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Introduction
“You’ve got to be ready to die”.
Our dream of living aboard our own boat and cruising the Intracoastal Waterway and Bahamas has been alive for the past thirty years. The timetable and choice of boat has changed as circumstances have altered our course over the years. Our boat, the “Millennium Dragon” was actually named in the late 1970’s after seeing Star Wars for the first time. We were sailing “Magic Dragon”, a Formosa Boat Company 41’, thirty thousand pound water pressing ketch at the time. The retirement boat was to be named “Millennium Dragon”, a logical progression from “Magic Dragon” with the influence of Hans Solo’s space ship in Star Wars, the “Millennium Falcon”. She was to be a 65’ steel ketch. I did not realize it would take us almost 25 years to achieve the dream or that the boat would be launched in time to start our new life in the year 2000. No one could have predicted we would be achieving our dream on a 49’ fiberglass cruising catamaran. I did know that in order to leave a lifetime of friends and relatives in Milwaukee for a new life on the Ocean Sea one had to be, metaphorically, ready to die. At least a person must be ready to be “reincarnated” into a location, life style and group of people that are totally foreign to Wisconsin and most of my friends and relatives that continue to live there. Unfortunately we did not manage to rid ourselves of all our worldly possessions as a small number of people that live the same dream do. We still had the home in Miami, Florida (Kathy wanted to keep the land base) and the warehouse in Kendal (I needed a place to keep my tools and “museum of unfinished projects”). We kept the ’92 Buick at the home for use during our limited time in Florida. We are slowly, actually painfully slowly, trying to uncomplicated our lives. I don’t think we will ever be minimalists but we are trying to reduce the complexity. Kathy and I have lived aboard the cruising catamaran Millennium Dragon since May of 2000. After our two year cruise we moved from Miami to Punta Gorda Florida. This document presents a minimally edited compilation of our communications back to friends and family during the year following the move aboard. It does present a good picture of the cruising life and many of the adventures we had over the past several years. I have also included a section of communications sent back during the short trip for Regatta Time In Abaco during July, 2001. Kathy put together a summary of expenses for living aboard, as many people want to know what extended cruising costs. We have found that most cruisers spend what is available in the cruising kitty. Some spend too much and have to go back to the real world for a time. Very few have more resources than they will ever use. We are hoping to be just right. Like my father, one of my goals in life is to draw my last breath and spend my last dollar at the same time. If we are lucky, this may happen.
Chapter One Leaving the Lima Life Behind May 8, 2000 My last real job was as Medical Director for a small Physician-Hospital Organization (PHO) in north central Ohio. I had hung on just long enough to avoid submitting my resignation prior to my position being eliminated. As a result I tearfully accepted a six month severance package. We wanted to leave Lima, Ohio Friday afternoon, April 21. Boxing and packing was not complete. Mark, the mechanic from “True Service” next to the lumber yard/boat works, helped me pack the workshop then came over Saturday to help box the apartment and load the trailer. If he hadn’t helped we could still be in Lima. After donations of two vans full of furniture to Project Impact, we still had several major pieces that would not fit on the two trailers. Mark was the beneficiary of our overage. He loaded a wicker desk, several wicker end tables, lawn furniture and the color TV into his pickup. We were able to take off at about 9:00PM Saturday night. We made it about two hours down the road and stopped for the night in a hotel just north of the Cincinnati by pass. The next day (Easter Sunday) Kathy drove the Suburban/U-Haul and I drove the Buick/BBT (Big Box Trailer) 14 hours to Columbia, SC. We passed through the mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I had a very wild ride towing the long, heavy box trailer with the 3.8 liter Buick LeSabre. Dr. David Imler had lined up some kids to help load the trailers. I gave instructions to the oldest and took off to pick up the U-Haul. The trailer was packed when I got back. I had asked for about 70 to 90 pounds of tongue weight, but when towing, a lighter tongue weight and windage actually made for negative tongue weight. As a result, driving over 55 made the trailer fishtail wildly. Uphill was OK as pull kept the trailer behind the car. Downhill, through the mountains was