Fun, upgrades and repairs....a cycle

Kacy & Larry on S/V Providence--"little-boat" people

One beautiful fair wind weekend in October, 4 sailboats from C-dock at Regatta Pointe Marina set sail for northern shores.  


Destination:  Gulfport, Florida---often confused with the one in Mississippi, but a far cry different.
This one is located south of St Petersburg--west of Tampa.


 It was a lovely 4-5 hour sail across Tampa Bay---out into the Gulf of Mexico, north up the west coast a bit and then inland up the Florida Intercoastal Waterway (ICW) to a tucked away bay called Boca Ciega--translated Blind Mouth ....hmmm.  

Four renegade sailboats from C-dock

This particular bay has not only a good anchorage, but a small quaint town----with several loud & loaded bars that proved to be quite the party destination....perfect, for our small flotilla-----afterall, it was Steve's (from S/V Footloose) 60th birthday----yep, 6-0!  not to be taken lightly mind you.  

 

Steve----60 years young----rub a dub-dub

O'Maddy's

  

















There on the shore lies a favorite watering hole---
Omaddy's Bar and Grille.

O'Maddy's ------ O'boy, here we go

O'Maddy's is the famous loud bar offering karaoke until 3am.....yep, it gets really bad by then.  But contrary to what you're thinking, our particular "old" group of revelers start early with happy hour......and finish early.....tucked cozy in their berths by 9pm.....listening to karaoke versions of Jaggers  "Satisfaction" wafting across the water to our boats and in thru our fresh air portals.  Memorable. 

After 3 nights in Gulfport, we began our return trip back across Tampa Bay motoring into 3-5ft waves with stiff winds on the nose.....it taught us one thing AND it caused a major repair for another thing.

First, it taught us that we need a smaller jib (sail).  We have a large genoa sail, but we came back determined to re-install our staysail. A staysail is a smaller second jib on the front of the sailboat especially good for use in high winds. We had been sitting on the fence for a year whether to rig this small sail back on, making it a true "cutter rig" with 2 front sails...all older Island Packet sailboats are cutter rigs.  Our boat had all the parts, but had been de-rigged by previous owners for some reason. Introducing Collin....a British ex-pat with an expertise 50 year history of rigging sailboats.....2 hours later, it's done.....cheers to Collin (and Mike)!

Collin--an ol' salt

Assembling furling extrusions for staysail

"Vanna" showing the smaller staysail---the large genoa sail is furled up in brown on the bow

  The hard jaunt across Tampa Bay that day also revealed a breakdown of the motor mounts on our 35HP Yanmar engine.   The engine is suspended by 4 legs to absorb vibration & shock.....and like all things on a boat floating in salty water, they were deteriorating and collapsing.  So.....two weeks later.....we have new motor mounts...whew, we're glad that's all it was.

New and old motor mounts

Starboard settee

And finally, our new salon upholstery.......

.....long over due.

New foam with interior Sunbrella fabric....replacing the 25 year old original cushions.

Port settee

Lashed to a board on the starboard stanchions, we'll carry 2 (maybe 3) jerry can jugs for 10-15 extra gallons of diesel....   

Flag replacement after 9 months in the Florida sun

Projects and more projects....

Took time out for a smoked Mullet fest-----yum.

Two soul brothers

Vetern's Day brought old Navy friend Bob Hooke in for good times and farewells....and a sharing of the crossroads of life that we have found ourselves in.  
We all agreed....it's time to just "shove off" and go.

"Bones" hanging out looking for some action

 Now, it's less than a week from Thanksgiving and with hurricane
 season almost over at the end of November, we're starting to watch the weather reports for the west coast of Florida.  We're aiming to depart between Thanksgiving and Dec 1st heading south back to Marathon in the Florida Keys.  It'll take about 3-4 days to transit the 213 nautical miles (245 standard miles) depending on how many stop overs we take. Stay tuned.....

 One more fun thing.....Tim also continues to make videos----here's a link to an entertaining video about our friend and local marina diver----Tom Watson...watch this...

 

Dock antics

And so the carnival show began. 

The people had gathered anticipating a grand show!
In the center ring (the middle of C-dock around slip #26 to be exact) we have the Reeves trying to accomplish feats of large and small projects on their sailboat---Fiesta......

oh, but wait, where are they?  Oh yeah, it's September in Florida...sticky, like sweaty...cotton candy?  They must be hunkered down inside with their AC---it's the middle of the day and the humidity has them disabled (jeesh, what wimps).  

