Peter Island, Roadtown (return Boat) then Trellis Bay - Sailing the BVI's (10 of 10)

Well this was it, it was the last day we would be on the boat.  Our plan today was pretty simple.  We were only about 45 minutes from Roadtown so our plan was to prepare breakfast, clean up and stow all the dishes (With the exception of glasses as we knew we would have some drinks) and then clean the boat and pack our stuff.

We awoke as usual to fresh coffee and juice.  We prepared a great breakfast cooking up any of the breakfast meats we had left (Bacon and Sausage).  We had a good meal, and started the clean up process.  We used the deck brush and buckets of water to clean the boat off.  Mainly the cockpit was the area that needed the most cleaning.    We went inside the boat and straighter up all of the food that we had stored putting it in boxes to be given to local's at the Marina or to other cruisers that may be heading out for the start of their trip.

We gathered everyone's stuff from around the boat and put in down on each persons bunk.  Before we actually packed our clothes and bags, we decided to sit and just chat and have a few drinks and relax. We had brought a lot of music with us, including songs from about every genera and era.  We decided that this boat full of Texans needed some old school country.  The best part of old school country is that most of us knew the words to the songs and Oday can't stand country.  Knowing Oday doesn't like country made us all want to have a sing-a-long.  

We belted out sounds from Tammy Wynette, Roger Miller, Dolly Parton and even Claude Kings 'Wolverton Mountain'.  The funny thing is we were doing this while anchored in this harbor with about 20 other boats.  I don't know if they heard us or not, but it sure was funny to all of us except for Oday.

When we finished our sing-a-long, a peace offering was made to Oday who got to choose the CD he wanted to listen to next for our sail back to Tortola and Roadtown harbor.  We lifted the dinghy on the davits and secured everything for this last leg of the trip.  We dropped our mooring ball and headed almost due north toward Roadtown.

There was only 1 thing left to do on this leg of the trip and that was to drop off our message in a bottle at the place we thought it would likely travel the furthest.  We wrote our note essentially saying that we were a group of people sailing in the British Virgin Islands and that if this were found, to please send an email and photo of the bottle where found to us (and we listed our email addresses).  We put the note in a waterproof zip-lock bag and rolled it so it would fit in the wine bottle.

OBarr tossing out our message in a bottle

The bottle already had all of the labels removed and the cork was pushed back in to keep any water out of the bottle.  We planned our drop at the place where we assumed that the wind and current would carry it West, Southwest down the Sir Francis Drake passage and south of St. John toward the open Carribean Sea.  It could wash up on Puerto Rico, The Dominican or if it starts to head south, any where in Columbia or Venezuela.     It would be really cool to hear back from someone if they find it.  I just hope if it is found we don't get a note from St. John indicating that it would not have traveled more than about 10 miles.

We arrived back at Roadtown and called Conch charters who had us pull over by the fuel dock.  They sent one of their guys out to the boat in a dinghy and he hopped up on board, took the helm and parked it behind another boat at the fuel dock.  Because it was Sunday the fuel dock was closed so they were going to just fill it up on Monday and let us know how much it took.

We found another guy that was heading out for his charter, so we gave him some of our food stores that we hadn't needed.  He was glad to get it and loaded it up into a cart and took it to their boat.  We then set everything else out on the table for the woman who cleans up the boats to take home.

We loaded all of our bags into a cart and went through all of the check out procedures.  It took about 15 minutes or so and they let us know they would dive the boat the next morning and verify that there was no damage to props or rudders and we could be on our way.  We hopped in a van and headed back over to Beef Island, Trellis Bay where we would stay in a 'hotel' for the night to catch our early morning flight back to Puerto Rico.

This was the view from the front steps of where we stayed our last night

The place only had 4 bedrooms and a shared living room and no air conditioning.  But, they did have a nice little beach front bar that we had a few drinks in and lunch.    The hotel was called "The Loose Mongoose"  It was rustic for sure.  They didn't have air, but did have a fan in each room.  They also were to have Wifi and since most of us had been without it most of the time, we all wanted to check in and check out what was going on.  We couldn't get it to connect.   I finally saw the owner and asked if he was ok with me taking a look at it to see if I could get it going.  He was, but he couldn't recall his admin password for his service.  Luckily, routers in the BVI's just like the US tend to have some fairly generic user name from the factory so I was able to hack in within about 10 minutes.     The good news is that I fixed his connection and we were able to get on-line.

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This area is known as Trellis bay and there were quite a few boats anchored or moored just off the beach.  This is also where they throw the other full moon party on the island.  This one is on the East side of Tortola as opposed to BombaShack on the far west side of the island.  Aragorn Art Studio makes the large decorative fire balls used for the full moon party and their studio is right on the beach.  They have some really cool stuff such as smaller fire balls for home, tons of carvings and art made of the wood that drifts up onto the beach.  The owner of the studio came out to our boat on our first night to see if we were interesting in coming by the studio the next day or picking up some t-shirts.  You can check out their site here - Aragorn Art Studio.

We walked down the beach and found this really large starfish on our hike.  It was the largest start fish I have every seen up this close.  It was only in about 8 inches of water just a few feet from the shore.  Deb picked it up so we could show just how large the thing was.  We put him gently back where he was after the photo.  We also found a section of the beach that was just littered with old dinghies.  There must have been at least 8 of them that were flat and tossed up on the beach just beyond the sand line.  It was an odd site, we joked that it was the island where Dinghies went to die.

We went back to the Loose Mongoose and relaxed on the benches that were water side.  It was a great location right on the beach.  What we didn't think about was the fact that the house we were staying in was 20 feet from that great little beach side bar we had lunch in.  The live band setup and people started hanging out in the front yard with us.  It was not too bad, but not something i had planned for. We went to bed at a decent hour since we had a very early morning flight.

