Friends and Family                                 September 6, 2014

     It’s about time for a sailing and life update.  It’s been 8 months since the last blog and Sally and I are feeling a bit out of touch, though we have seen family and friends in person as much as we’ve been able to pack get togethers into the available time and circumstances.

     Since we last wrote in January, we mostly resumed living in our house, rather than our boat.  In February, Lynn flew down to Georgetown, Bahamas to visit friends on their boat, while Sally helped a friend clean out her late sister’s apartment in Florida.  Georgetown Harbor is a bit rolly, but the company and the sun and sea were great, missing the stresses of weekly storms, passage planning and boat repairs.  At least to our own boat. This trip helped to show that a great deal of fun remains in the sailing world.

     Back home, we finished, finally, remodeling our kitchen, only to find that the back wall of our dining room was collapsing.  We got this repaired and used the opportunity to repaper our dining room and put finishing molding on our den bookcases.  Lynn also repainted the stairs and the upstairs bathroom, while winter’s snow and ice covered the outdoors.  As part of her recovery from injury and illness, Sally got back to driving.  And we both spent time baby-sitting our two granddaughters. 

     In April, Sally’s regular medical checkup resulted in a clean bill of health, free from cancer for two years, which gives her much better odds for long-term survival.  On Mother’s Day, May 10^th, our kids, son-in-law, granddaughters and Emily's boyfriend spent a day in the city having brunch and visiting the Central Park Zoo to celebrate Sally’s birthday, Mother’s Day and Survival. It was a wonderful celebration!!!!!!! Sally was so happy to have all our family there.

     Also in May, friends came to stay in Manhattan for a month and we went to plays, dinner, Central Park and a boat tour – more time in the city than we ordinarily have in a year. 

     We also cleared up a crucial but confusing aspect of our hitting the construction sheeting at the Melbourne Bridge.  Sally’s friend, Linda, cleared up the sequence of events, which I had mixed up.  Most importantly, our bridge mishap occurred after our stay at the Cape Canaveral Marina, not before.  The night before the hit, we had gone out to dinner, then went shopping late at night for provisions for the Bahamas.  We were up until 2:30am, then I got food poisoning and was sick the rest of the morning.  So, when we went back to the boat and headed down the ICW, I was sick and exhausted, just getting by, so didn’t see the grey construction shrouding on the grey, concrete bridge.  With Linda’s added information, the accidental strike and damage to our mast base (loosened it up) and our headstay (not evident then, only later) and to our captain’s ego became understandable.  So in May, the damage to my sense of boating expertise was much reduced by having an explanation that made sense. 

     In May we also arranged for a delivery captain to bring our boat back north.  This trip began in early June and resulted in the boat getting as far as Cape May, New Jersey.  The delivery crew encountered some rough weather and the radar quit working and the head stay (wire from upper mast to bow of boat) broke.  So Sally and I drove south to Cape May and started our summer sailing season there, getting the repairs made and sailing north through New York City and east on Long Island Sound to Huntington.  We saw the front half of a submarine on a barge on the way up the East River; never saw that before.

     We stayed at a mooring at the Huntington Yacht Club and got to enjoy the pool and snack bar with Brooke and her family.  We also stayed a bit longer to help out with a babysitting situation.  Then, with Hurricane Arthur coming up the coast, we sailed east and north, up the Connecticut River, where we tied up to a dock and hid from the winds, though not the rain, a downpour for two days.  We then met up with some sailing friends on Fisher’s Island, near Mystic, Ct., then sailed up Narragansett Bay to our boat’s winter home in Bullocks Cove.  The marina there is large and very well protected from any storms that might come along while we were away from the boat for a month’s trip to Lynn’s side of the family in California.  We also got to see our younger daughter there, as she is attending graduate school nearby at Brown University.

     For parts of July and August, we flew to California to visit family and friends and get Lynn’s nephew married to a lovely Indian woman.  My (Lynn’s) parents are 90 and 92 and still kicking; mom made it to the wedding and walked my nephew down the aisle.  My older brother, who is very ill, was able to attend, a deeply moving demonstration of real determination and love. 

