Murphy strikes again - Days 208 & 209 - Fernandina Beach, FL

Murphy's Law: Every thing takes longer than you think, everything is harder than it look and if anything can go wrong it will (and with a vengeance and at the worst possible moment). 

Mechanical problems and the Shrimp Festival.

Wednesday at 10:30 AM, while tied to the dock, our peace was shattered by a loud siren that we quickly determined was the engine alarm under the control station.  All attempts to shut it off by rational means met with abject failure.  Shutting down the 12, 120 and 240 volt systems failed to isolate the problem and neither did closing the master switches as the alarm is hard-wired to the batteries.  Note: This alarm is designed to alert the operator to engine overheating, loss of oil pressure and activated bilge pumps. Even when running at full speed you cannot miss the alarm.

Since the engines were not running, the problem had to be related to the bilge pumps, which we determined with the help of my fiend, Tom Tobin, our salesperson at Skipper Buds.  A quick check of the bilge pumps revealed that the high water pump was dead and, perhaps, the cause of the problem.  With the help of marina staff we located a technician who arrived in 30 minutes and quickly found a poorly executed butt connection that had leaked allowing salt water to corrode the wire.  It was quickly repaired. 

Unfortunately, this did not solve the problem.  The alarm was still blaring (and frazzling my nerves).  Another call to Tom and we were connected with Floyd, a tech support person at Sea Ray.  Floyd helped us determine that a black box, called a Systems Monitor, located at the control station on the starboard coaming had gone to failure.  Further, he helped locate the System Monitor breaker in the engine room and explained how to trip the nonintuitive breaker switch.  Alas, the alarm was silenced.  The bad new: A replacement System Monitor costs $1,000 not including installation (another $500 including labor and travel expense [$200]).  Repair is scheduled for Tuesday (May 3).

Oh, did I mention the isolated shower that hit while all of this was going on?  It hit at just the wrong moment when I was not in a position to put the camper canvas windows in?  More Murphy.

Decorated Shrimp Festival Statue at Brett's Restaurant

Thursday evening, Murphy decided to strike again.  The Shrimp Festival started at 6:00 PM with a parade through the historical district on Center Street.  Rain struck just as the parade started (Note: It had not rained for weeks).  We stayed on the boat until the rain let up and then ventured out with Kodi to see the last half hour of the parade.

Note the large puddle under the float

Diana poses with a pirate and his wife

As ususual, Kodi, our unofficial social director, connected us with new people, in this case a women and her husband who had dressed up in period costumes to watch the parade.  A discussion about the pirate's pistols caused his wife to alert us to the cannon and pistol firing that would occur at the parade's end.  We beat a hasty retreat knowing that load noises upset the Furry Kid.  Unfortunately, we were not quick enough and Kodi got a bit traumitized.

We've been out, as of this writing, for 209 days and had experienced rain on no more than 10 days.  Murphy changed that.  Wednesday's rainshower caught me unawares (soaking the cockpit) and Thursday' rain "rained" on Fernandina Beach's parade. 

Note: The rain on Thursday was associated with the massive cold front that moved across the midwest  (Tuesday - Thursday) with numerous tornados, some Force 5 (winds at 200 MPH), that killed almost 300 people.  We were fortunate to be in Fernandina Beach, which was at the southern end of the front.  All we experienced was heavy rain on Thursday night.

Tommorow, I leave for Chicago while Diana stays behind with Kodi and tries to cope with the noise and hundreds of thousands of people visiting the Shrimp Festival.

Written by Les.

Finishing Florida - Days 206 & 207 - St Augustine to Fernadina Beach, FL

Saturday, we toured the Ponce de Leon Hotel, which was build by Henry Morrison Flagler and is now the centerpiece of Flagler College.  Our guided one hour tour included a lecture on the structure itself, the lobby, the dining room and the women's special room.

Completed in 1887, the 540 luxury room hotel catered to the wealthy and was one of the first hotels with electric lighting, installed by Flagler's friend Thomas Edison.  Guests included Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt and Babe Ruth to name a few.

