S. V. Carpe Diem

Map of Carpe Diem's current location                

Joe purchased and moved aboard SV Carpe Diem, a C&C Landfall 43, berthed at Harbor Point Marina in St Louis, on April Fool’s Day, 1992, and lived aboard for five years.  After over a decade of dreaming and quite a bit of planning, Joe and Diane shipped her to Florida in November of 2004 to embark on our Great Adventure, six months cruising the Florida coast and Keys.

PICTURES ARE NOW AVAILABLE AS A FASTER SLIDE SHOW AT A NEW LOCATION, found here.  

If the link doesn’t work right, cut and paste the following into the address bar at the top of your browser:  http://www.flickr.com/joecona/

I had disabled the background music , but I had a couple requests to turn it back on.  I would make it quieter if I knew how, but it does stop after it plays clear through once.

You can email us at joe@cona.net or diane@cona.net.  PLEASE EMAIL US.

January 6, 2005, Cape Marina, Cape Canaveral

Well, we are here, we made it.  Arrived at 4 PM, after an 1100+ mile, two-day drive, great visit with my brother Tom, and wife Kelly (his kids Campbell and Jacob got more Christmas presents).  Carpe Diem looks great, we paid a guy to wet sand, buff, and wax the hull and topsides, and she is just gleaming.  She can hardly wait to be splashed into saltwater, and neither can we.  The lock on the Cape Canaveral Barge Canal will be undergoing maintenance starting tomorrow at 6 pm, and is only open once every two hours, which means we have 24 hours to get through the locks to the Inter-Coastal Waterway (ICW) or else we will have to go offshore into the Atlantic for our first sail.  We also discover there are two drawbridges on the Barge Canal we need to get through, and one of them doesn’t open after 3:30pm, so we really have less than 24 hours to get through.  We managed to pull the required two additional wires through the mast, finishing after dark, we will get up early and connect all the standing rigging and the radar dome to the mast before the marina staff will step (insert) the mast, and launch, scheduled for 10 am tomorrow January 7.

January 7, 2005 Whitley Bay Marina, Cocoa

We manage to get our stuff done by 10 am, they are running late.  Though they earlier said they can, now they are not sure they can lift high enough to install the mast, but their new lift, first time ever used was for our boat, they complete (with about a foot to spare) about 11 am.  Other boats in the way, so we sit around waiting for launch. Clock is ticking.  Launch is completed, goes well, engine starts right up, we head immediately for the lock, and make it with literally about ten minutes to spare.  We make the second bridge opening at 3pm (the one that doesn’t open after 3:30), and head to the ICW.  During that seven mile run under power, we see dozens of dolphins (one in the picture), often in groups of two or three, very playful, made the trip quite a pleasure.  At one point, running in the supposedly deep channel, I turn it over to Diane while I went below for just a moment.  While staying well within the channel, she managed to hit the one shallow spot that apparently was a remnant of the hurricanes, for our first time running aground so far.  She got us right off, but it was a momentary excitement. We ended our first night in saltwater at Whitley Bay Marina, where our friend Jeff Lammers’ boss Bruce Garreau lives aboard, with whom we had sailed two months earlier.  “Doc” and two spare rum-and-cokes came over and introduced themselves.   It was so awesome to get tied up at dock, where our months of rushing to get down here was finally over, and we were no longer in a hurry to get anywhere. 

January 8, 2005 Whitley Bay Marina, Cocoa

I had managed to get some of the stays connected wrong, so the mast was vertical, but not safe to sail, so I went up the mast to correct it, which was tricky because it required removing the spreader.  Used the big-ass electric drill with WinchBit ™ to haul me up the mast, it worked awesome.  Jeff, Karen, and Melissa came over to help figure out the stays because all they all (the stays, not the Lammers) seemed to be different lengths, but got it right.  Lunch with them, dinner the two of us, plenty of Cocoa Village restaurants within walking distance.  Installed the boom, and some more other assembly tasks.  She is finally a boat again.

January 9, 2005 Whitley Bay Marina, Cocoa

Bruce drops me at the Jeep on his way to church near Cape Canaveral.  Provisioning day.  We still have the Jeep, so we went shopping at West Marine, Home Depot, grocery store, and another West Marine.  Chris Fletcher comes up, and takes us to dinner on a pier over (over, not near) the Atlantic.

January 10, 2005 Melbourne Harbor

We leave Whitley Bay early for our 21 mile four hour trip to Melbourne Harbor.   I want to hoist sail in hopes the wind is easterly enough to sail, it is not, we drive the whole way there.  Calm enough that the autopilot can drive, and we can both hang out in the bow, admiring the view and the beautiful day, 80 degrees, sunny.  Fantastic.  Life doesn’t get much better than that.  Except it will, the next six months.  Quite a few dophins.  Land at Melbourne Harbor, top off fuel and water tanks.  Chris Fletcher’s office is in the highest building in Melbourne, which overlooks Melbourne Harbor, so we dinner with him at Ichabod’s in the Harbor, and fetch the Jeep, which was still at Whitley Harbor.

January 11, 2005 Island #2 anchorage, near Palm Bay

Errands, fetch a mailing that arrived at Jeff’s house, and get past the androgynous security guard that I assume is named Pat.  Then the Jeep dealer since the knob fell off in my hand when I turned the defroster on because there was dew all over the inside of the windshield (I left the car open, it is FL for Christ’s sake). Arrange for Chris to take the Jeep and park in his neighbor’s garage, but he wants us to explain how to remove the roof.  Why?  We leave about noon for a 7 mile 1.5 hour trip under power to the second of a group of four islands, anchor in only 7 feet of water (we draw 5’6”).  Really feels like we are away from the world, two other boats nearby, shore is half mile away, but still feels very remote.  Inflate our dinghy, rig a hoist, launch, rig motor, our only “car” is now the dinghy.  Finally meals on board.  Very relaxing first night under anchor.

January 12, 2005 Island #2 anchorage

In the morning we go exploring the four islands by dinghy, beaching at each, and walking the perimeter.  Island four we were told is called “bird poop island” because of lots of birds there, and a distinct odor as you approach from leeward.   Island three we name “dolphin poop island” because there is an old lagoon used to release dolphins into the wild.  Island three we name “dog poop island” because an adjacent boat takes there dog over there every few hours to …  Island one has no apparent name.  Afternoon, I dinghy to shore, lock the dinghy to palm tree, Jeff drives me to the Melbourne International Airport. We pass through a secure gate, and wondered about all the alarm noises, but ignored them.  Only discovered that the wind had kept the secure gate open, when an airport security vehicle screeches up to point out that fact.  We promise to be more careful, get clearance, and take off, and head South to where the boat is anchored.   I take pictures of the boat under anchor, hard to do in a moving plane.  If you look real close, you can see Diane waving, she is the one in the hot pink bikini.  Also do a fly-by (in fact I am flying at that point) of Sebastian Inlet, before another couple low altitude laps of the anchorage before returning to the airport.  Any non-blurry pictures will be in the “Great Adventure” files posted here.  Jeff parks his car under the “no parking” sign and I dinghy him to the boat for dinner.  Return him to land/civilization, first time running the dinghy at night, but we got a cool little LED light to make us visible.  He offers to loan us his scuba gear for our six months cruise, so we return to his house (Pat is off duty, God knows where he hangs out), and return to the dinghy.  I call Diane on the handheld VHF (“Carpe Diem, this is Carpe Minute”), and she turns on more lights to help me find my way back, since it is only a sliver of a moon.

January 13, 2005 Island #2 anchorage

Relaxation, piddling around, minor repairs like the “woman-overboard” flag, one of us knitted, stuff like that.  Got a real nap for the first of I hope many times.  The wind built all day long, getting to like 23 knots (which is kinda like MPH, only more nautical) with gusts to 30, kind of spooky, this spot is not sheltered.  Watched a DVD, ate chips and dip and called it dinner.  The boat sailed around a lot, but its giant anchor held tight.

January 14, 2005 Vero Beach mooring field

Forecast of windy, chance of rain, but we needed to get out of that anchorage because it was not really a good place to be in windy conditions.  We leave early, windy, on the nose so we couldn’t sail, but Claiborne Young’s guide said the last half of the 27 mile run was pretty sheltered, he was right.  We avoided the rain in the first half (whew!), but it began raining in the second half, eventually pretty hard.  Made it hard to see the fancy houses right on the canal, and more importantly the channel markers.  Not very comfortable, particularly once it started to lightning, since we were carrying a 56 foot aluminum pole along with us, and were by far the tallest thing around.  We turned everything off to minimize damage if we got hit, but a tailwind helped us survive the trip to Vero Beach.  It a real popular place to moor, so we had to raft up next to (tie up alongside) Ron and Sylvia from S. Carolina, who said they had been there since Thanksgiving.  I thought they meant in FL since Thanksgiving, turns out it was mooring ball #3 since Thanksgiving.  We are soaked, but happy to be safe, change to dry clothes.  We dinghy to the office to register, and get wet all over again.  Ran the generator and A/C to dry everything out, and also charged Ron and Sylvia’s boat’s batteries.  I planned on taking my wife on a date and eat out (we ate on board the last three days), but we are finally dry and snuggly, and decide to stay on board, had a pot of chili.

January 15, 2005 Vero Beach mooring field

I cant remember anything interesting we did this day.  Rigged an awning over the boat so all the rain didn’t hit the boat.  Used that awning to work on re-bedding the traveler which was the source of a pretty substantial leak in the heavy rain we have been having.  Talked to our neighbors about pets on board, they have a cat and two small dogs on a ~30 foot sailboat.

January 16, 2005 Vero Beach mooring field

Decided to make a shopping trip.  The free public bus doesn’t run on weekends, so we walk a total of like five miles plus.  Some local guy gives us a ride back the last coupe miles.  Got a few items we needed plus a good deal on a flat LCD TV, because you got better things to do when the weather is nice, but the option of watching TV is good when the weather has you stuck below.  Bought a hand pump to bail the self-bailing dinghy which doesn’t self-bail.  Later figured out how to make it self-bailing.  Spending a lot of time in the dinghy, it is our transport to shore.  Both dinner and lunch out (finally), at Riverside Café, lunch by foot, dinner by dinghy.

January 17, 2005 Hutchinson Island Marriot Marina

Decided we need to get moving, so we headed south.  Weather still bad (for Florida) 15-20 knot wind on our tail, choppy and like 50°. The strong wind is still the problem.  Rather than take the easy option and go 15 miles, I vote for a 35 mile run to Stuart/St Lucie Inlet.  Had we stopped half way (Ft. Pierce), we would have been more comfortable.  The only marina with room (most still have hurricane damage) is a marina attached to a Marriot and expensive.  And the dock “master” who handles the marina (I think he used to be the staff clown) put us in a dock exposed to a strong wind and seas on our stern, so we had a horrible, spooky, landing, banging off several pilings, but doing no damage (to us or the pilings).  We have been bouncing around ever since.  It was a smoother ride in the anchorages.  Ran the heat for a couple hours.  I have no long pants, not a problem, Diane has worn all of her long pants, and we had to do laundry.

 January 18, 2005 Hutchinson Island Marriot Marina

Not the best place to be dock-wise or cost-wise, but a couple bonuses.  Rode the Jeep Wrangler-towed tram down to the Atlantic beach, too cold and windy to spend any time.  Took advantage of the hot tub, and now the free internet connection.  I say free, actually it said it billed room 1394 (whoever that is) $9.99.  Planning where to go next, Diane is pretty good at navigating and reading the charts already.

 January 19, 2005 North Palm Beach waterway anchorage

Finally got out of the Marriot Marina, nice resort, crappy slip, crappy marina.  We really got beat up there.  Finally the weather a little better, lighter wind, and tolerable temperatures.  Traveled 27 miles down the river, and we are the only boat in a little anchorage just off the ICW in the “North Palm Beach Waterway”.  I ran aground briefly near the Marriot, got free.  Diane spotted a manatee under way, our first manatee of the trip, have seen dozens of dolphins.  Event: we had the charts on deck and the little magnifying glass we use to see detail, and managed to start the chart on fire.  Little hole in it now.  Did I mention it was sunny (finally) today?  I was able to go without a shirt for part of the day today.  Four drawbridges had to open for us today, pretty cool to be on the other side of the drawbridge wait.  In a car, you wait for it to close, in a boat you wait for it to open.  This anchorage is weird, right in a residential neighborhood, albeit fancy waterfront houses on the canal in North Palm Beach.  You can guess how fancy they are.  I can hear what sounds like croquet (first I typed crochet, but you cant hear that can you).  Actually tried to grab one of the neighbor’s wireless network, not successful yet.  Very calm and peaceful, after the rough ride at the Marriot.  No wind, but about 55° now.

 January 20, 2005 North Palm Beach waterway anchorage

Pleasant day. A lot of relaxation.  I built a “charging station” that hides behind smoked glass all the dozen or chargers that I seem to accumulate. (Ever count how many batteries you own? hundreds)  Set up to be powered by a special outlet off the inverter so we can charge off of the boat’s house batteries.  Weather getting better, planning our next few days. Spoke with our friend Amy in Boca Raton, turns out we can stay at her dock, right behind her house.

