As part of my last post, I was also going to mention crab pots and the part they play in the Great Loop adventure. There are literally thousands of them all along the route and at times encroach into the ICW itself, which I am sure they are not supposed to do. This is another reason continuous vigilance is necessary as they are hard to spot and any lack of attention could have you wrapping one around your propellor in quick time....been there, done that. There was one of our "almost groundings" the other day where we were in a stretch of the waterway between markers and suddenly encountered a field of buoys in only 5ft of water. Although the GPS showed we were in the ICW, I began to worry that it was in error (surely the ICW isn't that shallow and contain crab pots!!??!!) and turned towards a marker on our port side. As we approached what turned out to be a sign telling us we were in a Manatee zone - "no wake speed only" (another thing many local boaters ignore), we were also in 4.5ft of water which was shallowing rapidly. We gently reversed back the way we had come, amongst the crab pots, and continued our journey down the ICW where it soon deepened back to its usual 6-8ft. The moral that day was "trust your GPS".
I personally think that there should be an open shooting season on any crab pot found within the limits of the ICW. Perhaps if a few of the errant buoys were blown apart and the lines sunk, the owners would be less likely to put them in places that are a hazard to navigation. Speaking of which and considering the thousands of them out there, I have never actually seen anyone lifting up a crab pot and some of the buoys look like they haven't been out of the water for years. Who do they all belong to?? How often are they checked?? From the price of crab in restaurants and shops and the amount of it available, it would appear that the poor critters are becoming fewer and fewer and with the number of pots out there, this is hardly surprising.
They tell me it gets worse on the other side and the lobster pots up in the Chesapeake will give us nightmares. Sounds like fun.
TTFN
Friday, 21 December 2012
Thursday, 20 December 2012
Skinny Water
Being from an engineering background, I have a tendency towards caution of things mechanical. In the early days, I spent a lot of time anxiously watching the engine performance gauges to ensure that things were running OK as mechanical failure is one of my pet fears. It was certainly uppermost in my mind when we crossed the Gulf, followed by the fear of hitting something in the dark. The weather was one of my least worrisome aspects of that crossing. After a short time on the river system, I "got over that" and found my major area of concentration to be on the depth gauge.
When I was planning and researching the Great Loop, I spent a lot of time cruising it on Google Earth and visualised a series of natural waterways, charted as "Sounds" interconnected by man-made canals that, together, would make up the Intra Costal Waterway. Indeed, this is the case, but what I didn't appreciate was just how shallow these waterways would be. I visualised the "Sounds" to be like the Marlborough Sounds with steep-to cliffs rising vertically out of deep water. Where you could pull over to a shore and tie to a tree and rest comfortably for the night. The reality is that the ICW is made up of a series of shallow ponds (albeit some big ones) joined together by man-made canals that sometimes are actually dredged from the "sounds" themselves. The charts state that there are minimum water levels of 6ft at low tide, but we have seen that degrade to as little as 5ft and less in some parts of the ICW. It is very eerie being in an enclosed stretch of water where you can hardly see both sides, and being in a 200ft wide channel knowing that to venture a few yard outside the demarcation lines, you will be aground. Despite the fact that the waterway is quite straight in many of these places and you can use auto pilot (George maintains a better course than I ever can), you cannot afford to loose concentration for any time, or you will be on the putty - which makes navigating in this part of the world interesting, but stressful. Here's a pic of the iPad chart of Pine Island Sound that is typical of the ICW
The day before we left Tarpon Springs (you know..the place where Carolyn broke her arm), we got up in the morning to find the boat was not moving. That was because it was sitting on the bottom, in the mud. The trawler next to us had both his chines about 2" out of the water. We were told it was the lowest tide they had seen at the marina and it was 3 hours before anyone could go anywhere. We made sure we left late he next day and got out with plenty of water. BTW "plenty" is now anything that is deep enough for us to not hit the bottom with our props while underway. That night we stayed at an anchorage just north of Boca Ciega Bay next to an American Legion (USA equivalent to an RSA) in plenty of water. There were 2 keelboats anchored there so we felt pretty safe. The next day we departed and travelled about 40 miles to the city of Sarasota. Here we stopped at a mooring field where a multitude of mooring buoys were available on a "first come, first serve?" (served, surely) basis. It turned out however, that the field was under the control on "Marina Jack" who seemed to have a monopoly on where you can put your boat in Sarasota, and we had the option to pay a mere $23 for the privilege of hanging on the buoy to get slopped about by every local loonie that ignored the Colregs, no wake signs and common courtesy or pay $2.65 per ft to go to his marina. Ultimately we opted to do neither and continued another 1.5 miles to an anchorage shown in Skipper Bob's waterway guide. The problem was that the depths had changed at the entrance to this anchorage since the last publication and we were involved in one near grounding and a tense entry into what turned out to be a very peaceful and secure place to stay. The next day we delayed departure until we had a rising tide at 11.30 and managed to get out without seeing less than 6ft of water (WOW).
