St. Augustine

By Capt. Scott Buckley

We traveled from Daytona to St. Augustine in a day thru the ICW and arrived at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina and secured a mooring buoy in the southern field.  The cruising guide warn of shoaling on this route and to honor the buoys and not the charts.  The buoys are continuously adjusted for shoaling while the charts are not.  At some points along the route the chart plotter shows the boat on land when clearly we are not.

SV Simpatico also secured a mooring and SV Alice Mae went to her home port at Fish Island Marina.   St. Augustine is a pretty nice town.


The Southern Mooring Field at St. Augustine. You can't even see the Marina.

The St. Augustine Municipal Marina Building

 
The mooring set up is pretty nice here as well.  There is a water taxi into the dock, pump out boat, laundry showers and a nice lounge.  Did I mention they have WiFi.  The is an old fort there that shoots off a very loud cannon at all hours without warning a fellow.  I mean supposing your down in the hold trying to disconnect the power from something to get the boat ready for haulout and you are trying to be very careful and not short anything out and burn up the boat and while you are doing this and a very confined space BOOM.  The Captain soiled his drawers again. We would end up staying here for nearly two weeks and not leave until May 7th.

The St. Augustine Fort where they shoot that canon off to scar the sailor.

Dinghy Needs a Shave

The mooring field to the south is a considerable distance from the marina and dinghy dock.  Additionally there is a swift tidal current running thru the field.  This can make rowing very difficult and time consuming.  Because  we would need to go onshore a lot here in St. Augustine I had to figure out how to mount a motor to the wooden dinghy or inflate the blow up dinghy.  I first would try the wooden dinghy because we had already assembled it and had it in the water.  I did manage to get in on the wooden dinghy but I could not raise the motor up out of the water.  This would become significant later.

Just 2 weeks of growth.

It is amazing the amount of growth in just 2 weeks.  It also clogged up the intake on the outboard motor and made it run a little hot.

Changing Plans

St. Augustine was a bit of a turning point for us.  As I have been alluding to for a while we were discussing an ever change set of plans for our future. 
The original plans of that starry eyed couple from Texas was to sail from Texas to the Florida Keys and then the Bahamas for the winter and spring.  Then to return to the US and sail up the East Coast for the summer and hurricane season.  Perhaps to go as far as Maine.  We soon discovered thing were costing more than planned and some of the modifications to the boat were not working out as planned.  We had blown thru our maintenance budget in less than a year due to near by lightening strikes, a bad engine hour meter and all 3 house bank batteries gong bad while in the Bahamas.  Everything is so expensive in the Bahamas because it all has to be imported.
I won’t go too much into all the discussions that went into our decision as it may be a post all to itself.  It may help others in similar circumstances.  In St. Augustine we had a list of things to accomplish. 
1.  We had to find a place to pull the boat out of the water.
2. We had to buy a car.
3. We had to travel back to Texas and try to find jobs to make some money to pay for all of this.
Dave and Alice of SV Alice Mae again came to our rescue.  They took us around to the marinas in St. Augustine so I could get quotes to haul the boat and store her for 5 months.  Dave also loaned us a minivan so we could shop around for a used car.  Dave is a semi retired used car lot owner and it was pretty nice of him to loan us a car from his lot so we can look for a used car.  He quoted us a price on the car he loaned us and after 6 days of chasing down car deals I found I could not beat his offer and bought the used minivan from him.

In the mean time I had decided to haul the boat out in Green Cove Springs FL.  It was about 60 mile away by water and only 25 miles from St. Augustine by car.  We had to get ourselves ready to go back to Texas and the boat ready for storage.  We made lists and began checking things off.  I will make a post directly related to getting the boat ready as I am sure that will help people.  I did an internet search and found very little.  Most of what is written in related to hauling boats out up north where freezing is the issue.
We still had to get the boat to Green Cove Springs and that meant going thru Jacksonville and then up the St. John river.

