Hi friends!
Eventually you will automatically be redirected to thefurtherwego.com (same blog, new name) but not quite yet. Soon, soon.
But we can’t post anything more here because it won’t transfer over to thefurtherwego.com. So we’ve started posting stuff over there. To read it you’ll have to go there too.
So please go to thefurtherwego.com. Now. Please. If you don’t, you’ll miss out on a cool video of a manatee drinking from a faucet, and that would be a pity.
See you there!!! xoxo
Our 2 weeks in Sebastian are now stretching into the 4th week – amazing how that happens. We’ve put off cleaning the bottom of our dinghy under the guise of “we just got back from the Bahamas and need to rest,” and then I caught a glimpse of our transom. It’s growing fur.
So we took the dinghy over to the little island next to us for some serious bottom scrubbing. We beached her in the sand and pulled her completely out of the water. Then we remembered that the outboard was locked, and the key was back on the boat. We pushed the dinghy back in the water and George went back to get the keys. Meanwhile, I climbed a tree.
We got the outboard off and flipped the dinghy over. Holy sessile suspension feeders! And because neither one of us had been looking forward to this job, neither of us remembered to grab a putty knife, scraper, chisel, etc. to scape off the barnacles. We looked around and grabbed what was handy – the plastic end of a scrub brush, a random piece of metal in a fire pit, a shell on the beach, and scraped away.
The scrub brush handle and the outboard
George insisted that I wear the gloves, but they were too big and got in my way, so I took them off. George refused to put them on because he wanted me to wear them. So the gloves were tossed aside in the sand, and we both had bloody knuckles at the end. This is typical of our relationship. George tries to look after my well being, and I want to suffer with him in solidarity.
After a couple hours of scraping, the bottom was passably clean. We flipped her over, George remounted the outboard, and I disappeared somewhere, camera in hand, while he threw the rest of our crap in the dinghy.
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We’re changing our name.
Since we’re not going to be cruising anymore for awhile, (awhile = 3-30 years), “Sail Marquesa” doesn’t quite fit anymore.
Our new blog name is “TheFurtherWeGo.com”, as in – the further we go, the less we know. Because that’s how we feel about traveling, and our life in general.
But DON’T GO THERE yet. It’s still under construction. Once we pull the plug on SailMarquesa, everyone will be automatically redirected to the new blog, so you don’t have to remember to type TheFurtherWeGo.com. Not yet. Not for another year or so.
Everything will look the same. I tried to make things fancy with cool fonts, headers, widgets and plug ins, and then I realized that it was like putting lipstick on a pig, so I reverted back to the original settings. Instead, we will put more time and effort into content, because isn’t that the whole purpose of a blog? And we love and want to keep our regular readers – all 6 of you.
One of the nicest things about Sebastian is that these little islands, only 1/4 mile from the beachfront, are public islands where people can camp, build campfires, anchor, fish, swim and have fun, and only worry about cleaning up after themselves. In a land of “No ____ ” signs, it’s a refreshing change. We’re anchored 1/4 mile away from them, 1/2 mile from the beachfront, close enough to hear music and laughter from campers, especially on the weekends.
The view of sv Marquesa from the island
Last night the wind picked up and it’s been blowing 15-20 knots all day with 25 knot gusts. Marquesa has been bucking at anchor, and there are whitecaps on the surface of the water, so we spent most of the day ashore.
We had just returned to the boat and George had fired up the engine and frankenmaker to charge up the batteries and refrigeration and to make hot water for evening showers. We heard what sounded like yelling over the engine noise and at first thought it was more campers on the island. And then we heard the word, “Help.”
George went out into the cockpit to investigate and saw some guy struggling to hold onto our dinghy. George cut the engine and ran out to the stern deck. The guy only had enough strength left to climb into our dinghy, but he waited for permission before doing so.
Willie and his wife had been camping on the island last night, but their tent collapsed in the wind, so they left all their camping gear behind as they raced back to shore in their skiff. The wind had died down only slightly when they returned this evening to collect their tent and camping gear. They got everything into their skiff, but couldn’t get their outboard started. They tried using their airhorn to hail other boaters going by, but instead of stopping to help, they merely waved at the couple. It was getting late and they were getting desperate, and Willie saw our dinghy tied to our boat – a sure sign that someone was home.
