Olalla Bay

Magical Anchorage

2012-02-15T06:27:00.001-08:00

Last night as we lay in bed we could look out the hatch above our pillows and see the Little Dipper. The sky was clear and filled with stars, as we’re far enough away from any city. The current lapped against the hull of the boat and lulled us to sleep.

We each got up only twice during the night to check the boat’s location, wondering whether we’d slipped our anchor. No problems.

This morning as we drank coffee on the sundeck, we saw more than a dozen porpoises circling.

Two platforms on a nearby island are each inhabited by an osprey busy building a nest. One flew by with a fish in its’ claws. THIS is what we came for!

On The Hook Again

2012-02-14T16:04:00.001-08:00

The earlier post of the same title didn’t work out so well. We’ll try again. As always, you can double click on the pictures to make them bigger.

Find the little green boat in the center of the picture: that’s where we’re anchored out tonight.

For the second time since we bought "Next To Me" one month and two days ago, we've left the marina and taken a trip by ourselves. With Cathryn at the helm, which required overcoming some nervousness, and Bob on the deck lines, we pulled out and went north on the Intracoastal Waterway, past Vero Beach. 18 miles and 2.5 hours later, we arrived just offshore of Hole in the Wall Island and set the anchor in 9 feet of water. We’ll spend the night here.

The trip up was beautiful. We sipped lemonade (Cathryn) and coffee (Bob), watched dozens of dolphins, cormorants, egrets, blue heron and pelicans, waved at every boat we passed, and enjoyed the sights of towns, elegant homes, mangroves and spoil islands, the small islands created as a result of dredging the channel where the "spoils" are dumped in a pile in shallow water. It's sunny and warm, a little windier than we prefer for our first night anchored somewhere other than a protected cove, and very beautiful.

Maybe when we get done with the Loop, we’ll buy a place on the Intracoastal. Look! This place even has a little guest cottage on the right.

Our “MiFi” is working well; last month with fairly intensive use, we only used 5 gigs. Because there is no internet in the marina where we’ve spent the past month, we were reliant on this Verizon MiFi for internet access.

Look closely: see the signpost just to the left and further back of the island in the foreground? That’s the channel marker for the ICW. We hope to find it in the same location relative to the boat when the sun comes up in the morning. We wonder when we will get a good night’s sleep while on the hook for the first time?

On The Hook Again

2012-02-14T12:42:00.000-08:00

Next To Me

2012-02-14T12:28:00.001-08:00

The former “Golden Dolphin” is now officially re-named “Next To Me”! The first step was changing the name on her Coast Guard documentation, which was initiated at the time of purchase.

The second step was selecting the size, font and colors with the sign-makers and ordering the vinyl lettering for the stern and the signboards mounted on the port and starboard sides.

The installation took place while Cathryn was gone, and the final step was carrying out the appropriate nautical ceremony which occurred yesterday after Cathryn’s return from Houston.

Houston

2012-02-14T12:22:00.001-08:00

Last Thursday, February 9, Cathryn flew to Houston for 3 nights with her parents, sisters and extended family. Cathryn and her parents went to sister Anne’s home for a delicious dinner with Anne, Eric, and their irreverent 30-year-old son, Jeff, with whom Cathryn tends to become overly loud and rambunctious.

Friday Cathryn, Dad and Mom all went for pedicures, and ran a bunch of errands.

Saturday’s highlight was a trip to nephew Brad and Kate’s home to meet Great-Nephew Clay Crawford, only 3 weeks old, for the first time, and see sister Susan and her husband Bob, along with new parents Brad and Kate. Cathryn’s parents, newly minted Great-grandparents, were thrilled to see Crawford’s namesake for the second time since his birth.

Bob stayed on the boat in Florida while Cathryn was gone to continue handling repair and upgrade projects, go to the Farmer’s Market, and write blog posts!

The Things That Cruiser Do

2012-02-11T17:30:00.001-08:00

We’ve posted about how we have been expanding our knowledge base to get prepared for doing the loop. Well here is an example: We’ve been trying to learn about how to keep the boat from developing a list as a result of different fuel usage rates from of our port and starboard tanks.

This drawing explains why starboard tank drops faster then the port when all the valves are fully open. (It really does.)Now we need to sort out how to manage the valves to keep the boat on an “even keel” as they say.

Can you imagine Bob and Cathryn having detailed discussions over such a drawing while drinking their evening glass of wine? We certainly couldn’t, at least until recently!

On The Rail

2012-02-11T17:14:00.001-08:00

Ft. Pierce Saturday Market

2012-02-11T17:07:00.001-08:00

A few pictures from the Saturday Market.

I wasn’t the only one taking pictures.

Indian River Road

2012-02-09T15:20:00.001-08:00

The Indian River Road is a twenty mile, a scenic alternative to Highway 1 between Stuart and Ft. Pierce. Here are a sample of photos of the Indian River and some of the houses you can see along the way.

The Indian River Lagoon is North America’s most diverse estuary with more than 2,200 different species of animals and 2,100 species of plants.

The Lagoon varies in width from .5 to 5 miles and averages 3 feet depth. It serves as a spawning and nursery ground for many different species of oceanic and lagoon fish and shellfish.

The lagoon also has one of the most diverse bird populations anywhere in America.

Nearly 1/3 of the nation’s manatee population lives here or migrates through the Lagoon seasonally.

In addition, its ocean beaches provide one of the densest sea turtle nesting areas found in the Western Hemisphere.

Some houses are classic.

Some try too hard.

Hiatus

2012-02-08T17:44:00.001-08:00

We probably won’t post again until early next week. Tomorrow morning (Thursday) Cathryn flies out of West Palm Beach to Houston to visit her parents for 3 nights, and see her sisters and meet her new great-nephew Clay Crawford, 3-week old grandson of Cathryn’s sister Susan.

Bob will stay in Fort Pierce, Florida on “Next To Me” and continue working on his list, have Dave the marine tech continue work on his list, and deal with one other company on another project. Or who knows: maybe he’ll host a party, take the boat out all by himself, and do other fun activities and post photos and stories on the blog in Cathryn’s absence. For those of you who know him: what do you think is the likelihood of that?

First Boat Visitor

2012-02-07T10:12:00.001-08:00

Fifteen years ago, Cathryn met Cynthia (see her 40th birthday party above) when they both had 10-year-old daughters in gymnastics class, so began to carpool together. They quickly became fast friends, running partners, and adventure buddies on the ski slopes and hiking trails. Sadly, two years later Cynthia’s husband was transferred to Milwaukee. Since then they’ve seen each other a few times, always picking right back up where they left off, feeling as close as ever.

This past Sunday, Cynthia flew from Milwaukee to Fort Myers, Florida for a long weekend with members of her Book Group, one of whom owns a condo there. She rented a car at the airport and drove straight to Harbour Isle Marina to spend 3 days and 2 nights on board the boat with us.

Unfortunately, it began raining the day Cynthia arrived and finally quit 30 minutes before her departure today. We took long walks each morning, talked until the wee hours of the night, played a fun card game called Quiddler in the evenings, ate delicious grilled shrimp and veggie skewers courtesy of Bob, went to dinner at Tiki Hut by the marina in downtown Fort Pierce, and shopped for fabric for new cushions on the L-shaped settee in the boat’s salon, during which trip Bob was immeasurably patient and helpful.

We caught up on all the news of family, travel, jobs and life, and hope to do it again in late August or early September when we arrive in Chicago, only a couple hours drive from Cynthia’s home. A great time was had by all, and we enjoyed having our first visitor to “test drive” the guest stateroom and tell us what it needs to make it completely comfortable.

Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway

2012-02-04T11:55:00.001-08:00

We find ourselves fascinated by the differences between recreational boating on the Pacific Coast and Atlantic Coast. Our boat at home, Always Ahead, is suitable for inland salt waters such as Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands, Canadian Gulf Islands and places further north, all waterways which are protected from the treacherous open ocean.

The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, which runs from the southern tip of Florida to Boston, is also almost entirely protected water. Only a few short portions are not separated from the ocean by barrier islands. The whole route is 3,000 miles (4,800-km) along the Atlantic and continues along the Gulf coast of the United States, called the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Some lengths consist of natural inlets, salt-water rivers, bays, and sounds; others are artificial, man-made canals connecting the natural segments. It provides a continuous navigable route along its length without many of the hazards of travel on the open sea.

Following World War II, when the Germans sank many U.S. commercial ships just off the Atlantic coast, the U.S. government and many state and local municipalities decided to fund its’ dredging and marking with navigational aids (signage) to complete this coastal route, which had been originally proposed in 1826, just 50 years after the Declaration of Independence, but had only built piecemeal.

It was initially designed as a 12-foot deep channel, 150 feet wide. Over the years, as other forms of transportation became dominant, funding to maintain it has dwindled at times and in places, so portions of it, including long segments here in Florida, are now only 7 to 9 feet deep, and occasionally narrower than 150 feet. If you enlarge the picture, above, you can actually see the dredged channel. The Waterway itself is much wider – often a mile or three miles – but the safe, marked, navigable stretch is narrow and requires constant attention to avoid running aground.

Our training Captains, Chris and Alyse repeatedly stressed the importance of our looking ahead AND behind us as we weave our way up the channel, to visually line up the channel markers to determine whether we’re inside or outside the channel, as the wind and current can quickly move us into shallow water, even grounding. This is not like our boating experience in the Pacific Northwest where most channels are miles wide, hundreds of feet deep, have few obstructions and few Aids to Navigation except when entering a bay, cove, marina or inlet.

While there is some commercial traffic on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, it is mostly recreational boaters, including gigantic yachts like the one in the photo above.

Morning After

2012-02-03T15:57:00.000-08:00

Following our night “on the hook”, we rose early to a beautiful sunrise, made more so by the accumulation of clouds that blew in overnight. Coffee on the sundeck, followed by a quick check on the internet of the weather for the day, revealed that winds would pick up beyond the level we’re eager to deal with during our first docking of this large boat.

So we pulled up the anchor and found the chain covered with heavy, sticky mud, not the sort of bottom we’re accustomed to in the Pacific Northwest. We’re glad our boat has an anchor wash on the foredeck so the chain can be rinsed down as it comes back aboard, not leaving a smelly mess in the anchor locker.

Bob did the honors of bringing the boat back into our slip at the marina for the first time, while Cathryn handled the lines. We did really well, and our confidence in handling Next to Me crept up one more tiny notch. Oh . . . and the photo above is NOT our boat, just an example of what can happen if things get REALLY screwed up! Hope your sense of humor is still intact, Mom.

Afloat at last!

2012-02-03T10:49:00.001-08:00

After three weeks of sitting parked at the marina, save for the two days we had Captains Chris and Alyse on board training us in the water, we’ve finally made our first solo foray into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICWW).

The photo above shows our homeport where we’ve been the past three weeks, just left of center, in the bottom half of the photo, where the docks form a 3-legged Y shape. The slightly larger Faber Cove is the one just right of center, also in the bottom half of the photo. It’s easier to see if you click on the photo to enlarge it.

