To our kids, there is nothing half so much worth doing as jumping off of boats.  So when we built our stern arch a couple years ago, we put a platform on top between the solar panels and dubbed it the high dive.  Nothing celebrates the end of a day of sailing like a few jumps off the high dive.

Arch jumping is like a rite of passage.  It is a 10-foot drop and so requires a certain amount of gumption. This past weekend Sam made his first jump… and second, and third, and fourth…  Way to go Sam.

I’ve made some changes to our navigation electronics since my last post on the subject.

I still haven't found a way to make the tablet useful.  I know others have, but for now I think it represents too much of a compromise.  It does appear that you can now buy the Panasonic Toughpad.  It is waterproof and sunlight-viewable, which are requirements number one and two for me.  But the only source I found is selling it for $1800.  You can make a favorable comparison to marine chart plotters based on screen size, but the chart plotter is a purpose-built hardware and software solution.  Tablets need much, much better software to compete.  Right now, even with a waterproof Toughpad, I think the best thing I’d find to do with it is play Angry Birds… in the rain.  

So I bought a chart plotter to install at the helm.  I did not want to go overboard and spend a bunch of money, but also wanted something relatively modern.  For the units I looked at, I thought the Lowrance HDS-7m Gen2 was the best bang for the buck.  The B&G Zeus looked like the best all around, but at 3x the cost of the Lowrance.  I have some very specific ideas about what I want in a chart plotter and I’d rather be disappointed with a $900 unit than a $2,800 unit.

To get all the NMEA data flowing the way I wanted, I installed an Actisense NDC-4 NMEA Multiplexer.  This unit combines inputs from multiple talkers into outputs for the computer and the chart plotter.  I have it set up so the inside computer can send waypoints to the outside chart plotter, and the chart plotter can steer the auto pilot toward them.

I installed a satellite weather antenna for the chart plotter as an afterthought.  With it we have high resolution weather radar, wind and wave forecasts, buoy observations, and more beamed to the boat FROM SPACE.  This will drastically reduce our dependence on Internet access for weather forecasts.  Plus, the Voyager package, which was my only option to get all the weather features I wanted, includes satellite radio.  The SiriusXM website does not make this clear and I didn’t learn it until I was on the phone activating.  So for an additional $100 investment and $60 per month, I’ve got two really nice features I wasn’t planning on.  Oh, and the B&G can’t do either one.

DSC integration is the last piece of the puzzle.  I ignored DSC (digital selective calling) initially because the way I was networking the NMEA data couldn’t support another talker, but the multiplexer changed that.  Now I can send a position request from Take Two’s VHF to our Standard Horizon HX850S handheld (which also has GPS and DSC) and the handheld’s position will appear as a waypoint on the computer and chart plotter.  The MaxSea TimeZero software does a better job of this and allows me to name and track the target.  So if we send the kids off in the dinghy, I can set up automatic position polling and Maxie will show me everywhere they go, while Lawrence only shows me where they currently are.  I also see a throwable DSC radio as an excellent piece of safety equipment.

That should be it for electronics for a while.  While pretty Spartan compared to what’s possible, I’m tickled pink with what we’ve got now.  We haven’t yet put it all through the paces and I think Lawrence and Otto have may some differences, but I’m pretty confident we can work that out.

…at least when it comes to anchors.

Ninety percent of the time, the chain itself is enough to keep the boat stationary.  But it’s that .01% when the wind is blowing hard against a lee shore at 2am and the chain is stretched bar tight that you really wish you had a better anchor.  

As a general rule, bigger and heavier anchors hold better that smaller ones. 
Steve Dashew says that when all your marina mates laugh about the size of your anchor, then it’s probably big enough.

