7/1/10 - New Jersey Coast

Synopsis - We're in Ventor New Jersey and have gone a total of 1766 miles. All is well and we plan on continuing North. It's been HOT for months but it finally cooled off a
bit!

After going through Norfolk and Little Creek Va. as reported in my last blog, we went into the mighty Chesapeak Bay and into Yorktown. We tied up to the city dock which was a great location for soaking up a little US of A history. The picture below shows the Kingfisher (way to the left) from the beach in the center of Yorktown.

Yorktown is part of a National Parks area that includes Jamestown and Williamsburg. Yorktown was the site of the battle (Washington vs Cornwallis) that effectively ended the Revolutionary war. The guides like to say that the war was started in Boston but finished in Yorktown. Of course Jamestown is the the first colony and loaded with interesting history. Williamsburg is a well contrived place to separate tourists from their money. The picture at right shows Linda looking at the original Jamestown townsight.

I really liked Jamestown and Yorktown. Linda was a bit more of a fan of Williamsburg and here is a picture of one of the attractions.

Cruising up the Chesapeake was similar to some of the other areas we have been. It is big shallow water with a channel in the middle. Here is a

picture of one of the old lighthouses that are distributed up the Bay. I got stung by a jellyfish called "sea nettle" the first day in the Bay so we did very little swimming afterwards.

We were joined by Scott and Connie Neish in Solomons Maryland for some Chesapeake cruising. Here's a picture of Linda and Connie (left and right respectively) walking along the street in Solomons. (we wish!)

The second night out with them we anchored in Hudson Creek and ended up in the middle of a truly huge thunderstorm. There were literally hundreds of lightening strikes. Quite exciting. Scott and Connie headed home to Hawaii after we visited the Eastern Shore towns of Oxford and St Michaels and then came back West to Annapolis. Here is a picture of Scott doing something to both Linda and Connie that they seem to find enjoyable.

After Scott and Connie headed home, Linda and I did a little more Annapolis touring and saw a Navy wedding being set up (see picture below) and visited the crypt of John Paul Jones. He was a warrior and a patriot and I plan to read more about him

Then we went to the North end of the Bay and into the canal that connects the Chesapeake Bay to the Delaware Bay. We stayed over night in the the "C&D Canal" and went down the Delaware Bay the next day. It's kind of a pill. You run down the middle for eight hours and half the time you are out of the sight of land. To make matters worse, at my first engine check of the day I notice water coming out of the port engine oil cooler (about a gallon an hour). I got a mechanic to come help me in Wildwood New Jersey thinking it would be a big deal and probably delay us. However, he was able to stop it with some bailing wire and ceiling wax and said it should be good for a couple of days. Sounds good to me. We are working our way North along the New Jersey coast heading to New York City for the fourth of July if all works out.

Take care everyone and we miss you.

6/15/10 - Norfolk Va

Synopsis - Currently in Little Creek (Norfolk) Va and have gone 1329 miles. Tod got a haircut since this picture (it had been three months!).

Since our last posting, we cruised from Charleston SC to Beaufort North Carolina with Dave and Marcia Reck. We had good weather (generally hot) and covered about 270 miles with them. After leaving Charleston the four of us anchored out for a night and then went in for a "day visit" to Georgetown SC. It was a VERY rich area prior to the civil war (rice and indigo) and still has a lot of houses from the 17oos and 1800s that are really well maintained. I was draining the old water out of the ice chest from the fly bridge and happened to look over the side of the boat. There was a big ugly face drinking the water that on closer inspection was a manatee. We all had a good look but we were so excited that we forgot to take a photo until too late. It was very cool. Here is one of the houses that was originally built in the late 1700s.

We had a couple of nice nights at anchor other than fighting off the deer flies. The small vacuum is a great fly catcher and makes a satisfying "thunk" whenever a capture is made.

Beaufort NC was a sea port since the 1600s and has a rich "pirate" history. The pirates sold the stolen "booty" to local folks at prices below what they would otherwise have to pay so they were often welcome in the communities. The house below is reported to have hosted Edward Teach (Blackbeard) in the early 1700s.

Beaufort was cut off from the rest of North Carolina (no bridge) until 1926 and they have discouraged any major development since then. There are no "chain" restaurants or hotels near the waterfront so it is a very pleasant to explore.