15 things I never thought I would do……

By First Mate Tamera

This is a list of things that we do as cruisers that in my wildest dreams I would never thought I would be doing…..but now I do them on a regular basis.
1.  Smell my clothes to determine if they are clean – we have all done it at one time or another. Now  everything gets the smell test (except underwear – I still have some civility) after all most clothes get worn for several days before washing.
2.  Put my cell phone in a bag and hoist it up the mast to get a signal or hold it up above my head until Facebook finally appears.
3.  Take a bath in the sea and rinse off with little (and I mean very little) fresh water
4. Use such a small amount of toilet paper after doing #2 – that’s all I’m going to say about that.
5.  Get excited when laundry only costs $2.00 to wash and $2.00 to dry – especially after doing #1 on this list for a few weeks.
6.  Let my dishes pile up in the sink and then use 2 gallons of water to wash & rinse  - My goal is to use only one gallon – one step at a time grass hopper
7.  Eat dinner out of the pan I cooked it in – that is what college boys, single men (married men too) and now I know cruisers do it too – I like using plates and bowls to eat out of but than it messes with #6 on this list.
8.  Be concerned about the 12 volt power usage – I often hear “Are you done with the stove” or “are you still using that fan?”
9.  Say – Oreo’s are only $8.00
10. Run the 50 horsepower engine so I can have hot water – finally !!
11.  Buddy up on peeing so we don’t fill up the holding tank – the rule is you must ask the other person onboard if they have to pee before you actually flush.
12.  I never thought I would pass up a bath in an actual bathtub  – but I do.  Imagine a bath tub – Now imagine the same bath tub that an unknown number of people have used and the last time it was cleaned is unknown….not me…..I’ll pass thank you very much.  Not putting this naked butt on that surface.
13.  I never thought I would loose track of what day it was until I got Dementia or Alzheimer's.  I often found myself totally oblivious to what day of the week it was.  I have to ask other cruisers and that often sparks a conversation about who knows what day it really is – we usually come to a close enough conclusion and go with that – sometimes were right, sometimes were wrong.  It’s always Saturday to us retired folks.
14.  Consider doing laundry at 4:00 am – because no body else would be crazy enough to do it then right.  WRONG !!  The problem with this is we cruisers are like minded individuals.  That means we all think alike -  meaning there is a whole group of us at 4:00 am in line to do laundry…gee whiz people !!
15.  I never thought I would have to make a list of things I never thought I would do….until now.  I am sure there are more things I will do that I can add to this list…..feel free to add your “never thought I would do” items to my list.
Happy Cruising
Tamera

Sunsets

I LOVE SUNSETS - By Tamera Buckley


Every chance I get I:

1)  Make a rum enhanced coke zero
2)  Mozy up to the gazebo at the marina
3)  Enjoy a new and exciting view of the marina sunset

I never get tired of doing this and each sunset is awesome.

Here are a few for your enjoyment.

And just for added enjoyment we get storms too !!

This was a doozie from today.

Sometimes the worst stormy days bring the most beautiful sunsets in the evening.

Time to start mixing the coke zero with enhancements !!!

The Nudist and the Bloody Marys

By Scott Buckley (Captain)

Once again It has been a while since posting and it is not for lack of subjects.  I am not really sure where to start.  Some subjects are fun, some frustrating and some are going to be technical rants.  But for this one I think I will stick with fun.  Thus the title.

The live-aboard crowd here at Bayland Marina is a different sort of crowd and you would almost want to call them eclectic but there are some darker reasons for some about why they live on a boat and not like the rest of the world in a conventional land based enclosure. Some are tragic, some are financial and some are just too weird to spend much time on. Perhaps a better word for live-aboards is a group of people all affected by a similar psychosis. In my case the psychosis is a desire to be poor in my old age. My psychosis leads me to believe that regret will trump any comfort I will get out of working until I'm too old for a big old retirement nest egg.

There is a marina store here at Bayland that is run by a very kind lady named Cindy. My 1^st mate calls her Cindy-Lou because my 1^st mate refuses to call anything by its proper name but the 1st mate is adored by all so the name Cindy-Lou has stuck. I have made it a habit of going to the marina store on Sunday morning to read the paper that Mrs. Cindy buys for the advertisements. I really enjoy reading the paper, filling in the crossword puzzle and solving the Cryptograms. A crowd has started to gather at the marina store on Sunday mornings to socialize and hear me read the Dear Abby column using the accent of a dumbass country bumpkin. I may be guilty of embellishing the articles a little but it is always fun.  These gathering by the boat bound psychotics is called the Lab Lounge by the 1st mate.  It means "Live-aboard Lounge".  See adorable right? 

At these morning sessions we trade stories and information and generally gossip about those that did not show up that morning and the history of past boat bound psychotics (AKA BoBo-psychos). One of the couples at the marina are nudists. Actually they are practicing nudists but practice is perhaps the wrong word as they have gotten pretty good at being naked. They are in their 60’s and I believe have earned the right to hangout (so to speak) anyway they see fit. While one guy objects the rest of us are tolerant and maybe a little curious. For some reason the folks at the Lab-Lounge think they can ask me question about subject I have not professed to know anything about and that there is no evidence that I would know the answer yet all eyes will turn towards me while they wait for my answer. One such question was when nudist play volley ball, do they do it totally naked with all there bit flying around. I said I would assume they do but don’t actually know. What do they talk about?  I suggested maybe the price of sunscreen.  Again why would they ask me?

Anyway last Sunday the regular crowd of BoBo-psychos had gathered and the nudist was there.  Let's call him Buck Knotbare.  Anyway Buck was lamenting the fact he had offered to make bloody marys the week before and I and my 1st mate had taken off.  I explained that we had visitors down and  our absence was not a repulsion to him or to the bloody marys.   In fact I pointed out he was one of the most positive people I knew and that I always enjoyed a good bloody mary.  Well he said if I was serious he would go make some AND make some he did.  A whole gallon and they were good. 

