Stars, Sails - the Parallax View

A family of astronomers at sea... coming soon to a galaxy near you...

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Sarasota Until the Weekend, Anyway...

15 November 2011 | Sarasota, FL
Heather/ sunny and 81 F
Ah, it's a joy when things break in a place where you can fix them and have a car... OK, well, maybe not a JOY, exactly, but much better than some other scenarios!

So, where were we in this narrative when I got derailed by "events?" Ah, that's right, John's Pass to Sarasota. But that was Thursday (and today is Tuesday), so I think I have some 'splainin' to do: we visited Derek's parents, went to the opening day of the Sarasota Medieval Fair (motto: "The Peasants are Revolting" -- seriously!), had a "work day" cleaning up the boat and addressing things that needed doing, and discovered that the starboard starter motor would no longer start the engine... huh??? I mean, after Derek took all the impeller blade pieces out of the starboard engine's raw-water path, it was running well, starting easily, and now after three days off, it won't start at all?? You can easily imagine Derek's comments, something about diesel engines on trucks running for years with no problems, but every few days on a boat it's some other #$%^* thing breaking (!!!) We'll get to all that. I'd like to start back on the trip into Sarasota, just for the sake of having some pictures to look at.

First, there were the opening bridges. Between John's Pass and Sarasota, there are five of them. But the forecast was for building winds through the day and a front moving in, so we were pretty set on going inside.

The opening bridges are timed in such a way that boaters going a bit over 5 kts make it from one to the next in time to catch the next opening. This was our second one, Corey Avenue. He not only did not open on demand (the previous one had, delightfully enough), he skipped the scheduled opening in order to wait for emergency vehicles that never crossed his bridge. Twenty minutes after that, he made the next scheduled opening, but it was a near thing, he waited to get telephone clearance from his supervisor. We were... relieved. Other bridges for the rest of the day would wait until their scheduled openings, but no others made us wait 33 minutes. Ah, think of it as an opportunity to practice holding position against a current flow! It was fun. Sort of:
Correy Ave St Petersburg Bridge

There is a large long bridge across part of Tampa Bay after the Middle Ground (Boca Ciega and Tierra Verde), and most ICW boats go out into the larger bay under that bridge. But there is a channel going to starboard if you are southbound, just before that bridge. It's called the Sunshine Channel, and it's dredged straight as a rudder, well-marked, and knocks about 5 nm off your trip. We took that. It runs past the Pinellas National Wildlife Refuge.
Sunshine Skyway Bridge: Sunshine Channel Parallels
Here is a link to a Google Map showing the dredged channel to the west of, and paralleling, the Sunshine Skyway:
Sunshine Skyway and Sunshine Channel (opens in new window)

Anyway, we approached Sarasota and wound up coming in a bit after dark -- but with a lot of lighting, so nothing like the nerves we had trying to find the dock at White City in the dark :-) The weather was right behind us, and it blew a bit and even rained a bit much later to prove it was a front. We were glad to be snug and safe and within walking distance of Whole Foods, and that was when Derek discovered the miraculous extra vanes of impeller caught in the starboard engine's raw-water system. At tyhe top is our impeller and those of its vanes that we found. At the bottom, vanes of a slightly different size and material, from some previous destroyed impeller:
impeller vanes everywhere!

By the way, this is Derek's "emergency impeller repair" kit (it lives in a baggie):
Impeller Repair Kit
The particularly cool and useful thing is the cable tie in a circle in the upper right. That diameter is the same as the diameter of the inner edge of the cavity the impeller needs to fit into. To do that, the vanes have to be slightly flexed in the correct direction. The easiest way to get six of the little beggars into the cavity in the proper position is to flex them all, pop the cable tie over them to hold them in place, put dish soap all over the vanes to provide harmless lubrication for startup, and then ease the impeller into the cavity. As it's going in, the cable tie will pop off the outer edge, but the vanes will all be in the correct orientation with minimal hassle.

The next morning, Derek's Dad visited to see the boat and give us a ride down to my Dad's car:
Grandfather, Grandson, Son in one picture :-)

That evening was beautiful, this was the view astern at Marina Jack, Sarasota. There is a fountain with a sculpture of dolphins:
Marina Jack Sarasota
That's Venus just above it.

We knew that Grant was growing, but last time he saw Grandma, she was just slightly taller than he was. Not this time:
Grandma's the shortest in the family again...
And Grandma regains her title of shortest person in the family!

On Saturday, we took Grant to the Sarasota Medieval Fair. He tried the Jacob's Ladder and pronounced it tougher than the one in Colorado (he beat that one):
Jacob's Tough Ladder

We watched some of the stage acts. Acrobat-comedians:
Grant laughs at acrobat comedians

And the joust:
My only really clear pic of the joust
It was hard to get a clear picture with action in it! This is the only one that came out properly (none of the telephoto ones did, for example).

Sunday, Grant and Derek conducted Naval Battles at Grandma & Grandpa's place:
naval battles

And Monday was a work day... pics of those projects later.

Today, we were visiting Grandma & Grandpa and stopped to rescue a large terrapin that was trying to cross the road (no pics as I was the one doing turtle-wrangling), then turned onto their street and nearly ran over this guy moseying across the road (took a few seconds to dig the camera out):
gator!
That was about a 7-foot alligator. Got more pics, but this one was prettiest.
Comments
Vessel Name: Parallax
Vessel Make/Model: 37' Prout Snowgoose (1982)
Hailing Port: Pensacola
Crew: Derek, Heather and Grant
About:
Two astronomers, looking for variable stars and adventure. After cruising the Caribbean aboard S/V Paradox for 18 months in the early 90s, the crew swallowed the anchor and had a child, always planning their next Great Adventure: cruising under sail with Grant, showing him the world. [...]
Extra:
We knew that if we ever got a catamaran, we'd want a name to celebrate her twin-hulledness. Parallax is seeing the same thing from two slightly different points of view, which with our two eyes is what gives humans our depth perception. It's also a good metaphor for one of the benefits of marriage. [...]

S/V Parallax

Who: Derek, Heather and Grant
Port: Pensacola