It's time to clean the hull

  Warren decided to clean the hull himself, you can hire someone to do this, but he wants to give it a  try. During the winter the water was clear, now that its warm its clouded up and algae is growing like crazy. Once we get  moving and in the Bahamas we won't have this problem, moving is the secret. We are wiring the windless and waiting on climbing gear so we can go up the mast and install the radar, so why not do some cleaning while we have time:)

Wood Work before & after

We had the winches rechromed, and the wood work took three weeks with 9 coats of varanish. We still have more to do:)

A Visit to Sarasota

Well, this weekend we traveled to a bead show for Kathy to stock up on beads and semi-precious stones. The prices are great so Sandy (Warren's sister) wanted us to get some for her too. The bead show was in Sarasota so we figured that we would say something about this nice town. It has beautiful beaches, water front hotels and marinas. Also this big statue of a sailor kissing a nurse(Victory) in celebration of the end of World War II. What follows here is an excerpt from Sarasota's history:

In 1885, Sarasota was promoted in Scotland. Many families sailed to America expecting fields of vegetables, housing, and citrus groves. They found only a stump-filled Main Street and most of the colonists left.
Scottish influence remains evident through the annual Sarasota Highland Games and Festival and the Riverview High Kiltie band, which wears authentic kilts and features bagpipers and Highland dancers. Sarasota began attracting wealthy Americans in the 1910's as it does today. John Ringling, of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus fame, made a mark on the community of Sarasota in various ways. In the 1920s, he and his wife, Mable, built a magnificent Venetian-style estate on Sarasota Bay named Cà d' Zan. Then they built an art museum for their collection of works by Peter Paul Rubens and other 17th-century Italian and Flemish art. http://www.canvasreplicas.com/  In addition, John used his circus elephants to help build the first bridge from the mainland to St. Armands Key, which he developed as a commercial and residential center. The circus' winter quarters were moved to Sarasota in 1927, thus creating a new identity for Sarasota as a "circus town." Now Sarasota is known as the "Circus Capitol of the World" and is home to many circuses.

The Windless

With the Taj Mahal of mounting blocks finally finished, an inch of fiberglass laid up over the wood and a gel coat over it, then another inch and a half of fiberglass added to five square feet of the underside of the forepeak to level the area for aluminum backing plates, special bolts ordered twice. The windlass is finally mounted.

What an ordeal. Oh I forgot, the 3M 5200 that seals out water, it's a permanent adhesive and a royal MESS to work with when things don't go as planned.(I have a new name for it) We knew that the required amount of 5200 would be large in places. So I figured these out and applied the goop from Hades. In areas where so much wasn't needed I went light, I thought. After putting down the windlass, putting up the metal plates from the bottom, slipping the bolts through their proper places we started tightening the bolts. Kathy up on top of the deck and me under lying on a board facing up. Well, it kinda reminds me of a time when a fuel flow transmitter from a jet engine hit me in the head while changing it from the bottom. Only this time I expected a little. What I got was pretty much a rain fall of white death (my new name for 5200) None dropped on me but the board caught enough and then got in my hair, on my ears, neck and wherever else it wanted to go. Lucky for me I still use hairspray so it just washed out, but I went through about a quart of acetone to clean the rest of me. And I still missed some. Oh well, "all's well that ends well." Now the cables! Oh, what fun!!:)

We have shade!!!

We have been working on the dodger on and off for 3 weeks and I'm glad it's finally done. Now we don't get to wet nor to hot. Warren is going to put some LED lights under it so we have light.  Here are some pic's of us working on it.

Saturday Night

We have become good friends with this guy at the boatyard by the name of Scott.  On Thursday afternoon he invites us up to some town that his band "Going South" was hired to play for. They have a town street festival once a month. Now, we see Scott everyday in his baseball cap, t-shirt and blue jeans so this is the main way we identify him. So on Saturday night we take off and drive 65 miles northeast from Tampa and get to this little, little Podunk town called Fort Meade. We walk around a see the band and we’re not sure if that is Scott in the hat. We never notice the mustache before. Low and behold it’s Scott and he can sing. :)

Now we have said how quaint this town is, what you see here is the entire street festival. All 100 feet of it. From the trailer to the yellow blow-up jumping inside thing for the little kids. Everyone here knows everyone else and everyone knows everyones business. They are friendly and will just stop you to talk and tell you about their little part of the world.  It is very nice to meet such nice friendly people. This is "Phosphate" country and all the mines except one have shut down. The depressed economy has hit Ft. Meade and the surrounding area hard. It is almost all older retired folks living here.
 

Here Kathy is introducing herself to General Meade.  He thought her a little forward for someone who has never been properly introduced.  :)
Of course the town was named after the General. It was the last site of the war with the Seminole Indians in 1856. It is also the oldest city in this county (1849). Present  pop. 5500.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And here is an example of one of the streets of this little town.  All the streets are lined with these trees covered in moss.  It is very pretty.
 
More next time.
Warren and Kathy

A Beautiful Day

Still working on the windless!!!!

