July 17,1999
Had a nice early morning skate. At this time and late evenings are the only times skating is possible because of the heat. We are docked in a town called Las Olas on a canal or isle called Isle of Venice. Our dock is about one foot wider across than the bow of the boat and is only about 4 feet long. How we managed to get the boat into this slip is still a mystery but the captain did a fine job. The tides here fluctuate quite a lot. At low tide, the boat is about even with the dock and at high tide, about 5 feet higher than the dock. This makes getting off the boat quite tricky as the dock space is only at the bow (front) and you have to climb over the safety lines and jump down 5 feet, all the while the boating is moving away from the dock. It can be quite funny, especially at 7 a.m. when you need to use the head (bathroom.) They have pump out hoses for the live-aboard people to connect to the holding tanks so you can use your own head but we prefer not to mess with it. When I first tried to get back on the boat at high tide, I had to use a lawn chair but now I'm an old pro and have gotten quite proficient at acting like a monkey. Bob and I have both lost weight. A combination of it being too hot to eat and much work and sweat. Bob felt like a fish out of water when we first arrived as far as knowing how to make repairs but in the last two weeks, he has managed to fully install a head, hoses and all, remove the air conditioner for repair, adjust cupboards so they closed tight, drill, saw and nail. When I ask him now to have a look at something, he grabs his "tool" (Swiss army knife I got him for X-mas) and gives me that Tim the Toolman look and he's off and fixing. As for myself, I am lifting and hauling and organizing and cleaning and communicating and learning.
Las Olas is a mostly gay community where we are certainly the minority. We frequent a restaurant often called the Floridian as the food is good and it's relatively inexpensive. It's also about a 15-minute walk, which is perfect for building your appetite and feeling like you're walking off your food. We are sometimes the only male/female couple in there and the place is always packed. The area near Isle of Venice where I skate is quite upscale. Or ratherdownright rich. The "fingers" or isles are each a canal and there are 7 of them. The houses lining these streets are some of the prettiest houses I have ever seen. Vacant lots are hard to come by; sometimes homes are razed to build new. The lot prices in this area I would guess are about $500,000 and the homes including lots probably $1-$2 +million. I have found the people to be snobby and unfriendly. I believe I saw a cleaning lady pull up in a Mercedes this morning. It's an interesting town and fun to people watch but I won't be too sorry to leave.
And speaking of leaving, our crew, Don Wilms, arrives tomorrow midday. Don and his wife, Joan have sailed with us before, the last being on our 30 ft. O'Day to Toronto through the Welland Canal. Joan will be joining us in Maine in late August and I'll certainly miss her on this leg as she is a great cook and lots of fun. We plan to leave Monday, the 19th, weather permitting, for Beaufort, North Carolina, which should be about a 3-4 day sail. It is our shakedown cruise and I give Don lots of credit for joining us. Our health is good and we feel stronger by the day. I now have 25 mosquito bites on my right leg and got bored counting so I figure the count to be about 60 total. After my shower, I rub down with alcohol and apply hydrocortisone. This works until I go out to get a satellite fix to send e-mail, at which time I increase the count by another 3 or 4 bites. Our e-mail is sent by satellite. This is done via a GPS called GSC 100 by Magellan; obtained through my dear brother. The touch pad is about 2" x 2" and not easy to manipulate. After I write a message, I check the satellite schedule and if there is one available, I usually have to stand up on the cabin top and move the unit around until I get a good fix. One message takes about 5 minutes to go out on a good fix and on a bad fix, as long as ½ hour. After my messages go out, I can then receive messages. This takes anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes, if there are many messages, or until I get tired of standing on the boat or get tired of being mosquito bait.
We are very excited to be making our first leg of our journey and also a bit nervous. I will write you from
Beaufort. Your good thoughts will keep us safe!