Our tour guide pointed out the numerous thematic touches that Flagler and his architect included to make the hotel a unique experience.  These include lion heads (de Leon means lion) on the exterior and interior common areas, a fountain with turtles representing the four seasons of the years and 12 spitting frogs representing the months and numbers on the clock.  a magnificent lobby floor with one deliberate error and chandeliers in the women's special room each of which was different in some way.

Check out this link for extensive photos of the building's architectual touches.

One of two bell towers holding 8,000 gallons of water

Dome in the lobby Rotunda

Leated Tiffany glass in the dining room

More Tiffany glass

Our tour guide explaining the role and furnishings of the womens' lobby

On Sunday (April 24), after 7 magical days in beautiful historic St Augustine, we cruised 31 miles north on the ICW to Jacksonville Beach. 

View of St Augustine just north of the Bridge of Lions (note the hotel's two towers center right)

As we departed, we passed Castillo de San Marco, the oldest masonry fort in the US and one that saw action numerous times.  The fort build in 1672 has flown the Spanish, British, Confederate and US flags (two times).

Castillo de San Marco

We arrived at the Beach Marina at 4:00 PM after a lovely afternoon cruise with sunny skies, moderate southeast winds and interesting scenery.  Beach Marina was recommended by our St Augustine boat neighbors who also owned a recently purchased 2006 48 Sundancer with a pewter hell.  Within minutes of our arrival, they were joined by two other 48 Sundancers making for a total of four 48s including ours.  Sea Ray would have been pleased.

Ubiquitous 48 Sundancers

Beach Marina is not within walking distance of a historical downtown or any good restaurants.  So we got in a cab and asked the driver to recommend a good place.  He hit a home run with Eleven South Bistro.  We had a lovely dinner on their patio and vowed to return on Tuesday.

Raising a glass of Cabernet at Eleven South Bistro

Our plan called for two days at Beach Marina and then seven days at Fernandina Beach, where Diana would hang out with the Furry Kid while I visited Chicago to attend Kathy Hoffman's Celebration of Life. 

Plans changed quickly on Tuesday morning when we called the Fernandina Harbor Marina and learned that they were booked solid for the coming weekend's Shrimp Festival.  They indicated if we came today we could stay for the weekend and within an hour we were on our way.

We cruised casually at trawler speed (>9 mph) and covered the 31 miles in just under four hours.  This turned out to be a good decision.  Fernandina Beach is our kind of town with a vibrant historic downtown just outside of the marina.

View of Historic Downtown on Center Street

Court House build in 1892 and still used today

Lesense House build circa 1860, one of the oldest homes Fernandina Beach

We had a lovely dinner at Brett's, a three star restaurant at the marina, and prepared for seven peaceful days in Fernandina Beach ....., which did not happen.  See next article - Murphy strikes again.

Written by Les.

St Augustine Adventures - Days 198 to 205 - Daytona Beach to St Augustine

We departed Daytona Beach early Sunday morning (April 17) after taking on 161 gallons of diesel at $3.83/gal, the highest we've paid thus far.  Good news, we could have paid $4.39 at Vero Beach and $4.10 at St Augustine.  Bad news, fuel prices will, undoubtedly, continue to rise.  C'est la vie.
Even with this purchase, our average cost of fuel for 2,522 gallons is $3.38 per gallon.  We are averaging better than 1 mile per gallon after 2,641 miles.


Guided Discover refueled and ready to go at the Halifax Municipal Marina fuel dock

The 53 mile run up the Halifax and Matanzas rivers was pleasant as we ran at trawler speed (9 MPH) all the way.  Scenery was viewed from a distance as the rivers were fairly wide.

View astern of the Halifax River

Along the way we were passed by Bill and Laurene Parlatore in Spitfire making tracks for the Chesapeake.  It was great running into to them at Daytona Beach and spending a few hours chatting over a glass of wine.

The Parlatore's pass us enroute to the Chesapeake

Shortly after we passed Fort Matanzas which was built by the Spanish in 1740 to guard the Matanzas Inlet and the southern access to St Augustine.

Fort Matanzas viewed in the distance

We arrived in St Augustine late in the afternoon and were immediately impressed.  The St Augustine Municipal Marina sits right in the edge of the Historical Downtown.  The Bridge of Lions sits to the north and an on-water restaurant sits immediately to the south and, best of all, it has floating docks (a necessity with a 5 foot tide).

