On buoy.....then not

Little did we know when I took the picture of the floating Tiki hut/bar it would be its last bay cruise for the foreseeable future.

De Anne returning from her walk back and forth on the Ringling Bridge.

 The marina from whom we were renting the mooring ball has been incrementally discontinuing services. Every few days another needed service would be cancelled with little to no warning. We realized a change was needed quickly. Through a series of rapid fire texts and emails we were able to lease our old condo again and secure a slip for the boat. De Anne is safe, the boat is safe, and I am relived. De Anne might reverse the order on the first two items in the previous sentence - if you know her you get it.

 Maybe in a month or two the Florida Keys will reopen and possibly our Bahamas plans can be renewed at a future date, but until then so many others are in real trouble that we will be grateful for our good fortune.

Hunkered down

One of my favorite sayings is "life is what happens when you are making plans".

 Two weeks ago we complained about crowds and traffic in the Sarasota area. That problem has dissipated for reasons we all know too well. It is good to be on a mooring ball with our nearest neighbor 100 yards away.

 Stay safe!

Marina Jack's

We left our condo with mixed feelings. Off for new sights, but friends left behind.

The first move was not quite an adventure since we traveled six miles to Marina Jack's mooring field just off downtown Sarasota. We remain here until at least March 26th when (hopefully) the aforementioned crowns are installed in my expensive mouth. I will eat a lot to ensure effectively amortizing the cost of said dental work.

 View from the buoy field:

It may take a little time, however we have done this before and do not expect too steep a learning curve this time around. (Ha Ha......stay tuned!)

Countdown

The final day living on Longboat Key. The boat is loaded and surprising still floating.

We have once again parted with possessions; however, once you have parted with decades of "stuff" ridding yourselves of a few years of things is not very hard.

 Next stop is the buoy field in Sarasota for final checkout and a couple doctors appointments. The biggest expense this month was not the boatyard or the diesel mechanic - rather my dental checkup that morphed into two new crowns. De Anne notes that I am expensive to keep.

 In the below picture note the refinished teak, the new dinghy davits holding the almost new dinghy and yet-to-be fully broken-in outboard motor.

As a last hurrah, De Anne spent several hours on the cabin roof sanding and applying a new coat of varnish to the mahogany light mast.

Like drunken sailors

We retrieved GiGi Mae this morning from the boatyard. All it took was spending money like drunken sailors.

The first corner of the the marina proved the worth of the new rudder. It took the corner in a well behaved manner and without even a touch of bow thruster. This included a stiff breeze on the beam. Strangely enough there was heavy fog in addition to the strong wind. Getting back into our slip was a one shot, easy coast. A couple taps in reverse and one second of bow thruster for alignment and she sat still for De Anne to tie her up.

 The rebuilt rudder before bottom paint. You can just make out the seam where the additions were made (click to enlarge):

We will refinish the teak, assemble and hang the dingy, and put some island clothes aboard, then be ready to shove off next week.

On the hard

We had the boat pulled out of the water yesterday. The trip was uneventful until the last hundred yards. Some how I confused the markers into the boat yard and got into shallow water. Only our very short draft saved us and I was able to turn around at the last moment and get back to the channel.

Trying to turn a narrow fairway to the travel lift I drifted too close to a docked tour boat. The boat operator was on board and pushed us off. Then by over correcting De Anne had to push us off a boat on the other side before I finally got us into the travel lift slot. My embarrassment was evident, and the boat yard manager commented that he had seen worst landings. Code language for bad landing. On the positive side - no insurance claims pending.

 On the hard:

We are getting the bottom painted. The rudder with be enlarged (for better control) and the rear main oil seal replaced.

The faulty oil seal is a easy fix once you access it. Access means the transmission is removed; however, to remove the transmission the drive shaft must be moved back at least 4 inches. To move the drive shaft the rudder has to come off, therefore the boat must be out of the water.

 Current tiny rudder:

33.3 % improvement

Amid gentle breezes and warm temperatures we set forth into Sarasota Bay again. This time we went to the middle of the bay and opened the throttle to full speed. This assured a completely wanton fuel consumption; however, we had the blessing of our mechanic since he wanted to know our top end RPM's. Additionally we needed to burn off the old diesel fuel that is over a year old.

 Our return went better by a third. I aborted the first docking inside the marina, left and tried again. The second try was perfect. At least perfect in the sense we made it into our own slip and De Anne was unable to find any new hull marks.

 Ron, our next door neighbor, caught us turning around for our second docking attempt:

The next trip may be an overnight to test anchoring and so that De Anne can play her favorite night-time boat game - "what's that sound?".

 After that an exciting trip to Marina Jack's for a $600/$700 fill-up.