Ft. Lauderdale

The forecast for the day off shore was 3-5' seas with the wind from the north. What we found was 1-2' seas in close, so we had a good & uneventful trip. Clear skies and blue seas, quite nice.

Cruising down the ICW we took pictures of the changing scenes and I decided I like gnarly trees like this beautiful banyan.

While not gnarly the tropical look is a plus

This marina was tucked in between beautiful homes and boats. The problem with ethanol in gasoline in marine engines is that it ruins the engine and requires expensive repairs. Here they are advertising ethanol free gas. We only use gas in our dingy outboard engine.

This is the Parker Bridge and it was closed for part of the day yesterday due to truck over turned. As you can see there is construction and, as a result, only one part of the span opened, a bit tighter squeeze than usual.

As we traveled down the coast line we tried to stay closer in than usual because of the gulf stream which moves northerly at several knots. And with the wind from the north in opposition  the current can not only slow you down but make for a rougher ride.

Here is a view of Direct TV advertising along the beach. In NJ, DE and MD beaches it is planes pulling banners; here it is blimps.

This is a ship from Dock Wise. It was anchored just north of Port Everglades. It will transport yachts any where in the world.
It lowers and floods the inside and boats float in and then it closes and drains the water and the boats are secured. Pretty cool. This is a look at the stern which opens and floods.

Coming into the Port Everglades inlet is this charming (sic) Hyatt hotel.

Here is the 17th St. Causeway and one of the last bridges before getting to our marina for the night. We need to travel up the New River going to Marina Bay. But it was late in the day with a bad tide to go all the way so tomorrow we will leave around mid morning.

onward to Ft Lauderdale

Sunrise at Admirals Cove Marina as we get ready to depart. And a wee bit o coffee before departing

Ahh such beautiful weather

We had a wonderful stay in Stuart and met with several friends who were all staying the winter at the same marina. It is such a happy upbeat place I think, in part, most of the boaters there are from the NE and would otherwise be caught in the grip of a cold January and are happy to be in sunny and warm Fla. The marina itself is quite nice with above average amenities and there is quite a thriving social life.

We had originally thought of staying for 2 days and spent 4 instead. The weather for the past two days was quite windy so it was nice to stay put and visit. We left this am for a relatively short trip to Lake Worth and Palm Beach. You can tell you are entering southern Fla., waters, the plants and birds change and the color of the water becomes more emerald in color and much clearer. Quite different from the brownish waters of the east cost where tannins from the trees color much of it.

Here is the light house at Jupiter inlet. We had just turned to the starboard with the inlet going the other way. It is an inlet that you need local knowledge to safely navigate, so we never considered it as an alternative. The ones in this area we use are Ft. Pierce and Lake Worth to the south.

You can see the sky is clear and not a cloud to be seen! It is a very pretty day.



 

  We continue to see unique boat houses and homes along the way. This was the boat house, the main house was up the way.

Here is a bit more formal.

I like the tiki hut more.

Tonight we will have dinner with good friends who live in the Palm Beach area and then we are off again. We will travel out the Lake Worth inlet and come back in at Port Everglades and Ft. Lauderdale.

A buzzards Day....oh so sad

We left from Vero Beach this morning and headed south to Stuart Fla. Not a long trip but it was windy and current on our nose all the way.

We noticed hundreds of buzzards circling small islands that dot the ICW. Island after island all the same. When the cold snap hit the NE, it was particularly harsh in Fla. There was a massive fish kill due to the cold. We saw so many dead fish that it went from ridiculous to sad. The fish would wash up on the islands and  buzzards would help in the recycling. In a local paper there was discussion about the deaths of manatees as well and several universities conducting research on several species.

The state has imposed fishing restrictions on several species such as tarpon, snook and bone fish. I would think the long term impact on the food chain will be felt by many different types of species for some time. It will take a while for many to fully recover I would think.

Vero Beach

We had a 55 nm trip today, not really that long a distance, but it took a long time and we are feeling it. We had to go through a lock, not bad, fairly straight forward. We missed a bridge opening by a few minuets and had to spin in the water for 28 min until the next opening. Been there and done that before. What made it tiring was the wind. We had a strong wind from the south  which kept trying to push us out of the narrow channel. So we kinda crab walked most of the way here. Lots of hands on steering today and working to keep us lined up in the channel.

We are in and tied up at the fuel dock at Vero Beach City Marina and looking forward to getting together with some friends for dinner.

Ahh....Shorts no coats are the order of the day. Nice and warm....

And we are off!!

