Miami Boat Show

Chris, Park and I enjoyed a quick trip down to Miami to attend the Miami Boat show. ECSA folks were there courtesy of the fun bus. We didn't get tickets in time, so we had to drive down ourselves. We went in search of a new dingy, but had no luck in that regard. We did, however, get to tour a brand new version of our boat, a 2006 Caliber LRC 40 named Transylvania. On our way to look at it, we overheard a gentleman excitingly exclaim to his wife, "Now we are going to get to see the Hummer of boats" as he sprinted towards the Caliber. Chris and I looked at one another and giggled. Now of course ours is a 1990 - not a 2006, but as someone once told me, it is better to own a used rolex than a brand new timex.

Delivery - part 2: Titusville to Merritt Island

We lounged around a bit in the marina in the morning, sipped our coffee and watched the morning weather forecasts. It was hard to bring ourselves to unplug the boat from its heat source. Outside it was windy (20 - 25k NW) and cold (40 degrees). Inside it was quite cozy with our hatchboards in and central heat cranking at 76 degrees. We leisurely prepared for a 9:30 cast off. We left the slip without incident and headed south down the river. We had 3 draw bridges to hail and the first two were on call, so there was no waiting for them. This is familiar water for us, so except for the bitter cold, it was smooth sailing (ummm, make that smooth motoring.) Even though the winds were no longer on the nose and we could have sailed - we didn't because it was so dang cold. I told Chris I was afraid my fingers would snap off if I had to handle sail lines. We cuddled together on the long captains seat (that we refer to as the love seat), dressed in 4 layers of clothes, and shivered. I made a hot water bag that I put in my pocket for extra warmth. When we arrived at the barge canal entrance to our marina, we were too late for the opening (it only opens on the 1/2 hour) and had to wait for the next opening. We tried to keep the boat in idle to wait out the 30 minutes, but the NW wind pushed us down the barge canal at 4.5 knots. By keeping the motor in reverse we were able to keep the boat at only 1-2 knots forward speed! It was a long 30 minutes, but finally we were through the State Road 3 bridge and on the home stretch to our marina. By the time we entered the marina, we had a 25 knot cross wind. Our attempt to back in the slip despite the significant cross wind was less than pretty. Fortunately, several of our dock neighbors were out and came over to lend a hand. The water in the marina was down about 1 foot due to the NW winds and we had to drag LaLeLu in across the silty bottom. Not the entrance we had envisioned - but none the less, we were very relieved and happy to have her in her new home.

Bringing LaLeLu Home to Merritt Island - Day 1

Let me start by saying, this trip made me realize that I do not have a career as a delivery skipper in my future. I have never been so cold and miserable in my life. It all started very well. We got to Halifax Marina early Friday afternoon. It was a nice, calm sunny day. We uneventfully unloaded 10+ totes full of boat stuff onto LaLeLu, and she swallowed it up and had room to spare. The prior owner, Les, came over and showed us how to work various things, and gave us some extra canvas, sails, etc. that went with the boat. He and his wife were staying over on their new boat in another slip in the marina and he planned to come over and help untie us at our scheduled 8a departure. We were up at 6:00 am Saturday and after listening to dire NOAA weather predictions, decided to leave a little earlier in an attempt to make the 50 kmile journey to Titusville Municipal Marina before the squalls hit. We headed out of Halifax at about 7:30 am and Les was on his dock waiving good bye to us. (Later that evening he told Chris it was very hard for him to watch his boat sail away). The first half of the day we had mild weather with winds dead on the nose about 15-20 knots. We motored all the way. We had one soft grounding (ok, it was really two groundings, but since it was in the same spot we only think of it as one) inside the main channel of the ICW @ red mm 34 just past the Coronado Beach draw bridge. We were on a falling tide and concerned about being stuck there for several hours while the tide came back in. In a bit of a panic, we hailed SeaTow, who quoted us $680 to pull us loose. That quote gave us the incentive we needed to wiggle her off. From there on out the water was very skinny. We hand steered almost all the way to masquito lagoon with depths hovering around 7' (we draw 5'). It was such a relief to get to the lagoon where the depth averaged about 9'. We got to Haulover canal at about 3:00 pm. As we went through the canal, we saw a wall of squalls coming at us. The wind had steadily increased throughout the day and by this time we had 25 knots steady. When the squall line hit us we got gusts up to 38 knots and blinding rain. LaLeLu took it in stride and brought us safely to the marina by about 5:00 pm. We plugged into the power and enjoyed a nice, toasty evening aboard playing Yatzee and watching TV.

What's in a name?

2/9/06: This has been a long and stressful week - tomorrow we close on the purchase of our beautiful new boat. She is a 1990 Caliber 38. I never thought that we would own such a magnificent vessel. Her name presently is Semper Fi. Her current owner, Les, is a marine (you probably guessed that) and was visibly relieved to hear that we were not keeping her current name since he already was using it for the new boat. In the past, we have always named our boats after songs: Jolly Mon, Cool Change. But this boat is different and we knew we had to come up with something very befitting of her. Her lines are refined and she is quite unassuming. A masculine name definitely would not do. Chris and I both really liked the name Lullaby, but after learning of the unfortunate sinking of a similarly named Gozzard, we decided to pass on that name. Too many other omens to worry about out there - didn't need to add another to the list. In keeping with the Lullaby theme, I Googled for "German Lullaby" seeing as how our German heritage runs strong in both of our lines. The Google search led me to "La Le Lu" - the title of a German lullaby about the man on the moon watching over baby. Seemed appropriate enough. We gave it the VHF hail test (ie "This is sailing vessel LaLeLu, sailing vessel LaLeLu, over"), to confirm that it would be acceptable in practical application, and agreed it would do just fine. Below are the lyrics to our boat's name sake:

La Le Lu
Only the man in the moon is looking
When the little babies sleep
So go to sleep, too.
La Le Lu
Two shoes are in front of the bed
And they are exactly as tired
Baby, as you.
Then comes the Sandman
He walks quietly in the house
Giving out his dreams
The most beautiful to you.
La Le Lu
Only the man in the moon is looking
When the little babies sleep
So go to sleep, too.