Just a little damp

Living in South Florida and keeping the boat on the trailer between sails has pro's and con's.

One of the Pro's is that we can keep her plugged into the 110v 'shore power' via an extension lead to the back of the house.
Just as well! We have been coping with high humidity causing us to wipe down the inside of the boat with Clorox wipes weekly to prevent the development of mold and mildew. Plus we remove all of the cushions from the boat so that they don't get smelly. It's a task to remove them and replace them.

Here's our solution:

This is a Mini Dehumidifier from Sunpentown, only cost $58 on Overstock. And it works! Surprise!
We plugged it in with it standing on the Galley Counter and closed up the boat. That was Tuesday evening. Today, Sunday, there is nearly 3" of water in the collecting tray.

I have it setup to continually drain, but it has to almost fill the collection tank first.

So far, very impressed. Not sure how much power it actually uses. The specs say 85W. Which is pretty heavy, not something that we would run unless connected to shore power.

However, it works! Will it last, who knows, some of the reviews claimed it only worked for 6 months then quit.  But we found reviews of similar products that cost over $700 that claimed that they broke down after a few months. So it's a gamble. At $58 (including the $1 shipping at overstock) it's worth the try.
(Just for reference. We installed it on March 20th 2012)

Update April 4th. 2012.
Ok, I'm impressed! This past weekend, I checked the contents of the Dehumidifier, and the collection bucket had filled to the point where it drained excess into the cabin sink where we have the hose positioned.
Emptied the bucket and turned it back on (it shuts off when the bucket is removed) The cabin does not smell musty at all, and no signs of mildew in the normal places (head door normally needs wiping down quite often with Chlorox wipes) So it's living up to it's decscription. So, for now, it get's a 10!

Dreams of a bigger boat

After making the decision (jointly :) ) to cut the weekend short and head home on the Sunday, we were heading  west across Biscayne Bay. Wind was bouncing around the 25knot range, seas were only a couple of feet most of the time, yep, Biscayne Bay can get choppy, especially after 24 hours of sustained wind in one direction.

So we had the choice of motoring comfortably going NW or SW and tacking back towards Black Point Marina, or just putting up with the sloppy seas and steering to the mark. Lazily we steered to the mark, put in about a 10degree drift and steered 290, kept us on the GPS trackline without even looking at it. Always an upbeat event when we actually plan our course and it works out as planned! Totally cool.

Every now and then we would slide into a trough and get lifted up only to wallow over the top, just not paying attention to the waves. The penalty is hard push over to leeward and a sudden heel of around 25degrees.

Now, most sailors would just plant their feet firmly and let the boat lean up into the next wave and think nothing of it, but the Admiral is allergic to heeling beyond 25degrees, we typically keep the boat upright within 10degrees and it rewards us by sailing beautifully. But under, lazy, motor, we don't have the sail out to steady the boat, so the heel tends to be more dramatic. So Peggy's response to the wallow... we need a bigger boat.

That's the kind of response that lightens my day, any day!

Once back home, JD parked in the back yard, washed down, engine flushed, tanks emptied, food, clothing, bedding pulled out and finally covered in her new Tarp (You can figure out it's a project to store the boat). Well, once we were all cleaned up, out came the notebook computer and the search began. We need a bigger boat!

So, I have had dreams of a bigger boat for years. We love JD and the access to the SoFla venues that having a skinny water boat allows, but bigger is better... right? One of my favorite sites is yachtworld.com and I have the search option down pat. Peggy has it down too. So the search has started. Our new boat will have to be less than 15 years old, but not new. It has to be at least 34' LWL and have 6'+ headroom. Not a small list of boats that match those minimums, over 3,700 of them on yachtworld.com.

But when you dream of a bigger boat, you have to be prepared to dream up a different world. Where can the boat go? Deep keels place a limit on some marinas, Skinny water around the Florida keys means you have to take the boat to new places... good dreams! Bigger boat = bigger expenses! JD is pretty cheap to moor and to slip, bigger boats hurt there!

And! Bigger boats can go further on the water! Maine, Annapolis, Bahamas, Caribbean but they have to meet blue water requirements for Peggy to be a happy crew.

Casting the challenges aside just long enough to encourage solutions, think what the bigger boat can provide!

We could be in the BVI waiting for the kids to fly out and spend a week sailing around the islands. Visiting the thousands of nature spots just on the East coast alone would take a few lifetimes to explore. Building new friendships with other cruisers, facing daily challenges of reaching for a destination but already being there.

Our 'Bigger Boat' will have to show up when we are ready, but soon! :)

No Sail :(

Sometimes, you go with the flow, even if the flow is not in your favor but in hope of things getting better.