Yanmar 35HP maintenance--oh boy!

But all is not lost as they find there are plenty of indoor projects as well.   There's the stuffing box nut to juggle....there's thru-hulls to jiggle....there's engine belts, filters and impellers to wiggle----not to mention oil and trans fluid to re-fiddle....and THEN....the finale.....will she start?  Yes! 
But alas, not for long....she dies.....dang.  
Our Yanmar Guru, Kevin, showed our simple mistake....before changing fuel filters, we forgot to shut off the diesel line, so all the fuel had drained back into the tank.   Learn something new everytime/everyday.   A re-prime in the Racor fuel filter....and off she went---yippee!!!  Yahoo!!!  
(a real crowd-pleaser)  

Amongst other projects.... 
our luckiest find on the dock last winter in the "free-box" were these little companion-way screen doors....lo and behold, they fit our boat perfectly!  But, what good are screen doors, when the air conditioner is running?  So, with a little creativity (and borrowed tools), we cut 2 plexiglas trapezoid panels to inset with swivels so they can be removed.....sometimes, wimps can be smart too.

Companion-way doors to the cockpit

The new upholstery has been ordered (big applause)
as well as new Explorer Charts for the Bahamas....yes, there are 3 of them....Near Bahamas, Far Bahamas and Exumas.....these beautiful charts give our cruising dreams gusto----a treasure map to paradise.  Though we have our trusty Garmin chartplotter, it's electronic and there's nothing better than paper to back it up.  

New Tri-Color light

But let's get back to the Big Top Show....ladies and gentlemen...cast your eyes way up high (approx 48ft) on top of the mast, we have Miller the swinging trapeze artist hanging for hours in a bosuns chair trying to replace the defunct Tri-Color light.  Not for the faint of heart, especially in gusting 20mph winds.









And off to the south over on E-dock we have the truly talented Bill from Solo performing a variety of well known songs on his portable piano.  The amazing talent here is that he plays from ear.....doesn't know how to read music.  "MacArthur Park" shall never be the same....cake in or outta the rain....

E-dock's piano man---Bill from S/V Solo

And now circus fans........in the center ring we have a dueling birthday bash on C-dock.....
Leslie (Oct 14) and neighbor Larry (Oct 13)

We decided that the sum total of 124 candles would have burned the dock down.....but as all C-dock-ite residents know, one more party on the old pilings might take it down anyway.  

Speaking of going "down".....I had a one-act clown show that next morning (which no-one actually saw).  At 7:30am, while stepping from the boat to the dock, I slipped and fell between the two into the water....KER-splash!  (more like Ga-dunk!)

A demonstration of the gap

Barnacle crusted pilings under dock----aka meat shredders

Tim heard it and thought I had dropped something.....thank goodness I didn't have the cellphone on-board the body.....AND thank goodness I didn't hit the razor-sharp barnacles encrusted all over the pilings. 

It was.....therefore, quite humorous. 

I crawled out like a drowned rat onto our swim platform.....happy birthday Leslie....baptized by the Manatee River 

(which fortunately is not the typical sludge harbor water)

By the time the rumor ran around the marina gossip circle and got back to me that afternoon----it declared that: I had gotten drunk-as-a-sailor the night before at my b-day party and fell in trying to get back to the boat....not true, but would have been a humorous story as well. 
Yep----we live in a 3-ring circus on the west coast of Florida.....ha!

Robert and Joanie on "Rest-A-Shore"

Wednesday afternoon found us peacefully sailing out on Tampa Bay with our friends Robert and Joanie on their Catalina 385.  We slept on the hook (anchored) at Emerson Point with the dolphins that night.  Thank you Robert for a wonderful breakfast the next morning!
After being dockside for 2 months,  it was free sailing on a picture perfect day!

While we wait for temps to cool down and hurricane season to pass, I have been caught up in a geeky kinda syndrome called "Paralysis by Analysis".  There's so many decisions to be made which require hours of research on the computer......the analysis results in paralysis.....which results in nothing decided or accomplished.....that's me.  What we have decided is that......like an artist painting a piece, it can go on and on.....never perfect or finished.  We got a strong outfitted boat that will take us where we want-----without more expensive (not totally necessary) add-ons. So outside of a few more tweaks, twerks and twaks...(and the new upholstery)....we're ready to go....or.....at least we think we are.....but are we ever REALLY ready?  No we're not, but we're going anyway.  

"Bones" our newest crew member, though not the most dependable.

Back aboard Fiesta in Florida

Greetings again!   It's been 4 months since we last blogged an entry, so here's a quick update......

