John Kretschmer at Coconut Grove Sailing Club

During the whirlwind tour to promote his new book "Sailing to the Edge of Time", John Kretschmer spent an evening at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club in Miami on Saturday, November 17. His presentation was open to the public and very well attended. Some of the stories John recounted from his book were already familiar from past experiences and previous books, but it was entertaining to sit with an enthusiastic audience and listen to them again. Every copy of the book that John and his wife Tadji brought with them was sold and signed, including one bought by me for my father, who enjoyed John's previous book, "Sailing a Serious Ocean".

Before the event, John and Tadji met me at the clubhouse for a launch ride out to the mooring field to see Whispering Jesse, my wife Nan's and my 1980 Valiant 40 sailboat. John had advised me on purchasing the boat back in 2010 during one of his professional sailing passages that Nan and I crewed on, a multi-day trip from Bocas del Toro, Panama to Isla Mujeres, Mexico, with stops in Providencia, Roatan, and Belize. We reviewed the detailed boat survey that was emailed to me while we were in Roatan and decided it was worth a trip to Baltimore to see the boat, then named Little Walk. After the passage, John met me in Baltimore for a sea trial with the boat's owner and his broker. There were some issues, mostly of the deferred maintenance type, but none that would preclude buying the boat if the price was right. The owner and I eventually reached an agreement and Little Walk became Whispering Jesse.

During the purchase process, John had recommended his sister and brother-in-law's marina and boatyard in Solomons, Maryland as the place to go to get the boat refitted, so that became the first stop after my friend Kevin Harrison and I sailed the boat away from Baltimore. The boat was in the boatyard for over a year's worth of work, during which time John was occasionally on site to teach one of his popular sailing workshops. I met him there during one of my frequent visits and we checked together on progress with the refit.

That was back in 2011 and John had not seen Whispering Jesse since then, so it was a pleasure to show him how well the boat had turned out. John, Tadji and I wandered around the deck and up to the bow, where John commented about how much more effective a manual windlass, like the installed Simpson-Lawrence one, could be over an electric one. I told them about my experience with Hurricane Irma and how the three-anchor strategy and arriving late to the hurricane hole had probably saved the boat, when so many others had been lost. We went down below and I opened a bottle of red wine. John commented about how much interior space there was for a forty-foot boat. Tadji seemed suitably impressed by the layout and classic features, so different from modern production sailboats.

I wished that there had been time to take a quick sail, to get John's impressions of the boat's handling and whether new sails were in order, but that will need to wait for another visit.

The Day After Hurricane Irma

Finn sailboat crushed by floating dock section under Coconut
Grove Sailing Club clubhouse; Geoff Sutcliffe cleaning
up displaced boat racks (Click for full-size views)

Following the commotion of the night before, Sunday night after Hurricane Irma had passed was eerily quiet. Erik and I were up early on Monday, drinking coffee and discussing plans. Neither of us knew how our boats had weathered the storm but we were both anxious to find out. Whispering Jesse would be easier to check on, so we grabbed the binoculars, jumped into Erik's car, and, dodging fallen trees along US 1, drove over the Rickenbacker Causeway to a parking lot next to Marine Stadium. We saw several boats washed up on shore on our way there and it was obvious that there were now significantly fewer boats anchored out where Brian and I had anchored Whispering Jesse on Thursday afternoon. I looked out to where I thought the boat should be and she wasn't there. My heart collapsed in my chest. But I scanned more to the east and there she was, looking very much as we had left her. I focused the binoculars and saw that the lines of the secondary anchors were badly frayed and that the anchor snubber was no longer in place, though the chain on the primary anchor appeared to be holding well. The storm surge must have been tremendous, I thought, despite the shallow water and relative protection of the mangrove-covered land to windward.

There was no way for us to get out to the boat at that moment, so Erik and I headed back to his house to park the car and walk down to the Coconut Grove Sailing Club, assuming that the area around the club would still be underwater. The internet was working again and we had received an email message from Vice Commodore Geoff Sutcliffe with a schedule for the day, starting with the gate being unlocked at 8:00. As we passed the Sonesta hotel, I spotted Bruce from the sailing club sipping coffee out front. We stopped to talk with him and he told us through tears that his ketch, Algun Dia, which was secured at Dinner Key Marina, had sunk in her slip. He and his partner Susie had been liveaboards but were now homeless. A friend who owned a unit at the Sonesta had put them up there. We offered our sincere condolences and said we would meet up with him later at the club. We were early getting there, so we walked around Peacock Park to get a look at two sailboats that were washed up on shore against each other and the park pier, which was now just a pile of splinters.