 January 21, 2005 Rybovich-Spencer Marina

13 years ago, after a couple months searching, I found a boat to live aboard, bought her, and named her Carpe Diem. Ten years ago, after a lifetime of searching, I found an amazing woman to sail through life with, Diane, and married her.  Today, I took both of them sailing off shore for the first time. Spectacular.15 knot wind, beautiful blue seas, about 70°, sunny, two foot seas near shore, four foot or so out in the Gulf Stream. Sailed for about four hours, four long tacks.  We exceeded 9 knots (over 10 mph), we have been less than 7 knots this whole trip. Just to burst our bubble a bit, I took a shortcut out of the very deep turning basin to the marked channel, and managed to run very aground.  Took several minutes, and lots of zoom-zooming of the engine, but I was able to drive us off the grounding, and out of the skinny water.   Rybovich-Spencer Marina is a real boatyard with service being performed on some mega-yachts.  Saw Geronimo, a 100-foot sailboat, and  Cloud Dancer  a sailboat that appeared to be over 120 foot long. Spoke with a Cloud Dancer  crew member who was sprawled on the dock on fenders “actively deflating them, somebody’s got to do it”. We tried (unsuccessfully) to talk our way aboard for a tour, but did discover it was for sale because the new wife (I assume “trophy”) got seasick too readily.  Price $6 mil, $1 mil annual upkeep, three crew full time, five crew under way, last left the dock in September 2003.  Also a top-of-the-line Hinkley sailboat and a Hinkley lobster boat.  There were several large motor yachts, including Never Say Never,  a 114 foot, jet-powered craft that could do an amazing 67 knots, being squeegeed clean by its crew, and  Carpe Diem looked like a tender docked alongside Intent,  which   appeared to be about 150 foot overall.

 January 22, 2005 Delray Beach Yacht Club

Twenty mile drive under power, engine running like a champ.  Narrow channel, lots of boat traffic. About five miles into it, passed right in front of the Trump Tower in Palm Beach, where The Donald is getting married today at 7PM.We are still awaiting our invitation. Got the binoculars out to spot him, saw a couple limos. Took a “where’s Waldo” picture. Trip took longer than expected, ten (count them ten) drawbridges, ten calls on the radio (“Ocean Avenue bridge, Ocean Avenue bridge, this is Sailing Vessel Carpe Diem, approaching from the North”), and sometimes wait for the opening.  Got routing kinda figured out on the GPS so we knew the distance to each bridge so we could adjust our pace accordingly. If I could only get an “unlock code”, I could get the GPS and the PC talking to each other, we could download maps, and we really be geekful. The final Atlantic Avenue Bridge in Delray Beach, just north of our destination marina, had tons of foot traffic, we couldn't figure out why.  Turns out this is the weekend of the Delray Beach Art festival, so we wandered up to investigate, will return tomorrow.  We will be here two nights, it is supposed to be near freezing Sunday night, with wind chills in the 30s.

 January 23, 2005 Amy, George, Kristina, and James' home, Lighthouse Point

We intended to stay at Delray Beach Yacht Club two nights, and travel Monday to my friend Amy’s, but that would have been a cold travel day.  So we breakfasted and toured the Delray Beach Festival of the Arts for several hours, and left about 2 pm.  We met Darrel from Toronto, who is traveling alone for a few more months on a 46’ sailboat.  He is traveling the same direction, and probably about the same pace, as we are, so we hope to run into him elsewhere in our travels.  The trip was 20 miles under power, six bridges, two of which our timing was off and we just missed the half hour openings, so we had to drive around in circles for 29 minutes twice.  Amy, whom I have known for 20 some odd years, lives the life we all dream of on a canal just a few minutes from the Intercoastal, and was generous to offer for us to stay at their dock.  Her husband George moved their 46’ Hatteras sport-fisher motor yacht sternward several feet to a neighbor’s dock and then talked us through the shallow canal and helped us dock right behind their house, like 20 feet from their pool.  Narrow canal took some juggling to turn around.  I had not met George, nor their children, Kristina and James, and they had not met Diane.  A few minutes after we docked we were sitting down to a lovely dinner, highlighting George’s specialty, leg of lamb prepared on the grill.  Turned out it was “family night”, so also joining us were Amy’s parents, whom I have not seen in 20 years.  Nice visit, I am looking forward to more reminiscing and catching up tomorrow. 

 January 24, 2005 Amy, George, Kristina, and James' home, Lighthouse Point

As forecasted, it did get cold Sunday night, low 40s, with wind chills at about 30°, but we ran the heat on board and were plenty warm.  For the first time in three weeks, we received our mail, Shelly Fedexed it to us here at Amy’s.  Took some time to read it all, only three bills for me and two for Mom.  Was weird seeing that much mail all at once, made it easier to sort into categories.  Amy took us on a driving tour of the neighborhood (felt weird to be traveling faster than 6 knots).  Had a nice lunch out with them, then Diane and rode bikes to a pretty complete boat warehouse and got a number of items to attempt to de-stink the boat and other stuff.  Got lost on the way home (all these canals look alike, particularly if one recently had a driving tour of the neighborhood.  Had chili with the Kassis’ (chili is apparently what one eats when it is chilly in FL).  Spent the evening looking at old picture albums.   Comfortable night aboard, we are going to stay one more night.

 January 25, 2005 Amy, George, Kristina, and James' home, Lighthouse Point

Tagged along on a grocery shopping trip in the morning, the rest of the day computer stuff like uploading this log, paying bills, and email, and uploading pictures.  You should be able to get pics (in no logical order) in the folder entitled Adventure at  http://www.flickr.com/joecona/    Dinner out at a Greek restaurant.

 January 26, 2005 Bahia-Mar Yacht Club, Fort Lauderdale

Left Amy's at high tide 9:45 to make sure we got out without running aground.  Successful.  Only five bridges today.  Arrived about 1pm to stay one night at the Bahia-Mar Yacht Club in Fort Lauderdale.  This the home of the fictional detective Travis McGee of John McDonald's series, who lives aboard the 'Busted Flush' in slip F-18 of Bahia-Mar.   I have read several of his stories.  Some pretty impressive boats here, including a 200' yacht D'Natalin hailing from St Louis.  We spoke a few minutes with a Mrs. Jones, owner.  Harbor is a fancy place with a very fancy price.  We wandered across the street to the Fort Lauderdale public beach spent an hour sunbathing like tourists, then wandered through some shops and had a couple Coronas at a deck bar overlooking the beach, before returning to the boat.

January 27, 2005  'No Name Harbor' anchorage, Biscayne Key

Walked across the street from Bahia-Mar to the Fort Lauderdale city marina to see if there was anything more reasonable.  Nope.  Even though we had several things we wanted to do in Fort Lauderdale, we decided we should take advantage of the expected nice weather, as it should be poor weather for several days.   Long trip outside in the ocean (seven hours/30 miles total), consisting of a half hour sailing, and hour or so motor-sailing, and the rest under power because there was no wind though some was forecasted.  Went out into the ocean at Port Everglades, and back in at Government Cut. A highlight was we changed guide books from Claiborne Young’s 'Cruising Eastern Florida' to Claiborne Young’s 'Cruising the Florida Keys' during this trip, so it sounds like we are officially in the Keys.  Yahoo!.   Arrive at sunset at 'No Name Harbor' anchorage inside a state park on Biscayne Key.  Should be snug place to spend a few days, $12/night.   There is some sort of party going on tonight at the pavilion at the dinghy dock, I can hear Latino music. About five miles across Biscayne Bay to Coconut Grove, and a couple houses in the middle of the bay on stilts.  I am sure will do some exploring by dinghy tomorrow.

 January 28, 2005  'No Name Harbor' anchorage, Key Biscayne

The dinghy is no fun in any chop, so we didn’t cross Biscayne Bay to Coconut Grove, but did bounce our way out to the stilt houses about a mile out in the bay.  Got kinda wet on the way out.  One of our guide books calls it “Stiltsville”. Hard to describe, cool to see, I will upload more pictures soon into the folder entitled Adventure at  http://www.flickr.com/joecona/.  By the way, I will keep trying to get the picture link working right, but if you cut and paste the following into address bar at the top of your browser, it should work.

http:// http://www.flickr.com/joecona/

January 29, 2005  'No Name Harbor' anchorage, Key Biscayne

Had a scare this morning, the boat had moved several yards from where it should be, apparently it had dragged anchor, partly because the wind clocked around 180°, and partly because I didn’t have enough line out due to the other nearby boats.   Had to start the engine, because we were only about 10 yards from shore, and move and reset the anchor.  Got out of the harbor and did some more exploring by dinghy into the nearby channel, bordered by lots of very high end homes.  Decided the “Key West look” is our favorite for when we can be choosy about where we live.  Got the bikes onto the dinghy and over to shore, and rode into town to have pizza, which we had both been craving.  Interesting mode of transportation (dinghy/bike) to those of us used to cars.  Stopped at a CVS pharmacy, and an Ace hardware for a few things.  Key Biscayne is pretty fancy, half the cars at the grocery were Mercedes.  There was a new Porsche Carrera GT ($450K) parked in front of the car rental place (see pics).  I had to wait to take my picture for someone else who was taking a picture of the car.  (For those of you who care, we had seen a new $150K Ford GT in Lauderdale and a new $150K Bentley Continental GT in Miami Beach).

 January 30, 2005  'No Name Harbor' anchorage, Key Biscayne

The harbor is real crowded today and yesterday, I guess everyone in Miami with a boat heads down here for the weekend.  Kinda party-cove-like, noisy, many boats traveling through real close to our boat.  We biked over to see the lighthouse (see pics) and ate at the little restaurant on shore.  Had a pretty good locally-popular beer, Presidente.

 January 31, 2005  'No Name Harbor' anchorage, Key Biscayne

Rented a car today, from Enterprise, who picks you up and drops you off, very convenient.  A Kia Rio, I cant believe these are the kind of cars they drive in Rio de Janeiro.   Basic.  Had to manually roll up the windows, and when we clicked the keychain, the doors wouldn’t lock, even if we made the beep-beep sound out loud.  I did remember how to drive, it had been three weeks.  We did some shopping at Sailorman, kind of a boater’s junk and rubbish sale, new and used marine gear.  Lot of fun, we bought several items.  Also went around the corner to the Fort Lauderdale West Marine, huge, seemed to have everything in stock.  We bought several more items.  Later, I read about another boat store described as “big, but not as big as the Fort Lauderdale West Marine”.  Stopped at Miami’s South Beach, and walked probably a mile or so up the beach.  We then headed in a bit and wandered back in front of all the Art Deco hotels, including the one where they filmed the movie “Birdcage”.  Stopped at a restaurant a couple doors down for dinner right on the sidewalk, we picked the only place without heaters, necessary because it was cool, like below 60° wind chill.  Brrr!  Had a mango daiquiri, reminiscent of Jeff’s birthday in Mexico.  Stopped for groceries on the way home, and got home after dark, meaning we had to dinghy a little ways in the dark.

 February 1, 2005  'No Name Harbor' anchorage, Key Biscayne

Weather forecast shows Wednesday as a good travel day, so we spent most of the day on board, finish cleaning the teak, and Diane applied the first coat of varnish.   BBQ on the rear deck for dinner.

 February 2, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park Marina, Key Largo

Weather conditions turned out to be OK, so we headed out at dawn to head south.  The channel out was pretty choppy (four foot seas)the first half hour or so, like the cruising guide predicted, but we turned the corner into Hawk Channel, between the Keys land and the offshore reef, and hoisted sail.  The seas settled to about two feet.  The wind was very cooperative, 10-15 knots, more or less at our beam the whole way, meaning we set the sails, and barely adjusted them at all for five hours of sailing, averaging nearly seven knots over the bottom.  Because of the reef on our port side, we had to be careful navigating between the markers, made difficult by the fact that the markers were sometimes five miles apart, and I cant see that far.  The binoculars dont help much because we were bouncing all about.  I had put many of the markers into the GPS as waypoints, so we could steer the compass course that the charts indicated, and confirm that we weren’t slipping off course using the GPS.  We did slip some (downwind), and were able to correct accordingly.  Was a long 40 plus mile sail from Key Biscayne to Key Largo, with no places to stop for a boat that draws over five feet.  In Key Largo, we chose John Pennekamp State Park, because we have been here before snorkeling, once with Lea and once with Kris,  it has a submerged Christ statue offshore.  John Pennekamp State Park is I think the only US park that is underwater. Great for snorkeling and diving, I think we may be here for several days.  Diane and I got engaged at the Westin (now a Sheraton) here in Key Largo.

 February 3, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park mooring field in Key Largo

Offloaded the bikes and went for a ride, and left the bikes on land and moved the big boat over to the cheaper mooring balls near the marina for a while.  The Keys has lots of marinas, but few anchor opportunities for large deep draft boats, so we want to take advantage of anchor/mooring.   Works pretty well, we filled tanks and charged batteries in the marina, and can last for a couple weeks off full water tanks, and only need to run the generator for a little over an hour a day to charge the batteries for lights and refrigeration, etc.  We can cook and shower on board, so we are pretty self sufficient.  I mounted the running lights on the dinghy so we can safely run it at night.  There is no moon tonight, and we must run through the mangroves to get to the dinghy dock, so it was just in time.

 February 4, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park mooring field in Key Largo

Made arrangements yesterday to start instruction to become certified as Open Water scuba divers.  We had both wanted to certify for some time, in fact we had hoped to do it before we left St Louis, but never could make the time commitment.  Now we have the time.  In March, 1998, the day after we got engaged, we went “Discover Diving”, kind of an intro to diving, with Silent World Dive Center, here in Key Largo, which is home of some great dive sites, so we signed up for instruction.  To those of you that don’t dive, there are several challenges, both mental and physical.  Today’s mental challenge includes a day of book work, we thought we gave up going to school years ago.  To make the 8am start of class, we actually have to set an alarm clock (heaven forbid) and awake at 6:30, leave the boat about 7am by dinghy, lock it up, switch to bikes, and ride a couple miles to the dive shop.   And reverse the process in the afternoon.

