With only a little fanfare, we finally pulled Orion Jr out of the water and loaded her on the trailer for the road trip north. We did a few things differently this time – still trying to learn to do things better. And we made our way as far north as Orlando to spend some time with the Mouse before moving further north.

Trailering Orion Jr – Third Take

Like many boats in the harbor, as our time to leave was approaching, we were starting to watch the weather. Our trip was short, but the wrong winds would make it more difficult and the boat harder to manage. We saw our window of predicted light southwesterly winds, but it was still a few days away. It would give us time to prepare in stages, but that presented its own challenges.

Without our regular mast in place, we would still need to have an anchor light up for a few nights, which meant our temporary mast would be rigged. However, a quick test of the light a few days before we mounted it revealed a problem. The fixture, which had seen us through nearly 10 years of reliable service, was failing. It was barely bright enough to be seen. We had just enough time to get one in and installed before it would be needed. With it installed, we had a bright light again. Good thing, too. For the first time all season, we saw a FWC patrol boat sitting just outside the marina pulling over a series of dinghies for violations, most of which were for little or no lights displayed.

It was also going to be a long time without shade if we followed our regular sequence of tasks. We planned to take the mast down on Sunday, but not haul the boat until Tuesday. With the locals in Marathon referring to the recent weather as “summer” having come early, we didn't want to spend any more time in the sun than we had to. But to lower the mast, the bimini, enclosure windows, and the support bows must be down. Not just down, but out of the way. We've been learning that one of the trickiest parts of removing the mast is removing the bolt that attaches it to the tabernacle on deck. The bows were taking a lot of pressure and making it difficult when removing (or inserting) the bolt. So, we removed the bimini bows and stowed them below (not as easy as it sounds) for the actual mast-lowering. Once it was down, we re-mounted the bows and the bimini, which gave us shade and a mounting point for the one solar panel that we needed to keep the boat powered. This also meant that the bows could be secured more easily by simply fastening them to the mast when we were on the road.

Then there was the matter of the boat bottom. We didn't need anyone to tell us how fast and thick the bottom can be covered with sea life in a couple of months sitting in Boot Key Harbor. Unlike last year, we wouldn't be hauled in a boatyard with power washers available. So, we needed to have someone dive on the boat just before we hauled it. We tried a relatively new business in the harbor, OCD – Obsessive Compulsive Divers. Nothing motivates a diver to do a good job more than knowing his work would be given a very close examination in less than 24 hours. And sure enough, it was excellent. We gave our dinghy a similar scrub the day before as well.

Lowering the mast is getting to be more routine, taking less than an hour to actually get it down. However, it takes several hours to rig it for travel. In the process of removing the gin pole, we snapped a piece of it off, which required a repair. Since the wood was already weakened, we reinforced it with fiberglass mat and epoxy. It is certainly stronger now.

When Tuesday dawned, we were up before the sun. We would have to wait until 8:30am to get access to the trailer, but we wanted to have everything else ready to go. By 9am, we had the trailer re-positioned at the boat ramp, and we were making our way back to the boat. By 9:30, we were dropping the mooring. Our trip around the western end of the island would take only an hour, but we were to discover the wind forecast was pretty far off. While the winds were from the southwest, the single digits were replaced by upper teens. Oops. Missed that one. This mainly impacted us when we were trying to manhandle the boat onto the trailer. Actually, the wind was a blessing in making the work to finish securing everything more tolerable in the heat. Despite the help of several inebriated bystanders at the ramp, we made a pretty efficient retrieval and began the work of getting ready to move.

To speed up the process of securing the mast, Dave used heavy duty 24” cable ties to secure the shrouds and furler to the mast, taking an idea from a trailered boat show boat we had seen in St. Petersburg. We had also been struggling with the fact that there is no readily available fresh water at the ramp. That meant we had no easy way to flush the outboards or rinse the trailer. After batting around a few ideas, we came up with a very simple idea to use water jugs and a garden hose. With Cathy up in the cockpit, Dave hooked the garden hose up to a device that covers the intakes for this purpose. We put the hose in the water jugs and started a siphon. Cathy started each outboard in turn and stopped it after enough water had run through it to flush it thoroughly. It was a little tricky starting the smaller Mercury outboard, since it requires a pull cord. However, the difficulty was more because we forgot initially to put the starter lanyard in place than the difficulty of pulling the cord. With the remaining water, we had a generous amount available to flush the trailer. Cathy followed Dave around as he hosed down the supports and axles. It worked amazingly well.

