Wandering Dolphin

Just some Pictures of what we have been doing

2011-10-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

filling the waterline

First layer of primer and filling

just another bad spot

after some sanding

we got bottom paint on!

sanded and primer in hole

filler in thanks to our friend Jack!

working on Port waterline

so happy to be taping

It is coming along, only 1 more short week before we are back in the water. We all will be thankful to have our home floating again.
We will post more pictures soon.
Rebecca and kids

2011-10-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

News Flash!!!!!

October 13th 2011

"Sweetest Thing" and Crew are on the move.

Follow spot and send messages when you can.

There's Hole in the Boat

2011-10-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

There's a holes in the boat, dear Becca, dear Becca
There's a holes in the boat, dear Becca, there's holes!!

Then mend it, dear Tofer, dear Tofer, dear Tofer
Then mend it, dear Tofer, dear Tofer, then mend it

With what shall I mend it, dear Becca, dear Becca?
With what shall I mend it, dear Becca, with what?

With a welder, dear Tofer, dear Tofer, dear Tofer
With a welder, dear Tofer, dear Tofer, a welder

But we are in Trinidad, dear Becca, dear Becca
But we are in Trinidad, dear Becca, in Trinidad

Where's a welder in Trinidad, dear Tofer, dear Tofer, dear Tofer
Where's a welder in Trinidad, dear Tofer, dear Tofer, Where's the welder

Welder's don't want to work here, dear Becca, dear Becca?
Welder's don't want to work here, dear Becca, don't work here?

Then take it to the US, dear Tofer, dear Tofer, dear Tofer
Then take it to the US, dear Tofer, dear Tofer, to the US

But there's holes in the boat, dear Becca, dear Becca
But there's holes in the boat, dear Becca, there's holes!!!

We are almost done welding now and hopefully next week the bottom paint will be added. I will keep you all posted on what is going on.

A special thank you out to the Peak's Boat Yard! They have help us with all, we even got homemade cookies today for a girlfriend of the Yard manager.
We are blessed each day.

Liv'n the Life,
The Burton Clan

Island Tour

2011-09-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

The Island Tour

One thing I still have trouble getting used to in this crazy gypsy life is that, at least in the Caribbean, because we have white skin, we are immediately targeted by every shyster, bum and con-artist. They assume that we are rich, on vacation, and if they find out we are on a boat, they suddenly think we are mega-wealthy.

I have developed some unorthodox tactics to deal with the actual bums... my favorite one is to head them off and before they ask me for money I ask them for money. I always do it just like they do. I put an arm around them and say,

“Hey buddy, I know times are tough but I have five kids I need to feed tonight... do you have a couple bucks to help me buy a pizza?”

They always look at me like I am crazy and start to back pedal about how they don’t have money but they can’t very well ask me for any now that I have already asked them. Believe it or not, this has worked so well in St Thomas, the bums between the marina and the grocery store will actually cross the street to avoid me when they see me coming.

It didn’t work so well the other day in Grenada though. I saw the bum crossing the street toward us as we came out of the grocery store with our arms loaded with food and quickly asked,

“Hey buddy you got a couple of bucks to loan me? I ran out of money and still need to buy some milk.” I looked at him expectantly.

This bum was a master though and, believe it or not, must have run across my tactic before. He just looked at me, didn’t miss a beat and said,

“Can you give me a dollar? Just one dollar mon?”

Now I was the one confused.... I stammered,

“But I just asked you for a dollar... I have five kids to feed... you got a dollar for me?”

Now he was getting ticked off.

“Hey Mon! It’s not my fault you have five kids! You did that! Give me a dollar! I built my own yacht, I’m no beggar!”

He had made a good point about the children. My hackles now risen, I replied,

“You ask for a buck but you’re not a beggar? Give me a buck man! I asked first! Just one buck!”

My much wiser wife has started the dingy and she reaches up and yanks me down into the boat and we motor home... I looked at the guy mumbling and yelling to himself shaking his fist like a mad man and then realized that I was sitting there in the dingy doing the same thing.

My second favorite tactic with bums is one I started doing back in the Bahamas. I noticed that the bums and shysters who follow you down the beach getting more obnoxious with every “No” you say, ignore the white folks who don’t speak English. I don’t speak any other language but that doesn’t stop me. I just answer them with a bunch of crazy nonsense words and big hand gestures. For example, they may ask,

“Hey Mon! You Wan corn rows? I make your hair like mine with corn rows! Jus fifty dollars Mon!” and I reply,

“Han sac pulla? Toocha mosta phallas? Ma phallas mosta! Joo tina phallas.”

They just shrug and walk away. The problem in Grenada is that you have multi-lingual bums and the C.I.M.L.B or Confederation of International Multi-Lingual Bums which has a members agreement whereby if one bum with in the confederation doesn’t understand the language a mark speaks he is first obligated to try his own three languages... maybe English, German, and French... if that doesn’t work he gets his fellow confederate who speaks, English, Russian and Mandarin... this continues until they are pretty sure that you are full of shit then they all mug you.

So the title of this blog is, “The Island Tour.” You have probably figured that I have wandered so far off from the title that I can’t get back but that is not the case. I needed to set the whole story up with-in the proper “bum” context. See the bums mentioned above are the easiest ones to deal with. The really difficult ones are the ones driving taxis. They get you captive in their fast moving vans, zipping around hair pin curves at speeds still not attained by Indi-cars, then once you are pretty sure your life is about to end, they start to negotiate prices for an island tour. If you start to disagree with a price or call into question the safety of their van they swerve into the oncoming lane until you agree.

Here’s what happened to us:

Our friend Eric was down here visiting us from ST Thomas. We decided it would be fun to find a cool place on the island to take him for his birthday lunch. Beck asked around and was told by the folks at the Marina that a place called CocoNuts on the beach was a fun spot. They told her to just get on a number one bus, (hmmmm ok the number one bus requires explanation for all of you non-islanders- see note #1 below for explanation) and all we had to do was ask the driver to tell you where to get out to go to CocoNuts.

We all jumped on a number one bus which had seventeen people on board already (see note #1 below to get a little perspective) and Beck told the driver we were going to CocoNuts and to please let us off at the right place. He nodded and smiled at her with, what I thought at the time was a very nice smile, but in retrospect I realize it was actually an evil grin. We drove all around the number one bus route... people kept getting out and he had stopped picking up any new ones, pretty soon we were the only ones in the van and he had driven up a small road which was quite obviously not on the bus route. He stopped the van in a parking lot, a very deserted parking lot of some industrial complex, turned and smiled at us. He looked a lot like a big, fat, black TV mob boss or at least a body guard of one, huge jowls and rolls of fat around his neck, and beads of sweat rolling off his brown, bald pate. He gave us his best “trust me” smile and said with his deepest sing song island lilt,

“CocoNuts is no where near where we are.” He smiled and let us look around while this fact sank in before continuing,

“Who told you to go to CocoNuts?” He asked with a frown.

“The people at he marina told me it was a very fun place to eat on the beach.” My pretty wife said in a voice that next to his sounded very much like a little girls.

“Ya see they pass on the problems to the drivers... CocoNuts is no where near here but I can take you to a very nice place on the beach to eat. I will give you the cut rate deal too since you are visitors here to Grenada. The normal price for three people would be $50.00 one way from here but I will take you there and back to the marina for $60.00” (Refer again to Note #1 for the actual price we would have paid to go to CocoNuts on the #1 bus... which we are still on actually.)

“Ok that sounds great!” Beck looks at me and smiles like we just made a great deal. On a side note; Several times in this process I had tried to voice my opinions but was quickly shut down by both Eric and Rebecca due to the confrontational sound of my voice so I just shrugged and smiled at the Mob Boss.

Once he had made his deal he began driving to the very far end of the island to a little restaurant on the beach which was truly fantastic... it might even have been as beautiful as CocoNuts but we will never know for sure because we drove past CocoNuts both coming and going.

Once we sat down in the little restaurant we were accosted by a basket weaver with 12 kids and 800 grand kids who had to support the whole bunch by selling baskets he had made out of palm fronds, and a young fella whose grandmother needed surgery for goiters so he sold necklaces made of fishing line run through a few shell beads and a bunch of spices like nutmeg, ginger, and stuff in order to pay for her hospital bills. The necklaces smelled great and Beck asked if they kept away Vampires. The guy said, “yes!” so we bought a bunch of them. I really was hoping to find one that would keep away bums and shysters but he said they didn’t have any like that. We bought a cool basket to hold all our necklaces and sat back and enjoyed the view.

Our taxi driver showed up to take us back to the marina and, no sooner had we got in the van than he began to make his bid for an island tour. He gave us his evil grin and said,

“So I can take you on an island tour where you will see (here he listed off five or six well known island attractions including monkeys) I will give you the cut rate deal and you can have the whole bus to yourselves.”

We had already been told that the only time to do these tours was on weekdays because everything was closed on the weekend and the traffic was so bad on weekends that you couldn’t get anywhere fast enough to see anything. I began to object to his idea of doing it on a Saturday... but he interrupted me and said,

“Noooo Mon! Saturday is the best day to go. All of the venders are out selling food along the road if you get hungray... joo go on a weekday and no ones there to sell food...”

I am pretty sure Saturday was his day off as a bus driver... but I could be wrong. I began to point out what we had heard .... but both Eric and Beck gave me the stink eye for daring to question the authority of our venerable taxi driver so I quickly shut my trap.

Soon it was agreed that he would meet us the next morning at 9:30am for an all day tour of the island for only 200 US dollars, the “cut rate” deal.

The next morning we all made our way to the tree in the parking lot where we were supposed to meet the Mob Boss. 9:30 came and went and at around 10:00am another taxi driver called him for us and told him to get his butt over here or he would take us on the tour.

When he finally showed up and we picked up Eric from his hotel the taxi boss found a pull out and as soon as the van stopped he turned around and, with our whole family now held captive, he started in on his next angle and with a frown he said,

“So I could give you the tour I mentioned yesterday...” (in which he had listed basically every possible attraction Grenada had to offer including all of the waterfalls and even monkeys) “orrrrrrrr....” now he smiled, “I could offer you the special whole island tour... where you get to see the whole island including everything I listed yesterday... but of course this would cost more.” He gave us his evil grin.

Once again I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut and began to point out that he had already set a price for a full day tour with quite an impressive list of attractions and that was exactly what we expected for the same price we had already agreed upon. He frowned deeply...

Beck and Eric gave me the stink eye again so I folded my hands in my lap like a good boy, closed my mouth and started to read my book on my kindle (which I had brought because I was pretty sure this day was going to end up being a bust with a lot of sitting around.)

Pretty soon Eric and Rebecca decided that Eric would make the call for what we would do and he opted for the new full island, not so cut rate priced, tour. I kept reading my kindle, gritted my teeth and when I looked up the taxi driver was looking at me in his rear view mirror with an evil twinkle in his mob boss eyes.

We began to drive around the island, the traffic was crazy so we were forced to drive slowly around the hair pin curves so that was good. We mentioned that we were all pretty hungry so, if we could please stop at one of the many road side stops he had mentioned to pick up some meat pies, that would be great. He said he would but every shack on the side of the road was closed for the weekend so he kept driving. We just looked at each other and shrugged.

Our first stop was a beautiful waterfall called “Concord Falls.” We paid our buck each to hike down to the waterfall and we had a blast jumping into the pool. The water was cold and clear and felt great on such a hot day.

At the top again, as we got ready to leave, we were once again beckoned into little booths to see all of the must have items, made right there in the little booths by the guys... it seemed strange to me though that all of these little hand carved necklaces were identical no matter which booth you went into... We did buy a little bottle of fresh vanilla and some cocoa balls which looked a lot like a bag of little brown testicles.

Back in the van, we had now seen one of the many waterfalls and... well nothing else really and it was well past lunch time. We told him we needed to stop for some food and we drove, and drove, and drove. And then.... with a bump and hiss the back tire went flat.... Eric and I pushed on the side of the van to get it high enough for the jack to go under and the mob boss got out the spare... which was flat. He hitched a ride into town for a tire while we all sat by the road. Beck took some pictures of the local dogs and was told that if she wanted to she could go down to the bathing hole to take pictures of the local men who were taking baths. She declined. When our driver arrived with the tire it was at least as bald as he was. We shrugged and got back in the van.

Around 2:30 we stopped for lunch at a quaint little spot over looking the sea. We had a great local meal... well great for the adults, but it was good for the kids to eat something different than peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. We had stewed chicken or fish, salad, plantains, avocado, calaloo (spinach mush), and rice.

When we all got back in the van we were a little sleepy but our next stop was just up the hill. We saw “Leapers Hill” where the last Carib indians jumped and committed suicide rather than submit to the French. After hiking down the hill to the cliff Eric said,

“They jumped because they didn’t want to hike back up the hill!”

When we made it back to the van it was past 3:00 and we realized that we wouldn’t be seeing all of the waterfalls, much less any of the other sights or monkeys... Eric told the mob boss that we would at least like to see the chocolate factory. He smiledand began to drive... he looked a little confused and pretty soon he was pulling over every few miles to ask someone walking along where the chocolate factory was. They would point and he would drive. I said to Rebecca,

“They should call this ‘Captain Ron’s Island Tours’ and have the selling line, ‘If we don’t know where it is, we can just pull over somewheres and ask directions!’ ”

When we finally made it to the chocolate factory.... yep it was closed for the weekend....

Well, in the end we just asked him to please take us home and we would cut our losses.

The little brown testicles make a hell of a cup of cocoa though!

NOTE ON THE #1 Bus: The number 1 bus is any tiny small mini van which was originally designed to carry a family of seven but has been retrofitted with bench seating to carry 15 passengers... the cost to ride this bus is $1.00 US or $2.50EC dollars. The island of Grenada has about a thousand of these little busses running around.

Diving September 30th Grenada

2011-08-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

Under Water Fun!

We are hooked!

The Big One

2011-08-18T05:31:00.001-07:00

Onboard Wandering Dolphin we try to do some fishing on every offshore passage. I have never been much of a fisherman, but even back in my backpacking days in the mountains of Wyoming and Montana I would carry in a little tackle box and pole because every now and then I would chance upon a spot where the fish didn’t care that I had no skill. These streams and lakes were few and far between but once I found one I had a ball. It seemed like in these places the fish had just lost their minds and were committing suicide in my frying pan. I remember one lake where we caught quite a few fish with just a bare hook! Needless to say, one day of fishing like that would keep me packing in gear for a couple of years.

It has been very much the same since we moved on our boat. We have trailed a line for thousands of miles and only caught a few fish but the fun we had pulling in those Mahi Mahi, Tuna, Barracuda, and yes, even once a Blue Marlin, have kept me throwing a line over the side offshore.

Like I said, we use a hand line so our gear cost us very little but every saltwater, offshore lure is worth any where from ten to twelve bucks and lately it seemed like we were pulling in a lot of empty lines. Before our trip to Grenada I had the bright idea to switch out the 50 pound test line for 200... The thought was that perhaps it wouldn’t constantly be snapped off when a big fish decided to bite. Well it worked.

We had been offshore for two days before any of us felt like doing some fishing. I set up the new handline with a bungee cord on the bitter end and hooked it all up, let all 100 feet out with our brand new Pink tuna lure on the end. We quickly forgot about it. No one on our boat has a lot of faith in the fishing prowess of the captain so other things quickly grab our interest.

The line hadn’t been in the water for more than 20 minutes though before Rebecca said,

“Hey I think we caught something! Look at the bungee all stretched out.”

Sure enough when I put on the leather gloves and started to pull it was obvious we had a big one. I noticed that our speed had actually dropped a full two knots as well! I rounded us up into the wind so we were pinching and it slowed us down to around three knots. I positioned myself by the starboard rail and tried to pull in on the line. It didn’t budge! I sat there, perplexed and said,

“Honey I think I am going to have to cut it off, I can’t do anything with it.”

“Oh no you don’t we just bought all that new line, steel leader and lure! That’s like $35 bucks, we gotta catch this fish!” Beck looked at me as she said this with that look she has, the one that says, without saying, “Don’t be a wuss Tofer!” The kids were all in the cockpit now and it was pretty obvious that they were all on the same page too. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but I can take a hint, also I didn’t want my kids to think I was a wuss. I shrugged my shoulders, sat back down and started to pull on the line. I had to lean way forward (aft though since I was facing the back of the boat) and use all of my 210 pounds and negligible 44 year old unused muscle power to pull the line in a foot at a time. With every pull Beck, who had positioned herself right behind me on deck with the hand reel, would take a wrap on the plastic hand reel. She had to hold the weight for a second every time I leaned forward. We began the long hard fight with a monster! As I pulled I instructed the kids on getting the 6 foot gaff out and we began to talk through the process of winching this huge fish in once it was alongside. The kids were debating what it might be,

“

It’s a shark.” Kaleb said with certainty. “We can’t catch a huge shark, it would eat us so we should just cut the line now.”

We decided if Kaleb was right we would go ahead and cut the line but we still wanted to see it. One of the boys, I was to tired at the time to note which one, said it had to be a whale. EmilyAnne kept looking back giving us a running commentary about the relative nearness of the monster.

At one point she said she saw a huge fin break the surface.

This whole time Beck and I could feel it suddenly pull extra hard like it could see the boat and knew it was going to be a meal. Then it would go slack for a second and we could pull it in another couple of feet. We had been fighting for almost two hours when Benny said he thought it was just seaweed. We all yelled at him and scolded him.

“Sea weed wouldn’t fight like this Ben! You think Mom and I would work this hard to pull in a little seaweed!” He looked chagrined as his brothers laughed at him and scoffed.

Soon we had the monster right up alongside the boat...

Sorry we scolded you Benny!

Saturday Fun

2011-08-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

EmilyAnne in Dad's Big hat

Let's learn how to fly a kite

Only Tofer can handle this giant

And it is up

A view of the anchorage

Pool Time!

Kaleb is a great model under water

I look like a dork, but someone has too

We made new friends today

Ben tries he hand at the under water photo shoot

Em learn to fly the baby kite.

It was a busy day aboard WD, it is now time to eat and rest. Happy Saturday all.

The Burton Clan

A few pictures from the sail to Grenada

2011-08-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

Sailing with the Burton Crew

Emily Loves to Sail

This is our tack for the trip

Charlie hates to sail

Ben and Kanyon, just another day

Sunset day 2

Waves day 2

We got Kaleb to smile

Sails out

Sunset day 3, calmer seas

Just another wave shot

Kaleb knows how to relax

Kanyon in his favorite spot

Ben thinking of what snack he wants

MORE WATER

Emily Anne's watch.

Just a few of what we have. We will fill in the stories later.

God Bless, Bec and Fam

In Grenada

2011-07-31T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

We had a great passage and are safe in Grenada. We will stay here and do our boat work.

Looks like we just made it out of the VI in time!

Thanks for the messages:

Mike thanks for the riddle!
Jimmy we missed you.
Herman we used less than 5 gallons of fuel... sailed the whole way motored the last 5 miles with no wind into Grenada.
Steve, Get to the mangroves!
Christian, wow did we ever have squalls!!

More to come with pictures!
Captain Tofer, Beck, Emily, Kanyon, Kaleb, Benny on WD

We're On Our Way!

2011-07-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

We are heading south! Right now we are passing by St Croix. I still have cell service so I can pop off a quick blog.

Our plan is to head to Trinidad, haul the boat, work... then sail back up to Grenada for the rest of the hurricane season.

We will be using spot about every 6 hours if you are interested in where we are. Our weather window is still good as far as the wind goes but a Tropical Wave is passing over us today and tomorrow so it is squally... lots of gusts and rain as they pass.

I sail a lot of boats and I have to say... I LOVE to sail Wandering Dolphin! Today we raised the sails just after Porpoise Rocks, shut down the engine and have been sailing on a close reach to St Croix all day with double reefed main, stays'l, and a reefed in jib at an average of 7 knots. In an hour or so we have to change course to a close hauled course so that will drop a bit but I think WD will be able to sail close enough to make Grenada on one tack even with these winds.

Unfortunately I cannot blog on the way since Rebecca is with us. (No one to post the blogs for us!) If you would like to send us messages on the Iridium just read a couple posts back how to do it. It is free for you and for us and we love to get them, especially the kids! Sorry we cannot answer you but we really do like to hear from you.

God Bless!
Captain Tofer and the Family!

Nassau to Annapolis - Blog July 10, 2011

2011-07-10T16:35:00.000-07:00

This morning we find ourselves just east of Cape Canaveral, out in the Gulf Stream. The wind is barely blowing at 10 knots or less from the South South West. The Gulf Stream is a tame beast this morning. If it were not pushing us along 4 knots faster than we would be going without it we would only know it was here because the swells behind us are just a little bit bigger than they would normally be with this wind strength.

We left Nassau three days ago and after a slow 24 hour run on engine power, because of low wind, we made it to Lucaya, Grand Bahama. The Garmin XM weather was showing a tropical looking disturbance just to the west and north of us and I don’t play around with the possibilities of Tropical Storms and Hurricanes at this time of the year. We pulled into Lucaya to check the weather again. Every thing looked good so we left the next morning.

During our run up from Nassau to Grand Bahama we noticed the Screecher Halyard was fraying and it was very difficult to launch. When I looked closer I noticed that it looked wrong at the top of the mast and I assumed that it had just slipped its shiv. I made a harness out of some nylon webbing (thanks to my days of rock climbing in Wyoming) and we pulled Dylan up to the top on the main halyard. He informed us that the whole shiv and all were gone! Once he was safely back on deck he reminded me of the time with Bob and Jarred when we were flying the screecher and we all heard a loud bang from the mast. We all looked but couldn’t figure out what was wrong. The rigging all was fine so we guessed that it was just a sheet banging extra hard on the mast or something. Now we know what that was... the shiv was blown out of the mast!

