Lara
01/25/2012, Ft Lauderdale

Fun in the sun with the crew of Ruach II.

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Lara
01/25/2012, Ft Lauderdale

Bill & Isobel take a few waves in the face. This one was just exciting.

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Lara
01/25/2012, Ft Lauderdale

My cousin Cindy and her husband Phil have taken great care of us while we've been here in town. Phil loves to cook and served up course after course of great food for multiple cousins watching the Patriots play the Baltimore Ravens. It sounds like that poor kicker guy from the Ravens will have to move out of town for a while. Anyway, Isobel was clearly sucked in by the big flat screen TV and Phil's Bahamian mac and cheese. Did I mention she wants to steal their 2 dogs Copper & Bugsy and bring them back to the boat, or move into their house? It's been really great spending time with these guys. I'm lucky to have family like this.

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01/24/2012, Fort Lauderdale

One of our (little ) projects on the boat was to replace our flag.

We have heard that White fabrics are more affected by UV than other colors. The flag proves it out. You will note that the White stripes are gone at the trailing edge where the red still has life in it.

We are guessing that this is because light is reflected within the fabric... where other colors absorb the light, so the surface of the fabric is the only part that is affected... let me know if you know the actual reason...

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01/22/2012, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Why should we buy toys...

She had so much fun with this cardboard box... it does make you wonder.

And why aren't we blogging... well... partly because we have no routine, so there is not part of the day that is blog time... and partly because we think what we are up to is not interesting....

Yesterday we spent all day in the rental car... picking up this and that, driving to here to find that they don't carry that anymore (even though they said on the phone they do) I think we did check off a couple items on our list...

Today, I successfully removed to water pump to repair an oil leak, only to find that it was not leaking from the water pump... rather from the stop solenoid that was directly above the water pump... Ah well, now I know how to make a gasket with RTV! And I found that I should really have some metric box wrenches for less than 12 mm...

Isn't that interesting?

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71 and clear
01/09/2012, Los Olas, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Teri and Isobel had an afternoon at the beach, a bath and then retired to the cockpit where Isobel played on the Ukelele then moved to the "big sucker" aka baby guitar.

We have visited with Cindy and Phil, spent time at the beach, tried several times to go to the Science and Discovery Museum and... tonight we tried to get Isobel in bed early... 8 pm! A great time had by all...

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01/06/2012, Off Pompano Beach

At one time there must have been 20 dolphins around us. And with the water crystal clear it was a wonderful show, including a little one who went off a few times to leap out of the water completely. Occasionally when a wake from another boat would pass us, they would ride the waves like a body surfer, and return to us one they had traveled 100' or so....

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clear, 75
01/06/2012, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Well, it was a very nice day on the ocean. Not a lot of wind, but it was warm. In the photo we are in long pants... with hot drinks on the bow, early... later we were in shorts with very little wind... and pretty flat seas. We tried every sail combination to push us against the current which was against us.... the edge of the gulf stream.

We have taken a slip at Los Olas Marina so that it will be easy for Lara's Mom to be on and off the boat, as she will be visiting... We had a very interesting time tying up...

If you look at google maps, satilite view: 26 07.172'n:080 06.523'w you see our asigned slip is at the end of the dock, inside the fender for the bridge. There was some current pushing us toward the bridge. What we usually do is what we call "the Jack Klang" after something we learned at a boat show from Jack Klang This is a wonderful maneuver he developed for docking single handed. We tie a long line on the midship cleat. As we approach the dock we toss it over a cleat on the dock and bring it back to the primary cleat in the cockpit... if we keep the engine in idle forward, the boat is drawn to the dock and we have all the time in the world to make it fast...

Today the dock hand tied out line to the cleat! THe current pushed our stern out toward the bridge fender... I had flashes of all the damage that could be done.... somehow, by doing some quick bursts forward with the helm hard over and reverse to stay off the dock we were able to swing in that tiny space to end up bow out, port side to the dock!! Yikes!! Lara made a couple drinks and we toasted being here... in one piece...phew!!

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67 and clear
01/05/2012, Lake Worth, FL

Isobel took this photo while we were anchoring. She said that she wanted to catch the sunset because we weren't paying attention...

We had a late start and a leisurely day. Being much warmer we really enjoyed being out in the cockpit...

26 50.241'n 080 03.282'w

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Bill, 42 and clear
01/05/2012, Fort Pierce, FL

We stopped at a marina to have some showers and run to the store. What we found were birds, manatees and generosity.

First, the birds: This is quite the spot: Ospreys hung out in the rigging of boats, and at dusk flocks of birds started flying past the boat: White Ibis, Little Blue Herons, Tricolored Herons, Cattle Egrets... we walked down the dock to see where they were going and found a tiny island covered with birds... hundreds of birds. The Pelicans were hanging out with the Herons while the White Ibis seemed prone to squabble with each other, pecking and pushing and flying about... A couple Belted Kingfishers grabbed a few last fish as the sky darkened. I hoped to catch some great photos early this morning, but I was too late. All the birds were gone except for the lazy Pelican who were still preening and stretching. The cattle egrets were all congregating on surrounding boats and flying off to the west in flocks.

Then we saw the Manatees, which we had never seen before. 1000 to 1200 pounds, they are impressive and beautiful. right beside the boat!

And finally, generosity: Eariler in the afternoon, we were headed to the store, which was 4 or 5 blocks away... we stopped to ask a woman, Chris, which way to the store. She looked at us, with Isobel on her Skuut and said, "You don't want to walk there, Route 1 is too busy, take my truck, it is set up with car seats..." Wow, she wasn't a cruiser or a marina owner... she was the local AFLAC representative. Hope for this world comes from the wonderful people that it is filled with. Thanks Chris.

27 28.016'n 080 19.628'w

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