Busy, Busy, Busy

Liberty left the dock today for a six mile cruise, mostly because this has been the longest she has been idle since we left Erie in mid September.  We really need to exercise her engine and thrusters to help keep the growth off them as well as the bottom.  A rolling stone gathers no moss, in this case no grass on the bottom although you wouldn’t think that a week at a dock would be a problem.  Boat speed at cruising RPM’s is exactly what it is supposed to be.  We are also careful to run the genset twice a week just trying to keep it happy.

Heading out for a short cruise. Niece Lea came down to spend the weekend, Bobbi and her are checking out the sights from the bow.

We have actually been pretty busy since we arrived;  Dinner at Doug and Carol’s, dinner at Mike’s with Deb and Tim, dinner on Liberty with Doug and Carol, dinner on Liberty with Deb, Mike and Catherine.   Destiny needs their fuel tanks replaced so we spent a bunch of hours draining the port tank and another half day pulling the tank.  Normally, removing tanks from Pilgrims is a fairly painless process but Destiny is the only Pilgrim that was built having a 85 hp Perkins engine.  The engine is a little further aft than “normal” requiring removal of the exhaust elbow from the engine or sawing the tank up to extract it.  We chose the latter.  That is the short version of the story, the long version is much more “involved” and it took the better part of three days for a number of reasons.

Mike checking out the tank pieces.  A new tank is on order and once we install it and transfer the fuel from the old port tank to the new starboard tank we can repeat the process.  This is a lot more fun when it isn’t your boat and you aren’t paying the bills.

There is a lot of activity on the dock on Monday and Thursday mornings between 0930 and 1030.  That is when the marina pump out crew shows up to do it’s thing.  Everybody is standing around on their decks or milling around on the dock waiting their turn.  The crew shows up, plugs a long hose into different locations on the dock and hands you the business end.  When you have pumped out you simply toss the hose over the side and they retrieve it, passing it to the next boat waiting.  When they are done everybody disappears and the dock turns into a ghost town again.

Of course the Mate hikes over to the heated pool sometimes twice a day for a dip. It is pretty nice. While there is a hot tub we haven’t felt a need to use it as the pool water is quite warm enough.

 

Mike’s PDQ needs it’s bottom pressure washed and a new coat of bottom paint. We stopped at this boat yard about ten miles from Burnt Store to scope it out. Somebody is in the process of scrapping out this sailboat and what I found interesting is the nice, neat, straight saw cut that was made when sawing the boat in half. The stern portion wasn’t around.

The marina is home to Cass Cay Restaurant and Bar.  We ate there tonight, the first time we have had dinner at a restaurant since we were in Vero Beach.  The food was decent and they had live music which isn’t necessarily a good thing.  This guy had the volume turned way up and prided himself on not taking long breaks.  The patrons seemed to be enjoying themselves, singing along but I suspect that had a bit more to drink than we had.  The restaurant is in the south basin, fortunately we are in the north basin which is much quieter.

Boats in front of the bar were decorated with lights, this catamaran had an animated light board that changed with the music.

We drove down to Sanibel Island the other day and picked up our rental.  The Hertz Rental place is actually a gas station here which is really odd considering the price of real estate on the island.  The island was still fogged in at noon when we were there.  Driving over the bridge ($6 toll) you couldn’t see a thing on the Gulf side.  Four days from now we should be in Erie where it was 12 degrees this morning.  Fortunately it looks like we will be bringing sunny sky’s and slightly warmer temperatures with us when we arrive.

Dave

 

Burnt Store; Trip Summary

It is a good feeling not to have to move the boat today, or for the next two months for that matter.  Sure, we will go out for day cruises or multi-night anchorages but for the most part Liberty will be spending her days at the marina.

Tim and Deb’s Pilgrim 40 Destiny is permanently berthed here.

 

Mike’s PDQ trawler cat is on the other side of the basin from us.

 

Doug and Carol’s 29′ Grady White, just down the dock from us.

In the past we have waited until we got back to Erie before doing a trip summary, but since Liberty is staying in Florida for the foreseeable future it makes sense to do it now.

Days since we have left Erie:  80

Total miles traveled:  2371 statute

Diesel fuel consumed (including genset and diesel heat):  561 gallons

Usage:  1.7/gallons/hr, 4.2 sm/gallon

Paid Dockage: 53% (42 nights)

Free Dockage: 38% (30 nights)

Anchorage: 10% (8 nights)

What did we learn this time around?  We learned that we made the right choice by obtaining a boat to keep in Erie while Liberty summers (on the hard) in Florida.  We are looking forward to not having to pull up stakes, fold our tent and start heading north come mid February, late April or early May will be soon enough.   We are positive that in mid October when we leave Erie again to head south that we will come down the east coast, once more pestering our friends who we always visited by boat but this time in our car.  It won’t take 80 days to get here though.

