June 26, 2023
I have been remiss in not updating you after our crossing from the Bahamas back to the US. Yes, we made it and the crossing was very smooth! Now the questions is how do we get out of Florida?
Our Last Hours in the Bahamas
We checked out of our marina in Green Turtle Cay at 11, checkout time. If we stayed longer, we’d have to pay for another day. Nope! Given the distance to reach Ft. Pierce, Florida at slack tide (hard to dock otherwise due to the currents) and the time we were supposed to enter the Gulf Stream for a smooth ride, we had about 6 hours to kill.
Birds
We’d not yet visited Powell Cay. An uninhibited cay which was supposed to have pretty beaches and a colony of White-tailed Tropicbirds (a new specie for us, and quite pretty). A couple hours ride in the correct direction, we drop the hook, get the dinghy down and head to shore.
Beaches
We took a short walk to the “hill” overlooking the rookery and then reversed tracks and moved the dinghy to the long beach for shelling.
Garbage
We returned to Rincon, had a nice dinner to start the trip and headed off into the sunset around 6 :30 PM.
This would get us to the edge of the Bahama Bank around 6 am, just as it was getting light. Our last hours in the Bahamas were in darkness. But there was a nearly full moon which was nice and except for some larger swells when we were open to the northern Atlantic between the cays and islands, it was quite calm.
The kittens did a stellar job, sleeping with whomever was piloting (Chicha with just a small dose of meds to keep her tummy a bit happier.)
We Are In Fort Pierce
We arrived right on schedule, docked and were greeted by a Krogen buddy of ours. It was nice to catch up with Don and finally meet Jan his wife in person. Don and Jan have done a passage called The Big U. Start in Alaska, down the west coast of Canada, the US, Mexico and Central America to Panama, through the canal. Then through the Caribbean to the US and on to Maine. Jim, and I threaten to do this passage from east to west. We’ll see… We’ve gotten from the St Lawrence to Florida… [Update June 28: Jim reminded me when he read my post that we sync’ed with Don and Jan when we first arrived in Fort Pierce on our arrival in Florida, not on return from the Bahamas. A reason I should post much closer to when thing happen. My brain gets mushy with all the travel and I loose track of ordering of activities and time. Good I have LOTS of photos in chronological order. I just have to be able to remember where they were…]
New and Old Friends
We also met up with several other Krogen folks and other boaters we’ve run into, as well our new friends from Vero Beach and even a friend from Santa Fe who had a film in the Vero Beach Film Festival. Lots of socializing but slowly, all the boats left, headed north, new boats stopped arriving from any direction and we were alone… sort of. Now the folks we see at the marina are locals who do there boating in the Summer. “Hellos” on the dock but not much more. We have made a new friend though, Pete.
Pete was introduced to us at West Marine, a “Camping World” of boating. The sales guy said he was looking at Krogens. We chatted, he came by and looked at our boat, went to Annapolis to look at a boat and now has an offer in on one. All in a couple of weeks. Wow!
Boat Projects
We have been in Ft Pierce now for nearly 4 weeks. Longer than we had wanted, but somewhat planned. South Florida has more boat stores, parts and crafts people than perhaps anywhere else. You can find or get anything done here. So, we decided to take a little time and do some unfinished projects and some discretionary ones that we’ve just wanted. What have we done? The list is long and you can skip this if you really don’t care.
- Installed lighting over the console in the pilot house with a dimmer and white or red bulbs for running at night. The pilot house had horrible lighting and this should help immensely
- Upgraded the companionway lights with white/red lights. We had white but now have red for night travel
- There are 4 bilges on the boat. Ideally, one wants dry bilges. This tells you you have no water coming in and also, they stay cleaner and don’t grow things. Unfortunately, the 4 AC condensate sources all drained into two of our bilges. A new shower sump where all the condensate trains that then automatically dumps overboard has dried out the bilges. New, the bilges need paint. Another time. New shower sump high water alarms (only 1)
- One of our bilges did not have a light. It now does. Required running wires and changing out a switch in another bilge to get the power where it needed to be.
- Jim also has two more engine room lights, still to be installed.
- The stacking apartment size washer and dryer on the boat is in the guest head (bathroom) and if/when it fails, it could be cut out but a new washer and dryer would never fit through the doorway. Several other Krogens have had a local carpenter do an ingenious “repair” that removes a piece of one wall so a new washer and dryer can be installed. Don’t need it yet (knock on wood), but it is ready when our timing is right.
- We have desperately wanted screen doors on our pilot house and salon doors. The same carpenter who did the washer/dryer fix has done the carpentry to accept the Phantom Screens that should install on Wednesday. It is terribly difficult to find anyone who will come to a boat and measure for screens. Believe me, we have tried up and down the coast and most of these folks are not interested. We are so looking forward to this.