So he swam 1/4 mile out to our boat, followed by a pod of dolphins. He didn’t notice them, but his wife watched the escort. By the time he made it to our boat he was exhausted and freezing; The air temperature was in the high 50s, and the wind made it feel colder. George gave him a towel and some dry clothes and grabbed some coiled line. He took Willie back to the island and tied the skiff to the dinghy towing everyone to shore. They had mentioned something about their boat trailer, which was parked 3 miles down the coastline, but there was no way George was going to tow them that far in choppy water with our dinghy. Instead he towed them to the nearest dock at Capt. Hiram’s Resort where they could call a friend. They kept on thanking George until finally George told them to stop because “this was the rule of the sea.”
George didn’t look to see if there were any oars in the skiff and was too polite to ask. It would have been a difficult, if not impossible, row to shore anyway, and there was no point in rubbing more salt into the wound.
George - after installing the Frankenmaker MKI aboard sv Third Day.
“It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open . . .”
– Mary Shelly
So I guess it starts with a need. They say that necessity is a mother. That’s true and what’s more, water is the mother of all necessities. A person can live for weeks without food but only days without water. We need fresh water for survival. It’s a basic human need for staying alive, and for us it’s more than that. We need lots of fresh water to stay healthy, hygienically and emotionally. It just makes us happy. On a transatlantic crossing, under water rations, I promised Kerri she would never ever have to conserve water on Marquesa; we would have all the water we ever needed.
First I did all the research I could reasonably do online about watermakers. I discovered several places describing some home-built units, as well as finding two different plans on eBay. I purchased both sets of eBay plans, and gained enough knowledge to design my own system.
But how much water is enough? I decided that what we needed was 40-50 gallons per hour of production. That would allow us to run a watermaker (they tend to be noisy) for only a half hour per day average. With this figure in mind, I had to decide on what type of watermaker. I picked reverse osmosis as the most practical. For that kind of production, I would need membranes and pressure vessels capable of that output range, and I went with American R/0 for that. The units we use are about 2.5 inches by about a yard long. Then I had to decide how to drive the high pressure pump for the watermaker, and I chose mechanical belt drive. This would allow for the greatest efficiency and allow the versatility to use either a small aux. diesel or the boat’s main diesel engine.
I knew I’d need a pump that could output 5 gallons per hour at around 800 psi, and I went with the Giant Pump that had nearly exactly that capacity at around 1700 rpm. Of course that pump had a horse power requirement of around 5 hp at that rpm to produce the 5gpm, so I found an army surplus single cylinder diesel motor (Kubota) that had previously seen cold war duty (something I can also claim). I ordered the motor on eBay.
I also procured piecemeal the various plumbing parts, pulleys, belts, yada yada… which details I will not bore you with.
At that point it was time to get out the welder and start “gluing” metal together. I had to take care that the finished product could fit into the space I had. Measure twice, cut once, they say.
I actually made two Frankenmakers. The MKI went in the Boren family’s boat “sv Third Day”. So far as I know it’s still in service on the West Coast. Rich went on to design and build CruiseRO systems using the same KISS approach I took with the Frankenmakers. It’s truly to the point that if I had it to do again today, I’d simply purchase a CruiseRO unit rather than build my own. The fit and finish of those units is very shiny, and the warranty is the best in the industry.
The MKII had an added feature in that we have cold plate refrigeration on Marquesa. So every day we run the little thrifty Kubota to make our refrigerator and freezer as cold as we like while saving hours off the boat’s main engine. Both the MKI and MKII were also fitted with DC alternators for charging ship’s batteries. Why not?
The Frankenmaker has been in service aboard sv Marquesa, providing us with all the water we need including a lot of laundry, for over 2 years now. It has been the least troublesome piece of equipment that we use every single day.
I installed the Frankenmaker in Marquesa in such a way that we could, in an emergency, belt it off of the main engine. That’s never happened but it’s a nice redundancy for us. We like redundancy in systems.
