Safe Boating with the Full Boat Body Condom

October 30, 2006

Sunday, October 22, 2006 - Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, FL
By Tom

Boat projects and final provisioning continue. We hope to roll out of here by Wednesday or Thursday, but I'm not sure we'll be ready.

I spent the morning installing new pulleys for the engine tilting mechanisms that allow the boat's main engines to be retracted from the water when under sail. I don't know if they've ever worked right since we've owned the boat, but 40 dollars later, they do now.

After the pulleys were installed, I pulled apart our auto pilot and tried to identify the problem. I asked the guys on the PDQ owners forum about it and they seem to think we need a new belt. I don't see how the belt is doing it, but I ordered one from West Marine anyway. It should be here Tuesday, so we'll see.

By the way, thanks to fellow PDQ 36 owner, Ed from Alabama. He has a few spare drive units of the same type as ours and he has sold us one at a very reasonable price. Hopefully we're just getting it for spare parts, but if the new belt doesn't do the trick, I'll be swapping out the entire drive unit. The check is in the mail Ed.

After the auto pilot debacle, I finished installing our new wind gen blades. We are now back up and generating. Well, we would be if the wind would start blowing. Post wind gen, I had to rewire one bank of the solar panels as they stopped charging. Not sure what happened there, but it's fixed now.

Around 1 pm, we dinghied over to the River Deck Cafe to watch some football before returning to the boat to listen to the NASCAR race. We snacked our way through the afternoon with cheese, salami and French bread, so we skipped dinner.

At sunset, the no-see-ums showed up again, so we buttoned up the boat and switched on the air conditioner. It was a very pleasant and cool night on board. The forecast is for a mega cold front to push through tomorrow during the day and it is suppose to cool us off down into the low 70's. I don't know if I mentioned it, but it has been over 90 for the last week.

Tomorrow we brave public transportation to stock up on more food stuffs. Stay tuned.

Monday, October 23, 2006 - Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, FL
By Tom

Wow! Ok, so the cold front came through around 3 am this morning. I know because I was awake and I watched the freezing cold come across the area. At 3 am it was 75, but at 6 am it was only 59! Suck ass!

It was kind of scary how quickly it got cold. I kind of felt like I was in the Day After Tomorrow movie. Pretty freaky huh? Anyway, the ferrets were really happy about the sudden downshift in the ambient temperature and celebrated by not coming out of their little cage cocoon all day.

Despite the cold, I fought the auto pilot for the better part of 4 hours, but to no avail. Why can't this piece of crap see my power? Trust me, just like Steve's mom, it will, or else it will learn to swim.

After my abject failure with the auto pilot, I worked on putting several other miscellaneous parts back together. I also called Dad and asked him to forward our mail here to the marina as we expect to be here for several more days.

Dinner was grilled chicken breast sandwiches with a side of barbecued grill fries. Most delicious. We broke out the flannel quilt before turning in for the night. Brrrr.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, FL
By Tom

This morning, we went into town on the 9:05 am bus to retrieve our new auto pilot belt. We also hiked several miles in the wrong direction in an attempt to find the Albertson's to procure cheese. Somewhere along the line we made a wrong turn and Amy had to ask a passing bus driver for directions.

Armed with proper directions, we quickly found the Albertson's, but we were denied our cheese because they were out of our brand. Shitty death!

We substituted a medium cheddar for our traditional extra sharp. Neither one of us is happy about this at all. We may try again when we get to Lake Worth, but it is like a four mile walk and as we all know, no one ever walks anywhere in Florida.

Back on the boat, I tore into the auto pilot. After 20 minutes, it became clear that the belt was not going to fix the problem. I hate West Marine. I hate them so much. I guess it isn't really their fault, but it is pretty convenient to blame them.

I have a pretty good idea what's wrong with the auto pilot, but I'm not quite sure what to do about it. I plan to sleep on it and try again tomorrow.

In other news, we went to the Riverdeck Cafe for happy hour. The place is only ok, but during happy hour they offer half priced drinks, so that makes up for their other shortcomings.

We returned to the boat around 5 pm and I cooked salmon steaks with a few spicy shrimp and Amy contributed some fresh veggies. Mila and Milo love salmon and as such were both in attendance for dinner. Afterwards, we listened to satellite radio for an hour or two before turning in.

Tomorrow we attempt to cheat death once again and brave the Vero Beach public transportation system, this time as we head for Walmart, which in fact requires the use of two buses as well as a dreaded bus transfer. Oh no!

Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, FL
By Tom

Well, we survived our foray to Walmart via the local bus system. We managed to get everything left on our list and I think we may now be ready to go. We also had to go to Home Depot to replace the Riyobi 18 volt cordless drill that I managed to drop in 14 feet of Vero Beach goo while working on a dinghy bracket. Damnit!