 February 5, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park mooring field in Key Largo

The pool day of diving certification.  Today’s mental challenge was getting over the fears (if God had meant for us to breath underwater, he’d given us gills), plus they make us take our mask off several times and put it back on, and remove and drop your mouthpiece (it is giving us air) and find it and replace it.  Also to dump your own air and use your buddy’s spare air mouthpiece.  Kind of scary, even in a five foot pool.  Physical challenges start for me because all the air in your body compresses, and I have touchy sinuses, and my digestive system seems to always be full of air (some of you may have noticed).  But we make it through it.  We survive, but it is tough.  Used the BBQ grill on the back rail for dinner.

 February 6, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park mooring field in Key Largo

First two open water certification dives at Jules Undersea Lodge, a saltwater lagoon, reviewed by others here.  In this lagoon there is a two room mini-hotel underwater.  You can stay the night (at an unbelievable $800/couple) entirely underwater, with fish outside your bedroom window.  Entry and exit requires scuba gear, entering in a little pool just like the way James Bond would enter a submarine or Dr No’s or Spectre’s underwater haven.  We poked our heads up in the entry pool at about 25 feet, pretty cool. Your luggage needs to be in special submersible bags, and a "mer-chef" (their name, I assume a mermaid-chef) prepares your dinner in the galley.  In our dive, the same mental challenges are even tougher today, because we cant just stand up if we get scared.  The same insane mask and regulator work.  I am sure this would have been less scary when I was young and fearless.  Physical challenges also worse because we spend most of our time at higher pressures 25 feet down, and the sinus and gastro-intestinal pressures are more significant.  Note that there are no photos posted on that last item.  Two dives, a total of nearly an hour underwater, but several hours wet (surface work) and the 64° water had us both shivering in two layers of wet suits.  Again we make it through it, and are now certified as Scuba Divers.  Were thinking about catching the Super Bowl at a bar, though neither of us care who wins, but are too exhausted.  Watch the first half on board and give up, because TV reception of Fox is pretty poor.  We are fairly remote, we get NBC pretty good and one Spanish channel, and that is it.  In Miami, we were getting about ten channels off the air.

 February 7, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park mooring field in Key Largo

We are scheduled to do two open water dives on the reef this afternoon, watch TV an hour to get the score of the game, just because we think we should care.  They never say the score or who won, we don’t find out until a 6 pm news story.  Our open water dives are postponed because it is real choppy at the reef.  So we do some exploring by bike, see the actual boat from the "African Queen", plus two of the hotels we have stayed in on previous trips to Key Largo, a little shopping, and find a public library for finally uploading the digital pictures to date.   It takes about 15 minutes per picture to upload over our usual cellular linkup to the Internet, but took my jump drive to the library with its fast connection.  So I think it is all working correctly to find all pictures in the folder entitled "Adventure" here.  Please email me at joe@cona.net if you are having trouble, or if you aren’t.  Or just because.   Today is our one month anniversary of being underway, the boat was launched 1/7.  Spent this evening trying to plan our next stop, and the details of the trip there.  With the reef just a few miles off shore, we need to pay close attention during our travel. 

 February 8, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park mooring field in Key Largo

Fat Tuesday.  We were able to make our open water dives to finish our certification.  It is now official, we even got our temporary get-out-of-jail-free cards, no sorry, our Open Water Diver cards, so we can rent gear or get tanks of air anywhere in the world.  First stop Grecian Rocks.  I got a shirt with the dive spots near Key Largo, need to mark them off as we dive each.  Two other guys finalizing at the same time, Eric and Ray (who didn’t speak English, Eric had to translate on the surface).  The hand signals we all use under water work in any language.   Since they also had Janet as their instructor, Diane and I did a couple of our skills, like fine tuning our buoyancy until we could go up or down by taking a deep breath or letting it out.  Then had to sit at the bottom and watch the other two guys do some of their skills, including one of the worst, mask removal and replacement.  Actually a bit cold just sitting there, though the water at the reef was about 10° warmer than the lagoon (like 75°).  Then we actually got to swim around and see fish and coral and stuff like that for another ten minutes before our last exercise, where I used Diane's air and vice versa.  Used a whole tank, about 35 minutes at 25 feet.  Then the second dive, at Largo Dry Rocks, we just got to have fun and look at stuff (and hold hands, awwww), but both of us had buoyancy problems, each of us spent some time at the top (surface) unintentionally.  Again used a whole tank, about 35 minutes.  Celebrated by going to dinner out at Sundowners.  Left the restaurant after dark, luckily had flashy lights on each bike, and I had my headlamp that every geek should own.  That was still tricky riding on roads we were unfamiliar with, they have an amazing lack of street lights.  Then we got on the dinghy, and got to use its light package for the first time, and we were familiar with the route.  The lights meant other boats could see us if there were any (there weren't), but didn’t help us see.  Traveling over pitch black water brings memories of any number of horror movies.  So dark that a flock of small boats assembled around us a little later at anchor, catching our attention (pirates?), turned out to be guides instructing on constellations, etc, since there was no moon, and it is very dark and star-ful out here.  We are in a state park, after all.

 February 9, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park mooring field (you know where it is)

Seemed like our first day "off" after the rigid 8am schedule on the dive instruction.  Diane did another coat of varnish on the teak, expect to hear about that again.  Went shopping by bike, got Diane a wetsuit hood, still trying to find inexpensive (used) kayak(s).  Late afternoon, traveled a couple miles away through a high current canal to Senor Froggs on the water.  By dinghy is a pretty cool way to arrive at a restaurant.   This time got back before dark.

 February 10, 2005  John Pennekamp ……

Pretty easy day.  We are staying here a couple more days, we are on vacation.  A cold front and high wind and temperatures in the 40s is passing through, and we want to wait it out.  Plan our next stop.  We prefer to go about 15-20 miles a day and the only marinas in that range that can handle a deep draft boat are full, so we need to go 35 miles + to a very expensive place, as a stopover before Marathon.  We need to get to that marina before low tide, so we will leave early Saturday.  You all will be happy to hear that one of the highlights of the day was that we took showers today (sometimes we substitute a plunge off the bow and a brief swim for our showers).  Near where we are anchored are canoe/kayak trails through the mangroves marked "no combustion engine", so I rowed Diane around these trails in the dinghy for a couple hours.  Got stuck plenty of times because our dinghy is five feet fat, and a canoe or kayak is more like three feet wide.  Also took a little hike.

 February 11, 2005  John Pennekamp (where else)

Diane has a touch of a cold, probably from diving in the 64° lagoon water.  So she stayed on board (stranded) on boat, I biked to the library and surfed the high-speed internet there.  You have to sign up, and they come to politely remove you from the PC after exactly thirty minutes.  I got an entire hour (two sessions) of surfing, and still had a lot more stuff I could have done, like more research of marinas to find reasonably priced ones.  Took advantage of the high-speed connection to upload pictures, up to date again here. Planning on departure in the morning, we loaded the dinghy and headed to the pump-out station.  One of life's great pleasures, pumping out the holding tank.  In fact, a lot of this trip is work and/or unpleasant, but we are experiencing a lot of cool things.  After we got back to the anchorage, we decided to delay our departure another day, because it was predicted to be pretty cold, and we are comfortable here.

 February 12, 2005  John Pennekamp

Cold last night, stayed on board, because we had already loaded the dinghy on board.  We did what all tourists do, we laid out.  Here they define people who have spent 20 year or more in the Keys as "conchs", who have spent 10-20 years in the Keys as "freshwater conchs", and everyone else as tourists.  Did some reading, and internet surfing on board (boy 14.4 Kbaud is slow). Finished the book I was reading about Dirk Pitt, with a hurricane, and scuba diving, and an underwater hotel, and sailing, and bad guys boarding an anchored sailboat, all sorts of stuff we can relate to.

 February 13, 2005  Hawk's Cay Marina, Duck Key

Finally underway, left before sunrise, but when it was up enough we could see.  Totally calm in the bay we started from.  Pretty good sail, two foot seas, 15 knot winds across the boat, we averaged 7-8 knots most of the way, with a peak surfing down a wave at 9.1 knots, which is faster than the theoretical top speed (hull speed) of the boat of 8.2 knots.  Made the 35+ miles in about five hours.  Our destination marina resort had warned us that they have a shallow spot in front of the dolphin pen (dolphin pen, I asked??) at 5'6" and our boat draws, you guess it, 5'6".  Normally when they tell you this, they are optimistic, so we left early in order to arrive before low tide, which was 5:45pm.  Starting to kind of figure out this tide stuff, it changes every day and is different at every location.  Since we sailed pretty fast, we got in about 2pm, had a foot or so of clearance at the dolphin pen, in fact one dolphin leaped out of the water and did a flip as we went by to congratulate us for not running aground.  Very fancy place.  We could have swum with the dolphins for $110, but the marina cost quite a bit more than that to stay one night, so we really couldn’t justify the expense.  Wandered around the property, found one of the adult pools, and even had my first freshwater swim in quite some time.  Had a nice dinner on property, called it Valentine's dinner, because we don’t know where we will be tomorrow night.  First Valentine's night in ten years that we didn’t eat at Robata of Japan in St Louis.  Did laundry for the first time in weeks.

 February 14, 2005  Anchored outside Vaca Key/Marathon

Decent place, would have stayed if not for the cost.  Needed fuel, we would have gotten some upon arrival, but there was a power boat not much bigger than ours.  We glanced at the pump when we walked by and he had at that point taken on $998 of diesel, and he wasn’t full yet.  I cannot imagine how to keep a boat that requires that much fuel.  This morning, we bought $60 of fuel, which had lasted us like three weeks, the other boat probably was using $60 per hour of usage, or even worse with gasoline engines.  Since we had to wait for another boat at the fuel dock, we didn’t get out of there until close to two.  Had a shorter trip, like 17 miles, but it was nearly straight downwind, and this boat doesn’t sail nearly as fast downwind as it does upwind or across the wind, plus it rolls a lot more downwind, making for a less comfortable ride.  I saw for the second time (thought I had imagined it the previous day) a sailfish leap clear out of the water, before diving back in.  I also could have sworn I saw a manatee in open water, I thought they were only in enclosed areas.  Had a dolphin running with us for a few minutes.  We were heading for an anchorage called Boot Key which is extremely well protected and therefore very popular, meaning crowded.  Because of our late start, it was getting late when we got near Boot Key, plus I ran aground taking a short cut at the end (not thinking the sailboat we had been following might be going a weird direction for a reason).  We saw about a half dozen boats anchored outside the island, and decided to join them since we had read that inside the protected bay was the most crowded anchorage in all the Keys.  Couldn’t get the anchor to set at first which was a pain, but got down safe and sound a little before sunset.  It is windier here and choppier here, but far less crowded, so we may decide to stay here after we check out the inside by dinghy tomorrow.

 February 15, 2005  Anchored outside Vaca Key/Marathon

Launched the dinghy in the morning and toured the protected anchorage inside.  Turns out that about half the anchorage area is converted to mooring balls.  That would be great for us, except every single one is occupied, with a month long waiting list, and the part remaining as open anchorage is crowded, and no way of knowing if we could squeeze into an area deep enough for us.  Decided to stay anchored where we are, because the forecast is for the wind and seas to die down over the next couple days.  Tied up at a dinghy dock and went grocery shopping and a stop at Home Depot, had to walk a mile back with our stuff.  This ain't all fun, at least that part isn't.  Did get our first fast food (Wendy's) in weeks, we were both actually looking forward to fast food.  Made it back in time to grill dinner as we watched the sun set over the water.  A group of about four dolphins swam by as we sat there.  At the instant the sun set, as they do at Mallory Square in Key West, the guy on the next boat blew his Conch shell to applaud another glorious sunset.  Here, about a third of our view is open water (Atlantic), another third is the Seven-Mile Bridge that anyone who has driven the Keys will remember, and the other third is the island that is Marathon, FL.

 February 16, 2005  Marathon City Marina

Spent the morning exploring the Seven-Mile Bridge by dinghy.  Any of you dear readers who have driven the Keys will remember the bridge.  Any of you that have seen Jamie Lee Curtis' movie with the current Governor of California called "True Lies" may remember a scene near the end where a driverless white limo is careening like a pinball down a long bridge with a section out and the Arnold yanks Jamie Lee Curtis' out of the limo's sunroof just as it plunges off the bridge.  Well that bridge with a section out is the old Seven-Mile Bridge, still with a couple sections out so that sailboats can pass through.  The new Seven-Mile Bridge alongside it has a 65' high point so again, sailboats can pass through, I think the only high bridge on the entire Keys.  That is part of why we have spent our entire trip on the south side of the Keys, and cannot travel on the North side because of depth limitations.  Having seen the old bridge at least five times by car, it was cool to travel under it.  Only photos are on film, but we are going back by bike (see tomorrow).  On the way there and back, we used the mapping capability of the handheld GPS/VHF to travel around some very shallow spots.  Only thought to use it after the dinghy touched bottom, and it only draws like a foot or so.  So I got out and stood there and pushed us off, didn’t even get my shorts wet.  After the bridge exploration, headed into the inside for lunch at a bar called the Sombrero Dockside (or something like that) that was reputed to be hard-core liveaboards, a little more gnarly that the rest.  It lived up to its reputation, enjoyable but hard to describe.  I will paraphrase our guide book:  "Cruisers are an independent lot, and this is where the most independent of the independent hang out."  We were advised by the Marathon City Marina (cheapest marina in town) that empty spots of the half dozen on their seawall were rare. On the way back, we ran by just to see, and there was a spot, we signed up (could only get two nights).  Ran back to the boat which was still outside, loaded the dinghy and motor (difficult with the bouncing around), and headed in.  On the way, a little excitement with the motor doing what it does when its fuel filter is clogged, losing RPM, and almost dying, right as we were heading to the only drawbridge in the last three weeks.  With the engine dead we have no brakes, so if the bridge failed to open…., but the engine never died completely.  Made it to the dock OK, nice landing even, we looked like professionals.  Only the third night in over three weeks or so where we got to tie up to dry land.  Walked out of the marina, heading westward for dinner, couldn’t find an open restaurant in the first mile or so, so ate Tom Thumb convenient-mart food for dinner.  Yum.