Up in the morning, loaded our bags into a van and headed over to the airport less than a mile from where we were.  We boarded our small plan and flew back to Puerto Rico to catch out flights back to the US.  All in all this was one of the best trips I have had.  We spent it doing what we love to do, sailing and cruising, we got to spend it with great friends that are all sailors and easy to get along with.  There were no incidents of someone getting on someone else's nerves, just a great time with friends that I can't wait to do again.  We are already starting to talk about the next trip.  Monohull maybe, and we are thinking a one way sail starting or ending in the Grenadines.

See below for the last video installment from this Blog series.  Remember, if you are looking at this from any site or method that doesn't have an embedded video below, please click the link here to see the video - Sailing BVI's - Last day, Peter Island, Roadtown, Trellis Bay

Final leg to Kemah

The Southwest International Boat show was going to be the weekend we needed to move the boat and we really wanted to go to the boat show, but also didn't want to chance waiting until Sunday to move the boat in the event that something came up with weather, the boat, etc.  The Marina we were staying at was charging me $75 per day so I didn't want to stay another week if I could avoid it.

Interestingly enough, we had several friends all come down on Friday and were staying through Sunday to go to the boat show.  It was Mike and Kerry O'bar, Robert and Mary Fields and Oday and T Roark.  They got in on Friday so we went and had dinner with them Friday and then decided that we were going to hit the water early on Saturday to get the boat moved and be back in Kemah in time to get to the boat show for a little while and more importantly the Cruising Outpost Cruisers Party.

A few years ago when the magazine sold and the new owners screwed it all up, the previous owners decided to bring it back again.  They needed some people to commit to a long term subscription and we really enjoy this magazine as well as the couple that have sailed around the world and are the inspiration for so many that are living their dream on a boat.  We helped out at that time and became part of what they referred to as the Founders Circle.  Each year, they throw a cruisers party after the boat show with free pizza and beer and a live band.  It is always a good time.  But not to get ahead of myself, we still had to sail the rest of the way to make it...

We tossed the dock lines early Saturday morning and motored into the rain and strong wind as we headed to the east.  Barge traffic was still pretty heavy but things were starting to move again so the barges were not sitting along the banks.   We worked our way along East Bay, passed Offats Bayou, and worked our way under the I-45 Bridge between Houston and Galveston.  

Going under I-45 in the rain and spray

Things were fairly smooth and as we started to hear the ICW, Galveston Ship Channel, Texas City Channel and the Houston Ship Channel the water was rough, the wind was strong and it was raining on and off so visibility was good but not good enough to read boat names with the binoculars.  

We had to cross the Texas City Channel and should have crossed the Houston Ship Channel as well but there was SO much traffic out there now that the channels were open, I had a hard time feeling comfortable that I could cross the ship channel in enough time.  With the wind and waves we were making slow progress and the last thing I wanted to do was be half way across the channel when an tanker or 1000 foot ship was bearing down on me at 18-22 knots.    

Perkins poking his head out to see what is going on

The cat does not seem to like the rougher water.  The first day of this trip he had blood in his stool and the vet ended up thinking it was stress related.  We did find that if we put his carrying case out, he would go in that to feel secure and when it is rough, we take him up top in the cockpit so he gets some fresh air.  On this particular trip, he actually ventured his head out the front of the carrier for a few minutes.

It was a little hairy there for about an hour and a half until we go through all of that and settled into a rhythm running north along the Houston Ship Channel but a few hundred yards west of the actual channel.  According to the charts that seemed to be a good path as there was enough depth for me to keep out of the channel and from getting run down by a big ole' ship.  To give you a sense of the size of some of these, we took this video as we passed one of them after things calmed down a bit.  He was making about 17 knots.

We ended up passing Red Fish Island where these is a pretty major dredging operation going on in the ship channel in that area.  For those that don't know, there is a good country sound about this little island.  Listen to "Red Fish Island" here..  The song is by Kelly McGuire  We made it to Kemah, passed through the cut and the boardwalk and turned into the Marina.  We backed into our slip and got tied up in time for our friends to come pick us up and take us over to the boat show !

Freeport to Hitchcock

We knew we would not have a long day today since the distance we could go was limited due to the closed waterways from the oil spill.  We slept in until about 8am and pulled off the dock around 9 or so.
We pulled off the dock in a pretty good cross wind.  I ended up rubbing the hull on the side of the rubber dock protector as we left.  I turned into the ICW and Deb came up the companion way and in a very direct voice, said "Gil, I need you down stairs now"   I had someone else take the helm and quickly went to see what the issue was.  The engine room was full of smoke.  I could tell right away it was the smell of rubber and likely a belt that was a bit loose.  I had Deb turn on the exhaust fan and took the helm again keeping a very close eye on the temperature gauge in the event the belt gave way.   I reduced throttle and radioed to the tugs approaching in both directions to let them know I was going to be pulling an about face and then heading to the South side of the channel to get back into the Marina due to a mechanical issue.  Both Tug captains were great and the one coming from the West slowed to let me pass in front of him.

I pulled right back into the slip and in the end only made it about 1/4 of a mile or so in all.  It was a loose belt, I tightened it real good, checked it all the way around for any worn spots and we were back on our way within 30 minutes.

This was a pretty uneventful part of the trip.  It was fairly short.  About the most exciting thing was to

Dodging Barges - They were stopped everywhere along the ICW

navigate the traffic of barges and tugs EVERYWHERE.  With the ICW closed down to most traffic and vessel traffic service allowing some commercial traffic through, the barges had to radio and get a "slot" to pass through.  Because of that, many were just nosed up on the bank since there was no room at the barge docks or dolphins to tie up.  Sometimes they would be on the north or south side of the channel.  It was hard to know which side of them you needed to pass on so I would first check the AIS to see if they were broadcasting their vessel name.  If they were I could radio them directly.   If they were not, I would get the binoculars and attempt to read the name on the back of the tug and then radio for them by name.  It was like running a slalom course.

We made it to Hitchcock and got tied up on Wednesday (a day later than we anticipated being all the way to Kemah).  Deb and I took a taxi from there to where my car was at our intended destination.  Our friends/crew stayed at the boat while we picked up the car.  When we got back to the boat, it was about time to get them to the airport.  We dropped them off at the the airport, with enough time for them to have dinner before their flight.

