s/v Lark

6/30

We had a deck guy over to have a look at our situation and he agreed with the last guy that it was a 10 or 20 grand job.

I asked him if he'd let me know if he's going to do something similar on another boat to give me a ring and let me come be his assistant and he said he would.

He did give me some reason for optimism though in that I'd been really puzzling over how to deal with having the surrounding core open to the elements once I'd cut open the rotten part. He said that wouldn't be an issue if I used his approach since he'd immediately build a watertight barrier against that perimeter as soon as he had it opened up.

This is sure going to be a learning experience.

The limits of unlimited towing

Did you ever wonder what the limit actually is on the unlimited towing plan from TowBoatUS?

Well we know now.

We got our mail from St Brendan's Isle for the past several weeks and discovered that we had made the entire return trip from Marathon without towing coverage. TowBoat had sent us a registered letter before we ever left Marathon stating that due to the massive tow bill we'd rung up getting down there they were firing us as clients and including a full refund of our dues for the year.

I honestly can't blame TowBoat. We cost them several thousand dollars, and they did the deed in the most forthright way it could've been done.

It was an eye-opener though. I immediately thought of Rebel Heart and how they were a thousand miles out at sea when their sat phone service was switched off.

So now we're a SeaTow boat and I'm adding it to our predeparture checklist to call and verify towing coverage every day before we head out.

6/28

I ordered those big deflatable fenders today. I wanted to have some extra big fenders for a hurricane, but we'd have nowhere to put the regular vinyl ones. I'd read good things about these so I took advantage of West's triple points weekend to grab them.

Nothing in the 5 day tropical outlook so that's good.

6/27

After having some horrible bug the entire week I'm finally back to doing stuff. So yeah, gotta wrap up hurricane plans then get back into deck repair. No idea how to get started on that. We'll figure it out...

Hurricane planning

I did some more research on tying in the slip and we're planning a couple recon trips to some local hurricane holes.

Hurricane Planning

72 hour todo list

fill diesel
decide whether J should stay or go?
decide where the girls will go
deflate soft dinghy and stow aboard unless anchoring out
get valuables off boat

situate boat

haul out?

secure boat in slip?

add lines to better secure adjacent boats?
min 8 docklines (all new)

4 heavy nylon twist
4 longer polyester (less stretch, more chafe resistant)
no more than 2 lines per cleat and piling
chafe protection

deploy fenders, fender boards
how to secure lines to pier and pilings
disconnect power lines?

anchor out?

get anchors and chain aboard
place anchors in an equilateral triangle
10:1 scope
heavy duty snubber
get to hurricane hole

vero mangroves?
okeechobee waterway/indiantown?
canal?

batten and seal all hatches

close all seacocks except for cockpit drains

close
engine raw water
A/C raw water
head inlet
head outlet
head sink inlet
head sink outlet
galley sink inlet
galley sink outlet

open cockpit drains

bung exhaust

secure boom

cover cockpit instruments

take as much below decks as possible to reduce windage

lifeline netting
mainsail
mainsail cover
jib
staysail
cockpit shade
forward shade cloth
aft shade cloth
winch covers
windlass cover
cockpit seat cushions
jib sheets
stay sail sheets
other loose lines
helm cover
binnacle cover
companionway cover
propane tanks (ok to keep aboard?)
anchor (unless anchoring out)
outboard (unless anchoring out)
grill
jerry cans (ok to keep aboard?)

secure everything below

pack up for everyone leaving

sternos
water filters
tent?
people food
dog food?
water
batteries
valuables
gas
cash
clothes
first aid
pap

pack up for whoever's staying with boat

water filters
people food
dog food?
batteries
cash
first aid

leavers leave

links

research

Each year, on average, two hurricanes will come ashore somewhere along the Gulf or Atlantic coasts
Florida is struck most often
A study by MIT after hurricane Gloria found that boats stored ashore were far more likely to be saved than boats stored in the water.
If you plan to anchor, check your charts to see how much water your boat will be anchored in. The best anchoring is usually in sand, followed by clay, hard mud, shells, broken shells, and soft mud. Also, water can sometimes be blown out of the harbor, leaving boats stranded briefly. If this happens, your boat would rather settle onto anything but rocks.
If a category one storm is expected, the likely surge (according to the Saffir-Simpson scale) is only 4’ - 5’; a category two surge is 6’ - 8’; a category three surge is 9’ - 12; a category four surge is 13’ 18’; and a category five surge is above 18’.