Four hours after arriving at the ramp, we pulled out, exhausted, but glad to be underway.

“Your Accounts Will Be Blocked . . .”

Little did we expect that when we changed our address to Florida that we would be considered in violation of the Patriot Act. It started this way. We updated the address on our primary bank in mid-February. The Customer Service representative took the information over the phone and said everything updated without incident. Gee. That was easy.

Shift to early April. We receive a mail delivery from St. Brendan's Isle, which contains a piece of mail from our bank, dated one week after our address change, February 23. It had that chilling phrase that “your accounts will be blocked” if we didn't respond in 30 days. The problem was our address. And 30 days was up 2 weeks ago. According to the provisions of the Patriot Act, we must provide a physical address. We can't provide the address of the mail forwarding service, even though this is legal for us to use on our driver's license, voter registrations, health insurance cards. We had two problems to deal with. The first was the fact that our bank chose to communicate this critical alert by snail mail, despite the fact that we log on to our bank accounts every couple of days, with no indication of an issue. So, we had passed the deadline. And our payment for our Federal tax return was being drafted – today. The second was what address to use.

We called the bank to understand the problem and explain our situation. After receiving assurances that our accounts had not been blocked, we discussed what we could do about the address. It became apparent that any residential address would do. No mail would be sent there. How exactly was this increasing the country's security? We worked out a plan to give an address. It took a day to get an OK, but we called back and our address was updated on all of our accounts. We had them verify that each one had been updated and no blocks were in place. Whew! Dodged that bullet.

But 10 days later, none of our tax payments were getting paid. And then Cathy got an e-mail from her sister. You know that check you sent . . . It turned out that our accounts had been blocked for almost 2 weeks. Tax payments, insurance payments, credit card payments, automatic transfers – everything. We spent hours on the phone with the bank, finally getting someone who realized they had made the mistake, blocking the accounts after we had provided the address they required.

After a week of daily phone calls, we think we're almost done getting things back on track. Just a word of warning for others who are in a similar situation.

Disney and More

We've taken a few days out to spend at Disney (with our annual passes) and are getting pretty good at playing Sorcerors of the Magic Kingdom. We even managed to get a boat project done while here. The unusual hitch coupler on our trailer requires a very small diameter and long (3.5”) pin. Internet searches yielded no useful alternatives. So, we have been getting by with a bolt and a nut. However, the nut came off on the trip to Orlando. We started looking for a better alternative. An afternoon walk one day took us by USA Hardware nearby. We explained the problem and before too long, Chris was fabricating a pin by drilling a hole in a bolt. It worked so well, we had him make a 2nd one. Customer service like that is very rare.  And now, it's time to move on further north.

As the full moon was rising over the last of the Saturday night jam sessions, we were becoming sadly aware that we must soon leave Marathon for another season. It's been an especially good year, but the temperatures are rising and family and friends further north are beginning to beckon us. So, reluctantly, we are starting to say goodbye.

Boat Stuff
The boat projects are rapidly coming to a close, but there is still a flurry of activity around the boat. Cathy finished the seasonal clean-up with the polishing of the stainless steel, protecting and polishing the enclosure panels, and waterproofing the canvas. She also pulled the sewing machine out for the last (?) time in Marathon to make some covers for the black foam that lines our Portabote, and has been degrading and flaking off with the constant UV exposure. Getting the measurements right proved more challenging, and it took more than one try to get them to fit. The dinghy PFD bag had been re-made a couple of years ago, but it also serves as a “mast support”, sitting on deck under the mast when the boat is on the trailer. This latter duty put more stress on the bag than originally anticipated, so the screen that serves as the bottom panel had to be replaced.

And then there is the cover for the dinghy all-around light. This one was a bit of a surprise. Dave was turning on the dinghy light for our return trip one night and it barely lit. Upon examination, we discovered some extensive corrosion inside the light. Obviously water was getting in and not getting back out. Since the light was relatively new and had been serving us well, with its bright LED bulb, Dave worked to make it serviceable again. Obviously the batteries now needed replacing. To prevent more water incursion, Dave put epoxy on the screw hole where the light attached to the pole. He also cleaned the contacts inside the light and coated them with the Carbon Conductive grease. (See more about that in the late march post.) And then Cathy made a cover for the light to minimize the chance of more water coming in. (Actually, she made 3 covers: one that was too small, one that simply disappeared somewhere in the project room, and one that actually made it onto the light. Three days later, the one that vanished magically re-appeared behind a table. Must be gremlins.) With the repairs, the light was back to its original brightness, and will hopefully stay that way with the protective cover.