     In August, we flew back home, did some needed babysitting and took off on the boat again, taking our younger daughter and her boyfriend with us.  We had very nice Westerly breezes and had two sunny days of great and fast sailing to Nantucket.  Just before we turned south to enter the Nantucket channel, we were going 9.4 knots, which is like 140 in a Porsche.  Nice!  We stayed in Nantucket Harbor for two weeks, seeing our daughter and her boyfriend, then two other couples, friends who have houses on the island.  It’s the longest, most unhurried stay we’ve ever had there and reflects both having a great time and not having to worry about any schedule, like getting back to work, as neither of us are working now.

Another friend joined us and sailed to Martha’s Vineyard, where we stayed for a few days.  Then she left on the ferry to return to her job, leaving Sally and I alone for the first time since early July.  Holy Cow!  Who are you?  We then sailed further west, to Cuttyhunk, in a thick fog.  We stayed there two nights to wait out adverse weather and found ourselves right next to our old boat, Regulus II, renamed Judy after the wife of the buyer, a psychiatrist from Boston.  When he bought the boat he insulted her looks, but we could plainly see that, in 10 years of ownership, he hadn’t changed a thing about her ivory and burgundy colors. 

     Anyway, we went on yesterday to Point Judith;  a beautiful day, but with winds on the nose, so all motoring.  Plus the head plugged up and I (Lynn) spent 6 hours, while Sally steered, taking the toilet apart and getting seriously dirty.  Finally diagnosed the problem as a jammed hose between the toilet and the holding tank, which means I got to screw a snake (cable with pointy spiral end and handle for turning it) into the blocking mass and pull out bits of it, over and over until the blockage fell apart and moved on.  Scrubbed and sanitized the entire bathroom (head), then boiled myself in a vat of Lysol.  Just kidding!  Toilet worked fine for about 18 hours, then plugged up again.  Once more into the breech…….  Psychologist turned sailor turns plumber for a day.  Third and fourth times I’ve had to do major head repair on a boat.  Yuch!!!

That's all for now.  Love to you all,  Lynn and Sally of Southern Belle

Friends and family,                                                January 22, 2014

     I wish we had better news, but we have decided to pull the plug on our cruise and go home.  Our holidays with family and friends were nice, but a real sense of worry about the boat's mast repairs was still there.  We made a plan to take the boat back to Florida and have our Rhode Island boat expert fly down to pull the mast and do the assessment of damage and any needed repairs in a more thorough way.  Lynn checked this plan out with a veteran sailing friend and he said it was not a good idea to take a questionable boat across the Gulf Stream in a weather window between northerly storms.  

     So we made another plan, to get our Rhode Island boat expert to fly down to Freeport and, along with our insurance company's marine surveyor, to pull the mast and check out the foundation structures.  We made all the arrangements and flew back to Freeport to put them into action.  Lynn and Paul and Mike got the mast pulled by a local Bahamain crane operator, who turned out to be excellent.  We found that the mast and the aluminum mast base plate were ok, except for bolt holes that were rounded out and loose, so we had these filled in by a welding shop and new holes re-drilled.  The underlying fiberglass that holds the mast base bolts down appeared to our experts' assessment to be in good shape, no cracks, bolts not loose.  So the base plate was put back down, with epoxy all around the bolts and the plate edges and everything tightened back up.  Metal shims were bolted in front and side, so that, along with the shim that was already there in the back, they keep the base plate from moving in any direction.  I was the mechanical assistant all along, so I learned a whole lot more about our boat, leaving me in a better position next time I have to work on it.  This included additions to my onboard tool kit - a few items I was missing.  When the work was done, the experts' conclusion was that it was better than new, solid and good to go.

They left and Sally and I tried to shift gears from broken boat to shipshape boat, while watching another group of cruisers wait for a weather window, get ready to go, then wait again - trying to get southeast to Eluthera, a large island on the eastern edge of Great Bahama Bank.  I couldn't get my anxiety to calm down and remained way too worried for any enjoyment, so we arranged for the boat to stay at a marina in Freeport and flew home.

Our cruise was fun to start with, fun to and past the boat show.  I think it started to be more stressful after New Bern, North Carolina, when it turned cold, we repaired our brand new dingy for the second time and ran aground at Brown's Inlet just south of Moorhead City.  I made a list of all the goods and all the bads I could think of and the goods declined in the later part of the trip and the bads increased.  Thinking back on it, I now believe that we hit the Melbourne Bridge shrouding because I was already distracted by low oil pressure readings, along with still-leaking dingy, leaking hatch and crooked steering.  Then we went aground again and then, crossing the Gulf Stream found the mast base moving.

