Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 45

My secret to spelling

As you read this, I am heading north on my yearly road trip to the tundra, well outside New York City, it might as well be the tundra! So, if I am missing when my next blog is due, call the Mounties!

I am almost done with my new Mick Murphy Key West Mystery, To Beat the Devil. Even with spellcheck I am a lousy speller. I have the American Heritage dictionary on my desk, and I really use it because MSWord Spellcheck doesn’t always give me the right meaning of a word I want to use, so I look it up to see if I’ve got the right word for what I want to say. Love the dictionary.

But with my limited spelling skills, I still have trouble with names of countries. Philippines, right? So why are the people from there Filipinos  Sober that would confuse me, drunk on a writer’s rush, it’s murdering me. So dose maître d’ and hor d’oeuvres! That’s the short list.

Do you Google? Hell, if you’re breathing you Google or use another search engine. I have found out that Google is a great dictionary. I can type, as I did above, my idea for hourderves and, bingo, Google knows I’m an idiot and brings up the correct spelling (as it dose in the above paragraph) and various meanings and uses.

Is that great or what? I am lucky to have two computer screens and keep Google on one and my writing on another. Google can be fooled, but try it out as a dictionary. You remember in high school when you had trouble spelling a word and the smartass teacher would tell you to look it up in the dictionary (maybe it only happened to me)? And you said, How can I look it up if I can’t spell it. The vice principal told me many times I should refrain for those types of comments.

Mr. Casey would have seen a lot less of me if I had Google back then. Hey, did I ever tell you about walking up hill to school in the snow? Both ways? Next time.

www.michaelhaskins.net

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Back into the swing of writing

By Mike Jastrzebski

It’s three in the morning and the rain and wind woke me a few minutes ago. I should have had this blog written yesterday but we moved the boat Saturday when the wind turned to the SW and we didn’t have internet service at the new anchorage.

Not having internet service is a curse and a blessing. It allows me more time to write with fewer distractions, but I am planning to offer The Storm Killer free next month (4/19/13-4/21/13) and I have been setting up some advertising with BookBub and I didn’t want to miss any messages from them.

The good thing about no internet is that it forces me to concentrate on my writing, except there’s that weather thing. Rough waters and high winds are distractions in themselves when your home floats on the water and a fouled anchor can result in a catastrophe. This makes it hard to keep one’s mind on writing.

Okay, so it’s just another excuse, but then I don’t need much of an excuse to put off my writing. Since this past year has been a boatwork year, I haven’t written much besides this blog for some time. I’m slowly getting back into the swing with a couple of hundred words here and a couple of hundred there, but I know it’s not enough.

I have an aggressive writing plan for our stay in the Bahamas. I want to complete a first draft of my new Wes Darling mystery, Stranded Naked Blues, and the first hundred pages of a fantasy novel I have been thinking about writing for over twenty years.

The book is tentatively titled The Believers. A quick blurb would be Lord of the Rings meets Lord of the Flies, and I plan to publish the book as a serial, publishing 75-100 pages at a time.

Will I be able to do all this in three months? Well only if I spend more time writing and less time playing, something that won’t be easy sitting here in the Bahamas where the islands call out, “play, have fun in the sun.”

To give myself a little kick in the ass I’ve signed up at NaNoWriMo to write 50,000 words in the month of April. I’ve done it before, the question is will I let the beauty of my surroundings distract me.

I’m taking a break from the blog next Monday and turning things over to fellow Write on the Water blogger John Urban who asked if he could have another day this month to blog about something he came across while doing some research that he thinks our readers will find interesting. I don’t know about you but I’m looking forward to reading what he has to say.

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Weather worries redux

Rough Draft in the distance as we sail away from Lauderdale

by Christine Kling

After weeks of waiting on weather, Talespinner and Rough Draft departed Fort Lauderdale around 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 17th and headed across the Gulf Stream towards the Memory Rock entrance to the Great Bahama Bank. The winds were 10 -15 from the ESE. I had put a double reef in my main in anticipation of increased winds later in the night, and my stout little 33-footer couldn’t keep up with that Lapworth-designed Islander 36 and her 150 genny, so to start out, I was motorsailing while on board Rough Draft they were motor-free and still having to slow down to stay behind me. Since I had the AIS, that was where they wanted to stay.

