WALKING

It once was that we hoped to become runners, but after initial training and introspection, we have decided to become more, walkers. We want the physical benefit of a greater quantity of exercise, and we want to lose weight. However, we also want to socialize. As runners, we wouldn’t be talking while exercising for six months!

The goal is to walk at least twenty five miles each week. From week one and over the last few weeks we have easily met the goal. Since we began cruising we had been walking for enjoyment and out of necessity. To reach the goal, we will have to put in additional purely recreational miles.

On the technical side, walking burns a lot of calories. Debbie will burn over 1700 calories in twenty five miles. I will burn over 3300 calories. Simply put, work equals force times distance. Burning these calories while walking, and including the residual benefit of the regimen, mean we should shed weight in a healthy manner. Provided we complete relatively long walks we will shed mostly fat.

Running is surely a better aerobic exercise than walking. Factoring any difference in benefit, injury possibilities, and motivation issues, walking suits us just right.

UNDERWATER BREATHING APPARATUS

As we get nearer fabulous snorkeling grounds interest in scuba or breathing air compressors grows. I am PADI Open Water certified. Debbie is not. The bulk of scuba gear including four tanks makes scuba undesirable. Being tethered makes a compressor undesirable.

Last week I had the opportunity to again closely inspect breathing air compressors being used on the docks. Surprisingly I have been able to look at about five over the last month. Also surprisingly, only one was commercially supplied for underwater breathing. The balance were a mixture of right-from-Home-Depot air compressors to user-built-probably-plagiarized designs. All were simple and included similar oilless connecting rod or rocking piston compressors, although system manufacturers describe using diaphragm compressors, too. All including the one commercially supplied included only commercial or industrial intake air filters. Nothing special at all. What you would buy from the compressor manufacturer as an accessory.

The location of the air intake on electric compressors was not special. It was at the head of the compressor. The air intake on the gasoline powered compressors was routed up a short maybe eighteen inch mast oriented higher than engine exhaust.

Two manufacturers of bare compressors: http://www.gastmfg.com, http://www.thomaspumps.com. On their website Gast describes using their compressor in shallow water breathing applications.

Several manufacturers of breathing air systems: http://www.supersnorkel.com, http://www.hookahdivegear.com, http://www.browniedive.com, http://www.seabreathe.com.

It seems if you are a do-it-yourselfer, you could easily, inexpensively, and safely build your own compressor system.

SPACE SHUTTLE (FOLLOW UP)

NASA Space Shuttle Mission STS-122, the mission we so wanted to see off, has been delayed again, apparently indefinitely. We have given up plans to see it and removed it from our calendar.

BATTERIES DESTROYED? (FOLLOW UP)

It is clear we have not destroyed our house batteries. We just wasted a bit of their life. If you believe the following graph, you can predict new Lifeline AGM batteries will perform through more than 300 complete discharges:

You can see AGMs perform much better than GEL batteries. You can predict a thousand cycles of 100% charged to 50% charged (100% to 50% use, or recharging before or when batteries fall to 50% charged, is considered best practice). For us this would be well over three years of full time cruising. For some it might be ten years of seasonal cruising.

In any event, our anxiety about whether we destroyed our batteries has quelled. For more about Lifeline batteries, see http://www.lifelinebatteries.com/.

BATTERIES DESTROYED?

We hope we haven’t destroyed our house batteries! When we arrived at the boat today we discovered a refrigerator at 50 degrees F and a freezer at 40 degrees. When the boat was last being secured, instead of turning AC house circuits off, the battery charger was turned off. The wrong switch was flipped. So, 400 amp hours of stored DC power drove the freezer and refrigerator for a while, but ultimately the DC power ran out. It was surprising to still find ice in the freezer.

We do now know our Charles charger puts out its rated 60 amps, and we know the charger could be larger. In about four hours the batteries were back to about 50% charged. There was no abnormal heat rise. We left the boat with the charger on and with hope that we only slightly shortened the life of the batteries with this deep discharge.

CHARMED DEPARTING DAYTONA

Hooray! Charmed will again soon be underway. She gets cleaned and loaded for sailing this Thursday. Saturday we host friends onboard around Daytona. Tuesday we cruise to New Smyrna Beach to host old and new friends onboard there next Thursday.

