Key West - Eaton Street Seafood Market

Sticker shock!

There is a food market two blocks down and three over that stocks the basic and plenty more for the tourists, Fausto's Food Palace. When it comes to meat, they have delusions of grandeur. Their tenderloin steaks were $40.99/lb! If you only wanted beef loin strip steaks you could save a bundle at only $23.99/lb. Needless to say, we didn't buy any meat there but they had the usual ice cream, orange juice and grapefruit at somewhat reasonable prices. We'll do our major provisioning when Philip and his family arrive late Saturday night for a week's stay.

BO's Fish Wagon (BO are the owner's initials (not body odor!)

On the way back from Fausto's, I stopped by Eaton Fish Market to see what they had for fish. Well, they had a great selection, higher in price than what we've paid in the past but not too much so and I picked up a pound of fresh tuna. The owner said they ship it in from Hawaii every two days, not frozen. Ann pan seared it, just great, still pink in the middle as we like it. On anther day we'll get the local Mahi-Mahi. At left you can see BO's Fish Wagon pictured. There's not much in the way of a roof - or sides for that matter. You can see why they were closed in the Sunday deluge.

We got some rain today, just sprinkles but it looked rather threatening. We ran the A/C for the first time today down here, mostly to dehumidify the cabin. Our sailing day still looks good for Wednesday with Bill and Ruth from PYC. It will be our first test of the exhaust elbow replacement's affect on the engine temperature. Hopefully, that's the fix.

Key West - At Schooner Wharf Bar

There's always entertainment at Schooner's

It was not supposed to be a very good day and certainly not one for sailing and it even looked threatening. However, none of the bad stuff happened and it turned sunny in the afternoon. Nevertheless, we had already canceled the sail on the strength of the "forecast" and now it's scheduled for Wednesday.

At Galleon you get a finger dock - but pay a lot more!

I was walking over to the dock office when I met Lee and Linda from the Catskill Yacht Club on the Hudson River in New York (it's a small world). They were in Key West for two weeks and so I invited them to the boat for wine and cheese at 5:00. They are looking to go down the ICW too someday. Later it was over to Schooner Wharf Bar for dinner and to listen to their band. We had a center table and overhead were the stars! It must have been a very wet Super Bowl during the Sunday downpours. The  band was enthusiastic with volume and the food was good and with new friends enjoying the conversation, what more to ask?

Key West - Rain, Rain Rain...

None of these big guys went out today

We have encountered our first "river of rain" this year. Last year on our return trip we encountered weather where we might be located 1/2 way up the coast and a band of rain, perhaps only 30 miles wide, would flow like a river, moving along the direction of the band of rain. Just north of us and just south of us was rain free but we were in the middle of the rain river - usually all day long. Well, that's what we seem to have now except it's centered on Key West and flowing right over the top of us, all day long. The added interesting point for us is that we have a dog that needs to go out every once in awhile, so it's the full wet suit for me  but Hoolie just has his fur. For a water dog, that's not too bad - his coat sheds water like a duck.

Wyland mural - all around Key West

Many of the stores and restaurants are closed around here. BO's Fish Wagon was closed, they really don't have much of a roof and no sides at all, I don't think Schooner's is much better. Key West mostly closes down with this type of rain. However, we can't complain since this is the first rainy day we've had since we left PYC in September. We have plans to go sailing on Monday but it looks rather doubtful given that the forecast for Monday is the same as for Sunday. We'll wait and make our final decision at 9:00 am Monday. I'll have a dinghy to pump out in the morning!

Key West - Dock Visit

Crosroads of the world?

One of the fun parts about cruising are all the fellow cruisers you meet along the way. He has the same first name as I do, Bob and we saw him pull into a dock a few slips down from us. It was blowing pretty good that day, in the 20's at least and they (he has one crew member) made the trip non-stop from Miami to Key West when the winds were gusting in the 30's, they had a wild ride - no motoring for them! They saw speeds of 8 to 9 knots all the way.

A long ways to Albany!

He stopped by this afternoon for a chat since they were leaving for Sarasota tonight. It seems he decided to buy a boat one day, never having a boat before, and wound up with a Beneteau 461 - not bad for a first boat! He had more information about the fatal accident aboard Appledore from one of the crew where a rigger was aloft and fell to his death. It turns out that his girlfriend was holding the lines on deck around a cleat and she thought she heard him say, "Let go" (so he could reposition himself for another task aloft). Well, he didn't say that and when she let go, he started an uncontrolled fall, hitting the deck from about 50ft high. Seeing him falling, she then tried to grad hold of the line but, of course, could not - it was moving too rapidly and she burned the flesh off her hands. He later died in the hospital. It goes without saying that he also had no safety line - just stupid. You only get once chance when in that position, why not have a safety line!!