Sailboat with anchor pinned to sea wall in Coconut Grove
Sailing Club yard, with displaced brand-new turf

When Juan arrived and let us in through the gate, we couldn't believe the damage. The club's floating piers were in the parking lot, along with the ice machines and huge piles of debris. Most of the club's smaller boats had been stored safely in the clubhouse's upstairs conference room, but bigger boats left in the yard had been destroyed. The most astounding thing was a good-sized sailboat washed up in the yard, with its anchor tightly pinned to the sea wall.

Geoff arrived shortly after us and announced that the first launch over to the Coral Gables Waterway, where Erik's boat was moored, would depart at 11:00. A launch to Marine Stadium would depart at 1:00. This gave us a few hours to help clean up the mess, but I was preoccupied with thoughts of Whispering Jesse. I was torn between getting her back to the club's mooring field and leaving her where she was for now, in case the other disturbances out in the Caribbean developed into future hurricanes that could threaten South Florida.

Becky in the launch next to Geoff's boat Moon Glow
at the Coral Gables Waterway

Erik and I joined a group on the launch for the 11:00 run to the Coral Gables Waterway to begin retrieving the boats tied up there. Geoff drove us there but needed someone to drive the launch back, so I volunteered. The devastation along the Waterway was unbelievable. Every boat that had been left at a pier was destroyed or sunk. Previously beautiful gardens and landscaping were completely demolished. We passed Brian's boat, Lionesse, and I took a quick photo to text to him with word that his boat was fine. Ms. Mary Lou was covered with mangrove detritus but otherwise in good shape. Erik said he would be able to get her out of the mangroves and back to the club on his own without difficulty. Geoff let off the remaining people at their boats and then arrived at his own boat, Moon Glow, where he jumped into the water and waded into the mangroves to untie his lines, leaving fellow club member Becky and me to return the launch.

Yachts sunk and tossed at Dinner Key Marina

The 1:00 launch run to Marine Stadium was crowded. By this time, I was leaning toward leaving Whispering Jesse there but I still wanted some time to check her out. I asked to be let off first and then to be picked up again on the way back. Approaching the boat, the frayed secondary anchor lines were shocking, as they appeared to be holding on by mere threads, but the strangest thing was that the top of the foredeck's dorade box had been sheared off and was lying upside down on the deck. The storm surge had been strong enough to clear the five feet between the bow and normal water level and then pound the foredeck with significant force. Opening the companionway to look inside, there was a surprising amount of disarray in the cabin. Items that had not been secured were now on the floor, and heavy things like the generator and air conditioner, which are stored on the floor along the port settee, had shifted to starboard. Everything up in the V-berth had jostled around and there were traces of salt in the corners, making me think that the boat had been through one hell of a ride. I went back on deck to pull the secondary anchor lines in past their frayed sections and resecure them, and I was trying to figure out what to do about the open dorade vent, which would leak when it rained, when the launch returned and it was time to go back to the club.

Dev Ocean, an expensive motor yacht, sunk at her slip
in Dinner Key Marina; the cabin top is blown off!

Erik had Ms. Mary Lou safely back on her mooring and was working with me again to clear the debris at the club when it was time for a second launch trip to the Waterway. I volunteered to drive back again and went with the group led by former Commodore Paul van Puffelen. The first boat we stopped at was friend Alex Perez's Nordic Spirit. She looked fine except that an older Cape Dory pilot house-style sailboat was butted bow first into her port beam, with her anchor and chain flipped onto Nordic Spirit's deck. Alex was none too happy about that, swearing as he worked with his girlfriend to separate the boats. We discovered later that the Cape Dory had been anchored near Dinner Key Marina but had somehow found its way the few miles down shore and up the Waterway to rest against Alex's boat. This was one of several inexplicable situations that were left in the wake of the storm.

