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.