Because we went with the silicone/bronze pump we have not had to back-flush the unit ever. We run it several times per week and then when we are home, we do a thorough flush and pickle job for long-term storage. Other than that we do regular oil changes on the motor, and we change the pre-filters when needed.
The following is a series of pictures showing the entire Frankenmaker production:
This is a 6 HP Kubota Diesel motor. A former tool of the Cold War (like me!) it was attached to tank haulers as an APU to lift ramps and steer back wheels around little German towns… So now it needs a kinder gentler purpose (like me!) and in a swords to plow shears way, it’s becoming the public works department on S/V Marquesa.
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This is the template I kept from the MK I unit. The Frankenmaker MK I is in service on the West Coast currently making electricity and fresh water for a family of 4.
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First steps in making the alternator bracket.
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Alternator bracket complete.
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A nice paint job with the alternator basically installed.
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Another view showing the jack shaft.
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Here the high pressure pump for the desalinator has been installed.
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Here is the welded up mounting frame with the refrigeration pump mocked up. The refrigeration pump is going to pull down some holdover plates that have eutectic solution in them. Those will then thaw out at a specific temperature over a 24 hour period (or more). This way we can have a big freezer and refrigerator box on board. We can carry up to 6 months of food with us, stretching this with what we can catch to last even longer.
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Here’s another view of the frame and refrigeration pump.
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Measuring for the belt for the refrigeration unit with the unit installed on the frame.
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Another angle.
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Welding up the exhaust. It’s convenient on boats to cool the exhaust with water and then send it out the boat.
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So here is the exhaust riser/mixing elbow installed along with the cooling fan and cowling.
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On the skid ready to go down to the boat!
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Inside our engine room – the pedestals are glassed in and the frame is mounted in place.
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Here is the Frankenmaker basic unit installed. I’ve aligned it so that the refrigeration pump will be able to run off the main engine in the event we will be motoring anyway or something happens to the Kubota.
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Here it is with the equipment installed and belted up. Nearly all the wiring is roughed in.
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Another angle.
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Those white tubes in the background are the pressure vessels with the membranes for the desalination function.
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Another view of the pressure vessels.
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The control panel pulled out for testing stage.
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That’s 50 gallons per hour with only 165ppm.
Thomas Point Lighthouse
(All of these pictures were taken around our neighborhood and surrounding area from 2005 – 2010. It’s a pretty neighborhood.)
Many people (2) have asked about the best piece of advice we’ve gotten before going cruising. I can’t talk about that, because frankly, we didn’t ask anyone for advice. We read and researched everything on our own and came to our own conclusions that worked best for us.
So instead I’ll mention the best piece of advice that we didn’t listen to, because it turned out to be the best decision we made.
That advice was to rent out our home in order to bring in extra income. We went so far as to put an ad in a military housing website and received a flood of applicants.* We found a young military couple, drew up a rental contract, and paid a lawyer to make sure that contract was legal and binding.
(*I’ve worked in a rental office before and even possessed a Real Estate license back in the early ’90s, but I wasn’t prepared for how much people lied about or omitted in their rental applications. When I did background checks I also checked their social media sites. One applicant said that he was moving to the area to train pilots at the Naval Academy. A photo album on his public MySpace page showed a picture of him holding a joint and flipping off the camera. The caption read “420 at 4:20.” Did he not read the part about me being a former cop? I mentioned our former occupations for a reason.)
This photo won 2nd place in a local photo contest in 2009.
The night before the contract was to be signed, I got a message from the woman asking if they could break up the security deposit into quarterly payments. We had already agreed to 1/2 month’s rent up front with the balance due in 6 mths. The more we mulled it over, the more we realized that if they couldn’t afford the extra $250 at the time of signing, that was a red flag that they were in over their heads. We said sorry, no.
George and I were up late that night thinking everything over. We never had felt comfortable about renting our home, but the extra income had been attractive. But was the extra income worth the extra stress?
