Still waiting...yawn

It appears to be true what people had been saying and what we had read - it's hard to cross from Florida to Bahamas in January. Every time we look at the weather forecast (which averages 26 times a day) it has changed. We're still really hoping there is a break in the wind speed and direction for just one day this week and we can make it to the sunny, warm Berry Islands.

Our neighbours took a pic of our boat in the pea-soup fog this week

Rain rain go away, come again after we've left!

There are still many, many jobs we could be doing on the boat but with the cold fronts that keep moving in it's just been to dark, rainy, windy and cool to be on deck getting much done. So we've been busy reading and watching Homeland - FYI season 4 episode 9 is not a good point in the show to realize you have no more episodes!! So any and all book suggestions welcome :) I also made James a new wallet which was long over due since his previous "wallet" was a piece of string used to tie his cards and money together! We found a bag of old sail scraps in the v-berth so I used that in keeping with the nautical theme our lifestyle has taken.

Wallet making

The other bit of entertainment we had was a pair of dolphins who came up to our boat the other evening and spent about half an hour swimming all around our boat. They were fishing and were making quite the display of it - one was swimming along on her back right against our boat, catching a fish in her mouth then lazily rolling over to eat it. The fish were freaking out and started jumping into our dingy!! I climbed down to get the poor things out and the dolphin swam right under my feet on the ladder - it looked an awful lot bigger that close up! James got the fish out of the dingy and threw them back into the water - which essentially was right into the dolphins mouth - I think they thought we were feeding them! They continued to swim on their sides and back all around and under our boat and their eyes were totally tracking us! Of course our camera was dead, other than the 1 second video below you'll just have to take our word for it.

We FINALLY enjoyed a day in Miami!!! We didn't worry about the boat and no one was rude/mean to us - it was delightful. One of the benefits of being delayed meant that I had time to order a folding bike since James got the last one on Amazon when we were at the marina in Cocoa. Yesterday, we set off on our folding bike maiden voyage to explore some more of South Beach. It was early on Saturday morning so the traffic wasn't bad (this made riding on the busy streets with no bike lanes a lot nicer). We biked through the city to South Point Park and then went along the boardwalk. There was a street festival there with food vendors and musicians and a play in the park - it was great! We found an awesome Italian Bakery and had homemade pizza for lunch. If you're in the area you have to check out Buon Panne Italiano http://www.buonpaneitaliano.com/. There are three older guys in the back baking away and two younger hilarious, friendly guys serving out front.  After that we headed out to the beach for a swim before the cold fronts move back in.

Last night we had our neighbours, Neil and Jeanette, from SV Echo Echo over - a really nice, funny Kiwi Aussie couple whose boat we went to last week. We had some much needed laughs and commiserated about being stuck in what we have dubbed "Break Down Harbour". They have also been stuck waiting for repairs and are in the same boat as us (sorry couldn't resist) waiting out the weather.  We're all pretty excited to get out of here.

Today we had some incredible winds. There had been a Tornado Watch issued so we made sure to have everything tied down tight. We sat in the cockpit this morning having our coffee and watching the front move in. Being out on the water really gives you the opportunity to see weather in effect. We could actually see the line of the front moving in!

You can see the line where the cold front moved in and destroyed our enclosure

It was moving a lot faster than we realized so no sooner had we stepped off the gangway ladder than my coffee went flying along with all the dishes in the drying rack! The 43knots of wind beat up our cockpit enclosure a bit. The wind pushed the dodger off the front and then pulled the stainless steel frame apart on one side and bent the screws on one of the fixtures! It wasn't until it was all over that we read a tornado had actually struck on the gulf coast and sadly two people died (parents: they were not on a boat, it was totally unrelated to sailing). The high winds mean we can definitely confirm our wind generator is working!! This 25+knot wind we've had all day has our charge controller reading over 12.7volts and still going - yee haw! We will be in serious power heaven once that other solar panel is wired-in and that hot, hot Caribbean sun is beating down!

