After getting tied up and settled in at Sanctuary Costa Grande, we filled out the small honor system 1 day contract and dropped a check in the box at the leasing office that was not manned. There were a few other boats in the marina including the Power Catamaran Nightengale that we passed us in Corpus Christi bay in the dense fog.
Public patio with grill, sink, furniture and music
This marina was really nice. They had nice clean bathrooms with 2 showers in the mens and women’s room. They had 2 ice machines that were available to transient slip renters as well. There was a great walking trail that went all around the housing development and marina with a boat ramp, gazebo’s with grills, fish cleaning stations and a big 40 by 40 foot patio with nice furniture, lights and ceiling fans. They even had a control pad to play music all over the patio area. This was a really nice place.
Since we didn't get to sail this day, I figured I would post a nice video of our sailing the day before in San Antonio Bay.
Clean bathrooms for marina users
club house (not available to transient slip users)
Several gazebo's with grills and ceiling fans
Nightengale (saw them pass us in the fog in Corpus)
The Crew for this trip (Deb, Kenney, Karen and Jim)
We chatted with Gene from Nightengale about the weather expected on Sunday. It was supposed to be cloudy and the wind was going to be 15-20 knots. We decided that we didn’t want to fight the fog again like the previous morning so we figured we would leave after about 9am after the sun had some time to burn off the fog. When I got up at about 8am Nightengale had pulled out already. As the fog started to lift we started to untie, and prep for departure. Right when we did we heard Nightengale hail us on the radio. He had poked his nose out into Matagorda bay and saw 4 foot waves and winds gusting to 35 knots on the note. He let us know that he was turning around and coming back to our weather hole.
We relaxed a bit and when he pulled back into the Marina we helped tie him up as he was getting pushed off the dock pretty good by the high winds. In the end, there are worse places to be stuck. We had a nice place to stay.
As Gene and I chatted, we talked about potentially leaving the next morning. We agreed that whoever left would report back to the other on the weather.
Below are some of the pictures we took as we walked around the marina. Anyone planning on transiting the ICW, this is a really great place to stop.
We have been talking about going back to Jamaica for many years now. Deb and I really enjoyed the area in Jamaica where our son went to school. It is on the South Coast of Jamaica in a small fishing and farming area called Treasure Beach. It is not anywhere close to the "all inclusive" type place where you stay with 500 other American and Europeans and never leave the hotel property. No, this is vacation in a way that lets you completely relax and make new friends.
Several years ago, we went on a small vacation with one of our close friends and really had a great time vacationing together. We were 'vacation compatible' which was a funny term we all talked about after that trip. We have all been around another couple or friends where they fight or nit pick at each other, or they just don't enjoy the same things you do making it very awkward to spend a few days with each other. That is just NOT the case with Dan & Jodi and we always have a great time when we do stuff together. When vacationing, either couple is fine with the other doing their own thing, or doing something together. It is not uncommon that some days, we will just "veg out" and not really do anything either playing cards or reading a book or just sitting in the sun having a few sundowners (and sun-uppers and sunsmiddayers - lol).
It is always hard to find the "best day" or "best time" on a great trip, but one of my favorite days was when we took a day trip out to a place called the "Pelican Bar". Now you may be reading this and thinking, "so a day at a bar. no biggie" however this Bar is built on driftwood and old logs on a reef a couple of miles from shore. You hire a boat captain to pick you up where you happen to be staying and you ride in the same boats that the local fisherman use to go fishing in 60 miles off shore. These are open "rowboat" style boats that have 4 or 5 bench seats across them and a 40hp or so engine on the back. In our case, our boat captain "Captain Ted" picked us up right at the beach in back of the house we rented and off we went just outside of the reef along the shore for about 30 or 40 minutes. Captain Ted always travels with his dog Flora in the boat and she is a regular at the Pelican Bar. 8-11 years ago, when we were going to Jamaica more regularly, we saw Ted and Flora every time while there.
On the way, we say dolphins playing and when as you pull up to Pelican Bar, you are greeted by the sounds of Reggae coming from a small portable boom box inside. The boat pulls up to a wooden plank and the owner "Floyd" comes over and reached a hand down to help you up the small steps. In our case, Flora was the first out of the boat and up laying down in the shade in the bar. At this time, you are in one of the coolest oasis' I have every been to. Step up to the bar and have a "winter cold" Red Stripe or as we did, started with a few delicious rum punches.