Back wind to a year ago........ July 2014, when we first left Taos, we had vague dreams and ideas of what we wanted to do or pursue.  Bucket List was to travel across the US in a camper van.....check mark

.....and then, 

to buy and live aboard a sailboat.....check mate. 

All the while, we were also looking, searching, exploring for what is next in our lives.  Would something pull us in and say "Turn left and live here!"  or "Hard to starboard and drop anchor here!"  We kept an open mind, totally widen-back perception so we wouldn't miss that potential fish hook, all the while following our heart, living the dream.  When we left Taos, we didn't want any responsibilities (i.e. hot water heaters, roof leaks, frozen pipes etc) after all, at the BnB we had 8 hot water heaters and 72 faucets for 25 years.  We knew that living on a floating home on the water would have enough of it's own leaky issues.  But  in the back of our mind, we wondered if the "all-water-life or nothing" approach would be the path for us.  

My life's motto has been----everything in moderation, including moderation itself.....so sometimes ya have to tie one on with a bottle of rum to realize just where that middle line is.....I guess it's my Libra thing to strive for balance.

The point of all this philosophy is that we had decided to re-visit the idea of establishing a balance in our life with some roots back in Taos.  Half a year as dirt-dwellers and the other half (or more) on the water?  It sounded pretty good....but in the back of our minds, we reserved the right to follow another dream....even over a rainbow into the for-sea-able future :)

  So...... in May, after 6 months on Fiesta, we left her contentedly tethered in a slip for the hot-hurricane months of June-Oct at Regatta Point Marina in Palmetto, FL (west coast Tampa area).  Our first stop was up to Burlington, VT for Krista's UVM graduation celebration.  So proud of her success to secure a job in the University Hospital as a Mental Health Technician.  Afterwards we headed back to Taos for some high altitude adjusting.....love and miss those mountains too.    

Northern NM was chilly with snow still clinging to the mountain sides.  We dug up our jackets and flannels from the storage unit, covering up the Florida tans we had acquired.......and settled in for a while with our daughter, Malia (moving in with the kid---a reversed situation for wayward parents).   We had a mission...... we were dog sitting our boy Rusty (the rusty colored dog on the left) while Malia left for 6 weeks to her job in Costa Rica. 

She had set up a cozy home in an old adobe house on the Yaravitz ranch way up in Des Montes overlooking the Taos Valley.....it   was an old childhood stomping ground for her....family friends. Not to mention the convenience to her job up in the Taos Ski Valley. 






 For 4 months we visited old friends, picked up a few odd maintenance jobs here and there (to feed the cruising kitty) including a couple of innsitting jobs.  July 4th weekend found us filling in for our old job back at the Old Taos Guesthouse for the new innkeepers who had a family emergency.  

Good times...good friends with Ric Speigel and Mary Collins

Lo and behold, there were several of our old friends staying there......like we didn't miss a beat.  It was a time warp.....and I had to ask Tim....
"didn't we buy a sailboat? or am I just dreaming?"  No problem.....a July 4th backyard party and 24 guests for breakfast the next morning.....don't even have to think about it after 25 years of doing it.

  

 We took hikes.....

 ....played disc golf.....and seriously explored the idea of owning a little house in Taos......alas, it did not grab us.  The roots/responsibility thing weighed heavy on us.....all we could think about was being carefree on the ocean with Fiesta.  For now, Taos has not drawn us back into her power...maybe in the future.

 We "strayed" long enough to catch one of our favorite annual music festivals, "Michael Hearne's Big Barn Dance"----a 3 day event of non stop music and songwriters---as a matter of fact, here's Tim's latest video:

 Afterwards....we said ADIOS! to Taos

and it's amazing sunsets.....

adios to Malia.........took a bus...

                                                   .....took a train...

took a plane.......and flew back to Palmetto, FL....and finally took a shuttle back to C-dock 

    at Regatta Pointe Marina .....and it feels so right 
                                   (big smiles).                                           

                       Ahoy!!!!    the gang is still (mostly) all here!!!

 

Our plans have us here dockside for a couple of months.........as  our list of "to-do's" is long, but not too arduous.  We had the bottom sanded and painted....reefing system adjusted, and now we'll look at a new tricolor light atop of the mast, lazy-jack mainsail system, new upholstery for the salon, SSB receiver, new Bahamian paper charts, new Garmin Platinum Chartplotter chip, rebuild the head system (ugh), basic maintenance on our 35HP Yanmar engine, etc etc 

.......and by December, we will be on our way south again to the Florida Keys......and then......onward to the Bahamas......and then......perhaps far off island destinations beyond.....to the dragons and pirates of the ancient Caribbean lore.....we'll keep on going as long as we're having fun.......stay tuned...