We’ve always had good luck with our 44# Delta, but I’ve spent some sleepless nights watching the anchor alarm and the waves crashing on the rocks behind us.  We’ve never dragged… much. But I can’t depend on our current engines to fire right up and provide immediate power, so dragging toward rocks is seriously bad.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to invest in a bigger and better bow anchor.  Anchors are a lot like religion, and I’m putting my faith in a new 80# Manson Supreme.   

I believe in the fundamental merits of the plow anchor like the Delta, but I think that newer designs incorporating a roll bar (like the Manson Supreme) represent an improvement.  The purpose of the bar most often cited is that it forces the anchor into the correct attitude to set faster; the anchor shouldn't be able to land upside down or roll over in a wind shift.  But what I really see in that bar is a structural member supporting the scoop-shaped plow.  I think the bar allows the design to use a more efficient shape, put strength where it is needed, and weight where it is wanted.  It also provides a nice handle for lifting or if I ever need to pull it out backwards.

I was walking through West Marine yesterday and happened upon a 60# Manson Supreme that someone had special-ordered and then returned because it wouldn’t fit their boat.  You don't see anchors this size very often, and it renewed all my unfinished thoughts about getting a new bow anchor.  I have been keeping an eye out for a bigger 55# Delta, and the 60# Manson certainly looked big enough, but after a review of Manson’s sizing recommendations, it looks like they think we should have the 80-pounder.  Maybe they just want to sell me more anchor, but bigger is better and I wouldn't want to explain to the insurance company why I didn't use the recommended size.

I checked the measurements and don’t think we'll have problem fitting it on the crossbeam.  Weight on the bow is always a good thing to minimize, but in addition to the 44# Delta, we used to carry another 35# Delta in the second roller plus at least 20+ extra pounds in the old catwalk.  I figure we can put that eighty pounder up there and still come out lighter than we were.  And we've never launched two anchors off the bow.

What worries me most is picking the thing up.  Our windlass is rated for a working load of 220 pounds and we've never had any trouble snatching out the Delta.  If the new anchor weighs 80 lbs and our 3/8” G4 chain weighs 1.6 lbs/ft we should still be able to get the anchor back in up to 88 feet of water (without getting into buoyancy calculations).   That depth is well within our expected anchoring conditions, but a really well-buried anchor or a broken windlass could make things difficult.

I special-ordered the new anchor through West Marine and it arrives on Tuesday.  I hope somebody sees how big it is and laughs.

Parents of young children know to be suspicious when things are too quiet.  It’s a good indicator that something is up.  This blog has been quiet for a while now and something is indeed up.  We haven’t had much time to spare for the blog recently because we’re busy gearing up to leave the marina.  

I almost wrote “gearing up for the next cruise”, but that didn’t seem quite accurate.  A cruise implies (to me) a short duration and a round trip.  Although I’m sure we will always return to Florida, we aren’t currently planning that return.  In fact, we aren’t planning much at all.  The longer we do this, the more we realize that plans are overrated.  Instead we have goals, parameters, expectations, contingencies, and lots of wiggle room.

So without further ado, our goals are (roughly) to experience some early American history, get hauled out for a bottom job, have secure options for hurricane season, and maintain good access to airports and high-speed Internet.  It sounds like the US East Coast to me.

For parameters, the Dry Tortugas are a must stop.  The trip as we conceive it doesn’t include a lot of clean water to enjoy, and the kids are really excited to return there.  We have to go around Key West anyway, so the Tortugas aren’t really out of the way.  And we couldn’t go past Marathon without stopping to see friends there.

Our bottom paint is almost three years old now, which is well beyond its effective life.  Our two closest haulout options are both rails, and after our last rail experience we would really prefer a lift this time.  Lauderdale Marine Center is the closest lift.  We’ve hauled there before and it is a great yard, but it is far from convenient and very expensive.  The next one that can handle our beam is in Fort Pierce, so that’s on the itinerary.

