Erika

Since we are currently in Miami, Tropical Storm Erika has certainly been on our minds as it has slowly marched across the Carribean toward Florida. There is always a certain energy that precedes a big storm, and it is hard to explain. Growing up in Florida means that I have seen quite a few storms and a few hurricanes too. Our house was flooded and destroyed by hurricane Wilma about 10 years ago, and there is nothing quite like a big named storm to get a community buzzing.

There seems to be two sets of people in regards to hurricane preparations. There are those that rush to the store at the mere mention of a storm, even if it is two thousand miles away. This group is called the Hoarder group, and they are excited that a storm is coming because it will bring devastation to everyone except them, because they have bought all the supplies possible. They buy up all the water and batteries, and are solely responsible for a third of the summertime Gross Domestic Product here in Florida. Luckily, for the other group, the What-Evers, Home Depot and the groceries have plenty of time to restock after the Hoarders initial assault, so important last minute items like beer, and Fireball are already back on the shelves. This group hits the stores last, and will take whatever they can find, figuring it probably doesn't matter anyway because if the storm doesn't kill them, the Hurricane Party just might. This group is excited that a storm is coming for two reasons. The first is that it is an excellent reason to have a party. As weird as this seems, it is absolutely true, there are plenty-o-parties in the face of total destruction here in Florida. The other reason they are excited is that for some weird reason, these storm always, always, ALWAYS attack in the middle of the night, with 2AM being prime time for storm strikes. This leads to two phenomenon. The party has hit it's stride by then, and there is nothing left to do but pass out and check out the carnage in the morning, where the second phenomenon, a instant day off of work materializes. A win-win you might say, except that your house and car might be totaled. And the Tylenol might have gotten wet somehow. Woo-Hoo!!!

Courtesy of NOAA/NWS

While the Hoarders and the Whatevers get ready, we have our own preparations to do. Being on a boat in the middle of a storm is about the same as digging for gold in a minefield. It might not work out so well. But you could get lucky! There are a lot of things to do though, and some are not optional. There is a lot of information available on the net about this, so I won't bore you with it all here, but I will tell you what we are doing. Feel free to add comments on this, as we are by no means expert boat preppers.

The first thing, is the take off phase. It is important to take off anything that might take-off in the wind. This includes the dodger, side curtains, and any laundry hanging on the lines. This can also include removing the sails and sail bags if the storm is going to hit you directly. We probably will skip this step, as the storm is projected to move well West of here now, and the intensity is lower than previously thought. We also plan to remove our window covers on the outside of the boat, and any cushions that might go away. We are going to check and clean all the hatch drains, and make sure the hatches are locked down tight. We are also going to turn the boat around, placing the nose into the prevailing East wind. Then the usual stuff like doubling the dock lines, filling the water tank, getting a couple bags of ice, running the generator and then... a trip to the store for beer and Fireball. Wait a minute... oh well, I guess we should check the Disco ball and lights too. What the hell. Maybe we are off Monday...

It looks fine outside to me!

Dinner Key in Miami

Dinner Key Marina is where we are at the moment, an easy 15 minutes to work in the morning, and in the heart of historic Coconut Grove. Since we have been here living on the boat here twice now, I thought it would be interesting to delve into the history of the area, and then let you all know about it too. The area had it's start way back in the early 1800's, and this area around Biscayne Bay was so isolated, that visitors would have to sail or steam right past the area all the way to Key West, and then board much smaller vessles for the return trip. The very thought of Key West being more accesible than Miami is a real laugh, but that is how it was back then. There were no roads or railroads to this area, so if you wanted to come here, you had to do it the hard way. Many of these smaller ships wrecked, and were lost. It seemed that only the very well off could afford the best ships and the best crews to ensure a safe passage. And so, Coconut Grove became and area known for wealthy Northerners looking to "Get away from it all". Our previous post on the Barnacle house is a glimpse into this era, opulence on a grand scale in an age of simplicity and substinence living for the common folks. The first hotel here was built in 1883, and now is Peacock park, named after it's founder. The area just north of the Grove is known as Brickell, and it is the place to live and play in Miami. Right now there are at least 15 tower cranes busy making new skyscrapers in this one area. The Brickell area is named after William Brickell, who met Ralph Monroe, owner and builder of the Barnacle house, when Monroe saved his schooner off the coast of New York.

Another prominent resident early on was James Deering, bigwig with the International Harvester company. He wanted a house like no other, someplace that would be from another time and place. His house, Viscaya, is now a museum and gardens, and is open to the public. Deering accomplished his goal, and the house is a Mediterranean masterpiece, filled with European artworks and sculptures. The grounds are a showpiece for tropical plants, and Miami is the perfect place for that. If you get the chance to see the home and gardens, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Dinner Key Marina was once home to the Clipper Ships, which are not really ships at all. This term was used by Pan American Airlines to describe their aircraft, which early on in the company were all seaplanes. Later, Pan Am used this term for all their airplanes, even though they were no longer seaplanes.

