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Viking

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by Viking

  1. 12 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

    BTW I blew my main along the leech at the first reef point.  I think it can be repaired.  Replaced the Genoa a couple of years ago, and the main is otherwise in decent shape.  But it’s always something on this motherfucker.

    That sucks. Will you be able to sail back with the 2nd reef in?

  2. On 5/16/2020 at 9:55 PM, Sbbruin said:

    Came down to prep for the first open weekend at Catalina next weekend.  Had a great zoom call with some high school buds, and now chilling on my favorite place ever, my boat.

    I saw the news that Catalina was open for bidness and thought of you instantly hauling ass tothe marina and prepping the boat to go.

    • Like 1
  3. On 5/2/2020 at 7:16 PM, Sbbruin said:

    That is such a sweet rig.  You mentioned it before, but what is it again?  What engines does it have?  Do you keep the RIB on the davits on passages?  How’s the lady like it?  Very jelly.

    I let the wife pick the boat to improve my cruising odds. She went to Florida to meet a broker and got on a handful of cats in our price & size range and she eliminated most of them pretty quickly. It's a Manta 42 with Volvo Penta MD2030Ds.

    The dinghy stays on the davits during passages. There are four lines that hold it into place: 2 on 6:1 blocks hold it up and 2 on 2:1 blocks that hold it tight to the back. This is one of the things that we love about our boat (and cats in general) is that it's super easy to get the dinghy up so we do so every night at anchor. It takes just a couple of minutes to hoist it.

    • Like 1
  4. 18 hours ago, HOOKEM4 said:

    481f8db5caf948cccefb42f6e1564602.jpg

    Nice boat. When we're done with cruising I'd love something this size just to be able to get out on the water somewhat  easily.

    After we got back to Florida we cleaned the boat (unlimited freshwater... a luxury!), mostly hurricane prepped it, and are now back in Texas for a few months. After a week away my wife and I are both jonesing to get back out on the water. She even had a dream last night about dropping the mainsail and it flaking perfectly. 🤣

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    • Like 7
  5. 56 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

    When you say you "rested" one night, where?  Not hove to, right?  

    We dropped the hook west of Boot Key where a dozen other boats were anchored.

    Funny you mention hoving to because the next night we tried to figure out how to do just that.  We were heading directly into a 12kt wind in Florida Bay. Night came and we could no longer motor since there's a god damn fucking ass ton of crab pots in SW Florida. We'd tried a few things to stop our motion without success and finaly just deployed the jib and slowly sailed perpendicular to the wind until it shifted. I need to figure out how to hove to in a cat.

    • Like 1
  6. We left Samana, DR to head back to Florida on Monday. The Bahamas is closed to transiting boats so legally our route had to be around the Bahamas on the north or south side. I was tempted to cut through the middle and take my chances (its huge with limited naval resources, so 99% chance I'd go undetected) but eventually decided on the south route. Trip was 6 days, 900 miles from DR to Marathon where we rested 1 night and then another 150 up to Charlotte Harbor FL.

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    No idea what are options are for next year. I worry that even if countries are open what the reception will be like. Our current thoughts are that if the Bahamas is open by November that we'll head there for next season and spend 6 months there and then maybe 6 months in the US and Canada northeast (Nova Scotia, Maine, Chesapeake, etc)

    • Like 6
  7. 2 hours ago, Lat22 said:

    My brother in law in Florida says they’ve shut down all of the fueling stations at marinas. I think his Jupiter holds over 300 gallons. That’s a shitload of 5 gallon cans. 

    I just fueled up in Marathon and heard that other marinas along the keys are open. The dockhands are being cautious: they spray the fuel handle with disinfectant and tell you to stay on your boat.

  8. On 4/1/2020 at 5:38 PM, Sbbruin said:

    Cruisers right now are actually kind of screwed.  Most of the island nations/territories have closed themselves off to visitors.  No visas issued.  The advisory is if you haven't departed the west coast, don't go.  And if you are already out there, there are few places that will allow you enter.  @Viking I think is contemplating leaving Florida for the Caribbean and probably can't right now.

    Our primary destination, Catalina Island, is closed to outside boaters, and any non-residents.  So we are stuck.  

    Yup. Just about everywhere is closed to foreign boaters. We've heard some nightmares: eg people crossing the Pacific being denied entry. You can't blame the Islanders: if they don't have Corona then why take the risk?

    Even islands that you should have rights to enter are finding ways to deny entry. We have friends, US citizens, that are harassed in Puerto Rico. They were allowed entry (since that is controlled by US Border Patrol) but the governor of PR closed all marinas and the cops harass you when you anchor. They finally had to move to the USVIs. One of the few places that is still open and accommodating to cruisers that have no other options.

    We're personally looking to get off the boat until the Bahamas opens up... Hopefully in November.

    • Like 2
  9. if you're wanting stimulus then there's no better group to give money to than a boat owner. Give me 100k and I'll put riggers, electricians, mechanics, fiberglassers, painters, etc, etc to work instantly.

    I'm still in Samana planning how to get back to mainland US by boat in the next month or two. 5 or 6 boats left here a day ago heading to PR with plans on Grenada. That was our plan but it just seems too hopeful and risky. I don't see ports opening up to outsiders for awhile. Hope I'm wrong and shit gets better.

