Sailing Aboard Scout

We spent the Summer of 2016 sailing the Chesapeake Bay. During August we stayed in a marina in Solomon, MD. One morning, while we were there, I was out jogging, stepped on a rock and twisted my knee. Turns out it was a fairly significant injury, and in April of 2017 it was still very painful and was limiting my activity, both aboard Scout and on land. I finally caved in and agreed with Beth that it wasn’t going to get better on its own and that surgery was likely in my future. At that time we had recently begun our trek north, up the East Coast, with a plan to make it up to New England for the summer. It was April and we were on a mooring, in Stuart, FL and we were hanging out with our friend Will (Allora) while his wife Sonia had gone back to AZ to take care of some family business. We were planning on being in Stuart for about a month and so we thought it might be a good time to get my knee fixed. I was in the process of selecting a surgeon, in the area, when our friends, Rob and Sue (Catalyst -a Manta like Scout) called us from Punta Gorda, back on the east coast of FL. They said they had a deal for us. They suggested we bring Scout to Punta Gorda and house sit, for them, for the summer, as they were going to be out of town. They had also arranged dockage for us, at Leo and Betty’s (Dues Paid -another Manta). Leo and Betty had just sold their Manta catamaran and had an open dock, built specifically for a boat like our’s. The idea was that it would be much easier for me to recover in their house than it would be on Scout. After much discussion, we decided to forego our plans to get the surgery done in Stuart and then head North. Instead we said goodbye to Will and headed back South to make our way round the southern tip of Florida and then head back up the west coast of Florida to Punta Gorda.

The trip to Punta Gorda turned out to be fraught with peril, for Scout. (More detailed descriptions in other posts)

BREAKING AND FIXING SCOUT

The first night out, from Stuart, around 3 am, we were sailing, just off shore, a few miles south of Fort Luaderdale, when we hit something underwater that ripped the port saildrive apart and tore the propeller off. It took about 5 weeks, in a boatyard in Miami, to repair the damage.


Then, on our second day out, after leaving the boatyard, we were sailing north through the Florida bay, and sailed through two storms and waves in the 6-7 foot range, coming off our port stern quarter. Since we were sailing and the engines were off, water was able to enter the engine through the exhaust system. This shouldn’t be able to happen but the exhaust hose had been improperly installed by a boatyard in Cortez, FL right after we bought the boat. The result was something called hydro-lock. The engine wouldn’t start and we ended up burning out the starter motor.

Once we were docked, at Leo and Betty’s, and had replaced the starter moter, Leo helped us clear the hydro-lock and get the motor running again. During the engine repair process we replaced the corroded exhaust elbow and Leo taught us how to adjust the valves. We were afraid the engine would either need to be rebuilt or replaced, but at the time of this writing it looks like we may have dodged that bullet. THANKS LEO!

While docked we thought we’d address a couple of other projects.

First, our buddy Steve Johnson (Chateau – another Manta) helped us replace the leaky hatch over the helm seat. My first hatch replacement and first time using a pop rivet gun. It looks good and doesn’t leak. THANKS STEVE!

Second, we also discovered the bolts that connect the boom to the mast needed replacing. During the replacement we learned the bolt holes needed to be reamed out and bushings installed. Leo helped with this project. OK, “helped” is not really the right word. Leo pretty much DID the project with me standing behind him handing him tools. THANKS LEO….AGAIN!

Third, one of the biggest projects of the summer was done completely by Beth. Well, with a little bit of help from Katey, when she stopped and spent a couple of weeks with us on her way home from her summer in Italy. We had purchased a SailRite sewing machine last year at the Annapolis Boat Show and this summer Beth tackled the huge task of re-covering most of the cushions on the boat, including the beds, and all the cockpit cushions. It’s been a steep learning curve but she had persevered, and done a very nice job. Being a bit of a perfectionist, she’s not totally happy with her first efforts and so I’m expecting she’ll likely go through this process again, in the next several months, but in the meantime, I’m very pleased with her results.

Lastly we sanded the decks, to remove the paint oxidation, and then waxed and polished.

HOW 8 WEEKS TURNED INTO 6 MONTHS:

Our original plan was just to be in Punta Gorda for June and July, and then head up to Tampa Bay, where we would stay until November, when it would be time to head south to our Winter home in Marathon, in the FL Keys. Unfortunately, doctors and Mother Nature have conspired to keep us here longer.

