Bimini (Not The Top, The Country)

We left our anchorage in Matecumbe around 5pm bound for Bimini. As we dodged lobster pots and made our way under the channel 5 bridge I began to wonder if we should have left a little earlier. Instead of taking the track I intended, I aimed for deep water to clear the lobster pots before dark. If you've never been sailing in the Florida Keys during lobster season it's hard for me to describe just how many of these styrofoam balls there are with long attached poly line that wraps in your prop and forces you to dive under the boat to free it. It's really a pain in the butt.. 

I made a beeline for the drop off as the sun began to set and replotted my course to Bimini. Making a crossing to Bimini, or any island in the Bahama chain involves crossing one of the worlds most powerful currents, the Gulf Stream.  It's not as simple as just aiming the boat towards your destination and sailing away, you have to take into account the current to end up in the right place. I plotted a course about 30 degrees south of Bimini and set sail. About 8:45 our autopilot decided to make a righthand turn and just quit working. It wouldn't engage, it would click but not take control. At the advice of a friend I checked the fuses and as many connections as I could get to. We had some decisions to make.. 

By this time it was dark and turning back meant we would surely wrap the prop in a lobster pot because we wouldn't be able to see them. Our choices were to return to our anchorage from the previous night, call the entire thing off and head back to Boot Key (which would also involve blindly navigating through traps), make our way to Miami ( 60 miles ) or push on and have one long night of non stop hand steering through the entire night. At one point we almost diverted to an anchorage and were willing to risk the lobster pots, when we finally decided to stay the course and continue on to Bimini. 

A couple hours later as we were sailing along we felt a drop in the temperature and the wind began to pick up. Before we left our anchorage that afternoon Jessica suggested we put a reef in the mainsail, a move that the day before had saved us some grief. This time I was wishing we had put 2 reefs in as the wind whipped up and I decided to tether in to drop the headsail. As I went forward and dropped the sail I found myself ankle deep in green water as the seas began to rise up. I quickly stuffed the sail down the hatch and retreated to the cockpit. The wind howled and continued to build along with the seas, as Jessica took the helm and I tended to the sheets. I let out the main and the staysail a bit to spill some of the wind. About 20 minutes later the winds began to subside and we had a few moments of peaceful sailing, though sloppy it felt great after what we just came out of. As we entered the Gulf stream the boat rocketed along and the stars came out like the sky was a jeweler displaying his gems.

The rest was short lived as we felt that familiar cool air and the sky began to light up with electricity. The wind began to build but we still had our reefed main and the staysail in the same configuration as the last squall, however this one was stronger.. The decision was made to drop the main and I reached for the tether as I watched water breaking over the bow. The boat rolled from rail to rail and as I was about to click in I took a glance at the wind indicator which read 30 something. Right before going forward I figured we would have a little huddle and go over how this was going to go down. The goal was to turn into the wind, drop the main and fall back off while I secured it, all while trying not to fall into the ocean. Colby was in the side well and his job was to relay to Jessica what I was saying (screaming). I took a deep breath, trying not to get a mouth full of Atlantic and yelled "Head up!", Colby repeated my command and Jessica responded quickly and with just enough helm for me to get it down. With a pocket full of sail ties I then rolled around while trying to secure the big main sail. I had also put about 25 feet of line in my pocket and I wound it around to help further secure it. I made my way back to the cockpit, unclipped my tether and felt great. It's hard to describe the rush of working on the foredeck while pounding into waves, just a bit of fear mixed with excitement and a great since of being alive. 

"They come on ya fast and they leave you fast" to quote the movie Captain Ron.. As the storm subsided we enjoyed the fast paced sailing the Gulf Stream provided. Now the next challenge of the night was to stay awake steering by compass, staring at that little globe makes you go cross eyed after hours. Without an autopilot and with the stream pushing me making the GPS compass unreliable it was the only way to go. We took shifts and had some hard fast rules and two teams to help keep each other awake, after all we had 12+ hours to go.
The rules were,

1. Nobody goes forward without waking the other crew up

2. No using the bathroom in the cockpit (mostly applied to the boys) 

3. Wake other crew if anything seems out of the ordinary. 

I left Jessica and Colby at the helm and went to lay down. Peyton disappeared into our cabin and that is where she stayed until the morning (some partner!) I awoke to Jessica's concern for a large vessel that seemed to be getting closer. After determining our courses were to close for comfort, I picked up the radio and hailed the large cruise ship. The ship was the Majesty Of The Seas and the captain responded very professionally. We lit up the sails with a spotlight to assist him in seeing our vessel and he responded via VHF agreeing to change course and wishing us a good trip. The night continued without incident and we switched back and forth until dawn. 