We timed our departure from Brunswick Ga to work with the tide. There is a 5-6 ft tide and we need the extra water to turn the boat around to face the correct way. We also needed to time our departure while considering when we wanted to arrive at our destination in Cape Canaveral Fla. It is, as I have currently configured it, about 193 nautical miles (a nm is 1.15 of a statute mile). We will travel at an average of 8.5kts/hr. Practically speaking, we will travel faster during the day and then slower at night. I like to back off a bit when traveling at night and I also wanted to manage our fuel burn. By doing it this way we can save about 25% of our fuel used. So the plan was to travel 7.50kts at night. I have a program as part of my navigation software which can build tables on different speeds and fuel burns that help compute the fuel need for the trip.

We left and the weather was wonderful. Clear cool but not cold and very little marine traffic. It felt great to be back on the water and headed to Fla., after our wait. It is a 12nm trip from the marina to the outside marker of the St Simon's  ocean inlet and time went by comfortably fast. The seas were as predicted. a calm 1-2' and winds in the gentle 5-10 knots range. Interestingly the water temp when we left was a chilly 47 degrees in Ga and an expected 60 in Cape Canaveral. We rode most from the fly bridge where it was comfortable and very pleasant. As it became dark we retreated to the pilot house for the remainder of the trip.

  Traveling over night for a day or more is quite different than day trips or marina hopping. During the day we are fairly relaxed about watches and who has the helm. Running over night,however, we take turns with a bit more structure. Usually after dinner we spell each other in 2 hour shifts. I took the 8-10, Jeannie slept, them she took the  10-12,I slept then  I did a 3 hr 12-3, Jeannie picked up the 4-6 and so on. We do this to spread the workload and not make either one of us too tired. We also will both be up if there is a lot of traffic because  two sets of eyes are always better than one.  That was the case last year when we ran up the coast and went by Charleston SC at 3 in the morning and had a slug of cargo ships coming into the shipping lanes. It was not necessary on this trip, in fact once past Jacksonville we hardly saw any boats and once it was dark we saw none until the morning and we were close to Cape Canaveral.

We always maintain an active watch at the helm,always always!
But we do not actively steer the boat. Before departing I working out the route and programmed the computer and we use an auto pilot which steers the boat. From the Ga inlet to the Cape Canaveral inlet I had a total of 4 way points that the auto pilot used to steer to. Sometimes there is quite a distance between the points. So standing watch amounts to monitoring the course and if need to, making adjustments while monitoring all of the other instruments;a lot less tiring than actively steering. You can stand up and walk around and still keep a close eye on things in the pilot house. We have an AIS system, which broadcasts our name and navigation data ( name, course,speed type of vessel etc) via a radio frequency to other boats or ships. It has a range as any other radio would have but usually about 10nm. All commercial ships are required to have this and some pleasure boats have it, but it is optional. I like the larger ships to see me as well as being able to see them .The information is displayed on both our radar monitors and the navigation chart plotter.  We use two radars one close in and one farther out to give us the best geographic coverage. Each unit is equipped with ARP that will acquire a target and give it a number and a predictor line of it's course to help keep track of traffic. During this trip we had no AIS or ARP targets once past Jacksonville and at night. Our evening was very quiet and pleasant  with a very beautiful sunset. Jeannie fixed a great dinner with meatloaf and Israeli couscous,yum. We ate before it was dark so we kept our lights off  to preserve our night vision.

We arrived at Cape Canaveral right on time at 10:30 am and had an uneventful entry into the canal. We saw a Navy Submarine leaving and passed a cargo ship in the canal as well. This is also a big port for the cruise ships leaving this time of year for trips to the Bahamas and other warm water destination.

A Carnival Cruise ship was in port and getting ready to leave. This was across the canal from us.

The cruise ships typically arrive in the morning an passenger disembark while in the afternoon the new passengers arrive. The ships then will depart in the early evening while everyone is at the first dinner and cruise to a destination arriving in the morning. Here is the view from the bow as this one departed at 7pm.



Tomorrow we are off again, we will travel through the remainder of the canal, bridges and one lock to rejoin the ICW. The weather in the ocean is much worse than it was these past two days as another front comes in. We will go to Vero Beach Fla  and meet up with some neighbors and then on to Stuart Fla to visit other friends for a few days before heading further south.

But the really big news is it is warm, I washed the boat wearing shorts; oh how I hate cold weather.

SPOT

You can track our progress as we travel to Cape Canaveral using the SPOT link:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0YbgAe68AMPZoLxpBHQYaVI86IlerZvb3

We are ready to go!!

We arrived in Brunswick Ga. on December 11, 2009. We spent most of our time back home in Kilmarnock Va with family and friends for the holidays. Both Jeannie and I are now back on board for the past week enjoying the area. I came ahead with the car and Jeannie flew down a few days later after Johnny went back to school.

