Catching up (again)

I've not really been 'into' blogging lately. Can't say why - just haven't. I need to catch up with the last 5 days or so.

Charlotte race. The CocaCola 600 was the longest race of the year. That may be fun for the drivers and fans (probably not) but it's not really much fun for people working the race. It seemed to last forever.


Our broadcast schedule showed that we were covering the live skydiving show at 5pm and since the race didn't start until 5:45, Rusty and I went up to the roof to watch the exhibition. I wasn't clued into what it was, just that it was going to happen. Turned out that they had 22 skydivers forming a 4 (in the shape of the logo for the new Fantastic Four movie) and the Silver Surfer (a sky surfer with a silver suit on) 'surfed' through the middle of the 4 as they fell from 13,000 feet. I was pretty cool - not great - but pretty cool. The interesting part of it was that it was being transmitted 'real time' back to the television compound by microwave. A friend of mine (Tom Sanders - who I worked for back in the early '90s while filming in Hawaii) invented that technique of filming in freefall and 'beaming' it back to earth. His famous application of this was during the 1988 Olympics in Seoul Korea - at the LIVE opening cermonies when the skydivers formed the Olympic Rings above the stadium. It was broadcast around the planet AS IT WAS HAPPENING - shot from his helmet cam. This is a photo from the event.


Anyway, I saw Tom in the Charlotte airport Monday morning and it turns out it WAS him doing the exhibition skydive for the Fantastic Four.

Jessica Alba is one of the stars of the Fantastic Four. All 4 of the stars were on hand for the race. I took a photo with my phone camera from the roof. That's Jessica in the middle. I'm sure she was waving at me :)


I was back at home for just one full day this week. Jan and I went up to St. Augustine for the day on tuesday to take my sail to the sailmakers up there. We had lunch and walked around a bit. Here's a few photos from St. Augustine.




I'm now in Dover Delaware. I'll be here until monday, when I'll go to the Poconos in Pennsylvania. From there, it's off to Michigan.

As I got to Dover Downs (the racetrack here), I had to wait to ask directions from a security guard. I was amazed at how much he looked like my deceased grandfather (who was also a security guard). I had to take a picture of him so mom could see it.

The Queen City

This weeks Coca-Cola 600 (the longest race in Nascar) takes place in Charlotte NC. Charlotte is nicknamed the Queen city because it's named after young Queen Charlotte of Brittain (1771). Statues of her are rampant. So, enough history.

I arrived in Charlotte thursday afternoon, which is a day later than the normal schedule because the "all star" race was held here last week and 80% of the infrastructure was already set up - being leftover from last week. In theory, we could come in just one day before needed and make sure everything's working - but this is 'big bidness', so they need to make sure we have plenty of time to fix anything that may have arose between races.

Everything was in great working condition and by thursday night, we were ready for Sat and Sunday's races. There were NO events on the track on friday (which is VERY rare), so there was no reason for us to come in. This allowed us to spend friday doing whatever we pleased. I grew up less than an hour and a half from here, so I shot up to mom and dads for the day. Here's a strange coincidence - Jan's (and my) niece was graduating from high school friday night, so Jan was flying in around 11 am, so we spend the afternoon together at mom and dads.

We have an 11 am call time today, so I was able to sleep til nearly 8:00, have a leisurely morning and still get in a run. I started running again (it's been 15 years) back before Christmas when I bought a Nike+ system for my iPod that keeps track of your runs. I also downloaded a podcast called "from the couch to 5k in 9 weeks". The problem was that everytime I would start running again (I've tried at least once a year for the last 15 years) I would overdo it and it would injure my knees. I'd read online about this podcast that has you gradually getting into it by structuring you walking and running so that you built up strength and endurance without injury. Well,it worked and I got up to 5K without stopping (that's basically 3 miles). Then, I let boat trips and some work trips act as an excuse for not getting regular runs in. I can always find an excuse to not run and to start eating better - tomorrow.

This morning I was able to put in 2 miles and I have intentions - no, really - of running 3 times a week with little excuses. We'll see how it goes. This morning's run was very hard at first, but 12 minutes into it I felt the endorphines kick in and it wasn't so bad. At home, where I run is as flat a pancake, but here in Charlotte, it was a bit rolly - adding a bit more work to the feat.

The next 2 nights will be long ones. The Busch series race tonight will not start unti 8pm meaning we won't be done til somewhere around midnight. Tomorrow's CUP race is really long and we have to strike (tear down the whole system) after the race, so I don't expect to be done working until 1 or 2 am. I'm on a plane home at 9am on monday morning.

