Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina

Ernie and I were looking for someplace to see Christmas lights and decorations and lo and behold we came across Brookgreen Gardens Nights of a Thousand Candles. Sounded like just the right idea.

Friends Cynthia and Byron joined us for the trip down from Little River SC. Only an hours drive.
What a fantastic day!

It turns out the 6000 acre estate has a portion with bronze and marble statues galore. The collection
contains over 1400 works by 350 artists. Amazingly beautiful pieces of art. And for 3 weekends, they add 4500 candle lights, 2200 luminaries, 1000 pillar candles, and 500 floating candles. With volunteers keeping them lit for each event nights. There are also approx 1,000,000 LED lights of which 72K are on the holiday tree, and 65K hang in Live Oak Alley. They have 5 miles of extension cords. Live music all night in 3 forums, and bag pipes
wandering throughout as well. Oh my!

The result is just spectacular. and our photography doesn't do it justice.

New forever friends Cynthia and Byron:

Ernie with Bronze Bear:

Live oak alley before the nightfall.

 

Live Oak Alley at dusk; gets even better after dark.

 Ernie's favorite named "The Reacher"

 Bette's favorite bronze sculpture:

5 bronze sculptures in the pond below with lights reflected in the pond.

Check out the Gardens in persons, or take a tour on-line.

https://www.brookgreen.org/NightsofaThousandCandles.html

Christmas decorations

It's sad to see the Christmas decorations come down. But it's that time.

Ernie's outside lights helped us find the boat on many a night.
Loved his tree:

Even though we didn't make way for a Xmas tree- where to store that on a boat? -we did have a festive quasi-tree in the salon that morphed from a hanging basket. Wool felt christmas balls,
birds, stars,  reindeer, and more, were all hand created by women in Nepal.

Our lowly 3-tiered hanging basket once again went back to being just that today-
a food and snack basket.

Now that that's done, it's time for a bike ride!! 

Roast pork and Sauerkraut

Yes, the old family German receipt is alive and cooking aboard Iemanja tonight....thanks ma. You too dad...you mashed the potatoes! Merry Christmas to you and to all our friends .

Falcon 9 Liftoff from Cape Canaveral 12/21/2015

Do we stay or do we go.....

We pulled in tonight here in Titusville FL. Great news that we've been following all day is that tonight was to be the launch of the Falcon 9 Rocket from Cape Canaveral.....15 miles SE of our current anchored position. The low ceiling has postponed the launch for 24 hours. Hmmmmm ......do we stay to see the launch tomorrow night which would be really cool or do we move on. We have lots of time to get to Vero by xmas so a lay day tomorrow could be fine.......hmmmm.

Daytona

So it's been a few days since we last checked in....sorry about that. I know that you guys in Vermont are living even more vicariously with us this year since the snow has yet to come.....so we will keep the blogs coming.

A few days of motoring behind us now has us staged to reach Vero Beach in time to settle in for Christmas. A great place to shuttle around, chat with fellow cruisers and chill. It looks like.....fingers crossed.....a nice window over to West End on Grand Bahama Island might open up early next week. It's much to early to count on but the timing would be very nice indeed.

So another day of engine power today and onward. It's nice to have a mast that is less than 65' so that we have the option to stay inside when the weather is nasty outside. 

19 jet contrails

Just counted 19 contrails heading north and south! We are off and heading for Brunswick Ga. Flat day with not much wind so we've been giving the engine a good workout. Looks like itll b thus way for the next 24 hoirs or so.  We expect to hit Brunswick early Saturday morning. 

Part 2 of renewable energy on Iemanja...wind....

The location of the SuperWind 350 wind turbine was pretty straight forward but as with everything on a boat, getting to the end result always offers some challenges. The 9' mast from PYI in Washington along with all the adapters and supports was easy. The marriage of the mast base to the stainless steel support on the starboard corner of the boat was another story. It required a special 1/2" SS plate to bolt into 4 existing metric holes onto which the movable base was mounted. Again this had to be drilled and tapped for maximum strength. A local machine shop helped out with this component but getting wrapped up in the thanksgiving holiday added a twist. Anyway......wiring was completed over the holiday weekend so that when I got the plate it was a matter of bolting on the mast and plugging in the turbine. Not much wind today for a good test but all in all, things went according to plan and we now are reading some additional amps going into the battery. This will become increasingly more important when we get down to the trade winds in the Bahamas, which blow pretty consistently from the east..at 15-18 knots.