More useless statistics:

This is the 515th post.

There are 85 registered “followers”‘; people who get each post e-mailed to them

There have been 39,103 views of these posts.

As noted before, the daily posts are ending as of this one.  Future posts will be sporadic at best, only being posted when we have something of note to pass on.  Some of you will have to have your morning coffee without us now.

Dave

Well, what did Bobbi learn this time around?

• I still love living on a boat
• I don’t love moving the boat for almost 6 months of the year
• We certainly did make the right choice to buy a boat to keep in Erie
• I learned we are very lucky folks to be able to live the life we love!

Bobbi (The Mate!!)

Burnt Store Marina, FL

Last evening the winds died down as predicted and around midnight the water was flat calm.  When we left the anchorage at 0700 this morning winds were northerly at 7 knots, and as the day progressed dropped to about 3 knots, again, just as predicted.  Needless to say it was a nice ride to Burnt Store, we are glad we didn’t push things yesterday.

One of the houses along the canal in Cape Coral. You know the owner has some money when he can keep his 38′ boat on a lift in front of the house.

 

Another dolphin escort coming through the Pine Island Sound area.

 

Passing Cabbage Key, home of the Cabbbage Key Inn Restaurant. According to the Guest Relations Manager, “in the 1970’s, Jimmy Buffett did spend time at Cabbage Key before he performed a concert in Ft. Myers. Some of the Cabbage Key staff, at the time, were invited to the concert and Jimmy Buffett acknowledged the staff and then played the “new” song, “Cheeseburger in Paradise.””.  You can get a great cheeseburger here.

 

About 7 miles out of Burnt Store, our Grand Banks 42 neighbors from the EYC, Carol and Doug showed up in their Grady White to welcome us to Burnt Store and to invite us to dinner at their house which we readily accepted.

 

Another perfect trawler day.

Arriving at Burnt Store, we took on a nominal fuel load of 20 gallons, not wanting to  totally fill our tanks as we don’t know how long the fuel will be sitting before being used and pumped out the holding tank before heading for our “new” home slip.  Our good friend Mike, owner of a PDQ trawler cat that we used to visit in St. Augustine showed up to say hello, and to invite us to dinner.  I belive it is the first time in our lives that we had two dinner invitations for the same day, but first come – first served.  We will have dinner with Mike tomorrow. 🙂

Our home for the next few months.

All Stop; Done with engines.

Tomorrows blog entry:  a summary of the trip down.

Today:  45 sm in 6.5 engine hours.  Total:  2371 sm.

Dave

Bimini Basin Anchorage, Cape Coral, FL

We goodbye to Joe at Calusa Jack’s at 0800, wishing him well in his effort to sell the marina.  Hopefully we will remember to stay at the state park on the other side of the lock next time.  Today we thought we would stay either in Cape Coral or continue down to Captiva, a few hours further down the road depending on the weather or time of day.  While we would have had ample time to have gotten to Captiva, the weather won out.  The CG was issuing small craft advisories over the VHF, winds were southerly at 20 to 25 and we just weren’t sure how sea conditions might be as we came out of Fort Myers.  Tomorrow the forecast is northerly winds at 5 to 10, we will take that, so into Bimini Basin we went.

We are the blue dot in Cape Coral.

After scouting the entire basin, we selected a spot, set the anchor and then picked it up and moved.  There are 18 boats anchored in here including us and we just weren’t comfortable with the first location.  We cooled our heels for awhile waiting for the heat of the day to dissipate a bit before heading ashore for an afternoon walk.  After launching the dinghy we looked at the sky and weather radar again and decided that we might wait to see what develops as a line of rain showers and thunderstorms was moving in.  Eventually we retrieved the dinghy and buttoned up the boat to await the rain.  Most of it went around us, not by much, only by a mile or so.  Hopefully the rain washed off some more of the sugar cane ash that is all over the boat.    After the rain passed the wind dropped as forecast, tonight we shouldn’t see more than about 10 knots.  The afternoon was spent filling out forms so we can apply for different boat insurance as our current policy will not allow us to leave Liberty down here during hurricane season and trying to find a resonable one-way car rental for when we drive north for the holidays.  Enterprise, our favorite rental place wanted $450 just for the drop off fee alone.  Hertz, via Priceline was willing to let us drive up for $350 total (one week rental) so we went that route.

