Rosemary has arrived!

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Rosemary has arrived!

Rosemary arrived safely yesterday at 4pm. It was a hectic day for me, baking, cleaning the last little bit, putting fresh sheets on her bed (along with a brand new pillow!) and preparing a rather bad 3 bean salad to take to the Pot Luck that evening. So nice to have company and a nice visitor!
I am going to turn the blog over to her now as I understand there are some friends at home who will try to follow along with her 'vacation', here at Casa Denny - aka Annah Foster---

Good Morning folks, okay I am assuming it is still morning because I forgot my watch and my cellphone doesn't get any service down here so I'm truly on Carribean time! A morning of tea, reading and listening to Jimmy Buffett. My flights were uneventful and I breezed through customs upon my arrival. As soon as I arrived at Annah Foster, I changed and we went to a potluck of the other folks who live on boats. Quite a mix of folks from all over who, like Dennis, have chosen the life of sailing or "cruising" as they call it. Dennis surprised me with a birthday cake and those who were still at the potluck sang "Happy Birthday". For those of you who do not know, I turned 50 on 11/22. This has been a memorable birthday because my brother, Harry, had thrown me an open house birthday the Sunday before that was a huge hit. Then upon my arrival, another celebration. Life is GREAT!

Dennis and I came back to AF and talked, walked back along memory lane and laughed until the wee hours. During our that time we were visited by bats that come to his hummingbird feeder. Most of them do a fly-by grab-and-go approach, but a couple literally use the stands or wrap their wings around the flower and really get a real drink.

Annah Foster is a nice boat. Dennis had a cleaning lady come two separate days to clean and shine her up for my arrival. She is docked at the Fantasy Island Resort. As I'm sitting below deck, typing this I can look across the room and see a picture of Foster (Dennis' dad) with his wide grinning face, a portrait of Annah Margaret, Foster in his Uncle Sam costume from the hometown July 4th parade and pictures of Rocky, Pam and family. It feels like home.

Well stay tuned. Dennis has some adventures in mind to keep us busy this week such as a zip line and a dolphin experience.

I made it! Enjoying my first rum and coke at the potluck.

The cruisers enjoyed a book swap at the potluck. My brother would like that idea since he is an avid reader. A lot of James Patterson and Robert Ludlum books. One was even written in German!

My island birthday celebration.

Okay, I'm gonna kill the photographer or ditch the camera! Morning read with peppermint tea, good book and great company.

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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.