a real treat. People were afraid to pass me. I thought the problem was just a light car and a heavy load on a long trailer. This problem kept the speed way down and the travel time way up. Monday we were in the low country, cruising flat land toward Beaufort. I could actually hit 60MPH before my rig started to fishtail. Three hours after starting out, we were in Hardeeville, SC. We dropped off the trailers at a friends boat building shop and drove to Beaufort to unload the boat stuff from Suburban and onto Millennium Dragon. Tuesday, April 25, I moved some heavy tools from the box trailer to the Suburban and gave our friends several heavy workbenches and shelving units. I put the heavy tools in the Suburban and redistributed the load in the box trailer so I had about 90 pounds of tongue weight. Wednesday we drove to Miami, at about 70 to 75 MPH, in about 10 hours. All our “good stuff” was unloaded at the Miami condo or warehouse and the U-Haul was returned. We still had some boxes to unload but we are about 80% completed. We visited friends in Key Largo on the weekend. Sunday evening, April 30, I flew to Albany NY for a HCFA site review. The review was completed Thursday. More box unloading Friday and Saturday. Saturday evening we drove to Key Largo for the Change of Watch party at the Upper Keys Sailing Club. Made contact with some old friends and had a great fish dinner but since we have not been at the club for 2 ½ years, the awards and election were somewhat boring. We stayed with our friends on Key Largo Saturday night and helped them with a gazebo project and recovering a damaged boat from the brush yesterday. Today we are back to unboxing. I completed writing the report on the HCFA gig. We needed to get our stuff put away so we may take off for Beaufort and start the great sailing adventure. I placed the Suburban for sale in the Miami Herald over the weekend. No calls. I listed it on e-bay. The only calls were from people who wanted several hundred dollars to help me sell it. The Buick (great tow vehicle) will be left in Miami for my daughter to use. We headed north in the Nissan Maxima and Suburban hoping to sell both there. We moved more “good stuff” to Port Royal and aboard the Dragon the middle of May. Luckily one of our friends needed a small car for his family. David Willis met us in Beaufort, the deal was closed and Kathy bid a tearful goodbye to her 1987 Nissan Maxima. After a week of so of miscellaneous stainless steel nut and bolt additions we were ready to go. By a stroke of good fortune a buyer saw the sign in the window of the Suburban and offered to pay the low end of the blue book range. We took the money and sailed away two days later. We haven’t looked back since. Chapter Two Monday, June 26, 2000 Final Preparations Yes, I know it’s been a long time since you’ve heard from us, but we have been busy. At least, Roger has been busy. He’s been installing all kinds of goodies on the boat and I’ve been trying to keep things semi-organized. It’s amazing how much “stuff” can be stowed on a 48” cat. I wonder if all this is necessary, but as long as there is space, why not carry it around for a while and see if we need it. Of course, the waterline now needs to be painted a few inches higher. This may not be a good thing. Our refrigerator/freezer is still an icebox at this point, but the new unit should be delivered today. Port Supply will replace the whole thing for us. Roger spent most of yesterday uninstalling the rest of the original unit so that a complete swap can be made. He had the copper tubing and wires going through a PVC pipe that he foamed so that it wouldn’t move, so he had some fun getting it out. He installed 2 indoor/outdoor thermometers (one in the freezer compartment, and one in the refrigerator compartment) so that we can see if everything is operating well. He’s also in the process of constructing a warning device that will wake the neighbors and give Goldie (our 19 y/o house cat) a heart attack if the temp falls below required levels. We currently have all the remaining refrigerated items in cooler bags and since that isn’t much, we are eating out a lot. Now tell me, why am I in such a hurry to get the refrigerator working? Roger figured out the water pump system, so we have running water, and he fixed the water heater, so we have hot, running water. Now it’s not only possible, but also easy to take on-board showers. As long as we are at a dock, refilling the water tanks is a simple matter. It’s amazing, the things one takes for granted. Another of Roger’s installations has been a car kit for the cell phone. It turns our phone into a “hand’s off” speakerphone operation, which makes it ideal when talking to friends and family since we don’t have extension phones. The satellite dish and radar have been mounted so we can watch all the stations with great reception. Since