Merritt Island, Orlando and points west, December 20-29

Christmas with Grandgirls aboard Cool Change

We've had a busy week and a half but finally have some downtime to catch up with what we've been doing over Christmas.  The best event was a visit from our middle son and his family, just before Christmas.  Presents for the two grandgirls were under the tree when they arrived and we all enjoyed watching them unwrap the full sized American Girl dolls that Grandpa and Noodle (that's Colleen) got them.  The dolls were a big hit and pretty much stayed attached to the girls' sides throughout the two days they were here.

Dolls and sticker books - guaranteed to make grandgirls happy

How many people are apending the night on Cool Change?  Count the shoes.

All six of us spent two nights together in relative comfort on the boat and enjoyed visiting and catching up and playing with the girls.  We had some meals out with friends so I didn't have to do much cooking (remember my small galley).  It was a great visit.  Patrick and Maria, thank you so much for coming to see us.

Chrisrmas Cookie Making

On the 23rd we took a drive over to Orlando so that Colleen and Patty (my sister-in-law) could make decorated Christmas cookies, a tradition that goes back about thirty years.  We had extra help this year from her granddaughter, a promising little decorator.

You're seeing only about one-fourth of the cookies we produced.  Remind me that I still have some in my freezer if you should come over in the next few days.

On to Denver!

Denver, CO in the distance

Then, on December 24th, Wayne and I left 85 degree weather here to fly to Denver, CO, to spend Christmas with Wayne's sister and her family.  They had just had a heavy snow and we arrived there to 28 degrees.  Quite a shock.  Judy had saved the snow on her back porch just for us and she pretty much locked us outside until we produced a snowman with it.

Can we come back in the house now?

 

Christmas with Judy and her family was great fun.  We were well fed and well toured around the Denver area for four days, visiting the Denver Mint, the Clyfford Still Museum,  Red Rocks Amphitheatre, the local Krispy Kreme doughnut shop and the mountains to see a view of the valley (wow, the Coors brewery is BIG!).

Red Rocks Amphitheater

The newly opened Clyfford Still Museum

A rather odd part of that trip was that we had a layover in our hometown of Charlotte both coming and going.  Not enough time to go to our house but a chance to see the rocking chairs in the lobby and for me to feel just a little bit homesick.

A brief pause in the Charlotte-Douglas airport  before we take off for Denver

Repairs/Maintainance

Wayne replaced the third and fourth fuel sending units and now we finally have a clue about when we're running low on fuel.  Today he also replaced the vinyl windscreen on the left side of the boat which had ripped out the zipper from old age.  His trusty sewing machine, 60-plus years old, has sewn many feet of canvas, both for this boat and our smaller boat at home.

Yes, it's his and he knows how to use it!!!

Harbortown Marina, December 17th-19th

Diana Shores Boat Parade

Staurday night we went over to Roger and Marcy's house to see their neighborhood's Christmas boat parade.  We watched 60-70 decorated boats pass by their back yard which is located on Sykes Creek on Merritt Island.  It was quite a show. I think the best was the one that featured an inflated Snoopy kneeboarding behind the boat. 

Roger and Marcy served a variety of homemade soups - so many that you had to take just a little of each one or you were quickly stuffed.  The kinds they had were chicken tortilla and lime soup, creamed roasted butternut squash soup, chicken gnocchi soup, Betty's taco soup, Robert's country beef stew, and Ken's edamame soup.  Delicious!!  And on the subject of food:

What do you eat on your boat?

We've heard this question over and over since we've been traveling on Cool Change.  We do have a kitchen - refrigerator, stovetop and oven, coffee maker, microwave, and toaster, although all are on a reduced scale.  We have to be careful not to use certain electrical appliances at the same time.  For instance, if you try to toast in the toaster and heat water in the microwave, you'll blow the circuit breaker.  The oven is very tiny and requires experimentation to get things right.  I think I mentioned my burnt chocolate chip cookies episode last year.

This is most of my galley (boat talk for kitchen)

Several small appliances are proving to be invaluable.  Among these are the crockpot, the electric frying pan and the blender (more pina coladas than fruit smoothies but ideal for both).  So, we are eating well and I thought you might like to have a few of our favorite recipes that work well for living on a boat.

