The crew of Ma’alahi is alive and well, although quite road-weary. After leaving Ma’alahi on the hard at Glades Boat Storage in Florida, we’ve driven to San Antonio, then Dallas, Arkansas, back to Dallas, to Houston, back to San Antonio, Dallas AND THEN back to Florida, San Antonio, Dallas and now … Denver. The return to Florida was a real quick one, just to collect more of our stuff off the boat and make sure she’s enjoying her Florida vacation. We’re happy to report that all was well. 
Upon our return to Texas we picked up our 34 ft. travel trailer where it was being serviced after sitting on the hard itself for the past 3 years. We added new tires, brakes, wheel bearings, water heater, toilet, faucet and my favorite … refrigerator. It’s just like owning another boat! We then pulled it up to Dallas (where we had more of our stuff stored) and began moving in. Tuesday morning we began a 2-day passage and arrived in the Denver area yesterday afternoon. Here we’ll visit my mom and dad for awhile and then I’ll start work at a job that I think I have in Denver (a phone call later today should confirm or deny that rumor). So, yeah, we’re gonna try something new for awhile, but just as with the boat we’ll still be mobile and when we decide we’ve had enough we’ll migrate again. When we think we’ve made enough money we’ll go back to the boat and begin the repairs on her with a goal of getting back to the Caribbean and taking off these shoes!
Category Archives: Florida
Ma’alahi Survives End of Cruising
It’s over so quickly! I’m sitting in Floresville, Texas. It’s 100 degrees outside. MA’ALAHI sits on the hard in a cow pasture 11 miles west of Lake Okeechobee, Florida. We own a truck and a cell phone. Went to get my Texas driver’s license renewed … they had to have my social security CARD, which is on the boat, found an old 1099 form in storage which eventually sufficed. BEING BACK SUCKS!!
We arrived in Florida at the end of June, then with only 30 miles to our final destination, we received a glancing blow from lightning that took out our autopilot, radar, inverter/charger, battery monitor, solar panel regulator, antenna tuner, PACTOR modem and stereo. At first I thought it had also taken the ham radio, but when I unplugged the PACTOR modem the radio was working fine. And now that we finally got the boat hauled and safely into dry storage and we successfully made the drive to Texas, we are very relieved that we came out as good as we did … it could have been a heck of a lot worse! At the time of the storm we were motoring up the Caloosahatchee River right at downtown Fort Myers, negotiating the narrow channel on a Sunday afternoon, very crowded with all manner of pleasure boats and holding our breath as we maneuvered under the 55-foot bridges with our 53-foot tall mast! We had made it under the first bridge okay, before the storm, but then the blinding rain and 50-knot winds hit us and we couldn’t see the channel markers or the bridges or the other boats until we were right on top of them. There was close lightning all around but at the time it was the least of my concerns. We got just a little visibility back right at the entrance to the next bridge and we stayed in the middle of the channel but the wind waves were lifting us and I really feared we’d crunch the bridge. Just as we exited the highway 41 bridge it got hit by lightning and we got hit with a ricochet. The first thing I noticed was that the depth sounder was off, then the autopilot and gps. Then I smelled burning wire insulation and was afraid we had a fire but I couldn’t find any and the smell slowly dissipated. We continued on to our anchorage where I discovered the good news and the bad. The good was that the depth sounder, gps and radio came out undamaged and that there had not been a fire. The bad news, other than the equipment that is damaged, and scary thing was that the VHF antenna was gone! Apparently we did hit that last bridge and it snapped off the antenna which takes up the 52nd and 53rd feet of our mast. Anyway, we haven’t been able to do radio email since then and so our new address for the time being is this HOTMAIL account. Please keep us posted on your travels while we try to figure out how we can cope with being back in this dreadful place!
Will update again soon.
David and Claudia
Back in the USA
Greetings from Marathon, Florida! We left Nassau, Bahamas, Monday morning and after 45 hours and a slow, rough Gulf Stream crossing we put the anchor down outside Boot Key Harbor at Marathon to await the high tide that will take us across Florida Bay and into the Gulf of Mexico then on up to Fort Myers Beach. However, the weather forecast didn’t sound that great and we needed time to take the mainsail off and put up the old spare due to some minor damage coming across, so we stayed another night and will leave this afternoon at high tide instead, unless these thunderstorms don’t clear out this morning like they’re supposed to, then we’ll just stay here until it clears up. Once we do leave it should take us about 24 hours to reach the Fort Myers Beach anchorage then we’ll get busy finding a place to leave the boat for awhile. That’s all for now, see you soon.
