Ed Robinson's Blog, page 13

Life Aboard; A Month in Pictures

Quick Update

All is well aboard Leap of Faith. We are currently anchored in Pelican Bay/Cayo Costa and enjoying life. The new dinghy is working out well. It’s nice not to have to pump it up everyday.

 

Two problems resolved: First we had a charger/inverter/generator problem. Turns out that we left the breaker on to the water heater when we left the marina. The inverter can not handle a water heater, so it just kept kicking out. This also is a huge load on the generator. A simple flick of a switch fixed everything! I feel pretty dumb, but at least the fix was free.

 

secondly, our new autopilot simply didn’t work. The problem was in the rudder feedback unit installed by my friend with an engineering degree from MIT. I took it all apart. I found a hardware store in Fort Myers Beach and got some parts/pieces to reinstall. Son-of-a-gun it works now. I feel less dumb. Using the autopilot on the trip back to Pelican Bay was awesome. 

 

That’s it for now, limited wifi.

Getting Reacquainted With Life on the Hook

Two weeks in to our new journey and things are going well, for the most part. We had our dinghy explode on day two. This called for an emergency run to Punta Gorda, where with the help of a friend we purchased a shiney new Dinghy from West Marine.

We had a quick turnaround and returned to Pelican Bay the very next day.

Enjoying the empty beach, nightly sunsets and the peace and quiet. We’ve both slept very well each night.

Problem number two reared it’s ugly head a few days ago. Our inverter has decided it won’t run the coffee maker anymore. This could be a disaster of epic proportions! I have to run the generator for a few minutes to make coffee. Fortunately we haven’t had close neighbors to disturb at 6 a.m. I tried boiling water and pouring it through but it took forever and the coffee was cool before it ever made a pot. On the lookout for an old-school percolator.

A new charger/inverter (exact replacement) would run about 1500 bucks. I fear will need to buy one soon, as the charge function is sometimes acting up as well. Break Out Another Thousand.

Made a run down to Fort Myers Beach to visit friends and do some reprovisioning. Dodged storms the whole way. We’ll stay a few days and return to Pelican Bay/Cayo Costa. Informal plans to go north to Long Boat Key and other parts soon.

We’ve done well conserving water. Still using less than 3 gallons per day, not counting bottled water to drink and make ice.

We don’t miss the marina one bit.

Check out the gallery for pics.

Dinghy Disaster!

A full one day in to our new journey, trouble found us. We took the dinghy about four miles to a spot on the island where we could tie it off and walk to our favorite beach.

The water was blue and the sand was white. We reveled in our return to the good life, spending the day walking the shoreline and sitting in beach chairs just taking it all in.

When we had enough of the mid-day sun, we walked back across to island to find a horrible sight. Our dinghy had exploded. Total seam failure, Kaboom, busted, dead. It was a sad and flaccid sight.

We managed to limp back to the boat with one side inflated and one side deflated. Anyone remember the chapter titled “Deflatables” in Poop, Booze, and Bikinis?”

I made a valiant effort to save the day. My friend Jamie rounded up all the clamps that could be had in Pelican Bay. I glopped a bunch of adhesive inside the seam. The hole was big enough to put my hand through. I back up each side of the seam with some shims that I had on board, (Lord know why).

I left it clamped for a full 24 hours. We were stranded for the day. The next day I removed the clamps and reinflated the infernal contraption. It Held! No way! It did indeed hold the seam together and it wasn’t leaking. Off we went to play in paradise. Then POP, another seam gave out. Then BOOM, the tube separated from the hull and she started to take on water. Ugh, the rescue of our dinghy was not to be. It’s too far gone.

To shorten up this tale, I called West Marine in Punta Gorda about a Fourth of July sale on dinghies. 250 bucks off on the 10 foot RIB. Sunday the last day. Soooo, we loaded up the wreckage and set off for Punta Gorda this morning. I rowed the crippled craft ashore at Gilchrest Park. A GREAT friend picked me up in his huge van and off we went to purchase a brand new little boat. He hauled the old one off, bound for a dumpster.

Kim and I are torn between being the proud owners of a brand new dinghy, and having spent such a huge chunk of our cruising kitty in one shot. But a decent dinghy is an absolute necessity when you intend to live at anchor. Let’s hope this one lasts a long time.

Tomorrow I’ll go up town and get it registered. As soon as I complete that we are out of here – again. Just a little bump in the road.

Water Tanks, Water Tanks, and More Water Tanks

 The most important issue for us while living on the hook is to conserve water. We’ve learned to be extremely frugal when it comes to water usage. We rarely, if ever take a “real” shower. We wash dishes in salt water and then rinse them in fresh, using a pump-up spray bottle. Every day is an exercise in using as little water as possible. 

