Chapter 2

I guess it's time for an update.  Many of our readers have stated that our last blog post read like a first chapter of a book. So for those readers here is chapter 2.  Let’s see, we last left off anchored in New Smyrna Beach awaiting the water level to drop for an increased bridge clearance.  That anchoring lasted about 3 days with high winds and rain, which of course brought more water and raised levels more.  During our time anchored we did get the refrigerator running and filled the water tanks with the new water maker.  After three days of working on the shaft leak, Kevin decided to place a call to Scorpion Marine in Port Canaveral.  This marina is where we had the boat hauled twice and their mechanic had installed the last primary and secondary shaft seal.  The results of this conversation ended with us scheduling to have the boat hauled out in 4 days, due to a possible bad cutlass bearing.  Friday morning we started heading back south down the ICW and 3 days later arrived in Port Canaveral to be hauled out the next morning.  Serena Rose was hauled Tuesday morning.  By 3:00 we received a call from the mechanic.  The bad news is we not only need new motor mounts, shafts seals and the cutlass bearing.  Now we need a new shaft, which consist of sending the old shaft off to have the new one made.  This will have her on the hard for almost 2 weeks.  We have two problems with this; a place to stay for that period of time and second issues is a freezer stocked for about 2 months worth of food that would not keep during this time.
With all this Kevin and I have decided to put the shaft back together, go back in the water tomorrow, have the four motor mounts replace and then go to St. Augustine.  We will stay there for three weeks, then back down to Port Canaveral and haul out again for two weeks.
I am inviting anyone who wants to come visit in St. Augustine to come for dinner.  We need to eat 2 months worth of food in a 3 week time period.
So Serena Rose and her crew will be departing Port Canaveral by this Friday and making our way to St. Augustine again. Fingers crossed for a safe journey.   Updates will come after we make St. Augustine, until then. Fair winds and happy sailing my friends.

We are attempting to make it to St. Augustine.

On September 30 Serena Rose and her crew left the safety of Waterline Marina.  It was late afternoon, so we planned to just go north of Pineda Causeway and anchor for the night, then venture on toward St. Augustine over the next 2-3 days.  Well that’s not happening.  Our first of many issues, is the high water in the ICW.  We have a mast height clearance of 64’ , if the bridge clearance is 63.5 we will scrap and bend out lightning rod, 63’ will break our anchor light off and 62.5’ will hit the top of the mast and we don’t wont to go there.  So! We bent our lighting rod over about 60 degree under Pineda Causeway and every bridge in Brevard county did not have any clearance markers on the south side of the bridges.  This was a nail biting experience.  We made it all the way to Daytona and stopped.  Since the hurricane, moon phase and high wind, the bridge clearance at low tide is 62.5’.  So now we are anchored in New Smyrna on the back side of the ICW across from the cut.  Our second problem is the main system for the refrigerator is not running and we have use a good amount of fresh drinking water to run it. Now if that’s not enough excitement for you.  On Sunday morning we pulled anchor around 7:30 and by 8:30 our bilge pump had gone off about 8 times.  So upon inspecting the engine room for leaks.  Kevin notice that two motor mount were broke and the engine is out of alignment, causing a steady leak off the shaft seal.  After stopping and anchoring twice to check it, we made it passed all the bridges and anchored north of the 528 causeway.  We debated turning around the next morning, but received a text and call from Melbourne stating with all the rain the night before the water level was up 2’.  So now we can’t go south either, until the water levels drop.  All and all this has probably been the worst four days of bad luck.   As I was typing this blog, Kevin called St. Augustine Marina to let them know we will be a few days late.  Now they state if we don’t make it by Sunday, then we can only stay a week and not the whole month.  This just can’t get any worse.  So here we sitting in New Smyrna inlet for the next three days to see if the water level goes down and then we will decided if we go North or South.

Summer Projects 2017

Summer 2017 Update
Since returning to Melbourne, Florida at the end of April, Kevin and I have been very busy.  Our main project for the summer was to redo the whole pilot house.  As most of you know, from visiting our boat.  She has a lot of wood and character.  The one aspect that is not appealing to Kevin and I is the steel frame and the ceiling material for the pilot house.  Over the years we have been constantly chasing small rust spots on the frame, well no more, we are tackling the whole frame, inside and out.  I can say that once we are finished, the pilot house will be 75% west system fill and 25% steel.  There are so many area’s where the rust was so bad that it was pushing the ceiling material up and out.   So after 3 months of working every day on her, we our proud to say she is done.  The only thing left to do is replace the cushions.  That will be on the list for next summer.  Since we spend so much time up there while cruising, the cushions need to be more comfortable.  The original seats were made with the idea of an open cockpit, exposed to the weather.  With the pilot house sealed in and waterproof, we can have nice comfy seats.  The first set of photos is the old rusted out frame work and rotted wood trim. The second set is the new nice rust and root free pilot house.
For a cruising update.  We will be leaving Melbourne at the end of September, heading to St. Augustine for the holidays.  Our son David and his family are planning a trip to come visit and let the boys hang with us for a few days.  We are very excited about that.  Some time in December we will start making our way to the Bahamas.  I would like to make it to Juganu in Green Turtle on New Years, then just keep heading south.
Once we head out, I will start posting weekly updates.  Fair winds and Happy sailing my friends.