 February 17, 2005  Marathon City Marina

Launched the bikes, or whatever you call it when you take them off the boat and put them on land.  Made the four mile or so ride to the middle of the old Seven-Mile Bridge.  There is a small island called Pigeon Key, which is where the workers lived during the building and later maintenance of the old bridge.  Some of the buildings still remain, and serve as a marine learning center, whatever that is.  The whole building of the bridges that link the Keys by road is a fascinating story, originally a railway all the way from St Augustine, in North East Florida, that was designed, supervised, spearheaded, and personally financed by a Mr. Flagler, who jointly founded Standard Oil with John Rockefeller.   He sounds like someone that I should learn more about.  Ate a great lunch at 7-Mile Grill.  Afternoon I changed the engine fuel filters, the primary one was filthy (more on that exciting development later).  I also changed oil on both engines, possible the first time in two years the generator was changed.  Simultaneously, Diane put another coat of varnish on the toe rail, and was solicited a half dozen times by people wanting to hire her to do their teak.  We both needed and took real showers.  They use little tokens to turn on the water, I was so dirty, I used two count them two tokens.  I made a night run by bike at blinding speed to (Kim take note) Taco Bell.  Double Yum.

 February 18, 2005  Marathon Boatyard

A few days ago, the engine gauges all stopped working, so we made arrangements to run to a large diesel repair shop at a nearby marina to take a look at it.  Diane scrubbed the deck from my dirty olive-oil encrusted feet, and was again solicited a half dozen times by people wanting to hire her to swab their deck.  We pumped out our holding tank (no pictures, sorry).  A number of questions both days about our fairly unique furling boom system, called Hood Sto-Way Boom.  Right as we were about to leave, some guy was chatting about an engine failure he had halfway to the Bahamas due to algae in his fuel.  The more he talked about it, the more I am convinced the brown muck I observed on the fuel filter is algae growing in our diesel fuel.  Combined with stuff since 1983 accumulating in the bottom of the tank.  And I stirred it up a couple weeks ago when I was messing with the fuel gauge pickup that doesn’t work right.  Coincidentally, a guy that filters fuel to address that problem was there doing this other guy's boat, so he should be looking at it in the next few days, and I am sure taking some of our money to fix the problem.  Get to the destination marina a mile away, and had a new record of five dockhands there to help us land.  Well we started with one, but I made a bad call on how to approach the dock due to the wind, and I ended up spinning around and backing in.  Somehow, the sole (female) dockhand became five as I maneuvered around.  Actually went well once I decided to turn around.  Funny how a tricky landing goes, all the owners of neighboring boats come out to "assist", some with initial panic in their eyes; we even had one guy before who came up earlier with a fender (bumper) right in his hand.  We really haven’t had any close calls, except maybe Hutchinson Island, but we have had some that took some maneuvering.   There is a West Marine right on the property, so I of course made a run while their mechanic was at lunch, for spare fuel filters I expect will be necessary in the future.  Well by 4pm the mechanic still hadn’t arrived, so they let us stay the weekend here without docking fees.  I guess we will see what the repair bill is to see if we got a bargain.  I made another West Marine run before they closed (did I tell you there is a West Marine right here?  I will make another run tomorrow.  And I can accurately predict this because I am actually writing this "tomorrow".   Yummy pizza for dinner, we noticed that every other Large pizza ordered was eaten by four or more people, and they were all looking at us attach our Large pizza.  Since we are here for a few days, made arrangements to rent a car to go to the Miami International Boat Show on Sunday.

 February 19, 2005  Marathon Boatyard

Wandered to a couple shops.  We have been talking about getting a kayak or two on board for exploration purposes, and one of our favorites is sold by West Marine (there is that name again).  Well it was on sale.  Since it wasn’t in stock, and took a week to come in, we made arrangements for one to be shipped to the West Marine in Key West.  Went to the library for an hour of fast Internet.  Checked many things, including airfares, as we intend to head home to St Louis some time in March.  We are on the waiting list for a mooring ball here in Marathon, which is probably where we will leave the boat for the week we are home.  Stopped at a local seafood shop, about as fresh as it gets.  Speaking with more and more people, who stop by to chat because they knew someone in St Louis or lived there (it is on our transom) or because they once owned a C&C boat, or they are interested in our Hood Sto-Way Boom, or because they want to hire Diane, or because they once owned a white boat (almost all boats are white, get it, ha ha), or whatever. 

 February 20, 2005  Marathon Boatyard

Rode the bike five miles to pick up our rental convertible for the trip to Miami International Boat Show, it turns out best thing available is a Ford Escape.  The convertible reserved was not there.  Oh well.  The Show is huge, largest in the US, over three separate venues, I could have spent a day each venue, but we squeezed the Simply Sail site and the main Convention Center into our one day there.  Cool to dream about a bigger boat, aware that anything large will require more crew, and also interesting to find that virtually all new boats have far less teak below that ours does.  And new boats in our size range are pushing a half million dollars.  Actually saw and chatted with someone I knew, Cliff Chelist, who works at St Louis Sailing Center.  Long day, 2.5 hours drive each way, stopped for a lovely dinner at the Westin in Key Largo where we got engaged (now a Sheraton).  Some nice reminiscing.

 February 21, 2005  Marathon Boatyard

Spent most of the morning watching people work on the boat.  The diesel mechanic took two hours to troubleshoot the non-functioning gauges, and just a few minutes to fix them.  We also hired the wecleanfuel.com guy to filter the diesel, and to clean the inside of the tank.  Took three hours, but the fuel was visibly a lot clearer.  That problem handled.  In the afternoon, we rode the bikes out for lunch and a couple errands, and geared up to leave in the morning.

 February 22, 2005  Bahia Honda anchorage

Left before 10 am for a 17 mile sail.  Were hoping to pass through the Seven Mile bridge before we headed into open water, but the wind was so light it would have added a couple hours.  Wind at our backs, the boat doesn’t like to sail straight downwind, so it rolls a lot, and isn’t particularly fast.  Sailed nearly all the way to our anchorage because the wind was favorable once we turned in from open water towards land, and that turn somehow attracted dolphins.  It appeared to be four adults, who played around a bit near us for several minutes, passing back and forth under the boat, we got a couple pics.  Anchored right between the old bridge (with a section removed) and the new bridge.  Old bridge is interesting because it was built first for railroad (as all Keys bridges were), and was too narrow for two cars, so they built the car roadway over the top of the railroad bridge, looks like about 12 feet higher.  Looks more like a roller coaster than a bridge.  Since we arrived in the anchorage before 2 pm, I decided to swim to shore to see the award-winning state park beach there.  I didn’t fully take into account the two-knot tidal current that passed through there, which meant I landed on the bridge piling (with no handholds) instead of the beach.   On the swim back, I was able to leave somewhat up-current, with a little less drama.  Tight anchorage, if the anchor slips, we are gonna hit the bridge, so we will stay only one night.

 February 23, 2005  Newfound Harbor anchorage

Short sail of 12 miles, actually, about 8 miles open water, the other 4 miles motoring up into the anchorage.  Pretty long, skinny anchorage, several boats, and the deepest it gets is like 8 feet.  Pass by a fancy schmancy place on the way in called Little Palm Island, which only accessible by these gorgeous antique wood motor launches.  Launch dinghy and settle in for the night.

 February 24, 2005  Newfound Harbor anchorage

Pack a lunch and get in the dinghy to do a little exploring.  Right as we were leaving we looked back, and it seemed the boat had moved from where we had anchored it.  It had!  Spent a frustrating hour trying to get the anchor to dig into the bottom.  Ended up digging the second anchor out of the bottom of its locker, taking it out by dinghy and setting it.  Decided wrongly that we were secure.  Headed to a nearby island I had read about called Picnic Island that seemed like a good place for a picnic.  And it was, with a tiny cove we could tie the dinghy up in.  Then we went outside the bay into open water to a reef less than a half mile out and tied up to a mooring ball that NOAA provided there for snorkeling.  Was pretty cool to go snorkeling, tropical fish and coral, and not having to pay someone to take you there.  Get back to the boat to discover that it had somehow magically sailed forward, upwind, so both anchors were behind the boat, with one wrapped around the rudder.  Really a mess.  Ended up pulling up the second anchor, and diving down on the main anchor, and like stomping on it underwater, to try to drive it deeper into the sand.  Real frustrating, we have a lot to learn about anchoring.  Though a boat is supposed to point into the wind whenever there is no current, about half our experience here has it pointing somewhere else.  Decided to finish our exploring anyway, found a place to dock the dinghy and went ashore for groceries, and a hope to glimpse one of the miniature Key Deer.  Didn’t see any.  Made the run back in the dark, and we had forgotten to turn on the masthead light, so we were pretty close to the boat before we could see it.  Luckily - and somewhat surprisingly - it was where we left it.  With so many anchor problems, we decided to head to Key West first thing in the morning, and not make the intermediary anchorage stops we had early planned on.  Left messages at a couple marinas, but we don’t know where we will stay tomorrow night, hope something works out.

 February 25, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Stock Island, Key West

Heck of a day.  Alarm set for 6:30 am/first light.  Up several times at night to check the anchor, to see if we had moved.  At 6:23 am, I discover the anchor has indeed dragged and we are less than 100 feet from dragging into another boat.  Even better perspective, in less than 30 seconds, we would get tangled in his anchor line, about two minutes from actually running into his boat.  I yell at Diane, throw on a pair of shorts, and dash up, start the engine, and pull away.  With the boat at idle in gear, I then dash forward and haul on board our 80 pound anchor, which is still out there, with its 100 feet of line, and Diane takes over the wheel.   We somehow managed in the nick of time to get ourselves away from the other boat, and took a few deep breaths.   Then we notice the fact that my shorts are on backwards.  With that newest problem corrected quickly, we faced the fact that the dinghy needs to be gotten on board, we really cant tow it all 27 miles to Key West.  We really didn’t trust the anchor in this soft sand and we cant just drift because the wind was about 15 knots, so we decided to get the dinghy on board under way (while the boat is moving).  This entails Diane handing up the equipment bag and fuel can (and it almost dragging her overboard), etc., onto the big boat, tying the dinghy alongside, throwing the boom over the side of the boat and using the temporarily relocated boom vang as a hoist to get the 80 pound motor on board.  Then we stow the motor on the back rail, and rig the lifting lines so we can use the halyard to hoist the 80 pound inflatable dinghy, flipping it onto the foredeck.  The new part is we did this all while moving between 1.5 knots upwind and 4 knots downwind, while dodging crab pots (buoys that are everywhere here to mark locations of crab traps), before the sun was fully up, Diane driving in circles to avoid the shallow spots all around us.  Without her coffee.  To better visualize, imagine driving your SUV around a parking lot with a grocery cart tied along side, with its omnipresent wobbly wheel.  And you riding in the cart, sitting in the kiddie seat with your feet through the little square holes, passing cartons of eggs and 50 pound bags of kitty litter, alternately, into the SUV.  With lots of speed bumps.  With your shorts on backwards.  In the dark.  Trading places with the driver periodically.  Without her coffee…..  Well we survived.  Motor-sailed most of the 27 miles, this time we are heading nearly into the wind.  We make phone calls under way to various Key West marinas, because we really aren’t up for another night under anchor.  Our first choice is full, our second choice can only take us one night, finally make a reservation with our third choice, which can take us for several days, and is blessedly, a few miles nearer.  Their down side is they have a weird way of tying up the boats, where you somehow use their lightweight lines tied to some kind of submerged mooring attached to your bow, and tie the stern to a seawall.  They promise to talk us through the landing when we arrive, on the phone, since they don’t have a radio.  No radio should have been our first clue, but we were still numb from the morning's adventure.  We get there OK though this is one of our bounciest days, seas building to about four feet waves as we get near Key West.   We call them as we approach, no answer.  A couple minutes try again, now just a couple minutes out, Walt (who turns out to be co-owner) says he didn’t know anyone was coming, he will find our slot, call back later.  Third call, he will meet us at the outermost location.  When we arrive, he ain't there.  Shows up as we are attempting to back into a spot, and helps fend off as we get blown by the wind into another boat.  We manage to avoid actual contact with the other boat, but we did get our now famous anchor tangled on his boat's bow and had to disentangle that before I could back away.  Luckily all of his light lines, which were now all wrapped around our propeller, didn’t slow us down much, so we ended up managing to land at a spot we preferred, a simple lay-along that is designed to take a 80-footer.  Right as we got a couple lines attached to the dry land, the anchor, due to its encounter with the other boat, or just in spite, jumped off our bow and dropped to the bottom, dragging its chain along behind it.  Just like a scene out of Captain Ron.  But our movable object (Carpe Diem) is now firmly attached to an immovable object (Safe Harbor Marina).  Walt turns out to be a good guy, we settled our bill, finally faxed our documentation update request, and treated ourselves to late lunch at the Hogfish Saloon on property, and took long overdue showers.  We decide the tangled prop can wait till the morning, and collapse into bed.  And did I mention that our bed, which is one of those inflatable guest beds since a regular mattress wont fit through the hatch to get it on board, has developed a slow leak, and requires that I fire up the not-too-quiet shop-vac in blower mode once in the middle of the night?