And then I pulled out a pen and pad of paper and we did some math. We looked at the numbers and said, “We can live on this,” and decided to forget about renting. The deciding financial factors in this decision were:
1. Our mortgage was less than most car payments. (We’ve never had a car payment.)
2. Other than mortgage, we had no recurring monthly fees. No phone, credit card, (we pay them off EVERY month and carry no balance – ever) cable, internet…nothing.
3. We paid for our boat in cash, and we could only afford a fixer upper. We had decided from the beginning to not go into any debt over the boat (or any dream), so we did the work ourselves and bartered for the work we couldn’t do. It took 3 years rather than 1 year to leave the dock, but it was worth it.
4. George’s military retirement supplemented what we had already saved by working on other people’s boats (George) and working my ass off doing chair massage gigs. Saving money is one of our favorite hobbies, and we’re good at it.
I slept like a rock that night, and we both woke up the next morning feeling lighter and more rested than usual. We knew we had made the right decision. You can’t place a price on peace of mind.
Not renting our home allowed us an out in case something happened – to us, the boat or our family members. This way we wouldn’t have to worry about where to return to should an emergency arise.
As it turns out, we only cruised 18 months total, and now we have a home base where we can start dreaming and planning for the next thing. And by living pretty much the same way at sea as we did on land and not staying in marinas, we were able to put more money away in our saving’s account. That’s right – we saved money by cruising.
My next door neighbor, Mason, when he caught his first fish. (2nd place (again) in 2010.)
Here’s OUR favorite piece of advice we like to give:
Whatever you want to do and whoever you want to become, visualize it. Keep the pieces that work, throw out the pieces that don’t, and don’t give a crap about what anyone else thinks.
Not that anybody asked.
We are anchored outside of the ICW channel and partially hidden behind an island. It’s fun watching a few boats that we recognize from George Town and Marsh Harbor sail or motor by. We wasted no time getting busy with new projects. George is working on a boat, and I’m bargain hunting at my favorite thrift stores.
We ordered a new starter for the engine off eBay, and it was here when we arrived. George nursed the “new” old one as long as he could, and replacing it was the first thing he did the morning after we dropped anchor. So with a new starter and the new heat exchanger that we had shipped to George Town, that was it for the replacement parts this trip. Last year we only had to buy antifreeze in Marsh Harbor, so we didn’t do as well this time around.
There were lots of little repairs, but nothing that George couldn’t fix with his soldering gun, duct tape, 5200, zip ties or driftwood. He also revived one of our Ubiquiti bullets after restoring the factory settings, and one of our Alfa antennae was also resurrected.
For when there's no clothesline - the drying Palm.
George is helping a friend with his new business – Sebastian Inlet Parasailing. The boys are fixing up the boat and George is installing a new floor. The business will be run out of Hiram’s, and will be the first parasailing company in this area. It’s about time.
I bought a cheap, ill-fitting mountain bike at WalMart for $88. My back hurts, my shoulders ache and my butt is sore from riding it 8, 12, 15 miles daily. I don’t care. It feels so good to be back on a bike and exercising again, it’s worth the aches and pain.
Saw him during a bike ride.
I’m discovering it’s a lot harder taking pretty pictures when there’s no turquoise water in the background. Brown water and brown sand just aren’t as pretty. The animals here also move faster than conch and starfish, so I can’t get in nearly as close. It’s a challenge to photograph any live creatures with my little point and shoot Canon, but it’s good practice for when I have real lenses. By then, I’ll be able to frame a shot much quicker.
It’s good to be back home – for now. Here I don’t have to eat the mayonnaise anymore.
We dropped our anchor at Munjack Cay and found a Bahamas WiMax signal, so we were able to get online updates from Windfinder and Passageweather to obsess over. Having to re-login every 20 seconds because your paid-for wifi boots you off for no reason only added to the fun. You read that right – we paid for wifi.
We moved back and forth 7 miles between Coopers Town and Munjack for protection of the west winds and north winds, respectively, and rode out one last squall in Munjack. The holding was poor in Munjack, and although George hand set the anchor, the big waves bounced it free. We had already turned our engine on, so we pointed the bow into the wind, raised our anchor and motored away from shore.