My knee repair was the primary reason we came to Punta Gorda. To help insure we could get the surgery done in time for me to recover before our hosts returned from their trip, we made two trips via car, to Punta Gorda from Stuart, before we started the trip on Scout. We had selected the surgeon and had the date all set prior to leaving Stuart. We thought that since we were going to be in Punta Gorda until the beginning of August, we’d take the opportunity to visit other doctors for regular, 50 year old people checkups. It was during these checkups, which stretched across several weeks, we learned Beth was facing a health issue that would take much longer to address. She was now going to have to be in Tampa, in November, for a procedure. We were planning to be in Tampa anyway, so we thought we’d just stay there longer. We had reservations, first at Gulfport City Marina, for the first two weeks in August, followed by a month in St. Petersberg, and then a month in a marina in Tampa, close to the hospital where Beth needed to go.

As August came, and it was time for us to head for Gulfport, we were still involved with the unexpected medical appointments Beth had run into, so we decided to delay our departure.

THANK YOU BETTY FOR HELPING BETH GET TO ALL OF HER APPOINTMENTS AND FOR BASICALLY JUST BEING THERE FOR BOTH OF US. YOU HAVE MADE THIS VERY DIFFICULT TIME MORE BEARABLE. THANK YOU.

The medical appointments stretched throughout the month of August. THEN, the week we were scheduled to leave Punta Gorda, and sail up to Tampa Bay, hurricane Irma formed in the Atlantic Ocean. We watched as Irma, the largest hurricane on record, both in size and intensity, churned her way toward us, wreaking havoc, and taking lives, on the islands of the Caribbean. After talking with our local boating friends, and our dockage hosts, we decided it would likely be better for the boat to stay on its current dock for the potential hurricane, than it would be for us to stay on our plan, and head north up to Tampa to marinas we didn’t know anything about. With the help of Rob from Catalyst and Leo from Dues Paid, we prepped Scout for the storm, removing everything; her sails, the cockpit wrap, dinghy, etc. from her so there would be as little as possible for the wind to press against. THANKS ROB AND LEO!!

RUNNING FROM IRMA…WELL, KINDA

Irma, according to all but one of the forecasts, was supposed to turn north, before getting to us, and the eye was to go up between Miami and the Bahamas. The historic storm was over 400 miles wide, and so while there was no apparent danger of the eye coming anywhere near us, we were still projected to get hurricane force winds. We were to be on the “dry” side of the hurricane and so, while we were very worried for all our boater friends on the east coast, including our friends, Will and Sonia, who were on their boat Allora, in Stuart, FL, where the winds and storm surge were projected to be huge, we were not very concerned about storm damage here on the West Coast of Florida. Still, not wanting to chance personal injury, we bought plane tickets, on Allegiant Airlines, to fly, two days before the storm was to hit, from Punta Gorda, up to Saluda, in the North Carolina mountains. With plane tickets in hand I wasn’t too worried as the 5 day, 4 day and 3 day storm track projections kept moving westward and bringing the eye of the hurricane closer and closer to us. That all changed the night before our plane was scheduled to depart the following morning at 6am, when I received an email from Allegiant informing me they had cancelled the flight. I called them immediately and was simply told, “we are cancelling the flight due to the weather, but we’re refunding your money, so you should be good to go.” “Good to go!?” I shouted. “Good to go? You’re kidding me right? You’re leaving us stranded, in the path of the largest hurricane in recorded history, and you’re telling me I should be good to go? You can’t be serious?” The agent then responded, “well, we’re giving you your money back, so from THAT perspective, you’re good to go.” I just hung up. NOW I’m scared. No other flights are available on any other airlines, from any other airports in this part of the state. No rental cars are left available either. By the way, the “weather,” that Allegiant cancelled our flight for, at the time our flight had been scheduled to leave, was sunny with winds of less than 5 miles per hour.

So now it’s Friday, the eye of the hurricane, now less than two days away, is projected to be just a few miles to the east of us. We have no car, and no way to get out of Irma’s path. By this time, all our friends, who are leaving town, have already left. I guess we’re hunkering down. Our friends, and mentors, Rob and Sue, of Catalyst, have invited us to ride out the hurricane at their home. The wind and surge projections keep climbing. Now it’s Saturday, Irma is one day away. Now we’re getting surge projections upwards of 10-12 feet and wind projections in excess of 125 mph. Now more people are thinking, “maybe we should move inland, or at least into a house with a second floor.” At this point, Beth is still holding on to her life mantra of “we’ll be FINE!”… while me? I’m pretty much in panic mode. So we’re at Rob and Sue’s and we’re getting ready to move into the neighbor’s two story home so when the surge waters floods the entire first floor, we’ll be upstairs and dry. That is, of course, if the 125 mph wind hasn’t blown the roof off the house. It is about this time that our friend Steve, who along with his wife Nancy, had left town yesterday and driven up to a hotel in Orlando, calls us and says, “it’s time for you to leave, Irma is coming right at you, where are you going and how are you getting there?” “Well, Steve” I say, “it looks like we’re staying put. We don’t have a car, we can’t rent one, there are no flights, there’s no one to hitch a ride with.” “That is just not acceptable,” Steve says. “Find a way to Orlando and stay with us. There has to be a way for you to get here.” We hang up with me promising to keep him posted and let him know how we all fare. I guess it’s also worth mentioning that our family members have all been calling and telling us to get the hell out of Florida. Our daughters are all scared for us, and crying, and Beth’s dad is, well…..pissed.

