saturday december 1, 2007 (ft lauderdale, fl)

Today Pam and Ken flew out. They would be spending the second week of their vacation doing some diving in Saba, a tiny island off of Martinique. They needed to be at the airport by 9:30 so it would be another early day. We thought that if we were up by 6:30 that it would allow enough time to get ready and make the two trips necessary to get all people and bags ashore and to the rental car they had arranged. With the exception of being a little darker than usual, everything seemed to be working out just fine. We were nearly ready to leave when I put my watch on. As I strapped it to my wrist I wondered why it read 4:55AM. A quick glance at the kitchen clock confirmed that the day was indeed still on the dark side of 5AM. Pam’s watch had somehow been set to another time zone and so the alarm had gone off a couple hours early. It was pretty funny and since we were all up anyway we just put the coffee on and sat around chatting in the dark until the sun came up.

A couple hours later we were saying our goodbye’s to them at the Miami International Airport. The week went by pretty quickly and we were happy for the visit.

We spent the rest of the day taking care of as many items on our laundry list as possible, …including the laundry. We did some grocery shopping, packed over a hundred liters of water back to the boat, and priced out some of the larger items we still need for long range cruising.

When we finally got back it was getting late. We saw a couple of boats we recognized from Velcro Beach though, and were glad that they had found the same anchorage. We were supposed to have met up with them a few days ago further north but missed each other, so now we would have a second chance.

tuesday december 4, 2007 (ft lauderdale, fl)

We’ve taken the last couple of days to organize the boat a little and relax. It’s been fairly busy over the past week so it was nice to just kick back and take it easy. It seems like it has been a while since we’ve just sat back and enjoyed the boat so it has felt pretty good.

We are still in the same little anchorage and have been watching the boats come and go. There are a lot of Canadian boats around, mostly from Montreal. We were pretty excited to meet a guy yesterday who was from our home town, Vancouver. We had a lot to talk about since he had just bough a boat here as well and being Canadian was jumping through all the same hoops. He had a tonnage drama of his own and was even using the same guys we were.

We were getting ready to leave and meet some friends for happy hour when a speed boat with 6 kids in it came roaring into the anchorage. They were doing laps around the place towing a guy on a wake board. Given the size of the anchorage, they were forced to weave around boats and cut it really close. There was good drama when some people started yelling and swearing at them, and they just kept on going. What could anyone do? A bunch of sailboats and 5HP dinghies aren’t much of a match for a 150HP ski boat. They obviously knew that and didn’t care in the least about all the pissed off cruisers. This one old guy in his boat headed straight for them though and forced them to swerve away at the last second. When they did the guy on the wakeboard fell and when they turned to pick him up the old guy in the other boat dropped his shorts and mooned them while he slowly puttered away. The whole scene was pretty comical, and we didn’t want to leave the boat unattended while they were there so we just sat on our roof and watched it all unfold.

Because of all this we left a little late to meet up with the rest of the Velcro Beach crew. When we finally did, we were only half way to the bar when we met up with their two dinghies headed in the opposite direction. They were on their way back to their boats, so we filled them in on what had happened and made some plans to meet up a little later on.

Once we got to the bar we ordered up some beer and wings and realized that we were clearly settling into a completely different lifestyle. Take tonight for example; we had made plans to meet up with some friends. Pretty ordinary. Then something happened to make us late which is also typical. But today it wasn’t a broken dishwasher, traffic or a flat tire; it was a bunch of kids terrorizing the neighborhood in a speedboat. Then, when we meet up with our friends it was in the middle of a canal. There were six of us, 3 couples, each in their own dinghy. We bobbed around there for a couple of minutes in the middle of a canal making revised plans, then pulled the outboards to life and without another word puttered away in our own directions.

I don’t know if the absurdity of this scenario translates all that well, but at the time we thought it was pretty funny. Not too long ago it was blackberries and rush hour, now its dinghies and sunsets.  Maybe it was the news we had just received of the snowstorm back home that made this stand out to us, or maybe it was just the beer. Either way we’re glad we’re here.

thursday december 6, 2007 (ft lauderdale, fl)

I can say with confidence that we now own more chain than any of our friends back home, and it didn’t come easy.

