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