Characters

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

It is early Wednesday morning and already the dinghy dock at the Marathon City Marina is a beehive of activity.  Tenders stream into the marina from the mooring field and nearby anchorage laden with all manner of cargo be it laundry to be done, pets needing relief after a night on the hook or trash to be thrown away. 

On this day, as on any here it will be the trash that will provide an early opportunity for entertainment. This is because in order to reach the dumpster where the garbage is kept one must venture in close to the realm of the “Tree People”.

The Tree People are the social misfits, the outcasts of the Marathon cruising community.  They gather behind the marina within a small grove of trees that separates the marina from the parking lot where they occupy a collection of old beat up outdoor furniture ranging from sagging plastic chairs to rusty steel benches.  It is here that all the world’s problems are discussed and solutions prescribed amidst the clouds of cigarette smoke and empty beer cans.

More a curiosity then anything menacing, the Tree People tend to keep to themselves which suits everyone else just fine.  There is one exception however and that is the occasional appearance of one or another on the morning radio net on VHF channel 68.

These appearances tend to coincide with matters of grave concern to the overall cruising community such as the recent theft of a portable generator overnight from the cockpit of a moored sailboat.  On the next day’s net one of the “Tree People” broke in to announce that he was certain that the culprits were “The Cubans”.  Now, I realize that times are tough in Cuba but the image of a Cuban gunboat with Fidel Castro at the helm gliding silently into Boot Key Harbor under cover of darkness is a bit unlikely not withstanding the fact that the island nation is only a scant 80 miles away.

The Tree People aside, one can indeed spend much of an entire day at the marina doing nothing but observing.  

There is the “Foster’s Guy” who shows up at noon each day and walks around with a can of Foster’s Beer.  Hey, it’s five o’clock somewhere - probably Australia but we’re all slackers and who’s watching the clock anyway?

Then, there is Captain Jack.  We don’t know for sure, but Captain Jack must be at least in his eighties.  He lives alone on a small sailboat tied alongside the seawall near the dinghy dock and by all accounts has been here for many years.  A beloved figure by the cruising community in Marathon, a man we met along the ICW in Morehead City, North Carolina told us that last year when the City of Marathon abruptly raised the dockage fees, the other cruisers in the mooring field pooled their funds and paid Jack’s dockage for a year.

Each day Captain Jack can be seen walking around the City Marina wearing his trademark captain’s hat, teal shorts and white shirt.  A true lady’s man, until recently Jack would pick the hibiscus flowers on the marina’s hibiscus trees and present them to the women.  In fact, he approached us one day and gave a pink colored hibiscus to Judy.  Brian, being the smart aleck that he is, told Captain Jack that he thought he was trying to give the flower to him instead of Judy.  Without missing a beat, Jack replied “What the hell do you think this is, Key West?”  But alas, the City Marina has now prohibited Captain Jack from picking the flowers off it’s hibiscus plants.  “They shut me down”, he sighed recently on the morning radio net while extending an unnecessary apology to all the now flowerless ladies in the audience.  Some things should just be left alone. 

Fishing and the Music Festival

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

Life continues to be good here in paradise.  The weather has been Chamber of Commerce type weather with highs each day in the low 80’s and lows in the low 70’s each night.  We have had little rain and the sun shines every day.  We have had some winds lately which we’re told is the norm here for this time of year.

Friday afternoon we got in our dinghy and ventured back up Sister Creek where we did some fishing.  Once again Brian was skunked while Judy caught fish, one of them being a sixteen inch bonefish that put up quite a fight.  This is the largest fish Judy has ever caught and she is quite proud of it - constantly reminding Brian, lest he forget, that he didn’t catch any fish at all.

This weekend the Marathon Community Park which is a beautifully kept municipal park located just steps from the marina is hosting the Conch Records Marathon Music Festival.  We spent some time there last night before the Green Bay Packer debacle that we witnessed at the Hurricane.  We should have stayed at the music festival.

One of the acts performing at the festival was a band calledThe Doerfels.  This is a band out of Key West that is made up of five brothers and a sister ranging in age from 15 to 21.  They come from a family of ten kids and are really popular here.  According to their website they play over 200 dates per year and are regulars at Sloppy Joe's in Key West.

