Late Coffee…Early Cocktails

Coast Guard Copter Over s/v Destiny

We spent seven days anchored in Miami Beach and knew from past experience that it would not be dull.  Cruise ships parade in and out Government Cut twice a day, tour boats drone by introducing the sights in English and Spanish, the Coast Guard seems to be on maneuvers by all means– air, water and land –and cruising boats jockey around the anchorages searching for a bit of peace and quiet beyond the fray.

At one point Greg tried hailing our friend Dave on sailing vessel Destiny via VHF radio, “Destiny, Destiny this is Yoohoo, over”.  We were amazed and amused when the cruise ship Carnival Destiny immediately replied in heavily accented English “Yoohoo, this is Destiny”.  They NEVER answer at sea in the middle of the night! Capt Claw was tempted to reply “Is Dave there?” or “Sorry Carnival Destiny but we were hailing the itty bitty sailing vessel Destiny”.

We were also amused by the newest means of parting tourists from their dollars,  a tour boat bedecked with

Tikki Beach Tour Boat - only the sunburn is free

all the trappings of a tikki bar on a sand beach.  I’d like the marketing folks at Tikki Beach Tours to know that when this palm-frond streaming barge first rounded the bend and came whizzing toward us, I thought the largest duck blind known to man was invading our anchorage.  Perhaps not quite the image they were aspiring to.

On another breezy day a new boat into the anchorage came over for directions to the dinghy dock and, as is customary in cruising circles, left us their boat card before they dinghied off in search of groceries.  The card soon became critical as it became apparent that their boat was dragging anchor.  Luckily it was dragging at a leisurely pace allowing them to be roused from their lunch on Lincoln Ave to hoof it back on foot and in dinghy to retrieve the boat and put it back where it belonged.

Eying an unusual 3-day window of good weather which would allow us to hop down the Keys we hauled anchor, refueled at Crandon Park and headed south down Biscayne Bay.  We were in the process of hoisting our sails, shocking even ourselves, when we vaguely noticed lots of tiny laser-like sailboats zipping back and forth up ahead.  We set our course between the two largest groups and had just got the genny set when all of a sudden all these boats, perhaps 30 of them, turned and started streaming straight toward us at very close range.  Holy Sea Hazard!  We are headed straight for the starting line of an Olympic training race going the wrong way!  That explains the little bang, that big puffy buoy thing over there and the glares we are getting from all the athletes as we part the fleet neatly in two.  Capt Claw tried to steer straight through their flanks to avoid collision, wrapping the genny round the forestay in the process.  Horrors!

Luckily we didn’t leave any roadkill in our wake and suffered nothing stronger than a gesture or two. Or were they waving hello?  In our defense, the race committee, enthroned on a very expensive Nordhavn trawler, must have seen for at least five minutes that given our course, we would soon scramble their race if action wasn’t taken. They could have hailed us via VHF to warn us off or delayed the race 2 minutes until we cleared the area.   We straightened out our sails and soothed our burnt egos and glided on south, happy to see busy Miami Beach recede in the distance until it was just a little cluster of buildings perched on the edge of Biscayne Bay.

We are often asked by our dirt-dweller friends and relatives about the scary aspects of cruising. Usually the questions revolve around pirates or storms. Our stock answer is that living together in 300 square feet of space is by far the most fearsome facet of our lifestyle. And until now that has been true, our daily sacrifices to spousal content have been much more trying than the 50-knot storm we weathered at sea or the night a large, unlit cutter stalked us in the dark.

That was until 2 days ago when the issue that all cruisers fear more than any other reared its ugly head on Yoohoo. Something in our sanitation system was royally plugged, leaving the head kaput and the crew using a plastic bucket.

We were indoctrinated to the inadequacies of marine heads and holding tank systems on our first voyage on Yoohoo. Just one day out of Annapolis where we bought Yoohoo, Cap’t Claw went below and found his olfactory senses beset by a horrific odor. Soon he popped his head back up for a gulp of fresh air and announced that he’d discovered a cracked fitting on top of the holding tank, a crack which was now leaking. Ewwww!