 February 26, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Stock Island, Key West

Sleep in pretty late-surprised?  Two projects today:  1) dive under the boat to untangle the prop - which goes pretty smoothly thanks to Jeff's dive knife (which looks pretty cool strapped to my calf) and 2) buy a new mattress – which also goes pretty smoothly in conjunction with a bike ride into Key West, down the length of Duvall, and back, about 10 miles round trip, with only one extra stop to fix Diane's flat tire.  Supposed to rain the next two days, we are planning on what to do with ourselves on board, probably clean up the V-berth-which-is-now-a-storage-locker.  Running the air conditioner constantly to dry out the boat, it was getting kinda sticky in here.

 February 27, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Stock Island, Key West

Shane's first 29th Birthday.  Were riding into town on bikes, and decided to break down and splurge and rented a scooter for the week.  Locked up my bike there, Diane rode home through a scary neighborhood.  Then we did some scooting around.  Ran into a young man (I am not old enough am I to describe people as "young man") living right next to our boat whose Dad owns the giant shrimp processing plant here on property.  Mike had just graduated with an economics degree from Notre Dame, with his thesis on the shrimp business, law school next fall.  I learned a lot about shrimping, the boats are out for 1-4 weeks, using nets at night because the shrimp burrow into the sand during the day.  Flash freezing on board tons of shrimp.  The nets have a grate with holes bigger than the shrimp but smaller than the turtles that used to get caught in the net.  90% of the shrimp in the grocery stores, etc. are farm-raised shrimp imported from Asia.  He hopes to help with the lobbying by the US boat industry to make sure people know whether they are eating wild shrimp vs farm-raised shrimp.  Interesting stuff.

 February 28, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Stock Island, Key West

Spotted in the harbor what looked like bubbles that weren’t quite right, on closer inspection was hundreds of baby Portuguese Man-of-War jellyfish.  Followed the trail, they are apparently born in huge quantities as these little flat web circles.  Then they inflate somehow, and with the little fin on top so the wind catches them and blows them around so they can later sting unsuspecting prey including people.   We scooted into town without the jellyfish to the free internet coffee shop, and moved smaller (faster loading!!) versions of all the photo files to a new location, where you can page through them easily by clicking on "slide show" , found here.  If you hadnt looked at the pictures yet, this is way faster.  Then we went by to pay for the kayak we had ordered, but figured we could get it home next time we had a car.  Was in a 3' x 2' x 1' box, tried to balance it on the scooter's "luggage" rack, which is the size of your hand.  Or smaller if you have big hands.  (Are you holding out your hand and looking at it right now?? ) Then stuck the kayak in the area of the scooter where I am supposed to put my feet, put my feet on Diane's foot pegs, and she dangled hers for the five mile ride home.  Kids, don’t try this at home.  And kids, we do always wear our helmets on the scooter and on the bikes.  Really.

 March 1, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Key West

Arranged to continue our stay in this marina, and are told we can keep that location for the entire month. Inflated and launched the new kayak, and took a long run of four miles, through a nearly virgin mangrove forest, surprisingly close to Key West, with a turnaround and lunch at Hurricane Joe's on the water.  Virtually the only sign of humans in the mangroves was a long-ago-abandoned scooter, we assume stolen.  We get back to Carpe Diem, and there is a message that we need to move our boat (see sentence one), so we take it to a pump-out location, and then to the new location without much drama, just inconvenience and the loss of a couple hours.  Just as we finised docking, a guy walked over from two boats away, had noticed the St Louis on our transom.  After talking for several minutes about where we each lived, and worked, he said he kept a boat back then in St Louis, and lived aboard a while, but couldn’t remember the name of the marina.  Described the location, turned out it was Harbor Point.  Dan and Barb moved their 38' Island Packet away in 8/91, shortly after I bought the slip, so I had seen his boat before, but never met them, because my boat didn’t arrive until 1/27/92, and I moved aboard 4/1/92.  He knew quite well my friend Keith Wagner, and the other winter live-aboard Scottie.  Small world.  He was here to help his son with some work on his 1948 Trumpy.  We made a run down to Mallory Square which is the place everyone goes to watch and applaud the sunset, and the street performers that show up where the tourists are.  Including apparently >>>>>

a headless guy.  We had been there probably a dozen times over the years, but had never been there when there were two cruise ships in town, which like the buildings they are, block all but a few feet of the view of the sunset.  So everyone was jammed into a small area.  I got to see a glimpse, by getting on my knees and looking through the wheelchair of the lady in front of me.

 March 2, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Key West

After Diane did another coat of gloss varnish on the deck teak (man is she looking good) we did what anyone not wise enough to read this log assumes we do every day, we went to the beach.  First beach time since Ft Lauderdale back in January.  Most of the beaches in Key West are kinda disappointing/small because the whole island is like 4 miles by 1.5 miles, but Smathers Beach is nice.   A surprising number of Spring Breakers.  Mallory Square again, too cloudy for a good sunset.

 March 3, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Key West

We are in an active fishing harbor, where the real shrimp boats arrive.  Walked over to the retail shop, and got some gigantic headless

shrimp that were half the width of your screen, and some lobster tails.  Ran into Mike, got more lessons on the shrimp, watching them unload and fill an entire pallet with 60 pound mesh bags of shrimp, so we were looking at literally a half ton, the limit of most pickup trucks.  Scooted into town to the free internet coffee shop for a while, and shopped groceries on the way back.  Stopped to exchange the scooter for another because ours is leaking gas onto the muffler, I assumed that was a bad thing.  But are informed "they all do that"!?!?  Had the lobster for dinner, grilled.  Then watched "Dead Calm", because we are in a Safe Harbor here.  Would have been scarier had we been under anchor when we watched.   Really only watched a DVD because Diane had finally found Jiffy Pop ™ in the store, after searching for weeks.  Rained cats and dogs overnight, and we hadn’t tidied up the hatch cover over our bed, so it dripped on us for an hour or so until I put on my shell and Mr. Tilley and went out in the rain and fixed it.

 March 4, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Key West

Weather poor in morning, spent a couple hours writing this, worked on boat stuff aboard, and some reading.  Nothing dramatic worth reporting.  Started planning our Dry Tortugas run, including preparing waypoints for the GPS.  Unless we are able to anchor halfway (probably) it is a 70 mile run, and we will have an hour or two where we will be out of sight of land.  Took the kayak out for an hour or so exploring the immediate area.

 March 5, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Key West

IHOP for the pot of coffee they leave on your table.  Beach for several hours, including going out on a giant floatee raft, wind kept blowing us out, had to drag ourselves back in.  A couple hundred twenty year old Spring Breakers, a couple dozen retirees, and us, a couple.  Nobody near our age.  Dinner of giant shrimp, we were full after like 8 shrimp each.  Phone calls.  Got my $291 cell bill reduced to $100.

 March 6, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Key West

Turns out Key West has a boat show, far smaller than Miami. The boats are all power boats (boring), and too small to have cabins, but the show does include a Nautical Flea Market.  Enjoyed, got a couple small items.  Went back to the beach for an hour or so late afternoon.

 March 7, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Key West

Dropped off the scooter, and got the bike back.  Looked at a couple used scooters, it really is a great way to get around for distances less than about five miles, fun and convenient.  You can park nearly anywhere, 30 MPH is comfortable, and you can carry small stuff (and even a kayak in a pinch).  Toured our new friend's son's 61-foot 1948 Trumpy mentioned earlier.  The boat is undergoing restoration as previous owners in its 50+ year life made "improvements" that destroyed the character of the boat, really schlocked it up.  Much like many old homes in St Louis have been damaged (in our opinion) by modernizing them with carpet and dropped ceilings and new stuff.  The boat was cool to see because it definitely has potential to be awesome, but it will be an enormous project. 

 March 8-22, 2005  Carpe Diem in Key West, Joe & Diane in St Louis & Melbourne, FL

We took a needed break, and traveled to St Louis for a week that went by very quickly, got to spend quite a bit of time with both Shane and Lea and also got to see a few friends.  That required renting a car, and leaving Key West at 2am to make a 8am flight out of Miami.  After a week of thinking about it, we finally decided during the flight back to Miami, to take the rental car to Melbourne instead of to Key West (easier said than done), pick up the Jeep, and do a little more research on housing and marina options there, since we intend to settle there after this cruise.  During these two weeks, we continued to live life on the edge, examples:  On the 30-story elevator at the Springfield Hilton "P.o.P.", there was a piece of paper taped to the wall that stated the elevator might get stuck between floors if over nine people were on board.   And we rode up with TEN people on board.  Of course everyone was looking at each others waistline and making calculations.  Again living life on the edge, on the late night trip from Miami to Melbourne, we discovered the first half dozen motels we stopped at to be full, due to Dayton Bike (Harley) Week plus Spring Break.  The room we finally found flew contrary to the adage advising that it is better to own the worst house in the best neighborhood than to own the best house in a bad neighborhood.  We ended up staying in the Honeymoon Suite at the Regal Eight.  Lovely.  Round bed with carpeted posts, mirrors everywhere.  Main room garish purple with lime trim, bathroom orange with olive trim.  Hand-painted leopards and fish and faux ruin treatment to the wall.  Bottle opener on the bathroom wall right above the toilet paper, so presumably you need never be parted from yet another cold beer.  Quite memorable, pics to follow.

 March 22, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Key West

Just discovered that this log is being picked up by Yahoo! search, but not Google.  Discovered that while feeding my curiosity to find info on the 156' yacht D'Natalin hailing from St Louis that we saw at Bahia-Mar.  We were the number one hit for the search "D'Natalin Jones".  We had a guess that the owner Judy Jones we spoke to was the Jones of Enterprise Leasing, but it turns out that Dennis and Judy Jones sold their St. Louis-based company, Jones Pharma, to King Pharmaceuticals for $3.4 BILLION in July 2000.  And apparently used 1% of those proceeds to buy a $30 million boat.  And I am guessing a lot of other cool stuff.  We spent some time at the beach today relaxing.

 March 24, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Key West

Prepping for our trip to Dry Tortugas, deflating and stowing kayak,  etc.  We havent moved for a month, need to readjust, but we are feeling landlocked, and need to get underway.  Also spent a lot of time planning the rest of our lives.  At least the next year or so.

 March 25, 2005  Safe Harbor Marina, Key West

Finally got a picture of the early sixties Vette, Testarossa, and NSX, parked on marble, hidden in these stamped steel building we are living next to, pics here.  We are gearing up to leave Key West in the morning for the Dry Tortugas via Boca Grande for about a week, expect to come back some time around April One.  WE WILL NOT HAVE CELLULAR COVERAGE, so we cannot be reached by phone, nor will we be updating the log or getting email.   The only way to reach us in an emergency is by contacting the US Coast Guard, and tell them we are aboard "Carpe Diem" and that we are somewhere between Key West and the Dry Tortugas.  We will update you all upon our return on what should be a great adventure, our first time that we will offshore far enough to not be unable to see land. 

 March 26, 2005  Boca Grande anchorage

First time under way for a month, it felt good.  About 25 miles, pleasant sail, steady wind across the boat, averaged over 5 knots.  Very hot, I took a dip shortly after we anchored.  There is a two knot tidal current in this anchorage, meaning I had to jump in, and swim right back to the boat.  Also meaning the boat wandered around all night, sometimes with the anchor (which is attached to the front of the boat (bow)) somehow behind the boat, so the anchor line is wrapped right around the hull.  Very disconcerting because if it gets wrapped around the keel, you cant start the motor without risk of cutting or tangling in the line.  But it managed to slide under the boat the half dozen times we swung around that far.  Tidal currents reverse completely every six hours with the tide rushing in or out, so if the anchor is in front of the boat for a while like it is supposed to be, you can be sure that will change in a few hours.  Made for a restless sleep, but everything was OK in the morning, leaving at first light.

 March 27, 2005  Fort Jefferson anchorage, Dry Tortugas

Decided to celebrate Easter by hunting for Easter eggs, actual sea turtle eggs.  Where best to find them but the Dry Tortugas, named Tortugas by the Spanish since there were so many turtles (Tortuga=turtle), and later the term dry was added because there is no fresh water here.  There are many spots we have seen on the charts called "Satan Dry Rocks", or "Largo Dry Rocks",  which means they are above the surface, while many others such as "Largo Wet Rocks" are usually under the surface.  The Dry Tortugas are a small group of islands that is the end of the land formation that is the Florida Keys.  We are located 70 miles off Key West, which is generally considered the end of the Florida Keys, but actually Key West is the end of the Florida Keys that are accessible by car.  Quite a trip out here.  Forecast first thing in the morning was a small craft advisory, "small craft should use caution early", until the winds die down, so we started with reduced sail the first hour.  Left before dawn in case the wind died off, but we were in sight of land (I announced the obligatory "Land Ho" ) by about 1pm.  For about five hours, we were far enough off shore, we could not see land no matter where we looked, nothing but water.  Only saw two other boats.  And a three foot long yellow headed sea turtle.  And the occasional dolphin, and the occasional flying fish.  And sometimes both.  At one point, we saw a couple flying fish take off ( you know we saw them go as far as 200 feet) and wondered what was chasing them, and to answer our question a couple dolphins surfaced, were distracted by our boat or its motion, and played in our bow wake for half minute or so, and took off, seemingly completely forgetting the fish they were chasing.   Seas built up to about four feet as we cleared the end of the reefs that run parallel to the Keys that partially protect most of the water we have been sailing in, but it nearly flat in this anchorage.  The boat next to us called "Imagine" is also a C&C Landfall 43, we have yelled across the water with them and will be touring each others boat and trading ideas in the morning.  We are also sharing this anchorage with several boisterous fishermen constantly yelling in Spanish , I had been warned would be loudly cleaning their fish all night.  Not very often you see the term "loudly cleaning", but I am certain they will be successful in living up to that term.