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Monday, July 12, 1999
We moved the boat this morning at high tide; about 7:45 a.m. to a live aboard area in Los Olas. It was our first time "manning" the boat on our own and I think we did quite well. At least we didn't hit anything and we ended up in a nice snug dock complete with swimming pool, bathroom and laundry facilities. I myself am quite a sight. It is extremely hot and humid here and if I have any clothes on, I am a sweaty mess of stickiness and when I am too hot, I simply shed my threads and that isn't cute either as I am bloated from drinking about 500 quarts of liquids a day. On top of that, I counted 15 mosquito bites per leg and that is only from the knees down. Where there aren't bites, I am black and blue from moving around the vessel in tight quarters. I have some sort of different bite on my wrist, which has caused it to swell. I have a painful little area between my baby finger and my hand which is split open for no apparent reason. A few minutes ago, I cut my index finger to bloody proportions as I was pumping the head. If that weren't quite enough, my hair is all bleached out about the color of brass fittings on the boat except where the roots are growing in darker. I think I am probably the most attractive I have ever been and I'm sure Bob would be chasing me around the boat of it weren't so bloody hot. Now that I have your sympathy, I will also tell you that I am writing this on my laptop out in the cockpit, under an awning, with a nice breeze blowing. When I get to hot, I jump in the pool and do some laps or just float around for awhile. The highlight of our day is our shower. It's a wonderful stall with a teak bench and it's all open and you just hose yourself down, lather up and hose yourself down again. I think we'll go out to our favorite gay restaurant tonight. The food's great and the people-watching entertaining. Did I mention that I am having a great time? Because I am!
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Wednesday, July 7, 1999
Made gobs of headway today. The galley is done and sparkles. The forward head is done; toiletries sorted and stowed, medicines sorted. It too would sparkle but the toilet decided not to work and Bob has to install a new one. We decided to go pump instead of electric push button as they tend to be more reliable. Good upper-body workout. The main salon is done and I even set-up an office for myself complete with files, manuals, notebooks, computer and about a half dozen cords that must go to something. The captain's berth is finished and thanks to my sister's kind donation of a comforter cover, looks very homey and inviting. The captain thought so; he's in there sawing them off as I write. We were tickled to take our first shower on board and lay with huge smiles on our faces that we were finally here, after 7 years of planning, in the bunk of our very own Hans Christian.
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Tuesday, July 6, 1999
We rented a U-Haul and made our way to the airport to pick up, ready for this, 22 boxes. Brought them back to the boat, loaded them and unpacked them in 4 hours flat. What a mess! There was stuff on every surface of the boat. We worked until we couldn't move, rented a room and took the sweetest showers we ever had. Did I mention it's about 150 degrees down here? We slept like babies.
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Monday, July 5, 1999 - The Arrival!
We arrived at our boat first thing Monday morning. She was even prettier than when we left her. The interior ceiling had been painted a clean white. Our carpenter built a beautiful, teak galley cabinet around the microwave oven, with rounded corners and hand-rubbed varnish. We were delighted with the extra storage as well as how pretty it looked. We were fitted out with 4 new, huge, white fenders that made the boat look like a yacht. The exterior had been cleaned and the name MUTUAL FUN applied to both port and starboard sides of the stern. The interior had been put back together and cleaned after many electrical and plumbing projects that were performed by the best contractor known to man.
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The changing of the crew took place with Brian Hoch replacing Don Wilms. The rendezvous didn't exactly go as planned as Don rented a taxi to take him to the airport and the same taxi brought Brian back to the boat. The taxi was late in picking up Don and Don missed his flight. We hope he made it home safely, as we haven't heard from Don since. Brian arrived looking dapper in his shorts, collared sports shirt and deck shoes. We had him looking sweaty and grimy in a relatively short amount of time. Nobody upstages the captain and first mate.