While we were there this time, there must have been 5 or 6 other boats of passengers that came out so the place was kind of hopping. The next 4 people that arrived after us, ordered drinks and lobster and fresh fish. When you do so, one of the guys that works behind the bar will hop into the water and go spear fish something to cook up.
We ordered a few beers or drinks and then just stepped down the walkway to the boats and jumped into the waste deep water out on this small sand covered reef. Other people were doing the same and it was a great time.
The boat captains and Floyd are typically sitting on small wooden stumps inside and playing either dominos or checkers. It is always great fun to watch them because folks in Jamaica really get into playing Dominos with them all being "slapped" down onto the table and some very fast and loud talking in Patois to each other.
We took some video while we were there and I put together a little compilation of the fun time we had. Needless to say, we needed a captain of the boat when we left, because we all had imbibed quite a bit :)
This definitely was a "Great Day" on vacation.
For anyone that may be interested, the place we stayed was called Bucaneer Villa. This is the kind of place where you rent the house and purchase the food you want to be prepared. The staff at the house will prepare meals for you. It was great to become friends with those that prepared the meals. If you want help quite a bit (like cleaning up the rooms every day) or if you want to have privacy they will honor your request. Suzie, Nicki, Judine, and Delaroy were all great and I am actually glad to be connecting to them on Facebook as well.
More info can be found at www.treasurebeach.com.
People often ask me if I am retired, or how I can
live on a boat while working. The reality is that if you have the type of
job that doesn't require you to be in 1 spot, this is a very workable solution.
In my case, I travel often to customer sites and to see employees and
prospects. If you do any kind of traveling for work, you have likely
already adapted to being able to work remotely. For example, I have found
I can be fairly productive while at an airport, a hotel, or even while realaxing
and enjoying a meal out.
When I am home (on our boat) that also means that I
can work and be productive there as well. The boat has a Navigation
Station like most sailboats (Think Mini office without the doors). In my
case, this consists of a monitor that is mounted in the center of the Nav Station
that both doubles as an extra monitor for my laptop when I am working, or the
heart of navigation and computing for the boat itself.
In the picture in the sidebar, you can see that my
desk is as messy as most desks you see in someone’s office. Sadly in my
case, it is also filled with a pair of sailing gloves, some line, a bunch of
wires for the electronics like the router and my headset.
To make hearing and speaking to people, I have a
pair of pretty good headphones to use on my cell phone or my laptop whether I
am taking a call on my cell phone, or Voice over IP software such as Skype.
They are noise canceling which comes in handy when the wind is howling
through the rigging above. (See video clip a little later to see why this
can come in so handy)
When Deb is not on board and I am working, I will use
the large LED TV in the Salon as my monitor and sit on the salon settee. It is a bit more comfortable and I like the
extra real estate for the screen. This was the case last week as
I was sitting in the salon working. It was a great day because it was
still warm but overcast so no bright sunlight for a change, I had the hatches
all opened up and had a nice gentle breeze running through the boat. Half
way through the call the wind started to pick up, then it started to pick up a
lot, and I could hear the howling in the distance as the wind blew through the
rigging of the row of sailboats just upwind of me. While on the call, I
muted my microphone and closed the large forward hatch. As I finished
that the sky opened up with a torrential rain pour. I was quickly closing
the 4 hatches in the roof that I had open and another 7 opening ports on the side
of the boat. All of this was going on while I was still on this
conference call and un-muting the microphone to respond to a question or
comment then muting as quickly as I could again.
By the time the call ended, the wind was blowing a
steady 20 knots and gusting to about 30. The rain subsided for the most
part and when I went back up top, the temperature felt like it dropped 15
degrees in that hour.
I continued to work the rest of the day on meetings
and phone calls remotely, however the wind really had the boat hobby horsing
and rocking pretty good. When the wind starts to blow that hard, there
are a few interesting sounds that happen on the boat, that we are just used to,
but others wonder what they are. I attached a small video below that
shows me sitting on the salon settee working. You can get a sense for how much motion there
was on the boat this day, and we were tied up to a dock. If you listen closely you can hear a few
things in the background. The first is the wind that you can still hear
howling if you listen carefully. This is with all of the hatches battened
down and closed up tight. You will also
hear a bit of a ringing sound or long dull clank. This sound is actually
made from two different things that run up the inside of the mast. There are
wires that run from the base of the mast to the top of the mast for lighting on
top of the mast, antenna, etc. This is combined
with the lines that run up the mast for raising the sails. When the boat
rocks a certain way they hit on the inside of the mast making this sound.
