Monday, November 24, 2014

Peanut Island

We all do it.  Just drive around Peanut Island and anchor to the north or south waiting to cross to the Bahamas or to Miami.

Peanut Island is on the north end of Lake Worth in the Palm Beach area.  We spent three days there waiting for the right window to sail to Miami and had that great sail.

With the extra time, we decided to go explore the island.  It is Beautiful.  A state park that has been done very well.  No fees and not even a donation box.  Protected dinghy/boat basin, snorkeling lagoon and wide brick sidewalks.  I assume it must be popular, but there were only two other couples there the day we went.  Worth a stop to walk, swim or picnic.

 Snorkeling/Kayaking Lagoon.  Crystal clear water and easy access platforms for snorkeling and swimming.
 Wide brick sidewalks and hotties to check out.
     All around the island was rich with bait fish jumping away from predators.  When we got back to our dinghy, we had 6 of them hiding inside.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Two Events

We are now in Marathon and had two events occur over the past week.

1.  We were contacted by the new owners of Yumsuch.  She was sold again.  This time it is a young family in NJ.  I was able to speak to them and it sounds like the right couple for the boat.  The couple had been following our blog, while searching for a Nonsuch, and when Yumsuch came up for sale again, it was a no-brainer for them.  Yammy and I have been sleeping better knowing that Yumsuch is back on active duty and being taken care of.       

2.  Yasmine Ann hit hit double digits.  The elusive 10 knot barrier was broken on our sail from Lake Worth to Miami.  Winds were at 60 -70 degrees, 12- 15 knots and gusting to 23 knots apparent.  For us, it was one of those 2% days where all the elements created a perfect sailing day.  We covered the 60 miles averaging 7.5 knots.  Highest speed seen was 10.3 knots.

   



Breakers Hotel Resort in Palm Beach


Kite fishing off of South Florida.  This is an ancient Chinese method of getting the line out past the surf.  Floridians are now using it to get up to 35 hooks (on this mega kite) away from the boat.  We saw many boats with different size kites.  The most common was a small orange kite.

Ritz Carlton South Beach

In honor of our Veterans!

Sunset at Rodriguez Key.

Monday, November 10, 2014

WOW

Wow, is all I keep saying every time we hoist the new sails.  We are in Lake Worth and heading for Miami tomorrow for a few days.

Sailing from Fort Pierce to Lake Worth, we actually tacked down the coastline.  The winds were 10-15 knots from the SE.  We didn't make it all the way, but sailed more than half the distance before we fired up to make it in before dark.

LIFT:  You may remember a previous post talking about the under body and the lift required to avoid excessive leeway when heading to windward.  Kris, at Haarstick, said he was hoping the news sails would help eliminate some of that leeway, and it did.  It is one of those things when you are sailing to windward in the 7 knot range, you think your sails are performing well.  Therefore, I forgot about the lift in sails and how that can help with leeway.

When you think of an old Dacron sail and how the draft has moved aft, you realize that you have created lift at a 90 degree angle to the boat.  This forces the under body to do all the work to try and force your boat forward, instead of sideways.  When your draft is located forward of mid-sail, than you are creating lift that helps to pull your boat in a more forward direction. With the new sails, I can actually see the draft and adjust it to the position required for the point of sail and wind strength.  With our old sails being so stretched, I could not do anything to adjust the sail.

In similar conditions, with our old sails, we were seeing 10-15 degrees of leeway.  This was giving us 65 degree tacking angles.  This will take longer, or as we found out last spring, even never make it to your destination.  With our new sails, we are seeing 3-6 degrees of leeway now.  Still not perfect, but such a great improvement that we felt comfortable tacking down the coastline.  Never thought that would happen with a fully loaded cruising catamaran.  Many monohulls passed us motor-sailing in a straight line and we saw them later in the same anchorage.
                 


 Kent and Jane took some pictures as they PASSED us in their new Cat-Trawler.  You can't see it, but I am wearing my Turtle Towing Service shirt since every time we come across Kent, he passes us.  Towing a turtle is a good excuse for going slow.
 I thought this was a cool picture.  We are sailing in only 3 knots of wind on the Indian River.  It is one of our favorite parts of the trip down because you get flat water sailing and anchorages every 10 miles. So, I refuse to motor.
 Kent and Jane aboard Serenity (soon to be Rising Tide), their PDQ34 trawler.  Twin 100 Hp turbo charged Yanmar's.  I think I still don't have a prayer to beat them.
 The happy couple enjoying the great views from their flybridge.
 Rocket launch from Cape Canaveral.  We didn't know it was going to happen, and it took place right in front of us as we were heading down the ICW.  Couldn't get the camera out fast enough to get a better picture.  Found out later it was a satellite going up.    
All wooden sailboat with high gloss varnish everywhere.  I may like the smell of varnish, but that would be a little extreme.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Racing the Cold!

Looks like we left SC just in time.  They received snow this week along with many places along the East Coast.  Even as far down as GA.

We are in Velcro Beach for a week.  Just got past the 2 sub 50 degree nights, now we are warming up again.


             New Colors for our Home

 The beautiful Yasmine showing you the expanse of the beach at Cumberland Island.  We walked it every day.


Great shot of Georgia's state tree, the live Oak.

 One of Cumberland's wild horses walking on the trail in front of us.  No that is not me taking a picture in the mirror!

 Jacob will attest that someone is a better sand sculpture than I am.
 Two of the sea sisters enjoying a sunset on Fiu.


 Plane took off and landed right next to us.  There is a nice Inn, at Cumberland Island, that people can get there by ferry or plane.