  Taking on water to refill our tanks means loading jerry jugs in the dinghy and filling them at a dock someplace. We then haul them back and dump them in our tanks. This can mean many trips back and forth until all our tanks are full, including the jugs themselves. It might be a full days work. 

  When we purchased Leap of Faith, it came with two below deck, poly water tanks. They are small for a trawler. Each holds only 30 gallons. We soon learned that 60 gallons didn’t last very long. Being super stingy meant a daily water usage of three gallons per day, which lasted us about three weeks, with 20 gallons in reserve in the jugs. We wanted to stay out longer than that so we improvised. over time we’ve acquired more than double the water holding capacity through the use of additional tankage and jugs. 

  One of the things we are blessed with in our trawler is lots of space. We’ve got plenty of room and storage capacity. Our first big addition to take advantage of all that space was a 65 gallon poly storage tank which I installed on the flybridge.

  That effectively doubled our capacity. We attach a hose to it and run it down to the lower deck for freshwater showers. It sits in the sun all day and it’s nice and warm when we return from the beach. The hose has a shutoff valve and a sprinkler nozzle. 

  Up on the bow are our jerry jugs, two six gallon and two five-gallon, for twenty-two more gallons of water. 

  Kept inside the boat and out of the sun are these babies:

 

Four jugs at three-gallons each and a little two-gallon container. That’s fourteen more gallons. We use this water to make ice and coffee mostly. Sometimes I mix up some powdered Gatorade with it. If we run out, there’s always the rum! 

In addition to all that water kept in tanks and jugs, when we can we totally stock up on bottled water. We’ve got several cases stored under the settee, and several more in the Vee Berth.

  Right now we have ten cases on board. We drink it, make ice and coffee with it when the small jugs run out. It really is a luxury to have so much space. Water conservation is still a constant concern, but now we can go two months before we need to start worrying about refilling. Of course, anytime we get somewhere that water is available, we top off everything while the getting is good. 

  I realize all of my sailboat friends don’t have the kind of space necessary to store all these extra jugs, tanks and cases, but what creative ways have you found to increase your water capacity? 

 

*As always, find all three of my books at Amazon. Help keep Leap of Faith afloat by purchasing one or all three today.*

http://www.amazon.com/Ed-Robinson/e/B00F42LGJ8

Marinas Will Suck You In

  Once upon a time Kim and I were diehard, “on the hook” cruisers. We took pride in our ability to live and prosper without the need to ever tie up to land. We survived almost three years solely on the hook. Then one day late last summer we found out that Laishley Park Marina in Punta Gorda was beginning to allow liveaboards. Our generator was dead, cash reserves were getting low, so we decided to come on in and take a slip. 

  Oh how our lives changed. We had unlimited electricity! We had unlimited water! We had HOT showers that we could stand in forever. We had a place to dispose of our trash. We had ready access to Publix, West Marine, the liquor store, and a whole host of bars/restaurants. We quickly became spoiled. 

  Laishley Park is a beautiful, clean marina that is very well run by friendly staff. Our stay here has been wonderful. I even took a part-time job with the marina to help pay the slip rent. ($11.00 per foot for annual stay, but we paid 11.75 per foot because we did not want to sign a one-year lease.) We made lots of new friends, as one tends to do in a marina. Overall a great place that I highly recommend. 

  Then things started to change for us. We started noticing all the noise. Lawn mowers, pressure washers, bridge traffic, sirens, garbage trucks going BEEP BEEP BEEP at 4:00 a.m. We started having visitors almost every night. Folks stop by constantly to share a drink or sit and chat. These are good people mind you, people we like. But the constant flow of traffic to our boat was starting to wear thin. People know what your business is worse than in a small town. I mean they know when you poop for crying out loud. 

  We never had these problems on the hook. We lost our tolerance for everyday noise and stimulus somewhere along the way. It started to drive us crazy. In my second book, Poop, Booze, and Bikinis, I wrote a chapter called Marinas versus Anchorages. I listed the pros and cons of living in a marina as compared to living at anchor. Well I’m here to tell you that I’m more in favoring of anchoring out than ever before. Sitting on the boat off the island of Cayo Costa didn’t have any drama, except maybe the weather. Now we have dock drama on a daily basis. 