Guess we're getting the tape out again

Enclosure no longer coving the wood

Those 2 pieces of metal should be connected

Some very bent screws

The Waiting Game

One of our many dingy rides to shore

We are very happy to report that our engine is running!! We were finally able to get into see a mechanic and he actually knew what he was doing. The leak in our fuel pump probably boiled down to one simple O-ring but as you have probably guessed that did not mean it was a simple fix! Our engine is a Perkins and the company is out of business. For some reason, only known to Perkins, they decided to make their own bolts to use on said engine. These bolts are not the same as any other hence they need a special Perkins tool to remove them. No one has this tool!!! The mechanic was able to order a replacement bolt from a fuel injection specialist - the rubber O-ring is attached to this bolt but the bolt is so finely machined that once it is removed it is garbage. The part itself cost a whopping $25.  What didn't cost $25 was couriers running all over the city trying to obtain parts for our weird engine, the mechanic MAKING a tool to try to remove the bolt, and all the trouble shooting involved. Basically for a $0.10 rubber ring we had a $600 bill and a one month delay - you gotta love boats.

We were hoping the mechanic could also figure out why our engine does not like to start when it has sat for more than 12 hours. Of course in a prime example of Murphy's Law the engine started on the first time every day we were there - something it as never done. It's like when my computer doesn't work and I'm complaining to James that something is wrong with it. Then as he walks towards the computer and puts his hand on it, it miraculously works perfectly.

The other issue we had here was our wind generator was broken and we were hoping to install our new solar panel. We ordered parts for both of these projects from another cruiser who is big into renewable energy and makes all sorts of parts. Our order somehow has disappeared off the face of the earth and the guy we ordered from is on vacation sailing to South America and completely out of reach and only he has the tracking number for our package. After trying to track down the package for two weeks, we finally admitted defeat and got new parts elsewhere so later today is stage one of solar panel #2 instillation. We have already replaced the charge controller for the existing solar panel and you'll never guess what!?! It was broken - shocker. So we had no wind and no solar charging our batteries! Once we have a working wind generator and two working solar panels we might even be able to turn a light on every once in a while. We both feel like our state of energy poverty is a factor in our engine not starting - maybe there isn't quite enough charge to fire the solenoid.

We rented a car this weekend to finish provisioning the boat and to get all the supplies we need for the Bahamas. We were really hoping to make the crossing this past Sunday but then the weather forecast called for a thunderstorm so we didn't leave. Currently there looks to be a good weather window this coming Saturday so fingers crossed. A "good weather window" for our boat looks like this: winds from the south, east or possibly west, calling for no more than 15knots of wind (which could mean 25 when you're out there),  and a ratio of wave period to wave height of 1.5 or more. Why we need to watch for all this is because we have to cross the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a current that runs from Cuba to Ireland, taking warm water with it. The Gulf runs south to north and we are sailing west to east. The Gulf Steam is very fast moving and will try to push your boat north. Since the Gulf is traveling north, if you have a north wind it basically crashes into the Gulf creating very rough large waves and very uncomfortable and potentially dangerous sailing. Conversely, when the wind is not from the north you can have a completely flat calm blue sea.  So now we wait, and obsessively check the weather. (Tracy, I know how you love when it gets technical so this paragraph was for you ;).

With any luck the next posting will be coming from the Caribbean where I will be eating johnny cakes and drinking a Kalik!!!

Our tiny little boat garden

Miami Skyline at night as seen from our boat

Going to the mechanic, along the Miami River

SoBe

Well we're still in South Beach (SoBe), Miami and very much against our will. Yup, you guessed it the beast has broken down AGAIN. Within twenty four hours of being here the engine wouldn't start and then when we did get it started the batteries wouldn't charge. Fast forward to us wandering around the city with an alternator desperately trying to find someone who could test it. I wouldn't say troubleshooting, thinking outside the box, empathy or helpfulness are big in South Beach. Turns out eyelash extensions for toddlers and padded bras for six year olds are. Very disturbing. We then took a very long dingy ride to a mechanic who said he could test the alternator - when we got there he said "oh no I don't test it I send it away", hanging in the background was a poster of Osama Bin Laden with bullet holes in it. 