Ok.....it's not even 8pm and........burrrrr

Yards and yards

We've added a Sail-Rite sewing machine to the long list of equipment to keep on the boat. We had gotten yards of garden shade fabric from Home Depot and Bette put the finishing touches on shade awnings for the fore and side decks. We used the rough cut pieces last year in the Abacos and loved how much cooler the decks and cabin were with the addition of shade. But the rough cut pieces needed trim and better attachments.

Sewing in the cabin, well, it is a lot of fabric in a fairly small space, but we made it work out.

They're done; but now where to store them?

Another one bites the dust

Our shower sump pump was not working. Ernie, aka Sherlock, got out the multi-meter and started checking to see where the fail was occurring. The pump itself worked, and the motor worked too, so off to check the breaker in the electric box. It was the last item in the loop and was replaced.

Job done!
P.S. This nicely organized electrical panel was not the work of the P.O.(previous owner).

Bottoms

Last weekend we hauled Iemanja to paint the bottom, replace some zincs and then popped her back in a few days later.
I know you all feel this way: can't get enough of looking at your boat and how much you love her lines and are particularly proud when people stop by to talk to you about your boat.
Well, that happens to us too:

We had a few barnacles on the prop shaft, and a little oyster farm on the very bottom of the keel, but overall, not bad at all. Other boats we saw being hauled had the marina workers using shovels to remove everything that attached to boat bottoms. We felt good that wasn't us.

Nice travel lift! We left the aft mast for the radar up and had only to remove the backstay. Job done!

Orb weavers

Back in my Entomology days, I wrote a paper on orb weavers. Fascinating critters. I recently saw this work of art and am now wondering, so many years after college, if the size of the web is driven by the size of the spider, or by the size of the boardwalk fencing openings. Hmmm.

Baby it's cold outside

You know when it's cold in the boat when the closest weather indicator is your cat and she's buried in the blankets. One ear is down to keep it warm:

And then she let's you know she means business when she covers up her nose moments later:

But the sun is out and it's a beautiful day here in South Carolina.

Who knew?

Did you hear the story that Ernie and I found out about Passport 40's through "Art of the Athlete" whereby Dawn Riley who was a San Franciscan sailing coach lived on a Passport. The televised program showed the boat, her sailing, and the interior. We were totally hooked and started shopping for our own Passport with Jeff Hill's help. Yeh Jeff!

Who knew that the boat would have a live aboard cat and that the design included a cat-ass wide walkway for her (the cat) to travel around the main salon above the settee cushions. Too funny.

Vereen Memorial Gardens marshes

The Vereen Gardens are right at the NC and So.Carolina border. We've been doing a lot of beach walks and opted for a marsh walk day. The Vereen Gardens were just the gem we were looking for.

Lots of kingfishers, herons, egrets, and the like were out this beautiful sunny day. The boardwalk bridges in the park are really nice to get into and around the marshes.

We happened to be in the gardens at high tide, so we missed the beach along the ICW.

The beauty of tides:

The original Varin family (Vereen derivation) came to So Carolina in 1680. A daughter married into the Horry family. Little River, where we're located, is Horry County.  A few generations later, a Vereen son  (Jeremiah 1706-1768) had children that settled in the Little River area and the Gardens are so named after this historical family.

Bird Island beach walk

After some morning projects, it was time for a beach walk. And we were checking out a place to pull out the boat for some bottom painting in the same area. Scoped out the marina then off to Bird Island Reserve, NC for a long walk. Oh my goodness what a beautiful beach it was. If you're a shell nerderler, then this was not your beach, but for us sand-seekers, it was lovely.

 Joaquin and/or a recent North-easter have eroded the sand dunes here. They're being cut away. The high tide water mark is only about 10 feet away from these dunes.

Little River Inlet SC is below as seen from Bird Island, NC. This happens to be where we left the sea and entered the ICW when we brought the boat to Little River. And the place she'll leave at the end of November.

Walking back to the board walk through the dunes, we turned around to catch this view below.

The South and North Carolina border is somewhere in this picture.

Amazing to think that it's still 2 hours before low tide. 

Steering tightening....2 hrs to 2 days....

The wheel has always had a bit of looseness. Nothing serious but I wanted to deal with it before we set off once again. A very timely posting came in from Ocean Navigator Online from over in Maine. ......a two part video on how to clean and maintain an Edson system. So I think...hmmmm....maybe I should have a look....so I do. 