After another day involving one actual and another near grounding on the waterway (long story.....won't go into it now), I decided we would "play it safe" and stay at a marina that night. We chose the Royal Palm Marina at Englewood and turned into the marked channel off the ICW at 4.30pm, just on full tide. Most of the way down the channel to the marina, our depth sounder showed we were in 5.5 ft of water, but went as low as 5.2ft. We draw 4.3 ft, and the tides for that evening were 1.2ft. You do the math!!! To get out the next day meant we had to leave a 7.00am the next morning to have the same depth that we had on the way in, but on a falling tide, or leave in the afternoon. We opted for the afto' and left at 1.30pm seeing depths to 4.5ft on the way out meaning we had 2" of water between our props and the bottom. That night we stayed behind an island in the Pine Island Sound called Useppa island. It had a deep channel around to the back of it and plenty of water to spend a secure night (BTW "deep" was 7-9 ft). The interesting thing was this isolated patch of land in the middle of nowhere was absolutely covered in multi million dollar houses!
I watched a program on TV while we were at Tarpon Springs on the local "Florida" channel that explained how all the canals and waterways in Florida came about. Apparently, 100 years ago, most of Florida was swamp (which explains why the capital is in Tallassee in the pan handle - nobody lived much further south) Then the Federal Government decided it was a waste of land, so they commissioned the Army Corps of Engineers to build a bunch of canals to drain the swamps - which later became useful for transport. Then the developers moved in and started selling off the land as "some of the most fertile farmland in the USA". A number of them went to prison for perpetrating that myth upon an unsuspecting population. They also began digging their own canals and laying the spoil alongside as canal-type housing developments. This all fell over when the depression, then WWII came along and the developments sat around for decades unused. Then came the advent of cheap production fibreglass boats which rekindled interest in waterside property and resulted in the proliferation of canal developments with expensive housing with which Florida is riddled today.
Yesterday we left the Gulf ICW and are now on the Okeechobee waterway at Fort Myers. We are stopping here for a week and will drive up to Orlando to spend Christmas day with our good friends Jack and Denise from JADE. We will then depart for our last stretch of Stage 1 to Indiantown where Loopy Kiwi will be hauled out while we return to New Zealand to "settle our affairs" (as it were).
Sorry about the delay in posting, but I have been somewhat preoccupied over the past few weeks. In case I don't get to do another one before Christmas, everybody have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (I'm sorry - "Happy Holiday" just doesn't do it for me!)
When I was planning and researching the Great Loop, I spent a lot of time cruising it on Google Earth and visualised a series of natural waterways, charted as "Sounds" interconnected by man-made canals that, together, would make up the Intra Costal Waterway. Indeed, this is the case, but what I didn't appreciate was just how shallow these waterways would be. I visualised the "Sounds" to be like the Marlborough Sounds with steep-to cliffs rising vertically out of deep water. Where you could pull over to a shore and tie to a tree and rest comfortably for the night. The reality is that the ICW is made up of a series of shallow ponds (albeit some big ones) joined together by man-made canals that sometimes are actually dredged from the "sounds" themselves. The charts state that there are minimum water levels of 6ft at low tide, but we have seen that degrade to as little as 5ft and less in some parts of the ICW. It is very eerie being in an enclosed stretch of water where you can hardly see both sides, and being in a 200ft wide channel knowing that to venture a few yard outside the demarcation lines, you will be aground. Despite the fact that the waterway is quite straight in many of these places and you can use auto pilot (George maintains a better course than I ever can), you cannot afford to loose concentration for any time, or you will be on the putty - which makes navigating in this part of the world interesting, but stressful. Here's a pic of the iPad chart of Pine Island Sound that is typical of the ICW
The day before we left Tarpon Springs (you know..the place where Carolyn broke her arm), we got up in the morning to find the boat was not moving. That was because it was sitting on the bottom, in the mud. The trawler next to us had both his chines about 2" out of the water. We were told it was the lowest tide they had seen at the marina and it was 3 hours before anyone could go anywhere. We made sure we left late he next day and got out with plenty of water. BTW "plenty" is now anything that is deep enough for us to not hit the bottom with our props while underway. That night we stayed at an anchorage just north of Boca Ciega Bay next to an American Legion (USA equivalent to an RSA) in plenty of water. There were 2 keelboats anchored there so we felt pretty safe. The next day we departed and travelled about 40 miles to the city of Sarasota. Here we stopped at a mooring field where a multitude of mooring buoys were available on a "first come, first serve?" (served, surely) basis. It turned out however, that the field was under the control on "Marina Jack" who seemed to have a monopoly on where you can put your boat in Sarasota, and we had the option to pay a mere $23 for the privilege of hanging on the buoy to get slopped about by every local loonie that ignored the Colregs, no wake signs and common courtesy or pay $2.65 per ft to go to his marina. Ultimately we opted to do neither and continued another 1.5 miles to an anchorage shown in Skipper Bob's waterway guide. The problem was that the depths had changed at the entrance to this anchorage since the last publication and we were involved in one near grounding and a tense entry into what turned out to be a very peaceful and secure place to stay. The next day we delayed departure until we had a rising tide at 11.30 and managed to get out without seeing less than 6ft of water (WOW).