  Sharing a deserted beach with only the lovely Miss Kim is much preferrable to sharing a dock with forty of your closest friends, who were all strangers a few short months ago. Giving up the marina will mean a return to running jerry jugs to shore for water and gasoline. It will mean lugging groceries in the dinghy, as well as laundry and trash. Going back to living at anchor will also mean no more quick trips to the store for bread and milk, no more last second runs to pick up a missing ingredient for dinner. It means conserving water like your life depended on it. It means conserving electricity more than any green environmentalist. It means paying attention to your boat and it’s systems with strict regularity. While at the dock I’ve let these duties fall by the wayside for long stretches of time. Shame on me. 

  For the past month I’ve tried harder to give Leap of Faith the attention she deserves. While planning our departure, it has taken lots of work to get ready to go. Before we lived in a marina, we were always ready to go within a few minutes. I miss the peace and quiet of Pelican Bay. I miss happy hour on the sand spit. I won’t miss all the noise in Punta Gorda, nor the dock drama. As nice as this place is, I can’t wait to get out of here. Kim and I each have a few more days at our jobs here in the marina, and we’ll be pulling out on Wedneday of next week, weather permitting. 

  We may miss this place and the people, but it’s time to move on.

Home base will again be Pelican Bay, with provisioning in Fort Myers Beach. We may also head north to Long Boat Key again. We might even do some exploring in the St. Pete/Clearwater area. Who knows? One of the best things about cruising is just doing whatever you want on any particular day. No schedules, no hassles. Look us up if you make it to southwest Florida in your boat. 

 

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Autopilot Installation Not for the Faint of Heart

  Seriously, don’t try this yourself unless you’re a glutton for punishment. Hire someone who has done it many times and knows what they’re doing. It’s a complicated and frustrating undertaking.

  However, Kim and I decided we really wanted an autopilot. Our vessel has very little “extras”, and over time we’ve learned that the one thing we really wish we had is an autopilot. Slow boats tend to require constant vigilance at the helm in order to run a straight line. It takes thousands of small adjustments to compensate for sea state, wind and tide. Long passages become quite tedious. Overnighters are almost impossible. 

  After some research I decided on the Sitex SP110 unit. Why? Because it’s the least expensive unit available with a proven track record of reliability. Sitex has been making autopilots since 1975 and has a great reputation among those who know. I discovered it via a cruisers forum and read several testimonials from those who own one. 

  I opted to attempt the install myself for one reason only. I’m a cheap bastard. I also have the time and am a fairly handy guy. I was not prepared for how difficult it was going to be. Turns out you need to be a rocket scientist to hook these things up. I’ll start with the easy part. The electronic compass needs to be centered somewhere in the boat, away from anything magnetic. It has a limited length of cable that needs to run to the helm and attach on the rear of the control head. It should not be high in the boat, to reduce pitch and roll. Well there just wasn’t a good spot for it on our boat. It ended up on the floor of the companionway at the base of the steps leading to the Vee berth.

I put a sign at eye level at the top of the steps; DON’T STEP ON THE COMPASS! 

 

  Next we move on to the Octopus reversible pump (for hydraulic steering). The autopilot itself did not come with hoses or fittings to tie the pump into the boats hydraulic system. I ordered what I thought I needed online and waited. When it arrived it turned out to be the wrong stuff. I sent it back and reordered another kit. When it came I closely inspected everything only to find that the tee fittings would not work with my system. The hydraulic hose have different end fittings than what came in the kit. Off to Ace Hardware to buy some fittings. I had to walk as we don’t have a car. I found 3 tees and 3 nipples that would make the hookup work. They rang me up and it came to $28.80. I said WHAT? 6 brass fittings for 28 bucks? I only had 26 bucks on me. Walk back to the  boat, grab some more cash, walk back to Ace and get my stuff. 

  I got to install the tees on the back of the steering pump and the lower one won’t tighten because it’s hitting part of the pump. Back to Ace again, on foot for the third time, to get a longer nipple. This time it worked. By the way, it was 96 degrees that day. The temperature under the helm console was something like 157 degrees. Access is limited and there is no light. I sweated gallons. 

Here’s the pump:

And here’s the tee connections:

I was so glad when this part was finished! Between ordering the wrong stuff and walking three times to Ace, it only took two weeks to complete. 

 

  Now for the real puzzler. The rudder indicator has to be installed in the lazarette. Mounting required drilling thru hardened steal and bronze. I broke a drill bit on the steel, went back to Ace again for a titanium bit and got the indicator mounted.

The tricky part was attaching that arm you see running horizontally to the rudder post. My first attempt failed miserably.  I didn’t take into account that the indicator rose up on either side of the rudders full movement. I scratched my head and muttered under my breath for a few days, ruminating over the issue. The ideas that came to me were all jury rigs and unnacceptable risks. I was stumped. Fortunately I recently made acquaintence with a very nice fellow who happens to have an engineering degree from MIT. He’s not a rocket scientist, but close enough. 

