A Place For Everything. Everything In Its Place.

Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida

In addition to refinishing the top deck surfaces, we've done quite a bit of rearranging.

• We stopped carrying our 6 person life raft.  The placard on the raft says that it needs to be certified every year (maybe every 2nd year, I forget).  But the certification costs $850.  We are not about to spend that kind of money unless we are making an ocean crossing.  Therefore, we left the raft in Dave's garage.
• Without the raft, we found that we miss a key function -- being able to use the raft as a step platform for viewing, and to make it easier to climb the mast.

We also have wanted more on-deck storage.   I thought of a fiberglass dock box.  We see those everywhere, including on boats.  But those boxes are too large for the space and far too expensive -- $400-$1200.

• I got a quote form a local company to make a custom box from starboard.  It would be on the order of $500.  Too much.
• Finally, it dawned on me that the dimensions of a box that would fit are almost identical to a common ice chest cooler.   I checked online.  Bingo!  I found a Coleman Marine Cooler almost exactly the specified size.   I bought it for $35 delivered.  Outstanding

Here you see the cooler in its new permanent position, just in front of Tarwathie's mast.  It is strong enough to sit on or stand on.  We can store broom heads, mop heads, gloves, a hammock, a kettle bell, and a tarp in there.  It is securely bolted to the life raft chocks.  By the way, you see two circular ventilation ducts on either side of the cooler.  The one on the left has a winch handle sticking out of it.  We find that to be a very handy place to store the handle for use on the mast winches.

 Behind the cooler and in front of the mast is a secure place to store our canvas sun shade tarps.  Those used to be stored on top of the Turtle and under the dinghy when under sail.

Here you see the turtle.  It is the big square white box between the dinghy chocks.  The turtle covers the companionway hatch and prevents water incursion in case a breaking wave swamps the boat.  We used to store the  tarps there, but now that space on top of the turtle is used to store solar panels when we are under way.

When in use in Marathon, we hang the solar panels on the starboard side, and prop them up at an angle of about 60 degrees. (You can see one of the panels on the left side of the top two pictures. When in use elsewhere, we put the solar panels on top of the flaked mailsail on the boom. They are too big to store below decks, and there is no suitable place on Tarwthie to mount them permanently. This dual in-use and in-storage arrangement for the panels seems to work well.

So, a place for everything and everything in its place.   Life is good.

Minor Disaster

Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida

 

Yesterday I lost my balance for a moment while taking my pants off and put out a hand to steady myself. My hand hit my eyeglasses that were sitting on the counter and broke the bridge. Oh no!

 

Libby and I tried several ways to make a temporary repair using tape, glue, heat shrink able tubing and solder. None worked. The bridge was titanium, something that can normally not be soldered.

 

We are about to leave Marathon. There is no time to get a new prescription and new glasses before leaving. We normally buy glasses online from Zenni Optical for $100 or less. But they take about three weeks to fulfill an order. The only option I know that is faster would be to go to LensCrafters in Vero, and get glasses in one hour, at a cost of nearly $500.

 

Oh well. As you know, we are big on having backups. We keep our old glasses as backups. That's what I'm wearing right now. Not great, but better than nothing.

 

Nasty Critter Attacked Libby

Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida
Poor Libby is the victim of some nasty critter. She was bitten about a dozen times on the abdomen and the legs. At first we thought they were mosquito bites. But then they got worse in the following days. Now 2 weeks later, they are mostly healed but before doing so, some of them left an abscess of necrotized flesh about 2mm in diameter and 2mm deep. Poor Libby suffered lots of discomfort from those bites.

The bites appeared on the morning after a busy day with John and Becky. We went to Blackfin Resort, to the Blue Hole on Big Pine Key, to No Name Pub, to Key West, to Keys Fisheries for dinner. That night was particularly windless. On nights like that, flying insects can find their way out to our boat and of course we sleep with all the ports and hatches wide open. The next morning, the bites appeared.

I had no bites at all.

Our theory has shifted from mosquito bites to spider bites. But in reality, we have no idea. A second theory is plant stings.  Libby did a bit of pine needle gathering in the forest that day.  Perhaps she was pricked by the spines of a baby poisonwood tree or some other noxious plant. 