The other is a loud thump , this is actually something that you
should not hear, but I still had an antenna for the TV run up on the flag halyard
and when the wind would blow it hit the stays (the metal wires that run from
the sides of the boat to the top of the mast to stabilize it). It is a lot like a giant piano or guitar
string being plucked.
So there you have it, a little insight into working from the boat.
98% of the time, it isn't much different than working from your office,
but on some days the office is bouncing around a bit.
As fairly "new to the lifestyle" live-a-boards, we constantly struggle with space and storage. One of the things we both enjoy is a little snack when hungry and have recently got on a kick with granola. I almost always had a bag of granola that I would keep in a "lock & lock" container to keep it fresh. When it get a bit hungry in the evening, I grab a small handful of granola and munch on it and it does the trick to satisfy the snacking bug.
I have found I like to eat Granola as cereal in the morning with some milk over it. I enjoy it on top of yogurt or even on top of some fresh cut fruit. It is also really good on ice cream but that is something we don't have on board very often at all.
So today we decided to make out own granola. I was shocked at how simple it was and allows you to make all kinds of variations for whatever it is you prefer. For example, because we snack on it by itself, we made some that had dried fruit and coconut in it. Yummy. We made some that was individual crunchy bits the size of the oats so it can be spread on top of fruit or yogurt and even made some that is in chunks for snacking (think of a broken granola bar).
There are a ton of recipe's online but what we found in our few tries is that it is not really a science and it is pretty hard to mess it up unless you burn it.
We made ours with the following ingredients
3 cups of rolled oats (not the instant, but the plain old quaker style work)
1 cup of chopped mixed nuts (we used peanuts and cashews and just chopped them to about the size of the oats)
3/4 cup of sweetened coconut flakes (found in the baking aisle of the store)
3/4 cup of Brown Sugar (Actually we used just a bit more than 3/4 of a cup)
about a teaspoon of salt
1/2 tsp of cinnamon (I don't think this is needed, I just saw it on the shelf and figured what the heck)
We mixed all of that together in a bowl. On a boat, everything needs multiple uses, so the bowl is also the lock & lock that we typically keep salad in when storing it in the fridge.
In a separate bowl (one of our cereal bowls) we mixed the following
Pan cooking in the oven on the boat
1/4 cup of oil (we used Olive, but anything will do)
1/4 of a cup of Honey (could also have used Maple Syrup)
We both like Peanut butter, so I also dropped a couple of tablespoons of Peanut butter into this mix.
Mix this all together really well and pour over the oat mix. Mix well until all are coated really well.
Then spread evenly on a cookie sheet or small pan for the over. Be sure to oil or PAM the pan first to keep it from sticking.
Here is a small video showing the product after about an hour in the oven
You bake it in the over on a temperature between 250 and 325 and just keep checking on it every 15 minutes and mixing it up a bit (it tends to toast more near the edges of the pan so we just moved the mixture around a bit). It should cook between 45 minutes and an hour and 15 minutes. I think it tastes a bit better when cooked at about 250 for and hour and 15 minutes.
If you like it in chunks for snacking, just press it down in the pan the last 15 minutes you will bake it and then when you take it out of the over, don't mix it up until after it cools. We just broke it up into little bit sized pieces.
At this point, you can add in anything you really want, dried fruit like Pinapple, apricot, raisins, cranberries, papaya, really anything. We even put small dates and broken banana chips in it.
Good stuff….
Just pop it in an airtight container and it will be good for at least a month (we tend to eat it in less than a month)
This is about a third of a batch of what the recipe above makes. We bake it in 3 batches due to the size of the pan we can get in the oven.
The trip has been really nice so far from Kemah to Corpus. We headed out on Saturday morning from Kemah, TX on Clear Lake. We made our way out to Galveston Bay, ran South down the Ship Channel. We went West on the InterCoastal before going out Bolivar Point to the Gulf of Mexico. From there we just went a few miles to Harborwalk Marina in Hitchcock, TX.
We had a real nice slip and were able to all shower and then head over to the pool for a nice refreshing Dip in the pool. After having a few drinks in the cockpit for a sun downer with the sun setting, we all changed and went up to the restaurant at the Marina. It was "Floyds on the Water" and the meal was really good. The Service was even better and it is so true that a server can make the experience. She was so attentive and even when asking for things like "where is the restroom" she would walk you there instead of just pointing and saying "that way".
We woke to a nice cool morning of low 60's and heavy overcast skies with a forecast of high winds and rain. Early in the morning we saw some lightning off to the North, but it faded quickly. We got under way about 10am and headed into the wind and weather.
