April 4 Titusville to Rockhouse Creek New Smyrna 31 2 Miles

Well the good news is that apparently felines have short memories. So Witty is not a permanent victim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but his old pesky self. It was Saturday, the day before Easter, and warm and sunny so EVERYONE was out on the water. We saw hundreds of boats from Stand Up Paddleboards, to kayaks and canoes,

to fishing boats of all sizes,

to what I call motorized rafts.

And people were wading and swimming in the ICW too.

I put out the genoa and later the small jib but the wind was too close to our bow much of the time and too erratic. Anchor to anchor from 9:30 to 3:00. Only two opening bridges, one on request and the other every twenty minutes, which we made easily. The tide helped us the last third of our passage, except the last mile, once we got to Ponce de Leon Inlet, and we turned down the engine to near idle speed to give the watermaker two hours to make water before we arrived. We passed some nice modest waterfront houses

and some waterfront trailer parks also known as fishing camps....I think.

Rockhouse Creek runs east-west, connecting two  N-S waterways. (It is the horizontal in an "H".) When we arrived it was very crowded with perhaps fifty small boats and a few large ones. Folks had gone to the beach. We can only enter from the ICW, western end because it gets too shallow for us at the other end, but many powerboat people think that circumnavigating the unnamed island that forms its south side is a nice trip. We heard five of them comment on ILENEs name as they passed us. We had dropped anchor and settled in and by six p.m. there were only three boats left (one other sail and a trawler)

and we were too close to the sailboat, especially because there was so much room everywhere else and strong winds from the east were expected. So we picked up and dropped 150 feet further away from that sailboat. Our other neighbors were a family of campers.

There was no one on the other side of us, where we would turn right and be back in the ICW.

Im having trouble with the new snubber hook, (as well as the underline function) specifically in getting it to stay hooked onto the anchor chain; it falls off and dangles uselessly under the boat instead of doing its job. I tried tying it on but this wasnt working well so I next tried wrapping one side of the hook with rubbery tape to narrow the slot into which the chain sits, but that fell off. 

Here in Rockhouse, I knew it had fallen off when the wind came up at night: the chain took the load instead of the snubber and when ILENE hunted from side to side, the anchor chain snaps over in the bow roller making a sound like the boat is being pounded by a sledge hammer.

I created a way to mount the red and green dinghy navigation light using a suction cup, a piece of scrap plexiglass, a nut, some washers and a piece of thin line.

We have been noticing that Florida has given nicknames to its geography much as in Manhattan, neighborhoods like SOHO and Tribeca that have no legal or governmental significance  are used to define neighborhoods. The southern part of Florida: Miami, Fort Lauderdale and maybe Boca is called the Gold Coast. Heading north, next comes the Treasure Coast including Palm Springs, Stuart and Fort Pierce, so named because Spanish treasure galleons sank off this part of Florida. Cocoa, Titusville and New Smyrna are called the Space Coast. I hadnt noticed this before.

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February 15 17 Marathon to Rodriquez Key to Hurricane Harbor on Key Biscayne and Lay DayThere 46 4 and 47 4 Miles

Well the good news is that I did not screw up the screw -- i.e., the transmission still turns the propeller. But the bad news is that the rattle is still there. I guess its time to have a professional take a look. And with all the contortionism required to muscle bolts with wrenches in a terribly cramped space, I got a back pain though it was a little better the second day and gone the third. Its just that so many tasks require throwing your weight into it or reaching or bending -- everything except typing a blog -- that one notices such pains. But ibuprofen helps.

And I started the first day with a mistake, though not a harmful one. I recalled that some of the three passage days from Biscayne Bay to Key West were 20-25 mile days and others were 40-50 mile days, but I guessed wrong on the trip to Rodriguez and we lallygaged about and made a late start at 8:45 for what was a longer day, arriving after five. Some of the trip was good sailing, some motor sailing and during the last hour and a half the wind was directly in our faces and rather than tack back and forth we furled all sails and just motored slowly. We were passed by a boat. I could not read the boat name because it is in a fancy script- more later.

We anchored on the west side of Rodriguez Key; we stayed on the other side when going south;  it appeared to provide some shelter from the wind, which was quite strong.

