We bought a pair of AeroBOTE Rover inflatable SUP/MicroSkiffs so that we could bring boats along when we are towing our travel trailer. We tried one out on Shell Creek as soon as we got them home.

Starr on BOTE

My dog Starr never wants to be left behind so got right aboard.

New BOTE

One of the BOTE boards had been inflated just for pictures but never taken outside. The other was new in the plastic bags. Both are 2021 model year boats. They have standard HIN numbers that indicate one was manufactured in December of 2020 and one in March of 2021, so it's nice to know these were made when everything was running smoothly in the world.

12 volt BOTE inflator

The guy who sold these to us threw in a 12 volt inflation pump. The BOTE's come with manual pumps.

BOTE Motor Mount Sockets

If you're going to mount an outboard, these sockets must be inserted into the hull during inflation.

The U shaped metal clip locks the socket into the hull and a black plastic retaining pin holds it in place.

BOTE Motor Mount

The outboard motor mount inserts into the plastic sockets and there are two straps that go through D-rings on the cockpit sole to make sure it stays in place.

Also shown are the two fins that insert in slots in the bottom of the hull. It's hard to paddle straight without these but they are not needed if using an outboard. There's also a strap up forward that I guess could be useful for stability but we're getting hard grab racks.

Epropulsion BOTE

We have an Epropulsion Spirit electric outboard motor for our Picnic Cat sailboat and it works great on the BOTE. We want to try towing one BOTE with the other but ran into a little problem with that plan.

BOTE Seam Leak

Disaster! I blew up the second BOTE! I had left them both mostly inflated and mostly in the shade but as the afternoon wore on, this BOTE was in too much sun and the seam exploded due to overpressure. The other one was in more shade and was fine. I began researching how to repair inflatable SUP seams. I'm not the first to explode a seam, it seems...

Seam Repair Stuff

If you're reading this because you've blown up an inflatable boat seam, you're going to need scissors to trim fabric strands, acetone and 220 sandpaper to prep the surfaces, wood strips covered in wax paper, and clamps.

Seam Clamped Open

The BOTE repair video recommends using HH-66 glue but I could not find it locally so went with POLYMARINE PVC Inflatable Boat Adhesive sold at West Marine. They make a two-part version of this cement but I wasn't sure how to accurately mix it at 25:1 so went with the one part kind.

It's a contact cement so you apply a layer and then let it sit for 20 minutes before applying a second layer. Not wanting to hold it open that long, I figured out a way to use one of my clamps.

BOTE Seam Clamped

After the second layer of cement was tacky, I pressed the two parts together by hand then used wax paper-covered wood strips to create even clamping pressure along the seam.

Seam Side View

None of the online videos of SUP seam repairs seemed to cover a complex situation like this one, with corners and a carry strap and a lower hull section and connecting fabric. They all seemed to have pretty straight and simple seam blowouts. This one wasn't as easy to clamp and I was wondering if it would work when I looked at it from the side.

BOTE Seam Wrinkle

The resulting wrinkle in the fabric made a pop when it let go as I inflated the hull to test the repair.

BOTE Seam Repaired

I let it stretch out for a while at 5 psi before inflating it to the minimum operating pressure of 10 psi. The white area shows that I did not get the alignment quite right, but I got it wrong in a way that provides a little extra slack in the fabric around my repair. I guess that's better than the repair being under extra tension. It held pressure over night.

BOTE Deck Protection

One of the repair videos that I watched had a comment from a guy wishing to buy new foam deck padding for his BOTE because his dog was tearing it up. I decided to put some Dri Dek panels down to protect the BOTE deck from Starr's claws.

BOTE Chair

I attached the cut off corners to the aft end to provide a little more space when I bring along my folding chair.

BOTES on Trailer

I unloaded my Hobie Tandem Island from its trailer and with a pool noodle here and a bit more padding there, it's a double stacked BOTE trailer. Good enough to get them down to the creek for a test run this morning.

BOTE Fins Wrong

I did not mention it, but you can see in some of the photos above that the strap across the transoms on the BOTE I repaired is upside down. Still works fine and quality control slip ups happen. I wasn't going to mention it but this morning I went to mount the fins in my boat to paddle it and found that one of the fin mounts was installed on the boat backwards by the factory. Really, BOTE?

