Sail To Miami

Friday February 24th. 
    We set sail thursday morning from Peck Lake and headed to Lake Worth Inlet.  After several bridges and a peaceful motor down the ICW our arrival at Lake worth was around 1100hrs, then headed straight out the inlet.  We found the waters to be very calm.  Winds were 10- 12 knots out of the SSW and seas were maybe 1-2 feet, if that. These condition stayed the same until about 1730 and we cruised any where from 6.3 to 7.7 knots.  Around 1730 the winds started gusting and then holding 16-18 knots, seas began to build a little and became 4-5 feet.  So now we are sailing over 7 knots the rest of the way.  It was well after dark when approaching Miami’s Government Cut Inlet.  The skyline was beautiful at night, but finding markers with all the planes landing, and flashing lights on land as well as sea, we had to rely more on the radar and gps then our vision.  So all and all it was an awesome day for sailing offshore. We anchored in Biscayne Bay at 2200hrs had a hotdog for dinner and went to bed.
Today is very foggy but calm, we are waiting here until our sailing buddy Hazel on “Wave Dancer” and her new sailing buddy Tom Neilson on “Happy Healer” get here.  Being that they are both single handling, they will make the run over two days.  Both will stop in Hillsboro inlet to this afternoon and then meet up with us the following day.  Happy sailing my friends.  May the wind and sea angels watch over you both.  Remember, you can always follow our progress on http://share.garmin.com/kevinwalters

In Holding Pattern

We have been sitting at anchor for a week now waiting on serveral different components.  First a good weather window, second another boat that was going to cross with us and last but not least. We are waiting for Hazels crew to show up for the crossing.   It has been a very interesing week here in tiny little Peck Lake world.  On the weekends it is very busy and crowded, but during the week is very quiet.  If you go to the little beach in the cove there is a short walk path to the beach.  One day we made our way south in the dinghys and found a boat ramp where we could drop of our trash.  It is south to marker 23 the you turn right and then another right into this side creek which takes you to the boat ramp and a nice area to go walking.   Yesterday morning when Hazel was making her way over to our boat (by dinghy) she stopped by the boat anchored behing us with the name " Happy Healer" from Cocoa Beach.  Turns out it is another massage therapist she has know for many year "Tom Neilson" .   We all decided to venture off the boats for the day and got an Uber into town.  Did some shopping, laundry and had lunch.  All and all it was a nice change of pace. 
The offshore forcast has been all over the place.  We thought friday would be a great weather window, untill it closed yesterday.  So the next plan is to possibly just sail down the coast to Biscayne bay and hang there to cross.  Its all still up in the air, the joy of boating.
We have had several people ask if our tracking system was broke, since it has not change our position.  Well it works fine, we have not changed our position.  For those who dont have access to it, here is the link.

What a wild ride

The last 48 hours have been crazy.  Wednesday morning we left anchor at the islands in Grant and started heading south, with Hazel on "Wave Dancer" about an hour ahead of us.  We figured on making it to Ft. Peirce.  Well that didn't happen.  Only about 45 minutes into our journey and the engine over heated to 240 degrees.  We turned around and back track to the nearest island and anchored, Hazel continued on.  Our first check showed no water in the fresh water coolant system for the engine.  After waiting a few hours to let the engine cool down enough to work on it we tried just filling it with about 6 gals of water.  Every time we filled, it just ran right out.  Finally we found a broken hose clamp just under the tank where is goes into the cycling system.  Changing the hose clamp did the trick, by this time it was about 3pm so we just spent a lovely evening anchored behind the third island. (this looks like a nice place for future pirate scrambles. the island is clean and big enough for good NE coverage).  Hazel made her way down to Vero Beach Marine and grabbed a mooring for the night.
Thursday we had NW winds 12knots gusting to 20.  We sailed almost all the way to Ft. Pierce, cruising at 5-5.5 knots.  1430 Hrs we made it to Harbor Town to top of Diesel and Water.  This was during low tide and we had to wiggle our way to the fuel dock.  After filling up, we headed back out going south to anchor at Jensen Beach.  The water level was an extreme low tide, due to the full moon. We hit bottom several times in the middle of the channel but made it through, slowly.  AFter anchoring we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.  Hazel sailed down about 2 hours a head of us.  She ended up having to sail into anchor, due to a broken hydrolic line on her outboard steering cable.
Friday 0130 (1:30am),   We were awoke by load banging noices from the anchor and I felt like we were healing over.  The wnds had picked up to 28-30knots in the middle of the night.  Kevin thought our snubber had broke lose from the anchor chain and was being knocked around.  We got up just as our phones rang.  It was Hazel asking where we were , that she could not see us.  Well we couldn't see her either.  The snubber did come off the chain and had caught around our anchor ball. It then procedded to pull the anchor lose every time we had a could gust of wind.  We found our selves on our side on a 3ft. shoal and the wind was pushing us farther up on it.  So Boat Us to the rescue.  He arrived around 0300 and pulled us off.  We were pulled off about 30 minutes later and were able to re-anchor and finally settle down around 0400.  It was definately a wild ride.  We plan to stay here in Jensen Beach, till the winds shift and then we will venture a little farther south.   The snubber is not being  used for the next few days.

