Category: General

Wild ride on Zipply — Pearl’s new dingy/tender

Pearl has had a nice little dingy/outboard combo for a while — a Honda 5hp outboard with a West Marine PVC inflatable with a slatted floor. It’a a great combo if you are just trying to get to the dock or to go ashore for the evening, sort of thing. It doesn’t work so well if you’d like to take longer fishing trips or go exploring without moving Pearl.

Enter “Zipply” an AMI (Advanced Marine Inflatables) catamaran inflatable which I picked up while in Portland earlier this year. AMI is a Chinese built catamaran/tunnel hull style dinghy. Paired with a 20hp Yamaha outboard, she just about flies. Check out the video below.

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As you can see, this isn’t your grandma’s tender. At some point, I will explain the rationale for why I picked this combination, along with more tech details (for those who care).

Feeding with the Fishies ….

The Marina at which Pearl is located has a bunch of different kinds of fish — typically very large Tarpon. Recently, there have been several bull sharks that have shown up, along with Eagle Rays.

Here’s some footage of some of the local fisherman feeding the sharks!

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Returning To Key West

PDX-EYWIt’s going to be a pretty long hike back from Portland, OR to Key West, FL. We are about 10 days late on our departure — I feel like I’m stuck in groundhog day. The first leg looks like a straight shot to Atlanta, GA. Stay tuned for updates from the road. T-3 hrs and counting. This is going to be an interesting new chapter in the Pearl Saga with Harley on board!

 

Hurricane Season is Officially ready for Business!

Back again after a long silence …

Hurricane season in the Caribbean seems to be open. Tropical storm Andrea is spooled up and running. Fortunately, it’s north and west of Key West.Time to bug out of Portland and batten down the hatches.

Watch the trough inbound from Africa. Stay tuned for an entertaining Hurricane Season.

Boat keeping — In Praise of Vinegar

Pearl's Main CabinHaving lived on Pearl oddly enough requires one to do regular housekeeping, or in this case boat-keeping, on the interior. Messy is ok. Grubby is not good. There are a couple of things that I have learned over the past few months that I figured I’d share; a number of these involve vinegar.

As a sidebar, I would like to mention that a friend of mine, Denise, who helped move Pearl from Texas to Florida bought a lot of vinegar. She bought vinegar by the gallon. She was convinced that it was a panacea for boat related stuff: cutting soap scum, sanitizing dishes, inhibiting mold, … the list goes on. I thought she was quite mad. It sounded too hippie-godess-ish but I decided to humored her. We must all learn from our mistakes, after all.

As it turns out, Denise was right. Vinegar, sometimes in conjunction with other stuff, is GREAT! Additionally, it isn’t as caustic or harmful to the environment as bleach or many other commercially available products. Note that all of the gray water on a boat goes directly over the side — unlike sewage that goes in a holding tank.

Cleaning the head: vinegar and Simple Green in equal parts do wonders to keep the shower and head crisp, clean, and smelling good. I also use this combination to mop the floors in the salon and berths. Note that the heads on most boats (if nothing else) smell  musty, particularly in warm weather, and the vinegar combo works wonders on keeping it fresh.

Cleaning the toilet: if you use the head on you boat, it tends to get a bit smelly. Many live-aboards, therefore, do not use the head (toilet) on the boat. They hike over to the restrooms on the dock. The odor issue is easily resolved by pouring a healthy splash of vinegar down the toilet periodically. I haven’t worked out the chemistry, but it works!

For extra points, pour a cup of tide into the holding tank every time it gets pumped out. This apparently loosen “gunk” in the system and keeps things smelling fresh and clean as well. Obviously, this isn’t ideal if there aren’t any pump-out facilities. Just saying. Avoid disgorging tide enriched sewage on remote reefs and anchorages.

Cleaning the Galley: yup. you guessed it. A bit of vinegar goes a long way in cutting grease and attendant odors.

Cleaning oneself: a bit of diluted vinegar on a wash cloth. I didn’t realize how much water I used when showering until I had a bath on Pearl and drained one of the water tanks. Keeping yourself clean and fresh when away from a convenient water source is … challenging. I have no interest in being a stinky pirate.

“The solution:” bathe in sea water, wipe yourself down with a washcloth soaked in a diluted vinegar solution, and have a quick fresh water spritz. This can keep your bath down to less than a gallon and leave you feeling fresh and clean. If you want to be even more miserly with your water, just wipe yourself down with a wash cloth soaked with the diluted vinegar solution. Yeah. You might smell odd for a bit, but at least you wont stink.

If you’ve got this far, you’re probably thinking “Gawd! Enough vinegar already!?!” so, I will. C’est tout.