BOTE Grab Rac

We bought BOTE Grab Rac bars for both boats but only one came in time for the test ride today. It can be moved to an aft mounting position easily to get out of the way of paddling but it has to be mounted forward when using the motor.

Tow BOTE

The big test of the day was how it works to tow one BOTE using the Epropulsion motor on the other BOTE. It works great! I didn't measure our speed but set at 100 watts both boats went upwind nicely. At 400 watts they seemed to go a bit faster with a great deal more noise.

Bubbling BOTE

UPDATE: My seam repair held 10 psi over night and worked through our test but then my boat began slowly losing pressure. I kept wetting the seam repair with soapy water, listening, and looking and could not see where my repair failed. But what are the odds of ANOTHER leak just happening to appear right when I'm testing my repair? Very low. I decided to dip my repair in my pond to look for leaks and this picture shows the result. The PORT side of the boat bubbling vigorously! I repaired the STARBOARD transom. My repair didn't bubble a bit.

This is especially puzzling since I'm certain the boat had only been under a maximum of 10 PSI during the entire time I was testing my repair, so overpressure can not have caused this new problem.

Closed Seam Leaks

I flipped the boat over and found that there are actually four little leaks. I circled the two that have bubbles in the pic and made arrows to where the other two are. I'm not sure how to fix this but have emailed BOTE to ask. They did manage to have a robot and a human respond to me over July 4th weekend, so that's more customer service than I really expected on a holiday.

Seam Patch Cut

UPDATED UPDATE: I decided to try putting a patch over the four tiny leaks that I found in the seam of my BOTE. I later learned from a BOTE factory rep that it would have been a good idea to apply PVC Stitch brand liquid glue first. Another thought that occurred to me too late was to set the air pump to deflate and have it try to suck glue into the holes. If I could turn back time...

Seam Patch Clamped

But you can't turn back time once you've done this. Or maybe you can? I've emailed to ask about whether patches can be removed.

Seam Patch Inflated

As for whether this patch needs to be removed, I haven't decided. It leaks out both ends and I can hear it and see it with soap bubbles. On the other hand, it now seems to lose about 1 PSI per hour. The chances of my wanting to be out on this thing for longer than four hours are remote. I know it holds 14 PSI and if it leaks down to 10 by the time I'm done for the day, do I really care? I'm not at all sure I do.

BOTE Foam Deck Bubbles

I may not run out of things to pester BOTE about, starting with the foam deck on my boat. I emailed to ask about those bubbles.

Upon closer inspection of both, my wife's boat shows that the factory could get one of these right. It doesn't have the flaws mine does. The backward fin is the most glaring but there are other things. The upper and lower air chambers aren't aligned. The sides aren't quite straight and my boat is wider than hers. Various seams are not quite straight. Making one of these takes skills. Whoever made my wife's boat had them, whoever made mine didn't, and quality control missed the BOTE.

All that said, I'm still very happy with these boats, mostly because my wife is happy with hers and because we paid about what hers is worth for both of them. If we were retail customers who bought 2024 boats from a dealer and one was like mine, I'd want them to take it back. That's not our situation. We bought these from a guy on Facebook who said he bought the inventory of a closed dealership. I can deal with the boat I've got, and now I know more about fixing them if necessary.

Some video of the repair:

And the Tow BOTE Test:

The post BOTE Aero Rover Inflatable SUP MicroSkiffs! first appeared on Tropical Boating.

Inspired by WaterTribe members who have spent the last few months doing a training Derby for the upcoming Everglades Challenge, I decided to do a trial overnight camping trip on our pontoon boat. My goals were to test my ability to charge up all the electronics I intend to carry and to figure out what I may have forgotten on my packing list. I chose Turtle Bay as my destination because it's a protected place to anchor overnight and because I wanted to become more familiar with it.

On the way down the harbor, I spotted a group of 2.4 mR sailboats having a race, which caused me to realize one piece of equipment I forgot: binoculars.

Passing by the entrance to Ponce channel into Punta Gorda Isles, I saw my friend Tom covering the mainsail on his beautifully-maintained old Morgan 30, Whimsy. I stopped to chat for a moment and took the picture at left, mostly just to prove to friends that Whimsy's mast is occasionally vertical.

Osprey

I took the shoreline entrance to Turtle Bay, running along the southern tip of Cape Haze, and my presence wasn't particularly appreciated by the resident Osprey on the no wake sign, who was giving me the stink eye.