We thought we where getting close to putting the windless on. But when Warren was preparing to bolt on the metal backing plates he discovered the deck had to much of an arch. Now he has to add more fiberglass to make it flat. One step back...

Easter on the Beach

Its Sunday and this week we walked along St.Petes Beach.
Lots of people and a very beautiful day and about 80 degrees.
The one thing we noticed is how many women wear bikinis that shouldn't. Will stop there!!!
 And all you back home will notice Warrens long hair, and soon he'll have a pony tail. He just left so I added the tail news.:)

Easter is about Christ resurrection and our great joy.  So I just want to say THANK YOU LORD FOR YOUR SON, JESUS.

Views from the boat

I thought I'd show a few views from the boat so you can see what the area looks like.

This is our view from the boat to the boat yard. Not many boats in the yard anymore and times are slow, which works out great for us.

This is looking east from the deck of the boat. Yesterday we had this bird visiting and we are not sure what it is, but it's not too afraid of us and will come within a couple feet of us.

This is off the bow, today we have a manatee sleeping. I also think he's waiting to see if he can get some fresh water. I was spraying the deck off and he was looking for the over spray.

Strawberry festival

Every Sunday we try and go some place new, take a break from working on the boat. This Sunday we went to the Strawberry festival. It was first started to help the farmers sell their strawberries. Now it's a big fair, lots and lots of fair food.
 As you can see in the picture they really have growing strawberries down to a science. During the cold weather the farmers used water to keep the berries from the cold. Now Plant City ( that's where the farms are) has big stink holes everywhere. They used so much water they drained the wells and ground water.
I don't know if anyone wants to know this kind of stuff but, I think it is interesting. Kathy:)

Still Working

This is our new windless, the duck tape is covering holes from the old one. We had a professional come in and fill those.



Warren is fiber glassing the block that will bring it to the right height. This is a process that is taking more time then he thought it would. The weather looks like it's going to be in the 70"s this week, so we hope to get a lot done. The 50"s in Alaska is a nice spring day but here it's to BLOODY COLD!!!!!!

Thats a GO for start

We finally have the engine running! Now we can finish the electronics and Windlass. Friday we are having someone come to the boat and start welding the hard dodger together. Having a cover over the cockpit that will keep out the rain will really be nice. The one we have now only provides shade. It is finally going to get warmer this weekend. We can't wait!!!!

One protect is done!

Today Warren is finishing the boom:)

It was badly corroded, the only problem is they filled to many of the holes and we had to re-drill and tape them again. So now we can put our main sail up...OH wait, without our engine working I guess not! We are waiting on a part still. My Dad is helping with that, so everything gets mailed back and forth. It's so nice to have a father that is a great machinist!

We had a wonderful visit with Nancy & Tom Harris from Fairbanks. They had time to stop and see us after their cruise on a big sailing ship. The weather is cloudy and 64 right now not to bad:) We spend a lot of time driving around for things. Right now we are going to look for some marine wire and delrin plastic.

The Galley

Warren is almost done with the galley. Just some trim and a new coat of paint on the frig and I'll think about cooking. The key word is think. That's the Admirals job so I guess I'll have too. I bought this new cook book for cooking on a boat at sea, "K.I.S.S., Keep it simple stupid." So I think I'll be able to make a few meals. We have started on our discipline of taking everything out of their cardboard containers and putting the items in zip lock bags. In the Islands, bugs (roaches) have a way of laying their eggs in the cardboard which in turn can infest the boat with them. Yuch!!!!!

45 degree water

This is what happens when the waters gets to cold in Florida, dead fish everywhere! I started to pick fish out of the water last week but every hour bourght more so I gave it up. I'm glad it's not hot now or it would really smell.

God has a sense of humor

It's 45 degrees right now and I am sitting on a heating pad. ( now my nick name is hot cross buns) I was hoping my vocabulary would change here. You know like I am so Hot I'll put my shorts and tank top on. But NO God thinks I need to freeze a little more. Warren has the engine apart which makes it so the heater doesn't work. Sometime I go sit in the car so I can warm up. We drove 35 miles to dinner last night so we could be warm for a while. They say that by next week it should warm up. The birds and I are thinking the same thing right now. How much further south do I have to go to get warm!!!!

Christmas in Florida

Hi Everyone,

Its in the 70's here and cloudy . It sure doesn't feel like Christmas. As there is nothing open or happening here, we are going to take a drive to the beach. How kwel is that! No snow !!!!!!! And we thank God for all the blessings in our life. So far all the projects on the boat are taking a little longer then we thought they would. My new phrase is "Nothing is ever easy, one step forward, three steps back!" We finally got the name and our hailing port on the boat the other day. Had to put it on while bobbing up and down in the dingy with Kathy holding on to the painter through a port hole so I wouldn't float away. Good thing everything went smooth because if I took any steps backwards, I would've been swimming with the manatees.

We do want to wish all of our friends and family following this blog a "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."

Fall colours!

