A few more assorted photos...

February 28, 2010
Hi 65 Lo 56
Lat/Lon 25 5.2 N, 80 26.8 W


As I mentioned earlier, we are on the downhill side of this leg of our journey. All of our guests have come and gone, and it's back to just the 4 of us, Sid, Bo, Gracie and I. We are currently in Key Largo. Yes, we returned to the scene of the biggest dinghy escape attempt. But that baby is lashed down, clipped on, strapped to, and clasped tightly. That sucker is going NOWHERE!


We have 11 days left on the boat. We are heading back through the Keys, and will go up the east coast of Florida to Indian Town. There, Quest will be taken out of the water, and strapped down on 'the hard'. We will have to take all the sails, canvas and most of the rigging off her, to prepare her for the next hurricane season. We will be back after the hurrican season has passed, to take her to the Bahamas.


Here are some more random photos from Key West:

Me showing off my best side, while doing some 'mining' for cold beer in the very bottom of the refridgerator. Boat refridgerators are made to be efficient, NOT convenient.


Linda, Sid, Apryl and Rob at Bo's Fish House in Key West.



I am soooo paintin' my car like this when I get back. And check it out, those bouys on the side are 3 dimentional, baby!

Also coming soon,... Dancing Dolphins and The Bird Nerd Chronicles.

A few assorted photos from the Dry Tortugas

February 28, 2010
Hi 65 Lo 56
Lat/Lon 24 44.0 N, 80 54.0 W

Here are a few pics from the Dry Tortugas, Garden Key and Fort Jefferson.

Fort Jefferson was started in 1846. Construction continued for 30 years. It was never fully completed, and it never saw battle, but it did house over 1,000 soldiers, and was used for a prison for a while too.

The salt air and the sea take a great toll on the bricks, and you can see where the fort is constanly crumbling.

The fort encompasses 17 acres. The architecture is beautiful.

The curved dome you see just beyond Apryl was the powder magazine for the cannons.

There is only one cannon left at the fort, all the others have been removed. This is one of the cannon ports, and some of the cannon balls they used.

The light house was added around 1900. It has been carefully maintained and is still used.

Sid and I ,... and Apryl and Rob,... having evening cocktails on our 'tropical' vacation.

Rob and Apryl ready to do some snorkeling.

Oh, and me too.

The beaches in the Dry Tortugas were absolutely 'chuck a block' with treasures. But because the area is a national monument, collecting was a no-no.

Look at this wonderful little piece,... 3 kinds of coral growing on a rock, with a perfect little shell, intact and open. Soooo cool!

Dry Tortugas is also a bird santuary. Many birds use it as a stop off during migration. It is the breeding ground for the many birds, including the Sooty Tern and the Magnificent Frigatebird, seen here soaring over the fort.

Fort Jefferson from the top of Quest's mast. (While we had Rob here, Sid went up and did the rest of the stuff that needed done up there.)

Here is a picture of Quest, and Sid's kneed, from 54 feet above the water.

Grace Under Fire

February 28, 2010
Lat/Lon 24 44.0 N, 80 54.0 W

Yesterday, we started heading back. east through the Keys. We are nearing the end of this initial shake-down cruise. 11 days left to get up to Indian Town where Quest will spend the summer.

But I still have several stories to tell about our trip to the Dry Tortugas, here is another one.

Grace under fire. I love that term. I guess because it’s something that is/can be very hard to achieve. I believe it to be a fairly rare quality. I doubt I will ever be able to pull it off! But when I see it, I recognize it and greatly admire it.

This is our friend Apryl, aka – 'Grace'. And aside from spelling her own name wrong, she is one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. She has a wonderful sense of humor. She’s eager to try new things. She’s generous, beautiful and incredibly optimistic.

On our way back from the Dry Tortugas, we got into some fairly heavy seas. Ok, that's putting it mildly. 8 of the 10 hours of the trip back to Key West were going head on into 7 to 10 foot swells with deep troughs. Easily the roughest water we’ve been in yet.

We only have three inflatable harnesses on board, so Sid, Rob and I wore those because we were ‘working’ the boat and could be tethered to the boat with them. Apryl got stuck wearing one of the ugly orange life preservers. And because it can’t be tethered to the boat, she had to stay below during the roughest part. She was such a good sport about it.

However, being below made her over heat and become very seasick. Before long, she was stripped down to her little turquoise bikini, spread eagle on the bed, and barfing into a garbage can. jWhen I went below to try to give her some Dramamine, she smiled and apologized for being a wimp! But believe me, Apryl is NO wimp! She wasn't able to keep the dramamine down. She HAD to come up above, which is helpful when seasick. So she put on the ugly orange life preserver, some warmer clothes, and her best smile, and came up to the cockpit to try to feel better.

At this point, a lot of people would have been grumpy, angry, pitiful, and pathetic, not Apryl. Bless her heart, the first thing she did was give us a big smile, and apologize again for ‘being a wimp.’ (I'm tellin' ya, the girl is a stud!) Then she sat there, watched the horizon, which helps, and cracked jokes about the rough water. And all the while, her hair looked cute, her eyes sparkled and she smiled. I told her, with all honesty, I have never seen anybody look so radiant while being that shade of ‘green’. What a trooper!

And the next day, she was not only willing, but enthusiastic about going back out on the ocean to go snorkeling.

Apryl is just the type of person to ‘find the pony in the pile of horse shit’.
You rock, Apryl!