Today was a horrible day. It started early, it ended late. We left the slapdash at 8AM and after I completed my daily ritual of scooping the water out of the dink with a plastic cup we started loading a whole bunch of crap into it. Stuff like laundry, a TV set that came with the boat that we were going to try and sell, and a bunch of charts that we would no longer need and a bunch of I don’t even remember what else. We made the 15 minute commute to the Southport Raw bar where we are now on a first name basis with most of the staff. They let you tie your dinghy up to their waterfront patio as long as you spend 10 bucks there at some point during the day. This is the best deal going because most places just charge you 10 bucks. At the Raw Bar you can get a parking spot for your inflatable, a pitcher of beer and a dozen wings for the same price. Vive la Raw Bar.

We waited out front for a few minutes before our rental car guy came to pick us up. We had accumulated a huge list and had big plans for the car today. We dropped off the laundry and headed for Sailorman. Sailorman is a huge new and used place where you can get all kinds of boat stuff at discounted prices. We started making the list a couple of days ago and had already scouted the place out so knew exactly what we needed. Even so we still spent 2 or 3 hours there. The big purchase was all this chain. After some haggling we got a great price on some 5/16^th high tensile AACO chain. Yeah, I thought I might pick up some Spanish on this trip and instead I now speak chain. When I say “some” I actually mean 150 freaking feet. This may not sound like much, until you see it all stretched out across the parking lot (so that it can be measured) and then in a big pile on the floor waiting for you to carry it away. They don’t bag it, they load it into a crate and use a dolly to bring it to your car, and once it’s in the car it becomes your problem. With that on our minds we carried on, only a hundred and seventy five more stops and we could call it a day.

We saw the crazy Cubans at the pawn shop and offloaded our television set. They paid cash and didn’t ask to see any ID or even ask our names, hmmm. We drove to a propane gas place to try and get the fitting we would need to fill our tanks in foreign countries and missed them by 10 minutes. As usual we ended up at West Marine at some point during the day, and we even managed to spend an ungodly amount of money having our new decals made up. These are without a doubt the most expensive stickers I have ever bought in my life, but they look great and now we are all set to fly our colors once the paperwork finally arrives.

It was dark, we were exhausted, clammy, snarling at each other, had been relieved of many hard earned dollars, and way past ready to call it a day.

Have you ever tried to transport 150 feet of 5/16^th chain out of the back of a rental car, into a dink, a half mile down a canal, and into a catamaran? Well last night that little task is what was standing in between us and our bed. Neither of us were feeling especially chipper after a long day of supporting the Fort Lauderdale economy, but we had no choice. As I mentioned earlier, the dink was tied up to the front of a bar/restaurant, and last night they were doing a brisk business. In other words, the patio was packed. It would appear as though we had a sold out show waiting to watch our special slapdash dog and pony show.

I asked for a dolly from one of the bar staff, fortunately they had one and let us use it. We had managed to somehow lift the crate out of the trunk, and the dolly made the trip from the car to the dock possible. We still had a 5 foot drop from the dock down to the dink though, and when it saw what we had planned for it this evening I think I actually let out a little whimper. The onlookers were gathering too. I don’t blame them, I would have been openly staring at us with a cold beer in my hand from the patio too if given the chance. They were all waiting for a catastrophe and normally we would have obliged but this night the chain gods smiled upon us. Instead of trying to lower the crate into the dink all at once (which would have killed us both and sunk the dink) we just found the end of the chain and began feeding it into the dink. It worked like a charm and 10 minutes later we had an inflatable full of chain… and a manual windlass, and a generator, and vinyl protector, and a patch kit, and about a million and twelve other things that never cross your mind when you are sitting at work daydreaming about sailing around the world. Last night we slept like the dead.

friday december 6, 2007 (ft lauderdale, fl)

Today we had to make a couple of returns, get the only two things left in Fort Lauderdale that we didn’t already buy yesterday and return the rental car. The agenda was much less aggressive and getting money back and getting rid of “stuff” always seems like a good deal. We were much happier today and things went pretty smoothly.

In a couple of hours we are going to be picking up Ben and his girlfriend Kristy whom we’ve never met. We had made Ben’s acquaintance 2 nights ago though. He was unfortunate enough to pick the table next to ours as we drank our 10 dollar dinghy ransom at the Raw Bar. He was trying to study for his final exam, and we (by we I mean me) were being loud and unruly. Sooner or later I found out that the exam he had no hope of studying for while in our (by our I mean my) presence was to get his US Coast Guard Captains license. I also learned that his girlfriend would be coming into town that weekend and they both love to sail. In fact, Captain Ben (I just talked to him a few minutes ago. He passed so is in fact Captain Ben) had tried to charted a boat for her visit but found them to be way too expensive. So there he was, all knowledge and no boat. There we were, all boat and no... you get the point.

