer to shore then us, since they only draw 4' and we draw 6.5'.  The winds are about 12-15 knots out of the ENE and will be slowly switching to the ESE tomorrow.   Time for dinner and a movie.  Will post again tomorrow night and let everyone know if we are heading to the Keys or the Bahamas.

Slight Delay in plans

Due to changes in the weather and the news of containers falling off a cargo ship and floating around where we are sailing. Several of our friends traveling down from St. Augustine have made reports of spotting containers in the water, so there will be no night crossing.  We will be taking our time on the inside to West Palm Beach and making a day crossing on Monday.   Since we are delaying our plans one day, everyone has decided to have a captains meeting/dock party friday night.

2 Days left till Bahamas 2015

Well everyone cross your fingers.  We are going to try for the Bahamas once again.   Our departure date is Friday (2 more day).  At this point weather conditions are looking favorable for a Saturday evening crossing.  I will try to post once we have started our cross before we get to far out of cell range.   We should be returning back around January 2nd.  Wish us luck and see you all on the flip side.   I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thanksgiving 2015

This Thanksgiving we spend with my son David and his lovely family, Emily his wife, Alex and Cole my adorable grandsons.  Kevin and I drove up to North Carolina and had three great days playing with the boys and just hanging around.  There was no rush, crowds, are agenda's to meet, just relax and play.   We arrived late Wednesday afternoon and that evening hung out by the fire pit in their back yard.  Thursday was very relaxing.  All the boys played Lego's and then later on a 4 way race of Mario cars on the Wii.  Friday we went to the park and  walk around the lake, then let the kids play at the play ground.

 

Saturday morning we headed to St. Augustine and spend the afternoon and next morning walking around town, then the outlet mall on Sunda

Pirate fall scramble 2015

Kevin and I were not sure if we would even make it to this scramble.  We have had a lot of rain the past month and the bridge height was cutting it close for us to pass under.
We left Friday night and had a nice north east wind to motor sail south to the Grant Islands.  The Melbourne causeway was our biggest challenge, but we made it under with inches to spare at 63.5".  Our mast height with the lightening rode is 63.5"  the rod just missed, the wind gods were on our side.  We reached the island around 7:30 and had a very peaceful dinner.
    Saturday morning the boats started coming in and by early afternoon about three had shown up.  We could see cloud building to the north and then the rains hit near the Melbourne causeway.  Most of our fellow sailors were caught in the storm.  Where we were anchored the storm just went around us.    Around 4:30 the rest of the boats started getting in one by one.
      The weather forecast was showing another front coming through about 6:00pm so we decided to get a fire started on the island so there would be some hot coals to be able to start the fire after the rain.   The rains come on stronge and furious about 20 minutes later and lasted for about a 30 minutes then the lovely sun was shinning again.  After the storm the boat next to us was almost touching so he attempted to fix his anchor which did not work.  Kevin and I decided it was best to re-anchor and get clear of the other boat.
        7:20pm everyone was making their way to the island and the party began. We all eat, drank, sang, danced and had a lot of fun, despite the late start.  Some of us packed it in early but the rest partied hard into the night.
        Sunday morning Kevin and I set for home around 10am.  on our sail home we past a beautiful schooner heading south.

Memorial Day Weekend Sail 2015

We were attempting to head to St. Augustine for a week with Kristina as our second mate.  the sail to the port was great, we had a south east wind blowing at 20knots gusting to 30.  The decision to go on the outside for a ocean sail was made under the pretense that weather underground stated the seas were 4-6 foot and winds would be shifting out of the west and diminishing to 5-20knots.

We made it out of the jetties around 3pm and started to make our way out around the shoals.  The seas were very rough and choppy with the winds constantly shifting .  Several tacks were made just to make the turn to get out north of the shoals.  Around 5pm Kristina started complaining of a headache and then it was a full blown migraine with in 30-40 minutes.  She tried staying down below where she was out of the sun but cool.   It was 5:30 when Kevin went on deck and noticed we had a ripped main sail, more shredded then ripped.  The sail had shredded at the top and was wrapped around the steps going up the sides of the mast and the spreaders.  With the high rough seas and the sail tangled in everything there was no way to get her down.

6pm, Kristina came up on deck and I noticed she was very pale and shivering.   She stated that she felt like she was going into shock.  I had her go down into the back stateroom to lye down and we opened the hatch so she could get a good breeze blowing on her.  She then started getting sick and had to sit propped up.  In a matter of minutes she complained of losing feeling in her hands and legs and couldn't move her hands, then her arms.  We thought she was having a stroke or possibly a heart attack (since she has a history of cardiac problems)  At that point we call the coast guard and turned the boat for home.  The coast guard meet up with us about 30 minutes later and took Kristina off our boat and rushed her to the hospital.

10pm Kevin and I made it in the port and spend about 45 minutes getting the shredded head sail down, while the coast guard stayed with us, after dropping off Kristina with the ambulance.  We were able to get a slip at the Cocoa Beach Yacht Club and borrow a car to get to the hospital.

Kristina ended up having very low potassium levels causing the muscle contractions and loss of her extremity movement.  She was released around 1am, with her husband meeting her there, then taking her home.  Kevin and I went back to the boat and then headed home the next morning.

Watching your child being thrown from one boat to another in 10 foot seas, with no use of her extremities was enough to do any parent in.  Needless to say, Kristina will not be doing any off shore cruising with us for a long time.

A Labor of Love

Kevin and his crew (James, Kristina and myself) have been working on restoring the decks.  We have been working since January on this project, which reduced our sailing time.  It has involved cutting out the old caulking with a hot knife, then cleaning the remaining caulking out with screw drivers and carpet cutter for any residual caulk the hot knife  didn't pull up.  The last few steps of sanding, taping then re caulking.  A few days later then sanding it smooth and oiling the deck.  Kevin has done 90% of the work and has every right to be proud of his new decks.  This project has taken several months and it will be nice to go sailing.  This weekend is our annual pirate scramble at the grant island, then we will be going to St. August at the end of may.

 

As you can see by the second photo how nice it looks.  We are so thank full this should only have to be done about once every 20 years.  As the admiral, I would like to thank James and Kristina for all their hard work.