Then it is off to Titusville for the shuttle launch January 10. The newspaper reports the launch is at 02:26 am. That time cannot be confirmed on the official Kennedy Space Center site. If the launch is delayed we will forgo further waiting and head off to Lake Boca Raton.

January 17 we arrive Miami Beach Marina for two nights. Marinas are not our norm. This stop is for VIPs visiting from out-of-town.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Dear Friends:

Craig and I hope this finds you well and well-prepared for the holidays!
Our journey is on hiatus as we are currently anchored to land in Deltona,
Florida, spending the holidays with family (which is always an adventure in
itself!). Our boat has been docked in Daytona Beach since November 13 and
we have enjoyed spending time with friends, many of whom we have not seen in
years, although some of whom we still have not yet seen. Our escapades
include a road trip to Fletcher, North Carolina, to see friends who have
recently escaped the heat of Florida for the mountains and are loving it. I
do love the mountains, and it was great to be in them again, if only for a
long weekend. We were also invited to the Christmas party of the firm I
used to work with in Orlando -- what fun to see my former colleagues and
friends.

Since I last wrote from Beaufort (pronounced "Bofort"), North Carolina, we
traveled down the ICW and made short visits (I won't bore you with all of
the details) to Oriental, Wilmington, Southport, Charleston, Fernandina
Beach, and St. Augustine and finally ending in Daytona Beach (with a few
secluded anchorages along the way.) We had some oops adventures but still
no holes in the boat and no broken bones! The coolest things we see are
from nature. For example, we saw a bald eagle catch a fish not 50 feet from
our boat one day while we were traveling, we saw wild horses as we left the
secluded anchorage at Brickhill River early in the morning, I feel like I am
seeing the beautiful pelicans (and there are lots of them) for the first
time, and we bought fresh shrimp (and I mean the shrimp boat came in from
off-shore and docked right next to us) while we were fueling up at Leland
Marine Service in McClellanville (we froze the shrimp and shared it with
family once we landed, and everyone said it was the best shrimp ever).

The eeriest thing was waking in the middle of the night to hear a soft
"thump." We were at an anchorage in Factory Creek at Beaufort (pronounced
"Bufort"), South Carolina, with a few other boats, including an old
catamaran that looked un-cared for and abandoned. Anyway, the current and
wind were not in harmony and our boats, having different hulls and therefore
different reactions to the wind and current, swung together. Luckily the
winds and current were light. Craig slept through the "thump" and did not
want to believe I heard anything. But I looked out the port of our cabin
and there it was ... like a ghost pirate ship! It was spooky -- I thought
of the movie Cape Fear. Craig remained calm and we were able to push away
from the catamaran but then had to re-anchor farther away to avoid another
mishap that evening. Though nobody wants this to happen, we are glad, of
course, that the weather conditions were not worse, that the soft "thump"
was not a strong "bang" (and so there was no damage) and that we learned
something about anchoring near catamarans.

We are currently painting our house in Deltona. It's good work and keeps us
occupied during the day. Our journey's hiatus ends January 1, when we will
resume our course south. We hope to be anchored in Titusville when the
shuttle is scheduled to go off on January 2. Though we had thought of going
to the Bahamas this year, we decided to stick with the original plan of
going to the Keys instead.

For those in the northeast, you are especially in our thoughts these days as
you weather the storms that have descended upon you. We hope you and your
families are safe and warm!

We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and that the new year is
filled with joy!

Love, Debbie

FLEET WEEK SAN FRANCISCO BAY

Charmed wants to be in San Francisco Bay for this event, one day:

http://home.comcast.net/~bzee1a/

Her crew lucked into being landside for it many years ago. To this day we doubted whether we remembered it right, the single Blue Angel zooming by below mast height and below our perch on the roof parking lot of our hotel on the Bay.

ANCHORS

With the recent acquisition of a used (but never used) Fortress FX-37 Anchor, Charmed now has her full complement of anchors.

This anchor will ride disassembled in the bow locker. It will supplement the primary Lewmar 66 lb Claw Anchor,

and the secondary Lewmar 45 lb CQR Anchor,

both mounted on the bow roller. We fear no bottom now!