After a week of being a sick puppy, our planned sailing trip on Biscayne Bay over the first weekend of March was something to look forward to. Ever optimistic, the sailflow forecast was in the high range for us the entire weekend. Only Sunday looked like a go nowhere day, so we prepped JD for the trip down to Black Point Marina with planned start of the tow somewhere around Noon Friday March 2nd.

Anticipating a later than normal start reduced a lot of the self imposed stress that goes with getting the boat ready to trail. We take this stuff really seriously. All too often, we hear of boats that were in accidents because they were not secured to their trailer. We use 2" Ratcheted Tie Downs, one at the bow the other across the stern. JD is not going shift on our trailer!

It seems we also have a thing for 'Bags', Peggy is not a pack rat, no way! but we do have a lot of bags on the boat. 4 sail bags, 2 clothing bags, 3 bags of electronics, books, 'stuff', a Meds bag (about to be cloned), a bag for the canvas when not towing the boat. Then there is the food, two bags of non-perishables (crackers, wine, rice, tuna, G2, fruit cups, etc. etc. 3 bags of bottled water (in addition to the 40gallons we carry in the tanks). Bedding, Towels, Kitchen towels... the list goes on and on.

Ok, time to get this off my chest, I detest bags loafing around in the cabin. They are always in the way, get moved a dozen times a day, and of course, which bag is what in? A boat is really one of those places where everything has a place. It makes life on board so much easier, easier still if everyone knows where those places are!

Back to the weekend... Boat loaded, lunch break at home, last thing to do is unplug the electrical connection to the boat and pull her out to the street, close up the house, set the Tom Tom for our destination and head south!

Miami is a great place to launch your boat from if you live in SoFla, they have an annual state park parking permit, only costs us $85 a year and we leave JD's trailer there at least 20 nights each year, and the facilities are excellent. We renew in Februay/March each year with pleasure. And the staff at the Dockmaster's office are great, we take a slip at Black Point several times each year too. Of course, it is only a 30 minute transit to Biscayne Bay which is really one of the best sailing venues in South Florida.

So, Friday night, after renewing our permit, we launched JD, parked up the truck and trailer, and headed out the channel to watch the Sun go down as we motored over to Sand Key on the north end of Elliot Key on the east side of Biscayne Bay. It's about a 2 hour motor from the marina to the anchorage.

It was dark as we approached the anchorage, running lights on, and not many boats at anchor, so plenty of space to drop the hook. Cloudy darkness, could barely see the anchorage marker bouys until they were less than 30' away. Wind had picked up very little, looked like it was going to be a nice night, our new anchor rode has an additional 20' of chain, so I put out a total of about 100' of rode, our anchor is suited to the sandy bottom over there, most of the time.

After dinner, we set the anchor alarm on the handheld backup GPS and turned in... pooped! Slept like a log in a valley... till around midnight! Wind had picked up, anchor dragged, alarm went off. We have been here before, so no panic. A quick look around outside to confirm we were not heading towards anything that would complain or mark us. Then I pulled on the rode and felt the anchor just sliding across the bottom, dang! we were probably in a grassy area. A few minutes of pulling the rode in, then with the chain in hand, I set the 2nd anchor and felt them dig in as I gave the boat some slack to allow it to move downwind, then a few heavy tugs, barely able to hold the rode, and I was satisfied the anchor was holding. With two anchors out 20' apart, I reset the anchor alarm and headed back to the bunk. Sleep came quickly.

Dawn arrived with some fresh winds from the South. Adjusted the solar panel to gather the early morning Sun low on the horizon, 1.1amp, plenty to take the pressure off the batteries while running our new Dometic Freezer, held -1C easily. Breakfast of corned beef hash, eggs, tomatoes, toast and some piping hot coffee. Great start of the day.

Pegs was showing signs of the bug that I had last week :( and weather reports didn't look too great), so I suggested that we take the day off, loaf around, read some books, watch the other boaters screw up and just do not a lot. Peggy signed up for that excursion!

During the day we saw several larger power boats drop anchor and not a lot of rode. Now if you don't know the area, it's only about 10' deep in the middle of the Bay, the water just outside the anchorage is maybe 7', inside it goes down to as little as 4 feet. So you don't need a lot of rode. In 7' of water with 4' of bow height, a total of 11 feet, it's recommended to have 7:1 rode, ie. 77'. With only 4' of water and 4' to the bow, they should have a total rode of 44'. For us, we typically put down 80' of rode in 5' of water just to be safe. These power boats were probably putting about 20' out! Just not going to work! and it didn't most of the time. One large boat, draped with bikini babes was headed our way pretty quickly. A few shouts to the skipper and he finally figured out he was dragging. I bet he had one heck of a nice GPS on board, complete with anchor alarm! Duh! We watched them for over an hour as they tried and tried to get a grip on the bottom, finally they gave up and pulled anchor and turned towards Miami.

More later.