Cold Front hits Key Largo

Brunelle and Pekabu III's crews were the only ones to brave the north winds and chilly temps and eat on the veranda today. Everyone else ate in the lobby or aboard their boats. It was jacket weather, but still much better than snow! After breakfast Dan still had work to do on getting another wire up through the hollow table leg in the cockpit to get more juice to all the electronics. He also wanted to find a home for the old propeller down in the port lazarette. This entailed taking everything out of the lazarette and Dan climbing down into it. Not an easy feat. I ended up lying on the cockpit sole to try to work the wire up through the maze of wires already there. Soap and a very skinny leader string finally did the trick.

Dan had sold me on the idea of the new prop partly because PYI the Max Prop dealer offered to buy back the old one. After yesterday's installation, Dan called PYI and asked about sending the old one back, with the hesitation that he isn't sure just how well the new one will work. Fred from PYI told him he wouldn't head over to the Bahamas without having the old one as a spare and would wait until we return to make the trade in deal. Thus the need to find it a home.

That took all morning, so after lunch we began to work on taxes. Sam has been collecting our mail and had what we needed to get them done, so that took all afternoon. It is amazing how fast the time flies here! We keep thinking we'll go stir crazy sitting here waiting, but all of us agree that the days are flying by. Nothing looks good for most of next week, so here we still are.

Tonight was dinner and a movie. I had made a pot of chili and cornbread and we gathered on Andiamo (down below) for a hearty meal and movie. We all actually stayed awake past 9:00 pm! ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Here's Dan - - in a compromising position, and here's all the stuff that has to be removed for him to be able to wiggle down in the lazarette. His struggling to come out made me think of the yellow headed jawfish (see Super (Bowl) Sunday post for pix) that digs a burrow and pops up and down waiting for unsuspecting prey.

Any movie buffs know what we watched?

Out with old and in with the new.

Our day began with a bumping sound coming from the bow. The manatee pictured a few days ago was back. Dan went topsides and spotted his "swirl" a few slips over and we figured he was heading back out of the lagoon - - we forgot him for the moment and headed to the veranda for breakfast. Ed Dooley joined us and we discussed the proposed changing of the prop, among other things. I headed up to the bathrooms after breakfast and by the time I returned there were several people aboard Brunelle ready to help with the procedure.

Dan had it all worked out in his head how he wanted to do it, and as impossible as it seemed - pulling off the old three bladed prop(that comes apart when you take off the hub) and getting it back to the surface without losing any parts - it went like clockwork! He took a weighted bucket down with him, got all the pieces in the bucket, the three blades resting on the top of the bucket and got it to the surface where we got all of it aboard without incident! Just to add to the excitement, the manatee returned while Dan was down working on the removal, but luckily he wasn't inclined to leave his grazing along the bulkhead to check out the project! We were prop-less, but proud. This "we" is sort of a royal we, as ALL the credit goes to Dan!

The ONLY part Dan didn't remove is #2 - the shaft!

We took a break, had a lovely lunch prepared by John, waited out a rain squall and prepared for step 2 - the installation of the Ecowind. Luckily the Ecowind does not come apart, so it had only two major pieces, but HEAVY! John added a bit of muscle to help lower the new propeller down to Dan. Dan had a tether on it to help him pull it over to and onto the shaft. The "beast" was so heavy he had to put his line around the skeg to get enough leverage to pull it into place. It was almost 3 pm by the time the job was completed, but what a job! Tomorrow we'll take a little jaunt out into Hawks Channel to test it out. Betty and I took a bike ride to check out a few restaurants for tonight and finally decided on Bogie's, right here at the Holiday Inn. We had a great celebratory meal and early to bed. ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Clockwise starting lower left: Kathy attaches Dan's hookah regulator to the back of his weight belt. A curious visitor doesn't stop the project. A very heavy precariously laden bucket is safely aboard. A blade from the old 3 blade prop is compared to the new 4 blade one. I hand Dan the last set screw that completes the installation. And there it is - all shiny and new and ready to roar.

Have Propeller will travel - - - wind permitting.

IT has arrived! We saw on UPS tracking that our propeller had arrived in Miami around 6:00am and was out for delivery. It is the newest latest thing from MaxProp which makes EXPENSIVE folding propellers. Folding propellers are popular with sailors because they "feather" or turn to present the least amount of drag when you are sailing. Dan is feathering the prop in the picture on the bottom. This new one, called the Ecowind, goes one step better and feathers to vary the pitch of the blades depending on the RPMs of the shaft and the amount of thrust needed. Supposedly we'll save 30 % on fuel and be able to go faster! Sounds to good to be true, but we'll see. Dan hopes to dive down tomorrow and make the switch.