Dave and Marcia left us in Beaufort NC to continue their trip visiting friends and relatives on the East coast. It was great fun to travel with them and we appreciated all the useful advice we got from these well seasoned cruisers. We left Beaufort and spent a couple of days traveling mostly on "big" water to get to the famous Dismal Swamp. On our way across Arbemarle Sound on June 13th, we had a miserable time due to the big seas and the direction we had to travel. Stuff fell down all over the boat and it took us hours to get across. Luckily nothing broke and the boat kept running. We were so traumatized that we didn't take any pictures! We also hit bottom briefly and were stopped and inspected by the Coast Guard. It was a great day!!

The "Swamp" was very enjoyable because there is no current due to the locks at both ends. The waterway is small with lots of trees, bushes and vines on both sides (and snakes swimming across). Sometimes when we were cruising up the canal you could reach out and touch the trees!

We just got to Norfolk Virginia which is at the South end of the Chesapeake Bay and is FULL of active boatyards (for the big stuff) and Navy facilities. Here is a picture of the Norfolk waterway.

We are currently in Little Creek Va which is about 10 miles from Norfolk and we are having a little mechanical work done on the port engine (the fuel injection pump is leaking at a gasket location (I think). It is very nice here (Linda took her book to the swimming pool this afternoon and it is only in the mid 80s) so we will probably stay until the morning of the 17th.

We plan to meet up with Scott and Connie Neish on the 21st in Solomons Md for a visit.

Happy father's day to all of you fathers.

Here is a wish for a speedy recovery to Lindsay Swingle (Linda's cousin's daughter so is she a second cousin or a first cousin once removed or ?) who just had brain stem surgery primarily for balance issues. The reports sound good and we hope this continues. Go Lindsay!

Hope all is well with you folks and we miss you.

Tod and Linda

6/1/10 - Just Kidding - In Charleston - 819 miles Total

Synopsis - We are in Charleston SC and we have travelled 819 miles total. No major

problems at this time. Weather has been hot (>90 throughout Florida) but it has cooled down a bit (mid 80s in Georgia/SC). Breezy everywhere and lots of tide and current. Cool places include Jekyll Island Ga, Savannah Ga. and Beaufort SC. We should meet Dave and Marcia Reck on Tuesday in Charleston SC. Boat is still a monster to maneauver.

Hi Folks - Well, our last posting got lots of attention. I assumed that it told such a terrible tale that everyone would know it was fantasy right away but quite a few people thought it was real. I guess that shows what people are expecting to hear from us!. IT WAS JUST A JOKE!

Since our last post, we finished the transit through the Okeechobee Waterway across central Florida and spent a few days in Fort Pierce provisioning and did some more jobs on the boat including the final propane hook up on the stove. It works great and makes the boat seem much more complete. We also installed a new port alternator (that's our second alternator) and the dingy davits so we don't have to tow the dingy anymore - much better. We had great weather (albeit quite breazy as usual) and cruised North to Melbourne where we had a great night at anchor and got in some swimming. Spent two nights at New Smyrna Beach where we had a pelican roosting island 80 yards away in the harbor and dolphins surfacing frequently. Cruised up to Saint Augustine and anchored out in front. It was windy (as usual) and there is a lot of current. We left early the next morning and headed for Fernandida. We went ashore for a nice dinner and look-see and again in the morning for a bit more of a walk and groceries.

This is a photo of the winning 44 pound "dolphin" (mahi mahi) at the Fort Pierce

tournament that was held while we were there. Unfortunatlely, I didn't catch it.

Heading North from Florida into Georgia is DOMINATED by marshy tidelands. You can see for miles and miles out across the grassy marshes and there are very few people or even other boats around. The wind was still blowing pretty good (20 mph "ish") and it got sort of tiring.

We have now passed through Georgia and are in South Carolina. The first place we stopped in Georgia was a great marina called Jekyll Island Harbor. It has a lot of history and the whole thing is a state park. In the early 1900s it was a fancy club for VERY rich folks such as Frances Goodyear, some Vanderbilts and Pulitzer. It had an immense clubhouse that is now a hotel. They had hunting (animals brought in!), fishing, tennis and other activities for the extended families of the members and many of them built "cottages" (appx 5,000 sf each). It was typically active from January until April. In the mid 1900s they "gave" it to the state of Georgia with lots of strings attached. There were museums established and the residents and businesses were given long term leases. The marina had loaner bikes so we were able to tour the historic district and a loaner car to get groceries. I was still having intermittent starter trouble on the port engine so I got a local mechanic (Tommy) to pull it and take it and my "spare" into the local starter guy for check out. This meant we were at the marina

for two nights but it was a great place to stay. It turned out that my main starter drive mechanism was hanging up but the spare was OK so it got installed. The picture to the right shows that it is a dog's life out here on the water.