But the oblong island is aligned from north to south and so neither side gives much protection from a wind that was mostly from the south. But we put out 110 feet of snubbed chain in ten feet of water, with plenty of room behind us. Our nearest neighbor, 100 yards away, was the unnamed boat that had passed us. I awoke from the wind at 2 a.m. and sat up worried the rest of the night in fear of dragging. The anchor alarm suggested that we had slowly dragged but in the morning light

it appears that we did not. Not a good nights sleep.

Next day after a great french toast breakfast, thanks Lene, we set off at 8 am. We gradually caught up with that boat that had passed us the day before, who had left before us. They passed us the day before because I did not want to push the engine with its rattle. But now, I saw, via the binoculars, that she was a Catalina 34 with hailing port Oriental NC. I called them on low power on channel 16, and we switched to 17 to not impede the Coast Guard: "Catalina 34 hailing from Oriental; this is the sailboat ILENE on your port quarter." I learned that their boats name was "RagTop" and they were making the same two passages as we were and planned to stay in No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne as we were. ILENE is longer and hence faster under sail. When we passed them we wished each other a good passage and said we would try to meet up in No Name. I still did not know the peoples names.

The wind was in the low 20s and on our starboard bow. It was on shore yet the waves were not large. The Keys, heading for Key Biscaye through Hawk Channel are arrayed in a curve and as we got closer we were able to gradually steer a bit more north and a bit less east so the wind came from near close hauled to near our beam. We had full main and small jib and were heeled quite a bit,

though Witty wasnt upset by it.  We were doing near seven knots on average the whole way up Hawk passage and hit eight for a few minutes. We could probably have gone faster with less heeling if we had reefed the main but the forecast called for 10 to 20, not 20 to 25.

 We accomplished  in one day the mileage that  took us two days on the way south, going directly between Rodriquez Key and Biscayne Bay without the stop at Pumpkin Key. This was in part due to the free open speedy passage in Hawk Channel and was necessitated by the fact that we passed the entrance to Angelfish Creek way before high tide and waves were pushing on shore there. We entered through Biscayne Channel which is wide, deep and well marked.

Still with the wind and waves and tide all pushing us in, and never having been there before, and with the course involving some jibes, and channels always looking narrower on the charts than in real life, we dropped the main before entering and used the small jib, the tide and the engine at low rpms to make 5 to six knots on the way in. The channel is marked by 20 day marks and several fishing camps, houses built on stilts, on its sides. You can occasionally see shoals that line the sides, but mostly they are under water so you cant see them; it was like Boca Grande. Once through the channel into Biscayne Bay, we turned to starboard for No Name Harbor, which the book says is horribly overcrowded on weekends. This was Presidents Day and it was quite overcrowded, so we went to Hurricane Harbor, where the entrance was shallow, 62" at mid tide, but it quite deep enough at fifteen feet once inside.
And there was plenty of room for ten boats with only three present. I called RagTop and told them we were in Hurricane and they were anchoring outside of No Name due to the crowd so I suggested that they come over. There are NO waves in Huricane Harbor and precious little wind. The advantage of No Name is that though they charge you $20, they have a dinghy dock, restaurants and access to beaches etc. This harbor is completely surrounded by private homes.

and there is no shore access at their private docks, but we do not need shore access every day. In the second photo, on the right, through the harbor entrance, you can see the skyline of Coconut Grove, about four miles across Biscayne Bay.

Our neighbors here have left us alone, which is better than some of Floridas wealthy waterfront land owners have behaved. We exercise our legal right to anchor, for free, in the navigable waters of the USA and do no harm. And ILENE is a pretty boat, at least in our opinion and enhances their view. But some have tried to use legal means and sheer harassment to exclude boats from the waters near them. They dont own the water but they like to think they do. One guy moored a fleet of his own small faux miniboats in front of his house to "use up" all the available space. The idiot spoiled his own view with those ugly things.

When they had anchored we invited  Rag Top for wine and thereby finally learned their names: Don and Trish. They live four hours inland by car from Oriental, and this is their first extended cruise. They were part of a rally of new cruisers who went from Hampton VA to Florida, sort of like the Caribbean 1500, but via the ICW, so they partied most nights.  They are pretty good sailors in that they only gave a few tenths of a knot to ILENE. We enjoyed talking with them about cruising and boats in general.