From there, Tanya and I are a little bit at odds.  Our mast is too tall for the fixed bridges on the Intracoastal Waterway, so it will be an offshore trip.  If we’re heading to the Chesapeake, my preference is to get on the Gulf Stream express and go.  Tanya wants to stop in several places, which isn’t really conducive to using the beneficial current.  Plus it introduces lots of inlets to worry about.  She’s calling St. Augustine and Charleston pretty much mandatory.

Lastly, we must be back south of Cape Hatteras by November.  The Diamond Shoals area off Hatteras is called the “graveyard of the Atlantic” and becomes truly treacherous during the winter weather pattern.  I have no desire to spend a winter any farther north than we already are.

Actually getting to the Chesapeake seems like such a challenge we’re really not thinking much yet about what to do there.  It seems almost likely that we’ll get waylaid by weather, repairs, or shore life.  Will we go to Annapolis, Baltimore, or all the way up to DC?  We don’t know.  

For as much as we try to avoid marinas, we have a feeling that the trip will see us in one or another for much of the time.  Of course there is the convenience to shore life afforded by a dock, but we’re also expecting it to be damn hot and want to run the air conditioning.  We’re kind of used to damn hot, having spent a summer in the Keys, but we’re assuming the breeze is not as consistent as it is in the Keys.  We’re also expecting the water won’t be swimmable, which will seriously curtail the water- and beach-related activities we enjoyed in the Bahamas.

So there it is.  The cat’s out of the bag.  The ice is broken.  We weren’t intentionally withholding the information, but we don’t share every little whim lest we seem… whimsical.  But I think there’s reasonable probability that we’re actually going to do this, and I’ve sufficiently hedged on expectations.  

Our original target departure date was April 1, but that clearly didn’t happen.  We have boat projects still underway and want to maintain continuity with our current contractors.  So we’re delayed a couple weeks.  We'll also want to do a good systems test locally before setting off for the Tortugas.  With the intended travel plans, we don’t really feel compelled to load the boat with supplies and extra gear, but that is happening anyway.  I’ll have another post later with all the cool stuff we’ve done to the boat this past year.  Hopefully the posts will start flowing again.

My last post was about the EPIRB fiasco, so that seems a logical place to start to get things rolling again.

I called ACR Electronics about our little problem and they told me our unit was outside the 5-year warranty, but I could send it in and have it “repaired” for a $250 fee.  Repair in this case meant replacement of the electronic parts.  I thought this sounded better than what I thought at the time would be $700 for a new one, so I boxed it up and sent it back to them.

It later occurred to me that I no longer knew the state of the battery since I didn’t know how long it had been going off.  When ACR received the unit, they called and made the same point.  It seemed that the prudent thing to do would be to replace the battery, and the “repair” was no longer economical.  Some very good pricing through a wholesale account, and a promotion they’re currently running would get me into a new GlobalFix Pro unit for under $500.

But they offered me an alternative.  ACR Technical Services happened to be sitting on a big stack of surplus TerraFix PLBs (Personal Locator Beacon) that had been superseded by a new model.  These were the 2798.4NH model with onboard GPS receivers, and they were being unofficially offered at only $120 each.  That was a pretty good deal, so I bought two, and for now we’ll go without an EPIRB.

What is the difference between a PLB and an EPIRB?  Very little it seems.  

EPIRBs are designed to transmit for 48 hours, while PLBs only 24.  But the design temperature is -4F, so actual PLB operating life is more like 31 hours.  Transmit power is the same, so the difference is really just the size of the battery, which makes PLBs "personal" sized and wearable.  By getting two, we have the same effective total transmit time.  Plus we have the flexibility to set both off at once (for emphasis), put one in the ditch bag, carry one in the dinghy, or attach it to the person on night watch.

EPIRBs are designed to float free from a sinking vessel and transmit best when in the water.  PLBs float only as a convenience against loss, and should be held for best transmission performance.  PLBs are activated by pressing two buttons simultaneously and don’t have any of that silly out-of-the-bracket-and-in-the-water activation nonsense.