His crew, brother Hurricane Charlie and myself, offered immediate support by pointing out that sanitation system repairs were listed under Other Duties Shirked on our sailing resumes. While the poor skipper cheerfully went below to repair and clean, his crew of ingrates promptly dubbed him “Cap’t You’re-In-Charge”.

So it was not a great surprise to Cap’t You’re-In-Charge that this time I offered my full support by searching for cheap, shore-side lodging as he prepared to delve into our problem. Desperate to get the boat out of the cold waters in Stuart, we had departed and made a two-day trip to warmer waters knowing that we’d be dealing with a dead head at least until we arrived in Miami Beach. We debated continuing on to the Keys due to a good weather window but decided to suck it up and fix it here.

We anchored off Star Island, home to 18 million dollar estates and many big names because in the past, we’d been the only boat anchored here and a marine store was a short dinghy ride away. We wanted to be far away from any other boats but close to the store if we needed parts. Cap’t You’re-In-Charge armed himself with boxes of vinyl gloves, plastic garbage bags, lots and lots of tape and one clothespin for the nose, then gingerly started dismantling that dead head. Through a long, tedious process of elimination, the head mechanism itself was proved working, then each section of hose, then the vented loop, before finding the clog in the hose section between the vented loop and the diverter valve.

Cap't You're-In-Charge & Scuppers at work

I’m sure you don’t want the full details but marine sanitation systems are subject to a build-up of calcified scale caused by a mixture of the salt water used to flush and other residue. This mortar mixture ensures that if you do not properly maintain your hoses by removing each section and wacking it against a hard surface until the mortar breaks free, the hoses will fully close and pumping cease. The pure distastefulness of this process meant it never ranked highly on our endless list of system maintenance chores. Without a proper hard surface to wack the plugged hose, Cap’t You’re-In-Charge sat in the cockpit and skewered the hose clean with a long, copper ground wire.

We’ve noticed while doing refit projects in the marina that the more embarrassing a project is the more likely friends and strangers will appear to offer suggestions and opinions. So our anchorage, picked for isolation, soon filled with about 8 other boats many anchored within the “sniff zone”. Then friends on sailing vessel Destiny called on the VHF, welcomed us to Miami Beach and said they’d drop by this afternoon. “Ummmm, please call first, we’re ummm working on a ummmmm big system and we wouldn’t want you to witness our ummmmm dissaray”. The crew on Destiny, seasoned cruisers, instantly figured out from that cryptic reply that we were busy rotor-rootering and found better things to do that afternoon.

Meanwhile, due to our plush location anchored right off Will Smith and Vanilla Ice’s homes, the tour boats

Happy tourists making the rounds

from Miami kept running right by Yoohoo, keeping the eager tourists busy snapping photos of our pretty sailboat at anchor. Cap’t You’re-In-Charge obliged the photo opportunities by grinning and waving the hose in greeting as each boat went by. Priceless.

Six hours later, all hoses and fittings were reassembled, clamped, checked and rechecked, Yoohoo and crew were thoroughly bleached and, God bless our intrepid hero Cap’t You’re-In-Charge, the head was working smoothly. If we ever are boarded by pirates we will hand over our booty in that very special plastic bucket with fond and humble memories.

The tall ship Bounty

One benefit of cruising is the opportunity to see every imaginable type of vessel. If it floats we’ve see it. As we entered the anchorage south of Lake Worth inlet, the tall ship Bounty, as in ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ departed a dock and backed across our intended course giving us a close look. We’re not sure if Captain Bligh or Christian Fletcher was at the helm but we did notice that this replica seemed to have large diesel engines powering her unlike her namesake back in the 1700’s. At least they had the decency to forego the bow thrusters. Given our predicament with the inoperational head I wondered if they had a nice oak bucket we could borrow. If you’d like to tour The Bounty she is currently docked on Peanut Island. Pitcairn Island would have been so much better. Arghhhhh!

The next morning we hauled anchor at 5 am and inched Yoohoo out of the cluttered harbor with no moon to illuminate parked barges, dredging pipes as long as a football field, navigation markers, manatee signs or unlit anchored boats. This tense crawl paid off in a smooth departure through the inlet right at slack tide and an Atlantic sunrise accompanied by wisps of golden mist billowing across the waves.

