X-MAS 2008

Dec 25th

Merry Christmas today and Happy Holidays for all this Season!

How can we describe such a lovely trip home? We're in the middle of three and a half weeks away from Florida and later the Bahamas, we hope. Winter has certainly given us a taste of all the reasons we want to be south for the winters. The other day it took 20 minutes for Florrie to scrape ice off her car before going shopping. We've had bitter cold, an ice-frozen Raritan Bay, snow, sleet and even some rain. One morning there was a soft snow fall that was photo-perfect seasonal weather. The visits with family and old friends have reminded us why we miss them all when we are gone for months at a time. One of many highlights was our trip to Baltimore to see granddaughter #2 in the Moscow Ballet's Nutcracker. That included lovely time with #1 granddaughter, Alexa, too.
The 25th was the day that granddaughter #3 came to visit, with her parents. What fun to see an almost 4 year old open presents. Stickers are the big thing this year.

We hope you all have had as much fun as we have. See you next year!

Home for the holidays..(click here)

Yes we made it. Left the boat on the hard in Ft. Pierce and got to the airport to find our flight was delayed from 11 to 1. Something about tornadoes in Georgia and the front with snow hitting New England. Sure glad we rushed. Not only that but they sent a smaller plane so needed to bump 22 people. Since they offered $300 flight credit @, we decided to volunteer. It meant waiting for the scheduled !:00 plane which actually took off about 5:00 and getting us in about 8 for a 9 train. Luckily our neighbor, Judy, picked us up at the train station and got us home.
Anyway, we are home for the holidays. We get to see Maddie dance in the Nutcracker, Melissa convalese after her leg operation, and the whole family gather at our place for X-mas on the 27th. We will be back in Florida on the 8th of Jan looking to provision, wax the boat, and a weather window for the Bahamas. If it looks like there is no window, we go south and look again or go to the keys. Anywhere where it is warm. I have been here 2 days...that is enough of cold and it is no colder here than it was going through Georgia.

Art Date

Hi My Artist Friends,

Yesterday I took myself to the Vero Beach Museum of Art. It was the best time I've had alone in weeks! There was a fabulous glass show which will be up until Dec 28. There were three Dale Chihuly pieces, one of which I liked very much. The fabulous surprise was "discovering" Jon Kuhn who works in cold-fused glass crystal. His "A Byte of Time" is breathtaking! There was a Benjamin Moore piece that I might have seen at the Met in NYC; it is a magical blue "bowl" with dramatic lip that casts an ethereal shadow. Those were only three of about a dozen lovely works. The show also had some ancient glass pieces that were exquisite little gems. That part of the museum was worth the whole visit.


Then there was "The Greeting", a video installation by Bill Viola which will also be up until Dec 28th. It is the first modern piece that I have ever enjoyed! It was (approximately) a 4' X 8' video that was like a classic painting come to life. The artist staged and shot a meeting of three women, dressed in modern clothes that are reminiscent of old Roman garb. The flowing long dresses and the red scarf of one are a perfect counterpoint to the dramatic, hard-edged perspective of the street behind them. Reading the label outside the darkened room, I learned that the whole scene was actually a 45 second segment. However, the artist had slowed it down so much that it took 10 minutes to watch. It moved so slowly that you could absorb the composition as it changed as well as the emotions that were on the three women's faces. Static classic painting could not include such a dynamic element as the motion the current artist enhanced.


Since reading Germaine Greer's The Obstacle Race I'm looking at museum pieces with new eyes. That was fun, too. It was interesting to feel my own reactions to different art pieces - and why. Jon Davis's "Lost Luggage" show was interesting intellectually but it did not grab me the way the other two galleries did. As I was leaving I heard one man say to his wife that a particular large abstract was "very feminine". Why? Because it was in pastels? I shook my head and headed for the gift shop.

I hope you each are having a good art date for yourself now and then.
Florrie

thanksgiving on Harmony

Here is a turkey recipe that also includes the use of popcorn as a stuffing. When I found this recipe, I thought it was perfect for people like me, who just are not sure how to tell when poultry is thoroughly cooked, but not dried out. Give it a try.

15 lb. turkey
1 cup melted butter
1 cup stuffing (Pepperidge Farm is good.)
1 cup uncooked popcorn (ORVILLE REDENBACHER'S LOW FAT)
Salt/pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush turkey well with melted butter salt, and
pepper. Fill cavity with stuffing and popcorn.

Place in baking pan with the neck end toward the back of the oven.

Listen for the popping sounds. When the turkey's ass blows the oven door open and the bird flies across the room, it's done.