Kenny wanted to see if he could sleep in rough water - Yep!

It was great to have our friends with us on this trip and I think Kenny really had a great time, he just kind of rolled with the flow and this was something he always wanted to do, so the oil spill delays, the rough weather, the delays, none of it bothered him at all.

 We haven't spent much time with Jim and Karen in a few years since we left Lewisville so it was cool to catch up and spend a few days together again.  When we lived in Lewisville and our boat was 2 slips away from theirs, we
spent every weekend together and then got together 2-3 times during the week for dinner or a sporting event or something.  I miss that so it was great to get a little of that time back too.

Jim and Karen

When we got back to the boat, they had cleaned everything up, dishes, put away all the clothes/blankets/towels, etc.  It was a really nice surprise and allowed Deb and I to just relax that night, which was great.

I ended up working on Thursday and Friday from that Marina and we planned on sailing the rest of the way ourselves over the weekend.  On Thursday they opened up the ICW and Houston Ship Channel for recreational boaters, as long as you had a specific destination and were not just out joy riding around in the area they were cleaning up.

The last leg of that trip will be covered on the next blog post...

Matagorda to Freeport

When we arrived at Matagorda city Marina, The crew from Nightingale came over and assisted with the lines, which took quite a bit of patience because I was having a heck of a time backing into the slip I was attempting to get to.
I finally made it, but not before seeing all of the mud churning up from how shallow it was, no wonder why I couldn't rotate into the slip, I was likely plowing some mud with the keel.

After tying up, getting everything in ship shape and checking the water intake strainers for any mud, we were set to relax.  Deb fixed dinner and we had a bite to eat and then went up to the bar/restaurant at the Marina for a couple of drinks.  While we were there the crew from Nightingale came up and offered us a round of drinks, on them, for coming back and helping them get ungrounded the evening before.  I thought it was a really nice gesture, and certainly not the reason we did it, but it was nice either way.

Karen making Coffee

We had a good night sleep, and I must have slept sound because when I got up at about 6:45, I noticed that the shrimp boat that was docked 10 feet off my bow was gone and I hadn't even heard it leave.
We showered, fueled up, restocked a few beverages and were off the dock good and early in hopes that we may be able to make good enough time to make it all the way to Hitchcock.

As we started out into the next open body of water, it became apparent that we were NOT going to be making it all the way to Hitchcock.  This whole week had been filled with winds at 20-35 knots and today was no exception.  It was slow going slogging into the wind and waves for several hours which put us behind schedule a bit.   We decided that the best place to stay was going to be Freeport.   If you would like to see some video of the slogging into the wind, go to this link on Youtube for the Video.  Link to "Slogging up wind in the open Bay"

Mid afternoon, we happened to notice Nightingale coming up behind us.  They were making a few
knots faster than us and we talked on a radio for a while as they were passing.  We got some good pictures of their boat and sent them via email.  I am hoping they have some good ones of us as well and can send them our way.

They were also staying in Freeport but not at the same Marina.  I was concerned about a fixed bridge near the Marina they were staying at so we stayed at Seaside Marina (mainly a large fishing boat Marina for offshore fishing yachts).

At some point during the trip, I decided to troll a lure for a while.  I certainly didn't expect we would catch anything on the ICW since I was still rigged up for offshore fishing in deeper water.  I figured what the heck and we did troll for a little while but then pulled it back in when coming up on some more barge traffic.  What I certainly did NOT want to catch was the prop shaft of a tug boat.

We ended up going through a set of flood control locks on this leg of the trip as well.  We didn't have to wait too long, but the water coming down the

Brazo's River East Lock (on the ICW)

river was flowing at a pretty good pace into the ICW and had about a 3-4 knot current.  It felt like forever before we made it through that lock at about 1.5-2 knots over the ground.  When looking at the water, it looked like we were cruising full speed, looking at the locks we were crawling.  We went through the first lock and then had to circle in the river a few times to let some other traffic go through, they were heading West on the ICW and going north up the Brazos so we had to stay on the down current side of the intersection until he passed.  Once through, we were able to go through the second flood control lock and continue East on the ICW.


Tonight, I wanted to go out and grab a bite to eat rather than stay on the boat.  Last time we were through this Marina about 6 months ago, we stopped and had one of the best burgers ever at a little place called "Castaways" and I was determined to go back to this place.  We walked over for dinner and drinks and in a bout of crazy small world stuff, we met some folks there.   One of our guests/crew posted on Facebook that we were in Freeport.  Someone she went to high school with happened to reply to that post and said, I have 4 crazy aunts that are down there on vacation.  Sitting at the table next to us were 4 older women having the time of their life.  They were toasting drinks, dancing with each others and other people in the bar and Deb, in only the way Deb can, Goes over and asks if there is any chance they know "So and So".  As it turns out, that was his "4 crazy aunts".   The night went down hill from there.  Deb and Karen joined their table and next thing I know there were trays of shots and drinks, etc going that way.  

Jim, Kenny and I had our beers and just watched the girls have a great time.   While we were there, there was a gentlemen at the bar that had drank more than he should have to safely drive home.  The owner of the bar insisted he not drive.  This man was on a motorcycle and very worried about the safety of his bike leaving it out front.  The owner helped him wheel the motorcycle into the
bar/resteraunt and then got him a ride home.  That, in my book, was one really cool move.    I must admit it did allow for one photo of Karen on a Motorcycle :)

So now it was time to head back to the boat.   I am not sure what it is about my lovely bride, but when she has a few drinks, you never quite know what she is going to do/say.   On this particular day, apparently she thought she should talk in a British  accent the rest of the evening.  So the whole walk home, she rambled on in a perfect (or maybe it just sounded perfect to me after a few beers) British accent.  She even used the English words for things rather than what she may normally say, referring to the bathroom as the Loo and the elevator as the lift.  I do have some rather funny video of this, but I decided that I would not post it, but I must admit, I just had some pretty good laughs going through them all again while writing this blog.

