Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Living the cruisers life at Sea Eagle Bay Thomas Island
9-11 November 2016
According to latest forecasts, the best chance of us finding a sailing breeze was earlier in the day so we upped anchor and said farewell to the delights of Turtle Bay on Whitsunday Island and set a course for Sea Eagle Bay on the southern side of Thomas Island. We had spent five fantastic days anchored on the northern side of Thomas Island back in July (READ THE STORY HERE) but this was to be our first visit to the other side of the island.
In his excellent cruising guide ‘ 100 Magic Miles of the Great Barrier Reef’ David Colfelt describes Sea Eagle Bay thus, ‘”This is a lovely anchorage with a beautiful sand beach that is readily accessible at all tides through the break in the reef. It has a truly ‘South Pacific’ atmosphere.” That was easily enough to gain our attention and we were all very keen to see if the reality lived up to the hype.
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| John's photo of Sea Eagle Beach on the southern side of Thomas Island is spectacular. |
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| On our way to Thomas Island. |
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| Passing Pentecost Island. |
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| Our guest crew, John, doing it tough on Our Dreamtime. |
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| One of the Whitsunday Islands along the way. |
Unfortunately the morning breeze was weaker than we would have liked and we had to resort to motor-sailing against the flooding tide past Pentecost Island to round Jesuit Point on Maher Island. Once we had cleared the point and turned southward we were able to shut the motor off and enjoy a very pleasant sail along Shaw Island with good views of the cliff lined islands laying off its eastern side. We soon rounded Fairlight Rock and turned to wind to furl our head and mainsail and drop our mizzen. We were then free to motor into our anchorage on Thomas Island.
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| Turtle Bay, Whitsunday Island to Sea Eagle Bay, Thomas Island 18.8 Nautical Miles - 4Hours 11 Minutes Average Speed 4.5 Nautical Miles - Max Speed 6.6 Knots Full track details can be seen here -NAVIONICS |
Sea Eagle Bay proved to be every bit as attractive as Colfelt had reported, although John felt it lacked the one element needed to make it ‘truly South Pacific’, palm trees. Surprisingly there was not one coconut palm to be seen in the entire bay. We suggested he may have been a little picky as the bay and beach certainly delivered in every other way.
We were able to anchor in five metres over good holding sand again with the water clear enough for us to see the set of our anchor clearly from the deck. We had more than adequate swing room to the coral reef lining both sides while the head of the bay was clear all the way up to the tree lined, golden sand beach waiting to be explored.
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| Rob snorkelling the reef at Thomas Island |
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| A nice coral trout on the reef in Sea Eagle Bay. |
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| The level of coral bleaching we saw at Thomas Island was sobering. |
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| Despite the clear water, Rob dove down the five metres to check the set of our Sarca Excel anchor. No problem there. |
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| Our Dreamtime is still looking good after her six plus months roaming the Great Barrier Reef. |
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| After six months underway we're very pleased with her anti-foul but the Prop Speed is already gone on the blade tips. |
We then all headed for the beach with some Sushi Rolls Karen whipped up for lunch and a bottle of bubbles to wash them down with. As beautiful as the bay appeared from the boat, it looked even better sitting in the shade of the trees behind this wonderful stretch of sand. After devouring our delicious snacks, the boys climbed the rise through the bush behind the beach to get some photos while Karen was content to laze in the shallows enjoying surroundings. The rest of the afternoon was spent alternating between submersing ourselves in the crystal clear waters and lazing about the beach - all achieved quite effortlessly really.
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| Karen dishing out her delicious Sushi Rolls on Sea Eagle Beach. |
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| John, Karen and Rob celebrating the cruiser's life on Sea Eagle Beach with Our Dreamtime in the background. |
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| John looking for the perfect spot to take a photo on Thomas Island. |
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| Glorious Sea Eagle Bay. |
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| Our Dreamtime awaiting her shore party's return. |
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| Looking north to Mansell Island from Thomas Island. |
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| John taking in the view. |
Later back on board, Karen spoiled us all with sundowners of her special Pina Coladas in fresh coconuts accompanied with some great cheeses and crackers.