Although we encountered several passing ships, the funniest one was one of those plug-in tugs pushing a barge which remained on a collision course with us for 10 minutes after first sighting. Finally, I took evasive action, but it required us to fall off and sail north. With the Gulf Stream already pushing us north so fast, I didn’t want to change course too much. Finally, I decided to call him on the radio. I identified myself and told him I had changed course 10 degrees to port, but we were still going to pass within less than a mile. He came back and asked, “What do you recommend I do?” There was a long pause of radio silence. I’ve never had a ship asked me that before. “Maybe you could change course 10 degrees to your port?” He did and we passed a little over a mile apart, but he left me there staring after him wondering who in the world they’d had on the helm that night.

Since I do sail singlehanded, you might think it’s lonely or boring out there in the dark in middle of the ocean. But in fact, I sailed with an 18-month old Yorkie pup which is sort of the equivalent of sailing with a hyperactive 3-year-old child whom you’ve fed nothing but sugar. The Terror was in fine form. He wanted to be in the cockpit, he wanted to go below. He wanted to be on my lap, then he wanted to snuggle into his towel nest. He wanted to play tug of war, to bite the noisy autopilot, go out on deck. Trying to keep him safe made the night pass very fast, but when he finally collapsed after 2:00 and was content to go to sleep in his crate below, I was also finally able to relax. Of course, that was when the winds came up.

By 3:00, the winds had risen to match my sail configuration, and I was able to shut down the engine and sail just as fast. Soon, the winds were blowing a steady 15-20 with occasional gusts to 25 and seas to match. I never like charging like a freight train down on shoal water, so at daybreak, we rolled up the headsails and motored across the Memory Rock passage.

We were anchored off the NW corner of Great Sale Cay by 5:00, and there were another 6 or 8 boats there as well. There was lots of chatter on the radio about the weather. After the stronger than forecast winds the night before, everyone wanted to know what to expect in the next 24 hours. There at Great Sale Cay, you are out of range of the Coast Guard/NOAA broadcasts, there is no cellular, and the next Chris Parker SSB forecast wouldn’t come until morning. Then one boat volunteered that they had Sirius satellite weather and they shared and promised to do so again at 6:00 a.m. While we had a day or two to get to cover, another front was on its way and strong NW winds were coming.  Though strong southerly winds were forecast for that night, they remained light enough so that once my head hit the pillow at 7:30, I didn’t wake until my alarm went off at 5:30. Staying up all night will do that to you.

We’d hoped to make it to Green Turtle Cay the next day, but Rough Draft was having more engine overheating problems. We were aboard sailboats, after all, so we shut down the engines. The winds were light and we had some lovely 3 kt. sailing in the morning, but by early afternoon, the water was glassy, the sails limp and the autopilot was constantly beeping its off-course alarm. We fired up the iron genny again and headed for the anchorage at Alans-Pensacola with me muttering, “Too much wind, not enough wind . . .”

After another good night’s sleep, the weather forecast on the single sideband made the coming front sound even more ominous. By nightfall we were to expect 15-20 from the NW with squalls to 30 or 40 knots. Normally, I would have sought shelter inside White Sound, but because all those boats that had been at Great Sale with us were already there, I had to weigh crowded anchorage where boats might drag into me vs. less crowd and less protection. I opted for the latter and both boats had our anchors down at Manjack Cay by early afternoon. During the calm before the storm, it was lovely, hot and sunny. But by midnight, my boat was bucking in 3-foot seas and heeled over in 30+ knot gusts. The Yorkshire Terror was trembling and we moved to the main salon bunk in the center of the boat so as to not get pitched out of bed. Not fun. Not much sleep. And me wondering, when is the weather going to give us a break?

Thursday, we finally motored over to Green Turtle Cay and anchored out in a bouncy, blustery anchorage off the village of New Plymouth. The winds were still 15-18 knots and there was only one other sailboat out there at anchor. Mike and Mary gave me a lift in their dinghy and we went ashore, cleared customs and had a huge lunch of conch at 2 Shorty’s. Back at the bouncing boat, I got logged onto the Internet and downloaded 468 unread emails after four days offline. I was too tired to read them after standing anchor watch most of the night before, so I retreated to my bunk for a nap.