So we can’t fly the screecher. If we could we could sail right now and turn off this motor. The Genoa alone just can’t keep our speed up enough.

Well I just ate some eggs, bacon and a bagel for breakfast and need to get the fishing line back in the water.

Hope you all have a great day!

Captain Tofer, Captain Dick, and Dylan

Norman's Cay, Wardrick Wells, Allen's Cay

2011-07-04T06:43:00.000-07:00

After we spent the night at Allen's Cay we sailed to Norman's Cay and anchored in the cut just off of a little island with one lone palm tree on it. Wade, Pat, Steve and Debbie all paddled the kayaks over to the little island and at a sack lunch. After lunch they went snorkeling in the shallow water on the far side of the island.

That night we took the dingy ashore and walked across the island to the little restaurant called MacDuff's where we had a great dinner and even some ICE CREAM for dessert.

The next morning we woke up and got an early start and sailed all the way to Wardrick Wells, which is the headquarters for the Exumas Land and Sea Park. The sailing was great and although we were close hauled we had a great time tacking the boat back and forth until we were close enough to motor through the cut. While we were at Wardrick Wells a couple of four foot Nurse Sharks hung out just under the boat eating all of our scraps. You could pet them as they swam by. I even hung on to a rope in the swift current behind the boat and the shark just swam with me.

Everyone loved the park so much that we decided to hang out there for another day. The next day everyone went on Kayaking and snorkeling expeditions and Dylan had some long talks with the Park Rangers.

Yesterday we woke up early and sailed downwind from Wardrick Wells back to Allen's. With the wind blowing right behind us at around 18 knots we pulled up the Screecher and Jib wing-on-wing just like we flew it for most of the trip from St Thomas. Wade was happy as a clam seeing the boat do this. It is such a beautiful care free point of sail that he told me he should pay me a discounted rate for the delivery.. hmmm well I would go for that but would have to charge three times more then for last January's delivery (read about it in the archives if you are interested.) Last night everyone went snorkeling and they trapped a big schoolmaster fish while Dylan swam down with the spear and got him. Then I cooked it up in some olive oil, garlic and salt and pepper. mmmmmmmm It was a group effort and everyone was happy.

We needed to be in Nassau by noon today so we got up early and with no wind at all we were forced to motor back to the city.

This has been a great week and reminded me of a lot of fun and happy times I have had on my own boat with my family. If you own a boat bring it to the Bahamas and if you are a guy who wants to get your lady into cruising... start here!

Stand By For The Next Leg of The Delivery - Tofer, Dylan, and Dick Nassau to Annapolis - Departs Nassau July 7th.

Captain Tofer, Wade, Pat, Steve, Debbie and Dylan

S/V Sweetest Thing

ReplyReply AllMove...AC emailsericNotes

Blog: Day 1 and 2 Bahamas: June 26 - 27

2011-06-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning the AC units in the salon and the port hull were on the fritz... ( I know! All of you cruiser friends are thinking, “What has happened to Tofer? AC is a major concern for him now?) Ac is a big deal on this boat as a charter vessel It has big open, wrap around windows in the salon and the sun heats it up just like a solarium by midday. The guests come to have a good time and AC makes them happy too. AHHH ok, who am I really kidding with all this? Hell, I LOVE the AC!!!

At any rate we spent all morning working on it and when the owner, Wade, arrived, he and I spent more time messing around with it. Turned out the sicko Nassau water had clogged all of the lines so we had to blow them out... with our lungs. It’s up and running now.

The owner and guests all went to visit Atlantis last night and this morning we are off to the Exumas.

10:00am Nassau Harbor: We fueled the boat up, topped off the water and made our way out of the busiest port in the Bahamas. When sailing across the banks from Nassau to the Exumas I always follow a line from the waypoint at Porgee Rocks to Allen’s and you don’t really have to worry about near surface coral heads but this time we were actually planning on going to Norman’s and on that line there are quite a few coral heads on Yellow Bank. We put Dylan up on the bow and dodged coral heads. Steve and Debbie sat up on the bow and with the wind on the nose they were constantly being drenched by sheets of water. They were grinning ear to ear and at one point Steve looked at her and smiled while he said,

“This is sure better than sitting at my desk!”

After we passed the Yellow Bank we pulled out the sails and decided we could actually sail to Allen’s so we changed our course and sailed the rest of the way.

4:00pm Allen’s Cay, Bahamas: When we arrived at Allen’s I took advantage of the fact that we were on a cat and anchored us in the little shallow bay at SW Allen’s. This bay is a perfect little slice of paradise,with a crescent shaped white sand beach and aqua colored water. The water depth when we arrived was only 6 foot in the whole bay. we arrived at High tide so, although with our draft of 3.8 feet we could have stayed all night (tide range is around 2 feet) I decided in the end to move for a better nights sleep.

Just as soon as the anchor was down at SW Allen’s (actually even before the anchor was down in Pats case) everyone was swimming around the boat in the warm clear Bahamian water. Everyone swam ashore and looked at the species of iguanas that are only native to these 3 little islands.

Once they were all done swimming and snorkeling around the bay, we moved the boat over by Leaf Cay, just across the way. We threw the kayaks in the water and Steve and Debbie went exploring while Wade and Dylan paddled over to a local Conch fisherman’s boat and bartered for some fresh conch. They bought 3 HUGE cleaned conch for a couple bucks each and brought them back to me.

I made Captain Tofer’s Cracked Conch to munch on with Margaritas as sundowners. Later on Wade BBQed up some Ribs and chicken with Asparagus and rice for supper.

What a GREAT DAY!

RECIPE: Captain Tofer’s Cracked Conch
1. Take cleaned conch, cut off the claw and cut the rest in strips about 1/2 inch wide.

Rinse conch in fresh water and put it all in a large zip lock bag. Push all of the air out of the bag. Wrap the bag in a hand towel and beat it with a hammer until your arm hurts. Switch arms and repeat.

Crush ritz crackers into a powder and put in a small cake pan.

Crush a small bag of flavored potato chips. Mix with the crushed ritz crackers.

Crush and finely chop 2 cloves of garlic and add in a large frying pan to 1/4 inch of

Olive oil in the bottom of the pan. Heat the oil and garlic until the boat smells

AWESOME.

Rub olive oil on the cracked hammered conch liberally and roll it in the ritz cracker

mix.

Throw it all in the frying pan and cover, stirring occasionally until the conch is tender

and cooked through.

EAT WHILE IT”S HOT! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Cracking Conch,

Captain Tofer, Dylan, Wade, Pat, Steve and Debbie

Sweetest Thing Delivery: St Thomas to Nassau, June 2011

2011-06-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

Day 4 continued and Day 5:
Just after I sent off the email containing our blog from yesterday the excitement really started. I have to say that yesterday has to rank right up there as one of my all time favorite days at sea.

I was actually in the middle of downloading and sending off the blog when the reel on the fishing pole started smoking... “FISH ON.....” Dylan and Jared were on the back of the boat pulling on the pole trying to get a handle on a fish that really didn’t want to be there. By the time I had the email sent off and the Iridium phone shut down Bob had joined the fray and they were all taking turns trying to reel in this fish. The fish was winning. For every turn of the reel the fish took a foot of line.... zzzzzzzzziiiiip it was quickly becoming a sad situation. We wanted that fish! We had been trying to catch one all day every day so far and he was the first to take the bait. We were still flying the screecher and the Genoa wing-on-wing and needed to slow the boat so we rolled in the Genoa and I started the engine and turned us into the wind as much as the screecher would allow. This slowed the boat enough to turn the tide in the battle against the fish. The guys were running from one side of the cockpit to the other fighting this fish. Sweetest Thing has a 26 foot beam and it was kinda funny to watch these three guys chase back and forth with the pole trying to catch this fish while I tried to keep just enough wind in the screecher to keep it from flogging itself to death but spill enough wind to keep the boat speed low enough to manage the fish. By the time the fish was close enough to the boat to see it the guys had given up on the reel. It was making some strange sounds of protest and giving as much line to the fish as it wanted. Bob put on his sailing gloves and started pulling the line in hand over hand and pretty soon the pretty little 3 foot green and yellow bull Mahi Mahi was flopping around in the cockpit. Bob wants to note that, I quote,

“It wasn’t no ordinary fish... it was a powerful little three foot fish!”

For myself, It kind of reminded me of the knight with his arms and legs cut off in Monty Python... as it laid there on the deck, I could almost hear it yelling, “Come on.... I’ll bite your knees off!” Dylan finished him off and Bob and Dylan crawled on their knees in blood on the cockpit floor filleting it.

Thanks to the efforts of the crew I was able to make us an awesome supper of Teriyaki marinaded Mahi Mahi, steamed veggies and rice that, even if I do say so myself, ranked right up there with the efforts of past chefs on board Sweetest Thing. As we were sitting around eating supper I mentioned to the crew that since we had just eaten all of the frozen veggies we now had extra pie crust because I couldn’t do another pot pie. Bob mentioned the apples sitting in a bowl by the fridge and we all agreed that it would be fun to make an apple pie. We all sat around joking, listening to music and peeling apples, then we started cooking them down on the stove. When you have four guys working on one pie in a boat with limited resources things get a little creative. We didn’t have quite enough apples, but we did have a banana. I added white sugar and brown sugar until I thought... “hmmm guess that would be enough...” We had lots of cinnamon but it was in sticks and our grater was a big one made for cheese so we grated cinnamon with one little grater area often breaking off chunks of stick. Bob found a box of dried currants in the food cupboard and we all sniffed them, ate a few and agreed that they would taste yummy in the pie. I found some funny looking little stick things in a little baggy in the galley and when I smelled them they were very strong and smelled familiar. I knew I had smelled them before with apples when Beck cooked stuff on the stove at Christmas. I put a handful in before Bob weighed in and told us that those were cloves and we should only put in a few. Jarred and I spent the rest of the time that this mixture was cooking down fishing out cloves. About this time Bob decided that it needed some corn starch to thicken it but we didn’t have any, so he put a little flour and water in the mixture. Bob had an epiphany and asked me if we had any Amaretto liquor on the boat... he thought it would taste good in there...

“No,” I replied “But we do have Bailey’s!” They handed me the bottle and I poured some in the mix. Jarred drank the rest of the bottle while I filled the pie crust with our new filling. I put the top crust on the pie and we baked it for 45 minutes...

Ok. So you all need to make this pie at home! if we could do it out here you can do it at home. It was one of the best pies any of us had ever tasted! No kidding! Try it out yourself and send us comments on the Iridium.

By the time we were done watching a movie and eating pie it was dark and the wind had increased to a steady 25 knots gusting a little higher so we needed to pull in the screecher. Pulling in the screecher in the dark is a real offshore adventure. We all wear our harnesses and have to roll it in as far as we can, which is never quite far enough, then the guy on the halyard tries to drop it slow enough to keep it from blowing into the sea and fast enough that it has a limited time to inflict bodily harm to the crew on the for-deck who are trying to wrestle it onto the deck. To the uninitiated it must look like a couple of guys tag team wrestling a huge flopping white snake. The sail doesn’t cause a lot of damage but let me tell you the flailing sheet can sure put a bruise on a guy. I saw it take out Jarred just before it chased me down on the deck! Once the sail was all secured on deck and we were laying on it breathing heavy I looked over at Jarred and he smiled and said, “Well that was fun!”

Today Bob made scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast and we are sailing through the Bahamas. I can see a little island just off our starboard right now! It’s a tough life huh?

Cooking Along,

Captain Tofer, Bob, Jarred, and Dylan

Recipe: Sweetest Thing’s Signature Offshore Apple Pie

Ingredients:

Apples - any variety quantity as required (peeled)

Banana - 1 severely bruised and lonely (you should peel this too)

Dried Currants - sprinkle as many into the pie filling as you think would taste yummy.

1/2 cup water

Sugar - just start pouring it in directly from the bag until you think it’s enough.

Brown sugar - same as above

Bailey’s - pour directly from the bottle only sampling occasionally.

Whole Cloves - one handful, cook for 5 minutes then remove from mixture. (that’s fun)

Cinnamon sticks - grate with large sized grater trying not to remove the skin from finger tips.

Cook Pie filling down until thickened stirring when ever you remember. If filling need thickened add one tablespoon of flour dissolved in 1/4 cup water.

Add pie filling to a deep dish pie pan with crust in it.

Put pie crust on the top

Bake for 45 minutes at around 375

Send us your comments on Iridium!

Sweetest Thing Delivery: St Thomas to Nassau, June 2011

2011-06-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

Day 3 and 4:
Yesterday we enjoyed a day of pure downwind sailing. We flew both the Jib and the Screecher, wing on wing all day. The clouds started to fill in by afternoon and the wind started gusting in the low 20s so in the late afternoon we rolled in the jib leaving the screecher as our only sail. Just after dark we decided to pull down the screecher and stow it for the night and just switch to the jib. (The screecher is difficult to reef effectively because it has so much belly built into the sail that when it is rolled up it doesn’t maintain an effective sail shape.) With all of the squalls around us we needed to be able to quickly, and effectively reef the sail.

I made the guys chicken pot pie for supper and we watched a movie. The night watch was uneventful until about 2:30am when Dylan spotted a mysterious light off our bow and a small return on the radar. He became concerned when the light suddenly moved very fast away and then off to the side of our boat. He woke me up when the light on the vessel went out but the radar return was still about 2 miles off our starboard beem.

Dylan and I watched the radar return of this vessel for 45 minutes or so as it maintained our course and speed about 2 miles off to our starboard. I decided to wake up Bob when the radar return started to slowly close on our vessel. At one point it was within a mile and a half of our boat. At that point I told Dylan to turn off all of our lights (there was no moon out and it was overcast so it was a VERY dark night.) As soon as our lights went out we could see that the other vessel was slowly falling behind us but still making the same basic course as before. I decided to try to report the incident to the Coast Guard using the VHF radio in hopes that the boat following us would hear and take note or if it was a Coast Guard vessel that they would answer us and get it all settled. As soon as I made the call to the US Coast Guard we noticed the return scoot off to the south of us and disappear altogether. We were just north of the DR so it could have been a small fast boat from the DR or it could have been a US Coast Guard patrol boat, either way we saw no more of them.

This morning I made some Egg McMuffins and then we pulled out the screecher again and are once again running downwind wing on wing.

We spent the morning solving riddles together... what a hoot. It was fun for all four of us to be together asking and answering questions for riddles. If you would like to send me some riddles on the Iridium phone that would be great. This time do send me the answers as well so I can ask the riddles and the guys can answer yes or no questions to solve them.

Right now it is overcast and a little rainy. The wind is blowing between 15 and 18 knots and we are averaging around 6.5 knots. We have yet to catch a fish but not from lack of trying. The line is out! Dylan is going to make Pad Thai for supper tonight and we will probably watch another movie. Everyone is feeling great and spirits are high. We are just South of the Turks and Caicos and should be making our turn up into the Bahamas sometime in the dark tonight.

Thanks for your messages on the Iridium! We love to get them... send us some fun riddles... might want to keep any number riddles to a minimum as the only one who is smart enough to even attempt them is Bob. hehe.

Steering Clear of Pirates,

Captain Tofer, Bob, Jared and Dylan

Sweetest Thing Delivery: St Thomas to Nassau, June 2011

2011-06-22T06:13:00.000-07:00

Day 1 and 2

We left Crown Bay Marina at around 2:30pm on the 19th of June. The wind was blowing around 10 to 15 knots from the ENE so our course would be right down wind. First order of business was to rig and launch the SCREECHER sail. The screecher is a giant, big bellied, genoa sail which has its own roller-furler and stay line integral to the sail. To launch it we had to attach the head of the sail/roller furler to the halyard and the foot to its line. Then we had to rig a sheet (we only needed 1 sheet because you will not be tacking or jibing this sail, it is strictly for down wind runs.) Next we tried to untwist any twists in the sail and then Dylan hauled in on the halyard while I worked the sheet and the whole sail went up a lot like a big spinnaker .... POOF it bellied out with only one twist still in it... I let out the sheet a bit while Bob pulled on the leech and the twist came out with another poof, there she was flying beautifully!

We ran the rest of the day and through the night under screecher alone sometimes making 9.5 knots but averaging around 7 knots.

The night was beautiful lots of stars and dodging the occasional squall kept the person on watch on their toes. Jered made spaghetti and that turned out to be his undoing... he had been feeling fine up until his culinary feat but by the time the noodles were done so was Jered... He ended up feeding the fish and, as is usually the case with things like this, soon after Jered had succumbed to the mal-de-mer so did Dylan. Bob and I ate our spaghetti and figured since we both had healthy appetites it would not be our day to make the customary bow before Poseidon and offer up a sacrifice.

We spent the night sailing past the north coast of Puerto Rico watching the lights on the land and the cruise ships come and go in the distance.

This morning the wind died off a bit so we decided to pull the genoa out on the Starboard side of the boat (the screecher is flying on the port side.) We ran the jib sheet out board of the shrouds and through the mid-ships deck cleat and up to the winch. By running the sheet out like this it makes the wide beem of the Cat act almost like a pole to pole out the jib. We rolled it out and just like that we are flying downwind wing-on-wing with the big screecher on port and the big Genoa on starboard! Right now the wind is blowing around 10 knots but the boat is still making 7 knots!! Days like these a mono-hull sailor like myself checks off yet another reason my next boat will probably be a cat.

Hope this finds you all well! Send us a free Iridium message! Beck will post instructions with this blog.

Wing-On-Winging It,

Captain Tofer, Bob, Jered, and Dylan

Captain Tofer and Crew on the move again

2011-06-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

June 20, 2011

If you would like to send us some free messages offshore we will have the Iridium phone up and on at all times. Just follow the simple instructions below:

http://messaging.iridium.com/ you leave the number 8816 that is already in the number slot and add our number to it 32521786 then just type in your message. Don't bother putting your email in the email line as it just uses up the number of letters you can type. However, I (Rebecca) put in a code like Bec1, so they know who it is from. As well, as the order. I send up to 5 at a time and they are not delivered in order. (160 total per message)
But you can send as many as you like and they are free.

When the beep goes off from the phone we always jump to see what it says...

We will also have the SPOT updating every 6 hours or so if you would like to keep track of our progress up the coast.

Just click on the word SPOT up in the upper left of this blog and it will link you to our position.

I will post as the emails come in, so check back daily for the updates.

Fair Winds and Calm Seas,
Bec

Marinette: Florida to New York Spring 2011

2011-05-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

I am home again after eight days at sea delivering sailing vessel Marinette from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to New York City. My friend John came along on this trip as crew. John is one of those guys who is super easy to get along with. Life offshore with John is easy even when he is sick he stands his watches without complaint. I can pretty much throw any food item at him and never get a whimper, although he did kinda scowl at my suggestion on the last morning’s breakfast. I was cold and needed something hot so I asked him if he would like some Tomato Soup... that look reminded me of my little son Benny when I tell him we are having pizza for supper and then after he gets a big old smile going I tell him it will have mushrooms on it.

It makes a BIG difference offshore when you have crew who gets along. The very nature of an offshore passage will test any relationship to its maximum. Think of two men trapped alone in the same space area as a medium sized living room for eight days, now start tossing and turning that room constantly and set it up so that in the dark there will occasionally be building sized trucks barreling down on the room that you have to dodge. The only person you can converse with is the same person who may at the very time you need a little human contact be in the need of a little alone time.

I have a rule for crew on passages that we never talk about religion or politics. If you knew my family you would know what a HUGE challenge that is for me. I grew up in a family that ate supper and discussed both of those topics almost every night, sometimes with very heated arguments developing and it was all just a part of life. But those topics are just too volatile for an offshore passage. You really don’t want to tick off anyone who can just push you overboard at will.

Don’t get me wrong though, John and I did spend a lot of time talking. He is a very interesting guy who has led a very cool life. He is 20 years older than me so he was also able to offer me some very fatherly advice, always given within the framework of a story from his own life.

We had some great moments on this trip and on our delivery of Sweetest Thing in January. This trip we went up to the bow and watched a large pod of common dolphins swim in our bow wave. This was a real treat because usually we only see the little spotted dolphins. These guys were huge and they were absolutely gorgeous! They would take turns swimming close up to the bow and as we hung our heads over to look at them they would turn on their sides so they could look up at us with one eye and then I swear you could see them smile. They swim along so effortlessly and it was quiet enough that when we listened closely we could hear them squeaking at one another. Dolphin chatter... now that was pretty cool.

There were a couple of days we only sailed and the boat skipped along over some pretty calm water with the jib out to port and the main out to starboard flying along at the speed of a fast walk wing and wing down wind. That was all John. He is a real sailor and knows how to trim the sails to get the most out of them. I would often come up for my watch to find the boat set up completely and drawing on a nice downwind track that i would have struggled to make without him.

Even John’s sail trim couldn’t help us much when, after rounding Cape Hatteras the wind clocked around to the north west, right on our nose and as it built to 25 and 30 knots with gusts in the 40s in squalls that north wind bullied it’s way against he north flowing Gulf Stream current and the waves began to build. Marinette is a well built offshore boat but she’s beamy and has a shorter mast than normal so she isn’t quite balanced perfectly and she really doesn’t go to windward in the best of conditions. In these conditions as we tacked back and forth she actually went backwards at times. We made only 12 miles toward our destination in 24 hours. During that 24 hours the boat heaved and slammed against huge waves and just sitting for our watches in the cockpit became a real ordeal. John has bruises and cuts all over his legs from just standing his watches. Once, while i was on watch i saw him fly from one side of the salon area to the other and land heavily on his backside. Not a curse word did I hear though. He just got up and struggled on back to his berth for his off watch sleep.