The city hall is still here, and is in fact still Miami City Hall. The building in the center of this photo is the city hall, and the marina piers now attach to the same seawall in the photo. The drive up to city hall is still the same. If you look at the "Where Are We" section of this blog, (on the right side), you will see a current view of the exact same spot!

Pan Am actually got it's start down in Key West, and if you are there, you might accidentally walk right past a small, insignificant building that has a sign out front, declaring it the original home of Pan Am Airlines.

They airlines first route was one carrying mail from the mainland United States, to Cuba. The airline quickly grew, and much larger clipper ships flew right out of Dinner Key Marina. Biscayne Bay is perfect for landing these planes, it is large and calm, and the location here in Miami is a perfect jump-off location for points South, East and West.

Sometimes You Lose

We had all the salon fixed windows replaced in February, 3/8 inch lexan windows that were really scratched and crazed. It was possible to see through them, in kinda surreal Van Gogh kinda way. Things just looked a bit different outside back then, if you can picture it in your mind. Well, we hired a local named Pablo, or Ricardo or something like that, and he replaced them for us. It took a month. It was supposed to take a week. They looked OK, but one overhead hatch he also re-glazed leaked right away, and I had to re-bed the glass in that one a week after he was finished. Recently, one of our front windows started to leak, and this is bad. It is right over an AC unit, and our refrigeration unit. So, I did what anyone would do, I cussed a while and then resigned myself to fix the dang thing.

So out came the window. It turns out that the lip the window sits on when installed was not properly cleaned prior to the installation, in the two places the the window was dripping. All the old silicone must be removed, and then sanded down to bare gelcoat and prepped with acetone. This ensures the old silicone caulk is gone, because new silicone won't stick to the old silicone.

The window was prepped and degreased, and a new bead of Sikaflex for acrylic windows was applied.

The window opening was all prepped up and ready to go, so a healthy bead of Sikaflex was laid down here also. Warning, this black stuff is messy and wants to stick to everything. It will get on your hands, so have a box of gloves handy, and a trash can to put the used gloves in. Do not get this stuff on your feet, because it will be tracked all over the place, right Pablo, or Ricardo or whoever the hell you are?

The window was placed in its opening and the screws gently half tightened, enough to draw the sealant down, but not squish it all out. Then, after a couple days, the screws were tightened the rest of the way.

After the clean up, we hired another local, Oscar, to detail the boat. What a great job he did, too. This boat looks great now, and the leaks are all gone! So, sometimes you lose (Pablo) and sometimes you win (Oscar)!

Hell Yeah- It's Mini Season!!!!

What's this you say, Mini Season? What in the world?

No, none of those mini's are involved in mini season, but it would be fun! Anyhow, mini season is the 2 day lobster season that marks the beginning of lobster season here in the Florida Keys. Every year, Florida opens the lobster season for two days, and it is always the last Wednesday and Thursday of July. The regular season starts on August 6 every year, and this mini season is not only a huge boon for local economies, but a chance to hit the water ahead of the real season. Up to 50,000 divers hit the water in the Florida Keys during this 2 day free-for-all; snorkelers, divers, swimmers, probably submarines too. They are all here for one thing... Lobsters! We love nothing more than lobstering, so we are always ready to jump in and get our share.

Tanks full? Check! Gloves, net, tickle sticks? Roger! Little boat ready? Well, no, not really. As it turns out, the little boat, our 20 foot bowrider, almost left us out at sea during scalloping in Steinhatchee. The old two stroke Johnson has always been reliable, but it was coughing and wheezing, and was literally pouring smoke out the exhaust. Sounds like it had COPD to me, too much smoking all those years. We dropped it off at the local Johnson dealer, and when we picked it up, they said it was running fine. They put a new electronic powerpack on it, all good they say. Not so fast though, it was still smoking like an old steam riverboat. And stalling. And coughing. We were too, all that dang smoke. There was only one thing to do, fix it myself. The fuel pump and also the oil pump for the oil injection are both housed in a single pump housing. I got one, and put it on, and now we are doing fine. No more coughing, wheezing or sneezing. And the motor is now fine too.

We dove in a favorite spot we know, and avoided the hoards of people intent on chasing lobsters, and quietly got our limit and headed for the barn. There is nothing like fresh lobster, yum, but it really is a lot of fun finding and catching your own lobsters. Why not give it a try? There is no better or easier place to go than the Keys, shallow water is fine too. Regular season is just a few days away, what are you waiting for?