Today Dave, our fearless Marine Technician who tackles all problems great and small on a boat, completed the repair of the seals needed to fix the steering fluid leaks, so the boat is now a navigable vessel again. We told Dave we wanted to leave the dock, so he departed earlier than usual this afternoon, and after the canvas guy left (another worker doing some tweaking on the canvas and isinglass on the sundeck and flybridge enclosures), we cast off our dock lines and headed for the ICWW! OK, so we only went 5 miles, but Bob did a great job getting us out of our slip and the marina, we ventured south on the ICWW a few miles then turned back north, and we’re now anchored out for the night in Faber Cove, a short distance from our marina, but not on a dock or hooked up to electricity or water.

It feels great to be away from the marina (though we like it there a lot – a great place!) We celebrated by having Bob cook steaks on our barbecue on the transom, and Cathryn sauteed some chard and mushrooms (thank you, Generator, for the ability to use the stove), which, accompanied by a glass of red wine, made for a nice dinner at anchor. Cheers!

Though we slept pretty well, we each got up once in the middle of the night and felt compelled to look out the window to confirm our location. We wanted to ensure our anchor had not slipped, and we weren’t about to run into the nearby anchored sailboat (an experience we once had at Sucia Island back home when a sailboat slipped it’s anchor and ran into us at 5am).

Waiting For Parts Idles Us

2012-02-01T07:15:00.001-08:00

The seals for our steering fluid pumps are “in the mail”, so we’re in floating condo mode until they arrive and Dave gets them installed.

Our own personal to-do lists, while still fairly extensive, feel pretty much under control, so we’re beginning to explore the area and have some fun. Yesterday we found “Archie's” out at the beach. Archie's is a “no shirt, no shoes, no problem” kinda place, mostly an outdoor hamburger or fish ‘n chips joint, reminiscent of the Rocket Man’s restaurant at Marathon in the the Keys that Bob particularly enjoyed 7 years ago.

We went to Archie’s for what turned out to be an extended lunch with our Nashville-bound marina mates, Merwin and Crystal, who we’ve gotten to be friends with over the last couple of weeks. Sadly, they are leaving today.

After lunch and a beer they taught us the “ring game”, apparently very popular in the Bahamas where they’ve spent lots of time. It’s quite simple: a 2” steel ring is suspended from a string on an arm extending out from a post, and the post has a bent nail on it which, if you swing the ring just right, lands on the hook. We understand it becomes increasingly entertaining as the evening wears on. Only Merwin was successful in landing the ring during our attempts.

After lunch we stopped by a local fruit and veggie market reminiscent of some of the larger veggie markets in Baja, Mexico from our previous RV days.

We’re hoping that, maybe, the seal for the steering fluid came in the mail yesterday, and will arrive on the boat today. But we’re not holding our breath!

Preparatory Routine

2012-01-30T14:57:00.001-08:00

Our purpose in buying the Loop boat in January, though we won’t officially start the Loop until about April 1, was to allow time to provision, repair and upgrade the boat, in addition to learn how to maintain, pilot, anchor and dock it.

From the beginning we’ve had TO DO LISTS: Bob’s list, Cathryn’s list, Darrell’s list, Dave’s list. And for two weeks now, all of us have been working hard on our lists. Bob, Cathryn and Darrell (the electronics guy) are almost finished with their lists. Bob has done things like replace the CO2 monitor, clean the bilge, repair plumbing leaks and add a swivel shackle to the anchor chain. Cathryn has done things like make a snubber for the chain rode (including some splicing, which she was taught two summers ago by friend Jim R), make arrangements for the name of the boat to be changed on the transom and both sides, and arrange parking for our truck when we leave here.

Dave is not almost finished with his list. What we didn’t anticipate is that the guys who are really good at what they do (which both Dave and Darrell are), are also in such high demand this time of year that it’s tough to get them on our boat. There are many other clients, including in our same marina, who want these guys to do work on their boats too. Dave works six days a week, and stays up into the wee hours of the nights preparing detailed bills for work he’s completed. He prioritizes and re-prioritizes his clients frequently, based on the urgency of need.

For example, our lack of hot water in the shower the first weekend we were here catapulted us to the top of Dave’s list . . . briefly! Then we saw him for a few hours here and there. We think he does a great job of managing his time and client list, but one result for us is that we feel we can’t take off to play with our boat, because if we do, Dave can’t work on it. So we stay on board every day, see whether Dave or Darrell will show up (or get pulled off by some other emergency), then hang around to answer their questions about how we want things done.

It’s a good thing our first visitor arrives this Sunday to stay on the boat for two nights. We gave Dave advance notice that we don’t want any work done on the boat next Monday while Cynthia from Milwaukee is here. We’re ready for a Play Date! Meanwhile, we are happy and well, and staying busy in the evenings with social engagements with other cruisers.

B.O.A.T.

2012-01-28T11:38:00.001-08:00

Whether sailors or motor boaters, Cruisers are pretty good at making fun of themselves. Sailors joke about how they spend more time motoring than sailing. Motor boaters joke about how they spend more timing fixing their boats than going out on them. And all Cruisers have their favorite interpretation of the acronym “B.O.A.T.”

A former neighbor, Josi, swears it stands for “Best Outdoor Activity Together”, a nice sentiment.

Almost any boater will tell you it actually stands for “Bring On Another Thousand” (as in dollars). It’s a known fact that boat parts cost about five times as much as similar auto parts.

Gary, one of our blog readers and a former co-worker of Cathryn’s, tells us it really stands for either “Beer Often Alters Trajectory” or else “Beer Only Amplifies Technique”, depending on whether you were able to properly navigate back to your home dock after stopping for a beer somewhere.

Finally, Corey, our current dock neighbor from Connecticut, tells us all of the above are wrong; it really stands for (and this one rings most true to us at the moment): “Broken, Or About To”, as every time we turn around we find something else is broken that wasn’t already on The Dreaded List (of repairs).

We keep consoling ourselves that boats are actually well-constructed for a pretty harsh environment: sitting in salt water, being subjected to high winds, yanking around on the end of an anchor chain, and getting bashed about at high speed on waves while underway, equivalent to what it might be like for a house to be subjected to an earthquake every week and being expected to survive without broken plumbing, electrical connections or structural damage. When looked at that way, it seems like “Next To Me” is doing pretty well for a 25-year-old girl!

Biker Night

2012-01-27T04:57:00.001-08:00

Thursday was another day of working on the boat . . . enough said about that! But we can report the weather remains wonderful, always in the 70s during daytime hours, though forecast to hit 81 on Friday, with a possible afternoon thunderstorm. Here’s a photo from yesterday of a porpoise surfing our bow wake.

Late Thursday afternoon, Captains Chris and Alyse, who keep their boat moored 4 slips from where we’re located, invited everyone to join them on “Sandy Hook” for cocktail hour. So 11 of us, including the Managing Editor of Passagemaker magazine, a delightful 27-year-old woman, convened on their boat, along with Bert, their huge, friendly, well-behaved 8-month-old Labradoodle, for drinks and boating stories. Later (like 8:00, almost our bedtime) most of us headed downtown for Biker Night and dinner.

Every Thursday the City of Fort Pierce closes off two streets to all traffic, a DJ sets up his equipment and blasts music, a beer stand is set up, and hundreds of bikers converge on the area to wander around in their leathers and show off their big, shiny bikes. From the looks of most of the “bikers” we saw, many of them probably spent their younger years in a corporate environment. Lots of second childhoods.

It was great fun to walk the crowd for 45 minutes while we waited for a table at Lorenzo’s where we subsequently had a fabulous Italian meal and LOTS of garlic! We expect to return for more Biker Night fun in the future.

Now Bob Understands

As many of you know, the idea that we should do the Loop was originally Cathryn’s. Bob took his time agreeing to the venture and had his “conditions”.

What Bob didn’t understand was that Cathryn had an ulterior motive to the Loop idea. During our training with Chris and Alyse, they repeatedly stressed that it was important to ALWAYS let the other person know what you’re doing and where you are on the boat (to prevent a Man-Overboard from going unnoticed, among other things; this actually happened once to our friend Jim R). They taught us to use their phrase to let the other one know when we need to hear a “status update”.

So, now Cathryn can say to Bob “TALK TO ME”, without Bob thinking we’re on our way to a marriage counselor.

Training For The Loop, Day 3

2012-01-25T16:37:00.001-08:00

Today was our last day of training with Chris and Alyse Caldwell of Captain Chris Yacht Services, and we can’t say enough about how useful it was, in addition to being fun.

We were ready to depart the dock by the time Chris and Alyse arrived, but almost immediately Cathryn noticed what she thought was some of Bob’s blood on the floor at the upper helm (he bleeds readily when he bumps into things). Chris, on the other hand, figured out immediately that it was a steering fluid leak, and therefore we had to change our plan for the day. Instead of traveling to Hole in the Wall Island north of Vero Beach, we shortened our destination so we’d be closer to “home” in the event of an all-out failure of our steering. While we now know how to steer the boat using the gears and throttles, we wouldn’t want to do that for a lengthy trip.

So we went to a nearby cove to practice anchoring again, traveled up the Intracoastal Waterway about half the distance planned, worked on our navigation and piloting skills, traded off helmsman and deckhand duties, practiced docking at at a private dock and fuel dock, then returned to our marina for a little more docking practice.

Our last hour with Chris and Alyse was spent doing trip planning – learning what resources (charts and cruising guides) to use to plan a travel day, where to anchor or pull into a marina for the night, calculate how far and at what speed we can travel, and what obstacles might slow our progress, such as bridges that need to be opened or locks that need to be traversed.

Whew! It has been a fabulous three days, we’ve learned more than we expected, and we still think this was the best investment we’ve made to properly prepare us for the Great Loop trip. Chris and Alyse are wonderful instructors, and if we have problems when we set out on our own, you can bet we’ll be back for more help from them!

On another note, we’ve also seen some incredible marine life. For the first time ever, we saw Manatees! If you don’t know what they are, Google them, as our photos don’t do them justice. They are sweet, docile, and yes, ugly animals, though Cathryn thinks they’re so ugly they’re actually cute! And we’ve seen zillions and zillions of dolphins/porpoises! We’re not yet sure which is the correct name for them, but we think when they snag our bow wave and stick with us for awhile it is the coolest thing ever (sort of like zebras in the Serengeti, Lynn and David!)

Chris and Alyse are from New Orleans, the same place from which the “Subdudes” band hails. The Subdudes are the ones whose song “Next To Me”, which we consider to be “our song”, inspired the name of our Loop Boat. So today, during a brief break from training, Bob put the song on the iPod/stereo system and briefly, we danced in the galley to the song “Next to Me” while Chris and Alyse laughed and documented the occasion.

Corny: yes Happy and amused: Yes too!

Training, Day 2

2012-01-24T17:54:00.001-08:00

Captain Chris Yacht Services, in the form of Chris and Alyse Caldwell, continued their work today to mold us into proficient boat co-captains of “Next to Me”. They certainly have sufficient skill to rise to the occasion, and when we (eventually) take the boat out by ourselves for the first time, we’ll find out whether we were good students.

