Drinks & Blues in
Key West, this guy was really good!
We celebrated our last night in Key West by going into town.
We had sunset drinks at Mallory Square and then dinner on Duval at La
Trattoria. We scored a window seat and people-watched over dinner. Mostly we watched
a local guy drumming up business with his tourist-kissing parrot.
Hanging out at Shrimp
Road Grill
We enjoyed our stay at Stock Island, it was pretty quiet (some
noise from the civilian and military planes), clean, and had very new facilities.
Given the choice, however, I think we’d go back to the downtown area next time.
We really like staying in the “bight”, where you can watch the boats coming and
going all day, the tourists walking, and you can walk
into town any time you’d like.
Yet another lovely
sunset over the Gulf
And the moon rising
We left on Wednesday for our last overnight off-shore passage
of the year. The trip couldn’t have been much more mellow or serene. We had
flat seas (2 feet or less the entire trip), clear skies and no one within radar
sight the entire trip. We were traversing the gulf so we were in “deep” water
(55ish feet), there was no channel to follow, no turns to make and Blossom ran
straight as an arrow. We left the lobster pots behind in the daylight once we
left the channel and entered the deeper water. We made excellent time running
at about 7 knots. We ran the FLIR but there was nothing to see! Only one wildlife
sighting - a massive turtle swimming along the surface in the evening.
View from the FLIR, not much to see
Florida skyline at sunrise
The only traffic we saw the entire trip was right as we arrived and the Key West Express blew past us. They’ll make it to Key West in 3.5 hours and it’ll cost you $89 one way. For us it was an 18 hour trip and cost us more than three times that on diesel – ouch! We can significantly cut down on costs by taking on passengers next time :)
Key West Expres
Anchored off Sanibel
Island
We arrived around 10 in the morning and anchored close to
shore off Sanibel Island. There was no one else anchored nearby, it was
overcast (which kept the heat a bit at bay) and it was calm – lovely! I spent
the afternoon at anchor washing all of our lines and fenders. Martin made
several arrangements for the upcoming week, ordering parts, renting a car, and contacting
John Deere & ABT regarding some issues we had. (Yes, we did have a few
technical issues that we’ll need to address at River Forest. I’ve listed them
under Boat Business below. We’ve traveled over 750 miles in just over two weeks, so I guess it was time for something to need
tending to!)
Enjoying the fly
bridge view at Sanibel Island
And the sunset
Our evening at anchor was perfect. We sat on the fly bridge
enjoying the view with an excellent bottle of wine and then Martin cooked a
mean barbecue chicken dinner.
Friday morning we slept in a bit, which is the norm
following an overnight passage. We pulled up the anchor and headed out to
Colusa Jacks Marina just north of Ft. Meyer.
We turned on the main engine and the gauges died for good (see below). I felt a bit melancholy leaving our
last anchorage for the year.
The trip through Ft. Myers was uneventful and scenic. We docked at Calusa Jacks
on the Caloosahatchee River. We stayed there last February on our way across
the state with our friends Sean & Louise. It’s a charming little marina and
the folks that run it are so nice. It’s in the perfect place to stop between
where we were anchored and River Forest. We can only fit on one end of the fuel
dock so I called ahead and reserved our space for the night. That wasn’t a
problem as it’s off season now and there’s little to no traffic this far up the
river. Just like last time, we got fresh eggs from Joe & Shana’s chickens
(and 1 duck egg!) and an offer for a ride into town. We had perfect weather
from Key West to Ft. Myers and our timing was perfect. Right after we docked
the weather changed…
The day started off
so pretty
Then this came...
And this...
Which led to this...
And this.
And finally…
It was hot and stormy, and we’re trying to eat up the food
on the boat, so we stayed aboard Blossom and barbecue’d for dinner. The storm
was past before dinner time and foolishly, we thought we’d enjoy dinner on the
aft deck. Then the plague of flying insects descended upon us and we enjoyed
eating in our salon. Welcome to inland Florida! (I spent an hour trying to hose
off the millions of dead and alive bugs the next day. Reminder to self – turn ALL
lights off at night!) We woke up to an unpleasant surprise in the engine room
on Saturday. With a heat index of over 100 we had to run the engine room
blowers for hours and hours. And we sucked up a few hundred thousand insects in
the process. The ER was looking like an insect graveyard. Yuck.
Saturday morning we left straight away. We had to go through
2 locks and 3 on-demand bridges. Luckily, there’d been a lot of rain recently
and the locks had just switched from a two hour schedule to on-demand. Saturday
was dead calm, the heat index was up to 105 and the sun was shining. Passing through the locks was hot business!
Approaching the lock
In the lock
We arrived at River Forest around 3, entering through a very skinny little canal. The first boat we saw, by virtue of it's magnificent height, was a fellow Nordhavn 55 that's being stored here. It feels good to be in the company of family! The facility is here looks fantastic, we'll be exploring over the next few days...
The next week or so is going to be crazy busy. We have at
least 3 vendors coming to the boat and of course we have to pack up and ready
her for 4 months on the hard. We're having a tough time wrapping our heads around the fact that this first year is over. Wow!
Boat Business: Blossom had a few hiccups on the trip from
Key West to Sanibel.
- We got an error on the main engine saying “Tachometer gauge not responding”. Interestingly, the gauges were reading fine both on the main panel and the Maretron screen but we couldn’t get the error to clear. UPDATE: On Friday morning the RPM and oil pressure gauges gave it up. Martin had already called JD on Thursday so we’ll just update them on the situation.
- I thought I heard a knocking coming from the starboard stabilizer (probably me being paranoid but…) so I went to take a look and found that there was a slow hydraulic fluid leak under the actuator. Martin cleaned it up and put a diaper under it so we could monitor it.
- On my first ER check I did a visual of the main shaft and the area was covered in salt, with more salt sitting under the shaft. It appeared to be a slight leak, evaporating before it could run into the bilge which was dry.
- 9k gen overheating. We tried using it for ac at night but after 4 hours or so it overheats. We’re not sure if the cause is the 90+ degree ambient temp + 87 degree water + sound shield or if there’s something amiss…tbd.
Preparing to store Blossom
I’ve been fairly obsessed with what to do
and how to put Blossom up so we don’t come back to a mildewed, cockroach-infested
boat. Looking at all the boats here on the hard and under cover in the large storage sheds makes me feel more comfortable. I'm looking forward to talking with the manager and knowing what the game plan is. I’ve been communicating with other owners and I found a great list on a sailing
blog. We'll be leaving the boat for half a year, every year, so I'm sure we'll get this down. I'm going to develop our "Storage Protocol" so we have it to refer to every year. I'll post it when we’re done.
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