We spotted land and made our way to the anchorage I had picked out. The plan was to drop anchor, raise up our quarantine flag and pass out for several hours before launching the dink and going to shore to clear in. We turned into the wind, dropped the anchor and watched it fall into the white sand. I signaled Jessica to back down to really set it and watched the 55lb Rocna disappear as she throttled up. I let the boat fall back, let out some more rode and once again had Jessica back down hard on the throttle, the bow dipped hard and I applied the snubber.  We were there! 

For about 15 minutes......

After rolling violently Jessica didn't ask, she demanded we raise anchor and head in for the night. We hadn't had any sleep in the past 24 hours and it was time for some relief. I pulled the anchor and we made our way to Browns marina right inside the inlet. Pulling into a slip with the current ripping wouldn't be a big deal with a power boat, pulling in with a sailboat that's another story. I slid in and tied off, ready to just pass out, however first I had to clear in. When you arrive by private boat in another country only the captain is allowed to leave the boat to clear in. No other crew can set foot on land until this is done, needless to say they were itching to get off the boat.. The trip to immigration was uneventful and the people here are very friendly. After I returned Jessica and I took the kids for a little island exploration. We ended up back at the marina after walking almost all of north Bimini and the entire family passed out in beach chairs.

Wild Ride

The day started off with a run to Autozone to add a fuel boost pump to the system and help the engine get fed the right amount of fuel. The amount of rise from the tank to the engine was just a bit too much for the on engine fuel pump to pump, now I'm force feeding it diesel.. 

59 dollar piece of mind!

Anchored safely in Matecumbe, long day, got our butts handed to us a couple times.. Rough enough that I've got water intrusion in the bow from it going under water several times. Other than the rough weather the trip went smooth as silk. At one point we were double reefed, staysail with no jib up and the waves were breaking over the bow and the rail was down.. Highest I saw was 32 kts and less than 200 yds in any direction visibility with blinding downpours. The good news is the storms only lasted about 20 minutes each, but that was the longest 40 minutes I've felt in a while. Staging here for our trip, we'll see what the weather brings over the next day or so.. If the weather holds we will be leaving here tomorrow night for our destination ;-)

Updating our Delorme InReach so you can follow our tracking every 10 minutes.. Stay tuned to see where we end up!

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We Are Still Alive

The blog... I know I've said it before, but it's really hard to write a blog when all you've got to write about is the daily grind. I can only write so many times about the same things and so I concentrated on life stuff.. Now I have some things to write about. There have been quite a few changes since my last update and I'm sure I will forget many of them but here we go... 

My friend, co-writer and partner in crime musically Ty Thurman has moved to Marathon. Ty and Debbie had their boat shipped from Nashville, TN down here and are not only staying at the city marina, but Ty is also working there. The best part is we are playing music again, except instead of playing in Nashville for candles, we are playing for crowds of people and getting paid! Which brings me to another big change.. As of last Tuesday I am no longer working at the Marathon City Marina.. I will be playing music with Ty and working on my boat as my full time job. That is when I return, next news.....

This evening I untied the dock lines and we are headed out for a little adventure with the boat.. Now I have something to write about! Jessica has 3 weeks off and what better time to shake the boat down before we take off long term then a few weeks underway. I am not going to divulge where we are headed until we get there, but this is by far our biggest adventure with our new boat.. More on that later.. Now for my biggest news..