By the time the other sailors had been dropped at their boats and I was returning to the mooring field, it was late afternoon and Alex and his girlfriend were already securing his boat. They waved me down for a ride in to shore, but instead of heading in, we went for a ride around Dinner Key Marina to assess the damage. The photos in this post are just a small sample of the devastation we saw and include one of Bruce and Susie's boat sunk in her slip.

Bruce and Susie's ketch Algun Dia sunk bow down
at her slip in Dinner Key Marina 

Erik had gone home to see Karen, who was finally able to leave work after almost four days, so I walked back to their place alone from the club. I offered to buy them dinner at Flanigan's, which appeared to be the only open restaurant within walking distance, having their "Hurricane Response" generators running full-out in the parking lot, but the wait was too long and we were too tired. Back home, Erik whipped up a pasta dish and we called it an early night.

During the day Monday, I had received a voicemail from American Airlines telling me that my Tuesday morning flight had been cancelled and would be rescheduled after the airport reopened later that day. This would give me extra time to move Whispering Jesse back to the mooring field if that was the right call. Talking with other sailors throughout the day, many expressed concern about theft if I were to leave the boat at Marine Stadium. Juan told me that nine club boats were missing and unaccounted for. It was unknown whether they had been blown away, sunk, or stolen. After talking it over with Erik, we agreed that the smartest plan would be to get out early on Tuesday morning and move Whispering Jesse back to safety.

Expensive fishing boats piled up and sunk at Grove Harbour
Marina; boats in racks were spared

We arrived at the club early but were told that the launches would not be available for a run to Marine Stadium until late morning or early afternoon, so Erik proposed motoring Ms. Mary Lou over there instead. A half-hour later, we were pulling up to Whispering Jesse and rafting alongside. It took some serious effort to extract the port-side secondary anchor from the deep mud and get it back aboard, including improvising a way to pull up chain using the beefy jib sheet winch. To get over to the anchor, we had eased out the starboard-side secondary anchor line, including the frayed section. When we went back to it, the few threads still left intact came apart in my hands and I watched the line sink into the muddy water, gone for good. I rationalized that a lost anchor was a small price to pay when so many others had lost everything.

The primary anchor chain came up grudgingly on the windlass and was a muddy mess, but there would be time to deal with that later. I fired up the engine, Erik jumped back aboard Ms. Mary Lou, and we motored separately back to the mooring field. Safely back on my mooring ball, I zip-tied a plastic bag over the open dorade vent up on the foredeck and straightened up the mess of lines and muddy secondary anchor in the cockpit, then caught a ride back to shore with Geoff, who was passing in the launch.

Erik drove me out to the airport in plenty of time to catch my flight home. We stood at the curb to say good-bye, shaking hands and smiling broadly at our crazy shared adventure and the tremendous good fortune that our boats had survived their first hurricane.

Whispering Jesse and Hurricane Irma

Brian cooling it after helping set anchors in Marine Stadium
(Click photos for full-size views)

(I apologize for the delay in posting this account. The events depicted took place September 7-10, 2017.)

When I received the mandatory evacuation order from the Coconut Grove Sailing Club in the days leading up to Hurricane Irma making landfall in Florida, I knew I would need to travel to Miami and move Whispering Jesse to a safer place. I flew there on the Thursday before the hurricane struck on Sunday and was met by our friend Brian McGrath. He picked me up at the airport in the early afternoon and drove us to the club, where we quickly fired up the boat's engine and motored across Biscayne Bay to Marine Stadium on Virginia Key, north of Key Biscayne. The stadium is an abandoned motor boat racing basin that now serves as Miami's best hurricane hole. It is protected on all but the northwest side, the shallow water keeps the wave action to a minimum, and the muddy bottom offers good holding. The other recommended hurricane hole is the Coral Gables Waterway, a mangrove enshrouded estuary where Brian and his co-owner had moved their boat, Lionesse, a couple days before.

