Six Months in a Leaky Boat!

We've made it back to the dry dock for another voyage! In a few weeks we will be dipped into the St Johns river to begin our 5 month romp on Butterfly to Bahamas and Beyond!

Vessel Name: Butterfly
Vessel Make/Model: Columbia33
Hailing Port: Palatka FL
05 March 2012
29 January 2012
21 December 2011
21 December 2011
21 December 2011 | St Augustine, FL
01 December 2011 | San Mateo FL
01 May 2010
24 March 2010
18 March 2010
14 March 2010 | Ocean. Between WPB and Miami
18 February 2010 | Gibson's Boatyard
13 February 2010 | Gibson's Boatyard...still.
06 February 2010
04 February 2010
24 January 2010 | London Ontario
Recent Blog Posts
29 January 2012

Of Coconuts and Lobster

Most people have a highly romanticized view of sailing. "Oh how it would be lovely, to buy

28 December 2011

OH the days of the great lament!

Hope everyone had a nice christmas back home! We finally enjoyed our christmas dinner last

21 December 2011

Mods....

Inspite of my best efforts to keep electronics off the boat, we ended up with quite a few gadgets on board. As the saying goes, "If you can't fix it, it probably shouldn't be there". So the electronics on the boat are as follows:

21 December 2011

Inverters

There are currently only 2 surviving inverters on Butterfly and neither can run the wet vac;

21 December 2011 | St Augustine, FL

Heading South!!

After much toiling and also much waiting (for weather) we have at last made it the 60 mile stretch North up the St Johns river and are now heading south on the intracoastal waterway (hereinafter referred to as the ICW, or as the locals call it, "The INTERcoastal) "YAY!! We stopped in Green Cove Springs [...]

Made It!

24 March 2010
Hello Everybody. Since we havent arrived back home soaking wet I'm sure you've concluded that we crossed the gulf stream successfully!

We've spend these last few days exploring the shores, Streets and seabottoms of Bimini.

My first impression wasn't a good one.

The morning after we arrived from crossing the Gulf Stream, we moved the boat around to the interior of Bimini.

We anchored in what would be considered the industrial district of a small island community.

I took Tapas to shore on a very small patch of beach as the right side was a private yard and on the left side was the edge of the island's diesel power plant, with 2 of the 3 short rusty chimneys spewing smoke across the island. The scene on the 10 meter patch of beach was quite bad. There was barely any clean patches to walk on. The beach was littered with rusted outboard and bicycle parts, a massive sea turtle shell, wrecked boats, and conch shells.

***For those that don't know conch is a large mollusk that live on the grassy seabed. They are (used to be) what the Bahamians lived on. Now they are, on an agricultural level, threatened. Their empty shells are everywhere you look; under water, on beaches, in front of shops, in mountains --even mixed in with concrete to build docks. ***

What was bothersome however was the size. I easily found shells that fit in the palm of my hand--hundreds could fit in the shell of that turtle...



Megan on the other hand was very enthralled with all the wildlife to be seen. The water is so clear you can hang over the side of the boat and just watch all the tropical fish go by. Karl caught us a couple nice lobsters for dinner and I used the carcass as bait to attract some fish. What ended up happening is that i inadvertently attracted some big game. A giant ray came into view to my shrieks of surprise.. This thing had to be a meter squared. I quickly pulled the carcass up as i didnt want it to swallow the nice bow line I had tied and also didn't know how strong this thing was and I was holding onto the other end of the rope. Needless to say I didn't go swimming that day.

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