North Carolina Pork Barbecue (from the Hamilton-Beach slow cooker cookbook)

3 pounds boneless pork butt, shoulder, or blade roast
1 (14 oz.) can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 heaping tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes (a level tablesoon is spicy, heaping is hot)
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons black pepper

Combine all ingredients in the crock pot.  Cover and cook:  Low - 8-10 hours or High - 5 hours.  Cool slightly and shred meat.  Return to pot and set on warm until ready to serve.

Amy's Sugared Pecans  (from my North Carolina friend, Amy Diamond)

3 cups pecan halves
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg white

Whip egg white until frothy.  Toss with nuts.  Combine sugars, salt and cinnamon.  Toss with nuts.  Bake on two lightly buttered cookie sheets at 300 degrees for 30 minutes.  After 15 minutes switch pans' positions in oven.  Watch for nuts to look dry.  Remove from pans while warm onto waxed paper.

Bruschetta by Colleen

If you know me, you know I'm not a very creative cook but I have messed around to perfect this dish and it's a crowd pleasing appetizer.

15-20 small slices of French bread
2 chopped tomatoes
Chopped fresh basil leaves, around 6 tablespoons
Feta cheese
Olive oil
Sea salt

Lightly toast circles of French bread and cool while you chop tomatoes and basil.  When ready to serve, sprinkle tomato bits, then chopped basil, then crumbled Feta cheese over the toasted bread.  Pour olive oil over all with a light touch and grind sea salt lightly over the bread rounds.  Serve immediately.

December 16th, 2011 - Harbortown Marine, Merritt Island, FL

Hauled, Scraped, and Blasted:
Still wonderful temperatures in the high seventies since we got here. What a difference from last year.
Well, we finally got Cool Change hauled (taken out of the water for you landlubbers) to change the propellers. Poor performance had indicated that we most likely had heavy marine growth on the props, shafts and hull.  We did not anticipate this when we left Brunswick.

Cool Change on the travellift

Yuck1

Oysters, barnacles, sea cumbers and grass growing on the trim tabs

No wonder the props did not perform

No wonder the performance suffered

Scrape away men

After scraping, the props were traded out for our spares

The running gear was as bad as we had suspected.  However the hull was not bad at all.  We had hired a diver to clean the hull about 2 months ago.  He evidently did a good job except that he only cleaned the hull and ignored the rudders, propellers, shafts, struts and trim tabs.  Now we know what to ask for in the future when we hire a diver to do a job like this!  The heavy growth cost us a lot of extra fuel burned in the 220 miles from Brunswick (note: only 180 highway miles).

$329 later, here is the result.

Pressure washing the algae scum from the hull

Shiny spare  props installed

Heading back to the river

Please don't drop me!!

 In less than two hours we were again floating and motoring back to our slip, D14.  We really are getting pretty good at placing the boat where we want it to go...most of the time.  To park in our slip we had to back the 40 foot boat between two other boats with about two feet of room on one side and three feet on the other with about a 10 mph breeze pushing us sideways. Of course our great bow thruster had exhausted its battery again.  Talk about puckering. Via headsets Colleen instructs me as to where different parts of the boat are positioned relative to pilings and other boats and also directs which way to move the boat.  Keep in mind that the captain cannot see the stern from the flybridge and depends on this input.  Got very lucky again!  I must give credit where due.  My friend, Roger, has drilled me to steer the boat with just the two shifters by moving them between forward and reverse to swing the bow and to walk the stern in the desired direction.  And...Roger says "don't touch the steering wheel".  Thank you Roger.  It really works.

Fuel gauges:
Today I replaced the second of the four bad fuel sending units.  The task was to be 30 minutes of work and 30 minutes of prep and moving furniture to get the floor panels up to reveal the work site - the top of the port forward fuel tank.  Well 3 1/2 hours later the job was completed.  The five little screws holding the fuel level sending unit defeated me for well over two hours.  I won't go into how I re-engineered the installation.  Only two more to replace and here is where they will go.

Do you see the gauges within this 8 inch tall access?

The two gauge units are the golden colored discs behind the two black hoses wrapped with the green ground cables.

Harbortown Marina & Restaurant building

Look at me Baby....am I pretty or what?