After another day involving one actual and another near grounding on the waterway (long story.....won't go into it now), I decided we would "play it safe" and stay at a marina that night. We chose the Royal Palm Marina at Englewood and turned into the marked channel off the ICW at 4.30pm, just on full tide. Most of the way down the channel to the marina, our depth sounder showed we were in 5.5 ft of water, but went as low as 5.2ft. We draw 4.3 ft, and the tides for that evening were 1.2ft. You do the math!!! To get out the next day meant we had to leave a 7.00am the next morning to have the same depth that we had on the way in, but on a falling tide, or leave in the afternoon. We opted for the afto' and left at 1.30pm seeing depths to 4.5ft on the way out meaning we had 2" of water between our props and the bottom. That night we stayed behind an island in the Pine Island Sound called Useppa island. It had a deep channel around to the back of it and plenty of water to spend a secure night (BTW "deep" was 7-9 ft). The interesting thing was this isolated patch of land in the middle of nowhere was absolutely covered in multi million dollar houses!
The next day, as we plodded our way down the ICW, we heard a call from a boat gone aground on his way in to Royal Palm Marina. This was 10.30 in the morning and on a falling tide. Despite his calling Towboat US (equivalent to AVCG), he was not going to get off there for at least 4 hours.
I watched a program on TV while we were at Tarpon Springs on the local "Florida" channel that explained how all the canals and waterways in Florida came about. Apparently, 100 years ago, most of Florida was swamp (which explains why the capital is in Tallassee in the pan handle - nobody lived much further south) Then the Federal Government decided it was a waste of land, so they commissioned the Army Corps of Engineers to build a bunch of canals to drain the swamps - which later became useful for transport. Then the developers moved in and started selling off the land as "some of the most fertile farmland in the USA". A number of them went to prison for perpetrating that myth upon an unsuspecting population. They also began digging their own canals and laying the spoil alongside as canal-type housing developments. This all fell over when the depression, then WWII came along and the developments sat around for decades unused. Then came the advent of cheap production fibreglass boats which rekindled interest in waterside property and resulted in the proliferation of canal developments with expensive housing with which Florida is riddled today.
Yesterday we left the Gulf ICW and are now on the Okeechobee waterway at Fort Myers. We are stopping here for a week and will drive up to Orlando to spend Christmas day with our good friends Jack and Denise from JADE. We will then depart for our last stretch of Stage 1 to Indiantown where Loopy Kiwi will be hauled out while we return to New Zealand to "settle our affairs" (as it were).
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Fine weather with the occasional tornado
Following on from the last posting, the battery tester turned up and confirmed that both Stan's start batteries were dud, but all the rest were OK. So I moved the 2 start batteries I was using for house to replace them and in turn, replaced those with 2 new deep cycle batteries, which I got from Sam's Club so they are the same as the others in house service.
We decided that continuing on would be too hard with a one armed deckhand, so I booked to stay another week at this marina. As it turned out, their rate for 2 weeks and one month are the same, so we can stay until we are ready to go, or Christmas day (whichever comes first). Carolyn is improving each day, so hopefully we will be in a position to get away when she has been back to the Orthopaedist in Clearwater in a weeks time. We will certainly need to be underway well before Christmas to get to Indiantown in time to lay the boat up prior to heading home on January 3rd.
Speaking of home, we got an email from Pauline today telling us about the tornadoes that hit near where we live. It would appear that the one that did the most damaged passed within about quarter of a mile of our house. Three people have been killed and seven injured...Auckland is not normally known for tornadoes, but this is the second one in about a year that has killed people within a few kilometres of our home. This is a map of Auckland showing where they hit. Our house is about where the marker is on the map.
Several friends have checked out our house and it appears there has been no damage.
In the meantime, the weather here is gorgeous. Since we have been here, the temperature has been around 80F (26C) during the day and dropping to around 15 - 17 at night. They haven't had any rain here for 65 days and there is none apparent for the next week or so. I'm getting a lot of biking in since the rental car was returned on Monday, but it is all flat here so it is no real task. All of the major shops are within easy biking distance and we are very close to the commercial docks and fresh seafood supply. Last night, just to see what lived in the river, I tried my hand at fishing and landed 3 catfish off 4 baits. They are smelly, slimy things that croak like a Gurnard. Even though they come out of seawater, I had no desire to eat them based on previous experience with catfish in restaurants on the river system - so they all got thrown back. However, they also have bony spines on their pectoral and dorsal fins that lock horizontally from their bodies when they are agitated. The last on to be returned slipped out of my hand and landed on my foot, gouging my ankle with his spine. It didn't hurt a lot, but I bled like a stuck pig for about 20 minutes. I checked on the net to see if the spines are poisonous, and apparently some are...but not this one cause I'm still here. Having said that, these 5 vultures were sitting in a tree dead opposite the boat when I got up this morning....Hmmmmm.....
We decided that continuing on would be too hard with a one armed deckhand, so I booked to stay another week at this marina. As it turned out, their rate for 2 weeks and one month are the same, so we can stay until we are ready to go, or Christmas day (whichever comes first). Carolyn is improving each day, so hopefully we will be in a position to get away when she has been back to the Orthopaedist in Clearwater in a weeks time. We will certainly need to be underway well before Christmas to get to Indiantown in time to lay the boat up prior to heading home on January 3rd.