So off to sleep for the night and tomorrow we are headed to Hitchcock.  That is going to be as far as we can get because the Waterways around Galveston, Houston Ship Channel and the ICW are all closed on the other side of Hitchcock due to the Oil Spill.  (At the time we were sailing through (on March 24th) not at the time this posts)

Oil Spill, locks closed, an unusual docking situation and a rescue

After spending the day holed up awaiting a weather window, we left Sanctuary Costa Grande at sun up.

As we headed out to the ICW from the Sanctuary cut, there were quite a few barges lined up in the ICW heading east into Matagorda bay.  We waited for traffic to pass and merged into the line.  

The wind was down today to about 10-15 mph out of the north east which we assumed would make the 17 miles across the bay pretty rough taking the waves on the quarter.  As we approached the jetties we contacted Nightingale (the other boat that we shared our weather hole with to let him know what kind of weather we were seeing) and let him know the weather was like in the bay.  

We were just coming through the jetties so we told him we would contact him in 15 minutes as we were out in it.  The good news is that the waves were only about 2-3 feet but they were stacked up right against each other and we were heading into the wind so the spray was constant.  We were thankful for the dodger and bimini as we stayed dry and fairly warm.

Here is a nice little video of us sailing in San Antonio Bay the prior day

Barge traffic wasn’t too bad in the bay, and all of the tugs are good about responding on the VHF when you contact them to see which side of them they want to see us pass them on.  As we got to about the center of the bay, the waves were starting to jump up to 4 feet and were stacked 3 and 4 in a row.  For us this meant that we would go up and down the first 2 and then have the 3rd break over the bow and the 4th just slowed us down a bit.    We attempted to call back to Nightingale to let them know since they have a power catamaran that has a fairly low center between the hulls.  For him this would have been a bit of a pounding.  We were too far away from him so we contacted a tug “Reedemer” that was 8 miles behind us going the opposite way and asked him to hail Nightingale and pass on the report.  He did so and we could hear him relay the message.  (Mental note, we don’t have as strong of a VHF signal as I want)

We made it across the bay and into the protected waters again and as we were passing up a tug “Janice Roberts” the captain informed us that the Colorado River West Lock was closed until 1900 (7 pm).  The problem for us is we were hoping to go another 18 miles past the colorado river for the night, now it looks like we need to take a Plan B that is about 5 miles past the lock.     Just over 3 miles from the lock, all of the barge traffic was stopping.  We were able to see them stacked up on the AIS.  After contacting the lock master, they let us know that we could go through the west lock and down river on the Colorado and take the bypass cut around the east lock.  The problem is that cut only has 5 feet of depth and we need 6.  So it was time to just bite the bullet and get in line.  Looking at the tugs, I counted 16 ahead of us.  

We were circling in the ICW trying to determine what we were going to do for the next 4 and half hours and decided that there was no barge traffic coming at us with the locks closed so we would just anchor in the middle.  I went to the bow to ready the anchor and heard one of the tug captains talking to another to let him know that we were behind him.  Deb was manning the VHF and let them know that we were going to anchor here while we waited on the locks to open and then through in a “unless one of you tug captains would let us tie up to you”  We heard one tell us that he wasn’t sure what the company would think of that but he didn’t mind and asked us to just tie up to the first barge in his strung out load.  The cleats on these things are about 3 feet across and docking on it is like pulling up to a nice 10 foot deep bulkhead.  We stopped right next to him and tied up.  He asked us to just make sure we stayed on our vessel which we were glad to do and thankful for the generosity of letting us tie up him rather than anchoring in the middle of the ICW.  

So here I am writing a blog while sitting at the nav station while tied up to a barge.  I made sure that the company name was not visible in these because this was a really cool thing this guy let us do.   As I write this the thunder and lightning is picking up and I am just hoping that the captain of the tug doesn’t call me and ask me to shove off due to my 50 foot lightning rod (mast) tied up to his tug.  If he does, I completely understand, but hoping not.  

I got a call on the radio from the Tug Captain, he said that he was going to start moving on up the ICW a bit further.  We told him we would toss the lines off.  I went down below and had she wouldn't start.  I couldn't believe it.  I called the Captain back and let him know that I was having an issue and working on switching over to an alternate battery.  He asked what we drafted, we answered and he said that he would just carry us along for a while and he would be sure that he kept us in water deep enough (not a problem as he needed 4 feet more depth than we needed.  But it was really cool of him, he just left us tied on and carried us with him a mile or so while we swapped batteries.  We untied while doing about a knot and a half while tied to him.  

So it will get a bit more interesting tonight because these tugs in front of me will take a little bit of time to get going through the lock, which means we may not hit it until dark.  The place we will stay for the night is about 4 miles past the lock.  This delay certainly impacts us however as we were planning on making 55-70 miles today and with this stop we are oily going to make 34, which puts reaching Kemah out of the question by Tuesday.  The goal now is to get to Hitchcock on Tuesday if possible so that our friends can catch their flights back to Dallas.  If they can’t we may need to take a cab from Freeport which may be oostly but potentially the only option.

We were trying to figure out why the West Lock of the Colorado river was closed and then learned it was to keep the traffic from stacking up in Galveston where everything is shut down due to the oil spill and collision between a ship and a barge carrying oil.  It appears that there was about 168,000 gallons of oil spilled into Galveston bay right at the Texas City dyke.  Due to this and the clean up efforts the Intercoastal water way east and west bound is closed at the Houston Ship Channel, the Houston Ship Channel is closed, the Galveston Ship Channel is closed and the Texas City Channel is closed.  This basically means there is no way to get home right now so our plan is to try to get to Hitchcock on the West side of Galveston.  

We received a call from Nightingale, they had attempted to go around a tug and had the prop wash push them into shallow water and had run aground.  We waited for a while to see if they were able to free up and they were not so we turned and went back to give them a tug and see if we could free them.  The good news is that we were able to and we made good time heading up the ICW.  The Captain on Nighingale radioed the lock operator who was willing to let us run through ahead of the barges.  That allowed us to get to our designation for the night.  We both ended up staying at the Matagorda City Harbor for the night.