 March 28, 2005  Fort Jefferson anchorage, Dry Tortugas National Park

The wind piped up in the morning, and we ended up dragging our anchor.  Not pleasant, risk of running into other boats.  We managed to get the anchor hauled up, and headed to the only dock to take a breather and regroup, where you are allowed to tie up for a max of two hours.   We get there and are told we have twenty minutes, the ferry boats would be arriving shortly.  During our twenty minutes of comfort, we chat with an employee Cliff and his wife Pat who are from the St Louis area (Belleville), and she and Diane have a friend in common.  Small world.  We also hear that a homemade boat filled with eight Cubans just landed on Loggerhead Key two miles to the West.   Later see their homemade boat, left, also in our pictures.  Everyone there suggest two anchors.  We head out, pick a new spot and drop both anchors.  Problems, the two wrap around each other, a real mess.  I retrieve both, hauling both in by hand (haul #2 & #3), and reset the main anchor. Shortly after we get it set, but before we are sure we are sound, with Diane driving, the shift handle (a cast steel part), breaks in half in her hand.  Diane grabs the Big Screwdriver from below, I get it out of gear, and we shut down and warn the guy a few feet behind us that we have no propulsion, so they are at risk if the anchor slips at all.  I seem to recall that miraculously there is a spare shift handle below, though it likely exists because it had failed before and the previous owner bought the spare.  About this time, the couple from the other C&C Landfall 43, Uta and Bob, come by to visit.  Dropped off by Frank, a fellow cruiser they are using as a taxi.  They had not launched their own dinghy, because they, Canadians, had not cleared US Customs since they had sail directly the 450 miles from Cancun, Mexico.  They came by our boat no doubt because they had witnessed our challenges.   Turns out that Bob is a Master Mechanic, and he jumps in to help me fix the shifter, while Diane and Uta chat below.  Since their boat is identical,  and they seem to be professional cruisers, I quiz him about how he anchors successfully.  He talks about techniques, which will help, but the most significant is that he always uses all chain instead of rope.  It helps the anchor dig in by pulling low, the weight of the chain ends up anchoring the boat, and most significantly, it hangs low enough it cannot get wrapped around the keel.  In fact, he rarely has to use two anchors.  Since I have chain, he offered to help me change over, we inventoried and organized the chain locker, hauled up the anchor (haul #4) while he drove our boat in circles, detached the existing rope rode, attached the chain, and dropped anchor.  It didnt set, so we reset (haul #5).  I was pretty tired at the end, but we seemed to be anchored OK.   Installing an anchor windlass to haul in the anchor will be high on my priority list.  By then it was getting late in the day, they headed back to their boat, inviting us over the next day to see the significant number of improvements to their boat over the years.  We spot another three foot turtle in this anchorage, as well as an enormous fish picture to the right> that as long as Diane is, and about twice as wide as Diane, we find out later it is a jewfish.  In fact he is under our boat several times, including one of the many times I swam out with my mask to check our our anchor.

 March 29, 2005  Fort Jefferson anchorage, Dry Tortugas

We launch the dinghy, and head over to see Uta and Bob and their boat.  They both work at his apparently successful hydraulic/engine business in British Columbia for seven months of the year, and cruise by sailboat (checking in with the business every few days) for the remaining five winter months.   Looks like that is the way to go for Canadians, because their national health care only works if you are in the country more than six months of the year.  One year it was around Florida, kind of like us, another year Bahamas and eastern Caribbean, this year it was along the east coast of Mexico.  Really marvelous people.  They gave us technical advice on things like anchoring,  and more valuably advice on living this life such as making whatever steps are required to make this into a more enjoyable trip, making this "pleasure vessel" pleasurable.   After seeing how they had converted their boat, which originally had the charter interior with numerous bunks, to match their needs.  Bob essential rebuilt the boat completely over a five year period.  It looked surprisingly different considering that it is an identical hull, much brighter, and more functional.   We end up spending the entire day with them, cruising in our dinghy around the adjoining island that is off limits to foot traffic because it is a sooty tern rookery.  Apparently, 100,000 sooty terns nest there, flying and calling at all hours (sound like cats) as the mother and father alternate sitting on the eggs laid on the ground to shade them.   Then the four of us wandered around Fort Jefferson for a few hours.  Fascinating history here.  Anyone controlling the Dry Tortugas controls shipping traffic of the Gulf of Mexico.  So the US started building a fort in the early 1800s, never quite got it finished.  16 million bricks.  Served as a Union prison during the Civil War, most notably for Dr Mudd who set the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth after he shot Lincoln.  After the fort's surgeon died during a yellow fever epidemic, Mudd stepped into that role, and was thus later pardoned.   Exchanged contact info with Uta and Bob since they leave tomorrow for Ft Meyers, to end their trip.   Sorry to see them go, really enjoyed our time with them.

 March 30, 2005  Fort Jefferson anchorage, Dry Tortugas

Early, we reset the anchor due to a 180 degree wind shift (haul #6).  One of the things about this island, 70 miles from any roads or such other form of civilization, is the ship-to-shore VHF reception is very poor meaning we cannot get the weather reports that are so critical to planning our travel since the wind direction and speed and likelihood of rain is crucial.  In such a remote location we have no access to TV, Internet, cell phone or landline telephone, or to fresh water, fuel, toilets, trash disposal, or holding tank pump-out.  Part of the appeal to us traveling out here is that it is so remote that you need to be very self sufficient.  Hard to imagine how cool/scary/isolated it is until you do it.   Anyway, we took Bob over to the land to get a current weather report.  As I was heading back to drop him off at his boat, Bob mentioned he hoped to buy some diesel fuel from one of the fishing boats anchored nearby, he ended up exchanging (in a combination of Spanish and English) a little bottle of Canadian Mist and a six pack of Dos Equis for ten gallons of fuel and a couple fish filets.  We spent the balance of the day relaxing on board a bit.

 March 31, 2005  Fort Jefferson anchorage, Dry Tortugas

We explore the Fort in detail before 10:30, when the tourists arrive on the ferry, then head back to the boat for lunch.  Return to land at 3pm, after the tourists leave on the ferry, to do some snorkeling.  Notice how I pretend we are not tourists.  For about the fifth time since we have been here, we run into employees Cliff and Pat, who this time are dressed as if they are off duty, they invite us into their employee residences, off limits to ordinary tourists, we were their first visitors.  We had been chatting with them about their gig, working 90 days here.  Their rooms are a modern apartment integrated right into one of the Fort's casemates, with all of the brick arches still visible, including the one their shower was tucked into.  Cool place.  Turns out they have some things we dont have on the boat, such as satellite TV, Internet, telephone, VHF weather reports, and a nearly unlimited supply of things we have only a limited supply of, such as water and power. After their kids got out of school, they had left traditional employment in St Louis at age 50, spent 10 years working in Saudi, followed by two years in Las Vegas that they choose not to discuss, before they finally retired to near Daytona Beach, FL.  Exchanged contact info with them, since for one reason, we may want to do their job some time in the future.   We are leaving tomorrow, the wind is supposed to be SE.  The wind has been from the east for the last three days, it would take us twice as long to sail right into the wind tacking, and traveling by power instead of sail makes for a horribly bouncy ride.  A front is passing through the day after tomorrow, so the weather will be crappy for several days after that, so we have a one-day window of decent weather, where the wind will be in an acceptable direction.

 April 1, 2005  Conch Harbor, Key West

April Fools that we are, we made the trip.  We left at first light, literally we were under way at 6:15, about a half hour before the sun rose, when there was just enough light to see what we were doing.  From about an hour after sunset, it is pitch black, millions of stars (I saw three shooting stars in about a half hour in the hammock), until the moon rises about midnight.  We made our longest non-stop sail yet, 63+ miles, averaging six knots, anchor to dock, over 12 hours.    The wind is such that we are required to point as close to the wind as possible, but we manage to just squeeze through a passage about two miles wide between two submerged offshore Keys to make it with only one half-hour tack out of our way.  This boat really sails well, pointing higher than most, and digging into and plunging through the waves, you can tell that she (Carpe Diem) really loves sailing offshore.  Since we have no cell phone coverage until we get pretty close, and we didnt know which day we would be heading back, but we do reach a marina as we are about half way through the final channel into Key West.  We tie up to the dock just in time, about a half hour before sunset.   Run the air conditioning full time to dehumidify the boat (everything feels damp) and also get a peaceful nights sleep.

 April 2, 2005  Conch Harbor, Key West

No one inspects us to see if we brought back the refugees.  A guy from a neighboring sailboat stops by, Jack Barlett, takes a tour of our boat, likes it, and I discover he lived in International Falls, MN, and knows my friend from my days in Minneapolis, Suzy Musich (now Frye).  Small world.  Diane and I enjoy a more relaxed pace.  I pay for the high speed wireless we have in this marina, and go through the 349 emails I got in the week we were out of communication range.  42 of those emails were real, the rest spam.  Paid some bills, spent hours writing this log and upload pictures, if you havent yet, click here to see the slide show of pictures.  I started my process to select, purchase, and install an anchor windlass so it can haul up the 300 pounds of anchor and chain instead of my back.  We also have cable TV here, spent most of the day watching coverage of the Pope's death on every channel.   Did you know the Pope passed within about ten feet of me when he was in St Louis?  One of my brushes with fame.  Did you know I held the door for Reba McEntire?  Shook hands with Katie Couric, Kenny G, Jay Leno, Belinda Carlisle and the rest of the GoGos, and leaned on Kevin Costner's limo, had lunch with St Louis Mayor Francis Slay?  And chatted briefly with billionaire Judy Jones (see March 22nd above)?  And danced with Carol Lawrence (Carol, not Vicki) in front of a thousand people?  And performed in the Kansas City Ballet's production of the "Nutcracker Suite"?? 

 Blah, blah, blah.   ;o)

 April 3, 2005  Conch Harbor, Key West

Adjusted the lines because the bow was clear across the walkway.  Fetched the Jeep from Safe Harbor by cab, dropping the top, and loading and locking the bikes in the back.   Had lunch at Kelly's owned by Kelly McGillis, and dinner at the place with the good pitchers of Sangria.  More windlass research.   Talked with a few people back home.  Went to Mallory Square for the Sunset Celebration.

 April 4, 2005  Conch Harbor, Key West

Grocery shopping.  Relaxed.  Wandered around since we are a few blocks from Duval Street.  Attended to some business in Melbourne, and worked on taxes ( I know I should have done sooner) and some estate business.  Found a pier we never knew existed here, and watched a huge bocce ball game for a bit.  It was, surprisingly, a beer-drinking, jeans short wearing crowd.  Playing bocce ball.  Dressed for horseshoes.

 April 5, 2005  Conch Harbor, Key West

We both spent some time at the pool in the section reserved for Marina guests.    Mallory Square Sunset.   Eating on board to counteract the $3/foot rate in this marina.

 April 6, 2005  Conch Harbor, Key West

While checking something on the bow, I noticed quite a bit of dried salt on the under side of the top rails of the bowsprit, about five feet above the waterline.  We were really pounding through the waves on the way back from the Dry Tortugas, obviously, and our thorough cleaning of the deck the prior day did (apparently) not include the bow railing.  Diane an hour or so at the pool.  Some more Melbourne business, and more estate business and finished taxes, and went to Office Depot to copy, and mailed. Ordered a windlass, but dont know when it will be available for shipment or where we will be to receive it.

 April 7, 2005  Newfound Harbor anchorage

Left Key West heading back up the Keys, a nice sail, again close to the wind, averaging 6.5-7 knots.  Heeled well.  In the pic on the left, the pictures on the wall and the brass lantern and the chimes on the right are vertical, the rest of the boat and the camera are not.  Tilt your head to get perspective. There is junk all over the floor that fell from wherever they were supposed to be stowed.   The liquor on the left is even trying unsuccessfully to escape its cozy.  Early on we were on a collision course with an old-looking tour sailboat, Calypso Explorer, which had his sails up and was pointing higher (closer to the wind) than us.  I was surprised, because we point higher than most boats, which is a good thing.  When we got a few boat lengths away, I noticed water from his exhaust port, meaning his motor was on.  Hailed him on the radio, and asked him to give way, as I have right of way under sail over a boat with the motor on.  As we passed pretty close to him, I held up the camera, and said "Say Cheese", and was surprised when most of the people on board did say "Cheese".  Only later realized that we had passed him, under sail alone, when he was under sail and motor combined.  This boat jams.  I was in the bow seat for quite some time.  On each dive into the waves, water would splash clear up the side of the hull.  The front half of the deck was wet most of the trip, though we only occasionally got spray all the way back in the cockpit.  Our destination was to return to the scene of the crime, see February 24.  Newfound Harbor anchorage is where we had so much trouble with the dragging anchor.  But this time we are using all chain, and we pulled hard with the engine in reverse to set the anchor.  I dove down to check and I couldnt even see the anchor because it was buried so deep in the sand.  Real shallow, verified the depth gauge by diving down that there is less than a foot between the keel and the bottom.  We aint going anywhere.  Good thing that, I turned on the VHF weather this evening, they just issued a Thunderstorm Watch, including golf ball size hail, 35 knot winds, and waterspouts which may (their words) "turn over boats".  We expected rain tomorrow, but not these kind of storms, a lightening strike to our 56 foot mast is usually our biggest concern.  Lets see what tomorrow's log shows.

