Wednesday, January 30, 2008

SWIMMING WITH THE FISHES

Between Boca Chita and Ragged Keys there is an unnamed pass with a wreck, a few ledges, and a few holes. At high tide, slack current, you have about twenty minutes of safe snorkeling.


Among the bajillions of small fish, you see sharks, rays, snook, and blowfish.


A nurse shark, about four feet long:


A spotted ray:


I must get better with the underwater housing for my digital camera. There are twenty buttons and levers to operate a Canon Powershot S1 IS. You can't read what they do when they are in the housing. You have to remember.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

CLASS ON COCONUTS

There are some things you just cannot learn from a book . . . .


Small green coconuts have soft gel like meat that you can eat with a spoon. Large brown coconuts have thicker meat that tastes more like what you buy in the store. The meat of larger brown coconuts must be carved off with a sharp knife.


Medium to large green coconuts have sweet milk. Even when the Sun is up and heating everything it shines on, coconut milk is cool.


Harvesting coconuts is fairly easy. Opening a hard brown coconut is as simple as throwing it down on a hard surface, hard on its end. You get what you get when it busts open.


Green coconuts can be opened methodically. First, you carve off one slice from the branch or stem end:


Then you carve off another slice:


And another slice:


Once at the three eyes of the coconut, you poke around for the one that is soft, and open the coconut at that eye. You end up with a fine drink from a fine drinking vessel:

Sunday, January 27, 2008

VIOLATION OF USCG REGULATIONS?

We wonder if this cruiser is violating the U.S. Coast Guard rule with respect to the number of guests permitted onboard:

Notice the plastic owl, which is supposed to scare birds away.

MONSTER FISHING

Real or not:



We were excited to see this "catch" and called over to the guys on the boat that they must have had fun! They replied affirmatively. Then we saw the boat again a few days later with a plastic shark that looked suspiciously similar to the one in the photo. Hence the question.

Friday, January 25, 2008

WHISPERING SEA AND CHARMED ACROSS THE BAY


Whispering Sea, pictured above, with Tom, Joyce, and Skipper aboard is holding in upper Biscayne Bay, waiting for a weather window to the Bahamas. Charmed is just enjoying new water and geography. Whispering Sea decided to leave No Name Harbor for a mooring at Crandon Park Marina. Charmed followed.



It was an IP day, with winds strengthening from the high teens in the morning to over twenty later in the day. Whispering Sea carried full main and staysail. Charmed carried staysail and single reefed main. Charmed's Admiral will not allow more than 15 degrees of heel, registered objectively by a leanometer in full view on the coach roof instrument panel.



Whispering Sea with Downtown Miami behind:



Charmed:

Saturday, January 19, 2008

MIJAMI DAY SAIL

Yesterday with VIP guests we cast lines at 10:30 am, and headed out of Government Cut for a daysail. Sailing east with light winds from the southeast and head seas we made only 2 to 3 knots boat speed at 50 degrees apparent. Falling off to 80 or 90 degrees provided higher speed. Charmed sails comfortably about half wind speed in close to broad reaching conditions, when being set by a head sea. Boat speed falls to a third of wind speed when Charmed points to 35 or 40 degrees apparent against head seas. Once winds strengthened to 9 knots or better we were able to point 55 degrees apparent or better against the seas and make half wind speed. Charmed plows along on train tracks.

After finding the edge of the Continental Shelf and having depth exceed the limit of the Raymarine instrument at about 500 feet we turned back toward Miami. With the light winds and following seas, we were able to easily sail 40 degrees apparent and make half wind speed. In winds 6, 7, 8 knots we were able to comfortably run downwind, with boat speed only 2 knots, but with jib filled. When the wind gets to 10 knots, Charmed will make 6 knots in any direction from about 40 to 160 degrees apparent, with fair seas. Above 10 knots performance just gets better.

Our sail ended after dodging a huge Maersk container ship who wanted Government Cut the same time as us, and after learning the Main Channel is sometimes closed to recreational vessels without securites or some other warning except a police boat zooming at you when enter it.

Friday, January 11, 2008

VERO BEACH WELCOME

What do two Island Packet Captains get when they arrive Vero Beach, Florida,
two days out of Beaufort, South Carolina? An IP welcome with IP Flags
aflying!

Carey and Craig departed Beaufort Monday, January 7, 2008, at 09:30, on Catspaw, IP 380.22, on a fair tide. We left Port Royal Sound for the
Atlantic and headed south. After 300 or so offshore miles on a heading
within 5 degrees of 180 Magnetic, and having exited the Atlantic at the Fort
Pierce Inlet, we met our welcoming committee just after noon, January 9, at
the Highway 60 Bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway in Vero Beach. The
committee included Radeen and Hayden, Island Spirit, IP 35.165, and Debbie.

Catspaw, Island Spirit, Charmed, Whispering Sea, IP 420.**, Plan Sea, IP
380.33, are the fleet members currently lying Vero Beach. Life is IP Good!

Friday, January 4, 2008

NAVIGATION ON THE ICW

For our nonsailing friends:

Daymarks and floating buoys mark the Intra Coastal Waterway, the highway we have traveled on and off for a thousand miles. Marks and buoys are a certain shape, a certain color, and a certain number, providing three chances for proper identification in varying visibility.

In this first picture you can see color and shape reasonably well:




In this picture you cannot see color or number, but you can see shape:


The two pictures above were taken within minutes of each other, one forward and one aft. The sun is ahead of us. The marks ahead are backlit making color and number difficult to see until they are very near.

To make things challenging, marks and buoys along the ICW also have a waterway designator. See the yellow triangles in the pictures below. They confirm these are waterway marks, and they tell you which they are by shape. The yellow designator could also be square in shape. All is simple when the mark shape and waterway designator shape are the same, as in the first picture. When they are different shapes like in the second picture it gets complicated. This might be the case where the ICW follows or intersects creeks, inlets or rivers. The second picture indicates both the left edge of the Beaufort River off Port Royal Sound, when returning, and the right edge of the ICW, when returning, hence the different shapes.


Thursday, January 3, 2008

STAYSAIL AND HOYT BOOM


With due respect to a fine Island Packet sailor who has tossed the boom overboard, the staysail and Hoyt boom on Charmed will remain as rigged by the factory! And I opine, no IP should get sold without the boom and staysail, now an option on some models.

Today was a pleasant and fast downhill run from Cocoa to Vero Beach. Wind was 20 knots, with gusts and long periods of wind well over thirty knots. Direction varied from about 150 degrees apparent starboard tack to 150 degrees apparent port tack as we meandered down the waterway. The staysail added well over a half knot, maybe a whole knot at times, to motoring speed, and it smoothed the ride on the “very rough ICW”. There were whitecaps the whole way and two to three foot seas in the bigger lakes.

The picture above shows the staysail set from the cockpit. You can see you need the boom to manage the clew of the sail in heavy winds from behind. Singlehanding the sail including controlling the gybes was easy even in the narrow waterway.

AW COME ON! SNOW FLURRIES IN MELBOURNE FLORIDA

After a wonderful warm, even hot, fall and beginning of winter, we found ourselves reading weather reports that included snow flurries for our trip from New Smyrna Beach to Vero Beach. While sailing in New England we never had to worry about snow while sailing. Now sailing in Florida we have to worry!

Yesterday and today were without a doubt the coldest days ever spent sailing on Charmed. Temperature measured on the boat remained in the forties. Wind chills measured in the mid thirties. We are glad temperatures last night were as low as they will get this weather event, and hope we are gone for the next event.