Today was quite productive and I got a lot of loose ends tied up as well as ran a bunch of errands in the rain. The paperwork for US Coast Guard Documentation has been mailed off and the order for new lettering placed. (name change ceremony date will be posted soon) The lettering is being done by a local shop and placement of that, along with the USCG paperwork will mean this boat is officially renamed. This name was picked out before the boat was even bought and I'm excited to see it come to fruition. The boat name is currently Madison LynScot, and I can't quite explain how much I dislike that name. It just doesn't fit and It's been a pain in the butt every time we have gotten on the radio. I'm also sick of people asking me if I'm Scott! Soon she will take on her new name and a new chapter with us..
I spent a decent portion of my childhood growing up in Hawaii (military brat) and have always felt a connection with the culture there. Even though I'm Haole as hell I still feel it had a great impact on me.
Kainoa
Nashville, TN
Meaning : Kainoa is The Sea, with no restrictions, of the sea or the free flowing ocean; the name.
Origin: Hawaiian
When we bought this boat in Indiantown and had just pulled out on the river to make our way to the keys we turned on Pandora radio and this song came on the radio. It was one of those moments where your hair stands up on the back of your neck and you can't believe what you are hearing/seeing. Here we just bought a boat and had planned on naming it Kainoa and as we pull out of the slip and start the trip this song (I had never heard btw) comes on the radio as if to say "you are doing the right thing". The chances of those things all lining up are astronomical, beyond numbers and yet there it was coming eerily out of the speakers. Jessica and I just smiled as I held the wheel and steered the course.
So I'm hoping in a couple weeks we will have an official date and will take plenty of pictures of the event.
Other Projects
I've worked out a deal with a friend and will be installing dinghy davits on the back of the boat. These will help out in more ways than one. It will give us a way to store our dinghy out of the water, as well as become real estate for solar panels. I'm hoping once the weather clears we can get to work putting them in and then getting the panel installed.
New battery bank will be ordered right before moving back to the mooring ball and a new inverter will be wired to the entire boats 110 outlets providing power to all while away from a dock. This with the new bank will make life a lot easier.
Cleaning the current fuel tank, polishing the fuel, removing an old water heater and then replacing it with a day tank. I plan on using the 60 gallon tank more for storage than to run off of, and will put in a small 15 gallon tank fed by the large one to run the engine. Multiple filters will help make sure I don't end up dead in the water, should I need my engine. Other than that odds and ends are being done daily.
The weather has been less than stellar the past week and it looks like rain for the immediate future. There are also a few things I'm keeping an eye on out there that might develop into something interesting for us. A hurricane off the coast of Mexico could easily track into the Gulf and then reform/build and there is a low pressure system off the coast of Africa I'm watching. Funny enough, most of our major storms develop from low pressure systems that come off the western coastline of Africa. We are a little nervous but know we have friends that are veterans at riding out the season here.
This afternoon we had a good line of storms come through, thankfully I wasn't out on the water because it produced a couple intimidating, yet beautiful waterspouts. One came down, stretched sideways, descended further and then went sideways again. The other looked straight as an arrow and appeared to be heading our direction. It ended up fizzling out and the storm blew through and was gone in less than 30 minutes. The sun came back out and all was well with the world.
Fishing & Visiting
So it was a busy week last week and it was a very fulfilling visit from my Grandparents. We had great weather pretty much the entire week, and I was even able to take them out on the water! Our biggest concern was Grandma being able to board the boat and it was one of the biggest reasons we moved out of the mooring field to a dock. Well she is one tough cookie and climbed right aboard! (Her nickname is Cookie btw ;-)
The day started off with firing up the old diesel, which would be doing all the work since I wasn't going to raise the sails. Now normally I hate using an engine at all and love just sailing, however it was me, the two kids and my Grandparents, whose combined age is over 160 years. Not exactly a "crew" (Figures Jessica had to work the only day that it was practical to go out.)
