February 10, 2007
Oceanside Marina
Key West, Florida
The saga of the deceased transmission
continues…
After moving heaven and earth to wire
money to American Diesel for “next day shipping," the
transmissions were to have been sent Thursday, February 1.
Ole called to verify they had been shipped, and was told
that “the freight forwarder did not feel like driving 80
miles to pick up just two transmissions, and besides, they
were short on drivers.” We were assured they would indeed
be shipped on Friday. A call Friday afternoon verified that
the freight forwarder had, indeed, picked them up on Friday,
but wouldn’t be actually shipping them until Monday.
There was much swearing in Norwegian.
A call to the freight forwarder on
Monday indicated they would be in Key West on Wednesday. A
call Wednesday morning revealed they had missed the
Wednesday truck from Miami to Key West, and would arrive
here Friday, February 8.
There was much swearing in both
Norwegian and English, and very little romance.
During the wait for the transmissions,
Ole worked up drawings to construct steel blocks to lift the
engines the required 2-3/8” and had said blocks
manufactured.

Wednesday, February 6, we moved back
over to Oceanside so Ole could work with a mechanic to
disassemble both transmissions and begin the process of
raising both engines. All of the prep work was done by
Friday morning, and, blessed be, the transmissions actually
arrived about 1:00 pm. Ole and Mike the Mechanic worked
like champs and by 5:00 pm Friday, both transmissions were
“hung.”
As of noon today, February 10, with
work by James and Mark and Ole, it actually looked like we
could get to sea trials by Monday morning, move back over to
Safe Harbor, and prepare to leave Key West as early as
Wednesday!!!
Then, it all went horribly wrong. As
he was ready to install the oil coolers after lunch, Ole
found they were not brand spanking new like the cute little
Twin Discs they belonged to – they were used! Not only
that, when he pulled out the plugs, water came out, there
was green stuff and rust around the screw threads, and much
swearing in Norwegian, English, and some other
unrecognizable language.
Now, to my way of thinking, when you
drop 9 or 10 boat units on a vendor for new transmissions,
one assumes that all of the bits, pieces, and parts are also
new. And, of course, nobody at the vendor side works on
Saturday. We'll see how it goes when we call American
Diesel on Monday. Psychologically speaking, I wonder if I take on the
multilingual swearing, Ole can get freed up to remain
optimistic about leaving next week? He tells me that he can
put the used oil coolers on to test the transmissions, get
the alignment perfect, call the vendor on Monday to have
them UPS new oil coolers overnight to us, turn a few screws
on Tuesday, and take off Thursday or Friday. Hmmm. We’ll
see.
On the social front, we've had a few visitors while
we've been "stuck" in Key West. Al and Jan Furtado,
friends from the Pompano Beach Power Squadron, felt we
needed cheering up, so they drove down on Sunday the 4th,
sat on the back deck with us in the rain, and helped us
demolish a plate of hors d'ouvres and a gin & tonic.
They were kind enough to take us out to dinner, and on a run
to the grocery store.
Our buddy Spiff arrived in his
beautiful 46’ Fisher “Ruthy L” on Thursday, with Brendan,
Kim, and Trevor from Riverview Marina as delivery crew.

We had some Sopranos Family Cookbook
“Sunday gravy,” a couple of rounds of Mojitos and a couple
of bottles of wine, then it was off to play for the evening,
to Kelly’s Irish Pub on Duval Street and Captain Tony’s, the
oldest bar in Key West. Man, it’s too bad we’re not 30
anymore. One o’clock in the morning is about our limit.
It's hell to get old!
February 13, 2007
Oceanside Marina
Key West, Florida
Hooray! The new transmissions are in, the engines are
perfectly aligned, and we’re ready for the weather to
cooperate so we can be on our way! All that’s left to do in
the engine room is to paint some of the bolts and
connections, de-grease the diamond plate, and put stuff
away. Ole worked like a stevedore to get it all done.
Mark DeJong of Marine Diesel of the Florida Keys was
fabulous. His staff are knowledgeable, fast, and courteous.
And besides, he looks like somebody from ZZTop. We would
highly recommend him for any work in the keys – he works on
about 20 boats a month, and he’s a straight-up guy.