Marine Stadium was less crowded with boats than expected considering our late arrival, and we found a good anchoring spot away from other boats, though a little exposed, about halfway down the basin, across from the abandoned concrete bleachers. We spent the afternoon hours setting anchors using the strategy outlined by former CGSC Commodore Bill Beavers during his annual hurricane preparedness seminars. The idea is to set three anchors 120 degrees apart from each other with about equal scope. I was pleased with my foresight in having replaced the short, rusty anchor chain attached to Whispering Jesse's primary anchor, a 40-pound CQR, with 100 feet of chain and new nylon rode just this past spring. The boat included a second anchor, a 26-pound Danforth, when we purchased her, and I had added a second similar one after Bill's seminar three summers ago.

Miami skyline at dusk from Marine Stadium

We turned the boat into the northeasterly wind and dropped the primary anchor off its windlass, letting out all 100 feet of chain and about 50 feet of rode. Then, using neighboring boats as markers, we maneuvered the boat as far off the wind to port as we could and dropped the first secondary anchor off the stern. We did the same with the remaining anchor on the starboard side. We then led the secondary anchor lines up to the bow, adjusted their slack, and cleated them off separately. Finally, we took back the 50 feet of rode on the primary, readjusted the secondary lines for sufficient slack, and securely snubbed the primary anchor's chain. With all three anchors secured at the bow, the boat could spin freely if it needed to, though the possible tangle would be difficult to unravel after the storm.

In addition to setting the anchors, Brian and I needed to reduce windage, but we were sweaty and tired, and it was starting to get dark, so we opted to wait until the next morning. We spent the evening eating sandwiches Brian had picked up and discussing the current political situation, about which we have opposite but well-reasoned opinions. Then it was off to restless sleep in the stifling cabin.

Whispering Jesse is a cutter rig, with two furling head sails. They are a serious pain to remove, so I left them in place, tightly furled and with the sheet lines wrapped in spirals from their clews down to the deck, where we secured the extra to the lifeline stanchions. The main sail we also left in place, secured inside its heavy nylon Doyle Cradle Cover. We took down the canvas bimini and dodger, secured their frames, removed the Forespar davit we use to raise and lower the outboard engine, removed the covers from the engine itself, and replaced the dorade cowls with plates. It wasn't as much as we could have done, but I hoped it would be enough.

Whispering Jesse secured with 3 anchors in Marine Stadium

Juan from the sailing club picked us up around noon in a launch and took us back to the club. The mooring field there was eerily empty. There were still a few boats remaining and Juan explained that the owners were unable to move them, because of distance or health issues, or because they no longer cared. Juan said the club's policy is to "86" those boats from the mooring field and bill the owners for their boats' removal.

I had been in touch with other friends from the club, Erik and Karen, and they had offered to let me stay in their guest room during the storm. Brian drove me to their place, about a mile from the club, and we parted company, with my undying gratitude for his invaluable assistance and with best wishes for our boats making it through the storm.

Karen is an emergency services coordinator, so naturally she was called out for the entire duration of the storm. Erik is a college professor, and all the schools were closed in anticipation, so he would have been home alone if not for my company. Their boat, Ms. Mary Lou, was secured in the Coral Gables Waterway near Brian's. The night I arrived at their place, they hosted a hurricane party with other CGSC members. Erik and Karen are quite the cooks and served up an amazing meal of grilled meats and vegetables, homemade bread, and homemade pumpkin pie with homemade ice cream. The drink of choice was the aptly named Dark and Stormy, dark rum and ginger beer over ice.

Karen was gone before dawn the next morning, leaving Erik and me with the minor task of preparing their place for the coming storm by closing their hurricane shutters and securing loose furniture, outdoor plants, and ladders. Over many cups of coffee, there was plenty of time for talk about past sailing adventures, storm tactics, personal histories, and politics. Erik and I are more of a mind than Brian and I when it comes to political philosophy.

Saturday night was blustery but Sunday slowly degenerated into a serious tropical storm. Erik and I couldn't see much from behind the hurricane shutters but what we did see was concerning. There was not much rain but the winds were fierce, with gusts we estimated at 80 knots or more. Trees were beating against the house and losing branches. Shrubs were denuded. Cell and internet access had died the evening before and the electricity had gone out by morning, leaving only my battery-powered radio tuned to Miami public radio for storm updates. The announcers warned people to stay inside and not be "knuckleheads" by going out into the thick of the storm, so we sat in the little light afforded by battery-powered lanterns and worked up serious cases of cabin fever. By late afternoon, when we had convinced ourselves that the worst was over, we donned our rain jackets and ventured out to see what there was to see, a couple of reckless knuckleheads afterall.