And, you thought I didn't cook....

Actually we just had our nap after a fantastic (100+ boat) "potluck" turkey dinner at Velcrow Beach. Unbelievable!

Shurtape

This story has a happpy ending although it didn't start out that way. I bought some duct tape which didn't stick, even to itself. I emailed the company, Shurtape, and Roy Cox got back to me. After an email (he asked if I had bought it in Lowes) I received a brand new roll sent to me in St Augustine. Well, I finally got to use it and it is really good stuff. Thanks Roy. Thanks Shurtape.

Harmony in Vero Beach

Velcro Beach

I am so content I could purr. We're moored in a field that can handle about 120 boats or more, in a lovely protected area off the ICW. We have a resident osprey that sits on a dead branch about 20 yards from our boat. Its sweet whistle delies the fierce predator that it is. The pelicans entertain us daily with their clumsy splashes for fish and a stunning white egret adds a note of grace to the rich green of the mangrove island next to us. Too bad its "hacking cough" call is the opposite of its elegance. The weather has gotten warmer so we can get out of bed and put on just a sweatshirt. No more stocking cap, two sweatshirts and a wool scarf! On the map it is Vero Beach, about 70 miles north of West Palm Beach but to the boaters it is "velcro beach". No wonder boaters stay here for the whole winter! It is inexpensive and there are services that are amazing. The Marina is in a grove of old oaks with their Spanish moss waving gently in the breezes.

We are a five minute dinghy ride from the dock and then a 15 minute free (!) bus ride from an excellent shopping area. There is everything from a West Marine to a TJMaxx. There is even a crafts store so I can get a few simple art supplies! The bus requests a donation and I wish people would be more generous. Most people just take advantage of the free ride. It is even possible to transfor to another free bus route and go to a Sam's Club or Walmart, for instance. When you are boat bound, good shopping is such a treat.

It is so easy to make friends here! For two nights we've been rafted up with Bravo 2, another catamaran. They left this morning, anxious to get farther south because they are taking advantage of every weather window to get over to the islands. Eventually they are going down the Windward chain and then over to the Azores! I am really in awe of Wendy and Graham. That is an ambitious plan for any couple sailing alone. They will miss the festivities this week. Lew and I are looking forward to Thanksgiving here. Last year 150 boaters participated in a pot luck dinner. There is a sign up sheet at the lounge, near the showers and laundry room. I actually brought a few canned goods so I could participate in whatever happened to be the festivities for this holiday. For the December holidays we will be back in NJ.

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For those of you who know what a hellish trip most of last winter's adventures were, the news of this experience couldn't be better. Sure, we've had a few nasty situations but they don't last long and they don't seem to be as dire as last year. Most of this experience has been terrific in some way. The fun of it is that the good things are as unpredictable as the scary parts last year. Now if I can just get to a point where I actually do more art than a few (very satisfying) drawings, I will really be a happy camper. (Lew seems pretty happy, too, now that his stomach problems have abated.)

Please let us know what is happening in your life, snow and all!

Catamaran Harmony in the cold

Here we are just south of the Melbourne Bridge and it is really cold.
View Larger Map The wind should go down from the 15-20 it has been all day but start up again tomorrow. It is only 30 milew to Vero Beach where we will stay for a few days.

harmony at the shuttle

Hello all,
The following is my attempt at sharing with you one of the most memorable events of my life. Unfortunately Lew was back at the boat still dealing with stomach problems. But he had a clear sight of the launch from our deck. He's feeling a lot better today.


11/15/08
Endeavor lifts off!
After waiting for weeks and hoping that the weather would not delay the launch, thousands of people sat on beaches, in parks and on boats to watch one of the most spectacular pyrotechnic shows of all time. There were cars from virtually every state looking for space to park. By 3 PM, all along the waterfront of Titusville, west of Cape Canaveral, hundreds of people had staked out their area with deck chairs, coolers and blankets. Cars, SUVs and motorcycles were lining every available road near the Indian River. T-shirt vendors were selling out fast and you could get hot dogs and barbeque for a quick meal. This had to have been the tail gate picnic to beat all tail gate picnics. I wonder how many people were outdoors somewhere, watching. There are countless places all around the Kennedy Space Center area where people could gather.

Lew and I watched the event from different locations and these photos are from my digital camera. At about 6 PM I joined four other boat friends to sit on the banks of a small canal. The first photo shows the English students sitting in front of us, our "view" for almost two hours. A family from Denmark shared ground with the students. There were no radios nearby so we had no idea when the actual count-down started. However, at what must have been 7:55, there was a roar from the throng in Veteran’s Memorial Park, south of us.