On May 11th I woke up and finally decided I was done being overweight.. I had picked up 50+ lbs when I was on chemotherapy and hadn't been able to shake it in over 5 years.. I had tried every diet imaginable from eating less than 800 calories per day to all kinds of desperate ways to shed the pounds.. When I woke up on May 11th I had spent about 2 weeks reading about a new way of eating, not a diet, but a life change.. That morning I woke up and began my new way of life, here I am a little over 3 months later and I have dropped nearly 50 lbs and am excited to say i'm getting thinner everyday. I feel great, have tons of energy am able to do way more during the course of a day and can't imagine how I lived with that extra weight. I am staying the course and actually enjoying this new way of eating. If anyone is interested it is called Primal Blueprint.. 

Now there are several diets that claim to do this, do that, and some do in the short term. I have gone from 3x per day on blood pressure medicine to just once and am about to get rid of one medicine completely ( high bp was also a result of chemo) My last check of bp, cholesterol etc revealed 

BP 110/72 

HR 60

Cholesterol 133 ( down over 30 points from before May 11th) 

More details on what's going on soon.. Stay posted to see where we end up in a few days.. I'm glad to be back and glad to have something to write about.. 

Cory

May Update

Well the month of May was a big one for the Young family. It marked my 5 year anniversary of finishing my chemotherapy and my return to something I love. One of the drugs I had been given for treatment came with the promise of never scuba diving again. I was told there would be no chance I would ever dive again after receiving Bleomycin, in the Dr's words "either way you won't be scuba diving again" Meaning dead or cured with Bleo, either way it wasn't happening. 

For the past several years I just accepted that as fact and never questioned it. I had done a bit of research and found quite a bit of information supporting the no dive rule, so that was that.. Or so I thought. 

After living down here in the Keys and seeing all the wonderful reef, with it's staggering corals, tropical fish and wrecks to explore, I began to question it again. What I found was most of the information about diving after Bleo treatment was from the 80's. I dug a little deeper and was able to find several articles most recently from 2011 that stated an otherwise healthy male that received Bleo treatment without radiation would be very low risk for an incident. I also searched DAN (Divers Alert Network) and found backing information there. After looking at my accumulative dose I made an informed decision to pursue getting certified. I also decided this would be something I would do with Colby. 

With my Dr on board and after some tests Colby and I went down to our local dive shop and signed up. 

The instructors were amazing and Colby did great, he was a natural. We breezed through the class and now have our PADI Open Water certifications. This allows us to dive to 60ft, fill tanks, etc. We are now signed up for the Advanced Open Water class which will include a dive to 120ft, a wreck dive, a night dive, underwater navigation, and another elective dive. This doesn't make us advanced divers, but it does build on what we learned already. An advanced diver only gets advanced from the number of dives not a class. We have been diving several times since getting our certs and Colby has found something he loves, it's nice to have that to do together. He's a built in dive buddy!

Here is a video with clips of our 3rd open water dive including our CESA (Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent)

The next video is from a diving trip taken with our friends Dan and Lupe, we checked out Flagler's barge and then some deeper reefs. We ended up getting the biggest fish while freediving at 40ft, not on scuba. 

After Advanced Open Water Colby will be moving on to the Rescue Diver course where he we have to wait until he is 18 to get his Divemaster or Instructor certification. Colby might very well turn this into a career or integrate it into his career in Marine Biology. He's got plenty of time to figure it out, but either way Jess and I figure it's an ace in the hole for him. His Grandfather has also been extremely supportive of his interest in diving and has helped get him gear and pay for some of his instruction. With our Achilles and 20hp Yamaha, getting out to the reef to dive is a quick trip. We can throw our tanks and gear in the dinghy and head out just about any day, even on days I work there is still plenty of daylight left. 

OTHER NEWS

 To be honest our day to day life leaves very little to write about, but lets see what I can dig up. 

The kids are almost done with school for the year, they have done a great job and have really stayed on top of their learning. This summer they will be spending a bit of time with their Grandparents in Michigan both my Grandfather and Jessica's parents. 

Our latest project is still the arch that is being built, tomorrow a template will be made and then the finishing touches will be put on before installing it. I will make sure to post several before and after shots of the install. 

Things have slowed down at the marina as boats have made their way back north, we can make left turns again and the grocery store is finally a place you can go without experiencing cart rage.

There is another piece of exciting news, however I'm not at liberty to let the cat out of the bag until I get the ok. I will say it involves music becoming a part of my life again ;-) 

Till next time. .

S/V Thin Line