front was seen moving in our direction. We had Virginia Beach on our left and got a weather report of a front moving through with large hail and damaging wind gusts up to 70 knots. We battened down in about 3 minutes flat; hatches closed, all food or dishes put in the sink, anything that could fly was stowed and furled in the headsail. Unfortunately, there was no time to take down the main sail. All harnesses were on and the captain was ready at the helm. Brian was standing in the cockpit where he could hear the weather on the VHF as well as not miss too much of the action. I was harnessed and sitting lengthwise in the cockpit. Bob was harnessed and in full rain gear. The winds were upon us quickly and fiercely. Bob was staying with the waves with all of his strength and concentration as the wind was trying its best to knock us down. With the initial surge of adrenaline, my legs were shaking but at no time did I think this was catastrophic. As I watched Bob in action, my confidence in his ability was greatly magnified and I know he would stay with the situation until it passed. And pass it did, about an hour later. Bob was exhausted and I insisted on taking my watch and replaced him at the helm. Winds were still strong but just enough to be exhilarating and not too terribly dangerous. Bob needed rest and went below. The last thing I remembered him saying to me was "watch out for freighters and when you go through the channel to the Chesapeake, there will be two avenues and veer off to the right. I'll be back up in an hour." So, I sailed on for about ½ hour when I realized that I was totally confused. I was disoriented and unsure of myself. There were red lights and green lights and markers all over the place. I felt bad but I had to call Bob up again. Steering through tears of confusion with 13-17 knot winds, I would not relinquish the helm but was bound and determined to see this through. I proceeded to the end of my watch that put us right before that remarkable Chesapeake Bay Bridge, that boats go over and cars drive under. The channel was unclear and I left the men to work it all out while I crashed. My next watch at midnight brought a little more excitement. Bob was low on sleep and so was Brian. The Chesapeake Bay is narrow, many times with land in sight on both the right and left. There is a huge amount of traffic, particularly compared to being in the open ocean. There are markers and buoys all over the place and in case that wasn't confusing enough, there are also crab pots to avoid that you can't see until you're up next to them. Bob even went by a buoy with the light bulb burned out. You have to keep watch right and left and to your back. Up ahead I was keeping watch on a set of lights of something BIG. As it got nearer, it also stayed in my direct path. The lights were confusing to me and I had to give a yell down below for an extra pair of eyes. Both of the guys came up and Bob assured me that since we were looking at his red light, I should turn my red (port side) to him and we would pass like 2 ships in the night. Calamity over and on to the next. All was quiet for another couple of hours when I passed my watch on to Brian at 2:00am. Bob and I were happily snuggled into our berth where it had been too hot to sleep together for the whole trip so far, when I thought I heard Brian banging on something as if we should get up and help him. I ran up to the cockpit and asked if everything was OK and he said he was just about to wake us but hadn't banged. The channel markers for Annapolis looked tricky and confusing and there was this huge point of land too near on our left. The next thing we knew, the depth meter was showing less and less and then, we were aground. Bob took the helm and just couldn't get us out. We contemplated our situation for awhile; even raised the headsail to help sway us but to no avail. I radioed the harbormaster and asked when high tide was. It was another couple of hours so I made coffee and Bob stewed for not waking up ½ hour earlier. We hoped we didn't have to be towed and we hoped we could get out of the mud before daylight to save face. At high tide, Bob throttled forward and back and rocked us off. We sailed into Annapolis just like nothing ever happened, pumped up the dinghy, went into town, had a great breakfast and came back and slept most of the day.
Annapolis is a beautiful city and has wonderful crab everything. Tomorrow, Brian leaves us and Alan and Denise join us for the passage to Newport, Rhode Island. Brian had been great crew as he COOKS!!! We expect this to be a 3-4 day passage, as well. Bob and I treated ourselves to an Evinrude 9.9hp motor for our dinghy. We were sick of rowing in 100-degree temperatures. We're having a ball with it. The boys went off to the museum and I "ran around" the bay. Until next passage, may the heat lift but the sun stay with you.
Yesterday Don and I decided to go have a swim on Pony Island, directly behind us. We dingied over, pulled the dingy way up onto land and walked a couple hundred yards to the beachy area. We had a nice dip, a walk around the point and I went in for a second swim. When I got out, Don noticed that the dinghy looked to be sort of floating. We gathered our stuff and took off running through the shallow water toward the dinghy. Don dropped his shoes and took off at a full out run while I grabbed up his shoes and walked as quickly as possible carrying everything. It was definite, we could see now that the tide had come in in only just an hour or so and was taking our dingy hostage. Don dove in and swam after it as it floated at a pretty good clip, heading out of the channel. I yelled to a couple on another boat who had helped us out a couple of other times and they got in their dinghy and took off after the raft. I yelled to Don not to swim off but he could see that the dinghy was headed for another boat and would probably get tied up in it's lines and therefor stopped. Meanwhile, back on Mutual Fun, the captain wakes up from his nap and peers out and yells to me "where's the dinghy?" I point and heaven knows what ran through his head. The other couple nabbed our dinghy, picked up the weary Don and came over to where I was standing helplessly. Don and I got back in the dinghy and paddled home. To top off that humorous disaster, Bob and Don are ashore waiting for Don's taxi and I'm talking to Bob on the Icom walkie-talkies when splat! My shirt and right foot and the deck get a good dose of gull poop. Oh, the fun we've had these last couple of days!
