The old bow roller was very old, so after talking with Dave McCampbell on s/v Swoggy Paws. Warren came up with a new project for Dad.  This new stainless steel bow roller will help keep the chain from twisting and jamming up at the windless and in the chain locker. Thank you Dad!

Getting closer

In the last two weeks we have been having so much fun, finding parts and repairing this old engine.(ha ha)  Warren is dreaming of putting in a Cummins.  He is going to be dreaming for a while. Here is a picture of the old torque plate, as you can see it is broken and the springs are very loose. We took the transmission into get tested and it did great. We also had the starter checked out and it was full of oil. Once Warren removed the bell housing we could tell the rear main oil seal was leaking.  So we sent to England for it, no one in the states had any.  We have all the parts and pieces now.  Everything is going back well, the only problem is the new V-drive. It weights 100 lbs and a little awkward.  We are going to test fit it in today.  The picture that came with the unit shows it to be a little bigger.  But the guy who designed it says it's the same. If it's bigger we will need to do a little fiberglass work on the built in hydro muffler.  It was bigger (3") and we had to take out the hydro muffler completely and buy a new one. It was not an easy job.

 While we have been waiting for parts we did a little bright work.  Here's Warren doing some sanding, then I come along and put a new coat of vanish on. Ahhh what fun! Sarcasm is one of my many talents.:) 

Right now it is very windy and rainy, but if we can get this done by the weekend the weather forecast is starting to look good for a gulf stream crossing. My fingers and toes are crossed!  

new v-drive

This is what the v-drive looks like on the inside of the salt water cooling compartment. Very corroded and the black hole on the upper left hand corner shows were the dip stick corroded through.  So we are buying a new v-drive and a torque
plate for the transmission. We are thankful we found it here. We are ordering the parts now so maybe we'll have it in, in two weeks.  Thats looking on the brite side. :D 

Here's a quick shot looking out toward the boat from the marina.  Just thought you might want to share the day:)

Beautiful day to work

What a great day to work! Warren is repainting the outboard motor with anti-barnacle paint. The reason for this is because Boot Key really has some of the fastest growing sea creatures. We also are putting it on the bottom of the dinghy.

  Here's a update on the dental problem. Last Monday we rented a car and drove to Miami so Warren could get a root canal.  What a hassle, the dentist at Gable dental couldn't find the last root so she sent us to Dr Gracia. A specialist.... what a nice guy, fast and efficient and the authority on the best cupcakes around.  He treated us to a pack of Misha mini cupcake. While I was waiting for Warren I kept watching all these people going in this cupcake place. Now I know why, they are the most moist and delicious we have had. :)
So then Friday we went back for the crown fitting.
Now we wait until the 12th for the crown to be put on.

We also sent the parts and metal pieces off to Dad
so he can make us a new top for the v-drive,  hopefully it will be done at the same time. When that's done we'll be able to check the oil in the v-drive. Why someone filled it with epoxy we don't know. A new dip stick was only $35 we picked it up in Fort Lauderdale Friday.  Also we'll change the oil, who knows when that was changed last.  Warren can't believe he missed this.
I told him he had a lot of broken stuff to fix so the stuff that was working was not on his mind.

Sammie has a problem with his nose.... he keeps putting it in things :)

delayed

 I am learning the meaning of patience! Warren needs some dental work done so we"ll be here for at least two more weeks. The dentist is in Miami so we thought we would just sail to Dinner Key which is in Biscayne Bay. The dentist is an easy walk of 1.9 miles, sounds great, right! So this morning we are ready to leave (again) and we put the boat in gear and it starts making weird noises. We just had the prop and bottom cleaned so there are no barnacles.  Warren thought it was coming from the "V" drive and is now going through it.  So now we are delayed again.....but there is a happy spot in all of this mess.  We found a stow way, he jumped ship from another boat. The only thing we can figure is that the boat he was on was either going home for the rest of the year or for good. We've met so many people here from all around the world and a lot of them going home or are ending their cruising lifestyle.  So we guess he still wants to do some traveling.  And there is just no way to tell who let him go.  There are inflatables going by the boat at all hours of the day and night he could have hitched a quick ride on any of them to jump ship.   I just hope we don't disappoint him.