    

 

Before Christmas is not a good time to break down - most mechanics are closed from Dec 23-Jan1. After calling almost every marine diesel mechanic in the city, we did manage to find a very nice marine electrician. He came to the boat and did some rewiring for us and got our batteries charging - we're still working out why they aren't charging as well as before. We also found a couple of rip off artists who were only too happy to come to the boat and mess around, take our money and not fix our fuel leak. We have been told by one mechanic to call back on Monday and hopefully he can fit us in early in the week. 

Homemade Christmas Stockings

When we couldn't get the engine to charge the batteries we were having some really windy days. The wind generator wasn't adding any amps to the batteries at all and we managed to determine what we have been suspecting - the wind generator was broken. After days and days and days of trouble shooting we found we have a broken rectifier. We have ordered a new one and once it arrives we hope we can get the wind to help charge our batteries!

When everything breaks at Christmas, brandy and eggnog is the only sensible solution. 

Cortadito - mmmmmmm

The "agenda" for Miami has gone completely by the wayside but we did get to Little Havana on day one before we realized we had any troubles at all.  We went to the "World Famous" Versailles restaurant and it was incredible. The places seats something like 300 and there is a line up to get in! We had a delicious Cuban lunch with amazing coffee and desert.
We also picked up our cockpit cushions and they fit! We are still hoping to do some early morning beach yoga before we leave for this far away and perhaps imagined land called the Bahamas.

The stockings were hung by the mast with care and we took Christmas off from worrying about the boat and trying to fix the engine ourselves. We went out for breakfast and made a picnic and took it to the beach. We have a great anchorage and are going swimming off the boat everyday.

Elaborate boat Christmas Decor

"Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree"

There are lots of little canals here and we can dinghy to different places.  We were out in the dinghy a few days ago and our propeller hit something in the water. It worked fine for a couple of days and we were really hoping that by some miracle that it didn't break but it did. James identified the problem and found a propeller repair place and incidentally the two nicest men in Miami. We paddled the dinghy to the shore (which is no small feat) took the bus to the closest stop to the repair shop and walked the rest of the way. Originally they told us it would be a couple of days to get it back but once we got there and they realized how far we had come they fixed it on site. We thanked them so much and explained how much bad luck we've been having since we arrived. They totally took pity on us - they gave us bottles of cold water, a box of donuts, let us use their phone to try to find a mechanic for our boat. One guy even started calling people he knew to see if they could fit us in. Turns out bullet-hole Bin Laden is "the best mechanic in the city".

The last boat has just left the anchorage for the Bahamas, waving to us and shouting "Good Luck", which in truth is a very hard pill to swallow. However, our boat has a New Year's Resolution .... to stop breaking down. We support her resolution one hundred percent.

Christmas Day on our boat

View of Miami from our Anchorage

"Bienvenidos a Miami"

That's right we are Miami bound! Let the maxing and relaxing finally begin. We left Cocoa Village Marina three days ago and it feels wonderful to be on the move again. While we were there James' parents were able to come and visit us - it was great to see them and that they could check out the boat! We spent a lovely morning exploring the town of Cocoa and sampling some seasonal local honey.

Miss Kelly, my favourite Marina Manager

It was a throughly exhausting month at the marina but well worth it - we finally love our boat and it feels like home :) The list of what we accomplished in the month was pretty impressive - no wonder we're currently sleeping 10 hours a night! We attended a marina potluck a couple of nights before we left and everyone rushed over to us when we arrived to comment on the "twenty hour" days we had been working. I think people thought we were crazy. Many nights people wandered over to the boat saying "you guys are gonna kill yourselves you need to rest"! I've included a list of what we did simply because it makes me feel good to look at it ;)