So, with the exam now behind him Ben will pick up Kristy tonight at 8:30. We’ll meet them at, yes, the Raw Bar. Tomorrow we head for the high seas and do some sailing. We’ll cover the fine points of reefing, do some man overboard drills and learn everything we can from him while everything is fresh in his mind from his test. By the way Ben, congratulations on being brand new CAPTAIN Ben.

saturday december 7, 2007 (ft lauderdale, fl)

Last night we went down to the Raw Bar at the prescribed time to meet up with Ben and Kristy. This had to be a covert mission because we were hassled by water cops the night before. If you can believe it, they want us to put red and green running lights on our dinghy in addition to the stern light we had already installed to satisfy their requirements a few weeks ago. Keep in mind we are talking about a 9 foot inflatable boat with a 5 HP outboard here. I’m not sure if this is a county thing but we couldn’t find any such requirement in the USCG regulations. 

The aqua 5-0 had pulled up beside us in their big power boat and issued a verbal warning after taking down our boats’ name. “Next time it will be a citation” said the heavily armed power tripping officer while looking down on us past his massive outboard engines. Wow. These guys have a row of 10 power boats like this docked in the canal beside us. Each of them outfitted with a few 200 horsepower outboards and god knows what else. I can’t even guess at their replacement cost, maintenance cost, and the combined salaries of the officers that run them. Check into it Florida State tax payers; While kids in power boats are wakeboarding through anchorages, and 60 foot power yachts are flying through no wake zones these heavily resourced officers like to spend their time hassling dinghy’s about running lights. Hilarious.

Ben and Kristy were running a little late, but we had met up with a couple of Canadians at the bar. This was the guy who we met before that was jumping through the same hoops we were to satisfy the Canadian governments’ requirements for registration. The first time we met we had commiserated about that crazy process, but this time we were celebrating. He had finally received his registration and was all set to leave the next morning. His nephew from Edmonton had flown in to join him (via WestJet) and in the morning they would set off for the Bahamas.

Bob kindly invited us aboard for a drink and a tour. He had fuelled up a few hours prior so his boat was only a few steps from where we were sitting. This was not the type of boat we were used to seeing. It was a beautiful 74 foot custom built motor yacht. Leilani had 7 foot ceilings throughout so there wasn’t a room that I couldn’t stand up straight in. Complete with leather sofa, matching loungers, and a couple of 1500 HP diesel engines it wasn’t hard to get used to.

A little while later Ben and Kristy showed up. They were invited aboard as well and after some introductions we finished up our beers and our tour and said our goodbye’s. We headed back to the dink and, after our time on Leilani, it never looked so small. But what it may lack in size, aesthetic appeal, ability to hold air and lack of red and green running lights, it more than makes up for in attitude. It’s the little engine that could, and being confined inside it with a couple of guests forces a rather hasty acquaintance. Try remaining strangers with someone when your elbows and knees are touching. By the time we made it back to the slapdash we could tell that our serendipitous new associates would likely become fast friends. Kristy had just arrived from Chicago and Ben had only hours before passed his Captains exam with a 98%. There was a lot to celebrate so we did.

The next morning after a big breakfast we pulled up anchor and headed for the inlet. This would lead us straight out to sea where we would spend some time sailing around and learning what we could from Ben’s considerable experience. We weren’t half way out the inlet when we realized that this was going to be a perfect day for it. Waves were pitching us around and washing right over the bow. These were the biggest seas we had seen from the slapdash but we knew that we would see a lot bigger so just took it as it came. For a while the excitement of it had us all laughing and cheering. When we were outside of the channel we hoisted the main and unfurled the genoa. Then we killed the engine and raised the drive leg. If you haven’t experienced this moment it’s a tough one to convey. If you have you already know exactly what I’m talking about. The moment you shut off auxiliary power and carry on, usually gaining speed, only with the power you are harnessing from the wind it’s something special. Everyone on the boat that day felt the same, and for a while we just held the course and enjoyed the sensation of speed without the sound and smell of internal combustion.