I usually am good in a crisis, able to perform while putting emotions aside.  I think I've been doing that for a while on this cruise and, finally, the dam for sidelined anxiety broke and out it came.  I just couldn't go on, so we gave it up and came home.  I am so sorry we won't be there enjoying the Abacos, but we had to do this.  We now just have to do some re-tooling and adjustments to being on land and see if some rest and time reduce the level of worry and stress; however, having family and friends has really helped. We are truly grateful for all the support you have given us both in starting our adventure and in putting it on hold for now. Your support has meant so much to us, thank you.

 Fair winds and calm seas to you all.  Love, Lynn and Sally Means

12-19-2013

Thursday December 19th, 2013


Hi Everyone,

WE MADE IT, with the help of our friends Paul and Susie!!!!  This is our story.

After our last Blog, which we wrote when we were in Bulls Creek, we sailed on Nov 23 to Thunderbolt Marina in Thunderbolt which is a suburb of Savannah, Georgia.  There some friends  Debbie and Doug, who live in Savannah, came to meet us on the boat and took us on a tour of Savannah and then to dinner.  We had a wonderful time with them.  Savannah is a very Southern and charming town so I felt very much at home there.

We stayed at the Marina instead of moving on as gale force winds were predicted.  Many boats stayed on the dock, even those who have done the crossing to the Bahamas 13 times.  We decided, since we couldn't leave, to do some more sight seeing so we took a cab ride to The Riverwalk area.  This is a very cute area with lots of shops.  However it was so cold and windy we only stayed for a short time and I was really glad to get back to our warm cozy boat.

Our next concern was  how to get to Jacksonville, Florida as our plane tickets were from there to fly home for Thanksgiving.  We had hoped to make it to Jacksonville  the day  before we were to fly home which was Wednesday the 27th.  However due to the weather we had to stay  at the Marina in Thunderbolt.  We decided to rent a car and drove to Jacksonville,  spending the night there as our plane left early the next morning and we wanted to make absolutely sure we got on the plane to see our family for Thanksgiving.

We arrived at La Guardia on Wednesday and our daughter Brooke picked us up at the airport.  We did not go home but stayed at Brooke and Ben's house.  It was wonderful to see our grandchildren, Olivia and Amelia.  Brooke's husband, Ben, cooked a great meal for us.  The next day, which was Thanksgiving,  Emily and Dan, and our son Derek came to their house.  Brooke cooked the Thanksgiving feast with all the trimmings and we had many lively discussions which hopefully will be carried on when we are home for Christmas.  On Friday, Emily and Dan took us to the airport and we flew back to Jacksonville and then drove to Savannah to the boat.

The next morning we were very aware that we had to make a lot of miles every day if we were going to make it to Lake Worth, Florida to make the crossing to the Bahamas  in early December, before winter storms became too frequent.  So we left the Marina at 7:00am.  It was so cold there was frost of the main sail cover and our water hose was frozen. This was a first for us!!!  We anchored that night at New Teakettle Creek, off the ICW.  In 2010 we had   stayed  at an anchorage with power lines lower than our mast top near us so we wanted to make sure we did not do that this time. Hopefully you learn from your mistakes!

The next day was a high mileage travel day, going 67 miles. We also went aground in Jeckle Creek.  Several times, but in soft mud, so we managed to get free and keep going.  We were going very slow so it was not as bad as the first time we went aground.  We also managed to get safely through an area were we went aground in 2010, right near a submarine base in southernmost Georgia.  We made it to Cumberland Island Sound and anchored right at sunset.

The next day we motored another 67 miles and took a mooring at St Augustine, Florida.  As soon as we got there Lynn had to jump in the dingy and go ashore to get to West Marine before closing so he  could get a needed cruising guide of the Florida coast.  He made it in time!  The next day we went to Rock hall creek and anchored.  We saw lots of dolphins and this was a very nice anchorage.  Lynn had been concerned it would be uncomfortably subject to currents as it was very near the ocean inlet; however, it was fine and had several other boats anchored there.  The next day we motored to Port Canaveral's Cape Marina for some repairs to the boat and dingy. I was  disappointed as we were suppose to anchor at  a friend of mine from college who lives on the ICW  in Cocoa. However since we had repairs that were needed (low oil pressure reading, leaky hatch and crooked steering) we had to go to the marina.  Linda and her husband came and picked us up and we stayed at their house for 3 days.  She also encouraged me to do our provisioning for the Bahamas there rather than wait till Fort Worth and let us use one of their cars to do so.  Thank goodness we listened and that Lynn agreed to do it at 10:00 at night.  I have never bought so much canned goods!!!  The Bahamas has food but is is much more expensive and sometimes hard to find certain items.  I also should mention that we took Linda and Dennis out to eat and that night both Dennis and Lynn had food poisoning!!!!