Hello all,

The other day I was coming back from buying stuff and upon entering the boat I forgot a cardnal rule. "One hand for yourself, one hand for the boat." So, as I started down into the boat, my foot slipped off the step. My decent was starting out to be considerably faster than I wanted. First, my butt hit the top step, my leg hit.....something and my elbow hit another step. All this somewhere around, oh say, a million miles an hour. Next thing I know I'm at the bottom of the steps on the sole, (floor) a HUGE, HUGE charley horse in my top left butt cheek, my left shin burning like the dickens and my elbow tingling like there is no tomorrow. And as you can see, the picture doesn't do the real thing justice. AND I'm not I'm not going to show you a picture of the bruise on my boo boo. But I will heal. And as painful as all that was, the damage to the can of mineral spirits was nearly fatal and has no chance of healing.



The galley is coming along. The new stove is in and working and the new corian counter tops are almost completly installed. I figure that as I was redoing it I would do it all. I took out all the old dark wood in the dishes cabinet and redid it with white formica and the dish rack with a type of plastic that they call expanded foam. (the name starts with a K but I forget.) It cuts like butter, glues sweet, can sand it, use screws on it and paint it. Its great stuff. When its finished, I'll take pictures and post it. There is a dirth of projects to complete before we are off but hopefully the important ones will be done in a couple of months and we can be off.

Getting Wet

One step forward

We are continuing getting the boat ready for sailing. We didn't realize how big this boat was until we viewed it in the lift being moved into position to put it into the water. The yard workers set her into the water as gentle as a feather. After getting her into the water and still in the slings, we started looking into making sure that none of the wet stuff on the outside was getting inside. I had checked all the seacocks that I had replaced or worked on, 3 times. As I looked into the kitchen through the top hatch I noticed that the floor was covered in about an inch of water. It was then and there that I discovered that the one and only seacock that I didn't check was the one I didn't work on. Ahhhh, "Danger, danger Will Robertson", wet stuff inside! After closing the sink through hull, the bilge pumps took care of the little water that had made it inside. We continued checking the bilge every half hour for incoming water. None was found. That night on the boat I had a hard time sleeping, I kept checking the bilge for water every hour. Warren slept like a log going out to sea.
Now we have to do a few things to get the engine going. I hope we get to take a few steps forward and none back. So far when we work on something we find two more things we have to do before the project is done.

We are finally in Florida

Hi Friends,
Sorry it’s taken a while to post our comings and goings but now I’ve got a little time to do so, so hear I go.
Ok, we left Wasilla on the 5th of October headed for the great outside where all of the fruits and nuts live. We figured that by leaving at the beginning of October we would miss the snow. NOT! By the time we got to Glenn Allen the clouds started moving in. When we passed Beaver Creak (the Canadian Border) it was snowing. Not the little dry flakes that we so love, but the larger soggy ones. Nothing but slush heavy with water. The next day it snowed off and on. Of course the hard part came just when we passed the end of Kluani Lake and headed for the mountains. When we were coming off of Pink Mountain, it was snowing so hard that the snow packed up on the headlights and I had to get out and wipe them clean. It was so dark and snowing so hard, Warren had to put the front left tire on the yellow no passing line and follow it down the mountain. Real lousy 2nd day. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful……right up to the time we ran over a dead deer. The car tow dolly was so low that it pretty much exploded the carcass and sprayed deer spooge up under the car and left a hanging piece of meat off the muffler. Yech! We carried that meat all the way to my parents place in Washington. When the customs agent at the border asked if we had any “meat products?” I almost said “does dead deer meat that is stuck and frozen on the muffler count?” But I didn’t and he did not go behind the car to inspect, so we made it through the border ok. After arriving at my parents place, we stayed there for almost 3 weeks before leaving with them heading for Southern California to pick up my Aunt and Uncle for the trip down. It was nice in the Santa Ana area. 85 degree weather and not a snow flake to be found. Now, we’ve had the truck for 10 years and never used the air conditioner. But we had to use it on the day we left for Florida, and it worked! It was hot on the freeways and didn’t cool down until we climbed up into the hills where the temperature dropped off. So to make a long story longer, we made it to St. Petersburg on the evening of the 3rd of November and started working on the boat the 4th. We first worked on all the safety items that would let the wet stuff into the boat. Then we moved on to replacing the cutlass bearing that had a lot of slop in it and the stuffing box. We removed the propeller, which was a chore in itself. Then removed the prop shaft, and the cutlass bearing. We then made a tool to reinstall and replace the cutlass bearing with no problems, NEXT time. Had the Rigger come out and fix a stuck halyard that would not let the jib down and install a new halyard that will be needed later. We also removed the boom and took it in to be refurbished due to corrosion. On Monday the 30th we will be picking up the Courian for the counter tops and installing the new stove. We will be putting the boat into the water on Monday the 30th of Nov. Stay tuned for more fun in getting a boat (read as “Break Out Another Thousand) ready to cruise.

The beginning

Hi All,

This is the beginning of our adventures on Sea Notes. And the beginning of learning how to blog. So check back and see how it turns out.