Back in the US of A.
Swiftwing
Sun 28 Feb 2010 18:26
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Back in the US.
27.00.64N
80.28.11W
Indiantown Marina 23rd February 2010
Douglas.
Hi, sorry for the long wait. It's been about
eight months since I've updated the blog but now that we are back on our travels
there should be the usual updates.
Beverley will be doing a 'what we did at home' blog
when she gets a little time.
Well, we arrived back in Atlanta on Monday 18th
January loaded down with bags as usual and a load of super dooper WiFi gear,
including a 7 foot antenna which will eventually find it's way up the mizen mast
in an effort to make contact with home a lot easier. We do have satellite on
board but at over one pound per minute and a slow download speed making the cost
prohibitive for surfing the web.
To give you an idea of how big Atlanta airport is,
the luggage reclaim was three miles and a train ride away from the plane, but
after two hours we managed to get out and pick up our hire car and headed south
on the road to Florida. We stopped off at a motel fifty miles south as our body
clocks were telling us that it was 3 a.m.
After a great sleep we phoned our German friends
,Yense and Daniella and arranged a slight detour to go and visit them on board
at St. Augustine. Over the summer they had sailed to Norfolk, Virginia and
featured on the cover on an American sailing magazine.
After full day and an evening out with them
we continued on our way south which took us past Daytona Beach, the beach
made famous for car racing because of it's firm sand. The Daytona 500 and NASCAR
race in the huge speedway now and the beach is left to the bathers.
Keen to see the condition of 'Swiftwing' after so
many months ashore we pushed on and arrived in the yard at three that afternoon.
We needn't have worried. After reporting into the office we drove to her
storage bay and found her exactly as we had left her in May last year, but with
a bit of sun damage to the paint and varnish and some mildew down below, but
nothing too drastic. There had been no hurricanes duing that season but lots of
rain. Lake Okeechobee is full to overflowing again and the St. Lucie canal is
back up to it's normal depth. You may remember that it was so shallow when we
arrived last year that we touched the soft mud about four times despite a
charted depth of 10 to thirty feet.
We arranged to have 'Swiftwing' lifted into the
work yard the next day and then set off to West Marine in Stuart to buy the
necessary paint and boat items for the coming weeks.
As I sit here copying this from my new computer on
23rd February, we have now been in the work area for just over one month.
We have been having serious computer maelodies and various attempts to put the
blog on for the first month have met with returned to sender type e-mails.
In the last month we have scraped and sanded the
hull, varnished the woodwork and rebuilt the toilet or head with a new holding
tank, lots of shiney new teak and generally brought it up to the same standard
as the main cabin. We have replaced all of our batteries with deep cell golf
cart batteries and visited Miami Boat Show where we bought a show special 9.9hp
Mercury outboard at half the UK price. The reason for the big saving? it
had been on display for two days and the cardboard box was burst. This will help
when we go back to visit the Bahamas where we have to travel long distances by
dinghy. 'Doody' our little Avon dinghy will be able to plane at
last.
About three weeks ago we again hired a car and
travelled north to Kissimmee to visit friends, Anne and Arthur Crossan from
Campbeltown who arrived to visit Arthur's brother Daniel, who has lived in
America for over twenty years. We had a very nice couple of days with them
before heading back to work on the boat. We have also been to the Abecoa Classic
Car show but that is another blog.
The yard here is very nice and as it has been
cooler here than usual we have taken the opportunity to get loads of work done
on Swiftwing. It is a very pleasant climate and I even had to wear a fleece fo a
couple of mornings as the temperature was down to 9 degrees centigrade. It soon
heated up with the clear skies and work has been going on at a good pace. We
have had one morning of rain since we arrived and the odd shower through the
night.
On the outside of the clubhouse at the yard is a
sign saying "do not feed the alligartors" We thought this funny until we found
out that a huge alligator has taken to sunning himself on the grass bank next to
one of the pontoons. They have been trying to catch him for three years but he
is just too fly for them. He is unconcerned that humans dressed in bright
clothing are moving about just a few feet from him but as soon as he sees the
alligator catchers in their camouflage gear he is off. At the moment a trap has
been set fo him with a chicken but he is too smart for that ruse. He just stays
in the water now cruising around the marina looking for the odd boat cat or
yappy dog. It's illegal to shoot them here which I am sure he knows when he goes
to visit the catchers in their van. Bev has named him "Jock the croc" which
annoys the lady in the shop who insists that its a 'gator. Jocks antics have
become the centre of attention and most of the cruisers are hoping that he isn't
caught as he'll be made into shoes and handbags and his head mounted. I'm quite
serious, this is his fate if caught.
One last thing. We didn't manage to to transfer our
e-mail address book onto our new computer and now find that we have to start
again. Could you all send us a quick e-mail so that we can refill our address
book and get back in contact.
That's all for now. Photo's on the next
blog.
Douglas.
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