What happened

We are so bad, sorry I haven't written in a while. We never made it out of the harbor, the brand new fresh water pump on the engine went bad.  Warren was doing the final engine check and found anti-freeze in bilge so....... to make a long story short the pump is fixed and we have two spares and we also worked on many other projects while waiting for another weather window.  The winds have been blowing out of the east like crazy. There is a window this weekend that we'll try for. Of course as soon as we said this,  Warren's tooth started acting up and he needs to see the dentist for a root canal, so we are going to make a quick trip to Miami.  I'll let you know if we get to leave this time, I promise!

This is the new LED lights on the arch

Manatees by the dinghy dock, mommy and the kids.

Time to leave Marathon

We have had a nice stay here in Boot Key Habor. The weather is great and the people are wonderful. We met a fun couple, John and Kathy Noland from Michigan.  They started out this spring to start their adventure on a 31 Hunter s/vAurora.  They got as far as the Erie Canal but the canal was closed due to the hurricane last fall and had to have their boat shipped overland to Virgina.  Kathy and I are like two peas in a pod, crazy kats!
Anywise, there is a window starting tomorrow and lasting through Sunday and we have decided to seize upon the good fortune and head on over to the Exumas. more later

Happy New Year

We are still here in Marathon working on the SS radio and a Bimini. Everyone has told us that we should have shade over the rest of the cockpit. So today Warren is getting some tubing and will rent a bender from home depot. We hope to get the fabric on line, I should be able to sew it up. Hopefully it will all work out and we'll be able to leave on the next weather window. We had a nice Christmas, just wish we could share it with some family. The weather was great sunny and warm. Hope you all have a great New Year!

Thanksgiving in Paradise

This is the Tiki Hut where they had the Thanksgiving feast last night.  They also had a movie, Operation Petticoat. I love that movie, it's with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis...funny. 

Today the wind is blowing like crazy and tomorrow it's going to be the same.

The water police were out here in the harbor this week writing tickets to people who did not have all their safety equipment and registration numbers.  No numbers on your dink is a hundred and seventy five dollar fine. So we got the numbers on the dinghy and now we are finally legal.(figured we would do it before we got a ticket)  We had to paint the numbers on while we where at the dock,
because the water was so rough out at the boat.

So for all you are-tist types out there, here is the sun setting on our Mona Lisa.



Now Warren is waiting on the Single Sideband radio to arrive so he can get it in before we head on over to the Bahamas. So after our friends come and go in the middle of Dec, we will be waiting for weather window to cross over and the radio is really important.  We'll probably be here until late December or whenever we get some kind of southernly wind for a couple of days. 

In seach of the beach

The other day we decided that we wanted to go to a beach and chill out.  So,...here we are heading down the channel looking for Sombrero Beach. It's about 1 mile away so we just tootled along, looking at some nice, REALLY NICE  homes.The mangroves you see behind us are on a little island, that no one lives on anymore.

Sombrero beach is a nice man made park that has volleyball courts, bathrooms and a picnic area. 

As we walked along, discovering the beach, we found some really old brain coral. It was cool. I was sure glad I wore my nifty crocks because there are some pretty sharp edges on it. Of course there were not many people over here. So in my searching and discovering this new area, I discovered a small tidal pool.  I love to examine them to see what the tide has left behind. 

Here is one of those pictures like, "Can you find Waldo".   Except, "Can you find the fishie?"  In Alaska there where always crabs but all I could find here was one lone fish.  :(  It took me a little bit to find it because it blended so well with it's background.

Marathon

The Marathon City Marina is a pretty nice place. Here's a picture of the book exchange, you can bring in your old books and exchange them for books you haven't read. This is also where you can find business cards for people who can help you with your boat problems and guide books on what is going on in the Keys. 

Here is another one that shows how the mooring balls are constructed and work.

The Marina also has WiFi, TVs, work rooms and laundry facilities. The monthly charge is only $275 and that includes one pump out a week and full run of the place. One of the people staying here puts on a movie on Thursday nights with his computer and a sheet in an covered area on the grounds.  In the morning there is yoga in that same area.  We have decided to wait here for a weather window to cross over to the Bahama's and drive to the Seven Seas Cruising Gam if we still want to go. The Gulf Stream that runs up the coast of Florida can get pretty bad with any North wind and that is all we are having right now.
Marathon is not what you would call a picturesque town.  So I'll try and find other things to take pictures of.
We hope to take the dinghy out for a beach combing exploration ride tomorrow if the winds die down, they are blowing 18 to 25 mph right now.  We have had to walk everywhere but Warren met another CSY owner and he is letting us use his bikes. Boy it sure makes it a lot faster.  Warren made 3 trips to the West Marine store, I think he had his exercise for today.