The lay day was devoted to cleaning, -- the spots that we dont get to very often. Benny of s/v ""Rhianna", who we met in Beaufort SC, alerted to our nearness by Dean, of s/v Autumn Born, called and we might meet up with them soon. Three of four boats came into this harbor during the day but left within hours. We were also very close to Bob and Brenda of s/v "Pandora", which I helped sail from Essex CT to Annapolis in September. Our last night in Hurricane they were in No Name, only a mile away. Now back to Miami Beach where we have guests coming from NYC.

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November 7 Morehead City to Swansboro 20 4 miles

We headed off in the ICW through Bogue Sound and this is hard work because the sound is so wide and the deep channel so narrow. I ran us into the sand at one point but we dropped the sail and backed off. Yes, I tried to sail, using the small jib only, which gave us an extra knot or two, but the strong gusty wind blew us off the course auto pilot was trying to steer; and with trimming the sail came the inattention that led to the grounding.  So no more sailing today. 

We were underway from 9:30 to 1:30. Most of the way was a few degrees north or south of due west. Ilene called the Coast Guard who told us that the live shelling at Camp Lejeune would end at noon, hours before our arrival, so we could anchor at Mile Hammock Bay. But just a half mile after we passed Swansboro, “Pipe Dream,” which has overtaken us, was coming back the other way and told us that the live firing would continue until 5, too late for us to arrive there. So we too did a “U” turn and anchored in Swansboro.

The pencil is pointing to the white spot to the right of the town, where we are anchored. In the lower left, just below the line "X---X", is a magenta line labelled "St M 230" (Statute Mile 230 since Norfolk), running perpendicular to the double dash bordered magenta line indicating the route of the ICW, which shows how crooked it is. And below the knife blade in the lower right corner it says Bogue Inlet, through which, in the photo below, we saw out to the Atlantic for the first time since Cape May, NJ.

We also saw the dramatic effect of the swift running tide. It was ebbing  and as we came to the Inlet our speed picked up to 6.6 knots, only to drop to 4.2 knots as soon as we passed the inlet when the same outgoing tide was running against us.

Here in Swansboro we  are one of eight boats and are on 80 feet of chain in 17 feet of water. The big factor here is the tide which caused us to face the other way when it changed. We happened to anchor next to “Island Time” and used our dink for the first time on this cruise – I’ve been out a month today! The town is quant but we failed to find a postcard though we did find this Gekko,

made from the steel top of a 55 gallon drum, at a gallery.














This house was built in 1778.

   Here were ashore, our heads framing ILENE.

Tomorrow is a long day to Wrightsville Beach, almost 47 miles. So its early to bed.

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HYC Cruise Days 11 and 12 August 4 and 5 Westbrook CT to Milford CT and Lay Day There 19 Miles

 I had a bit of trouble backing ILENEs stern to starboard in order to get off the Westbrook dock; bit more wind than I had thought, but no harm done. ILENE motor sailed south, past the east side of Duck Island before tacking to the west. I had hoped to clear east of Fishers Island and its shoals on their south side, but there was too much west in the SW, and we had to clear that obstacle on its north side before tacking south again. This time Lene intelligently pointed out that the wind was too light to make the sailing part of motor sailing worth the game and so after a bit more, we headed west, just on the edge of being able to sail. So it was a motoring day until the last fifteen minutes, when the wind came more southerly and we close reached with the engine at idle speed.

North Star had passed us early, much closer to shore, and we were assigned a slip very near her. But a failure of communications and Lene commenced the turn to port into the slip too late. We missed the assigned slip and were floating sideways, north, to the shallow end of the Milford Landing Marina. Not a problem. North Star and ILENE were the only boats in the marina (two more came in the next day) so we just pulled in to number 13 instead of number 7. Perils of Pauline!
Underway from 9:45 to 2:45.

Next up was a party with North Star and Stu and Barbara, who came by car from Westport. We had a big round table with six chairs in a shady public spot, lots of food and wine, and the enjoyment of renewing old friendships. It was one of the high points of this cruise, in my opinion. Bruce and Stu are Past Commodores and senior to me in the Club and I joined in 1990. Everyone present except Lene and Barbara knew Stus late wife, Deena. And everyone except possibly Barbara knew my ex, Dorothy. So we all go back a ways but never fail to enjoy retelling old stories of funny and exciting moments from past cruises. This is not to say that newbie cruisers would be unwelcome. Indeed, they would be most welcome.

