Paul and Piper Sail

2009-09-10T01:47:00.000-07:00

Remember to look through the archives on the right side of the page. It goes back to 2006. It's been quite a while since our last update. We are back in our one bedroom house in Carrboro, NC. It was a rough transition for me, but Piper had no problem being in her house with her family close by. I guess I should pick up where we left off. Here are few pics of West End, Bahamas. I also have since taken a still shot from video of the shark we encountered off Hopetown. West End was really a perfect place to wait for weather.

The 6 foot shark with teeth at the barrier reef off Hopetown. This was taken from video. The only shark with big teeth we saw while snorkeling.

Reef from the dingy.

Hope Town Light from the coffee shop.

Sometimes, before you see land, you see smoke from the diesel power plants. Every power plant in the Bahamas is diesel. Kind of a shame in a solar haven. I spoke with a local at the fuel dock that said it is illegal to use solar or wind. The people are told it is a safety concern.

We wanted to take advantage of the Gulf Stream waters of West End to clean the bottom of Delphine. It was beautiful and the current was very strong. At one point three very large rays passed us during the process. We saw a big silver snapper hanging out with us. So I swam to the dingy and got the spear and camera for Piper. But my shot was weak and it bounced off him.

The Yacht Club at West End is an excellent place. We ate at two great restaurants. We fueled up here as well. They made arrangements for a cab ride to the airport for Marantha. We were anchored just offshore of the resort.

We crossed the gulf stream with fair winds from the east. We arrived late and the sun had already gone down. We discussed the possibility of entering Ft. Pierce inlet at night. It is a class A inlet. We had never used the inlet before, but had used another class A inlet, Lake Worth. We decided to attempt the inlet at night despite knowing it is not a smart thing to do. We just had a hunch that we could follow other powerboats in that were used to the inlet. We passed a sailboat that had anchored just off shore on our way in. It looked like it was going to be a rough night for those poor people, rocking and rolling in the surf all night. Sure enough, as we started passing through the buoys, boats began to pass us and lead us in. It is difficult to tell which lights you are looking at. They blend in with the city lights and sometimes it looked like blinking christmas tree lights. However, it wasn't too bad really. We found our anchorage and called Piper's parents to let them know we were alright.

The next day we had to clear customs. Despite this being one of Florida's main ports of entry, the only customs office is out at the airport. We rented a cab to go to the airport and show them our passports. The man behind the glass glanced at our passports, stamped them and we were done. Took about thirty seconds. What a joke. We could have smuggled anything in. An ex military friend told me they know exactly who's coming and going, but I find it really hard to believe. Although, there are spy blimps up and down the coastline. We then started our way up the ICW. We made Vero Beach and stayed at the only cheap dock in Florida, Jones Fruit Dock for $10 per night.

The next day was Melbourne. We didn't stay at Delphine's former spot this time because we couldn't reach Bill and Kitty on the phone. We had a feeling they were cruising and opted for the downtown anchorage. It was sad to miss them. It may very well be the last time Delphine visits them. Though I'm sure we'll drive to Key West and visit all our friends along the way by car soon.

Writing about this now, three months later, is a bit painful. It seems like a part of my life that was only a dream. I wonder if I'll hang out with all the friends we made again. Reality has a way of biting. Before we moved onto the boat, my friend Chris asked me if I really wanted to leave all my friends behind. I told him that I needed something out there. I went home that night and wrote a song. I noticed that in many songs I had written in the past, I had written my future. The process is like mixing a magic potion.

I keep thinking about you
And what you're going through
Here on the other side of the world
I've got my own mess all around me
I'm not exactly free
And I've been diving for pearls
For the girls
I can't escape it

All I can think about are my friends
So far away
And if we'll ever hang
Somedays
I feel so bent
I've gotta get back to you
And you've gotta do alright
Cuz you're one of the crew

When we arrived in Key West, we made many friends. It was so special there. The bonfire parties on Christmas Tree Island, the artists on every corner and at Mallory Pier, and the musicians in every nook and cranny all seeming to break me out of my shell and forcing me to have fun. It was just what the Dr. ordered. I didn't have to go to Costa Rica, the south pacific or New Zealand. This was where I was meant to go. It made me very proud to be an American. One night at an Island Party, I sang that song to my new friends and wrote the second verse freestyle:

When I ride the wind
We'll still be friends
I hope I see you again
With good luck we met
I hope I don't regret
Headin' outa this place
It's gonna be alright
Put your fears aside
By the firelight
We'll all sing a song
Cause it won't be long
Before we leave behind these days
For just a wee bit.

I keep wondering if there's more to this song.

I miss everyone very much. Here is a clip from Youtube of Toko Irie at a party on Christmas Tree. I play the video on my Touch while biking to Johnny's for coffee. I have speakers on the handle bars of a 1976 Schwinn 3sp Krate girls bike. I love the ending.

We kept moving up the coast, trying to make it back by Piper's Family beach trip. She has never missed one in thirty-three years. I don't want to be the one to break that kind of cycle. We were pretty sure at this point that she was a few weeks pregnant.

In Daytona, we visited more friends, Todd, Kim and Maria. Todd fed us his Kimchi. We were his first friends to like it apparently. We like spicy food. Todd is a vast reference of DIY badassness. I learned a lot from him. He is terribly funny as well. He really needed to clean his prop in that nasty river. He was kinda scared of getting in the murky Daytona ICW, and so I offered to sacrifice my body to the sharks while he scraped the prop and rudder during a thunderstorm. Oh man... good times. Unfortunately, every time we see them, we are passing through and are very much so in a rush to get done with the ICW. They felt the same when they passed through NC and I drove down to Belhaven to check on Delphine and see them on their way through. It was a cold Thanksgiving weekend then. He had built a wood stove on their boat and attached it to the bulkhead with a chimney through a port. It was incredible. It was so toasty. Every morning they would stop to walk their three dogs and gather firewood in a burlap sack. That night when I went back to Delphine, I almost slipped and fell in the water because there was a light frosty snow on deck. After a couple days in Daytona, we left Todd, Kim and Maria knowing that our next friend we would visit was in St. Augustine.

When we sailed into St. Augustine, I called Greg Travous. Greg and Karl were our only friends left in St. Aug. Though we spent our first five months on the boat here and made many friends in the plaza while selling art, everyone seemed to be gone. Curtis, closed his woodworking shop and moved his boat up to Virginia Beach. God knows what happened to Kelly and Tim. We know they split up. I still carry the black tourmaline she gave me to ward off bad energy while selling art on the street. I also still have the sand dollar bird necklace that Tim gave me, although Piper wears it more than I. How I long for another one of Kelly's massage hugs. We still have David the Trinketman's butterfly hanging out on Delphine.

Once the city kicked all the artists and vendors off the street (just after Christmas), everyone just kinda left out of disgust, except Greg and a few other brave souls. Piper and I left for Key West, a safe haven for street artists. It was his mission to continue the battle with the city. When we finally met up with Greg in front of the Casa Monica Coffee Shop, he slapped the daily paper down on the table. Lo and behold on the front page THAT DAY, The federal court had ruled against the city the day before and the artists were allowed back on the street immediately without fear of being arrested. Art conveys a message and the sale of that message keeps that message coming. Free Speech Art is alive and kicking in St. Augustine, FL. It is the single most important art movement of the century. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words. What a beautiful thing it is to pass through town this way and share that day with such an inspiring friend. The first day I arrived in the plaza to sell my art, this man greeted me and let me know what to expect. We laughed about how the city wasn't sure if sculpture was considered art. I had to schedule a meeting with the city attorney before selling my art in the plaza. He was not at all concerned about having to compete for sales with me. He wanted to create a thriving outdoor art market full of color, philosophy, humor, charm, character, friendship and a sense of community. He waded through the rising waters of greed with an unrelenting determination to reach higher ground. His blog is a great resource for any artist. It is full of artists stories, philosophy, history, pictures of art, artists, etc. Please check it out. His story is part of ours.

We left Florida and passed through Georgia's marshes at a snails pace. It's very quiet there. We met a couple just south of Savannah that was stranded. Their engine drained it's oil and burnt out a crankshaft bearing. They had a beautiful canoe hull sailboat. They were a little younger than us. They were trying to make it to Maine to work in an orchard for the summer. We knew they weren't going anywhere and assured them that Savannah was a great place to live for a while until they could get their boat fixed. It's so nice meeting other boaters our age. I wanted to help them somehow, but the only advice I could come up with was either get a job in Savannah or sail and ride the tide to Beaufort, SC. I wonder what happened to them. I bet they figured it out. At least they had a good couple of months in the Bahamas before this. We had them over for dinner and shared stories that night.

We passed through the first bridge at Charleston and the bridge operator told us that we would be stuck in town for a day or two due to high winds that forced the north swing bridge to not open. When we finally made it through the bridge, we heard the bridge operator reporting that the winds were picking up again. We made it through the only open that day. Way lucky. We don't like Charleston much. They have an outdoor art market there. The story is that the family that used to own it, gave it to the city under the condition that people could come and sell there goods there free of charge. The city broke its promise. That's the kind of place it is. It is interesting how different cities have different styles of basket weaving. Basket weavers in Charleston all have the same style it seems. Charleston baskets. The Savannah baskets are similar. Key West baskets are totally different.

In Beaufort, SC, we had dreary weather. We anchored right downtown. I went for coffee and internet. I returned to the boat and tried to get some sleep. At about 2 am, I heard two guys yelling at each other on shore. They were so loud. F this, f that, F U! It went on for about an hour but I had managed to fall asleep. Piper doesn't let anything interfere with her sleep. I awoke again to more yelling. This time it was a frightened anxious yelling at each other.
"Hurry Up , Man! Come ON! The tide is turning man! HURRY UP!
I peered my head out of the hatch and saw two silhouettes swimming towards the boat next to me. This river has a ripping current in it at Beaufort, SC. These guys were obviously scared and drunk. I wasn't sure if they were going to board the boat or just rest on its anchor line and swim to another boat. I was positive if they came to my boat I'd beat the piss out of them with my Mickey Mantle. I wasn't about to ask them if they were alright. Freakin Idiots! It made me nauseous just looking at them. I watched their silhouettes try to pull the swim ladder down. It was bungied up on deck. The fat one started to pull on it. It was stretching the bungy cord and the ladder was now at a 45 degree angle pointing to the stars. The fat one then starts to climb up it at that angle.
"You're gonna break it, man! I don't think that's gonna work", his buddy said. He looked ridiculous hanging by the ladder at 45 degrees completely out of the water.
SNAP! SpLASH! It kinda worked.
They slowly climbed up the rudder and the remainder of the swim ladder.
"It's broken, when did that happen?"
Complete morons.
Once on board they were shivering a little. "Oh man, I hope it's not locked. F!" Son of a#&^%(@! Oh wait maybe the other hatch!....Yes!"
"I can't find the lights, hang on a sec."
I went to sleep. At the crack-o-dawn I was up. And so were they. They had already hauled anchor and were leaving headed north. To this day, I don't know if they stole that boat or what. That was just creepy and makes me cringe every time I think about him yelling, "THE TIDE'S TURNING, HURRY UP!"

One night we paid to tie up at Barefoot Landing at Myrtle Beach, SC. We saw these turtles and ducks there. It was nice to walk around a bit. The next day we had to pass through the rockpile. It's a couple miles of the ICW that was blasted and had rock ledges under the black water.

Within a day, we reached Ocean Isle and brought Delphine into the canal behind our beach house at high tide. This was our second time here with Delphine. We knew she would settle in the mud nicely at low tide. It was awesome seeing family again and just relaxing. We spent a week with our family here and then moved our boat to Bayside Marina in Belhaven, NC. Pipers parents came and picked us up with a van. We moved most of our life off Delphine and began sleeping in our house in Carrboro again. It turns out our tenant who had been living in our home since February of 2006 had found a new home to live in and was moving out just days before we returned to Carrboro, NC.

Above is a pic of Santa on a surfboard in the sound at Wrightsville Beach at 7am. I had just woken up and kept rubbing my eyes. There were also people skiing. They love their watersports in NC. I think it's like a bike ride before work for them.

Being back in Carrboro was culture shock for me. The roadkill thing for one. As I chronic bicyclist, I am appalled by the destruction of life by the motor vehicle. I got a good long whiff of it at the end of my driveway. Welcome back to roadkill country. I didn't know what to do with myself. We had a busy summer of weddings and trips to visit old friends. I spent several days riding my new bike around town. Everything had changed quite a bit back home. People dressed completely different in Carrboro. It seemed to be more liberal than ever. Chickens were at Johnny's coffee shop which used to be an old bait and tackle shop. Carrboro had just passed a law allowing residences to have up to 25 chickens or ducks. Roosters are not allowed. When will sexual discrimination end?

Our friend Piilani talks to Piper's pregnant belly.

Used Haro BMX with One Human Family sticker.

My friend, Chris, has chickens as well. He was one of the first people I bumped into at Johnny's. He had obviously read the blog often. He began talking about it right away. We met at Open Eye Coffee shop years ago, but hadn't really hung out any where else but there. I put him on my email list before we left. It's funny. We began hanging out quite a bit once I returned. We had a lot to talk about at Johnny's. Chris introduced me to his sailing friends whom all hang out at Johnny's. We have quite a sailing click here in Carrboro. Chris has since founded the Carrboro Yacht Club. We are looking for a puddle to sail. If you know of one in Carrboro let us know. Chris and Jen keep their boat in Maine and fly up to hop islands quite a bit. They have met some interesting people on their travels as well.

I built a new display designed especially for Carrboro and Chapel Hill.

Piper is very pregnant. Our baby girl is due January 9th.

Chris introduced me to Eric. Eric had just purchased a 24 foot Columbia and wants to sail to Key West. We hit it off right away. I mentioned to him that we were going on a trip to Ocracoke at the end of August and that he was welcome to come along.
So he and his 14 yr. old son came with our mutual friend, Jason on a trip to Ocracoke and then to our haul out yard in Washington, NC. . This was our last trip aboard Delphine for the year. We overcame the minor obstacles that Delphine and Mother Nature threw in our way and had a great time.

My new display trailer converts to this trailer. I modified it.

Living back on land has been fun. Our town has changed a lot and so have we. I know that I have to get back into my art. We have a baby on the way and I want to get back into the festival circuit and work at home. I have been setting up my welding shed and selling art in public. I set up on the corner in downtown Carrboro for a month and made a decent amount of money to survive. However, during the Carrboro Music Festival, a police officer approached me and asked if I had a "privilege license" to sell my art in public. I told him I was protected by the First Ammendment to sell art in public. He was adamant that this was not the case and said I needed to leave.
As the officer crossed the street, I heard a man in a golf cart say,"Did you tell him he could get a permit for next year?" He was the event organizer.
I applied for permit the following week. They said it would take ten days. After a couple weeks, I went into the office and asked what the delay was about. The clerk said they were waiting to hear from the inspections and zoning department.
I asked, "What are they going to inspect? My easel? My bicycle? There's nothing to inspect. Maybe I should speak to someone else?"
They sent me to the inspector. He was out. The receptionist asked me if she could help and I replied," I don't even think I need this license. I was reading the ordinance and it refers to an NC state document for definitions of a peddler. There is an exemption for crafts made by hand from raw materials as well as an exemption for farmers selling produce." She began looking it up at once and was very helpful.
According to the town's accounting officer, I am exempt as a peddler that sells crafts made by hand. The town recognizes that the event organizer and the officer did not realize I have the right to be there. I realize it was an honest mistake.
The town of Carrboro recognizes that I need a piece of paper to show an officer that I have the right to be there. They are currently putting together an "Honorary Privilege Permit". This is good news for me, but somehow I know this probably won't be the end of it.