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| Pina Colada time |
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| Karen and Rob enjoying the cruiser's life. |
It was very easy obvious that Sea Eagle Bay was well worthy of a longer stay than simply overnight so in true cruiser tradition we elected to remain here the following day and maybe longer. The following morning, we again migrated to the beach where we set up camp amongst the trees with our hammocks. Karen and John were soon suspended above the grass engrossed in their books while Rob donned his snorkelling gear, gathered up his spear gun and assumed the role of hunter/gatherer,
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| If this isn't paradise we don't know what is. |
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| Karen alternated her time between the hammock and water. Cruising's such a tough life. |
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| Rob with the parrot fish he got. |
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| This sweetlip was chosen for our BBQ dinner. |
Before long he had bagged a collection parrot fish, sweetlip and a fish we originally miss-identified as a spangled emporer. Further investigation revealed it was in fact a juvenile chinaman fish which are known to be full of ciguatera poison so, needless to say, it went over the side pretty quickly. This experience did reinforce the need to properly identify any fish caught before turning it into dinner. We may have all become extremely sick if we had eaten this one.
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| The juvenile chinaman fish - full of ciguatera poison |
Beside our campsite under the trees someone had built a fire pit in the sand which had clearly been the location of many campfires since. Karen’s suggestion we that make use of it to have a beach barbie for dinner that night and roast the sweetlip in the coals of the fire was well supported by the rest of the crew who were quick to gather more than enough kindling and larger dry driftwood to achieve the goal.
A quick trip back to the boat saw the fish prepared along with vegetables. foil wrapped and ready for roasting. The cooler bags were loaded with drinks and snacks plus our ready to cook feast and off we went to the beach. Rob put his long dormant boy scout skills to work and we were soon enjoying our sundowner drinks and snacks with an excellent fire burning as a backdrop.
Karen was lazing in one of the hammocks enjoying her wine when she spied an uninvited guest making its way along the beach towards our campsite. ‘There’s a snake over there,’ she commented rather off hand idly and was met with a two voice alarmed chorus of ‘Where?’ from Rob and John.
Sure enough there was a rather large, brownish snake approaching the far side of our fire. It was about a metre and a half long with a bulge in its belly which we guessed was an unlucky, small ex-resident of the island that the snake had recently feasted on. Karen thought it was an Eastern Brown while Rob suggested it could be a Taipan. John was soon Googling snakes on his phone looking for the answer. Regardless, we were fairly certain it was highly venomous and not to be taken lightly. (More detailed investigation later revealed it was most probably a taipan)
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| Terry Taipan had no dinner invite but crashed our party. |
With a full belly, the snake unfortunately took a liking to the heat from our fire and seemed very content lazing on the sand beside it. Despite our willing it to move on it showed no desire to go anywhere. This was clearly not compatible with our cooking our feast in the coals. Rob decided to try to encourage it back into the bush by lobbing pieces of pumice stone close to it – from a very safe distance of course. Terry Taipan (as we christened him/her) took absolutely no notice and the Cruisers versus Viper Mexican standoff continued.
After twenty minutes or so of staring at each other at thirty paces we decided to capitulate. Our problem was that sunset was almost upon us and even if Terry Taipan slithered away before then we didn’t fancy the idea of cooking and eating our dinner wondering if he was about to reappear out of the darkness. However, we also couldn’t just leave with the fire still burning. We had a large bucket of water ready to douse it but couldn’t safely get close enough.
We carefully packed up all our goodies and circled around well clear of our unwanted guest to load the dinghy and then resumed our wait. Fortunately Terry Taipan grew tired of the game and finally slithered oh so painfully slowly into the bush behind the tree line. We then wasted no time putting out the fire and making sure there was no chance of re-ignition before scooting back to the boat to cook our, by now, well marinated fish on the BBQ.
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| Our sweetlip was still beautiful eating despite not being cooked in the coals. |
The following morning the weather was again glorious sunshine with a northerly wind still blowing so we pretty much just repeated the previous day’s activities, without the attempted beach barbie and snake encounter of course.
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| Karen and John hamming it up for the camera while lunching on Sea Eagle Beach. |
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| Karen's Vietnamese Rolls with Satay Sauce were spectacular. |
This time when Rob went off spear fishing on the reef he had direct orders from Karen for coral trout or crayfish. No sign of crayfish was seen but he did manage to bag a good sized coral trout much to the Admiral’s delight.
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| Karen cooling off, again, at Sea Eagle Beach on Thomas Island. |
Like many of the awesome anchorages we have experienced on the Great Barrier Reef, we could have stayed much, much longer at Thomas Island but we limited ourselves to just three nights as a south easterly change was approaching and we wanted to check out the southern side of Goldsmith Island just to our south before it arrived and we would need to shelter at Brampton Island.