Some of the boats in the anchorage. The red C&C sailboat behind is a permanent resident here judging by the look of the slime on his anchor line.

 

This craft is next to us. I would really like to meet the owner and ask him what the story is with the boat. It isn’t being used as a live aboard, it isn’t being used period, it is just sitting out here. Why not sell it before it breaks loose, damages somebody else’s boat and they come after you to recover their repair costs? I really hate to say it but Florida needs some tough, enforceable regulations regarding anchored boats. There are six boats we could pick out in this anchorage that sort of fit in that class.

Tomorrow we are off to Burnt Store Marina where we plan to spend one, two or maybe even three months which means that in a few days blog posts will become sporadic at best.  Nobody wants to read about how us retired folk spend our days when the boat is tied to a dock for an extended time.  Maybe I can even get the Mate to do one more blog entry.

Today:  24 sm in 3.9 engine hours.  Total:  2326 sm.

Dave

Calusa Jack’s Marina

We cast off at 0735 this morning.  The Notice to Mariners indicated that the Ortona Lock, about 13 miles to our west would be closed tomorrow from 0730 to 1130 and 1200 to 1600 to allow divers to do some maintenance so we considered ourselves lucky that we are going though that lock today.   Eventually the Skipper realized that today’s destination was to the west of the W.P. Franklin Lock, a lock that was under the same closure times but for today.  It seems that no maintenance ever gets done on these locks when it is scheduled so we called the Franklin Lock for an update.  The divers were there but not in the water yet so they would be keeping the closure time in the afternoon.  This means we didn’t have to be in any hurry to cover the 27 miles between the locks.  We throttled back to 1500 RPM’s from our normal 2050 RPM’s.  There was some thought of tying up in La Belle for a few hours but the accessible docks were taken so we continued at our leisurely pace to the lock.  Reaching the lock at 1400 we figured we had about two hours to kill.  I called the lock to see what the status was and they told us they had some sort of problem and the lock gates weren’t operating, they were stuck open with about 10′ between the gates.

Plan B was to tie to one of the dolphins, which we did but unfortunately winds were Southerly at around 15 which caused us to tack back and forth and then want to come forward to kiss the dolphin with the anchor.  We thought of tying the stern off on the adjacent dolphin but it was getting complicated as they were too far apart to comfortably get a stern line to it.  We would need at least a 100′ bow line and while we have multiple hanks of 250′ of nylon anchor line it seemed too much work to break it out.  We motored into the adjacent State Park to see if they had any docks available (first come, first served) and there were a number that were empty in case they couldn’t get the lock operational today.  The dive boat managed to sneak out the 10′ opening and came by us, we kidded them about breaking the lock and they said it appeared to be an electrical issue with somebody coming up from Moore Haven to work on it, only one half hour drive away.  There was still some hope.

We headed back to the dolphins for another go as we could see into the lock from that location and noticed the lock doors were closed, OK, they are now operational.  The doors re-opened and the lock master called us in.  The issue turned out to be an agricultural pump was taking down the entire lock.  We suggested they don’t try that pump again until we were gone :).

Leaving the lock at 1500, we motored the remaining one and one half miles to the marina and tied up at the dock which is parallel to the canal.  For what ever reason, when people come out of the lock they like to make up for “lost time” and go fast past here even though there are signs indicating a fuel dock is on the canal.

These boats aren’t rafted up because they like each other. The inboard boat (from Port Colborne, Canada) was ahead of us in Moore Haven and he is with us again tonight. The outer boat, an older 38′ Bayliner is also a Canadian. He went by here at speed, throwing a wake that caused the other boat to smash into the uprights, destroying a stainless railing. The marina owner called the Bayliner on the VHF and he came back to the dock to take came of the damage he caused. He gave the guy a check for $500 (Canadian) to cover the expense of having it fixed. No knives or guns came out during the negotiations.  Our fender boards saved us from having any damage, they were the first things we put out when we came in here.  I was surprised that when the Bayliner left that he took off rather quickly considering what had just transpired.

 

At the dock at Calusa Jack’s.

This marina is for sale, the signs go up tomorrow.  The owner wants to go back to cattle ranching exclusively.  He has a few cattle and some chickens here.  Wakes here are a perpetual problem,  and if there is any damage a VHF call to the offending boat mentioning that the next step will be to call the Sheriff in Fort Myers usually brings them back.  He also told me a story about a big sport fish that went by and threw a wake that washed over the dock and literally picked up the gazebo.  The sport fish drivers reaction:  So sue me.  And you wonder why sport fish boats have such a bad reputation.

They have lit up the place for the holiday season.