Bottom line:   If you’re going far enough offshore that help can’t reach you in 24 hours, get an EPIRB.  If you have a boat that can sink and want the beacon to float free and self-activate, get an EPIRB.  Otherwise, I think PLBs are the way to go.  They transmit the same signals to the same satellites and are handled by the same rescue services.  While the TerraFix was marketed toward hikers, the only difference from the marine-oriented AquaFix is the color of the holster.

I just did this last week and ACR said they had lots of these units and they were happy to sell me as many as I wanted.  They said the units had been sitting around for a while, but the ones I received indicated battery replacement wasn’t due until 07/2017.  So if you’re in the market for a PLB, you should give ACR a call.  

I’ve always been nervous about our EPIRB.  This is the
Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon we carry for notifying authorities via satellite that we are in distress and where we are.  When you need one, they’re worth their weight in gold.  When you don’t, they seem like a big liability to me.  If it weren’t for our precious cargo, I might not carry one at all.

Unlike the SPOT satellite messenger, an EPIRB is monitored by government search and rescue agencies including the US Coast Guard.  Like everything else they do, the Coast Guard takes EPIRBs very seriously.  I’ve heard of people setting off their EPIRBs for silly and frivolous reasons.  I’ve heard of mutinous crews decided they’ve had enough and setting off the EPIRB surreptitiously.  When the Coast Guard shows up, or a commercial ship is diverted to assist, I imagine there must be some severe consequences if the emergency is not legitimate.

We inherited our EPIRB with the boat.  I dutifully changed the registration for it, entered all appropriate emergency contact information, and had the unit serviced.  Then I tucked it away in a corner of the boat where nobody would mess with it.  No water, no magnetic fields, no little hands.  Ours is a manual-activation model which can only be activated by a) flipping up a plastic tab on the top, or b) removing the unit from its wall-mount bracket AND putting it in the water.  

Tanya’s phone started ringing at 5:42 this morning.  I was up, but ignored it at first.  I vaguely wondered if there was some emergency to cause someone to call that early.  Then I got a Google Voice message from a New Orleans area code.  It was mostly gibberish as usual, but it did pick up “coast guard”, “beacon”, and “take too”.  That got my attention.  Tanya’s phone rang again and I answered it.  It was our emergency contact that I have registered on the EPIRB.  She had been called by the Coast Guard and was our EPIRB going off?  No, of course not.  I went and looked, and it was sitting quietly right where it was supposed to be.  In the bracket, out of the water, no magnetic fields, no little hands.

I returned the call to the Coast Guard.  Was everything all right?  Yes, everything is fine.  Did your EPIRB go off?  No, I don’t think so.  I’m looking right at it.  Can you read me the Beacon ID on the side of the unit?  Sure, hang on.  I touched it, and suddenly it erupted in a series of beeps, strobes, and flashing red lights.  Well, I guess it did go off.

Like all my other interactions with the Coast Guard, I found them courteous and efficient.  They received signals at 5:32 and 5:40.  I was up at that time, the boat was quiet, and I did not hear any beeping from the other room.  They had tried to call my cell phone, but got a strange busy signal and could not leave a message.  My phone was right next to me and it did not ring.  Likewise, it did not ring when they called Google Voice.  I imagine our emergency contact tried to call it as well.  

The process appears to have worked pretty well.  There's no telling how long the EPIRB was going off, but it took 10 minutes from the first received signal until Tanya’s phone rang the first time.  Why these things have to happen at night, I don’t understand.  I wish my phone had rung, and I’m sorry our contact had to be awakened.  I’m just glad I was awake.  We generally don’t hear or get up to answer phones, and it’s a rare morning when I’m up at 5am for no good reason.  If I hadn’t been, I might have woken up to a man with boots and a gun knocking on the hull.

