We've made it to Isla Mujeres Mexico

After a week in beautiful Marco Island, we finally left about 4:00pm on Sunday, December 6th after topping off the fuel and water tanks at the Marco River Marina. As beautiful as Marco Island was, we were ready to leave. We motored out the river and turned southwest toward the Dry Tortugas. The seas were 2 to 3 ft. and the winds were light and variable. After an uneventful night we arrived at the Dry Tortugas about 8:00am the following morning.

It had been about 20 years since Pat had been to the Dry Tortugas and about 15 years since Bill had been there. Man, how things have changed! That old laid back park with a staff of 5 or 6 people is long gone. Dry Tortugas National Park is now surrounded by a Marine Research Natural Area (with all it’s rules and regulations). The first day we were there we dingied over to the fort and sat out on the dock while 5 law enforcement officers (park rangers, marine sanctuary police and, we think, Florida Marine Patrol, all dressed in full assault gear including guns, handcuffs, batons, handcuffs, tazers, boots, etc.) harassed 4 guys in their brand new 41 ft. open sport fisherman. Apparently, the 4 guys had been scuba diving and were on their way back to the fort when one of the patrol boats had attempted to stop them (because they thought they might be fishing). No one in the sportfish noticed the patrol boat or its blue lights, and the patrol boat was unable to catch the sportfish, which is capable of speeds up to 65 mph. Once they docked back at the fort, they were boarded and inspected by all three agencies. They had all the approprate gear and easily passed all inspections. After being inspected and talked down to a for quite a while, they were allowed to return to Key West. In the old days, when there were only 5 or 6 park service staff living on the island, only a small part of the historic fort was dedicated to park housing and maintenance. Now it seems that about half the fort is used for park housing and maintenance with only the remaining half open to the general public. While we were there we were never approached by a park service interpreter (that’s the smiling park person who usually tells you all the history, guides tours or gives campfire talks), however, we were required, by a park ranger, to fill out a permit request form and given pamphlets with all the new rules and regulations. In spite of all these changes, the Dry Tortugas and Fort Jefferson is still a beautiful place to visit.

By Tuesday we were ready to leave, and the weather looked like it would cooperate, so we put the dingy up on davits, tied everything down and prepared to leave early Wednesday morning. After one last check of the weather, we left the Dry Tortugas about 7:00am Wednesday morning in route to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. The winds were expected to be around 10 kts from the east and south. We got winds from 5 to 14 kts mostly out of the southeast.. The trip was pretty uneventful except once when Otis (our autopilot) decided to go on strike. We were in the gulf stream when it decided to steer us first go one way then the other. Bill finally decided that the flux gate compass was sticking, so while Pat steered the boat, he removed the compass from the bulk head under the aft cabin bunk, made sure all wires were connected, shook it a few times, then wedged it between the mattress and a bulkhead. After that, the autopilot has worked better than it ever has in the past. We saw very few boats or ships until we reached the Yucatan straights, then there were lots of ships to watch out for.

We arrived at Isla Mujeres about 4:00pm Friday, set the anchor and got a good night’s sleep. On Saturday morning, we took a slip in Marina Paraiso, then went into town to clear customs etc. Since it was Saturday, the doctor was not at the clinic, and no one else there spoke English. Someone called the doctor and was finally able to communicate that she should be there in one hour. The doctor, a young woman, showed up as promised and stamped all of our papers and sent us to the immigrations office. When we got to the immigrations office, it was closed. Not knowing what to do, we went down to the Port Captain’s office and told him that we could not clear in because the immigrations office was closed. The Port Captain called someone at the airport and told us that the immigrations people would show up in one hour. We went back down to the immigrations office, and sure enough, someone showed up in one hour. Things were going pretty well until the immigrations man who spoke no English, suddenly said ..... "Problema!" The bank was closed for some sort of celebration until the following Tuesday (all fees are paid at the bank). The immigrations man went out on the street and found a nearby shopkeeper who spoke some English. With the use of the new found interpreter, it was decided that we should come back Tuesday when the bank is open, and in the meantime we are not to leave the island. With the clearing in process put on hold, we walked around town and went into a little restaurant for lunch. What did we eat in this quaint little Mexican town? Cheeseburgers in Paradise - Naturally!