1. Waterproofed, taped, and stiched back together our canvas enclosure so now when it rains we stay dry - how novel! We tried to get the whole thing replaced but there was a 6 month waiting list everywhere we tried.
2. Changed out all our sanitation hoses and installed a new septic tank - smells like a dream in here now.
3. Re-bedded the hatch above our bed so now when it rains it doesn't leak and we can still sleep in our bed!
4. Removed the old name from our boat and put our new name on! Goodbye maroon and mustard yellow cursive on our transom and goodbye to all the Highland Light problems - we are officially NOMADS now!!  
5. Cleaned the dingy and applied our Transport Canada Registration number so we are now legally driving that thing around. 
6. Fixed our captains chair so we no longer take our life in our hands when we hit a wave.
7. Sanded down the teak around the cockpit rail so it's no longer cracked and multicoloured - just need a coat of finish on there now
8. Installed screens for all our hatches - the Georgia swamp inspired this.
9. Painted our cowling vents white
10. Used an actual deck cleaning product and scrubbed the hell out of the deck - it looks clean for the first time.
11. Replaced the blower for the engine so we don't have to motor with the engine room doors open and can now hear each other speak when the engine is on
12. Installed a new starting solenoid so we don't have to start the day by hitting the engine with a screwdriver
13. Replaced the automatic bilge pump - now if we spring a leak the pump will automatically come on like it is supposed to and alarm to let us know it's pumping water
14. Replaced the manual bilge pump
15. Rebuilt the fresh water pump and tightened all the connections and replaced some of the hoses meaning the pump can now pump water from our water tanks so we have a reliable source of fresh water - very important
16. Replaced the faucets in the galley (kitchen) and both heads (bathrooms). They all leaked and were very ugly. Unfortunately this "simple" project turned into four days of hell.  The Endeavour is one of the boats that were built with polybutalyne pipes - a product that is no longer on the market and the company has long since been out of business since many home owners sued them. Basically the pipe fittings cracked as we took the faucets off and we had to buy new pipe and run them in some impossible to reach areas.
17. Became Amazon Prime's best customers for a couple of weeks. We fully stocked this boat with supplies, home decor, material to repair almost anything and lots more!
18. Had our "New York Storm Night from Hell Ripped Jib" fixed! 
19. Changed all the bathroom accessories from yellowed plastic to chrome - not sure how long that will last in the salt air but it looks pretty now. Hung shower curtains and towels and made a real bathroom.
20. Finally attached our swim ladder so we can have guests over without worrying they will break limbs.

The "GuestBathroom"

Guest Shower  

New Bathroom Fixtures and Freshly Oiled Wood

We finally have our own Identity!!

There were honestly so many other little things I can't even remember them and I'm sure you all stopped reading at bullet point three anyway. There are many, many, many other things we have on our "to do list" but the pressure is off and we can whittle away at that list when we need a break from the beautiful beaches in the Bahamas ;)

Manatee at the Marina 

Fellow Nova Scotian's Waving us off from the Marina:)

Leaving the marina - no more dodger vinyl blowing in the wind

Relaxing Boat Dinner

Early morning fishing

Swimming at Fort Pierce

The plan now is to spend a couple of days in Miami: yoga, beach, shopping and gorging ourselves on Cuban food are all on the agenda.  We were hoping to reach Miami this evening but the current has been against us the past two days and we are making terrible time so we may not arrive until tomorrow. We ordered some new cockpit cushions online and we are picking them up when we arrive - very curious to see how they turn out! From there we are just waiting out some favourable winds and weather to make the crossing to Bimini, Bahamas!

Clouds and sunrise near Melbourne, FL

Back in Business

Now I know many of you will have un-bookmarked me (Tracy) or may fear we have sunk so just a quick post to allay your fears. Since our last blog post we spent a wonderful few days in Charleston - walking around admiring the architecture, eating delicious foods, and doing a little shopping.

Charleston, SC

St. Simon Island, GA

From there we headed down the ICW to Georgia

ICW, Georgia

where we went back onto the Atlantic and headed to St. Simon's Island: An old English colony that used to have rice and cotton plantations and is today a very pretty island full of touristy shops. We then headed to Savannah where we ran out of gas in a swamp and had to spend the night anchored barely off the ICW channel being eaten alive by all sorts of bugs. After we finally figured out how to bleed an engine all way through when there is absolutely no fuel in it, we headed to a fuel dock to fill up and then onto San Fernandina beach which meant we made it to Florida!!! We spent James' birthday here going out for some of the best pizza we've ever had and eating it in a beautiful courtyard.

