Phyllis turned 30 this weekend! We had a great celebration. First, we attended the boat show for a couple of days where we did some very necessary shopping buying:
1) Boat Pants
2) A handheld Garmin 400C GPS
3) Shoes for Phyllis
4) More charts and guide books on our trip to Florida
5) Water proof bags for the dinghy
6) A Bosun's chair
And, for her birthday, Phyllis got a 4 person life raft guaranteed to save us when the boat sinks. They only pay the guarantee if you collect it in person. The raft is cool - made for 4 people with 4 square feet per person. It is stored in a valise bag and we will keep it in the port aft lazerette. Operations are simple. Pull it out of the lazerette, tie off the painter and throw it in the water. Pull the chord until the raft inflates and step up into the raft. The key point being step up into the raft - never get off a boat unless it really is sinking and you have no choice.
With all of our shopping, I think we have finally bought everything we need for the trip except food. We spent more than i wanted but we really do have the boat outfitted very well now. It should not be an issue for the trip.
We looked at a couple of boats at the show. We have no idea what our next boat is going to be but we keep looking. Right now, we are very impressed with the Morris 48. Saturday morning we went out for a sail on the 48 Consulting Time II. Doug Deihl is a friend of a number of our marina friends and the original owner of Kika. He moved from the Tartan to the Morris. The day was cool and there was some rain and the wind was way up - we saw 30 knots True during one gust. Needless to say, the boat was unbelievable and sailed really great. Only issue with the boat - the price. Very big price tag and I am not sure you will recoup your investment. But you sure would sail well.
The only other boat that caught our eye was a Sabre. We love our boat and the 386 they had in the show was really nice. We had a long talk with Bentley about the 452 which they are debating about bringing back as a 456. If Sabre had a bigger boat, we would probably move up to it and that would be the end. Anyway, Bentley is sending us blue prints to play with and we'll visit with him at the motor boat show next weekend. He'll show us the new interiors on the motorboats and we'll see what could be possible on a 456.
With the wind blowing big Saturday morning, it pushed the water out of the creek and caused a bigger than average tide. Being boat show weekend, we had a number of people anchored behind us in the cove. These next two pictures are a good example of why local knowledge is sometimes very important.
- Cruiser Runs Aground
The tides weren't that bad - probably about 3 or 4 feet instead of 18 inches. Not an issue for us at the marina, but the Eva Luna was having issues. This is a pretty bad grounding but probably caused no damage on the boat. The cove bottom is mud, and the keels of these boats are designed to support all the weight. In fact, when you pull a boat in the winter, all of the weight rests on the keel. The boat is heeling not much more than some of the pictures we have taken this summer in good breezes so there was probably no spills inside. My guess, the only thing that got hurt on board was the Captain's pride.
- Eva Luna - Waiting for a Raising Tide
After getting back from the boat show Saturday night, we took a short break before dinner. Pyllis immediately went to the computer to test our new broadband card from Verizon. This new card is amazing. It's called a MiFi2200 card and connects up to 5 computers to the internet via a shared broadband connection. Basically, we can run 5 computers on board through this one small device. It is really slick (I sound like an advertisement but I must say, I am impressed with this device).
- MiFi220 Card
While Phyllis was working on the computer, I checked out the boat. The main sail was removed for repairs and cleaning and provided a different view of the boom than we normally see.
- A Naked Boom
Also wandering the docks were our friends Skip and Judith - both willing to pose for a picture.
- Skip Looking Dapper
- Judith Modeling
Saturday night, nine of us heading to FLA for the winter went to the Annapolis Yacht Club to talk about the trip and celebrate Phyllis's birthday. The club does something very cool, it compares today to the day when you were born. For Phyllis, there were a number of interesting facts such as:
No Wait! If I put the facts here, everyone will know how old she is. Hmmm. A morale dilemma. What is an unrestricted blogger to do? I'll wait for comments and suggestions or until Phyllis tells me what to do. That's probably a good strategy - although I wonder if blackmail will work.
Anyway, we had a great meal and hurt ourselves laughing about the trip. Somehow, screaming got mentioned and that derailed the night. I'm still not sure how that conversation came up but it was an off shoot of the three smartest mammal conversation, which was an off shoot of the fact that Dolphins mate on the St. Lucie River right where our boats will be in Florida. I'd post pictures but we would have to change the website ratings.
Saturday night was the first cold night of the year. We turned on the heater when we returned from dinner but I turned it off when we went to bed. 59 degrees on board when I woke up Sunday morning. Phyllis stayed in bed as the boat warmed up. Then we were off to brunch with Richard and IdaRae who are sailing with us to Florida. Good meal and a long discussion of the trip. At the end, I think we decided we are going outside. Weather permitting, we are heading off-shore and won't pull in until the Ft. Pierce inlet - probably 5 days at sea. I think it is the right plan because it minimizes my time off. But, 5 days, four people, nothing but ocean, should be good blogging. If the weather is bad, than we'll head to Beaufort and head out there.
When we got home from the boat, our boat cards had arrived. All boaters have boat cards printed with the specific contact information so you can keep track of all who you meet in your cruising. We created a two sided card with one side containing contact information and a picture of Comocean. The other side was a variety of pictures we have taken on our travels. All of the pictures are available at our gallery so please go take a look.
- Comocean Boat Cards
All-in-all, I think we had a great weekend. Hopefully Phyllis agrees and I hope she had a wonderful birthday.