Planning to plan

We're shooting for a crossing to the Bahamas around Thanksgiving. We have a lot to do first, including some deck repairs and a lot of education and experience building.

We'll also need to first survive hurricane season so my first priority is to get written down a bunch of things I've had floating around my in my head about that, and to get everything bought and prepared that we won't have time to do if we should find a storm aiming at us. Dear blog, I intend to be accountable to you for this.

school 6/3/2013...sort of

We were all a little exhausted from our busy weekend with friends in Orlando, so after the basics of Math, History and reading, we played legos all day.

No Name Harbor to Ft. Lauderdale

It was a great day for sailing, and we were finally able to get the sails up! Jacob did so much work on the halyards while we were in Marathon that we were able to put up both the jib and the staysail. Unfortunately the Main halyard was twisted so we weren’t able to get that one up.

We pulled in nice and early to Las Olas Marina right downtown. We were a little worried that this was going to be a very expensive week with all the marinas we'd called charging over $3 a foot per night. Thankfully we found this municipal marina which is much more reasonably priced.

I really wanted to stay at a marina because of the heat. We have air conditioning but it only works when we are plugged in. The days have been getting up to 85 degrees and that makes it really sticky in the boat! Since it was Mother’s Day, Jacob let me twist his arm and find a marina.

side tied in No Name Harbor, giving Sweet Pea one last potty break before we hit the road

story time with Daddy

The staysail and the jib

Audrey did some rainbow looming for Sweet Pea on the trip

1st Overnight Passage - Marathon to No Name Harbor

We did our first overnight… on purpose.

The plan was to leave Marathon on Friday afternoon as soon as Jacob could get off of work, bypass Rodriguez Key, and make it to No Name Harbor (one of our favorite anchorages on the way down).

We had planned to have Jacob take the first shift, and then wake me around 3:00, but Jacob didn’t want to leave the helm so he let me sleep until we were pulling in to No Name Harbor and he didn’t sleep at all. It made for sort of a rough day in No Name Harbor. We decided to side tie to the sea wall instead of anchoring in the harbor.

We are getting pretty good at docking and un-docking. The sea wall was nice because we didn’t have to stick Sweet Pea in the dinghy. She could easily get off and walk around the beautiful state park. We ate at the Cuban restaurant overlooking the harbor. Not very good food, but the view is awesome.

The four of us also walked over to the beach and played for a while. The state park doesn’t allow anyone to stay tied to the wall overnight, so we decided to anchor just outside the harbor in order to get a nicer breeze. We had a beautiful sleep with a fresh breeze blowing through the cabin, and only had to get up once at 2:00 for an anchor drag alarm that turned out to nothing but the tide changing. It was good though, because being as close to the beach as we were to our anchor, we needed to know.

Dolphins off the starboard bow.

playing at the beach

Shade cloths

Our shade cloths, in four thousand eight words:

A Marvelous Month in Marathon

Audrey piloting the boat.

I have had a long absence from working on the blog. Once we got to Marathon everything else seemed to be much more important and I let it fall by the wayside.

Marathon was as wonderful as I was hoping it would be. Instead of the city mooring field we had planned on, we ended up staying at a beautiful marina at the entrance to Boot Key Harbor (because of our fuel system problems). The marina had a gorgeous saline pool and super nice people. We really enjoyed the whole trip. The entire island is only 7 miles long, and the taxis are a $5 flat fee anywhere on the island, so the girls and I cabbed it all over, and I don’t think we missed anything we had been hoping to do.

We spent Easter there

kayaking off of Sombrero Beach

They can be really sweet sisters sometimes!

too cool for the pool

sunset at the marina

We played with the local homeschool group and some other marina kids too. That was one of the big draws of Marathon for us. We had heard about all of the great homeschool kids there and the activities for them. We weren’t disappointed! The girls participated in homeschool PE, homeschool gymnastics and even had a few playdates! Overall it was a very successful kid trip.

the girls working on their backbends

ice cream date!

more gymnastics

My dad visited for almost 2 weeks. We really explored the Keys while he was with us, including the famous Lorelei restaurant on Islamorada, where our Lorelei was famous. We also went to Theater of the Sea. It was such a cool place. A very small marine animal park where we were able to get really close to the animals. The girls volunteered to participate in the shows, and my dad took us swimming with the dolphins. Happy birthday to me :). The girls and I still can’t stop talking about the experience! The dolphins are HUGE in person, but there was no fear. They are so gentle and it was pretty magical!