Speaking of home, we got an email from Pauline today telling us about the tornadoes that hit near where we live. It would appear that the one that did the most damaged passed within about quarter of a mile of our house. Three people have been killed and seven injured...Auckland is not normally known for tornadoes, but this is the second one in about a year that has killed people within a few kilometres of our home. This is a map of Auckland showing where they hit. Our house is about where the marker is on the map.
and a couple of pix I lifted off google. The first looks to be taken from close to where our friends Dennis and Kathy live. Our house would be to the extreme left of the pic.
and this one appears to be taken along Hobsonville Rd, where I frequently walk with Woody
In the meantime, the weather here is gorgeous. Since we have been here, the temperature has been around 80F (26C) during the day and dropping to around 15 - 17 at night. They haven't had any rain here for 65 days and there is none apparent for the next week or so. I'm getting a lot of biking in since the rental car was returned on Monday, but it is all flat here so it is no real task. All of the major shops are within easy biking distance and we are very close to the commercial docks and fresh seafood supply. Last night, just to see what lived in the river, I tried my hand at fishing and landed 3 catfish off 4 baits. They are smelly, slimy things that croak like a Gurnard. Even though they come out of seawater, I had no desire to eat them based on previous experience with catfish in restaurants on the river system - so they all got thrown back. However, they also have bony spines on their pectoral and dorsal fins that lock horizontally from their bodies when they are agitated. The last on to be returned slipped out of my hand and landed on my foot, gouging my ankle with his spine. It didn't hurt a lot, but I bled like a stuck pig for about 20 minutes. I checked on the net to see if the spines are poisonous, and apparently some are...but not this one cause I'm still here. Having said that, these 5 vultures were sitting in a tree dead opposite the boat when I got up this morning....Hmmmmm.....
TTFN
Friday, 30 November 2012
Update on broken stuff
Just a quick update on progress with the Admiral's broken wing.
The day after the visit to the hospital, we tried to make an appointment with their recommended Orthopaedist in Clearwater. Here we ran into our first difficulty with the US medical system when you don't live here - even though you have Travel Insurance. They did not recognise our provider, Southern Cross (SCTI) and did not accept "patient responsibility" (ie cash) paying customers. This was despite the fact that the hospital had given us a 73% discount for settling directly rather than via an insurance company. So we rang SCTI in New Zealand who said they would arrange the appointment, but first we had to establish a claim and fill out the paperwork. This involved getting 2 authorities from them to be signed and returned plus the other 15 pages of documents from the hospital, copies of our passports, our itinerary for the trip and evidence, in the form of an invoice from the marina, that we were actually IN the USA. As all Kiwi's know, we have a system in NZ called Accident Compensation, where anyone (including tourists) get free medical in the event of an accident. So we are going to buy expensive travel insurance, pretend to be in the USA and forge hospital receipts etc to get treatment in NZ that would be free anyway!!??!! I don't think so. I guess something must have happened to them sometime to ask for such info, but it beats me.
Just as luck would have it, the WiFi isn't working at this marina, but the kind folks here loaned me a Sprint Aircard to contact SCTI. In continuing the Murphy tradition, our printer decided it would eat paper, rather than print on it and because it is pretty basic, the scanned files from it were too large to email via the Aircard. Accordingly I spent the day traipsing between the boat and marina office (by bike, I might add) to get the necessary documents to SCTI. Overnight, there was no further response, so I asked SCTI if they had received the emails, to which they replied that they hadn't. Bear in mind there is a 16 hour time delay between us and them, so by the time I resent them (and by fax as well) it was 5.20pm when SCTI tried to ring the Orthopaedic clinic, and it had closed for the day.
Carolyn had a bad night that night - her arm swelled and she was in significant pain, so I rang the clinic to make an appointment, pending authorisation from SCTI...only to be told that the doctor was gone and would not be back until Thursday next week. They recommended another clinic nearby and I rang them, explained the situation and requested an appointment. The payment issue arose again (they also did not recognise SCTI, but would accept cash) and during the process of making the appointment asked, after the usual questions like, name, DOB etc, if there was any litigation involved as a result of the accident. When I said "no", she asked; " no lawyers involved, right?" There must be some scary things happen here to make questions like that predominant in making an appointment to see a doctor. She asked if we had the hospital Xrays, and when I said "no" she said we should get them, or they would have to take more - which would cost more. She also asked if we could get there right away. The clinic was 15 miles away, so I said it would take at least an hour. She said "get here as soon as you can".
As we figured it would be easiest/cheapest to retrieve the Xrays from the Hospital, I rang them and they said they would be ready in an hour. Having experienced delays with taxis when we went to the hospital the first time, to get there and to the clinic would be easier in a rental car. So I rang Enterprise, where we get a discount through AGLCA and who pick you up, and was told it would be an hour to be picked up ....see a pattern emerging, here? Enterprise actually turned up in 40 minutes, but by the time I picked up the car, returned to the marina to get Carolyn, retrieved the Xrays (which were ready and waiting), it was almost 2 hours since I spoke to the clinic. But off we went to Clearwater and were within 6 miles of the clinic when they rang to say all the doctors were leaving, and we would have to come back the next day. As we were so close, we said we may as well continue and make a new appointment, and arrived there 10 minutes later.