It wasn’t long before the effects of the rolling sea, the celebrations the night before, and the big breakfast started to set in. The whole crew was feeling it and before long Jaime and Kristy had assumed positions; one on the back of each hull where their breakfast made its second appearance. With that out of the way they were feeling better, but nobody was in top form so it seemed like a good time to practice “heaving to”. This is a maneuver in which you position boat and sails in a manner that they oppose each others’ forces. The end result is a little like pulling the e-brake in your car; you stop. It’s a pretty cool thing. Right there in rolling waves and windy conditions the boat is fixed in its position enough to create calm slick water on one side of the hull. This reduces the motion of the boat considerably making things a lot more comfortable. Before long Jaime spotted some fish that were taking shelter in the calm water beside the boat. It was great to see clean blue water, ocean swells, and a peek at the fish we would soon be having for dinner. This was a taste of how our post-ICW days would be spent.

Early in the afternoon the seasickness and an approaching storm led us to make the good decision to turn back for the anchorage. It wasn’t long before we had the sails in and were making a course through the incredibly congested Port Everglades inlet. There were countless power boats, sailboats, yachts over a hundred feet long, tankers and 6 behemoth cruise ships all in the immediate vicinity. After spending a day on the open ocean this whole scene was especially claustrophobic for us. On the plus side it was amazing how quickly any symptoms of sea sickness were abated once we were in calmer waters of the harbor. It only took a few minutes before everyone was back to normal.

As expected we had learned a ton from Ben just by spending time sailing with him. It wasn’t from an intense regime of skills and drills or anything. It was seeing how someone with experience handles the million little things that seem to make sailing half art and half science. For being complete strangers only a short time ago, we all got along really well and when the time came we were sad to see them go. There was no way to tell if we would see each other again but something tells us that our paths will cross again.

After dropping them off at the dock we finally saw these big fish that frequent the marina that a few people have been telling us about. We didn’t have our camera with us but there are these massive Tarpons that come right up to the dock. I guess the restaurant throws their scraps in there every night and since they are happy to eat just about anything they partake in the free meal. These things are 5 feet long and a couple hundred pounds a piece. They look like some kind of science experiment gone wrong and would be more at home on the set of Jurassic Park then at the end of a dock in Fort Lauderdale. If there was anything to signal the time for our departure that was it. With “seeing sea monsters” scratched off our list it was time to go.

sunday december 8, 2007 (north miami, fl)

As usual we were happy to be moving again. We seem to enjoy ourselves the most when we are traveling, and even though this would be a short day it was still nice to be underway. Our friends on Zing had called the night before and weren’t far from us. They were now on their way back north for some boat repairs. We hadn’t seen them since they left Velcro Beach so we were both excited to take advantage of this chance encounter. They gave us directions to the uncharted anchorage they were in and it wasn’t hard to spot their 43 foot St Francis catamaran. That afternoon we were setting our anchor beside them; the only two boats in the whole bay. It’s incredible; surrounded by huge Miami condos, only a couple of hundred yards from the main channel and for the first time since we crossed into Florida, we are the only boats here.

As usual the hospitality on the Island of Zing is unparalleled. We tried to even the score by taking the first shot. As soon as our anchor was down we had them over to our boat for drinks and some pie Jaime had made. It wasn’t long before we were feasting on steaks back on Zing Island though.  I don’t know how they do it but they seem to be able to out host us without even trying. After dinner we enjoyed a dip in a nearby swimming pool and a good long soak in the hot tub. Not a bad way to end the day.

monday december 9, 2007 (north miami, fl)

Zing carried on their way this morning but not before Dave had helped me rig a couple of things on our main sail. He has been sailing since he was 5 so with his help the job took about 20 minutes. It would have taken me hours to get things sorted out through my usual trial and error method of discovery. We spent the rest of the day enjoying having the anchorage all to ourselves. We also caught up on some emails and took care of some other mundane boat chores. We finished the day off with a couple episodes of HBO’s Rome.

Speaking of emails, thanks to those who wrote to point out that I had mistakenly referred to Key Largo a couple of times when we had actually taken the Harley’s to Key West.

wednesday december 12, 2007 (north miami, fl)

If there was one area that we really prepared for, I mean that we were totally rock solid ready for, it was our dentistry. Say what you will about our lack of sailing experience and general preparedness for this journey and we will probably agree, but when it comes to our teeth you can forget about it. In this area we run circles around the competition. Collectively we logged at least 10 visits to the Dentist chair in the months leading up to our departure. We both had great dental plans and it only made sense to take full advantage before we left. Leaving with perfect sets of ivories could only mean one less thing to deal with after we left. After all, who wants to deal with a cavity in Bullocks Key? Or try to have a tooth removed on Crooked Island? Who wasn’t horrified by the scene in Castaway when Tom Hanks used an ice skate and a big rock to take care of a bad tooth? We took the steps necessary to ensure that we wouldn’t share that awful fate. Kudos to us, or so we thought.