Dark skies as we departed Harborwalk
The bimini and eisenglass worked great keeping the majority of the water out and people warm in the cockpit. We had a nice relaxing trip for just a short 30 miles or so. The newly installed AIS was great to provide warning and ship data for all Tugs and Barges encountered. We could get a warning of a ship approaching even when around the corner in "the ditch". It allowed us to see their name and call them to discuss the best approach for passing.
Loaded down for the passage
We tied up for the night in Freeport at Surfside Marina.
They have Transient slips with Power, Water and nice floating docs. They have showers, ships store and security 24 hours a day. We were able to top off the water tanks, took on diesel to make sure we have plenty for tomorrow and created our routes and waypoints for tomorrows departure offshore. We programmed it all into the Helm GPS, the IPAD and PC as backups.
After getting the fuel and relaxing for a while, we walked over to a little place called "Cast-Aways" for dinner. It was a dark little bar and we didn't have high hopes, but it was one of the best burgers I have had in a long time. We watched a little bit of the Cowboys game, had a beer and then walked to the little corner store and picked up some small munchies for the trip. Since we will be running a 25-30 hour passage, we grabbed some sunflower seeds, beef jerky and what not to keep the people on night shifts busy and occupied. As we walked back to the Marina, we were greeted with a beautiful sunset over Freeport and all of the refineries. They look like Christmas if you forget the fact that they are stinky and dangerous.
Red Sky at Night - Sailors Delight
We should be departing out the Freeport Channel (as this is blog post is going live) to the outer light about 4-6 miles off shore. From there we will turn Southwest and head toward the Port O'Conner outer light marker.
From there we will head toward the Aransas Pass outer lighted ship marker and at 27 51.55N 96 55.23W we will bear in toward the first channel marker for Aransas Pass.
From there it will be in the ship channel and over to the Corpus Christi Municipal Marina.
This will be our offshore route leaving Monday 10/6 at about 10am from Freeport
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.
It has certainly been a long time coming. We had bought the boat just over 2 years ago. We originally planned to take a year or so to refit it and move aboard. We found out the true meaning of "Boat=Bring out another thousand" as we found more and more things that made sense to repair or replace while we had things torn up. The 1 year plan turned into 2, but with our lease up at the end of July where we live, we confirmed with our landlord that we would not be renewing and that put the deadline firmly in place.
That lease is up at the end of July. We intended to be on the boat by the end of June in the event we needed that bit of a time cushion. We made it... for the most part. I keep hearing how cruisers have to adapt to changing plans and not tie themselves to deadlines so I am ok with "for the most part".
To add a little more detail, we have been sleeping on the boat since the 30th of June with the exception of July 3rd when I had a problem with power and there was no 110v and no air conditioning. Since we still had the apartment, we decided to sleep there that night and I would look at the problem the next day.
Bottom line is we are still working on finding homes for all of our stuff on the boat. We have, for the most part, setup the major electronics for comfort and pleasure while living aboard (internet, TVs, wifi, and laptops and of course have all of the marine electronics as well)
So here I sit at the Nav station writing my first blog as a live aboard. I am reflecting back to 2 years ago. Deb and I had bought the boat, and with a few of our experienced sailing friends not being able to make the trip from Florida to Texas with us, we decided to give it a shot on our own. So 2 years ago today (on July 5th) we had pulled out of Houma, LA on the Inter-coastal waterway, heading west through what can only be described as something you would see on that show "Swamp People" It was beautiful and gave us a taste of what it would be like one day living and traveling on the boat.
Salon - Port Side forward (DURING) I can't find a true before
So far so good, This is the first day, that Deb and I have been down on the boat and just relaxing or chilling out in almost 2 years. We heard some loud booms outside and realized that there was a big ole firework display over the water in Kemah. We walked to the end of our dock where there were another 6 or 7 live-aboards sitting on dock boxes and enjoying the show. It was a good time and relaxing :)
We thought we would show a picture of what it looked like the first day we actually moved aboard. We knew that as soon as the last coat of varnish was dry, we would be ready to move on. Each coat we added, we kept hoping "Maybe this will be the last coat" But... Deb and I like to have a really thick rich coat of varnish so the wood looks like it is almost encased in glass.
Salon - Port Side forward (AFTER)
So, this time it took about 7 coats to get to that point. You can see the difference with the before and after shot of the same area. We still have to add the door catches to the teak salon cabinets, but we sure like the way they came out. They are all solid teak frames for the cabinet and doors. The door inserts are 1/4" teak plywood that has been sanded, sealed and varnished.