 

The gazebo right outside the boat has a Christmas tree.

Today:  45 sm in 7.7 engine hours.  Total:  2302 sm.

Dave

Moore Haven City Dock, FL

Winds were ENE at about 15 knots all night which had us rocking around just a bit in our concrete prison.  We were glad to get out of there at 0720 this morning.  Our course took us out six miles into the lake and even though the wind was 20 degrees off our stern the waves were pretty close to abeam of our course.  The wind was dropping just as we left and stayed in the 10 knot range for the next two hours, the time it took us to zig-zag our way through the shoals and back to the rim for the couple of hour ride to the Moore Haven Lock.  A large powerboat passed us a few miles from the lock and called the lock for an opening.  The lock master said to pick a side and the powerboat said port.  I thought that was odd as there was going to be a cross wind in the lock and the wind had slowly increased to 15 in the last hour.  He was going to have to fight to get along side that wall as the wind would be pushing him away.  The lock master asked us what side we wanted and we responded starboard.  Even though the powerboat got to the lock about five minutes before we did we still had to wait outside as he was all over the lock, trying to get that boat to the wall.  There was only his wife aboard trying to man handle the boat while he was sitting in the fly bridge.  When it was our turn we simply motored in, stopped and let the wind push us against the wall.  Of course we have almost 200 lockings under belt aboard Liberty and our thrusters make it look easy.  We have two more locks on the Caloosahatchee before we get spit out onto the Gulf coast.

Westbound following the rim of the lake, the dike to port and the lake somewhere to starboard.

We actually got in just before noon so we took the opportunity to hike to Subway for lunch as the Skipper is tired of eating stale bread.  The Subway was in Becks Food Store which is really a Marathon Gas station.  Their definition of Food seems to be bottled drinks, and small packages of junk food.  A trip to Dollar General got us stocked up on Cheerios, bread and Tostitos.

At the dock in Moore Haven, $1/ft includes power and water, drop a check in the box at City Hall across the street.

 

Sugar cane ash on the deck. I didn’t realize how much soot was actually on the deck until I got out the hose and saw the mud that I was tracking around. I thought that all the bass boat jockeys wore bandannas over their faces to keep from eating bugs. I think it so they can filter the soot in the air.

 

If a picture could describe the “business” district of this town, this would be it. My guess is that there is so much vacant land around here due to the fact that they keep knocking these things down.

Our next stops will be Calusa Jacks Marina, followed by the Bimini Basin Anchorage in Cape Coral and finally Burnt Store.

Today:  31 sm in 4.3 engine hours.  Total:  2257 sm.

Dave

Pahokee City Marina, FL

Leaving the dock at 0800 we passed through the Old Roosevelt Bridge into the St. Lucie Canal.  Just around the corner from us is the Sunset Bay Marina, a place that was a little too rich for our blood at $2.50/ft although they did have a mooring field that was reasonably priced at $22/night, first come first served.  When passing by we noticed a Lord Nelson Victory Tug pulling out of their fuel dock and going into the mooring field.  It turned out to Victorious, who we last talked to just outside of Chesapeake City on the C&D canal, north of Baltimore MD and in Atlantic City.  We thought our paths would cross eventually and today they did by a few hundred yards.  Unfortunately we haven’t been able to see them in person and they are staying on the east coast for the next few months so I doubt we will have both boats together anytime soon.

The St. Lucie Lock. This separates the North Fork of the St. Lucie River from the St. Lucie Canal and has a lift of about 14′.

 

This poor thing was just outside of the Indiantown Marina.

Our initial plan was to tie up on the dolphins at the Port Mayaca Lock which is at the edge of  Lake Okeechobee.  We got down there at 1230 hours and decided it was too early to call it quits for the day but also knew that it would be impossible to get through the lock at Moore Haven by 1700.  The new plan was to go out into the lake and head up to the hole in the wall marina at Panokee which would shorten tomorrows crossing by about five miles or so.  Not much has changed here.  There is a Canadian couple living on the 40+ foot Ocean motor yacht staying here before they head to the Bahamas.  The main attraction has to be the low price as they pay $200/month.  Actually, I don’t think you could pay me to stay here.  Luke, the owner of the boat was telling us that because the wind was northerly yesterday that it was too “rolly” to even do any computer work on their boat.  This is the place that the Corp of Engineers spent $12 million in 2009 to rebuild.  The actual dock masters office has never been used, birds live on the floating docks and some docks are totally unusable due to general design of this place.  Waves bounce off the walls continually and people who have stayed here when it blows hard out of the north have said they wished they had anchored out in the lake.  You can’t come in or out of here in those conditions as the entrance is to dangerous.  We are rocking a bit in here on an east wind which is offshore which puts this place in the lee of the shore and it still isn’t calm in here.