We had our own Full Moon Party on board complete with NY strip steaks, baked potatoes and cake for dessert. Mmmm…caaaake! Banana cake with milk chocolate frosting. It was almost worth the migraine the next morning.
Sunday we headed over to Great Sale Cay to wait for the elusive perfect weather window. We weren’t the only ones taking advantage of this 3 day window.
All had lifted anchor and were waiting for someone. I think. For 20 minutes.
After last year’s Gulf Stream crossing from hell, both George and I have been dreading the moment when it was time to head for home. It’s only now, almost 1 year later, that we’re able to look back on that crossing with any sort of objectivity to determine where we went wrong. It all boiled down to one ill-fated omission – we didn’t get that final NOAA weather report at Great Sale Cay, 5 hours after we left Fox Town.
Had we done this, we would have heard the forecast change, and we would have stayed put. We wouldn’t have had to worry about losing our mast, George wouldn’t have had to hand-steer for 8 hours straight through 4 back to back thunderstorms, glancing over his shoulder every 30 seconds to know when to turn the rudder in a confused sea, lightning wouldn’t have struck just off our stern, our interior wouldn’t have gotten soaked from the extreme bashing, and I wouldn’t have had a seasick induced piercing migraine with nausea that left me nearly unconscious. George didn’t think to check; I didn’t think to remind him; we must have been in a conch coma. Team Huffman fail. But we learned and moved on.
We had been tossing around ideas back and forth about how to make this crossing less painful for the both of us. There was only one way – George does it alone, and I take the fast ferry from Freeport to FL. It was his idea, and he had to convince me it was for the best for the both of us. He’d hand-steered across solo before, and now with the auto-pilot, it would be “piece of cake” - his words. This way, I wouldn’t get sick, and he wouldn’t have to worry about me getting sick. This way, he wouldn’t have to wait for the elusive “perfect” weather window.
As our crossing grew nearer, doubts crept in my head. What finally made the decision for me was the guilt factor. What if something happened to George and I wasn’t there to help. What if, what if, what if…and at the last minute, I said I was going with him, seasickness be damned. I’m done with seasick meds and I’m tired of being a guinea pig when the side effects of everything, even Stugeron, which every cruiser swears by, makes me feel even worse. So I was planning to go cold turkey, bucket at the ready, narcotics standing by.
After checking NOAA one last time in Great Sale to make sure nothing had changed we quietly motored out of Great Sale Cay at sunrise with the autopilot set for FL. No wind, flat calm seas the entire ride.
Oh well. Back you go!
The Gulf Stream. The water is a dark bluish purple.
Letting our autopilot do all the work.
At 0100 hrs. (1:00 am), 19 hours later, we motored into Ft. Pierce, and dropped our anchor. We slept for a few hours until sunrise and then motored 25 miles to our home for the next couple weeks – Sebastian. Now we can rest.
Piece of cake.
We’re in Green Turtle Cay once again for our last taste of civilization before heading back to the US. Green Turtle Cay remains my favorite of the Abaco islands because of the culture, beauty and abundance of laughing children. A friend summed it up perfectly – Green Turtle is full of natural beauty that hasn’t been purchased.
We ate what was our final Bahamian meal (and I was tired of fish by that point) at Lizard Bar. The server, Laverne, asked if we were ready to order:
Me: I’ll have the grilled chicken ranch wrap, minus the ranch dressing.
Laverne: So you just want a plain grilled chicken wrap, right? And what would you like as your side?
Me: I’d like the side garden salad.
Laverne: With what kind of dressing?
Me: Ranch. On the side, please.
Laverne (looking around): Am I on Candid Camera?
Friends from s/v Veranda
Sorry about so many flower pictures. I can’t help it.
There’s something that warms my heart when I watch kids being kids:
I adore this picture. George had shown her where the “good fishing” was at the end of the dock. That curious little dog isn’t hers. Cricket belonged to another cruiser who was busy loading groceries into her dinghy. When Cricket came up to the little girl, she glanced over and gently put her hand on his back, as if they were old pals. So sweet to watch.
One last final farewell before moving to Munjack Cay to set up for the ride home.
