by Admiral Linda
03/16/2010, Lake Worth Inlet, FL

Laundry dancing with the wind ... a simple pleasure

On one side of living the dream, there is something therapeutic about being self-sufficient and living quietly. Not as in living without noise, but as in living with a feeling of internal bliss - peacefulness cultivated from the freedom to purposefully create the moments in my day.

Taking care of our pretty little yacht, the laundry, maintenance, cleaning, arranging, Feng Shui-ing, becomes an act of appreciation, affection, more for the comforts Troubadour provides, than for the minor disappointments (like skylight leaks). Harmonizing our floating home has become a simple pleasure in which I can take all the time I want, or none. There's no reason to hurry, I have nowhere to rush off to.

Pampering a la manicures, pedicures, facials, and massages, were luxuries I drained my wallet for in my life's previous chapter due to living on a schedule - always on to the next thing to be crossed of the list. These have morphed into gifts of gentle touch and time. In this newest chapter, time and touch are the only gifts I can afford - to give myself, Chris or anyone.

Reading for hours - a previously lost passion, has sauntered back into our lives, teasing us with books we've desired to cozy up with, but didn't settle our minds or bodies enough to enjoy. We're reading a plethora of authors - Stephen King, Ruth Francisco, Deepak Chopra, Evans Cottman, Douglas Terman, Cathleen Rountree, Donna Eden, Khaled Hosseini. Author Azar Nafisi describes how to satisfy ... "A novel is not an allegory. It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters, and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience."

Playing Backgammon has evoked our competitive spirits. Seat two nice people on either side of the game board and you may ask "Who let the dogs out?" We play every evening before grilling. What could lift our spirits more than the setting sun, a cold bottle of beer and a cut-throat game of Backgammon? The answer: We have yet to find out.

Discovering a sought after treasure in the cruising life - Happy Hour, primarily when it's cheap ($20) and easy (dinghy right up to the bar). We continue to indulge ourselves once a week with live music, a bucket of beer, cheese fries and chicken nachos at the Tiki. Does life get any better?

The rhythm of life is changing. Time is slowing down for me, for us. Recently, a two-and-a-half mile walk to a bank for a notary, followed by a thirty minute shuffle in line at the post office for one stamp transported us to the future we haven't been to yet, giving us a nod that soon we will be on "island time" for real. (Although in our minds we are there now). No hurries, no worries.

Simple pleasures and living quietly, this is my cruising life!

Life Aboard

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by Captain Chris
02/26/2010, Lake Worth Inlet, FL

Captain Chris catching up on some reading.

I know from my Six Sigma training that a statistician is a guy with his head in the oven, and his feet in the refrigerator, who says "on average, I'm comfortable". The February weather shows the average low is 55, but we've seen temps in the 40's. The weather pattern has continued; strong chop and winds for a few days, followed by some nice weather and another front. After beautiful weather last weekend, yesterday we got some strong rain, and another cold front blew through overnight; it dropped to 46F as a strong breeze picked up, 25-30 knots. This morning we discovered one of the other anchored boats had drug to close astern of us. It hit the boat anchored next to us and left some hardware behind. I'm not sure what to think about people who leave a boat unattended for weeks at anchor. If we ever get a true gale or storm, we'll probably have to keep a night watch to ensure nobody drags down on us!

We didn't get to watch much of the Super Bowl on TV, as the signal froze most of the time. I wound up listening on Sirius and Linda went to bed. We have watched some TV, the PBS signal comes in the strongest from the rabbit ear. We usually watch the PBS newshour and WorldFocus during dinner. Occasionally we get some Jeopardy, but that is frustrating when the TV freezes just as an answer or clue is being revealed. If we were going to cruise for an extended amount of time in the US, we would get one of the amplified TV antennas they make for boats, but we're not expecting to have any signals sometime soon. No weather windows for making the crossing to the Bahamas are in sight, but as our friend Dennis tells us, there's no hurry!

As far as our daily routine, Linda takes care of the cleaning, storing the groceries and supplies, laundry, and most of the cooking. I try to stay out of Linda's way and take care of the maintenance on the boat. I've changed both of the fuel filters, cleaned out our seawater strainers, and put another coat of teak sealer on our handrails.

When I'm not doing work on the boat, there's time to read or catch up with Facebook if we have a signal. When she's not cleaning or cooking, Linda seeks her favorite place on the bow for daily yoga & pilates, carves out a reading nook, or continues writing for Southwinds Magazine (a two part article will be in the March & April editions - read it online at Click here for Southwinds Magazine online).

Choppy, windy, cool...