Previously in his weekend sailing and seven day chartering, John had never spent more than a single night in one anchorage as there was always the desire to keep moving to ‘make the most’ of the limited sailing time available. The secret to cruising is to be able to stop and truly enjoy the places you sail to without having to rush off. We’re pleased to say John was leaning well and managed to SLOW DOWN enough to get a taste of the cruising life.
Lesson two was coming up.
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Thursday, February 23, 2017
Five years in the life
I'm a left brain type, and maybe too much of one. This is good news, and maybe some less than great news. I have a tendency to analyze almost everything. Not at an OCD level, but maybe on that side of the fence. I couldn't even use the "Left Brain" term without reading about Sperry's work on the subject. By the way, my very usage of the term is promulgating the hemispheric dominance myth, but you get my point.
The rational side of my personality makes me question things, and is one of many reasons I infuriate so many people when politics are being discussed. I know things, because I carefully research them. My brain is full of errata like liberals do drink more than conservatives, and Democrats don't historically tax and spend anymore than Republicans do. They're both guilty. I'm stopping here before someone develops a dire case of apoplexy.
These characteristics, as flawed as they maybe, come with some advantages. I'm not a sports fanatic. There, I said it out loud. "Prepare the stocks in the village square and lock him up." It's not that I don't like sports, it's just that I don't always see, or perhaps understand the intellectual aspects in a lot of them. On occasion I'm gracefully chided because I don't sit and watch "ESPN's "Sports Center" for hours on end, or don't know some stat that is apparent to others who do. Isn't that Nova special about dark matter on PBS now?
But left brain dude has some tools. This year I entered the Gecko's football pool. 200 people during seventeen long weeks try to predict the winners. I was fourth overall. I just Geekified the process. A spread sheet was made. About forty expert's choices with a selection percentage rating above sixty percent for correct picks are entered for each game. Add home game, injury lists, weather conditions for open air stadiums and some secret others as weighing factors, and I did better than many of the so called experts.
It's a very very low tech Nate Silver take off. I never needed to watch a single game. I admit under less than duress, and the promise of medicinal adult beverages that I did spend some Sundays towards the end of the season in the saloon watching the games, and discovered it didn't kill me. My little spreadsheet project already has a new special column for Nate's sports projections. His famous 538 blog has been acquired by ESPN, and will now include not only his brilliant political race projections, but sports and other subjects also. Hush, don't tell anyone, next year is coming.
We all hopefully learn from our experiences, and repairing and installing electronics is no different. I did a little spread sheet that covers my sense of what causes things to go awry on a boat. You can right click it, or do whatever you need to make it larger.
No it's not painstakingly gleaned from years of detailed invoicing, but more on my sense of what I typically see and do daily across general categories.
Corrosion is a biggie, along with water intrusion at any level. This is most prevalent on the more open boats such as center console fishing boats. One good driving rain with wind that pushes water onto a console can play havoc. Water that seeps behind a poorly sealed device such as a stereo, or autopilot head drips onto power blocks and everything else gravity can pull it downward onto.
Connections of all types are prone to eventual failure. Salt air, and high humidity eventually will render all wiring into an increasingly poorer conductor until it turns into flecks of multicolored copper and tin oxides packaged in an embrittled plastic sheath. Areas prone to be continually damp should always have extra attention paid to the way connections are made.
It won't turn on, what should I do? Fuses, and their holders are the first things I check. ATC style fuse blocks, and their plastic fuses do corrode. The problem is you can't clean the ATC fuse contacts inside. I do use a little trick from time to time. I take a pair of needle nose pliers and give the ATC fuse blades a slight twist. Just enough to make it tougher, but not too tough to reinsert. A small wire brush will also remove the gray oxides that seem to build up on the blades. In the end, ATC and glass fuse blocks should be promptly replaced when they become problematic.
I don't mean to beat up DIY installers, many do it well, but installation inexperience can cause issues. Poor wire and connector type choices. Incorrect wiring colors used. Failure to install gaskets or sealants where needed. Didn't have the right tools, and improvised. My favorite is twisting the wires together, and then wrapping them in 4 feet of the cheap black electrical tape if they are covered at all.
Software is ever increasingly becoming an issue. Ten years ago software upgrades were not very common, and usually came about because there was some glaring error immediately discovered when a device was put in the field by a 14 year old. Today software updates can be continually ongoing. Not so much now to just correct errors, but to add new features, or to support new products or changes to them.