    • Like 2
  10. 8 hours ago, Auto Driller said:

    This is how you know the market is rational.

    They have > 50% (?) of their locations closed, maaaaybe 20% occupancy worldwide, presumably going to fire 70% or more of their employees.

     

    BUY BUY BUY

    That's all been priced in. Now it's a growth stock.

  11. 4 hours ago, ChiTownDoc said:

    Oh I’ve worked small town hospitals back in another life.  Those people are fucked on a whole other level.  Less beds per capita, almost zero truly capable intensivists - anything serious gets sent to the big city.  Well, we have never had a situation in modern times with zero big city hospital capacity.  Shitshow guaranteed.  
     

    These places may have one respirator and almost a guarantee they have no idea how to use it properly.  It’s no surprise much of the opioid crisis took hold through very rural docs - some of whom I worked under in Med school - mandatory rural rotations.  The cute pharma girl could get those yokels to do anything.  At least in the city you would be looked at funny by colleagues.  You get rural enough there’s not too many colleagues who aren’t your drinking buddies/family etc.  And many are great docs when they start but it’s tough to stay on your toes practicing out there   Why are anesthesiologists the number one drug abusers?   They’re not drug addicts by nature just as rural docs aren’t shitty docs by nature,  just a product of their environment.  
     

    (anesthesiologists have access to the good stuff. And literally have to be around it all day.)

     

    Ayup. My wife is from rural Kansas and her family has suffered from the really shitty doctors there. She's learned that the best doctor in town is the vet and if you want good care you need to go to Dallas.

    • Like 1
  12. 23 hours ago, G650 said:

    Over top of the Berrys. Was really sloppy rounding top of Eleuthera past Spanish wells.

    How many hours did the trip take you? When you wrote 200 miles I started thinking like a cruiser and figuring out how many days that'd take. But you're in a Ferrari vs my VW bus. Badass boat by the way... I need to figure a way to cross paths so I can bum a ride. Are you keeping it in S FL for awhile or taking it up to the lakes?

    • Like 1
  13. I've been meaning to post some pics of the boat but I got my phone wet and dead shortly after we got to Staniel Cay and it took 6 weeks until I could get a replacement in George Town. We left GT the day after my phone finally cleared customs (which was a total clusterfuck) and then took off to the DR on half a weather window. The first half from GT to Turks and Caicos was glorious down hill sailing.. 15 knots at 120deg and 3ft waves. The second half was shit. The wind increased to 25 gusting 30 and the waves and swell grew to 6-10ft and it was on our beam for 36 hours.

    The boat is a 2004 Manta 42, built in St Petesburg FL.

    This is at Water Cay in the Raggeds. After 2 weeks in George Town my wife and I needed a break and found it here. There were no other cruising boats for the 5 days we were there.

    FzUX4Tk.jpg

    Here's where we are currently in Samana, DR. The boat looks small but that's a 70' monohull on the right that belongs to a boarding school in RI and a 65' Bertram on the left.

    KTPdWY5.jpg

     

    • Like 2
  14. On 1/10/2020 at 9:20 AM, davidg said:

    Did we ever get a set of pics of your boat? What are your plans now?

    Not yet. I've got a bunch of pics taken while on the boat but very few of the boat. I'll try to get some at anchor. Maybe we'll do some MOB drills and I'll get some of the boat under sail. 😁

    Our plans are *breathes deep* to get to Grenada by June which is the start of huricane season. It's going to be a bitch though since we're going against the trades until we get to the Virgin Islands.

    On 1/10/2020 at 10:20 AM, Chewbacca said:
    On 1/10/2020 at 7:04 AM, Viking said:
    I finally got the boat "ready", quit my job, and pushed off the dock for good a week before Christmas. We were trapped in the Fort Myers area for a week while a system spun around but Christmas day brought us a N wind that we used to get to the keys. We've been moving fast ever since trying to get to the exumas. We generally sail a day for 6-10 hours and then take the next day off.
    N5xpA6Q.png
    We're currently anchored off Highbourne Cay where the Christmas trades are in full force. Winds E at 25 gusting 33 all day and night for 3-5 days straight.
    WC0LARx.jpg
     
     

    Read more  

    Might need a new thread to document your travels.

    There's a thread for boat retirement/sabbatical but I'd be the only one posting to it. I dunno if my ego is big enough to have my own surly thread.

    On 1/10/2020 at 12:49 PM, G650 said:

    Heading to Staniel Cay?

    We'll prob hit staniel cay on the way down to Georgetown. Been there? Any recs? We know little about the exumas except what is in the explorer charts.

  15. I finally got the boat "ready", quit my job, and pushed off the dock for good a week before Christmas. We were trapped in the Fort Myers area for a week while a system spun around but Christmas day brought us a N wind that we used to get to the keys. We've been moving fast ever since trying to get to the exumas. We generally sail a day for 6-10 hours and then take the next day off.

    spacer.png

    We're currently anchored off Highbourne Cay where the Christmas trades are in full force. Winds E at 25 gusting 33 all day and night for 3-5 days straight.

    spacer.png

     

     

    • Like 7
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