As an artist that researches these laws, I know that the sale of art is protected by the First Ammendment. Bery vs. New York is the perfect example. The artists won against mayor Guiliani at the state level. The Supreme Court would not hear Guiliani's appeal. Also, under NC law, a peddler of crafts made by hand from raw materials does not need a privilege permit to operate in NC.

Two new designs; Spider and Snake.

Piper has been getting really good frog shots lately.

Below is Johnny's Coffee Shop. It is the meeting place for the Carrboro Yacht Club. It's fun to see all the activities that come through this place. It has given West Carrboro a community center for whatever you can think of. Just ask. I sell my art here with my display cart.

So that's what I have been doing. Piper has been working creatively as well. She answered an ad on Craigslist about a sewing job. It has become a big project. The man she met with is starting a business recycling old billboard vinyl into bags. He found out she has a design degree and access to an industrial sewing machine and is paying her to make the line. It's been very challenging to work with vinyl. She's happy to be getting paid for gaining sewing experience, but looks forward to getting back to working with nice fabrics.

There will be more updates how we are doing. However, we probably won't be sailing for a year or two. The site name will probably shorten or change. We'll keep you posted. Check out friends links and see what they are up too. Peace.

2009-05-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

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After Marantha left us, we had that big storm she was hoping to see. It blew about fifty miles per hour and had a heavy downpour along with it. Remember to click on any picture and it will become enlarged.

Our new friends, Patrick and Alaina and Pat and Jen, were headed to Grand Cay, the northwestern most island of the Abacos, so we followed. It was good sailing weather and they smoked us.

Grand Cay was super rocky everywhere. The town seems pretty isolated. They have their own distinct style of stucco. It was everywhere on this island. Half the businesses on the island seem to be owned by a big man named Rosie.

We snorkeled at Double Breasted Cays and chased spotted eagle rays down in the dingy. There were lots of flats to explore. I saw a few nurse sharks and watched Pat fly fish for bonefish.

Pat and Jen generously shared the fish that he caught along the way. We all took turns cooking for each other. It was wonderful to have all that variety of good food. We had been eating the same four or five meals over and over again for a couple of weeks. We found a cute little all natural private beach. The house was boarded until season. They must have owned the whole island. We scraped the beard off the dingy and ran Pat and Jen's dogs. Patrick climbed a tree and got some coconuts.

Here is a common sight. A couple Bahamians gathering conch in a skiff. They pulled up to a bank and began pulling the conchs out of the shell. When they are done, there will be a large pile of shells on the bank.

We parted ways with the others after Grand Cay. They were headed back to the States. After two days of traveling SE along the island chain, we were at Green Turtle Cay. This is the beginning of the area settled by British Loyalists during the American Revolution. Most the businesses in the "Hub of the Abacos" seem to owned by American expats. They know how to cater to the tastes of the tourist.

Check out this Chevy Van. It is the size of a golf cart. I'm sure it doesn't pass crash tests in America, but everyone in Carrboro woud be driving it if they had the freedom to buy it. You can't tell me there's not an American market for these cars. The Bahamas are lucky to have this option, however, I was speaking with a Bahamian about my age at the fuel dock who told me that they are not allowed to install solar or wind turbines on their homes. All of there power in created by diesel power plants. You see them everywhere in the Bahamas. Usually you see a big plume of smoke blowing off the island. It really stinks and kinda makes you feel sick. It just goes to show you you that even a country that did sign the Kyoto Accords, as the Bahamas did, still has a long way to go. It's not like these cars are electric either. They just use less gas and probably don't come with a catalytic converter.

Below, is Great Gauna Cay. This was my personal favorite. Hardly any businesses. Just a few restaurants. The beach was rated one of National Geographic's ten best beaches in the world. You can snorkel really good reefs right off the beach or go further in a dingy to the barrier reefs where all the big stuff and most of the life is. It is just stunning when you first see it. On the other side of the island, not the beach side, the water is not as brilliant.

Tioga and I went pretty far out to a big reef. It was huge. It was kinda dark because there were not many colors on this reef. It was mostly dark green. There were large caves and caverns. One had a sea turtle hiding from us. Several had groupers. At the base of this 30 foot reef fortress was a big silver snapper. He was just waiting to get get shot. Tioga missed the first time. I was too chicken to shoot it. It still wasn't worried about us. He should have been.

The first day with Tioga, we snorkeled on the reef just off the beach at Great Guana Cay. We weren't expecting much because it was so close to shore. But it was bigger than it looked. Tioga swam way down under a big head and got this shot of a lion fish. It is an invasive species. It kills the other fish. It is very poisonous to the touch. Many divers kill them for this reason, but we were afraid of getting stung in the process.

There was a small uninhabited island near the anchorage at Great Guana Cay. I went to explore it by myself one afternoon. I was trying to get to the higher elevation of the island, but had difficulty because of thickets and poison wood trees. Poison wood is a big pretty tree that is like really bad Poison Ivy if you touch it. I saw a few small caves and went in to get a closer look.

This guy was staring right back at me. He wasn't too worried. I was a little scared he would fly out at me actually.

After a few days in Great Guana Cay, we wanted some different reef, so we sailed to Hope Town a little further down the Abacos chain.

Munchies was the cheapest place to eat in the Bahamas. they had a good burger for $4.50. Usually, everything is $10.00 or more. They had every kind of junk food you wanted. I remember back in Grand Cay, we went to Rosie's restaurant for breakfast. She asked us what we would like to eat and then said all they had was ham, eggs and toast, and we were totally happy with that. We were there for four days and none of the stores had milk the whole time. If they did it would have been ten bucks a gallon.

We saw a wreck on the barrier reef and decided we to dive on it. Piper was too cold, so she waited in the dingy while Tioga and I snorkeled. It was very hard to find a way through the coral to the ocean side where the wreck was. There was a fishing net tangled in the reef. Kinda sad. There was no way to remove it without getting cut up. We found a small shallow cut we could swim over the coral to the deep side. Once we got through, it was about forty feet deep, we made our way over to the wreck and it was super creepy. It seemed to be a relatively new wreck. Usually, wrecks are old with lots of coral growing on them. This had no growth at all. It was all loose steel. The ship was totally smashed up into unrecognizable pieces. There was this dumpster size metal box that was moving around when a big wave came. The steel creaked and whined. I didn't like it one bit. It was scary, but Tioga pretty much makes me do it and I always end up glad I did.

That's not green coral. It's a fishing net.

After about fifteen minutes we were both ready to go. There were no fish there at all and I I just wanted to get back before something crazy happened. All of the sudden a huge wave broke over the top of us. We were right next to all that metal moving around and you couldn't see anything but bubbles for what seemed like two minutes. There is sharp reef towards the beach that you can't swim over, deeper water with bigger fish the other way and twisted metal somewhere next to us. The bubbles cleared up and I started looking around for Tioga. I still couldn't spot him. I was freaking out. He was probably still diving looking for grouper. Finally, I heard him call and we started swimming for the narrow passage through the coral. I looked back and motioned for Tioga to follow me to the cut. He acknowledged. I swam a couple yards and looked back. He was gone again. I thought he had already found the cut and started through, so I started to swim towards coral that was too shallow. Keep in mind that the wave action was pretty big due to 15 mph winds with waves breaking on this barrier reef. I wave came up behind me and washed me up onto the reef in a foot of water. My snorkel and mask fell off and both of my contact lenses fell out. I was on my knees on coral. Waves kept coming in. I couldn't stand up, see above or below the water. I yelled for Piper and Tioga. She saw me and hollered and waved back. She could tell I must have lost my contacts by the way I was groping around. I told her to come pick me up. She pretended she was hauling the anchor but wasn't about to take our inflatable closer to that reef. She just wanted me to feel like help was on the way so I would stop freaking out and get myself off the reef. Tioga was going through the cut the right way. Apparently, he was right behind me wondering why I was going into the shallow coral. He wasn't about to follow. I yelled for him. But he was pretty far away. I had to get my snorkel back on so I could see underwater and find a way through the coral. I got it on and stuck my head under. I could see enough to find a small passage. I had fire coral all around me. It looks like fire and has a light sting to it when grazed. I made it through and swam back to the dingy. I had several small cuts on my ankles and elbows. This is why Piper is the captain, I freak out and make bad decisions. It's kind of a cool story though. I started laughing at it right away, but when it was happening, I actually was thinking I could drown out there.

One day we snorkeled off the beach and were a little disappointed at the clarity of the water. It was just too windy. Everything was all stirred up. Piper wanted to lay on the beach and read a magazine. So we dropped her off and went to the deeper water where there was less sand too get stirred. After about 5 minutes, Tioga speared a huge grouper! We couldn't fit it in a five gallon bucket, so we put it in his dive bag. We had to get it on ice right away. So that was the end of snorkeling that day. It was kinda of sad because we found these towering coral heads that looked like Dr. Suess's worlds.

Grouper under a coral head.

On the last dive before Tioga caught a plane back to the states, we were looking to spear a big fish and catch it on video. I was manning the camera, Tioga the spear and Piper the dink. We swam through a few deep water heads. There were lots of big groupers around. Tioga dove down to spear one. He missed. As I panned upwards to show the size of the reef, I saw a very sharky looking shark. Usually, we just see nurse sharks or baby reef sharks. I freaked out and that clip isn't so great. Of course Tioga wouldn't be worried until a tiger shark was present. And even then, I bet he'd remain perfectly calm. He captured the shark again when it returned. I think the shark knew we were hunting and was just waiting until we got something. He definitely wasn't interested in eating us. But he did want to check us out from a distance. I noticed that every time I started to swim away from it, the shark would slowly follow. And when we just stared back at it, it turned sideways and swam away. He was as big as Tioga. I eventually got the nerve to dive down and take a closer shot as well. But Tioga is very steady handed with a camera under water. This is his third trip snorkeling with us. We were glad he got to see a shark and spear some big fish.

There's no way to describe the massive structures at these reefs. If we had super cameras with wide angle lenses maybe you could tell how big everything is and how colorful the corals can be. The best way is to go there yourself. Having a guide that swims with you takes the edge off. However, I don't know how easy that is to find. We were very lucky to have Tioga. Most snorkeling tours take you to shallow reefs and getting to the big stuff probably has to be requested. All the big stuff has the bigger fish and towering structures. They are usually located where the water starts dropping off into the ocean.

This is our final trip while living aboard Delphine. It's been fun, adventurous and challenging. Some people tell us how jealous they are of us. It's funny because we know how much hard work comes with living on a boat. We aren't sitting in the cockpit drinking Margaritas every night and tanning on the beach all day. We worked like every one else while living in Key West. I wish I could sell my art on the street back home in Chapel Hill without business owners getting ticked off because of a little good old Made In America competition. This whole trip has put a lot into perspective for me. We've been treated as vagrants everywhere we've gone, even in Key West, and I love Key West. They consider everyone living in a boat homeless. It's just a way to get money from the government. They will not allow a "dingy docker" to pay for the "nice" bathrooms because they are reserved for the marina tenants only, but our "rent" is due on the first of each month. They offer a different building that resembles a moldy jailhouse bathroom instead for an additional $72/month. Why can't I pay more for the nice bathrooms? Because everyone who anchors out is a drunk vagrant and they don't want us rubbing elbows with the better clientele. They claim we all just cheat the system and share bathroom keys. We weren't expecting to always get lumped in with the bums by choosing this lifestyle. It doesn't matter how many thousands of dollars you spend in their city, instead of a ticket, they will lock your dingy up so you can't go home that night.

So it is time to stop living vicariously through us. The key to affording this lifestyle is simple living...doing without. Remember that the filthy rich aren't getting the experience you will get. The best things are free. They are sitting on a large boat watching a big screen TV. That's not life. That's just living. They aren't snorkeling with turtles and spearing fish. They are drinking $9 mojitos in an air conditioned room. They aren't lying on a beach with pink sand. (which is kinda over-rated anyway) They are being served fish they didn't catch, clean or cook themselves. We are ready for our next adventure. We are ready to be closer to the family again. I am ready to be a street artist in my own town. You are free to chase your dreams.

2009-04-12T12:53:00.000-07:00

We made some friends in Bimini. While cooking dinner at the dock, a couple cats. Also, a couple humans, Patrick and Alaina. They had just bought a beautiful 30 foot Cape Dory and sailed from Tampa to Bimini. This was really their first sailing experince other than sailing classes. We were very impressed how quickly they learned. They had a hairy moment running aground in the beginning and studied the Chapman's pilot thoroughly afterwards. They really took it seriously and they should. It ain't no joke out here on the water. They are about 24 years old, coming from Denver, CO. For Alaina, it was the first time she saw the ocean. Their boat is a real tuff build. I like it a lot. They got a really good deal after the financial collapse. They were just as excited as we were. Young people are rare. We hung out for a day, but had to go to Freeport to pick up Marantha.

I'm pretty sure this wreck is the same wreck my friend from St. Augustine photographed a few years ago. His picture had this ship wrecked on a big sandy beach. I bet this is a sign of global warming. Now the sand is all eroded and left on the underlying rock that is so familiar in these islands. I spoke with a Bahamian in Port Lucaya that told me they are well aware of the effects of global warming. They see erosion more and more. We noticed that Honeymoon Harbor doesn't have the beach we snorkeled off of just two years ago. Tell that to your grandma.

We photographed this ray while chasing it down in the dingy.

These are the Bimini rocks we snorkel off of.

The water lanes of Chalk's Airlines are a thing of the past. They went out of business in 2007 because of their first deadly crash in over 90 years.

We left Bimini and headed across the Northwest Providence Channel. We left at sunrise knowing this trip would take every bit of daylight. It was perfect weather. Once we had Freeport in sight, we noticed many freighters waiting to enter the harbor. A big freighter at anchor is very confusing even in broad daylight. You find yourself trying to figure out which direction they are headed to no avail. This one in particular was named after our niece.

We picked up a slip at Port Lucaya Marina for $50 a night. We really didn't care to much for this resort marina full of powerboats and spring breakers, but we needed a place to meet Marantha. She came to visit us over her spring break. So as soon as she arrived we shoved off with very little time to make it to West End, Grand Bahama. We wanted to give her the real deal. If we had stayed she would have to watch a bunch of frat boys take their shirts of and acting like fools out on the outdoor dance floor. It goes on way into the early morning.

The trip started out fine. Marantha manned the tiller and learned sailing basics. Then the seas started growing. She felt a little queezy and went down below for a nap. The wind was a bit mightier than we like. But we were able to do about six knots under sail alone for the rest of the day. By the time we arrived at Settlement Point, we were concerned. The sun had about ten minutes left and we still hadn't rounded the point. The following seas were looking like 8 footers, but probably just six. It was a lot of work steering her straight and the motion was chaotic. We made it into the anchorage just after the sun disappeared and anchored at dusk. The bottom was like a concrete slab. The CQR didn't catch. So I dingied out the Danforth to make a "V". We had swells and a lot of wind from the same direction. The anchorage was tiny and there were about six boats already there. We were in very shallow water and the current was ripping onto the back a speed we couldn't swim against. We noticed our new friends from Bimini had beat us there. All the boats swinging on one hook swang into the two-hookers. We had been smart to anchor in very shallow water instead of trying to squeeze in with the others. When the tide changed at 4 am everyone was re-anchoring. Our friends helped out one of the boats since it was too close to them. They became friends during the process. Now, we are all just enjoying the day together.

We went snorkeling today.

