Miami Passage - Day 8, November 17
Hello from the Atlantic Ocean, 29*15.85'N, 80*38.86'W
When we last saw you were pulling into St. Simons Island, GA. We stayed
here for nearly 6 weeks, and took care of many shore and boatside chores.
Louise, Lydia's 83 year old mother, was scheduled to come with us to the
Keys, arriving from the North GA mountains, where she'd been visiting her
granddaughter and great grandson, on October 29th, landing in Miami.
However, the weather window didn't cooperate, so we went to pick her up
instead. Visiting ensued instead of departures, so I came back to the boat
to
continue working on various chores, and to help our two Angels here, Saints
Steven and
Michael.
After I went up to fetch Lydia and her mother last weekend, I continued to
do minor chores while we waited for the next weather window. Without the
gory details, Lydia asked, "What WOULD you do without all your tools?" Had
I not had what most folks would consider overkill for tools and supplies,
I'd have been stuck with either risking a very noisy spinnaker pole failure
by letting it go, or hiring it out (the repair was occasioned by the LAST
time I hired out the work on it, in Annapolis, to Atlantic Spar and Rigging,
who mucked up both my rig tuning [the mast alignment process] and the
mast-end replacement of the pole). Instead, I just went into the shelves
and pulled out the necessary tools and supplies and went at it. The redo of
the end is massively more secure than what was provided to me by ASR, and
unlikely to loosen, let alone fail, in the boat's lifetime.
Today (well, yesterday, as you read this), I pulled all three of our speed
impellers and cleaned off the barnacles and other growth. That will teach
me not to be lazy about pulling them and replacing with plugs when we pull
into Miami, a process (take out the impellers as soon as you're going to be
anchored for more than a night) most full time cruisers would normally do.
It opens a serious hole in the boat when you pull them out, but with some
practice, only a cup or two gets in (each time, both ways), and that is in
the bilge, anyway,
so of little moment. The two in the workshop area, however, spray onto the
sole in the walkthrough, and require a bit of cleanup. Beats having to
scrub them with acids, though, so that's what I'll do from now on.
For those wondering why in the world we need 3 sensors, particularly when we
have GPS speed, they came with the boat. One is for the fishfinder, one is
for the chartplotter log, and the other is a racing-quality unit. All
measure speeds through the water, not over the ground. When there's a
current, which affects the speed over ground, it's useful to know how you're
doing in absolute terms, as well as to be able to calculate the current
based on the difference between water and ground speeds. Knowing the usual
speed of the boat either under motor or sail, at differing conditions, would
alert us to any anamolies. As noted in our trip to Maine, the Gulf Stream
current had us "going" at unusually fast speeds on the GPS, but our speed
through the water was the same as would be expected from the wind speed and
direction. The racing unit shows hundredths of a knot, and also whether
we're slowing or speeding up from a second ago. Being the geek I am, I
appreciate that sort of input.
It's also the reason we have three depth sensors :{)) The one at the Nav
station and the one next to the racing speed indicator reflect distance
under the keel. They are adjustable only in positive offset (reduce the
depth by how far the sensor is from the keel), and only in full foot-change
increments. As such, they are only approximations of the amount of water
under
the keel. However, the one for the fishfinder has both positive and
negative offsets available, in tenths of a foot, so we use that for true
depth, which is very accurate. Those following me for any length of time
know I like redundancy, as well as demanding full and complete information
about our condition in all regards :{))
Life aboard any full-time cruising boat is "boat repair in exotic locations"
- along with the ever present, and usually growing, "to-do" list. However,
we're extremely pleased to note that our to-do list is nearly empty, and
none of it has to do with mechanical effectiveness or safety any more.
Rather, the very few items left are "this would be nice" sort of things,
such as a flashlight holder, or replacing the remaining gaskets in the few
ports which have not already been replaced, "just because" - not because
they leaked (though some did; early on in our refit I ordered a complete set
of gaskets and screens, and one each sized replacement "glass" [they're
plastic]). We keep looking around, and finding nothing to do, and then,
time and time again, commenting to each other about how happy we are with
the condition of the boat. Those interested may like to see some current
pix of her, taken by my pro photog brother, when we were in his neighborhood
in Atlantic Highlands NJ, at http://tinyurl.com/FlyingPigPix
I've been horribly remiss about putting up any new pictures in our gallery,
shown in the sig line; too busy cruising! However, we're working on trying
to get familiarized with Picasa, by Google, in order to allow us more space
at much more affordable rates. My inclination, as those who have visited
the site know, is for great levels of detail. That leads to (in total)
thousands of pictures, and gigabytes of memory. My current storage location
isn't suited to that sort of use, being designed to offer web-novices a
place to showcase their wares, such as real estate or other photo-sensitive
trades.