 
Another quiet night, but from a side port, when I went to the head at midnight, I saw the visuals of a big thunderstorm over Long Island. Too far to be heard, but quite the light show.

During the lay day, we had more visitors by car. Joan and Jerry drove up and had lobster rolls for lunch at the Milford YC with Bruce and Diane. Lene got a haircut in the AM, and we had lunch with a classmate of hers from Lincoln HS at a local eatery before I gave ILENEs top sides a thorough scrubbing. Dinner aboard.

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February 11 14 Key West to Marathon and Three Lay Days There 42 4 Miles

We took in our dock lines at 7:30 and were anchored in Marathon at 3:30, sailing all but the first five and last fifteen minutes of outing and ining. The winds were forecast from the north at ten knots which meant no big waves, because they have to build up from south of the Keys. The wind did come from there eventually, and nicely, with a steady fifteen knots; we were making near eight knots at the end.
We had full sails up throughout, but the early part of the passage was troubling. The wind had too much of an easterly component so we were close hauled on port tack and I was envisioning the point where we would have to tack to avoid the shoals at the south side of Hawk Channel. And relative wind varied frequently by 25 degrees and between eight and fifteen knots requiring very frequent trimming of sails and course changes to get what speed we could make out of the wind and avoid the tack if possible. But no tack was needed in the end.
We were passed by s/v Liberty, which had been docked near us in the Key West Bight Marina. I hailed her to thank her for passing us on the gentlemanly leeward side. We avoided motoring, though it meant some 2.5 knot stretches. I find that once I switch on the "iron genoa" to assist us, it stays on far too long, its noise degrading the pleasure.
We communicated with s/v Autumn Born and they were arriving in Marathon too, but from the east. We saw them anchored outside the harbor to the west of the island, where it was rolly, and AB weighs twice ILENE. AB is in the safest possible place: with lots of room around her to let out 100 feet of chain in ten feet of water, as compared to the small crowded but more protected anchorage area inside. We dropped three times before we found the right spot, and have 60 feet of snubbed chain out in 12 feet of water. Good holding, tested by winds over 20 knots the third night.
In the channel we passed s/v Liberty again, somewhat stuck in the sand south of the channel. I said I would come out by dink to help once we were anchored but she broke herself free less than a minute later and followed us in. We were hailed by the crew of s/v Saint Somewhere, who we had tried to help up in Titusville, and later by Dean and Susan of Autumn Born, who were dinking in to register and get on the waiting list for a mooring. The winds have been so constantly from the north that people waiting for a window to hop over to the Bahamas are still waiting and not leaving.
Dean and Susan stopped by for wine and cheese on their way back to their boat. I love talking with Dean and save up my questions for him because he is so knowledgeable. I was pleased to able to give back a bit by showing him our experiences in the Marquesas Keys and Boca Grande Key. They will be going to Key West soon to meet family, and plan to take a mooring up in rolly Garrison Bight.We did not go to shore to register until the next day because that first night we had no need for anything the shore had to offer, and we also saved one nights dinghy docking fee, almost $18. The waiting list for a mooring is now longer than when we were here last month so there was no need to go ashore to get ourselves on the list because we will be leaving before anything becomes available. We had the last of our paella, watched Downton Abbey and called it a night.
We had a dinner with Dean and Susan and two other couples at Burdines, a very casual restaurant above the fuel dock the next night. Ilene invited herself and me and they had a table for eight.
Next morning I cleared all the "stuff" from the aft cabin to our bed in the forward one to provide space for work. I topped up the seven batteries with distilled water and prepared for the arrival of Alex

The line above Alexs head is how we keep the door of our aft head, the cats head, open and stable, so it does not flail and break itself from its hinges as the boat moves.

who installed and tested the "combiner" which will charge the starting battery automatically, whenever we are making electricity, but disconnect it from the house bank whenever we are not.
During the 9:00 am net on Channel 68 we announced our arrival and so did Tex and Maria of m/v "Heaven Sent", their 46 foot Grand Banks trawler on which they live. They belong to the Harlem and the Huguenot YCs, Tex is a Past Commodore of the Harlem. I later asked if anyone could lend me a set of feeler gauges to check the alignment of the flexible coupling that I had to install and Justin, of s/v "Selkey", from Cork, Ireland, responded and brought the tool over later and explained to me how to use it. Lene went ashore and did some shopping in the supermarket, while I set to work on the flexible coupling.