 April 8, 2005  Newfound Harbor anchorage

Well the wind did pipe up and it stormed pretty good last night.  Wind clocked around the opposite of where we had anchored, which tries to pull up an anchor.  But it held sound.  Up off and on all night, checking our location without going outside because it is pouring.  Keeping an eye on all the leaks, avoiding the one that drips right onto the bed.  As I type this log this morning, there is a new storm warning, telling small craft (which includes us) to get to safe harbor immediately.   Predicting 40 knot + wind.  We have everything buttoned up, the generator on to charge batteries and the air on to dry up some of the remnants of the leaks overnight.  Just noticed the generator is not pumping water, this could be a big deal.  And rain just starting giant drops....  Weather never got real bad, off and on rain, windy.  Turned out the seawater strainer on the generator inlet was full of junk, and simply needed to be cleaned out.  Fixed.  Otherwise just sat around on board all day, didnt launch the dinghy because it was always about to rain.

 April 9, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

Left in the morning for Marathon, a 30 mile sail.  Weather on the VHF predicted the wind to be light in the morning and pick up as the day went on.  And it turned out the wind was light in the morning and picked up as the day went on.  The NOAA weather forecast on the VHF has been extremely accurate, including wind speed and direction and the sea state, i.e. "1-2 foot waves inside the reef, 2-4 foot outside the reef, except higher in the Gulf Stream..."  With the wind light, we still were moving along at over 3 knots, so we didnt start the engine, because the GPS was telling us we would be at our destination by 3pm, and there was no reason to hurry.  Several sailboats out that day, all except us were motoring.  At one point, one sailboat passing us under power at about 5 knots, hailed us on the radio, applauding our patience, and to make excuses that he had to be in Key Largo the next day, and therefore had to motor.   As the wind picked up in the afternoon, we ended up at 5-6 knots, matching the speed of the boats motor-sailing.  We have been depending more and more on the autopilot, which holds a particular compass setting based upon its electronic compass.  It also has artificial intelligence (AI) so it decides by trial and error how hard it has to turn the wheel to get the desired result.  You might wonder who was driving by the picture at left (I strapped the camera to the boat, which was driving itself at a pretty good clip, and used the self timer).  At one point we were looking at the sea grass that we see quite a bit floating around, and we noticed one particularly large round clump that ended up diving once we got close, because it was another turtle.  Arrived in Marathon about 3, and picked up a mooring ball.  We launched the dinghy, ran to shore, and made arrangements to stay a while.  Our cheapest place yet, $50 for the week plus $20 for dinghy dock privileges. 

 April 10, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

Time to fetch the Jeep.  I took the bike to shore, by propping it on top of the dinghy, rode East five miles past the airport to the place that Greyhound.com said was the only place I could buy tickets, arrived at 9:10, with the bus scheduled to arrive at 9:40.  Chatting away with the lady who sold me the ticket, and about 9:20 she says "you know it doesnt stop here, only at the airport".  I rush out, unlock the two bike locks, don my helmet, and take off back West.   I get to the airport about 9:30 and the bus is already there, but they wait for me to relock the bike.  Otherwise a fine trip, in fact was a pretty good way to travel.  Assuming of course that you know where to board.  Back at the boat, I rig this sail thingy (my spell checker corrected thingee to thingy, I think I was right) that I had bought some time ago that will take any breeze and direct it down a hatch to cool down below.  Effective, but I end up fiddling with it all week trying to get it to do its job without flapping all around.

 April 11, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

We are tourists today.  Drove 20 miles west to Bahia Honda State Park, where we had anchored back on 2/22, but hadnt spent any quality time ashore.  They were supposed to have a great beach, in fact, it turns out it was voted "Best Beach in America" in 1992.  Well, most of us arent in as good of shape as we were in 1992, and this beach was no exception.  Left after a couple hours, and headed another 10 miles west to Big Pine Key to the Key Deer Refuge.  There is a distinct species of deer that live only in the Middle Keys, that look very similar to the white-tailed deer we have in the Midwest, except they are only about two foot tall.  You know Key Limes are a lot smaller than normal limes, I wonder if the word "Key" could be synonymous for "itsy bitsy".  Drove around some back roads, even had to engage 4WD a couple times, and had three close up sightings of a total of six Key Deer.  They are a protected species, and dont therefore fear man (or woman), and one even walked up to the Jeep.   Really cute.  Also saw a young alligator in a brackish/freshwater pond, pics here. 

 April 12, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

Did some shopping at two boat stores.  After we got back, the Pump Out boat comes by and empties our holding tank.  Since we havent been in a marina for a week, and expect to be here a while, that was very helpful.  Far easier than taking our boat to somewhere that we can pump it out.  There are literally hundreds of boats either on mooring balls or anchored in this enclosed bay, called Boot Key Harbor.  That many boats in a marina is not unusual, but unique in this arrangement.  Hard to visualize that many boats, and pictures dont do it justice.  Many are year round liveaboards, some on really junky boats.  Not a bad gig for people with very little money, they scrape together enough for a $1,000 boat, and pay $150/month on a mooring ball (or free on an anchor) plus like $80 a month to use the dinghy dock, toilets and showers.  We dinghy to a restaurant on the water for dinner.

 April 13, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

Relax day, both of us have been reading a few books.  I hung the hammock on the foredeck, it works well there, because the boat rocks you.  Spent some time at the bank attending to some business, and taking advantage of their fax machine.  Groceries.  Spot rain, just enough to wake us up in the middle of the night to close the hatch over our heads.

 April 14, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

Relax day.  Inflated and launched the kayak, and I paddled downwind to Sombrero Beach.  Then paddled back upwind, requiring far more effort.  Wind is either our best friend or our worst enemy on this trip.  We want wind perpendicular to the boat at about 15 knots when we are sailing, about 5 knots in a steady direction when we are anchored or in a marina, calm when we are hoisting or lowering sail, or in the dinghy or snorkeling, and on our back when we are paddling the kayak.  Spent some time at midnight in the hammock, it is cool enough tonight that I need my fleece.

 April 15, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

The wind is going to be strong right on our nose for the next several days, so we decided to stay here longer, signed up for another week, though we may not stay that long.  Diane did another coat on the teak, she is close to done.  It really looks great, I hope that all of you reading this get a chance to see the teak by visiting us once we settle in Melbourne, or before then.  We dinghy-ed to Sombrero Beach for a couple hours.  Because I am spending too much time in the sun, I hid under this giant umbrella we also use to shade the boat cockpit.  I said I looked like an old lady huddled under the umbrella.  Sweet thing that she is, Diane said "you dont look like an old lady.....(pause)..... You look like an old man".   

 April 16, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

Participated in Boot Key Harbor's cleanup day as a recognition of Earth Day.  They fed us eggs benedict then sent us off with trash bags in our dinghies to clean up the amazing amount of stuff that floated into the mangroves.  Mostly bottles and cans, but we found some cans had the old pull tabs, and an 8-track tape (kids that was an ancient method of communication, shortly after we stopped using stone tablets like the ones Moses used).  Worked alongside a young couple from Austin, Lizy and Sam, just out of graduate school, who are cruising until their jobs start in September.  They left Mobile AL on Feb 1, and the Bahamas are their next stop.  Our big find in our trash hunt, which they helped us with, was a totally waterlogged mattress, imbedded in the mud in a tiny cove in the mangroves.  We managed to get our dinghy anchor, which looks a lot like a grappling hook that Batman would wear on his belt, into the mattress, and used every ounce of our 9.8 horsepower motor to tow it out of the mud and around the corner to near the dumpster.  It sank, so we looked pretty silly because we were churning up a lot of water, but looked like we were towing nothing.   It weighed a ton since it was waterlogged.  Then the challenge was to get it out of the water, so we hooked it to a golf cart, so with its wheels kicking up gravel, we managed to get the mattress out of the water enough to drain the disgusting water out of it, and finally to the dumpster.  Then they fed us hamburgers and beer, and we sat around visiting, so that pretty well filled up the day. 

 April 17, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

Diane did another coat on the teak, only one more coat after today.   We went for a kayak, this time we paddled into the wind to start, so the easier part would be at the end.  We're slow learners, but sooner or later we figure things out.  We ended up on the far side of the bay, paddling real slowly along the edge of the mangroves for quite some time, and scared up two separate rays that swam away rapidly, plus a third one that wasnt so scared so he lingered around for some pictures.  Cool how they kind of fly real slow through the water.  Then we stopped at a waterside bar for lunch, and then stopped by Lizy and Sam's boat, a 30 foot S2, and had a bit of a chat.

 April 18, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

Did some grocery shopping and we are both doing quite a bit of reading.  And I have the time and the attention span to read books, instead of magazines, which seems to be the only thing I read when I am employed.  Had Lizy and Sam over for dinner, a nice visit of several hours, chatting about life in academia, the obvious injustices women have to put up with, the value of owning a home or two, and the pains and pleasures of living on a boat.  While this trip is often a lot like camping, like when it is raining and the hatch is leaking on our heads, but sometimes it is pretty fancy here.  For dinner, I barbequed chicken on the grill outdoors, with a raspberry-Dijon glaze Diane had whipped up, while below she created a carmelized potato/asparagus dish, with triple berry shortcake and sorbet for desert, with Baileys over ice after.  Were not always roughing it.

 April 19, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

Pump Out boat came by in the morning and empties our tank.  Discovered that the heretofore inflated floor of the dinghy was no longer that.  The floor is filled (normally) at high pressure that makes it almost as rigid as wood, yet much lighter and foldable.  Rather than  try to fix the leak myself, I dismantled the boat, cleaned all the sand and other junk out of the bottom, and used what remained of the boat to take the floor to shore and then to an inflatable boat specialty house here.  This ended up taking much of the day cleaning, transporting, and re-inflating, the rest filled with more book reading, and a DVD this evening.

 April 20, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

The wind is still out of the northeast, which is the direction we are heading next, so staying put.  Lunch at Burdines, a restaurant on the water that we like.  Dinghy is a great way to arrive at a restaurant.  Went to fetch an FedEx package we were expecting.  I cant remember what else we did that day, but I bet it was captivating.

 April 21, 2005  Boot Key Mooring Field, Marathon

We took a kayak, first stop downwind to the area where we were hoping to find Diane's sandal that blew overboard one night.  Nothin'.  Then explored a side channel to Sister Creek back through the mangroves, including a tiny tunnel that was so skinny that we separated our double ended paddles in half to fit through.  Then we headed into to town to take the tour of the Turtle Hospital where they rescue, rehabilitate, and release injured or ill sea turtles.  Fascinating, more interesting than we expected.  Some had a problem, the veterinary term is bubble-butt, where a propeller or other injury will cause a leak in a lung, and the resulting air gets trapped in the back of their shell, making it hard to dive for food, and to get their little heads enough above water to get a good breath.  Really.  Used the dinghy to get the bike back to the boat, and then checked with our friends to see if they too are leaving tomorrow.  They are heading directly to the Bahamas, which will probably require they motor the whole way, but at least they will have the Gulf Stream pushing them along.  We hoisted the dinghy and its motor aboard for our departure in the morning.

 April 22, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park Marina, Key Largo

The marina halfway between Marathon and Key Largo is full, so we decided to make the whole 55 mile trip in one run.  Instead of being northeast like the last couple weeks, the wind today may clock around to the East allowing us to sail, at least the last half or so because the Keys start turning North along here, as you can see in our map.   Left at 6:30, before the sun rose, because we never know how long it will take under sail.  Well it stayed NE, so we motored the whole way.  Means I only have to navigate, not pay attention to the sails at all.  Saw one turtle, plus one dolphin that swam for about a minute right under me as I sat in the bow seat that hangs out over the water.  Arrived about 4 PM, and bumped the bottom hard three times on the miles long entrance channel, because it was low tide, even lowest because it is a full moon.  We tied up here to the lowest cost marina in this trip.  Since they have no finger piers, I had to spin the boat (clumsily) around in its own length so we dont have to jump on and off the bow seat to get to the dock, which can be a 3 foot vertical jump at high tide and a couple feet horizontal.  Refilled the water tanks, turned out we were pretty low, with only about 20 gallons left of the 100 gallons we carry, but we havent been in a marina for over two weeks.  Also hooking up to shore power means we get the batteries fully recharged, because it takes too long on generator to get them past about 85% charged.  And we run the air conditioning continuously in the marina to dehumidify the boat.

 April 23, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park Marina, Key Largo

Lea's Birthday!!  Called her, mentioned we saw Justice Scalice on TV, Lea is a big fan.  NOT.  About noon, I ride the bike to the little Greyhound sign at the side of the road, stand there for a half hour, almost freak when a Greyhound looking bus passes me by, and catch the bus :20 late to Marathon to fetch the Jeep, get back about 5pm.  Then I take my wife on a date, the traditional dinner and a movie (Sahara).  We were surprised to see a theater here (they are rare), so this is the first time we have seen a movie out since St Louis.  We have been watching many DVDs on this computer, and I keep forgetting to disable the screensaver, so every ten minutes or so, the screen blacks out, so we have to reach out and tap the touchpad.  During the movie in the theater, there was a time the screen went to black, so Diane reached out for the touchpad.  Pavlov dogs never had touchpads, but if they did....

 April 24, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park Marina, Key Largo

Decided to walk to a coffee shop we know about that has free Wi-Fi.  Kinda forgot where exactly it was, turned out to be 6 miles round trip.  Then I worked on repairing a problem successfully with the engine cooling, and Diane did more laundry, which is bigger job when you have to haul the stuff to the machines.   Dinner out.