Our first week of relaxation

We have been on the hook (anchored), for almost a week.  There has been a lot of action around here for being away from land.  We left our slip Wednesday Morning (Feb 1st) and motored to the SE corner of Pineda Causeway, in the ICW(intracoastal water way).  Thursday late afternoon we had our dear friend Robert Wicker come over.  He was showing me how to setup my leader lines and use my new lures for offshore trolling.  We then had a lovely dinner of steak and Sushi seared tuna (yummy).  Friday was spent doing some last minute sewing and tinkering around the boat.  Saturday I made bread just in time for Bruce and KIndra to come raft up beside us.  We then had Roland, Gary and Shaza sail up and raft on the otherside, then Ed and Sherry about an hour later.  Rolands crew only stayed for a few hours then went home. The rest of our merry men stayed the night, with lots of drinking, eating and laughing.  It was sad to see them all leave on Sunday.  This was our final good by with lots of hugs and many tear shed.  But we will be back my friends to party another day.

Monday 2/6/16, We had a lovely leasure sail to the islands down in grant and then met up with our sailing buddy Hazel, on board "Wave Dancer". Tuesday is a day of rest for both boats and to prepare for a few days of long travel to make it down the West Palm Beach.  The plan is to leave Weds. morning to make Fort Pierce or Jenson Beach (depending on how fast we run).  We will probably stay in Jensen beach for a day, then proceed down the Lake Worth Inlet on Thursday.

A new chapter in our life

Captain Kev and I have both retired now and are ready to hit the high seas.  Since our last journey to the Abaco's, Christmas 2015, we have been very busy.  Most of the last minute installations that were on the captains list have been completed.  There were additional solar panels added to increase our wattage to 600, 7 new jell cell batteries, single sideband radio, in reach tracking unit and life sling.  The last several months have been crazy with repairs and upgrades.  The autopilot was giving us issues when we were in the Bahamas last time, plus it had a small hydrolic leak.  After some help from our neighbhor Dave on Scallywag,  several part replacement, and lets not forget one hernia operation. We now have a fully working autopilot.  Yes Kevin spent so much time hanging upside down and leaning over the frame work of the aft berth that he ended up with a hernia.  We originally just thought it was a pulled muscle and just let it heal.  Then the weekend he retired it flared up so bad that he could only stand or walk for about 100 yards.  So he has spend most of December resting and playing on the xbox.  This does not make for a happy captain, who had a list of about 50 thing to complete before leaving the end of January.  That list has now been reduce to about 10 items to complete before leaving.  The rest will just have to be done underway.

We just returned from a lovely trip to North Carolina to see our son David and his family.  We also delivered our car to them, so they are now the proud owners of a Ford Escape. We figured not to let it sit in a parking lot for 3 or 4 years when it can be used for a good cause.  It was a cold and busy 5 days with the grand kids (Alex and Cole), but what fun we had.  David had a large lego project to keep us all busy, like two little boys need help keeping busy.  We will definately miss those little guys, but that's what air planes are for.

Our departure, if all goes to plan, will be on Febuary 1st.  We are sailing with two other boats, Wave Dancer with Hazel and Trouvere with Charley and Paivi.  Wave Dancer is departing with us and we will slowly make our way to West Palm or Miami to wait for Trouvere, Charley and Paivi have a few thing to take care of before leaving.  Once we are all togeather then the plan is to cross over to the Bahamas and spend about 4 months there.  For hurricane season we decided to come back and wait it out in Florida.  This way we can reprovision and make any changes or repair to systems that might not be working or may need tweeking.   In October or November we will head back out and just keep going down to the Virgin Islands and spend about 3-4 years hanging out and exploring down there. 

When we have internet access, I will make blog updates.  The blog post will be shown on facebook and you can also track our movement with the "In reach tracker", I will post that link once we are underway.

Battery Day

Today's project is replacing our old 5 AGM batteries  with 7 new Gel Deep Cycles....
This is about a half day project.

The end of our Journey, for now.

We made our crossing back to the states on December 25th.
It was a wonderful trip to the bahamas and we could not have asked for better weather.  Along the way we made new friends, found wonderful spots to anchor, snorkle and even possibly set down some roots.
 Cappie and I plan to return to the Bahamas this fall and continue the journey.  I will be posting all of the photos from our trip, was I have them all on one device.
All in all,  Serena Rose and her crew had a great time and most of the systems we were testing worked great.  The only problem child through this adventure was our generator, having a issues with a faulty selynoid and the wind turbine was not producing the amps we expected.
Cappie is trouble shooting both system and will have them in tip top shape soon.  I have to say the water maker was the highlight of my trip, having unlimited drinking water.
Until our next adventure, fair winds and happy sailing to all.