The first photo of the launch is just a few small lights. In less time than it took to write that sentence, the sky was filling with the most spectacular bloom of white and golden light. While the next shots, and any I’ve seen in newspapers, show a round light, what we actually saw was more elongated. The launch rose up and up past the shrubs next to us and eventually curved to the north. It left a vapor trail that wafted into scallops in the evening winds, then disappeared entirely. The whole launch experience lasted about five minutes, maybe a little more. People hollered their celebration of the successful launch. We gaped open-mouthed at the enormity of the meaning of what we were seeing. There are people on that craft. They are simply going to work. Had the wind been toward us, we would have heard the blast and felt the rumble of the lift-off in our chests and in the ground.

Within minutes of the launch, everyone had picked up their belongings and was leaving. Having left my friends along the way, I walked the last few yards to Harmony in the dim light of the docks. Up in the sky, the vestiges of the vapor trail zig zagged their way across the almost full moon.

Harmony 2 days south of St Augustine

Like last night, we are nestled into a small creek going off the ICW. Last night we were at Fort Matanzas about 15 miles south of St. A Our location now

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Tomorrow we get as close as possible and Friday is the rocket shot at Cape Canaveral

harmony celebrates

A day in St A

Any place is a good place from which to fish.
Ever wonder how the men get up on those high towers to fix the wires? Here it is and if you look closly you will see three men in the tower

Harmony in St. Augustine

For the cruiser: St. Augustine is a wonderful, historic place. Really good and inexpensive marinas around the back...upSan Sabaston. Skipper Bob talks about anchoring up there but there was not all that much room. If you anchor in the main anchorage, use two anchors about 120 feet apart to keep the boat from swinging too much in the strong currents which shift with the tides.

Catamaran Harmony in St. Augustine

That's right, we will be here for 2 days at the city marina just south of the bridge.

Harmony Letter

Hello Beloved Landlubbers,

It is 20 degrees warmer here in Fernandina Beach, on the dock, than it was getting through the lower part of S. Carolina and all the way through GA. It is SO much more comfortable now. Honeywind is moored across the water, close by. That Canadian couple (Pat and Emory) loved the marshes of GA. It is delightful to see this trip through their eyes. They are used to the foggy, rocky coast of New Brunswick and Maine. This has been heavenly for them. It is also fun to hear about our Revolutionary and Civil War history as Pat is learning about it. We have been finding ourselves at many of the same anchorages, docks or towns ever since leaving Norfolk on Oct. 8th. Yesterday Pat and I had a "girl’s day" in town, shopping from one end to the other. Christmas gifts were my excuse to take advantage of sales. But mostly we just ooohed and aaaahed over cute things we don’t have room for on the boats. Honeywind is a trimaran, which means a monohull with "wings". We expect to see each other again in St. Augustine in a couple of days.

Another treat yesterday was catching up with Tropical Impulse. Ed and Eileen are from our club in Keyport. They take their boat outside for many overnights so they make much better time than we do. They have been living aboard for 15 years and really know what they are doing. They were only on the dock for refueling and to pick up the mail they had forwarded here. After delicious scones that Eileen baked on board and some catch up on the news, she and I went into town while the guys did boat chores or whatever pleased them. (Someday I really have to get brave and use our oven!) I’m beginning to get used to the idea that we see more of Ed and Eileen away from NJ than at home. That is boat life! The next time we see them might be in Lake Worth, FL or even somewhere in the Bahamas.

Lew & I plan to take off toward the Jacksonville area this morning. It is overcast right now but this is supposed to clear so it should be a good day for being on the move again. We’ll probably anchor tonight then be on a dock in St. Augustine. We have to go to a dock again, even though we prefer to anchor, because our dinghy needs some attention before we can trust it to get us from a mooring field or anchor to a town dock. It hasn’t been run since last May. We’ll make sure it is fine, then have more options for our night stays.

Five days ago I was really ready to jump ship. The monotonous landscape as well as the long days of pushing to get out of the cold, as well as the 43 degree weather had "worn me smooth" as a good friend would say. It has gotten a lot better as the temps have risen. Also, this is so much more like a Vacation than we’ve had so far - at least since the Great Dismal Swamp, the Waccamaw River and Whiteside Creek. We’re looking forward to a few days in St. Augustine, one of our favorite stops last spring.

There is nothing like being in Florida on Election Day! What suspense!