Once around the corner and inside Turtle Bay, I dropped the anchor to fly my drone a bit. The bay has lots of shallow areas and the chart leaves a bit to be desired in terms of detailing the depths, so I wanted to use the drone to do a bit of scouting. I also just wanted to use up one of my three drone flight batteries so I could evaluate my charging system.

Even with a polarizing filter on the lens, I found that the drone is not a great tool for scouting shallow water. While I could see exposed bars and extremely shallow water pretty well, it was nearly useless for determining whether I was looking at a foot of water or two feet. In a foot of water, the hulls are aground or close to it. In two feet of water I can idle along slowly without stirring up any mud. I resorted to the old fashioned approach and idled up the eastern shoreline of the bay, alternately staring at the depth finder and looking around at the color of the water to determine depth. I learned that the couple of spots in the northern part of the bay where the chart shows 2 feet of water don't really have that much. It was about two feet deep up there, but that was with about a foot of tide. At low tide I would have been aground.

With sunset approaching, I worked my way down to a spot in the northern bay where the chart correctly shows 6 feet of water, anchored, and set up my tent on the foredeck. In the picture at right I was hanging out on my "front porch" to do a little more drone flying before it got too dark.

Turtle Bay Anchorage

A wider shot of my chosen anchorage area in Turtle Bay, with the upper bay and Charlotte Harbor in the background.

Turtle Bay Sunset

And a sunset picture as I was bringing the drone back in for the night.

The sunset kept getting better after I put the drone away.

As it got dark I broke out the camp stove to warm up some delicious lentil soup with mushrooms and chorizos.

Inverter Display

I had a drone battery charging off my new inverter while I ate and took the picture at left as it was finishing up. I bought a Gisian brand 300 watt "true sine wave" inverter after experimenting with a much cheaper one designed for cars. The cheap one wasn't powerful enough to charge a drone battery, though it could do everything else I needed. The Gisian inverter received a few reviews online indicating they have a bit of a quality control problem but most were positive so I took the plunge. I installed a new power bus bar right next to the boat's main battery switch and wire directly into it.

I really like the display because it shows the voltage of the battery and the watts of output. A discharged drone battery resulted in the voltage dropping to 11.8 and about a hundred watts of output. As the battery approaches full charge, the output rate goes down and the indicated voltage of the battery comes back up. Once it is showing 10 watts or less, it's very close to a full charge. This gives me a more accurate idea of how much longer it will take than the blinking lights on the drone battery.

Turtle Bay Sunrise

The sunrise over Turtle Bay was nearly as good as the sunset the night before. I had forgotten how good coffee from a camp stove can be. It's more trouble than my Mr. Coffee but tasted better.

While enjoying my coffee, I ran a simultaneous charging test. With one of the boat's batteries already run down a bit from overnight use, I hooked up the drone charger to the inverter and (against manufacturer recommendation) plugged it into a drone battery and the drone remote control. The other inverter AC outlet is being used to charge my MacBook Air. Meanwhile, one USB outlet is being used to charge the iPad Mini that is used as a display on the drone remote. The other USB outlet with the cord heading off into the foreground was run to my iPhone, which I used to take this picture. With all those things hooked up simultaneously, the inverter showed 135 watts of output and the battery voltage dropped to 11.7.

After charging everything up, I used that battery to start the engine. One of the things I had been wondering was whether I could charge a couple of drone batteries and some other stuff and run the boat's lights all night without having to change to the fresh boat battery to start the engine. It did work, but I also experienced a still-unexplained failure that cut power to my GPS and tachometer. I fiddled with the main power bus under the console a bit and couldn't find any problems, then the problem mysteriously disappeared and all was back to normal.

Overall the trip was a success and I feel more prepared for this weekend, when I plan to camp overnight on the boat near Stump Pass to watch the WaterTribe Everglades Challenge participants as they approach their first checkpoint.

The post 2020 Speck Tater Derby first appeared on Tropical Boating.

Klepper Kayak Pieces

I took the picture at right the last time I used the boat and it gives some idea of why this is the case. The boat consists of a wooden frame and a skin composed of hypalon rubber and cotton canvas. The bow and stern frames are partially assembled, inserted into the skin, then the remaining pieces are attached. There are two inflatable bags hung in nylon sleeves along each side of the boat and blowing them up tensions the skin over the frame.

