The Girls Visit

I am very excited that Amanda and Jess got to come and visit us even if it was only for a few days.  We had an awesome time sailing down to Miami.  On Saturday we stayed in No Name Harbour, hiked to the lighthouse and went over to the beach.  Then on Sunday we stopped so the girls could do some snorkeling and then went to Biscayne Bay to cool off in the water and anchor for the night.  The girls learned how to drive the dinghy and then Wes made some bushwacker's-yum.  Today we are heading back to Ft Lauderdale and it will be sad because they will be going home :(  I sure will miss them but I'm glad they got to come down and visit.    

some of the stilt houses by Biscayne Bay

Relaxing on the boat and in the water at the sandbar in Miami

The girls learning how to drive the dinghy

Watching the sunset over Miami

Amanda and Jessica Arrive

We picked up Amanda and Jessica yesterday and sailed them to Miami. They were tired so they mostly napped in the morning. Then we did some snorkeling down by Miami. They want to go look at the stilt houses today. There are 15 or so houses down off the southern end of the and island south of Miami. They have been there for a while and they are in the middle of the bay, but I'm not sure if they have a marina or are just houses, but we will go look at them today.
It's great to see the kids and hear all the news from
back in Loveland. sounds like it has been raining a lot. Here are some pictures from yesterday.

Amanda and Jessica taking a nap.

The stilt houses.

Nothing much happening

We dropped Matt off on Monday around 6:00 pm. He got home around midnight on Monday.
We are not doing too much this week. Jessica and Amanda come in Saturday morning and we don't really have time to go someplace in the mean time. Maybe we will do some paddle boarding or go to the beach one of these days. We are on a boat so we always have some maintenance to do. I'm working on some polishing and some of the minor things to fix. Things like the lazy jack wasn't quite right or the toilet seat was loose. Minor things but they still need to be worked on.
We should have an update before Jessica and Amanda get down here.

Matt's Visit

We picked up Matt at Lauderdale Marina early yesterday morning and went out to the Atlantic to do some sailing.  We sailed from Ft Lauderdale to Miami and stopped a few times along the way to enjoy a swim or snorkel.  It's great having a visitor (I think Wes might be getting a little sick of just ME!)  Last night we went back to No Name Harbor in Miami and hung out there for dinner and a little paddle boarding but the mosquitos got so bad we pulled out and went a little further away from the shore.  Today we sailed around Miami and hung out in a bay where there is a sandbar and there had to be about 200 boats there just enjoying the water and the weekend.  Tonight we came back into the Inter Coastal Waterway and anchored where the cruise ships go in and out of right off of Fisher Island.  It's really cool to be boating right inside the city of Miami. 

 

This is the 115 foot yacht that was parked by us today.  I have come to the conclusion that some people have way too much money.

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Evening over Miami

The Good Year Blimp flies over Ft Lauderdale all day long

Out In The Atlantic

Yesterday we took the boat out on the Atlantic from Port Everglade. It started as a real nice sail. We had between 15 knots and 18 knots of wind and we were cooking. We were doing 6.5 to 7 knots. It was great. We took it out about 5 miles then turned around. Coming in we saw there was a thunderstorm coming. Not too big a deal but the wind was rising fast. I thought about reefing in the sails a couple of times but didn't do it. Then I remembered what Ryan said. If you think about it - do it. The wind quickly got to 25 knots and I didn't feel comfortable sailing with that much wind in my sails. So I headed up wind and took in the jib and the main. We were almost back to shore at that point, but it was a good lesson on how fast the wind can change.
Today I solved my shorting problem. It was one of the wires in the bundle coming from the circuit breaker. It was shorting inside the wiring harness.  So I ran another wire around the outside of the bundle and now I have both engines running great. I'm very happy I found that. Part of my problem was that I didn't have all the tools I needed to make a diagnosis. I stopped at the Parts America two days ago and bought a bunch or connectors and jumpers and the like. That made my diagnosis much easier.
Today Karen and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary. So we are going to a nice restaurant.
Other than that we are waiting on my son to come down tomorrow at 6:30 tomorrow morning. We will take him out on a short three day cruise.
 While we are waiting we are sitting in between a couple of 4 to 12 million dollar homes.
Here are a couple of pictures.

