New Kayaks...again

There are times when we make decisions or take actions that, on the surface, may appear to be a bit odd.

We made one such decision recently, but first a little background. Last fall as we prepared to head south for the winter, we decided not to bring our kayaks along. They take up space on the deck and get in the way of some of our regular activities while traveling – particularly the anchoring process. We weren't sure how much we'd actually used them in the Keys, so we decided to leave them in Gloucester for this trip south.

When we didn't return to Gloucester this past summer, we had to decide what to do with them. In the end we moved them to our daughter Jennifer's home with the plan of putting one on the top of the car for the August trip to Vero and pick up the other on our return south after the Christmas car trip north. Getting a rack became the problem – a bit pricey for most, so we opted for the cheap approach with foam and straps. This worked for a day, before the kayak began to move around on the roof. We ended up deciding it wasn't a safe approach and left the kayak with a friend we visited in North Carolina. We made the decision that we'd done our bit with kayaks and we could live without them. It would continue to be nice not to have to deal with them on deck. We could give one to Jenn's husband (Jenn already has a kayak) and try to sell the other one. So far, so good.

Then we got to Vero Beach and found that another boater here had two inflatable kayaks for sale, both at what would probably be the cost of a car rack for one kayak. When not in use, we could store them on deck in their cases or put them in the V-berth. The more we thought about the idea of inflatables, the more the idea became appealing. We also determined that we could transport them by car either in the back or even on the roof in their cases without a great deal of difficulty. So now we actually own four kayaks. Within a short time, we should get the number back down to two. Our previous experience with inflatables was not too positive, but these appear to work well. Maddie even likes to ride on them and is more content than she was on the hard kayaks in the past.

So how have the worked out so far? Well, not bad. We've been out for a couple of rides, and they have helped to remind us why we like kayaking. There are several reasons worth sharing. First, they are quiet. We can hear the osprey screeching as it calls its mate. We can hear the fish jumping in the evening as we paddle along. We find it remarkable how we can be so close to evidence of civilization and yet slide along with the wild things. For birds, we see the osprey, kingfishers, herons, gulls and pelicans. Fish of various sizes jump from the surface. Sometimes we wonder what might be below chasing them. On one of our kayaking trips we were visited by a half dozen dolphins who traveled past, seemingly unphased by our close proximity. As much as we enjoyed the dinghy ride the other night, getting rid of the noise of the outboard brought us that much closer to life around us – really quite special. And to think that so many people live close by in expensive homes and condos, and they never really experience this aspect of life so close by. It reminds us what special opportunities we enjoy as boaters.

I'm confident now that we will continue to enjoy these new purchases in the weeks and months to come.

Captain Bob

Carpe Diem

Of Docks and Clouds

 Since our return, we've lived at the dock. We didn't sense how different that is from our normal arrangement on anchor or at a mooring until we got out for a dinghy ride one evening. It reminded us of what it's like to be out in a boat away from shore-side security. “This is what we like.” we commented as we putted along – out on our own, unattached to land. We clearly missed this sense of being out on the water while we were in a slip at the dock.

As we live here in south Florida during the summer months, we find that the weather remains rather unsettled and the cloud formations quite interesting if not spectacular at times. We notice this most along the beach and while out in the dinghy away from the shore side trees which partially block our view. Even if the sky is pretty clear at sunrise, the daily heating of land by the sun combined with the moist air by the ocean create numerous showers and thunderstorms in the area before the day is done. Below is a sampling of the often complex cloud patterns we enjoy.

Even in September this is a daily occurrence. We are reminded that the sun rises higher in the sky here in September than what our daughter in NH sees in July. It's still pretty intense. And the daily threat of showers impacts our progress on boat projects. Right now we're attempting to get the teak rails covered, but we can't do it with the sun high nor when it's likely to rain. Since these are both likely to be daily occurrences, our progress is a bit slower than we'd like. However, we find other activities like swimming at the beach or morning and evening beach walks to fill our time. Life is good.

Sandra during an evening beach walk

Captain Bob

Carpe Diem

Back on the Water

After nearly three months with no blog additions, I'm back at it. We spent the summer away from the boat up north engaged in lots of great adventures with family and friends. These included among a number of others: camping in the White Mountains of NH, camping in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Shenandoah National Park, visiting with children and grandchildren as well as visiting sisters and their families.

Blue Ridge Mountains from Skyline Drive

But now we're back home on Carpe Diem in Vero Beach, Florida (for those who've forgotten where we left the boat). This brings to mind an interesting phenomenon we've experienced as we move about. Most people know that when they are home, they are also in a specific geographic location. Not so with us. Hence we have this problem occasionally. We sleep in our own bed at night, but we wake up in the morning with the familiar surroundings inside the boat, but it takes a minute or two to remember where home is at that moment. Usually we can remind ourselves by knowing what month it is and then determining where we should be during that month. Not so this year. Here it is September, so we should be up in Virginia or even further north. We've never been at home in Florida in September, so we can't even use the date. This helps to keep our life interesting.

The view of the Vero mooring field from our cockpit

All things haven't changed this year, however. Since it's September, we are doing the usual annual cleaning and fix-up chores. These normally include waxing the hull, checking each of the sails for tears or failed seams and taking care of the boats bottom paint. We also have this year, as most years, a variety of fix-it chores to address before we leave Vero. This year, however, we're not repainting. Since many cruisers manage to do this biannually or even less frequently, we're going to give the biannual schedule a try this time around. We will have a diver do a thorough cleaning of the bottom, scraping off the barnacles and algae that have accumulated over the summer.

Of course we're not in a hurry to leave the protection of this marina, since we're still in active hurricane season. With Sandra's sister Paula coming for a visit in early October, we'll stay a bit beyond her visit before heading out.

In the meantime, we aren't spending all our time working on the boat. We're also enjoying our current “home” location. The beach is a mile away and the ocean water temperature is really nice and warm. We've been swimming several times and plan to continue enjoying that option as well as evening walks on the beach which is never crowded.

The views of water and clouds are spectacular on our beach walks.

My sister Mary Jo is in West Palm Beach, so we've already been down to visit her and her family.

The rocket that carried the shuttle

Additionally, we drove up to Cape Kennedy Space Center for a tour. We hadn't been there since our girls we quite young, so we could remember little of that visit and knew that much more would be displayed now perhaps 35 years later. We were correct on that assumption. What a spectacular visit. We heard lots of what has been happening here over the past decades and learned that NASA is beginning to reorganize the station for the next phase – that of moving from serving as a launch pad only for NASA scientific explorations to that of providing similar services for commercial and private entities. Already SpaceX has launched a vehicle from here to bring supplies to the International Space Station. No people on board yet, but that is bound to happen as well. Boeing also has facilities at the Kennedy Space Center. It sounds as though other corporations as well will be getting actively involved in space travel.

Taken by the Hubble telescope - Orion will never seem quite the same.

We learned lots about the space station and the Hubble telescope and saw photos of the far corners of our known universe, thanks to Hubble – really spectacular!

I know that we're not getting along with Russia these days as much as we'd like on many fronts. However, when it comes to space, we seem to be working pretty well together. The space station residents have been getting shuttled up and back by the Russians, since our shuttle operation is on hold, waiting for the new vehicle that I believe Lockheed Martin is building. The crews have been a mixture of US, Russian, Japanese and European astronauts with perhaps representatives from other places as well. It's great that we can work together on such projects. Too bad we can't extend that cooperation to all aspects of our life here on this small planet.