It looks great for a boat that is approaching 20 years old, partially because it is seldom used and partially because I go through a long ordeal each time I use it to remove all salt and water before returning it to its bags and storing it in an air-conditioned closet.

It is a great boat because it allows me to do things I could not do with a normal kayak and this past weekend was a good example. I have wanted to kayak at the Weedon Island Preserve in St. Pete for some time now after seeing lots of great pictures of the place posted by a Facebook friend. I also wanted to attend the opening of the McKay Creek Boat Shop at St Pete Heritage Village to support boatbuilder Mike Jones and the other people who made the Clark Mills commemorative exhibit a reality.

The problem I faced was that I did not want to try to park my truck with a long kayak hanging out of the bed, nor did I want to risk theft of any of my kayaks. The solution: lock my kayak in the cab of the truck. Only one of my kayaks could solve those problems: the Klepper foldable.

Klepper Paddling Weedon Island

Weedon Island Preserve is a beautiful place with lots of little islands and bays in which to get lost.

It is also loaded with fish and birds and more than a few fishermen. Staying in the back channels and bays and away from the main channel, I saw large schools of mullet and some redfish and snook lurking around the little islands.

I rounded one island and found myself almost on top of some fishermen who were working the far side of the point. I apologized for spooking any fish along the mangrove shore and they were good-natured about it. It turned out that they needed a kayaker at that moment, as a bobber with a live shrimp had just broken free. They asked me to retrieve it for them.

After giving the fishermen back their rig, I continued winding my way through the little islands and bays, heading east toward Tampa Bay.

Great Blue Heron Takeoff

I was trying to quietly glide in close enough to this Great Blue Heron to get a good picture but apparently got a bit too close for comfort and managed to get an interesting takeoff picture instead.

Klepper on Beach

Out at the mouth of Bayou Grande (NOAA chart 11416) I found a beach that was barely bigger than my boat and got out to stretch. Most of the islands are actually just mangrove clusters on the flats with no dry ground but that one had some higher ground with cabbage palms and other trees. I wanted to wander around a bit but knew I was already running late and would probably miss the ribbon-cutting at the McKay Creek Boat Shop so I headed back to the launch area.

On the way, I encountered a couple of groups of a dozen or more kayakers and there was another group receiving instruction and preparing to launch when I arrived at the park's floating dock. There was also some kind of charity running race going on in the park so finding a quiet place where I could disassemble my boat was going to be a problem.

I loaded it into the back of the truck and headed over to the Sweetwater Kayaks shop, where a friend who works there gave me permission to use their ample lot. I had my own little patch of grass under a shade tree in which to break down the boat and get it into its transport bags and into the cab of the truck.

This was only the second time that I can remember disassembling the boat and putting it in bags with salt and water on it. I usually keep it assembled until I reach a place where I can clean and dry it. I knew that the time spent putting it away would be longer than my time spent paddling, so the work-to-play ratio was off. I decided then that I would use the boat again the next day and then clean it up and put it away to restore the proper work-to-play ratio.

I headed on over to Heritage Village, where some kind of festival was going on with lots of arts and crafts vendors and food and drink booths set up throughout the park. I was immediately glad that I did not have a kayak hanging out the back of my truck. Finding a place to park a full-sized pickup was going to be hard enough!

Mills Sun Cat Bow

The main reason I wanted to attend the McKay Creek Boat Shop grand opening was my interest in seeing the original prototype of Clark Mills' finest creation, the Sun Cat. My interest grew out of meeting Mike Jones during my service as self-proclaimed Head Jib Trimmer In Charge and three-time winner of the Sun Cat National Championship Regatta. I came up with the Sun Cat Nationals and the title of HJTIC after some discussions on the internet about how to make a Sun Cat sail faster. The racing class rule I came up with is designed to foster innovation in that area. It says only that you must sail a hull that is arguably a Sun Cat hull.

OK, so the whole thing was designed to make a mockery of sailboat racing in general and the speed of Sun Cats in particular. Racing sailboats is, let's face it, a somewhat silly pastime. I enjoy it and it does improve your skills, but it's still silly and nothing could be sillier than a group of Sun Cats skippered primarily by sailors who have spent little or no time racing. It was the most fun I had during the time we owned our Sun Cat.