By the way – the “used” engine oil coolers were not exactly.
Apparently the Twin Disc transmissions require high oil
pressure through the coolers, and American Diesel pressure
tests them (with water) before they release them to the
customer.
We’ll move back over to Safe Harbor Marina today, fuel up,
and twiddle our thumbs until we have a good forecast for the
Straits of Florida and the Yucatan Channel – we’re looking
at a Friday departure. The cats are overjoyed at the
prospect of 60 hours at sea.
Here are some pictures of Safe Harbor Marina -- it's
probably the last place of its kind in Key West, given the
exorbitant price of real estate. One of the highlights
of the place is the Hogfish Bar, located at the head of the
dock, on Front Street.

The slip we're in is privately owned (called a dock-o-minium)
and rented out by the day or month when the owner is away.
Don't know what prices are like to own the slip here, but
over at Oceanside we heard of a 40-ft slip going for about
half a million dollars.
Another highlight is the Bama Sea Products dock just across from us.
At all hours of the day or night, fishing boats pull up to offload whatever it
is they have caught. We've sampled some fine yellowtail and incredible Key
West pink shrimp at slightly less than grocery store prices but way fresher
February 23, 2007
Marina El Milagro
Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo
MÉXICO!
Links of Interest:
A great interactive map of Quintana Roo, showing where we
are and where we're going through Mexico, can be found here:
http://www.maps-of-mexico.com/quintana-roo-state-mexico/quintana-roo-state-mexico-map-main.shtml.
And for information about Isla Mujeres, this is a great
little site:
http://www.isla-mujeres.net
We are now officially cruising!
Alter waiting for a comma between cold fronts, we scooted
across the Straits of Florida, hung a right 20 miles off the
northern coast of Cuba, held our breath, and ran across the
Yucatán Channel. Total travel time: about 50
hours. Casualties: one Rubbermaid bucket; one
pair of Ole’s reading glasses, and a broken arm on Jan’s
beloved Maui Jim sunglasses. Poseidon has rarely been
satisfied with less. Our first crew (Lise and Svein) were
unavailable because of work commitments, so we opted to hire
delivery captain and Ft. Lauderdale neighbor Trevor Davies,
of
Argonauts, to accompany us on our first multi-day run.
That way, we had professional experience on the bridge in
case the new transmissions needed the touch of the chief
engineer. It was a good choice – Trevor is a great
companion and knowledgeable sailor.
We left Safe Harbor Marina at 4:35 pm
on Monday, February 19, in order to see (and dodge) the
cursed crab pots thoughtlessly scattered in the navigation
channel, get a good view of Florida in the rear view mirror,
and arrive in Isla Mujeres in daylight. The voyage plan was
based on an average speed of 6 knots throughout the 355
nautical miles. We stood 4-on, 8-off watches, with Jan on
at 8-12; Ole on at 12-4; and Trevor on at 4-8.
As soon as we left the channel and
entered the Florida Straits, we began experiencing the first
expected Gulf Stream current, which, by the 8:00 a.m. watch
on Tuesday, had slowed us to just over 4 knots and made for
a relatively uncomfortable night in 5-7 foot seas. We
figured that at that speed, we might arrive in Isla Mujeres
some time in July. Trevor predicted during our west and
southwesterly course along the coast of Cuba that as soon as
we hit the 84th parallel we might get a counter
current to help push us forward – and as predicted, we
surfed along at over 9 knots with quartering seas for most
of Wednesday morning, more than making up lost time, and
pushing up our arrival in Isla Mujeres to midnight Thursday
morning – way too early for the poorly marked channel
entrance. Because we were so early, we had to burn some
donuts in the ocean for about 4 hours to make the entrance
in daylight as planned.
The last 6 hours of the cruise were the
most uncomfortable, with the prevailing current trying to
push us north while we were trying to get west, making for
some great rolls. For those who haven’t had the pleasure,
let me try to describe what happens. A wave of 5 to 7 feet
comes at you directly (or nearly so) from the side, lifts up
the boat, and at the top of the wave, because our hull
doesn’t “bite” into the wave – it slides off it sideways.