Waiting for Weather in Marco Island Florida

We had about given up selling the truck in St. Pete Beach, because we had only gotten one phone call about our Craig's list add, and that was from a guy all the way over in Lakeland. Pat was planning to drive the truck to Atlanta to spend Thanksgiving with the her step-son and family. Since Curtis had agreed to sell the truck for us, she had already purchased her return airline ticket, when that one guy from Lakeland called back and wanted to know if he could still look at the truck. To make a long story short, he bought the truck, and we hurriedly drove up to Tampa to pick up the life raft and epirb, while he went back to Lakeland to pick up a cashier's check to pay for the truck. The Mack Pack finally arrived and fits and works great. We said our goodbyes to Ted, Peggy and Nevada ..... It's always hard to leave friends along the way.

We left St. Pete Beach for Marco Island Saturday morning about 10:00am. We went out the Pass-A-Grille inlet and headed south. The predicted 10 to 15 kt. north winds turned out to be 2 to 6 kt. east winds for much of the trip, so we motorsailed down to about Sanibel Island, where the winds picked up about midnight, and we had a great sail the rest of the way. The only thing, it was cold, so we had to wrap up in sweatshirts and foul weather gear. (We are ready to get to warmer waters!) Since we were just off the beach, we had TV, so Bill got to watch his "DAWGS" whoop up on Ga Tech. (That was certainly the highlight of the trip for Bill).

We Arrived at Marco Island about 10:00am Sunday and motored into our favorite anchorage (Factory Cove) and dropped the anchor. This is where they had a lawsuit over anchoring rights, but so far, no one has said anything to us. Since there is a big storm predicted for the end of the week, we decided to wait it out here (where we have, TV, wifi internet, grocery stores and resturants) rather than go on to the Dry Tortugas NP, where there are no services, what so ever. Yesterday, we played tourist .... put the dingy down and went out to the beach and went shelling. We found some sand dollars which we gave away to the other tourists. After we returned from the beach, we cruised (in the dingy) up and down some of the canals in search of a quicker way to the Public's Supermarket. No Luck! We'll just have to walk the mile or so there and the mile or so back. Oh well, it's good excerise!

Preparing to cruise is a lot like work!

After getting our land based stuff stored and automobiles moved to Pensacola, we left the Demopolis Yacht Basin (in Demopolis Alabama) September 7th and headed down the Tenn-Tom waterway. Three days later we were anchored in Ingram Bayou (between Pensacola, Florida and Mobile, Alabama) when our new Excide starting battery developed a short and melted a terminal and destroyed some battery cables.

We managed to crank the engine with the house batteries and motored on in to our friend's dock, Tom and Bobbie Vandiver, on Bayou Chico in Pensacola, Fl. We spent our time visiting with friends, celebrating a friend's 70th birthday, and repairing wiring and replacing the dead starting battery. Lesson learned: Never buy an Excide battery! In our opinion, their warranties are as worthless as their batteries. After a great three weeks, we stored the car and moved our truck to St. Pete Beach, put the sails back on the boat and headed out to the Gulf of Mexico.

We had planned to stop by Destin (again to visit friends) and Apalachicola (to eat some oysters), however, the weather was so good, we decided to do a couple of overnights and head straight to St. Pete Beach. Along the way, we caught two King Mackerel and one large Spanish Mackerel, so have been enjoying a freezer full of fish.

We arrived at St. Pete Beach and our friend's house, Ted Irwin and Peggie Rowe, about noon on the third day. We anchored off from their dock in about 7ft of water. There was no room at Ted's dock because he had his 41ft, 54ft and 68ft sailboats tied up there.

