by miami | Feb 2, 2014
That old Jimmy Buffett line seems to fit this morning! It is 830 am and we sit it in the early morning sunshine and watch 25,000 runners go by in the Miami Marathon.
How many dogs have been trained to navigate with a chart? We continue to train Goose for his Captains test…
It really is amazing as we walk him around Miami Beach how many dogs are of out of control. We wonder what would happen if we just started passing out cards and holding training sessions in the park every week!
Here is a picture of the back of the manatee we saw (and almost ran over) last week. There are many rules for boaters due to these mermaids of these sea, including slow speed, and even do not enter waters.
We left Dinner Key as the cold front that made Atlanta kids happy started passing through and headed for an anchorage to wait out the rain. We didn't leave early enough though, and the capt had the pleasure of steering the boat for two hours in torrential downpours just to find out that the foul weather gear is a bit leaky.
No worries as the air temp was still in the 70's. Another small issue 'floated' up as there is a propane locker built into the deck to hold the two ten pound tanks we use for cooking where water tends to run in during a rain, wash down or at sea. This has caused leaks in the past into the aft head (bathroom for you landlubbers) which is why we had to rebuild it last fall.
I knew then the drain was too small in the locker, and was susceptible to plugging and put it off until later.
We have been scraping the old varnish from the toenails and a large piece of shavings got down in there and plugged the drain. By the time I noticed it, the locker was overflowing with about 20 gallons of water and the aft head was a bit wet! The joys of boat living. I guess it is matched by all our friends with water pipes frozen and cracked by the same front!
We spent the next two days in Marine Stadium harbor on Virginia Key which is just south of Miami Beach. If you have time google it as the history of this place is really cool. Suffice to say that there is a movement afoot to save and restore the old stadium as one of the top ten historical sites…
While we were there, we got to watch Olympic trials for some really cool small sailing boats.
It is almost time for breakfast here in the cockpit. We eat out here a lot. We like the view…
As said many times here, we have traded feeding horses at 7 and 4 for taking Goose in to shore at 9 and 4. Sometimes it is pain, but it does get us off the boat and makes us take nice long walks. Shelly is the main walker…
In this little canal where we are, we can't tie off the dink, so someone just runs the walkers in and comes back later. Here is Ryan heading back out to Yume.
We also use this time with a Furminator to do our best to keep the amount of dog hair in our food to a minimum. 😉
We haven't heard a word from Sir Charles and his family on Ft Lauderdale so we will hang out, enjoy the weather, and continue with projects to bring the boat back to her former glory.
Hope all is well with you. We have decided to send some of this weather to you but UPS tells us it will take until April or May to get to you.
Just keep reading the blog and sharing our weather with us and your friends!
by miami | Jan 28, 2014
We have been hearing stories all day from Atlanta about the snow and cold. People stuck for 7 hours trying to get home, sleeping in stranger's homes, and roads looking like parking lots on a bad day.
Well, let me tell you, it has been rough here too!
We had to bicycle 2 miles each way with propane bottles strapped to the backs to get refills. It took four loads before the laundry was done. And that manatee in the dinghy dock just kept getting in the way.
Oh and it was a little on the warm side at 85. Thankfully it cooled down enough as the sun set to allow us to enjoy a couple of hours in the cockpit for contemplation, conversation and bevs on ice.
We do wish everyone in Atlanta, and North Carolina, a much better weather pattern to come. Feb is almost here. We remember that by late February spring was poking her head out on the farm!
Our blogging has been a bit on the lean side as we have been using up bandwidth at an alarming rate. Once they have you paying for bandwidth they have you period.
Between the 10 gb on the AT&T for the ipad and the 2.5 for the tmobile phone, we thought we would be ok, but we ran short with 6 days to go. When they start tacking on a GB at a time it gets expensive for cruisers with limited incomes!
So no images this post.. Sorry!
We have been holed up in Miami beach at Venetian Isles for a week or two getting some more projects completed. We have a video we can post in a few days…
I took a short business trip to Virginia Beach, Va for paws4people to appreciate the 12 degrees, airport crowds and general chaos outside the boating world.
On the flights back to Miami, I met two very nice people who reaffirmed some hope for the country. Jose was a strong family man from Orlando who kept me very interested in our conversations about work ethic, religion, spirituality, self respect, family values and more. Our flight went by very quickly.
The flight to Miami was made very pleasant by Jana. 35, very pretty, and smart, she had immigrated to Chicago from Checkoslovakia at 18 with no English and a college degree. She earned a living as a maid, learned English, and worked her way up into the restaurant business, saving enough money to go back to a four year architectural design school and was graduating in the fall. Her views on America as the land of opportunity (especially compared to Europe) and her values, and other views made me proud to be an American… Her goal is to design cancer hospitals to make the environment where people go to heal a part of the healing. You go girl!
Today we picked up the anchor on a perfect morning. Warm and sunny with just a hint of a breeze from the south made for a very nice motor back south to Dinner Key to get the laundry done and fill up the propane.
We saw our first manatee today in the dinghy dock… Ryan thought it was cool.
Plans are to possibly head back to Ft. Lauderdale, then back here for the Miami Show before heading south to Marathon…
It felt great today to realize we did not really have to be anywhere anytime and it was completely our choice! This is what this life is all about.
by miami | Jan 22, 2014
Actually it probably will not get much better than this.
