Fishing, Visiting With Family & Working On Projects

"They call it stormy Monday",,,,  or Wednesday

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) 

We had a great dinner, came back, then cleaned the fish and put them in the fridge for the next nights meal. I ended up making sautéed grouper in the cast iron skillet with a parmesan rice dish on the side. It was one of the best fish dishes I've ever eaten. I try to be conscious of what I am eating and realize where it came from. There is something amazing about catching or taking your own food, preparing it and being grateful for what you've been given. I realize food doesn't just magically appear from the grocery store and this really brings that thought to the forefront. It's a great lesson for the kids to learn and I want them to understand we don't kill for sport, we take only what we need for food.   

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..