Sailing Her Dream

Ahoy!  We're back on our boat in Florida again----and until I can get a new blog up and going, here's a great video Tim made for those who haven't seen it yet----it kept me going all summer while back in New Mexico.......it's called "Sailing Her Dream" with one of our favorite singer-songwriters Chuck Pyle singing "Sailing"----------------cheers!!

One more adventure.....

But wait, it's not all over yet.....we last left our story with Fiesta still floating in Boot Key Harbor, tethered to a ball like a patient horse to a post.

Waiting for a fresh water bath

We still had one more long adventure...north...back up the west coast to our marina home in Palmetto, FL.







But first, Malia arrived from the cold northern NM mountains of over +7000ft down to the Florida Keys sea level and humidity......can one suffer from lower altitude sickness?  Maybe.....but not this mountain girl.....she took it in stride.

A few days waiting for the weather window in Marathon allowed us to visit the beach and Crane Point Nature Museum.....where we found a multitude of these Golden Orb Weaving spiders.....up to 5 inches long.....hanging everywhere....whoa, not for the arachnophobic, needless to say.

Spider sisters :)

On Tuesday May 5, with small craft advisories still lingering, we cast off mooring lines,  motored under the Seven Mile bridge and headed north across the shallow Florida Bay....not as many crab pots as when we had sailed here over 2 months ago.  But this time, with double reefed sails and an impending dark horizon, we sailed in steady 18-20 knot (20-23mph) NE winds with 24 knot (27mph) gusts......Tim, Leslie and Fiesta said "yippee!".......and first time sailor, Malia,  said "oh shit".  The rails weren't in the water, but the heeling over can be daunting for the first timers.  But like the true adventurer that she is, 

she hung on and rode that horse all the way back to the barn. 

At 3:30pm that first day, we pulled into a wonderful cove on the Little Shark River in Everglades National Park on the mainland Florida peninsula and dropped the hook.  My research on ActiveCaptain.com told me it was good anchor holding with great sunsets and wildlife, but to be aware at dusk of the gazillion no-see-ums and skeeters....it was all true.  We were thankful for screens on all our portals and hatches as we dove inside with only a few bites.

Up early the next morning with fair skies and light to moderate winds, we decided to run the whole enchilada back to the Manatee River....no unnecessary halts.   The winds came and went as they do, and we motor-sailed most of it.  

We sailors sometimes feel like we've bought a motorboat with sails (because we motor more than we like to)....but when the wind is on the nose or too wimpy.....we're all grateful for the engine.   Out of the 50 hours underway of moving back up the west coast of Florida,  we got to experience 18 hours of no-motor-pure sailing....here's a video clip sailing pass Sarasota at sunset.

Cute story.....on our way past Sarasota, we were sailing along about 6 miles offshore, when we noticed a small yellow songbird following us.  Poor things get blown out to sea sometimes and get exhausted trying to get back.  This brave lil' fellow boldly perched on our lifeline and closed his eyes for about 20 minutes.  We kept still and quiet to let him rest, hoping he wasn't gonna keel over and die on our deck.   Pretty soon, his eyes open....he preens a couple of feathers and proceeds to explore our vessel for the next 45 minutes.  He found the little dish of fresh water I put out, ignoring the bread crumbs but delighted in a squashed bug instead.  He visited the salon below deck a couple of times, and even checked out Tim's grey-haired chest. Just when I began to wonder if we had a new live-aboard buddy, he took off from the bow of the boat towards land with a series of thankful chirps.....we were all happy :)

It took 3 days and 2 1/2 nights to meander back up the west coast to our home at Regatta Point Marina in Palmetto, FL.  You could drive it in 6 hours.....but when you're averaging less than 5mph...ya gotta have patience.....and time.  

Coming back to our marina in Palmetto, was like coming home....our neighborhood/village of friendly faces....it felt right.  It's here we'll leave Fiesta amongst our dock buddies for the hot summer months of May thru October.  Then we'll return refreshed and prepare for our next big adventure into unknown turquoise waters.....thar be dragons!  Until then dear blog followers, we'll return to New Mexico (via Vermont first)......so stay tuned, there will be more! Thanks for reading and encouraging us to pursue our dreams!  

Viva la Fiesta!!