This is Tom and Judy Johnson we met them at Marco Island they are sailing on a CSY 37. They left St. Petersburg the same day we did. They are super nice people!

Marathon city Marina

Well, we have left Shark River. All it was, was a bend in the river with lots and lots of bugs as the river exits the Everglades, except there were no bugs. (we got lucky) So we hoisted anchor about 7:15am and headed out into 15 to 20 knots of wind. Good sailing, except it (the wind) and waves were behind us. Cannot sail with the wind straight up the stern. So once again we are motorsailing the 41 miles to Marathon. Crab and lobster season opened here 2 Sundays ago and the crabbers have put out tens of thousands of pots with little Styrofoam marker balls out. You cannot move forward for more than a 30 seconds before you have to dodge a crab pot marker. If you saw one crab pot ball you know it had a sister or a brother near by, sometimes even a whole family. They even have them in the approach and exit of the bridge channel. Boy are they a hazard. The crabbers can teach the Navy on how to lay mines if they've a mind to.


As you can see in the picture we are approaching the Moser Channel Bridge. It is 65 feet high at high tide and we are just about 2 hours after low tide. There is some apprehension on our part about going under the bridge and shearing all my attachments off of the top of the mast as our mast is 63.5 feet. As we went under the bridge, the VHF antenna hit and bent but nothing else did. BUT WAS IT SCARY! We arrived close to 3pm in Boot Key harbor for our mooring ball.

Here in the bottom picture is a view of the boat in Boot Key on the ball. There are not many boats here right now. The harbor can hold 226 boats but I would say that there is less than a third of that here now. Next month the snow birds should be starting to arrive.

We were going to sail up to Melbourne to attend a sailing convention but the weather here is getting stinky again. And if we did go north, we would have to turn around after the convention and head back down this way against the Gulf Stream to go to the Bahamas and that wouldn't be easy. So...we have to make a decision on what to do.

To all our friends in the frigid north, enjoy.

Good weather returns

We are heading for Shark River this morning,after 6 days of high winds and rain. We met a very nice couple at Marco Island, they are sailing on Lone Star a CSY 37. We'll be sailing with them to Marathon. Tom and Judy have been sailing for many years so Tom is helping us with our confidence. More later

Up-date Marco Island

We're glad we made the decision to head into Marco Island.  The weather system that is covering us is very winding and rainy, it's over all south Florida. The anchor is holding really good so we went for a short walk to a shopping center. We bought a few grocery's, this is the highest price Publix that I have seen. We arrived back at the boat just in time.  It started to pour and the winds where 22 mph. It's been cloudy for 2 days so the solar panels are not charging the batteries much. We have the engine running and I am using the inverter for the computer. Here are some of the pictures I've posted on facebook.

Under the Sun Shine bridge leaving Tampa....... First sunset at sea

First morning

Change in plan

Thanks to AT & T for cell service 10 miles off shore, we checked the weather. There are going to be 25 to 30 mph winds in the keys this weekend. So we decided to make a detour to Marco Island and anchor in Factory Bay. Right now the winds are about 17 to 23 mph. The anchoring went OK for the first time just needed to let out more chain before backing down. There is a marina here and a lot of nice houses. We'll go a shore when the winds die down. We also had a hard time sleeping. I guess that is something we will have to get use to. Once we anchored we sleep like the dead. I feel so much better. We'll stay here until Thursday that's when all this bad weather will leave. There are stores in walking distance so we will take a walk about later.

* Marco Island first nights sunset, the picture doesn't do it justice it was very pink.

It's 11:30 thrusday night

We are motor sailing at about 5 kts, the moon is full. We love it. And we still have cell phone connection about 9 miles out. I am not able to post any picture, I can on facebook...

Sailing out of Tampa Bay

We are off for an adventure. Yippeeee
Heading for the Keys. We plan to sail over night. We will anchor off Sawyer Key it should take us 2 1/2 days. The wind is not blowing now so we are motoring.