The next time you are munching away on Cajun flavored trail mix take note of the sounds. This is not the type of discreet snack that you would quietly sneak handfuls of at the office during a meeting, and probably not the right selection to secretly nibble on during your cousins wedding. No, this is a live sporting event type of chew. You don’t want to unleash the Cajun trail mix on anything less than rowdy crowds or the great outdoors. Expect at least a dozen different inflections of chomp, munch, and crunch. A real chew-with-your-mouth-open-and-wash-it-down-with-cold-beer kind of snack mix, which is exactly what I was doing last night. With the near deafening cacophony of crunches going on at the time, you would be truly surprised at how one little “snap” really stands out from the melee. Immediate reaction; jaw frozen in mid chew. A kind of instant mammalian reflex or something. After a few moments of suspended animation, a cautious exploration can begin. Not easy with a mouth half full of Cajun trail mix debris. Still, the source of the sickening “snap” must be located. Before long I locate the jagged edge of a molar with the tip of my tongue. It’s on the lower left side of my jaw. Next, to isolate the rogue tooth from the Cajun snack mix. Gentle bites soon discover the piece of rubble that doesn’t belong. As suspected the inside of this lower left molar now resembles a miniature version of Mount St Helens, post eruption.

In retrospect it makes perfect sense. Visit the dentist ten times before you leave and you are going to break a tooth. Murphy and his law will find a way. Buy a spare engine and take it along with you and the engine mounts will fail. It only serves to reinforce our general attitude about this trip; if you wait until you are ready for anything you will never leave. If you are lucky enough to convince yourself that you are ready for anything and finally get to leave, you will undoubtedly find a few surprises along the way that you would have never imagined the need to prepare for. In short, we would far rather be out here with broken teeth then at home in the dentist chair.

I’m planning to have the tooth filled once we get to Cuba. Should make for a nice souvenir.

thursday december 13, 2007 (north miami, fl)

If you’ve never prepared to take a boat offshore you may not know what an EPIRB is. Before we started planning this trip I had no idea, but now I could tell you a lot about Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons. My studies began a year ago when I first read about an EPIRB, and today I had a one day follow up course.

Essentially these rugged little units increase the chances of your body being recovered after a disaster at sea. Okay, a little morbid. The optimist would say that because an EPIRB will transmit your location to the authorities when activated, you have a better chance of survival. However you want to look at it, they are an important piece of equipment to have on board if you plan to spend a lot of time traveling around on your boat. They will self activate when submerged or they can be manually activated. Using some kind of dark magic, critical information like your location, vessel name, and a few other particulars will be beamed off to various rescue agencies. We have never paid much attention to our EPIRB, but today I stumbled across it while cleaning out one of our compartments and decided that it was about time we became better acquainted. I sat down and removed the cover. I read the tag and anything else that was printed on the outside of the casing. Inside the cover there’s this little green light with a button beside it marked “test”. That seemed like a good idea. Better to test it now than wait until we are in a life raft. The directions appeared to want me to hold down the test button and this other button labeled “GPS  I/O” together for one second. So I did. Some other lights came on which alarmed me a little so I hit the “off” button. Everything stopped, so I was satisfied that the batteries were in good condition and I sheepishly put it away before Jaime could ask me what I was doing.

After a few minutes this nagging uncertainty crept over me. I wasn’t sure that I had actually activated the EPIRB, but then again, I couldn’t say conclusively that I had not. I confessed my actions to Jaime and we sat down and read the thing again. Although I feel that I have a legitimate claim that the instructions printed on our EPIRB are misleading, it became obvious to us that if even for only a few seconds, I had in fact activated the thing.

We dug through boxes and piles of papers. Eventually we came across the one with the emergency contact information for the manufacturer. I dialed up the 1-800 number while imagining pagers going off, rescue teams mobilizing, fleets of helicopters with rotors just starting to turn. The EPIRB lady answered and I was relieved. I had imagined being scolded by some gruff commander or something, so when this calm mannered call center girl answered it immediately put me at ease. This would be a piece of cake. I told her the whole story and we built up a rapport while laughing at my crazy antics. Then, just as I was expecting the “no problem we’ll take care of this, you have a nice day sir”, she asked me to hold while she transferred me to the Miami Beach US Coast Guard! I was had. She suckered me into telling her everything and then coldly turned me over to the authorities. Within seconds I was on the phone being scolded by the gruff commander I had imagined earlier. He took down all the information I had and assured me that he would ignore any distress signals from our boat. He hung up before reassuring me that he meant that they would just ignore any distress signals from our boat ‘today’, but should there be any in the future that they will respond immediately. I’m sure that’s what he meant.