This morning Alyse walked us through navigation instruction: reading navigation charts, understanding the buoys and markers along the route, some “rules of the road” (who has right-of-way under various conditions), and the meaning of various whistle signals and lights on boats we’ll see and hear along the way. Chris talked us through anchoring procedures, then they walked us through steps to disconnect everything (electricity, water, dock lines, etc) to be ready to leave the dock . . . and THEN WE LEFT!!

Bob began at the helm under Chris’s instruction, and Cathryn was on deck (lines, fenders, etc) under Alyse’s instruction. We discussed anchoring procedures and learned when we dropped the anchor that it inexplicably had a “Figure 8 Knot” about 50 feet into the chain, !?$#&@!@!! Why??? Who knows, but the anchor rode (line connecting the anchor to the boat) could not be let out more than that as a result. Thank goodness for a shake-down cruise! Moving the knot to the end of the chain is the first of tonight’s homework.

While at anchor we took a lunch break and continued talking all things boating. Bob and Cathryn switched roles after lunch, and we headed to a marina to practice docking at fixed docks, something we’ve never seen in the Pacific Northwest, Canada or Alaska. Tidal swings in our area are so great (15 feet from low to high tide is common), that all marinas have floating docks that go up and down with the water. In this part of the country where tidal swings are typically 1 –3 feet, fixed docks that don’t float are common. Next we practiced docking at floating docks. We each took turns and worked out some of the issues around wind and current and how they affect docking too.

Returning to Harbour Isle Marina, the 4 of us sat on the sundeck for a de-briefing and to get our Homework Assignment for tonight. It was another very instructive day, and best of all: we had fun! Chris and Alyse are very skilled instructors – calm and easy in their style despite constantly instructing us on how to do things, or correcting things we do incorrectly – no small feat!

Captain Chris Yacht Services

2012-01-23T18:20:00.001-08:00

We’ve hired Captain Chris Yacht Services (Chris and Alyse Caldwell) for three days of training on our boat. Today was day #1 with only Chris. We covered the entire boat, inch by inch, learning what each switch, piece of equipment or other piece of metal or part was, how it worked, how to operate it, and how to do basic maintenance on it.

As you might guess, we spent most of the time in the engine room. We spent the first hour covering 20% of the engine room alone!

After lunch we did hands on work, changing fuel filters on the main engines and cleaning the raw water strainers on the generator and air conditioner. If you don’t know what those are, don’t worry: you must not have a large boat, so you don’t need to know, but they’re important systems for us to understand so the boat will move in the morning when we are ready to cast off.

All in all, it, was an extremely valuable learning experience. It took most of the mystery out of the boat. We now actually have a sense of “how this boat works”. While we’re sure we will have to refer to our notes in the future, we understand the basics and are feeling comfortable with the mechanical, electrical and other systems on the boat. It helps that we spent the past 18 months taking Power Squadron courses in subjects like Engine Maintenance and Seamanship, but that was largely books and theoretical stuff; supplementing it with this hands-on training on the boat where we’ll live for the next year made all the difference in our really, understanding it all.

For the next two days we will be moving the boat over the water under the guidance of Captains Chris and Alyes. Full reports will be given, but if they’re as valuable as the systems work of today, we will think this is some of the best money we have ever spent on this Great Loop venture!

Somebody Has To Do It

2012-01-22T15:29:00.001-08:00

Our posts for the last 15 days or so have admittedly lacked many great blogging moments. Lots of working on the boat and buying things (boy are we earning lots of frequent flyer miles on our credit card) and providing direction to the people who are on board fixing things or installing our new electronics. We’re frankly just a little worn out by it all. So today we decided to include one of our “we need to d0 ___” items that included an element of fun.

Our new outboard motor needed its’ first critical couple of hours of break- in period at lower and variable speeds. So around 11:00 we took off in our dinghy into the Intercostal Waterway for some boating.

It was 75 degrees when we left; looks like a difficult assignment, eh? Bob took the first hour, and after traveling up the ICW, we turned off to some smaller channels into the barrier islands. We totally by accident (OK ,we had a recommendation) came across “Little Jim’s” a marina for boats on their last legs, biker bar and sandwich shop.

We sat outside in the sun overlooking the water and ordered Cuban sandwiches, a couple of Negro Modelos (our favorite Mexican beer) and took in the sights.

Sorry we decided not to point the camera at the bikers or their female companions. (Tom: note some of the Navy Seal signage; you’d feel comfortable here). And here’s Cathryn getting ready to start her shift at the helm on the way back.

After leaving Little Jim’s and the smaller channels, we entered the inlet from the Atlantic to the ICW. We gather this must be where the fish are.

Hard to imagine threading a large ship through all the fishermen, when the dredged channel deep enough for large boats is only 100 yards wide.

Tomorrow we start our training. The first day will be focused on the boat’s systems and basic engine maintenance. The second and third days will be underway and focus on handling, navigation and docking. After that we hope we’ll feel comfortable leaving the dock in something a little bigger then the new dinghy, by ourselves even.

All Work and No Play . . . .

2012-01-21T16:48:00.001-08:00

. . . makes Jack a dull boy, as well as Bob and Cathryn. So we haven’t posted for a few days, again. We’ve continued to work on the boat, bought a new dinghy and motor (West Marine 310 RIB and Mercury 4 hp), and have had Dave, the marine technician, on board almost daily continuing to work on The List, mostly in the engine room, but also on the windlass. We’re accomplishing a great deal, and very pleased with progress, but we’re ready for a day off. After 8 days of driving from Seattle to Fort Pierce, followed by 8 days of working on the boat, tomorrow we will play – photos and stories to follow afterwards.

We did have a pleasant evening of relaxed fun last night. At 6:30 Merwin and Crystal came aboard our boat for cocktail hour. They’re from Nashville, TN and keep their 2005 49-foot Jeanneau (French) sailboat here at Harbour Isle Marina year-round. Because they’re currently semi-retired, they come here about 3 times a year to spend a month on their boat. We had dinner at The Tiki Hut, a nearby shoreside restaurant with live music on Friday nights, good seafood and lively conversation among the 4 of us. We really enjoyed it, and they had lots of local knowledge to share to make our time here easier and more productive.

We also affirm our happiness at being here in Florida as the weather at home has been horrid! We heard on national news, as well as a call from Sara and Tom, our house-sitters, and two of our adult children who live in Seattle, that there was a lot of snow and ice this week. Schools were closed, few people made it to work, and the very hilly streets were hazardous in addition to power being out. Florida remains sunny and warm, so we feel lucky to be here.

Finally, Cathryn is now a Great Aunt! Her sister Susan’s oldest son, Brad and his wife Kate, announced the arrival of Clay Crawford Shaffer yesterday! This made Cathryn’s parents into great-grandparents for the first time, and Clay’s middle name is the same as Cathryn’s father, Crawford – what an honor and excitement all around! Cathryn will travel to Houston for a few days in February and enjoy an introduction to the handsome little guy.

New Looper Friends and “The Guys”

2012-01-18T06:18:00.001-08:00

We haven’t written much lately because we’re doing things that aren’t so interesting: working on repairs/upgrades on the boat, everything from added towel rods in the head to new electronics at the upper helm on the flybridge.

Last night we went out to dinner with Steven and Charlotte, two folks also moored here at Harbour Isle who will start the Great Loop this spring. They’re from Jacksonville, FL and have a gorgeous 52-foot Kadey Krogen they’ve been repairing and upgrading for the past 3 months to get ready for the trip. We had cocktails on their boat, then went to a Sushi/Japanese/Thai restaurant for dinner, and the conversation revolved around personal history (former careers, kids, grand-kids) and Great Loop plans. We may do some buddy-boating with them, possibly starting out of Jacksonville in a similar timeframe. They’re very nice people, and we enjoyed meeting our first 2012 Loopers.

Today the boat is crawling with “The Guys”. Dave is a marine technician who works on just about everything on a boat other than soft goods like canvas, upholstery, elelctronics and the like. He repaired our shower last weekend (no hot water, though the tank worked fine and produced hot water in the kitchen) and is spending today down in our engine room working on items that came up in the Survey. Our salon (nautical speak for “living room”) has a giant hole in it with the hatch opened up for engine room access. The big black thing in front of Dave’s face is the air intake filter for one of the two Caterpillar 3126 diesel engines below. This morning we were taught how to clean that air filter periodically with a special kit.

Darrell and "his guy” Michael are electronics professionals, and they’ll spend two days this week installing a new Garmin GPS/chartplotter/radar/AIS receiver. The boat came with 1994 electronics that are worthless today, which we knew at the time we bought the boat. We hate investing so much money in a boat we’ll probably own only 15-18 months, but we’ll have an easier, safer time with the new stuff. And besides, Bob LOVES new electronic toys! Cathryn always comes to love them eventually, but is a wary buyer when discussion of purchasing new toys begins. We’re working hard this week, but pleased to be making so much progress. We look forward to the day when we don’t have to make a trip to West Marine . . . hasn’t happened yet!

Days of “BOAT”s

2012-01-15T16:53:00.001-08:00

So, we’ll start with a quiz. Look at this photo and see if you can figure out why we decided to rent a slip in THIS marina (other than the fact it is beautiful) for the first month of our new boat ownership. Particularly considering that the price is a bit higher than some nearby marinas, and there are none of the common marinas amenities such as bathrooms, showers, laundry, and pools, and you really need a car to get to grocery stores and other places. The answer is at the end of this blog post.

For the last two days we’ve been busy hauling things to the boat from the truck that we brought from home and hauling things from the boat that we don’t want or have replaced (e.g. the bed mattress, microwave and digital TV antenna), and then trying to figure out where it all fits.

Today we drove south to Stuart (where we closed our purchase of “Next to Me” last Thursday) to attend a boat show. Although we just bought a boat and brought most of the things we need to provision it from home, we still need a few items including a dinghy and motor. We hoped there might be some “boat show specials”, but alas there were none. On the way home we stopped at our local West Marine store, and when we told the salesperson what we were looking for, he offered up a dinghy and motor package with a 10% discount. So we ordered one to be delivered later this week.

So we’ve spent the last two days proving the truth of the saying that “BOAT” is an acronym for “bring on another thousand”. We knew we were facing this reality when we bought a 25-year old boat, so this hasn’t come as a surprise. We keep reminding ourselves of all the mileage points we’re getting on our credit cards. And besides, this boat cost only 56% of what we were willing to spend at the beginning of our search, so we’re still waaaay “under budget” from that perspective.

At the end of another day of “BOAT”ing, we needed to relax on the sundeck with una cerveza. All is well.

And the answer to the quiz at the beginning is: the fairways (space between and behind each individual boat slip) is huge! That’s a major reason we’re in this marina; there is lots of space, and the surrounding buildings block some of the wind. This gives people like us, new to large, twin-engine boats, plenty of room to maneuver in a very forgiving manner; a perfect place to learn to to operate the boat safely. And besides, we were told the people at this marina are “the right kind of people”, and while we’re not 100% sure what that means, we certainly like all the people we’ve met who work here or have boats here.