Jan hogged the queen sized berth in the master cabin on her
off watch, splayed out like a starfish hooking fingernails
and toes into the edge of the bed to stay on. Trevor, salty
dog that he is, tried to tough out the forward bunk, but got
routinely tossed out, opting for the luxury of the sofa in
the salon, wedged in with cushions. Ole, God bless him,
fought for bunk space with Jan and the cats, and predictably
maintained his good humor in spite of bad-to-no sleep.
Trevor assured us that these were the
best conditions possible for crossing the Yucatan channel in
the winter – we couldn’t have had better weather! Sheesh,
one can only imagine what bad conditions might have brought.
And speaking of the cats…Barclay
continues to impress in her role as ship’s cat. She was on
watch with all of us in the pilothouse, demanding breakfast
and dinner at the usual time, and strolling on the back deck
whenever Jan went out for a smoke, in spite of the
movement. Watching her time her steps and jumps with the
boat’s motion was funny – all four legs were splayed out
like Popeye the Sailor Man – and not a complaint was heard.
Maggie, on the other hand, was
thoroughly miserable. In spite of veterinary advice to give
her half a human dose of over-the-counter bonine 2 hours
before departure, as soon as we left the marina, she emptied
herself out from both ends, crawled downstairs, and for some
reason parked herself in the top bunk in the forward cabin
for a good 30 hours. We moved her twice to the master cabin
(the center point of the boat), but she insisted on being
where we could see how miserable she was (yes,
Virginia, cats can be evil manipulators of human emotion).
Jan and Ole both moved her to the master bunk and spent some
skin-to-skin time with her, and for the last 20 hours, she
found her usual place on the floor in the dead center of
gravity. Odd, though, that the minute we tied up at the
dock and cut the engines, she was face-down in the food
bowl.
Clearing in formalities were
accomplished in rapid fire (3 hours), with assistance from
Armando at the fuel dock acting as agent. The Health
Department official came onboard first, followed by the
Immigration inspector, and both were friendly and pleasant.
Armando also arranged for the folks at el Milagro to bring a
skiff to us and escort us to a place at their marina, where
we were helped by three dockhands to a stern-to hookup with
power, water, and high-speed internet.
Within minutes, the residents of the
dock had all been by to greet us and welcome us to a potluck
dinner featuring grilled black grouper prepared by the
dockhands in the common area of the marina. It seems to be
the usual eclectic assortment of characters – some heading
north, others south, but everyone willing to share
information and experience over the beer. Exchanging boat
cards will assure us there will be few strangers as the
cruise continues south.
Because of our need to be in Belize by next weekend to get
Ole out on a flight to Atlanta for a chief's meeting, we
won't be able to stay long here, which is a pity -- it's a
lovely little island, charming marina, and welcoming
cruising community. Our plan is to head south to
Cozumel on Saturday, February 24, and make day cruises to be
in Belize City by Friday, March 2.
Sunday February 25, 2007
12:10 pm
San Miguel, Cozumel
(From Jan's personal journal...)
Left Isla Mujeres about 11:00 am
yesterday morning, in partly cloudy skies and fresh east
wind of 20-25 knots, making for some rolly conditions as we
headed south to Cozumel. The only casualty was a set screw
in the port aft corner of the bimini, making Ole go up on
the fly bridge to jury-rig a tie down during some pretty
decent rolls.
We arrived in Cozumel just as the sun
was setting, and anchored in 15 feet of swimming-pool clear
water just off my favorite artisan store “Los Cinco Soles,”
and sat through the departure announcements of Splendor
of the Seas, anchored a couple of hundred yards off
our stern. We laughed, realizing that Ole had no
standby, no passenger duties, and no pager to go off in the
middle of the night.
The anchorage is unprotected, so
we gently rocked during the night, and more forcefully
during the morning, as the Crown Princess arrived to the
accompaniment of excursion boats zooming past us with
abandon. I’ve had a couple of revelations in the
past few days or so. I’m not feeling the “glee factor” that
I think I should, and I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating
my navel about it. Friday night in Isla Mujeres I finally
experienced and expressed that I’m actually anxious about
this trip – not relaxed like I was during our 2-week
adventure cruising the Okeechobee and the Keys the first
summer we had the boat. The anxiety manifested as irritation
and hurt – and I made it all Ole's fault.