We recorded a minutes worth of cell phone video and it is at right but it doesn’t really do them justice.  If you ever have an opportunity to see them it would be worth your time.  They play all kinds of music from bluegrass to country to rock and are very good.  We are going to return to the music festival tonight.

Under the “Too Much Information” heading, our waste tank is almost full.  When they pumped it last week they didn’t fully empty it and we are paying the price now.  The pump out boat will be here on Monday but until then we will be making dinghy trips into the marina to answer the call of nature.  

See, it’s not all sundowners and potlucks.

Life Off the Grid

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

Sweet Escape is on a mooring ball at Boot Key Harbor.  We have been here for over a month without the benefit of shoreside power.  Every watt of energy that we use we create ourselves.  This has caused us to focus more lately on the methodology that we have been using to create this power.

The heart of our twelve volt electrical system is our house battery bank.  We have a 1200 amp hour house bank consisting of ten deep cell six volt golf cart batteries wired in series and parallel.  Series, to increase the voltage from six to twelve volts and parallel to combine the overall capacity of the bank.

This bank has proven adequate over the past six months to support our electrical needs.  Our largest draws come from our refrigerator and our separate freezer which obviously must run 24/7.  After that, occasional use of our TV and DVD player, fans, lighting and water pump are all contributors to the draw.

Up to this point we have been maintaining our batteries on a daily basis using only or 6.5 Kw Fischer Panda diesel generator.  On the hook, we must run the generator for 90 minutes twice each day, in the morning and the evening.  While the generator is a good one and is easy to use there are downsides to being so dependent on it.

First is the fuel it uses.  The generator draws from our main diesel tank and while it is pretty efficient, it is noticeable.  Diesel is readily available here but we are concerned about what happens when we leave here for the Bahamas and parts south.  They have diesel there too but it is not as widely available and is definitely more expensive.  

The second concern we have about being so generator dependent is the knowledge that being a machine, we know that the thing is subject to malfunction and breakdown and that once away from the US, parts and service will be a challenge.  

The third reason we would like to limit our use of the generator is the noise and exhaust it creates.  Don’t get me wrong.  Our genset is pretty quiet - in fact outside the boat all you hear is the cooling water being ejected through the thru-hull.  But it is noticeable inside the boat and it does create diesel exhaust outside that can be annoying to neighbors.

So what to do?  

Since arrival at Boot Key Harbor we have been intrigued by the notion of solar and wind energy.  Cruising in the tropics where the sun shines almost every day provides ample opportunity through the use of solar panels to capture and use some of that energy.  The technology has advanced to the point where if we were to install the right panels we could be able to produce enough power so that we might be able to get away with running our generator only once every other day.  A major improvement.

Wind energy requires the use of a wind generator and while a good compliment to solar for days when the sun is not out or when the solar panels are compromised by shadows we are less enthusiastic about wind.  The reason for this is all around us here.  Most boats in the anchorage use wind generators and we find them to be noisy, potentially dangerous and shall we say, less than aesthetically appealing.   It is like having an aircraft propellor turning at high speed just feet above your head.  Severe injuries can occur if you happen to forget that the thing is up there and go up to deal with say a rigging issue or if a blade should break off in a high wind and become a missile.  The wind generator can also create shadows that compromise the solar panels.

We have decided to add solar to Sweet Escape and will mount the panels on our existing dinghy davits.  This will necessitate the addition of new davits for our dinghy because the old ones won’t be able to handle the weight of both the panels and the dinghy.   New stronger davits will enable us to carry our tender with the engine attached, something that we have wanted to do from the beginning rather than the current arrangement that requires removal of the 100 pound engine each time we raise the dinghy.

We will have the work done here in Marathon this winter in preparation for our trip to the Bahamas in April.  In the meantime our genset is being run as this is being written - we need to go fill up that diesel tank pretty soon.