We had lots of projects planned for Mobetah while in the Tampa Bay Area including: having the life raft recertified, new battery for epirb, pulling the mast and replacing the mast boot and wedge, repainting the mast, boom and pole, installing a new TV antenna, installing new roller furling, installing new insulators on the back stay, checking all the standing rigging, having the sails checked and restitched, and installing a Tides Track and a new Mack Pack. Ted, a St. Pete Beach native, seemed to know everyone in the boat business and was a great help in not only lining up people to do some of the work, but also helping with a lot of the grunt work in the yard.

Most of the work is now completed (still waiting for the Mack Pack to be delivered and the life raft to be repacked and certified). It has certainly taken longer than we had planned, and as often is the case with a boat, we ended up doing more projects than we had anticipated, but we are beginning to see the end. Now it's on to provisioning, dealing with the truck and obtaining insurance for the N.W. Caribbean. In a week or two we hope to head on down the coast to Marco Island, where we will top off the fuel and water tanks before heading to the Dry Tortugas (a National Park 75 miles west of Key West), so we can rest up and wait for weather before heading out for Isla Mujeres Mexico.

If It Ain't One Thing, It's Another!

When we last posted, we were back on the boat and putting things away. After we finished putting things away, we went up the Tenn-Tom and anchored for a couple of nights to see what still worked and what didn't! All in all, it went pretty well ..... The generator was slow to start (loose and/or corroded cables and connections) , the anchor windlass was sluggish (again, I think that's also loose and/or corroded cables and connections), a couple of cabin fans need to be replaced (bearings going bad), the cooling fan on the inverter is beginning to make a lot of noise (like the cabin fans it's bearing are going bad) and the steering pedestal was making all kinds of noises when you turned the wheel. Apparently, bearings don't do too well when left unused for three or four years.

We then packed the truck to go to Texas for two or three weeks, but first we ordered a new ham/ssb radio and tuner from Dockside Radio, as well as a fan for the inverter, so they would be waiting for us when we returned. We also had Dale (a friend in the marina) install a front access to our refrigerator.

After three great weeks in Texas, visiting with friends and checking on our condo, we headed back to the boat. We made it back in one long tiring day! Dale did a great job on the refrigerator access, and the radio and inverter cooling fan were waiting for us at the marina office. We purchased a steering pedestal rebuild kit from West Marine in Corpus Christi.

Back to work on the boat, and it didn't take long to find more problems ....... The aft holding tank had developed a crack, so Bill began removing it, only to find all the hoses completely filled with calcium deposits. In removing the hoses, he managed to cut his thumb pretty badly with a box knife , resulting in a visit to the local ER and 10 stitches ....... he was lucky to some degree, because he did not cut it on a joint and did not cut any ligaments or nerves. Anyway, that's healing nicely and the stitches come out today.

Dale, the same friend who installed our refrigerator access, had a holding tank that would fit in our boat, so we bought it. However, the inlets were in the wrong place, so we still had to get an inlet relocation kit ........ we now have all the parts to install the new holding tank.

We needed one more road trip to take our stuff for storage in Atlanta, GA, at Pat's step-son's, but before we left, we find one more problem ......... our Force10 water heater is leaking. We will try to find one at West Marine in Atlanta while we are there.

We left Demopolis AL with a pickup truck loaded with stuff for storage, then went to Eufaula, AL (where we have been living with Bill's mother for the last three and one half years) to pick up more stuff. We rented a U-Haul trailer, loaded it up and headed for Atlanta (after a trip to the Dentist for regular checkups and cleanings).

We are now in Atlanta and things have been going pretty well. Curtis and Bill have built a storage closet in Curtis's basement and have all our stuff stored. Today we will visit with a cousin of Bill's on the other side of Atlanta and go by West Marine to shop before heading back to the boat tomorrow.

We plan to make a detour through Phoenix City, AL on the way back to Demopolis to visit with a friend who adopted Bill's mother's kitten after Bill's mother passed away. Should be fun to see if Sarah, the cat, remembers us.