The Party is over

The party is over.  You know the old saying, well this party is over.  Some may already be aware that Kevin and I are back stateside.  Let me back up a bit.  This trip was meant to be a shakedown cruise to test all our systems and see how well we did provisioning for long term.    During our trip Kevin has been babysitting (as he calls it), the water maker.  There have been multiple leaks under the floorboards just above the water and diesel tanks.  None of the water is able to go in the bilge, so we manually moop it out with a sponge and bucket.  About two weeks ago the watermaker had a bolt shear off, which then caused the piston shaft to wobble and  blow out the seals.  Just prior to this happening the leak had got to the point of spilling a gallon of seawater under the floorboards, for every gallon it was making.  He had replace all the seals twice, prior to this. 
So with all that said we needed to head home.  We heard horror stories from other cruisers about having parts shipped over and being held up in US customs for weeks.  It would have been a little on the expensive side for buying 400 gallons of water (time to go home).   We planned on anchoring out in melbourne, while waiting for parts to be delivered.  Well that's not happening with all the crab pods littering all the anchorage spots.  Our new home for the month is back at Waterline marina, just a different slip. 
It will be off to St. Augustin until July after we get our parts and fix the water maker.  Until then, fair winds my friends and happy sailing.

The Vacation is almost over

The Vacation is almost over.  The past two weeks we have sailed to Tilloo Cay, (just south of Hope Town), Guana Cay and now we are anchored in Manjack.   Time to go to work.
    Tilloo Cay and Hope Town where very nice.  We had to anchor down at Tillo, due to our draft and would take a 4.5 nautical mile dinghy ride into Hope Town.  Tillo was a nice protected cove for a North, south or east wind.  Bad for a West wind.  So we stayed there for about five days before the winds started to shift more out of the NW.  Our travel to Hope Town was nice, it is like a little quaint village.  All the houses in town are cottage size, with lovely landscaped yards and white picket fences.  The people seem to work together nicely and are very polite.  I found a art gallery named “The Jib”, it is owned by a German couple.  He is the painter and she is the quilter.  She makes these neat necklaces out of beads and fabric, also purses (which I got one of each for my birthday).
    Our next sailing trip took us to Guana Cay.  In all our years of sailing to the Bahamas, I have always wanted to go to Nippers on the beach.  Well I finally made it.  We had a delicious blackened grouper fish sandwich and then spent the next couple hours celebrating a birthday with complete strangers (a group of about 10 women).  They were so much fun.  That evening we had three other couples from neighboring boat over for drinks, it was very nice.  We only spent two days at Guana, with the weather changing.
    There is a passage you have to go through to get north of Guana to the rest of the Abacos “Whale Cay Passage”  if the winds are out of the NE or East it can be a very rough turbulent ride.  So we left first thing in the morning before the winds picked up, since they were out of the NE.  It took about 2.5 hours to get to ManJack Cay, which is one island north of Green Turtle.  Our plan is to stay in this general area, switching between here and Green Turtle or Crab Cay (depending on wind direction and weather) for the next 6 weeks.  This is a nice area to be and we are now starting to do some work on the boat.  Why not do it here in paradise.  It may be several weeks before I post again, until then. Fair winds and Happy Sailing my friends.

Our Adventure continues

Well!,  where do I begin?   We have been having a great time in Spanish Wells.  Some of you have seen a few of the photo’s I posted on facebook.  I think the captains favorite spot is Buddha’s.  The prices are very reasonable and the atmosphere is great.  The other day I did not make a wise shoe choice before heading out and it did a number on my knee.  So we ended up and Buddha’s and after a batch of conch fritters, a drink and a few bottles of rum purchased in his liquor store, I asked Buddha for a ride back to the dinghy.  He was pleased to accommodate my request.  I think he just likes to show off his souped up golf cart that will do over 50mph. 
Yesterday we rented a golf cart and toured both Spanish Wells and Russell Island, with a few stops along the way.  At the north west tip of Russell Island is Sandbar grill.  The food and scenery was wonderful, but a little pricey.  We then ventured to the northwest end of Spanish Wells and found a lovely sandy beach, which we will try out on Wednesday.  We finally ended up at Kathy’s Bakery, the Main grocery store (where Kevin was able to buy a case of coke for $20).  Our last stop for the day was the local realty office to check out the prices for homes on the island.  The prices and taxes where not as bad as we thought.  That is for our next dream.

We left spanish wells on Thursday and headed back to Royal Island cove to wait out another high south wind coming through on Friday.  Saturday morning we sailed to Little Harbor in the Southern end of Abacos.  The sail up was great, but the approach into little harbor cut was not so fun with 5 foot following seas.  We are now Anchored just north of Little Harbor and will be making our way north to Hope Town in the next few days.  Till then my, fair winds and happy sailing my friends.

We have made it to Eleuthra

Well we have made our way to the Eleutheras.  Last week was spent at Hoffman Cay and LIttle Harbor, waiting for the winds to shift and calm down.  Monday thru Wednesday we had west winds and about 25 knots, then it started shifting more northerly which gave us a little peace at night.  While anchored at Hoffman's, we met a nice couple, Dave and Heather, on board “The Answer My Friend”.  He was quite the character and an awesome guitar player.  Thursday  the winds settled down enough that I could manage getting in and out of the dinghy (with my knee).  So we were off to explore the Blue Hole on Hoffmans.  It was this saltwater lake (hole) in the middle of the Cay, about 100’ deep and very high cliffs.  Kevin, Hazel and Tom, jumped off the cliff into the water.  I was not so venturous.  Friday we dinghied down to Little Harbor and had lunch at Flo’s, it was yummy.  Tom and Hazel headed back to Great Harbor on Saturday and we headed to the Eleutheras on Sunday.  Once we arrived, anchored and relaxed on the back deck.  There was a family of 4 sea turtles entertaining us for several hours.