When your birthday morning is spent in a swamp the decorations get a little shady 

The Birthday boy enjoying lunch

Not a bad way to spend a birthday!

We had hoped to go back into San Fernandina the next day but the weather was so rough and the waves were so big that we got in our dingy and immediately realized it was a terrible idea and got back on the boat!

Cummberland Island, Georgia 

St. Simon's Lighthouse

We spent two nights at the city mooring balls in St. Augustine which I think must be the coolest city in Florida. It was founded in the 1500s by the Spanish and feels like you are in Spain! Tiny streets with cobblestones, massive Spanish inspired fortress-like buildings, and great food! I spent the whole time craving massive espresso based beverages and pastries which James pointed out was because it felt a little like you were in Europe. Except in true Florida style it has a definite Disney feel to the place - the old school house has a dressed up, talking mannequin inviting you in!

St. Augustine

St. Augustine Sunset

Then we finally made it to our Florida destination - Cocoa!!! We are here at the Marina for a month to get lots of jobs finished and make some improvements to our boat and make it feel like it's ours. The whole way down from New York our mantra has been "we just need to make it to Florida" and now we have!!!

I guess our blog wouldn't be our blog without an embarrassing story so here it is... Our first day when we arrived at the marina we were exhausted. We'd been pulling some really long days to get here and our supplies were pretty low. We arrive and are greeted by really friendly staff and fellow boaters who inform us that there is a potluck that night at the marina. We thought it would be a great way to meet some new people so we headed into town in search of something edible to bring - which was a dozen donuts since everything was either closed or needed to be preordered. We got back to the marina and headed to the showers in the main building to get ready. At the end of our dock is a massive old style paddle steamer. I go off to the shower and have this glorious hot, high water pressure "land shower" and am in a bit of a happy daze when I'm finished - I'm clean and I'm looking forward to our pot luck dinner.  At the gate back to our dock is a bridal party - the bride, the father of the bride, some bridesmaids and the wedding co-ordinator. I say "congratulations" and smile and then say excuse me to get around them and back to our boat.  As I'm walking down the dock the paddle steamer is at the end and it suddenly dawns on me that the dock is acting as an aisle and I have interrupted the bridal procession walking back to my boat with a towel on my head!! The photographer stopped taking photos and the paddle steamer is now full of guests who are all staring at me like "what the hell is this girl doing"?? To either side of me are all the boats at the marina who are getting ready for the potluck and have come out on deck to watch the procession. I can't turn back because the bride is behind me so I just put my head down and made a beeline for my boat. At first I felt terrible and then I thought ... why didn't ANYONE say "can you wait a minute the wedding has started"?!?! To whoever that bride and groom are I'm sorry and congratulations!

Our home for next couple of weeks

Well we've been at the marina for two weeks and have already accomplished a lot! Now as you know our boat has had some terrible smells and James and I agreed it was time to put an end to that. We ripped all the old sanitation hoses out and replaced them and installed a new septic tank - it was a throughly revolting 4 days but it is so much nicer in here!!! As an aside did you know that saltwater and urine make shale - as you cut the pipes to get them out rocks falls out. Disgusting. We found someone to repair our badly ripped sail! He had to cut the side off that was ripped and resize it but we're back to two headsails! We have also become Amazon's best customers as we have been busy procuring lots of boat supplies and some creature comforts - thank you IKEA Orlando :) We now have bedsheets, plates, glasses, bowls, even a carpet and a few Christmas decorations. Once the boat is all fixed up I will share some photos of where we live.

We took a little break from the renos and went to visit friends for Thanksgiving. It was delightful to be around friends that feel like family and have many home cooked meals - Thanksgiving was a little too good to us we need to get back on the water and burning some calories. While we were visiting our friends we went to a "resort" which I think was just a massive hotel with lots of activities but we had a very relaxing swim and pool side nap and got rejuvenated for the rest of our boat improvements.

Thanksgiving Feast

Thanksgiving Dinner

Taking it easy at Gaylord Palms Resort

We are are the marina for another two weeks if anyone wants to send fan mail, gifts, monetary donations to keep the blog (and us) alive, please let me know and I can give you the address.

Boat Baby Gabe