Let's party

Look..I can jump four feet high

While visiting at the home of Al & Marla, two four foot tall sandhill cranes swooped in whooping and calling loudly.  These large birds have become a regular occurence in these parts.  I was raised in Florida and had never seen a sandhill crane in my 50 years living here.  We also have seen wild flamingos and bald eagles.  In those same years I had never seen a flamingo except in a zoo and had seen few bald eagles.  Maybe in the resurgence of these large birds we are finally seeing the results of banning DDT 30+ years ago.  What a sight theses cranes were as we approached within 40 feet of them.

Harbortown Marina, Merritt Island, FL

What we've been doing

I know you all think that we are "roughing it" but I have to confess - this is life lived easy.  As soon as we got here Marla and Al loaned us the truck we used last year.  Then, yesterday, Wayne went with our friend, Roger, up to Brunswick and picked up our SUV that we parked there.  We'll return Marla and Al's truck and now have our own vehicle.  We're thinking that we'll do this all over the state as we travel this year.  We hope that we'll try to walk and bike in communities that are pedestrian friendly but it'll be great to have our wheels when we need them.

Speaking of roughing it, I do have to wash dishes by hand and the clothes washing arrangements are a bit primitive.  It's an open air affair with three coin operated washers and dryers.  Last year when it was cold here getting our clothes clean was a real ordeal but the weather has been so nice the past week that the open air aspect was actually an advantage, like washing on a balmy tropical island.  The marina laundromats are always a great place to meet other boaters and just about all of the laundromat areas have an informal library.  You leave a book and take a book.

The less-than-luxurious laudromat at Harbortown

In addition to washing dishes and clothes we've spent time with local friends, celebrated Marla's birthday (a very large number!) and her granddaughter Nora's 16th birthday.  We've done some Christmas shopping and have shopped at a few quilt stores and Marcy came over one day to work on a sewing project with me.  The Quilt Place in Rockledge is an especially nice quilt shop in this area.  I've spent several days sewing from dawn to dusk - and beyond.  I can't show you all of the projects I've completed yet but I'll take photos and post them after Christmas.

Nearly finished - a woven fabric basket that Marcy and I worked on

A very easy little snap bag I made

  Tonight Wayne and I went to a movie  We did this after mistakenly going over to the boat next door for cocktails but the invitation was for tomorrow, not tonight.  Duh.  The movie we saw was The Descendants.  Very Good.  We both enjoyed it and were able to forget just how senile we felt over the cocktail hour goofup.

A few days ago we went back to Rockledge Gardens to pick up our new lettuce bowl.  We bought a big bowl full of growing lettuces, several different varieties, last year and made salads off of it for two-and-a-half months.  We were trying to find Made in America products at the nursery and finally commented to a salesperson that we'd been unsuccessful.  She responded by pointing out that all of their plants were made in America.  Good point.

Readymade salads for the next few months

Repairs and Maintainance

Wayne says to report that he's mainly been loafing but he's also been web ordering parts for the boat, has topped off the water in eight of the nine batteries on board and has replaced one of the four fuel gauges that are all reading inaccurately or not reading at all.  He has ordered a second one to complete the upgrade of the forward two fuel tanks.  It is as yet unknown if he can find a way to get to the two fuel tanks that reside inside the swim platform and behind the headboard in the master cabin.  Maybe he can find a midget to accomp[lish that task.   He's done lots of cleaning in the cockpit and the aft (rear) deck.  Tomorrow the boat will be pulled out of the water so we can clean off the bottom a bit and change props.  We'll make sure we take pictures of that.  It's a big production.

The web sure does open the world up when you live on a boat

Christmas in the Marina

We're surprised to find many more boats decorated for Christmas than were here last year.  The marina is quite full and many boats contain liveaboard couples who either spend all their time on a boat or several months of the year, as we're doing.  Can you imagine having all of your possessions in a boat?