This day was awesome. I would even say it was just as good as my best day in Key West when
I lost my wallet and $750 bucks. (That day I meditated and got over it allowing myself to have a good day anyway. I made some of my best friends that night.) Just having Marantha here was exciting enough. There's nothing better than to be able to share good times with your friends and family doing something that makes you feel alive and not just living. I wish more of you had been able to visit. Not only are we hanging out with Marantha, we have met two other young couples that are on sailboats as well. That's just rare out here.

I could stay in this anchorage forever. We have super fast wifi, good reefs and gulf stream water. Today after snorkeling, I saw our neighbors messing with anchor lines. I love just hopping in the dingy and seeing what the problem is and joining in on the solving. Patrick was trying to put another anchor out to the east because the wind is supposed to become 15-20 from there overnight. He had dropped the bitter end into the water and was trying to fish it out with a boat hook. Since I had been snorkeling all day, I said,"Let's just dive on it". I got my gear and dropped the dingy anchor in the suspect area. They were surprised my little anchor was holding me. They said their dingy anchor had just been dragging the bottom. I plopped in the water. Patrick was right behind me. As soon as we got in the water, we saw a hawkbill turtle about two feet in diameter. It appeared to be next to a baby turtle on what looked like an underwater sand dune. We immediately started following the larger turtle in greenish water about twenty feet deep. That's why the dingy anchor wasn't holding. Their line barely reached the bottom. My line was about twice as long. We followed the turtle over these underwater dunes until it reached the sea grass of the Little Bahama Bank. This is why the water was greener here. The sea grass extend east for miles in 12-15 feet of water. The grass was about three feet tall and the water was so creepy. That's when I turned back. Patrick was a little braver until he realized I wasn't coming. Then we saw his plow perfectly set atop a dune. The dune was like an old coral head covered with sand and grass. The current had carried his line toward the ocean. The tide was going out off this bank. You could barely swim against it with fins. Without them, you could drift out to sea. So it was in my mind meant to be. We would have to meet them in Bimini and they'd have to lose the bitter end of the line and we'd have to get in the water then... and the turtle would have to show us where the anchor was and we would have to join up that night for cocktails on Swift Ranger. Of course that would have to be after Piper cooked some excellent Thai Curry.

The seven of us talked for hours. Patrick and Alaina were philosophy majors and Marantha's boyfriend is too. I played them a few songs. The couple from the boat Madelaine brought fresh shrimp. He knows how to shrimp and told us all about that. We all hit it off great and will probably all travel in a convoy across the bank on Wednesday.

2009-04-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

We are now in Bimini, Bahamas. We left at 2 am from No Name Harbor in Miami. We had about four hours of night sailing. It's really creepy. As we left the channel and entered the gulf stream, each wave seemed to get bigger and bigger. Finally, a huge one came over the bow and soaked us. We looked at each other and said, Okay, that's it let's turn around. But we gave it a minute to improve and turned down the throttle. The waves seem to stand up as they reach shallow water. We had the main sail up and the diesel running. A hardcore sailor would say, "why are you still using the motor, you have 10 -15 knot winds?" The main reason is we want to make sure we get the before the wind picks up again. NOAA was reporting that a cold front would come in the evening of the next day and we didn't want to hope we made it. It's no joke out here. The motor gave us an extra knot or two. When we turned the throttle down, she stopped plowing through the waves and we didn't get as wet. I was chilly at night with goose bumps. Anyway, when the sun rise came, all I could think about was Toko Irie's song "When the sun rises in the morning...." We were so happy to see the sky light up. We had a great sail. We rolled out the genoa to a jib reefing and hobby horsed over the waves. Up and down. It was awesome cresting a wave and then dipping in the trough. Delphine was designed for this and you could feel it. It was a wet ride though. Every now and then we would just get soaked.

About half way across, I heard a noise and looked back. So did Piper. we both did a double take. The wind turbine had fallen over and was hanging off the stern horizontally! I quickly jumped up and pulled it back up. All the mounts were still there. Nothing was broken in half. It has adjustable clamps that had just come loose and slipped. I tried to tighten them with a wrench, but the rubber gasket I had made to dampen the vibration had fallen out and now the clamp was just too big. I rigged up a line from the clamp to a cleat to stabilize it. That was holding it up just fine. I built the tower and this was ultimately the big test. Obviously, there was room for improvement. I later, in Bimini, installed some hose clamps to prevent the other clamps from slipping. We got lucky. We could have lost the wind turbine, the solar panel and an anchor I had hung from the tower. That's really a lot of weight. I can improve later. When we put the throttle in neutral, we were doing 3 knots with both sails. It was really very peaceful despite the wave action. With the motor, we were doing 5 knots. Crisis averted.

It took us about twelve hours to cross. We came in Bimini just ahead of four other sailboats that had made the crossing that night. The water is so beautiful here. Pictures cannot describe it. We try. This morning I dropped a bike lock cable in the water at the dock and had to dive for it. In seven feet of water, I could see it from the dock under the boat. Like a swimming pool. We stayed at Weech's Marina for $35 a night. Just as a treat. We never get to stay at a dock. It is $90/night in Key West and $200/night at Cat Cay, Bimini. The weather got worse that night after the crossing, just like NOAA predicted. High winds 5-7 feet in the gulf stream. 5-7 feet is awful. The ocean becomes full of white caps.

This time Piper made me do the check in with customs. So I gathered the paperwork and went down to the office. They basically want to know what you have on board. Guns, bicycles, motors, spears etc. We also get our fishing license here. It covers hawaiian slings as well. That's what we do here is snorkel and spearfish. However, We were talking with a local at a practice junkanoo parade. He was telling us about how much history that is here and often goes unnoticed. Like the stories of Atlantis, Hemingway hung out here, and US target practice on a ship we dove last time we were here. The Bimini Roads are pillars laid down like a road under water. Apparently, during the last Ice Age, the watewr levels were way down and somebody made it. There is also the Three Sisters. Three big rocks on the Atlantic side in 18 feet of water. the formations in the rock had to have been man-made.

Bimini is very poor. Everyone wants to sell you something. I passed a guy under a palm by a seawall on the bay, right in front of the police station. He asked me what I was looking for. That could be anything apparently. I said, "Milk". He told me where to go and asked me if I wanted some conch salad. he wanted to sell me two bowls, but I said, "How about just one". He left me standing there in front of the police station to go get it from his mother's house. It looked bad, but I waited anyway. He came back with a styrofoam bowl ( bummer) It was delicious. It was spicy with lime and green peppers and onions and more. I at most of it and had difficulty saving some for Piper. It was $12. Food is expensive here. But it was worth it and by looking around at all the dilapidated buildings, I wanted to buy something. His name was Fidel. He asked me if I ever dove for conch and said I should. He said fresh conch is excellent. He jumped into the water and waded over to a trap where he kept his conch about fifty feet into the water. He came back and showed me how to get the conch out. A conch is just a big slug in a pretty shell. With a hammer he punched a hole in the top. Then, with a butter knife he agitates it til he can pull the conch out of the shell. He cuts off the toenail and the guts and hands it to me. "Eat it All". I did. Although I must admit some parts were too tough and I tossed them. It was good. I ate it raw. It's better with lime. I thanked him for the experience and said I had to be on my way.

That night we were cooking food on the boat. A couple of cute cats came by to see if we were meat eaters. Unfortunately, we were having pasta salad. It was nice having cats around. This one kinda looked like a bobcat. We've been looking for a bobcat kitten for a boat cat. Let us know if you here of one that needs a home. We started hearing music playing in the street. Lots of drums and horns. We were watching podcasts and decided we had to take a look. We went into the street and there were about fifty people hanging out. Most of them were playing drums and horns of all kinds. Big plastic trash cans with skin heads, some cow bell type morroccos, some tin horns that looked like jewish minoras (spelling error Im sure). There were also trumbones, trumpets, french horns. The music was fast, hard, loud and trancy. It was a very slow moving parade. they moved down the street at about one inch per minute. The trash can drums were so loud and powerful. Kids were playing, adults were teaching, it was outstanding. I have some video clips, but I have to get better internet for that posting. Coming from a musical Key West, I was pleased to witness this Junkanoo homecoming practice at night in the street. What freedom they have. Apparently, they do this every so often. The homecoming is when their children come home from college from the states or elsewhere. Our friends from Christmas Tree would love it and do it on the Island.

I been sitting at this gazebo next to the immigration office blogging far too long. Peace Out.

2009-03-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

Today is the day we were going to leave Key West, one year after we arrived. The wind turned out to be not ideal and we got a late start so we decided to pick up a mooring ball here in Key West so we can just untie in the morning rather than have to haul anchor again. At least we're really ready now. We can now spend our last evening here relaxing, not running around.

The wind was predicted to be 15-20knots out of the southeast today but it's really more like 20-25 from the ESE. We'll be going East for the first day so a SE wind is something we can work with but not ideal. Fri. is supposed to be SE 15-20knots. S would be great. Hopefully, by Saturday....
We have another sad announcement to make. Gold Guy, aka James (who we used to give rides to), drowned a few weeks ago. It was during the last big blow we had here. They found him in the submarine base still clutching a gas tank. He was kayaking to his boat we think when it happened. He was not a good swimmer, refused to carry life jackets and never paid attention to the weather. Living on the water is not something to be taken lightly.

Maybe we'll find an internet cafe over there and we'll send out a quick "hi". If not we'll be back by the end of May and that's when we'll do a full update. Take care.
Fair winds and following seas, Paul and Piper

2009-02-17T16:09:00.000-08:00

On Valentines Day, there was a performers workshop before Sunset Celebration. I learned how to ride a unicycle on the first try by holding onto a street lamp pole. Mark, my juggling performer friend bought me a small unicycle for my birthday three days later. It is the one I learned on. Check it out. I bunny hopped it on the first day.

It's a lot a fun. I went to see Raven play at the BottleCap. There were three people out front that could ride it. Raven is a really good singer. She has a voice kinda like Billy Holiday, but she does all sorts of music. There was a guitar player from NC there with her. He was Country Dave. he was a really fast picker. I wish I'd had my camera charged. Raven has come out to the fires several times, too (see below). I was proud she liked my music. She's a very known and respected musician in town.

I started recording some music. If you click my StereoFame banner it will take you to my music. It's the butterfly song. I just use one stereo microphone. i've been uploading them to the internet. Stereofame hosts my music. It's some kind of game.

I've been selling on the street a lot trying to get ready for our trip to the Abacos. We are meeting Marantha there in Freeport April 8th. I have a lot of work to finish on the boat before we leave. It's going to be a busy month. We are very excited, but leaving all our friends will be very sad. We seem to have more friends here than back home. It's because we see them all the time because we all live within five minutes of each other.

Another Island party. It awesome when Toko's family comes out. The vibe is perfect. Robert and I hit it off one day taliking about the destruction of the planet and politics. He is the red head playing guitar.

Our friend, Lauren showed up. It was her birthday. She happened to be in town for a week. It was good to see her. We hung out with her a bit the first time we came to Key West. She gave us the scoop on Grainne. Apparently, Grainne went crazy, stole stuff from people and got deported back to Ireland after marrying a gay man on the island.

This is Arial (below), the newest member of the Newton family. She is named after the little mermaid.

This is just the dingy dock on a beautiful day.

Toko and Diana moved back onto the boat a week ago. We are looking forward to spending water time with them before we leave, March 25.

Piper has been taking kids from the Boys n Girls Club to pick trash out of the mangroves. She created the Environment Club over the summer. They are making a real impact. Passersby always thank them for their service. The Keys are way behind on environmental issues, recycling and protection of their water. The mangroves next to roadsides resemble landfills. Good Job Kids!

One of the best things about working on the street is when Randesh rides up in his Suzuki Samurai full of Green and yellow Coconuts. He chops the top off so you can drink the water. I usually cut the husk off with a knife and eat the nut itself too.I've gotten good at it and have come to love the jelly coconuts as well.

Here is a picture of my friend , Ryan's torch rig. He has water for cooling the metal and a lighter to light the torch all in one tool. He is also a wire sculpture. Here is one of his heavy metal sculptures modeled after his wire sculpture. We do the same type art but differently. I love this rig.

And for your boater's moment of zen, I leave you with a lesson in reuse. Piper discovered that a boatyard will almost always have thousands of stainless screws and hardware lying in the gravel. This is one plate worth. We have pulled out about five or six of these to start our stainless collection. Hundreds of dollars worth of stainless without the trips to the store. So all yee boaters and handypeople... stop with a bucket.

2008-12-26T07:24:00.000-08:00

Cosmic Law of Key West. Never trust a Statue. Just remember that.

I applied for the street artist permit and was accepted. $100 for a year. I have to wear a badge or else. The photo on it looks pathetic. They treated us like vagrants and pretty much just shouted down our throats, "No Drinking! Everything must have a price tag! You can sell it for less, but not more! No tables! And you only get one chair. Only easels are allowed! Nothing else!" Who the hell pays more than on the tag? Do these people know anything about commerce?

The gold man here is not the infamous gold man I may have mentioned previously. It's another one. Piper is set up for face painting in the background. This is a gold soldier carrying a flag. He apparently gives 50 percent of his tips to the VFW. The other gold man has been bumming dingy rides for six months until recently when I let him know it's over. That wasn't pretty. He has no business on the water. Someone, however, sold him a boat for $400 and there he is. It's that easy!

Selling art on the street has improved my chances for success. One day, while set up on the street, a lady showed interested in my work. Her friend was british and said, How much? Twenty dollars! You ought to be ashamed!", as she wagged her finger like Stephen Colbert. "How about $10?"

The man with them the spoke up, "You not even buying it, shut up."
The woman replied, "I'm an antique dealer".
"So what, he doesn't care", responded the first lady.

"Yeah, I won't do $10." No sell. Oh, Well. People always haggle, but no one pays more than the listed price.

I am also still setting up at Sunset Celebration, but not as much. Here is Nina and her back-ups. She is really good. She's thirteen.

Piper has been face painting at Mallory every now and then. She's been doing pretty good. It pays for dinner sometimes. The Gold Soldier goes by the name Serge. It's Russian. I don't know how to spell it. One day he was set up across from Piper. He was very weird, but he did well. He actually has an act. He gives candy to the kids. That helps.

The other day, Serge (pronounced sir gay), the Gold Soldier asked if he could borrow my bike. I was set up in front of the Hard Rock Cafe at the time. I was hesitant, but he said he really needed spray paint from Home Depot and I agreed to let him use my bike and trailer while I sold on the street. I was there for five hours and he never came back. I had all of my art to haul back and my only transportation was missing in action. I packed everything as best I could and carried the whole lot three blocks to my friend Melanie's house.

I went to Mallory and asked around, but nobody had seen Sir Gay. I began speaking with the other statues hoping they had heard from him.
"He's probably in jail!" said Silver Man, formerly known as CopperTop. He used to be copper man until the other silver man was arrested for dealing heroin. By the way, Coppertop used to bum rides with the other gold man. They had met each other through Gold man's wife. She was cheating on him. You'd think after having nine consecutive kids with a man, you would be a little more faithful. Or maybe not. I guess since grandma is raising the kids, you still have time to do the Duval Crawl. (Duval St. is the main drag) Gold man took Coppertop under his wing because he felt sorry for the way his wife had treated him. These two fellas are the real married couple; you can tell by the way the bicker. Anyway, all these statues seem a little shady or mentally ill, but they all believed that SirGay was probably in jail.

I felt like decking Serge when I found him. Piper was worried I would. I also thought he was in an accident and probably in the hospital. My friends, Blake and Emily, saw me on the street and insisted I forget about the bike, It's lost forever, and to have a margarita. So, I did. I forgot about it all and then Piper appeared in front of the bar, surprised to see me. "I found him", she said. "He's in jail for battery. We found him online". We would have never recognized him without his glasses and his gold paint. But Melanie, with her acute sense of perception, recognized him right away.