Maybe readers have other theories.

Longest Project Finally FInished

Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida

Is this my longest project?  Perhaps so.   Many years ago, we became unhappy with the nonskid surfaces on our upper decks.   They were worn, and unsightly.   I had the idea of painting them with nonskid paint.  Big mistake.  That failed.  Four subsequent repaintings also failed.  Part of the problem is that a rough nonskid surface can never be properly prepared as a paint base.   Anyhow, we decided to have it done professionally.  Here were the steps to that project.

1. Sand the nonskid surfaces.  We did that at the dock in New Bern, starting in October 2012.  My son Dave helped out.
2. Got a quote from Dawson Creek Boat Works to redo the nonskid professionally.  The quote was for $3,500. 
3. Move the boat to Minnesott beach.  They told me that my sanding was inadequate.
4. Resand all surfaces down to bare glass.  Turns out that I overdid the sanding.  It cost me another $1,300 to have Dawson Creek fill the areas that I over sanded.
5. Leave the boat from 4/12 to 9/12 as we did our road trip.  Dawson Creek did the work while we were gone.
6. Nonskid complete 9/2013. It turned out beautifully.  I'm very pleased.
7. Now I had to repaint the white smooth deck surfaces.  They too were unsightly, and scratched by my sanding.  Primer coat applied at the dock in New Bern, by mid October 2013.  That took me about 10 working days.
8. The last step was to put a finish coat over the primer.  That took another 10 working days over an elapsed time of about 40 days.  It turned out beautifully.  I'm very pleased.

Close up of the non skid, September 2013

Overview of top decks this morning.  All work complete.

So after 5-6 years, and 5-6 thousand dollars, we finally have beautiful looking top decks.  Whew.  I'm tempted to say that it wasn't worth the trouble and expense, that we should have lived with the original decks with their old gelcoat.  But it's not true.  The result is very nice and in the balance, I'm glad we did it.

In retrospect, I should have turned the whole job over to professionals from the start.   That's a lesson I have not yet learned adequately; when to do it yourself and when to let the expensive professionals handle it.

Help Please. Urgent!

Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida

Things have been chaotic around here this morning. We don't know what to do next. Here's the story.

Around 7:30 this morning we heard a noise and looked outside. There was a baby manatee in our dinghy? What the heck? I called Libby up on deck. As we were looking, the reason for this unprecedented occurrence became clear. A big hungry alligator, maybe 12 feet long, was circling around and trying to grab the baby. We think the baby jumped into the boat to escape. There's also blood in the dinghy.

OMG!!! We had to think quick. What to do? We thought about trying to lift the baby up onto Tarwathie. Nah. Too heavy. Even a baby manatee weighs several hundred pounds. We could hoist it up with a block and tackle, but without a proper harness we would injure the baby.

As we watched, the baby seemed to become more distressed. It made crying noises. We theorized that it was drying out in the sun and maybe dying. Quick, we grabbed our buckets and started pouring bucket after bucket of water into the dinghy. Soon we had it swamped. The dinghy's gunwales were under water, so fresh salt water could circulate and keep the baby healthy. The dingy didn't capsize because we had it tied up. That way it formed a protective cage, keeping the gator away from the baby, but the gator could easily tip it over.

But we still have no real solution to the problem. We called animal rescue at FWC, the Florida Wildlife Commission. Their answering machine said 8-5 Monday-Friday. No help. We called the US Coast Guard. They won't help either unless it is a person in danger.

The alligator hadn't gone away. It swam around and every once in a while it poked the dinghy with its nose. He must be desperately hungry. The alligator also gave its throaty roaring sound, perhaps to frighten the baby manatee. The baby's mother was nowhere in sight.

Now, we have more help. We got on the VHF radio and announced the predicament to the whole Boot Key Harbor. Soon a half dozen others came in their dinghies to help. Right now they are circling Tarwathie and slapping their oars on the surface, trying to keep the gator away. I'm worried about the boaters in the inflatable dinghies. One gator bite and they sink, dumping the people in the water.

As captain of this vessel, I decided that the best thing for me to do is to go below to write a blog post. If you have a constructive suggestion, please post it as a comment immediately. We may not have time to reply, but we'll read the comments in real time as they come.