  He came and looked it over, took some measurements and drew some diagrams. He took this information home to his shop and promised to manufacture something that would work. A few days later he returned with some aluminum with holes drilled in it. He mounted it up and had me turn the wheel. No Go! Holy crap an MIT engineer couldn’t rig this thing up so it would work. He frowned and shook his head, then scratched his head and muttered under his breath. (Heck I can do that)

  He said hold on a minute. Let me think this through. He then went off to Ace Hardware to wander the aisles until something caught his eye and sparked an idea. Back at the boat he managed to turn some weird household items into a gimballed mount. We drilled a hole in the brass arm using WD 40 as a lubricant to keep from breaking the bit. After about four hours we had it put together, and it worked! 

When he failed on the first try I felt a little less stupid. But then he comes up with this contraption and I felt dumb all over again. Good thing I met him huh? He’s a heckuva a nice guy. Without him I’d still be scratching and muttering. God bless Ace Hardware as well. 

 

  Finally I needed to finish up the wiring. (I skipped the part about running all the cables, drilling holes, etc.) I connect the cable from the compass, the cable from the rudder indicator, the wires to the pump and the power to the unit. I turned it on. It lit up. Good start. I pressed auto and hit the arrow key to move the rudder. POP. Blown fuse. Crawl back under the console to find I had hooked into a 5 amp fuse, while the unit called for a 15 amp fuse. Replace fuse and wire direct to incoming 12 volt supply with a 15 amp fuse inline. Turn back on. It lit up. Press auto and hit arrow key. I hear the motor running but no movement from the rudder. 

  Mutter a little more then decide I hadn’t bled the hyrdraulic system thoroughly enough. Here’s my rig for that:

Spin the wheel back and forth a few thousand times and watch the bubbles rise up the tube and into the inverted jug. I left it this way overnight just in case any stray bubbles wanted to work their way through the system and escape. 

After bleeding very thoroughly, I tried moving the rudder again. It worked! Oh my god I wanted to jump up and down and shout Hallelujah. The damn thing works. 

  I still will need to do some calibrations and see if it will “talk” to my chartplotter, but I need to be underway for that. At the very least, I know it will hold a heading. Two weaks and many hours later I’m done with this project. Couldn’t be happier that it’s over. 

  Our plan now is to leave Punta Gorda next week on July 2 or 3. We will be in Pelican Bay / Cayo Costa for the Fourth.

 

As always, you can read more of Kim and Ed’s adventures by purchasing their books here:

http://www.amazon.com/Ed-Robinson/e/B00F42LGJ8

Our Last Tie To Land

  Since we took our Leap of Faith and Quit our Jobs to Live on a Boat, we’ve held onto one last tenous tie to land. We kept our truck. Where ever we roamed, however long we were gone, we always knew we could return to Punta Gorda, hop in the truck and run to Walmart for essentials. We could drive out Kings Highway to visit the Navagator and listen to our favorite singers. That is about to change. 

  Of course we had to keep it somewhere while we cruised. We played musical truck for a while. It was parked at Fisherman’s Village for a few months. Then we moved it into their overflow lot. We kept it at a friends house for a time. We relocated it to the parking lot at Laishley Crab House, where it is now. 

  We also had to pay for insurance, feed it with gas, change the oil, buy new tires, buy new brakes, etc. It has been the one wildcar in our budget, and the one inconsistency with the lifestyle we’ve chosen. It is time for it to go. Our plans involve leaving Punta Gorda for a very long time, maybe forever. We want to sit out at Cayo Costa and decompress from our time in society. We want to make it to the Dry Tortugas. We really hope to cross to the Bahamas and explore the Caribbean. That depends on our money situation. Losing the insurance payments and upkeep costs will help, as will the cash we get for it. 

  Yup the time is right for us to lose that final thing that keeps us tied to one homebase. The world is out there waiting for us. 

  It’s been a fantastic vehicle since the day I bought it. Never a breakdown, never a major repair. It’s been very lightly used for a long time now, sitting in various parking lots waiting for our return. I vowed I would never buy another truck it’s been so good to me. I suppose I’ll be a bit sad to see her go, but she’ll make a fine vehicle for whoever buys her. I won’t need it in the Bahamas and I’ll be happy to have one less thing, one less expense . . . and one less tie to land. 

  So who’s looking for a truck?! $8500 and she’s yours. Located in Punta Gorda, Florida. Contact us at       Kimandedrobinson@gmail.com

 

 

Leap of Faith by Ed Robinson

Ed Robinson:

Nice thoughts about Leap of Faith, via Liquid Kangaroo,

Originally posted on Liquid Kangaroo:

I just finished reading Leap of Faith: Quit Your Job and Live on a Boat by Ed Robinson. It was a great read and his writing style is very fun to follow. Chapter 1 starts off:

“What’s so great about living on a boat? What’s so special about my life in particular you ask?

Let’s consider a typical day in the life of the happiest guy in the world. As I write, I’m sitting on the back of my yacht. The boat is anchored in a slice of Eden known as Pelican Bay. She’s nestled snugly between the beautiful island of Cayo Costa and the patch of sand and mangroves named Punta Blanca Island. The sun is shining in an impossibly crystal blue sky. It’s eighty-four degrees, the water is flat and clear, and I just cracked open an ice-cold beer.”

View original 155 more words

Epic World Rum Tasting Tour

  Okay, okay, maybe we didn’t actually tour the world, but some years back Kim and I tasted the world’s rums. We wanted to find the finest rum we could, that we both agreed was the best. Why? Because we had recently completed our Epic World Tequila Tasting Tour and we needed a new drinking challenge. Besides, we were about to quit our jobs and live on a boat, so we figured we needed to become rum drinkers. 

  Caribbean Islands are famous for making fine rum so we started with various offerings from Barbados, Jamaica, BVI, Trinidad, etc. We found mostly dark rums that didn’t really suit us. Most dark rums are aged in whiskey barrels, giving them a smoky aftertaste like bourbon. Yuck. We both dislike bourbon and found most dark rums unsuitable, even though expensive and highly regarded. 

  There was an exception, and that is Pyrat. It’s a super premium rum from the British West Indies, rich dark color and hints of heavy molasses with an extremely smooth finish. I put it on my list of possibles, but Kim wasn’t so sure. 

  Eventually we turned to clear, or silver rums. Fewer choices but we were zeroing in on what we liked. Your run of the mill silvers found in every liquor store just weren’t up to par for us. Bacardi, Cruzan, etc. were inferior in our opinion, We had a hard time finding new silver rums to try. 10 Cane, from Trinidad was pretty good. As was Atlantico Platino, from the Dominican Republic. We put them on the list but kept searching for the perfect taste that we BOTH could agree upon. 

  We had tried over 100 dark rums, and maybe 50 whites, when we stumbled upon an ad for something new from Captain Morgan. Lime Bite was a white rum with lime flavoring. We always like Captain Morgan spiced, but it seemed so ordinary and common. We thought we needed to discover a really fine rum from someplace exotic. We figured what the heck, we’ll try it. We started searching our local liqour stores and came up short. We were told “coming soon.”

  We managed to find a few other new rums to try, but still had not made a final decision. Finally Lime Bite started showing up the shelves locally. We bought our first fifth and brought it home to sample. We chilled the bottle in the freezer first. When we poured that first shot and sipped our first taste, we knew. This was it! We both loved it. Our Epic World Rum Tasting Tour was complete. We learned a lot about what we liked and didn’t like as far as rums go. The Lime Bite tastes best straight up, chilled. For mixed drinks we use Mount Gay, a reliable standby. 

  So in our opinion, Lime Bite is THE best sipping rum in the world. Good old Captain Morgan proves his worth yet again. 

 

 

 

 We love it so much we buy it by the case, and it’s inexpensive. Here in Florida we can get 1.75 liter bottles for $19.99. That’s the big bottle for you drinking novices. I am not a novice. I could be a personal trainer for people who don’t drink well. But take it from an expert. Here’s what Intoxicology 101 has to say about Lime Bite:

Upon opening the bottle, the artificial lime flavor immediately hits you. Initially the aroma reminds me more of that of curacao or triple sec. The lime flavor is very apparent but not overwhelming giving you a nice balance of flavor and alcohol. I sampled the product in several ways: first warmly sipped, secondly cold in a shot form, and 3rd in group of mixed drink recipes provided by CaptainMorgan.com.  When sampled warm and cold there is a taste of lime followed by very little bite from the alcohol. As a cold shot the lime flavor is featured more and the alcohol is almost non existent making this treat and alternative to those that like shooting blanco tequila but hate the after taste. I tried mixing it both with cola and ginger ale, classic mixers for the original and felt that the new lime addition only made the marriage a bigger success. Overall I would highly recommend this to fans of the Captain and those that usually shy away from spiced rum. 

  Go out and get yourself a bottle to try. I promise you won’t be disappointed. 

 

Cheers from the lovely Miss Kim!

 

 

 

 

Read more about Kim and Ed’s rum-fueled adventures in these fine books:

http://www.amazon.com/Ed-Robinson/e/B00F42LGJ8