We called the police about my bike, but they said the property office was closed until tomorrow. The next day, I walked to the police station and tried to claim my bike. It was registered as belonging to Raymond Something. It wasn't under my name or Serge's. They gave me an incident report. It said that Serge was riding down the busiest road in town, insisting he had just as much right away as other vehicles. People were honking at him in a long line. When the road opened up to two lanes in front of the police station, he threw a can out of my basket at a car. Well, she turned out to be one tough little stripper and followed him and pushed him off the bike. When the cops showed up, he was choking her and trying to push her into traffic. There were lots of witnesses. The police said I could not have my bike back unless I had a receipt. NO OTHER WAY, SIR! Luckily, I bought it at West Marine and they had the purchase on file. The police made me sign a paper that stated I did not sell my bicycle to Sir Gay. I was able to get my bike and the trailer, but not the hitch, bike lock, my lights and extension cord. I was still very happy. It would have cost me a lot of money to replace my transpo. The officer asked me, "Did you learn anything?"

I said, "Yeah, Never trust a statue."

Watch Goldie here. He goes straight for the boobs.

Fantasy Fest happened. It was interesting, but I was glad to see it go. I have never seen so many old naked ladies in my life. Apparently, it gets really nasty at night. We decided to stay home. We did see the parade. It was the highlight.

It was a very long parade. Lots of beer was being given away from the floats. People were dancing and prancing around naked. Just a bunch of S&M pageant girls. It reminded me of how dumbed down America has become. We'll assemble to party, but not for peace.

Everyday, we pick trash out of the sea on our dingy ride. Here was an interesting find. Below is another Manatee. It's always fun to witness one.

Shanti is Cliff's boat. We had dinner aboard her one night just before Thanksgiving. There were a lot of people there. It was cold. We had salad, cheese and crackers and some kinda pasta with scallops. It is always interesting to have a party on a boat. People come and go and watching the parking lot shuffle is fascinating.

This is the coolest front yard ever.

We have been going to a lot of Christmas parties. This one was the Boys N Girls Club party at the Schooner Wharf. We were in the Christmas Parade with the Boys N Girls Club. Piper started the recycling program at the club. They decided to make a green float as well.

This is Piper on Christmas Day wearing her crochet Christmas beret.

Well, there is a lot more to say. But it'll have to wait. Below is a podcast we posted on youtube with video of a sea turtle. We did this so you can see it on full screen. In order to see it on full screen in high quality, you must first double click on the video so it takes you to YouTube. Then just underneath the video in blue letters are the words "watch in high quality". Click on those words, then click the enlarge window option square just above those words. Peace Out.

2008-11-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

Hey Yall, The Cigarette Races are this week. All week long we have had races and often we get stuck out on the boat because we are not allowed to cross the channel. Also, there is a hurricane passing over Cuba as a category 4. It is really windy outside. Here are some race clips.

2008-10-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

One of the projects I started here was recording my friend Toko. The video above features one of those songs. The video itself was footage of a recent rainfall that flooded most of historic Key West. All the drains got clogged. Toko Irie is a rastafarian from Grenada. He used to live in a real paradise where he hunted iguanas for food and really lived off the land. His friends told him not to go to America, that it would change him. He admits it has and wants to return to Grenada one day. However, now he has five children and a beautiful California wife. Now he has to convince them to leave home. He knows it probably won't happen. Home is a special place. They lost their boat and everything they owned on it during Hurricane Wilma three years ago. That is what the song is actually about.

Often people think there is nothing they can do to stop the direction the world is headed. When you find yourself unemployed and moping around at home hating the world, you could be learning exactly how the Federal Reserve, a private bank, is currently enslaving you. You could read about Ron Paul's Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act (HR2755). Click the link below. Piper did.

What You Can Do to End the Tyranny of the Federal Reserve

If you like living vicariously through this blog, perhaps you would be interested in the same documentaries that we began viewing as soon as we moved onto the boat. They turned our perspective from "wanting to get away from it all" to "wanting to stay and make a difference." Movies like: Orwell Rolls in his Grave, The End of Suburbia, and Who Killed the Electric Car. There are also a few documentaries that are being banned or blacklisted and are only available on the web. When we first arrived in St. Augustine, FL in August 2006, we met our friend Curtis. He helped us learn how to anchor in alternating currents. We became friends. He had a woodworking shop where we often hung out. He had bought his boat from a filmmaker. He had a CD labeled Small Spaces Big Style. It was a home improvement show. The boat he bought was on that show and we had seen the episode two years earlier. We couldn't believe we had stumbled into that boat. He said we should check out the other two DVDs that former owner gave him. One was his documentary of Cuba and the other was called Reopen911.org. It was about world domination and how they do it. That spiraled into an online media frenzy and is why I sign hundreds of petitions weekly with all my "free time". The latest movie is much more to the point and is only two hours long as opposed to the five hour one we first encountered. You can view it online at Zeitgeistmovie.com.

2008-10-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post a mini update. Just a video.

Coconuts are everywhere. You can live off them. Here's me opening a coconut.

2008-10-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

October is here and business is slowly picking up again. Piper has been volunteering at the Obama office. She has been telemarketing. There is no McCain office here because he is anti-makeithappen. I finally, became a regular at Mallory dock which means now the lottery system for spaces is unfairly in my favor. They are against outsiders in Key West. That's why locals get a 20 percent discount pretty much everywhere. They forget we are all Americans.
Anyway, as far as news is concerned, a waterspout came thru the anchorage the other day. It knocked over a few boats, but they sprang right back up. I had no idea it was happening. I was sewing our bimini down below. I just thought it was raining so I shut all the hatches which is the safest thing to do anyway. Afterwards, I was ready for some air and went up on deck to set up the wind scoop. Fred, my neighbor, was motoring over to tell me something.
"Did you see that?!" I hadn't noticed anything. A tornado had just come through the anchorage. It was a very calm day. Mostly sunny even. He heard on the radio that there was a tornado but didn't think much of it because there is always one being announced. It came by the north side of the island hugging the coastline headed west. Piper had seen it from Bay View Park with the Boys n Girls club. She called Fred and he said everything was fine. He had tried to warn me by yelling at the top of his lungs, but I never heard over the movie I was watching. Toko and his kid, Aaron were puttering around in their boat. They had not noticed it either. We all congregated in a dingy flotilla while Fred told us about it. He said that the Bait guy had it all on video. The bait guy, Don, has a little barge next to his sailboat where he sells bait. He has a huge generator and has internet on his boat. He is the only boat with a back yard. We all went over to see his video. Luckily, for us, the waterspout hit the island and lost its funnel. But the bottom was still there and came around the island right through the anchorage. It knocked down a few boats and went out to sea. It hit Cliff's boat directly. He has lawn chairs and palm trees and other stuff that got all sucked up and thrown everywhere. Then it knocked a blue hull sailboat's mast all the way down to the water. It sprang back up. Then it spun a very large sport fisher and next it pushed a 45 foot Morgan Ketch over about 45 degrees. If you were standing on deck, you would be thrown into the air for sure.

One day we met Vivian pictured below in the kayak. He was very polite and didn't drink or smoke. Of course he loved bob Marley. He wanted to buy a small sailboat and go to Cuba and then to Venezuela. He wasn't particularly close to us, but he often asked us a lot of sailing questions. We offered up lots of advice. One day, he was kayaking thru the anchorage and we invited him aboard. We noticed he didn't take his life jacket off. Eventually, we asked him if he knew how to swim and he said, "No." Our friend Cliff, also living on the water, found this out and immediately began teaching him how to swim.
One night, I rode my bike up Duval and saw Cliff and Sean talking in front of Project Lighthouse ( a place for runaway kids). Cliff works there. Cliff had spent the last three days at the city pool teaching Vivian how to swim and was very concerned.
"As soon as I let go of him he flips out and sinks like a rock." He was very worried about Vivian living on a sailboat.
That night the dolphins were making a lot of noise in the anchorage, slapping their tails on the surface and in the blackness they appeared to be playing. The next day at about two o'clock, the coast guard was circling about four boats away from our boat. My friend, Fred, came over to tell me they found a floater, a black man with dreadlocks. I said,"that's Vivian!" He said they didn't know who he was an expected foul play. So we decided that I should go identify him and let them know we were previously aware that he couldn't swim. It was a beautiful day and once i motored up to the coast guard boat, I could see Vivian was still in the water. He was face down in the fetal position. They made me keep my distance as it was a crime scene. They pulled him out by his dreadlocks. Rigamortis had set in. His father was murdered by rebels in Siere Leone and somehow he had ended up here. I identified him and told the coasties they could learn more about him from Project Lighthouse. It was terribly sad. I now associate not being able to swim with sinking like a rock.

I have been recording my neighbor, Toko, out on the anchorage. It is fun. He uses a sequencer and so I am learning a lot. We are also using his Roland recorder and a condenser mic. He has been playing steel drums, acoustic guitar and bass. His voice is incredible. He is the real thing as far as a vocalist entertainer is concerned. He can freestyle a song at any given moment and it just exudes love and peace. We have a lot of fun hanging out with his family. They have four kids and another on the way. One night, Naomi, made an booger out of aloe slime and hung it from this statues nose.

Our friend, Robert, in Colorado had sent us a solar panel and I successfully installed the system on Delphine. Thanks a lot, Robert. I learned a lot and am putting the PV to good use. It was really easy. We also installed LED technology from sailorssolutions. They are called sensiBulbs. They cast a light equal to incandescent bulbs. They are not bluish at all. We want to put them in our house one day.

Here is what you don't realize about ethanol. They are using the boating industry as guinea pigs, because we are recreational craft. Our life does not depend on our motors bringing us back to port safely. The disclaimers are as large as the gas pumps at the dock. There are two of them. Everybody in the anchorage is experiencing motor shutdown. Even us. Our motor has shut off and stalled about three times since they put the Gas with 10% ethanol in a few weeks ago. It is unreliable. Now we have to bicycle to the gas station where cars fill up.

2008-09-01T15:43:00.000-07:00

September is the slow season here in Key West. Locals say Americans have a pretty predictable schedule. This time of year families are putting their kids in school and visiting campuses, not exploring islands and reefs. That seems to be the case. I decided if I am going to work and not make money, then i should work on the boat. That is the way I have spent the last two months. I cleaned up finished all my brightwork on deck, except I still need a few extra coats on some of the handrails. Anyway, here are a bunch of pics leading up to september. We had a tropical storm Fay, which evacuated tourists and was over by the time we were finished preparing for it. There was a lot of flooding as always when it rains. Too much work.

2008-08-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

I was just reading over our last entry to see where we left off and I noticed I was wearing pants and my wind breaker in a lot of those pictures. That has not been the case lately. Paul said it was hot in the last update. Now it's sweltering.
Back in late May we flew up to NC for the week at Ocean Isle. It was a week full of babies.

I've been working full-time at the Boys & Girls Club this summer. We spend about half the day in the AC playing games like Connect Four and Checkers in the cafeteria and the other half outside or in the un-airconditioned gym playing capture the flag or building and learning to walk on stilts (my idea) or going to the beach or the pool. A few of the other things we've done are going to the aquarium, and the Eco-Discovery Center, snorkeling on the reef, fishing, archery at a boy scout camp, and movies every Tuesday. I enjoy it for the most part. A few of the kids give us problems daily. I've about had my fill of hotdogs.

Since I've been working 9-5 we don't go out much anymore. When Paul works we often don't get home until 11:00 or so and still haven't had dinner. It's too hot to cook on the boat so we bought a blender and lately we've mostly been eating smoothies, cucumber yogurt soup, and gazpacho.

Business for Paul has been really slow for the past few weeks. Fortunately his construction boss from Chapel Hill, John, called and offered Paul work and a vacation all rolled into one. John is moving to Boston and was trying to finish the roof on his new home in Boston before starting a job in Chapel Hill. He called Paul as a last resort and the timing just happened to be perfect. Paul got to see Boston for the first time and make some money to get him through this slow season.

With all this free time during the day, Paul has been trying to catch up on refinishing our teak. It's going to look fabulous when he's done.

Mark and Jessica came down to visit back in June. It was nice to finally have some visitors. Unfortunately Jessica gets seasick so they saw the boat but couldn't stay for dinner. Mark made up for it by taking us out to dinner (a lot).

Tioga also came down for a week in July. We thought we might sail up the Keys all the way to John Pennekamp State Park, stopping to snorkel the reef along the way, but it turned out there's plenty of good reef right here off Key West.

So we had the best of both worlds, snorkeling all day and always getting back to Key West in time to go out for a nice dinner. The first night we stayed out at the reef seven miles offshore and pitched and rolled all night. It was one of the worst nights of sleep any of us had ever had. We didn't make that mistake again.
So, so far on the visitors to Key West tally it's brothers 2, everybody else 0 (except Jessica). In case you didn't realize, you are all invited to come stay with us. It's way cheaper to fly into Miami and rent a car or take the bus. Winter is great down here. It's also the busy season. We will be here until late March.

2008-05-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

Life in Key West is strange, pleasant, creepy, loud at times, lazy or is that a disguise? Lots of things happen and right now it is so hot that everyone is crawling around like lizards. A typical day is a ridiculous collage of events followed by a long dingy ride over moonlit ocean swells as we cross the channel to the anchorage. One day I had my guitar strapped on my back as I rode my bike up to Caroline Street Music to buy strings. There was a drunk dude with a straw hat playing the piano I had helped move a week or two earlier with Andy(also from deep chatham) and the owner. I have already moved two pianos and a keyboard since we got to Key West. Last year I did a grand piano. This particular piano came from the Red Barn Theatre on Duval St. This dude playing the piano was playing Pink Floyd. His style just makes your jaw drop cause you aren't expecting this Key Bum to be able to play that well. He asked me to play something and I said after I make my purchase, give me time to think about it. He was really good. He had played on cruise ships and probably everywhere else. That piano sounds like crap when anyone else plays it. That's why the Red Barn bought a new one. I came out after buying some strings and played him one of my songs. He asked if that was an original and I said, "yes it was". He thought I was really good and said he liked the words a lot. That was cool and then his friend Woody walked up and he played his songs on a guitar which were very funny and loud. Billy Crow was there playing harmonica with the pianist. They started playing another Floyd tune and Woody flipped out because he had never heard this guy play piano. They only knew each other hanging out on the Duval Street. Woody called his mom and made her listen on my phone because she had met this guy and thought he was just another drunk (which he is). It was fun. All this continued until the shop manager came out and said we needed to take a break so he could work on a customer's guitar. Every night when we pass the the music store by the dingy dock, we hear them playing while the rest of the city sleeps. The owner likes having the guy play the piano.

I jumped a bucket at Mallory Dock. Now I am officially a Snowbird.

This cute lizard ran out of wire during birth. It only has three legs. Sadly, Americans nor Europeans are very interested in purchasing this one. An artist at Keys Fest in Islamorada showed interest in a trade of some kind. Hopefully, we find a home for him.

We have been helping our friend, Melanie move her cart to Sunset every night. She was one of my first customers last year. She said she would put it on her house and I would get a lot of business. She was right. I get a lot of customers that say they saw it and are so glad they found me.

Piper is learning music.

On Conch Republic Day they battle out on the water. The Coast Guard vs. everybody else. It's a re-enactment of the battle for secession that took place back in the early eighties. In an attempt to curb the flow of illegal aliens and drugs coming in through Key West, Border Patrol put a checkpoint up in the northern Keys on the only road in or out. It was very successful but it also killed tourism for the lower Keys. The three-hour drive from Miami to Key West became a six-hour traffic jam. The final straw was when the beer distributors said they would no longer deliver to Key West because it took too long. Key West seceded from the Union then promptly surrendered and applied for aid. The stunt generated enough publicity to end the "border" checkpoint. These days they squirt each other with firehoses. In years passed, people threw tomatos and sometimes an outbreak occurred on the pier. So I decided not to set up. It turned out to be pretty tame.