Work Day on the Boat

2012-01-14T17:28:00.001-08:00

We woke up this morning to 48 degrees and clouds – a major shift in weather that forced us to turn on the heat. Whine, whine, we know, as all our northern U.S. and Canadian friends have been running heat for months. We also woke up to toilets that wouldn’t flush, so despite having been led to believe our holding tank had been pumped before we bought the boat, we deduced it had not. We called the very nice maintenance guy, Malcolm, who supposedly only works on weekdays, and he showed up at the boat 5 minutes later to get our holding tank pumped out – what a guy! More great service from Harbour Isle Marina, and we promised him we’d never let this happen again.

We also woke up with numb arms and sore hips, so decided we will not continue to live with the hard foam mattress that purports to serve as a bed in our stateroom. Cruising down 1A highway we found a mattress place that sold us a queen mattress flexible enough that we could fit it through the boat doors and down the companionway to our bedroom – voila, we expect to sleep better tonight!

We finally got around to making a major grocery shopping trip to provision the refrigerator, freezer and pantry. That wasn’t particularly fun, but the trip to the lively Fort Pierce Farmer’s Market, held every Saturday all year long we’re told, WAS great fun! We bought lots of fresh veggies, two spinach/feta croissants for lunch, and met a “friend of a friend” at one booth – another small world experience from our previous RV days.

We unpacked the last bin of stuff brought from home and completed our zillion trips to the dumpster to get rid of stuff left on the boat that we don’t want: old/worn dock lines, ancient nautical charts we already have duplicate new versions of, old soiled rugs in the bathrooms and kitchen, packaging from all the stuff we’ve bought, and those huge foam mattresses from the old bed!

Life on a boat = different from life on land. And we love it!

A promise: more photos starting tomorrow!

25 Miles and ? To Go

2012-01-13T14:51:00.001-08:00

As of 9:30 am Thursday, January 12, 2012 we are the official owners of “Next To Me” (AKA Golden Dolphin) a 1986 42’ Jefferson Motor Yacht! (See previous story about two weeks ago behind the new name, in case you missed that one).

Here’s Bob sitting with the former owner. Peter came to the boat this morning, the first time we met him during this process, to go over some notes he’d made to improve our learning curve on the idiosyncrasies of the boat, and to give us a nice bottle of Champagne to celebrate the occasion. It’s very nice to have such a positive experience with the Seller.

And here are the happy new owners! The boat’s been moored at a yacht club in Stuart, Florida and the Club rules prevent us from keeping the boat there as we’re not members, so we moved the boat 25 miles north, up the Atlantic Intercostal Waterway (AICW) to Ft. Pierce, Florida. Does anyone know why there are so many “Forts” in Florida? Fort Pierce is on the east coast of that state, about halfway up from the Keys to Georgia.

If you double click on the chart you’ll be able to see Stuart at the bottom of the page, and Fort Pierce at the top. The dotted line generally represents the channel that we followed up the AICW.

Given that we have little previous experience in a boat this size, we hired Captain Chris Caldwell, of Capt. Chris’s Yacht Services to help us move the boat. It turned into an intensive 4-hour training session. Very helpful, if a little overwhelming, as new lessons and experiences came at us like the proverbial water out of a fire hose. But we each successfully piloted the boat for about 2 hours of travel time.

While the AICW is several miles wide, the dredged channel is only about a hundred yards wide where the water is 5 –15 feet deep, and the water outside the channel is somewhere between zero and 5 feet deep! Quite different from our home waters where depth is usually measured in the hundreds of feet.

Our new temporary home, Harbour Isle Marina, is in the center of the above chart with the arrow pointing to the approximate location of our slip. We’ve rented a slip here for a month, during which time we’ll have some modifications made to the boat to reflect the recommendations of the earlier survey, and to meet our preferences. We’ll also take 3 days of training on the boat with Capt. Chris and his wife Capt. Alyse, to improve our skills.

Last night about 10 other boat residents in the marina invited us to join them for cocktails to celebrate our new boat. They were all nice folks, and we enjoyed meeting them and were made to feel very welcome. We are one of the smaller boats in the marina, and many of these folks are full-time, year-round cruisers.

Today, Friday, we spent the day moving the contents of the truck onto the boat – clothes, tools, kitchen provisions and lots of boating equipment. It was mostly pretty chaotic, but we got a lot done. Sarah, the very nice marina manager, came by to check on us, and Darrell the marine electronics guy came to evaluate what we have (old and not very useful) and make recommendations for upgrades. Tomorrow and Sunday we will keep working to get settled, but have also set some time aside both days to play. More on that later.

In the mean time we are now “Cruisers” if not yet “Loopers”.

Geographic, Cultural Differences

2012-01-11T12:07:00.001-08:00

We’ve only been here 24 hours, and already we recognize things are different from “back home”, and we’ve got lots to learn.

Last night talking to Sandy, the marina manager where we’ll moor our boat for the next month, she mentioned the importance of staying in the charted (dredged) channel in the area. Cathryn inquired how deep the water is once inside the marina, and Sandy replied, “Oh, it’s way deep in here – at least 10 feet!” Our eyes got big. In the waters of Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands and Canadian Gulf islands, we’re accustomed to very wide waterways with depths in the 100 – 400 foot range. Anytime our boat’s depth sounder shows at home fewer than 40 feet of water, we start paying very close attention, examining the nautical charts even more closely for rocks or other obstructions that might jump out from the depths. We’ll have to adjust our thinking and close observation here, as 85% of the water on the Great Loop is reportedly 12 feet deep or shallower. The good news about that is, if our boat were to actually sink, as long as we were standing on the flybridge (upper helm) we’d still be well above water!

We’ve been to restaurants 4 times since we arrived in Florida, and almost everything on the menus is fried. We’re not accustomed to seeing or eating much fried food at home, so if we want grilled food here, we have fewer choices. That’s ok, but we’ll have to add more mileage to our running if we get accustomed to those deep-fried shrimp or “hush puppies” (which were not nearly so tasty as the ones Cathryn’s brother-in-law Eric fed us at his house one time).

We were talking to a man in the marina this morning and inquired about some of the names of nearby places, assuming the names had historical significance. In responding, he referenced “The War of Northern Aggression”, and we saw no tongue in his cheek. We should not be surprised the view of history may be different here.

3,940 miles to Fort Pierce, FL

2012-01-10T18:54:00.001-08:00

At 5:15 p.m. today we completed our 8-day journey from Olalla to Fort Pierce! It was a long slog, and we’re happy to have it behind us.

On arrival we drove straight to Harbour Isle Marina where we’ll live for the next month so we could see it before dark. We met Sandy the marina manager, saw our assigned slip, and learned about some of the amenities, restaurants and laundromat. Happily, we have a day off tomorrow with no commitments. Thursday we’re to meet Curtis, our boat broker, at the boat in Stuart, FL at 8:30 to confirm a few final repairs have been made, then we’ll get the keys, and a hired captain, Chris Caldwell, will drive the boat with us on board to our slip at Harbour Isle. After that, we have a week to move all our things on board, arrange for a few more retrofits (like screens on the windows to keep bugs out) and repairs, then we begin 3 days of “boat specific” training with Captains Chris and Alyse Caldwell, a married couple who are both 100-Ton Coast Guard Captains who do training as their jobs. More on that later.

Tonight we went to a nearby seafood restaurant, sat at an outside table on the deck overlooking the water and had good seafood and a glass of wine – a nice way to celebrate the completion of this part of the journey. It was 78 degrees and partly cloudy on arrival. Off to bed!

3,400 down; 550 to go

2012-01-09T19:38:00.001-08:00

After six days of driving, we’ve racked up 3,400 miles, and tomorrow when we complete 550 more we’ll be in Fort Pierce, Florida – our destination. It took us the first 4 days of travel to get through 5 states (Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona and New Mexico). Today we covered 5 states all in one day: the last of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the first segment of Florida. States are a lot smaller in this part of the country, except Texas, anyway.

Houston got 5 inches of rain this morning, and we woke to pounding rain on the motel windows last night. But most of the day was gray, cloudy, dry and warm, 70 degrees or higher, and punctuated by multiple stops at Bank of America, Office Depot (twice) and a UPS store to print documents, sign and get them notarized, and Overnight Express them to Florida. We think we’re done with the paperwork now, but it slowed us down by at least 2 hours today.

Tonight we’re in Pensacola, Florida and had Cajun food for dinner at a restaurant where everyone (except us) was there to watch the LSU-Alabama football game. Most of the patrons seemed to be LSU fans. We left after the first quarter, but hope for Cathryn’s Dad’s sake (Alabama alum) that they win, but hope for Cathryn’s nephew’s sake (LSU alum) that they win.

When I Grow Up …

2012-01-08T19:23:00.001-08:00

. . . I do NOT want to be a long-haul truck driver! Today we covered 400+ miles, traveling from the utterly desolate part of west Texas to the hilly, greener part with lots of big oak and pine trees. We remained surrounded, all the time, by hordes of 18-wheeler trucks hauling freight and comprising more than 50% of the traffic on I-10 until we got inside the city limits of San Antonio or Houston. Having spent 5 days traveling 2,800 miles, mostly 10-12 hours a day, we cannot imagine driving a truck as a full-time job. It looks like hard, boring work that must take a huge toll on one’s health and mental state. We hope we’re wrong, as there are so very many Americans who do this for a living, ensuring the rest of us have the goods we want to buy, available in our local markets.

We arrived at Cathryn’s parent’s home at 4pm and had a wonderful visit with them for 5 hours, including Cathryn’s sister Anne and her husband Eric for an hour too. We last saw them in October, so it was good to see how they’re all doing (well) and catch up on the latest family news. We plan to return for a longer visit sometime in February, or no later than March, depending on how things go with the boat in the next month or so.

Tomorrow: another 600-mile day, which should put us beyond Mobile, Alabama into the Panhandle of Florida somewhere.

Interstate -10 (aka Endless Texas)

2012-01-07T18:49:00.001-08:00

Hobie sent us out the door at 7:45 this morning with egg sandwiches in hand for breakfast. What a great visit we had!

From Tucson, it was only a couple hours to the Arizona-New Mexico border, then a couple more to El Paso, Texas.

The rest of the day was Texas, Texas and more Texas . . . and we’re still only halfway across the state despite having covered 700 miles, a new record. Picture broad expanses of open land, all brown this time of year, distant brown mountains with no trees, some windmills and oil and gas rigs, and sometimes cows. Driving 80 mph, (which was the speed limit) so making good time, we saw zillions of these same things over and over all day long.

Tonight we’re at a motel in Ozona where we had dinner at an adjacent “trucker’s café” (interessssting) which is 25o miles in every direction from any city you’ve ever heard of, such as El Paso or San Antonio.

Sunny Tucson

2012-01-06T20:15:00.001-08:00

We spent last night at our friend Hobie’s house in the Saguaro National Forest southwest of Tucson. This is our fifth winter we’ve come for a visit, and it feels comfortable, familiar and easy. Oh, and sunny and warm! Today we had blue sky and 78 degrees.

We spent the morning taking care of boat business. We won’t bother with all the details, but it involved insurance, boat documentation (Coast Guard) and closing of the purchase process – lots of copies of lots of documents sent lots of places. It made us feel, for the morning, like we’re back at work!

This afternoon was much more fun. We had lunch at Hobie’s casita, then retired to the “cactus museum” that is his backyard to play games in the sun. Hobie and Bob set up the croquet field, and we played croquet for an hour – made more amusing by the presence of various cactus and ocotillo bushes in the middle of the course! Bob obliterated the competition and beat Hobie and Cathryn handily.

Next up was Bocce Ball, a game Bob and Cathryn have only played on the beaches of Baja, but Hobie has a more “official” playing field. Hobie and Cathryn teamed up against Bob this time, and in the end prevailed, but not by much. But it was lots of fun, and the reward was a beer on the back patio for all participants, followed by Shrimp Diablo for dinner – delicious!

Three down, Four to Go

2012-01-06T10:32:00.001-08:00

We have three long days of driving behind us, having put in 600 miles per day on average. Four more such days should out us in Stuart, Florida just in time for a final inspection of repairs made prior to closing the purchase, now scheduled for Thursday, January 12.

Yesterday we left Palm Springs early, realizing we’d lose an hour crossing a time zone, and arrived in Yuma, Arizona where we filled up the gas tank for $3.19/gallon instead of the $4.00/gallon price in California. Our travel friends Gene and Joyce (who we met via the blog 2 years ago, then met in person in Alaska and again in Seattle) are spending this winter in Yuma Foothills, so they joined us at a restaurant right off the freeway and treated us to lunch. It was great to catch up with them again.

We arrived at our friend Hobie’s home just outside Tucson in time for cocktails and dinner, and will spend two nights here so we can have a non-driving day today to take care of business. We need to print out insurance applications and a variety of other papers, sign documents, and scan/PDF or fax them to various folks in Florida in order to make this all come together – not things we can do while on the road in the truck. It’s wonderful to spend time at Hobie’s lovely desert casita again, to get all our business taken care of, and to have a “down” day from the grueling driving.

Tomorrow we’ll leave early again and head into Texas!

Boring News/Good News

2012-01-04T20:30:00.001-08:00

We made another 600+ miles today, so are spending the night in Palm Springs, CA, but unfortunately are mildly grouchy after two long days cooped up in the car with no breaks except gas stops, so we aren’t painting the town red tonight. Yawn!

But on the good side, we achieved Final Acceptance today on the boat purchase – sort of like striking the final deal after all contingencies are removed when you buy a house. We had some issues to resolve from the Survey: for example the auto-pilot and radar that were advertised to be part of the boat sale were actually broken and had been taken off the boat? We got an email today from our boat broker, Curtis Stokes, with the final sign-off from the Seller making the several adjustments we’d requested. So we’re celebrating! Now we just need to complete the Closing – just like buying a house except that Coast Guard documentation is included in the process. For this, like escrow when you buy a house, we get to pay a very nice, competent, cheerful person/agency $699 to take care of all of it for us. Ka-ching, ka-ching every time we turn around! So far we remain thrilled.

Anybody want to offer advice on how to go about selecting a cost effective, used, radar for the boat?!

“On the Road Again . . .”

2012-01-03T21:16:00.001-08:00

Do you hear in your head Willie Nelson’s song by that title? So do we. For the fifth time in as many winters, we’re driving I-5 South from the Seattle area to southern California, a long slog. And that’s only the beginning.

We got up early this morning to finish our last-day chores at home, spent an hour with our nephew Tom and his wife Sara who arrived at 8am with their U-Haul truck to move in while we’re away, reviewing for them all the idiosyncrasies of the house, then we hit the highway. So, we’re On The Road Again!

Ten hours and 600 miles later, we’re spending the night at a hotel in Redding, California, planning to get up tomorrow and do it all over again.

NEXT TO ME

2012-01-02T15:32:00.001-08:00

Some years ago Bob, the music aficionado in our family, discovered the band “Subdudes”. We both came to enjoy their music, and Bob has a lot of it on his iPod. Then their song “Next To Me” became OUR SONG – you know, the song you, as a couple, really like, enjoy listening or dancing to together (we dance in the kitchen or on a beach when this one comes on Bob’s iPod), and consider “your special song” as a couple.

After spending three weeks trying to pick a name for our new Great Loop boat, mostly focusing on something connected with the word “Loop”, (imagine Fruit Loop, or Loopy Idea) and not being thrilled with any, Bob suggested “Next to Me”, representing the fact that OUR HOME is wherever we are together – in Olalla or Seattle, in a trailer on a Mexican beach, in a hotel in Morocco, Cuba or Vietnam, or on a boat doing The Great Loop. We both smiled and agreed “That’s it!” So, we have a boat christening ceremony in our future, to rename Golden Dolphin to be “Next To Me”. And none of you folks who know us think of Bob as a great romantic??? Ha!

Lyrics:

“You can travel over oceans and around the world
You can follow every notion that you can afford
If some day when you're feeling alone
And your thoughts turn back toward home
Let them stray--back my way
Oh I hope you know

Chorus:
Your home is right here next to me
Just as long as you want it to be
Your home is right here next to me
Next to me
In the arms of those who love you
That's where you'll find your home”

The Scramble to Leave Home

2011-12-31T13:48:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks have been filled with activities related to family and friends, or preparing for our departure for the Great Loop. We had all six of our kids with us Christmas Eve and day; ok, only three of them are biologically ours, but we claim their fiancée, husband and boyfriend as ours too, and feel we’re the most fortunate people in the world that all three of our adult kids have settled in with people we like, love and enjoy. For the four days we had kids with us, we slept too little, ate too much, drank good eggnog or wine, talked a LOT, and received great gifts, all of which were things we need for our Great Loop trip. It was wonderful.

Since Christmas it’s been a flurry of packing and organizing bins full of boat gear, electronics, nautical charts and cruising guides, dishes, pots and pans and bedding, making lists, talking to the surveyor and our boat broker about final details on the boat purchase, arranging a place to moor the boat in Florida once it is ours, 15 hours on the telephone and computer sorting out boat insurance: who knew we’d have to develop a Hurricane Plan, a Captain’s Resume, buy almost $1,000,000 worth of Protection and Indemnity coverage as well as Oil Pollution insurance?

And we’ve been on the telephone almost daily with our nephew’s wife, Sara. She and our nephew Tom, just retired from the military after 20 years training or serving as a Navy Seal, are moving into our house the day we depart. They’ll live here for the year or more we’re gone – free housing for them as they transition to civilian life, and free caretaker for us! We call that a win-win.

Our plan is to depart home Tuesday, January 3 and begin the drive south, then east to Florida, hopefully covering the 4,000 miles in 9-10 days, with stops in Yuma for lunch with friends, Tucson for an overnight with another friend, and Houston for a visit with Cathryn’s parents. We’re excited; or at least Cathryn is excited, and Bob is looking forward to it; he can’t actually bring himself to say he’s excited. Now if we could just decide on a new name for that boat . .

And the Journey Begins . . . .

2011-12-18T13:24:00.001-08:00

Following 26 hours of driving around the state of Florida with our fabulous boat broker Curtis Stokes and his wife Gill, and looking at 11 boats, this is the one we fell for. It took from Thursday night when we decided to make an offer, until Sunday morning when we got the email from Curtis telling us price negotiations were successful to know that we were moving on to the final stage in purchasing her. We’re scheduled for an engine and hull Survey (like a house inspection, only for a boat) and Sea Trial (checking it out underway on the water) on Tuesday, and assuming those don’t raise issues (and we have reason to believe everything will go well with this step), then we will become owners of this boat approximately January 10, 2012.

So in some senses, this is where the Journey begins, and we’re both excited. We’ve already spoken with Captain Chris Caldwell and his wife Alyse about coming to spend 3 days on the boat with us January 23-25 to do boat-specific training in maintenance, docking and other areas in which this boat is quite different from the boats we’ve owned the last 7 years.

42’ Jefferson Sundeck underway

Flybridge

Sundeck and entry door to Salon below

Salon

Guest Stateroom (our one disappointment with the boat, that it has bunks instead of a double or queen bed in the guest stateroom)

Galley (kitchen) with full-size refrigerator

Dinette across from Galley

Master stateroom (queen bed)

Guest head (bathroom)

We spent 30 minutes texting with our son Ryan the other evening about potential boat names, and as we did with our previous boat, we invite you to “vote” on those that have been suggested already, or contribute additional suggestions for a new name for this boat (to be accompanied by proper mariner’s boat re-naming ceremony). Because we’re purchasing this boat to undertake a journey around The Great Loop, most of the names contain some reference to “loop”. The following list is only in alphabetical order, and includes suggestions made by Ryan, the waitress at dinner the night we decided to make the offer, and another gentleman in the restaurant:

Circulo Grande (Spanish variant on the term “Great Loop”)

Curva Grande (Spanish variant on the term “Great Loop”)

Gettin’ Looped

Gran Lazo (Mexican-Spanish variant on the term “Great Loop”)

Grande Cappio (Italian variant on the term “Great Loop”)

Let’s Get Looped

Loophole

Olalla Bay Associates (the legal name of the Delaware Corporation that is actually buying this boat on our behalf)

Starship (note: the boat is a 42’ Jefferson)

What are your additional ideas? Post under “comments” or email us with your suggestions.

“All I Want for Christmas is a Great Loop Boat!”

2011-12-16T07:41:00.001-08:00

Hear the tune in your head? Pretend Bob and Cathryn are singing the song, only pretend we also know how to carry a tune (not!)

We flew to Florida Tuesday, then spent Wednesday and Thursday with our amazing boat broker, Curtis Stokes and his wife Gill Stokes. Curtis drove us about 900 miles all up and down the west and east coasts of Florida to look at 11 boats, a list we’d generated together in the previous weeks by our looking online from Seattle, and Curtis previewing about half the boats in person. Curtis and Gill are hilarious: despite being only a few years younger than Cathryn, they have the energy, tenacity and calm demeanors to put any 30-year-old to shame, and certainly us! They sleep very little, eat only infrequently, and don’t need to use the restroom half as often as we do. Wednesday we were racing around the state from 8:30 am until 9:30pm, and Thursday from 6:30 am until 7:30 pm, spending both nights in Fort Lauderdale.

This morning we’re making an offer on a 42-foot Jefferson named “Golden Dolphin”, currently located in Stuart, Florida. If we reach agreement with the Sellers on price and contract terms, we will conduct a survey and sea trial on Monday, then fly back to Seattle late Tuesday to get ready for Christmas with all three of our kids and their fiancee, husband and boyfriend.

So . . . “All I Want for Christmas is a Great Loop Boat!” seems an apt description of our current frames of mind. Having said that, we also received a phone call last night from a friend of 30 years informing us her husband was diagnosed with brain cancer earlier this week. We are so, so terribly sad about that, and hope he is successfully treated. Meanwhile, it reminds us that life and good health are precious, and we should be doing exactly what we’re doing, enjoying adventures around the world, together, while we have the health and resources to do so.