So its Sunday morning and bunch of us BoBo's are sitting there at the Lab-Lounge on our second bloody mary with the nudist and I thought it might be a good idea that the group should ask the nudist directly about their curiosities.  Well they were tipsy enough to ask AND Buck was only too pleased to respond with all the required detail about the life style and the rules of naked comportment.  One of the questions was about naked volleyball.  I won't share the answers but it would appear a lot of balls were in play.

 

I share this story because it is one of the primary attraction for me to the cruising life style.  It is my belief that the wide variety of folks we will meet in our travels will be considered psychotic by some but we will all be suffering our madness together and enjoying the absolute crap out of it.

 

Learning to live aboard

By: Capt. Scott

Living Aboard 

This is the first post after moving aboard SV Kooky Dance our Caliber 40LRC.  There won't be many picture in this post because I am not so sure that living aboard is a visual thing.  Learning how do a lot of things again.  Learning how to deal with the differences (notice I did not say inconveniences). 

After living in our old house for 15 yrs. we had laid things out so they were very much to our liking, but there was room to work with.  Living on a boat you need to work with the limit room available and make that to your liking. 
 
So our plan was to outfit the boat with things that will make living aboard easy (yeah we thought that) but we were having problems finding place for everything and found ourselves constantly re-arranging to get to access to this or that.  We had missed the mark in our planning, but we had thought we might all along.

We are followers of the Drake & Monique on SV Paragon and had been watching a tour of a southern cross and the owner was commenting about when outfitting your boat to listen to the boat and let her tell you what she needs.  When he first said it I have to admit I was a little skeptical, but then it seemed like the boat started telling us what she needed.  OK so maybe by living on her you start to see what could be changed or added to make thing more functional and easier, but it sound more romantic believing the boat is sending you messages.

For example the hanging net we had for storing fruit ended up by default storing the vegetables.  As EVERYBODY knows citrus fruits accelerate vegetables aging (actually don't feel bad because I did not know this about vegetable aging until my lovely wife informed me and when it comes to vegetable aging there is no one I trust more).  So where to store round rolly  vegetables?  Tamera picked up these plastic strainers and I found a short piece of line and 5 minutes later we had a vegetable hangy down thingy.

 

People keep asking me what it is like to live on a boat and I am still formulating my answer.  It is winter so the cold factors in to our feelings and responses to this question.  For example; living on a boat is like living in a house except when you want to use the bathroom, take a shower or wash some clothes you need to walk to the end of the block no matter the weather and this has hit really hard in the 30 degree temps with 20 knot winds (wind chill in the teens).

 

First Mate Tamera here - I want to add my two cents worth on the subject of learning to live aboard.

 

One element that I had to learn to deal with is the control panel.  When I need to run the heater (and trust me, it this weather I want to run the heater) I need to turn off the water heater, microwave and stove in order to stay warm.  Well hunger soon sets in and I have to cook and do the dishes so I have to turn off the heater and turn the stove, microwave and water heater back on. It is a priority game but I am loving every minute of it. 

 

I am also learning how to cook meals ONLY for two without a bunch of left overs.  With limited fridge space I can't make a big pot of soup and store it in the fridge.  Space is a premium thing on a boat.  I am still learning how to shop, store and prepare our food, but once again I am loving every minute of it. 

 

Clothes are another issue.  I have moved things around a couple of times trying to find the right spot for everything.  Since we have returned to work I have to keep clothes somewhat wrinkle free.  Not easy to do when you don't have an iron any longer.  For right now the forward shower stall is where I keep most of the clothes that we wear to work and they stay somewhat unwrinkled.

 

Dishes are a small issue.  Living in a house we could eat a meal and then put the dishes in the dish washer and run it when it gets full.  On the boat we need to wash dishes by hand after each meal.  With such a small galley the space gets cluttered real fast if not maintained often.  This is not a big deal just something new we have to deal with.

 

I can not wait until spring in two months so we can work on our projects and get this show on the sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Becoming Live Aboards

Well we moved onto the boat last night. It was weird seeing the house so empty. It finally did not look like OUR house anymore.  


 I laid my house keys, shed key, mail key on the counter and drove away from the house that has been our home for the last 15 yrs.

 However, as soon as I step on board the boat later that same night I yelled "Honey I'm home!" so the neighbors could hear (the wind was really howling so maybe they didn't). Tamera made me a nice bowl of soup and we unpacked more things from the house that we don't have room for on the boat. As we survey the chaos below we understood more changes are coming.






 Tamera an I were giddy like teenagers with some great secret we could not tell anyone but each other.