Mills Sun Cat Cockpit

The original Sun Cat differs from the ones built during the 1970's and 80's by the Sun Cat Company and from the post-2000 boats built by Com-Pac Yachts in several ways. It has a wooden hull. All of the later boats are fiberglass. It had a 30-foot mast and carried a 190 square foot Marconi sail. The 1970's and 80's boats had a 165 square foot Marconi sail and modern Com-Pac Sun Cats have a 150 square foot gaff-rigged sail.

They are all different below the waterline as well. This wooden prototype has a centerboard with a pennant led to the roof of the removable hard top. I asked Mike Jones where the pennant was supposed to go when sailing with hard top removed and even he did not know and had never seen the boat without the top. This suggests to me that it was more removable in theory than in practice. The 1970's and 80's boats had bilge boards inside the inner edges of the cockpit benches. Com-Pac Sun Cats have a ballasted shoal keel with a stainless centerboard.

They're all still arguably Sun Cat hulls so are legal for class-racing with whatever kind of sail and underwater foils someone might wish to use. Even the guys who had to ruin my "Jib Trimmer" joke by actually adding jibs.

Mills Optimist Pram

The McKay Creek Boat Shop also features Clark Mills' best-known design, the Optimist Pram. It was designed to be cheap and easy to build and Mills donated the design to the Optimist club in 1947, never accepting any royalties for it. The idea was to have a class of boats that could be easily built by a bunch of sailors (not necessarily skilled woodworkers) so that kids would have something in which to learn basic sailing skills. Tens of thousands of us did.

The boat at right looks very much like the one I owned in the late 1970s. The design was such a huge success that Optimist Prams are now a major racing class for kids. No one who is serious about racing them builds their own any more. The boats are manufactured in fiberglass and buying one that is fully equipped for competitive racing now requires a five-figure budget. I wonder whether Clark Mills would consider that such a huge success? He just wanted to get kids out sailing. So many have been built that it's pretty easy to find a cheap, old beater pram for that purpose. That's consistent with the original purpose of the design. The expensive race boats with fancy sails and hardware represent what happens to most popular racing classes, where winning becomes more important than just sailing. I made up the ridiculous Sun Cat Class rule mostly to mock that kind of outcome.

Mills Windmill

The thing about kids is, they grow up and get bigger. They need a bigger boat with two sails and more to learn. To address that need, Clark Mills designed the Windmill. The one at left was donated to McKay Creek Boat Shop by the Clearwater Community Sailing Center. The information placard on the boat contains the following quotation from Clark Mills:

"When I was asked to design a boat for pram sailors to graduate to, I thought about a fast sharpie. Sailors that graduate from the pram are going to be young teenagers. They are going to be tired of the pram and are going to want the most dangerous, go-fast thing they can find. It will have to be able to out-sail the boats that already exist in the same size range."

It sounds to me like Mills remembered well what it was like to actually be a teenager! Immortal, invincible, and compelled to prove it to the world. The long, lean Windmill looks appropriately fast and dangerous to me. The Windmill was also designed to be cheap and easy for amateurs to build.

Clark Mills' particular form of genius in designing both the Opti and the Windmill was that he did not just understand how the boat must perform, he understood how to actually get them on the water. If that's the goal, lots of questions beyond appearance and sailing capability quickly arise. Questions like: can our club afford some of these? Can we build them? Once built, can we carry them around the yard, or at least have the older kids do it? The Opti had to be stable and safe because the parents are making the choices at that age. The Windmill had to be dangerous because the teenagers start making the choice to sail or not. The ultimate compliment to a designer has to be when people spend their time and money to put a boat on the water. The International Optimist Dinghy Association has about 170,000 registered boats and many thousands more are out there, unregistered. Though not as numerous, the Windmill Class is still popular after all these years. My hat's off to Clark Mills for putting so many boats on the water, even if the tremendous success has led to racers making the cheap little pram absurdly expensive.

Snipe Honey

The other boat on display at the McKay Creek Boat Shop is a Snipe named Honey. The Snipe is a class-racer designed in 1931 by William Crosby. Clark Mills built over 40 of them over a twenty year period beginning in the late 1940s. The display placard on Honey features a picture of owner Francis Seavy standing next to the boat with the entire boat covered with trophies, silver bowls, platters, placards, and ribbons won over a long racing career. Honey is in original condition, just as she was last raced, and looks like a piece of fine furniture.

It was good to see these pieces of local sailing history on display in St. Pete Heritage Village. I plan to go back when I can spend more time checking out the other historical buildings on the site and wandering the neighboring Florida Botanical Garden.