David and Claudia
aboard MA’ALAHI
The Florida Keys
We’re still at Boot Key Harbor waiting for the arrival of our forwarded mail. We’ve got our route to the Bahamas planned and will head out after our mail and a favorable forecast arrives.
As it turned out, we were put back in the water a bit too soon after our haul out to re-bed the rudder post’s packing gland. The caulk hadn’t cured and we continued to have a small leak. The yard hauled us again and re-did the job, leaving us in the travel lift overnight (not a new experience; we got to do that in Lake Charles when the cutlass bearing was replaced) with heat lamps on the work to expedite the cure. We must have bonded well with the guys at the shipyard. Before we left, they brought us some shark and grouper fillets. John even gave us a recipe for the shark. We tried that out our first night here and it was GREAT! Claudia is fixing the grouper tonight with a recipe out of the Bahamas Cruising Guide.
While at Ft. Myers, I had a local autopilot guru, Heinz Buhrig of Heinz AutoPilots, Inc., come and evaluate our installation since we’d had it redone. Along with his blessing, he gave us the latest software upgrade (no charge because we’re still under warranty). Wednesday, after recalibrating its electronic compass and other sea trial settings, we were on our way to Key West, 102 nautical miles due south. Seas were 1-2 feet (good news), winds were calm, 5-10 knots (bad news) and were from the northwest (just wish there was more of it) so we motor-sailed, making very good time. At 0320 next morning, the northeast wind picked up just a bit so we shut down the engine to slow down enough to make landfall after sunup. It is still so cool to watch the GPS (Millie) and autopilot (Otto) work their magic, bringing us up to the northwest channel buoy waypoint and then rounding it to make our next waypoint.
As mentioned previously, since we arrived at Key West so early, since we’ve “done” Key West before and since the anchorage didn’t look that protected, we decided to continue on to Boot Key. I programmed in the new waypoints and we changed course. We never touched the wheel until we got to the Boot Key Harbor channel markers (156 nautical miles, 11 waypoints later).
Maybe it’s because we’ve been through so much just getting here, but this place seems to have been maligned. We’ve read and heard how over-crowded and polluted this place is but we haven’t seen that. The cruising boats far, far outnumber the derelict boats. We found a great spot to anchor and the water is the best we’ve parked in yet. By the way, the weather is perfect. While dinghy-ing around, we found some manatees. Took pictures, petted them and gave them fresh water to drink. Never did that in Kemah! We paid $15 to a local marina (Sombrero Marina) for a week’s dinghy docking privileges which includes trash disposal, bike racks and receiving mail. It’s walking distance to Publix grocery, K-Mart, Eckerd’s and Home Depot. We’ll be ready to go when our mail gets here, but it’s a nice place to have to wait for it!
See you in the Bahamas,
David and Claudia
Now We’re Cruising
Greetings from Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida. We left Ft. Myers Beach Wednesday morning and headed for Key West. We arrived at Key West about 7:45 AM and decided we didn’t need anything in Key West so we changed course and made it on down to Marathon. We secured the anchors at 3:30 PM this afternoon in Boot Key Harbor. We’ll wait for good weather and head to the Bahamas from here. More later, after I’ve had some sleep and can compose the details.
David and Claudia
Dry Tortugas
Well, I thought we’d be sending this message from the Dry Tortugas, but once again we’ve maintained our flexibility and rolled with the punches. When we left Sarasota we headed down to Venice which was only 15 miles away. The offshore forecast had seas 5-7 feet so we decided to give it one more day and we continued down to Boca Grande. We anchored off of Useppa Island in Pine Island Sound (thanks for the tip, Raf). When we arrived, there was a sailboat hard aground trying to kedge off. Another cruiser had gone over in their dingy to help but to no avail, so we lowered ours and headed over to lend a hand. They were very glad to see our 15hp which did help make the difference and they were soon back in deep water. Since we had the dingy down we took off after the many dolphins swimming and feeding in the area. This appears to be a very beautiful cruising area and I’m sure we saw just a glimpse of what exists. I’d recommend a boat with a much shallower draft and no masts to really cruise Florida’s west coast.