At some point in the next year or so (low on the priority list right now) we will end up recovering all of the cushions in a nice plush white leather like material that is soft but can be cleaned and withstand the environment.
All in all it has been a crazy, busy, educational, fun and frustrating time to get to this point. I wouldn't trade it for the world because I am excited about what the future holds for us.
Below is a 360 degree view of the salon from the bottom of the companion way stairs. If you drag the picture right and left you can do a full circular view as if you were standing in that spot.
When doing our refit on Last Affair, we decided to rebuild the large glass
fixed ports in the boat. There is a
story behind why, but for the purpose of this blog, lets just go with “we
decided to”.
This blog and subsequent videos are not going to be about how to rebed
the window and frame to the fiberglass hull, but rather once removed, how to
actually remove the glass from the frame and rebuild that.
This started innocently enough, it was to take the ports home and clean
them up (They had a bunch of residual silicone on them from years or caulking
by the PO (Previous Owner).Once home, I
started thinking that I really didn’t know if they leaked from the bedding into
the hull or between the glass and the aluminum frame.One way I thought to check was to lay the
port down on a flat surface glass side down.On these ports, the frame is about an inch thick and the glass is on one
edge almost making it like a 1” deep bowl when laid flat with the glass down.So, I poured a quart or 2 of water into that
little 1” bowl.
In about 20 minute almost all of the water had leaked out from between
the glass and the frame.The majority of
that was from the spot where the rubber sealant that goes around the glass was
sealed back together at the bottom of the port (the bottom, that doesn’t seem
like good planning either come to think of it).
These
windows are rectangular (about 9” tall and 23” long but they have angles on
both the leading and trailing end of the window forming a parallelogram (?)
with rounded corners.The point is that
there was not a replacement out there that you could just go find easily to fit
this size and shape.
I removed the screws holding the upper and lower halves of the frames
together and pulled them careful away from each other exposing the edges of the
glass and the rubber spline that was around the glass and pushed into the slot
on the aluminum frame to hold it in place.
This part turned out to be a challenge.I have looked at many places on line and local custom glass shops and
can’t find the same shape spline.While
searching for sources for the spline, I decided to clean up the frames.
I was able to get some supplies (from Home Depot) so you can likely get
it from your local hardware store to refinish the aluminum frames.
I started with a wire wheel on a lathe (a drill would work, this was
just easier for me).I used the wire
wheel to brush, scrape and scratch away all of the old silicone, and gunk that
was in the grooves of the aluminum.I
also used the wire wheel on the facing side of the aluminum in the areas that
had scratches.The wire wheel actually
sands down the surface and removed the scratches.
I then lightly sanded these with a sanding disc in the same drill/lathe.I used 400 and then 600 grit to remove the
scratches that the wire wheel left.This
got it fairly smooth and confirmed that there was not more silicone caulk left.
After the sanding, I installed the first buffing wheel (I used a denim
buffing wheel) with “Tripoli” that is the brown buffing stick.You rub it on the buffing wheel and then buff
the aluminum.After that was complete
they were really starting to look good.I then put on a loose cotton buffing wheel and used the “White Diamond”
that is the white buffing stick.I
rubbed some on the cotton pad and ran at high RPM’s (3000 or so) and brought
the surface up to a nice shine.These
are not as shiny as stainless steel, but pretty darn close.
In this video, you can see the before and after, but also can see the construction of the window, and how the glass gets put into the frames. Where the spline came together is where mine were leaking.
NOTE
UPDATE:I have read a few posts on the
internet about being cautious in using a wire brush on aluminum window frames
because small amounts of the steel from the bristles can lodge on the softer
aluminum and while not seen by the naked eye, could cause issues with corrosion
due to dissimilar metals in a salt water environment.I will update this blog over time if there
seems to be any negative results from this method described.
Now that the frames are complete, lets get back to the assembly of the
glass into them.I tried for a week,
Rubber Mallet, Clamps, Tie down straps, bench vise and even the lathe to try to
compress the frame together.Long story
short, I was defeated.I couldn’t get
the frames all the way together (1/2” gap could not be closed).I called a local glass glazier and brought
the 2 ports (or parts as it were).He
was able to rebuild both of them for $175.Money well spent because comparable sized ports were $700 each.
I did the same leak test mentioned above and all was good. We took them back to the boat and rebedded
them back into the fiberglass and tested for leaks.