Finally, this morning, Friday, the winds are calm again, but the forecast is for another front to come rolling through tomorrow bringing 20-25 from the SW then NW, making the anchorage where we are now very exposed. There is no way I’m going to sit out here in this open anchorage through that. I can’t get any writing done when I’m standing anchor watch all night. I’m hoping that today’s calm weather will break loose some of the boats inside the White Sound anchorage and maybe I’ll find room in there. If not, tomorrow, I’ll move back over to Manjack Cay (although there’s no Internet there).

So while the two cruising members of the Write on the Water gang did finally get their weather window to cross to the Bahamas, we continue to worry about this parade of cold fronts that keep marching through, clocking the winds around, and blowing like stink. But I must admit, a nine-dollar plate full of cracked conch makes the worries a whole lot more bearable.

Fair winds!

Christine

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The problem with burning a candle at both ends…

C.E. Grundler

…Is that eventually you burn out. It catches up with you, in my case in the form of a horrendous cold. I’d managed to stay healthy all through this winter that refuses to end, but lack of sleep, constant exhuastion, and spending most of my free time in a barely heated shed all took their toll. So right now I’m sorry to say I have no witty stories or great insprirations to share. Cold medications have an amazing way of putting the brain into a fog, and all my trains of thought keep running straight off the tracks. Like it or not, it appears I have no choice but to rest so I can get back on my feet and back to work.

 

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On our way

By Mike Jastrzebski

It’s 2:00pm on Sunday the 17th and if you are reading  this short post, then we are on our way to the Bahamas. We plan to up anchor at 5:00pm and if all goes well we’ll be crossing the Bahama banks  at daybreak.

Since we are buddy boating with Christine, you can go back to her Friday post where she explains how to follow her journey on her Spot device.

We will be traveling together until we reach Green Turtle Cay, unless something unexpected happens.  As those of you who follow this blog know, we had problems with our engine overheating on the way to Lauderdale. Everything seems to be working alright, but you never know.

 

On the home front, I hope everyone had a happy and safe St. Patrick’s day.

 

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See Spot run

by Christine Kling

It is dawn here at the Middle River anchorage and I still have not finished my blog for today (that is Mike and Mary’s boat Rough Draft on the left in the photo above). The little propane heater is lit, and it has brought the temperature in the cabin up from a chill 55 degrees to a comfortable 62. That means the Yorkshire Terror just hopped down out of the quarter berth – a full hour after I got up – and crawled into my lap making his funny little groaning noises of contentment. The coffee is made and I am pulling together my thoughts for this blog at last.

I have a confession to make. I love gadgets. Especially, little electronic ones. To anyone who has read a few of my blogs through the years this will come as no surprise. So, when I get a new little gadget, I need to play with it in order to get really familiar with it and figure out how it works. But let’s face it – how many of us just love reading those manuals that come with our shiny new gadgets? Not me! So, the best way to force myself to read the whole damn manual? You got it. I decide to write a blog about it.

Now it is true, I already blogged about my Spot device back in June, 2011, but I have upgraded to a shiny new Spot Connect. This upgrade wasn’t entirely voluntary as my old Spot went walk about somewhere on my Thailand/Philippines trek back in November.

So last night when I made the decision to blog about this, I figured it would just take me an hour or so to familiarize myself with this new device and my blog would be done in time for bed. However, I gave up at 1:00 a.m. and crashed. So, the question is, what kept me up and how is this new Spot Connect ($149.00) different from the old Spot Messenger ($99.00)?

As you can see in the picture here, the Spot Connect connects via Bluetooth to a smart phone (or iPad, iPod or other tablet) via an app (either for Android or Apple iOS). The device itself has fewer buttons – in fact without a smart phone the only thing one could do is turn it on and activate the SOS. Using my iPhone, however, I can make it do all the same things my old Spot could do – it has a GPS receiver and it can send out a prearranged Check In/OK message containing my location to up to ten contacts via text message or email, and it can report my position to a website where my lat and long are mapped on Google Maps. But, by using the keyboard on the smart phone, the new one will also let me send an original text message or email that I type then and there. To me, that is critical. When sitting in safety of your home with a fast Internet connection, you don’t know what to write in those predefined messages. But when you are out there beyond the reach of a cell phone, and you really want to get some information back to friends and family, with this new Spot Connect, you can compose an original message in 45 characters and the Spot will add your position to the email. It’s not much, but you could telegraph the idea across. I’ll add a sample of the email I sent myself last night. If you can’t read it, just click on it to enlarge the picture. And it will (supposedly) allow me to post that message on Facebook or Twitter, but that, my friends, is what the hang up was last night. I still have not managed to make that feature work, but I am working on it.