Many owners abuse their gear. They're not beating their equipment with rubber hoses, but it happens never the less. The largest sin is not using things on a boat. The winch wasn't used for two years, and now it doesn't work, and the fuse now pops every time you push the switch. Boats that don't get covered have extra opportunities for water intrusion when it rains. Radars aren't run, and condensation inexorably carries on corrosion's cause. Bracket mounted equipment is removed, and the cable's connectors are left exposed to fend for themselves out in the elements. Use it or lose it.
All things will break sooner or later, it is just more likely to happen sooner on a boat. Over a five year period there are endless ways for electronics to fail, but many failures have some things in common. Things inside a boat, or in more protected areas live much long that those with more exposure to the elements. For this reason properly installed flush mount gear has a much better survival rate than bracket mounted gear.
Many marine stereos are lucky to survive five years, if even that. This is primarily because they are typically not well protected from the elements, and are encased in marginal materials like steel cases. A piece of plastic covering the top of the unit is the best many do to "Marinize" the units. On the other hand chart plotters are remarkably resilient, and the failure rate if not abused by the elements is very low over a five year period.
Many marine stereos are lucky to survive five years, if even that. This is primarily because they are typically not well protected from the elements, and are encased in marginal materials like steel cases. A piece of plastic covering the top of the unit is the best many do to "Marinize" the units. On the other hand chart plotters are remarkably resilient, and the failure rate if not abused by the elements is very low over a five year period.
And lastly the dreaded obsolescence issue. Modern manufacturing drives costs down, makes devices more compact, but they are no longer repairable at a board level. Add the the ever increasing rate of tech change, and most marine electronics are going to be obsolete at some level in a five year period.
When I say obsolete, what I mean is they may no longer have parts available for repair. Support for software may have stopped, your existing equipment will lack features you now desire, and so on. I just have to have that new chart plotter that will let me Skype with my buddy on the yacht club trip.
The rate of technology change for marine electronics varies considerably. Chart plotters and marine entertainment systems now change very quickly, radars at a slower pace, and rudder references hardly at all. I think I can safely aver, "The higher the level of technology on a boat, the faster the rate of technological change will impact it."
The rate of technology change for marine electronics varies considerably. Chart plotters and marine entertainment systems now change very quickly, radars at a slower pace, and rudder references hardly at all. I think I can safely aver, "The higher the level of technology on a boat, the faster the rate of technological change will impact it."
The numbers I have tendered are a mix of experience with Florida boats in salt water , and gut instincts. Feel free to question them. I also didn't throw the kitchen sink into the list, it would have gone on forever. Environments do vary widely from fresh water lower humidity, to continually muggy, hot, salt water locations and this changes things. These are by any measure subjective numbers, but on the whole I would bet on them, statistically speaking.
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Spring Safety Checklist Life Rafts
Starting the safety check list on life rafts ..Do you have a life raft? If not you should consider it a purchase for your Spring Boating needs. You can expect to pay between $1200.00 for a very simple single tubed life raft and up to $6000.00 or more for a top of the line offshore life raft. Always access your boating needs and trips to determine which new life raft will best suit them. Different life raft manufactures require different servicing intervals on each life raft so that may be a consideration during purchasing as well.
When purchasing a new life raft remember to consider the number of persons on your boat most of the time and try to match that number to the person capacity of the life raft.
Purchasing a life raft can be a tough decision so let someone help you.
Servicing a life raft is super important to the life of the life raft as well as the functionality. I have written other posts on servicing a life raft such as this one and this one and the point is always the same ...If you do not service the life raft you are taking a big risk that the life raft will not function properly. In one of the posts I highlighted the importance of servicing because the batteries in the flash light became corroded and battery acid leaked out all over the rest of the equipment. The raft had not been serviced one time in it's 10 year life... That particular raft should have been serviced 3 times.
I don't know about you but I would hate to be the first one in that life raft after struggling in a desperate situation just to find out I had no flash light, no first aid kit, and no flares thanks to leaky batteries.... Can servicing always guarantee a working raft so every one is spared from the worst, no but it can up the odds a lot. Remember being safe on the water involves a lot of factors and having the best equipment and knowledge are your best defense against a bad situation.
Here is a good quality Made in the USA Life Raft
The Switlik MD-3
Offshore Life Raft
ISO-9650-1 approved
6 Person capacity
$5190.00 in a soft valise
$5255.00 in a hard fiberglass container
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