We really kinda suck at this cruising thing. With last year’s theme being “the season of the engine rebuild” we forgot to do some other stuff on the boat – like a bottom job. It’s been 2 3 years since our last haul out, I think.
We couldn’t even see our rudder for the fertile sea garden in bloom. I won’t go into the barnacle farm growing on the bottom. So we hired “Brown Tip” – boat bottom cleaner by day, DJ and Rake and Scrape master by night – to clean our bottom in Marsh Harbor. Now we can see our rudder again.
We also didn’t get around to hooking up our autopilot. George finally had time to install the rudder angle feedback a few days before he and David headed south, but the project ended there. There were fish to kill and reefs to explore.
We’re in Munjack Cay now, with fewer distractions (read: no restaurants) and figured this would be a good time to see if our autopilot even worked. 2 years and 6000 miles later, we now have a working autopilot – just in time to cross the Gulf Stream and head back to the US.
Who's manning the helm? Our autopilot is, that's who!
We’ve gone through all 4 of our Ubiquiti bullets and 1 Alfa device. 3 died, and 1 blew off during our Eleuthera to Abaco crossing, along with the omni directional antenna. Ouch. We’re now on our last Alfa antenna that only has to last a few more days until we reach Florida, where a new Ubiquiti bullet and Alfa antenna await us.
And now our can opener is broken. Good grief. Will this nightmare ever end? I knew we should have brought our electric one, but we wanted to keep it simple and keep electronics limited to our microwave, bread maker, ice machine, blow dryer, 4 laptops, 2 underwater cameras, several gps devices, ham radio, cuisinart, mp3 player and fans. We’re cruisers after all. And we want to be taken seriously.
On the plus side, our ice machine is working again after taking a break for 2 mths. What a chore it was having to haul 10 lb. bags of ice to the boat every 2 weeks. I’m glad we don’t have to deal with that hassle anymore.
As for our watermaker/Frankenmaker, it’s still putting out 40 gph with no problems or repairs in 3 yrs since George built and installed it. (George is working on a basic “how to” for the Frankenmaker that we’ll post soon. I hope.) That little 1 cylinder Kubota engine just sips the diesel fuel and starts up every time.
Our record is 3 hot showers per day. Each. We may suck at this cruising thing, but at least we don’t stink.
Baby flounder. See him?
Cliche photo of the year? I think so!
Our 2 top priorities on this trip are:
1. food
2. photo opps
Not necessarily in that order.
We plan our days around the angle of the sun, the number of clouds in the sky, and where we want to eat for lunch. This is much more difficult than it sounds.
After spending the afternoon in Hope Town on Elbow Cay, I still didn’t have all the pictures I wanted. The sky was wrong and the sun was too high overhead to get good shots of the Hope Town Lighthouse. But we needed to move that afternoon, I can’t remember why, so George and I sat down and made a game plan of how to take 573 pictures in 2 days on 3 different cays. This wasn’t even counting the underwater shots I wanted. So we made a timeline for the next couple of days and it looked something like this:
Day 1 – Move to Snake Cay for morning snorkel/picture taking, lift anchor, move and anchor in front of Abaco Inn by 11 am, walk to Mackey’s for lunch, walk 2.5 miles into Hope Town for ice cream after lunch, walk back to Mackey’s, George leaves in the dinghy, I walk 2 miles south to Tahiti Beach to to get cliche palm tree shots, George picks me up in the dinghy, lift anchor and move closer to Sandy Cay for late afternoon snorkeling/picture taking, move back to Hope Town where it’s less crowded to position ourselves for morning underwater shots and early afternoon lighthouse shots for Day 2.
Day 2: TBD
We ran into a snag early on Day 1 when we found out Mackey’s was serving sweet and sour conch for lunch the next day. I have been dreaming of that sweet and sour conch since last year, and there was no way I was leaving the Abacos without having it one last time. We quickly scrapped our preliminary rough draft of Day 2, and made a new schedule that revolved around lunch at Mackey’s.
Mackey's sweet and sour conch = heaven in a styrofoam box
We managed to get everything in, and I got the pictures I wanted. I had no idea cruising could be so exhausting.
Shark herding while I snorkel
Me and Patrick
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