Prairie Creek Morning Light

I arrived home too late, too hungry, and too tired to embark on the project of properly cleaning the Klepper kayak and putting it back in the closet. Instead, I put it back together and decided to go for a morning paddle the next day. I had not been to Prairie Creek in a while and wanted to go check on the population of wild orchids.

The picture at right is what I like best about paddling early in the day. There's just something about the morning light on the trees and the reflection off glassy water that you can't see any other time of day.

Giant Cypress Tree

Loggers got most of the giant cypress trees from creeks like this one over the years but they missed a few in Prairie Creek. The one in this picture is about three feet in diameter over most of its length.

Cypress Knees

Prairie Creek has some of the most interesting Cypress knee formations I have seen. They are taller and skinnier than most others. The tallest one in the picture at right has some vegetation wrapped around it from this past Summer's high water. It's a few feet above the current water level but that was nothing compared to what I found further upstream where the creek is narrower and the surrounding land higher.

Prairie Creek High Water

This dead Cypress tree shows the tannin stains from the wet season a good 8-10 feet up the trunk. In places I saw water stains and dead palmetto leaves even higher up eroded banks. There were new sand bars and one former peninsula had been turned into an island that is now passable on both sides.

Prairie Creek Wild Orchids

After paddling up the creek a ways, I started to encounter overhanging oak branches with orchids on them. The only kind I have seen around here are Florida Butterfly Orchids, Encyclia tampensis, which is a bit odd because Charlotte County is excluded from the map of their range on the linked page about them. Most grow on the bottoms of oak branches over the creek but I found the one at right on the side of the tree with the morning sun shining through the branches to light it up.

It's a bit out of focus because the auto-focus on my camera seemed to think I wanted a picture of the moss instead. I arrived a bit too late in the year to see the flowers, which bloom in Summer. You can see some seed pods hanging but the flowers are long gone. Judging by the high water marks on the trees, paddling up here this past Summer would have been quite a challenge.

Prairie Creek Map Screenshot

I paused on the edge of a sand bar to eat a banana and drink some water shortly after taking that picture. When I looked up from peeling my banana, a log was in front of my boat that had not been there before. I quickly realized it was no log, it was an alligator about 8 feet long. Most large alligators are afraid of people and look at me warily before fleeing. This one was focused on me and did not seem the least bit afraid. It seemed to be looking at me as a potential breakfast. I quickly gulped down my banana and threw the peel at the gator. After an uncharacteristic moment's hesitation, it ducked under the water. I decided it was a good time to leave the breakfast bar and continued upstream.

After paddling about an hour and forty minutes upstream, it was time to head back. Before turning around, I got the screen shot at left of the map with blue dot at my position on my iPhone. In the lower left corner of the picture you can see the bridge where Washington Loop Rd crosses Prairie Creek, my launch point. It took about an hour and twenty minutes to return downstream.

Prairie Creek Rope Swing

On the way back down, I spotted this rope swing that I had somehow passed without noticing on my way up. I almost passed it by without taking a picture, then noticed the concrete block up on the shore. It's obviously there to provide a slightly higher launching point, making the ride a bit more thrilling. It made me grin. Some things about teenage fun have not changed since Clark Mills designed the Windmill to be fast and dangerous, and never will!

Klepper on Prairie Creek

I stepped out of the boat for a few minutes to stretch and took this picture of my boat on the shore. The boat looks good, the reflection is nice, but I waited too long. That magical morning light had given way to midday glare. Oh well, it was a great weekend of tropical boating in the Klepper kayak! It's bag in the bags in the closet, awaiting its next adventure.

The post Klepper Foldable Kayak Adventures first appeared on Tropical Boating.

Cowmaran Crew

On March 15 of 2013, we decided to get an early start and go until we ran out of navigable water or time, whichever came first. The crew for the day, pictured at right, were Don, Fred, Mike (in whose cow barn the boat was built), and me. We got away from the dock at 9 am after a small delay involving Fred getting new tires. Waiting an extra hour to depart was not such a bad thing because it was a very cold morning.

Myakka Bird Rookery

The lower Myakka River between US 41 and SR 776 is a mangrove estuary with shallow water, sand and oyster bars, and small mangrove islands. One of those islands, pictured at left, is a bird rookery and every branch that could support a nest had wood storks, herons and other types of birds on it. These islands are interesting and the birds are beautiful, but the smell is terrible if you get downwind!