When you first get a Spot, you will need to follow the instructions for activation, and you will set up an account. This isn’t as expensive as minutes on a satellite phone, but it’s not cheap either. The basic annual fee for the Spot starts at $99.00. My main reason for using the Spot is so that I can show friends, family and fans where I am, so I pay an additional $49.00 per year to add the Tracking feature. I also pay $12.95 for Search which means all my emergency contact info is already registered with the private search and rescue company that the Spot company contracts with. Add the taxes and surcharges of $9.78 and it comes to a total of $172.71 annually.

You then can set up your contacts on your accounts page on the Internet, as well as your social media log-in information. I found that the app on my phone would not let me select individual contacts – only groups, so I had to plug in my own contact info and make myself into a group of one. Twice, I was able to successfully send myself a message that arrived within 3 minutes first to my phone via SMS or text message and then to my email. When I clicked on the hyperlink in the email above, it took me to the page at left. Initially, the map was zoomed way out so that I saw most of the southeastern United States, but the iPad screenshot here shows it zoomed in as tight as I go.

In addition to the page above, your spot account provides you with a home page you can give out to friends, family and which I intend to get posted on my web site and personal blog. As long as my Spot is turned on and tracking is activated, you will see my position on that page. Here’s the link:  http://tinyurl.com/talespinner.

When I bought my first Spot, I thought it might work as a cheaper version of an EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacon), or PLB, but the real differences are 1) battery life 2) the receiver of the SOS. If you activate the SOS feature on your Spot, the message is sent via satellite to a private company, while with an EPIRB the message goes to  the worldwide offered service of Cospas-Sarsat, the international satellite system for search and rescue (SAR).

Finally, it is looking like the weather window for our departure Sunday evening is holding this week. Hopefully, we will be able to depart at dusk and sail the 90 some miles across the Gulf Stream to enter the Bahama Bank at Memory Rock at dawn on Monday morning. This time you won’t have to wait until my blog next Friday to know whether or not the Yorkshire Terror and I are basking in the Bahamas or still anchored in the Middle River. You can just check my Spot!

Fair winds!

Christine

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Progress update…

C.E. Grundler

With approximately one month to go until my theoretical launch date, work has shifted from high gear to overdrive. What does that mean? For one, there is NO free time. Every spare minute is devoted to some boat related work or another. My dining room is currently filled with new belts, hoses, gaskets, oil and trans coolers, seals, bearings, fuel lines, engine paints, and countless other assorted parts. My car is loaded clear to the front seats with even more.  My computer sits forgotten for days on end. Internet? No time for the internet. Take-out food has become a staple and the dogs watch, baffled, as I try to assure them that once Annabel Lee is afloat, they will accompany me as I rush out of the house, be it to my job or simply to continue working aboard the boat. I’m sure they’ll enjoy walking along the river’s edge and playing with the other boatyard dogs. But being that today is my day off, at the marina at least, it’s anything but. I’ve already packed a lunch, and as soon as I post this, I’ll be off for another twelve or so hour day of boat work – which puts me twelve hours closer to where I want to be.

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The Water’s Edge

By John M. Urban

Daylight savings time, Spring ahead. They are welcome words. Ironically, these signs of the changing season occurred only days after a winter storm left just under two feet of snow in communities west of Boston. That same snow is now melting almost as fast as it came down. Climate change? Global warming? It’s a discussion that is still politically charged.

Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the coastline in New Jersey and New York. But even unnamed Nor’easters are toppling houses along the coast. The rate and extent of sea level change may be an unknown, but threatened homeowners aren’t bothering to debate whether or not change is underway.

(photo courtesy of the Boston Herald — one of several waterfront homes lost in recent days following a winter storm on Plum Island, Mass.)

So then, is it time to head inland? No, not for me. If Boston’s Back Bay, whole sections of New Jersey, and the greater part of Florida were created through the use of water drainage and landfill, who is to say we can’t bring in a few extra yards of soil and raise elevations a couple of feet. Okay, maybe lots of yards of landfill. Maybe even a few more.

And if that isn’t feasible, perhaps another alternative is elevating homes along the water by using pilings. Are you familiar with the Stiltsville fishing shacks located off Miami? Imagine half the state of Florida as one huge Stiltsville. An American Venice. Garages become boat houses, parking lots converted to marinas, that kind of thing.