When the wind finally clocked around we sailed for two days to New York City. The winds were blowing 18 to 20 from the south and south west so again we were running downwind. When I sail this stretch of coast I stay in pretty close to shore to avoid all of the shipping traffic just a few miles off the coast. If you sail pretty close to the 3-mile line you don’t have to worry about big ships except where they go in and out of Delaware Bay. There are a lot of fishing vessels though but if you maintain your course and speed they will work around you and always let you know if they want you to move. These guys are not usually on the bridge so they won’t answer your hails so don’t bother. They do pay attention though and tare experts at what they do. Give me 10 fishing vessels over one big bulk carrier any day.

On May 7th John and I motored under the Verizano Bridge and past the Statue of Liberty. I have done this many times now but it never gets old. I can’t help but think of my ancestors getting off the boat from Sweden and signing their names on the books at Ellis Island.

Thanks for coming with me John!

Captain Tofer

Delivering Marinette Yet Again

2011-04-29T04:03:00.000-07:00

I will be heading offshore first thing tomorrow morning delivering sailing vessel Marinette back to New York City from Florida. John Ligget from the last Sweetest Thing delivery will be crewing for me on this passage. We had a pretty wild ride from Annapolis to St Thomas if you'd like to read about it it is in the older blogs.

If you would like to send us some free messages offshore we will have the Iridium phone up and on at all times. Just follow the simple instructions below:

http://messaging.iridium.com/ you leave the number 8816 that is already in the number slot and add our number to it 32521786 then just type in your message. Don't bother putting your email in the email line as it just uses up the number of letters you can type. (160 total per message) But you can send as many as you like and they are free. When the beep goes off from the phone we always jump to see what it says...

We will also have the SPOT updating every 6 hours or so if you would like to keep track of our progress up the coast.
Just click on the word SPOT up in the upper left of this blog and it will link you to our position.

Thanks!
Captain Tofer

GET A LIGHT!

2011-03-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

Ok time for a Tofer rant... I don’t do it a lot... well at least on the blog. I am sitting in Tickles, the Pub in St Thomas where Beck works. To get here I had to buzz across the bay, on the dingy, in the dark. Once again, about half way across, I almost ran into a total idiot, actually a whole boatload of really stupid people. How do I know that the combined IQ on that boat was lower our dog Charlie’s? They were speeding across the bay, in the dark, with no lights on. Not even a flashlight among them.

If this were an isolated incident one could just chalk it up to a stupid convention on the island or something, but it’s not. It happens almost every night. I have actually pulled dingys over just to listen to their stupid excuses...

“I was just gonna buy a flashlight today but didn’t have enough money...” slurred one cruiser whose breath fumed so much if he was a smoker and lit a match he would have blown up like daffy duck when he lights up a stick of TNT. Obviously the multiple $3.00 beers at the bar were within his price range.

Or my personal favorite: “ I gave up on keeping a flashlight for my dingy... they just rust out and die to quick or the batteries need to be replaced too often!” WAAAAAAAAAA cry me a river!

Can you imagine people driving down the highway, in the dark, with no headlights on, pulling these stupid excuses out on the cop who pulled them over? What kind of person puts other people at risk like that and expects them to just drive on by and say nothing? If you actually pull over to talk with these rock-heads like I do they act like you are the idiot and infringing on their personal freedoms. I really have no problem with some stupid guy who decides to swim out to his boat in pitch dark. If I run him over he’ll probably die and I can personally live with that. His soft body would just be a bump in the dark. I would turn and say, “Hey did we just hit something?” He might leave a nasty streak of blood down the side of my dingy that I wouldn’t discover until the next day but, and here’s the important part, he wouldn’t cause my boat to sink or me or one of my children to fly out of the dingy, bashing his or her head in on their flying dingy and drown in the dark.

Last year there was a guy rowing his dingy home in the dark, he had no lights and he was run down by another boat who was speeding along at top speed with lights on. The retard in the rowing dingy lived through the incident, his pretty little rowing/sailing dingy was destroyed and he had the audacity to ask the owner of the boat that hit him for compensation! I think it would have been better if the pretty little boat had made it but the dummy would have drown... at least then he wouldn’t have the potential of passing on stupid genes.

Cruisers blather on and on and on about the maintenance they do on their big boats. They pride themselves on how pretty the teak is, and keep detailed logs about when they changed their oil last. They run through a safety check list when they run up the boat for an offshore voyage and yackity, yack, yack, about weather windows and life rafts and safe anchoring with proper ground tackle. These same people get hammered at the bar, stumble down the beach and fall into their dingy in pitch dark and drive full speed back to their boat, sometimes standing up holding onto the bow line with no safety cut-off line on their wrist, hair flying back in the wind like a dog with his head out the pickup window.

Becky works nights at Tickles right now so we have to go back and forth in the dark a lot. How do we do it? Well let me assure you it actually isn’t easy. Normal flashlights do truly die fast. We discovered this within our first year out. We now only buy Princeton Tech flashlights. Maglights, while great on land and for camping, just don’t hold up to the marine environment. Their insides just rust away and the switches start to fail within a week or so. Cheaper flashlights rust at an alarming rate. So what! Buy a good light. One of our Princeton Tech lights cost us $60.00, the other was $120.00 both have super bright LED bulbs that last forever especially if you spend the extra and buy the Lithium batteries for them. They have almost no metal and are totally waterproof so salt water and air isn’t getting at the insides. We have had one for almost two years and the other for over a year now.

But our flashlights are actually only used to look for the dummies with no lights. Our dingy is rigged with a small marine battery which powers an LED tricolor light which is mounted on a pole which can be raised and lowered. If you have it permanently mounted up high enough to see it will be knocked off the first time you go to a crowded dingy dock. That is the main problem with mounting your light on the cowling of your dingy engine too, that and that when a dingy is up on a plane and the driver is sitting in front of the motor you really can’t see those lights anyway. (Though I am in favor of ANY type of light on a dingy and would never complain about them.) Our battery is actually charged by the engine but if you don’t have this ability with yours you can just go to Home Depot or ACE and buy one of those little solar panels that power the little yard lights and run the wires directly to the battery. If you only use it to power your lights or a small bilge pump it will keep the battery topped up with no problem.

Don’t get me wrong, the maintenance on this system is a pain in the neck... I have to replace a switch or the whole light every year, sometimes the whole thing gets broken by some yahoo who climbs through my dingy in that crowded dingy dock, the battery isn’t cheap and needs to be replaced about every three years or so. So what... your dingy is a boat too and will need the same kind of maintenance that your big boat does! If you noticed that your car had no headlights working what would you do? Shrug your shoulders, jump in and drive to the bar anyway... no you would go get the lights fixed.

If one of you dummies buzzes by me in the dark just don’t expect me to ignore you and keep going, I will turn around and follow you and say what I said tho the boatload of people I saw tonight. When they saw me turn around they dropped off a plane to see what I wanted, I drove up to their boat looked them all over carefully. One guy finally said, “What ya need man?” To which I replied, “I just wanted to see what stupid looked like... Get a light dummies!”

I Fell Better Now Thanks For the RANT,

Captain Tofer

A visit from Grandma!

2011-03-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

3/20/11

My Mom came to visit us in St Thomas this past week. She brought our oldest son, Jimmy with her. He has been living with her in Wyoming since last summer. He is going to school and helping my Mom out. We lost my Dad in October and it has been really tough on her.

This was the first time anyone from my side of the family has visited the boat. We have had visits from Beck’s Sister, Niece and her Mom but my family has never made it down so we threw out all the stops and my Mom had quite a visit.

The highlights: She watched her son stop a drifting boat from going up on the rocks one evening, watching the same boat the next day pull up its anchor and drift down on us so that we had to throw off the mooring lines and motor away while our kids ran off in the dingy to rescue the little dog on the drifting boat. They brought the dingy alongside the big boat transferred the little trembling dog and tied off the dingy and got onto the big boat all while underway.

The next day I received an email about a stollen Catamaran and thought it looked a lot like the boat that was anchored out behind “Sweetest Thing.” I told Mom about the email and she and Rebecca and I took the dingy out to “Sweetest Thing” where Mom waited for us to check out the boat. Upon closer inspection we were certain that it was indeed the same cat that had been stollen two weeks before in a bay on St Thomas. We had the hull number and a picture of the boat’s registration number as well as it’s name and hailing port and when we looked at her closely you could still read the ghost numbers and the old name under the new one. The hull number was right there for anyone to see. Cool beans and a reward from the insurance company to top it off. The insurance guy came over from Tortola and Jimmy and I helped him move the boat over to the marina. Mom could hardly believe it!

We took her on an afternoon sail on “Sweetest Thing” and while we were out there she saw the Para-Sailors being pulled behind their boats and said,

“If only I was 10 years younger!” (She’s 78)

Rebecca said,

“Aww Mom they just launch those people right off the boat and they are in a big harness just like a chair! I think you could do it!” My Mom got that look on her face that we all know so well... the one that says, “By Damn I could do that! Why the Hell not?”

EmilyAnne, who has always wanted to do it too said, “I’ll go with you Grandma!”

So the next day we called the company and a couple of nice guys showed up right at the Water Island Ferry Dock and we headed out. Mom was trying to catch all of the experience, the boat speeding out into the ocean kicking up a rooster tail and the guys got a huge kick out of her. Geran has dredlocks and looks like your typical young rasta island surfer dude. We got a picture of him with Mom right before they hooked her up to the Parachute.

The first thing they do is inflate the parachute and as it opened up behind the boat it was a huge red, white, and blue dome covering the boat with deep blue sky all around. Mom actually caught her breath and said, “Oh Lord that is beautiful! Look at that!!!”

When Geran came over to put Mom in her harness there wasn’t a trace of fear or concern on her face just excitement but when he turned to EmilyAnne I could see her concern. She was a little nervous but there was no way she would show it with Grandma acting like she was just going for a stroll on the beach.

Once they were in the harnesses they had to sit on the platform of the still moving boat with the parachute inflated above them while Geran hooked the harnesses into the crossbar that was attached to the parachute. He asked one last time if they were ready to go and Grandma yelled, “YES LET”S GO!!!” and they did....

As the line was paid out they drifted off the end of the boat and just off the surface of the sea and then the Captain put the juice on and they zoomed up, up , up and away! In the end they were about 500 feet up and could see St Croix, Culebra, Puerto Rico, St Thomas, Water Island, Buck Island, Savannah island and a number of smaller rocks and islets.

Before the trip was over the guys let them drop as though they were on a parachute, then he pulled them back up high again and dropped them slowly into the ocean for a dip. He dipped them in the sea a few times, pulled them back up and then slowly reeled them in. When she was safely back on the boat the first thing she said was that she wanted to do it again!

They flew out yesterday, headed back to Wyoming but now when we talk about things like, heading to town in the dingy, kids playing on the beach, boats dragging anchor in squalls, she can be there with us in her mind and memories. She now can better imagine what it is like when we are sailing offshore with all the kids on our 47 foot boat.

Thanks For the Visit Mom! (Oh and thanks for the genetics... I am sure that is why I am out here in the first place!)

Captain Tofer and The Family

Sweetest Thing Day 10

2011-01-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

On, big breakfast, sailing, dolphins, sunshine and St Thomas on the chart plotter.

Dylan and I made a BIG BREAKFAST today. He made a huge stack of pancakes while I fried a half dozen eggs over easy and fried some SPAM! MMMMMMM Dylan was pretty grossed out by the fried spam but John and I were munching on it right out of the can... so for those of you who are Monty Python fans, we had “spam, eggs, spam, pancakes, eggs, spam and spam” for breakfast. Dylan and I had to both stand at the little stove to cook. I kept bugging him saying he was in my “personal space” to back off... I have almost got him to the point now where he will tell me to move when I bug him like that but not quite. He is still far to nice. hehehe

Yes! We are sailing without the motor belching diesel fumes and noise. Yesterday afternoon all our wind went away and the seas were pretty calm for the first time so Dylan and I poured in the cans of spare fuel (and didn’t spill any) and we went forward and fixed the roller furling for the jib (and didn’t loose any tools overboard). Things are looking up!

We are close hauled but we were faithful to get all the east we could when we could so now we have a great tack right to St Thomas. with these winds it is a little easier to make the western end of the island rather than the red hook one so we will be going into Crown Bay for fuel and to clean the boat. Then we will run her around to Red Hook and put her on her mooring.

John seems to be enjoying the warm sunshine and trade winds. We can’t hardly get him out of the cockpit. He also gains us on boat speed when he’s out there “racing” the boat. He tweaks the sails, heads up, falls off, tweaks some more and is having fun. Earlier today a large pod of dolphins came by to say “Hi” they swam about the boat, jumping over the bow wave, and flopping onto their sides as if welcoming us back to the Caribbean.

When we look at the chart plotter right now it finally shows our final destination right on the page. That’s always a fun thing to see.

This will probably be the last offshore blog of this journey. I will post another when we are in port.

Thanks for coming along with us on this crazy ride. Knowing you were reading along and sending us messages sure helps. We all hope you enjoyed it even though it was kinda like watching people on a reality show eat nasty bugs at times.

Can Almost Smell Home,

Captain Tofer, John and Dylan onboard the “Sweetest Thing”

Sweetest Thing Days 8 and 9

2011-01-26T14:09:00.001-08:00

So how have we been for the past two days?

There is a psychology to offshore sailing, well not just offshore sailing but in any endeavor where your life is actually at risk for a time and you survive, be it whitewater kayaking, mountaineering, rock climbing, extreme skiing, all of which, I have done.

The immediate feelings after the rush of the event itself are, gratitude, excitement, and a feeling that you are indestructible which comes with it an overwhelming optimism. The next step is the difficult one. The coming back to reality. The sea is quick to put you in your place as are mountains and foaming class 5 rapids.

Monday night after our “perfect day” of sailing we had our most frustrating night and it continued through all of yesterday, last night and today so far. The wind shifted to the east as we expected. This was the very reason why, if you look at our spot, we have been heading more to the east than straight toward St Thomas. I have done this trip enough to know about the force and constant nature of the trade winds. We had also received good weather information which told us that the trades would be blowing hard and shifting to the South East and possibly south. This would be very difficult for any sailboat to make the last 300 miles but on a Catamaran our ability to sail to windward is further diminished.

But with east winds blowing 20 to 25 we should be able to make 8 to 10 knots right? The past two days we should have FLOWN! That was what we expected too but when the wind shifted so did the seas. Monday night we had confused seas which had only lessened somewhat from the storm, suddenly they are pounding us from every direction. Any time we let the boat go more than 5 or 6 knots the seas threatened to rip her apart. I have never heard such a noise. Every seam and connection of any sort slammed, banged, flexed, and creaked. When the seas finally gathered around to the east and began to come at us in a more uniformed fashion it was even worse. They built and built and they were only about 3 seconds apart. To go toward our destination we had to have the wind and seas on our beam and these steep close waves would pick up the first hull while the one right behind it slammed into the second hull under the boat. If the main was up with more than a triple reef the wind would push further almost lifting the windward hull out of the water. The wind picked up last evening to the 30s again and we were forced to drop the main altogether, and do it in the dark. I went forward clipped myself onto the shrouds and John pointed the boat into the wind and waves so we could drop the sail. Then Dylan, who was controlling the halyard tried to lower it fast enough to get it down and slow enough not to bury me in the flogging sail. Meanwhile the steep waves are now bow on at 3 seconds apart crashing over the bow, tramp and myself.

The sun is up, the wind is blowing in the low 20s, still from the east, the jib reefing line has become worse and will now only reef the jib to the size of an large storm jib, the motor is on, fuel is getting low, the pounding continues.

I made some hot water for cocoa or tea this morning. I tried 3 times to fill and stir the mug of cocoa and each time I lost the cup in the process. The first one fell on the floor, the second one crashed into the dish rack and the last one spilled all over me when I was finally sitting down to drink it. While I was cleaning up the last of these 3 messes the boat dropped out from under me again and the tea kettle, still half full of boiling water, stayed in the air while the boat dropped, and when it came back down it came down on the galley floor spilling boiling water all over. I gave up and drank a coke instead. By the way I was fervently wishing I had my silly looking, but ingenious, conical shaped, sailing, coffee mug!

I have to go now. I need to get back in my swim suit with my harness and tether on and go forward to untie the furling line for the jib and roll it in by hand so when I reconnect it it will roll all the way in. I was hoping for light air and calm seas to do that but I have lost my optimism.

Captain Tofer, John and Dylan

Sweetest Thing Day 7

2011-01-24T16:56:00.000-08:00

I love it when the rare perfect day of sailing comes along offshore. Today has been one of those days. No the sun isn’t shining, and the seas aren’t calm. It’s cloudy and the seas are still running 12 to 16 feet. Why is it perfect then? We are sailing. Wow are we ever sailing. The wind is just off our starboard quarter blowing around 15 knots. We have all sail set and pulled out and those big waves are coming up right behind us. The boat lifts gently with each big swell and rides down the backside picking up a knot or two. The sails stay full and drawing pulling and pushing the boat to speeds never attained by my own boat. Right now we are cruising along at an average of 8 knots but often over 10 and sometimes 14 when we are riding down a wave. The sun isn’t shining but the air is warm, we are in shorts and flip flops again.

So what did we do today besides sail? This morning Dylan and I cleaned all of the salon windows. That’s a big job on this boat but it sure helps. The visibility is crucial as we use the salon as a pilot house when it is cold or rainy. With all of the salt built up on them from the storm the glare at night made them almost unusable so last night we spent our watches outside. The windows are nice and shiny now though. I was joking with Dylan about how the Captain was making the swabby clean the windows but he pointed out that at least the Captain was helping the swabby.

After we did some clean up chores I made some scrambles eggs with cheddar cheese melted over them and some fried ham and bagels with orange juice and coffee for breakfast. We joked about how that meal at Tickles in St Thomas would cost us like $50 bucks, more with the tip... cause one of the waitresses is a beautiful babe who I think deserves 30% to 50% tips if you ever go there.

After breakfast we listened to music and talked. We started looking for sailing songs on my iPod and playing them for Dylan and at some point John mentioned a song that had played on my iPod when it was on shuffle. He really liked the song and wanted to know who it was. The problem is that I wasn’t around when it played and I have 6428 songs on my iPod. We spent a couple of hours trolling through my iPod looking for the song and listening to others. I introduced him to one of my favorites, Chris De Burgh and we spent some time listening to some of his stuff. John told me about his own music he likes to write and shared stories from his life. At some point we began talking about books and humor and we discovered that both John and I are big fans of the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.” Dylan laughed and said, “Hey I have a couple of those books with me!” He hadn’t read any yet so John and I started laughing and saying lines from the books.

At some point during our laughing and talking I decided to make some chicken salad, which turned out Great. I mixed canned white meat chicken with Miracle Whip and green apple chunks. We put it in Tortillas with lettuce... YUMMMM.

I just went back up on the tramp to put a nut on the bolt which I used to replace the lost pin from the shackle. I love it up there! It is so cool to look a foot down and see the water rushing by with the Cat up to speed like this. As the boat surfs down a wave the water rushes between the hulls and a roll of white water comes right by under your feet. Remember when I said in an earlier blog that this didn’t feel like sailing? Well when she gets up to her speed and kicks up her heels she’s quite a ride! I can’t believe that with 15 knots of wind we are speeding along at an average of 8 to 10 knots.

John just went down to take his afternoon nap and Dylan, with some prompting from the Captain decided to take his first shower since we left Norfolk... whew! He smells like roses now. He is sitting beside me now reading “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.”

Nickleback is rocking from the speakers and I have to say again, “I love a perfect day offshore!”

Thanks for the messages everyone! Christian, “Confidentially speaking, I’ve had these problems with the tides before!”

To all our friends in St Thomas, looks like we’ll see you on Thursday! Beck and I will be going to Enki for Sushi on Saturday anyone who would like to come along tell Beck and we’ll make a party of it.

Amazing how the crazy storm can turn into days like this one!

Captain Tofer, John and Dylan on-board the “Sweetest Thing”

Day 5 and 6 The “Sweetest Thing”

2011-01-23T14:55:00.000-08:00

We woke up on day 5 (Jan 22) to messages coming into the Iridium phone telling us to send in a position report that there was an urgent weather forecast for us. The very thought that the weather guy thought we needed the info NOW made my stomach turn.

When I connected and sent out our position report we all waited quietly for the message telling us to download it. When it came it was an offshore sailors worst fear. A huge fast moving low had formed and would cross right over our position within 12 to 14 hours with winds in excess of 50 knots gusts to 60 knots and seas of over 20 feet. When you get this message on land you close all the windows and doors and stay inside with a hot cocoa and soup. Out here your whole world becomes a cold, wet, constantly moving, lurching, sliding, slamming, hell. Every moment you feel like it might be the last. We had just been feeling pretty good about riding out the little storm from the day before and now we were going to face a true storm.

We spent the morning preparing the boat. We secured anything that could move, removed the bimini altogether and actually tied the roller furling unit so it couldn’t unfurl on its own from its little storm jib size. We zipped up the mainsail cover and tied lines around it and ran a line off the end of the boom securing it in one place. We secured all the lines, checked the engine fluids and double checked our safety gear. By the time all of this was done the wind was blowing 30 with gusts to 40. By evening the wind was staeady high 30s and we actually thought maybe the worst of it was going to miss us but at 4:00am the low itself hit us and we had sustained winds in the 40s which crept up to sustained winds in the 50s with gusts to 60. By morning when the wind would die back down to the 40s we felt like a reprieve was coming and then we would hear it pick up to the 50s before we even read the wind indicator. When it would drop to the 30s we felt like it was over.

