Delivering Marinette Yet Again

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!

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!

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

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

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

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”

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