Haulout!

This post will be fairly short - it's about something that's done so frequently that most of the terror is gone for veteran boat owners. Still, as your home comes out of the water on a couple of spindly looking straps...

As you know, I was at Indiantown Marina just about 25 miles west of the St. Lucie Inlet on the Okeechobee Waterway. It's run by Scott and Raquel Watson -who, in addition to being very boater friendly, look like movie stars.

They run a green marina - there's no working on boats in the storage area and in the work area they provide plastic sheets to catch all the detritus that comes off the boats during repairs. They require vacuum sanders and grinders and that you sweep up your plastic every day. They recycle antifreeze and oil in an simple and clean way. General rules are posted and they are clear, obvious and as non-officious as possible.

The staff is all very pleasant - the yard guys are friendly and helpful and the office staff take the time to talk if they're not running to catch a boat or some other service.

All in all, if you're in the area and need a haul, their Travelift is a 50 tonne lift. (Tonne = 2000 kg) If you live on your boat, they provide water and pump outs while in the work yard.

From their brochure:

Indiantown Marina is one of Florida's largest dry storage facilities located on the Okeechobee Waterway in Indiantown, Florida.

With access to both coasts and 20 miles inland we are considered one of Florida's best hurricane holes.

We have the capacity to store over 500 boats on land and a 40 wet slip marina.

We are a full service marine repair facility and a do-it-yourself boat yard.

Ok, so now you know about the yard. Here's the haulout story.

I had arrived on Friday evening and scheduled my haul for Monday. Get this: because I didn't get hauled until late Friday, they charged me the in-water fee for the day which was less than the work yard daily rate. Imagine that!

It turned out that the wind was a help getting me to the Travelift well and I backed down there like a pro. I didn't terrify even one other boater! As you know, backing up with Pelican is more or less random.

I'm leaving the images their normal size so you don't have to download them to get a good look. Here, the wind is from the port side gently blowing me towards the dock like I know what I'm doing.

The crew gently moves Pelican into the well where the straps have already been lowered - I had put strap markers on the cove strip (the one near the caprail) so that the operator knows where to put them - in addition, I have a drawing of Pelican that I showed the operator so he could confirm my placement.

Never rush the operator. Make sure they know what you're thinking and where the straps should go. Make sure you know where they should go. There is so much damage than can be done lifting the boat incorrectly that it's worth the extra effort. As it turns out, the straps go directly below both masts on Pelican. That's just to easy!

Once out of the water, I had the marina power wash the bottom of Pelican. I knew the paint wasn't in bad condition and no sanding would be needed.

This costs a reasonable $1.75 per foot and the wash water is collected so the toxic paint that comes off doesn't go into the water.

Finally, after the wash and a fairly long ride to the work area, Pelican is blocked for painting, waxing and other stuff. If you'll notice, though, there's 13 stands holding up Pelican. Can you imagine? Usually, if there's 7 that's a lot. Notice the stand under the area between the prop and rudder - it's to keep weight off the back of the keel that isn't too strong.

This is the first haul I didn't have to take the headstay off! Just dropped the mizzen boom. Wow, that makes life much easier.

What do you do in a short haul? The obvious, painting and waxing of course - then the not so obvious. Work and lubricate or repair/replace all your through-hulls. Check the propeller shaft and rudder shaft packing. Adjust or repack as necessary. It's a good time to check and fix any dings in the hull. ( I had one from the trip to Marathon where for some reason I believed I could get through five feet of water for several miles. I mostly could except for that one rock.)

Anything that needs to be done out of the water should be done now. But I've covered the basics. The first thing I did was wash the hull with hull cleaner (which is basically oxalic acid with soap) that removes the brownish stains. Then I taped the waterline. Finally, I painted the bottom and while one coat was drying I waxed the topsides.

Then back to the painting, back to the waxing, etc., etc.

Because the days are getting longer, there was more time to work. After two days I had multiple coats on the bottom (at least two and three around the waterline and at high wear points like the bow and front of the skeg). I asked the marina to move the stands so I could do where they had been (the marina specifically states in their rules that they will move jack stands) and in a few minutes up they came to do it. Wow!

The last day out, I finished the waxing with a couple of coats near the waterline and high wear areas (bow, transom). Included here are the before and after pictures - I sure hope you can see the difference!

I do know you'll be able to see how nice the bottom looks!

After this, I got dropped back into the water and took the afternoon to make sure the rudder packing was no longer leaking and that the boat wasn't going to sink any time soon. There were some other little maintenance items so I took care of them.

I filled up with fuel and the next morning I was on my way - just a week in the yard and I'm ready for the year. Woohoo!

Up next, Vero Beach!

See you on the water!

Cape Coral to Indiantown FL

I really hated to leave Cape Coral. I could make a life there - although I'm sure summer would put me off pretty quickly with the heat and mosquitos that are for all practical purposes armored. But when the weather is just warm and sunny Cape Coral beckons pretty strongly.

But I did. I pulled myself away. I managed it. Dropping the lines for the last time was hard.

Traveling up the Caloosahatchee River wasn't very exciting except for the locks which were interesting. I've been in the lock at Great Bridge, VA, which is about a one foot drop either way depending on wind, current, and rain. There are three locks to Lake Okeechobee from the Gulf of Mexico - Ortona Lock up a couple of feet, Moore Haven Lock up about 4 feet, and the Port Mayaca Lock up about a foot.