Down by the dingy dock we see lots of big fish, like tarpon, parrot fish, barracuda and nurse sharks. One day, we started noticing fish carcasses. They were around for days and started stinking up the marina. The sport fisherman do this. They aren't supposed to throw them in the bight. It's actually illegal. All the fish leave the area when this happens.

Here's a shot of me enjoying a morning dingy ride.

We've been helping Andy and Vicki look for a sailboat. I drove with her to Marathon one day to look at a real heap. It's amazing what people think they can sell. It was a beautiful drive. It is a great way to see the keys really. The drive is incredible. Never do it at night! Pull over and sleep until morning.

I kept telling them that there is bound to be something here in Key West in the 3-4 thousand range that is worth the money. We looked at this crappy Pearson. I don't know why people say things like, "It doesn't leak at all, we left it alone for a year until it chaffed though the line and started drifting during a storm and still doesn't leak even though someone stole the compass and there is a 6 inch hole in it's place." I looked in the bilge and there was water. The chainplates were dissolving from salt water exposure.

Thank God it has a temporary rudder! Does it come installed?

Eventually, They found a boat. It's a very reasonable boat for the money and it is ready to use.

During all the chaos, you have to find time to go dancing. We went to the Green Parrot one night to see the Spam ALLSTARS. We bumped into Sandra outside. She is from Dominica and sells ginger beer on the street. She is a bit of a pushy salesperson, but very interesting. She dances like a hoochi mama. Vicki and Saundra were speaking many different languages. None of them together.

Music at the Green Parrot is awesome. Every local in town comes if there is a good band. It's always free. Often it is so crowded, we just hang hang out on the other side of the street, because they open all the windows and doors, you can hear perfectly wherever you are. It's an all ages show over there. That's Toko's kid, Aaron, riding the skateboard.

Music is all over Key West. But most of it is classic rock and eighties covers. There are a lot of street musicians and performers with originals. Here is another video of Toko at Conch Republic every Sunday.

My Uncle Chan came to Key West and didn't realize I was living here. We were able to reconnect after ten years. He even sang a little song. The guy playing piano also has a tumbling act down at Sunset every night. His former tumbling troupe from NYC made it into the top ten on America's Got Talent. Unfortunately, they got kicked off the night he was going to join them.

In the mornings, we have breakfast with the pirates at Harpoon Harry's.

Often we party on Christmas Tree Island. This time there were two fiddles, a cello, an accordian or two, a bagpipe, hand drums, several guitars, an electric bass powered by marine battery, acoustic bass, recorder, harmonicas, ukes, and I'm sure there was more.

One day, Dusty, another tarheel asked us if we wanted to come over to his Tiki Bar for stone crab claws. We did. And they were excellent. We met his turtle.

Here is Capt. Michael. He is one of the first boaters we met this year. He decided to wear his pirate suit. He says he always gets lucky when he wears it. Sadly, we were shocked to find out it is true. We heard he left sunset with the new photographer girl.

We often hang out at Melanie's house. It is in the Old Town Historic district. The tour buses always talk about the gingerbreading of her house and how it represented alcohol (during prohibition) and gambling. I built her a new display for her art one week. She lets me keep my art at her house which is close to Sunset. One night we painted umbrellas for a Boys N Girls Club auction til 5 am at her house. What a long night. The auction went well and Piper got to meet the host for the event, Veronica Webb from Tim Gunn's Guide to Style.

Piper worked very hard on her umbrella. I kept going out into town and watching the drunk dude on the piano at Caroline Street Music. I eventually came back and laid some chair cushions out and covered up with a blue tarp. i got a little shut-eye, then she woke me up at like 5.

The auction was held at the Garden Club which used to be a fort.

OK i gotta get out of this coffee shop. I don't even drink coffee anymore. Just smoothies. The rest are pics of the Keys. A lot are photos from a show we did in Islamorada. There is an electric car expo in marathon today. Unfortunately, I can't make it. Peace Out.

We had another party last night at Christmas Tree. Piper stayed on the boat and missed it. It was a slow start, but by the end, we had played all kinds of music. Toko's wife, Diane, played some songs that were really good. She has been playing and singing a lot lately. She said that's all she's been doing while pregnant and sea-steading.

2008-04-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Once we made it to Miami Beach, we decided to stay fro a few days to wait out a storm. Mostly, High winds. We read in our guide that there was an anchorage very close to the Miami Beach and decided we would risk the trouble with the law to anchor there. The anchorage was a little out of the way to get to and and we were hoping there would be very few boats anchored there. It turned out to be a very protected lake that was created when developers built islands in Biscayne Bay. Something is very wrong about building an island in a beautiful Bay like this. The canal we puttered up was gorgeous. I hate to admit it. This kind of development is the worst. Below is a pic of Piper in the pretty green canal.

The anchorage was very well protected from weather and we were close to Miami Beach. We walked around the Lincoln Pedestrian Mall and were able to pick up wi-fi there and skype our nephew. We had fun in Miami, but when we returned to the boat we had a letter from the police. They had begun a case against us for anchoring in Sunset Lake. We have a copy of the Florida State law pertaining to Anchoring rights. We are allowed to anchor anywhere we like except mooring fields. Miami is breaking the law. They know it is too difficult for us to fight the city. I felt better after I called the mayor's office and told them that I was planning on staying in Miami for a month and now you are chasing me out? I got a lot of uh's and well's and I then said, " Listen, this is what is wrong with the world today. Just remember that when the water levels rise, I'll be anchoring on top of your police station. click. They make me feel awful and with any luck, hopefully, they'll worry about losing their whole city. Here are pics of Sunset Lake.

Being very aware of the energy crisis and just plain waste, Piper and I were disgusted by the way all of the houses on Sunset lake left all their exterior lights on all night. It is ridiculous. The place is lit up like an amusement park.

However, despite the police, it was so nice waking up in Sunset Lake and watching the palms pass by the companionway. Here is a video clip to give you the full effect of waking up on Delphine.

We finally left Miami Beach. We crossed Biscayne Bay headed for Angelfish Creek where we would anchor for the night and then go on the outside between the reef and the keys to Key West. A thunderstorm quickly caught up to us. It was very cool looking but generally, wasn't the beautiful bay crossing we had last time.

When the rain came down, we took some video.

As we pulled into Key West Harbor, we decided to stay in Key West for a while and not just a month. We need to work and fix things. We love Key West and it's the perfect place to do it. We were hoping to go to the Bahamas, but our window to avoid Hurricane season is narrowing. Bill and Kitty will be a little disappointed, we are very happy with this decision and still hope to get over there eventually. Quite frankly, we don't know what our plans are. Flying back to NC for a summer beach trip is definitely on our agenda. Why sail all the way back? We are against torture.

We anchored near this palm covered boat. I spoke to the guy about where his anchors were and he gave me the scoop on Christmas Tree Island and the fight with the city. Why does our sailing adventure seem to be about fighting for rights more than sailing and having fun? Anyway, the boaters caught the city lying and having secret meetings which is illegal in Florida. The city lost its right to annex without a public referendum! So annexing the island is being held up quite a bit. This is what we loved most about Key West last year. All the boaters hanging out on this island, singing songs and cooking over a fire. Kids playing, building treehouses and exploring this 21 acre island covered in art and gardens that have been here for years. I went back to the island by myself the other day. There are no trespassing signs everywhere. No one really hangs out here much now since the topic is so hot. Our tree house that Piper and I started last year was just how we left it but a lot of the sculptures had been burned and removed. The gardens were overgrown and awesome. Boat Kid Camp had been ransacked. That was sad. However, Rat key is the new place. No one is trying to develop it yet. The same thing is going on there. As of March 18, the city is not prosecuting people that anchor there anymore. This will create a boater surge which I am excited about. However, I still have not been to Rat Key. The trails are manacured and a camp has been established. The boaters are once again caretaker's of their own private paradise.

below is Toko and his family's boat. It doesn't look like much, but they are very happy to be on the water. Their other boat disappeared during hurricane Wilma. This boat was salvaged and sold to them cheap so they could stay out there. Toko is an incredible musician. He is the real deal. A true performer. We heard his family singing songs the first night we were anchored. They are right next to us.

Here is Toko's family in their dink.

The second night in Key West, our friend Cliff, a palm hat weaver, told us Toko was playing at the Conch Republic Bar. We decided to go. During a Bob Marley song, Toko saw me singing along and pulled me up on stage for the "Everything is gonna be alright" part. I knew he likes my high pitched voice, so I gave him what he wanted. It was awesome. It was the first time I'd been on stage in years. Afterwards a man approached me and said," They must have flown you in?" Piper responded, "We sailed in, actually." Only in Key West. This place has so much magic and opportunity. Cliff gave me one of his hats. He also played harmonica during Toko's show. Toko's Daughter also sang a Cindy Lauper song and more. She is incredible. They are a family of stars. Toko's other kids as well as some other children were dancing and playing in front of the stage. A little girl visiting Key West got on stage and played the steel drums upon Toko's request. She actually did very well, but when her parents said it was time to go she demanded, "I'm not going!" It was sad and awesome at the same time.

I began setting up at Mallory Dock within a few days. We help a woman named Melanie Griffith by driving her scooter and display trailer up to the pier. She bought a big lizard from me last year and mounted it on her house near the Hemingway house. That has given me a lot of publicity being in such a prominent position in the "old Town".

The people at Mallory are very interesting. The Escape artist, Rondini, broke his collarbone in a bike accident. He hangs upside down in a straight jacket wrapped in chains for a living. Everyone donated money because he will no longer be able to do that act. He received a large amount of money in which he was very grateful for and wrote a nice thank you letter to all of us. It's kinda funny that this generosity occurred because these people are constantly arguing with other. That's just standard performer/vendor practice.

Andy, the pier manager, was wearing a Shikori Hills shirt last year and that's how we met. I said to him,"That's deep chatham...my stompin' grounds." He was like, "How come we've never met." He has a new girlfriend this year, Vicki. She's a t-shirt artist. We all hang out at their house making art and drinking coffee. Piper has a new job at the Boys and Girls Club. She passes by once a day as she escorts the kids to the park. The other day I set up my art in the park to show the kids how they can make art and sell it at Mallory Dock. They kept asking, "How much does that turtle cost?"
"50 dollars", I'd reply. One kid said," That's a rip off." I laughed and said, "You're missing the point. You are lucky enough to live here in Key West and could make art and sell it at Mallory Dock. You could get $50 for your artwork."

Below is a photo of a Smart Electric Car. There are several here in Key West. They go 75 mph and have a range of 70 miles per charge. Also for more money you can purchase a 10 minute charger. They are very nice cars available for $27,000. You have to import them. America hates these things.

Our friend, Cliff, made this palm hat. He is the best hat weaver here. He also plays harmonica at Christmas Tree Island bonfires and when Toko is playing he jumps in sometimes.

This iguana barely made it across the street. It is now wild and free. It was probably a pet once. They are all over because they can survive here. They aren't native. But scorpions are. They are all over the streets at night. Careful with your flip flops.

Yesterday, Dusty, another old friend from Chapel Hill, took me out on a fishing charter he payed for. He caught a jack something or another, I caught a 4 foot hammerhead and mangrove snappers. The captain said I caught a world record pinfish. It was like 8 inches long. It was beautiful fishing 15 miles out on the flats. The water was so many different colors there.

Then our friends Dave and Rachael showed up. We took them to Fort Zachary Taylor Beach.

After that we went back to the boat and picked up the snorkels and hawaiian slings and went spear fishing on the Wysteria wreck near the anchorage. Dave couldn't stand it and had to kill something, so he speared a 6 inch snapper. It was pathetic and hilarious. He was so happy. I told him it wasn't too late to change their minds about not coming to Key West and heading back north to New England again. Right now they are in Miami. Still not in paradise. hmm... well see what happens.

Then after that, Piper cooked Thai curry and we went to see Toko play again. Dave and Rachael departed. We went to sleep and woke up as the wind picked up to what seemed like 80 mph. NOAA said it was 35 and over. Later, we heard a few people actually clocked the wind at 57 mph. with on-board technology. Everyone in the anchorage felt as if there must have been a water spout nearby. It was the scariest weather we had ever experienced. We were ready to swim to shore. Christmas Tree island is about 250 feet away. The waves were about six feet in the anchorage. On the radio everyone was reporting lost dingies and boats adrift. One forty footer was headed for the seawall. The next morning we saw bent markers and broken signs. Magic Penny, the salvage boat was hard at work at 2 am. We also heard a man report an epirb floating by underwater. He was unsure if there was a body attached to it. That storm could have killed someone very easily. Swimming 250 feet might not have even been possible with the ripping water. It was raining heavily and nothing was visible. We kept trying to look ahead of the boat and see if any boats were dragging our way. But the rain felt like needles to the eye. Over the course of the next few days, we noticed many boats were anchored in the channel as if they had drug anchor while unattended and still have not been moved. The channel has large vessels maneuvering in it all the time. There is a 4 knot current that will eventually pull up the anchor because the water is about 45 feet deep. You just don't anchor in a channel.

Let's go for a ride in the dingy back to the boat.

Okay, paradise is waiting. Must get back.

2008-03-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

In St. Augustine we tried to locate our friends. Everyone was gone. Curtis was in Savannah with his girl. Kelly missed us. All art was banned in the park so there were none of our vending buddies to be found. It was a ghost town. So we left after the storm. There were 35-40 knot winds. The wind created a record low tide that dried some of the marina docks.

Delphine was actually sitting on the bottom for a few hours. Because the wind was from the west, it blew all the water out the inlet. We had always known this as a deep harbor (18feet), so we were surprised.

We managed to make it over to Sailor's Exchange, a used marine store, but it was closed. They remembered us and opened the door for us. They had been closed for several months to reorganize. We bought some new anchor rode and used LED lights. What a score. Rachael and Dave were shocked by the things that were available there for pennies.

Above is a picture of the most beautiful and wild section of the Florida ICW. We took this pictue in August of 2006. I'm sure the developers feel they have made an improvement by adding a bike path. We hate what they did with the land. Below is what it looks like now.

We stopped in Daytona to visit Todd, Kim and Maria. They were looking to buy a new boat while we were in a boatyard in Palatka. We have kept in touch ever since exchanging stories. We stopped to visit with them and introduced Rachael and Dave. They made us a steak dinner and I grilled some zuchini at their house. It was good to see them again.

We made it to New Smyrna and decided to stop early at the free dock right down town. We heard that they don't always enforce the "No Overnight Docking" rule. So we tied up and biked to the beach. We stayed overnight without trouble. It is amazing more towns don't allow this for the sake of commerce.

We left early the next day and made it to Titusville where our friend Caleb has taken up being a dock rat. We were shocked, but he loves it there. It is where he is from. He took us to the nearby island that was very clean with cute little trails and sweet sunset campsites. The island was covered in super tiny unbroken shells. No one cares if you camp there, unlike Christmas Tree island of Key Weird. He was trying hard to get us to stay, but there's not much there.

Rachael and Dave had to stop in Daytona due to engine trouble. They're about 5 days behind us now.

Turkey Creek is where we dock the boat at Bill and Kitty's in Melbourne. It is so calm in there that we decided to finally climb the mast to replace a bulb and check the connection for our VHF radio. Bill and Kitty were kind enough to offer us the use of their car so we ran a few errands in Melbourne. They also took us out to a nice Mexican restaurant, kind of a rare thing in Florida.