Trees on a boat.  Think small

Our Christmas tree on the aft deck, including many nautical trimmings

12/5 -12/9/2011 St Augustine to New Smyrna to Merritt Island

Boarded by the Coast Guard!  Yes, our first boarding ever by the CG.  As we approached Ponce DeLeon inlet at New Smyrna Beach,  a CG boat passed us and turned around and then hailed us on the VHF radio.  They announced that they were putting a boarding party aboard our boat and to continue moving at idle speed.  With that request / demand / statement we waited as the CG rubber boat approached our stern and deposited two Coasties aboard.  They very politely stated that they were doing a random safety inspection/contraband and smuggling search and asked if we had weapons aboard.  No problem with us as we knew there were no guns, no illegal aliens and no drugs aboard.  During the next 25 minutes ,they searched every nook and cranny of Cool Change.  They separated Colleen and me and asked probing questions to check our composure and demeanor.  We passed and the inspection turned to safety equipment.  They checked fire extinguishers.  I had just up-sized those to exceed CG requirements.  They checked to see if we were dumping sewage overboard, if we had proper documentation, the correct PFDs (life jackets),  flares and signaling devices.  They even went into great depth in checking our automatic inflating PFDs.  It just so happens that I found that three of our four automatic inflating PFDs were non-functional about a month ago and had rearmed the inflating devices on each.  I had alerted the CG, Boat US Safety Council, and the Boating Safety Council of the CG and our local Power Squadron safety examiners of an inherent safety flaw in this type of PFD.  I am of the belief that people will lose their lives in trusting this poorly designed activation system.  I cannot believe that the CG allowed this type of PFD to be certified.  In fact, in our conversations, the boarding officer told me that a Coastie had recently lost his life when his PFD failed to inflate due to an undetected prior depletion of the CO2 charge in his vest.  If you have a self-inflating PFD, you can find a lot of information online on how to check it before each use.

Now to our actual travels:
We left the mooring buoy in St. Augustine right at 8AM on Dec. 5th after an enjoyable visit to the old city.  Our destination was to be Daytona Beach to anchor in the ICW adjacent to the municipal marina.  As we progressed it became apparent that we would arrive in Daytona about 2 PM.  If we anchored there we would traverse the Mosquito Lagoon to the Indian River passage while facing the setting sun the next afternoon.  No way!  We did that last year and could not see the markers to stay on the course that was dredged through the shallow waters there. 

Ft. Matanzas at Marineland Pass

Marineland Pass with Atlantic Ocean beyond

Home & boat of friends Pidge and John on ICW near Palm Coast

We decided to push on to New Smyrna for two more hours so that we would enter the Indian River about noon the next day.  After the encounter with the CG, we proceeded past Ponce DeLeon Inlet and attempted to get into a charted anchorage in a side channel. 

One BIG house!

Tile murals on Daytona bridge

We followed the directions in "Skipper Bob's Guide to Anchorages on the ICW"   but ran aground in a sand bar twice before we gave up on the that spot.  We traveled to another suggested anchorage and dropped our anchor very near marker 3 in Sheepshead Cut.  We were close to private docks and a marker so we had to keep our anchor chain to 50 feet only.  After observing that we held fast through a tide change, we were confident that the 50 feet of chain was going to hold us until the next morning.  Though we had high winds and a light rain, we had a very peaceful night there.



Views from our Sheepshead Cut anchorage

We departed Sheepshead Cut at 6:50 AM on Dec. 6th for our destination for December, Harbortown Marina in Merritt Island (Cocoa Beach).   Colleen initiated the startup of all of the electronics and electrical checklist, then started and warmed up the engines.  When ready, she pulled the anchor (it should be noted that we have an electric windlass that retrieves the anchor) as she motored toward it.  She then used the shifters to rotate the boat and proceeded around marker 3 and motored into the ICW.  This was her first complete de-anchoring alone and it was done perfectly.  We traveled 5 hours and 50 miles to Harbortown Marina.  The travel was so easy and uneventful that we pulled aside the ICW and dropped anchor for a leisurely lunch just south of the NASA causeway.

Early morning on Mosquito Lagoon

 

Mosquito Lagoon - 15 miles of sameness

Spoil island in the Indian River

NASA verticle assembly building

Repairs:
During our travels, the starboard fuel gauge continued to read full.  This is the gauge that we had depended on for accuracy as the port gauge jumps all over and reads lower that the actual fuel level.  We will need to pull both of these gauges for repair during our 30 day stay in Harbortown Marina.
Our continued performance problem due to  prop fouling will require that we take the boat out of the water.  We will change props and clean the algae growth from the hull to regain performance and fuel economy (if you can say economy with two diesel engines).  In addition, a new problem has developed with the inverter / charger that produces 120 volt AC.  Hopefully that repair will not be major.  Our bow thruster that was remarkably helpful when we undockedneed to be corrected while here.