After confessing my sins and doing the right thing I felt much better. We put the whole thing behind us and carried on with our day. A couple of hours later we were on the beach and noticed that we had a couple of voicemails and a couple more emails, all from the previous owners of the boat. They were urgent attempts to reach us and full of requests to contact them immediately. Strange. Here’s something new that I learned about EPIRB’s; If a continuous signal is transmitted, they can fix your location within a few yards. In that case the Coast Guard is activated and they will respond to the location.  A short signal, referred to as a “burst”, such as the one I released from the unit today, doesn’t contain enough information to pinpoint a location so the Coast Guard cannot respond. It does have enough information in it to transmit your vessel name, owner and emergency contacts. In this area the Coast Guard doesn’t deal with any of that, the Air Force does! Since nobody notified them, the first thing they did was call the emergency contact listed. Of course we haven’t updated any of this information, so the previous owners’ mother was listed. Yep, this poor lady got a call from the Air Force letting her know that they had received a distress signal from her daughter’s boat. You can imagine what happened next, she called Ted and Rhonda, and they started trying to get a hold of us. I let them know that we were still floating and quite safe, and then had to call Officer Spears and explain everything to him. When I was finally patched through to him he already knew all about us. He was sitting in front of his computer laughing at our website. He turned out to be a really nice guy and explained the whole process to me.

Note to self: Update EPIRB emergency contact information, and don’t touch the shiny white button anymore.

friday december 14, 2007 (south beach, fl)

Legendary South Beach. We were excited to spend a couple of days here and found the perfect anchorage. It was right beside Belle Isle, alongside the Venetian Causeway. After a 5 minute dinghy ride down a little canal we could tie up only a couple of blocks from Lincoln Ave and Ocean Drive.

The beach was gorgeous and so was everyone there. No shortage of glitz and glam, it was like a superficial factory exploded all over the place. It seemed like everyone was model material, and designer fashion, tans, and every type of augmentation are en-vogue here. Bentleys, Ferraris, and Lambo’s were all common place. If you are in the market for a Sugar Daddy (or Mama) this is the place to be. We saw dogs wearing diamond studded collars that were probably worth more than our boat, oh and they were being pushed around in a baby carriage by a Liberace look-a-like.

We may not have fit in all that well, but the people watching was superb. We settled into a place called Zeke’s which has bottled beer from what seemed like every region of the world and every one of them was three bucks. We got through Italy, Thailand and England. A little while later we met our first celebrity. We saw a guy in blue cover-alls peddling a cruiser around with a great big white and red rooster on his shoulder. In some streets of some towns this may strike you as odd, but not this street. We chatted with the guy, and met the celebrity; Mr. Clucky. This rooster has his own website (www.mrclucky.com) and has made appearances on national television. Weird place.

sunday december 16, 2007 (south beach, fl)

Today we picked up my buddy Micah. By dinghy of course. He came all the way from Calgary to visit for a few days. I’ve known the guy since high school and we were pretty excited to see him. We planned to head for the Keys tomorrow morning, so we spent the night showing him around South Beach. We paid visits to Zekes and a Hookah bar called D’Vine. Even though it was a Sunday night, you wouldn’t have guessed it. The place was still packed, and just as crazy.

Unfortunately we had to forgo our traditional routine of sleeping in on Monday morning to salute the employed. It would be a full day if we were going to make it to Key Largo. Just after sunrise we motored out of our anchorage and headed South once again. It was going to be a perfect day. Clear blue skies, small waves and 15 knots of wind right behind us. The only compromise was the temperature. We were being provided with our brisk Northerly wind compliments of a cold front. It’s amazing how the temperature dips even this far South. Jackets, hats, and gloves were broken out, and sails were raised. The wind didn’t change much at all and we sailed wing and wing all the way to Key Largo.