A short distance past the bird rookery island we came to the US 41 bridges, with the Myakka River Oyster Bar on the western shore at the bridge. It was too early to stop in, but Don told us they make a great fish taco and stopping on the way back was in the plan. Just past the bridge, there is a large sand bar right in the middle of the river. Don had successfully driven right over it before, but he must have come at a higher tide. I saw the color of the water changing from dark brown to tan and decided it was a good time to hang on to something, and not a moment too soon. We hit bottom and had to tilt the engines up to get out to deeper water along the side of the river.

Don Photographs Alligator

The river winds through some grassy marshes for a while and Mike spotted a wild pig along the shore on the swampy side, then we came to the more scenic part of the river, where there are fewer houses, higher ground with trees on both sides, and the river starts to get narrow. We started to see alligators basking on the sunny sections of shoreline, and lots of them. At right, Don is taking a picture of one of these alligators, which were the fattest, healthiest looking wild alligators I have ever seen, and I live in a swamp filled with alligators!

Mike Photographs Heron

We were passing through a wild section of the Myakka leading up toward the Interstate 75 bridges with forests of cabbage palms, oaks and pines on each side when Mike spotted a Great Blue Heron fishing from a log on one side of the river. We approached slowly so he could take some pictures and I snapped the picture at left just as the bird took off and flew a short distance up the river. That bird kept flying on ahead of us every time we approached for a while.

Soon we passed by the Snook Haven restaurant, located at the end of East Venice Avenue. It was still pretty early to stop in but was on our itinerary for the return trip later in the day.

Myakka River Kayaking

Kayaking on the Myakka River seems to be a very popular activity and we passed several kayakers throughout the day. Since the river has so many shallow spots and is uncharted and unmarked above US 41, only small powerboats venture up it and they are fairly rare. All of the kayakers seemed very surprised to encounter a 27 foot power catamaran coming up the river. I would have been too, but the Cowmaran is a very special powerboat so the normal rules of thumb do not apply.

Myakka River I-75 Bridges

Shortly after passing the kayakers in the picture, we came to the I-75 bridges over the Myakka River. We were entering unexplored territory, at least for all of us and for the Cowmaran.

Enjoying Cowmaran Exploration

Past I-75, the Myakka snakes past a rural neighborhood on the right and woods on the left side for a mile or so, then there is another half mile section with forest on both sides. Don seemed to be having a great time exploring the wilds of Florida in his boat! Mike took in the scenery from up on the bow, watching for turtles and gators and trying (mostly successfully) to make sure we did not hit submerged logs or sand bars.

More Myakka Kayakers

We encountered a some more pairs of kayakers in this section, two of whom are pictured at left. On the right side of the photo, you can see one of the houses nestled up in the trees on the bank. Even though we were passing through a neighborhood on one side of the river at this point, it felt like a wild river with no one around for miles except the kayakers and the Cowmaran crew.

Mike Photographs Turtle

In the wilderness section of river between I-75 and Border Road, Mike photographed one of the large population of turtles that we saw basking on fallen cabbage palm trunks. The alligators on the Myakka were fat and happy and did not seem at all disturbed by the passage of the boat, but these turtles were easily spooked. If you point at them or aim a camera at them, they jump in the water and disappear. This large one hung out on the log just long enough for me to get a picture of Mike taking his picture before diving into the river.

Border Road Bridge

Don had driven a car up to the Border Road bridge a week or so earlier to see whether it was tall enough to clear the T-top on the Cowmaran and thought it a bit questionable, but as we approached we could see that we had a couple of feet to spare. If the river were really high, as it is at times during the wet season, this would have been the end of the journey for the Cowmaran, but we were able to continue on up river.

Screenshot Past Border Rd

Just past the Border Rd bridge, it occurred to me to take this screenshot of my iPhone map showing where we were. The NOAA chart ends at US 41, so the Cowmaran's GPS had been showing us advancing across dry land for quite a while, but the iPhone knew where we were and had a satellite image of the area showing the river's twists and turns.

Technology can be pretty handy sometimes! I decided to take more screenshots at points of interest along the way.

Fishing Skiff

Fred Drives Cowmaran

Fred took a turn at driving the Cowmaran for a while in the stretch above Border Rd. The Myakka River is so wild and beautiful up in this area that it made us imagine it probably looked about the same as when Spaniards first came to Florida hundreds of years before, and probably long before that. The Cowmaran has a depth finder and we were sort of surprised that most of the river in this area was about 5 to 8 feet deep. I expected it to be shallower.