What follows is a slideshow of what we saw:

Falling trees destroy a wall along Bird Avenue in Coconut Grove

The intersection of SW 27th Avenue and S. Bayshore Drive, looking toward Dinner Key Marina, is knee-deep in water

Looking southwest along S. Bayshore Drive toward Peacock Park and the Mutiny hotel

Kenneth M. Myers Bayside Park exercise equipment is underwater; Coconut Grove Sailing Club clubhouse is in the background

Howling winds, MT Celebration crew securing lines, empty CGSC mooring field, club house in distance

Debris in Dinner Key Marina parking lot; a man's body was found in debris piled near the Mutiny hotel

Destroyed sailboat in Dinner Key Marina

Grove Bay Grill/Scotty's awning framework with destroyed sailboats and massive piles of debris

Sinking catamaran and debris piled at Grove Key Marina; Erik and I were interviewed here by a USA Today reporter but as far as we know the story was not published 

One of many sailboats we saw tossed up on shore

Next: The day after the storm

Riding the storm out

Approaching stripped-down Whispering Jesse from
the CGSC launch this morning, with storm clouds
building in the background. That's Cosmo on the bow.

I am writing this from inside the snug cabin of Whispering Jesse, moored at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club. Outside, it is gusty and rainy, as the eye of Hurricane Matthew passes Miami, about 150 miles off the coast. By late tonight or early tomorrow morning, the Category 4 storm will have made landfall to the north, somewhere between West Palm Beach and Melbourne, where there is likely to be widespread devastation and loss of life.

Nan and I monitored the storm closely starting last week when it made its turn to the north. By Tuesday, it was apparent that Miami would be affected and that I would need to go prepare our boat for the worst. I was on the first flight out yesterday and arrived with enough daylight to take down the jib, staysail, dodger and bimini, with the generous help of my friend Brian, who was with us on the Bimini trip back in April. We also rigged a backup mooring line, in the event that the primary line were to chafe through, and used bungee cords to secure all the running rigging at the mast. We left the mainsail in place, zipped inside its heavy-duty Cradle Cover. No amount of wind would affect it.

At the Club's bar last night, there were offers of a place to stay for tonight, but I am going to ride out the storm here on the boat. It will be a little warm with all the hatches closed against the rain, but I'm not expecting much in the way of high winds or wave action at this point, so I should be fine. I wish I could say the same for the people up the coast.

Sailing Trip to Bimini

Nan and I have been wanting to expand our sailing experiences beyond Biscayne Bay, and a Gulfstream crossing to Bimini seemed a logical choice. We enlisted our friend Mike Young from Colorado, who has been on every major Whispering Jesse voyage, and set a departure date for Thursday, April 14. As we prepared at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club over the last few days, Nan mentioned our plans to Brian McGrath, one of the first members we met when we joined over two years ago. He expressed an interest and soon we were a crew of four.

The weather should cooperate well for us, with predicted winds out of the southeast at 5-10 knots. This direction and speed combination should help to keep the wave heights at a tolerable level. We plan to leave at 5:00 AM and clear Cape Florida, at the south end of Key Biscayne, about an hour later. From there, it's into the Gulfstream's 3-4 knots of northbound current, where we're expecting a significant northward push. We're hoping to make it across in 10-12 hours. Wish us luck!

Single-handed sailing

The two issues that came up when we finally took the boat out sailing after finishing the installation of the Cradle Cover--the engine fuel leak and the marine growth on the hull--have been resolved. 

At Ralph's suggestion, I bought a set of tube, or flare, wrenches and used one to tighten the nut on the injector tube, but it didn't stop the leak. Our friend Pompeii, who has many years of diesel engine experience, tried his hand at it and couldn't stop it either. He recommended replacing the injector tube and told me I could order one from Tradewinds Power, a local Perkins diesel engine supplier. I was a little dubious, but the part was not so expensive that I didn't want to give it a try. Well, it was like doing a complex Chinese puzzle inside an overheated sauna to get the old tube out and the new one in, but it worked. There are no more leaks. But I somehow managed to interfere a little with the free running of the plunger cable that chokes the engine to shut it off, not so much that it doesn't slide the way it should, but now it's a little grabby. I will dig into that more when the weather cools down some.