Ready to Go

We are finally ready to head down south. WHOOPEE! At the begining of the week the winds were 10 to 15 mph.  Now they are 25 to 30 mph in the Keys and the seas are 6ft. So we are putting off going until the winds are a little calmer.  We don't need to put ourselves through that on our first trip.  We are going to try and make it to the Seven Seas Cruising Assoc.GAM in Melbourne Fl. by the 12th of Nov. So we will be sailing around the Keys and up the east coast. Please say a little prayer for us :)
I am excited and nervous and it's hard to believe that we are doing this!

Finally doing sea trials

Today we went out and did sea trials, you might not believe it(we don't)but everything works and we had no problems. We need calm winds to finish the auto pilot calibrations so we'll try again tomorrow
We did a hat in the water drill.......wait that wasn't a drill, Warren wanted his $40 hat back. It took us two tries but we retreived the hat. It was good practice for man over board.

Last Nights Moon

This is last nights moon right at dusk, it was so bright.  And looking to the west the sun was orange and pink. I wanted to take that picture too, but to many obstacles were in the way.

........Warren finally called for a electrician today:)
I am hoping he will come out before the week is over.
  The weather is great.....sunny and no rain.  Great for sailing.............away!

Electrical Issue

Warren found an issue with the start circuit, that he wants fixed. And since electricity is his worst subject I don't know how long it will take. He wants to figure it out without calling someone out to tell him it was something really simple and paying them $300 bucks. No hurricanes out there that can effect us :) I still have the dream...........:)

Back in the Water

Let's see........ we are back in the water, everything is fixed that we needed to do while we where out of the water. We thought that the prop shaft was bent so we took it out and got to use a tool Warren made last year and it worked great.  The shaft was only out by .006 in the middle so Warren had it straightened anywise.  It was the prop shaft coupling that was wobbling. So we got a new coupling, had it faced and installed it.  Warren did replace the stuffing box seals for the rudder.(stuffing box is a large threaded tube that a shaft of some kind passes through with a cap that has a waxed type of flax rope in it and the cap tightens down on the tube preventing water from entering the boat where shafts go through the hull.) While he was taking that all apart. He noticed that the auto pilot arm needs to have a key way added to it because the actuator arm will pull it out of position due to its torque. So we sent it to Dad so he can work his magic. We should have it back in a week or two. Then we hope to go sailing! 

 And when Warren was working in the engine room on some wiring his hand bumped the air conditioning wires and they were very hot.  He just thought that the size 12 wires were not big enough.  So he got some number 10 wires, got it ready, ran it to the air conditioning relay box and when he went to remove one of the wires it  was hot, burnt and not even crimped into the connector.   Warren says that we just narrowly missed an engine room fire. 

<burnt wire it was really hot!!!!

Hurricane Irene is past, there is another one out there. And it will start with a K, I hope it stays out to sea. We just might have to wait and see were it goes.

A pain in the neck

Have you ever thanked God for a week long sore neck? We are!! When we took the boat out last month I went down to get Warren some aspirin. That's when I felt the vibration. At first Warren thought the engine might be out of alignment, then maybe the shaft was bent. We took the boat out of the water today and removed the shaft and it looks fine. So we are taking it and the drive shaft coupling to a specialist to fine out if it is bent.  There is some crevice corrosion in the shaft so that may necessitate replacing the shaft whether it's bent or not.  We could have trashed our transmission if we hadn't caught this now. And that would really set us back! So thank God for needing the aspirin!!!!

The picture below is a cutlass bearing puller Warren and Dad made from the idea and plans of a Mr. Ron Sheridan, another CSY owner. The puller will allow you to remove and replace the cutlass bearing without pulling the boat out of the water....that is if your not pulling the shaft.  And this made it soooooo much easier to remove than the first time. Just in case you are like me..... and don't know what a cutlass bearing is. It keeps the prop shaft centered in the shaft tube so it doesn't wobble. I don't know how long this is going to take, but I'll try and keep you posted. :)

The mystery is Solved

It's not a mystery anymore we found out why the engine was over heating. So we went for a short ride today. The engine passed the test! Now Warren just needs to align the propeller shaft because I told him that I think its vibrating. We didn't notice this last time because we were concentrating on the engine getting to hot. We started a few more projects while we were waiting and we are just about ready to go. I am almost afraid to say that. Every time  I said it before something went wrong. But God willing we should shove off soon.:)

Here's a picture of the channel we have to go out.