View of the Bridge of Lions

After securing Guided Discovery, we did a preliminary exploration of the downtown area and found it full of history.  Founded by the Spanish in 1565, it's the oldest city in the US.   This is one very charming place and one that we would recommend you put on your list of places to see.

Monday, my friend Jim Long drove 80 miles to St Augustine and we spent they day exploring family history.  Jim's enthusiasm has got me involved in my family's genealogy and Diana and I are now members of ancestry.com. 

During this session I discovered my grandmother on my mother's side's maiden name.  Up to now, I knew her as Minnie Thurman (married to Louis).  Through my uncle Hans' WWI draft registration, accessed on ancestry.com, I learned her name was Levicoff and that she came from a town in Russia called Mogelev, which is located in an area called the Pale of Settlement.  Jim had obtained document that summarized life in the Pale of Settlement.  Needless to say, my ancestor's had a tough life in Russia.  Call it Fiddler on the Roof without the music.  Note: They were not allowed to have surnames until the late 1800s, which may prevent me from going back much farther than 1850 and my great great grandfather (Moishe Kassal Ashapa) on my fathers' side.

Tuesday, Diana and I drove to Newberry Florida (80 miles), to visit with Jim and his daughter Maureen (Mo) and her husband Jeff Price.  I have known the Long family since 1978.  Notwithstanding a three hour delay waiting for Enterprise to produce a car and a long two hour drive, we had a great visit.  Jim, Mo and Jeff live on a farm just west of Gainsville with three dogs and two horses.  Mo teaches veterinary medicine and Jeff is an attorney.  Kodi made fast friends with Frank who she now considers her boyfriend.

Diana getting kisses from Kodi and Frank with Fran in the background

Dinner was at a Sister's restaurant in Haile Village.  We had a lovely time although this dinner was the longest we've ever had; over 3 hours.  No one can explain why it took so long but it was not a problem.  We sat outside and chatted in literally perfect weather.  The food was great and the desserts were off the chart.

Les, Diana, Jim, Mo and Jeff

Jeff and I pose with Monica the owner of Sister's

The only negative was the 80 mile drive back to St Augustine.  Surprise.  The left front headlight was out.  Not good on dark country high speed roads.  We arrived back at the boat at 1:15 AM.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent exploring St Augustine as tourists.  Highlights included a trolley train tour and a visit to Ripley's Believe it or Not (well, you got to do it least once - turns out it was very interesting).  St Augustine is full of attractions, literally too numerous to mention.  We skipped the rest of the commercial stuff and after the train tour walked the town where we learned about Henry Flagler.

Henry Morrison Flagler, of Standard Oil fame (circa 1890s), played a big role in the development of St Augustine and Florida's eastcoast.  Flagler built the Florida East Coast Railroad that ultimately connected to Key West, founded Palm Beach, built hotels throughout Florida, built the 540 room Ponce De Leon in St Augustine, which is now Flagler College, and ultimately controlled the two other luxury hotels in town (see photos below).

Ponce De Leon Hotel now Flagler College

Henry Morrison Flagler's statue at the college gate

Flagler controlled Alcazar luxury hotel now the Lightner Museum (and was once was City Hall)

Henry Flagler built the MAGNIFICENT Memorial Presbyterian Church in honor of his daughter who died in childbirth.  She is buried the family mausoleum as is Flagler who died in 1913 (photos below). This may be the most impressive gravestone in America.

Memorial Presbyterian Church

Flagler Mausoleum

Henry Flagler is buried to the left

Another highlight of the two days was a visit to the James Coleman Art Gallery at the Casa Monica Hotel, which occurred when the manager, Dawn, met the Furry Kid as we breakfasted on the porch.  James Coleman, for whom the gallery is named, was an illustrator for Disney.  His work was spectacular and the shop was like visiting a museum.  Great stuff.

Dawn poses with Diana and the Furry Kid

Friday, we drove to Green Cove Springs, visited St Brendan's Isle, our mail service provider. St Bredan's Isle is a terrific service.  They send an email with a scan of each envelope and give you the ability to send, hold, shred, scan, delete or disavow each item.   The scan function allow us to see any item that might be time sensitive in 24 hours as a PDF file.  At our request they also eliminate all third class mail making "mail' life rather simple.