the settee seats are now cleared of “projects”, I can fall asleep watching movies again. Just like home. We are still at the same marina and we are thoroughly enjoying the cast of characters. There are usually a few folks at the marina table during the day, and more gather around 5:30PM each afternoon for cocktail “hour”. Every Thursday is “the Dinner Club” night. Someone volunteers for the main course and everyone else brings something. We’ve had some wonderful meals. Last Thursday, one of the women brought stuffed shrimp wrapped in bacon to grill and the Thursday before, one of the fishermen fried his catch of the previous days: whiting and flounder. It’s going to be hard leaving this port. Luckily the marina is about ¼ mile from the boat, so we get a chance to walk off a few of the extra calories. The walk is actually great except during the sunny 90+ degree-afternoons. That walk is usually the reason that we don’t get on-line as often as we’d like. Using the marina’s fax line at the counter with our laptop is not exactly the most comfortable way to stay in touch. We’ve been doing flash sessions, then going to the boat to read and answer the mail. Because of all the crazy viruses going around, please don’t send anything that needs to be downloaded. We also bought a new little Pocket Mail device. It will be easier to get mail on that little thing by just dialing an 800# and holding it up to the receiver. The capacity is limited, so no jokes, please, but shorter messages will get answered easier. I guess there is a way to transfer the messages to our laptop, so we can use a larger keyboard to do our typing, but we haven’t gotten that far in our manual. Roger will be doing an HCFA review for ES, Inc. in Birmingham, AL July 10-14. This will help offset some of the West Marine and Radio Shack bills that have been accumulating. (And we thought we had it all covered.) This seems to be working well. As long as he can get to an airport, it doesn’t matter that we are on a boat. The last one he did was in May from Miami to Albany NY. Every other month is about the right kind of spacing between “jobs”. Our original plan was to be in New York City for the 4th of July, but that just isn’t going to happen this year. We’re now hoping to get the Chesapeake by the end of August, or September and then start heading back to Miami, then the Bahamas for the winter. In the meantime, as long as we still have the Suburban, we are taking a few day trips to Savannah (West Marine) and Hilton Head (Home Depot, Boater’s World). We still want to get back to Savannah and do the real touristy things. It’s only about a 50 minute drive from here and there really isn’t a good place to tie a boat in the heart of the city, so going by boat would put us out in the boonies. We’re about ready to do our local hardware/Wal-Mart trek, so will finish this for now and send it on our way. Chapter Three Tuesday, July 18, 2000 Tying Up Loose Ends and Burnishing Bottoms What started out as a planned 3 week final refit prior to heading north to join the tall ships for OPSail 2000 and watch fourth of July fireworks over the Statue of Liberty has turned into a 3 month stay in “Tar Pit Creek”. We are actually in the Beaufort River at the Port Royal Landing Marina on the Intracoastal Waterway. It looks like we will be here another month. We have been stuck in the tar pit partially because of the time needed to do the fitting out but also because this is a really great marina and location. It looks like we will be doing some low country cruising prior to jumping off for the extended voyaging. The problem with being semi-retired is that every day is Saturday and there are no real deadlines. What doesn’t get done today can wait until tomorrow or even next week. We have very little incentive to leave this place other than the desire to live the dream. I think we are actually doing this now. At some point we may simply decide to leave to get out of the heat and humidity. For now, this marina, with its cast of characters, is just simply too much fun. We now have the cleanest bottoms in the marina. I just spent 3 hours scraping and burnishing the antifouling paint. As usual, I got out of the water bleeding. The odd hidden carnivorous barnacle managed to bite me on the back of the hand while I was cleaning one of the folding props. Yesterday I purchased 100 feet of polypropylene line and, using figure 8 knots, tied 6” sections of garden hose forming handles every 4’. The resulting floating horizontal ladder was tied to the bow. The outgoing tide floated the “ladder” along the waterline. With one hand on the hose handle and the other on the scraper or brush, the job was much easier then it has been when I was swimming against the tide. The 3 to 4 knot tide carries the crud away and helps with the minimal visibility. Although the water looks dirty, it is