Lets talk about these seas... there is simply no way to really describe them. They are gargantuan foaming monsters that creep up from behind and seek to swallow the boat. We had one hit the boat hard enough that it knocked out all of the AC power on the boat. We still have to search out what exactly came loose and where. Another monster broke over the top of the boat (this is a BIG boat) and foamed over the boom and crashed on the far side of the boat (26 feet wide).

The good thing was that as the low passed us we were able to turn more and more toward our destination finaly gaining some south to go with our east. Right now The wind is blowing in the low 30s and we are sailing down wind under just a reefed jib making 8 to 10 knots , the seas are still HUGE but we are feeling great. I had to go up and untie the line that was holding the jib secure. That meant going forward to the end of the net tramps in these huge waves and 30 knots of wind. I didn’t want to get soaked so I just wore my swimsuit and harness. I clipped on all the way and my face hurt from the grin on it when I was up there with the deep blue, foaming white water rushing right under my feet and the cold sea wind in my face soaking my hair with mist and spray.

Before I went in I crawled into the engine compartment to see if I could find the problem with the AC power and check the fluids since it had run for a long time. I didn’t fix the problem but I am sure we will figure it out. Now we are all in the salon listening to classic rock and roll. Dylan is reading his Kindle and John is just smiling and watching the monsters out the window.

A big thanks to Herman for the weather last night, the Milton’s, Mike, Bob, Cave, and of course my wife for all the messages on the Iridium. They really lift our spirits more than you can know.

Hoping For Sun,

Captain Tofer, John and Dylan

“Sweetest Thing” Day 4

2011-01-21T11:25:00.001-08:00

So if you are wondering what it is like to take a ride on a Catamaran in a storm offshore do this:

Go get a cake pan from your kitchen and if you have children grab one of their little Lego men (if you don’t have Lego men readily accessible substitute with a paper clip or any other small item from your desk drawer.)

Sit down at your kitchen table and imagine that it is the surface of the sea. Imagine waves much higher than the sides of the cake pan. Holding on to the end of the pan nearest you start to gently raise and lower the pan with your imaginary waves while counting to 5. Gently 1... 2... 3... 4... now the key is every time you get to 5... you slam the cake pan down on the table as hard as you can... it is only hard enough if the Lego man becomes airborne. Now you know what it is like.

The storm we knew was coming is here and it has been a rough and tumble night. The main is triple reefed and the jib has a deep reef as well. At one point in the night the reef in the main decided to slide out. The reef line runs to a winch but there is no cleat or spin lock to lock it down... that’s a problem and it’s a problem with every line at the cock pit. We have the lines all run to different things to secure their ends where they come off the winches.

The wind is forcing us east right now rather than south and east but that’s not a problem. When you are sailing to St Thomas the real problem is getting far enough east that when the trades fill in you can reach south. Often you end up sailing as far as Bermuda. Those of us who do this trip a few times a year call the 65 longitude line “Highway 65” because often once you reach that longitude you can head south. The weather guy tells us that we can expect north winds tonight and tomorrow so we will quickly make up our south at that point as well.

We sadly had to throw out some food as the freezer never actually froze anything... don’t worry... Dylan still has LOTS of food to choose from! On a note about Dylan. I spent most of my adult life working with and teaching teenage boys and I have almost never run across a kid with such a teachable and unflappable spirit. He never complains, is always available to help when you need it and is almost too brave. I would sail anywhere with him. He reminds me a lot of... Jimmy. One day I would love to do a trip with Dylan and my son Jimmy as crew. What a hoot that would be! Thanks again David and Lori for being the kind of parents who encourage your kids to stretch and grow through experiences like this one.

Well I have to cut it short... getting hard to type... I have to hold the computer every... well 5 seconds.

Slammin Offshore,

Captain Tofer, John and Dylan

“Sweetest Thing” Day 3

2011-01-20T11:41:00.000-08:00

33 28. 863 N

72 59. 697 W

View out the window right now: Sunshine on the gentle shining swells... blue blue water... blue sky... no wind to speak of so we are motoring with one engine to conserve fuel. XM weather shows a cold front pushing off the coast tonight so we will not have sunshine and no wind for long. We expect higher winds and waves tonight and through tomorrow but we are still waiting on a more specific weather forecast from our weather guy today.

John and Dylan have both been feeling a little woozy so hopefully the calmer day today with some rest will make them feel a little better.

It is breathtakingly beautiful on this little patch of ocean right now. Dylan is watching a movie on my iPod, John is sunbathing in the cockpit up at the helm, and I reading a book on my Kindle and writing. We still have XM for weather so we also can listen to the music, Faith Hill is belting out some pretty song. The boat is gently rising and falling with the swell and you can hear the water rush between the hulls even though we are only making about 6 knots right now.

I just downloaded the weather and starting tonight the wind will increase and tomorrow and Saturday and part of the day Sunday we will be dealing with too much wind, high seas and crazy waves. This moment of calm seas will be forgotten and we will be holding on to any grabhold as we do simple tasks. The soft sound of water along the hulls will be replaced with slamming waves hitting between the two hulls. I know these things but right now it seems far off. We have been preparing for it though. We did a reefing drill. We put each of the three reefs in and pulled them all the way out then did the next. Now when we have to do it in the dark everyone knows their specific task and all of the lines are piled and ready to run smoothly without turning into birds nests at the moment we need them most. We packed away some other stuff that was just sitting around. The boat should be ready for the weather and the crew is a good crew so we will be fine. Don’t panic if you don’t get a blog on Friday or Saturday... we will be fine but writing and connecting to the Iridium phone to send out the email is often more of a task than I want to deal with when I am running a boat through a storm. If you are worried for us just check the SPOT, we update it every 6 hours so you can follow us and know we are OK.

Hope where ever you are right now is as beautiful a spot on the planet as this one.

Captain Tofer, John, and Dylan on board the “Sweetest Thing

“Sweetest Thing” Day 1@2

2011-01-19T11:52:00.001-08:00

For the purpose of this blog I will label the days of this delivery starting on our departure from Norfolk, VA.

Today we woke up in the marina to rain and fog and cold. Our diver showed up around 9:00am to clean the bottom. BRRRRRRRR He had quite the system for working in cold water though. He had built it all himself and it consisted of a instant on propane hot water heater which he had mounted on a heavy duty dolly with a plexiglass wind screen mounted around it. The intake hose for this ran off into the sea water and on the end of it was a commercial grade deep well submersible pump. The outlet hose of the hot water heater ran down the air hose to the regulator. The air came from a motorized Honda air compressor which was mounted on a heavy push cart which had trays on top full of cleaning brushes, scrapers and heavy pads as well as old and new Zincs of a wide variety. The air intake from the compressor ran out of the compressor and up a PVC tube with a wide screened air intake on the end that could be directed into the wind to keep the exhaust from the compressor motor out of the air intake. The diver wore a heavy wetsuit which he had run little hoses down from the neck to both feet and hands and the rest of the water would just pour right down the suit warming the whole wetsuit. It was all a pretty impressive setup and he was a very meticulous and thorough guy. He spent a couple hours cleaning the bottom, checking the zincs and the general condition of the hulls as well. In the end his bill was $250.00 which was pretty reasonable considering the work he did and the water temperature. It will sure speed up the trip.

Once the hulls were clean we were ready to go and Bob was looking pretty sick. He had been suffering from a cold for a couple of days and it had developed into the flu. Fearing he might get us all sick, he reluctantly decided to stay behind. We filled up the fuel and started motoring out to the mouth of the Bay. On the way we passed the newest aircraft carrier “George HW Bush” which was sitting right next to the “Harry Truman.” There was a sub sitting in the next docking bay as well as a missile frigate, Marine he-lo carrier and a bunch of destroyers and some resupply ships. Before dark we raised the main but the wind was too light for it to be of any use yet so we dropped it again.

Day 2

The fog came in through the night so we watched for ships with the Radar. The fog was so thick as we entered the Gulf Stream in the morning that visibility was almost nil. We are crossing the Gulf Stream right now. I am getting my first lessons on the motion of a Cat offshore. The swells are about 6 feet and close together and we are on a beam reach with around 15 knots of wind. In a mono-hull we would be heeled over and the motion would be significant, Loose items would be sliding to the low side and a lee cloth would be to stay in the high side berths. On “Sweetest Thing” right now my coffee mug is sitting on the table (not one of those freaky looking conical mugs designed to stay up right either... just a normal mug) My berth is aft on the “high” side and I have felt more motion at anchor... well at anchor on a cat... Ubunto hehehe... sorry had to throw that in there David and Lori. Don’t get me wrong there IS motion right now but it is very friendly and easy to get used to and nothing as dramatic as the motion of a mono-hull in similar conditions. I do think the feel of a mono-hull under sail is more exhilarating. This doesn’t really feel like sailing to me. But we are going an average of 9 knots with plenty of 10. Hmmmmm I am writing this blog on a Mac and now I am learning to love a Cat... what’s next? Who knows... maybe I will start eating, all veggies, granola bars and going to juice bars with all of the other people next time I visit Seattle. Just kidding.

Riding The Stream on 2 Hulls,

Captain Tofer, John, and Dylan

Norfolk and Computer Headaches

2011-01-17T07:23:00.000-08:00

Norfolk, VA

The “Sweetest Thing” is docked at Waterside Marina in Norfolk, VA waiting on a weather window (tomorrow we hope) to leave for ST Thomas.

Norfolk, VA is a great place to stop, and Waterside is right downtown so if you have guests aboard they can see MacArthur’s tomb and museum, The USS Wisconsin and a Naval museum are within walking distance of the marina on the upper floor of Nauticus. Just a couple of blocks away is the MacArthur Center mall where you can do serious shopping or just catch a movie. The marina also has a shuttle van which will run you to the grocery store or whatever. (We are happy for this service as we somehow forgot to buy Toilet Paper in Annapolis even though it was on our list... I know you are wondering so... we had plenty of paper towels.)

Today we are trying to locate a diver crazy enough to get in the water and clean the hulls and props... Bob has all of his dive gear and has decided to do it if no one else will... I guess someone is crazy enough after all.

On a side note... computers on boats.... arggggggg You cannot live without them nowdays and for all of my deliveries I need one not only for blogging but to stay in touch with owners when I am offshore with their boats. I use Ocens Mail service and an Iridium phone to connect but have had a terrible time with computers. A couple of years ago, after having to replace our third expensive laptop due to one sort of failure or another I decided that, at least for my traveling delivery laptop, to buy a little “disposable” netbook. My first netbook was one of the little Acer Aspires and lasted just over a year, the next one was a Sony which lasted just under a year. My thought was that if I don’t have a lot of money tied up in a computer it wouldn’t hurt so bad when it inevitably failed... that isn’t true though... when it fails I am suddenly out of contact and loose a lot of info, pictures etc as well as the frustration of setting up a new one. What I really needed was a laptop that was reliable. Throughout this entire process the Mac users around me just shook their heads and kept telling me to buy one. My friend Richard who went with me on 3 deliveries last year even works for Apple. I was resistant really only because I didn’t want to shell out the $$$$ for one. I LOVE every Apple product I have ever had and was already sold on the company but $$$$ is short in our lifestyle so it was hard to bite the bullet.

I was in the airport getting ready to work on my sailing resume for the insurance company that handles the “Sweetest Thing” when my latest little netbook failed. There I was at the beginning of a long offshore passage with no computer and forced to ask the owners if I could borrow their laptop in order to finish what they had asked me to arrive at the boat with! The long and the short of it is that I am typing this on a new Macbook Air. You Mac users can now send some comments to help me deal with the WIFE AGRO! So far I love it... not sure about this PAGES software... who wrote this anyway? (Just kidding... it’s great Richard... good work!)

I will blog in the morning and let you all know what it looks like for weather and our departure time.

Bloggin’ on a MAC

Captain Tofer

Delivering The "Sweetest Thing!"

2011-01-16T17:02:00.000-08:00

Thursday morning as I was teaching school for the kids I received a call from a lady in St Thomas who was trying to find a last minute Captain to deliver a 48 foot Fountaine Pajot catamaran from Annapolis, MD to St Thomas. She gave me the owners name and before I could call him he called me. Wade and his friend Bob had bought “Sweetest Thing” this month and wanted to move it to St Thomas where it will be available for captained charters in the Virgin Islands (see www.yachtsweetestthing.com for details.) One of their friends, John Liggett, who had owned and lived aboard his own sailboat in New York Harbor in the 70 and had sailed offshore to Bermuda, signed on for the passage as crew. They decided that it would be a good idea to have a delivery skipper along as well so... Wade asked me if I was available for the delivery and when I said yes he asked me if I could leave that afternoon. I talked them into bringing along another crew member, 15 year old Dylan Milton, who you might remember from this years passage on “Changin’ Tags” from Norfolk to St Thomas. Dylan was great crew on one of the tougher offshore passages we have had, and that’s saying a lot on “Changin’ Tags.” When I asked Dylan if he would like to come along he hesitated for about 5 seconds and said, “Sure, why not?”

Dylan and I flew out of St Thomas that afternoon and landed in Washington, DC at 8:30 that night. The next day was spent getting “Sweetest Thing” Ready for her offshore passage. For those of you who have bought a boat you will understand the lists of things that need to be done to bring them up to offshore standards. We spent the day running some new halyards (Dylan up the mast) , topping lift, secured the dingy and dingy engine and worked through a few issues with some of the boats systems. Saturday we provisioned the boat and sent Dylan back up the mast again to rig the new topping lift. We fueled the boat and were ready to head down the Bay. As we approached the mouth of the Bay this morning we received a call for our weather router who told us that we had missed our window which opened on Friday and now we would have to face north winds crossing the Gulf Stream and possible 50 knot winds on Tuesday. I have been in 50 and even 60+ knots (on Changin’ Tags) so the decision to wait out that weather was an easy one. We turned the boat toward Norfolk and are now tied up at Waterside Marina until Tuesday morning. We will try to bust out of here on Tuesday on the back side of that cold front and get across the Gulf Stream as quickly as we can.

If you would like to be a part of our trip please check back here for updates every day or so. I will try to keep it updated as the weather permits. Spot will also be active every 6 hours while we are underway.

Oh and did I mention that Dylan and I are FREEEEEEEEZZZZZZING?

Waitin’ on Weather

Captain Tofer, Bob, John and Dylan onboard the “Sweetest Thing”

Thanksgiving and Christmas onboard Wandering Dolphin

2010-12-28T07:08:00.000-08:00

You may be wondering what the Holliday season is like for those of us who live on a sailboat. I can assure you that most of the fun and all of the angst that you feel on land during this season is shared by us.

Every year we have an especially busy December starting with Benny’s birthday on the 4th then Kristofer’s on the 19th and Kaleb right after Christmas on the 27th. To top it all off our wedding anniversary is on New Year’s Eve. Let’s just say that to afford a fun December we have to start putting money away about 6 months in advance. Keep in mind we have no credit cards so what we have in the cash bag is all we have for the month!

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving is almost always spent on land at the home of a friend. You may think that is not really special. Thanksgiving should be about family right? Well the friends you meet while cruising are indeed special. We spent a Thanksgiving in Charleston with our friends the Palmgrens, in Oriental with our friends Jimmy and Suzi Smith and their boys, and last year right on the beach with the folks who live on Water Island. The meals we shared with these people are still talked about fondly by our children and I even made some of Maryann Palmgrens sausage balls as an appetizer for our Christmas party this year.

This Thanksgiving was actually the first time since we moved on the boat that we had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with just our family on the boat. The challenge of course is baking and cooking all of the food on a little stove most of you would see in an RV and with less counter space than you might have right around your sink back home. I (Kristofer) have taken on most of the cooking responsibility on our boat and I have developed a system for cooking, cleaning as you go, and using all available space (made a fill-in counter for the sink) and I use the table itself for counter space. The trick is to boot all of the children and the wife off the boat long enough to cook all the stuff needed for a big dinner like Thanksgiving. We also only use our refrigerator as an Ice box now so there is NO WAY we want leftovers. I planned the whole meal down to portions that could be consumed at that one sitting. For example… even a family of 6 doesn’t need a WHOLE turkey for one meal… we cooked a whole turkey breast still on the bone not one of those Spam looking ones… basically a turkey with no legs or wings, I made sweet potatoes with marshmallows (next year cook them in Baileys mmmmm worked out great), Green bean casserole, rolls, stuffing, and mashed potatoes and gravy. Of course we had cranberry sauce and I made an apple pie too.

In the end we ate almost all of the food and had only enough leftover turkey for a sandwich each the next day. The time was special with just the family on board but we missed our Jimmy who was in Wyoming with his Grandmother. If he had been home there would have been NO leftovers!

CHRISTMAS

Christmas is a bit of a challenge for us but I think no more than it would be for landlubbers. We buy only little things but they still cost a lot of money. Have you seen the price of LEGOS!!! The little guys still love the legos which make it seem like they have big gifts on Christmas morning because the box is HUGE but inside there are only a few little bags of blocks… that being said our Lego bag for the kids is one of the HUGE duffel bags used by hunters to pack a whole elk into to take home. Kaleb is still short enough to share his bed with the bag… hopefully when he’s too big to sleep with legos he won’t want them anymore. EmilyAnne is almost always a one-gift kid so she is easy… her gift is usually the most expensive though… and usually electronic. This year she got a Kindle with a cool leather cover that has a built in light on it. (On a side note I got the SAME thing!! WHOOOOOT! Dick and Jill… you sneaky guys!) We also do stockings on Christmas morning but we tend to fill them with only a couple of little toys and a LOT of consumables.

We tend to purge our lives throughout the year. Where when we lived in a house stuff would only find a new spot to sink into oblivion… toys and clothes piled in closets under stairs and never looked at for a year… bigger things like unused high chairs and baby toys piled in an old corner of the garage… even books collecting dust on a shelf or unwatched DVDs just sitting on a shelf for a whole year. Our life has no room for unused or unwanted stuff. We give away books we have read, DVDs are traded off with other boats for new stuff, clothing for the boys and for the most part myself, is really only what we can wear in a few days and wash… only a few pairs of shorts and shirts… if they are not worn enough to throw away in 4 or 5 months they are given away. The little guys have one set of clothes to go out with and the rest of the time they wear beach clothes until they fall apart from too many washings and the sun. The ladies on our boat are a different story though. Emily has more clothes than the rest of us put together. She can look like a beach model or a runway model depending on her mood. Beck has a few nice dresses (mostly because I love the way she looks all dolled up for sushi!) Both girls are the only ones on the boat who own jeans. The guys have no use for jeans.

Our galley has no room for unused stuff so the cooking stuff has been pared down to only the really great stuff that works really well or efficiently… knives are top notch no rust guys, Teflon pans are the only way to go to conserve water… the Rubbermaid ones are even better because you can roll them up and store them in a small space.

We sometimes miss the big Christmas Trees, the snow, and big gifts like say… a four-wheeler ATV… (That was a fun Christmas in Montana), but mostly what we miss is family. We are too far away to afford to visit and too far for them to afford to visit us… so every year goes by missing them all. And this year was our very first without Jimmy and ohhhh how we miss him…

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and a here’s wishing you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR from the crew of WANDERING DOLPHIN!

Captain Tofer

Swimming after work today

2010-12-14T16:22:00.000-08:00

Just another day on WD

Benny and his gear

WD and Benny

Up close with flipper boy

My son the fish.

Thanks for sharing with us,

Becky and the Clan

Christmas Fair

2010-12-11T15:00:00.000-08:00

WE all Scream for Ice Cream

Ice Cream for all

OH what fun

Yum Yum!

Getting my Squeeze in

We had a great night with our friends! Ate local food, looked at crafts, played games and ate some more.

Looking for the next thing to snap a picture of,

Beck

Dec 8, 2010 500 miles left to go!

2010-12-08T11:34:00.001-08:00

I watched the sunrise over a beautiful ocean this morning. The reds and golds and streaks of orange turned the water into an alien planet. There is no place on land where you can see the very same view. I am on watch now and we have all three sails set out full, the wind is blowing gently off the starboard quarter from the NW at only 10 to 12, just enough to keep the boat moving at about 5 knots. The engine is off so the only sounds are the waves slapping against the hull as she pushes through the water, and the music from the stereo that I am playing quietly so I don't wake up Dylan and Dick. I am listening to Dierks Bently, banjo and mandolines and fiddle music early in the morning... You can take the boy out of Montana but...

I have been thinking about what makes these longer offshore trips so facinating to me. I think that part of it is the changes day by day from calm and quiet, soul searching sailing on a painted sea to the gray heaving monster sea and screaming, ripping wind that seems to hate the little boat and its inhabitants. When I used to whitewater kayak the feeling of survival after shooting out of a huge whitewater hole in my little boat sometimes was exhilerating enough to make my face hurt from smiling and I think that these extremes are, perhaps my attraction to offshore sailing.

Today will be as different from the stormy days before as a pretty delicate flower in a mountain meadow in the spring is to a gnarled old dry sagebrush on a cold Wyoming patrure in winter. The sun is already growing hot and soon we will be in the cockpit in only shorts and sunglasses, the waves are dropping and soon will be only glassy swells spitting out schools of flying fish that skim across the water with their little fin/wings trailing drops as the dart back and forth trying to avoid the predator Mahi folowing them just below the surface.

Time to go... I think I will make some French Toast for the guys this morning!

Sailing into the Morning Sun,

Captain Tofer, Capt. Dick, and Dylan

A Bit of Christmas Cheer

2010-12-06T07:38:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas from the WD

Benny being Benny

Our great Lil tree

Em has the the spirit!

Kanyon is a great Elf!

I got Kaleb with a smile.

From our home to yours,

Many Blessing, The Burton's

Enjoy, a little look into our daily lives

2010-12-05T07:49:00.000-08:00

Hello all, I was lucky enough to get a underwater camera this year for my birthday. So, I am snap happy and have pictures of lots of things. Enjoy and little look into our daily life. Blessing, Rebecca

Thanksgiving day, Dad did all the cooking!