Sooner or later, there has to be some good news, eh? The first was that when we got there, a really kind doctor agreed to see her. While he was doing that, I filled out the 5 pages of registration forms, which asked a lot of weird, and some totally irrelevant, questions. !5 minutes later, Carolyn came out of the examination room, minus her splint which had been aggravating the pain and worsening the swelling, so she was a whole lot chirpier. He had also confirmed that there was no need for any surgery, or for Carolyn to be "medivaced" out of the USA - which also added to the chirpiness.
We paid the bill, which included a follow up appointment in 2 weeks time and they are going to send us a copy of his taped report - as soon as it comes back from India where it gets typed up (really and truly!!). On the way back to the boat, we treated ourselves to a meal at the Golden Corral (US version of Valentines) to offset our missed lunch on the day of the incident. We emailed SCTI to let them know what transpired (NZ was awake by then) , and they seemed very pleased, particularly when I pointed out the savings to them by paying directly. They even indicated they will pay for the rental car, which I had booked at a special weekend rate. Ironically, the most expensive part of renting for us is buying the insurance, which SCTI specifically exclude form their policies.
We have also paid to stay in the marina until Monday, so we can chill out a bit and decide what to do next, but it looks like we may be able to continue as planned, after all.
Thanks for the good wishes to all that gave them...it's a loverly day today and we will probably go shopping later (Walmart, of course). I have also ordered a battery tester from Amazon that is due today so I can check to see which of Stan's start batteries are dud and replace it/them while we have a vehicle to do it.
TTFN
The day after the visit to the hospital, we tried to make an appointment with their recommended Orthopaedist in Clearwater. Here we ran into our first difficulty with the US medical system when you don't live here - even though you have Travel Insurance. They did not recognise our provider, Southern Cross (SCTI) and did not accept "patient responsibility" (ie cash) paying customers. This was despite the fact that the hospital had given us a 73% discount for settling directly rather than via an insurance company. So we rang SCTI in New Zealand who said they would arrange the appointment, but first we had to establish a claim and fill out the paperwork. This involved getting 2 authorities from them to be signed and returned plus the other 15 pages of documents from the hospital, copies of our passports, our itinerary for the trip and evidence, in the form of an invoice from the marina, that we were actually IN the USA. As all Kiwi's know, we have a system in NZ called Accident Compensation, where anyone (including tourists) get free medical in the event of an accident. So we are going to buy expensive travel insurance, pretend to be in the USA and forge hospital receipts etc to get treatment in NZ that would be free anyway!!??!! I don't think so. I guess something must have happened to them sometime to ask for such info, but it beats me.
Just as luck would have it, the WiFi isn't working at this marina, but the kind folks here loaned me a Sprint Aircard to contact SCTI. In continuing the Murphy tradition, our printer decided it would eat paper, rather than print on it and because it is pretty basic, the scanned files from it were too large to email via the Aircard. Accordingly I spent the day traipsing between the boat and marina office (by bike, I might add) to get the necessary documents to SCTI. Overnight, there was no further response, so I asked SCTI if they had received the emails, to which they replied that they hadn't. Bear in mind there is a 16 hour time delay between us and them, so by the time I resent them (and by fax as well) it was 5.20pm when SCTI tried to ring the Orthopaedic clinic, and it had closed for the day.
Carolyn had a bad night that night - her arm swelled and she was in significant pain, so I rang the clinic to make an appointment, pending authorisation from SCTI...only to be told that the doctor was gone and would not be back until Thursday next week. They recommended another clinic nearby and I rang them, explained the situation and requested an appointment. The payment issue arose again (they also did not recognise SCTI, but would accept cash) and during the process of making the appointment asked, after the usual questions like, name, DOB etc, if there was any litigation involved as a result of the accident. When I said "no", she asked; " no lawyers involved, right?" There must be some scary things happen here to make questions like that predominant in making an appointment to see a doctor. She asked if we had the hospital Xrays, and when I said "no" she said we should get them, or they would have to take more - which would cost more. She also asked if we could get there right away. The clinic was 15 miles away, so I said it would take at least an hour. She said "get here as soon as you can".
As we figured it would be easiest/cheapest to retrieve the Xrays from the Hospital, I rang them and they said they would be ready in an hour. Having experienced delays with taxis when we went to the hospital the first time, to get there and to the clinic would be easier in a rental car. So I rang Enterprise, where we get a discount through AGLCA and who pick you up, and was told it would be an hour to be picked up ....see a pattern emerging, here? Enterprise actually turned up in 40 minutes, but by the time I picked up the car, returned to the marina to get Carolyn, retrieved the Xrays (which were ready and waiting), it was almost 2 hours since I spoke to the clinic. But off we went to Clearwater and were within 6 miles of the clinic when they rang to say all the doctors were leaving, and we would have to come back the next day. As we were so close, we said we may as well continue and make a new appointment, and arrived there 10 minutes later.