Jan and I plan to drive to St. Augustine (less than an hour from home) on tuesday for me to take the forsail from my boat to the sailmakers. I then leave on wednesday for 3 back-to-back races - getting home on June 18th

Here's the obligatory photos from the race track:

In turn 3, we were amazed that there's no perimeter fence around the race track here. Normally the entire track (at all tracks) have a very strong and reinforced fence immediatly around them to keep the cars and debris inside the track. This protects the fans of course, but also protects the drivers. It was very strange to stand less than 10 feet from these cars as they are passing you at nearly 180mph with NOTHING between you and them.



The area around the start/finish line

Finally, a blog entry

I think this may be the longest I've gone without a blog post in quite a while. I think I'm starting to feel like there's nothing new to report.

Last weekend, Jan and I went back to the Outer Banks for the 35th annual Hang Gliding Spectacular. It was great to go back home and see all our buds. We got to go to most of our favorite restaurants - we had lunch at the Pit, we had a Bajan Burger at Torguga's and Jan had lunch at Dirty Dicks' Crabhouse.


I drove up on wednesday and met Bill and Michelle at the Black Pelican for dinner and then drove to north Duck to stay at their house. Seems like we're always sleeping at their place somewhere. We stay at their house in Key West a couple of times a year and in Duck at least once a year. They will be moving to Ouray Colorado this fall, so I guess we'll be heading out there to sleep at some point. They are wonderful people and we feel lucky to get to spend time with them.

The Spectacular was great. It was an "instructor reunion" year where there was a big push to get lots of the old time instructors there. People came from all over the U.S. and Christy came all the way from Holland (I think it was Holland - but the Netherlands -non the less).

While on the OBX, I got a new surfboard from Steve that I'd been planning on getting since last summer. It's an epoxy high performance long board. It has an epoxy shell instead of fiberglass, so it's stronger and lighter. I'm looking forward to trying it out - although I'll only be home 1 full day between now and June 19th.

When we got back, I worked a couple of days on the boat. I removed the forsail from the roller furling system (man is it big) and I'll take it to St. Augustine next week to a sailmaker to do some small repairs on it and possibly cut it down some. The sail is just too big - mostly along the foot (bottom). I'd like it cut 'higher' so that when it's fully unfurled, I can see under it.

I also did some cleaning on the boat - specifically the stainless steel on the deck. The stancions and other stainless was starting to get some surface rust, so I put some elbow grease into getting rid of it.

I'm currently in Charlotte at the race track. I may not have to work a full day tomorrow - if at all. There's no cars on the track, so if I have the afternoon off, I'll head up to Winston-Salem to see mom and dad.

Serenity's back in her slip

SERENITY on a mooring at Vero Beach mooring field

Jan and I drove down to Vero Beach on friday afternoon. It was a little less than a 2 hour drive. We arrived at the marina and I put the dingy together. I was anxious to see Serenity because I had left her on a mooring for 3 weeks without any oversight. I even had a dream while I was in Richmond that I came back to her an she had 2 feet of water standing inside.

As we motored out toward her, I was looking at the waterline to see if it looked like she was sitting lower than normal. Everything appeared okay from the outside. I also had a fear of coming back and finding a layer of green mold growing on the inside.

Both of these fears come from experience. The first winter that I had Miss Janella (the winter of 2001/2002), I had left her tied to a dock in Colington Harbour - beside a 'friend' of ours house who was also a sailor - while Jan and I spent the winter in Key West. He told me he would keep an eye on her over the winter. Keep in mind that Miss Janella at this point was a 30 year old boat that I has just purchased for barely more than $2000 and while she wasn't in bad shape - she wasn't a 'looker' either. When I returned in April, 'someone' had left the companionway partially open and there was a foot of rainwater in the bottom of the boat. The moment I saw the boat, I saw that she was sitting lower than normal in the water. It turned out to not be a very expensive deal. The only real damage was some delaminated doorways - which I replaced when I refurbished Miss Janella in 2004.

So, the second fear comes from the winter of 2004/2005 when I had sailed Miss Janella 1000 miles south from Kitty Hawk to Key West. We lived in Key West again that winter and when we left to come home, I left Miss Janella on a mooring in Key West. We knew we selling our house in Colington, and probably moving to FL, so it was better to leave her there and bring her to our new home later. I left her unattended (seems that 'attended' didn't work out so well) on the mooring for 3 months. When I went back to her in May of '05, all was well except that she had a thin growth of green mold all over the walls. On the 26 foot boat that she was, it only took an hour or so of cleaning to get rid of it and having the air flowing inside kept it away after that.
To address this concern on SERENITY for this period of leaving her unattended and closed up, I had purchased 3 of the large DampRid chemical dehumdifiers (which pulls moisture out of the air by a chemical process) and put them throughout the boat.