 

Odds and Ends

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

Attentive readers will recall that back in Charleston in November we hired a diver to take a look at the bottom of the boat.  At the time we were concerned about any possible damage that might be lurking on Sweet Escape’s bottom following our trip down the Dismal Swamp Canal in North Carolina.  On the canal we hit what we believe to have been several submerged logs.  The diver gave us the “all clear” in terms of damage but did say that our sacrificial shaft zinc was nearing the end of it’s useful life and would soon have to be replaced.

Sacrificial zinc anodes attached to boats serve the same purpose as those in a residential water heater for instance.  They are a soft metal that corrodes first, thus protecting the harder metal of the boat from that same corrosion.

So, replacing the zinc on our prop shaft has been on Brian’s to do list since we arrived at Boot Key Harbor.   After talking to our friend Shannon from Sol Mate who had recently changed his zinc himself,  Brian decided to do ours.  We made a quick trip to West Marine on our folding bikes and purchased the needed zinc and on Friday we dove on the boat to put it on.  Not so fast mister.

First off lets get a couple things straight.  Shannon is (a) quite a bit younger and (b) in much better shape. 

Once in the water Brian found that getting under the boat in salt water was a lot more work than he had expected.  A person in salt water is much more buoyant than that same person would be in fresh water.  Brian discovered this the first few times that his head smacked the bottom of the hull.  

Once he managed to get under the boat where he could see and touch the prop shaft the next trick would be to stay there long enough to do the work.  On the plus side our old zinc was totally gone so there would be no removal of the old zinc necessary.  After fighting his way under the boat Brian found that he would quickly run out of breath and had to come back up.  He was able to lay half the zinc on the prop shaft but attaching the other half and then securing it with the allen screws was difficult and was going to in his judgement, result either in lost screws or the whole damn zinc.  Time to admit defeat and call in a professional.

Sunday night Shannon and Leigh of S/V Sol Mate came over for sundowners and Mexican Train Dominos.  We had a great time and are sad that they will be leaving this week to head north up the west coast of Florida for a while.

On Monday during the radio net we hooked up with Chris from S/V Reliant who is a diver and who dives on boats in the harbor everyday.  He came over and installed the zinc for us for $25 using a Hookah rig which is essentially an electric air compressor powered a Honda generator - with a regulator and hose attached to a diver’s mouthpiece.  Not a bad idea - we already have the generator, all we would need is the compressor and regulator, definitely something to think about as we move forward with our cruising plans.

We have been fighting the issue of dead batteries on our electronic devices like our computer and cell phone.  On a mooring you really only have two choices to recharge these devices.  The first involves running your generator which we are forced to do twice a day for 90 minutes each time to keep our house batteries topped up.  This results in our devices never really getting a full charge because we don’t run the genset long enough to fully recharge them.  The second option involves running our big 2500 watt inverter which because of how inefficient it is depletes our batteries quickly - and which provides a lot more power than is necessary to recharge a cell phone.  It would be like swatting a mosquito with a sledgehammer.

Today while we were back at West Marine we purchased a small 150 watt inverter.   This can be used to charge up to two devices at a time and should allow us to keep everything fully charged without killing our battery bank.

Incidentally, the issue of our dependance on our generator while on the hook has been of some concern to us and we are in the process of investigating alternatives such as solar, wind or both.  SALT (Sea, Air, Land Technologies), a local company is sponsoring seminars for cruisers on Thursday and Friday of this week dealing with solar/wind power generation, water makers, and off-shore energy management   We have signed up to attend all three.  More on this in a future post.

We are also beginning to think about our plans for the next six months.  We have guests coming to visit us in Marathon in February and March.  In April, assuming we are able to have some things done to Sweet Escape including the addition of a water maker - we will head to the Bahamas for a month before returning to the United States and heading north for the summer.  In May we will leave the boat somewhere along the ICW and return to Wisconsin for Daughter Erin’s college graduation and Grandson Cameron’s first communion.  Once this is all firmed up we will update the “Our Plans” section of the website. 

Well Salted

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

We first encountered salt water on the Hudson River north of New York City in September.  Since then, Sweet Escape has been floating in the stuff pretty much non-stop save for a week or two in the northern Chesapeake Bay.  