“Bob, Look At That Weird Log Floating By!”

2011-11-28T19:09:00.001-08:00

Living on Colvos Passage where there’s always a current, we often see things float by, particularly after a heavy rain. We have seen, and sometimes gone out in the dinghy to retrieve: kayaks, mooring buoys, rafts, a friend’s sailboat, as well as observed, but not retrieved lots of trees, limbs and general “stuff”. Today Cathryn called out, “Bob, look at that weird log floating by!”

Because this is a close-up photo, a close look will reveal that it’s actually a couple of sea lions taking advantage of a nice, calm, sunny day to float by, flippers in the air, relaxing and getting some solar warmth. Let me tell you, at first glance without the aid of binoculars, it was not all that obvious.

We love living on the waters of Puget Sound, as there is always something going on outside the windows!

“Loopers” In Training

2011-11-27T21:17:00.001-08:00

If you’ve been following along for awhile, you’ve read about our plans to do the “Great Loop” boat journey in 2012. It’s a 6,000-mile trip up the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway from Florida to New York, then west through the Great Lakes, and finally south on the inland rivers back to the Gulf of Mexico. And 2012 is only weeks away!

As part of the transition from people who like to travel by plane, car, “rig” (our truck and 5th wheel trailer, to those of you uninitiated to that term) or our pocket cruiser into “Loopers” we’ve been honing our boating skills by taking U.S. Power Squadron courses. So far we’ve take the America’s Boating Class, Boat Mechanics, a First Aid Course and various specialty seminars. Currently we’re enrolled in a Seamanship class. And yesterday was our on-the-water-training-day.

At 9 AM sharp we reported to the Port Orchard Marina and boarded our instructors’ 46-foot Kha Shing trawler for a day of hands-on seamanship.

Our instructor Kevin, in the white sweatshirt and navy blue hat, began with a boat briefing and then began our drills. Photos are courtesy of Kevin’s wife Jean Marie.

Each of the 8 students took a turn at the helm and spent a few minutes familiarizing ourselves with the boat’s handling characteristics and controls.

We then took this 20-ton twin-engine behemoth into the dock and were expected to do so without injury to either the dock or the boat.

We’re pleased to report that we both succeeded with flying colors! Of course it helped that there were no other boats on the dock, no wind, little current, and an instructor standing alongside to take over if we screwed up!

Nonetheless, we came away with increased confidence that we could actually handle a boat like the ones we’re currently shopping for, trawlers in the 36 – 44 foot range.

By the way, we’re in the process of remodeling our blog to reflect our new Great Loop adventure. Near the top you’ll find a new page, by clicking on the words “Looking For The Perfect Loop Boat” which describes what kind of boat we’re shopping for, and over on the top right corner of the home page, a map of the Great Loop route.

Sapa, Vietnam Slide Show

2011-11-25T19:56:00.001-08:00

Here are more photos from our time in Sapa, which we wrote about HERE and HERE. This was early in our trip, but it was one of the best opportunities to learn something about the culture and the changes that were going on in Vietnam. If we got something wrong, let us know; we learned so much we probably got at least some of it wrong.

Minorities

Vietnam is 85% ethnic Vietnamese, the remaining 15% made up of 56 different “minorities” ranging from the Chum (a group that for 1,000 years was dominant politically in much of southern Vietnam and Cambodia), to many various “hill tribes”. In northern Vietnam, in or near Sapa, we saw Red Dao, Black H’mong and Flower H’mong people. Each group had distinctive native dress, and many of the women continue to wear the traditional dress. Like elsewhere in the world we’ve traveled, with the exception of Morocco, the men all wore western attire.

When speaking to ethnic Vietnamese, there was a clear sense of superiority over the “minorities”, and when speaking to a member of a particular minority, there were strong stereotypes, often negative, of other tribal groups.

“Touched By Tourism”

“Touched by Tourism” was a phrase we heard a lot in terms of describing a location or village. This term was used both to reflect that local customs had been influenced by the presence of tourists, but also with a generally positive connotation, in that tourism brought money. We were also told that some areas and even individual villages were “not touched” because they were uncooperative with or resistant to government policies.

Touched by Modernization

We heard a lot about the rapid economic development that has taken place since “normalization” with the U.S. in 1995. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, Vietnam lost its’ patron that had subsidized the regime. Five years later after much economic hardship, the government normalized its relations with the US, and opened the country to foreign investment. Much has changed, and in the view of those we talked to, mostly for the better since then. Government control remains of the communist variety, but the economy is clearly more capitalist.

One change which we saw just the beginnings of was the impact of the increased use and geographic availability of electricity. We drove along the hillsides around Sapa, looking down the steep valley walls at the rice terreces and rivers below them.

We were told that 5 hydroelectric dams were being built. So in 10 years if we were to come back, we would see large new lakes down the hillsides, the result of the dams. It would be easy to adopt a preservationists attitude from the comfort of our life style, when thinking about the lost landscape and displaced villages, but the people telling us these stories seemed to regard it as something positive in terms of the dam’s future impact on their standard of living.

With that, here is the slideshow. Hopefully the background will add some context to the photos.

Mekong Delta

2011-11-15T20:23:00.001-08:00

We’ve been home a week, jet lag is largely behind us, and we’ve caught up with our basic chores. Bob has finished editing our 1,200 photos, so we’re going to post some of the more representative ones. We’ll post more soon.

First up is the Mekong Delta. We made a day trip here from Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City) as we reported HERE.

These hours in a small boat were one of the highlights of our trip. We believe we got a glimpse of the traditional life on the river. As you look at these pictures, try to imagine the life that goes with these images!

Technical details: If you double click on the slide show below you can see the pictures in a larger format. If you use Apple products, like an Ipad, you will not see a slide show on this page, since Apple does not support Flash. If you put your cursor over this Mekong Delta it is a link to the slide show that will work for you. If anyone knows how to solve this problem, I'd love to hear about it.

Closer Than A Slow Dance At The Prom

2011-11-06T21:00:00.000-08:00

We took the MTR (the subway) back over to Kowloon again this morning. Because we got an early start, we caught the end of a Monday morning rush hour. The MTR trains are 10 cars long, each car 90 feet in length. While we spent most of our weekend subway trips standing, we discovered what "crowded" really looks like this morning. Luckily we're married, otherwise our closeness would have been inappropriate. No eating or drinking is allowed on the subway, so the ubiquitous Starbucks cup we see on Seattle buses is notably absent. Instead, every person has a smartphone or gaming device in hand and is tap-tap-tapping away on a touch screen.

Hong Kong, with 7 million people, is reported to be the world's most vertical city, defined as having the largest number of residents living above 14 floors high. Not hard to believe when looking at it. Lots of tall buildings are draped in scaffolding, but here it is all made of bamboo, not iron or steel, even when 40 stories high.

We spent some time sitting in a park during our morning explorations to get off our feet. It was fun to watch the Hong Kong version of the YMCA's Silver Sneakers class: Couples playing badminton, some very elderly women doing exercises, and one guy jogging very slowly around the tennis court (more than we were willing to do in the heat).

Hong Kong is an interesting finale to our SE Asia trip. It's been great fun, and we're ready to head home!

2011-11-06T20:35:00.001-08:00

Kowloon's Temple Street Market

2011-11-06T19:53:00.001-08:00

Last night we ventured across the bay to Kowloon for the first time. This area is just as urban as Hong Kong Island, but even more Chinese in character, with far fewer signs in English and a smaller proportion of people on the street being other than Chinese.

We explored the Temple Street Night Market, one of the top 10 sights in Hong Kong, according to our guide book. Hong Kong markets are very crowded with shops and people, but the selling is much more low-pressure than in other markets we've visited on this trip, making it more fun. We bought a hand-made tapestry for our bedroom wall.

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Exploring Hong Kong

2011-11-06T01:07:00.001-07:00

We set off by bus this morning, traveling up and over central Hong Kong Island to the town of Stanley. We shopped in the market, stopped for a cold one along the waterfront, visited a temple and finally hit the pier. A busy morning.

Outside the temple we found a father and daughter trying out what may be the next "big thing", something that married a skateboard with a unicycle; we didn't catch its' name.

By early afternoon we were back on the bus to downtown Hong Kong, "Central", where we walked through Statue Square. This square is the hub of Hong Kong high finance 6 days a week, with the headquarters of many banks, including HSBC (Hong Kong Singapore Bank Corporation). On Sunday, it's a much different place. The square is taken over by domestic workers who come here from poorer countries like the Philippines and Indonesia. They congregate in the square to socialize with each other, have lunch, and from the looks of things, to do a little protesting against their working conditions.

Sent from my iPad

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Crowds, Glitz and Expensive

2011-11-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

We are happy to be in Hong Kong and think 3 days will be enough. We are spending a lot of money here, and not because we are shopping.

In the morning we took the tram to The Peak where 360 degree views of the bay and islands are beautiful. Next we experienced The Travelator, a 1.5 mile long escalator that goes up the hillsides of the city to restaurants, shopping and apartments. Late in the afternoon we rode the Star Ferry for an hour-long Victoria Harbor tour.

95 percent of Hong Kong residents are Chinese, and it's obvious they have had sufficient nutrition for at least a generation. They are MUCH bigger, both in height and weight than their Vietnamese and Cambodian neighbors. We don't feel like over-sized mooses here.

The array of very tall, very modern, very showy buildings is unlike anything we have seen anywhere. This place is very dense and fast-moving. The subway and buses are pretty easy to figure out, and very fast and easy once you do so. Jim J if you are reading this: on our way into town from the airport we passed a bus operating base, which included a 5-story structured parking garage for parking buses, not cars. Land is very pricey here.

The most expensive home in the world is here. It sold for $950 million in 2007, but only half that much when it sold again recently. All of you who are underwater on your home mortgages can be glad that is not the home you bought.

The air is very smoggy. And hot, but not as humid as Vietnam or Cambodia. There are, of course, no water buffalo or elephants here.

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Arrived in Hong Kong

2011-11-04T10:49:00.001-07:00

After a long day with flights from Siem Reap to Saigon, a 5-hour layover, then a flight to Hong Kong and a one-hour bus ride, we arrived at our hotel at 1 a.m. We're traveling on our own now, without an English speaking driver/guide to pick us up at the airport, so had fun figuring out the bus. We expect to be in culture shock going from Cambodia to Hong Kong, as this place is huge, crowded, modern and very, very prosperous and expensive. Not much in common with Cambodia except for being part of Asia.

Cambodian Tourism: No Pirahna

2011-11-03T19:44:00.001-07:00

In the evenings we’ve been taking tuk-tuks downtown for dinner and explorations. Siem Reap, a city of 300,000 is heavily influenced by tourism. Over 2 million tourists visit Cambodia every year.

One “attraction” offered which we had heard of but never seen, is a foot massage provided by fish! On many corners, a tank full of fish is set up with signs that say “Fish massage, no pirahnas.” Bob and David, after experiencing their first pedicure only one week earlier, agreed to give it a try.