(Stiltsville fishing cottage, Biscayne Bay, Florida)

Tongue-in-cheek solutions are okay for a blog post but they are less helpful or welcome if you are struggling to keep your beachfront home from an eroding shore. And ultimately we need to come to grips with the fact that homeowners who build and rebuild in risky environments need to absorb the costs associated in taking these risks. And any changes going forward need to be more thoughtful than the dredging and filling that tore at the Everglades or the Charles River and Hudson River estuaries.

But I, for one, am confident that we’ll be able to spring forward and figure this out, especially those of us who are drawn to the ocean’s edge…even if it is a changing water’s edge.

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THE END IS NEAR!

I am in that state of mind that writers fall into when the end is near. The last chapter. Meeting the deadline; well sort of. My deadline was December (last year) and I’m looking at mid-March.

I have been writing completely off schedule. I writing in the morning, I’m writing in the afternoon and more recently, I’m writing at night! Usually, I am morning writer.

What I thought of in the beginning as a 200-page Mick Murphy Key West Mystery is now at 350+. I had to put an end to it, because in my head I’d laid out even more mishaps for the boys to fumble into.

Yeah, I say when I answer the question about does the story write itself. I may write it, but it goes in whatever direction characters and situations take it. Or so it seems.

I know writers that outline and follow it from beginning to end. I couldn’t do it. First, my outlines are never as interesting as the way my characters lead me. I work with a beginning idea, think I know the middle and, of course, I’ve got the ending thought out.

Well, I can tell you, that for me, it just ain’t so! The beginning has held up pretty well, but the middle and end go to hell in a hand basket soon after the first few chapters are written.

With a little luck, I’ll have TO BEAT THE DEVIL done next week. My editor has worked the first 100+ pages months ago and recently the next 100+ pages, so the final 150+ should be edited quickly. The cover is designed. Once I get the edited copy back, make the changes (if I agree with them) I’ll have it off to be formatted for Kindle. The book should be available on Kindle the first week of April (not that deadlines influence me).

I will be on the road to NY/NJ to visit my twin daughters in late March and while there, I will format the book for a trade paperback edition that will be available on Amazon for $15 probably in late April.

After all that, I’ll sip some Jameson’s and smoke a few cigars in the chilly north before heading back to Paradise. Next, I have a short story in mind that involves Hemingway’s typewriter and I’m going through my file of newspaper clippings on art theft. It’s the 23rd anniversary of the Gardner Museum theft in Boston and I’ve been reading the Boston Globe’s stories on it. Now, if I can figure a way to get the art thief to Key West, I’ve got a story. Maybe that’s my next book, or I could resurrect my vampire story that didn’t have any vampires in it. You have to settle for Goth . . . hell, that could be as interesting as art theft.

Have to run. Need this space for the novel. I feel inspired and in last chapter I left Mick and Pauly sitting in a plane in the Everglades and a couple of red neck blokes with shotguns approaching. I’ve spent the last couple of hours wondering what they’re up to.

Only way to find out is to write . . .

www.michaelhaskins.net

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Addicted to the Internet

By Mike Jastrzebski

Maybe dependent would be a better word than addicted. The biggest problem with the anchorage we are in is the lack of Internet service. Despite the fact that we have a high tech wifi antenna, we either have to depend on 3G service for our iPad, or we have to bag up our computers, ride our dinghy to shore, and walk to a nearby Starbucks to use their wifi.

We’ve already gone through 3GB of 3G on the iPad, and it looks like I’m going to need another GB this week. We use it to check email, read our favorite blogs, get our news, do research for the new book, and most important, check the weather. At $20.00 a GB it adds up quick. True, I could have bought 5GB for less than I’ve paid for the 3GB, but if you read Christine’s blog on Friday you know that we’ve been trying to get out of here and the weather has not been cooperating. Had I known I was going to be stuck here I would have bought the larger package.

And although the 3G service works well, it doesn’t allow me to update my computer software or my iPad apps. One of the reasons I’m anxious to get over to the Bahamas is that the Abacos, where we are planning to spend the next three months, has good Internet service available in the anchorages of most of the larger islands. It helps to have the wifi antenna I mentioned earlier, and it’s not cheap, but it’s pretty dependable.

So what do you think? Am I addicted or just dependent on the Internet?

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