It is amazing the toll that the salt water has taken on the boat in this short period of time.  All of the exterior metal is stainless steel and not just any stainless steel but marine grade 316L stainless.  Stainless steel doesn’t rust, right?  Wrong.  We fight rust every day with stainless steel polish, wax and anything else we can find that works.  And it is not just the water.  The salt air also has an impact.  Today we noticed that the snaps on Judy’s backpack are getting rusty.

This afternoon we snorkeled on the boat in an effort to rid her bottom of some of the mini ecosystem that develops on the bottom of every boat in saltwater.  We found that our bottom paint is working well, the critters can’t get a good hold on the hull and can be wiped away pretty easily with just a cloth.  In contrast those areas where the bottom paint is missing due to encounters with the bottom or underwater debris are collecting quite a community of barnacles.  We actually put our old Wisconsin ice scraper to work there since we no longer need it for what it was originally designed.

The salt is everywhere, especially after a passage like the one we made from Key West on Tuesday.  We were beating into six and seven foot waves all the way to Marathon, with water routinely spraying up over the bow of the boat.  When we arrived back at Boot Key Harbor the foredeck was covered with grass and other sea vegetation, a couple unfortunate flying fish that found their way aboard and salt, lots of salt.   The salt actually forms big white granules that stick to the deck and hull of the boat.  This is easily dealt with at a dock where there is a hose and an unlimited supply of water.  On a mooring the best we can hope for is a good rain.

It is said that all of life is a tradeoff.  In our case we have traded fresh water, our house and our jobs for freedom, beautiful weather, swaying palms and a lot of salt.  Not a bad deal, not a bad deal at all.

Marathon and Key West

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

Christmas night we drove to Fort Lauderdale and met Daughter Jennifer and Grandson Cameron at the airport after their flights from Milwaukee and then drove them back to Marathon, arriving at about 3 AM.

We had one free day in Marathon, albeit a short one because everyone slept in following the late night.  That morning, Cameron found that Santa had indeed visited Sweet Escape and he spent some time opening his gifts.  

Brian and Ryan then took Cameron out for a little fishing in Sister’s Creek while the girls laid out in the sun on Sweet Escape.  Cameron has decided that he is now our official dinghy driver and that anytime we have to go anywhere in the dinghy that he will drive.  The fishing trip was mostly a bust with Ryan catching the only fish, another weird looking toadfish.

On Wednesday we went in to the marina and made arrangements for an extra pump out for Thursday before we left for Key West.  With the additional crew, the tank filled up quickly and we did not want to sail for Key West with an almost full waste tank. 

Thursday morning Ryan and Erin went snorkeling on Sombrero Reef with a local excursion service.  They would then drive and meet us in Key West at Conch Harbor Marina where we had a slip reserved for five nights. 

After the pump out boat finally arrived and emptied our waste tank we slipped our mooring and headed out bound for Key West with Jenny and Cameron aboard.  We had a beautiful day and motor sailed the 50 miles to Key West and arrived at around 4 PM.  After getting tied up and checked in we went to dinner at the Turtle Kraal Restaurant.

Conch Harbor Marina is located in the heart of Key West and for the next several days we spent a lot of time walking around getting the lay of the land.  We spent time on Duval Street both during the day and at night and copious amounts of adult beverages were consumed.  We also spent some time by the pool and additional adult beverages were consumed there.

Which brings us to New Years Eve.  Key West has become a new years eve destination of sorts with CNN carrying the festivities live.  There are two primary events.  The first is the Conch Shell Drop which occurs outside Sloppy Joe’s Bar where a giant conch shell descends during the countdown at midnight.

The other is outside the Bourbon Street Pub, a gay bar at the end of Duval Street where “Sushi” the drag queen descends in a giant red high heeled shoe at midnight.  Naturally the latter is the event carried by CNN.  

Drag queens not being our cup of tea - we opted for the conch shell drop at Sloppy Joe’s.  Brian, Judy, Erin and Ryan attended while Jenny and Cameron stayed behind on Sweet Escape.  This turned out to be a mob scene and I think we were the only people in attendance who were not at some level of inebriation, us having destroyed our quota of brain cells earlier in our stay.  None the less the crowd was pretty well behaved and we all enjoyed being there.