We cruised North to a town called Thunderbolt on the river and tied up at a dock so we could take a taxi into Savannah. Had a great dinner at the Noble Fare restaurant (lamb for Tod and chicken for Linda). We walked down to the river through the "squares" at about 10:00 and mixed with the hordes. It was pretty raucous and fun. The Savannah College of Art and Design graduation had occurred earlier so there was lot's of celebrating. Here's a picture of me on the dock with the boat at Thunderbolt before going in for dinner in Savannah (pretty dressed up eh?)

Comment on cruising from North Florida to South Carolina - The way is split between miles and miles of flat marshland (see photo below) with a 100-200 yard wide path (not all navigable) and big open inlets to the ocean with the occasional town thrown in. There is a lot of tide (6-8 feet) and current that goes with it. Although we like to anchor, the tide and particularly the current make this a bit of a drag. Our speed varies from 6.5 mph when the current is

opposing us to over 9 mph when it is with us. Constant wind of 10-15 mph, almost always in our face. You must be very careful to stay in the channel to avoid going aground. Dolphins and pelicans diving are all over the place. There are also many ospreys (see photo below), often fishing and sometimes in their nests built on the navigation aids.

Cruised North in the am going in and out of inland "rivers" and then out into the ocean inlets. The boat handled fine on the big water even though there was a pretty good wind and tide. We decided to stop at Beaufort SC early (at 3:00 after only 47 miles) to soak in a little history regarding the War of Northern Aggression. Really fascinating city. Like Savannah, it was not trashed during the war so there are TONs of antebellum (pre war) houses. We took a horse carriage ride and had a great guide. This is a great way to get a quick overview of a town. Here's a picture of one of the MANY pre civil war houses.

We are in Charleston now after a 65 mile day in the rain and wind. We plan on meeting Dave and Marcia Reck tomorrow for some tourist stuff here and then cruising for a few days together.

Next post is June 15th unless something very cool happens in the meantime.

Miss all of you

Tod and Linda.

May 21, 2010 - Could Be Worse

So, we are still out here boating but there are ongoing challenges. Last Monday, I decided to put a flag up on the mast but unfortunately when I drilled a hole to put a screw in I shorted out some wiring that was inside. The fire that developed was down inside the boat but the good news is that the fuel tanks didn't catch fire. However, tearing out all of the insulation and the damaged wood beams wasn't too good either. We hope the smoke smell is gone in a few months. Speaking of the fuel tanks, we think that the small buckets that we keep under the leaks in the rusty areas will work pretty well. We only have to empty them once a day and it's easy to just pour the fuel back into one of the main tanks.

We have been very careful about leaving the hatches open in the floor that go down to the engine room and the "hold" area under the salon. Linda has only stepped into an open hatch twice and the second time only required a quick visit to the ER to get her leg stitched up. They are very nice to people with insurance in Florida. Actually, much nicer than Linda is to people who leave hatches open.

I continue to get used to driving this boat. I have found that because the steering doesn't really work reliably, it is very effective to use high power forward and reverse to steer and control the boat. However, I have to be careful not to let the gearshifts stick like they did in Fort Pierce that resulted in some damage to a 65 foot sport fisherman. The owner was quite angry until he found out I have insurance. Don't I?

Florida is a wonderful place for swimming and we have been enjoying it immensely. Of course I should have remembered how shallow it is before diving in. I think the neck brace only has to be worn until mid August.

Most of you know that we sold our truck (my truck!) a couple of weeks ago. We were concerned about whether it would sell when we needed to get rid of it. Well it did! The only problem is that I got an envelope full of cash for it and I must have put it somewhere clever on the boat for safekeeping. Hmmm?

It's great to have a boat with a big generator (ours is a 12.5 kw - wow!). It will be even better when it runs.

We have met lots of really nice people on this trip. We are sure that our new friend that borrowed Linda's purse, our other computer and my new chartplotters while we were out for dinner last night will bring it all back soon.

Here is a picture of an osprey that we passed on the way to New Smyrna Beach. Right

after this picture, it flew up and made a fishy fecal bomb deposit on Linda. Boy was she mad until she realized what a unique experience it had been.

Speaking of birds, the picture below is of an island that is immediately up wind of where we are docked. There are dozens if not

hundreds of pelicans and herons roosting there all day and night. Although the smell is almost unbearable, it is almost like being on a Mutual Of Omaha show. Our neighbor got bombed last night while eating dinner. What luck!