I hate to say how long we've been sleeping in the same sheets, you see we were waiting to wash them last thing before heading off, but as we're dragging on toward two weeks of waiting, we decided we'd better wash them. We thought it would be a good time to flip our mattress at the same time, but when we lifted Dan's side it was covered with mildew! We started pulling off all the hatch covers under the bunk and discovered there is a spot where a small amount of water accumulates and we can't figure out why or how to stop it. We cloroxed everything in sight and finally got everything washed and dried and back on the bed in time for Dan to crash.

While investigating the spaces under the bunk, Dan discovered a wire that he couldn't identify so that meant tearing up more floorboards and trying to wiggle each and every wire in the morass of wires behind the nav station. We were glad it wasn't our turn to cook, we barely could find the galley! We did find time to try the Holiday Inn pool for a brief swim and visit with Connie and Ed Dooley and friends of theirs who are camping at John Pennekamp Park. They all joined us for dinner, so it was 10 on the veranda tonight. That's twice that John and Betty have gotten stuck cooking for a bigger crowd! We keep watching the weather to no avail, so we'll be here a bit longer. We'd love to get across, but this is a great place to hang out while waiting. ~~~_/)~~~M&D

My underwater camera is nice and compact but the viewing screen is too small to work effectively underwater, so I'm trying to use the view finder from my old film underwater camera and figure out how to sight through the view finder and make it correspond with the LCD viewing screen. Dan was my unwilling guinea pig and I also tried a shot upwards through the water of the palm trees.

Ed offered us a ride to West Marine, and I couldn't pass up a chance to

get a shot of the boys, Dan, Ed, John and Pete in front of the "candy store".

Ten for dinner on the veranda. Pete, Kathy and Dan are digging in on the appetizers.

Still in a holding pattern in Key Largo

Breakfast on the veranda again, a few loads of laundry and then Connie and Ed walked down from the Holiday Inn. Ed hung out with the guys and Dan took him on a dinghy ride to check out the whole set up here while Connie demonstrated several exciting apps on her iPad to Kathy, Betty and me. She has been working with Sketchbook Pro to design things for the niece's upcoming wedding and demonstrated just how very versatile the program is. We were fascinated with how well she could manipulate all the features and drew us some sample pictures. She also demonstrated how Star Walk worked. It allows you to see the night sky in real time, identifying any star you click on and shows things like just where the sky lab is in real time. Really cool. It is downloading on my iPad as I type. Well, we spent entirely too much time playing and barely had time to run (Dooleys have a car) to Publix to get tonight's dinner before they had to leave to visit friends at John Pennekamp Park.

Betty and I did get a chance to play with our underwater cameras in the pool and found that its hard enough to focus on a stationary target in a calm swimming pool no less trying to capture a fast moving fish! After a few minutes playing with the camera I was prompted to read the manual again to refresh my memory about its different features. Hopefully I'll be ready once we hit the reefs in Bahamas. We have ruled out doing any diving around here as there is a great infestation of jelly fish in the water on the reefs here, including more Portuguese Man o Wars. We saw several on them on our glass bottom boat ride.