After Melbourne was a day trip to Ft. Pierce, then another day to Lake Worth. We've had great wind to help us along. Above is a picture taken in Hobe Sound. This is where the water starts to become blue.

This picture was taken near in Jupiter. It was a Saturday afternoon and the waterway was very busy. These kids really seemed to know how to have a good time. They had their own portable tiki bar and dance floor.

We knew we wanted to go on the outside at this point to bypass the densest section of drawbridges on the ICW and the winds happened to be favorable for doing this, 10-15 out of the west switching to NW in the afternoon. We went out at Lake Worth inlet and traveled all day, almost 50 miles, to Port Everglades, Ft. Lauderdale.

This was taken going out the inlet that morning. The clouds dissipated and the weather was perfect for an outside trip.

We weren't expecting the Gulfstream current to be against us only a few miles from shore but it slowed us down intermittently throughout the day. Fortunately, we made it to the inlet by sundown. We anchored in Sylvia Lake, a very small lake in the heart of Ft. Lauderdale. It was surrounded by million dollar homes. So it made going ashore difficult and our stay there was limited to 24 hours before the city illegally kicks you out. FL law says we can anchor anywhere we want for as long as we want but many towns are ignoring this knowing most people don't have the time or money to fight it and we are among those people. So we unfortunately had to leave the next day and were unable to visit Andy and Nena in their hometown. Hopefully, they will visit us in Miami Beach, although, it is spring break here and we wouldn't wish anyone the annoying drive after a long day of work.

Until next time, have fun.

2008-03-08T07:39:00.001-08:00

We had a great time in Savannah. At this point we were no longer talking about moving off the boat. Although, we do know we must pursue other endeavours after this trip. Savannah had about ten or more freighters a day pass by while we were tied to the floating dock on River St.

I set up an array of lizards one night at the plaza on River street. We met the other artists whom had been fighting for their rights to sell on River Street and finally won with the help of the ACLU. However, they were supposed to be paid retroactive permit fees from the city, but that never happened. They did not care as long as they were allowed to sell from that point on. Permits are still being issued despite the lawsuit and very few are aware that the sale of art is legally protected under freedom of speech.

I pulled out my acoustic bass one night and tried to keep up with Walter, but I never know where he is going. He has performed in many movies and with many popular artists like Tom Petty. But you will always find him on River street every evening.

Our new friends, Dave and Rachael, are travelling with us down the coast to Key West. Here is the great departure from Savannah.

Above is Barbarella, Dave and Rachael's boat, in a creek in Georgia. Below is the part of ICW where you have to go outside to the ocean to avoid a sandbank before continuing south.

2008-02-27T14:40:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pics from our time in NC and visiting Chelsea, Aaron and Larkin in Chicago.

What was supposed to be a few months in NC has turned into 8 1/2 and counting. We stayed with Betty and Da out at their place in Chatham County, which is beautiful, but the gas it takes to get back and forth was an added stress on our wallets and consciences. Paul bought an electric bicycle and made the 15 mile trip into town and back almost daily throughout the fall. In the winter he carpooled with me.

The first time we pushed our departure date back was after a visit to the dentist led to more visits to the dentist for Paul. We thought we still might get out by early January, but then Paul noticed a leaky thru-hull in mid Nov. By December we were hauled out at a nice boatyard in Washington, NC that allows do-it-yourselfers. We replaced all the thru-hulls, raised the waterline, barrier coated where the old waterline paint was chipping, painted the hull and bottom, varnished the toe-rail, installed a new (salvaged) sink and a new double action foot-pump, installed new (salvaged) carpet, installed new (salvaged) plexiglass hatch cover, made two plexiglass slats for the companionway, made a new tiller (in October), cut out the old rotten chain-locker bulkhead and glassed in a new one, made and installed a double bow-roller, and some other odds and ends. Paul did most of this himself. We were in the boat yard a little over two months, driving down every day off except Christmas and the day after.

We left Washington two days ago. The first day we got a late start. Landlubber Time has already began to shift back to Island Time. We put the sails back on in the morning then realized we needed fuel. Paul went off in search of a ride to the station and came back with a 5 gallon jug of diesel from our dock neighbor, John. Paul insisted I needed to see John’s catamaran and, especially, his LED lights. What makes these lights so special? They cast a yellowish light like an incandescent bulb, for one. Also, they run on .3 milliamps, not amps, but milliamps. It’s actually a bulb that can be installed into any existing fixture.

So we chatted with John and admired his spacious living accommodations until about 1:00. Then we pushed off for an uneventful day on the water. It was chilly but I had my ski gloves and a hot-water bottle under a blanket. It didn’t really get cold until we were anchoring as the sun set.

The next day was forecast to be about sixty degrees with 15-20 knot winds. As I looked at the charts I saw we were going to be spending a good portion of the day out in Pamlico Sound and the ten-mile-wide mouth of the Neuse River. I knew it would probably be choppy but this turned out to be the wettest day we’ve ever spent on the water. In the afternoon the wind picked up to 20-25 knots out of the south. We were headed SW so the waves were hitting us on the port bow the whole time. Four hours of spray in the face later we pulled behind Oriental’s breakwater and tied up to the free town dock. After changing out of our wet clothes we crossed the street to The Bean coffee shop and indulged in some coffee and WIFI.

The forecast called for rain and strong winds with gusts to 35 knots, gale force. The morning coffee shop crowd agreed with Paul that some of those felt like at least 45. Certainly not a day for travel. We relaxed at The Bean all morning, then went for a bike ride. Several times a day some old sailor would stop by to admire the boat. It’s such a small town that we found ourselves running into people we kinda knew as we cruised around.

We left Oriental. Paul started to scrape and sand all the old varnish off the combing around the cockpit. I steered all day. It was kinda cold again. We made good time and decided to pass Morehead City and made it to Swansboro instead. Camp Lejeune is just past Swansboro so there were a lot of unusual noises (by that I think Piper means bombs exploding), but at least we had a WIFI signal.

On this day, our spirits sank to new lows. I was already miserable thinking of the many days I had ahead of me where I sat at the helm, back and hips sore, staring and steering. Paul was getting tired of having to fix things. Last night our poorly regulated new alternator fried our power inverter, but he fixed the alternator this morning and was trying to keep his mood up.

We were approaching a channel dredging barge and I should have slowed down but the markers looked pretty clear cut. They were directing me towards the side of the channel to go around the dredger. With the dredging crew being right there, I felt these markers must be right. We were all wrong. I’ve never run aground so hard in my life. It was like we hit a wall. I sat stunned and shaking afterward and looked around to see if I had wandered out of the channel. We were dead center. It didn’t gradually get shallow. Our depth alarm, set at 7 feet, didn’t go off until we hit. Our draft is 4’. We tried full throttle reverse and winching on an anchor we’d set out at the same time and didn’t budge. Paul started up the dinghy and then it quit. About a half an hour later he got it started again but at that point I thought the tide had already gone out too much and we’d be stuck there for the next ten hours. He insisted we keep trying and with the dinghy pushing against the stern, he turned the boat 180 degrees. Then he pushed the bow while I winched on the anchor set out behind us. Thirty seconds later we were floating again.

While Paul felt around with the oar for deeper water, I radioed the dredge operator to see if he knew of a path by him. He said, “at high tide it wutn’t much deeper ’n four feet over there, ‘n’ mos the sailboats‘ve had to wait ‘teel then.” Well, we’ve seen only one sailboat in the five days we’ve been traveling so how long have they been watching boats hit this speed bump across the channel? Paul did find a seven-foot-deep channel past them, within eight feet of the shore, that the dredger captain seemed to know nothing about. They may not be the ones in charge of moving the markers, but they could certainly suggest the change. We’ll pass dredgers at a snails pace from now on.

Piper was looking very depressed and not talking to me. I felt selfish about wanting to buy a boat and pushing her toward this dream which was actually her idea of retirement. I told her I was sorry. This created a dialog which was, of course, about house flipping. I guess that’s gonna be her way of paying me back. We both agree that living on a boat sucks. TV is where it’s at. It’s sad to think about what all we are giving up to live on the water with a bunch of single alcoholic men. Don’t get me wrong, when we get to the warm air of Florida, we will be much happier and we will always love sailing. It seems that everyday life on the boat is just too much. The worry, the stress and especially, the maintenance. Despite all of this, we will continue to push for this next trip to Key West and the Bahamas. We will maintain a positive attitude because we are anxious to see all of our friends in St. Aug, Daytona, Titusville, Melbourne, Ft. Lauderdale and Key West.

In Wilmington, we anchored in a large empty harbor for three days. We hung out with Piper’s cousin, Nick. He drove us around to get supplies and we watched the tube at his house. It was a nice break, though every night we had a curfew issued by the city because they detest cruisers. There was a horrible thunderstorm with a lot of lightning and high winds gusting to 50mph. At abot midnight I heard a strange sound and realized our cockpit drains were clogged and we had about twenty gallons of water filled up like a tub. It was just about to overflow into the quarterberths. Lucky us.

My birthday occurred. We all went out to a mexican restaurant. We had a great time with Nick. We tried to convince him that since he had quit his job, he should come with us to Charleston. We had already complained too much for him to bite. He made the right choice. It was very cold.

Nick told us how to make spinach artichoke dip the day before, so I broke out the mini food processor and whipped it up. For two days we were able to forget about the weather because of this incredible dip. We were indeed going insane. Giddy and silly behavior was becoming more frequent.

We made it to Bucksport, SC in the Waccamaw River. There are swamp trees and stumps lining the shore here. We tied up to the dock at the marina hoping to score a free overnight stay. We had indeed lost our minds at this point. While talking to the locals they told us how lately there are large submerged trees that float around in the 30 foot deep black water. The trees had been moving lately with the tide into the ICW and then back into the lagoon. We had anchored in the lagoon last summer. It is eerie. There is no room for scope. You can’t really dig in an anchor. Just like the trees, you could drift about. We didn’t want that. We opted to pay the dollar per foot ($30) to relieve us of worry. There was a man looking at a Grampian 26 sailboat for sale on ebay there. He was from NC. We talked for about an hour or so. I showed him my art and he bought a lizard which made the stay easier on our wallets. I hung out on the dock with two fishermen telling stories on the night the lunar eclipse occurred.

The next morning we headed down the Waccamaw, a deep river with black water and swamp trees lining the shore. The fishermen were all out with their nets blocking the entire river. Luckily, they knew they needed to guide us around their net buoys. It was cold and eventually started raining. We anchored in a creek that had a huge fetch of shallow water leading to the Atlantic. This offered no wind protection and we had wind 15-20 mph that night. The motor stut off while anchoring and we immediately thought we had run out of deisel. We checked with our dipstick and we releived that we still had about three inches. We added more from a can before restarted. Running out of deisel out in the middle of a marsh would be a huge blow. Luckily, we were fine.

The next day we made it to Charleston, SC. On our way across the harbor we suddenly heard the depth sounder go off and powered down.... then deeper water came and we looked to port and saw a huge freighter coming into the channel. Where did that come from! Instantly a thick fog rolled in. And then some rain came. We could barly see anything and I rounded up all the gps, binolculars and horn preparing for the worst. Then, over the VHF radio, we were being hailed by the captain of the freighter. We answered him and he told us to head towards the fort so that we would be out of his way. We could barely see anything and we were worried about the shallow water over there and there was also supposed to be a submerged dredging pipeline. Uhh.. Everything went well. It was just a frantic "OK let's get it together" moment.

Our friend Caleb had been there a few months ago. We called him and got the scoop on the anchorage. We were excited to have a sort of nice day for the first time. In the morning we dingied to the Free dingy dock which they were aparently now charging $5 a day for. We blew the city municipal marina off and docked without paying knowing they were too big to notice us. It was called the MegaDock. There were a lot of huge yachts.

Charleston had a very large outdoor covered city market with crafts, jewelry and more. We inquired about what the market was like with one the vendors. She told us of the original slave market that was owned by some family and given to the city under the condition that they would never charge rent to the artists and vendors. I told her that of course she pays rent and she said "yes". (I am not your typical American – a song by the goats came to mind) They now charge $22 per day. Do the math. That's the kind of local government I don't care for. She also said the spaces are permanently rented to specific vendors and that no one has ever left. Meaning, you can go to Charleston to sell. Sorry, fellow artists. Aren't you glad I shipped you to Key West? I keep thinking about how our sailing adventure started off being a sailing getaway and has turned into a street artist adventure/protest/education endevour.

We left the next day because Charleston blows. I don't know why people say if you like Savannah, you'll love Charleston. Savannah is 1000 times better. As we left we did not heed the warnings about the strong currents through Elliot cut. We passed through against the current. Books said not to do this because there are rocks on boths sides and a pipeline crossing. If your motor stalls or cannot keep up with the current, you may turn sideways and crash and sink. It was extremely dangerous! We should have waited till slack tide. WARNING to any other boaters. We were going full throttle doing 1.5 knots. ( normally that would be six.) We will never do that again and have decided to examine each warning in the watewrway guides very seriously.

The Photo above is of Beaufort, SC. We took some great photos of this cute little town. We anchored here for the night. The weather was finally warmer. We were not miserable anymore.

We spent a day or two in some marshes until we hit the Savannah River. We had decided that even though it was out of the way, we were going to Savannah to have a little fun. As we pulled up to the towns floating dock, we were unsure about the cost of the dock and the rules. There was already another little sailboat about like ours. We tied up and a young girl about our age came to help from the other sailboat. Her name was Rachael. We were so excited to meet another young couple on a sailboat doing what we are doing. They were from the Boston/Cape Cod area and had left in November. Their trip was more miserable than ours and we were so happy to be able to share stories. She told us, her and her boyfriend, Dave, had been tied up to that dock for two months while Dave picked up a construction job. We asked about the cost of the dockage and she said," We stopped paying after a day or two because the attendents at the parking garage, where you pay, were shocked that we would come to pay them in the off season. "

No sailors seem to come to Savannah, because of all the intimidating freighters and the fact that all the cruising guides say you have to pay for the dock and that Savannah has no shopping. The dock really only has room for about five boats. The city is about eight miles out of the way as well. That's about two hours in a sailboaat.

Dave and Rachael are headed to Key West as well. They plan to do a crossing from there. For about two days however, we were all too busy to hang out. We felt as if we weren't going to hang out after all. Then on the third day, Dave borrowed a car and we all left for Spin City, to do our laundry. We had a great time and then went to their boat to talk for the rest of the night. The stories just started pouring out of all of us. They are the first couple our age we have ever met while living on Delphine. They told us we were the first young people they had met ever on a boat. Poor Dave had jumped in the water three times this winter in Delaware because the painter line from his dingy was caught in the prop. They met a guy in NC who was travelling in a canoe with outriggers. Apparently he was crazy and many people felt they had to help him along his way to wherever he was going. He was covered in mud and his canoe was stuck in marsh grass we they met him. He asked for a tow out of the mess. It was awesome meeting another couple on a sailboat. We hope to meet up all the way down the coast, but we know that our schedules will probably not mesh that well.

Savannah has grown. The businesses were thriving. Many clothing shops, coffeeshops. eceryone was flipping old houses. A new mall is opening in the spring right downtown. The fashion department of SCAD had twenty fashion students when Piper attended. Now they have 900. Piper wishes she was in school there now instead. But when she attended, all fashion students got to display their collection in a huge fashion show in the theatre with some celebrity fashion icons. Now only the top students get into the Runway show. her fashion degree is probably more appealing to the fashion industry now that it is a big fashion school.