We dropped anchor in Sunset Cove just as the sun was setting. It was a full day but we had covered a lot of ground. It was great timing for Micah. Even though he was only here a few days he got to see the sights in South Beach, have an incredible sail to Key Largo, and a day left over to play around in the Keys.

tuesday december 18, 2007 (key largo, fl)

Today we rented a car and split the cost with Micah. He would use it tomorrow to get back to the airport in Ft. Lauderdale, and we would use it today to get ourselves to the Fed-Ex in Marathon. That’s where the lawyer is forwarding all the documents for our condo sale back home. The deal closes on the 22^nd, so we need to have them all signed, notarized and sent back tomorrow in time to get them back to the buyers’ agent for Saturday. Marathon is only 50 miles from here, so its not a big deal. And since Micah has never drove the Overseas Highway it will be a bit touristy as well.

wednesday december 19, 2007 (key largo, fl)

We had a chance encounter with another guy from home today named Warren. He worked for WestJet as well, so it was pretty funny to see him here. We all had a beer at Snooks and made plans to meet up later on. Then we said our sad goodbye’s to Micah and he left for much colder climates. We sent him off with a bag full of books; another slapdash tradition. Be warned, if you come for a visit we will likely send you away with a bunch of our stuff that we don’t want on the boat anymore. Consider it the price of admission. Somehow Warren escaped unscathed though. Maybe that’s why he didn’t come back to the boat with us tonight…

saturday december 22, 2007 (key largo, fl)

Things were getting a little dull around here so today I decided to shake things up by pouring some diesel into our starboard water tank.

Our boat has two main water tanks; they hold 30 gallons each and are located at the aft end of each hull. We also have two main diesel tanks; they hold 18 gallons each and are located at the aft end of the boat just behind the cockpit. There are 4 fill caps in total, 2 on the starboard side, and 2 on the port. They are all black, and located about 12 inches apart.

When you stay at anchor for any amount of time, sooner or later you are going to need to supply your boat with diesel and water. If there’s no marina near by, you need to take jerry cans to shore in your dinghy, fill them up, return to the boat and pour them into your tanks. I’ve repeated this process multiple times and am now quite familiar with the location of each of the tanks, their contents, and purpose. Modesty would keep me from saying that I was an expert in this field, but I wouldn’t hesitate to claim competence. For this reason, I really have no explanation why today, after removing the cap for the water tank, I placed the long black funnel I use for filling the diesel tanks into the opening and transferred about a half gallon of diesel from the jerry can into one of our main water reservoirs. It only took a couple of seconds before I snapped out of it and realized in a state of horror what I was doing. By then the damage had been done.

I could claim that the fill caps shouldn’t be the same color, or in the same location. I could blame environmental causes and say that it was dark, or too bright and the glare impaired my vision. I could say that I was dehydrated and had low blood sugar. There’s all kinds of excuses to choose from, but the simple truth is that I just plain screwed up, big time.

It had been a long day. We were happy to be back on the boat and filling the fuel tanks was the last chore to be done before firing up the BBQ and cracking a cold one. We were both looking forward to a nice relaxing steak dinner, which would have been timed nicely with the sunset. Now we were in full damage control mode. Jaime wasn’t speaking to me, but she wasn’t yelling at me either, so that was okay. The tank we needed access to rested comfortably beneath the storage room/tool shed/pantry/spares department, or you could just say the worst place imaginable. She removed everything from the starboard aft cabin so that we could get at the now duel purpose water/diesel tank. Fortunately we didn’t use a tap so the diesel would be isolated there and not circulating its way through the boats fresh water system. Once unburied, we started figuring out how to get the water out of it. Of course we had just switched over to this tank after emptying the other one, so it was completely full. We had to deal with a full contaminated tank and worse still, since the other one was empty, we now had no usable fresh water on the boat. I joked that I could go to shore, get some and use it to fill up the fuel tanks, Jaime didn’t think it was very funny.

After trying a few different methods of draining the water, we settled on removing the line that feeds the freshwater pump and attaching it to the bilge pump. This was really effective because it removed the water through a closed system so we didn’t have a big mess on our hands. And since the line draws from the bottom of the tank and diesel floats, we weren’t pumping a bunch of diesel overboard either. We drained the water to the point that the diesel was still in the tank, but it was light enough to move. We then pulled off the rest of the lines from the tank and maneuvered the thing outside where I could safely dispose of the diesel.