We finally got an email tonight that our new propeller was in and out of the PYI plant in Seattle and is on its way here. It is supposed to arrive tomorrow. We will believe it when we see it!

~~~_/)~~~M&D

Well too much time playing on Connie's iPad and no successful pool pictures, so I decided to try playing with the picture Kathy took of us back in November. ...no I didn't spring for Sketchbook Pro yet, just used Print Shop.

CCYC South - Key Largo

Today was definitely a CCYC day! It began and ended with CCYCers. Breakfast on the veranda included the crew of Arkeoo (we found out that it means contentment in Greek and is pronounced "R-Koo") before they headed back to Marathon. Early afternoon Glen and Maureen drove up from Islamorada with Annapolis neighbors who have a time-share condo there. We sat and chatted on the veranda for an hour or two. They are happy to be out of Key West and look forward to enjoying Florida for the next two months before heading north. Then, as we were setting up dinner on the veranda who should show up but Connie and Ed Dooley! They had driven down from Brunswick, GA, where their C-400 Surprise is docked, to stay at the Holiday Inn at the other end of the our lagoon. We caught up with their last few months since they left River Dunes before we did. The friends they travel with are dealing with medical problems and it has slowed their progress for the moment.

Arkeoo left at 9:30 this morning.

Between visiting with CCYC friends, we worked on putting the forward cabin back together after letting it air over night. We created more storage space and immediately filled it! We now have even more people signed up to join us in the Bahamas, so we want to be able to use the forward cabin for more than storage! We have been referring to it as the "attic" or "garage" ever since we left home. That's gotta change.

A front rolled through last night with some rain and wind and today was a little cooler, only about 70 and the humidity was down a bit. It was cool enough that we didn't hit the pool and we were looking forward to trying out the new lounge chairs they put out yesterday afternoon. We still want to work on checking out our underwater cameras, maybe tomorrow. ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Today was Pete's turn to go up the mast. He has rigged an electric system to pull him up the mast, but it uses battery power rather than 110 and it was slowing way down by the time he returned to the deck. He fixed the steaming light, put on a new flag halyard and went to the top to install a new windex wind vane.

Wait and see in Key Largo

No propeller, no weather window, no problem. Whatever each day brings it is always good. Today Andiamo felt it was their turn to do dinner and we had Arkeoo arriving late afternoon, so there would be 10 for dinner. John and Betty came up with a plan and Betty, Kathy and I rode bikes to Publix to make it a reality. I also did some valentine card shopping, so I took an extra half hour at the post office assembling, writing and addressing valentines before returning to the boat at 12:30.

We had decided yesterday that there was a musty smell in the forward cabin, so Dan started dis-assembling everything up there while I was off shopping. By the time I returned he had cleaned out the forward rope locker and checked everything in the forward half of the cabin. He was "on call" to help Andiamo because a water hose had burst behind a wall in their head, so I took over and did the aft half of the cabin. It is clean, dry and now we know what is up there too! I hope we solved that problem. We are better organized and freed up more storage space too!

Late afternoon, Betty and I took snorkels and masks to the pool to work on getting her more comfortable with using a snorkel. She says she tends to hyperventilate when she tries to breathe through a snorkel. After working on it for half an hour or so, she was a lot more relaxed and hopefully will still feel relaxed when we are not in a pool. Tomorrow we are going to work on underwater cameras and more snorkel work.

Dinner on the veranda was quite an event, the linguine with clam sauce was excellent and Kathy and I filled out the meal with salads. A Key Lime Pie finale topped off the meal. Laughter shook the table so much I had trouble getting a decent picture - - Wally has a great laugh! He also had some EXCELLENT Guatemalan rum that he had gotten as a gift which livened things up even more. We'll miss them when they leave tomorrow to head back to Marathon. ~~~_/)~~~M&D

The Chefs - Betty & John. The Guests - Connie, Wally, Lucia & Bob. The whole "crew". A little ambiance.

Super (Bowl) Sunday in Key Largo

The cruise dictator, as Dan likes to call himself, had us scheduled to head over to the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park today. The original plan was to all join the crew of Pekabu III ( with only 5 feet of draft) to go into the park, BUT we found out that the depths in Largo Sound and at the Marina in the Park were only 4 feet. We had heard about park moorings with 6 feet of depth, but we finally realized those are the ones outside on the reefs --NOT in Largo Sound. So, 5 of us drove with Ann & Howie (Pekabu III guests) while the other three rode bikes (we have two and Pekabu III has one). We walked around a bit and checked out the different beaches and mangrove areas and then went into the Visitor's Center where there is a large aquarium and several small ones each featuring a specific species. They were very interesting and informative and easily photographed. We also watched a video presentation explaining all about the different types of coral that make up a reef and all the inhabitants of a reef system. In spite of years of snorkeling we were surprised how much we had to learn! It was very well done.

The original plan had included a bar-b-q meal aboard Pekabu III, so we had to readjust our plans and we had our bar-b-q at the picnic area at the marina. We all remarked that it was like having a 4th of July picnic (under swaying palm trees) on Super Bowl Sunday! We were just practicing up for the real eating event later in the evening. We took a swim in the pool after lunch and I tried out the new snorkel equipment I had just purchased for our expected guests in the Bahamas.

True to expectations the gathering on the veranda with about 25+ people (including Bob, Lucia, Connie and Wally who drove up from Marathon) was a veritable feast. We made a show of watching the game, especially as there was a pool going and bettors were keeping tabs of their numbers. Last year, Cosmo (a dog) won, and this year it was his mistress Joy who raked in the big payoff! Tomorrow Arkeoo (the C-350 Marathon crew) will sail up here to join us for a day or two. ~~~_/)~~~M&D

The birds at John Pennekamp Park were not the least bit afraid of people, this Ibis was trying to see what some picnickers were having for lunch. The Least Sandpipers were also impervious to people and pecked up a lot of sand as they foraged along the beach.

The first of the small aquariums held three species of lobsters. The slipper lobster (on the left) doesn't have the long feelers and decided to give us a show by "standing" up - I liked his blue antennae. The spiny lobsters come in two varieties, the common one and the spotted one.

I have always liked the Blue Chromis and it was great to get an easy shot of one. The lionfish on the right is the new invader from the South Pacific who is ravishing the grouper and snapper population by eating their young. It has no natural enemies and has poisonous spines. It was released from the aquarium on Paradise Island in Nassau a few years back during a strong hurricane. We learned that sea urchins use sea shells to protect themselves, you can see them "wearing" bits of shells. The hermit crab (lower right) is barely visible except for his bright red legs.

This is a yellowhead jawfish. He digs a hole in the sand, edges it with small stones and hides out looking for small organisms to feed on. He was shy and it took patience waiting for him to come out. Then he darted away too fast for me to catch a picture of him finally out of his hole.