 April 25, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park Marina, Key Largo

Since we will have guests later this week, we made room by transferring a bunch of stuff to the Jeep that we brought on the boat that we dont need.  A couple large items like an enormous tarp, but mostly clothes.  We find we are wearing a lot of the same clothes, whatever is on top of the stack gets worn, washed, and worn again over and over.  We could have made it fine with like one week's worth of clothes, and we each brought at least a month's worth.   Next sailing sabbatical (!) we will get it right.  We arrived at Silent World's dock to leave on the 1PM scuba-diving trip, and ran into our instructor, Janet, whom we had hoped to have dinner some time, and made arrangements to do exactly that.  Two beautiful dives, about an hour apiece.  Warm sunny day, calm seas, and the water was 72° on the bottom, warmer on top , so Diane was comfortable in her full wetsuit, and I was good in my shortie.  The first dive was at the most lush and colorful coral I have ever seen, also say quite a few fish, including four barracudas.   Bunches of fans, and some rare elk coral.  It was so pretty, we both got past the freaky feeling of breathing underwater, and really enjoyed ourselves.  We even got our buoyancy better, so we could go where we intend to with some measure of control.  Though we do hold hands so the one floating away can pull the other one down or up as needed.  And so we dont lose our "dive buddy".  At this point I can recommend to everyone to get certified.  Its really cool.  The second dive was a wreck, the steel-hulled sailing vessel City of Washington, that sunk in the mid 1800s.  You could clearly see the spine of the ship, and several steel hull plates lying on the bottom that you could peer under to see what sort of creatures lurked there.  I was comfortable and controlled enough that I could swim within inches of the bottom, and rotate face up to peer under nooks and crannies and overhangs.  Since I finally knew what to look for, I saw my first wild lobster, very large, but out of season.  After the dives, we dashed back to our boat, quick shower in time to meet Janet and husband Rick for dinner at Hobo's.

 April 26, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park Marina, Key Largo

Left in the morning to go close on our new property in Melbourne, every highway drive is a long drive in the Jeep.

 April 27, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park Marina, Key Largo

In the morning, we made arrangements for dockage next to our new home - we can see the boat from our veranda; in the afternoon, we signed our names over and over until they gave us keys to our new place.  In the evening, we celebrated with our local friends and family.  OK there were only four of us.

 April 28, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park Marina, Key Largo

Our friend Kris arrived today, and we coordinated via several cell phone calls to meet up with her in Key Biscayne in the afternoon in order to park one car there, because we will all be sailing the boat from Key Largo to Key Biscayne.  Long traffic-filled drive back to Key Largo.  Shortly after we arrive at the boat, we spot a couple dolphins in the marina, spend some time watching them.

 April 29, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park Mooring Field, Key Largo

In the morning, Kris and Scott rented two single kayaks, and we joined them in ours, kayaking through the mangroves here at Key Largo, including several tunnels so narrow that we split our double ended paddles in half so we were each using a short oar.  We did a bit of snorkeling off the beach here after noon.  Moved the boat out to a mooring ball, stopping at the pump out station on the way.  We took the dinghy through the Marvin Adams channel to Sunsetters for dinner at, you guessed it, sunset.  Forgot to take the GPS, and therefore spent about 15 minutes lost, in pitch black, trying to find the narrow channel amongst all the homes.  Some time on that return trip, a shrimp jumped on board, because I found him cleaning the dinghy the next morning.

 April 30, 2005  John Pennekamp State Park Mooring Field, Key Largo

Tagged along with Kris and Scott for a road trip the 102.5 miles to Key West.  Lunch was Key Lime Pie on a Stick (TM) at the Blond Giraffe, and we toured the Lighthouse across from Hemingway's House for the first time, some shopping, and the obligatory Mallory Square Sunset.

 May 1, 2005  'No Name Harbor' anchorage, Key Biscayne

Left early for our sail to Key Biscayne.  Left closer to high tide, so we didnt hit bottom on the way out.  Pleasant sail of forty miles, seven hours or so, wind on our side for the first five hours or so, but lots of rolling the last couple hours because the wind was on our stern.   We anchor here, within about 100 foot of shore, but still have to launch the dinghy so we can get there.

 May 2, 2005  'No Name Harbor' anchorage, Key Biscayne

In the morning, Kris, Scott and I took the dinghy out to Stiltsville (see Jan 28).  Then they took our kayak up a ways to a residential canal to see the fancy houses.  Then Scott and I drove back to Key Largo to fetch the car we left there, and we all went to Miami's South Beach for a nice dinner.  Managed to be inside whenever it rained.  That all pretty well filled the day.

 May 3, 2005  'No Name Harbor' anchorage, Key Biscayne

Kris and Scott have afternoon flights, so we take the big boat to shore for a pumpout (we are full again) and drop them off.   We set the anchor so securely the bow dips significantly when we reverse against it.  Kris and Scott end up missing all the excitement.  Not two hours after they leave, two particularly playful dolphins come into the harbor.  At one point, one of them is chasing a fish that is swimming right towards our boat, only turning off course about a foot away and rolling upside down so I can see his white belly.  You can barely see the fish on the left edge of the <<< picture at left, and see how close Flipper is to the boat.  Cool.  Storms are predicted so we batten down the hatches, literally.  About 3pm, a strong storm does hit, it rains hard, dark, the strong wind shifts around and we manage to drag anchor to within about 20 feet of a concrete wall before we realize it, but we run up on deck, get drenched, Diane driving, me hauling up the anchor and chain, we reset the anchor and it holds.   About half of the ten boats in this No Name Harbor drug anchor in that brief storm, so it is not just us.  We are actually pretty calm this time resetting the anchor.  Then it cleared up and we got a rainbow (it is there, really) >>>.  We had TV coverage, so could follow radar maps that evening, and the Severe Thunderstorm Warnings in our area, and the Tornado Warning only 20 miles away.   Severe weather can be really bad on a boat, this kind of stuff generates a lot of stress, because all night you dont know when the next storm will hit.  None of the overnight rain ends up as violent as before, ie the anchor holds, but we still have the worry that one will.  Storms continue to be predicted, and the last thing we want to do is be off shore when a storm hits, but we decide to go for it in the morning because the storms, predicted to be severe, are supposed to hold out until after noon.  We cant go on the relatively safe Intercoastal because there is one non-opening bridge in Miami that is only 55 feet, so we cannot get under it.  Some time today is when I realize that my limit is four month of continuous sailing, I am actually looking forward to getting home.  We get the dinghy on board anticipating an early morning departure.  We figure we have either 30 miles to Ft Lauderdale or 40 miles to Amy's house, we will decide under way which place we will stop.

 May 4, 2005 Bahia-Mar Yacht Club, Fort Lauderdale

Leave while it is still dark, but luckily the two mile channel out of Key Biscayne has several markers lit with red or green lights, so we can be fairly sure we wont run out of the channel and aground.  We end up motor-sailing the whole way because the wind is light, severe storms continue to be predicted.  As we get close to Ft Lauderdale (our first opportunity to duck back out of the ocean into relative safety), and we can see clouds on the horizon, so we cut our trip short, 30 miles into the trip.  We arrive at Bahia-Mar (whew) about 1 PM, and we do get major rain about 3 PM, but we are far safer here, our biggest concern (rightly so, it turns out) is the various places that the deck leaks into the boat when it rains hard.  Flash back (pun intended) to about a week ago.  The Key Largo marina had some electrical problem such that their shore power feed to us kept cutting out in the evening.  We had this loud chattering noise in the middle of the night, that I (I think reasonably) diagnosed as the inverter trying to run the air conditioner during a shore power outage.  I even had a "current overload" error message on the inverter.  Tonight, we had the same loud chattering noise, again of course in the middle of the night.  I figure it is the same thing as a few days before, tell Diane not to worry, but I hadnt noticed, until she brought it to my attention, the SMOKE.  It is dark, I dont have contacts in or glasses on.  No active flames.  Mentally review the locations of the three fire extinguishers.  I figure correctly it is an AC power problem, and go on the dock and unplug shore power.  Back below to look again for flames.  OK.  Hook up the alternate shore power, a completely separate circuit, to power up a big fan to suck all the foul air out of the boat.  Yep, four months is enough.  We actually are able to go back to sleep, power off, too dark to do anything or see anything, but hot and sticky, no air conditioning.

 May 5, 2005 Bahia-Mar Yacht Club, Fort Lauderdale

At that point, I have no idea where the problem is until I investigate and see this >>>. 

Flash (ha!) back again to the mid-nineties when I was living aboard in St Louis.  I had a leak right over a particular electrical outlet, and had problems, so I replaced it with a GFI outlet like in your bathroom, figuring it would trip if it ever got wet again.  Well that worked fine for ten years.   Apparently, the chattering was the GFI trying to trip.  (Square D people, does that make sense??)  I remove the shattered outlet, the extension cord with its prongs burned off, completely bypass the outlet, and relocate the wires and connections a foot away to a very dry place.  That problem behind us (man, I hope so), we go rent a car, drive to Key Biscayne, fetch the Jeep, drive both Jeep and rental car to Amy's, leave Jeep and head back to Bahia-Mar and return rental.  We cant travel the last ten miles by boat today because we can only traverse the shallow channel to Amy's house at high tide, which is before 7AM (too early, too dark) or 7PM (severe storms predicted all afternoon).

 May 6, 2005 Amy, George, Kristina, and James' home, Lighthouse Point

High tide is 7:29AM, and afternoon storms predicted, so we leave before dawn, since there is a lot of ambient light here.  No boat traffic, and light car traffic this early means that four of the six drawbridges open for us on demand and we can maintain full speed, and the other two only require a brief wait.  We get to the Lighthouse Point Marina near her house at exactly 8 AM, as they open, and we refuel.  Another worry (running out of fuel, we were getting low, and our gauge is pretty vague) is past us.  We make to Amy's by 8:15, and tie up, and breath a huge sigh of relief.

 May 7 to June 18, 2005 Amy, George, Kristina, and James' neighbors' home, Lighthouse Point

The adventure nears its end.  We have bought a place in Melbourne, FL where we have always intended to settle down, after this trip is over.  It is a waterfront condo, overlooking a marina, so we can keep an eye on Carpe Diem once she completes her trip.  And have access to the tools on board, and the six extra guest berths, and be able to go for a sail or a kayak or a dinghy ride at a moments notice.  Life is good.  We travel to St Louis to pack up our stuff and move, and settle in in Melbourne.

June 19, 2005  Jib Yacht Club, Jupiter

We have about 125 miles to go to get home, and every single day since Memorial Day has had thunderstorms in the weather forecast at weather.com Sometimes the forecast is for all day rain, the best forecasts are for afternoon thunderstorms.  And they are right, we get afternoon rain nearly every day.  Double the normal rain for the month of June.  Rain we can handle, but lightning, when you are sitting below a 56 foot aluminum mast, is troublesome.  So we keep waiting for a month for a four day window without an ugly forecast, and never get one.   So we choose to go on Fathers Day, leaving a car at Vero.  We leave Hillsboro Inlet at dawn, hoping to get to our destination before the afternoon lightning.  We also leave early because high tide is 6:30 am.  We can stay at Vero cheap, so we need to make 90+ miles quickly, as Diane has a job interview three days from now, and we have guests arriving the following day.  So we head outside on the ocean instead of the Intercoastal because there are several bridges on the inside to delay us, but there is the risk of getting caught in a storm.   Because the skies look OK about 11 am, we make the decision under way to not duck in at Lake Worth at 30 miles which would mean 3 days to Vero, and instead go the full 45 miles and duck in at Jupiter, with hopes of getting to Vero in two days.  We see a few dolphins and three sea turtles, two of which were quite large, with heads about as big as my head.  We arrive at Jupiter Inlet before the rain, with a pretty lively ride in due to about 4 knots of boiling current in the Inlet itself.  Rain and lightning about 4 pm, we are safe and sound by then.  Turns out that the bridge right next to Jib Yacht Club is closed for construction, making our location an island, so we need to take a pontoon boat ferry to get dinner out.  Very hot all day, but they had us tie up right next to the pool, which was a comfort.

June 20 to 28, 2005 Vero Beach mooring field

We again leave early, hoping to beat the afternoon lightning.   It is cloudy and sprinkling when we leave but we are eager to go for it.  We go outside, past our chicken-out point at Saint Lucie Inlet, to Ft Pierce, which is the last Inlet before Melbourne that we can get through.  We end up having light rain virtually all day, and some horribly ugly clouds for the last couple hours, and lightning at a distance, which worries us.    But we get anchored before anything bad, launch the kayak for our short trip to shore, deflate the kayak so it fits in the Jeep, and make it home in time for dinner.  We spend a nice visit with our guests, Brenda and Larry, beach time, Kennedy Space Center (cooler than expected), Lou's Blues, etc.

June 29, 2005  Waterline Marina, Melbourne

Home.  Last leg.  We leave early, lightning again in the forecast.   Actually fairly nice day, we were able to sail the last half.   Actually very hot, I had to hose myself down at one point.  Dark clouds the last hour or so, heading our way.  Took some time to get into our slip because it has tricky access, but tied up and secure literally ten minutes before the rain hit.

Since the conclusion of the trip, we are living in the condos that overlook Waterline Marina so we can see Carpe Diem from our veranda.  Most of our boating now is aboard "Sassy" a ten-foot wood runabout, built by the local Eau Gallie High School woodworking class over a two year period.  We can walk out our front door, board Sassy, and in 15 minutes be within about ten feet of a wild dolphin, if we are lucky, which we are most of the time.  I have also had an opportunity to pet a manatee from Sassy.  We can also kayak from our dock two miles inland up the Eau Gallie river.  Life is good!

The weather here may be warmer than where you are. 

See below, courtesy of the web site where my brother Tom was the Information Architect: weather.com (you may have heard of it).

You can email us at joe@cona.net or diane@cona.net.  PLEASE EMAIL US. We miss you.

Dont know if this is working, I think counter resets each time I upload a new log.

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