For $3 you get a 30-minute massage (really more like a partial pedicure, as the fish are simply nibbling at and removing dead skin), and a beer!

The first 30 seconds is pretty weird, having dozens of fish nibbling on your skin; after that it begins to feel quite good, although odd to see.

Bob, at least, has decided he prefers to have attractive young women working on his feet instead of fish.

Last Day in Cambodia

2011-11-03T19:13:00.001-07:00

Cambodia is beautiful (what we’ve seen of it, anyway) and breaks our hearts. We’re very glad we came here.

It’s an extremely poor country, nothing like the very prosperous looking Vietnam, and until 13 years ago was devastated by occupations, civil war, and the Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge disaster which lasted 3 years, 8 months and 20 days (according to our guide Rida) and resulted in the massacre of almost 2 million people out of a population of 14 million.

Rida says everyone in Cambodia had one or more extended family members killed during that time, with a focus on those who were wealthy, educated and had professional jobs, but including many more, and many children.

During the last 13 years Cambodia has had a stable, if corrupt, government/military/police, the doors have been opened to tourism, and the citizens are learning capitalism. At least in the cities of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and we hear development is beginning to occur on the coast with nice beach resorts.

Despite all this, Rida states with not even a touch of sarcasm that “Cambodia is a very lucky country – not like our neighbor countries – because we don’t ever have any earthquakes here.” He is earnest if lacking perspective, as we know of no earthquake that ever killed 2 million people.

Everywhere we go, people mention Angelina Jolie, her philanthropic works here after the filming of “Tomb Raider” and her adoption of a Cambodian child. One local bar where she and her film crew hung out during the time of filming features her photo on the menu.

The U.S. dollar is the de facto currency here. We get Cambodian riels in change anytime we’re due something less than $1 (they don’t use our coins) but otherwise prices and purchases are all in U.S. currency, and even the ATM machines give U.S. dollars.

There is no potable water in Cambodia. Tourists and locals alike drink bottled water, and those who use the tap water must boil it before drinking or cooking with it.

Both for reasons of tradition, having to do with keeping out bad spirits, and because of regular flooding, almost all rural homes are built on stilts 4 – 18 feet above ground.

We haven’t seen Phnom Penh, the capital, but Siem Reap, the second largest city in the country, has no buildings over 4 stories, and none that go beyond functional in design.

Like Vietnam, the motorcycle is the major means of transportation, though bicycles are much more common here, and the Tuk Tuk (tiny 3-wheeled carriage which carries 2 people, pulled behind a motorcycle) is used by both tourists and locals alike.

Several of the tourist sites we’ve visited outside the city are ringed with signs saying they’ve been cleaned up by the Central Mine Action Center, a NATO organization that spent years clearing the minefields that were everywhere here following the Khmer Rouge days. We’ve seen more artificial legs in 3 days here, and blinded people, than cumulatively throughout our lives.

We have eaten “Khmer food” here, but have not been able to distinguish it from Vietnamese food.

Prices here are very affordable. We’re staying in a wonderful 4-star hotel with a swimming pool and lavish gardens, and don’t know what we paid for it, but the rack rate we found on the internet is $110. The four of us have had very nice dinners in town (linen tablecloth, wine, attractive lighting and fountains) for $30 or less, including wine, for all 4 of us; main courses are typically $4-5 per person.

Today we went 1 1/2 hours out of the city to see the incredible “Lost Jungle” tomb, then stopped at a Killing Fields collection of human bones and photos of the Khmer Rouge massacre.

Today we leave Cambodia and fly back to Saigon with a 5-hour layover, then on to Hong Kong.

Temples, Temples Everywhere!

2011-11-02T07:23:00.001-07:00

We’re in Siem Reap, Cambodia, a world away, it feels, from Vietnam. Our guide Ridah (not sure of the spelling) picked us up at 8am and we began our tour of three temples, though there are many more in the vicinity. We toured Angkor Thom, Angkor Wat and Banteay Srei (Women’s Temple).

Each of these temples is 800 - 1,000 years old, though in truth the Banteay Srei temple was destroyed, and the current one is a reconstruction, as are portions of the others. We feel not overwhelmingly interested in temples in general, but found these to be gorgeous, fascinating, and full of interesting history and scenery.

Another enormous feature of the day was that it was hot, hot, HOT . . . and humid, and thus very uncomfortable. Our guide handed out umbrellas (to shade us from the sun) and cold water bottles from a cooler, as well as damp, icy hand towels to wipe ourselves down with periodically throughout the day – and still it was too hot! We sweated and suffered, but persevered through the day’s itinerary because it really was fantastic, and our guide is extremely good, including his English. We’ll let the photos suffice from here.

More Later

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Siem Reap, Cambodia

2011-11-01T07:10:00.001-07:00

We're having some trouble keeping a charge on our netbook, and haven't found a good Blogger app for the iPad, (recommendations?) so our posts are going to be formatted differently for awhile.
Today we flew from Saigon to Siem Reap, Cambodia, about 1 hour, and 30 economic years away. We'll save the description for later when we know a bit more, but suffice it to say we feel like we're in a different world from Vietnam, not just one country westward. Here are some images to start with.

Tuk Tuk Ride to Downtown

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Downtown Siem Reap

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Siem Reap Market

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Bridge Over Siem Reap River

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Street-crossing Lessons

2011-11-01T01:30:00.001-07:00

When we were children, our parents taught us to cross a street safely: wait for the light to change, or traffic to stop at the stop sign; cross only at corners; look both ways; hold hands with the adult, if one is present. Here in Vietnam we’ve been given street-crossing lessons by our guides in both Hanoi and Saigon. None of what we learned as children applies exactly the same.

In Saigon the roads downtown are often 8 or more lanes wide, and there is NEVER a complete break in traffic. Pedestrians are somewhat more likely to cross at intersections, but not necessarily. Traffic mostly drives on the right, but not always (motorcycles, but not cars, drive the wrong way on one-way streets), and the centerline is largely meaningless, as motorcycles and cars weave ‘round each other for long distances. Oncoming traffic is not perturbed by this loss of space in their own lane.

The procedure for crossing a street on foot is to wait for a tiny gap between vehicles, then step off the curb while trying to make eye contact with the wall of cars, vans and motorcycles coming at you. Then, keep walking, slowly, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, never take a step backwards. All the cars and motorcycles are watching pedestrians, and aim to weave their way through right behind (inches behind) each pedestrian, so if you step backwards, even a few inches, you will be hit by a vehicle. When you are in the middle of the lanes, you have traffic flowing by you closely on both sides. It’s disconcerting initially, and our guides don’t trust us entirely to do it safely, so they tell us when to go, to keep going, and to hurry up. We feel a bit like children again, but we became confident and skilled at it in Hanoi, and now that we’ve been here awhile, our skills in Saigon, which is crazier, are improving too.

Check-in/OK Siem Reap Cambodia

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Latitude:13.36454
Longitude:103.87856
GPS location Date/Time:11/01/2011 00:42:18 PDT
Message:We are happy, well and having fun.
Click the link below to see where we are located.
http://fms.ws/6MF1q/13.36454N/103.87856E

Mekong Delta

2011-10-31T06:47:00.001-07:00

The Mekong Delta is a two-hour drive from Saigon. On arrival the 4 of us plus our guide, Vu, boarded a small boat to travel to an island in the middle of the river delta. It’s a place where people’s lives are lived out almost entirely on the river.

Above: making sticky rice alcohol

Above: making lacy rice wraps

We visited a small shop where they make coconut milk and coconut candy by hand; another where rice paper wraps are made from scratch by hand; another where coconut palm roof shingles are made, stitched together by hand; and another where lacy-looking rice wraps are cooked.

We also saw the “floating market”. We had always imagined this to be something much like the land-based markets, but on boats. It turns out it’s really lots of boats spread out along the river. Many boats are anchored, and they fly a “flag” indicating what it is they’re selling.

Above: a pineapple seller

Others go along the river from boat to boat selling things like coffee or Pho. In theses cases, they leave the coffee or soup behind and return an hour later and pick up the dishes and money.

Our boat driver then transferred the 4 of us to a tiny sampan, rowed by an old woman, to tour the shallow, narrow canals of the island, lined by simple homes, gardens, jungle and water hyacinths used to capture fish and shrimp. It looked like a scene out of the movie “Apocalypse Now” for those who recall that.

After returning to our original boat, we stopped at a simple home for lunch consisting of 4 courses, served by a woman and her mother, followed by live traditional Vietnamese music performed by the father, daughter and son. The small eating area was lined by hammocks, and each of us spent 15 minutes lying in a hammock, swinging in the slight breeze of the otherwise relentlessly hot day.

Above: the woman who served our lunch.

Above: the fish that served as the basis of our Vietnamese version of “fish tacos”, served in rice wraps, of course, not tortillas.

(We’ll try to post a video link later)

This was one of the highlights of the trip and well worth the time; we’d recommend it to anyone coming to Saigon.

Saigon: 10 Million People, 7 Million Motor Bikes

2011-10-31T03:30:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City -- which everyone in south Vietnam still calls Saigon, except in official government documents -- after a short flight from Dalat.

First stop was the Chinatown wholesale market. Nice thing about a wholesale market is no one tried to sell us anything!

We visited two pagodas where the predominant features are various alters and LOTS of incense. The spiral incense you see in the photos burns for a whole month.

Late in the afternoon we were taken on a Cyclo-tour for an hour, seeing the sights around the financial center of downtown Saigon.

Saigon feels very different from Hanoi – much bigger, more crowded, more prosperous, more modern. There are more tall, very modern, new buildings here than in downtown Seattle. Many joint venture projects have poured money into this place recently. North Vietnam “felt” like a communist place, while Saigon feels like a turbo-charged capitalist environment.

We took this picture of Uncle Ho in front of the People’s Revolutionary Committee Building (aka: City Hall) both for its being a major sight, but also because we thought our blog reader tCL would like it.

In the evening we took a dinner cruise on the Saigon River, on a “dragon boat”. The city lights by night were spectacular.

We’re staying at the Majestic Hotel, built in 1923 and one of the places many American journalists stayed during the Vietnam War (which they refer to here as the Civil War).

Check-in/OK Mekong Delta

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Latitude:10.31301
Longitude:106.03094
GPS location Date/Time:10/30/2011 22:46:11 PDT
Message:We are happy, well and having fun.
Click the link below to see where we are located.
http://fms.ws/6LmRU/10.31301N/106.03094E

Check-in/OK Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City

2011-10-30T02:38:00.001-07:00

Majestic Hotel on the Saigon River
Latitude:10.77411
Longitude:106.70518
GPS location Date/Time:10/30/2011 02:38:41 PDT
Message:We are happy, well and having fun.
Click the link below to see where we are located.
http://fms.ws/6LNBF/10.77411N/106.70518E

Dalat

2011-10-29T07:09:00.001-07:00

We flew from Hoi An to Dalat Friday, in the southern part of the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It has temperate weather and is at higher elevation (4,900 feet) , a welcome contrast to the tropical climate elsewhere. The city of 205,000 is far more modern than other cities we’ve seen, deviates from the usual Vietnamese architecture to more French style with some wooden structures, and traffic is lighter here.