I hooked up the external tank, bled the line and fired the engine. With a clackity clack, she responded and purred like a kitten. This is one of the biggest projects we want to get resolved, our fuel cell is 60 gallons and needs to be cleaned/polished badly. I spoke with All Keys Diesel today and hopefully within the next week will have that done.
I let the engine run for about 20 minutes and finished readying the boat while they relaxed in the cockpit under the shade of the bimini. It was a warm, sunny day with barely a cloud in the sky. We backed out of the slip and motored through the mooring field where I was able to show them our old neighborhood and the city marina. It was high tide so I decided to go out Sisters Creek and we putted through the mangroves, past radio free America and Demi Moores old house to the open ocean. The water was fairly calm, with just a slight roll to it and we headed out to the spot I wanted to dive and anchor. The spot is Washerwomen Shoal, a structure about 1 1/2 miles out of the Sisters Creek channel. A great place to snorkel with the kids, as well as lots of sandy patches to drop the hook and enjoy the day. The nice thing about taking your house with you is you have all the comforts of home right there wherever you are. It's nice to have my fridge, water, drinks, food and fixins all where they normally are and not packed into a cooler etc.
Colby & Peyton dropped the anchor and we swung the inflatable off the deck with a halyard, lashed it to the side of the boat and used it as our swim ladder. Colby did a great job of picking the spot and the anchor bit into a nice rock on the bottom while I backed down hard on the throttle, we were set. I let out about 100ft of pure chain, knowing it was overkill for the 10 to 15 ft of water we were in. But hey if I'm diving I wanna know the boat isn't going anywhere, PERIOD. The kids and I spent the next couple hours swimming around, diving, spearfishing some dinner and enjoying the beautiful day.
After a full afternoon I dove down and tugged the anchor from under the rock and we manually pulled the anchor, as well as the 100ft of chain. (this is where you regret the amount you let out) I then fired the engine and with a clackity clack we were off and motoring again. I had decided not to push my luck trying to enter Sisters Creek. Even though at 4'6" I can eek my way in, it gets a little sketchy sometimes. I decided to go all the way around and come through Boot Key Channel, which actually takes us right by Jessica's work so we could say hello. I set the auto pilot and sat back to enjoy the 30 minute trip while talking with Grandpa and discussing how we were going to clean the nice fish I had shot. In all we had a couple hogfish, a nice grunt and a barely legal 20 & 1/2 inch red grouper. (20" is the legal size and eyeballing it, it looked close) We motored by Mommies work and she came to the railing to say hello.
Right before I got to the slip I felt the engine have a little hiccup and felt that feeling in my stomach that something was wrong and this was about to get interesting. We went to pull into the slip, only to abort after seeing the dinghy Colby tied to the dock had slipped underneath and was blocking our spot. I turned down the canal and asked someone to move the dinghy while I turned around. Thankfully they were able to get down there and pull it out of the way. As I began to execute my 3 point narrow canal turn (click on the link for a giggle) the engine coughed one more time and then died. Lucky for me I had enough momentum to finish the turn and ended up pulling into someones personal seawall dock with such a smooth docking you'd swear I meant to do it! I then went below to assess the problem which turned out to be my own fault and I'm actually amazed it went this long. I had left the vent closed and the engine had sucked the tank into what resembled a collapsed milk jug. I opened the vent, bled the lines and she fired right up. We untied and pulled into the slip without a hitch, where we were safely tied up and ready for happy hour at Lazy Days in no time. (best happy hour in Marathon btw)
Here is a video of the day and a couple dives prior all pieced into one.
There is also a better link HERE to the version with music
Current Projects
Well now that the kids are gone back to Michigan with my Grandparents, it's time to have a little fun with Jess and to get some stuff done. Right now I am working on several things and chipping away at what sometimes feels like a mountain.
1. I have a port window out and thanks to the previous owners fascination with 3M 5200 it has turned into a major project that involves me tearing the interior out of the bathroom.
2. I am working on getting the boat Coast Guard documented in our names with a name change to Kainoa. Of course this means I am also getting the boat lettering done by a local business and there will be an official name change ceremony in the future.