Yes, we even get cold when it drops to the low 70's.... I know you feel sorry for us.

Em is my new model .... how much fun is that?

Tofer on the move, this was just a afternoon swim off the boat before I went to work.

What a fun picture! Em is so much fun.

OH, my who is that.... we look so great...... Em begged me not to post this one....

Just bits of our life...
Blessing to you and Yours,
Beck and The Crew

Blog Dec 4 -5, 2010

2010-12-05T07:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day with winds only blowing 10 to 15 from the WNW. We ate Jill's Lasagna and slept each in turn. Dylan worked through some sea sickness issues and felt pretty good by the time his night watches came around. We knew yesterday morning that this was the calm before the storm. Our weather guy Capt. Bob Cook keeps us informed and gives us routing instructions and he had been setting us up for the WSW blow that we knew was coming. We had been steering south for the first couple of days because we knew the high west winds were going to push us east fast. Sure enough at about 9:00pm the westerlies started to fill in at 20+ knots and they continued to build through the night.

Let me paint you the picture of today. I woke up to take my 06:00 watch and Dick came down from the cockpit soaking wet. When the guy coming off watch is dripping seawater and looking grim you know that you are in for work. The sun came up right in front of the boat and I got my first glimpse in daylight of what I had been hearing throughout the night. The sea was slate gray but faded into oranges and reds in front of the boat. The waves had grown to 16 to 18 footers boiling and rolling white foam as they came from behind about every six seconds. The wind was blowing a steady 40 knots gusting to 50 (our highest gust today was 55) and the wind was blowing white spin drift off the tops of every wave like I used to see on the cornices that formed way up high on the peaks when I was skiing in Jackson Hole. When the wind is blowing like this the whole ocean is a living monster, tendrils like moving snakes can be seen just below the surface everywhere you look and little tiny waves on the surface turn into huge waves right before your eyes. When you look right behind the boat every six seconds a new behemoth forms and barrels down on you like a 747 airliner with a similar roar. The roar of the approaching wave is deafened though by the sound of the wind ripping through the rigging and over the sails. The boat almost always rides right up over the top of this mountain and surfs down the back side only to rise again on the next one. Once in a while the boat slides off to the side just a little too far and the white foaming top of the overtaking wave crashes over the boat drenching you with a thousand gallons of water. You almost always can see this coming and have time to hunch your shoulders, tuck your head into your jacket and hold tight with your hands to the sides of the cockpit.

Today the adventure continued with a new twist. The auto pilot decided to continue his strike and every so often quits altogether forcing the guy at the helm to think quick, grab the wheel and fight the boat back onto her coarse an reset the auto pilot. If you are to late she rounds up into the wind and waves and it's a lot of fun getting her back on course in these seas and winds.

We are all doing well, the very fact that I am writing a blog tells you that. We were well rested going into this and our weather guy told us this morning that it would be over "soon," a somewhat cryptic answer but still he is a weather guy.

Thanks for all of your riddles and messages we love to receive them.

"Ridin' The Storm Out,"

Capt. Tofer, Capt Dick and Dylan on "Changin' Tags"

Day 1 and 2, Dec. 2 and 3, 2010

2010-12-03T10:01:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the voyage! "Changin' Tags" is well on her way from Norfolk, VA toward St. Thomas. We left the dock this morning at around 09:00 after a final run to the grocery store, a great breakfast of eggs Benedict at a local cafe, and topping off the water tanks and strapping down the dingy on deck.

Both Dylan and I are used to the warm Caribbean so our bodies simply rebelled against the 40 degree weather! We looked like "Stay Puff Marshmallow Men" in our layers of foul weather gear. As we left the dock three fast little navy boats full of SEALs zipped past us looking firmly ahead... no waves or smiles... what's with that? Then as we approached the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel three HUGE Navy hover craft barreled past us as well. Leaving Norfolk it's hard to forget about our troops overseas. Here's to all of you over there a SALUTE from "Changin' Tags" and a Merry Christmas!

We spent the day motoring in very little wind and low seas around Cape Hatteras. I made some grilled swiss cheese sandwiches for lunch and put roast beast on Dick's and my own... DylAn reminded me at this point that he is a vegetarian... a fact I had known but forgotten. It might have served him better to have reminded me while we were in the grocery store earlier but there is plenty for him to eat and Dick and I get more steak, hot dogs and hamburgers so we are OK with it too.

For supper I made some spaghetti and we all ate quietly trying to stay warm. In the middle of the night our old friend AUTO PILOTI decided that he had had quite enough of our treatment of him and went on strike. Well let me tell you there is absolutely nothing that makes you love a working auto pilot as much as one on strike. Dick and I played around with it while Dylan hand steered around Diamond Shoals at 3:00am. Dick pulled out fuses, we both read the books, we messed with the gain and turned it on and off a bunch of times... finally we gave up and decided to head into Beaufort, NC to get it fixed and then Auto decided to work again and has been steering like a champ ever since. This morning we made our turn to cross the Gulf Stream and if you look at the "SPOT" at you will see that we are finally heading out to sea.

Dylan is doing great although waking him up in the middle of the night has been a very humorous challenge for me. He wakes up staring at you like a deer caught in the headlights, and the first time I woke him up he just went right back to sleep. Once he is up and about he stays awake and alert at the helm and he seems to be adjusting to the motion of a mono-hull with no ill affects so far.

Thanks for all of the riddles from Mike, and Dylan's Aunt... we are working on them. Don't send us answers!!!! we work on them until we solve them.

Hope you all have a beautiful day!

From the Gulf Stream,

Captain Tofer, Capt. Dick and Dylan

Fall Deliveries

2010-11-29T12:50:00.000-08:00

(Our stow-away on the "Marinette" delivery this year)

Every fall I am fortunate enough to deliver a few boats. My two favorite are S/V “Changin’ Tags” and S/V Marinette. Both are center cockpit Island Packets so they are beautiful boats. “Changin’ Tags” is the 46 foot version and “Marinette” is 44 feet. They are so similar in the interior that I am constantly looking for something on one boat that is on the other or expecting to find something that I KNOW should be in a certain spot only to realize after a fruitless search that it’s actually on the other boat.

(S/V Marinette at her berth in Aventura, FL)

“Marinette” moves back and forth from Aventura, Florida to Mamaronac, New York. I have done the trip six times now, two times with the owner Dr. K and his son Mark on board for portions of the trip and the rest of the time with a variety of crew. My son Jimmy crewed for me for three of the trips and I have also had, Richard, Blaine, Mike, and Ross come along. Mike and I just finished the trip from NY to FL right before Thanksgiving. It was a great trip but the weather in the Fall is always a little rough. We had to wait out a gale warning off Cape Hatteras and then beat to windward for about 36 hours off of Charleston in 30+ knots of wind. Island Packets are big, beefy, tough, offshore sailboats but they are not really known for their ability to sail to windward in the best of conditions. In 30 knots of wind and 16 to 20 foot seas… well it’s a stop sign. We made it only a day late though which makes me happy, as a delivery captain I like to be as accurate as possible with my estimates.

(S/V "Changin' Tags" at her berth in St Thomas, USVI)

“Changin’ Tags” moves back and forth from Norfolk, VA to St Thomas, USVI. This is a true bluewater trip and is almost guaranteed to have some sort of excitement. Let me see… we have filled up the fuel tanks 900 miles from land with the help of a Container Ship, the “Desert Serenity;” we have battled gale force winds for the better part of a week; we have turned and run from 3 nasty storms in one trip and been forced to turn tail and scoot away from Norfolk once when we were only 200 miles away. I have wrestled six gallon jugs of fuel back onto the boat which had been washed off the deck in monster seas and were still atatched to the lifelines. The wind blowing so hard I could hardly keep my eyes open. Through it all the owner, Dick Shirley, battled along beside Jimmy and I. He held the boat steady at 6 knots alongside a huge containership while fuel was passed down to the deck on a line, he laughed and joked as we watched the wind guage climb to 67 knots and has always proven to be a great sailor and a great Captain as well. Jimmy came along on most of the “Changin’ Tags” deliveries and I am happy to say that the time he spent out there facing the ocean’s wrath as well as her calm and beauty, and the time he spent with men like Dick have made him into a man and son I can be proud of. We will be leaving Norfolk on December 2nd and we will miss Jimmy but we will be bringing along another young man, 15-year-old Dylan Milton will be crewing in Jimmy’s place. He and his family live aboard a Cat called “Ubunto.” I am sure the trip will be a great experience for Dylan as well.

We love to get messages on the Iridium phone offshore. They are free for you to send and free for us to read. We cannot send you back a reply but pop us off a message every now and then and share the trip with us. All you have to do is go to: http://messaging.iridium.com/ and leave the 8816 that is already there and add our number to it 32521786. In the email line just put your name because we can't email you anyway but then add your message below. There is a counter and each message can only be 160 characters but you can send as many as you want. If you are sending multiple messages just put 1/2 or 1/3 or what ever at the beginning so we know which message of how many because they do not always arrive in order. Also if your message is for a specific crewmember just put it in the email line for example.... Rebecca to Tofer 1/3...

Remember you can follow us on SPOT by clicking on the little word SPOT on the upper left side of the blog where it says "Where we are now". The SPOT shows you exactly where we are every 6 hours or so.

Oh and for Blake on Slow Motion... BREAK OUT THE HARD RIDDLES FOR THIS TRIP!!!

Thanks For Reading!
Captain Tofer

How about a blog from Grenada the day before we leave?

2010-10-08T17:37:00.000-07:00

We have been here a little more than a month now without Becky. We have learned a lot about each other and about how much we all miss and need our mom/wife in our lives. She takes so much of the presure off of me and dulls out my sharper edges… trust me the kids really like it when Dad is as dull as possible. She fills in the holes of love and nurturing with the kids in a way that only a Mom can.

For example if I am approached by one of my children bearing a cut my first reaction, depending on the decibel level of the scream, is to see if there is enough blood spurting out of said cut to make a mess all over the boat. My second reaction is to tell said child to shut the hole in his face before my eardrums break and let me look at it. I am usually rather un-nerved at this point and am not really very gentle as I poke and prod the cut to see if it needs stitches or a band-aid. Either way I dump some alchohol on it clean it with a swab and bandage it up while at the same time telling the child to stop screaming. Splinters are handled with the tip of my pocket knife and alcohol (just like my dad used to do with such afection for me when I was a wee lad.)

Clothing and hygene… I prefer it if they wear one pair of shorts for the week so I don’t have to do as much laundry… T-shirts are wearable until they no longer pass the “sniff-test” and I generally discourage the wearing of any shirts by the boys unless we are going shopping. Teeth are brushed every night or when I notice that they are a shade of yellow that proves to me that the child has been lying to me all week and not brushing them at night when they were told. Showers… what? They have been swimming every afternoon! What kind of dirt can stick to that pruny body? No really I make them shower… when the hair on their head sticks up and cannot be moved without breaking it off… time for shampoo.

Haircuts… moving on…

My wife softens all of that and fixes all the little messes I make out of our offspring by gently cleaning wounded fingers, using a sterile needle to softly prod a splinter from its hiding place, encouraging soapy showers and shampoo, changing shirts and shorts almost every day (we do still live on a boat people!) checking to make sure the teeth are clean after the kid has spent 20 minutes making faces at himself in the head mirror with the water running and still has a dry toothbrush.

Her humor and infectous laugh and big beautiful smile and the sparkle in her sea blue eyes keep me grining from ear to ear. She has been my very best friend for more than 20 years now, she shares my dreams and heartaches and this whole idea that the kids and I could live without her for a couple of months was ludicrous! We won’t make that mistake again mark my words!

Grenada is a beautiful island and the Port Louis Marina was a great place to stay for a very reasonable rate. I would recommend it to anyone. We had a great time with new friends on Ubuntu, EmilyAnne took French lessons, the kids swam the pool almost dry and I had a place to get into the habit of morning running. We actually had a great time for these weeks but again… we would much rather be with Becky.

I will try to send her a couple of updates as we sail and feel free to send us messages on the Iridium phone (they are free) also I will update the spot about every 6 hours so you can track us as we sail by clicking the little “spot” word on our blog page.

God Bless,
Captain Tofer

Unexpected Passage to Grenada

2010-09-08T11:31:00.001-07:00

Just in case you were wondering… we are not in St Thomas anymore… well not all of us anyway. Rebecca is still there waiting for us to return and working at Tickles. The rest of us and Wandering Dolphin are safely in St George’s, Grenada. How exactly did this come about? If you recall we left at the end of July heading south to avoid the Hurricanes and the Auto Pilot quit on us so I was forced to head back to St Thomas rather than attempt a five day sail with four kids hand steering the whole way.

I managed to work out the issues and get it up and running within the next week but the whole emotional mess of leaving Rebecca behind was just something I couldn’t bring myself to do again. I had a couple of good windows and even a call from my friend Dick (“Changin’ Tags”) who was willing to sail with me on the next available window. I just didn’t want to go so I kept putting it off hoping and hoping that no storm would threaten us enough that I would have to head to the mangroves in Salinas or Vieques with the kids to ride it out. We managed to eek out almost all of August before I saw the development of Danielle, Earl, and Fiona in the Eastern Atlantic. I had been watching the weather like a hawk and when I saw these three storms I knew that my last window was that day, Thursday August 26th. Rebecca had that Thursday and Friday off so even though I should have left that day I stayed and we prepared the boat to head for the mangroves. Saturday morning when I left St Thomas I was still not sure if I would be heading for the mangroves or Grenada. It all depended on the wind. I figured if I had the wind to sail south I would just get out of the zone. I knew the path for the hurricane (Earl) already had it curving north and arriving Monday or Tuesday so I figured two days of good sailing would put me south of it’s path and I would personally rather not have to ride out any hurricanes with kids onboard even in the mangroves.

As we left St Thomas I was able to sail south with no problems so south it was. Before leaving this time I had given all of the kids a dramamene so they were drifting off into never never land. The wind was only blowing 10 to 12 from theE SE so the seas were beautiful and low and Wandering Dolphin always feels good, and sails fast close hauled. By evening the kids were waking up and feeling good so we had a chat and I reminded them of the rules. They already knew that offshore they always had to wear a harness and clip in with the tether whenever they went above (even in the cockpit) but this time they were to help make sure DAD did the same thing. I also showed them how to heave to in an emergency, use the radio, set off the EPIRB, and call on the SAT phone. Then I told them our new rules for this passage. They were alowed to be awake whenever they wanted or sleep whenever they wanted day or night. Whenever the engine was running or the solar panels were putting out 13V or more they were allowed to play Wii or watch movies at any time day or night. Snacks, fruit and drink mixes were there for the asking and NO SCHOOL ALLOWED for the duration of the passage. I would never have thought that those few little freedoms would make such a huge difference in a passage. The kids had a ball for five days. Benny eventually found himself helping EmilyAnne with her night watches. She was the only one actually on a watch schedule with me. She was great and never failed to wake me up if she had any question about anything she saw or noticed a ship on AIS or a squall on the radar.

During my 0300 to 0600 watch on Sunday night as I listened to the WX weather on the VHF from NOAA I started to panic. It sounded from the hurricane warnings and watches that had been issued that Earl had sped up and was heading straight for us. I called Beck at 0400 and asked her what she saw on the internet and she called our friend Herman who began to feed us weather info and put my mind at ease that we had already sailed far enough south that we would not be hit by the storm itself. He also gave me routing instructions that helped me avoid the outer bands. THANK YOU HERMAN!!!!

Earl hit St Thomas on Monday and while our friends and Becky were getting nailed with hurricane force winds and boats were dragging anchor or sinking in Honeymoon Bay and Becky and the folks at Island View Guest House were protecting their home and hearth we had west winds clocking to the SW at 18 to 20 with gusts no higher than 25. We tacked that morning and Wandering Dolphin started FLYING south on a beem reach. For 24 hours we made tracks to the south and further from the storm and the one following it.

Tuesday brought light winds from the SE which was exactly where we needed to go to make Grenada so we fell off to a due east reach for St Lucia counting on a clocking of the wind at some point closer to the islands. That day we made Pizza and continued our movie marathon watching the newest Star Trek and having a Wii Brawl tournament.

In the evening as we were sitting in the cockpit watching the sunset when the general call for all hands was issued with the word, “DOLPHIN’S!” EmilyAnne and Benny clipped into the jacklines and made their way to the bow pulpit where they sat to watch the show. We were all enjoying the playfull pod when I saw Kanyon’s eyes grow wide as he watched behind us. I turned to see what he was seeing just in time to catch the monster dorsal fin of a killer whale and smell his breath as he exhaled no more than an arms length from the rail of our cockpit. What Kanyon had seen before I turned around was the whales full face, teeth and black and white head as it surfaced for a breath. For about twenty minutes we watched this pod of killer whales and their attending pod of dolphins until we sailed out of their range.

On Wednesday, September 1st we pulled into the marina at St George’s. Benny looked sad and said,

“I wish we could stay offshore all the time…” When EmilyAnne asked why he replied, “No school, no bedtime, movies and Wii whenever and snacks all the time…. WHY NOT!”

The kids all agree that this was the best passage they have ever had. EmilyAnne was WONDERFUL as crew and by the time we arrived in Grenada we were tacking, gybing, and reefing with ease.

I should have left earlier. I sure should have taken Dick up on his offer and left WAY earlier. I should have at least left on Thursday or Friday. But the decisions we make in life are all colored by our emotions. The hurricanes delude people.. there is plenty of warning now that one is coming but it’s easy to be an optimist and think the storm will just miss you. Usually that’s what it does. Many boats were lost in St Thomas. A friend of ours now has a boat on Honeymoon beach because he didn’t at least move across the bay to a more protected spot. Our mistake this year was that we didn’t stick with our original plan and sail south as a family. Leaving Beck in St Thomas to work made it just too hard to leave when we should have. From now on it’s our intention to always be out of the “zone” during the peak season at least.

Meanwhile, here we are, Grenada is beautiful and the people are great and for once the marina is at a price we can afford.

God Bless,

Captain Tofer

Hurricane Season

2010-07-31T08:08:00.000-07:00

(The state of the tropics RIGHT now!)

I remember living in Montana before we bought the boat, hearing about the hurricanes striking Florida or somewhere else far removed from the Prairies. The stories were interesting but I never really followed the season. Then we bought a boat and kept it in the Bahamas for a few years… suddenly the hurricane season was filled with one scary storm after another. I would watch them come across the Atlantic from my seat at my computer desk and every one of them was a potential to destroy our boat and our dreams of sailing away on it one day.

In 2005 I had just returned from a visit to check on the boat. I had removed most of the stuff from the deck, tied down the sails, checked all the doubled up dock lines and flown home. It wasn’t even a month later that hurricane Francis took aim at Grand Bahama Island where our boat was staying at the marina. I spent 24 hours almost continuously watching the storm on my computer while it sat over the island where Wandering Dolphin was tied and blew at 125mph. My gut hurt the whole time. There was nothing I could do.

After the storm there was no way to get to the island, which had been devastated. I was just starting to think we might get a flight down or possibly a phone call through when another hurricane, Jeanne, took aim again. She missed the island and we sighed a sigh of relief. Then a couple of days later from North of the island, Jeanne turned around 180 degrees and came back to Grand Bahama. She was a smaller more compact storm with even higher winds and she hit the island directly. I was certain that whatever had possibly been left of our boat was now gone for good.

It took almost a month after hurricane Jeanne for us to patch through a phone call to the marina. The dock hand, who I knew well, told me that Wandering Dolphin was fine with only a few scratches in the paint! I was amazed. When we flew down to look at her though, the scratch was huge dents in the bow. The bow cleat had broken during Jeanne and she had spent 6 hours banging against the concrete dock. The aluminum of our boat faired better than the concrete though. There was a HUGE bite out of the dock but the boat was just dented. The sails were shredded, the list was enormous and when all was said and done she was totalled by the insurance company. We bought her back from salvage and refitted her better than new, but now we have a serious respect and fear of the big storms.

Here we sit… in the zone… looks like the Hobos in Salinas will be our refuge once again.

Captain Tofer

eARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

2010-07-25T05:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a great sail. The wind was perfect for a nice beam reach and Wandering Dolphin was moving at 6.5 to 7 kts with only a little bit of jib, the full stays'l, and a double reefed main in 20 knots of wind. The kids were starting to get in the groove of things and asking for lunch and Charlie the dog was hiding somewhere below.

Then the Auto Pilot stopped working... I reset it and it worked for a while... then it stopped working again. We were at the point where we could choose either St Croix by dark or back to St Thomas by dark, we turned around and are anchored again in Honeymoon Bay.

I think the gear failures are my LEAST favorite part of "Livin' The Dream." I am still very discouraged. We had a beautiful window south and may not get another one at this time of year that will be safe enough for me to sail with just my kids.

So why did I turn around? We sailed all last year from here to Trinidad and back without an auto pilot but this time I was sailing with just EmilyAnne and the little boys. I couldn't have safely done that hand steering the whole trip.

So what is next? I have no idea. I am hoping that the problem is simply a callibration issue with our new/used control head and the auto pilot... if it's not I guess we will be discussing new auto pilots in a future blog.

Meanwhile, we are happy to be with Rebecca. At least in turning around I was turning back toward her and if we have to stay here for the hurricane season like ducks in a pond wiating for hunters to shoot us, we are all together for the shoot out.

A Discouraged,
Captain Tofer

Today is the Day!