With that done we loaded the laptop into the dinghy and made our way to a little hotel nearby that has a wifi signal. So if you were wondering what we were up to at about 9PM on Sunday night, we were bobbing around in a dinghy 100 ft offshore in front of a hotel leeching off their internet signal trying to google word combinations like, “diesel in water tanks”. We immediately found a whole bunch of potential solutions and was relieved that it looked like I would be able to get out of this without having to order a new water tank, thereby increasing my chances of having Jaime forgive me sometime before Christmas. It also made me feel a lot better reading all the stories of people who have done the same thing. One guy actually topped the tank right off, mixed in his fuel additive, closed it up and made dinner. He didn’t realize that it had happened until he nearly threw up after drinking a glass of water. I tried to help Jaime to see that this kind of thing happens all the time. She wasn’t buying it.

Fun fact. Isopropyl is the active ingredient in rubbing alcohol. Among other things it will break down diesel molecules quite effectively. Apparently Vodka also bears similar chemical properties, although not as concentrated. I took inventory; we had a 1.75 liter jug of Vodka, and 12 ounces of rubbing alcohol. Clearly we would need more supplies. We left the tank on deck, and rebuilt the storage room/tool shed/pantry/spares department so that we could make it to our cabin. After that we called it a day.

sunday december 23, 2007 (key largo, fl)

“What kind of an idiot would pour diesel into his water tank? I mean, an accidental EPIRB activation, that could happen to anyone, but diesel in your water tanks?” If you had told me this story a week ago that’s exactly what I would have said. But there I was today, walking along the side of the road with a contaminated water tank under my arm on the way to the carwash. I had 6 bottles of rubbing alcohol, a big bottle of Vodka, 2 gallons of some bio-degradable degreaser and a roll of quarters in my back pack. Let’s rumble.

Once I got to the car wash I read the directions on the degreaser. It said to mix 4:1 for tough jobs, so I mixed it 1:1. After swooshing it around for a while I sprayed it out with the power washer and made enough suds to fill up the reservoir underneath the carwash. Half a roll of quarters later and the tank still smelled like diesel so I poured the next gallon of degreaser in straight. I could just get my hand inside the inspection port on the top of the tank, so I scrubbed the inside as best I could. Then back to the power wash and I made even more suds than the first time, but it was starting to work.

On a side note, if you ever see a guy in the carwash with his water tank, cut him some slack. It was funny to see how people sitting in their cars would get all excited. Even though I was spending far less time in there than it takes to spray down the average vehicle, people were still getting all impatient. I have no idea why.

After round 2 of the degreaser and a bunch of fresh water rinses I walked my pet water tank back to the boat. Once there I dumped all the rubbing alcohol and Vodka inside and let it sit overnight.

friday december 28, 2007 (key largo, fl)

We accomplished a couple of things around the boat today. First off, our anchor light burnt out. We needed to replace it but couldn’t find any specs in the owners manual. That meant we would have to go up and check it out. If you live in a house this may not sound like a big deal. In a house you can solve even the most pesky light changes without having to look much further than a chair from the kitchen table. An anchor light on a sailboat is logically positioned at the highest possible spot. This makes the light more visible to other boaters, and hopefully keeps you from being run down in your sleep. It makes sense but presents a challenge when the time comes to change it. You need something that can provide a little more elevation than a kitchen chair; the tool of choice for this is a bosun’s chair. Essentially this is a seat and harness combination. It’s got room for one person, and with the help of a winch and a line it can whisk you to the top of a mast pretty handily. This is Jaime’s department. Today she was swinging around 50 feet or so off the deck inspecting light bulb serial numbers while I did the grunt work of hoisting her up and down. She was able to retrieve the suspect bulb and we can now go and match it up with a working version. Then we will repeat the whole process in order to install the new bulb. Only on a boat is changing a light bulb a multi day ordeal. Oh, and have I mentioned that Jaime is scared of heights?

We also decided to get our new decals up. We don’t have the registration to match them yet, but figured that since we won’t be traveling too far before we get our papers that it wouldn’t hurt to have them affixed in advance. Before we could do that though we had to get the old decals off (which isn’t much fun). Our friends on Zing were anchored beside us and said that Easy Off (yes, the oven cleaner) worked really well for this. We didn’t have any of course so Jaime took the dink over to Zing and did some horse trading. She was back a few minutes later with a rusty can of oven cleaner and we got to work on removing the old decals. A few hours later, although a little sunburned and sweaty, we had our new decals up. It was great to see the slapdash moniker and home port finally displayed on our boat. We celebrated with crews from Zing and a couple of their friends from Miami.