Tuesday 14th & Wednesday 15th November

Fort Pierce to Dinner Key Marina, Miami

25 43.535 N

80 13.979 W

True to their word the riggers from Mack Sails arrived at our boat at 0900hrs and began to carry out the repairs to the jib furling system. The riggers, Rich and Jay, bought with them a bo’suns chair which I envied and I think anyone who has ever hauled their partner up the mast would happily pay to have – it was a self hauler and Jay made it look like a very quick and simple task to get himself to the top of the mast. When I enquired they told me that the seat came from West Marine and the rigging system for it was done by Mack Sails – I WANT ONE!!!!! I feel certain it must qualify as a safety issue. The repairs/replacement involved installing a new forestay (yes we know we had only just had a new one in Jacksonville) as the furling mechanism had caused the wires to begin unraveling, a new wrap stop and upper and lower furler bearings. All in all the work took the guys 2.5 hours. Once they had finished Gerry cut the extra leather loop off the top of the sail and we threaded the jib back onto the furler hoisting it aloft (yes just to see if we could sail in the dock) and furled it away. The end result was that the sail would have engaged in the furler mechanism better if the leather loop had been left in place, whoops! A few foul words and a longer shackle or two later and we were back in business again with a functional jib and a few hundred dollars lighter in the pocket. Our thanks to Rich and Jay of Mack Sails for a job well done.
To celebrate we had a quick lunch in the Marina bar where we decided to leave for Miami as soon as we could – high tide was to be at about 1500hrs so we knew we would be able to get out of the marina almost immediately. We hurried back to the boat and stowed things away, disconnected the shore power and water, attached jacklines, donned lifejackets, consulted the charts, listened to the weather forecast one last time (it was going to be an easy passage with winds 10 – 15 knots SW and seas 3-5 feet) and eased our way out of the marina, onto the intra coastal waterway and eventually out into the sea. The passage was going to take us about 18hrs if we could do an average speed of 6 knots an hour.
The first few hours of the trip were perfect, we motored along doing the 6 knots
an hour, it wasn’t possible to sail as the wind was just about on the nose and then just as we were comfortable the Gods of wrath descended. The winds blew up to 20 + knots and the seas grew to 8-10 feet oh, and of course it got darker as night closed in. From this point on we bounced, danced, pitched and rolled, taking a few big waves over the bow as we continued to edge our way south. Our average speed dropped to 3 knots, we tried sneaking out a pocket handkerchief size piece of jib to try and steady us a bit as well as pick up a bit of speed – this worked marginally for a short time and eventually we furled it away again as it wasn’t doing a great deal. It was a very long and uncomfortable night, we took turns in cat napping in the cockpit as it was to difficult to go below to try and sleep. We decided that for future trips we need to have a “ready box” of enough snacks and nibbles in the cockpit to last the entire trip so that neither of us has to risk injury trying to negotiate the steps, fridge, falling objects etc. whilst trying to find something easy to eat and drink. Although we were only 1.5 miles off the coast we think we caught the effects of the Gulf stream (it was supposed to be at least 3 miles out). As dawn approached Gerry sneaked us a bit closer to shore – maybe incase I decided it would be quicker to swim!
Gerry went out on deck at one point to move the jib track forward a little and nearly scared me to death when he yelled out for me to look – only to fall about laughing as we had “caught” our first fish – a flying fish had made a fatal judgement error and landed on our deck, needless to say it didn’t qualify for our “fillet and release” program so it was returned to the sea to maintain the food chain there. We did pick up a little speed as we continued on our way to Miami but the trip turned from being an 18hr easy passage to a total of 25hrs, mostly horrid one.

We both welcomed the sight of Government cut – our turning in point to Miami and eventually Dinner Key marina. A huge merchant ship followed us in through the channel, it was quite a sight to see it bearing down on us, luckily it turned into a dock before it became an embarrassing problem. As many of you know we are wary of bridge heights and with just one bridge between us and our destination we approached the Rickenbacker Causeway with trepidation, happily we cleared it without even the aerial dinging. We arrived at Dinner Key Marina at 15.00hrs to be met on the dock by Bob and Kathy (Sundancer). We tied up, hooked up to power and water, checked in, showered and then crashed for a couple of hours sleep. Once revived we were treated to dinner out by Bob and Kathy – it was a great meal with good company and whilst we may have been a bit monosyllabic we really appreciated it, thanks guys. After satisfying our appetites it didn’t take long for us to fall into bed and catch up on some much needed sleep.
One sad thing that came out of the conversation that night was that Bob and Kathy had decided to alter their travel plans and continue on to the Keys rather than cross with us to the Bahamas. They have a few commitments in about 6 weeks time and as the weather has been delaying us rather more than we expected they were going to run out of time to do the things that they wanted to do. We understand their decision and will miss their company. We hope that you have a fabulous time and some better weather as you head down the Keys, keep in touch – Skype is free!!!!!!!

Monday 13th November

Fort Pierce

Own up, how many of you are sick of seeing Fort Pierce as the heading - well if you aren't we definately are. As to be expected on the 13th of the month, the planets aligned to destroy any plans we had for leaving here today. We were told the riggers would be here between 9 and 10 this morning. They didn't lie so much as twist the truth - the riggers were certainly here - on someone else's boat!! There were 2 boats needing "things" ahead of us. By 15.30hrs Gerry ( ever the patient one) had had enough of "hurrying up and wait" and went to find out when the riggers would get to us - tomorrow as it turns out!

So I guess it was a wasted day in some ways but hell - the deck has never looked so shiney. Gerry amused himself by doing stuff that no one will ever notice and I lazed around reading my book. We did take time out to walk to the supermarket, cook dinner and stagger to the bar for just one drink. I guess it will be an early night tonight as we need all the beauty sleep we can get, and we need to be up at dawn "incase the riggers arrive early" ha ha ha. Fingers crossed for tomorrow, a quick fixing of the rigging and then a favourable tide for us to be able to get out of the Marina and on with the trip.