2010-07-24T02:53:00.000-07:00

We are leaving this morniing. I still have to work on one of the jib winches which was seazed up, but it soaked in corrosion block all night and is moving this morning. There is a Tropical Wave approaching but all of my weather sources say it will be a weak one and it will give us a NE wind which means a quicker and more direct route to Grenada.

If you would like to send us a message on the Iridium phone we would love to hear from you. It is free for you and for us as well. The link is http://messaging.iridium.com/ and all you do is leave in the 8816 number that is already there and add 32521786 to send to us. Put your name in the e-mail spot so we know who is sending but we do not need your email as we will not be emailing anyone but Rebecca.

Blake... riddles were a hoot last time... keep in mind though the average age on our boat this trip is quite a bit lower. :-)

Spot will also be up and running if you would like to follow our position, also Rebecca will be posting a blog every day from us via the Iridium phone and Ocens mail.

God Bless,
Captain Tofer

"If it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen out there!"

2010-07-22T03:54:00.000-07:00

It is very frustrating to wait for the weather window. I have spent a couple of months getting the boat ready to go again and yet here I sit waiting, waiting, waiting. We have been asked by a lot of people what it is like to experience a storm offshore. Most of the family would say, “ I don’t know.”

We are very careful when choosing a weather window for an offshore passage with the family. Jimmy and I have been in some REALLY nasty stuff on deliveries because a delivery is a paid job and the purpose is not pleasure but getting the boat to its destination in good time. The only bad weather stories we have on board Wandering Dolphin are from our first two years owning the boat. At that time I was still new to the whole thing and lived by the Captain Ron montra, “If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there!” Jimmy, EmilyAnne, and I experienced some HUMONGOUS seas in the Gulf Stream with a north wind and that changed my mind. We actually had paid for a professional weather router on that trip… he got it wrong and we suffered the nasty weather. Now I may seek advice on weather but ultimatly I am responsible for my own weather routing and I choose to err on the side of caution, especially where my family is concerned. I am proud to say that after five years out here my wife has yet to experience any Gale force winds and seas. So… I am still waiting… perhaps this weekend I will have the window I need.

Ready to Kick the Tires and Light the Fires,

Captain Tofer

Sailing Tomorrow?

2010-07-20T08:10:00.000-07:00

We are still hoping to sail tomorrow morning. The weather doesn’t look ideal but there will be no threat of actual tropical storms for about four days which will give us the window we need. It may be a wet sail for the first couple of days but, heck, it’s wet sitting here too.

My plan now is to try to make it all the way to Grenada non-stop. The wind will be from the SE which means a close-hauled course. Wandering Dolphin loves to go to windward so that shouldn’t be a problem, but it will slow us down because we will have to tack a few times. If you keep track of our SPOT you will be able to work out a pretty good idea of the tacks we will need to make to hit Grenada.

I will post again in the morning to let you know if we are heading out or not.

Captain Tofer

Waiting for the Weather

2010-07-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

Well we didn't leave on Saturday as planned, again, weather.... there is still one more Tropical Wave out there that should pass over us Monday and Tuesday. We are hoping to sail on Wednesday or Thursday. right now that looks like a good window.

We spent last week in the marina, our first time since last year with Amy and Ellie in Trinidad. The kids thought it was pretty fun to jump off the boat and run over to say, "Hi" to their Mom since Tickles restraunt is right there at the marina. The last few days the novelty had worn off and they were ready to be back on the hook where they could jump off the boat and swim.

This morning we filled up our fuel tank. You may think that this would not really be a notworthy occasion but it is in fact. We only fill our 120 gallon fuel tank once a year and only need part of it even then. Sailing... that's the thing, when we leave this week we will use the engine to pull out of the anchorage and then turn it off only to start it up again when we need to get into another harbor.

The past couple of days we have provisioned for the summer. Not that there is no food in Trinidad but we rented a car and with "Cost-U-Less" and all here it is a lot easier for me than dragging the kids on a little Maxi Taxi in Trinidad for a grocery run.

I will post again right before we leave and of course you will know we are moving by the SPOT.

Captain Tofer

What have WE been up to for the past month?

2010-07-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

(Wandering Dolphin @ Crown Bay Marina / Tickles where Beck works in background)

Remember that LOOOONG list of things that needed to be done on “Wandering Dolphin?” Well It was narrowed down to: #1 URGENT, #2 immediate, #3 important, and #4 I wish.

We decided that before we could head south for the summer we needed to take care of all of the things on the URGENT and immediate lists. I am happy to report that we are finishing up the very last items on that list and it looks like we have a weather window for Grenada on Saturday. Wandering Dolphin will be sailing away from Honeymoon bay for another summer. We will be back the last week of October to spend the fall and Christmas season with family who will be visiting us here. Our sail toward Panama and the canal crossing was backed up a little bit because of the lists mentioned above. We still plan to be through the canal in February or March, 2011 so we can make our first Pacific jump in April and May, 2011.

(Oh MAN.... we are gonna miss Momma)

Our toughest decision this year was to leave Becky in St Thomas for the summer. The dreaded LISTS were very costly and pretty much ate up all of our savings so the choice was for her to come on down to Trinidad this summer but we would have to stay in St Thomas next year until June working to fill the kitty again or she could stay and work through the summer and we could leave after our Christmas get together at Honeymoon Bay next winter. She decided to stay and live at Island View Guest House for the summer while continuing to work at Tickles. Jimmy is in Wyoming now so I will be taking, EmilyAnne, Kanyon, Kaleb, and Benny with me to Trinidad for the summer. It was a tough call and not one any of us wanted to make but sometimes you have to make a hard call to do cool things and this will enable us to keep our weather schedule for the Pacific next year.

(She may be small but she's still a great Hand sailing!)

So the adventure of sailing 3 or 4 days to Grenada will commence on Saturday if our weather window holds out. The kids and I will stay in Grenada for a few weeks and then head on down to Trinidad and our friends at TTSA. We are hoping there will be a lot of kid boats there this summer. We will haul out in October and do a bottom Job before Becky fly’s down to join us for the sail back up to St Thomas.

(Our last haul-out was 3 years ago in Oriental, NC!)

Wandering Dolphin has been feeling the love and is in the best shape she has been in since we refitted her 5 years ago. It will be nice to have AIS in the cockpit. I have been spoiled on deliveries with the safety and confidence AIS gives you. If you have a boat and would like to add AIS without installing a new antenna and all the other junk you need to get it to work, check out the Standard Horizons Matrix AIS GX2100 VHF Radio. For the cost of a new VHF radio and a RAM3 mic you can have AIS at your nav station and at the helm.

We will also be using SPOT on the trip starting on Friday so check in to see where we are and Becky will post the instructions for you to send us messages on our Iridium phone. The riddles would be fun again Blake!

God Bless,
Captain Tofer

Simpatica: Jimmy and the Crew Make it to Panama City, FL

2010-06-10T04:43:00.000-07:00

Jimmy continued on from Key West with the owner of Simpatica. They arrived last night at the marina in Panama City, FL. They only had one day with enough wind for sailing and they didn't see even a hint of the oil spill, so it has not made it that far over at any rate.

Jimmy will be flying to Montana where his Grandmother will pick him up and drive him to Wyoming. He has big plans for the summer and I am sure she has big plans for him... he wants to head into the mountains to Camp and make a trip up to visit his Uncle but I am sure Grandma's plans involve pulling weeds, mowing, painting etc.

Back on Wandering Dolphin we are all finding out that Jimmy did a whole lot to make life easier on us all... little things like filling the generator with fuel, lifting the water jugs, cleaning Shadow. The kids have been reworking the chores and the little guys are washing dishes now.

The boat has some unexpected problems that are keeping us from sailing south. The alternator stopped charging. I have had it checked and it's fine so it has to be a connection at the positive or groound somewhere or it could be the regulator is shot. I have rebuilt the alternator before (just last summer) but still the understanding of these things seems to still be a little beyond my natural abilities so I will have to hire Herman to help me sort out the problem. He knows his stuff though and it is a good idea for me to make sure all of the systems are set up correctly and that I understand those systems before we head into the Pacific. While I am at it I will wire it up for the new solar panels and run the wire for the RAM mic at the helm.

I will keep you all posted on the status of the work and countdown so sailing south.

Captain Tofer

Day 11 Simpatica

2010-06-05T04:04:00.000-07:00

We made it safe and sound to Key West! The last night out was a crazy wil ride across the Gulf Stream in 30 knot gusts of wind, dumping rain (mostly on Richard’s watch again), and lightning all around us. At one point we were forced to turn and run off downwind toward Cuba. That squll blew itself out and we turned back on course. While we motored up the entrance to Key West we watched a spectacular display of American fighter jets. There must have been an airshow nearby.

We met up with Will, the owner of Simpatica, who took us out for a great lunch/ breakfast and later on a steak dinner.

Saturday I will say a goodbye to my son and fly home to Wandering Dolphin. Richard is ready to see his family after almost a month at sea, (he went with us on 2 out of 4 of the deliveries.)

God Bless,

Captain Tofer, Richard, and Jimmy

Blog Day 10 Simpatica

2010-06-03T19:14:00.000-07:00

We just entered the Straights of Florida and will cross the Gulf Stream during the night tonight. If all goes well we should be in Key West tomorrow around noon. There is no wind again today so we are motoring, we still have enough fuel so that shouldn't pose a problem either.

So with our arrival tomorrow we put to rest four back to back deliveries and a full month at sea. The distance we have covered since the middle of May is more than we would have sailed if we had crossed the Atlantic. While this is an unusual job it also is very satisfying to me. I have spent a month with my oldest son and most of a month with a friend who, though I only met him this year, the offshore miles has made into what I hope will be a lifelong friendship.

When I fly back to St Thomas from Key West I leave Jimmy with the owner of Simpatica to continue on up the Gulf Coast of Florida. This will be Jimmy's first time to crew on his own. Jimmy will then fly back to the Rocky Mountains. He will spend the next year living with his Grandparents, finishing school, and then it is his hope to join the US Coast Guard.

With Jimmy moving off the boat Rebecca and I will experience, for the very first time, the joy and concerns faced by parents whose kids head off to start their own lives. The boat will have a little more room in it but that room already seems more like a hole that can't be filled. This summer Wandering Dolphin will be missing a vital crew person as well. I am sure that EmilyAnne and the little boys will begin to take on tasks that Jimmy has always done.

My fall deliveries are already short crewed without him. If any of you are interested in crewing or know anyone who might even want to experience an offshore passage like the one we are about to finish please contact me.

Simpatica: When we left St Thomas I had my doubts about her. I am used to sailing heavier boats with auto pilots, chart plotters, a dodger, (nav lights- kidding), etc. But she has proven to be a good boat and while I would never recommend a Jeaneau for an around the world trip or a long offshore passage, for this trip along the islands, or for the coasts, she sails great and has held her own course with very little work from the guy at the helm.

I will send out one more blog tomorrow to let you know that we made it safe. Thanks to all of you who have ridden along with us, sent us jokes, encouragement, and riddles. You have in a very real way become a part of this passage!

On The Home Stretch,

Captain Tofer, Richard, Jimmy

Day 9: Simpatica: Swimming with Sharks In the DEEP!

2010-06-02T10:27:00.001-07:00

First a little house keeping… Blake on Slow-Mocean… the first riddle which you gave us the answer was great but the second one only took us five minutes to solve… I am certain you have a better riddle in your arsenal? Try again… please… we like it.

To the crew of “Salt and Light” thanks for your message and no we can’t send out free text just receive.. sorry to hear the boat has an offer we secretly hoped you would be “forced” to resume cruising, also not sure you know who Richard is… you guys met his family at the boat show and told them to find us in the USVI… they did and I have to send out a thanks for that as they are great friends.

To the crew of Providence, thanks guys! Hope to see you out cruising again… you are the folks on the Gary Mull boat like Wandering Dolphin right?

To Herman… no more messages? Stop….?

OK that’s enough of that on to todays story.

The wind died last night about the time we passed another sailboat in the dark. We chatted with them for a little bit on the radio… they were heading to the DR from Key West… seems like the wrong way to me this time of year. It was nice to talk to another couple of sailors though. We rolled in the flapping jiib and kicked over the motor and started puttering down the rumb line. By morning the sea was flat calm and the wind was nonexistant. The boat started to get unbearably hot below so at noon we decided to cool off by going for a swim. We turned off the engine, heaved the boat to (well tied off the wheel to one side) and threw off a couple of long lines and… went swimming. I jumped off the back showered then ran up and jumped off the bow pulpit. Richard did a gracefull dive or two off the back and we laughed at Jimmy who has always had an “irrational” fear of the deep water way offshore. Keep in mind the sea is as calm as a pool and you can see down 30 feet it is so clear. We stream lines to catch and the swim ladder is down… also one person always stays on the boat. Jimmy has NEVER been willing to do this on any of our past trips… on “Changin Tags” Dick almost had him convinced once but he never would do it. This time I put a lot of pressure on him, ok I was even threatening to throw him off (in fun) and when he was almost ready to jump in I started to try to hit his fingers which were gripping the stern rail… we were all laughing and then Jimmy jumped in and dipped under and came up to the swim platform to shower with the little shower on the back. He was just about to jump in again to rinse and he looked in and right under the swim ladder about six feet down was a HUGE (10 to 12 feet at least NO LIE) black tip shark. He started to stutter and say things in a language I have never heard before. We spent the next 30 minutes trying to get it to come even closer by throwing over left over food and garbage… I don’t think we will see Jimmy jumping off a boat offshore ever again! To be fair… I am not sure Richard or I will either hahahaha.

Lunch Time,

Captain Tofer, Richard, and Jimmy

Day 8 Simpatica

2010-06-01T09:42:00.001-07:00

We are off the coast of Cuba now, about to enter the narrow passage known as the Old Bahama Channel. This area is actually divided by traffic separation zones for large ships. It will be interesting sailing through it in the dark because we still have to gibe as we are running right downwind. Today we had to gibe to keep out of the way of a freighter. Right after we gibed the officer on board called us on the radio. It seems he owns a sailboat and wished he could switch places with us.

What have we been doing to pass the time? Well ever since the XM radio on the chart plotter has started working we not only have weather right on our little Garmin but we also have XM channels so we have been listening to Laugh USA for almost 48 hours straight. It is nice to hear giggles and belly laughs from the guy at the helm even late into the night. Thanks for loaning us the xm antenna Dick and Jill!

Today we received a riddle from Blake on Slow-Mocean. It has kept us busy for most of the day and I was going to post it on the blog and have readers send us ideas... but Blake broke the cardinal rule of riddles... NEVER GIVE UP THE ANSWER! He just sent us a message with the answer... OK Blake make up for it and send us another one!

Just as a side note the food is running out... glad we will be there in 2 days... Richard's family will get a kick out of this... He is in the cockpit right now BBQing spam with left over Terriaki sauce hahahaha! When I told him to throw a can of Spam in the cart he was against it... todays meal may only confirm his worst fears.

Riddle Me This,

Captain Tofer, Richard and Jimmy

Instant messages

2010-06-01T04:33:00.000-07:00

They love to hear from you while they are away!

If you would like to pop the guys off a free instant message tothe Iridium phone follow this link:

http://messaging.iridium.com/ you leave the number 8816 that is already in the number slot and add our number to it 32521786 then just type in your message. Don't bother putting your email in the email line as it just uses up the number of letters you can type. (160 total per message) But you can send as many as you like and they are free. When the beep goes off from the phone we all jump to see what it says...

Thanks for all of the support for them,
Rebecca

Day 6-7 Simpatica: Windward Passage & Oassis

2010-06-01T04:27:00.001-07:00

Yesterday the wind increased to 20 from the East which gave us some exhilerating downwind sailing in this light weight boat. Richard learned the lesson that it’s always prudent to reef the sails at the same wind speed downwind as you do upwind. For those of you who don’t sail let me explain. When you are sailing to windward (into the wind) the forward motion of the boat creates apparent wind that increases the force of the overall wind, you are also feeling hit on your face, the waves are crashing over the bow and the boat is often burying into the oncoming waves. In those cercumstances it is very easy to tell that life is becoming unbearable and you want to reef. When you are sailing downwind the sails are out to the side and the boat is surfing with the following waves and you cannot really tell that the boat is becoming overpowered. It becomes harder to steer as it surfs and slides down waves but that actually is more fun than worrysome (at least at 20 knots or less) so it is harder to convince yourself as the wind increases that you need to reef. The problem is that the speed of the overpowered boat and the pressures put on those downwind sails are intense and can very easily break something. As the boat slides down the waves it often turns to one side or the other which can very quickly cause an accidental gibe. We managed to get our sails reefed with no damage but it required rolling in the jib and motoring into big swells while we lowered the now centered main, setting the reef and falling off again pulling out the jib. In Richard’s words, “That was exciting!”

The swells in the Windward Passage were impressive, the current and wind increase in that large passage between the islands of Hispanola and Cuba, make for some large and often confused seas. This is a very popular route for large vessels as well and we had to call a couple of them to let them know that we were there. One of the vessels that passed us at only 1 mile off our port side was the “Oasis of The Seas” the largest cruise ship in the world. We have seen her this season every Tuesday as she passed our little anchorage at Honeymoon Bay in St Thomas, let me just say, she is way more impressive offshore at only 1 mile from your little sailboat.

We continue to sail, although the wind has fallen to a more manageable 10 to 12 knots still out of the east. We only have to run the engine to keep the batteries topped off now so our fuel should be good for the rest of the trip. Thanks for the weather updates on the Iridium Herman and Blake. Jill the XM weather is on now so thank you guys as well… Jimmy is also enjoying his watch more now that he can listen to the comedy station.

Time to make some lunch,

Captain Tofer, Richard and Jimmy

Day 5 – 6 Simpatica

2010-05-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were all checked out and cleared to leave the Dominican Republic at 6:00am. All we had to do was check in with the Navy and give them their $20.00 US Bill and we were free to go. But, alas, the search for replacement bulbs the day before had been fruitless and we had to bite the bullet and replace the lights altogether (this was a good idea anyway as the old ones were in very bad shape) but the new nav lights would not be delivered to the boat until around 9:00am. I got up at 6:00am and had a little chat, mostly via sign language as my Spanish is almost nonexistant and his English was worse, with the Navy guy. Dispite the language barrier I was able to explain that we were fixing the lights and needed to leave at 10:00am instead of 6:00am. Once he understood he smiled and said “No problemo!”

The new lights were delivered right on time, which is actually a small miracle in itself, and Richard worked his magic with the electrical connections and we were ready to go at 10:00am. Jimmy went to tell the Navy guy that we were just finishing up and would be ready to leave by the time they made it to the boat and the Navy guy said, through an interpreter,…. “NOOOOOO…. Now you cannot leave… you have to recheck in with customs, immigration and the drug enforcement guy will have to come and inspect your vessel once again…. Then we can check you out…” Jimmy came and told me the news and I responded in a typical Kristofer manner… “Well fine lets just leave!” I thought better of it and went to talk to them myself and it turned out that the Customs lady and immigration officials both thought this was all silly and that we were fine to leave with the papers they had given us for 6:00am. The navy guy himself didn’t care either, as long as he got his $20.00, it turned out it was the drug enforcement official we were waiting on. He wanted to come back to inspect the vessel again. He had arrived the day before after we had already been docked and checked in for six hours (plenty of time for a full shipment to have been unloaded had we been drug dealers) he looked around the boat, lifted the cusion on the vberth bunk, opened the door to the head, and got on the phone with a buddy who wanted to chat with us about the boat being for sale (it had signs up) he said he wanted to come see the boat at 4:00am the next day since they were going fishing that day. We told him 4:00am was too early but to come by that evening… “noooo can’t do that……” So it was painfully obvious to us that the drug enforcement guy had simply decided to hold us there until his buddies were done fishing and could come look at the boat by telling the Navy he needed to inspect us again.

This sort of silly abuse of power is one of the things that disgusts me with the DR. We had stuff like this happen to us on our last visit to Luperon. Most people just shrug and hand out cash like toilet paper to every little government flunky that shows up… I HATE it! But there is really nothing one can do. I did go back up and chat with the marina and tell them that this was the sort of story that would keep cruisers from stopping at a nice place like theirs and that if we didn’t get underway soon I would have to spread the word. We waited and around noon the Navy guy showed up with a marina employee who pretended to do a drug inspection, we handed out the $20.00 and sailed off.

There was no wind for the rest of the day and night and today continues to by flat calm so we are burning fuel hoping for wind. We have enough fuel to motor 500 of the 700 miles we have left…

I have to mention two things from last night:

The sunset was the most beautiful one I have ever seen in my life, the colors in the clouds where the sun itself had set were reflecting the teal colors of the shallow banks of the Bahamas and then the sky turned a light pink fading into a light purple and as you looked all the way toward the eastern horizon over your shoulder it turned darker and darker purple into an almost violet color, the sea itself was dark purple all around us with flashes of the teal reflected on it. Simply amazing.

Then in the pitch dark before the moon had rison we began to feel bumps in the hull and when we looked closer there were whole branches and at one point a whole HUGE tree including the roots floated by us within reach had we reached out our arms. It gave Jimmy quite a fright at the helm. We were forced to shut down the engine and sail at 3 knots for a couple of hours so we didn’t snag something in the prop and so if we hit something it might not sink us.

All is well so far today. Thanks for the weather messages and continuing encouragement… if youu would like to send us a message on the Iridium check out the blog at the beginning of this passage to find out how. We love to get them and they are free for you to send and for us to receive.

Passing Haiti Right Now (check out the SPOT),

Captain Tofer, Richard and Jimmy

Day 3 and 4 Simpatica Delivery

2010-05-28T13:27:00.001-07:00

Day 3 and 4 Simpatica: Sailing, Stopping for fuel and Nav Lights:

Day 3 was great. We sailed all day only running the engine for a couple of hours for battery charging. The wind was only blowing about 12 to 14 but the boat sailed along on a beem reach all day at 6 to 7 knots. It kept up untill this morning (day 4) and then died away all together. Today we headed for Ocean World in the Dominican republic because we are able to dock there and do all the check in rigamaroll and get fuel and HOPEFULLY light bulbs for the nav lights which have been failing us one after the other.