There are 2 kinds of people... Those that have grounded and those that lie.

We have been in Corpus Christi Texas for a couple of months now since our granddaughter was born.  With my work travel schedule, it requires me to fly almost every week.  Doing this out of Corpus has been a bit of a challenge due to the size of the airport and the connections.

To that end, we decided it was time to head back to the Kemah area.  This is within 30 minutes of a large airport in Houston (Hobby) and allows travel to be much more easily accommodated.  We started to plan our cruise from Corpus to Kemah via the ICW (InterCoastal Waterway).  and some of our friends wanted to join us for the trip and thought it would be fun.    A Plan was created.

We would give ourselves 4 days (5 with a  buffer) and sail out on a Saturday assuming we would arrive in Kemah on Tuesday.  We spent most of Friday just finishing up last minute things on the boat.

We picked up our friends late friday night, and everyone hit the sack for our early morning departure. Sunrise was scheduled to be 7:30am, so we planned on leaving by 6:30 in hopes to get a head start on the day 1 trip given we were hoping to make 74 miles before sundown.

As we were getting ready we noticed that there was dense fog but decided that we could go out slowly and stay out of the main shipping channel and it should burn off before we got to the narrow portion going to Aransas Pass.  I was surprised at how hard it was to hold a course when you can't see something to "aim" toward.  We made slow progress and it put us a bit behind schedule but really enjoyed the benefit of having AIS at the helm for this trip.  We were able to see ships and tugs and their heading.

Barges pushed against the shore waiting for better weather

The fog cleared mid morning and we finally started to make decent progress as we headed north east on the ICW.  There was a portion of the trip in Aransas Bay and San Antonio Bay where we were able to sail on a beam reach for a good portion of the trip.  We were able to sail at over 7 knots for a good portion of the trip which helped us make up some time for our slow foggy start.   There was quite a bit of barge traffic on the ICW and they were sitting along the bank going in and out of the bays waiting for the wind to die down.  When they go through with a strong cross wind they tend to come through at an angle.  Typically barges are pushed but the odd shaped ones tend to get towed.

Here we are passing a pretty large dredge barge.

Things were starting to go too good so Murphy decided to pay us a visit.  As we were coming out of San Antonio Bay where the Guadalupe Bay cut intersects to it, we hailed a oncoming tug and asked if he was good passing on the "2 whistle" (this means that we will pass him so our Starboard side is closest to him).  This is kind of like driving on the wrong side of the road, but since we were sailing it  is safer to stay on the downwind side of him to avoid potentially being blown into him.    as he approached, I gave him a wide berth so he had room to pass between an anchored tug on his left and us approaching him on his right.  That is when I heard the wake next to the boat start to break and we jerked a bit.  Yep, we ran aground.

From the charts we had a tough time telling where the actual channel was given the intersection area we were in.  We checked the depth all the way around the boat and determined which way we needed to go.  We tried to back off with no luck, we tried to spin on the keel in forward without success.  We were about to take the anchor in the dinghy to kedge off of it when a fishing boat passed by.  We flagged him down and asked him to give us a little tug backwards which he did and helped to get us backed off of it.

So they say that there are only 2 types of sailboaters, those that have grounded their boat and those that lie about having never grounded their boat.  We are not 2 time grounders.

In the end, we actually got free in about 30 minutes and were on our way.  But the delay meant we needed to stop somewhere closer for the night.  We were not going to make it to our planned destination before dark.

Deb to the rescue, she started searching "active captain" points of interest and found a very promising place for the night.   We will save the details of that for the next blog.  

For those that don't know about Active Captain, check it out here.  One of the best free services around!!!
http://activecaptain.com

Low Flying Coast Guard Jet

Look just through the Masts

The other day while down below working, I heard what sounded like a plane.  I kind of ignored it the first time but when it flew by it sounded more like a jet but very low.  I ran up into the cockpit and could see it banking over the bay just past the marina VERY LOW.  I really thought it was a small private jet going down.  He continued to bank and essentially made  complete circle again heading over the marina.  The view from the boat really looked like he was going to be skimming the mast tops.  I am sure he was in the air a bit higher, but I would not say more than 1500 feet.    

Here he is a bit closer to us (just over the pier in front of us)

This time I readied the camera and took a couple of pictures.

Hmmm, it was a Coast Guard Jet.  I have never seen one of them here, typically we see the CG Helicopters but this was the first time seeing the jet.

The next day there was a CG Patrol boat tied up just down from us so I asked the gentleman if there was a search of some kind being conducted.  They didn't know what it was for, but it was certainly interesting.

Twas the Night before Christmas

Boat lit up for Christmas

We have been all setup for Christmas on the boat now for a few weeks.  The harbor we are in has a nice Christmas Boat Parade however it was scheduled for the day we returned from Vacation so we didn't participate.  It was in the 30's the day of the parade and there were only 5 boats that actually showed up.  We did however hang lights the outside of the boat by running colored lights around the entire boat from stem to stern along the pulpits and lifelines.  We also ran white lights inside the cockpit and in the evenings we would play Christmas music through the outside speakers.  We get some foot traffic down where we are from those walking down the street to the local restaurants.  We enjoyed the reactions and also it helped to keep us in the Christmas spirit.

Additionally, we have a very small 2 foot Christmas tree that we decorated and put on a small table in the front of the Salon.

Christmas Garland on Arch in Salon

We hung the stockings from the Port Catches in the Salon and it really made it feel'Christmassy' down below.  Deb also made a  garland string that she hung on the arch between the Salon and NavStation & Galley.  It looks great.