Sooner or later, there has to be some good news, eh? The first was that when we got there, a really kind doctor agreed to see her. While he was doing that, I filled out the 5 pages of registration forms, which asked a lot of weird, and some totally irrelevant, questions. !5 minutes later, Carolyn came out of the examination room, minus her splint which had been aggravating the pain and worsening the swelling, so she was a whole lot chirpier. He had also confirmed that there was no need for any surgery, or for Carolyn to be "medivaced" out of the USA - which also added to the chirpiness.
We paid the bill, which included a follow up appointment in 2 weeks time and they are going to send us a copy of his taped report - as soon as it comes back from India where it gets typed up (really and truly!!). On the way back to the boat, we treated ourselves to a meal at the Golden Corral (US version of Valentines) to offset our missed lunch on the day of the incident. We emailed SCTI to let them know what transpired (NZ was awake by then) , and they seemed very pleased, particularly when I pointed out the savings to them by paying directly. They even indicated they will pay for the rental car, which I had booked at a special weekend rate. Ironically, the most expensive part of renting for us is buying the insurance, which SCTI specifically exclude form their policies.
We have also paid to stay in the marina until Monday, so we can chill out a bit and decide what to do next, but it looks like we may be able to continue as planned, after all.
Thanks for the good wishes to all that gave them...it's a loverly day today and we will probably go shopping later (Walmart, of course). I have also ordered a battery tester from Amazon that is due today so I can check to see which of Stan's start batteries are dud and replace it/them while we have a vehicle to do it.
TTFN
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
More breaking news
We crossed the Gulf as scheduled yesterday and I'll report on that next, but in the meantime the "breaking" news is that on arrival in Tarpon Springs, we decided to go to lunch and on the way Carolyn took a header over the handlebars of her bicycle. At first she appeared to have only a few grazes and bruises on her right arm and leg, but she also had a very sore left arm. As it hadn't settled down in the afternoon, we went to the local hospital where she was found to have broken her elbow. She is presently in a splint and sling and we are waiting to hear from the Travel Insurance company on how to proceed next. It is probable that we may have to revise our itinerary and return to New Zealand earlier than planned, but it is early days yet.
So, back to the travelogue:
The crossing was very easy and took us around 18 hours. As we anticipated, we travelled with THE LAST RESORT who had similar cruising characteristics to us. We left Apalachicola at 4.30pm on Sunday night and went through the "Government Cut" in the barrier islands to the Gulf. Many pundits say the cut is too shallow to get through, but the locals in Panama City and Apalachicola told us the way to get through safely and we used their guidance to do so. I have put a note on Active Captain's website describing the procedure we used to traverse the cut without incident, so I'm not going to bother to do it here. Just outside the cut, and for the first hour the sea was short and choppy, but not uncomfortable (except to one of the cats on The Last Resort). After that it was smooth and by 1.00am it was glassy. There was a near full moon most of the way across and we stayed in touch with TLR by regular radio schedule - every hour on the hour. The sky was clear and the stars bright - it was quite an ethereal experience. The auto pilot took us right to our destination and the radar (which I had never had before) coupled with the GPS to provide all the navigation and safety information we needed. I was also delighted to see that the Navionics app on the iPad kept operating all the way across and as a final tool I had the Garmin car GPS hooked up which provided some additional interesting data - although "driving southeast" and a wee icon of a car crossing the Gulf of Mexico were somewhat incongruous.
I had a small sleep at 1.00am while Carolyn took the helm, and when I returned at 2.20, the wind had picked up a little to make small wavelets, but nothing uncomfortable. This continued until 6.30am when dawn began to break, by which time we had reached the 40ft (deep) line and the dreaded crab pots. Well..... we were warned about them, but let me tell you folks - there are THOUSANDS of them!!! AND they are close together and in no real order. They are generally in lines running east/west with the buoys about 100ft apart (but this varied considerably), but occasionally they would run at right angles to another line, or parallel but in the gaps between the adjacent line. The buoys are often black or gray, which makes the REAL easy to spot (yeah, right). To make matters worse, our track lay right down the reflection of the rising sun, so we had to zigzag across it so we could see the pots clearly. Carolyn, who had managed to get some sleep on the way across, was refreshed and found this part of the adventure to be exhilarating and a lot of fun. On the other hand I, having had less than two hours sleep in the previous 30, did not find it that endearing. This continued for 23 nautical miles to the entrance to the Anclote River (buoy R4) and it took is over 3 hours to get to safe water, and the last hour we were swerving around in only 9 -11 ft of water. We managed to avoid them all, so no repeat of the New Orleans debacle, although at one time I had to do an emergency "full astern" manoeuvre as one was right under our bow before we saw it!! Even when we were in the channel to Tarpon Springs there was the occasional pot - I will never feel the same about eating crab again. There is more skinny water getting into the town, and in the marina, but we arrived at 10.30am, chilled out for a bit and then decide to go to lunch in town where we were recommended to try the char grilled octopus at "Mama's". This is where we were going when disaster struck, and most of the rest of the day and evening was spent getting to, and in, the ER of the local hospital. When we got back to the boat, however, we had a feed of Key West Pinks (large shrimp) and fresh Hapuka (Grouper..Groper) that I had bought earlier in the day from the local fish merchants
Sorry there are no pix, but priorities have been elsewhere...but here's the map of where we are.