really the stuff of life. It is like swimming in seafood bisque prior to the cooking. When I got out of the river I was covered with the krill (tiny shrimp like organisms) that live in the mat that grows on our bottoms. Sometimes I think the antifouling bottom paint just provides extra texture for the critters to hold onto. Other outside projects are difficult at any other time than early morning due to the temperature (mid to high nineties) and humidity (80%). They weren’t kidding about the Steamy South. I am missing the more balanced heat and humidity (and Trade Winds) of Miami. I have finished mounting the hardware for the sail controls including Mainsail tack, Cunningham and reef lines. We are actually ready to go sailing but the wind has been very light and the high temp and humidity would make sailing uncomfortable. A couple we met here went sailing off shore on their unimaran (half cat / monohull) yesterday. They found some wind but the temp was still in the 90’s several miles off shore. They broke a steering cable and had to come in using the emergency tiller. This is not like Milwaukee where a sail to the other side of the breakwater usually gets you a 20-degree temperature drop. We will be doing some tune up sailing now that the running rigging is in place. I want to make sure everything works before we go off shore. The engines also need some exercise and the movement will keep the bottoms a little cleaner. With the heat limiting outdoor projects I am able to concentrate on inside work. All the clothes hooks and handrails are mounted. The refrigeration has been fixed but we are still unable to keep frozen food. I have ordered a second (small) Adler/Barbour 12 volt Cold Machine with a flat evaporator. I will be mounting the evaporator in the refrigerator side of the “ice box” along the forward wall. Hopefully, the large Cold Machine with the evaporator in the freezer side will then be able to freeze food. We need to be able to freeze any excess fish and conch we catch once we get to the islands. This second machine is a special order and will not be here for 3 weeks. By the time it arrives, I should have all the other projects completed. We will head for the Chesapeake (crab season) as soon as I install the unit. The “semi” part of the semi-retirement is the work I do for a small HCFA contractor (ESI) responsible for doing Medicare Risk HMO site visits. I am the lead physician for the consulting team that provides the health plan evaluation for HCFA. The delay in my consulting gig at the Birmingham health plan from July 10 to August 7 worked well. The lull in this part-time action has given me the time needed to complete the fitting out. The long-term plan is to be available (through email & cell phone) for these reviews when HCFA has the need and ESI gives me a call. The ESI travel agent will arrange flights from any airport I designate. I usually get the call 3 or 4 weeks prior to the gig. Kathy and I will sail to a major port with a major airport in time for the flight. This should work well until we are anchored the harbor in Georgetown, Exuma next winter. Flights in and out of Georgetown are somewhat irregular and may be fully booked. Passage for one should be available at reasonably short notice. If not, we will sail back to Nassau for a flight (two day sail). By the time we reach Georgetown Kathy will be very self sufficient and able to manage the big cat without me for a week or two. We have acquired a Pocket Mail device and plan to use this to keep in touch. It looks like a Casio calculator/day planner. One of those mini computers with a very small keyboard. The back has a flip out earpiece. The unit is held to any pay phone after dialing an 800 number. The unit sends and receives text-based messages (limited to 4000 characters. There is no Internet access. This really keeps the Spam down. We will be checking our AOL email when we can get to a landline but otherwise using Pocket Mail and pay phones. Attachments will not work and large messages are cut off. It is just for essential, meaningful information. If you need to contact us, and would phone if you could, use the AOL mail address. The phone bill at the marina has gone up since we arrived due to access charges for the AOL number in Hilton Head. Beaufort has no direct local call access. As a result, I have been quickly screening my mail, deleting all SPAM and any message that looks like a joke or “list” and any message with an attachment. I then do a flash session (“Automatic AOL”) to down load the rest. This will hopefully eliminate any problems with viruses and most of the foolishness that happens over email. Please take us off any of your general information mailing lists. No jokes, lists or other “noise”, signal only. Hopefully our next update will be from some location on or near the Chesapeake. We will keep you posted.