As you can see, for every problem we have had, there is a corresponding good thing so we feel very fortunate. Boy are we having fun!

Hope you all have a great summer and we will be in touch.

Miss you all.

Keep your topsides up - Tod

May 15, 2010 - On the Okeechobee

OK, the big news is that we are on our way. First a sad note. On Saturday, May 9th I handed over ownership of my truck to "Paul" at 4:00 in the St Pete Marina parking lot. I finished my last visit to Home Depot at 3:59. I guess I'm happy that I sold it easily but I had it for 17 years and I loved it. However, it had gotten old and decrepit so to hell with it. Look out Linda!

We left St Pete Municipal Marina on Sunday morning around 10:00 and headed South. We went slow the first couple of days but on Wednesday the 12th we made close to 60 miles and were at the start of the Okechobee Waterway that goes across Florida. On the way South we went through miles and miles of off shore islands and shallow water. There were dolphins, lots of fish jumping and even a big turtle. I was surprised at how big the water was and how shallow. Much of it was several miles across and only 7 feet deep.

The picture above was in Sarasota right after we put the name on.

Linda has chastised me for (among other things) writing too much about boat stuff and not much emotional or human interest. I won't dwell on it but I think I have made it clear that this was much harder than we thought it would be. We new (intellectually) that we were buying a project but we didn't really understand how big a project. We spent day after day and week after week in the boat yard and still never got things to where we wanted them before we left St Pete. Even after leaving, we have had two REALLY windy anchorages where we stayed up most of the night fretting about our anchor holding. It is a new "55 pound Delta" and it seems to work great. I managed to back over our dingy line the first night and wrap it around our prop (you should use a floating line but we didn't have one so I used a regular line and then forgot about it when I was anchoring). I also pivoted our swim step under a dock trying to land in the wind and broke their plastic water line which was hanging down. We thought about sneaking away but did the honorable thing and radioed the dock master (we even stayed there). None of these are a big deal (and in fact I'll tell you an animated version of what happened when we see you again) but they all add up to emotional stress. We wish we had bought a smaller boat that wasn't such a big project. All of you know how tough Linda is and even she has approached despair over what we are doing. What's that saying about "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? We are getting really strong. But putting all this behind us, we are actually moving along and seeing lots of interesting country. Tomorrow will be a sunny day.

The is about 130 miles long and goes right across Florida from Fort Myers to Stuart.. There are fancy "ranchettes" along parts of it and total "marshy" shores along others (particularly the Lake itself). The water is pretty much fresh and comes out of Lake "O" flowing East and West. It is black as night and moves slowly.

The lake itself is huge - bigger than Lake Washington. The swampy edge of the lake abounds with Osprey, turkey buzzards, egrets, herons and other birds and we even saw a Manatee that was "locking" into the lake with us at Moore Haven, the Western entrance to the lake. The picture at right is the typical shore between the waterway and the actual lake. I'm sure there are lots of creatures lurking back in the brush including lions and tigers er, I mean alligators and old bass fisherman.

This is a picture of one of our new friends that we met at a little marina called "Jack's Marine". They also had a dog pack and chickens (we got some fresh eggs!) The people were really nice and drove me into the town of Olga to the Ace

hardware store to get a plumbing fitting (the old one cracked - how about that?).

Last night we stayed in a marina along the Waterway at a town called "Indian Town"and got a courtesy ride to eat at the Italian restaurant. It was really excellent and we had a chance sneak over to the IGA to get a few groceries before our ride back to the boat. Very nice!

It is still hot (mid 80's to around 90 for a high) and there are lots of bugs, many of which fly in pairs. They are appropriately called "love bugs". They don't bite but they are annoying in their multitudes. We plan on getting to Stuart/Fort Pierce on the East coast today and will stay there for a few days and then head North.

Take care and more on June 1st or sooner.

Miss you all.

Tod and Linda

May 1, 2010 - We be boat people

The big news is that we are now out of the boatyard. "KingFisher" (yes, that is our final new name) was launched today from the Salt Creek Marina boatyard and it feels great. In the last couple of weeks we have continued to work hard to ready the boat. Here are some of the things that have been completed since our last report -

1) Hull painting.