As for the EPIRB, the transmitter portion clearly works, but I'm not a big fan of the whole "out of the bracket and in the water" thing.  Seems totally superfluous for a manually-activated unit and less than failsafe.  I’ll be calling the manufacturer when they open this morning.  I’m not sure what they can do to make me trust this unit again, but I’m not wild about spending about $700 for a new one either.  In the meantime I've secured it by removing the battery.

I believe all the medical bills from Rachel’s recent adventure are now in and we can tally the damage at $4,733.55

We do have health insurance, but it is a high deductible plan and covers very little until that is met.  We very rarely seek any medical care, so don’t really have much cause to use it.  It does re-price charged amounts based on negotiated network agreements, and I think it also covers an annual checkup for everybody, but we don’t do that.  The insurance would really only pay for itself if something really bad happened and we sought treatment in the U.S.  Otherwise, it just sucks $650 out of our monthly budget.

While we would prefer to pay directly for medical care, we find it very difficult to do so.  In our experience, cash discounts are paltry or not available.  The only time we really felt mildly successful with this tactic was when Sam was born.  No, our insurance does not cover maternity costs.

The discount offered by the hospital after Rachel’s recent trip was only 10%.  We gambled that the negotiated network price through our insurance company would be better, and it was.  The insurance company re-priced that $4,733.55 down to $871.15.  That’s an 80% reduction.  Am I happy about that?  Sure.  But the $8,000 I spent on insurance premiums over the last year tempers my enthusiasm somewhat.  I’d be much happier to get that kind of discount directly and not pay for the insurance at all.

I’ve been threatening to drop the insurance for years, but I’m afraid to do it.  There are no guarantees in life, and I’m slightly uncomfortable with the unknown.  I’m not paralyzed by it, but so far I’ve been willing to pay $650 a month to feel better.  That’s probably about all the good it does.  

What are the odds we’ll ever need the insurance anyway?  Apparently, better than I might have thought.  My 4-year-old nephew was diagnosed with cancer last year.  My brother’s family coincidentally has the same insurance as we do and it made a huge difference in the financial burden of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.  I have no idea how it might have turned out without the insurance, but he’s once again a happy little boy.

When we think about it logically, continuing to pay for health insurance is inconsistent with the other lifestyle decisions we’ve made.  One of our mantras is “safety does not exist.”  But by paying for health insurance we're keeping one foot in a system we despise in the hopes that it might someday save us from something terrible.  Just as there are no guarantees that something terrible won’t happen, there are also none that modern medicine and insurance can save us if it does.

The kids’ bathroom renovation is complete.  We call it the kids’ bathroom because the adults abandoned it immediately upon making the master bathroom operational earlier in the spring.  No adult wants to share a bathroom with four kids.

The renovation was a prolonged project involving demolition of the old floor, replacing it with teak grates to match the other heads, painting the walls, and installing a new toilet.  For three weeks, the kids had to huff it up to the marina pool to use the bathroom there.  There were several nights when the Eli, Sam, and Rachel had to sleep in alternative locations due to fumes from various paints or epoxies.  They’re now rewarded with an electric toilet of their own: a Raritan Sea Era fresh water.  

Like the Raritan Marine Elegance in the master bathroom, the Sea Era uses a centrifugal pump.  I assume the pumps are equivalent, and hoped it would be the Marine Elegance’s equal in terms of uncloggability, but in fact I think it might be better.  I plumbed the Marine Elegance with 1” hose since I wanted to reduce the volume of stuff standing in the hose.  With the kids’ bathroom I had several compromises already made for me, and the Sea Era’s discharge was going to use the 90 degree elbow option and 1.5” hose.  I don’t know if it is the shapes of the bowls or the difference between the discharge line diameters, but the Sea Era has a much more powerful flush.  I prefer the Marine Elegance’s smooth one-piece ceramic shroud to enclose all the parts, but that just wasn’t going to fit.