Chapter Four Tar Pit Creek - North Saturday, September 2, 2000
We have ended August still stuck in “Tar Pit Creek” (a.k.a., Port Royal Landing Marina – Beaufort River, SC). We spent a week in Miami to unload some stuff and celebrate my 37th birthday (August 27) but came back to Beaufort for our 37th wedding anniversary. What a coincidence. We will spend the next week completing the final outfitting of Millennium Dragon. I leave for a consult in Kingston NY on September 11 and return the 15th. We will leave Port Royal Landing after I complete the report. The plan is to leave early morning on the 19th. I hope we will be with the tide. The ProSine inverter (the electronic box that changes 12volt DC to 120volt AC) failed just before we left for Miami. When we got back customer service said they had a software problem with the units built during 98 and offered to replace it with a new unit. The old one was shipped out last week. The new one should be here this week. If all mounting points on the new unit are the same, it will only take an hour to install. One of the Lewmar electric winches (OP2) is leaking oil and not functioning up to Lewmar specifications. The Lewmar sales rep offered to replace them with electric Lewmar 44s. This is quite an upgrade. I don’t know if I will be charged the difference in cost or if Lewmar is just doing the exchange because of the trouble I have gone through. I have the replacements on millennium Dragon. This will be a 2-day project and I will need to cut through some aluminum back-up plates and thick glass. Once the winches are replaced and I return from the consult, we will be ready to leave Tar Pit Creek. Most of the little projects are done. I have ordered some port of call flags, additional safety equipment and a Heart battery monitor from West Marine. These items will be in by the end of the week but installation will not delay our departure. The plan is to leave September 19 and travel up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW, a.k.a., “The Ditch”) to Charleston, SC. We will tour Charleston for about a week and then head south before the end of September. We have a week’s reservation at the Charleston City Marina starting September 20. Randy and Dale Ann Crenshaw (Randy was the Chief Medical Officer at PHP in Knoxville) will be meeting us there and know the area very well. I hope to keep my weight gain to less than 5 pounds for the week. Walking tours of Charleston and Fort Sumter should help keep the weight down. We will take our time heading south stopping for several days in places like St. Augustine and the Space Center. If we are lucky, we will be there for a launch. I want to be in Miami by the end of November for Thanksgiving and provisioning prior to heading to the Bahamas for the winter. We will probably sail to Key Largo and anchor off the Upper Keys Sailing Club for a week prior to heading across the Stream. The builder, Henry Lucke, hopes to have his Ocean Catamaran 48 (Hull #6) completed and launched by Thanksgiving. If this happens, he and his wife, Karen will be in Stanley Cay in the Exumas for Christmas. Henry said the owners of Hulls #2 & #5 may be there for a rendezvous. Four of these boats in one anchorage will be a very impressive sight. There is a regatta there over New Year’s so we may be in for some fun racing.
Chapter Five “All who wander are not lost” -- JRR Tolkien Fernandina Beach Wednesday, October 18, 2000 The Dragon is now in Fernandina Beach, the first port south of Georgia. This is a historic little town with buildings dating back to the War of Northern Aggression (a.k.a., The Civil War). The town is about 50 blocks square on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). The town has a 400-foot dock for transient boat people but the dock has been under construction all summer and fall. The City Fathers (and mothas) are feuding with the contractors. We have been at anchor for three days waiting for Barney Fife and his cousins to sign off on the construction so we are able to tie to the dock for easier access to the town. Chapter Six Snake Creek Saturday, December 23, 2000 I am beginning to understand how our friends of long ago, Terry and Terry Malcolm, spent the year they planned to cruise the Bahama Islands in the Florida Keys. They never did get out of Marathon (Key Vaca) Florida. If any of you have their email address, please forward this to them.