The first, Ortona, is just a few miles east of La Belle on the Caloosahatchee. Traversing the whole waterway is special in that first, there are cities, then towns, then orange groves and dairy farms and then just a few housing developments, and finally the lake. The lock operators are friendly, helpful, and kind - I'm sure they've seen it all and yet exude patience and good humor. Moreover, they're versed in the waters up and downstream of their lock.

Locking through takes about 10 minutes once you've gotten the green light, meaning your doors are open. Apparently, there's been some money spent recently on the Waterway's locks smoothing the concrete walls. Additionally, there are lines provided on the lock walls for boaters so that they don't have to struggle. This is a good thing because the lock walls are very high, generally and it's not easy to reach the cleats, especially if single handing.

You can see from the pictures that it's not that exciting - I suppose if the drop or raise was significant, it might be more so, but the operators do everything they can to prevent boats from banging around and skittering all over. In the case of the Ortona Lock, I was the only one locking through. They open on demand from 6:00 am until 9:30 pm and at all other times with a three hour notice.

By the time it got late, I stopped in Moore Haven at the Beach House Marina. No sooner had I arrived with the help of Linda who apparently runs the place then the next door neighbors Dan and Diane aboard Fitzcat stopped by and asked if I needed anything in town. The marina supplies golf carts for doing business. Very friendly - true, it's a face dock only a few hundred feet long, but there's a nice bathroom with shower, free ice (as much as you want), and the aforementioned golf carts.

In addition, Linda will come running out with an air horn every time a boat comes by throwing a wake - it's a no wake zone per the Coast Guard.

A little later, the Fitzes came by again and asked if I wanted some Mexican food - well, I sure did. There's a little nondescript luncheonette kind of place (although that gives it much more atmosphere than it really had) on the road to Moore Haven (which in itself is about two blocks long).

The food was rumored to be good, and it sure was - very tasty! And very inexpensive. And cooked to order - I wanted mine without bell peppers and Diane wanted hers without jalapeño peppers. No problems! I'd recommend the name except it just had 'Mexican Food' out front. I can tell you it's on the east side of the highway, if that helps.

Here's a funny little thing about the Beach House Marina: payment's on the honor system. Really - on one dock entrance there's a box with envelopes to put a check or cash into and on the other a stainless lock box to drop it into. For a dollar per foot per night you get everything mentioned above plus electricity and water. A deal - and a place to stay before doing the lake.

You can do the whole waterway in two days even in a sailboat. But you either have to stop before or after the lake. It had been a long 10 hour day for me and I decided before rather than after.

Because I was early for Indiantown, I stayed one more day and one more bag of ice in Moore Haven. I went up the main mast to remove all the gear up there so that I could get under the Port Mayaca Rail Lift Bridge which was about 49 feet. Now, my cousin Joe and I had measured the mast at 48 feet in Ft. Pierce, but you know, we could have been wrong. Better to be conservative, I think.

The Fitzes and I had cocktails with their dog Fitzie and that pretty much took care of dinner. We planned the next day's schedule, and decided to leave just after daybreak. Dan and Diane wanted to get to Stuart before stopping for the day.

We all left just after sunrise the next morning and were into the Moore Haven lock in a few minutes. We got out just after 8 am, and off to Clewiston we went. The wind was perfect for sailing the lake, but we had to motor into it to get to the channel out there.

I made a left into the channel around 10 am and set sail for Port Mayaca! Whew! Engine finally off. We sailed very nicely until around noon when the forecasted 20 knot winds died. Well, what do you know about that? Big surprise. Because we had a place to get to and theirs was farther than mine, we decided to do the iron genny thing and off we went.

Sadly, about a half hour later I noticed the engine getting hotter - not quite overheating, but hot. Then it started to overheat. So I stopped it and at the hottest point of the day I had to work lying on top of an overheated engine to replace the water pump and clean the heat exchanger. I was losing gallons of water in sweat! You can bet there was a string of words being had by me that day! But Fitzcat stayed by for the hour or so it took to get it all straightened out.

We made the Port Mayaca Lock around 1:30 pm or so, and waited for about 15 minutes for a lock through. After the lock, there's the train bridge I was really worried about - as bad as it is hitting the keel hard, it's much worse hitting the top of the mast. Interestingly enough, it looks just as bad going through a 75 foot bridge as it does in a 49 foot bridge. Who'd have thought?



It's only about 12 miles from the lock to Indiantown Marina, my destination for the night. Fitzcat had to make it to Stuart before stopping, about another 15 miles and a lock. With fond farewells, we parted ways - we'll probably meet again on the way up to the Carolinas.

Because I going to get there late Friday after they stopped hauling, I had scheduled a haulout on Monday. As soon as I got myself together, I called my friends Lee and Karen who said they'd come up Sunday for a visit - they're in Vero Beach waiting for their mast to be finished.

I met Drew and Shelley on the dock - a couple of young uns living the dream. They were getting their boat ready for sale and leaving for Washington State to pick up a new boat to sail to the Pacific Islands! Good for them!

Anyway more about this adventure with the next post: Haulout!

See you on the water!