It is an ingenious device, attached by four forward facing bolts to the flange at the aft end of the transmission, and attached by four more bolts facing aft to the flange at the forward end of the propeller shaft.

It has two metal bars, one visible in the photo, that will hold it together if it shatters, so the shaft wont slide out of the hole in the boat through which the shaft rotates if the coupling shatters. But its purpose is to shatter if you hit something hard. By shattering it is supposed to prevent your transmission from shattering.
The first thing I noticed was that the new bolts installed in the old coupling by Deatons Yard in North Carolina were smaller in diameter than those that came with the new sealed unit from the factory. This is not good.
Well at least the spacing of the holes from each other through the flanges matched the spacing of those holes in the new unit. Hooray! And the new larger diameter bolts fit through the holes in the flanges. Hooray!  But this means that since North Carolina, we have been motoring with smaller diameter bolts in larger diameter holes, which is never a good thing and may have been the cause of the vibration, or contributed to it. But the new bolts were fractionally longer than the old ones so that when I got them installed they rubbed against the transmission housing. This was very bad; its just not going to work. What to do? Washers on the bolt head aft end of those bolts would place them far enough away I thought, so I took the whole thing apart again. But the washers were larger in diameter than the nuts, preventing my wrench from gripping the nuts to tighten them. What to do? Alex was doing his thing for us and suggested that I could bring my 17mm wrench in to his shop next morning and grind down the sides of the wrench, and narrow them so it would fit. But during the night I thought of two alternative solutions: (1) use smaller diameter washers, or (2) grind down the ends of the four bolts. Time for another consultation with Dean. Grinding the bolts was selected and Alexs electric grindstone made quick work of it. I put it all together again for the third time (it does not permit the removal of parts without complete dis-assembly, because there is just not enough room to get the bolts out). Having tested with the feeler gauge, it looked right and we turned on the engine and put it in gear, briefly. Im hoping the problem is solved. Time will tell when we use the engine to propel us for real.

One evening, we dinked over to Heaven Sent, (sorry for the fuzzy piture of this beautiful roomy boat). It was

 a long 1.5 mile dinghy ride, to the far eastern end of the harbor where Heaven Sent is tied up to the seawall.


The adjacent boat was s/v Liberty, which, we learned, is being single handed by a lady from St. Augustine.

I have known Tex and Maria since 1990 when I joined the Harlem. We had some wine before walking to a local restaurant, Dockside Tropical Cafe, one of several here that has live music. But every table was filled except one picnic table outside -- close enough to hear but not see the music. We ordered but later cancelled the order because the wait would have been at least an hour and it was cold out. Back at Heaven Sent, Maria cooked up a very fine dinner and we did not get back to ILENE until after ten pm, late for us.
Next day was a Family Fun Fest at the adjacent City Park. Lene had volunteered us to help the kids make projects with materials and tools donated by Home Depot, but when we got there they had too many volunteers and we were released. A wide variety of things for kids to do.

Our final dinner was at Lazy Days, just past Burdines, the nicest restaurant we visited in Marathon. Valentines Day, hence a rose for every lady. We had the pleasure of introducing Tex and Maria from our Club to Dean and Susan and Earl and Cathy, of s/v Seeker, who we had been introduced to by Dean and Susan in St. Augustine. Maybe Dean and Susan were starting to think that we had no friends other than those they introduced us to.

Susan, Kathy, Earl, Lene, Me, Maria and Tex (Photo credit to Dean)

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Yellow Boat 4 twin NQD jets driven by P2632 Brushless Outrunner 3800kv Brushless

Yellow Boat 4 

Twin NQD jets modified with brass stern tubes.

I have alternate nozzels which are a little larger than standard also.

Brass impellers made from cutdown brass props

Two P2632 Brushless Outrunner 3800kv Brushless

 

Stern Tubes brass shafts wrapped in PTFE tape until they fit the tubes. Will be setting up air cooling system with small EDF fan.

Will probably run two 2200mAh Lipos and 50 Amp aero ESCs with big heatsinks


For the cooling I may have the Arduino open and close a vent with a servo if the heatsinks get hot, as well as controlling the fan speed. 