Ft Lauderdale

We made it to Ft Lauderdale yesterday and we are anchored in Lake Sylvia.  I wouldn't really call it a lake though.  It is more like a lagoon with about 5 channel's running off of it.  You can only go in and out through one channel in the big boat though because the other channel's have short bridges that you can only get under in the dinghy otherwise you have to go back out to where it meets the Inter Coastal Waterway.  It was quite the experience coming up the Inter Coastal Waterway.  I enjoyed watching everything going on along the way, all of the nice houses lining the waterway and little restaurants and bars where you can pull the boat up to the dock.  The draw bridges were sometimes a pain because if you didn't time it just right, you had to wait around for 15-20 minutes for them to open, but we sure aren't in any hurry since we are retired.  It is so different than sailing out on the open ocean though where all you see is the coastline.    

We spent the evening exploring around in the dinghy and had dinner at the Southport Raw Bar which is at the end of one of the channels on 15th St.  I guess 15th Street is the main street where the majority of the restaurants and stores are located.  So we are going to hang out here for a few days, check out the place and we might change anchor tomorrow night.

This was the little island that we anchored by in Miami

 A couple of the draw bridges we went through yesterday 

Lake Sylvia where we anchored for the night

I worked on the starboard engine this morning. I have a shorting problem that is the result of the lightning stike. When I disconnect the panel gauges, the circuit breaker stays in long enough to start the engines and runs forever. But some where along the way the circuit breaker pops. If I put the panel stuff back in it pops the breaker immediately. It seems to me that I should have one or the other  not both. I also changed the key switches from port to starboard. But everything stayed the same.
I'm thinking that maybe if the wire that goes from the circuit breaker to the key switch was grounding once it had a load on it that might explain it. If anyone has any ideas let me know or give me a call.

The rest of the day we spent going under drawbridges and the likes. Its weird being in Miami. We are in the middle of Biscayne bay outside Miami. There is no one around, but we are surrounded by huge buildings. We have a little island in front of us where I took the dogs for a walk.
The lights in the building are starting to come on and it really is quite nice.
Tomorrow we should get to Ft Lauderdale and we will check out that place.

Made it to Miami

We made it to Miami today and had a pretty good day sailing about 30 miles.  We only had one engine though (thank goodness the boat has two).  Wes replaced the circuit breaker on the starboard engine because he had to reset it every time in order to start the engine and after he replaced it then it wouldn't start at all.  Another after effect from the lightening.  So tomorrow he will have to remove the alternator, tighten the starter motor and then start disconnecting things until he can find the short.  Another fun day in the engine room for him.  Hopefully it won't be dreadfully hot and he tracks it down without too much trouble.  We are anchored in a cool little harbor called No Name Harbor for the night which is on the South side of Miami.  It has a park, which is great for walking the dogs and you can tie up to the sea wall for the day for $8 or anchor for the night for $20.

An awesome day in the Keys

Yes we finally got the solar panels installed YAY  Wes might need to do some adjustments because the boom seems to hit on the panels.  What a great day though. We went on the bay side and had to go through these mangrove channels.  We had dolphins swimming beside us and a crane hanging out by us.  It was pretty cool.  We decided to stop by the fixed bridge at Cross Key on the coastal highway it was really a great time because Tommy gave us about 2 1/2 pounds of mahi mahi that he caught and we had the restaurant fix it for us.  WOW it was so good.  Thank you Tommy.  While going through the channel I was able to finally get a picture of a dolphin and I think I actually got a really good picture for a change

Not too bad of a picture if I do say so myself.  

I asked the bartender to take this pic and I was hoping it would show the beach in the background but all you see are our ugly mugs

This was probably the best meal we have had so far.  It was done up perfect

This is the beach that was behind us that you can't see in the picture above.  