Anyway, we were off early the next morning, another perfect sailing day, heading for the Dry Tortugas 122 miles to the SSE. We were 20 miles closer to our destination when I decided it would be a good idea to inspect the autopilot’s belowdecks behavior since it’s recent refit (and due to the fact that it makes noises that we normally don’t hear with the engine running). Otto was doing a marvelous job, but I noticed the bolts on the steering quadrant had loosened up. After retightening them my attention became focused on the leak around the base of the rudder post’s packing gland. It had been there awhile but was so small that I had hoped to deal with it at our next haulout in another year or two. However, watching the small amount of water come in with every stroke of the autopilot’s ram and the realization that we were heading to relatively remote areas and that real, nominally priced boat facilities were only 20 miles away, we decided to abort and changed course to San Carlos Bay and the anchorage and shipyards at Ft. Myers Beach.
The yard we selected is Gulf Marine Ways and Supply. Our boat looked tiny sitting in their 150 ton travel lift! We took advantage of this yard time and did what many cruisers eventually must do … raise the waterline. Lee, the yard manager, even gave me the bottom paint and brushes to do the job! The next morning I dismantled the autopilot ram and tiller arm and the steering quadrant (I’ve done this way too many times now) and John quickly unbolted the packing gland and freed it from the hull. He took that over to the shop to clean it up while I cleaned the inside of the hull for its rebedding. There are 4 bolts that hold it in place but I found 5 bolt holes plus an additional large void that had simply been filled with chalk which in almost 20 years had become quite saturated and no longer kept the water out. We filled the voids with epoxy and rebedded and repacked the packing gland.
We’re back in the water and are making new plans to leave here and head straight for Key West, 102 miles due south, but as usual with us, don’t hold your breath. We’ll continue to go with the flow and enjoy wherever it is we wake up to each day and just maybe, someday, that will be somewhere we actually planned to be.
Later,
David and Claudia
Moving Again
I am happy to report that we’re finally under way again. We are currently at anchor with a beautiful view of downtown Sarasota. 
Tomorrow or the next day we’ll head offshore from Venice to the Dry Tortugas (weather forecast permitting). We finally got to use the water maker today and it works great, filling a 6 gal jug in 1 hour. With warmer seawater, it should make 8-9 gal/hr. This past Friday we enjoyed a visit from a friend we met while in Gulfport. Raf and Linda have cruised Florida’s west coast and the Bahamas and have given us a lot of good information. Raf was in the Tampa area for business and came by for a visit.
We haven’t heard from some of you in a very long time (you know who you are). We’d sure like an update or a howdy from you sometime. That’s all for now, keep in touch.
David and Claudia
New Plans
Greetings from St. Pete, Fl. This message is being forwarded to you from our son, Jim, who is acting as our Postmaster for these broadcast messages. The distribution list is getting longer and with the connection problems we’re having with email it’s getting hard just to get the email list transmitted. PLEASE CONTINUE TO SEND EMAIL DIRECTLY TO US AT wcw5564@sailmail.com.
Okay, now for our new plans. We’re going to leave St. Pete around the 2nd week of Feb. and head to Sarasota and Venice, then jump offshore to The Dry Tortugas. From there we’ll sail to The Keys and then cross the Gulf Stream to The Bahamas. We hope to have a leisurely cruise down The Exumas and eventually get down to The Virgin Islands. It sure is great not having a schedule or even having to stick to our own plans.
We’ll keep you updated as we are able to get connected.
David and Claudia
Warm and Sunny
We finally made it to Clearwater, Fl (Woo-hoo!). We left Apalach 
early Monday morning and had an incredible offshore sail for the next 28 hours. It’s shorts and tee shirts weather again…what a relief. We’re gonna stay in this area awhile in order to take care of some maintenance items on the boat and decide where we’ll go next. We’ll let you know when we figure it out!
David and Claudia
At Sea … At Last
We finally got to venture out offshore. Last night, while you slept, we motor-sailed about 100 nm from Pensacola to Port St. Joe. We’re currently anchored in a quite lovely swamp halfway between Port St. Joe and Apalachicola. We’ll get to Apalach tomorrow and wait for another weather window for our next leg to Clearwater. All systems are working wonderfully well; what a change from a few weeks ago! More later.
David and Claudia
1/7/99 1840 EST
Update:
We’re in Apalachicola waiting for cold front to pass thru this weekend. Email getting difficult to get connected.
1/9/99 0645 EST
Travels of Ma'alahi 