Lobster broth anyone?

Hmmm, The New Rule

With the trip to go scalloping still fresh on our minds, we are back in Miami earning a little money for our next sailing trip and doing some projects on the boat. There is always a list of things to do when you have a boat, it never stops completely, although the list has things that need doing pretty much 'right away', and things that can wait a bit. What these things are, and into which category each item falls, is a bit subjective, but items like bilge pumps always fall into the 'right away' type of project. Which brings me to the subject of Rule brand bilge pumps. We have several, being a catamaran, we have two separate hulls, each having a bilge of course. So each side has an independent pump to clear the bilges of any water. Easy enough to understand this concept, as well as the importance of having a nice dry bilge. That is why we replaced the bilge pumps when we bought Saltrun several years ago. Piece of mind is important, new pumps are good. So imagine our surprise, when, we discovered that within eight months we had to replace them again! WTF? One of the pumps would not automatically turn on, and the other one would not turn off. So, as is typical with most of my boat projects, I had the gratifying joy of repeating the project with yet again, new pumps. So, here we are, around 14 months later and... you guessed it, another dead pump. Now look, this is getting crazy here. This is not like putting up a new role of paper towels, and why are these pumps failing? They have a warranty, so I took them back to West latrine for a swap out. No can do, they said, you gotta send them to Rule, we don't want them. OK, so I go to the Rule website and try to find out how this is done. I guess they are called Rule because the first rule must be to eliminate the possibility that this can be done. Seriously, it is really hard to find this on their site. When you do, they say that the pump has a date code on it, and without the actual purchase receipt (who has that?), the date code must show that the pump is within the three year warranty period. But, they do not tell you how to decipher the code, or where this hieroglyph can be found on the pump. My frustration mounts, as I have now purchased 5 of these crappy things. It turns out that I was told that Rule moved their manufacturing to Mexico recently, and the quality is not what it used to be. Hmmm, what quality, I ask myself. Anyhow, who cares where the plant is, it is the company that lets this engineering marvel be sold knowing it will last about as long as a tomato plant. So, 5 pumps, at $130.00 dollars each, that is $650.00! Now, divide by 30 months that we have been aboard, that's $21.66 a month that I've paid for bilge pumps so far. Nice. The next pump will be a Johnson pump thank you very much, That's my newest Rule here aboard the boat.

So, other than a variety of projects, we have been enjoying Miami, and fresh scallops!

Scallops and Sea Hags

Sure, we are in Miami a-workin away the whole live long day, but that does not mean, my friends, that there is no fun to be had. We love to take a quick trip up the West coast of Florida to a sleepy little town called Steinhatchee this time of year, to take part in the 8 week long bay scalloping season. So we grabbed our little 20 foot bowrider, and hit the highway. Bay scallops are the smaller scallops, not the giant sea scallops, and have a delicious, sweet flavor. They are about 5/8ths of an inch across (the meat that is), give or take. And, catching these little guys is really a lot of fun. No scuba needed here, this is stricktley a snorkel and mask event. The hardest part is actually finding Steinhatchee in the first place, MapQuest is worthless, so don't even try it. It seems that Steinhatchee is actually the westernmost edge of the Bermuda triangle, as it is so remote that it seems to move from year to year. Once you get there though, it is a beautiful little town on the river and the bay, huge oaks draped in Spanish moss, and cool evening breezes. The people are full of smiles, and Southern hospitality. Untill you get to the boat ramp. You and the other 250 boats, then it is an "organized boatramp show", the likes of which I have never seen. The idea is to get in line with your boat trailer, and wait until one of four ramps is free. Then, you are supposed to launch or retrieve your boat in as quick a fashion as possible. Safety and common sense are totally dispensible notions at this important time, the key is speed. There were trucks that had the trailer ball mounted to the front bumper, so no backing down the ramp was needed. There were retrievals made with 4 spotters in the bed of the truck, and two riding on the trailer up out of the water. There were Daisy Dukes and beer bellies everywhere. White smoking rear tire full on burnouts, all the way up the ramp. No-one batted an eye. Or seemed to lose one either during this people on the hood as the procession went down the street, kids sitting on tilted up outboards while the boat was snatched from the water, 10 people in the boat as it went off into town, scalloping event. Want some good clean fun, but don't like scallops? Come to the Steinhatchee River boat ramp around 3PM during scallop season. And bring the popcorn.

So we joined in, and had a blast. The object is to first locate the little suckers, as they are never in the same place twice. They actually swim, and can take off on you by clamping closed their shell as the propell themselves around. They can see too, they have a row of irridescant blue eyes, and when they see you coming, they either take off for the hills, or more often they clamp up and hope that you dont see them. This tactic is often self defeating for them though, as they see you first most of the time and you in turn see them because they move when they clamp closed.