- We’ve changed out at least one of our latches to keep the interior doors open with a magnet one that does not rattle when underway. We’ve got the part now to resolve this for another. The third is harder…
- Jim had a part of the davit that takes the dinghy off the boat modified to use a magnet latching mechanism as opposed to a plastic piece that always broke. I think all the crane upgrades are now complete.
- I’ve been polishing all the stainless on the boat. It was beginning to get, well, stained. Yes, even stainless needs polishing and protecting from time to time.
- We did have to replace the 50 A power cord for our boat. The one we had was probably the original and one day while gone our power went out. We’d smoked the cord. Jim thinks it was likely just resistance in a 20 year old cord. $800 later we have power again. The pretty new white cord now has a pretty cover on the way to keep it pretty and shiny. It’s only money, right?
- I’ve been learning how to varnish interior teak. We have a few spots in the pilot house on doors, windows and hatches that needed some touch up. Not so easy as that. Sand, sand, sand, and 6 coats of varnish later… Still working on it.
- Our boat has a mast and stainless rails. Below the railing are stainless wires called safety lines (sailboats typically only have safety line). Thus, our boat has some essence of sailboat. These safety lines are old and not in the best of shape and our mast needed some tuning. Hard to find a rigging guy who wants to work on power boats. Through a Krogen buddy we did! This is one of the gating tasks for us leaving, these arriving and being installed.
- You may remember that we had some watermaker issues in the Bahamas which Jim worked around. Once back in the US, Jim replaced the low pressure pump for the watermaker and installed a new fuse to make it work as it should.
- The railing in our cockpit has 4 holders for fishing rods. In looking closely at them, it was clear that if uncovered, any water would go right into the gunnel of the boat which would ultimately drain into the aft bilge. Apparently not a lot of water, but not the best in any case. Jim installed little drains near the floor and ran tubing from the rod holders through the gunnel to the new drains which drain into the water track next to the teak flooring. We also had two caps missing from these holders which I was FINALLY able to find replacements for. Two are done but the other two are VERY hard to do due to the slope of the gunnel. 50% better than it was.
- We have determine through time that there were a few things not working quite up to snuff with the solar. Replaced a few connectors which helped and in the end determined that one of our controllers was bad. Still under warranty and replaced. For the 1st time the solar is now producing all the energy it should be!
- It is most useful if the engine room is not too hot. The manufacture says not more than 30 degrees over outside temp and not more than 120. We’ve never reached either threshold but have come close on the 30 degree threshold. Our engine room ventilation was abysmal as when our boat was built, ventilation was apparently somewhat of an afterthought. We’ve now installed an input fan with two air ducts leading into the engine room. There was already an exhaust fan/vent. We’ll try this and see how much it helps while underway. We have some ideas for additional ventilation if needed.
- While in the Bahamas we used our dinghy more than we ever had. Through this we understood how useful a rub rail could be on the swim platform to keep the dink from hitting the platform. We have lots of little gel coat chips. Additionally, cleats to tie the dinghy at water level on the swim platform would be so much easier than climbing onto the swim platform, and getting into the cockpit to tie or untie the dink. And thirdly, having some staples (stainless railing on the platform to aid in getting into and out of the dink) can be oh so useful. We’ve now acquired (or have on order) all these parts but still need to install them. Jim is reticent to do so in the water as he does not want to loose parts. Plop!
- We did several other minor fixes that have bugged us including a broken knob on one of the salon windows (fixed and a new one MAY arrive at some point from Europe), added mats on the chart tables in the pilot house to protect the woodwork and bought some different line holders to try for attaching fenders when docked.
The only think we’ve not managed to address are new curtains/blinds for the salon. I found some that I think we’d like in Albuquerque, but hard to order from here. Perhaps careful measuring before we return and we’ll give it a go.
We Did Have Some Fun Too
Well, I’d not say we have done lots of sightseeing and touristy things. We try to take a different path to the store each time we go. We rode our bikes one day as well! It is just too hot for much outside activity. We eat out several times a week to try and get a sense for the place. And probably the highlight was the McKee Botanical Garden.
How Do We Get Out of Here?
We are ready to get out of here for several reasons:
- We’ve been here a month. It’s time.
- It is still too hot and there are LOTS of thunderstorms and lightening although not as hot as the Bahamas. We’ve learned to live inside in air conditioning. So far the tropical storms have not impacted us here, but it is just a matter of time.
- I really wanted to spend the Summer in Santa Fe. Not going to happen given our delayed schedule, but it is time to get moving and maybe I’ll get some late summer and fall.
- Trumps Federal document trial is set to start July 14 in Fort Pierce, less than a half mile from our marina right here in downtown. We DO NOT want to be anywhere near it!
We are waiting for the screens which are supposed to install on Wednesday and the safety lines. Not sure of the date yet for that, but the rigging guy knows we are planning to leave Thursday morning.
Our plan is to head to Titusville for a couple days and do some birding at Merritt Island National Wildlife refuge and then head north at a yet to be determined pace.