Once back to the boat, we plan to get all the work done that is possible before heading out to Pensacola about September 8th, because the Corps of Engineers is closing the Coffeeville lock for three weeks starting at sunrise on September 11th.

Back Aboard The Boat

After packing and loading the car, the truck and the neighbors' basement with all the things (food, clothing, electonic gadgets, house wares, books, boat parts, etc.) that one gathers in three and one half years of dirt dwelling, we then headed out for the boat.

When we arrived, the thermometer in the car said the outside temperature was 106-F, and we found one air conditioner not working and the other not working very well. With the help of a very nice and knowledgeable air conditioner tech from a local electrical contractor's shop both air conditioners will now freeze you! In order to get to the two air conditioners, we had to empty the vee-birth and everything we had on the aft cabin bed and put it on deck ...... meanwhile, Bill was unloading the food, clothing, electronic gadgets, house wares, books, boat parts, etc. from the car and truck. Of course, all that stuff ended up on the deck while the air conditioner man did his thing. Mobetah looked a lot like the Bevery Hill Billies old truck for a day or two. It all is now being put away, and things are beginning to look normal again. Of course, we are sorting again ..... you know, this pile stays on the boat, this pile goes to Good Will, and this pile goes back to the neighbor's basement and later moved to storage (Curtis, thanks for that space in your basement ..... We Love Ya!).

We are cleaning as we put stuff away. Bill had not been able to get over to the boat for the last two or three months, and the deck was filthy and beginning to turn green (not to mention about a million May Flies who decided die on our boat)! Inside, the boat was very dusty (where does all that dust come from?)

After we get things organized, in a week or two, we'll go up the river and anchor for a day or two (something we have not been able to do for almost three years) just to unwind and to see what still works and what doesn't). Then we'll drive to North Padre Island, Texas to check on the condo and visit with friends for a few weeks.

Updating the Interior

After installing the new fuel tank and water tank the interior was in deplorable conditon. We decided it would be best to update the interior while we were not living onboard. So, for almost a year now Bill has been cleaning, sanding and varnishing the interior.

In addition, each time he went to the boat (about one week a month), he brought back a pickup truck load of stuff (tools, spare parts, linens, dishes, pots & pans,books, rugs, lamps, etc.) home to be sorted into one of four piles: 1. throw away, 2. store, 3. donate to good will or 4. take back to the boat. Everything taken back to the boat was cleaned and/or refinished as required.

Brass clocks, barameters and lamps were cleaned and sprayed with an acrilic coating, rugs were cleaned or replaced.

Most woodwork was refinished with satin varnish (the original finish by Endeavour) however some of the trim, the companionway stairs and the Navagation table top were finished in either gloss Epifanes varnish or glossy polyeurthane.

A New Entertainment Center for Christmas

Well, Santa brought the boat a new entertainment center for Christmas. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to install it so Bill went over to the boat and did that last week.

He replaced the old cassette player radio with a new JVC (200 watt) cd player/receiver. The new radio is sirius radio ready, plays MP3s and has an aux input on the front of the unit for I-pods etc., we got a pass-through adapter so we now have an external input (which connects to our new JVC Sirius radio tuner which connects to the back of the JVC reciever - both are out of site in a cabinet under the entertainment center) so we can now play music, on our computer, through the stereo without all those wires and cables showing.

We replaced our old 13"analog tv with a 19" LCD-HD which Santa purchased at 5:00am on Black Friday. We ended up mounting it with a swivil arm mount from WalMart (worked out really well and at a very reasonable price)

We also replaced the old VCR with a Magnavox DVD recorder/player.

In order to install the various pieces of electronic gear Bill had to move the clock and barometer (to make room for the tv), relocate the air conditioner thermostat (to make room for the tv mount) and fabricate and install a new panel for the JVC radio and a new panel for the tv mount to be mounted to (it also covers the hole left by the relocated air conditioner thermostat).

Everything is now complete on our new entertainment center including permanently mounting the sirius radio antenna. We decide to mount the sirius radio antenna on the davits, so we had to order and intall an antenna cable extension.