Hump Day on the Island

It's Wednesday I think. Its hard to keep track of the days down here. They all seem to run into each other. Today we got our solar panels. I wasn't really sure we were going to get them. The guy that was supposed to install them kept saying they would be here tomorrow. I'm not the most patient person so a lot of tomorrows don't really cut it with me. But today they are sitting on my front trampoline.
Tomorrow they are supposed to be installed. If all that works then we leave for Ft Lauderdale on Friday.
We haven't been to Ft Lauderdale yet and I'm interested to see what the populated part of Florida looks like from the water. I hope we can find a good place for the kids to meet us.
We took two paddle board trips around the local island, Tavernier Key. You see a lot of sea life when you are paddle boarding. We went over a ship wreck. We saw a shark, about 4 foot long, take off from the ship wreck. Later we saw a baby turtle. I also seem to see the same hammer head shark every time I head into the island. He is about 2 ft long and I named him Fred.
Other than that I see lots of bait fish and some baby barracuda.

For the picture of the day I have Karen and the dogs riding in the dingy.

Great Way to Spend a Monday

Today we motor-sailed out to a reef called Molasses, which is off of Key Largo.  It was pretty rough but we were still able to get in and snorkel around.  It was great snorkeling and once we got in the water, it didn't seem so rough. Here are a couple of pictures of what we saw.

4TH OF JULY

Today was a pretty good day, other than being Independence day.  We hung our US flag on the boat, which seemed to be an appropriate day to do this. Wes got both engines running YAY, so we decided to motor down towards Key Largo to test them out. We stopped in at the Key Largo marina to gas up and get water then we motored back South a little ways right off of Rodriguez Key which must of had about 100 boats anchored out just enjoying the beautiful day and great weather.  We hung out there for a few hours then headed back to Tavernier Key for the night. I had to post the first picture as proof that I really can stand up on the paddle board.  The second one is of Wes working on the starboard engine.   He is probably going to be mad when he sees that I posted this but I thought it was kind of funny.   He spent most of the past three days on his head in the engine compartments but it was worth it now that they are running.  

another day in paradise

For todays picture I chose a sunset. It was the best part of the day. All my chores were done for the day and I was relaxing. It was another gorgeous sunset.

For a status update, I fixed the port engine today. It took a bit of fixing. I replaced the alternator about four times and didn't have much luck. Then I replaced the alternator belt. That worked great, but I looked down in the engine compartment and I found I had oil leaking all over the place. That is bad. I could not think of what I had done to the engine to explain the oil all over the place. After about one hour of trouble shooting I found the problem and it wasn't as bad as I thought. The oil pressure sensor had a leak in it. This cost me 4.00 dollars to fix but before I found that I was definitely worried.
The starboard engine needs a new solenoid . When you turn the key the starter just  winds. I have a starter and solenoid  on order and it will be here tomorrow. So I should have two working engines by tomorrow evening.
That lighting strike really took a tole.
That's all for today.
Oh, we did get a soda stream and what a great addition to the boat.

Well it is Tuesday and before I explain everything that can happen on a Tuesday I think I should show you all what the water looks like down here.
This is just the water when we were coming into Tavernier.

This picture really doesn't do it justice.

Yesterday we had a thunderstorm storm move through. I was on the boat with the dogs.
We had a thunderbolt hit within 200 yards. That got the dogs attention and mine too.
It also seemed to fry a circuit breaker on the starboard engine. I fixed the circuit breaker today but that didn't totally fix the problem. Now when I kick the engine on we just get the starter winding up but it doesn't engage the engine. I think I need to check the solenoid. I will do that tomorrow-its been a long day.
Also the port engine was making a sound like the belt was squeaking.  Since the tac never came on until the squeaking went away I figured the alternator had to be bad. But we changed alternators today and it still makes that noise. I will have to work to figure that out.
All in all it wasn't a good day, but tonight I am just going to concentrate on a rum punch.
Hopefully tomorrow will be better.