Factually speaking, I stood my watches
without incident during the crossing from the Keys. I
operated the radio just fine. I secured us for sea pretty
successfully. I even managed to cook during 6-8 foot seas
with accompanying rolls.
But I slept on the couch Friday night,
and woke up yesterday morning in tears – not just little
ones – but actual sobbing. When Ole asked me what was
wrong, what came out my mouth was, “I’m exhausted from
conversations about fear – fear of running out of cruising
money; fear of not being in Belize on time; fear that I’m
not doing things right on the boat; not doing things right
with regard to household administration from afar, not doing
things right in my relationship. I’m tired of being afraid
and all I want is to experience some goddam joy!” During the crossing, I sat in the pilothouse reading (James
Michener’s Caribbean), and felt emotionally raw.
Once we had arrived and dropped anchor, I just started
downloading, and discovered that I was putting a tremendous
amount of pressure on myself to know everything –now. I’ve taken boating, seamanship,
piloting and engine maintenance. I’ve become SCUBA
certified and earned my HAM radio license. My head is now
full of facts that don’t correspond with any of my actual –
not theoretical – experience, and I guess I feel that I’m
supposed to be instantly wise about the ways of this boat
and of the ocean.
In our earlier pleasure cruises, I was
reassured that at the end of the day or at the end of the
week we would be “home.” “Home” was a slip up the New River.
Perhaps this cruise as different from others we have done
because we’re now “homeless” – the boat is home, with all of
its quirks and systems – and we’re not returning to anywhere
familiar for a long time. After I finished downloading about all of this, Ole chuckled
and suggested I might want to “slack off” on myself just a
bit, admitting that he, too, doesn’t know how to do stuff
and often pulls solutions out of his ass. That response
surprised me. Part of my anxiety was the thought that he
expected more of me than I was capable of – and the truth of
it is that I was expecting more of myself than I am
currently capable of.Who said, “A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing?”
Perhaps glee and joy will come once I let go of any pretense
that I know what I’m doing and experience the learning as it
comes. Little kids grow up to earn PhD’s –they don’t get
them right out of kindergarten.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
At anchor, Bahia del Espiritu Santo
Quintana Roo, MexicoIt’s clear that every day contains
lessons learned.
On Sunday evening, at 9:00, we weighed
anchor from San Miguel in Cozumel, headed just about due
south for Bahia del Espiritu Santo some 86 nautical miles
down the coast. The first three hours we were in the lee of
Cozumel, had light winds, and gentle swell from the south
southeast, and we said to ourselves, hey – this won’t be too
bad. Had some tunes on the I-pod, homemade oatmeal cookies,
a pot of French Roast sitting in the thermos in the sink,
and everything secured for sea. The swells, though 4 to 6
feet, were long and slow enough for us to actually enjoy
them.
Then we discovered that the boat can
take way more than either the autopilot or the crew.
About half an hour south of the tip of
Cozumel, we were in the deep blue of the ocean, and the
winds steadily increased to between 18 and 25 miles per
hour, and the size of the swell began to overwhelm the
autopilot. By about 2:45 a.m., with Jan on watch and Ole
trying to catch some rest down below, the autopilot screamed
that it had had enough, what with trying to maintain 6.5
knots while fighting off a steady east wind, a strong north
setting current, swells increasing to 8-10 feet, and an
annoying wind chop on top.
When the autopilot started screaming,
Jan had had enough, and luckily Ole decided that a screaming
autopilot and nervous wife warranted some adjustment. We
dropped speed to about 5.5 knots, and Ole began what ended
up to be about 6 hours of hand steering in increasingly
turbulent conditions. The hard part was that we couldn’t
see the big ones approaching, and once in awhile caught some
big swells on the port bow that caused some great sliding
and rolling. As we watched the miles and the clock
gradually ticking down, we took comfort in the fact that we
would be entering the reef at Bahia del Espiritu Santo some
time around 9:00 in the morning.