To finish off our Holiday Post, I wanted to show a bit of the Holiday on-board in the video below.
I have heard several different versions of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" but I figured this would be a nice variation to it.
Enjoy the Boating version of the story aboard Last Affair at our Youtube Channel and if you are viewing this on our blog, the video is embedded below.  
(Twas the boating night before Christmas on Last Affair)

Merry Christmas to All and to All a good night

Update - 12/25 (I tend to write these posts a few days prior to the post date, and in this case, I had to update the blog post with some cool news.  My Daughter and her Husband were expecting their daughter to be born on Jan 2 with a planned delivery date due to the baby's position.  Well, it seems that she wanted this year to be her first Christmas.  Mckinlee came into our world on Christmas at 6:47pm at  9 lbs. 11 oz. So cute and such a great Christmas surprise.

5 miles or so offshore...

Having a great trip.  The winds are light but sadly also right on our tail.  We are motor sailing to keep the apparent wind in front of us and the wind blowing through the cockpit. 
It may get a bit chilly tonight when the sun goes down and it is going to be a dark night with only a sliver of new moon that sets at 9pm.

We have been dragging a fishing lure the last 5 hours and sa far have only caught sone seaweed.

Here are a few photos from today. 

Preventative Maintenance (Engine Room)

We are planning a small cruise from from Houston to Corpus Christi and in preparation for that, I was doing maintenance in the engine room prior to the trip.  This started with the simple stuff

• Change Oil and Oil  Filter
• Fill and Check Transmission fluid
• Run the engine with a load to just validate everything is good to go for a trip

Timing was great, because I found my preferred oil on sale for $12.99 per gallon.  Since we have a 50 Horsepower Perkins 4-108 diesel, I like the heavy duty oil made for diesels.  Shell Rotella T is the brand I use.  Given it was on sale, I went ahead and picked up 2 gallons.  

I also keep a good supply of WIX oil filters for this engine on hand.  I bought a dozen of them 2 years ago.

One of the things I like about having an engine room (and not just a compartment the size of the engine) is the ability to store spare parts and have a little bit of room to work when needed.   I keep a small wire shelf on the rear wall of the engine room that has spare parts and required tools close at hand at all times. 

This is certainly not a complete supply of all of our spares and parts, but these are some of the things I like to keep very handy and nearby the area they will be needed.  The top shelf (not shown in this picture) contains 3 different funnels; small oil funnel, large funnel with flexible hose and a diesel filtering funnel.  

Maintenance supplies in Engine Room

The next shelf down has a small battery tester (you can see the red bulb on the syringe.  It is a glass tube that can determine the quality of each cell of a lead acid flooded battery.

To the right of that is a kitchen spatula that stays in the engine room.  It is used to clean the inside of the site glass of our water strainers (Engine, Air conditioner, shower, etc)  To the right of that is a spare Fuel lift pump in the event we ever need to replace it.   The WIX box is the oil filter and I always keep 2 on the shelf.  You will notice there is only 1 here as I just used one today and have not put the other spare on the shelf.  I also store 2 plastic bags (to the left of the fuel pump) these can be used in a pinch to capture all of the oil when removing the filter and keep any from going into the bilge (See attached video for explanation).  To the right of the filter behind the exhaust riser, there is also an oil filter wrench.

The next shelf down contains two diesel fuel filters and o-rings.  Additionally I have my antifreeze tester there as well.  For those who are really observant and want to know why there is a shot glass also on that shelf, I would love to give you a cute little answer about needing a shot each time I work on the engine, but actually we put a dollop of Kanberra Gel in that about once a month to help keep odors down in the engine room.  

One of the great things that the Previous Owner (PO) has done on this boat is install a permanently mounted oil removal pump.  To "draining" the oil is as easy as running the engine to temperature so that the oil is nice and warm, then opening the oil fill cap, and putting the end of the small hose in a gallon jug and pushing the button.  That's it.  This little pump will pump all of the oil from the drain pan into the jug.   Great little tool and one of my favorite "makes life easier" tools.  Once empty, I changed the oil filter as well.  I have to thank Mike O'Barr for showing me this great little trick for removing the oil filter and keeping oil out of the bilge.  He showed me this on my last boat, and I certainly have carried it forward on this one.  I fold up a few paper towels, or a "puppy pad" under neath the oil filter. I then use the oil filter wrench and loosen up the filter until I can turn it by hand.  Then I take a 1 gallon zip lock back and slide it over the filter and the filter housing, holding the opening of the bag as high as possible.  Then it is just a matter of spinning the filter off it's post.  The oil drips in the bag, once off, I pick up the paper towels underneath and wipe off any oil sitting on the filter housing and drop them into the ziplock.  Zip it up and viola, the oil, filter and oily towels are all in that nice little package.  

I then topped off the transmission fluid.  I have a Borg Warner Velvet Drive transmission in this boat and it can use just about any transmission fluid that meets the Perkins standards (which are most of them).  

I also took the time to treat the water in the holding tanks and install new cartridges in the whole boat water filtration system we built earlier this year.  I added a sediment filter (5 micron) as well as a 1 micron Coconut shell carbon block filter.   The first stage removes any debris, sand, dirt, etc that may be in the water, the next one, removes any chlorine, bleach or other chemicals that may give the water an undesirable taste.  

The work moves to the V-Berth

Our plan of starting our refit inside the boat from the rear and moving forward has worked pretty well.  We are now to the V-Berth which is a pretty good sign.  This is an area that will require quite a bit of work due to leaks that were in the large opening hatch on the coachroof.  Like most things, you don't quite see how bad it is until you take out all of the molding and really start looking closely at things.

We have removed the headliner from the coachroof, and removed all of the molding carefully labeling it all with a sharpie so we can put the puzzle back together.  Sadly I broke a piece of the molding, but as this project has gone on, I have been getting better at correcting my mistakes.  One of the things we learned how to do was  make our own molding to match what is on the boat.  It takes some time and creativity but we have been able to replace it all and keep making them out of solid Teak.

Dry fitting curved Mahogany wall in place (lots of work to still be done)

We removed the opening port, cleaned all of the old bedding material off of the fiberglass both inside and out.  We removed every bit of sealant and bedding from the port as well as the decorative trim that goes on the outside.