Before we left, we rafted up, briefly, to our benefactor's boat on the
mooring while I attached the dinghy in a hip-tow position, as his engine is
without critical components at the moment (and so, can't be run), and
prepared to tow in. We had an outgoing tide, and a rip-snorter of an
opposing wind, so I thought we'd be well balanced. However, the tide was
considerably more effective on the boat than the wind, and I had to go
around once before we
got her comfortably and uneventfully settled back in her berth. I then
pulled the dinghy out so that Lydia could clean off the forest which had
attached itself under the dinghy in the weeks we'd been there, and went off
to do some last minute shopping.
Yesterday, we packed Louise off to dog-and-house-sit for Steve and Vicki,
who were going to flotilla down with us. It's his mooring in Miami we used
last year. Up with the dinghy and strapping down with the gear, and we're
ready to go. Oops...
Our departure was delayed by a few hours while our traveling companions made
some last minute adjustments to their steering, but we got off at 3PM.
Weather on the way out was very nice. The howling winds abated to
moderate, and we were on a beam reach for much of the day (what was left of
it). Lydia went down for her sleep at 6:30, and I settled in for the night.
Unfortunately for us, the wind got very fluky, ranging from 10-20 and back
again in the space of a couple of minutes, save a few minutes at a time of
25 or so, and shifted more toward the expected NW instead of the nearly due
W we had at the start. Those 25 knot short periods were the best, as we
were with the wind nearly directly at our backs, with the waves causing the
now-familiar rock and roll, accompanied by explosive filling of the genoa.
The higher wind periods kept the boat more stable, but they were few and
far between. Reluctantly, I jibed it enough to minimize the effect, but
that put us more beam-to on the waves, and made the boat roll more, which
had the effect, if there wasn't enough wind (apparent wind has to subtract
our speed, which was in the mid-5 to mid-6 range, so at the 10 knot periods,
it looks like 4 - no pressure on the sails to keep it steady) of both
sloshing around and banging sails. Still, we were making good progress, not
too far off our rhumb line.
Complicating that was the proximity of the Gulf Stream, which, in any event,
due to its northward movement, we'd want to avoid, but in particular, with a
heavy north wind, because of its high, short waves produced by the clash of
wind and current opposed. That limited our movement somewhat, so SPOT
watchers will see our zigzag course as we made sure to miss the Stream.
The night was crystal clear, with a brilliant moon. It also allowed me to
see traffic more readily, and aside from a couple of instances, the traffic
wasn't notable. However, there was one instance of a very large boat/small
ship (some sort of cargo vessel) which refused to answer my hails on 16 and
13. I expect he saw me, and, had I done nothing, likely would have cleared
me. However, as I could not ascertain his intent, and it looked close, I
turned right. Fortunately for me, that stiffened up the boat, a nice break
from the rock-and-roll and, in fact, we cleared handily.
The other one, though, was a real head-scratcher. First, he's crossing my
bow to starboard, at a leisurely pace. Ditto the no-response. Then he heads
off at a high rate of speed in the same direction as we're going. Next,
he's turned back across my bow, still no response. No sooner does he get a
mile or so off, than he's headed back north. Then across my stern. Rinse,
repeat.
A little while later I heard a vessel hailing a commercial ship which said
he was waiting for the port pilot. After their conversation, which I
monitored, I hailed that boat, just to chat, and our conversation revealed
that he was talking to the same ship, for the same reasons. He'd just moved
camp to his neighborhood. The difference was that my contact had AIS, which
provides not only the ship name, but other valuable data. If you call them
by name they're more likely to respond. So, AIS is on our maybe-someday
wishlist. One of the other even-better features of AIS is that they provide
a specific, private, number. We have one, too, 367164840, and if you were
to call us by number, we'd get a ring aboard, and we'd have a private
conversation over either SSB or VHF, direct between two MMSI numbers. The
difference, as told to me by our supplier, is that the MMSI will get a
response from the Captain, who is required to speak English, while the helm
may be manned by some Panamanian or other non-English speaker, who not only
likely doesn't understand your hail, but couldn't respond to it if they
wanted. Another reason for that consideration.