Shortly after the conversation with Steve, our friend Betty, of Dues Paid, calls and says that they have changed their minds. Based on the new higher surge projections, they have decided to go to Sarasota, where they will stay with Leo’s sister, in her high rise condo. She says they don’t have any room in their car, but that we can use Leo’s sportscar. It’s a two seater, convertible, with zero room for luggage, but at least we can get ourselves out of town. The car only takes premium fuel and by this time, with millions of people leaving the state, there is zero premium gas available. She tells us the car has half a tank but that we can take it if we want to. She didn’t have to ask me twice. I was about ready to get on our bicycles and try to pedal the 100 miles to Orlando. THANK YOU BETTY AND LEO!

By the time we leave Irma’s eye track projection is literally taking it right over the bridge leading into Punta Gorda. Our ride up to Orlando is without incident. The only thing was that we must have stopped in 10 different gas stations trying to find the premium gas that just didn’t see to exist. Luckily, once we arrived in Orlando, with about 1/32nd of a tank of gas left in the tank, we did find a station with premium. We filled the tank and then found a safe parking spot, in the parking garage of the hotel. THANK YOU STEVE AND NANCY for sharing your hotel room with us and allowing us to stay high and dry. The winds gusted up to a little over 100 mph but we slept through the biggest of the winds. There were downed trees all around the hotel and also some flooding, but all in all, where we were, things were not bad at all. Unfortunately that was not the case for much of south Florida.

Irma tore through the Florida Keys and severely damaged Boot Key Harbor and the Marathon City Marina, where we typically spend the winters. This is a picture of the dinghy docks at the Marathon City Marina. The harbormaster there said it would be months before they reopened and up to a year before they would be back operating a full capacity. Throughout the Keys, over 800 boats were lost. After leaving the Keys, Irma came north and took aim at Marco Island and Naples. The damage in both of those communities was pretty severe. As we watched all of this unfold on TV we knew things were going to be very bad in Punta Gorda. Then, as it hit Fort Myers, the city just to the south of Punta Gorda, the storm took a 20 mile jog inland. This was just enough to move the eye of the storm to the east of town, which completely changed the way the surge travelled. Instead of there being the 10+ foot surge seen in Marco and Naples, Punta Gorda actually experienced a negative surge, and ALL the water ran out of Charlotte Harbor. Scout ended up not being flooded off the dock, but instead, sitting on the ground. As best we can tell she sustained zero damage from the storm.

So now the storm has passed, we’re back in Punta Gorda, Scout is fine, and we’re ready to leave and head north to Tampa Bay….NOT SO FAST! All three of the marinas where we were planning on staying sustained damage and the Tampa marina, where we planned to stay the longest, lost the transient docks where we had a slip reserved, and they tell us they won’t reopen until at least the new year, so our boat trip to Tampa is out. We lucked up and due to a cancellation, at the local marina called Fisherman’s Village, we were able to get a slip for the month of October. Our friends, the Linehans, are planning on taking a boat trip during November and so they told us we should plan on bringing out boat over there, while they are gone, and we can stay in there house, where Beth can more easily recoup for a couple of weeks following her November 7th surgery. Oh, and 2 days before we were set to move our boat, from behind Leo and Beth’s, over to Fisherman’s Village, Leo comes onboard and tells us we should just stay here for the month of October. So, it’s Friday, October 13th (I’m not leaving the boat), Beth is back in Colorado, where her daughters, Katey and Kassey are throwing her a party, and Scout is still on Leo and Betty’s dock, and somehow, due to hurricanes, boat repairs and doctors, our 8 week stay has morphed into 18, with another 6 to go before Beth will hopefully be back in travelling shape.

What a summer it was!!

HOW TO REACH US
Email
sailing@aboardscout.com

Phone
303-900-8958
Address
411 Walnut Street #10042
Green Cove Springs, FL 32043