Will keep y'all posted
So, back to the travelogue:
The crossing was very easy and took us around 18 hours. As we anticipated, we travelled with THE LAST RESORT who had similar cruising characteristics to us. We left Apalachicola at 4.30pm on Sunday night and went through the "Government Cut" in the barrier islands to the Gulf. Many pundits say the cut is too shallow to get through, but the locals in Panama City and Apalachicola told us the way to get through safely and we used their guidance to do so. I have put a note on Active Captain's website describing the procedure we used to traverse the cut without incident, so I'm not going to bother to do it here. Just outside the cut, and for the first hour the sea was short and choppy, but not uncomfortable (except to one of the cats on The Last Resort). After that it was smooth and by 1.00am it was glassy. There was a near full moon most of the way across and we stayed in touch with TLR by regular radio schedule - every hour on the hour. The sky was clear and the stars bright - it was quite an ethereal experience. The auto pilot took us right to our destination and the radar (which I had never had before) coupled with the GPS to provide all the navigation and safety information we needed. I was also delighted to see that the Navionics app on the iPad kept operating all the way across and as a final tool I had the Garmin car GPS hooked up which provided some additional interesting data - although "driving southeast" and a wee icon of a car crossing the Gulf of Mexico were somewhat incongruous.
I had a small sleep at 1.00am while Carolyn took the helm, and when I returned at 2.20, the wind had picked up a little to make small wavelets, but nothing uncomfortable. This continued until 6.30am when dawn began to break, by which time we had reached the 40ft (deep) line and the dreaded crab pots. Well..... we were warned about them, but let me tell you folks - there are THOUSANDS of them!!! AND they are close together and in no real order. They are generally in lines running east/west with the buoys about 100ft apart (but this varied considerably), but occasionally they would run at right angles to another line, or parallel but in the gaps between the adjacent line. The buoys are often black or gray, which makes the REAL easy to spot (yeah, right). To make matters worse, our track lay right down the reflection of the rising sun, so we had to zigzag across it so we could see the pots clearly. Carolyn, who had managed to get some sleep on the way across, was refreshed and found this part of the adventure to be exhilarating and a lot of fun. On the other hand I, having had less than two hours sleep in the previous 30, did not find it that endearing. This continued for 23 nautical miles to the entrance to the Anclote River (buoy R4) and it took is over 3 hours to get to safe water, and the last hour we were swerving around in only 9 -11 ft of water. We managed to avoid them all, so no repeat of the New Orleans debacle, although at one time I had to do an emergency "full astern" manoeuvre as one was right under our bow before we saw it!! Even when we were in the channel to Tarpon Springs there was the occasional pot - I will never feel the same about eating crab again. There is more skinny water getting into the town, and in the marina, but we arrived at 10.30am, chilled out for a bit and then decide to go to lunch in town where we were recommended to try the char grilled octopus at "Mama's". This is where we were going when disaster struck, and most of the rest of the day and evening was spent getting to, and in, the ER of the local hospital. When we got back to the boat, however, we had a feed of Key West Pinks (large shrimp) and fresh Hapuka (Grouper..Groper) that I had bought earlier in the day from the local fish merchants
Sorry there are no pix, but priorities have been elsewhere...but here's the map of where we are.
Saturday, 24 November 2012
'Ave a pepsi cola
Carolyn can't pronounce Apalachicola, so I suggested she tell people we are at 'ave a pepsi cola' and they will know where she is talking about.
JADE left Panama City the day before Thanksgiving, so we teamed up with Don and Freya off THE LAST RESORT to cross the Gulf of Mexico from Apalachicola when the weather is right. On Thanksgiving, we had (in the words of Arlo Guthrie) a "Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat". It was a joint venture between us and Don and Freya and we were joined by Loopers Scott and KC off JETSTREAM who we parted company with a couple of months ago but who happened to be travelling by car nearby to where we were. The menu was:
MAIN FARE
Roast turkey - 1 full bird (Freya) and 1 whole breast (Phil).
Phils sausage stuffing and Freya's bread stuffing (called dressing over here)
Phils cauliflower based gravy
Carolyn's Pumpkin, sweet potato (kumera) and cranberry bake
Carolyn's Brussel sprouts
Freya's mashed potato with chives and garlic
Freya's beans and carrots.
Freya's cranberry and orange sauce.
DESSERT
Freya's Key lime cheesecake
Nancy's pumpkin pie (Nancy is off NANSEANN, and donated the pie but couldn't attend)
Ice cream
We also invited a lone Texan yachtie (sailboater) to join us. He had just pulled in to the marina before dinner and we felt we couldn't let him spend Thanksgiving alone. A good night was had by all and we retired early to sleep off the meal.