A common sight in this neck of the woods. They burn the sugar cane fields before harvesting as it reduces the labor required.

 

At the dock here. Those aren’t paint spatters on the dock. We needed 120′ of power cord to reach the first power pedestal that worked. Voltage drop across that much cord doesn’t seem to be a problem as we are reading 130 volts at the boat.  They only charge $1/ft + $5 for electric + tax but $0.50/ft would be a fair price and that is being generous.

 

The view from the top of the 30′ high dike that surrounds the entire lake.

 

This is what is on the outside of the dike. The city of Pahokee is the poorest town in Florida with 37% of families below the poverty level. As the town now owns the Marina/Campground you can understand why it is in such disrepair.

 

The facilities were done very nicely, if you discount the design of the marina.

 

The restaurant here recently closed but they still have a real nice pool (unheated). Build it and people will come (but not always). We understand there was a rib fest here yesterday, but we certainly didn’t see any evidence of one.

 

Sunset over the lake.

Today:  44 sm in 7.1 engine hours.  Total:  2226 sm.

Dave

Loggerhead Stuart, FL

Saying goodbye to one of our favorite marinas at 0750 we continued our journey south.  As we headed down the Indian River we were passed by a Krogen 42 heading north.  The channel isn’t terribly wide, maybe five boat lengths even though the river itself is one and one quarter miles across.  When he went by I notice that there was nobody on the fly bridge, nor was there anybody in the pilot house.  Obviously the boat was on auto pilot but having somebody keeping watch would have been nice.  The Mate said later that she heard some chatter on the VHF with others asking if there was somebody piloting the boat, so we weren’t the only people who noticed.  If you are going to leave the wheel to use the head or make a cup of coffee you don’t do it when there are other boats coming at you.  Today the winds were North at 10 to 15 knots which were pushing us so it was a nice, smooth, dry ride with temperatures in the upper 70’s and a lot lower humidity than we have had in a while.

Exiting the Indian River into the St. Lucie River to begin heading west across Florida we stopped by Manatee Pocket to fill our starboard fuel tank with 47 gallons of diesel at $2.26/gallon.  That will be the last fuel we will need to buy to get to Burnt Store.

The people at Loggerhead Stuart are always glad to see us (actually any transient) as they are still fighting with the condo association here that has banned any live-aboards.   As a result there are always lots of empty slips.  They told us that of the 300 slips they have available, in the middle of last summer there was only 9 boats total here; it was like a ghost town.

For our afternoon walk we strolled up to the local shopping strip where we visited the second hand store and purchased a hard copy of Tom Brokaw’s “The Greatest Generation” for $0.50 and then visited the convenience store for a gallon of milk.  Last of the big spenders I guess.

The pool here is real nice and almost looks like it is covered with a thin layer of ice. There is a reason for that. The pool is ice cold. The dock master told us they just installed a new heater for the pool. Evidently somebody has forgotten to turn it on. We didn’t go in.

 

We resigned ourselves to simply using the hot tub and that was real hot, no problem with the heater on this thing.

 

Lots of empty slips here.  Live aboards are defined as having stayed aboard the boat for five consecutive nights or more than ten days in a thirty day period.

Today:  48 sm in 6.2 engine hours.  Total:  2182 sm.

Dave

Loggerhead Vero, Day 2

As today was a lay day, while the Skipper planned out the remainder of the trip (roughly seven days to Burnt Store), the Mate headed over to the pool where she also took care of the laundry.  Our traveling friends Sylvia and Dale from two years ago are down in Fort Pierce and they drove up to visit with us late this morning.  It has been a year since we have seen them so it was good to touch base and catch up on happenings in our lives.

This afternoon we walked in the shopping center so we could go to CVS to pick up a prescription after which we took another dip in the pool.  This evening Scott and Deb, owners of the Pilgrim Firefly came over to Liberty for snacks and some wine after which we headed into town to a funky restaurant called The Patio for a nice dinner.  We also got a guided tour of some of the places downtown before they dropped us off and we called it a night.  Hopefully we they will come over to the west coast to visit with us this winter although once we have our vehicle down here we might be back.  Their house has a guest room, a heated pool and a new puppy so that is pretty enticing.

The Pilgrim 40 Firefly. She is hull #34, we are #43.

 

The crew enjoying the pool.

Tomorrow we are off to Stuart and another Loggerhead Marina; it has a heated pool.

No miles today.

Dave