We had a very cold time with temps down in the 20s and highs in the 40s. Burr not exactly shorts and flips flop weather. We drove the car to Long Boat Key Marina last Thursday to position it for when we come later. This weekend we have been getting around town the healthy way...on foot or bike. The weather has improved considerably with temps in the mid to upper 60's.

We have decided to run from here to Cape Canaveral, about a 200nm trip. Since we travel only about 8.5 kts/hr, it will be about a 22-24 hrs, over night and off shore trip. We have a great weather window with calm seas and low winds, so we are taking advantage of it. Coincidentally the forecast for our destination is 79. Much Better!

We have been busy making preparations for the trip. Cleaning, checking systems and working out all of the the navigational issues. In the morning we will head out and will stay about 10-20 miles off shore for most of the trip. Our ETA will be mid to late morning Wednesday.

There is a quarter moon, so hopefully we will have a clear night and a beautiful moon to travel by. We work in shifts; during the day not very structured, but at night we alternate every 2 hours so we get some sleep and  break up the night time a bit. I plan on listening to an audio book via my Ipod. This allows me to keep an eye on things and yet be entertained.

Cruise line docking

The weather today is sunny, the wind has settled a bit and it feels warmer. So I took a nice bike ride to explore the area and get some exercise. Of course exploring some of the water front was high on my list.

Watching as this cargo ship was tied up to the dock is always interesting. This was about 2 miles from the marina and just on the outskirts of town. You can see the tugs keeping the ship to the pier as they secured  the lines.

This sign is a hoot! I guess not everyone's definition of a cruise line is the same. On the bright side you can bet the shrimp is really great. While riding back to the marina I found an outdoor market and bought a few tomatoes. I have had a hankering for tomatoes and thought they would make a great add to a sandwich for lunch and maybe in a salad with dinner. 

It has been cold enough recently that not many people have been out and about but since it is warmer today folks are a buzz with projects and socializing on the dock.

The heat is on!

I drove from Kilmarnock Va to Brunswick Ga, about 602 miles. A fairly straight forward drive down interstate 95. It was 26 degrees when I left, burr, and 48 when I arrived at Brunswick Landing Marina at 2pm. http://www.brunswicklandingmarina.com/ Walking down the dock to the boat it seemed a bit nippier than the 48 degree would suggest due to a strong wind out of the NNE .

Once on board I brought online all of the boats systems one by one to be able to check on things separately. Most important was heat. We have a chiller system (http://www.cruisair.com/tempwater.html) . This system uses a heat exchange process like your home heat pump but instead of air it uses sea water to exchange heat or cold. This warmed water (reversed to chilled water in the summer) is then pumped to 7 different air handlers which are in different areas and are linked to individual room thermostats. The system is very efficient and runs great.  The system is located in the engine room pictured here above. 
As I brought the system on line I noticed the pilot house air handler was not tripping over to allow heated water to circulate. I thought initially I had a bad sensor, checking the pressures on the main system I noticed it would not hold pressure in the circulating system and would slowly decline. Oh Boy....a leak.

I found a leak in the ball valve on the supply side to the pilot house air handler coming from the main unit. These pipes are really well insulated so it appears this ball value just decided to leak in it's own.
I hustled out to West Marine and got the needed parts and replace the valve by 7pm that night. I was then able to turn the system back on and warm the boat up a bit. I was getting chilly.
To the left is the pilot house air handler and the new ball valve is installed, you can see it to the lower left. It was not hard to replace other than physically scrunching into a tight space to loosen and tighten the connections.

Now we are nice and toasty and thinking about waters farther south.

Getting ready

We are getting ready to go back to the boat after a great time home for the holidays and not a moment to soon! While we have had a great time with family, everyone is headed back to work or school and it has become really COLD in Kilmarnock.

Tomorrow I will drive to Brunswick to get things going. Jeannie will fly in on Friday. We decided to take a car for our remaining time in Brunswick, and before leaving Ga on January 20th we will relocate the car to Long Boat Key Marina  http://www.longboatkeymarina.com/. When we arrive in Sarasota by boat, we will have a car and will be able to get around a bit easier. We plan on staying in Long Boat Key until sometime in May.

Our other decision is to go south through the Keys and up the west coast of Fla. It will add some travel time but some interest as well. We will stop in Ft. Lauderdale for some warranty work and Miami for the Boat show. From Miami we will travel south to Marathon Key and then up the west coast of Fla.

Enough of this cold weather! Let's hear it for flip flops and shorts!!