Patrick, the water taxi driver at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club, gave me the business card of Mary Anne, a local woman who runs a hull cleaning operation. She coordinated getting one of her people to clean all the accumulated marine growth off the hull and install two new zincs on the propeller shaft. What a difference having a sleek hull again has made! Heading out the Dinner Key channel now, the boat is at least two knots faster at the same engine RPMs.

Nan took the two-day US Sailing basic keelboat class at CGSC a couple of weekends ago, so she wasn't available to join me for a sail. I talked her into letting me go sailing by myself instead by convincing her that I could leave and return to our mooring safely. I had researched ways to cast off a mooring from the cockpit and purchased a length of Floatline from Defender.com to help me facilitate a clever technique. The trick is to release one of the mooring pennants, tie the Floatline to the freed-up cleat, run it across the deck and through the other pennant's loop and then along the outside of the boat all the way back to a fitting on the rail at the cockpit. In this way, a very long bridle is created that holds the boat in place after the second pennant is released. This gives the single-handed sailor time to get back to the cockpit safely to make a controlled departure by simply releasing the Floatline and engaging the engine. The floating line prevents any propeller snags, and it's a simple matter to retrieve the line later with the autopilot engaged.

The autopilot really is the key to single-handed sailing on a larger sailboat. With it, one can head reliably into the wind while raising the mainsail and steer a straight course while attending to whatever else needs to be done. I did just that after motoring out into Biscayne Bay and soon was sailing a nice close reach southward in ten knots of wind. I came about after a half-hour and headed back the way I had come. Nothing to it!

The trick with the line can be done in reverse, picking up the mooring with a boat hook from the cockpit, slipping the line through the pennant loop and then tying off the line to the rail fitting. The wind will back the boat up and cause the pennant loop to slide up the line to the bow, where it will hold the boat until one can get forward to secure both pennants. I would try this, but we are so close to the boat ahead of us in the mooring field that we would run into him before I could pick up the mooring from the cockpit. Still, it's a good trick to know about in the event of strong winds or a heavy current.

Boat Projects (continued)

Of course, they never end, but I finally saw enough light at the end of the tunnel last week to cease with the boat projects and actually go sailing, for the first time since we sailed the boat up from Isla Mujeres at the end of May.

The final major project was the installation of the Doyle Cradle Cover I had ordered back in June. The cover has built-in lazy jacks, which we have missed since our original ones disappeared during the major refit in 2010. Rigging the new ones would require a trip up the mast in a bosun's chair, and that in turn requires two very strong people. I had thought to enlist our friend Pompeii, but I have not seen him for a few weeks. Talking with new members Ralph and Stacie Gleason at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club's hurricane preparedness class a little over a week ago revealed that they owned one of ATN's Mastclimbers, a system akin to a rock climber's static rope ascenders and slings. Ralph told me he would be happy to help get the lazy jacks installed, and we met the following Saturday to get it done.

Ralph made short work of getting the Mastclimber rigged and moving up the mast. It turned out that there were still pad eyes on either side of the mast where we had intended to install new ones, but they were riveted to the mast instead of screwed, which presented a small problem with attaching the small blocks that would lead the lazy jacks up to the mast and then down to cleats near the deck where they could be adjusted. Ralph suggested some small shackles, and I scavenged a couple from the boat's junk box. We used a messenger line to run them up to him and then followed them with the lazy jacks themselves. When I tightened them from below, the cover lifted off the boom and took on a nice, sleek shape. While he was up there, Ralph removed the rubber boots from the ends of the spreaders, where they had been slowly deteriorating for the last few years. Replacing them, if ever, is a project for a later date.

Ralph and I took the water taxi back to the Sailing Club and ate some lunch before heading out to where his boat, a Beneteau First 35.5 named Lasata, was moored. He was trying to get his two Honda 2000i generators working, after over a year in storage, so he could fire up his boat's central air conditioning. It has been seriously hot and humid in Miami this summer, much too hot to try to sleep on a boat without air conditioning. I watched as Ralph took apart one of the carburetors and cleaned it with Gumout. Old gasoline had formed some serious gunk that was preventing fuel from reaching the engine. It finally took some major cleaning of the carburetor's jets the next day to get the generators running again. I filed away what I had seen for when I someday have my own generator and need to maintain it.

