Newsletter January 2006

"Something smells in the fridge and it’s not the crew!"

Well, it doesn’t seem like your luck is going to change for 2006. Yes, Ferdy is still sending those annoying newsletters. The zany crew of Pipe Dream is back with a vengeance. In our last newsletter we had left you and the boat in St. Mary’s, Georgia. Jutta traveled to Germany for a month and I visited Arizona for three weeks. We both had a wonderful time catching up with our families and spending time with old friends. I, Ferdy, El Capitan, flew back to Georgia the first week of January and Jutta came back from Germany a week later. Temperatures in Georgia were in the 30-40F range! Brrrrrr! Keep in mind Pipe Dream’s wardrobe is outfitted only for “Island Time”. We were freezing!
This season’s itinerary involves another trip to the Bahamas and Island Time for about five months. After our return to the boat, our main priority was to stock Pipe Dream with beer and wine, the liquid for our fountain of youth. I ordered fifteen cases of beer and a few cases of wine from the local grocery. It is really hard to carry that much on our bicycles, so we used a rental car to haul everything back to the boat. We raised a lot of eyebrows at the store when we picked up the beer. Everyone wanted to know where the party was. It may appear like we want to open a liquor store, but you must keep in mind beer (Bud, Coors, or Heineken) costs $50.00 per case of in the Bahamas. After the alcohol came aboard it was really hard to find room for some food. Well, who needs it? I heard it’s fattening!
We returned the car and prepared Pipe Dream to travel down the Intra-Coastal Waterway through Florida because the weather was rather nasty outside in the Atlantic Ocean. At Fernandina Beach we were pinned down at anchor for two days while a storm blew through. In five years of cruising we had never experienced a steady 35 knots of wind with gusts all day and night to forty knots. We looked like a cat on a tin roof trying to hold on. We survived and headed down the ICW making stops every night to explore and play tourist.
At Cocoa Beach, Jutta and I stopped in to visit with Paul and Frances Fernald. We decided to stay a few days and enjoy the company, the hot showers with all the water you want, and a bed that doesn’t move. When we left Cocoa Beach on Sunday morning we noticed that our refrigerator was defrosting. Much to our dismay our refrigerator had taken a dump on us. (a “Dump” is a sailing term) We dropped the hook in Fort Pierce and called the refer mechanic, Mark, who promised to be there first thing the next morning. Our freezer and all its contents – remember, we had just provisioned for the Bahamas – was thawing fast and we were frantically looking for ways to save our frozen meat. Fortunately, Cindy and Rich on “Chapa-ai”, whom we met at Harbor Town Marina during our stay in 2005 were still there and offered to store some of our frozen goods in their giant freezer. Mark found a small leak at a connection and recharged the unit. Hallelujah, we were back in business. We rushed over to our friends’ boat, got our partially frozen food, and refilled our freezer. Three hours later the freezer was defrosting again. Back again to try to save the food. Mark returned, took everything apart again and found a factory defect in the cooling unit. Since we were still under warranty we called the factory and had the new part air-freighted to Florida. You can just imagine how sympathetic the factory was about all our food. All in all it took six days to get the freezer back in action. The frozen food took a beating and we’re still trying to figure out what color frozen chicken should be?
We are now in Fort Lauderdale waiting for a good weather window to cross the Gulf Stream and sail to the Bahamas. It looks like things will be favorable in the next three or four days, as long as nothing else breaks.
For those of you who have our cell phone number it won’t work once we cross to the Bahamas, which will probably be after Super Bowl Sunday. Once we leave the States we are incommunicado by phone and must rely on e-mail. If all you cheap-skates our there had been giving to the “Help Ferdy Cruising Fund” we could afford a satellite phone and global satellite e-mail, like the big dogs. I guess being poor is nothing to be ashamed of, it’s just damn inconvenient! We’ll see you in paradise!

From the Decks of Pipe Dream,

Ferdy and Jutta