Mike and Brenda on "Velsignet"

By 8 am we had pulled the anchors and were cruising down the 30-mile long Choctawhatchee Bay, still in the panhandle of Florida.   We’ve had interrupted sleep the last two nights as our generator has been stalling.   Last night at 2 am, Mike changed yet another fuel filter on the thing.   Brenda got out of bed as well—something literally didn’t smell right.   Despite generator and engine hiccups and finding the source of odors that shouldn’t be, Mike hums a tune to himself as he goes to and fro between the three bilge areas (where most things get fixed):   ( 1) the engine room; (2) the generator area; and (3) where the air conditioner and pumps are accessed.   His years of farming with his dad and Uncle Dale and cousin Duane-- as well as his experience with our truck-washing business-- have prepared him well for this trip.   And Brenda is grateful for it! In the past two days, “Velsignet” has traveled over 120 miles.   Each morning, we w...

One bit of advice we’ve heard time and time again by experienced Loopers is:   Never cruise in darkness.   Crossing the Gulf for us slow-moving trawlers requires a daylight departure, and overnight cruise and daylight arrival.  Getting back into the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway needs to happen after sunrise, in light.   At 6:00 am we spotted flashing buoy lights from the coast--Dog Island and Carrabelle. Sunrise would happen at 7:41 am.   We slowed our engine’s rpms down to adjust our speed to a slower 5.5 mph, made a pot of coffee, and watched the sun come up before getting back to cruising speed through East Pass.   We made the crossing! The Gulf crossing went very well.   Because we had “Velsignet” on auto pilot and didn’t see another light on the horizon or blip on the radar between 10:30 pm and 6:00 am, we were able to keep watch and relax with the rolls.   Each of us took a turn sleeping for an hour or two at a time.     We com...

Winds are light.   The Gulf waters are placid.   The temperature is in the low 80s.   A weather window is open and we’re making the crossing today! I took a break from writing Friday (yesterday) because it would’ve probably been entitled “Problem-Ohs:   Chapter 2.”   It was a series of things that occurred and it may be best to say that by 5 pm, Mike had gotten in 2-3 miles of hiking, enjoyed an air-conditioned cab ride to Clearwater's West Marine, and muscled through 8 reps of heavy-duty weight lifting (Four 90-lb. old batteries out of the engine room + four 90-lb. brand-spanking new batteries back in).  The result: Velsignet's engine started right up!   We spent another night in the lovely Scottish town of Dunedin, Florida (My dear friend and birthday buddy, Guy Falskow, has visited another Dunedin, located in New Zealand).   A highlight was last evening watching   the Dunedin Pipe Band play in the park adjacent to the Marina. ...

Scrambled Egg:   Mixed up, stirred up, then put in a hot pan.   Pretty much describes our day.   Hard lessons learned today:   (1) Make sure we go through the ENTIRE checklist BEFORE getting underway.   (2) We are fully capable of setting an anchor in extremely short order in an emergency.   (3) Our tempers can be controlled even amid docking for the first time a 40-footer in a tight space without any of the necessary preparations.   (4) And never, EVER turn off the breakers for the inverter or the battery charger! The past 24 hours has been one exercise after another on “problem-solving.”   And the problem-solver?   Mike, of course!    Electricity “blips”.   Waking up at 2:30 a.m. to alarms beeping and flashing.     Having to emergency anchor in the busy ICW in windy conditions as (a hot) engine and carbon monoxide (low batteries) alarms are sounding.   Making one attempt after another to bring onshore pow...

Wednesday, July 25th, 2018 Our anchor held through the wind and thunderstorm last night.  Whew!  We must be doing something right in our anchoring techniques! We're in Clearwater Beach, just 10 miles from where the ICWW ends along Florida's west coast and a popular place to take off to cross the Gulf towards Florida's panhandle port of Carrabelle, where the ICWW begins again.  It's about 145 miles to cross from here to there or figure 20-24 hours in a slow moving vessel like ours.  All that we've been told and all that we've read about the crossing is "watch for a good weather window."  And so today we stayed at anchor and took time to catch up on Puget Sound Mobile Wash business and research when our "weather window" might occur.  Earlier in the week, it looked like Thursday/Friday would give us a crossing with no storms, heavy winds, and huge wave action.  Thus, our anxiousness to get here.  Now that we're here, it seems we may want...

We awoke to cooler 84-degree temps, winds out of the SW at 12 mph, isolated thunderstorms forecasted for the afternoon, high tide at 10:23 am and low tide to be at 7 pm.  Let's get going! By 9 am, our anchors were pulled and we headed north towards Sarasota and Tampa Bays.  If the Coast Guard issued warnings against cruising in the bays again today, we would adjust our plans.  Otherwise, we were prepared for rough wave action across the bays with expectations that once across, the protected inland waterway would bring us calmer waters. Cruising through Sarasota and Siesta Key and Anna Marie Island brought back good memories of our time spent with Mike and Erica Ellis in 2017.  At Siesta Key Beach, we were amazed by its sand; it is white and silky and clings to your skin like talcum powder.  Our last evening together was at a restaurant at the very end of Anna Maria Island.  We had a table on the beach and Erica and I thought it was neat to eat while we ...

Mike awoke to a thunderstorm at 5:30 am this morning and was alarmed to find our boat facing the opposite direction from what we'd anchored!  When Brenda woke up at 8 am, she found the boat in fine shape!   Marv's weather reported the day would have continued winds, worsening in the afternoon. After plotting our course for the day on the Ipad's Aquamap program, we prepared for bringing up the anchors to take off at 8:45 am and get across Port Charlotte Bay before 1 pm.   It was 10:45 am before we actually left our anchored area.  After following the steps in the Mainship manual, checking the breakers, rechecking the engine, and a whole bunch of other "stuff," we called the former owner who took us through the steps and helped us get the engine started.  It was an easy fix:  press a button! And so we began our day.   We rocked and rolled through the waves and wind across Port Charlotte.  We used our radio system to make two ...

After getting a better handle on how to share this blog with others (thanks to our daughters, Allison and Jordan); getting our decals on the dinghy (decals on the boat will occur at a later time when humidity and temps are down); studying the navigation systems (radar, wind charts, tide charts, weather reports, water depth and temperatures, alarm systems); learning how to use the washer/dryer combo, microwave, and stove/oven; getting comfortable with fueling, watering, dump-out systems; and going through the checklist of items for taking off tomorrow, an important question occurred to us at the end of the day (as we were patting ourselves on our backs for all our hard work learning all this new stuff): HOW DO WE START THE BOAT? It was a sleepless night for Brenda. Mike--who enjoyed (several) IPA served at Pincher's Restaurant the night prior, slept just fine. Despite the morning's wind, clouds and rain, we delved into studying the Mainship 400 manual for properly starting t...