I did a complete 360 around Serenity as we approached and checked out her topsides and made sure that the mooring pennant as well as my backup line showed no signs of chafe. So far so good.

So, as I climbed the boarding ladder on the transom of SERENITY, I was scanning the deck and cockpit for signs of problems. None. Still looking good. I unlocked the companionway and headed down in to the salon, the whole time sniffing - expecting to smell that 'super-musty' smell. Nothing. Everything looked and smelled normal. I went over the bilge pump counter (it's a digital readout that tells you how many times the bilge pump as come on) and it had not come on even one time while I was gone. SUPER!! This is one very dry boat to be 24 years old!

So, I went about the normal preparation for getting ready to leave on Saturday morning. Oil checking, deck readying and such. Around 5:30, Jan and I went out for a movie and to get something to eat. We returned around 9:30, watched a little TV and then headed to bed.

Up at 6am, we headed over to the Beach House restaurant for breakfast and then came back to the Marina. I headed out to the boat and Jan headed north toward a flea market on Highway 1 and then to home and work. At 7:45am, I was underway again.

This is a photo of a 43 foot Irwin that is just like SERENITY - except 5 feet longer. We congratulated each other over the radio on how lovely our boats were as he passed me to port.

The forecast called for winds from some flavor of North all day. This would be a 2 day trip and to divide it perfectly into 2 sections, I would need to make it around Cocoa on the first day. That would be no problem. Around 4pm, I made Cocoa and since I didn't know anyone there to stop and see, I decided to keep going to at least the Addison Point bridge - south of Titusville. This is a good anchorage area with a nice location on both the north an south side of the causeway. I made the Addison Point bridge by 5:45p. While being a good anchorage, there's no access to anything ashore here and if I anchored at 6pm, I'd do nothing but sit on the boat, so I decided to just sit on the boat while it was moving and go ahead and push on another hour to the anchorage outside of the Titusville Marina. I'm very familiar with this anchorage and marina plus it has a number of restaurants within close walking distane.

I picked out a good anchorage in 7 feet of water and dropped the bruce anchor and 60 feet of chain, set the hook and the started that wonderful 'unwinding' process that you can't get anywhere else other than on a boat.

Later, I dingied into the dock at the Marina and walked to the finest fried chicken establishment that a Kentuckian ever created and then to CVS for a couple of supplies.

Back on the boat after 9p, I sat out on the bow and looked a the darkness with anchor lights around me. All's good - except Jan's not here. We're working on that.

Underway on Sunday morning, passing another sailboat as the sun rises


Sunday morning, I got up at 5:09a (after one cycle of the snooze alarm) and made coffee and readied the boat. Not a breath of wind, just a very glassy anchorage with perfect upside-down reflections of the lights from Titusville in the water. I checked the oil and made my entry in to the ships log, tidied up the cockpit, readied the instruments and then drank my coffee. At 6:15a, I started the engine and went forward to raise the anchor. My windlass (the chain winch that pulls up the anchor chain and anchor) has been out of service since my trip south last month, so I pulled the anchor up by hand. This is no big deal in calm conditions - and in a shallow anchorage. However, with a lot of wind - single handing the boat - and other boats downwind of you, this can become quite a chore. At sunrise, I was headed north toward home - just 45 statute miles away.

2 pelicans fly by toward a disappearing horizon in Mosquito Lagoon


The trip home was enjoyable. On saturday, there were so many love bugs flying around that it looked like a black snowstorm and on Sunday, as I travelled through the Mosquito Lagoon, the large deer flies were all over the place for about an hour.
LoveBugs along for a free ride on deck

As I got within 10 miles of Ponce Inlet, I could feel the positive effects of the tide going out and carrying me with it at an extra 1 and 1/2 - 2 knots of speed over the ground. After I passed the inlet however, I felt the negative effect of the same motion - slowing me to as little as 3.9 knots over the ground at times.
A dolphin surfaces just south of Ponce Inlet

At 2:15pm, I called Jan (who now works at a CVS that's only about 5 blocks from the marina where we keep the boat) and she left work to come help me tie up at the dock and then take me home.

An enjoyable 2 days on the water. Now, I have a long list of little things I want to do to the boat. No big hurry I don't have a trip in my boat on the calendar at all for now.