Our Dalat guide Tuc picked us up at the airport, and after dropping our luggage at the hotel, we walked through the very lively market downtown, which operates all day and late into the evening.

Today we met Tuc at 8:30 a.m. and drove to Lang Bian Mountain (whose name is derived from a Romeo and Juliet-style story) where we took a 3-hour hike through pine forests to the top of the peak. The scenery was gorgeous and unlike anything else we’ve seen so far. In the afternoon we took a boat ride on picturesque Tuyen Lam Lake to an isolated spot in the woods for a short elephant ride.

The return boat ride took us to a modern (built in 1993)pagoda where 60 monks and nuns live, followed by a 1.5 mile cable car ride high above the pine forest back to Dalat.

Our guide, Tuc, is a 26-year-old single man with sparkling eyes, a lively sense of humor, and a helpful, accommodating personality. Of the 4 guides we’ve had so far, we’ve been quite impressed with 3 of them.

Two weird observations: we’ve only seen ONE black person since we arrived in Asia 10 days ago, and this morning at breakfast in our hotel we noted we were the only “Anglo” people; all other guests were Asian. We’re told lots of wealthier folks from Hanoi and Saigon come up to Dalat for vacations to escape the heat of the cities.

Selling fish at the Dalat market.

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The Dalat market

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The view from our Dalat hotel.

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Change of Plans?

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We’re currently in Dalat, Vietnam having a wonderful time. It’s beautiful and cooler here, even less humid.

We’ve been tracking the international news regarding Bangkok, where we’re scheduled to arrive next week, and also note the U.S. State department now advises against traveling there. Given the likelihood we would have no fun there, even if safety does not become an issue, we’re working to change our flights and hotel accommodations to skip Bangkok entirely, arriving and departing Hong Kong two days earlier than planned instead.

Check-in/OK Da Lat Vietnam

2011-10-28T16:18:00.001-07:00

We arrived last night and had an interesting evening in the market. Photo's latter. Today we ride elephants!
Latitude:11.94089
Longitude:108.43652
GPS location Date/Time:10/28/2011 16:18:56 PDT
Message:We are happy, well and having fun.
Click the link below to see where Iwe are located.
http://fms.ws/6Kmap/11.94089N/108.43652E

A few more observations

2011-10-27T20:05:00.001-07:00

Almost all tourists here are European and Australian, and some Asians (Japanese, mostly). We have met or seen very few Americans. Still, English is the widely-spoken language, beyond Vietnamese of course.

We’ve been able to log onto Facebook here, unlike in northern Vietnam. No idea if north-south has anything to do with it.

You’ve no doubt heard in the news about flooding in this part of the world the last few months. Hoi An, where we are now, is located on a river adjacent to the South China Sea. Yesterday at high tide some of the streets were flooded up to 8-10 inches, though it was easy to walk a block or two away from the river and avoid any problems.

The flooding in Bangkok where we’re due to arrive in a week has led us to inquire of our airlines and the tour company that arranged our drivers here whether we should change our plans, and if so, what our options are. Daughter Mackenzie has kept us supplied with updates from sources in the U.S. So far the international airport in Bangkok is fine and expected to remain so. Our Bangkok hotel is located on one of the rivers that is flooded, and we’re unsure whether we may need to stay elsewhere. Meanwhile, we’ll continue to monitor the situation but have not changed our plans.

Last night’s dinner supplied our first experience in being cheated by a local. We were brought (and charged for) some dishes we did not order; we thought they might be “side dishes” (not), and when our bill came it had two problems: prices for some items were higher than quoted on the menu, AND the final tally was 1.15 million dong instead of 830,000 dong – supposedly an innocent mathematical error, but taken with the other two problems, we believe was intentional. Lesson learned: if food courses are brought that you didn’t order, send them away; check the bill carefully for accuracy on each item as well as correct total addition.

It has rained HARD, though briefly, several times in the last few days – not like rain in Seattle which is usually light and lasts much of the day.

We don’t feel we have an honest grasp of how people here feel about Americans. In the north we were told Vietnamese people “don’t look back” as they’ve had such a difficult history for thousands of years, thus at some point or another almost everyone has been an “enemy”. They focus on looking to the future and re-building. We’re unsure, however, everyone (except at the restaurant last night) remains friendly and polite toward us, always, although here in Hoi An there is more of a feeling that the tourist is a commodity than we’ve sensed elsewhere.

Hundreds of times since we’ve arrived, Cathryn, Lynn or David has blurted “Watch your head, Bob!” He is extraordinarily tall by Vietnamese standards (6’ 0”), so doorways, ceilings and things like tarps tied over alleyways in the markets are often so low that even the rest of us have to duck our heads, whereas it’s just down-right hilarious to watch Bob duck and crouch his way through.

Pedicures

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Spas are everywhere in Vietnam – at least everywhere in tourist areas. All hotels have one, every block has one, and prices are cheap except inside the expensive hotels. Last night we decided to tiptoe a small distance into the world of Asian spas and made appointments for all four of us to have pedicures. Bob and David were first-timers, and Cathryn and Lynn have had pedicures only rarely.

We arrived at Palmarosa Spa to find 4 very young-looking and attractive young women ready to take care of our feet. For 45 minutes they worked on us, and at the end, our bill came to $25 for all 4 of us, including polish for Cathryn and Lynn. It was relaxing and fun.

Hoi An

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No, that’s not a typo of “Hanoi”, but another city entirely, Hoi An, about 400 miles south of Hanoi, and 15 miles south of Danang, on the body of water generally referred to as the South China Sea, but here they call it the Eastern Sea.

Hoi An is the place where people come in Vietnam to purchase custom-made suits, dresses, jackets and such, made of fine wool, silk or linen. None of the 4 of us plans to do so, but still it’s interesting to see. And there are lively markets, restaurants, galleries and shops here. The pressure on tourists to buy, buy, buy is much greater than anything we experienced in northern Vietnam, similar to Moroccan souks.

We wandered the town mid-day today, and thanks to some reading of a guide book by Lynn, found the best restaurant we’ve enjoyed yet in Vietnam (note to Mackenzie: we’ll send you an address and map). Ba-le Well is a small place on an alley, with a few tables and chairs IN the alley, and a fixed-price, fixed-menu. We didn’t know that fact, but immediately after our Tiger beers (our favorite in Vietnam) were delivered, plates of leafy greens and slices of cucumber, grilled satay pork, long slivers of carrots and shredded cabbage, peanut sauce, grilled chicken, rice pancakes and rice wraps were delivered.

The two delightful sisters who own this place saw the amused uncertainty on our faces and immediately came over to begin assembling our wraps for us, even dipping them in the sauce and feeding us our first bite. We previously learned how to say “One-Two-Three-Cheers” in Vietnamese just before taking our first swallow of beer, and as we began that routine, the two sisters joined in and laughed enthusiastically, perhaps AT us, but certainly WITH us.

The food was outstanding, the sisters came to visit us at the table frequently throughout the meal, and in the end brought us our final bill for 520,000 dong, or $24 U.S. for 4 lunches, 6 beers and one cup of coffee! If we were staying in Hoi An beyond tomorrow, we would certainly eat here again.

Hue

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We left the Hanoi airport Tuesday night and flew to Hue, south of the old DMZ, so our first exposure to southern Vietnamese people, scenery and culture. Our new guide deposited us at a lovely hotel on the river and picked us up again the next morning for a tour of historical sites.

To be perfectly honest, we found Hue mostly boring. We learned lots of Sino-Vietnamese history, but it was presented in a repetitive, snail’s pace style that left us cross-eyed with exhaustion in the heat and humidity, and wondering why anyone goes to see “ancient” tombs and monuments that are actually only knockoffs of the Forbidden City in Beijing less than 200 years old. We’ll post a few photos, but if you’re coming to Vietnam, we recommend you skip Hue.

A dynasty of “emperors” who were puppets of the French colonial administration built The Citadel, an extravagant tomb in the early 1800s with huge taxes (30%) on farmers.

Hue was more of a commentary on human nature and the seemingly permanent presence of kleptocracy in human society.

A few more random observations

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Still no bugs. Leave DEET at home unless your itinerary is wildly different than ours.

The average domestic lot is 4 meters by 25 meters, so homes are very narrow, tall and deep. At least in northern Vietnam.

We have not been able to log onto Facebook anywhere in Vietnam yet. We hypothesize the communist government blocks social media somehow?

We learned the difference in the meaning of "salary" versus "income". For example a government official who issues motorcycle licenses is paid a salary by the government. But he also earns "income" when applicants pay a $50 "fee" when they want to obtain a license without passing the test. Otherwise called a bribe.

Official government-issued I.D. Card with photo includes "ethnicity" (such as H'Mong tribe) and "religion" which 90 percent of citizens report as "none", a hangover from the days of official prohibition against any religion. People are very class-conscious about tribal identity and willingly share their stereotypes.

Sent from my iPad

Gardens and typical suburban housing

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Fishing adjacent to the highway

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Vegetable gardens alongside the highway between Halong Bay and Hanoi

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Hand painted ceramics

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Lamborghini

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Ha Long Bay–Land of 10,000 Photos

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Hung, our Hanoi guide, picked us up from the train station at 5:45 a.m., and after checking us into a hotel for 2 hours for showers and breakfast, we hit the road for 3 1/2 hours to drive to Ha Long Bay, located on the Gulf of Tonkin, with more than 1,000 limestone islands, none inhabited, all steep and spectacular. We boarded a wooden junk called Jasmine along with 40 other tourists and headed out for an overnight journey on the water.

The water was shallow, turquoise and warm.

In the afternoon we boarded a small tender and went to a grotto on one of the islands for a look at some archaeological sites, stalactites and stalagmites.

After the grotto, the tender took us to a floating village, Cua Van, where 120 floating homes and 600+ people live year-round, fishing and showing tourists their way of life.

The floating village has its own tiny land-based Buddhist temple for prayers and worship.

We boarded a sampan (hand-made grass and tar rowboat), two tourists in each sampan, which was rowed by a local all around the floating village to see the homes, people, their school, and the “grocery store boat” that brings them food for purchase.

Even very young children scamper over the boats and docks without life vests, seemingly unsupervised, and we imagine, but don’t know, that they must learn to swim very early.

“Jasmine”, the boat on which we spent the night.

This morning we were transported to a small island where we had the opportunity to climb 418 steps to the top to observe the Bay and scenery from on high.

Overall this constituted a highlight of the trip so far, beautiful scenery viewed from the open-air deck, with a cold beer or glass of wine (or both, at one time or another), and star-lit sky after sunset. While we were told there were 200 boats in the Bay, the area is so large that they did not overwhelm the natural aspects of the trip at all.

Once again, the Vietnamese people allowed us to “invade their space” without showing any negative reaction, and conveying an imperturbable sense of dignity, maybe because the impacts are so much more benign than they were when “we” (Americans) were here 40 years ago.

Looking Across the Red River in Lao Cai into China

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