The reason they see you first is because they have a lot more eyes than you do. And they somehow know that they are delicious, so they are always wary of hungry snorkelers.

Each person can keep 2 gallons of these scallops a day, and that ends up being about a pound of fresh, cleaned scallops. We had our son Dylan aboard one day, and some friends with us too, and we caught our share over a three day trip. It was a lot of fun, and we got some much needed time in the water. There is no need to actually bring a boat either, as we found ourselves surrounded by rental boats from a place called Sea Hag Marina. It was really jumping there, as we stopped for fuel one day. They have a store with interesting Sea Hag branded t-shirts, full marine supplies, and of course an ouside waterfront bar and eating facility.

So, go there, and find some scallops. It is pretty easy, just find some patchy grass in about 3-5 feet of water and jump in. The learning curve is pretty quick, and before you know it, you will have a bucket of scallops yourself. Yum yum!

Look, there's some!

The Sail To Miami

We left Bimini early, and set sail for Miami. We had a nice southern wind around 10 knots, and were sailing along, sad to be leaving the Bahamas after such a nice trip. After an hour or so, the wind died, and so we had to motorsail. The seas were calm, and the gentle motion of the boat, and some Jimmy Buffett music made the trip a bit easier. The view down into the sea through the floor hatch changed from the aqua and turquoise Bahamas to the deep blue purple of the gulfstream. The sun was shining, and we put out our fishing line one last time for this trip. Life was pretty good, even if we were motorsailing. We thought about or great visit to the Bahamas, and how lucky we are to have some nice friends there, and how lucky we are to have the Bahamas so close. We explored the central and southern Bahamas, but still have a lot to explore next time in the Abacos. For now though, we are heading West, to Florida, and a return to work for a bit, so we can do this again soon. We were sad, our trip ending, much like a ten year old feels at the end of summer break. Back to school, back to the routine for a while, back to reality. So it was for us too, at least for a short while, the reality of bank accounts and budgets, and with the monetary needs for the upcoming fall sailing trip on our minds too.

As we sailed west toward Florida, we realized how our lives have changed. We no longer work to exist, as we have done our whole lives. We worked and worked, and never said no, never realizing that it is OK to slow down, to have a bit less, and really have so much more. As the Miami Beach skyline slowly started to appear on the horizon, it started to sink in that we were going back to that life, if for just a short while at a time. We are looking forward to working a while, and maybe attaining a new goal we have for our sailing adventures, we don't mind the work really. It is just that we look at the whole work thing as something that enables us to go do something else now, it does not define us. It used to, having good jobs and being the best at them, was who we are, or were. Now, not so much, we are still very good at our jobs, but, they are not who we are now. Not sure who we are actually, but we are not the corporate slave types that we were, that is for sure. We measure our worth a little differently, we have changed. We have more smiles, and less furrowed brows. We have more time, and less complications every day. We have less money, but have less obligations. We have adventures, not "day to day existence".

When I was a kid, not that long ago, things by today's standards, were a lot harder than today. When I used to tell my children that "Back in the Old Days", we didn't have color TV, or air conditioning. No internet, or microwave ovens. No cell phones or pagers. Cars didn't come with AC or even power steering for the most part, and they were stick shifts. You slept with the windows open at night, to get a breeze, and I grew up in Florida where it is plenty-o-hot in the summer. They would look at me in wonderment, and sometimes laugh out loud, like it is a true miracle that I somehow survived this ordeal, this oddysey. Things are so much easier now, and so why would anybody decide to leave it all behind and go risk it all at sea, and have to step back into a time where things are harder, more work, and less comfortable and safe? For us, it is the spirit of seeking our new things and people and places. Also, it is the feeling of accomplishment that you get when you complete something like a trip on a boat somewhere. We love it, and want more. I guess that is why people climb mountains, for the same reasons, not for me, but hey, I get it. So as Miami, and civilization as we know it came into focus, we again rejoin the system, the collective to borrow a phrase. We are going to plug back in and rejoin for a while. We have some breaks planned though, and we are looking forward to next fall, when the wind will again blow us somewhere new, somewhere we have not been before. We can't wait, I feel like starting to provision right now! And as if we needed a send-off, a topper for our Bahamas Trip Cake, we started catching Mahi on the way in to Miami. We boated a couple, although we didn't try to stay on them, as we pressed on to Miami and Coconut Grove. We grabbed our old slip before dark, and sat back with the satisfied smiles that a trip like we just had will bring. Man are we lucky!