Marvelous Monday

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Marvelous Monday

Daily blogging. One sits twisted to type.

The small deer on the island are more of Dennis' backyard buddies. They have quickly learned the crackling sound of the paper of thestale crackers. One doe appears to have been kicked because her mouth/nose is slightly to her left.

Headed down to the first zipline. At this point, I wasn't at all concerned.

Now the concern moved right in. Major hesitation on my part. The guide you see in the shadows kept telling me to "just walk right off the platform" and I thought he was NUTS! See below, I couldn't get any further from the step off spot! :-)

I should have left my camera behind, but wasn't thinking. The guide's name was Harry.

Below as a short final zipline over ponds that Harry claimed they kept their alligators --- Pirates of the Carribean zipline company wouldn't be complete without a few unseen alligators...

All of the pictures on Dennis are on my camera. My memory card is the wrong size for the computer, so you are all stuck with pictures of moi! The zip line, once I took the initial step off the first platform, was fantastic. Our guides were great; Dennis could not have wiped the smile off his face if he wanted to; the views were fantastic, the canopy was BELOW us as we flew through the air, and well it was just amazing!

Lou and Skip, joined us at Fantasy Island after our zipline adventure. Skip has done a zipline on the mainline. Lou is another cruiser who has been living this life for the past eleven years.

Look below! After I went to bed, Dennis was able to actually catch a bat coming to the hummingbird feeder!

As you can see the adventure for Monday was the zipline. It is called Pirates of the Carribean and the first one where I had to muster to courage to "just walk off" was the longest ride of about 1800 feet. It was a lot of fun and I would recommend anyone try it at least once. The views, once you open your eyes, are breath taking.

Dennis' found out that this week there will be two cruise boats coming to the island, so the venues will be packed. We are going to enjoy the dolphin experience on Friday. We are both looking forward to that.

I'm assuming it is due to all the bugs bites I have, but this morning I woke up swollen. Eyes swollen shut and a puffy face. Dennis gave me benadryl which will knock me out today, but I hope that fixes things. So today as soon as I was dressed, I sprayed down with OFF.

Dennis is swimming off the boat right now. We will go into the village where he can contact a refrigerator guy to come fix his fridge on the boat. We will also go out and about on the dingy later. Oh the fast pace of boat life.

It is VERY warm and HUMID down here. Quite a change from semi-arid winter of Colorado.

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About Annah Foster

Annah Foster is a 1980'ish Morgan 462. She is a USCG Documented vessel and the year on the document is 1979, which I believe is the year the keel was laid. She is known as a ketch, which means she has 2 masts, and the aft mast is forward of the rudder. She also is a center compartment boat, which means the helm is located between the 2 masts, which are, by the way, the main and the mizzen. She is equipped with roller furling on the jib/genoa sail which is the big triangular sail on the front. Her empty weight, or rather displacement, is 33,000 lbs, which is fat for her length. Mr. Morgan believed in thick fiberglas for strength and I am told that at places it is often found to be 2 inches of solid fiberglas. Her keel has encapsulated lead weighing 8,000 lbs.

She boasts 2 staterooms, - v-berth forward with separate head and twin beds aft with separate head, including the famous bathtub. The configuration of the aft stateroom could easily be changed with a change in the mattresses to an almost queen berth, port to starboard, but currently she has twins, running fore and aft, with 2 large mattress cushions separating them. There is also a ladder and sliding hatch aft for egress in an emergency, to the aft deck, which I call the back porch. I bought some director's chairs for it and have sat there many evenings enjoying a drink and sunset. The aft deck is also the location of the propane gas grill, storage for the 2 outboard motors, Yamaha 4hp 4cycle, and a Yamaha 15hp 2 cycle, which power a new Apex Lite 10'6 inflatable dinghy, which can hang from the installed davits.

The main sail has 2 reefing points on jiffy reefing and the mizzen has 1. No lines lead to the cockpit but the jib, main and mizzen sheets.

She has a Switlick 6 man life raft mounted aft the mizzen mast. And, an emergency tiller aboard.

She is equipped with a Perkins 4 cylinder diesel engine, powering a Hurth transmission and turning a 4 bladed Max Prop, which feathers when sailing, and reverses pitch in Reverse so that she has the same thrust as in Forward. One unique design flaw is that the propeller shaft exits the boat at 3 degrees off center, making the port prop walk in reverse, even worse. The engine is equipped with about a 90 amp alternator with a very good voltage regulator.

She also has a Westerbeke 5.7 kw diesel generator, which produces 110 v AC power, and charges the batteries thru a 40 amp charger. I also have a Honda 1000 watt gasoline powered generator for emergency 110v, and an automotive battery charger aboard.

She came with an old Windbugger wind generator, not quite perfectly mounted. Stowed in the V-berth, there is a replacement AirX marine wind generator and 8 foot mast waiting to be installed, along with the controller, and 2 solar panels, which are half the possible wattage the controller can handle.

She has 3 4-D AGM batteries for the house bank and a type 18 start battery - all are 12volt.

The 4 gallon water heater will heat with both engine cooling water and 110v AC power and is equipped with a mixing valve to prevent scalding.

Tankage - Water - 110 gallon port and 85 gallon center tanks
Fuel - 175 gallons
Range when new at 2250 RPM is almost 800 nm.

Currently, her refridgerator and freezer are 110 volt AC, with several holding plates each which must be manually started and stopped. She has waiting to be installed, 2 Cool Blue 12 volt systems, with automatic controls, but truthfully, I don't know where the new holding plates will fit.

Electronics -
She is equipped with 2 VHF marine band radios, one at the helm and the other at the nav station, with repeater at the helm, and a hand held low power VHF 'walkie talkie'. Also, at the nav station, she has a Single Side Band HF radio - SSB with a Pactor 2 modem making her capable of downloading NOAA weather fax and Sail Mail emails and Grb files. onto a dedicated IBM laptop. She has as primary a Raymarine E-80 Chartplotter at the helm and a smaller Garmin Chartplotter for back up at the helm, a handheld Garmin Chartplotter, and an older Furuno GPS at the nav station. She has an older Raytheon black and white 24 nm radar at the helm, with a repeater at the nav station. She has a RapidFix 406 EPIRB, emergency locator beacon, that is hand activated. She has a new Clarion AM FM CD player, with input for computer or MP3 player on 3 sets of individual speakers - cockpit, salon, and aft cabin.

For those who do not know me, I named her for my parents - Annah Margaret and George Foster Doak. It is through their beneficence that I am able to live this dream and I felt that I should dedicate my boat to honor their memories.