After our visit with Linda and all the repairs were finished we motored to Vero Beach and took a mooring.  The next morning, as we were leaving, we were approaching another boat that was just sitting there, not going under the bridge, but in the channel and in our way.  We asked them if there was a reason they were not going under the bridge. They said they were having engine problems but what they failed to tell us is that they were aground.  As we approached the bridge, trying to go around them, we also went aground.  We had to call boat US to get us off.  We now were concerned about making the dock at Lake Worth before dark, especially with the timing of the 8 bridge openings ahead of us that day.  Lake Worth is where we were to make the crossing to the Bahamas from, meet the other boat Happy Hour ll and pick up our friends Paul and Susie who were flying from Chicago to make the crossing with us.  So as you can see it was very important that we get to Lake Worth.  We pulled in to the dock at 5:35, a few minutes before dark, and were greeted by our friends on Happy Hour II.

The next day was very busy!!!  We were planning to leave the dock  at 4:00 pm while it was daylight to anchor near the inlet to the Ocean.  We planned to make the crossing after dinner at about 9:00pm. Lynn, Paul and Betty and Chuck from Happy Hour got together to plan the route.  I did the wash and went to the grocery store.  We left at 4:00 as planned.  We anchored out at the inlet. It was a beautiful clear starry night.  We had dinner and then everyone rested till we left at 9:00.  We couldn't sail as the wind was on the nose so it was very bumpy. (Having sails full of breeze steadies the boat.)  We were leading with Happy Hour following behind us.  In the middle of the night we started hearing a soft thud occasionally, somewhere in the boat, and tried to figure out which door was swinging, what item was moving, but couldn't until Lynn began to realize that the thud was gradually growing louder and seemed familiar.  Around 6 am, just before making it onto the Bahama banks at Memory Rock, Lynn remembered the sound that the mast made nine years ago when the base moved side to side and he went down below and looked at the mast base and found that it was moving as the boat rolled in the waves.  We had it fixed firmly in place back then and it hadn't moved since, but now there it was again.  A few minutes of exhausted reflection made it clear that this was a priority that couldn't be put aside, so Lynn made the decision to head south for Freeport, a major port with repair facilities.  The crew and Happy Hours II were disappointed, of course, but off we went.  Happy Hours continued on the planned course and ended up in the Abacos, a very nice group of Northern Bahamas islands.

The next 8 days were spent partly at Knowles Yard getting the mast base tightened down, with metal plates bolted in to prevent any movement, visiting the island of Grand Bahama with Paul and Susie and, after they left, getting to know two other cruising couples, Mark and Rita and Geoff and Leslie.  The latter had cruised the Bahamas before and had many valuable tips about places to visit, obtaining weather information and so on.  Lynn worked on learning to use the single sideband radio and the satellite phone, intended to be main sources of weather information.  Mark and Lynn took the boat out for a test sail at 7 am on the 18th, early to catch the high tide to get over the sandbar at the entrance to our inlet.  In light winds, the mast base seemed secure.  We had been hoping for a bit more wind and wave for a more rigorous test.  Later that day we got our first slowdown in the boat work and first dip in the beautiful Bahamian waters.  We saw an Eagle Ray and a lion fish in the inlet also that day.

On the 19th, we flew back to New York to celebrate the Holidays with family and friends and are still in the middle of that.  We made a very nice dinner party at a friend's Friday night, put up the outside Christmas lights on the house, went and picked up our 3 and 1/2 year-old granddaughter, who helped us pick out a tree and then helped put the lights on it last night.  We've laid in some provisions and look forward to the imminent arrival of our three grown children and their significant others, so the house will be full of celebration within hours.

We wish you and yours a very Happy Holidays.  Be safe and warm and in good health.  Our Best Wishes for a Happy New Year,  Lynn and Sally of Southern Belle