2) Stainless Steel rub rail installation

3) New zinc installation

4) Propane stove installation

5) New 110 vac outlet installation on the pilot house helm

6) New anchor installation (55 pound Delta)

7) Purchase of a bunch of stuff such as fenders and new shore power cords

8) Flybridge top (bimini) installation

9) Sink faucet installation in both bathrooms

10) Bright work (varnishing by Linda - see photo below)

11) Installation of new lazarette drain.

12) New house bank battery installation

13) New starting battery bank installation

14) New inverter (110 vac from the batteries) installation

15) Bottom Painting

16) Installation of our refurbished compass.

17) Installation of a new "sanitary" system.

Above is a picture of the boat showing it's new coat of paint. It made a great difference in the appearance!

Here is a picture of Linda working on the main head (bathroom) floor grating. We moved onto the boat on Thursday and are trying to get used to it. It feels great to finally get the boat cleaned up. You can't believe how hard it is to have ten or twenty projects in various states with all the associated parts sitting around. We have gone through two boxes of Zip Lock bags for organizing parts and I am sure that we spend at least an hour a day trying to find parts that we set aside because we were delayed on that particular project for some reason. And of course switching from job to job means we are constantly looking for tools in spite of trying to diligently keep them in their place. We have had to go parts shopping at least once and often twice a day. Couldn't have done this without a vehicle.

Below is a picture of the actual launch process. Pretty cool eh?

So that's the good news. The bad news is that since we were launched we have discovered three problems. First, the generator shut down after five minutes due to (I think) an overheat problem. Second, the starboard engine started making a screeching noise after about an hour of running so I shut it down. This required docking on one engine in pretty strong wind but I avoided disaster with a low speed crash landing. I suspect a frozen alternator or something similar. Finally, one of the thru hull fittings or it's valve is leaking. I will investigate all of these over the next few days and I'm sure we can get them fixed.

So we are at least wet if not fully functional. It is GREAT to get out of the boatyard after 50 days. This was 22 days more than our original plan but not really too bad considering all the stuff we did. It will take a week of washing just to get all the paint dust off. Here is a picture of the boat moored at the St Pete Municipal Marina (Linda had been working hard in near 90 degree weather and refused to be in the picture).

Are you getting sick of boat pictures? Hopefully there will be real journey pictures in my next report.

Miss all of you

Tod and Linda.

April 15, 2010 - Are We Cruising Yet?

-Hardly!!

Hi everyone -

Our original plan was to complete all of the boat repairs and upgrades by April 9th and be on our way. Boy were we optimistic. It is now a week later and we are still a couple of weeks from getting wet. The picture to the right was taken on April 5th and shows some of the old stuff that we took off the boat so we could install new items. It was a nice place to rest.

We have hired a company that is based here in the yard to paint the hull. They are all

Russians and are interesting to talk to. They have the boat prepped but but have been hampered by high winds. Hopefully it will calm down in the next few days. Here is a picture of one of them working on the paint prep.

We just received a set of charts and cruising guides that we bought from a guy who recently completed the loop. It was two full boxes. I had studied the inventory list before we bought them but I was still a bit overwhelmed by how much material there is. For navigation, we will mostly use some low end GPS chart plotters (Garmin 540S) that we bought and installed plus a nice PC Package (Rose Point) but I feel that you always should have paper charts. Well now we got em!

Here are our various thoughts and feelings-

- This is a lot harder than we thought it would be.

- This is more expensive than we thought it would be.

- It's hard to look forward to cruising because of all the projects that need to be done.

- Any day without excrement splashing on you is a good day.

- St Pete is a pretty nice place to do this. Great weather although it does rain hard.

- Where did our old life go?

- Does Kirkland still exist?

- Why did we abandon our friends?

- What have I done to my golf game?

- Our hotel is our little cave home.

- Too many projects going on at once. Parts are getting lost all over the place.

- Will we ever get out of here? Will it be on the boat?

- Every project we start turns into two or three.

- Hope the truck keeps running.

- There are victories every day but are we winning the war?

Today was an unusually good day. I finished wiring 110 AC outlets in the pilot house (can you believe there was nowhere to power a PC or charge a cell phone?), our carpenter put the new laminate in the bathrooms, we picked up our replacement Lexan hatches and the Russians actually started doing a little painting (although the wind has picked up again). The really great thing today is that no new surprises came to light! This picture is from our fly bridge out to the entrance to Salt Creek. This leads out to Tampa Bay. This is a pretty nice view if you are stuck in a boat yard.

Well that's it for this report. Hopefully we will be able to report that we are in the water by our next report (May first).

Hope you are all doing well. Good bye for now. We miss all of you.

Tod and Linda