Scott Loehr holding our name tag

We then drove to the Clay County Tax Collector's office and got our Florida driver's licenses (good until 2019), registered to vote and registered Guided Discovery as a Florida boat.  This turned out to be a pleasant experience as they were well organized and totally computerized.  The whole process took less than an hour and the clerk was friendly and helpful.  Note: On arrival they determined your objective and assigned you a number.  Then you sat and waited for your number to be called.  Cook County take note.

It's fun and maybe a little shocking to be Florida residents.

Written by Les.

Passagemaker connection - Days 196 to 197 - Cocoa to Daytona Beach

Friday morning we traveled from Cocoa to Daytona Beach.  The forecast called for 20% chance of showers which gave us what has turned out thus far to be a rare opportunity to monitor conditions on satellite weather.  The route took us north along the Indian River to the Haulover Cut (shown in the photo below) and then after a sharp left turn, north along the Mosquito Lagoon to the Halifax River.

The route, isolated storms to the southwest and the water depth (shallow as usual)

The Indian River is wide and straight which results in moderate chop when there's wind.  In this case from the south and thus a following sea, which is good, and a neutral wind when heading north, which is a bit less comfortable.  One nice surprise was a 15 foot bridge that had been replaced by a new one with plenty of headroom and thus eliminating a bridge stop.

Remnants of the old bridge that have yet to be removed

Our original plan called for a stop at New Smyrna Beach but given the smooth trip we decided to add 16 miles and push on to Daytona Beach.  This turned out to be a wonderful decision.

After 65 miles and close to seven hours underway, at trawler speed, we arrived at the Halifax Harbor Marina.  Halifax Harbor is Daytona Beach's municipal marina and it was spectacular; large, well organized, well run (by Skipper Buds - a division of the company from whom we bought Guided Discovery) and best of all it had floating (easy on easy off) docks, which we had not seen since Delray Beach over a month ago. 

Halifax Harbor Marina

Now to the wonderful decision.  We reconnected with two very special old friends, Bill and Laurene Parlatore, the founders of PassageMaker Magazine (we have every issue dating back to the first edition circa 1996).  PassageMaker is a magazine that focuses on powerboat cruising and contains unusually thoughtful and detailed articles on eery aspect (boats, equipment, safety, destinations, etc.)

On Saturday night, a 41 foot powercat pulled in next to us.  We barely took note of Spitfire with a hailing port of Block Island, RI.  Early Sunday evening, we were walking with the Furry Kid and she noticed a golden retriever ahead and wanted to visit.  Of course we accommodated and as always our canine ambassador got us talking with new people.  We quickly learned they were the couple on Spitfire.  As we walked along, Diana talking with the woman, Kodi playing with the golden and I chatting with the man, the conversation turned to the power cat.  As we talked, the man mentioned his last boat, named Growler (after their last dog), and the name connected me to Bill Parlatore. 

I asked, "are you Bill Parlatore?" and he replied "yes."  I then introduced myself with a story.  Turns out I had med Bill and Laurene at a PassageMaker TrawlerPort in (a trawler show within a boat show) circa 1999 when Diana and I were seriously considering early retirement and cruising the world.  Later, I wrote Bill and asked which vessel he would recommend for us; a Nordhavn 50, a Krogen 48 Whaleback or a Cape Horn 55.  I also said that we would start with a few years of coastal cruising (i.e., The Great Loop).  Bill replied that any one of these vessels would be like taking a Humvee to the grocery store or, stated another way, overkill for what we planned to do.

I reminded him of the story and he immediately connected.  I then informed Diana, several steps behind, that we had met "celebrities" (at least from our viewpoint) and we all had a bit of a laugh.  What luck, they were only there for one night - wow.

We invited them for a drink on Guided Discovery, shared a bottle of 2007 Mount Veder Cabernet Savignon, had a great chat about cruising, Passagemaker (which they sold in 2004), boats that we have been considering (the Fleming 55 and the Outer reef 63) and their decision to buy the PDQ 41 powercat, which they were now bringing north.