Nan and I made a few trips to the boat last week to finish the Cradle Cover installation. I found that the included "self-tapping" screws would not tap into the steel mast and made a trip to Home Depot for an actual tap. Ralph suggested using WD-40 to lubricate the tap as it cut into the pilot holes I had drilled, and that made a big difference. I was then able to secure the pad eyes for hoisting up the forward end of the cover and the cleats for adjusting the lazy jacks. Some rolling hitches on the topping lift to hoist the aft end of the cover almost completed the job.

This past Saturday morning, after our routine long walk with Scout, I texted Ralph to see if he wanted to join us for a sail. He agreed, if he could bring his son Mark with him. We met at the Sailing Club, spent a little time rerunning the reefing lines through the cover, though they are not yet perfect, and motored out into Biscayne Bay. I noticed that though I was pushing the throttle forward, we were not gaining any speed beyond three knots. Ralph went below to check on the engine and discovered a leak in one of the fuel lines. It was spitting diesel fuel instead of feeding it to the engine, limiting how fast we could go. Once we had cleared the "number one" green marker at the far end of Dinner Key Channel and easily hoisted the mainsail on its new TideTrack, we shut off the engine and sailed south with a nice ten- to twelve-knot southeasterly wind. We soon forgot about the fuel leak as we tacked and jibed around the Bay.

It felt wonderful to be out sailing again, but I suspect our suspiciously slow speeds under sail may have been due to the growth that has accumulated on the hull since arriving in Miami. We'll need to get it cleaned soon, and add some new zincs to the propeller shaft. That, and the engine issue, should put us squarely into our next round of boat projects.

Boat Projects

Since getting our sailboat here at the end of May, I have been spending my weekends working on a variety of boat projects instead of keeping up with this blog.

It started the very first weekend in June when I took the Coconut Grove Sailing Club water taxi out to the boat and tried to start the engine. All the starter did was make clicking noises. There wasn't enough oomph in the batteries to turn over the engine. My first instinct was to blame Mike and Kevin, who had stayed on the boat in the shore power-free mooring field for a few days after our arrival from Mexico but probably hadn't thought to run the engine to keep the batteries charged or to change the battery switch from "Both" to "2" to preserve the starter battery.

Weighing my options, I decided it might be a good time to install the PowerFilm solar panels I had bought last year but never taken out of the boxes. Not remembering that I had all the cables I needed somewhere on the boat, I went to West Marine and bought components to build a cable that would plug the panels into one of the cigarette lighter adapters and charge the batteries. The cable worked, or at least the little green lights on its ends lit up, but the batteries did not charge. If anything, they ran further down, since now the starter wouldn't even click. It could have been that I didn't have a diode or charge controller in the circuit to prevent the panels from draining the batteries when the sun wasn't shining.

The next option was to pull the starter battery and take it ashore to get it charged. The Sailing Club has a charger available for use by members, but there was a long line of batteries waiting to be charged. Not wanting to wait a few days during which the bilge pump was not running and the stuffing box was slowly dripping water into the bilge, I bought a charger from West Marine. It indicated that the battery was fully charged. I reinstalled it, confirmed that the engine still wouldn't start, and pulled the two house batteries. Each required extensive charging, which made me hopeful that the problem would be solved. Sure enough, after reinstalling them, the engine fired right up.

I moved on to other projects, like measuring for the new Doyle CradleCover I was ordering and taking down the mainsail to have the Super Sailmakers people attach the fittings for the new TideTrack system I was installing. (See Strictly Sail at the Miami Boat Show for more information on both products.) Each weekend, I started the engine and ran it for at least fifteen minutes to charge the batteries. Eventually, it wouldn't start again. When I talked about the situation with my friend Pompeii, who is a professional boat person from Cuba, he told me I needed new batteries. The current batteries were the ones that came with the boat when we bought it in 2010 and they were at least two years old then. Sorry, Mike and Kevin. It wasn't your fault; the batteries were old and would have died soon anyway. Pompeii was very specific with his advice. He told me to go to DC Battery in North Miami and buy three new AGM (Absorbent Glass Mat) batteries. So I did. At sixty-five pounds each, installing the batteries in the tight space of the extremely hot engine room was one of the most difficult physical things I have done in a long while. I was sweating so hard I worried I would short one out or electrocute myself.