As it turns out, I haven't been tightening the cable in the exact manner in which it was designed. Ok..now is a good time to change that. So I crawl down into the garage and have a look. What I find is that the SS eyebolts that are supposed to be run freely inside a hole in the quadrant are in fact seized up from likely 30 years of not being lubricated. SS and aluminum don't get along very well especially without some type of barrier coating between them. I begin to weigh out the different options because by now, I'm far enough into this that I really want to have it all working properly.

New quadrant....$450.00 and as the tech says at Edson " you really should replace the chain and cable every 10 years...$285 and.  How does the wheel brake work...$85 gets you a new one of those, while you're in there already...".

Or....I can take out the quadrant, put some heat to the casting and bolt and.....low and behold...out come the corroded seized up bolts. A bit of wire brushing, TefGel.....my all time favorite anti seize on the boat, and some patience, now has us with a cleaned up quadrant, perfectly good SS eye bolts cleans up perfectly. Now the final tensioning of the cable is done by threading the nut onto the eyebolt after it passes through the casting. Lots of TefGel on the bolt as it passes thru the casting will prevent the seize up in the future.  I took out the chain/cable and cleaned, oiled and inspected carefully......all is well here as well......no need to replace that now. The brake......well ours works just fine. End result, the Edson tech guy tried to put the fear of God in me that the system was doomed to failure but with a bit of persistence, I feel quite good about the overhauled system. Knock on wood. Oh forgot to mention....the play in the wheel is now gone...:-))))) it's never run so smoothly!

Annapolis Boat Show, Oct 8th

We hadn't been to the Annap Boat Show in a few years. Time to head back to get new perspectives on wind generators, aft mast arrangements, solar applications, hardware, cookware, latest Passport news, and to meet up with a few friends.

What a great day. Did you know you can park at the nearby elementary school and your dollars go to the PTA? A few years back, they were buying band instruments for the kids; this year they had some projects and travel plans that they were funding. A worthwhile way to use your parking dollars.

And although VIP day has the extra entry fee, it's sooooo much nicer at the show with fewer crowds.
For one day of boat show, it really makes it easier to see everything and talk with vendors.

We left Minnie at the Greater Annapolis Vet Hospital. Very well rated and we were confident in leaving her in good hands there. After her excursion, when she got back to the boat, she was going to sleep anywhere even if her favorite donut (from Aunt Ellen & Uncle Barclay) was oriented vertically:

Great to see dear friend Bruce Schwab (Vendee Globe 2004 on Ocean Planet), and to brain-storm solar ideas with Stephens The' and Megan from Orca Green Marine (cool!). And hearing about South River Federation's clean up and restoration of South River MD from Sarah Giordano. What a thought to have Rachel Miller and Sarah join up for a Cleaner Ocean's project -- one for the river shores (and watershed) and one for the Chesapeake it feeds into.

Bob and Deb Gurwitz came down from LCYC and we met up with them after a show party for us and after they got out of a major traffic jam. We had a pre-arranged a meeting address but by the look of things, parking was going to be, um, interesting. We sat on a curb-side bench and waited while scoping out the whole scene when lo and behold, the Gurwitz's pulled into the spot right in front of our feet. It was such a weird coincidence that the spot had just become open, and that they just pulled in, and that we were sitting just 10 feet in front of them. Did the 4 of us really talk till midnight over dessert at Normande's? That's the first time Deb or I had seen lemon sorbet served inside a frozen lemon. Delightful.

In closing: Ern and I will likely not seek out pet-friendly hotels in the future.

Nose bleed

Ernie's about to have a nose bleed :-) because we got so much done today.

Final cowl guard got to the welder today where two of it's legs were tack welded to the feet. One more leg to finesse and that can then be welded.

Spliced in the snap shackle for the staysail halyard. We've used a bowline for quite a few years now, carrying around the un-used shackle.

And the furler halyard has neen replaced with a loop spliced in for a shackle as well. Woo hoo!   

We have carried around that halyard for a few years so to have it installed is great. 

CDC and USDA have been contacted to find out if there's new regulations for importing a feline back to the US if the pet has been out for more than 30 days. There's apparently new reg's for dogs so it seemed worth a check for our cat Minnie.

Shroud base butyl tape has been scraped away and replaced with new material. Holes are now plugged against water ingress.

Maybe tomorrow is a sewing day and more finessing the cowl guard day. Maybe.

Espar heater is taken the chill out.....

Engine maintenance success

18 Oct 2015:  Today was dedicated to engine maintenance. And it's a good thing we opted to do this before we took off again.

We have a minor leak (but a leak none-the-less) in the engine coolant system. Quick inspection under the engine showed the dried up pink antifreeze in the drip pan below it. But it turns out the hose clamp is just a tiny bit too large so you can't tighten it down. SS clamp shopping tomorrow to replace it. Form-a-gasket will help, but the real problem is the mis-sized clamp.

Then we took off the cover for the front of the engine - safely covers the belt. Some dust under there;
it turns that the belt is rubbing on the cover in a location where there is no stand-off. But we want the
cover on because there's an engine water cooling hose that passes by the belt very very closely. That same hose is probably what pushes the cover too close... Now that we understand the problem, we can fix it tomorrow. Never finish today what you can put off till tomorrow.
Actually, we have bigger plans for today.

Water impeller removed and inspected. We replaced it. Olive oiled the old one and kept it for a
spare. O-ring is in good shape too.

But the real push today was the mixing elbow... Here's the before picture at 555 engine hours:
Wow. Major clog. All that schmutz is not supposed to be there.

 That can back-pressure the engine from the exhaust side. Not good-nic.

  And then after clean out photo:

Re-installed that puppy. Re-installed the sound insulation that had to be extracted for more room too.. So much better now!

Friday the 16th of October......2015

It's been a busy week for us but at a pace that is comfortable and controlled. We are plugging away at projects that we'd like to have done before the next leg begins. 

Today however, will have a special meaning for Bette and I as we move forward in our adventures......more on this in the days to come.....for now suffice it to say we will say so long to a dear dear friend.....dignity is something we should be able to hold on to as long as we can.

Columbus Day throwback

It was this day in 2014 that Ernie and I started the first leg of our trip on Iemanja heading south from Lake Champlain. We've learned so much since then. This year, it's pretty cool to be already in South Carolina on that same day. What a difference.

She floats as we left her

Arrival back to Iemanja last night around 1900. Pizza of course at Christophers was our first priority even before we went to the boat since we knew that the frige and freezer has to be re commisoned and loaded before we did anything. We would be pretty crankie if no food was had first. Canvas on this morning first thing since rain enmass is on its way for after lunch. All is well here. 

3 sardines in a can.

07 October 2015:  On the road again!

Wake me up.....

.....when its time to go. 

A wild weather week....

Well it's been a wild week along the east coast of the US. Between a very slow moving ...Nor'easter of sorts that dumped inches and inches of rain and heavy NE winds along the entire east coast as well as Hurricane Joaquin giving everyone a scare.....we sat here in VT getting ready to head back to SC where Iemanja has weathered it out.

One thing is for certain.....a fresh water shower was had which is always appreciated...maybe not in such excess however.

I've checked in with James at Lightkeepers a couple of times and he has been aboard the boat to be sure the bilge pump was running......which it was. I'm sure we'll find a few leaks here and there but nothing too serious.

I just checked in with a website that talks about up to date road closures in SC and found that most of the serious stuff was centrally located around the Columbia area as well as around Charleston.

We are over on the right hand eastern border of the state around the Myrtle Beach area which appears to only have only minimal closures. 

Currently we are loading up the little blue Cheve Cavalier with gear, frozen food, some but not too many cloths and of course....Minnie and all her stuff.

Wednesday we'll head out early, making a stop at the Annapolis Sailboat show and then on to Little River to reunite with our girl.

The rest of October and early November will have us recommissioning the boat, bottom paint, install a new wind generator on the transom and a couple of other minor projects....then off to the Bahamas once again. 

That's another story for the next post.......Joaquin reeked havoc on the SE lower Bahamas chain. Long Island, Rhum Cay and a few other spots have been hit pretty hard with wind and rain. The central and northern islands seemed to have been spared the worst but we will see. Not to mention the ongoing search for the the missing crew of the El Faro.....a loaded up freighter that went down during the storm. This may also throw a few challenges our way in the weeks to come. So the next leg will be interesting to say the least......

Fresh new docklines for Iemanja

Long overdue and now off the todo list, Ie now has new docklines. Purchased 200' of New England Mega Braid from Ropes Inc in Fl. After cutting, whipping and burning the ends, we are now good to go. Likely will continue our practice of firehose chafe guards and backup lines for longer stays but the new lines are sweet. 

No words needed.....

https://youtu.be/evtHaCrGNDY