We passed another interesting vessel, on the trendy end of the nautical time continuum, anchored off busy Fort

Dockwise Yacht Transport ship at anchor

Lauderdale waiting to enter Port Everglades. This Dockwise Yacht Transport ship does nothing but cart recreational boats around the world to the “most desirable cruising grounds” so their owners don’t actually have to cruise anywhere to “go cruising”. The ship is “semi-submersible” in order to lower its cargo deck below water allowing boats such as ours to be driven straight onto its deck. When all the boats are loaded its deck is raised back up and away they go.

We know of people who used Dockwise to ship their boat back to  the States when their cruising was interrupted by real life.  We also know of people who shamelessly speak of their “circumnavigation” when, in fact, their vessel was shipped on certain legs via a Dockwise Transport Ship. We don’t know where this particular one was headed but since we just encountered The Bounty I’d like to imagine they were making a breadfruit run to Tahiti.

It was a long debate to decide whether we stop in Miami Beach to commence head repairs or continue on to the Keys. In the end, Miami Beach, with its new, free, city-wide WiFi system and easy access to a marine goods store won. We hope to retire our little plastic bucket soon!

People are asking us what is wrong with our Current Position report as there have been no changes in over a month.  Sorry, it IS accurate, Yoohoo just hasn’t been moved in 5 weeks.  First, we took a trip home to enjoy a winter wonderland holiday in Minnesota.  We returned to Stuart on December 28th thinking we’d be watching the fireworks in Miami Beach on New Year’s eve.  A few cruiser get-togethers delayed that plan and then a Siberian air mass descended on us.  The strong, northerly winds that accompanied the cold snap kept us tethered to that mooring ball and the warm boater’s lounge and showers provided by the marina.

We attempted to leave last week, doing final provisioning, last-minute laundry, saying many goodbyes, and hoisting the outboard and dinghy onto the mothership, drooling over a lovely weather window which would allow us to actually sail to Miami.  But on the appointed morning, we clicked our ruby slippers three times and pressed the start button on the engine, and were answered by a flash of light and a small plink as all our DC power blew out.

Our chief engineer, Ensign Voltron, traced that episode to a rusted breaker and, after relaunching the dinghy and outboard, and arranging a car ride to get parts, had us back up and running just in time to wait out the next cold front.  In the meantime the sandbar at the intersection of the St Lucie River and the ICW has been growing inch-by-inch and reports are that vessels with 4-1/2 foot drafts are running aground mid-channel at high-tide. We reprovisioned, completed the laundry once more and hoisted dink and outboard on deck all ready for a morning departure.

Immediately upon rising this morning Capt Claw reported the pump to the head out of commission.  Unlike modern cruising vessels which sport multiple heads for just such a situation, Yoohoo only sports a nice bucket as back-up.  And if you ladies think a bucket is hard to use on dry land, try it in a seaway!

What to do?   If we stay we will have to wait out yet another front and perhaps a dredge if the front piles up more sand on the St Lucie shoal.  If we depart it will be at least 2 days before we arrive in a suitable location to commence repairs and it will require use of that bucket at sea.   We departed as it was the easiest way to postpone the dreaded head repair task!  Stand by to find out where Yoohoo and her crew go next!

The ICW???

We just got word from Claiborne Young of the Salty Southeast Cruiser’s Network that the ICW south of Jacksonville is covered with ice!  SOUTH of Jacksonville! FLORIDA!

http://cruisersnet.net/ice-on-aicw-south-of-jacksonville-florida/

We  returned from the holidays in Minnesota and can report that it did indeed feel much colder here.  Iguanas are falling out of the trees onto tourist’s heads, sea turtles are being removed from the waterways and warmed indoors, and the fish are floating belly-up.  When NASA moved the space shuttle to the launching pad last week, they restricted their outdoor worker’s shifts to 30 minutes due to the “dangerous temperatures”.  Miami has had a wind-chill warning on more than one day this week.

My brother Jim, just returning from a ski trip on the Norwegian Riveria, aka the north shore of Lake Superior,  reported eyewitness accounts of less ice on Lake Superior than on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway in Florida !   This is the final hint needed that it is time to get out of Stuart and head south.  What is the temperature in Brazil today?