The other night the red and green sidelights failed altogether and Richard and I dug around up forward until we located the comon connection which was coroded. Richard reconnected them while bouncing around in the Vberth on his back with his head stuffed in a little compartment. The Green then went on but the Red was still out. The next morning we checked the red bulb and it was totaled. We checked on the white stern light which was failing intermitently and it was also coroded to the point of near failure. We figured that was ok because in a pinch we could turn off the steaming light and with no stern light we could just use the all around white anchor light… but it only stayed on half way through last night before it failed as well. Soooo being offshore with no nav lights is a big mistake so it contributed in a big way to our decision to pull in to Ocean World today.

I am sitting here at the dock now, we have filled the fridge with ice, done our laundry and filled up with fuel and some guy here ran off on his little scooter with a wad of Jimmy’s cash to see if he could find us 3 new Nav bulbs… I am not very optimistic at this point and since we are all checked out already to leave early in the morning and we have a great weather window to continue our quest for Key West.

Hope he shows up soon. One good thing about stopping… Jimmy, Richard and I have been jonesing for cheeseburgers and theres a place here to get em.

Frustrated,
Captain Tofer

Day 2 Simpatica : Raining on Richard

2010-05-27T15:44:00.000-07:00

Day 2 was mostly free of stress. We fell into the groove of our watch schedules. We are using the same schedule we used on Marinette from Fort Lauderdale to New York so the three of us got used to it pretty quick. The Shedule is: Tofer 6am-10am, Jimmy 10am-2pm, Richard 2pm-6pm, Tofer 6pm-8pm, Jimmy 8pm-10pm, Richard 10pm-midnight, Tofer midnight-2am, Jimmy 2am-4am, Richard 4am-6am.

This schedule works beautifully and even seems ok when hand steering. We were a bit concerned that the 4 hour day watches might be to much but they work fine so far.

The rain fell in buckets on both of Richard’s day watches while leaving jimmy damp but dry on ours. Richard’s spirits seemed to fall a bit for some reason. The rain also brought to light all of the leaks on the boat. There are a lot but the most troubling was the one over the Nav station where we keep all of the electronics, inverter, Iridium phone etc. We covered it all with plastic bags and towels and it all survived.

We sure enjoy getting your messages. Thanks for the encouragement (Sumoceaan) and jokes (Slowmocean).

We finally have a little wind and are actually sailing with all sails full on a beam reach SW wind @ 8-12 at about 6.5 to 7 knots. The plan is still to stop at Ocean World in the DR for fuel and to check the weather situation before pushing on toward Key West.

Have a GREAT Day,

Captain Tofer, Richard, and Jimmy

Day1, dead downwind, deadheads, and dolphins

2010-05-26T16:19:00.000-07:00

Day 1 sailing from St Thomas to Key West on board sailing vessel Simpatica was not without excitement and new challenges. Simpatica is a 41 foot Jeaneau and for a guy who sails a beefy Aluminum cutter made to sail in the Antarctic and delivers mostly full keeled Island Packets she has taken a little getting used to. For example, as I speak the wind is blowing dead downwind at only about 8knots, in an Island Packet we would be motoring but this light little boat is actually sailing wing on wing at an average of 4.5knots. Being a delivery skipper I take pride in getting the boat to the destination as fast as I can, so why don’t I kick on the Iron Genny? These boats are not really meant for long ocean passages and so they don’t waste a lot of extra space for things like… fuel… she holds 37 gallons and we added another 40 in jerry jugs. Even with our fuel conservation we will have to stop in the Dominican Republic to fuel up.

Sailing dead downwind is a challenge by itself but Simpatica doesn’t have an autopilot so we get to hand steer the whole way. While sailing wing on wing has its advantages, (balanced helm and good boat speed) it takes a great deal of patience and concentration to keep her from Gybing. We have the boom prevented out but a full on gybe can still put enough pressure on the gear to damage something… it’s just better not to have an accidental gybe.

Deadheads… now some of you might be thinking we have run into a boatload of Grateful Dead fans in tie dye with long scraggly beards… I wish… they wouldn’t put a hole in the boat like the deadheads I am referring to. A deadhead is a huge log (tree actually) that floats straight up and down in the water… we have seen a few of them in the past 24 hours here on the North Coast of Puerto Rico along with any number of rather large logs and branches floating with birds perched on them. The danger of deadheads is that they are almost impossible to see and certainly are impossible to see at night. If you hit one just right while coming down from a rising wave you could hole a light boat like this… keeps us vigilant.

On a trip like this, especially in a boat that is unfamiliar to us we check the bilges regularly, usually only to find a little water in the bottom. Yesterday when we checked it the second time the bilge was full, the engine well was full, and the well by the packing gland was full. Nothing gets a sailors heart pounding like a new and significant influx of water in the bilge. Richard and I began pulling up floor boards and beds trying to track down the water. We pulled out a bucket and a kayak bilge pump to help get the water under control as the little bilge pump couldn’t keep up with it. My fear was that we had either hit a deadhead or the drippless packing gland was no longer dripless (not much you can do if those go out that’s one reason I still use flax packing on Wandering Dolphin.) Once the water was all pumped out we could tell that it was coming from somewhere aft of the engine… we had just filled the water tanks (located aft of the engine) before we left St Thomas, so I decided to taste the water to see if it was salt or fresh… to our relief it was fresh water. One of the tanks must have a leak high on the tank so when we heeled over it leaked into the bilge. It has since stopped so the leak must be above the water level in the tank now.

We went from near panic looking for a hole in the boat to laughing in the cockpit and fixing steak for dinner within about 30 minutes. That is actually pretty typical offshore. Things are either really great or really terrible with very little middle ground.

I have the 6:00am watch and within moments of taking the wheel from Richard a pod of spotted dolphins showed up and, as if to announce themselves, or maybe just say “hi” one of them jumped at least 8 feet out of the water and did a full back flip just for me. I have never seen anything like it outside of Sea World. They zipped up to the side of the boat like 8 or 10 torpedoes and proceeded to play in the bow wake for Richard.

It’s all quiet on the boat right now; Jimmy is at the helm on watch and Richard it playing with his iPad.

Hope Your Day is as Beautiful as Ours is Right Now,

Captain Tofer, Richard and Jimmy

Life raft is here so we are OFF!

2010-05-25T03:30:00.000-07:00

Jimmy, Richard and I are setting sail for Key West this morning. Keep an eye on the SPOT to see where we are.

If you would like to pop us off a free instant message to our Iridium phone follow this link:

http://messaging.iridium.com/ you leave the number 8816 that is already in the number slot and add our number to it 32521786 then just type in your message. Don't bother putting your email in the email line as it just uses up the number of letters you can type. (160 total per message) But you can send as many as you like and they are free. When the beep goes off from the phone we all jump to see what it says...

I will.... once again try to blog... hopefully with my Ocens mail I can do it this time.

Sailing,
Captain Tofer, Jimmy and Richard onboard Simpatico

Waiting On a Liferaft

2010-05-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

The boat we are supposed to deliver from St Thomas to Key West is ready to go. All of the provisions are stowed, the dingy is tied down on the foredeck, our personal stuff is in our space and the chartplotter, Iridium phone, and Spot are all set up and ready. The crew is about as psyched as they can get for hand steering over 1000 miles. The weather is even good to go… so… why are we still sitting at the dock?

The liferaft that was rented for us to take along is somewhere at customs.

This trip on this boat at this time of year = liferaft needed, so we wait… nothing ever happens the way it’s supposed to in the islands. Things are done in their own time and at their own pace… it sure is hard not to get anxious though, we need to get moving to beat the hurricane season.

I will keep you updated.

Captain Tofer

Iridium Woes

2010-05-20T19:13:00.000-07:00

Iridium Phone and E-mail

Well jimmy and I are back from our first two deliveries. Both the trip from St Thomas to Norfolk and the one from Fort Lauderdale to New York went nearly perfect. The “Changin’ Tags” trip to Norfolk ended up in Beaufort, NC because of a cold front pushing off the coast keeping us from a trip around the cape. The Marinette delivery from Florida to New York was a race against similar cold fronts but once we pulled ahead of them we managed to stay in front (thanks to the XM weather feature on our Garmin chart plotter.) The only mishap was that on the second day out of Lauderdale I was thrown across the cabin by an obnoxious wave and landed on my laptop… crunch. On the trip to NY my friend Richard came along and it was great to have an extra hand and another guy to laugh with and talk about pretty much everything under the sun. “What do YOU think the world would be like if everyone died a horrible death from a manmade virus?” “How would YOU stop the oil from leaking into all of the worlds oceans?” “If were asked to go to Mars would you say yes?” Yeah those are just a few of the crazy topics that come up when you are alone to long with nothing but ocean to look at and nothing to do but read and listen to music.

It was my intention to blog at least every other day on those deliveries but… well lets have a little chat about Iridium. Iridium is a GREAT thing to have. It is amazing to me that I can call my wife from the middle of an ocean and talk with her like she’s right there. The free instant messages are the BEST! When the phone beeps I jump up and see what it says and it’s like I have been transported for a moment to her side. Just to know that everything is Ok with the family takes a load of worry off a sailors mind. But… the main reason we wanted the phone was to send and receive email. Iridium doesn’t tell you that the software they give you with the phone is USELESS… trust me it is… it is slooooooow and when you are paying $1.50 per minute a 3 minute download of simple emails is ridiculous! Even after that it shows the emails have been sent but they NEVER actually arrive. I sent out 3 or four blogs for Beck to load on this site and she never got one of them. The cost for those useless blogs that never made it almost $25.00.

But I have since found the solution. www.ocens.com Ocens is a company that makes an email and weather grib viewer to be used with Sat phones. The first thing they do when they walk you through the installation (yep a real person talks you through it and they don’t even charge you a crazy fee for the help) then they check it all with you and make sure it is functioning properly before they let you go. They even make a sailblogs quick blogger for the sat phone… of course I don’t use sailblogs much anymore… I may have to on long passages now though. The wonderful thing is… in less than 30 seconds I can now send and receive email and it actually makes it to its destination. In my opinion Ocens is the only way to go for offshore email using your Sat phone. Check it out!

Jimmy and Richard and I will be leaving on Sunday to deliver a sailboat from St Thomas to Key West. This boat doesn’t have a dodger or autopilot… I will try again with the blogs now that I can send emails. Hopefully you will get to share with us what is bound to be an interesting delivery.

Once we are under way Rebecca will post the link and number for you to send us free instant messages… we would love to hear from you and I will even try to answer any questions you send us on a following blog. Remember to hit the word SPOT on our blog to follow a link that shows you right where we are as we sail.

God Bless,
Captain Tofer

Leaving For Norfolk

2010-04-30T18:04:00.000-07:00

Well the "Changin' Tags" delivery is getting underway a few days later than we expected. When Dick and Jill went on their last little BVI cruise the auto pilot went out. I, for one, am happy that if it was going to happen it happened BEFORE we set sail for Norfolk. The auto pilot sure makes life a lot nicer on those long passages. It is supposed to be fixed in the morning first thing and we will be able to head out imediatly after that.

I will be updating our position with SPOT if you would like to follow us and Rebecca will be posting the blogs I write on the way. It makes my deliveries seem a little less lonely if I know that there are a few people reading as we go.

Sailing Soon,
Captain Tofer

Beck on Vacation and Deliveries Coming

2010-04-24T05:29:00.000-07:00

Rebecca left on Thursday morning for a few days with her friend in Oklahoma. It has been a few years since she was able to get away by herself. We are all missing her and can't wait for her to get home.

Jimmy and I leave on the first of 3 back to back deliveries on the 28th. Our first one is on s/v "Changin Tags" we will be going with her owner Dick Shirley to Norfolk, VA. I hope to have the Iridium sat phone up and sending emails so I can write a little blog every day letting you know what is happening on the 10 day offshore trip. In the past we have had some pretty wild rides on "Changin Tags." Last January we were in Gale Force winds for almost a week but she is a great boat (Island Packet 465) and Dick, Jimmy and I have been through some pretty rough stuff together so it is always a pleasure to sail on her.

We hope to arrive in Norfolk sometime around the 7th of May where we will grab a flight to Miami and try to get offshore on the 8th if possible. S/V Marinette is an island Packet 445 that Jimmy and I have run up and down the coast a bunch of times. She is a sweet ride and not afraid of the Gulf Stream. Last year on the northbound trip we took her from Fort Lauderdale to New York in just seven days. we hope to repeat that again this year so we can fly out of New York for St Thomas on the 16th of May.

Our next delivery will be leaving from St Thomas on the 17th or 18th of May and heading for Key West, Florida. The boat is a Jeaneau 40 with no Auto Pilot and a flat out down wind sail of 10 days... there was no way Jimmy and i could have hand steered that boat all the way to Florida but my friend Richard Cave (who owns the boat "Cave Dweller" which we just delivered to Trinidad) has agreed to come along for the sail. That trip should be a great sail, downwind all the way, but as any sailor knows, steering a boat downwind requires vigilance and the reality is that most auto pilots can't handle the job as well as a human.

I will be blogging throughout these trips and using the little SPOT device so if you want to follow along and check out our progress over your coffee you can see what the life of a delivery skipper and crew is like offshore. The SPOT word up under "Where Are We Now" will send you to a new page with the Google Map showing where we are at that time. If you change it from Map to Satalite view you can even see what the depth of the water is where we are. The spot point on there right now are the left over ones from our trip to Trinidad. I will up date the blog and let you know what's up before we head out on the 28th.

God Bless,
Captain Tofer

Working Out The Details

2010-04-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

As we are getting ready for this summers big push to Panama, through the canal, and on the long offshore passage to Hawaii. There are a lot of little details we have to work out.

Charlie the dog: Charlie was not an intended member of our crew. We actually had to leave our beloved Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Griz, with our friends the Ewings when we moved on the boat. This was one of the hardest sacrifices our family had to make when we moved on the boat but we knew that Griz was too old and too big to get on and off the boat every day. When we were in Charleston some friends of ours had bought this cute little Bichon Frise puppy for their Mom for Christmas and the Dad said "NO WAY!" so we rescued the little guy who was also sick as a ...mmm.. dog at the time. We named the cute little ball of fur Charlie, after Charleston, and after a bumpy start with the Captain ( he chewed as a puppy... jib halyards, boat shoes, docklines which were still attached to the dock) he learned how to behave like a true salty dog and has been a lovable addition to our crew and family. Charlie lives on the boat and rarely goes ashore. He uses a box on the deck for natures call and considers himself the Security Officer onboard. He gets sea sick on every passage but has never abandoned ship at the end. When we decided (spontaniously) to take on a dog on the boat we really didn't do our homework. There are a lot of places you simply cannot go if you have a dog. Hawaii is almost one of those. Hawaii has NO rabies and they, with good reason, are not taking any chances. To bring a dog to Hawaii one must go through quite a procedure. The list is about 5 pages long and costs aboput $300.00 we will also not be allowed to stop in Hilo on arrival but have to continue on to Oahu because of the dog. You may think the extra 12 hours or so of sailing is no big deal at the end of a 4800 mile passage but I assure you... IT IS A HUGE DEAL. Charlie is now a member of our crew and our trip will not happen without him so... we do what we have to do. If you are considering taking a pet crusing with you.... think long and hard about it and do your homework.

Iridium Phone: When we bought the boat in 2003 I purchased an Iridium sat phone. While it was one of the best safety purchases I have ever made it is VERY expensive, both at the initial outset to buy the phone and to keep minutes on the SIM card. When I bought our phone the company had just come out with the next generation phone, the difference in the price of the new phone or the price of a new/old version was about $300.00 so I bought the old phone (9500) and now I am regretting it. The technology has changed so much in the past seven years that my older phone needs a software upgrade that the phones internal memory cannot handle in order to connect for data calls. It still works fine for voice but messaging and data are out and that is what we primarily use our phone for. Iridium also has a feature that allows short text messages to be sent to the phone for free... we use this feature to recieve weather reports and short messages from home. So we have to get a new Iridium phone and are faced with the same exact problem... do we buy the newest phone (9555) which has a direct USB connect for e-mail and data or the last model (9505a) which works but may not be usable in a few years. the difference again is around $300 to $400. Oh and if anyone reading this wants an older Iridium phone I will sell you one cheap hahaha.

EPIRB: Our Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon is from 1997 so when I took it in for servicing I was prepared to have them say that we would need a new one. These little units are about $1500.00 but no offshore sailor should leave home without one. In my opinion they are even more important than a life raft. The good folks at ACR who manufactured our beacon are not just out to make a buck though. They truly want to use technology to save lives and they do. The deal they have is that if you bring in your old beacon for servicing and it does not measure up with a new battery and servicing they will buy it back from you by giving you a new comperable version of the beacon for half price. When I left the beacon to be serviced I was again prepared for them to say... "No good, get a new one buddy." Instead, they replaced the battery and serviced it and it passed all of the checks with flying colors and my beacon is just like new for about $400.00 DON'T throw away and old beacon if you have one onboard!

SPOT: Spot is a niffty little gadget we just picked up. It's a pretty simple little GPS unit that sends out your position and anyone with the link can track your position on the web using Google Maps. It is relativly inexpensive (the new ones SPOT2 are around $140.00 and the older ones are around $100.00 + $99.00 per year for service) The SPOT you to manually send out your position report (the SPOT 2 also has a tracking feature that does an automatic tracking for 24 hours). They also have preprogramed messages that can be sent out to people you have put on your contacts. If a cruiser has a SPOT and an Iridium phone you can send out your position report for free and recieve the weather report from your weather guy for free as well. Will this mean that we actually only do email every other day or so on a long passage? I am not sure only time will tell. But it certainly adds one more measure of safety in the case of an emergency.

Click on the little SPOT word under the "Where are we Now" link on the side and it will send you right to a little google map with our current position. I will be testing out the spot on my coming deliveries so follow along if you would like.

God Bless,
Captain Tofer

Sailing Shadow

2010-03-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

The kids went out for a little sail yesterday on our little hard dingy Shadow. If you don't remember the story of Shadow you can look back in the Sailblogs archives for Oriental. We rescued this little Dyer Dow from a pile of decomposing dingys in a shed and last year aquired a whole sailing rig from a Perrywinkle which we bought from some cruisers here. The Perrywinkle was a little too small for our family so we refitted the rig for Shadow.

It's great to watch the kids tacking and jibing their way through all the boats and the experience makes better sailors out of all of us.

Enjoy the pictures.

Captain Tofer

Another Big Job Ticked off the LIST!

2010-03-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

(The New Stove)

A New Stove! As I mentioned on the last post, one of the jobs we had was to replace our Force 10 Galley Stove. The old one was rusted out inside the oven and none of the burners on top were reliable. Not really too bad if you consider that the stove was first installed in 1989.

(The Old Stove)

The problem with replacing anything on a boat is the expense. This little propane stove is TINY compared to a home range and where you can get a VERY nice range for your house around $700.00 they wanted $2070.00 here in the islands for the little marine stove. Fortunatly Becky met a great guy named Captain Jim who was staying at the marina and ate a lot of meals at Tickles. He had West Marine, Port Supply and helped us get our new stove for only $1350.00 with shipping and it arrived in only 2 days from the mainland!

(Happy Tofer)

OUCH! $1350.00 is a LOT of money for what is basically the same little oven and stove you find in RVs. The real difference is in the quality. These are very well built and built out of stainless steel rather than tin like the ones you find in a camper trailer. But still the real reason they cost so much.... they are made for a boat.

(Happy Beck)

It only took a few hours to pull the old one out and put in some blocks for the Gimbals, this stove, although made by the same company was the closest fit to what the old one was and it was narrower but deeper. Figure that one out... this company HAS to know that their stoves will be bought to replace their old ones so why mess with the sizes? At least make a few with the same dimensions as your old ones! Anyway both Beck and I were very happy to be able to cook and BAKE once again!

Gotta go make supper!

Captain Tofer

Getting The Boat Ready

2010-03-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

A lot of the people I have talked too, who dream of sailing and cruising as a lifestyle, seriously underestimate the amount of time and money they will need to maintain their boat in a “ready for sea” condition. I am flabbergasted at the constant repairs and maintenance our boat requires. It is almost a full time job just to keep up with it and requires a full time job to pay for it.

We have set our sights on Hawaii for next winter and the boat needs a bit more attention than normal when facing a non-stop offshore passage of 4800 nautical miles. Here is our list:

- Haul Out with bottom Job, new zinks, and cutlass bearing

(we will do this in Trinidad it has been 2.5 years since our last bottom job)

- Rebuild fuel pump and new seals on engine

(though it is still running there is a small fuel leak that would not be prudent to have for long)

- New mainsail

(we have needed a new main for years but with our smallish passages we have put it off with 4800 miles ahead in one leg we know it won’t do)

- All standing rigging checked and replaced as needed

(I suspect we will need some of the rigging replaced)

- Replace liferaft

(we are in the process of checking our raft to see if it will be Ok but suspect we will need a refurbished used one to replace the one we have)

- Bow pulpit repaired

(In November a boat dragged down on us and damaged the bow Pulpit it will need to be repaired or replaced in Trinidad)

- Solar Panels installed

(because we will be sailing NOT motoring a solar panel will be essential to keep the batteries charged so that we can use our auto pilot)

- New Galley stove

(our old 1989 stove is down to two working burners and no working oven the rust has eaten through the oven wall)

- New Batteries

(we replaced our batteries just 2 years ago in Oriental but with our alternator failure last summer they took a beating and are now refusing to hold a charge.)