Another serendipitous meeting that is part of the magic of our journey.

We spent two lovely days in Daytona Beach highlights of which included: dinner at the Chart House, one of our favorite restaurants, a farmer's market and an 8 mile walk that took over the ICW to the beach itself.  Below are a few photos:

Downtown Daytona Beach

Lovely farmer's market

A view from the boardwalk

Did I mention that we are having a great time?

Written by Les.

Exploring Space Exploration - Day 195 - Cocoa, FL

Did you know that April 28th is the final space shuttle launch?  Did you also know that this final launch is the end of the manned space program for some time to come?

Unfortunately, both answers are true and the folks in the Cape Canaveral area are not thrilled.  Turns out that for US Astronauts to get to the International Space Station they will have to travel on a Russian Soyuz space vehicle. 

While I don't get into politics very often, it seems to me that we would be better off investing in the space program, which has big technology benefits that filter into our lives and CREATE JOBS than squandering trillions on unnecessary wars. 

So much for politics.  Now to the fun.

The Rocket Garden (Saturn V on the right laying on its side)

I visited the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday and took their guided "Then and Now" tour.  It was a memorable experience.

The tour started in 1961 at the blockhouse used for the Mercury Program, which has been preserved for future generations.  What is striking is the technology of the day and the proximity of the launch pad to the blockhouse (approximately 300 feet).


Redstone Rocket as viewed from Launch Control

This is where they launched Alan Shepard into the US' first manned sub-orbital mission.  The photo below shows the launch button and Shepard's famous words "Let's light this candle!"  .  They easily could have been his last words when you consider that the initial set of US rockets all exploded on launch.


Launch switch and famous words "Let's light this candle!"

 The Redstone Rocket was 83 feet tall, weighed 62,000 pounds and produced 78,000 pounds of thrust.

Redstone Rocket

The Borroughs computer at Launch Control filled an entire room.  The CPU was approximately 12 feet wide and 6 feet high and had less power than the Lenova PC I'm using to write this article.  According to our guide it has hundreds of thousands of soldered connections.


Borroughs Central Processing Unit



Operator's Console

Power Supply

Fast forward to the Apollo Program and my how things had changed.  The launch control panels now occupy an entire room, the Saturn V rocket is 363 feet (longer than a football field), weighs 6,700,000 pounds and produces 7,500,000 pounds of thrust.  The launch control center is located 3 miles from the launch pad.

Saturn V on display

We also visited Launch Complex 34 and the launch pad where Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in the tragic fire aboard Apollo 1.

As we traveled in our bus to the various launch sites, I wondered why they did continued to build new sites and like magic the tour guide read my mind and answered my question.  The space program was moving so fast that the next two launch sites were already under construction.  Speaking of launch sites,we were only allowed to visit abandoned sites.  The active sites are off limits as is taking photos of them (courtesy of the Department of Defense).

At the beginning of the tour we crossed a bridge which gave us a view of an active launch site some distance to the north.  The driver asked the participants to guess the distance to the site and offered a commemorative (plastic) coin to the person whose guess was closest.  I guessed 5 miles and won the coin (Nathaniel take notice.  The coin is for you).   The day before I was having fun with Diana guessing the distance between bridges on the ICW so I had a bit of an edge.

At the site there is a memorial to the fallen astronauts and a time capsule that honors the original 7 Mercury Astronauts.  The time capsule was dedicated in 1964 and will not be opened for 500 years.

Mercury 7 Memorial

The memorial to fallen astronauts is well executed with the names on a black background.  Notice when you take photo their names appear in the clouds.

Astronaut Space Mirror Memorial

The tour took over four hours and left time for only one activity at the Visitor Center.  I chose the Shuttle Launch Experience, which would qualify as a 1st class Disneyland ride.  The ride simulates the first 8 minutes of the Space Shuttle Launch where you go from zero to 17,000 MPH and climb 64 miles.  The program starts with an explanation and video of what you are going to experience so that when you actually sit in the chair the whole thing makes sense.

All in all a spectacular day.  Only problem, to much to see and not enough time.  Maybe we will return nest year as we pass through enroute to souuthern Florida.

Written by Les.