Tuesday, April 29, 2014

This Old Boat


       Quicksilver at anchor in Titusville 
Ok we bought a classic. She is beautiful and "salty". But she's a 1981 beauty. So we traveled for three days and when our favorite motor propelled huge cruiser goes by and churnes up the water, we start loosing speed. At first Jon thought we might have gone aground. (When these large boats go by the water is so churned up by their zillion horse powered boat that everything on the bottom comes up and our depth meter will read very low or in this case not at all..it makes you question for a second if you are still in the channel or aground).  So he dialed back the excellerator and then tried to excellerate and it wasn't excellerating correctly. We called our friends ahead to see if they were having same problem..thinking maybe there is a strong current running. Nope. Then it hits our friend, Denise, that perhaps it's seaweed or something wrapped on the prop. Yes! That could be it. So we stopped excellerating all together and gave a little reverse....bingo , bango..we have excellerating and speed, Huston!  We were right outside our destination of Titusville, so we pulled in south of the bridge and dropped anchor. Alls good that ends well. Jon and I had plans to meet Ruby Kinch (one of my family's old  friends..I've known since I was tiny) we were treated and enjoyed a night out with Ruby and her daughter, Patty, son, Jerry and his wife. They took us to my dad's and his buddy's favorite spot, Steve's Diner. It was great and so fun to catch up up with these wonderful people.  When we get back to the boat Jon makes his usual rounds of checking all the engine fluids and notices antifreeze all over in the cockpit locker and under the engine. Before he can get in bummed out mode he figures that we probably just overheated a little (not that our instruments indicated any such thing) and the antifreeze boiled over through the overflow tube. So he tops it off and runs the engine for a little while..everything seems good. He mops up all the antifreeze and we go to bed. All good ..until morning and we are getting ready to pull up anchor and move on. Jon remembers he wants to clean our the raw water filter as it probably got clogged as well. As he pulled it out he notices antifreeze in there,..,what?!  The only way that could happen is if in came threw the engine and through the HEAT EXCHANGER! Ok alls not well..we need a heat exchanger and it's Sunday.  Guess we're going to get to know Titusvillle better. So we placed the order and they can get it here Wednesday. The good news as long as we're here I can look for an eye doctor and get an exam and order contacts.  I do just that. My contacts will be in on Wednesday as well (Yeah! I was wondering how I was going to do that. ). 
 
So we are poking around Titusville.,Jon's ex-boss and good friend, Tommy and his girlfriend, Michele, are in Melbourne and plan to catch up with us here. Our friends Ladd and Denise from the boat Blue, have decided to hang with us here. So today is movie day and we are going to have coconut rum and strawberries and watch Across The Universe in their air conditioned boat. Ruby and Patty are back in town so we will try to connect with them one more time, so much to do.  Tomorrow is Wednesday and we we'll give this ole lady a brandy-new heat exchanger. Pretty soon we will have a brandy new  1981 classic. 


   Ruby Kinch and daughter, Patty. So fun and funny.  Thank you!!!


The water looked so silvery on the way back to the boat. 

   Jon looking at antifreeze under the engine.  Lots to mop up. 

  Sunrise on Indian River outside Titusville 

  The old downtown area of Titusville 

This is where everyone would go to watch the space launches 

     A monument for the Mercury Project

Alan Shepard handprints-first American into space. 

  Beautiful park.,we found place here to land our dingy.  

  Our friends on Blue, Denise and Ladd 



Saturday, April 26, 2014

Mile 935

We pulled the anchor from Jensen Beach at 8am after Jon used the boat hook to clean the anchor off. It was a beautiful day. Lots of blue sky and light wind. We were able to gain a couple tenths of a knot by putting out the head sail.  We traveled about seven hours to stay in Indian River at mile 935. It is interesting because this is where Jon and I had our dapper plate break on our transmission and Tow BoatUS had to rescue us. (Remember , we got to stay at the resort in Stuart). Anyway, we had a nice day...I was a little stir crazy as Jon hogged the steering all day. This left me to reading, thinking and taking pictures...you'll be glad I didn't put them all in. One thing I was thinking about was that Florida has so many little islands all up the intercostal   Jon says you can't really call them islands but they look similar to the ones we call islands up the Saint Lawrence River, the Thousand Islands.  I bet Florida as Ten-thousand islands.,,,not sure you can count the Keys.  You could probably google it. Yeah.,,guess I got a little to much time on my hands yesterday..,stay tuned..we're traveling to Titusville. 


Just love the sail against the blue sky

 Islands...

  Selfie 

Creative photography or 

Blue at anchor with us at mile 935



Good night!



Friday, April 25, 2014

A Friend on the Intercostal



We're back in the intercostal traveling north. We left Lake Worth and traveled in beautiful warm weather. I forgot how pretty the intercostal is in Florida.  Jon and I settled into a rhythm behind our friends' boat, blue. We only had seven bridges that were spaced nicely and even nicer was Denise who called each bridge ahead for us both.  It gave me lots of time to catch up on the blog and Jon pointed out all kinds of interesting things along the water. That is when the most fantastic thing happened. Jon and I noticed a dolphin fin off to our port side (that's our left side) about ten yards away. He/she was just slowly going down in the water. I remarked to Jon that the dolphin in the intercostal seemed so different--kind of not interested in us. Several minutes later I told Jon I'm going to check the bow, just in case he decided to swim with us. I never expected to see him and I looked and he certainly didn't seem to be around. I was just staring into the water when one of the colors was different and seemed to move upward. There he was!  Right beside our bow!  I yelled back to Jon and giggled and cooed to the dolphin. How many times did we just not noticed that there was a dolphin in our bow wake.  We had ignored them, not the other way around. Well I can sincerely say that yesterday was right up there with the top experiences of our time on the water down here. I talked and whistled and made kissey  sounds. The dolphin seemed to like it and I videoed him several times. Jon and I took turns at the bow. Jon is as bad as I am about dolphins. He talked and laughed and looked back at me in astonishment and glee as our friend swam and jumped with us.  This went on for a good 40 minutes. Finally  a big motor boat came by and must have looked more tempting or our bouncing around over the waves tired him out.  He had moved on. We didn't stop smiling four hours.  Thank you buddy. 

     We noticed this osprey nest 

                Just scenery

      We noticed this nest with young osprey in it
                   A closer look

          Jupiter inlet lighthouse 

     Abandoned boat????
     Or just using the tide to clean their bottom!!??

      Intercostal in Florida is pretty. 

     Look closely...

       Yep, there is something

     Jon talking to our friendly dolphin 

      Jon sitting on the bow to get a splash from him

      My turn!!!!

           Can you see him?

           Look along side..,.

        Ready for a breath..,,

       So beautifully perfect,,,

        Just makes us giddy !


On one of our changes to watch the dolphin I look over and saw a water snake off our starboard quarter(the back half of the boat on the right) and pointed it out to Jon.  We googled it and think it was this because of it's size. Ugggg. 


          St.  Lucie Inlet  so pretty


   Lots of people enjoy the intercostal 

    Good morning Jensen Beach.  Side note: this is where our damper plate went on our transmission. Interesting that we anchored here by choice this time.