When the wind is blowing and its choppy we stay on board, but when the weather is nice, we take the dinghy to Peanut Island for some power-walking on their path, like we did on Tuesday. After a few laps, it was happy hour at the Tiki, so we headed over for some cocktails and cheap appetizers. Chatting with the other folks enjoying the weather is always entertaining. I got to share some knowledge when I was asked about the shellfish rule of thumb (don't eat in months that don't have an R in them), and while chatting about their visit in the area, I found out that Geoffrey Rezekis the founder of the Ukulele Society of Connecticut, and distributes ukuleles as a labor of love. When I thought he was making a head call, he returned with a soprano uke and presented it, as well as some music to me! Now I've got two instruments to try and master in the islands. Thanks, Geoff! You can visit his site at www.ukuleles.net.

Happy Hour notwithstanding, in the evenings we have "sundowner" cocktails on deck and watch the megayachts come and go as I cook something on the grill. If it's not so nice, Linda cooks something in the oven, a loaf of bread or pizza for dinner, to warm the boat up.
My sister Lindy and Rich have been very generous with letting us stay overnight, letting us do laundry, and using their car for groceries and supplies. We had to cancel on them once when the lagoon was too choppy to head into shore in the dinghy, but we were able to spend most of last weekend with them.

The rain yesterday was the final straw for one of the galley portlights. The portlights were leaking badly the first time we came on the boat, and they got a quick fix with the limited tools I had brought down on the plane and supplies from Wal-Mart. I guess 18 months is pretty good for a quickie caulk job, but re-glazing the acrylic into the frames is the next job on the list right now. The wind also blew rain past several gaskets on the hatches, so that is next on the list since I have already purchased the gasket material.
The maintenance list never ends, just like a house! The weather is supposed to be back up into the 70s by this weekend, and life goes on!

Life Aboard

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by Captain Chris & Admiral Linda
02/08/2010, Lake Worth Inlet, FL

The Admiral at the helm of the dinghy!

We've been taking our time enjoying life afloat in the Lake Worth lagoon, looking at the comings and goings, and adjusting to a routine on the boat without shore power and other land based extravagances.

Part of the time has been without extravagances like refrigeration, as I noticed that the generator had managed to push quite a bit of antifreeze out of the coolant overflow bottle. It appeared that salt water was getting into the cooling water side, which might mean a bad heat exchanger. Upon the quick referral of Bob Bittner www.Southeastaero-marine.com we found Roy Willis to help disassemble and troubleshoot the generator. The heat exchanger core was cleaned ashore and pressure tested satisfactorily, but upon reassembly we still had too much pressure on the seawater side; it turned out that the exhaust elbow, where the seawater exits the heat exchanger, was mostly clogged from deposits over the years. So, after some new rubber boots for each side of the heat exchanger, a new exhaust elbow, some new exhaust hose, and another healthy donation to UPS overnight, the generator is up and running again.

Restocking the refrigerator involved a two and a half mile trip to Winn Dixie. Of course, that is in the dinghy with a fifteen horsepower engine instead of in a car. Oh, and the speed limit is 5 MPH. Luckily, the Winn Dixie is right near a dock where we could tie up, and a coin laundry was right next to it, so we got lunch at McDonalds, did a few loads of laundry, and went shopping. The laundry went into a garbage bag, the cold groceries into a soft cooler, the rest of the groceries into another garbage bag, and then we braved the chop and wind to motor back to the boat.

The weather here has been changing frequently, on about a five day cycle. A sunny, warm day is followed by strong winds, possibly some rain, and then a cooling off. Of course, as the winds pick up, so does the chop. If the wind is from a different direction than the current running through the lagoon, we get to hear the waves slap against the hull, as we usually stay put on the worst weather days. Of course, if you have things to do, you put on the foul weather gear and head out.

Monday we met Karin and Bob Nason at the Tiki Restaurant. It was rainy and windy, and the foul weather gear kept us dry for the dinghy ride. Karin is Linda's friend from New Brunswick, Canada, who has guided her through many sewing projects. Karin and Bob were vacationing in Florida and made a point of meeting us. Thursday, we had something to do, too. Luckily the weather was pretty nice. I took Linda over to meet my sister Lindy and they celebrated their birthdays with mochas and some shopping. Rich and I joined them for dinner at CityPlace, and then we saw Avatar in the IMAX at CityPlace. Worth seeing, as the box office indicates, and we thought the 3D was nice.

We are developing confidence in our primary anchor, as we haven't dragged a bit over the last few weeks. We got confident enough that after a day of strong blows on Friday, we hopped off and met Lindy to spend Saturday afternoon and night at Satori, her house in Wellington, returning Sunday afternoon. We found out one of the other boats nearby, which has been unattended, dragged its anchor while we were gone, and had to be taken off by TowBoat. Glad we got the oversized anchor!