Sunday 12th November

Fort Pierce

Another day of waiting - it's so hard to do when we really just want to be on our way, especially as our travelling companions on Sundancer are on their way south towards Miami where we will eventually catch up with them. More cleaning and polishing has been on the agenda today along with re-housing some of our canned foods. I made the mistake of opening the freezer and finding that a bag of chicken breasts had defrosted, this meant I had to do something with them so out came the cooking pots and I now have enough chicken and broccoli a la king to feed us for the next couple of days. I did vacuum bag it so we will have that as a meal when we are under way and can't be bothered cooking anything else. We have also finally managed to do an inventory list of all the cans and packets of food we have on board, I now know what I need to stock up on when we reach Miami. Just for the fun of it I've vacuum bagged flour, washing powder, desert mixes, dried fruit, rice snacks and toilet rolls (not as many as Lorie did!!!) all into individual portion sizes ( no not the toilet rolls - those are one or two rolls to a pack) in the hope that we will be able to monitor and manage our stores. Of course we are rapidly running out of chocolate chip cookies - thank goodness there is a publix supermarket nearby! I'm sure Bob and Karen will be shocked to hear that the inside of the boat is all neat and tidied away - we took a picture to prove it - see above! ( it's also to show those who haven't seen our boat what the interior of the salon is like.) Fabric Floozies take note the pin dolls are on the column in the left hand picture - you are all with us!

If you are reading this blog, let me know what else you'd like me to include and I'll do my best, obviously I can only update it when I have an internet connection so if there is a gap you have to be patient.

Saturday 11th November

Fort Pierce

As we are stuck here in the marina until we have the jib problem sorted out we have been keeping busy with the mundane things in life. We are being kept company in the slip by a couple of pelicans who seem to have made the poles next to our slip their home, they are amazing to watch as they land and almost overbalance then tuck their bodies up and sleep on a place no bigger than a dinner plate. We have also been aware of a clicking sound coming from below the keel since being in the marina,our conclusion is that it must be the crabs in the water trying to munch their way through our hull. Of course this has yet to be proven correct!

Gerry has done a good job of cleaning the decks and canvas - much needed as everything was covered in salt water from our trip to this point. To ensure that the riggers have enough room to carry out the work required to the jib furling system we have moved the dingy off the bow and it is now floating alongside us in the slip, we will have to take the jib off the furler before they come, a job we are leaving until there isn't a breath of wind which would make taking it down hard. I cleaned out the stern lockers as they had taken on some sea water, dried out everything and then repacked them, after that I was directed to a below decks job - varnishing the newly completed cabinetry. Once I'd completed the first coat I decided to catch up on my reading until dinner time.

Mid afternoon we waved goodbye to Sundancer, Bob and Kathy had finished installing their new radar and were heading out of the marina. We had a call later to say they were anchoring just outside and would be doing the trip to Miami in short hops over the next few days, we wish you a pleasant trip and the first one to Miami buys the drinks!!!!! (Guess that will be you).

We spent the evening in the marina lounge watching some TV and enjoying being off the boat where the varnish fumes were somewhat overwhelming.

Friday 10th November

Fort Pierce, Florida.

27.28.050 N

80.19.635 W

Well today has been a mixed bag of success. Gerry has managed to fix ( we hope) the generator problem by adding a small pump to the fuel intake line - it seems to be working OK now, lets just hope it stays that way when we take off again.

On the other hand the jib is a problem, the riggers came this morning to assess the problem and they will be back on Monday morning - hopefully to fix it.

I did boring stuff like laundry and cleaning the cockpit this morning whilst Gerry did his "fixing stuff".

Then this afternoon Gerry had to go up the mast again to drop a new halyard through it, luckily for me Bob ( Sundancer) was here and did the honours of hoisting Gerry aloft - thanks Bob, I know how hard it is!

We have debated whether or not to go out to anchor for the weekend and then come back into the dock on Monday. As this weekend is Veterans day and there is an air show on just down the road from us we suspect that the intercoastal anchorage will be busy with boats speeding past and causing us to rock around uncontrollably. The marina wins - we will be staying here for the next few days and enjoying Hollywood showers and lots of rum.

Gerry has just come in from cleaning the decks so it's time to sign off and enjoy some rum thingies and pre dinner nibblies.

Thursday 9thNovember

Fort Pierce, Florida.

27.28.050 N

80.19.635 W

We decided that we needed to go into the closest Marina to sort out our jib problem. So after a hasty breakfast we headed into Harbour Town marina and the luxury of unlimited power and water. We unfortunately discovered another small problem today - our generator seemed to be struggling at times to keep running. It meant a day of frustrations and heavy duty work. Gerry had to go up the mast to see if he could find a reason for the halyard breaking, and guess who had to winch the him up there - he really needs to lose some weight! The bad news on the jib was that it looks like a job for the riggers - oh well that's what BOAT stands for - Break Out Another Thousand! So the riggers are coming to assess the problem tomorrow. On to the generator - Gerry suspects a fuel starvation problem when the fuel tank is below half full and thinks that inserting a small pump to help lift the fuel will solve the problem - will see tomorrow.

Sundancer also had a problem on the way down - their radar didn't work so they are going to have to get that fixed. I thought cruising was fixing your boat in EXOTIC places - I feel cheated as Fort Pierce isn't exotic, but at least it has the spare parts and the people who can fix the problems. We hired a car and chased around to get the parts for the generator then kicked back with a dinner and a couple drinks at the marina. Again it was an early night to catch up on some sleep.