I managed to fill an order for Mt. Dora, FL while is Savannah. I also made some lizards on River street. The locals adopted me right away and we played music and talked a lot about the ACLU helping to protect artist rights to selling and displaying art on city streets. These artists were being kicked off the streets and the ACLU helped them preserve their right to sell on the street. They were also supposed to be back a lot of money. That never happened but at least they are being left alone. The city still tries to issue permits to control horrible epidemic of artistry that is taking over our nations streets. But if you mention artist's rights and the ACLU, they may just leave you alone and let you pass under the radar. Free Speech ... still fighting for it. Remember, Art is a universal language. It says more than a picket sign and payment for art keeps the message coming, just like the newspapers.

2008-02-26T08:03:00.000-08:00

Remember you can click on any pic to enlarge it!

Back in May, when we last published, we hung out at Melbourne at Bill and Kitty's dock for a couple days waiting for a storm to pass. We were visited by a momma manatee and her baby one afternoon. After visiting Bill and Kitty ( former owners of Delphine. ), we continued on to St. Augustine where we briefly stopped in to see Curtis and Kelly and all our vending friends from the park. Unfortunately, $10 dollars a night for dingy dockage is a bit pricey to stay for more than a couple nights and we moved on after only a couple of days. We could tie up to the restaurant next to the marina for free but then we’re scrambling up a dirty seawall and walking through mud at low tide. Not to mention worrying about theft the whole time we’re away from the dinghy.

At the time there were large wildfires in blazing all over central Florida. Day two out of St. Augustine we crossed into Georgia. The air began to look hazy and tinted brown... worse than usual. We could smell smoke. We knew the smoke plume had closed highways in central Florida days before but we couldn’t get any news on where the smoke was headed while we were zig-zagging through marshes in the middle of nowhere. So we called Mark, Paul’s brother, and made him get online to give us an update. The southern Georgia coastline was right in it’s path. We figured we could stop and go inside somewhere air-conditioned if it got too bad, but we had never witnessed Georgia’s desolate coastline. Our main concern was Paul having an asthma attack. Visibility continued to diminish throughout the day but it never became less than a of couple miles. We never found an inviting place to get off the boat but, luckily, it wasn’t necessary.

After dark the air and the smell thinned out. But then the horse flies came. We put up the screens as fast as we could and killed the few that snuck through our defenses. Unfortunately, we only have pictures so the full effect is lost. The sound of thousands of horseflies trying to invade your home is quite disturbing. We had to turn off all our lights to get some peace.

Later on, in the middle of the night, Paul suddenly leapt out of bed. He heard a boat coming so he stuck his head out the companionway. There appeared to be a tug pushing a large barge turning into the small creek we were occupying for the night. Paul began flashing our super-bright light at the tug. The tug flashed a light back so we knew the captain had seen us. That was a relief, but were we in its way? Why would it try to maneuver down a narrow creek? The tug proceeded to complete a many point turn, head a few hundred yards back the way it came and run aground. Had we totally screwed this guy up? The answer wouldn’t come until morning.

We awoke around dawn that morning to get an early start. The tug and barge were still sitting where we had last seen them. We were about to haul anchor. Paul wanted me to motor up so he wouldn’t have to fight the current by hand. I expressed concern about the rode of the second anchor being to close to the prop. He glanced back and said, “it’s fine, go forward.” Two seconds later the engine abruptly shut off. Our hearts sank. Of all the places to get an anchor line tangled around our prop, we had to do it where the water was the color of black coffee and thick with sediment. We couldn’t see our hand six inches underwater. We tried to untangle it from the dinghy, but we couldn’t reach the prop. Then Paul remembered Sea Tow listed prop disentanglements as one of there services and our hearts lifted. Then we read the fine print and our hearts sank once more. It does not cover the services of a diver. How else could Sea Tow deal with a tangled prop? We decided to call anyway. The guy was really nice. It said he would come out and try to untangle it the same ways we had already tried, tugging on it and running the motor in reverse for a second. He tried to assure Paul that the gators stick to the areas near trees and, being out in the marsh, we had nothing to worry about. He offered to come out for moral support but that wasn’t necessary. Nothing was going to make us feel better about what we had to do.

Paul suggested I try first since I had a wet suit. Unfortunately, that made some sense because the water was a little chilly and I’d have some protection from the barnacles on the bottom of the boat. I also knew Paul was sick with fear about having to get in pitch black water. I suited up and climbed into the dinghy where Paul was sitting looking at me with a mixture of pity and admiration in his eyes. I slowly lowered myself into the water, took a deep breath, and went under. I followed the line to the prop in the blackness and felt the tangle. The suit makes me very bouyant so one hand had to hold onto the prop to keep me down while I got a loop off with the other. I had to come up for a breath.. Paul said I had a brown film on my face. I went back down and got another loop off. Up for a breath. Back down. I didn’t feel that I’d made any progress that time. After about four more tries, I felt that the rope was jammed and needed to be yanked out. I’d tried enough times. I’d been in the water for several minutes. It was time for Paul to give it a go.

As I pulled myself into the Avon, Paul began to psych himself up for the task. He looked sick. In less than a minute he said he was ready. I thought that meant he would now lower himself into the water as I had done. Instead, he rolled out of the dinghy into the water and began thrashing violently. I thought he was panicking. His frantic face came up for air for a split second and I tried to shout at him to calm down and take a breath but he was already back under. A few seconds later he climbed back into the Avon as fast as he went out, but now the rode was in his hand. I think he was in and out in less than thirty seconds. He wasn’t about to hang around in “gator infested” water.

Finally, we were off. As we pulled out of the creek back into the main waterway, The tug backed its barge off the shallows it had pushed it onto and proceeded on its way. Why it turned around, we don’t know, but we concluded that tugs must purposely run barges aground from time to time to get some rest.

Georgia’s waterway is very monotonous. Nothing but marshes and not a sole around. When the 8 ft tide is out, all you can see are the sides of the ditch you’re in. We came close to running out of diesel but found a busy little marina/ramp a mile up a side creek. We were used to Florida’s waterway where the towns and marinas come one after another. The most gorgeous undeveloped section we saw on our first trip from Melbourne to St. Augustine was bulldozed when we came back six months later. The only undeveloped areas left are just north and south of St. Augustine.

We noticed all of Georgia’s inlets are navigable so we decided to get out of “the ditch,” as the ICW is called, and do an outside trip. This would be our second overnighter. The trip to Bimini was only 12 hours (4 am to 4 pm). Coming back from Bimini took 18 hours and we came into Lake Worth around 4am.

The plan was Paul would nap during the day and stay up at night and I would also nap a little so I could stay up some of the night with him too. It didn’t quite work out as planned. About every twenty minutes Paul would wake me from my nap to ask me what he should do about some freighter ten miles away. Just as I would begin to doze off again, he’d wake me with another “problem.” I managed to stay up until 3:00 am and then slept until 6:30, when I took over for Paul. We managed to cut several days off our trip by this one overnight trip.

We bypassed Savannah and Charleston and came into South Carolina just south of the Waccamaw River and some really beautiful swamps. Some of the most beautiful section of ICW in our opinion.

Next came the most hideous part of the trip, Myrtle Beach. The highlight of this stretch was when Paul, while I idled in the waterway, hopped in the dinghy for a milk run and came back with Burger King too.

We made it to Ocean Isle Beach a few days ahead of schedule. We investigated the depth at the dock of the house Betty and Da rented in the dingy. With an oar, we could feel the bottom at low tide was about 2 and a half feet to three feet. Our boat draws four feet. So we pushed the oar into the mud and discovered it was soft for another 2 - 3 feet. We then checked the depth at the house Tioga and Ashley had rented.

 It was the same. Delphine could make it in at high tide and would be resting in the mud at low tide. We deemed this acceptable since we really did not want to dinghy 15 minutes back and forth to Delphine at least twice a day to check on her. We didn’t want to worry about her constantly anchored all alone in ferocious currents in a creek at the north end of the island near Shallotte inlet. During the two weeks at the beach we replaced the water pump and investigated which NC marina we would be leaving Delphine at for the summer.

We chose Bayside at Hubs Rec in Belhaven because it was only $140/month, it has water and electricity, and we could stay on the boat if we needed too. A bonus was the cute little tiki bar. The manager, Sue, was very nice also. In our last few minutes on the boat before we docked her for the summer, the tiller broke in half. We had planned on at least one trip to Ocracoke, but all trips were off until Paul made a new tiller. We also noticed our dinghy was leaking air.

2007-05-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

The Bahamas was our next destination. We had a weather window of about two days starting the day after Tioga arrived in Miami. We stayed up all night packing the boat. We got a slip at Dinner Key Marina to make loading easier. Tioga rented a car to help us get supplies. Once we had four hundred dollars of groceries and our new radar reflector installed, we were ready to cross Biscayne bay at night. Once we reached the Atlantic the sun rose.

We were given tons of lures for fishing by Drew, Piper's Uncle, and decided to try them out. We caught a dolphin fish (Mahi Mahi) trolling and did not know what to do with it once reeled in. We brought it into the cockpit and it flailed around violently. Blood was everywhere. We put it back into the water and it broke the line.

Once we got to Bimini all we did the entire time was snorkel and spear fish.

Tioga speared two Hogfish.

Piper speared two snapper. I speared a jack and a snapper. Needless to say, we ate fish the whole time.

For the rest of the Bahamas entry, we will leave you with photos. Remember, you can click on a picture to enlarge it. After the Bahamas photos we have the page about our trip to Key West. Be sure to check it out.

2007-05-11T08:07:00.001-07:00

Apparently it's been about six months since we last updated. So There's a lot to tell. We have scrapped the old website at paulandpiper.zoomshare.com because everyone had problems veiwing it. It is however still posted if you want to read about St. Augustine and working on the boat. Hopefully this blogger will be better. I broke the screen on the old laptop, so that put a damper on Key West photos and website updates. But we are back with a new laptop and awesome underwater photos of the reefs on the Atlantic side of Bimini.

Remember, you can click on any picture to enlarge it for viewing.

We left St. Augustine on about Jan. 7th. After two days we made it to Daytona where we visited with Todd, Kim and little Maria. We met them in Palatka while painting the boat. They were very hospitable; cooking us dinner, fixing the zipper on our dodger, showing us around Daytona..... The morning we were leaving Todd brought Maria out for her very first boat ride and it began to drizzle and the poor little thing was all wet and crying when they reached the boat. She was smiling by the time they left and we don't think she'll be permanently scarred by the ordeal.

Next stop was New Smyrna Beach which we loved. On the waterway is a park where lots of people were fishing. Those were about the only people we saw in their quaint little downtown. But "beachside", across the bridge, is another downtown on the beach with nice boutiques, ice cream parlors, hotdog stands, kids hanging out and other signs of life. The man at the marina was extremely friendly. He let us tie up the dinghy for free and even gave us the code to the bathrooms and laundry.

There's a Walmart about two miles inland and we were on our way there one night to buy new lights for the dinghy when Piper's bike broke in half on her. Someone had told us that that can happen but we didn't really take them seriously. It's a folding bike and it broke at the hinge. A Dahon Boardwalk. It cut her ankle but fortunately we were across the street from a Walgreens so she limped over there and bought some antiseptic and band-aids. Next door was a Denny's so we stopped in there to treat ourselves to some greasy food before the long ride back with one bike strapped to the rack of the other. Piper tried e-mailing Dahon, but they didn't respond. We tried to fix it but, without a metal shop, it just wasn't happening. We eventually left it next to a bike rack at the dinghy dock here in Key West. Maybe someone with better facilities can fix it but we need the space on the boat. Piper's been Rollerblading instead and that's been working out so far.

Titusville was the next stop. It was brief. Piper didn't even get off the boat. I went to shore that night to try out the skatepark next to the marina. It was pretty cool. I was the only one there. The next morning around 5:00am a Nor'easter blew in with a sudden whoosh that woke us instantly. By 10:00 were we anxious to move on despite the weather so we hauled anchor and contiued south.

Next stop, Palm Bay, where we bought the boat and a break from traveling. We docked Delphine a her old dock, said hi to Bill and Kitty and jumped into our friend Kelly's car to head back to St. Augustine for her birthday party. She had parked the 4Runner at her house so we rode around and tied up loose ends while she worked the next day, then helped her get ready for the party. Piper made a huge pot of Thai curry that was a hit.

Piper's parents, Betty and David, came down to visit and met up with us in St. Augustine because there were some restaurants there we thought they should try. Unfortunately, everything is closed there on Sundays. We stayed in a hotel and tried again on Mon.

Then we drove back to Palm Bay to show them our boat for the first time. During the day we walked around Vero Beach and Melbourne. Betty then drove the 4Runner back to NC for us and cought a flight back a few days later. Meanwhile, David sailed with us for a couple days to Ft. Pierce where we had left the van before giving up the 4Runner. The leg from Ft. Pierce to Jupiter we sailed on our own while David went to pick up Betty.

Before leaving Ft. Pierce we ran into Bryce who had been sailing down with Caleb. We had heard from Shawn, who was on Caleb's boat, that Bryce had had engine trouble and after half a day of Caleb towing Bryce, Caleb cut him loose because he was trying to steer while being towed and pulling Caleb out of the channel. They were drunk. I'm sure it was a ridiculous scene. So Bryce eventually called Sea Tow to get to the next town and, when the winds were right, made his way south 'til we saw him in Ft. Pierce. We were motorsailing on the Intracoastal and he was going on the outside because the Intracoastal is difficult without an engine and depthsounder. We thought we would see him again on the way but we didn't and were wondering what happened to him the whole way down.

Coming into Jupiter the water became the shade of tidy bowl toilet water and very clear. It looked dyed. We decided to refuel and get some local knowledge about Jupiter Inlet and why the water was so aqua-colored there. They said the Gulfstream is really close there and we shouldn't have a problem going out Jupiter Inlet with a four foot draft. We decided to try an outside trip from one inlet to the next the next day.

At the fuel dock they also told us of an anchorage that wasn't in our waterway guides. On our way to the anchorage we saw three manatees swimming right next to the boat and then this guy on a sportfisherman pulls his boat into our path and asks if we want some dolphin fish. the ziplock full of fish fell in the water on the first attempt but, after some fumbling for it, we managed to catch 2 lbs of super fresh fish.

Betty and Da met up with us again that night and the next day Betty accompanied us on the outside trip to Lake Worth. The seas were about 4 ft and from the north just like the wind which was about 10-15 knots. Betty was a little nervous, this being our first trip of the sort, but we explained to her we had sailed on the outside before, just not inlet to inlet. Still, she stayed in the cabin most the trip and ended up getting seasick. We had some fresh ginger that we gave her and she started feeling better but the puking probably helped too.

Lake Worth is a class A inlet, meaning its can handle big ships. As we were approaching a large freighter appeared on the horizon and we were still approaching the inlet when it passed in front of us into the inlet. As we turned into the channel another was coming and, although it looked far away, we were still nervous now that we knew how fast they are. It was right behind us by the time we were in the inlet and turning south down the waterway. We missed a marker and nearly ran aground but backtracked and got back in the channel just in time.

A couple hours and several drawbridges later, we were meeting David at a restaurant next to an anchorage recommended in the guides. We made it just in time for the early-bird special. The restaurant had a cool, tropical look but the food wasn't the greatest.

The next morning Betty and David felt they should be heading back to NC. Piper gave Betty a haircut in a very windswept park but it turned out great. Then we bid them farewell and continued on our way.

The day was overcast and drizzly. The hightlight was when we were waiting for a bridge to open that happened to have a convenience store next to it. Piper convinced me to hop in the dinghy and go on a milk run. Of course I had to pick up some doughnuts and frappachino while I was there.