That was last Saturday. This morning, I returned to the boat for the first time in a week and the engine fired up immediately. Feeling confident, I attacked the solar panel project again. I had ordered a controller and I had found the missing cable, plus I had located some excellent testing instructions online. With everything connected together, my multimeter indicated that amps were most definitely flowing from the panels to the batteries. Life was good! That should end my nightmares about having the boat sink at its mooring after the bilge pump fails due to dead batteries.

Bob at Super Sailmakers says the CradleCover should arrive at his shop tomorrow. It acts as both a sail cover and a set of lazy jacks, and makes quickly dousing the mainsail as safe and quick as possible. If I can convince Pompeii to help me install it next weekend, Nan and I may finally be ready to take the boat out by ourselves.

The Final Leg

Paul left the boat before our final leg from Key West to Miami. As a first-timer, he had had enough of the motion and engine noise, and he opted to rent a car and drive the remaining distance to Miami, where he would meet up with us the next evening. Mike, Kevin and I got an early start and were soon motoring outside the reef that parallels the Keys, though not far enough out to avoid a brief, jarring contact. Note to self: Do not sail close enough to read warning signs. Use binoculars instead.

We gave ourselves a bigger buffer and proceeded east and then north in a huge arc that gradually gave us enough wind to put out sails, a reefed main and the staysail, as the winds had piped up considerably. Close observation was necessary through the night to discern the many blinking markers and avoid the passing freighters.

Dawn found us north of Boca Chita Key and headed for the Fowey Rocks Lighthouse. From there, we adjusted course for the Cape Florida lighthouse and motored into Biscayne Bay, almost within sight of the Coconut Grove Sailing Club's mooring field. We passed close to the entrance of No Name Harbor on the western shore of Key Biscayne, a future sailing destination I wrote about back in March, and then headed for the entrance channel to Dinner Key Marina. We zigged into the marina, zagged at Clarington Island, and dodged traffic in the channel that leads past the Sea Tow boats, the aging shrimp boats, and the rent-a-water-toy vendors. We rounded up and secured at mooring A-10, Whispering Jesse's new home. Check the last Spot post for the exact location.

Upcoming Trip

I have mentioned that Nan and I are looking forward to having our sailboat, Whispering Jesse, here in Miami. Well, that is finally going to happen. We are headed to Isla Mujeres on Thursday evening to meet up with crew members and prepare the boat for a Monday departure. It should take about three days to reach Key West and then another two days to reach Miami, where we have arranged for a mooring at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club.

Nan will not be a member of the crew for the sailing part of the trip, but I have three other crew members lined up: Mike, who has sailed with me on three previous trips, including the one last May that took the boat to Isla Mujeres; Kevin, a friend of Mike's from Colorado who is an experienced sailor; and Paul, a friend I've known since we were in eighth grade together and who will be making his sailing debut. We will meet everybody at El Milagro Marina, our staging location after we move the boat there from Marina del Sol on Friday morning.

There is much to do before we set sail. The boat has been sitting idle in a slip at Marina del Sol since last August, though we checked on her in January and all was fine. The engine fired right up and ran smoothly, and I was able to get the refrigerator working well enough to make ice. I started a list this afternoon of everything that needs to be done and it quickly ran to 25 items, everything from checking the engine oil to charging up the handheld VHF radio. Fortunately, there is nothing critical on the list that would prevent us from departing if it didn't get done; all of those projects were completed before we left Savannah last May.

The only worry is the weather. A severe storm system with high winds and heavy rain moved through South Florida late last week from the north. The wind is slowly shifting back around to its prevailing easterly direction, and I'm hoping it continues around to the southeast or south to give us good, fast sailing. If it stays directly out of the east, we may run into rough conditions when the wind collides with the eastward-flowing Gulf Stream current as we near Key West.

As with past trips, we will be using a Spot beacon to send out our position twice a day. The messages will be posted to this blog, in case you wish to follow our progress.

Here's hoping for a safe and enjoyable sail!