ANCHORAGES DAYTONA TO KEY WEST

Thankfully, for wherever we have cruised or plan to cruise, many of you have freely shared advice about anchorages. The advice has been a valuable supplement to the cruising guides and the Coast Pilots.

A Google Map is now being created picturing alternatives for the next leg of our voyage. Would you care to share your thoughts? Provide your email address. You will be invited to "collaborate." (Not that I am collecting email addresses. It is just how Google makes this work.)

See http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=106147164715927526183.000440db9f4d6fd93fba7&t=h&om=1&z=7, for the work in progress.

SPACE SHUTTLE (FOLLOW UP)

Additional delay has to be bad news for the astronauts and rocket scientists, but it means we will likely get to watch the shuttle from just a few miles away, anchored in the Indian River. The launch is now scheduled for "no earlier than January 2."

See http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html, to follow developments.

CHARMED'S BOTTOM

For being dead in the water for nearly a month, Charmed's bottom is
good, with just a little slime and a few animals. The shaft zinc was
replaced just because. The others were not a quarter gone.

The water temperature in Daytona was fine. No wet suit needed.
Visibility was sufficient but not clear in the marina off the Halifax
River. It would be nice to have a dive compressor!

STOPS NEW LONDON TO DAYTONA

To see where we stopped between New London and Daytona, see http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=106147164715927526183.00043f3733361a59c47cc&ll=41.370625,-72.14344&spn=0.059774,0.159645&t=h&z=13&om=1

We anchored when possible, and only took moorings or slips for particular reason. We moored in Annapolis because Craig would be off the boat, with Debbie on, for two extended periods, and in Fernandina because it was a good value. We stayed in marinas in Solomons Island so we could thoroughly clean the boat, in St James because it was supposed to be great value, in Charleston because anchoring was supposed to be iffy, and in Wilmington because it was really the only option.

FREE NAUTICAL CHARTS AND VIEWER

Take note sailors, NOAA provides electronic charts for free, and free viewers are available.

Charmed has Coastal Explorer Trial Version from Rose Point Navigation loaded on every laptop aboard.  See http://www.rosepointnav.com/CoastalExplorer/Trial/default.htm.

Maptech offers a viewer and presents charts, too.  See http://freeboatingcharts.com.

SPACE SHUTTLE

It seemed like we were going to be lucky enough to get to watch up close one of the last few shuttle flights. We are only thirty minutes away from Titusville. However, the launch was delayed yesterday to today, and now it has been delayed until tomorrow. If the rocket does not go off tomorrow, we will again be in a position to go watch.

We drove to Titusville yesterday anyway. There is a marina there that we wanted to visit to discuss a short haul. It was unfortunate, but many people were waiting for the launch without knowing about the delay. Some had driven for hours. It was interesting that not many people would believe us, reporting the delay.

Two Island Packets were anchored in the Indian River, a 380 and a 440. We could not see the boat names because of the wind direction. Does anybody know who they are?

STAYING STATESIDE

The decision to stay stateside Winter 2007/2008 has been made. On January 1, or December 31 depending upon marina practice regarding departure date for a monthly tenant, Charmed resumes the voyage south. Planning is now being completed for some ICW travel and some ocean travel to the Florida Keys.

The only absolute with respect to our path to the Keys, ocean travel between Ft Lauderdale and Miami. With an air draft of 62 feet, the Julia Tuttle Bridge, fixed at 56 feet, is not passable without shenanigans. See http://www.cruisersnet.net/index.php?categoryid=44&p2013_articleid=144.



The only absolute with respect to stops along the way, one at or near Lake Boca Raton to see good friends.

To prepare for resuming the voyage, come Monday when the Sun is high, the sky is clear, and the air temperature is 80 degrees F or better, we will dive on Charmed to check her bottom. Bowthruster, shaft, and weedshoe zincs will likely be replaced. Animal and plant squatters will be removed from the running gear, and from the hull if accumulations are significant. No other boat chores are looming, but we are sure we will identify a few before departure.

STALLED FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Charmed is tied to a dock in Daytona, Florida, temporarily stalled while Debbie and Craig visit family and friends, and complete a few chores. One of the chores, create this blog to share comment, news, and observations during our sailing hiatus in a more timely and efficient manner.