Our goals for the project were to make the floor easier to keep clean and dry, and improve access and air flow to sump area underneath.  To accomplish that, we tore the old solid floor out completely and replaced it with a pair of teak grates.  The toilet sits on a solid teak shelf and one grate slides beneath it.  The other grate drops in place in front of the toilet.  We also ground down, faired, and repainted the walls and sump area to improve the appearance and overall cleanliness of the area.

While it must seem that we get excited about very mundane things, this bathroom has been on the wish list for a long time and we are very happy to have it addressed.  While we still have work going on, this bathroom is probably the last big interior improvement we’re going to make.  It got pushed way down the list because our original concept involved removing thru-hulls, which requires hauling the boat out of the water, which requires an act of God.  In the end, we decided just to keep the thru-hulls for now and retain the option of flushing directly overboard.

A few things that happened today…

Sarah has successfully taught Rachel how to play “How Big is Rachel?”, whereupon the latter squeals with delight and obediently raises her arms above her head.  Rachel's other recent trick is to grab at anything in reach.  Like she’s suddenly discovered she has hands.

Sarah ran on the dock today for the first time since she turned her ankle on the library stairs last week.  I say she’s healed.  Running on the dock is strictly forbidden, but yet somehow deeply ingrained into children.  I was cured of running on docks when I was about her age.  My younger brother and I were sent late one night to use the facilities up at the bathhouse of some marina in the Keys.  We were very well-behaved on the way up, but on the way back it seemed necessary to race.  In the heat of the race, my brother took a short cut and ran straight off the sea wall.  It was about six feet down to the water and he came up hollering.  My only real memory of the incident is an image of my poor dad hanging three-quarters over the wall and my mom holding onto his feet.  I shudder to think we may have to do that someday.

Sam tried to choke on a Life Saver.  Of course he failed, but it was still interesting.  I always wondered.  During the melee, Rachel, who was riding on Tanya’s back at the time, grabbed a big knife off of the kitchen counter and held it Psycho-style behind Tanya’s head.  That was the missed photo opportunity of the week.

The carpenter has finished replacing the floors in our port bathrooms, and a new Raritan Sea Era electric freshwater toilet arrived today to replace the old Jabsco.  This toilet is a different footprint from the Marine Elegance I have already serenaded, but I expect it to be equally uncloggable.  To start with, we’re skipping the fancy programmable flush buttons and going with simple momentary switches.  That’s the most effective way we’ve found to manage tank capacity in the starboard forward head.

Our marina is getting a new dockmaster.  We’ve been through this before, but it always gives me a bit of anxiety.  Which rules will he choose to enforce? 

Given all her daily activities, Tanya often leaves an unfinished load or three in the laundry room.  Protocol is for anyone who needs the machines to remove the offending articles and leave them on the folding table.  Occasionally a kind soul, usually a grandmotherly type, will move the clothes to the dryers or fold them.  But today Tanya returned to the laundry room only to find our curmudgeonly Irish friend folding Rachel’s “f*****g” diapers.  Apparently he drew the line at folding my underwear, which suits me fine.

The temperature this morning is 45F degrees and the wind is blowing 22-28 knots.  We recorded a gust of 44.5 knots sometime during the night.  That might be a personal record.  The forecasted high today is 52 and the low tonight is 24.  The little voice in my head is doing a Sam Kinison impersonation.

The fact is we’re here by choice.  Maybe not a conscious choice, but it was our own decisions that caused us to be here.  This weather is a disappointment, but not really a surprise.  Two years ago it was a surprise.  We’re still hoping, perhaps in vain, that it will be a mild winter, but also wishing we were somewhere else.  I feel a resolution coming on.

We know some people are abandoning their boats and heading to friends’ houses and hotels tonight.  We're going to stick it out.  We’ve learned that we can get pretty good results from four 600W space heaters spread around the boat.  It’ll still be cold, for sure, but hopefully tolerable.  At least there isn’t supposed to be any wind.