LaVida southbound

[mike ritenour]

We have just passed Belhaven, NC, headed for Key West.
Brutally cold in route.
Iced decks out of Annapolis.
Will be docking in Safe Harbor marina on stock Island, Key West.

[Sea Hunt Video]

Mike and all:

If your travels allow for a stop in Miami, I recommend the Coconut Grove Sailing Club for a mooring for a few days to a few weeks. This is their website:

http://www.cgsc.org/

You can call the club at 305.444.4571; dock master is extension 16; general manager (a good friend) is extension 18. The club generally has moorings available on a "first come, first serve" basis. If you tell the club you are friends with "Robert on S/V Bali Ha’i Junior" (1982 Cape Dory 25D) you will only be charged 10% above normal pricing. What a deal.

The sailing club is located in the heart of Coconut Grove with access to restaurants, marine supply stores, supermarkets, etc.

http://coconutgrove.com/

If you need vehicle transport while at the sailing club I am happy to drive you in my old Chevy truck.

[Jim Walsh]

Nice of Robert to extend his hospitality and offer his local knowledge. It's not every day you can get a ride in an "old" Chevy to boot

[mike ritenour]

Thanks guys
If we stay inside I will take you up on that offer.
Got an ole Chevy truck myself!

[Sea Hunt Video]

It's not every day you can get a ride in an "old" Chevy to boot

20 years/298,000 miles. Bought her new with 6 miles on her.

[mike ritenour]

Docked in key west @1218
From Rochester,NY to Key West, 36 days underway.
It was an awesome voyage down, now for the Bahamas!
Sea u
Rit

[Jim Walsh]

Congratulations! Keep us posted. I'm so envious......

[mike ritenour]

Unfortunately, due to the unseasonable weather in Key West and unforeseen family commitments, we were unable to make the Bahamas this year.
Reports from other boats, in the southern Bahamas, indicated it wasn't a very good winter there either.
The winter weather patterns were so uncooperative that Boot Key Harbor (Marathon, FL) had filled up in early October and when we arrived, going South, in early November To our dismay, there was no room in the mooring field.
On our way north, we had to anchor out with eleven other boats. Conversations with other boats indicated, that at times, there were as many as 20 boats at anchor outside of the harbor during Dec, Jan and Feb.. As you can imagine, everyone was highly frustrated with their delayed voyages.

Our arrival at Safe Harbour Marina in Key West was awesome. Old cruising friends were docked there and we immediately felt right at home. The marina bespeaks of the old Key West that we had grown to love and provided a wonderful atmosphere of how it used to be. LaVida spent several months basking in warm sunshine and pondering the very stiff winds, just outside the harbor. Unfortunately the weather curtailed our plans for the Bahamas and cruising the Dry Tortugas.
However despite the weather, we can highly recommend the liveaboard style marina and their staff, who in a family emergency, went out of their way to accommodate us and our unusual needs at the time.

Strong easterly's greeted our departure North from Key West and bedeviled us until we got into the shelter of the ICW in Miami.
By the time we reached the Fl/Ga border early morning fog spells had set in. Really THICK fog would last until ten or eleven in the morning and dense patches would occur at other times of the day as well, so IFR navigation (radar/chart plotter nav) was the rule of the day.
The unusual bad weather that accompanied us most of the way North produced steady Easterly and Nor-Easterly winds averaging 20 to 25kts, a couple of days gave us winds gusting to over 40kts., mostly on either the beam or the nose.
From northern FL to Oriental, NC rain, heavy fog and stiff winds prevailed. Long 12 hour days underway produced some decent daily runs averaging around 62 miles, one daily run was 82 miles (not nm as the ICW is in statue miles), a ICW record for LaVida. That run was due to favorable bridge timing and beneficial tides.

The ICW (Intra-Coastal Waterway) treated us kindly, with only a few skinny spots to tighten the knuckles on the helm. Having said that, Lockwood's Folly was VERY interesting. After several failed attempts to make it through the inlet, LaVida finally found a spot and made her way through, with just inches under the keel!! The good news was that we saw a number of dredging operations underway at most of the normal occurring tight spots.

Noting an unusual experience, I am pleased to report that the majority of large wake producing powerboats did the right thing, this voyage and dropped their wake on passing us. It was a most unexpected and pleasant surprise after years of abuse on the ICW. A positive salute to those Captains!!

We were very fortunate to fall in with a number of other sailing vessels and their crews, also northbound. Many thanks to the Captains and crews of "Climate Control", "Tlyas", "Maggie 1" and "Kilana". Their company day after day made for a warm atmosphere to cruise within and to share information and anchorages during the long and cold slog North.

Many thanks to my crew on the passage, first Bob from Key West to Melbourne and then Andy from Melbourne to Northern FL. Thanks mates, really enjoyed your time and assistance onboard. I am sure we will cruise together again, in the near future!

After 19 days underway from Key West, LaVida will take a well deserved rest and spend a month here, in one of our favorite cruising stops, Oriental, NC. After a bit of R&R home and a little bit of refit LaVida will begin her voyage home to Lake Ontario, in early May.
Hopefully the unseasonable weather will moderate and we will not have any of the reported frozen sections to deal with on the way home!
Fair Winds and calm seas and as OJ says, "If you rest, you rust"!
Rit

[Evergreen]

Mike:

Have not had time to be on this site in a while. Sorry to have missed your trip south but glad to hear that you got away from the dock.

A death in the family blew holes in our plans since August but we are working on getting back out there one way or another.

With luck, we will do the "snowbird" thing and Bahamas this coming winter. Time will tell.

Looking forward to the time when our tacks cross.

Best wishes,

[mike ritenour]

We are just now lying in Oswego Harbor ( home of the famed Cape Dorian, Oswego John), the boat is nowfully rigged and ready for sea after our canal transit of the past few days.
Fast passage from Oriental, NC to Oswego, NY, in 17 days!
LaVida has been awesome, but has collected quite the ICW Moustach and slime ring.
Met a lot of other Cape Dory owners along the way. Lots of fun was had by all.
We are just a hundred miles or so from our home port, been a great voyage!
Sea ya!
Rit

[SV Tatyana]

we had quite the icw mustache after our trip also, I read about using toilet bowl cleaner and just tried it works great and cheaper than boat related cleaners. Just wipe some on with a cloth let it sit, then wipe off.

[Sea Hunt Video]

we had quite the icw mustache after our trip also, I read about using toilet bowl cleaner and just tried it works great and cheaper than boat related cleaners. Just wipe some on with a cloth let it sit, then wipe off.

Several years ago I was told about SnoBol (I think that is the correct spelling). It is a toilet bowl cleaner but is very good at removing grime (I assume "mustache" is just a technical nautical term for grime ). As Richard said, just apply it; let it sit a while and then wipe/scrub off. It can also do double duty as a toilet bowl cleaner if one were so inclined.

[winthrop fisher]

sounds like a nice trip down to the keys, it been in the 90's already