Although we are working hard, and not truly enjoying as much traveling as we will someday, the sense of adventure, and the change of pace and recent memory of the stables makes this time special.
Enough of the gooey stuff.
We have been anchored in Miami Beach for a week and working on Yume between cold fronts passing through.
We took apart the cockpit steering column so Shelly could strip, sand and get four or five coats of varnish on the teak table and all the trim. This takes a lot of sanding and makes a mess. The sanding dust gets everywhere and of course between the boys and Goose the varnish is really hard to get dry without getting fingerprints or dog hair in it.
We took the Avon dingy aboard to scrape and sand the bottom, patch some gel coat dings, and other misc repairs and maintenance.
All the rubber had to be cleaned and a softener/restorer applied.
Yume has a second spare dinghy which is a soft bottom Zodiac Zoom we had never even unpacked. Ryan dove deep into the lazarette (a deep locker aft where we store all the 'stuff') to pull out the floorboards and oars. That outboard is an original Honda four stroke that is standing upright to show you how deep that goes…
It took a while but we finally got the zodiac ready to inflate…
And Ryan pumps away! Ready to launch…
So we ran around for two days in our pretty blue dinghy, then spent three more hours to clean it up and pack it away again…
Other projects have included rebuilding the capstan (raises the anchor chain), setting up all the rigging that supports the masts and lots of small jobs.
We do get out a bit in Miami Beach as we have to go ashore at least twice a day with Goose. We try to combine his needs with required trips like laundry and grocery runs. Doing laundry is a whole new experience when you have to find a close laundrymat, carry it all in the dinghy, and carry it to and from after you are done! We are trying to find a really good old fashioned wringer that can stand up to salt water environment so we can start doing more of it on the boat. If you happen to have one hanging around…
As I write this, Shelly and Ryan are on the boat on their own while I fly to Va Beach for a two day meeting. It is strange to be leaving them on the boat but I know they will be fine. I'll be freezing but they will be fine.
Last night another front came through with a roar, with the wind going from nothing to 30 knots from the NW in an hour, which makes for a noisy night!
At the end of the month we are looking forward to meeting some boating folks we only know by internet (Sir Charles from www.pricedingold.com) in Ft Lauderdale, the Miami Sailboat Show and then our good friend Dr Angel in Marathon Key.
As always Goose is ready to go!
We love your comments and questions and try to be sure to answer each one. Thanks for sharing this if it interests you!
by miami | Jan 17, 2014
We left you in Dinner Key, Miami wondering what we were going to do next.
Since then, we sailed south 22 miles to Angelfish Creek, south again another 18 miles or so to Rodriguez Key and onto a little marina for fuel, water and fresh tuna, then back up to Angelfish Creek for a night, then back to Miami Beach. And here we sit!
As Ryan posted he did go to the top of the mast and fix the wind indicator… All 56.5 feet of it.
We posted his video on Facebook as we can't get the ipad to do it here!
It was nice in angelfish creek except the keys are mangroves so there is no place for Goose to do his business. We ended up running him in twice a day to the resort and pretending we were staying there. I am sure no one thought we were boat bums… Besides who cares! Just because they fly in their Lear jets.
We got some work done. The solar panel is installed and working great. It is super nice to see the batteries being charged whenever the sun is out!
After a couple of days we decided to head on further down Key Largo and look for a store and some water, and maybe run out to a reef for some snorkeling.
We did stop. But Ryan wasn't interested as he is heavily invested in his new “anermation”. It is going to be funny as heck.
So on we sailed (no motor, no fuel costs, no noise!) through the day to arrive at a nice quiet anchoring spot behind Rodriquez Key for the night. With the moon rising, a cold bev, and the stars out, you could not have ordered a nicer evening.
The next morning we moved up this very narrow channel to get some fuel, groceries and water. It turned out to be a commercial fishermans port and there was an awesome fresh fish supply where we got tuna and shrimp.
We sailed out to a reef on Pennekamp Park and the boys jumped in to try the snorkels. The combination of slightly rough water, chilly temps, and underperforming masks and snorkels did not make the first trip the one to remember.
Back to angelfish creek for the night then up and back out early on Monday for the 25 mile sail back to Miami Beach. Since we were not sure where we were going, and we knew the wind was going to come out of the NW and blow kinda hard we made tracks.
Sure enough it did end up blowing 30 mph (25 knots) but we were able to make the sail with just one tack.
What started out with a beautiful sail with main, mizzen and genoa slowly turned into a half rolled up genoa, dropped main and mizzen, and she was still sailing at 7.5 knots!
By 3pm we were in the lee of Miami and the water was much calmer.
We found a spot to anchor and wait out the next day of winds and chilly weather until today when the 80 degree days came back. Now we are back in a routine of getting the boat in shape, taking Goose in twice a day, keeping up with web clients and paws4people commitments and living life in the slow lane.
Today the anchor windlass got torn down to find the leak, and all the wood in the cockpit got scraped and sanded ready for 5 or 6 coats of varnish.
Slowly but surely Yume is looking and running better and better. All it takes is time and money.
We have plenty of time!
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