We hope all of you are doing fine. Let us know your news.

Cheers from Florrie & Lew

Florida

Now at Fernandino Beach...Amelia Island at the north end of Florida. Rainy and at the dock. Spent a delightful day with Emory and Patty from Honeywind and Herb and Laura (a couple who emailed me about the blog and are looking for a boat for themselves to live on).

Jekyll Island, GA

Almost through Georgia and it is still cold. We are anchored at Jekyll Island (click on the title above for a map) and tomorrow we get to Florida...God willing and if the creek don't rise.

Holloween

We are at 31 35.491N 081 12.127W Google map it to see where we are. It is a lovely little creek off the ICW. Cruising Georgia is like taking a truck without a heater up a mountain in winter with switchbacks at 3 to 8 mph depending on current. After 3 days and 120 miles of travel you may have gone 50 miles as the crow flies. Major difficulty is boredom. Most of the scenery is marsh and the rivers are wide. How much swamp grass can you stand?

Isle of Hope near Savannah click here for map

We tried to get to Thunderbolt Marina but there was no room. The gods smiled on us. As we went by Thunderbolt, we could see crowded docks, hear lots of noise and it was poorly protected from wind and waves. On the other hand, Isle of Hope Marina is well protected with an anchorage next door, quiet and well protected. With a courtesy car we used to go to an excellent Spanish restaurant about 5 miles away.
It is still very cold, especially in the mornings. I am so tired of wearing socks.

Church Creek Click here for a map

Church Creek is about 20 miles West of Charleston after a windy path with currents 2 to 3 knots against us then 2.5 with us so we went from 3 knots to 9.2. What a ride. Last night was in a little creek 20 miles east of Charleston. Then we stopped over at Isle of Palms, SC and got gas, had a much too short visit with Bill Temple, a friend from High School, and got on our way. The visit was much too short but it was the best the circumstances would allow. Maybe on the way back.

Good services

As much as I complain, it is nice to deal with competent people such as John Pate whose email is FortAwesomeIII@gmail.com. He is the one you get the Winchbit from if you can't find it on EBAY. In case you forgot, the winchbit is the better bit for a drill to operate the winches.
The second person is the mechanic we just had. He laid on his magic hands and both engines and the electric charger now appear to be working. He came to our boat in Georgetown but also gets down at least as for as Isle of Palms and probably Charleston. His name is Sarkis Keuleyan at SeaTec Systems. Telephone 843-546-1401 and the website is http://www.seatecsystems.com He does engines and electronics and I highly recommend him. Click on the title here for a link to his site.

Waccamaw River

10/23/08 (click on title for a map)
Today we motored from Barefoot Landing, almost on the N/S Carolina border, down the Waccamaw River to Georgetown, SC. The farther southwest you go, the more cypress you see. These fascinating trees grow out of the swamp from a cluster of conical roots that eventually merge into straight, tall trees with small leaves. Most of them are dripping with Spanish moss. We passed Bucksport, one of Florrie's favorite spots in this Low Country. It is the area that inspired one of the pastel drawings in the slide show on this blog.
Here's an excerpt for Florrie's daily journal: We're moving too fast for me to make on-site drawings but maybe I'll be able to do some from memory. The cypress are spectacular. One old gray tree looked like a wraith with a gossamer cape and billowing skirts striding from the water into the forest. Another looked like an ethereal leaping dancer with her "costume" trailing behind. The moss looked like wafting hair. It was both spooky and beautiful. It took awhile for me to realize that the rounded triangular shape of the woman's heads were actually the abandoned nests of eagles built into the topmost branches of the near-dead trees.
There were also totally denuded cypress snags, trees so long dead they had no bark and were completely light gray. They loomed out of the water with holes big enough to look like tormented eyes and mouths. Limbs reached out like arms, twisted in grotesque positions. These also wore tattered moss "garments" that billowed in the breezes. Old cypress are often hollow so the trunks had deep dark gashes that accented the length. The effect gave the whole scene, even in mid-day, the effect of a forest full of Halloween specters. Imagination could run wild here. It is Tim Burton's Paradise!

Milwaukee drill

I have been asked about the drill bit I use for the Milwaukee drill (see one of the early posts about my favorite tool). It is called a "winch bit" and it is still on EBAY. click the title above for a link to it within the next few days or go to EBAY and search "winch bit" or "winchbit". It is soooo much better than the other bit for winches that it is worth the additional cost, about $50 including shipping. The other bit has a round shaft and slips under pressure so it does work under light load but not under the pressure I need to bring in a jib on a windy day.