A rare pencil tree, only seen in Key West

So we talked on and on through the afternoon, very pleasant. The two of them left around 5:30 pm for points north on the west coast of Florida. We prefer sailing in daylight but then we don't go as far as they do in one sail. The high winds are due to abate somewhat on Sunday and settle down more on Monday when we'll go out for a sail ourselves with Bill and Ruth McKeever along for company. I have cable installed so I'll be watching the Giants in HD, won't get much done Sunday.

Key West - Barry Cuda at BO's Fish Wagon

Barry Cuda

I installed the new Suncor anchor swivel today. The old one had one finger that chipped out, leaving the pin exposed on one side, definitely a risk. At first I just ordered a new one from Defender US but found that it did not fit 3/8" BBB since the side walls of the swivel prevented the short links of the BBB chain form engaging the pin on the swivel. After that I called Suncor to complain and furthermore, requested a replacement at no cost since they advertised a lifetime warranty. I could tell he new swivel was modified at the factory by having the inside of the side walls ground away, allowing the BBB chain to be secured. It never should have broken in the first place  but it's nice to know that companies still stand behind their product.

No shirt, no shoes, no problem! You're invited to BO's Fish Wagon

Tonight we went to BO's Fish Wagon to listen to Barry Cuda play the piano, he's there every Friday night and he's a real crowd pleaser. He's no slouch on the piano! We sat through 1.5 hours of his music and it went by in a flash. For us it was a late night, all of 8:00 before we got back to the boat! I must admit that the crowd he played to was of the older persuasion but it was great fun for us. I took several videos but I need a higher speed connection to upload them, maybe later.

I was able to upload the video Saturday morning (airwaves less crowded) Link is Barry Cuda. The video is rather dark but I wanted Sarah to see the hand action.

Key West - Down Duval Street at night

Sloppy Joe's is hopping

Well, it's not really at night, more like early evening (we're sailboaters...) This is one place where they do not roll up the sidewalks at night, like some of the harbor towns that cater to sailboaters. So Ann and I walked the couple of blocks with Hoolie in tow to Duval Street and down aways before turning back. As we approached a bar, the band playing would become louder but then fade as we went past to be replaced by the band from the next bar - and so on down the street. Every bar had a band and there were lots of bars. Unfortunately, we didn't go into any this night, perhaps some other time.

A look down Duval Street

One topic of conversation around here is the accident on Appledore where a rigger fell to his death from 50 ft up the mast. It seems that he did not have a safety line, just one line supporting him and it wasn't secured correctly - not enough turns on a cleat. The girl holding the line on the cleat couldn't keep it from slipping. Why would anyone climb a mast without a safety line?? There are always hazards on a sailboat but one should always take precautions - there's no "rewind" in life.

How's that for the name of a saloon!

With the exhaust elbow repaired and, hopefully, a fix for the overheating problem - we'll do a test drive and sail on Monday when these high winds are supposed to abate. Bill and Ruth McKeever are due to go out with us where we plan on crossing the reefs to deep water, should be fun.

Key West - Have you checked your exhaust elbow recently?

Old vs New exhaust elbows (despite appearances, they are exactly the same size

For those who have been following the blog, you've heard of our steadily increasing engine temperature problem. The engine has been increasing from the usual 80C to 95C  (water boils at 100C). All the usual suspects have been checked and found to be okay (impeller, water pump, strainer, etc.) Hinckley thought the engine ought to be descaled (pumped solution to rid the engine of internal deposits). Finally I placed a call to my long time expert, Brian at McDonnell Marine in Connecticut. He immediately diagnosed the cause to be blockage in the exhaust elbow.

So what is the exhaust elbow and what does it do? All marine engines, both gas and diesel, have an exhaust elbow. It's the point in the exhaust where the engine cooling water is injected into the engine exhaust. The next step is the muffler and then the water and exhaust gases mixture is expelled out the back in characteristic bursts familiar to all boaters.

New elbow - see the injection port, dark rectangle (hole in shadow)

The problem with all this is that the exhaust gases are very hot and even the cooling water is no slouch, around 80 to 90C. Throw in the salt from the ocean and you have a very corrosive environment. Most elbows are made of cast iron, not a particularly corrosion resistant material. That leads to rusting inside and eventually the blockage of the ports where the cooling water is injected - which leads to less cooling water flow and higher engine temperatures as a result. If not attended to, the cooling water will clog completely and the engine will overheat (as your overheat alarm goes off!!) On Fleetwing, I installed an engine temperature gauge so I was watching the temperature increase with concern.

Injectilon port blocked! Overheat, here we come

Today I replaced the elbow and, sure enough, one of the two injection ports were completely blocked with rust debris! I was getting at best half the cooling water flow. No wonder the engine temperature was going up! Most manuals recommend checking the exhaust elbows for blockage every four years. I had gone 10 years! How long have you gone?