Month: April 2010

Hanging with Gordon. Making fun of how messy our boat is.

Posted by – April 23, 2010

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PJ’s SeaGrille and old Theatre Mall. Bronze sculpture by Emil Alzamora. Coffee, wine and cheese shop.

Posted by – April 22, 2010

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Picnic in the park with Bill. Sam Murphy Park in Boca Grande, Fl.

Posted by – April 22, 2010

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Nightcap after a crappy movie. Fun to be out though!

Posted by – April 20, 2010

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I’m looking forward to sleeping not standing up. I should not take that for granted anymore.

Posted by – April 20, 2010

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The dinghy beach

Posted by – April 20, 2010

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It’s free although the water is still chilly. We tie the painter to a low limb and lock the chain around a higher limb.

We’re floating again!

Posted by – April 20, 2010

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Steven worked hard all morning and afternoon cranking the mast over to pull us into deeper water. I assisted. The final push over came from a powerboater who nicely stopped by. We secured the stern and bow anchor in 10 feet of water and Steven went up the mast to check the block. It had been under loads of pressure. Now the clean up begins after a free movie showing at the Boca Grande Community Center.

Sleeping at 45 degrees.

Posted by – April 20, 2010

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While we were away having lunch yesterday the stern anchor drug and the boat drifted over a shoal. We didn’t realize just how shallow it was and how quickly the tide would go out. We balanced on our keel for a while, unaware of what was happening. Then all of a sudden the boat fell over about 30 degrees. Everything on the port side shelves, which includes the galley, crashed to the floor. We cleaned up and secured everything on deck. Then we set an anchor on a line at the masthead to keep the boat from falling any further. That kept us at about a 45 degree angle without putting too much tension on the rig. At the lowest we were in about 2.5 feet of water. The starboard thru-hulls, which are normally above water, were well submerged and we learned that the head sink drain leaks quite severly. We plugged that hose with one of the bungs that we keep near the seacocks but took on a few gallons of water in the process. We have two other above water thru-hulls on that side but they held. We cleaned up a bit and waited out low tide before turning in. We set an alarm every hour to check the bilges for incoming water but they were ok. Low tide was at midnight and by 9am we were able to crank the boat up enough to get the thru-hulls out of the water. With that secure we ran out for a quick breakfast. We’ll head back now and wait for high tide this afternoon to pull the boat into deep water.
The pictures are from about 9 am and low tide was at midnight. At 10pm you could see the keel, the prop was out of the water, and the starboard chainppates were about halfway submerged but it was too dark to get a photo with the phone. Visions of water lapping into our leaky hatches kept us going. We’ll be keeping a closer eye on the wind’s effect in amplifying the tidal change in here.

Bud Taplin is aboard conducting a mini survey.

Posted by – April 18, 2010

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Steven is rowing out in the rain to meet Bud Taplin.

Posted by – April 18, 2010

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