We have made new decorative wall sections out of Mahogany plywood like it was originally.  This will cover the raw fiberglass on the inside of the coachroof.  We put a thin layer of insulation behind each panel and then start the re-assembly.  This particular piece was a bit interesting because it is curved.  We have certainly dealt with curves before but this one is not as wide so the curve it a bit tighter.

The picture is just the first step where we have just dry fit the curved piece in place.  The next step will be to bed the port later today and install the other 2 sides of the mahogany walls.

We have been putting the work in the V-berth off since we moved aboard, but we are expecting some friends to visit in a month or so and want to be sure that this room is ready for them when they arrive.

Frankly, the toughest part of this V-Berth work is going to be the fact that the forward bulkhead is rotted and is going to have to be replaced.  It's purpose is to essentially store the anchor chain and rode.  For those not familiar with it, when pulling in the anchor, the chain or line goes through an opening called a hawse-pipe and drops into this forward compartment.  It allows the topsides to stay neat and not have to find a place up there to store 200-300 feet of chain.

Maintaining the Water strainers - How to and what not to do

I have been saying for about 2 weeks that I need to clean the water strainer.  We used to clean them about every 4-6 weeks.  When we moved aboard, the air conditioners were running much more often than when we were not, meaning these filters were seeing a lot more circulation than ever before.  I suspect in the 5 weeks or so since we have been living on board, we likely ran as much water through the air conditioners as we had the entire previous year of just weekend use.

I had been putting it off knowing it was going to be a bit of a nasty job.  Today I decided that since I was going to do it, I would make a video of how to maintain them.  In this video I go through the steps to clean them, however waiting this long is an example of what not to do.  I can already tell that the flow is not back to what it was a month ago, which means I am going to have to flush all of the lines.  This is not going to be a simple job unfortunately.  I will likely buy a flushing kit that has a way to ensure you can put in a solution to all of the lines to break down all of that nasty growth that will be in there.

I have always had some goopy silt that gets in the water strainer in this location but this time it really felt like the texture of a jelly fish or congealed fat in the strainer bowl.

Well here is a video of how to clean it, but this stuff was pretty nasty.

Continuing to complete the little tasks...

It seems that the major tasks that needed to be done before moving onto the boat are done.  There are a lot of little ones and today was one of those days filled with little tasks.  Deb was taking care of some final prep on storage areas before putting pots, pans, food, and storage bins in all of the little hidey holes that will become our the equivalent to a house "pantry"
Here is some video of Deb doing the work on this task.  She actually does a LOT of the work on the boat and helps with most projects but sadly she is usually the one filming so you rarely see her 'doing' the work.

In addition to this today, we were also able to get a third coat of varnish on all of the new teak cabinets
in the Salon.  In the picture to the right, you can see that we still have all of the cushions out of the salon so we don't get any varnish on them.

Salon starting to come together

With those missing, it seems so disheveled.  Today, I was also doing some work under the companion way steps, so you see those leaned up against the mast in this photo.  The cabinet doors are all inside getting varnished as well and I am hoping by early next week they will all be installed.

Things Deb completed today.

• Loaded pots and pans for the boat
• Organized several air tight containers (Lock & Lock are the brand we really like) in the pantry behind the stove. 
• Started to put some condiments into the refrigerator (Ketchup, mayo, salad dressings, etc)
• Finished organizing all of the screws from our projects (which we had in about 40 small plastic cups)  She sorted and tossed any flat head screws, and kept all bronze and stainless screws.  We threw away all zinc ones due to the possibility of corroding on the boat in the salt air.  

Things I was able to complete today.

• Installed House Battery (Big ass 8D battery) into the new battery box with tie downs in the engine room (With a stroke of genius, I was able to use the companion way stairs and a couple of dowels to roll the battery from the walkthrough up onto the new shelves in the engine room without having to lift the 75lb battery while contorting my body in the engine room)
• Rerouted the large battery cables for the starting battery, house battery and both charging banks
• Cleaned and services both batteries
• Installed molding under rear stateroom door frame and around shower
• Put engine room door back on as well as forward engine access panel that has been out for months
• Another coat of varnish on the cabinet doors (insides this time)

Plumbing Project Continued (Joining it all together)

In the last post we talked about the new plumbing project that we were undertaking but could only take that project so far until the engine room was ready to connect it all together.

Part of the work that was going on in the engine room (and in a different post detailing that project) was to install holding tanks for waste water.  To do this, the old floors and platforms that had some rot in them had to be replaced.  A new floor was built, frame for the tanks, tanks installed and a new subfloor on top of those was created providing a new platform to mount the batteries, pumps hot water, heater, etc.

Early on during this project we wanted to make sure we had a way to filter water for use in our boat.  We have seen other boats that would put a canister style filter in the galley on the main sink cold water supply to ensure drinking and cooking water is filtered.

We decided to to create a 2 stage filter that will filter all water whether it has come in from a dockside pressure line or water from either of our two water holding tanks on board.  (We store 115 gallons of potable water on board in 2 tanks)  Because there may be times that we take rain water into the tanks, we wanted to be sure that we can filter it completely.    The first stage filter is a 5 micron sediment filter and the second stage is a 2 micron carbon block filter.  This not only filters the water from impurities, but the carbon block will remove any bleach that we may add to the tanks to purify any suspect water we may take in.



With the engine room complete enough to get back in there, we have been able to put the fresh water pressure pump in, the hot water heater, and start to combine all of the water lines that are replacing all of the old PVC flexible hosing that was starting to break down.

The picture on the right shows a small shelf I installed to mount the new fresh water pump to.  This pump is a variable speed pump that eliminates the need for an accumulator tank.  Above the shelf there is a wooden plate mounted over the soundproofing material (1-1.5" thick soundproofing covers all walls in the engine room)  This wooden panel will be the place to mount the manifolds to distribute the lines to the different portions of the boat.

