Log of Sea Wings

February 8, 2008

At anchor, Dinner Key

Coconut Grove , Florida

Back on the Road Again………..At Last !

We are currently sitting at anchor off lovely Coconut Grove, Florida, waiting for parts and for a good weather window to the Bahamas.

Our last segment of the journey home was an offshore leg from Isle of Hope, GA (just south of Savannah). This was our first overnight offshore with just the two of us and the temp was scheduled to be in the 40’s with winds 12-18. We about froze even with every piece of warm clothing we had aboard but it was a great night. We passed two catamarans before dark and were rapidly gaining on another, but he went into St. Simons before we could get him. At dark we shortened sail but still were doing 7-8 knots for most of the trip. We had planned to arrive at Mayport light around 8am but got in around 4am instead. Fortunately, we are familiar with the inlet and comfortably came in with no light at all.

We spent two months in Jacksonville, which was longer than anticipated (we planned on only 4 weeks) but allowed us to spend Thanksgiving with our daughter Blair and her husband Ashley in Atlanta, and Christmas with our son Keith and his wife Shannon. We actually did not spend a night on the boat the whole time as we stayed with Keith and Shannon and a few nights with our good friends Fred and Judi Does. Fred allowed us to use his slip at our old subdivision which was a great savings to us and greatly appreciated. This was needed as all the work we planned for this stop cost us far more boat units than anticipated. (A ‘boat unit’ to a cruiser is $1,000. It comes from the Greek for “break out another thousand”)

The longer stopover gave us the time to complete a number of projects including installation of solar panels, TV antenna and tuner on mast head, WiFi antenna and bridge, rebuilt dodger (we can see through it now!!), surround sound speakers, circuitry to allow our instruments to ‘talk’ to each other, built in central computer, hardware for mounting and handling whisker pole from the mast, new cutlass bearing on prop shaft, new halyards, and a quickie clean and repaint of the bottom of the keel to replace the paint we left on the bottom at shallow points along the ICW. The wind generator was still not complete as we had to fabricate a new mounting to accommodate the new solar panels. It would have to wait for something down the road.

While we thoroughly enjoyed our stay with our kids, we found ourselves somewhat uncomfortable with life on land and were looking forward to getting back on the road. We planned our exit strategy with a 265 nm offshore leg to Lake Worth, FL where we scheduled a visit to the Spectra water maker ‘guru’ to work on our unit.

This would be two nights offshore and we planned it for an early morning arrival at the Lake Worth inlet. It looked like an easy trip with low winds and relatively flat seas. That is what we got for the first day and night but the wind was on the bow and we had to motor all the way. On the second night the wind was still low and on the bow, but the waves picked up dramatically and we pounded and rolled the whole night with spray at times flying completely over the boat, and green water back to the dodger. The worst was when we would roll, then launch over the top of a big wave and crash down on the other side. Our course put us at a bad angle to the waves but was worse if we tried to get closer to shore. We thought about going further out for a better angle to the waves, but thought the further out we went the stronger they would be so we opted for a worse angle and (hopefully) smaller waves closer inshore.

We got a little relief closer in and fortunately the waves calmed a little by the time we reached Lake Worth. As we came into the anchorage, we were alerted to some of the damage caused by the rough night. One of our anchors had worked loose and was dangling from the roller. The snubber stopped it but it probably had been swinging all night. Lyn called back that the windlass was jammed and the anchor would not go down. We got it down manually but saw that one of the clutch dogs was sheared which we thought was causing the problem. It appeared that the controller had shorted with all the water coming over the bow and when we turned on the breaker to anchor it ran all the chain out into the locker until the bitter end when it jammed, apparently shearing the dog.

The boat was completely encrusted in salt and if you touched anything outside you came away with a hand full of salt. We needed a nap after two nights at sea and as we lay down we noticed that water had streaked down both sides of the vee berth. Later we found water in several lockers. After cleaning off some salt we did damage assessment and by two weeks later had it all fixed, including time waiting for parts to come in. This included tearing out and re-seating the forward hatch; removing, disassembling, repairing, reassembling and reinstalling the windlass; and taking out the totaled windlass controller and rewiring in a new one. We are also more careful with securing the anchors on the bow!

After getting the water maker rebuilt and the freezer serviced (cha ching!) we went down the ICW to Ft. Lauderdale to avoid some bad weather. Even though we dreaded the trip, with 19 lifting bridges in only 50 miles we ended up having a great time. It turns out that most of the trip is deep water between two seawalls, lined with nothing but houses and condos, each trying to be bigger and grander than the next. Apparently not many folks use architects down here as one was also uglier than the next. Yes, there were a few gems (very few) but most were monuments to too much money and too little taste. We coined the word “awfultecture” to describe it all.

We were, however, knocked off our high horse by the water transportation of the folks residing in these ugly abodes. It did not take long to notice that there were not a whole lot of boats under 80 ft. Actually, the boats down here are so large that they speak of length in meters, not feet…….and 80 meters is not unusual. Poor little Sea Wings seemed so small and insignificant. By the time we reached Ft. Lauderdale we were considering wearing bags over our heads….

We spent an enjoyable two weeks on a mooring at Las Olas Marina in Ft Lauderdale. Lew’s brother Kevin and partner Todd live in nearby Wilton Manors and we had a great time visiting with them and having Kevin run us all over town to marine stores and discount liquor and food stores to stock up for our time in the Bahamas. He is a caterer and also allowed us to attend one of his events and we were quite impressed by his ability and his operation. He also showed us some good Cuban restaurants where we had a great time. But it was soon time to move on and we headed down to Miami.

On a beautiful Saturday we had a great sail from Port Everglades outside to Cape Florida. We came in past the lighthouse to Biscayne Bay where the channel takes you right through the last remaining houses in Stiltville, the houses built on stilts out in Biscayne Bay. We took an anchor just off Dinner Key and planned to wait on a weather window to Bimini. The perfect window looked like the next Friday, but of course something had to break. Our computer (which has all our navigation and weather fax capability) conked out so we are stuck here until one is shipped in. But we did finally get the wind generator to operate at full song and are enjoying lots of amps so we can watch more movies at night!

Which, ironically, means that we can go to the Miami Boat Show and still make the next weather window!! You would have thought Lew planned it that way! So, for any of you that will be down for the show (Thursday at least), give us a holler and come out to Sea Wings for a cool one with us. Contact us at goingcruising@hotmail.com.