We made it to Boca Raton that night. We were hoping to meet up with Chelsea's husband's sister, Mandy, while we were there but she was busy. We still managed to find the coffee shop and shopping area she had taken us to on a previous visit and spent the next day hanging around in Boca Raton.

After that was Ft. Lauderdale where we hoped to meet up with Andy and Nena who we met through David Jenner. Andy was out of town for the weekend that we passed through but we planned to meet up once we reached Miami.

In Miami we knew we wanted to anchor outside Dinner Key Marina and Monty Trainer's marina, where Piper's family stayed on their boat while in Miami. It's in the heart of Coconut Grove and the dinghy dock is free but there's no showers or laundry. We anchored and dug in our anchors, as usual, but didn't give much thought to the 20 knot NE winds blowing as we were going to bed.

At midnight, we were almost asleep when, WHAM!!, were were hit. I ran out on deck naked thinking the mast had fallen. Piper was dressed already in case such an event happened. When we got on deck we saw a 40 ft sailboat had just smacked our bow, broadside. The woman on board was already on deck. I tried to hold them off of us while Piper went to get some bumpers. The woman said her husband would be right out, he was getting dressed! When he came out he seemed a little stunned. Piper told them again to get their engine started because soon they would be passed us and drifting out into Biscayne Bay. We then realized they would be dragging their anchors over our anchor lines so Piper started our engine too. I pulled on the one we were hanging on and saw their anchor rise up with our line then fall off and keep going. Next they cought our other anchor and pulled it up before getting it untangled from theirs. Then they motored off to another area of the anchorage, shouting back that they would come back in the morning.

We felt vulnerable with only one set anchor so I prepared to take our third out in the dinghy. The thought of our outboard quitting on me during this ordeal scared me so I brought along our handheld VHF radio and tuned the one mounted on the boat to the same channel. Piper insisted I put on my life jacket as well. Once that task was accomplished, we were still all revved up from the excitement and didn't really sleep well the rest of the night. We also realized that our mounted radio wasn't working and that would have to be taken care of before continuing on. It's the one with the antenna up the mast so it broadcasts much farther, what you'd need in an emergency at sea.

The next morning I went to find the boat that hit us and talked with them awhile. I told them their little metal vents on the side of thier boat had taken two small gouges about 1/8 to 1/4 inch deep in our fiberglass near the toerail. Nothing serious but it would need to be repaired to keep water from getting in the fiberglass. The man said he wanted to come see the damage for himself so we didn't discuss it any further at that point. Although, she did say she saw that they were dragging and went down below to get dressed (rather that warn us or start their engine). They were probably in their late thirties, from NC (he was originally from Austria) and seemed nice. Their boat was a new 40 footer worth about 250,000. They said their plans were to cruise through the Bahamas, Barbados, and the Virgin Islands and then head across the Atlantic to the Azores, then the Mediterranean and maybe by then the money will be running low. They were probably in their late thirties.

The next day they came by to see the damage and we told them we felt $200 would be a fair amount to pay us for the time and materials it would take to repair it. If we were the type of people who would turn this sort of work over to a boat yard and go through their insurance company it would cost at least $500, probably twice that, so it's really more than fair. they said they would discuss it with their insurance company and get back to us.

The next day we stopped by their boat and he suggested we use a product that he found, through his "research", would be a really fast durable fix. With his product, a "putty" it should only take an hour and he'd pay us $60 for that hour of work. We said we'd try it and, if it only took an hour, we'd accept that $60.

The next day was the most beautiful day we had seen in a long time. They were renting a car and touring around Miami. I was working on the boat. I sanded the area and opened their can of "putty." Well, it turned out to be paint. A two-part gelcoat paint, but still, just paint. So Piper and I went to shore and walked to West Marine, an hour altogether. We were probably their at least a half an hour. We bought the $30 fiberglass repair kit. Back at the boat I mixed up the epoxy and filler and applied it to the gouges. For about an hour I had to monitor it and make sure it didn't all run down the side of the boat. That's about 3 hours right there and I still had not sanded and painted it. So let's say it takes 4 hours altogether. That comes to slightly over $40 an hour in labor. The going rate in Miami boat yards is $70/hr according to our friend Andrew who works in a boat yard down there, and this is not what we should have been doing on that beautiful day anyway. So, like I said, we were offering them a deal, but we knew they were not going to be forthcoming with the money so we rehearsed all day what we were going to say to them the next morning.

When we approached their boat the next morning Rienhardt came out first. We asked them how their excursion had been then explained to them how it had gone the day before and we still wanted $200 compensation for them ramming us in the middle of the night and damaging our boat. He says " Well, I don't have it." and chuckles. We clarify that we don't expect him to have it on him but he could go get it. The excuses got more and more absurd from there. "You shouldn't have anchored there. If you had not been there, we would not have hit you." "These repairs would not cost so much in South America." "How could a repair on that little boat cost so much? I could buy that whole boat for $10,000." "In NC I had our bottom painted for $30/hr." Of course these arguments were not difficult to rebut. Then she comes out and starts to explain why she doesn't think that kind of work is worth $30/hr but ends up telling us they made $120/hour in "quality assurance." The argument got pretty loud and all the neighbors were listening in. I mentioned bringing Marine Patrol into this and he says, "Go ahead. I will lie." I offered to pay them $60 and a can of paint to hit their boat a couple times with a hammer. They didn't bite. They were actually very stubborn so Piper says, "Let's go. We just want you to know you're screwing us over," and we left. On shore we decided to just let it go. As we were passing back by the marina, we heard, "Paul, Piper." We turned around and there they were, walking towards us. She had obviously been crying. They said they'd decided to give us the $200 because they didn't want people to thinking they were screwing them over. Piper asked what made them change their minds, had they talked to someone, finally. No, no they just didn't want us thinking so negatively about them.

When they came out later to give us the money Rienhardt says, "I hope we don't bump into you again."

We finally continued south the next day with a new VHF radio. Nor'easters blew about every other day on our way down and we could not sleep well those nights. We took the inside route most of the way down the Keys. The last three or four days of sailing were on the outside and pretty uneventful. Saw dolphins and sea turtles.

In Marathon we got fuel at Pancho's Fuel Dock where the guys are really friendly and you can get two bushels (laundry baskets) of ice free with a fill-up. We could only fit one in our ice box. It rained heavily while we were there.

After Marathon we stopped in Bahia Honda. It was a beautiful little harbor between Highway 1 and the old abandoned railroad bridge. There's a campground there with nice showers.

Piper flew to NC for Chelsea's baby shower a couple days after we arrived in Key West. She flew out on my birthday. That night I experienced some of the strongest wind since that day in St. Augustine. We were having gale force gusts, around 34 knots, and the mooring field has no protection from the NE. Also the dinghy ride to shore was about a mile and once on shore we were at the wrong end of town. It was pretty depressing. We kept saying it would be so easy to come home and watch TV in a house with a nice cozy fire. We were actually discussing whether or not we had had enough.

When Piper got back we decided to move to the anchorage near Christmas tree island because we'd be next to two other boats from St. Augustine. We'd all look out for each other and make friends with the other boaters as soon as possible.
We'd been warned by the guy in Marathon not to anchor near Christmas Tree Island beacause "thieves live on the island." However, life turned a complete 180 degrees for us. We loved being over there with our people.

Christmas Tree Island is what the locals call it.

The Official name is Wisteria after a wreck on the western shore that happened many years ago before the island was built by the army. You can see the wreck in this picture. The Wisteria ship's crew was infected with TB. The Islanders of Key West did not permit the crew to come ashore and eventually showed up at the wreck and shot all the passengers to prevent infection. There are actually two small spoil islands off the western shore of Key West which were built by the army during World War II when they dug out the harbor for big ships and submarines. The southern Island was called Tank Island because they kept tanks there. The nothern island is Christmas Tree. Eventually Tank Island was sold to the city by the army and developed into a disgusting private community called Sunset Island. Originally, the sunset was veiwed on the western shore of Key West, now it is blocked by this island for the summer months. Christmas Tree has remained undeveloped. Hippies, boaters and hurricane refugees have camped on this island ever since it was created. About fifteen years ago, 300 people were living here. Many vendors at Mallory Dock told me they lived there when they first moved to Key West.

Once we reanchored at the southern side of Christmas Tree, I went ashore to explore. There were many campsites. The one on the north end had a 50 gallon drum grill, cabinets stuffed with food and a countertop, a small stage, a fire pit in the center with nice log benches encircling it,a cute porch swing, plants had been planted for atmosphere, a tarp covered the entire site, and a few tents were nestled in the surrounding foliage. It was great. There were campsites all over the island. One had a million empty cans of busch beer in a large pile. There was boat debris all over the shores of the island. Fiberglass, toilets, batteries, line , rigging, masts, booms, etc. were everywhere left over from hurricanes. The shores were rocky pebbles and coral clusters, no sand anywhere. There were a few floating docks washed up on the beach as well as abandoned kayaks and dingies tied to trees as if if one day years later the owners might return. As I was just about to return to Delphine, I spotted a huge four foot iguana only a few feet away from me.

It blew 15-20 knots for three weeks straight and that got really annoying but at least we can handle it without a problem now. We just have to wear our "foulies" when the wind is blowing perpendicular to our route to shore.

I noticed the pier manager at Mallory Dock where he sells, wearing a Shikori Hills Festival shirt one day. I mentioned I'm from Chapel Hill and it turned out Andy is from Chatham county. He was staying on a trimaran owned by a guy, Robin, also from Chatham County. Andy found a storage space near the docks to keep my display in for $50/month. Before that we were hauling it to shore everyday and back out at night. An extra 2hrs of work. On especially windy nights Jim, Our first Key West friend, would let us keep it in his van.

Now we're hanging out with Grainne (pronounced Granya) a lot. She's Irish and has been living in Boston and NYC for the past eight years working as a bartender. She just moved to Key West a couple weeks ago and had a lot of money stolen from her by her traveling companion who she met in Miami and then had most of her clothes stolen as she napped on the beach one day. She was looking into getting an efficiency when she met our friend from St. Augustine, Caleb. He talked her into buying Jim's powerboat for $1000 and living on that. She didn't even know what a cockpit was, much less how to row so we've been giving her a lot of rides but she's also found some landlubbers to stay with sometimes.

Grianne is very outgoing and within a week had introduced us to everyone in our anchorage. We started going to bonfire parties on Christmas Tree Island. Toko, a rastafarian from Greneda, and his wife Diana, from CA, brought steel drums, bongos, guitars and ukeleles. Other people brought their harmonicas, drums and guitars as well. If there wasn't a instrument left we would use cans, sticks, bottles, boat whistles and horns. Toko and Diana know the most songs because he's a professional musician, playing steel drums at a local restuarant several times a week. Their three older children were often there or nearby at thier campsite with other boater kids. The camp was called Boat Kid Camp. The baby usually slept through the whole party. If he was awake it was impossible to tell because he never cried. The parties usually wound down around three or four.

Inhibitions were set aside. I brought my guitar and worked up the courage to play a few of my own songs and the one Decemberists song I know. Piper sang along with me (her first time singing in public). They do this at least every Saturday. For us, those parties epitimized everything we had hoped the boating lifestyle could be. Toko was an inspiration to all the musicians. This was not like a hippy drum circle that you might imagine. Most songs were reggae because of Toko, but all kinds of songs were played. Originals were mostly encouraged. Although most often covers were played. The sources varied, ranging from Nirvana and Sublime to Harry Belafonte and Jack Johnson. Many times someone would just make up words on the spot. Once Toko made up a song about buying the island if he had the money. The island was recently sold to the developers who own Sunset Key. Once they work out the zoning with the city of Key West, the island will become a gated community and the anchorage will be pushed further towards the Gulf. Saddest of all, the boaters will lose the heart of their community.

Our friends Lauren and Carly were the first to invite us to these parties. They told us about a tree house they had begun on Christmas Tree and asked if we would help work on it. After several failed attempts to meet up with them we decided to find the site ourselves one day. We thought we had when we came across some logs tied up in some trees. We set about building a ladder to where we thought the platform should go. It turned out to be the wrong site but we had worked so hard on our ladder that we continued on at the new site. This picture is after the first day.

We spent two more days making it taller and wider but never got to the building of the platform. Hopefully someone will finish it without us or it will still be there when we get back.

It was finally time to leave Key West and head for Miami to pick up Piper's brother, Tioga to cross to the Bahamas. Our friends threw us one last bonfire party and I gave them the rest of my art to fight over. I only had a few pieces left because a store owner from Delray Beach came by on my last night at Mallory and bought all my inventory. I made more money in Key West than anywhere I had ever been and my art went all over the world.

A rooster joins us for the $2 breakfast buffet.

My awesome 2-piece bike.

2006-06-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

Hey Yall,

We have been doing all kinds of stuff related to sailing, but hardly any sailing at all until now. From May 28 - June 12, we stayed at a house at Ocean Isle beach for the annual family beach trip. We taught our nephew, Mika, how to surf. It was great. The expression on his face showed how much he liked it. He kept saying,"More, more." Our house is on the canals, so "For Pete's Sake", our current 21' daysailer had a dock to tie up to. We had worked on her for a month and a half trying to make her liveable and seeing her on the water was long over due.

Last year we traced everyone's foot andPiper's aunt, Karen made a new flag for the beach house she stays in every year.

Sailing on the ICW was just like I had expected. Crowded, narrow, and not really fun unless you are actually trying to go somewhere like another town. It is shallow and running aground happens often. The wind was in our favor a few times, but usually, it was difficult as the wind was coming right at us. However, running aground was GREAT! Now I know what to expect and I learned a lot. Nothing traumatic happened such as damage to the rudder or centerboard. I was particularly worried about this because our first sail to Ocracoke, in July, 2004, left an 8" crack a half an inch wide on our centerboard casing just above the waterline ) The designer, Bill Lapworth, must have taken accidents like this into consideration. It is a California Boat. It was most likely designed for deep water coastal daysailing and racing.

After the beach trip, we took the boat out of the water and drove to Wilmington, NC to work on Piper's parent rental house. The had bought it ten years ago when Piper went to UNCW for marine biology, a short-lived endeavor.The house had a bunch of young guys who painted all the walls, doors and ceilings, gloss black and blue. The hardwood floors we ruined after three years of sandy dog feet. There was a circle in a bedroom where I believe the pitbull walked in circles for hours waiting for his master to come home in a neurotic frenzy. Working on this place was a great oppurtunity to make money and stay at the coast.

Finally, our chance to go sailing had arrived. The weather was good and and Ocracoke was calling. So we headed up to Cedar Island, our point of departure for Ocracoke. We arrived at the boat ramp at about 11:30pm and tried to sleep in the cockpit of the boat. There were no lights except for the ferry station; the stars were magnificent. You could actually see the milky way which cannot bee seen back home because of all the light pollution. We were worried it might rain in the morning, so we moved into the cabin.

It was a wise decision. The next morning there was a downpour all morning. It was clear by eight and we were ready to leave. We shoved off at 11am with dingy in tow. The winds started out at ten knots but died down to five or less for half the trip. We made it to the half way marker at about 4pm. The waves were starting to get pretty big. They came at us from behind diagonally making us surf the waves a little. The wind picked up considerably, and the second half of the trip only took 3 hours.

We tried reading a couple times but sailing was far more exciting since we haven't been out much yet this year. The books will be read later when time needs passing.

We passed a few odd peices of debris. A log, a balloon, a boogie board and possibly a trick ski. Our phone doesn't work here. It stopped working just after Morehead City. However, we are picking up a few wireless internet signals in the harbor called Silver Lake.

Keep an eye on us. We want to keep you updated. Piper and Paul