I was able to find these extendable diffuser connections.  Basically it looks like a tee with PEX connectors on 2 sides and the 3rd side fits into one of the other tees.  The more you push together the more connection points there are, and it would be real easy to add an additional port for a future expansion.

One of the things we liked about PEX was that all lines can be color coded making the designation between hot and cold obvious.  In the picture on the left, I had connected cold water supplies to both the Galley/Front Head and also the Rear Head.  On the left side the hot water connections are made to also go to the Galley/Front Head and also the Rear Head.

I started with these lines mainly because when we ran the pex, I had left quite a bit of extra in the engine room and it was rather cluttered with every one of those lines having an additional 4-5 feet of line in the way.  I knew I bought more than I needed so I was ok wasting a bit to make sure we had plenty in there until we knew exactly where we were mounting it all.

You can see a bit of the finished connection points in the photo to the right.

Before this project there were flexible hoses and hose clamps and tees all over the place and it looked like a real mess.  I am glad to see this organized like it is in the picture on the right. Now with that said, I can tell you that as I have been planning and imaging this project, I had envisioned all of these really straight lines all mounted flush right up along each bulkhead and corner.  That would have been great, but as it was I think we spent about $250 on tees and 90 degree connections.  If we had done this the way I envisioned we could have easily tripled that, so I am satisfied with this and it looks MUCH better than before.

I also started to remove the connections from the old hot water heater and noticed that it had a horrible oder in the water inside the tank.  It smelled like sulfur and we had noticed this prior to starting this project as well.  In the end, we decided that if we were going to look at replacing the hot water heater now was the time.  We considered an on-demand style but after doing the calculations quickly realized that even the smallest load required would be 20amps at 120 volts.  This would translate to no less than 2400 amp hours and more than I would be able to supply with the current inverter and I like the idea of being able to make hot water in a bind by running the engine for 10 minutes or so.  We have mounted the hot water heater and ran the cold and hot water lines to this location.  This model does come with the ability to circulate the engine coolant water through the hot water heater to generate hot water without electricity, but sadly the hot water lines from the engine won't reach this new location for the hot water heater so will need to be replaced with longer ones.

New Plumbing Lines installed

It appears back in 1978 when the boat was built, some of the water lines that were run were 1/4 copper tubing. At some point in the past one of the previous owners replaced that copper plumbing with reinforced hose. The down side is that there had been many places where it was run in small runs and then joined together or sections replaced and joined to the old.

 The results were a spaghetti twined mess in most cases with plastic Tee's and hose clamps. In the engine room there were 3 or 4 Tee's as things were added over the years and it just appeared to be a bit unmanageable. While cleaning in the engine room we decided to scrub the hoses and as we did noticed they were "gummy" When doing some research what I found out is that the "gummy" feeling was the material starting to break down.

Under Galley

This was the birth of a new project. Run new water lines for all fresh/pressure water throughout the boat, clean up and organize the plumbing runs and add water filtration to not only filter what is stored in the tanks but also the standard city water input when at a Marina. We started by running new hot and cold water lines from the engine room to the galley. We welcomed this change because someone in the past ran the 2 Flexible hoses for water along the floor in the galley (Rather than under a floor or through a compartment).

 From the Galley, we ran the new lines forward under the sole to the forward port hanging locker. From there we chose a new route over the previous one by going from section to section up to the V-Berth, across the v-berth and back down the starboard side into the forward head under the sink. We also ran hot and cold lines from the engine room to the rear head as well. In the rear head we added tee's and cutoffs so we could feed hot and cold water to the sink as well as the shower. We also added a fresh cold water line extension to provide water to the rear head rather than pumping in from a through hull.

We chose to instal Pex lines rather than the flexible hosing that was in the boat before.  After doing some research and finding out that many new boats are being made with Pex, we decided to give it a try.  In every place where the lines go through a bulked we installed a PVC protective sleeve to protect the Pex from any wearing with movement.   We also supported all Pex with clips (as seen in the picture above as well).  Pex lines are now run to the Galley and both heads. We still have to bring it all together in the engine room and connect it to the hot water heater and filters.    Like most projects, we created a map of what we intended to install so that we can keep it for reference and with the boat documentation.  Below is the diagram of the fresh water plumbing.

What happens during spare time on board

Deb and I have been working hard to get everything wrapped up on schedule for moving aboard in June.  We have a lot of projects that are all under way right now.  The rear head is being completely rebuilt (new counters, sink, support walls, toilet and plumbing).  The engine room is getting a make over as well.  Most all has been removed from the engine room short of the engine (all pumps, batteries, hot water heater, etc).  We are actually hiring someone to help with installing holding tanks, 36 gallons between 2 tanks.  As part of this process, they removed the upper floor in the engine room and will be building a new sub floor for the tanks, tank frames and a shelf 16" higher than the subfloor.   We are hoping that will be done sometime this week.   We have taken advantage of the open space in the engine room to install new plumbing and reframe the flooring where a generator will go at some point.   We pulled out the lower floor and are adding support studs to help reinforce it.  We have added new supports and also made new floor planks out of Red Oak.  We have drilled for countersunk screws.  It is epoxied to seal the wood and protect it from moisture.  Those will be going back on board tomorrow.

We have installed the new Teak cabinet faces on the Starboard side as well.  Today we cleaned the outside of the boat and scrubbed the windows in the cockpit.  As we were looking for routes and ways to run new plumbing lines for both hot and cold water to the forward head, we had the floor panels out over the fuel tank and around the mast.  While we didn't find a great path to pass the water lines, Deb did get distracted by the nastiness of the bilge.

She put on a pair of rubber gloves and pulled about 6 handfuls of what looked like mud.  As she scraped the floor in the forward bilge we realized that the previous owner had a problem with the forward shower drain pump and rather than fix it, he just yanked the drain line out and let the forward shower drain into the bilge.  So god only knows how many years of soap scum and nastiness has worked it's way down the shower drain and into the bilge.

I know we all want to think of anchoring off a white sand beach and chilling on deck with a coldie, but these are some of the other not so glorious sides of working and refitting a boat.  
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