That left the real work of shutting down the boat. Everything in reverse from February: sails down; freezer off; ice box emptied; gin pole; block and tackle, chafe protection, flags, etc. back on boat; anchors stowed. We also had the trailer bunk repaired that had broken on our last trip down the ramp. And we coated the trailer with Fluid Film to help stave off rust. In our on-going effort to reduce weight on the trailer, we made a modification to the gin pole to shorten it by about 5 inches, moving the fittings for the block and tackle back from the end. If successful, we can cut the pole to a length that will fit in the back of the truck, reducing the trailer weight by yet another few pounds.


What's left? Not much, just bring down the canvas, the solar panels and the mast. But rather than do that, we're taking off for Key West.

Back to Key West

In a typical year, we make a single trip to Key West to check out the sights, eat some Key Lime Pie, and watch the fun at sunset on Mallory Square. However, our last trip there had introduced us to Capt. Ricky on the schooner, Spirit of Independence. While in conversation with Rick, we learned that he was unhappy with his website. Dave took that as a challenge and quickly developed a replacement using Weebly. Rick was happy with the changes and they were off and running. It made sense to travel back to see him and finalize the website before putting it live. We were invited to stay on board the schooner and take another sail. To give Rick more time to work on the website, Dave and Cathy took turns selling tickets for the sunset sails. One especially effective conversation yielded 12 passengers.

We were working on our schedule for departing Marathon when we got a call from Rick. Could we help him cover a gap in his crew schedule? Well, sure. So, we accelerated our boat preparations and left Orion Jr to tend for herself while we took our temporary jobs as Schooner crew and ticket sellers. Who knew?

Easter Festivities

We were climbing into the dinghy in the pre-dawn darkness on Easter Sunday to make our way to Sombrero Beach for the ecumenical sunrise service. As we motored down Sisters Creek, we found we were not alone as we joined others in route. We took one of the few spaces left to beach the dinghy and quickly made our way to the service that was just beginning. With our fellow congregants in lawn chairs, blankets, park benches or just standing, we listened to the choirs, joined in the prayers and celebrated communion with a seabreeze and swaying palms as background. As Pastor Larry gave his message, the sun rose over us and we celebrated this most special day.

One humorous note. The newest member of the local clergy is Pastor Larry White, Jr of the Methodist Church, who was preaching the Easter sermon. However, Marathon already has a Pastor Larry White, who was officiating at the service. So, it was pretty funny, when Pastor Larry introduced – himself – sort of. Larry White, Jr said that they were indeed brothers (even though one is black and one is white), because although they had different mothers, they had the same Father.

When we returned to the harbor, we joined a party being hosted by the marina for the kids in the harbor. It started with an Easter Egg hunt, followed by egg-decorating and finished with pizza. We helped with the logistics and enjoyed the fun with the kids – surrogates for our grandkids who are too far away. By mid-afternoon, the festivities were over, and we were bushed. Heading back to the boat, we both napped a bit, but Cathy was up on deck cleaning up when she heard a noise. In the cockpit of the boat next to us, someone had fallen. He was trying unsuccessfully to get up, and wouldn't respond when Cathy called over. So, we dinghied over and found he lacked strength to get himself back up. He was wedged under the wheel and between the two of us, we couldn't free him. That prompted a call to another boat which answered with two more men to assist. In the meantime, Cathy called 911.

We were able to get our neighbor up and even move him down below. And he started to recover and respond to questions. When EMS came, they said he checked out OK. Later, we learned he was a diabetic and had missed his shot of insulin. Now, when we see him each day, we both wave. It was a good thing we happened to be around.

Goodbyes

We had come to look forward to hearing Miami play on Saturday nights at the Tiki hut and spending time with him and Shelly during their stay here. We joined them for a snorkeling trip on Yume, just before they headed out. But all good things must come to an end and we said goodbye as they headed out early Easter Monday. It was the first of a series of goodbyes: Dick and Libby on Tarwathie and Bob and Sandra on Carpe Diem, to name just a few. We also finally made it to Augie's church, where we had a chance to see him and Pastor Ishmael (from the Cuban Methodist church) before we headed out of town. 

Parting Shot 

Cathy snapped a picture of this little guy sitting on one of the schooner's lines in Key West.