P. S. I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts, and ideas about effective boatkeeping.

 

Pigoletto and and the Pirate Pub Crawl

As it turned out, the day that Pigoletto arrived in Key West coincided with the first annual “Talk Like a Pirate” pub crawl. How could we resist. We had to join. Urged on by my friend MaryLynne from the Pirate Costume Store on Simonton St., we donned pirate attire and headed out for the evening.

The first stop was, predictably, named the Rum Barrel — the only bar in Key West that seems to serve the Kraken. For those of you haven’t tried Kraken, my only advice is “don’t.” It makes one do stupid things like walk up to total strangers and say things like “Aaaaar! Matey!”, and “Huzzah!!!”

Needless to say the evening was lots of fun. Even though I don’t encourage, support, or otherwise endorse piracy would I do it again: absolutely. Most of the Pirates were from the local sailing community, and are genuinely interested in the seamanship and maritime traditions. It was nice to meet and engage with them. I will save my thoughts re actual Pirates for another time.

 

Isaac in Retrospect

Isaac was an interesting experience. While I had to set a boat up for a hurricane previously in the British Virgin Islands, this time I couldn’t call the charter company, hand the boat off, and walk away. The storm itself where I was in Key West didn’t feel much worse than a windy day on the San Francisco Bay.

What I learned from Hurricane Isaac follows:

  • Preparation is everything: anything you have to do in a storm will be much harder in high winds with a boat pitching in the rain.
  • Be willing to walk away if conditions warrant: this is a hard one, and particularly with regard to what the conditions need to be before you pull out. My benchmark is what it takes to get me and my crew to safety.
  • It’s not okay to keep your sails on: I secured Pearl’s sails so that they would not unfurl as a result of a furling line failure. I did this by tying the sails down using a series of vertically arranged half-hitches and secured the free ends with a round turn and two half hitches for this. This isn’t something I would do again. The sails come off.
  • Chafe gear: I can’t stress how important this can be, and how important it is to check it. A friend whose boat was on the mooring field broke loose because his chafe gear and mooring line chafed through.
  • Mooring lines: at a dock, these are critical. I had my dock lines tripled at each attachment point to control side-to-side movement and my spring lines doubled on each side to check front to back movement.
  • Be aware of tides and storm surge.

 

A visit from Isaac

It looks pretty certain that Key West will get a direct hit from Isaac. Whether it be a tropical storm or a category 1 hurricane is yet to be seen. Regardless, Pearl is READY. Everything on deck has been secured. The sails while still on have been tied down independently of the furling systems so that they are very unlikely to unravel. Dock lines and spring lines have been doubled and have chafe protection (thank you Denise!). Pearl may be mildly rolly but should stay in place nicely.

One of the big issues with a hurricane is storm surge winds that push water onshore as the eye passes over. Pearl is in good shape on both counts. She’s tucked away in a hurricane hole (the best one in the keys for a category 3+). The docks at the marina are floating concrete piers. This is ideal as the docks will move with any surge. Also, the entrance to the harbor is from the north which means that it will not get the full effect of a surge. Additionally, perhaps the surge will be mitigated by the lower than average tide and out going tide when the eye passes — if Isaac behaves as expected.

And now it’s just the waiting ….

Hurricane Isaac Inbound — what-ta-do, what-ta-do?

This hurricane thing is beginning to look a bit more real than I would prefer. And, instead of curling to the North East and heading for Miami as I was hoping it seems to be taking a more westerly track. As of right now, Key West seems to be in the path of the eye. Yikes!

So what does this mean for Pearl? She is about to get stripped of all canvas. Sheets and lines that can be removed will come off. Loose stuff on board will be put away and she’ll be tied down, lines doubled, with chafe guards.

The great thing about where I am is that the Sunset Marina is moderately well protected from winds. It also has floating docs which means that when there is a storm surge, the boat will move with the dock, lines relatively tight, holding her in place rather than loose enough to accommodate the surge giving her room to thrash around in the wind. Basically, I don’t think I can do much better than here I am for upto a category 3 hurricane.

I’ve been out at anchor in higher winds (50-55kts) than Isaac is showing at the moment. Pearl handled just fine so I am not particularly worried. The only issue is that these winds will be for longer so I need to get a bunch of chafe gear in place.

Stay tuned.

Isaac — a hurricane headed for the Keys?

Ok. So it looks like the weekend could get entertaining. Tropical storm Isaac may be headed for the Keys as a Hurricane. Right now, the eastern Caribbean is under storm watches, and Puerto Rico, The DR, and Haiti are under Hurricane watches. The Hurricane watch will likely extend to Cuba, Florida and the Keys on Thu or Fri if the storm continues to gain energy as predicted.

It’s a good thing I’ve done a dry run on prepping Pearl for weather at at the dock. I’ve got all of the required lines, chafing gear, etc. This should be an educational experience. Stay tuned.