Indiantown to Stuart Work

One of many frogs in a scupper hole on the boat.

 Well once again our arrival to Kasidah in Indiantown and working on her was a great adventure. This year the new thing for everyone in Indiantown was “Frogs”,….Yeap everyone had frogs on their boat and still do,…jumping, sticking frogs, so that should describe a few surprises that we encountered as we uncovered and started cleaning her. You've seen some of the photos on Facebook, but what you have to picture is having a frog jump at you as you uncover something while the boat is on the hard, meaning you’re 15 ft off the ground, the frog jumps up and over, misses you lands on the hard ground and jumps off again like it’s nothing. Of course, I have an arm full of things climbing down the ladder, which has only one rung that isn't a double, about 4 feet off the ground, throwing me off my balance, so I jumped off to save myself from falling, landed on my feet OK but,…The meat dish I was carrying to the grill in a Corelle bowl hit the ground and shattered into 10 thousand little pieces as they do. I wasn't wearing my jumping shoes but my flip-flops and the ground being all little pebbles and rocks was not a good thing. The bottom of my feet hurt like a @#$%^K&($ for many days. Thank goodness for the 800mg Ibuprofen on board.

Mic and Blue during a dinner @ Indiantown

A mans job.......plugged head hose

Mic,Jon myself and Sue

A few things needed attention this year, our Raymarine VHF radio seemed OK but I found it would send but not receive. We had a spare Standard VHF on board, 2 hand held and a spare Antenna, (just like the Department of Redundancy Department). Yeap my trouble shooting showed ours would send but not receive the other one would receive but couldn't send. Hand held and both antennas where fine. When we got to Stuart we shopped for a new one, (Defenders of course had the best price but was 4 days away and a weather window for crossing was coming up real fast) but I really wanted to make sure my troubleshooting was correct. We found this little mom and pop tech repair place called Coral Reel Electronics, retired Navy guy said he could test the radio for $30 before I ordered the new one. Both radios in tow we get there and this guy has a shop full of parts, pieces and a test bench to die for. He test the Raymarine and in 30 seconds confirms it sends but don’t receive. OK thank you, he tries to sell us a new one he has in his store but it wouldn't match the remote station in the cockpit without buying his remote station too which would put us over the price from the plug and play from Defender. He ask how much we were paying for the Raymarine, looks at his computer and said he could get us one for that price, even with out shipping,….. “When?” was my 1^st question,… “Tomorrow noon” he said,…And because I just watched a week of the TV show “Pawn Stars” I ask my 2^nd question,,..Can you loose the $30 charge for your 30 second test and also give me another 30 seconds to test this Standard VHF. “Yeap” ,..deal. I take the 2^nd out of the bag hand it to him with the 120 volt to 12 volt supply which it was hooked up to when we got it. One of the little things like you charge a phone or something with, “What the hell is that?” looking at the 120 to 12 volt thing, and my electrical experience kicked in and my face turned bright red. It’s not a large enough power supply to send of course. He plugs it in to his power supply and the test proved it would end and receive. So I had Arline huge the guy and we where WAY ahead with the mom and dad store. We got the new Plug and Play replacement radio for the lowest price even with any taxes, didn't have to pay for shipping or wait,  made sure the old one was bad and we now have a fully functional 2^nd radio, WAY AHEAD. Thank you Coral Reef Electronic in Stuart. You’ll be my first call for anything electronic.

Our meats for the trip

Making new back cushions for Kasidah

Can't go without the beer

The tri-data (Depth, speed and temp) thru-hull is removed and replaced with a blank when ever we sit too long, as growth around the speedo wheel will not allow for an accurate reading through the water.  I also remove it from the boat if we are being hauled because straps can damage it. I can install it before we are launched because we can check the position of the straps. Last day on the hard at Indiantown I go to put it in and notice the threaded retaining ring holding it into the thru-hull fitting is cracked. I tried to get the ring off as I have several spare blanks on board (Department

of Redundancy Department at it again (DRD)). Yeap it can’t be done. Several phone calls to Raymarine saying you could do it, nope you don’t know what you’re talking about,..called the maker of the tri-data Airmar, Nope, they know what it is and I have  confirmation you need to buy a new one. Well that’s the dumbest deign I’ve seen. Defender package 4 days later arrives and the new one is here but not tri-data, just temp and depth. Now we don’t have it in time for the launch and the trip to Stuart, but that’s Okay as we do have a totally separate 2^nd depth meter and gauge on board, plus a hand held,  (DRD). I still wanted the speed thru the water as it is information I like to have in front of me as we go along. Arline could'nt watch and never does as I change this 2 inch fitting while in the water. I put the broken sensor in anyway but put a hose clamp around the broken threaded part so it couldn't separate, come out of the thru-hull fitting opening that 2 inch hole to the sea while under way. It worked fine on the way over and am confident it would never come loose, the new correct one showed up is installed and now I have a back up tri-data thru-hull making the “People from The Department of Redundancy Department People” (PDRDP) some what happy. Now I just need to remember where I put the damn thing.

There is also the story of why Arline was so nervous about, what she thought was the vulnerable 2 inch opening in the hull that could open to the sea. It involves other cruisers/friends of ours that we've been watching and waiting for. They sold everything and bought the boat of their dreams. Lived aboard for the summer in the states and while on a passage early November things went very bad for them and they lost their boat. They were picked up by the USCG 300 miles into their trip. All 4 on board are OK, but everything they had is in 6500 ft of water. I've not talked to them yet but by e-mail and will not discuss who they are or where and what happened as they are still working into a new life which will not include anything on the water they tell me.  It did bother me as I heard it was a matter of things going bad in bad weather. We feel so bad for these folks and hope they do well in their next adventure. While talking with Mick and Sue, and another couple in Stuart, both long time cruisers in distant waters, telling this story and the ramifications it would have on our judgement calls, while enjoying sun-downers, some cold, some red and some white. While going over what could have happened and all the what ifs, what would you do, and how sad. The other couple with us pointed out all of the fire trucks and ambulances that we were hearing and seeing go over the bridge at night, (sometimes both directions at the same time). Making the point that in life, Every Day somebody somewhere loses something. Some of the fire trucks were headed to house fires where the best trained responders couldn't prevent people from losing everything they had, ambulances were headed to choking people who just went out to eat or hurt people in car accidents that just went to the store, People hurt at work, falling off roofs, ladders and more, and it goes on and on. I guess the point of this is that no matter what, each day we should count ourselves lucky for the life that we have. We can take all the precautions in the world, and if it's your time, it's your time; and if it's not, it's not. That doesn't mean you can throw caution into the wind or try and tempt fate, your not going to do that and we all know it and we don't think that was what they did. I'll end this with our favorite song "Pink Guitar" by the Sim Redmond Band. A song that moves us every time we hear it, a song that should be played every time the Tiki Bar is rolled our at FPM (it was in the transfer deed of ownership for the Tiki Bar), The words tell us;

 "People say don't live in the past, live each day like its your last, but you should try it in reverse, live each day like its your first.

You've seen me jump around to this song, and I still do. Now join me in the moment and go to the link.

http://www.simredmondband.com/audio/PinkGuitar.mp3

Thank you all for following.