Based on yellow boat plans different deck 390 Grams as shown 
Also Ply fiberglass epoxy catamaran build log

Glass and epoxy inside balsa ply, will epoxy the outside too. Its very strong with builders fiberglass tape and epoxy 

The motors will be mounted further forward on a cooled plate 

Spray rails are bamboo barbecue skewers and wood filler  

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Wow No posts Since Feb 4! Its Catch Up Time AND the amazing Sonya Baumstein

Well time off from boating for a pleasurable trip to Atlanta and another in Portland, Oregon, both with family, plus a LOT of cold weather this winter has slowed progress. When the daily high temperature does not reach 40, I do not do boat work. At the end of this post is Sonya Baumstein, well worth waiting for.

The fourth day of the removing of old anti-barnacle paint from the bottom (3.25 hours is a days work according to my by then achy muscles) has gotten the aft 1/3 of the boat scraped off. Now the sander comes into play to really clean and give a "tooth" to the bottom before a couple coats of ridiculously expensive "barrier" coat paint and then equally expensive bottom paint. Only the aft 1/3, you ask? Yes, alas, Rome was not built in a day; the complete bottom job will be spread out over at least three seasons. And because we will go south next winter, the next two winters out of the water for this will be 2015-16 and 2016-17. The parts not done "right" this winter will be spotted out (sanding at the bare spots and then painted over, before the entire boat gets its last coat.

Also, I have spent more time working inside the pumping mechanisms of the two marine heads. And Ive obtained all the replacement parts I need. Now all I have to do is call the friendly helpful techie at Groco to get a couple of hints on how to put humpty dumpty back together again. Here is more than you ever wanted to know about the inside of a Groco head, with its white porcelain bowl removed. The extreme left black piece at the bottom of the photo is the rubber Joker valve and its round flange fits between the two parts of large white hose to the left and forms the gasket sealing them and creating the passage for sewage to leave the head, for either the holding tank or for overboard discharge, out at sea.

The large black disk at the bottom is the rubber gasket between the unit you see and the bowl. The most extreme right round looking piece is the piston for the pump with two white plastic rings that seal it, and just to its left is a valve, currently upside down that sits above the piston and lets water from the bowl to the pumps chamber. Have you had enough yet? I thought so. Too much? Sorry about that.

Other work has involved snow and ice removal. While in Atlanta, a thick crust of ice had formed atop the blue canvas winter cover-- a lot of weight up so high. And I surely could not get at it from the top because it is too far off the ground. So I crawled into the airspace between the deck and the bottom of the cover and pushed up and out to shake the snow and ice off the cover. And I threw out my back a bit in the process. Also, despite the cover, water enters the boat through its top and collects in the bilge and freezes. This had to be chopped up with the ice pick and then access to the water beneath the ice was available for the manual pump into the bucket. All in a days work.

In Oregon we visited the Historical Society Museum which has a full room devoted to the history of the Battleship Oregon, nicknamed the "Bulldog of the Sea." She served our nation from before the Spanish American War through and after WWI and was much beloved by her home state (though she was built in California). Battleships were the largest and proudest of the navy, though they became relatively obsolete with the advent of air power projected from aircraft carriers. The most amazing thing about the Oregon, to me, was her size -- 346 feet! This is tiny by todays standards. Big compared to ILENEs 43 feet, but the USS Hammerberg, DE-1015 was 306 feet long. A tiny thin hulled Destroyer Escort almost as big as a heavily armor-plated mighty Battleship!

And we had the pleasure of a visit to the Harlem YC by Sonya Baumstein. Who is Sonya Baumstein, you might ask? Well she ROWED, with three men who she recruited as her crew, across the Atlantic from the Azores to the West Indies in a 23 foot rowboat.

This 57 day adventure was choped into two hour shifts: two for rowing and two for eating, cleaning, repairing and sleeping -- continuously, for 57 days. Thats twelve hours of rowing per day! Sonya had dinner with us and then presented her slide show.  I dont know how old she is but her poise and intelligence made her an absolute pleasure to be around.  Her ease in presenting her story and her self deprecation while speaking was endearing because it was a display of natural humility...and this coming from a young woman who goes so far beyond what any of us in the room has ever done!  I think I speak for all who attended when I say she was a big hit!