We've also had the pleasure of sharing Sundowners (cocktails at sunset) with new friends, Stan & Kathy from Coon Rapids, MN, aboard Vespera, their Jeanneau 46. Kathy shared some recipes for bread and biscotti with Linda. We've also met Troubadour blog followers, Glen & Pam who are traveling to the Exuma's on Blue Pearl, their Island Packet 38 - www.thebluepearl.ca

CBS is not the strongest signal in the lagoon here, but we hope to be able to watch the game on the TV stick tonight. SIRIUS should come in fine to provide the play by play even if the video freezes on us. A big "Who Dat" to all the NOLA followers!

Life Aboard

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by Captain Chris
01/20/2010, Lake Worth Inlet / Port of Palm Beach, FL

We are finally on the move! After being treated to dinner at Inlet Harbor Restaurant on Tuesday by fellow sailors, Dave and Debbie Levine, friends from Milwaukee, we departed Inlet Cove about 7:45 AM on Wednesday, Jan 13th, on the high tide. After a final wave goodbye, we headed down the channel to Sea Love Boat Works, where we first saw Troubadour. George helped us tie up and take on a tank full of diesel. We then proceeded out the inlet, hoisted sails, and headed southeast. The winds were light and we made about five knots good (for landlubbers, a knot is about 1.1 land miles per hour). When the winds got really light and the boat speed dropped to about three and a half knots, we motor-sailed for a few hours until the wind picked back up.

We made it around Cape Canaveral without seeing any other ships other than a few shrimpers. Linda was on watch and saw the first cruise ships as we were southbound towards Fort Pierce. The night air got a bit chilly, and we took turns staying in the cockpit, in our fleeces and foul weather gear, watching out for other ships and making sure the autopilot was keeping us on course.

Thursday mid-morning we got trailed by the US Customs & Immigration boat for a while. They finally approached and asked us some info, radioed it in, and apparently were satisfied with the answers as they zoomed off with their quad 225 hp engines. We saw about 50 commercial fishing boats around Fort Pierce; I think that must be where the red snapper ban stops because everyone was out. They stayed out of our way, as they should for a sailboat.

Starting at lunch, we had a decision to make: add some speed to try to make the inlet before dark; come in after dark; or wait until daybreak. We turned on the "diesel wind" and motor-sailed for the afternoon to make it to the Lake Worth inlet right around official sunset. I hailed the Sea Tow boat for a courtesy guide to an anchorage, and it paid off as he turned in where the water was about 20 feet deeper than on the charts. The "Palm Beach" crowd keeps an unofficial channel for their mega-yachts on the eastern side of the lagoon, where the Intracoastal Waterway goes up the western side. We picked a spot in about 10 feet of water and dropped the anchor.

It looked like there would be good weather to go to the Bahamas over the weekend, but we decided to stay here for a few extra days to check over the boat while at anchor, see the area, and visit with my sister Lindy. Days have been sunny and in the mid 70s, with evening temperatures dropping into the 50s. We have taken the dinghy in and out of harbor, hoisted and lowered it on the davits, and tied up alongside so we finally have some procedures for life at anchor. We cook more onboard, and run the generator twice a day to charge the batteries, run the refrigerator, and power the coffee pot/toaster in the morning. The marina in Riviera Beach has a nice Tiki bar and restaurant where we have eaten twice, and availed ourselves of the laundry and shower facilities there.

There is a park called Peanut Island, where Linda met Lindy, and "The Girls of Summer" her friends group, for a tour of the Bounty. This square rigged replica ship was used in the movie "Mutiny on the Bounty" and one of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. Peanut Island is mostly spoil, or sand that was dredged from the canals. Like landfills, the spoil area is hidden and around the perimeter there is a nice walking path that has been landscaped with native species. We walked the tour and enjoyed seeing the marine life, including a manatee. We've also seen one on a dinghy ride in, and one at the marina, as many sightings as we had all year in Ponce. I guess the manatees don't read the signs very well and aren't always in the manatee areas.

We're planning on stocking up tomorrow, and will take the next west winds to the Bahamas. Reading Lyn Pardey's book about heading across the north Pacific in a 29' boat makes crossing the Gulf Stream sound easy!

Anchorages

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01/15/2010, Port of Palm Beach / Lake Worth Inlet

The view from our anchorage in Port of Palm Beach / Lake Worth Inlet, FL. (Click on the map to see our position at Port of Palm Beach.)

Anchorages

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