On Tuesday it was time to leave.  We said goodbye to the kids who would be leaving us in Key West and driving back to Wisconsin.  We then left the marina and headed back to Marathon - this was a ten hour slog through high winds and big wave right on the nose.  We arrived back at Boot Key Harbor in the dark and found that someone had taken our mooring.  Great, we were both exhausted after the passage from hell and now we had to search the mooring field in the dark for a vacant mooring.  After some looking, eagle-eye Judy saw one and we grabbed it for the evening.  We will have to straighten it all out on Wednesday.  

Check our albums page for additional photos.

Merry Christmas from Paradise

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

It has been business as usual here at Boot Key Harbor the past several days.

On Wednesday we took the dinghy up Sister’s Creek to Sombrero Beach.  We beached the dinghy and spent some time in the water.  This is one of the best (few) beaches in the Keys.  You would think that this area would be full of beaches but in reality the shores are mostly rocky here and so we are fortunate to have Sombrero Beach with it’s white sand just a dinghy ride away.  Which brings me to the other part of the story.  We had a little trouble trying to get the dinghy off the beach and back in the water.  Once we were floating, Brian had difficulty getting the engine to go back down after he had raised it earlier.  The area where we beached the dinghy has a lot of rocks and coral heads.  In his anxiety to get the engine down and started, he flooded it.  In the meantime we were being blown into the rocks.  Judy was forced to bail out and walk the dinghy out away from the rocks while Brian worked on the engine.  Finally the engine started and Judy then had to get back in the boat.  I’m glad that we were all alone because it surely must have looked like Laurel & Hardy.   

On Thursday we were invited by Shannon and Leigh for sundowners aboard Sol Mate.  We had a wonderful evening with good company and Shannon’s outstanding guacamole.  Thanks guys!

On Friday a cold front came through and brought with it high winds and cool temperatures for a couple days.  We really didn’t do much because the weather was not very good.  Judy did spend some time baking for Christmas. 

Daughter Erin and son-in-law to be Ryan arrived here on Sunday right in the middle of the Green Bay Packers 55 to 7 victory over the Tennessee Titans.  We met them at the Hurricane where we were watching the game.   Once it appeared that the Packers had the game in hand (and it didn’t take long) we left and headed back to the marina where we loaded up their luggage and them in the dinghy and headed out for the five minute ride to Sweet Escape.  Needless to say, after driving 1600 miles the past couple days they were both pretty tired and so we had pizza for dinner and then headed off to bed.

On Monday we fired up Sweet Escape’ engine for the first time in a couple weeks, cast off our mooring and headed over to Burdine’s fuel dock where we took on 40 gallons of diesel before heading out toward Sombrero Reef.  

Sombrero Reef is about three miles south of Boot Key and features the best snorkeling in The Florida Keys.  We wanted to go take a look to see if the conditions would be good for some snorkeling - no joy, they weren't.  Out at the reef waves were running one to two feet and the winds were from the southeast, the wrong direction if you are looking for calm water to snorkel in.  Too bad because the water there is crystal clear and beautiful.  We will definitely try again when the conditions are better.

So, instead of snorkeling we sailed.  This was the first time we had been able to do any leisure sailing without a destination since we left on our cruise.  It felt good.

Back on the boat we cooked burgers on the grill and spent the evening playing Mexican Train Dominos - a game that Ryan introduced us to and watching Captain Ron - the quintessential cruising movie.

This morning we got up and headed over to San Pablo Church for mass.  This is a very pretty little church but it is about four miles away from us here.  It will be quite an endeavor to get there on Sundays on our folding bikes but we will try.  

After mass we had intended to attend the Christmas potluck put on by cruisers here at Boot Key Harbor.  We had made some stuffing but mass had run longer than we expected and there was not enough time to bake the stuffing and still arrive on time for the potluck so we did not go.

We will attend the Christmas buffet later this afternoon at the Sunset Grille.

Tonight we will pick Daughter Jennifer and Grandson Cameron up at the Fort Lauderdale Airport.  Their flight arrives at midnight, so it will be a very late night for all.  We have no plans for Wednesday and on Thursday we will head to Key West where we will spend the New Year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!