Outside of the drill failure, I managed to get a lot done today. I added some new brackets for holding the oars in the dinghy, rebuilt the gas propane system to rid ourselves of some recurring gremlins, fixed the main sheet traveler hook up and finally (and most importantly) I beat the auto pilot into submission.

Auto pilots worldwide will now fear my auto pilot fixing abilities! I had to drill out 4 of the 8 internal wheel thingies and replace them with thru-bolts and lock nuts, then remove the tension handle and drill and tap a new tightener for engaging the pilot. So far so good, but the real test will come when we move the boat.

Dinner was grilled steak and potatoes with some green veggie things that I couldn't identify. Needless to say I did not partake in those.

Thursday, October 26, 2006 - Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, FL
By Tom

We were up and at it early this morning in an attempt to finish up provisioning so we can leave Vero tomorrow.

Amy set out on the 11 am bus to hit the bank for cash, the bookstore for books, and the grocery for last minute fresh stuff. I stayed on board and worked on completing a myriad of boat projects.

I forgot to mention it the other day, but Amy finally drove the new dinghy/engine combo. She did quite well and had no problem starting and then driving us to shore. She may be ready for solo-ing sometime soon.

Amy returned to the boat around 2:30 and I wrapped up my boat work shortly there after. Once we cleaned up, we dinghied over to the Riverdeck Cafe for happy hour before returning to the boat for dinner. We met another two couples off of boats also heading south and we shared a few drinks with them before returning to our boat for dinner.

I cooked grilled lemon pepper salmon with a Caribbean jerk shrimp appetizer and Amy made her side salad. Milo stole mine while I was at the grill and thus I was spared having to eat anything green. After dinner clean up, the ferrets and I played online poker while Amy read in her cabin.

For the record, never try and bluff a weasel. They always seem to know.

Friday, October 27, 2006 - Manatee Pocket, Stuart, FL
By Tom

We dinghied into the marina around 8 am and took our last, long hot shower. While Amy was finishing up, I checked us out and by 9 we were back on the boat and tossing off the mooring lines.

Our destination for today was Manatee Pocket, a whopping 30 miles further south. We had pretty bad weather most of the way there and we also got caught at the Fort Pierce North Bridge waiting on repairs to be completed.

I know those kind of things have to be taken care of, but it didn't seem right to me that we had to wait over two hours to get a lift of the bridge. There were several other boats stuck as well and some of them were quite vocal on their radios about how displeased they were.

Surprisingly, I kept my mouth shut so as to avoid incurring any further delays. Eventually the construction workers broke for lunch and then we got to move through the bridge. For the record, the Fort Pierce Bridge attendant is a major ass munch. All he kept saying to everyone was "I can't tell you when it will be open. Drop your anchor and wait". I mean, how hard would it have been for him to just ask one of the construction dudes? Ass.

With the two plus hour penalty, we didn't arrive at Manatee Pocket until around 4 pm. We anchored in 4 feet of water and then launched the dinghy. Amy insisted that we go to the pizza place and get a large pie for dinner. I like their pizza too, especially since I don't have to make it.

We returned with our pizza and ate it while fending off the invading hordes of ferrets. They too, it seems, like a good pizza.

We checked the forecast again this evening and the weather report is still calling for doom and gloom offshore until at least Wednesday of next week. I think our current plan is to sit tight here until Monday and then make the final jump to Lake Worth to wait for weather for our crossing. We're both getting antsy and it's time to go

Saturday, October 28, 2006 - Manatee Pocket, Stuart, FL
By Tom

It started raining yesterday evening around 8 pm and it hasn't stopped yet. Mostly it just sprinkles, but we've had a few storms roll by and really dump the rain. We stayed inside most of the day except for a half hour when I went outside during one of the heavier rain spurts and scrubbed down the deck. Amy said it looked like a scene from Idiots in the Mist.

After that, we mostly we hung out reading or computing and playing with the ferrets. In the afternoon we couldn't take being cooped up any longer and so we made a trip into the local water front bar called Finz for a few cold ones. I strategically timed this outing to coincide with the Nascar Busch series race which I got to watch in its entirety.

After watching cars go fast and turn left for two hours, we returned to the boat for dinner. Tonight we finished up the last of our salmon, along with grilled tequila lime shrimp, roasted bell pepper potatoes and a green string bean looking type thing that I did not eat.

Post dinner feast, we watched Stealing Harvard with Jason Lee and Tom Greene. It was pretty stupid. Tomorrow I am going to remove our broken propane hot water heater and steal its propane hose so that we can wire our grill directly to the main ship's propane source and stop using those little spin on canisters. If everything goes as planned, we are going to go back in to Finz around 2 pm to listen to Amy's Jamaican friends band play. A truly busy schedule indeed.

P.S. - We passed a boat the other day that was on a lift in someone's back yard. It was completely enclosed in what can only be described as a full boat body condom. I may need to make one of these. (See picture side right)