Settled in Harbortown:
We're preparing for Christmas by decorating the boat with lights.  We've also purchased a small artificial tree and will be decorating it with lights and ornaments we accumulated last year (trying not to think of the six boxes of ornaments, etc. that we left sitting in the attic in North Carolina).  We've enjoyed several meals with our local friends, Roger and Marcy and Marla and Al and hope to see some Orlando friends and family members while we're here.  Right away we made a trip to Rockledge Gardens.  This is an awesome plant nursery, so well landscaped and stocked that we both feel we should be paying admission just to walk through their grounds.  They have every tropical plant you can imagine as well as a butterfly house and pots and garden furniture and a Christmas area.

The Weather!:

Last year it was so cold here!  We felt we  really had not moved many degrees warmer by coming south.  The past several days have been just perfect - 70s and 80s during the day and cool nights for sleeping.  So we're settled for a while.  Drop by and see us if you get over this way - exit the Beachline at highway 3, north at the light and then right on the second road. Don't go over the bridge.  Harbortown is about a mile and a half down on the left and we're in slip D14.

Fernandina Beach to St. Augustine, December 3-4

Judging from the reader responses we've received over the past few days, I think I'd better answer the burning question that you all seem to have before I do anything else.  Yes, we did finally manage to get our holding tanks pumped out.  Yippee!  No more looking for marina and restaurant bathrooms.  Wayne is also happy that I'm no longer forcing him to relieve himself in the trash can on the back deck to save toilet space.

We've been in St. Augustine since yesterday afternoon.  The trip getting here was beautiful, although still meandering.  The weather over the past two days has been perfect, averaging about 73 degrees and with more sun than clouds. We had more boat company along the way than we usually have.  At one point a sailboat passed us and Wayne commented that it looked like the brand owned by Tom Neal, a boating author whose writing we've enjoyed in Soundings magazine and who wrote a book about living on his boat with his family.  As we saw the rear of the boat Wayne exclaimed, "That's the name of Tom Neal's boat!"  He then contacted the boat by radio and, sure enough, it was Tom Neal, who graciously chatted with us for a while.

A beautiful day, good lunch, an interesting book - what  more could I ask for?

Another boat named "Cool Change," about 56 feet long

Thank goodness catching a mooring ball in the harbor this time was not the ordeal it was last year.  Feel free to reread my description.  This task can be really difficult when the wind is high and the waves are rough.  Imagine threading a needle in a strong wind while precariously hanging over an abyss.  That about describes it.

St. Augustine's pirate ship with the light house in the background

Today we went into the city to shop and tour.  We hadn't been to Potter's Wax Museum in a long time so we stopped by there.  It's much reduced in size from what it was twenty years ago but we enjoyed what we saw and I was happy to have my photo taken with Harry Potter since I'm a big fan.

Harry and me and - Eeek, Voldemort to my right

Another highlight of the day was stopping for a snack at Harry's, a restaurant on Avenida Menendez near the Bridge of the Lions.  Last winter we discovered they serve delicious Bananas Foster so we settled into a table in their lovely courtyard for a repeat.  They say they can't set this dessert aflame at the table anymore, something about a lady's hair being caught on fire, but we enjoyed it anyway.

We also took a free tour of the Government House Museum, a place we've never visited.  This is an exhibit of archeological finds from in and around St. Augustine in displays that give a lot of information on the city's more than 400 year history.  Nothing fancy but very interesting and, at the end, there's a cool timeline (this is the teacher talking).

Looking south on St George Street

One of the city's many beautiful courtyards

The lion and Colleen guarding the Bridge of Lions

The day was so beautiful that we stopped several times just to sit on a bench outside to soak it up.  Breezy and cool with delicious sunshine, it was Florida winter at its best in this delightful old city on the Matanzas River.  Tomorrow we'll cruise on down the river and plan to anchor out near Daytona in the evening.