The next day, which was yesterday, we had a bit of trouble getting Stan, the starboard engine, going when we left Panama City - it appears we have a dud battery, but nothing a set of jumper leads (booster cables) couldn't fix. The boat sure goes a whole lot better without 28 feet of rope wrapped around one of her props. We're down in Apalachicola now. We will wait for a weather window to cross the Gulf from here and at the weather gurus tell us its OK for tomorrow night. It's 145 NM across to Tarpon Springs and you have to do it overnight because there ain't enough daylight to do it during the day. The problem is you can't leave before daybreak as you have to get through a real skinny channel called the Government Cut to get to the Gulf, and then you have to be able to see the crab pots when you reach the other side, which ain't good at dusk. Technically we could do it in 10 hours at 15 kts, but with an horrific fuel burn, and too much risk of dark falling before we reach the other side. So we will do what they all do, which is leave in the afternoon and go all night, arriving at dawn when we can see the obstructions. We will do this at the same speed we have been cruising the ICW, which is around 9kts - so it should take us around 15 hours. Notwithstanding the weather reports, we intend to stay here until the weather is optimum. I have no intention of spending 15 hours out in the Gulf of Mexico taking a beating, however it is still looking good for tomorrow.
Apalachicola is an oyster town and I just had to try them out. We are in a marina right next door to a restaurant (2 actually) and we have just had lunch there. The oysters are big and similar in looks to a Bluff oyster. They taste as good as a Pacific oyster, but fall well short of Bluff - but then only a Bluff oyster tastes like a Bluff oyster. They are reasonably priced at $10.95 a dozen, and they had olive oil but no Balsamic vinegar to have with them so I had to go get some off the boat.
Well, that's all for now....next time should be from the other side of the Gulf of Mexico
BTW we have now done 30 miles short of 2000 Nautical Miles since we began.
JADE left Panama City the day before Thanksgiving, so we teamed up with Don and Freya off THE LAST RESORT to cross the Gulf of Mexico from Apalachicola when the weather is right. On Thanksgiving, we had (in the words of Arlo Guthrie) a "Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat". It was a joint venture between us and Don and Freya and we were joined by Loopers Scott and KC off JETSTREAM who we parted company with a couple of months ago but who happened to be travelling by car nearby to where we were. The menu was:
MAIN FARE
Roast turkey - 1 full bird (Freya) and 1 whole breast (Phil).
Phils sausage stuffing and Freya's bread stuffing (called dressing over here)
Phils cauliflower based gravy
Carolyn's Pumpkin, sweet potato (kumera) and cranberry bake
Carolyn's Brussel sprouts
Freya's mashed potato with chives and garlic
Freya's beans and carrots.
Freya's cranberry and orange sauce.
DESSERT
Freya's Key lime cheesecake
Nancy's pumpkin pie (Nancy is off NANSEANN, and donated the pie but couldn't attend)
Ice cream
We also invited a lone Texan yachtie (sailboater) to join us. He had just pulled in to the marina before dinner and we felt we couldn't let him spend Thanksgiving alone. A good night was had by all and we retired early to sleep off the meal.
The next day, which was yesterday, we had a bit of trouble getting Stan, the starboard engine, going when we left Panama City - it appears we have a dud battery, but nothing a set of jumper leads (booster cables) couldn't fix. The boat sure goes a whole lot better without 28 feet of rope wrapped around one of her props. We're down in Apalachicola now. We will wait for a weather window to cross the Gulf from here and at the weather gurus tell us its OK for tomorrow night. It's 145 NM across to Tarpon Springs and you have to do it overnight because there ain't enough daylight to do it during the day. The problem is you can't leave before daybreak as you have to get through a real skinny channel called the Government Cut to get to the Gulf, and then you have to be able to see the crab pots when you reach the other side, which ain't good at dusk. Technically we could do it in 10 hours at 15 kts, but with an horrific fuel burn, and too much risk of dark falling before we reach the other side. So we will do what they all do, which is leave in the afternoon and go all night, arriving at dawn when we can see the obstructions. We will do this at the same speed we have been cruising the ICW, which is around 9kts - so it should take us around 15 hours. Notwithstanding the weather reports, we intend to stay here until the weather is optimum. I have no intention of spending 15 hours out in the Gulf of Mexico taking a beating, however it is still looking good for tomorrow.
Apalachicola is an oyster town and I just had to try them out. We are in a marina right next door to a restaurant (2 actually) and we have just had lunch there. The oysters are big and similar in looks to a Bluff oyster. They taste as good as a Pacific oyster, but fall well short of Bluff - but then only a Bluff oyster tastes like a Bluff oyster. They are reasonably priced at $10.95 a dozen, and they had olive oil but no Balsamic vinegar to have with them so I had to go get some off the boat.
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Breaking news
We went to another fuel dock today for a pump out and on the way back a clattering against the hull made it imperative to check out the state of the props. I borrowed a mask and snorkel from THE LAST RESORT and finally convinced myself to go over the side in the frigid waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Underneath, not unexpectedly, was 28 feet of 3/8th inch polypropylene rope wrapped around the starboard prop, with a trailing end 2 ft long with a lead sinker attached, which had been slapping against the hull. 20 minutes of exertion cleared the problem and I could also ascertain that the starboard prop was unmarked, despite several encounters with the bottom or floating debris. I was too tired to check out the port prop, but it looked fine from a distance.
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| PS I drank the beer |
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