3. Working with All Keys Diesel to get the fuel cell cleaned, polished and back in working order. I am going to completely redo the Racor fuel filter setup and hopefully this will solve the engine trouble we have had. Every problem we have had has been related to fuel, never mechanical.
4. Replacing a bilge pump, adding a check valve, as well as wiring up a backup pump and alarm
5. Dealing with a local sail loft to make us a new much larger jib to improve the boats performance under sail. This should help us get more drive and propel the boat in lighter winds as well as balance the boat.
6. Still looking for the best ways to mount solar panels, shopping for the best ones once I figure it out and then installing them.
7. Installing a brand new battery bank, inverter/charger and wiring it all so when we go back into the mooring field every plug in the boat will be hot, not just the inverter.
There are many other non boat things going on as well, but they are even more boring than the above and include excitement such as registering our car here. That is an entire story in itself......Maybe next time.. Nah I'll spare you..
So the weather has been great lately and it's been a good time to work on projects and get in the water! After a week that was rainy and dreary, a high pressure system moved in it's been amazing. But even when it was raining, it was still nice and warm and there were several breaks of sunshine ;-) Gotta love living in a tropical paradise!
The kids and I went out on Wednesday to go diving and spearfishing. We took the new dinghy we picked up, it's a 12' Livingston cat hull and it's a very stable boat with a lot more room then our rollup. Our other dinghy is now stored so it won't get ruined with day to day, back and forth trips before we even go cruising.
We left the dock before 10am and made our way to Washerwomen Shoal a little over 1 mile offshore for our first stop. The water there is shallow with some reef structure and there are a few ledges where it drops off to 20/25 feet. It has Yellowtail, Grouper, Snapper and Hogfish, as well as all the other reef dwellers. We dropped anchor, got in the warm water and the visibility was about 50 feet. We fished there for a while and did get one fish.
Friends showed up and we moved to a few different spots, saw several things while diving including a pod of dolphin that swam up underwater to say hello. While that sounds sweet and all, the sight of something that large swimming up to you unexpected has a certain pucker factor until you realize what it is. They swam up to the kids and I at about an arms length away a couple times then took off (I guess we were boring) and Peyton took off after them! I had to use her full name to get her to turn around and come back to the boat. Any parent knows what I'm talking about ;-)
Colby also got his first fish and while it wasn't a keeper I know he was excited, though a little sad he wasn't big enough and became a part of the life cycle of the reef. We always try to be good stewards of the ocean when we are out, and only taking what we need is one of our rules. The fact is if you spear a fish and it's not legal it has to go back, which is sad since his life is already taken.
Right before we got into the boat I spotted a Lionfish and grabbed Colby's polespear and went down to dispatch him. Lionfish are an invasive species here in the Florida Keys and are destroying the eco system. They eat all the young fish and are making quite an impact on the life cycle. They are also tasty, however poisonous and deliver a nasty sting. We were in the water for a total of 8 hours and to be honest we could have been there for 8 more, we were having so much fun.
Our catch for the day.
Projects are getting done here at the dock and I'm working on re-bedding a port window at the moment the previous owner decided to permanently install with a product called 3M 5200. Lets just say that little decision he made has caused me a ton of grief, but I'll figure it out. The next project will be the renaming of our boat officially to Kainoa. The current name "Madison LynScott" has got to go! It's long, nobody ever gets it right and I'm sick of people asking if I'm Scott ;-)
Work is going well and I've moved up in the world to Assistant Manager at the store, Jessica is enjoying her job at Burdines Waterfront Tiki Chiki and things are all going as good as we could have ever imagined.
My Grandparents will be in town Saturday and I'm hoping they can finally see why it is we made this move. I don't think they quite get why we uprooted our kids and sold all our stuff to move on a boat, then move to the Keys. I'm sure if they see how much the kids have grown and how good this environment is they will understand.
More detailed updates to come after they leave with more pictures of projects etc.