The night passed pretty much like that, other than that the forecasted drop
in winds appeared, and the daytime, of which I slept the majority after I
woke Lydia for her 9AM shift, was more rock-and-roll. With the next-to-no
wind (and, of course, no sun) last night, combined with a heavy load as we
got ready to leave, our batteries were in need of serious charging, so
before I went to bed, I hooked up our Honda generator to the shore power
plug, and by the time I sent
this, despite no wind, we were full again.
However, a prior annoyance persists: our radar won't come on with less than
over 13 volts, a condition present only with either full batteries or very
light loads. As it's supposed to run happily on 10.5 volts, our
installation, which I'm sure didn't include new power sources other than
from the breaker panel (without a new breaker, either), both of which
(breaker and wiring to the battery) were from the prior radar installation.
As it was a package price, all
materials and labor in the same price as quoted, this has been a thorn in my
side ever since we bought it. When we're in Miami, as that's one of their
offices, I'll try to raise that issue and see if they'll remedy it. If not,
I'll have to run new cables myself, both a nuisance and unwarranted expense.
That said, that's about the only mechanical annoyance we have at the moment,
for which we are amply blessed.
Meanwhile, our traveling companions' boat, a Tartan 30, had recently been
out of the water for some tornado damage repairs, and had a clean bottom.
Unfortunately for us, the bottom of Flying Pig, I suspect, looked about
like the bottom of the dinghy, which is to say, extremely non-hydrodynamic.
Thus, they got a bit of a head start on us. We tried to raise each other
on the VHF this morning, but only got snatches of voice in either direction.
However, we did
learn that we'd made up most of the difference from when they sailed out of
sight yesterday. I'm trusting that our ablative bottom paint, which is
designed to slough, naturally, will have shed all that St. Simons Frederica
River grunge before we get to Miami. However, I'll dive it, to confirm it,
and also to scrub the presumed slime which will likely accrue in the Yacht
Club basin.
Oh - I forgot. There's one more mechanical nuisance. None of the three
speed sensors is sending information, despite my cleaning. I have to
presume that's from the abovementioned forest blocking their having water
run past them. I'll check that, too, when I dive the boat in Miami.
So, having slept the sleep of the dead, pulling an all-nighter from the
prior morning's 7AM wakeup call, I got up at 2:30 and set to getting ready
for the night shift. I'll go down first, and Lydia will get me early in the
morning (midnight to 2-ish). The staysail proved ineffective in our early
beam-reaching, blanketing the genoa, so I just dropped it and lashed it.
This afternoon I properly stowed it, flaking, strapping and covering it,
because from here on out, things will get interesting, but all from astern.
The usual rock-and-roll and sail banging nuisances present earlier, we put
out the pole to stabilze the genoa. Right now we're in the middle of the
forecasted 5-10NW, which with our forward motion, means very little apparent
wind, but it's either a beam or broad reach, and the seas have settled a bit
due to the lesser wind, so it's a comfortable ride. Later tonight the wind
is expected to pick up,
and by Wednesday, be honking at 20-25 knots, all still astern. Once we get
past Caneveral, likely about dawn tomorrow, we'll be inside reefs, with
small waves. We're hopeful of conditions appropriate for spinnaker, but we
won't fly it in 20 or more knots.
Oh, yah, one other incident. As we were passing the St. Mary's entrance, I
was reminded that this is home to the Kings Bay submarine base. if you've
ever seen one arrive, you'll note all the crew standing at parade rest,
seemingly unperturbed by either wind or rock-and-roll. I've often wondered
how they do that, but Lydia said, no doubt, it was just a very controlled
stance - not rigid, but very flexible. Just the thing for a sub. So, as we
calmed down a bit this afternoon, I went out to the patio and practiced.
Lydia noted I was doing very well in maintaining my position. She was very
glad the Coast Guard didn't hear me say that of course I was weaving around,
but still standing - I was getting good at using my controlled sub stance...
I'm off to dinner - Stay tuned...
L8R
Skip
--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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