Since her Atlantic adventure she paddled a stand up paddle board, across the frigid waters of the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska in eleven hours, this time wearing a drysuit and accompanied by a small fishing boat.  She also bicycled from San Diego to Seattle and paddled a kayak from there to northern Alaska. Many exciting, scary and funny incidents on each adventure.
Her next adventure, planned for April 2015 -- is a solo row in a newer, better designed boat from Japan to the US, scheduled to take from four to six months. And she does a lot of marine biology research along the way. For more info, google sonyabaumstein.com. As she told her story, including her graduation from College and Graduate school and her recovery from being hit by an automobile which took three years of multiple surgeries to recover from, before these adventures began, we could see how much she has learned about the seas, currents and winds since she set off from the Azores. I predict greater success for her next crossing.A portion of the enthralled Harlemites:

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December 19 20 Dragon Point to Vero Beach and First Two Lay Days Here 32 4 Miles

Another day of motoring in the ditch with no wind. Passing Johns Island, near Vero, to port, we were impressed by the wealth invested in real estate there recently, lets say within the last decade, in large single family homes. The John Island stretch of the ICW was nice and deep, about 16 - 18 feet, compared with 10 - 14 feet most of the rest of the days passage. possibly the influence of money.
Dragon and Vero are very similar geographically. Both are on the eastern, barrier island side of the ICW, just north of a high, 65 foot bridge linking that island to the mainland. In both cases you continue south until you are almost at the bridge and then hook a sharp left around a green buoy into a small sheltered space.

Vero has a nice municipal marina with docks (at left in photo above) for those who want them and moorings that rent for less than $15 per night, including taxes, cheaper on a weekly, monthly or annual basis.

ILENE is third from right. Sailors on a budget joke that the place is called "Velcro Beach" -- people come here and seem to stick here -- living aboard for about $300 per month. The marina reserves the right to raft you up, as many as three boats on a mooring, but so far we (and all the other moored boats) have been alone. We told the marina to raft up only people who are not allergic or phobic about felines. They have no launch service but a very short dink ride in sheltered water to an ample and secure dinghy dock in a canal just off the harbor.

Good showers and laundry but the wifi is terribly weak: we retreated to ILENE where Lene finished Breaking Bad using most of our remaining monthly allotment of fifteen gigabytes on the last day of the subscription month.
Our neighbors:

The town has a free public transit system of fifteen mapped and scheduled routes. The marina is a stop on Bus Route 1 which runs both to and along the Atlantic coast, about a mile east, leaving at 10 minutes after the hour and west to the airport on the mainland side at 45 minutes after the hour. At the airport, or before, you can connect to most of the other routes but some destinations require three buses. So it is free and extensive but service is limited to once an hour, ending on weekdays at six, Saturdays at three and there is no service on Sundays.
We walked to the beach and back on our first evening (about two miles round trip) and had a mediocre Italian dinner. We took the bus to the mainland market and to the beach for a long walk on it the next day. We had some nice talks with some of the local people. Many jellyfish, about a foot in diameter when flattened, lay dead or dying on the beach, to be cleaned up by the authorities. The Beach is steeper than those at Daytona and Cumberland Island. This beachside town is the opposite of Daytona Beach. No honky tonk.  No cars on the sand. Banks and brokerage houses(insurance, real estate and securities) instead of head shops and tattoo parlors. And no or very few high rises. Moderately large suburban ranch style homes that I guess were built in the 60s.Modest compared to the Johns island megamansions. More older people. Development has been managed here. There are poor people in Vero but not in the beachfront side of this town.
We saw a sign advertising a diver, Peter, who lives on his boat here. He came to do our bottom, said it was rather clean, and replaced our zincs. I was surprised that he charged only $40.00. I topped up the water levels in the seven batteries, which were down very little, except for the group 27 starting battery where the level was too high, above the "fill to this line" mark, so I used an eye dropper (used to test the battery) to draw out the excess fluid from it. I wonder how that happened and what harm the excess acid-water may have done to the battery. Its charge seems better now.
We had planned to stay two days but some forecast  rain and strong winds from the south  may extend our stay until Christmas. It is a pleasant place to be detained and we plan to visit the Art Museum, which is an easy walk, on Sunday, and the Botanical Gardens and a movie at the mall using bus connections after that.
We have also been contacting present and former members of the Harlem YC who live in south Florida at least part of the year, and though some are going north to be with family for the holidays, we expect to rendezvous with at least some of them during the next few weeks.

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