So there we were…and this is no
poop…looking at the lighthouse on the south end of the
entrance to Bahia del Espiritu Santo, the British
Admiralty chart of the area (latest datum 1999), the
Raymarine chart plotter (new), and Captain Freya Raucher's Cruising
Guide to Belize and Mexico’s Caribbean Coast (1986)
… and all three of them said something different about
where the entrance to the reef was!
Captain Trevor had told us about
“eyeball navigation” which was great in theory. In the
heavy chop it was difficult eyeball exactly where the reef
began and ended, and where the safe passage lay.
Confronted with three disparate views
about where we were supposed to enter the reef without
becoming kindling, we had to cruise back and forth for about
an hour, perform some calculations on the paper chart,
express our separate viewpoints, read the Cruising Guide
over and over, and make a decision. A cruiser we had met at
el Milagro in Isla Mujeres who had just returned from this
area told us that the positions listed in the Cruising
Guide were “right on,” so we decided to trust them, even
though the chart plotter and the paper chart showed us that
her waypoint was smack on the reef.
So, clenching our sphincters firmly, we
steered toward a point that the chart plotter and the chart
told us were on the reef, but in actuality was the safe
opening that Captain Raucher had documented, and Jeff from
el Milagro had told us.
Lesson learned: Charts and
plotters are called AIDS to navigation.—they
are not God’s law. Local knowledge is called local
knowledge for a reason. Trust local knowledge --
recent local knowledge.
About a mile inside the reef, we sat
for a few minutes and realized we had not made a decision
about where we were going to anchor. So we cruised south
toward the lighthouse (as the sun moved steadily south,
creating glare on the water and making the dark shapes hard
to read – were they grass? Coral? Shadow from the
clouds?). When the depth sounder registered 4.2 feet in an
area charted as 10 feet, we turned around and cruised back
toward the north side of the bay, hoping for deeper and
calmer water.
Finally, about 11:00 a.m., realizing we
were not going to find a flat, calm place to anchor in
20-knot winds, we picked a spot between the reef and a
beach, in about 9 feet of water – put out 75 feet of chain,
cracked open a cold Miller, and went to bed. 14 hours of
overnight cruising in less than ideal conditions, plus the
need to make a gut decision in unfamiliar waters made for
more stress than any of our previous cruises have produced.
Lessons learned:
- Any anchorage that lies in enough
water with enough chain and doesn’t lie in 8-10 foot
swells is a great anchorage when you’re exhausted.
- The first cold beer after a night
passage like that one is the best beer you’ve ever tasted.
- It is good to nap.
After the nap, we treated ourselves to
a swim and some naked pina coladas on the aft deck as the
sun went down, a simple dinner, and an unheard-of bedtime of
9:00 pm.
Now for a report on the 4-legged crew:
Barclay is amazing. She insisted on
staying in the pilothouse with us without complaint
throughout the crossing, and when I wouldn’t let her out the
salon door for the “outside” water dish, she decided to
sneak out the pilothouse doors and drink from it anyway
instead of from the “inside” dish in the galley. As she
stuck her head out the door, the wind flattened her ears
against her head, she hunkered down, and shouldered her way
down the side deck before we even registered that she had
done it, and was back a few minutes later, taking up
her usual cruising position at the base of the fly bridge
steps
Maggie has earned many points on this
crossing toward her Junior Sea Scout badge. There was only
one barfing incident, she thoughtfully aimed it at her own
scratching pad, then stayed the night under the aft wicker
chair in the salon instead of down below as usual. As soon
as the engines were cut, she demanded breakfast, then sacked
out on the back deck for a nap, even though the boat was
moving at this anchorage more than during any of our past
cruises.
Lesson Learned: The cats are
fine, and can stubbornly take care of their own needs pretty
damn well.
Now comes the interesting part.
Tomorrow evening we have to intentionally head
out of here and do this again for another 66 miles in order
enter Xcalac, our official “exit port” from Mexico, so that
we can officially enter Belize in San Pedro on Thursday
morning and get tied up in Belize City by Friday.
Lesson Learned:
-
Do not, if you can help it, commit to
a schedule if you are going to do this.
-
If you must go out in seas beyond
your present comfort zone because you have been stupid
enough to commit to a schedule, stock up on brown shorts.
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