February 24, 2010
Hi 70 Lo 58
Lat/Lon 24 38.3 N, 82 52.4 W (Tortugas)

We’re back from the Dry Tortugas. (In Key West) We were at Garden Key where Fort Jefferson is located. We left Key West on the 19th at first light, and arrived there about 4pm. The trip out was the first time I’ve been completely out of sight of land on something smaller than a massive cruise ship. I though it would freak me out a little, but I was totally cool with it.

The Dry Totugas are an amazing place. It’s a bird-nerds paradise! And if you’re into civil war history, the Fort, and the stories surrounding it, are fantastic! There was also white sandy beaches, easy snorkeling.

The best part is, there were very few people out there. No road or airport, combined with shallow waters, means you can only get here by fairly small boats. So it greatly reduces the traffic. There were only been 2 other boats anchored there most of the time. A few fishing boats come and go, and there is a commercial shuttle catamaran that brings people out for a brief day trip, but that’s about it.

This has really been the highlight of our trip. I’m soooo glad we made it out there. Rob and Apryl are really fun to have along.

That was probably the best Birthday I’ve ever had!

Lots more to say about the Tortugas, and the trip back, but that and photos will have to follow later.

February 18, 2010
Hi 69 Lo 64
Lat/Lon 24 33.3 N, 81 47.0 W

Yesterday, I went up the mast in the boson’s chair to put a new line through a small block on the spreader. Sid put the spare halyard on a winch and winched me up!

I always wanted to be a trapeze artist, one of those pretty ladies with the fancy sparkly costumes. Well, I never quite made it to the circus, but this felt pretty close! It was so cool! The view was lovely. It got a little spooky when a boat when by and the wake caused Quest to rock. I did some real swinging! Yeehaw! Actually, I had a death grip on the stanchions that hold the mast in place, so I really wasn’t going too far!

I didn’t go all the way to the top of the mast this time, only to the spreader which you see above me in the photo. But I will need to go all the way up at some point. We need to replace the colored light at the very top of the mast to a white one. Colored is for being underway at night, which we don’t do much. The white one signifies that you are anchored out, which we do a lot.

Our friends Rob and Apryl are here. They’re our neighbors in Anacortes. Great people, very fun!. We’re excited to have them here on the boat.

Tomorrow, we are going to the Dry Tortugas. We have a good weather window, so now’s the time. The next few days are all supposed to be in the 70’s. Yipppeeee!!!

We probably won’t have internet access until we get back from the Tortugas. But when we get back, I’ll try to go in to town to access WiFi, so that I can post lots of pictures.

<--- See my little tiny Bo dog down there? He had his first birthday yesterday! He's not zero anymore! Now he's 1! No more puppy chow for the DUDE!

Looe Key is fantastic!

February 15, 2010
SUNNY! WARM!
Hi 74 Lo 54
Lat/Lon 24 32.9 N, 81 24.4 W

Yipeeee! A sunny day! Today, we spent a couple of hours at Bahia State Park and enjoyed some beach time. Sean and I did a little snorkeling there. I wore my wet suit because, no, the water is not warm here. Especially when the air is 68 to 70 degrees, the wind is blowing 20 knots. (We are too far away from the Gulf Stream. So the water is about 68 here. )
After a couple of hours at Bahia Honda, we went out to Looe Key, which is supposed to be really good snorkeling. It’s right on the reef. No land there, just a tiny bit of reef that sits above the surface, and a whole bunch of reef that sits below. It’s closer to the Gulf Stream, so the water is a few degrees warmer.

W.O.W. !!! Looe Key was fantastic! We had a beautiful, sunny day, and the water was soooo clear! Great visibility!

You can’t imagine how many fish there were! Lots of different species and varieties! And fan coral and brain coral. We all had such a great time. Sid and Diane wore wet suit jackets, but Sean and I just wore our swimsuits. We would have loved to stay there all day, but we had to get back to an anchorage before dark. I'm fairly sure we'll be back at some point before we leave for the season.

We didn’t get much in the way of photos at Looe Key because we were all in the water, and that dumb dog doesn’t know how to use a camera! I did take a couple from the deck of the boat. Look at those fish! That's just off the deck, you can imagine what it was like down under the surface!


Sean and Diane are leaving early in the morning. We hate to see them go. They have been such fun to have here. Sean is an awesome deck hand! And Diane is just the funniest person ever! I have really enjoyed getting to know Sid’s kids better.


Note: I'm not able to post many pictures because my internet is 'dial up' and it takes about 15 minutes per photo to download. (Which can easily make it take over an hour to do 1 post.) If I ever get to REAL internet access again, I'll try to post a whole bunch of photos.

Renaming Ceremony for Quest

February 14, 2010
Lat/Lon 24 40.0 N, 81 15.8 W


Last night we did the renaming ceremony for Quest.


Sailing lore says that it’s bad luck to rename a vessel without making a proper sacrifice to Nepture, God of the Sea. (Maybe that’s why we’ve had such crappy weather!) So last night, just before sunset, we did it.

I wrote a little poem (which specifically asks Nepture for better weather), and Sid broke a bottle of Champaign on Quest’s bow. Sean and Diane took pictures.


'Kristina' served her owners well,
But in a different way.
She now takes on a whole new task.
That journey starts today.

She’ll take us all across these seas,
Exploring far and wide.
She’ll carry us all safely.
We’ll care for her with pride.

We now ask good King Neptune,
Lord of all the Seas,
For sunshine and nice weather,
Safe passage and good breeze.

So we and this fine vessel,
Pledge to share our very best.
And for her new identity,
We give the name of “Quest”.



Then the four of us shared another bottle of champaign.



This was the resulting response:

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight."