Marine Stadium - Last Day

Goodbye Miami

It has been an interesting stay at Marine Stadium. There's always something to watch with the crew teams in training - people climbing around the stadium itself! Today the winds gradually died and a real warming trend is peaking with Wednesday topping 80. So, we did a few remaining boat chores and mostly relaxed.

One last look at hydrofoil sailing

I found that I'm using zincs more than I should. Last year I installed an isolation transformer so any shore power irregularities would not affect me. It didn't seem to help a whole lot and I went looking for more input. I found one instance where the problem was traced to having an iron keel (which the zinc was trying to protect!) and a ground path through the shielding of the VHF cable for the antenna on the top of the mast. The ground of the VHF radio was connected to the mast which was connected to the keel for lightening protection. There was no other DC path to the keel. The solution for one boat was to install what's called an "Inside/outside DC Block" that allows the RF signals to pass but not the DC. The block is supposed to alleviate the consumption of zincs. Since I just installed the DC block today, I'll find out whether it works after I change the zinc the next time, not until leaving Key West. We'll see.

Assulted overhead too

Meanwhile, Ann prepared her usual excellent meal. She uses two cookbooks by Jacques Pepin and one by Johnny Mo for most meals. The recipes are brief but very good, great for boat preparation. Tonight Ann prepared brown sugar glazed pork chops with sliced apples, white wine, butter, olive oil, brown sugar for the main dish from Johnny Mo. Veggies consisted of cubed potatoes with garlic and sage from Jacques Pepin and Ann added another vegetable dish of Harvard beets flavored with onions, etc. I consider myself a lucky man to have such a cook.

Wednesday we're finally headed south again, this time to Rodriguez Key for an overnight anchorage before continuing onward to Marathon.