This is your blog, honey-you’re at the top of the mast!
Well, we’ve been in the water for almost two weeks now, but we’re just a couple of days south of where we started in Indiantown Marina, up the St. Lucie River, about mid-state near Lake Okeechobee. We’re now anchored on the Intracoastal Waterway in a wide spot called Lake Worth in the City of North Palm Beach with 40 other sailboats at the moment, waiting for a “weather-window” to cross to the Bahamas; however, Nan left the preceding blog with me hanging on for dear life at the top of Summer Breeze’s 50-foot mast. What she didn’t mention was that I was stuck up there for 3 freakin’ hours straight! Trust me, hanging five stories up in the air by a ½” rope is really not a job for 60 year old farts; especially if you’ve ascended the mast carrying the wrong anchor light bulbs . . . . OK, no laughing, nobody said I was attempting brain surgery, it’s just basic light bulb replacement. This was my first experience going up the mast, ever. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, and I kept putting it off for days until time finally ran out. For any of you just starting to toy with an old man’s prostate issues, or if you already understand the joy of having to get up to hit the bathroom three or four times each night, you haven’t really lived until you’ve personally experienced the “Mother of All Wedgies” at fifty feet in the air. As the photo indicates, I had a smile on my face for the other on-looking boaters, but quite honestly, my “boys” will never forgive me. A bosun’s chair is certainly no Lazy Boy.
It feels really good to get back on the water again. The past two weeks have been “preparation for cruising”. This isn’t “yachting” like the photos you see on the front of a tourism magazine, our style cruising is like tent camping, except on water, and really, really humid, sandy, and salty. We do actually experience some of those unbelievably dreamy days anchored off of gorgeous secluded white sand beaches in island coves enjoyed only by us, but we usually work really hard for those exceptional times. Nan is presently up on the deck with a rag and the 3M cleaning/restoring wax scrubbing her hands off. By the way, the next time you see her, please mention how youthful and beautiful her hands look . . .I may have inadvertently spouted off something to the effect that they looked kinda “lizardy” the other day. That one is really gonna cost me.
She is an amazing trooper when it comes to Summer Breeze. I’ve spent all of my time so far maintaining our little 18 hp Yanmar diesel, installing a new bilge pump, changing fuel filters, replacing lights and electrical system wiring, putting in a new Garmin GPS unit, messing with the new solar house battery system . . . all the fun guy stuff, while she’s getting all the food & stores planned, organized, and put away. Visualize bringing home $1000 worth of groceries and trying to pack it all in approximately 7 cu. ft. of storage space, that’s like a big Samsonite suitcase. The largest part of our galley is our new 4 cu.ft. refrigerator which up until last spring was our old “ice box”. I just converted it into a really cool state–of-the-art Isotherm solar powered refrigerator. No more chasing down ice every three days for us; we’ve entered the 21st century and we are elated! Anyway, her stocking task every Fall is monumental, and on top of that, she’s an insatiable cleaning machine; throw in scrubbing and waxing every square inch of the boat inside and out, and you’ve got her past two weeks of “yachting”. Best Admiral a Captain could ask for!
Last Sunday, at the end of our first week on the water, we sat out our first nasty “norther” passage at anchor. Luckily this is a good anchorage because we registered 40 degrees F & 50mph winds on our boat and the NOAA weather warnings were calling for 70mph and multiple tornadoes. Another one is supposed to come through here tomorrow . . . this global warming thing is killing us. We need to get farther south, quick!
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