- Recharge Iridium Sat Phone Sim card

(on a passage of 30+ days we will need our sat phone to send and receive e-mails and in this day and age it is my opinion that a sat phone is required safety gear.)

- New RO membrane on water maker.

(Our boat carries 160 gallons of fresh water in 3 tanks + 30 gallons on deck in jugs but with 7 people on board we will need to be able to convert seawater into drinking water. Our water maker makes 1.5 gallons of water every hour but only draws 4 amps so it can be run using the solar and wind power alone. We also have rain catchers that are very efficient when it rains.)

This list may seem daunting but believe it or not I have a list almost as long as this of things I have finished in the past two months. And as you can see from the picture above, today I am rebuilding the water maker and replacing the membrane. So I will be able to scratch that off my list.

These constant repairs and little fixit jobs can really get you down if you let them. I started cruising with a little bit of a fixityourself mentality, living on a farm in the middle of Montana 100 miles from town will do that to anyone. Now I find real satisfaction in taking something that is broken and making it work again. I think anyone who aspires to live this life either has to start with that mentality or develop it… or be rich enough to pay someone A LOT to work on your boat… a LOT. If you are waiting to cast off the docklines AFTER the boat has EVERYTHING fixed you will probably never go and just as soon as you make your first passage you will be putting back into a marina to repair something yet again.

Toolin Around,

Captain Tofer

What we do when it's too "cold" to go to the beach.

2010-03-07T09:27:00.000-08:00

(the REAL temp -bottom guage- when thes pics were taken)

80 degrees inside 73 outside

So when you live in a small space what do you do when you wake up on the weekend to rain and "cold" weather? (ok cold in our case means any temp. in the 70s or below.)

The rain started yesterday and the wind began to shift from it's normal E or SE direction all the way around to W which usually means a Norther is blowing in. Honeymoon bay, while very protected from the East, is not protected at all from the West so when that happens most of the boats move out but we generally stay knowing it will only last a few hours at most. The waves build up and our comfortable little anchorage becomes a rolly bumpy place to live for a while. Then when the wind shifts to the North the temperature drops. Our bodies are used to a constant temperature in the high 80s and when it drops into the 70s, believe it or not kids start pulling out their polar fleece like its winter time. The water is warm but the wind chill in the low 70s makes swimming too cold for sun ripened kids to find fun. Charlie the dog looks for a little hole under the table to snuggle into with a couple of the kids stuffed animals.

Today the kids woke up to the same weather and all of the little guys decided to tough it out at the beach with Jimmy. EmilyAnne decided to invite her friends over to play board games. So here Dad is trying to write and read on a boat with 3 13 year old girls doing their silly giggley dancing to loud Avril Lavigne music while they play "Quelf" which also makes them act like crazy people just to win the game. (EmilyAnne has to wear a snorkle until the end of the game... for example)

What a hoot! Think I might abandon ship for a while though, maybe I will brave the weather and go for a swim.

Captain Tofer

Chore Time

2010-03-02T10:06:00.000-08:00

Let’s talk about chores. Most kids living on land have to take out the trash, clean their rooms, maybe vacuum the floors or in like we did in Montana, shovel the snow. Our kids live on a boat so, although a lot of the chores are similar, like taking out the trash or cleaning the floors, there are chores and work that our kids help with that would be considered strange or even dangerous to land kids.

Our kids take out the trash too but this involves a long dingy ride to the marina where they throw it in the dumpster, Jimmy also does this dingy ride for a cruising kid chore called, “the water haul” while he is at the marina he will fill up four six gallon water jugs and bring them back to the boat for EmilyAnne, who in turn, will use a siphon hose to transfer them into the main tank on the boat.

You would think that the floor cleaning chore would be considered easy for a kid, after all the whole floor is only the size of an average bathroom back home. This particular chore is EmilyAnne’s and she hates it! We have four rugs that need to be shaken out off the bow pulpit every morning and then she has to sweep and clean the floor with a sponge. This may sound pretty easy until you think about how much dirt and sand seven people and a dog would deposit every day if they all used only your bathroom floor. If it is not done every day it’s even worse of course.

Cleaning your room should be pretty easy if your room is only as big as a large refrigerator right? Wrong! You try crawling into a Refrigerator box and making two (that’s right there are two bunks in there) beds!

Add to this the heat in the islands where any enclosed space gets so hot that if you do even the slightest work you break out into a sweat. Jimmy’s room is a little easier. His bed is bigger and he can move around and turn in there a little bit, but EmilyAnne’s bed is right out in the Salon area. She has a curtain to pull for privacy and she is a packrat so she is always trying to organize her stuff so she doesn’t have to sleep on her books and stuff. Keeping it nice is a real challenge I assure you.

Our kids also get to help with boat maintenance chores that would be considered crazy to land folks. Today we needed to replace our VHF antenna on TOP of the mast. EmilyAnne is our mast monkey. She doesn’t weigh much so she’s easy to pull up there and she likes heights and loves to be pulled up the Main Halyard just for fun to play. So today when I needed to replace the antenna she was the obvious choice. I love the looks we get from people passing by as they see our pretty little 13 year old girl wearing her climbing harness and zipping up to the top of the mast with a big grin on her face! The view sure is something though huh?

Jimmy also has to clean the bottom of the boat about every two weeks. To do this he wears his snorkeling gear and gloves with a brush in one hand and a scraper in the other. He can do everything but the prop and the keel by just free diving it but when he has to clean the prop or go deep enough to clean the keel he uses our Hookah (a breathing system which uses an air compressor and hose with a diving regulator on it.

We may be “living the dream” but as you can see it’s not all sun, sand and play.

Cracking The Whip,

Captain Tofer

Reunions

2010-02-28T14:19:00.000-08:00

(Meander anchored at Honeymoon Bay)

One of the VERY strange and wonderful things about this lifestyle is the social aspect. You meet people on different boats, in different anchorages, in different countries, scattered around the world. You may become especially close to a couple or in our case families on board boats from all over the world. There are times you may cruise with these boats for months or just share the same hurricane hole for the whole season. Inevitably there is a parting of ways. Sometimes, if you have been traveling in a group for a while, one boat at a time will head to a different place until finally you are the one on a different heading, or the final boat left in what had been a crowded anchorage.

To landlubbers this may sound very sad, and when we first started cruising it was. But since then we have had the, unique to cruising, experience that just happened to me a moment ago, and this experience makes it all worth while. Let me tell you about it.

I was sitting below reading when I heard a rapping on our hull and a voice with a distinct Australian accent calling out and when I peeked my head over the lifelines who did I see but our friends on SV Meander! We had first met Ray and Julie and their son Sam (and Milo the dog) in the Bahamas where we spent a few nights suffering at the posh resort and Marina called Atlantis. We all continued to sail as part of a huge group of “kid boats” through the Bahamas. Those times were some of our families favorites and our kids still miss the families on board boats from that group. There was, Salt and Light, Sanity, Solange IV, High Five, Slow-Mocean, Meander, and a few others. I think the total number of kids was well over 20 during those times. We had BBQs on the beach, gangs of Dads would go out with spears and fish together, having competitions to see who had the biggest lobster that day. The kids explored, swam, built forts, and one time a huge hermit crab hotel. The last time we saw Meander was over two years ago in Georgetown, Bahamas, where they had the whole group (that’s a LOT of people) over for drinks and snacks on Meander. Since then we have continued to cruise in the Caribbean while some of those boats are now in Bonaire, a couple are in Cartagena, Salt and Light has made it all the way home to Seattle, Meander gets the “Most Distance Traveled” award for that particular group. After they left us all, they crossed the Atlantic and sailed up the Med as far as Greece, and came back across this year. If you want to read about their adventures check out their blog at www.sailblogs.com/member/meander they had some great stories to tell.

We are looking forward to spending a week or so with them here at Honeymoon Bay.

Captain Tofer

The Fall of Romeo

2010-02-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

(Bella Americana)

The sound of children laughing followed by a splash beside our boat is pretty much an everyday sound here on Wandering Dolphin. But the other day when I heard it and looked around me I noticed that all five of my children were within sight and, believe it or not, they were all working on schoolwork.

Every one of my kids was on instant alert, books forgotten, and within a half second they were bursting up on deck to see who the “new” kids were on the mooring next to us. The boat was a 49 foot Bavaria flying an Italian flag. They had rigged a boarding platform from the transom of their boat and it was raised or lowered with a spare halyard. It hung off the back of the boat about eight or ten feet and the really cool thing about it was that with the pull of the halyard it could be raised up about 12 feet in the air, or with a quick motion it could be lowered right down to the water, perfect for divers of all difficulty levels.

The boat had two children aboard one was a little girl whose age I would estimate at eight to ten (right about the age of all three of my little boys) and a boy of about twelve. Well both kids began to put on a little impromptu diving exhibition for our children who were now lined up along the lifelines “Oooooing and awwwwing” the Italian kids. The boy was especially eyeing EmilyAnne and his dives and jumps were getting more and more daring. Pretty soon he was looking right at her and putting on a little show. At one point he stood on the end of the board backwards but facing Emily he looked at her and gave her a wink then clutched his heart with both hands and fell off the board backwards. My little boys were full of questions and an actual argument about if the girl on that boat was actually a girl or a boy. Sure she was wearing what was obviously a pink bikini bottom but her brother was wearing what to them looked just like a girls blue bikini bottom (read Speedo) and Kaleb was disgusted with his brothers for even considering that she might be a girl because she was wearing no bikini top and he was certain that THAT was against the LAW so therefore she HAD to be a boy! I broke up the fight before fists started to fly because Benny was now feeling a little strange having decided moments before this that he kinda liked the looks of this little girl so she had better BE a girl. I informed them that the folks on that boat were from Italy which was in Europe and that they thought it was ok for girls of pretty much any age to run around with no tops on…. Kanyon was disgusted by the thought but they all wanted to talk more about it. Kaleb pondered it and said, “So they are like the French only they wear bottoms?” I nodded and at about this time Romeo had moved the board to its highest postion and climbed to the top, eliciting a little gasp out of Emily, which I am sure was his intention. He had our attention and then the halyard slipped out of its spinlock and the board dropped a full 12 feet into the water with a bang bouncing Romeo a couple of times and flinging him into the water with a spectacular CRASH/SPLASH at one point his nether regions covered only by a blue speedo were on one side of the halyard while his body fell off the other so I was certain that he would be in pain. He came up crying and wailing (with good reason) but all we could hear him say as his Momma and Pappa pulled him out of the water was, “BELLA AMERICANA!!!” which I was pretty sure meant something like pretty American. He was so devastated and embarrassed that he went below and pretty soon they released the mooring and sailed away.

My kids were still jabbering about it all as they continued to work on school the rest of the morning.

Arrivederci,

Captain Tofer

Kids and Cruising

2010-02-20T17:12:00.000-08:00

(Our kids with their cruising buddies at TTSA in Trinidad last summer)

Our kids have been living aboard and cruising for almost five years now. I often forget what a different lifestyle they have than the kids back home. Our life is an everyday "normal" life to them now. They think nothing of living in close quarters with their parents and siblings. They know that kids they meet and befriend will inevitably either leave or be left behind. They also know that they will probably see those kids again at some point and that when that happens it's like they have not even been apart.

Our youngest, Benny, who just turned seven was asking me the other day why other people wanted to live on land. He was so little when we moved aboard that he doesn't remember any other home. He swims like a fish and the water around our boat is as much a playground to him as the backyard is to landlubber kids. He lays up on the mainsail on the boom and plays with his toys to get away from his brothers.

Our oldest, Jimmy, is 17 and as he struggles through the final years of high school with his father as his teacher and trys to decide what he wants to do with his life he has naturally drifted to a career on the water (the Coast Guard.) As I watch him go through this process I realize that almost certainly my children will all probably end up doing something that has to do with the ocean.
EmilyAnne is 13 in a few weeks and has started talking about becoming a marine biologist so she can work with marine mammals. She is also quite an artist and you won't be surprised that most of her art is mermaids, dolphins, and sailboats.

Our boat is so much more than just a boat. It is a home and even more it is a member or extension of our family. When the kids talk about the boat they call Wandering Dolphin, "her" and you can see the pride in their faces when they are talking with other cruising kids about her. It's fun to listen to a little boy tell his friend how great she sails to windward.

I am often asked if I sometimes regret our choice to move on the boat, or if I think it has been the right choice for our children... I can honestly say that the only regret I have is that we didn't move aboard sooner!

Captain Tofer

Choosing Where to Go Part 2

2010-02-10T13:04:00.000-08:00

Continuing on the theme from the last blog: Becky and I were chatting over coffee this morning and as we discussed the coming summer and our choices we realized that we were having the dickens (does anyone actually say that anymore?) of a time choosing our path. We began to wonder if this was just part of our nature or if other cruising friends have struggled in the same way? You all know who you are… comment and let us know if the choices you made while cruising were a difficult part of the process. We have “decided” on a course of action over and over again only to continue thinking about a different option until we were again back at square one.

I think this is part of the reason we frustrate our families… we seem to be flakey because we cannot just choose a path and stick to it no matter what. So here is the continuation of our thinking. Some of you asked to be an intimate part of our life cruising, in my opinion this whole “choosing where you are going next” is a part of the lifestyle.

The easy choice for us would be to sail back to the East Coast of the US. I have sailed back and forth from the VI to the US eight times so it is a familiar passage to say the least. Jimmy and I have delivered boats up and down the east coast of the US so many times now that there are very few surprises as far as entrances or inlets. We have a little town that is dear to all of us, (Oriental, NC) we would love to ang out back there with those folks for a season. We would be able to cruise in the Bahamas again and we all loved that too. So with all of these positive things piles on the side of heading back for the year we “decided’ that that would be our choice. At first we felt very relieved to have made a choice… it lasted about 24 hours before we were talking about sailing in the Pacific again.

Why? This is not at all the easy course to follow. The trip would involve a whole new area of the world, the Panama Canal would have to be traversed and the Pacific Ocean would introduce us to true long distance sailing. Oh sure we have done 8 to 10 day trips but most of them are 5 to 8 day trips and even on deliveries the longest Jimmy and I have been offshore was for 13 days. We would also not be able to work in Panama (probably) so we would have to have enough money and provisions on board to get us through the summer and through the canal and provision the boat for a long (30+ day) passage.

So… why can we not just be happy to make the choice to sail back to the East Coast and be done with it? HMMMM well we want to see new places so that is a positive for us…. The Panama Canal would be cool to go through and educational for the kids… we feel ready for the next step in cruising and a long passage would be good for us… we would rather be cruising than working any day sooooo…..

We do want to sail around the world and heading back to the east coast feels like going backwards…. OH that’s because IT IS!! Our boat is a true blue water boat in great shape and ready for sea today. She needs a few things but nothing that would prevent her from making long offshore passages (we have the part in the mail for the auto pilot by the way) In my mind the only thing that would keep us from moving forward toward the Pacific is fear… fear of the unknown, of the long passages, of our own ability to handle what is thrown at us. I truly believe though that a drive in a car from North Carolina to Washington State and back to North Carolina would be more dangerous than a sail from The VI to Panama and then from Panama to Washington state via Hawaii.

This is our current JELLO MOLD plan. (Cruisers understand that comment, for those of you who don’t it means, the plans are made like jello they can wiggle around and change at any time.)

CURRENT PLAN: We will stay in St Thomas through most of May so Jimmy and I can do our deliveries (Marinette and Changin Tags) and then we will sail to Cartagena, Columbia and on to Panama where we will spend the summer hurricane season out of the path of all of the blobs of doom on the weather page. We will explore the San Blas Islands and make our way to the canal and through in time to give us a little time on the Pacific side to explore the Las Perlas. Then toward the middle of November we will set sail for Hawaii (To answer Rennie: because we have to make money and the cruising kitty will be about empty by then, and it's "on the way" to Washington State ... oh and it is HAWAII after all!) where we will settle in for the winter months working and living in much the same way we do here in the US VI. In May or June we will set sail on the long passage to Washington State where we can visit Becky’s family and drive out to see mine in Wyoming.

So there you have it… for now hehehehehe.

Trying to actually SET the mold,

Captain Tofer

Where Should We Go Next?

2010-01-26T09:58:00.001-08:00

One of the GREAT things about our lifestyle is that we get to choose every year where we want to go next. For those of you who do not know we are actually trying (though not very hard) to sail around the world. We have no dates or plans beyond that thought and simply REFUSE to put ourselves on a timetable. That being said, the weather determines a lot of things for us because of those blasted hurricanes. So every summer we really try to find a way to get out, or nearly out, of the ZONE. Also when planning a serious ocean leg like any of the South Pacific one simply is a fool to travel those long distances in the hurricane seasons. With those thoughts as background for you, here are our thoughts for this year.

We feel the need to really get moving through the canal and into the Pacific and at the same time we REALLY need to get out to Wyoming and Washington to visit our families. It has been four years since we moved on the boat and in that time we have only seen Amy and Ellie, and Cheryl, Becky's sister, niece and Mom who have visited us both in Charleston and last summer Amy and Ellie stayed on the boat with us down in Trinidad. When I first dreamed of moving onto the boat I really thought family and friends would use it as an excuse to come see some of the beautiful places we visit but this has not been the case so one way or another we intend to get out to see them. Travel for the seven of us by air is pretty much out of the question so we are considering one of two options.

Option #1: We will sail the boat in May to the east coast of the US and do a little summer cruising up to washington DC, New York City, and perhaps Long Island Sound. Then we will head back south to our favorite little town, Oriental, North Carolina, where we will put the boat on the hard for a couple of months at Sailcraft and we will lease a car and drive out to visit our families for the rest of the summer. In September or October we would head back to Oriental where we would do our boat work and then we would head south toward the Windward Passage, Jamaica, and on to Caragena, Columbia, and the Panama Canal. We would then sail to Hawaii in April-May.

Option #2: We would stay here through the summer working and braving the hurricanes and leave for a direct sail from St Thomas to Cartagena next November. We would spend Nov. - March in Cartagena and cruising the San Blas, transiting the canal in march and heading offshore on a straight 4800 mile sail directly to Bellingham, Washington.

The other factor is that Jimmy has decided (you have NO idea the importance of that little statement) to enter the US Coast Guard so he will need an accredited High School Deploma. He will be moving to Wyoming for his final year of High School to live his Grandparents and finish school. When Jimmy leaves us it will be really rough. Not only will he be our first kid out of the nest but he has become such an integral member of the crew and a delivery crew for me that his loss will hurt us more than just in the heart. But we are very happy and excited for him to make the choices he is and support him 100%.

So... yep we have the pleasure of decideing where we want to go next... but... the choice is not that easy.

Thanks for the comments!!! It is greta to know you all are keeping tabs on us. Let me know what you think of our options.

God Bless,
Captain Tofer

Update from Honeymoon Bay

2010-01-17T13:25:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year... late.

I find it difficult to blog once we get into the swing of our work months. I forget that a lot of you still want to read about our everyday life during this time as well. To me it seems, "same old same old" but I guess it's still different from a life on land.

November: One stormy night a boat drug down on us in a squall with up to 50 knots of wind, it wound up getting pinned to our bow with our mooring line between its keel and rudder where it pounded our bow and bow pulpit for about 20 minutes in breaking waves of 4 to 6 feet. Our buddy Christian was anchored out next to us and in the middle of the squall he came over in his dingy to help us but was thrown end over end by one of the breaking waves... his dingy was upside down floating away and he scrambled aboard our little hard dingy and continued to try to help us even as his own situation was perilous. In the end, once the wind stopped and the waves died down we freed the ofending sailboat from our bow and rafted it to us for the rest of the night, Christian was ok but a little beat up and we recovered his dingy and almost all of the gear that had been set free when she was tumbled upside down. A couple of guys from another boat got out of bed right then (1:00am) and proceeded to take Christian's dingy engine, which was almost new, appart and rinse it in fresh water, drain it and refuel it and it started right up in the morning. Our bow pulpit will need to be rebuilt and we will probably never see a dime from the owner of the boat that dragged that night but it sure could have been worse.

December: Benny's Birthday on the 4th... Kristofer's Birthday on the 19th, Christmas, Kaleb's birthday on the 27th, Our 21st wedding Annaversary on the 31st.... Wow it's a hard month on our pocketbook but we had a great one and our little Christmas Tree had plenty of fun stuff under it on Christmas Morning. (A different boat dragged down on us Christmas morning too hehehe)

January: Kristofer and Jimmy delivery with Dick Shirley onboard his sailing vessel "Changin' Tags" from COLD and snowy Norfolk, VA to St Thomas. We zipped along the rum line to St Thomas with the help of NW winds blowing at Gale Force for seven days. It calmed down to 30 knots for most of the rest of the trip and we ended up doing a record (for us) 9 day trip. We also had a passenger along on that delivery, a bona fide movie star named Patrick Houser best known for his 1984 T and A flick "Hot Dog The Movie." He was alomng for the ride and boy did he get one but he ended up standing watch for a lot of the trip and was a great hand to have along. It's always fun to put a liberal Californian on a small boat with no escape from a Conservative Wyomingite we had some rather heated discussions as those of you who know me can imagine. No one was thrown overboard although I am sure Dick was considering it one night.

Today: It has rained for the past three days and actually feels like winter to me... we have the fans off, we pull a blanket over ourselves at night, and Jimmy turned positively blue while cleaning the bottom today. Temp: 74F ..... brrrrrrr I wore a T-shirt most of the day. The kids all still went into the beach in the rain and Beck worked.

If you want feel free to comment... I am more likely to blog when I get feedback sometimes I am not really sure anyone is out there paying attention to it.

God Bless,

Captain Tofer