Chapter Seven Across The Stream Friday, December 29, 2000 We made it. Left Rodriguez Key at 4:00am. Pitch black dark thirty. Used GPS to clear the Molasses Reef. First light at 7 miles from the reef. Wind out of the south at 10 to 15. Shook the reef out of the main at about 8:00am. Put up the screecher at about 9:00am. Mother nature took it down at about 10:30. The fair lead slid up and out of the track at the top of the spar. The halyard then sawed through against the sharp edges at the masthead. The sail came down like a lace curtain and laid out in the water along the side of the boat. The down pressure bent the 2" SS bowsprit like a plastic straw. Kathy steered the boat into the wind and then backward so the sail laid out in front of us. I went to the bow and pulled it on board. I got the bent pipe out of the keeper and onto the trampoline. From the helm, the seas appeared to be 2 to 3 feet. From the forward crossbeam, which was periodically awash, I could see the waves were 3 to 5 and building. Once the sail and sprit were lashed to the port tramp, I came back to the cockpit and changed clothes. The wind, as predicted, was building to 15 with gusts to 20 and the seas were increasing. We sailed up to Cat Cay in 20 to 25 knot winds, at a steady 8.5 knots boat speed surfing down waves at over 10. The entrance is tricky. You need to run straight east at the south light house on Gun Cay and make a sharp right turn within 75 yards of shore. Then hug the point until rounding to the backside of Gun Cay. Then turn south again, lining up the Gun lighthouse to the north with the Cat Cay light to the south. Once behind Gun & Cat the water was flat but the wind was howling. A 75-foot ($3M) stink boat had attempted the cut last night. She was hard aground on the rocky reef on the north point of Cat. She will be a total loss as the wind has now gone NW at 25 to 30. We are at a protected dock at Cat Cay Marina Club. At $108 per night a little pricey but our next run will be to Chub Cay at about 75 miles. That's an all day trip and we don't want to come into Chub at night. Nassau is only about 36 miles from Chub. We may need to go through Nassau depending on weather. For those of you who haven't a clue what Roger was talking about ½ the time, it was an exciting, eventful ride. We arrived around 3:30, tied up the boat, Roger went to clear customs, we then were able to take a walk, had dinner at 6pm, and were in bed by 7:30. We're going to spend the day here trying to figure out the communication choices, watch the weather(presently cool and windy), then get another good night's sleep, and continue on tomorrow. Hope you are all staying warm, happy, and healthy. Happy New Year, Kathy and Roger Chapter Eight “Bond….James Bond” Sunday, January 28, 2001 We finally got out of Tar Pit Creek (Georgetown, Exuma) about a week ago. GT is like adult camp, without child supervision. It seemed a little over organized for us. Pushing 300 boats in the harbor, morning yoga or Christian bible studies on the beach, volleyball at 2:30 every day, men's and woman's softball, etc., etc., etc. We went cruising to get away from this much organization. We left about a week ago to meet friends in Pipe Creek. Spent a week there hunting the wily conch, langouste, & grouper. Also learned to stalk the elusive whelk. A British couple introduced us to these large snails. Walk the shallow water on the ocean side at low tide and pick them out of their holes. They look like small turbans. Cooked like snails (garlic, butter an onions will make shoe leather taste good). Come to think of it, shoe leather may have actually been more tender and tasty. After a week in this paradise, we moved to Stanial Cay, the home of the Thunder ball Grotto, for a day. We had watched the 1965 James Bond movie on the boat (we have a VCR, TV and DVD-Computer) several days ago. The movie did not do justice to the grotto. We did the grotto at high tide. Most of the fudgies (Mackinaw Island term for tourist-AKA "Fudgemon" in The Islands) do the Grotto at low tide. Usually about 6 dinghies on the moorings. We were alone in the grotto at high tide at 10:00am with the tame fish (they like Cheerios out of a zip lock or aerosol cheese out of the can). We left Stanial and sailed south to Black Point, Great Guana, at noon. Sailed at 8.5 to 9.5 Knots up wind for about 8 miles. Super bowl party tonight at Lorraine’s Restaurant. I really don't care who wins (who is playing?). By the way, who won the presidential election? Heading to Little Farmers next for the 5Fs (First Friday in Feb Farmers Festival). Should be a good time.
Chapter Nine “One Coconut Gin Short” (First Friday in February Farmer’s Festival) Monday, February 5, 2001 |
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