Power Line

Soon we came to a landmark that would not have been present in Spanish colonial times: an overhead power line. It was kind of incongruous out in the wilderness, but was only a momentary interruption in the scenery.

Shallow Spot

A couple of bends past the powerline, we came to a shallow spot in the river. Most of the Myakka in this area was a pretty constant depth, as mentioned above, but there was a sand bar right in the middle of the river, with slightly deeper water in narrow channels on each side. We tried to go through the right side channel, but it was so narrow that one hull of the 8'6" wide Cowmaran was almost on the shore and the other was too close to the sand bar. We had to tilt the engines up and make our way through using the boathook and paddle. Note for future exploration missions: more than one paddle would have been a good idea!

Screenshot at Shallow Spot

We entered a "Man Overboard" mark on the GPS to alert us to the shallow spot on our return trip down river. Although there was no chart for this area, the GPS was still leaving a breadcrumb track along our route and the MOB point would be easy to see on the way back. I also marked the spot with another iPhone screen shot, shown at left.

The straight line just below the blue dot indicating our position is the powerline.

Grumpy Fly Fisherman

A few minutes later, we came around a bend and saw this man fly fishing in a small canoe. The rest of the paddlers we encountered in the Myakka were friendly, if a bit confused by our presence. This guy was rather grumpy. He probably figured he could avoid all contact with powerboats by fishing in such a remote part of the river, so the last thing he expected was a large catamaran coming up river. The Cowmaran is not your ordinary large catamaran, and can go places others would not dare to try!

Women Kayaking

A little further up the river, we passed these two women kayaking upstream. I am still wondering where all these kayakers launched their boats. They are probably still wondering how those guys in the big catamaran found their way so far up the Myakka!

Private Club Dock

The river was getting more narrow and the submerged remains of fallen trees were becoming more common as we went upstream. We had already bounced off a couple of underwater snags when we came to a bend in the river with this private dock. It was a sharp bend with several snags and a sand bar just upstream that looked a bit difficult to negotiate. It was also starting to look increasingly difficult to find a spot large enough to turn a 27' boat around. We were debating whether to continue when I pointed out that we probably should not go into places where we can't turn around unless we want to come back out backwards. With that remark, Don made the call to turn back, so this was as far as we got.

Screenshot at River Club

I marked our turnaround point with the screen shot at left. The "No Trespassing" sign on the dock said it was for club members and guests only, causing us to wonder which club was located up here in the middle of nowhere. The iPhone picture revealed two answers: the dock belongs to the Venetian Golf and River Club, and there was a whole neighborhood just beyond the trees, so we were not exactly in the middle of nowhere. More on the edge of nowhere!

Turning around in the river bend turned out to be a bit tricky and involved pushing off logs and the shore with the boathook while spinning the boat using reverse on one engine and forward on the other. The river above that point appeared even less navigable, so it was probably a good time to head back. We decided that for further exploration up the Myakka, a good plan would be to bring kayaks along on board the Cowmaran and use it as a base camp from which to kayak further up river.

Stop at Snook Haven

The return trip down the Myakka was fairly uneventful and I drove the boat a good portion of the way, so did not take pictures. We pushed our way back over the shallow spot again, saw lots more gators and turtles basking, saw several kayaks, including some of the same ones from our trip up, who asked how far we had gotten. They were amazed that we had made it to the Venetian Golf and River Club. Many of the oak trees overhanging the river were covered with airplants, ferns and various epiphytes, but I only saw one that had a wild orchid, which was kind of surprising since they are fairly common on Shell Creek and its tributaries around our house.

We had eaten some wrap sandwiches from Publix and snacked on nuts throughout the day, but as the afternoon wore on it was time for more serious nutrition so we stopped at Snook Haven just below the I-75 bridges for a pitcher of beer. The docks were not built for boats as large as the Cowmaran and the port bow is actually pulled up onto the shore in the picture at right.

Fred and Mike at Snook Haven

Snook Haven was kind of an eclectic and funky place, with a live band playing and people of all ages eating and drinking at indoor and outdoor tables. At right is a shot of Fred and Mike at our picnic table, waiting for Don to return with the pitcher of beer.

Cowmaran at the Myakka Oyster Bar

We decided not to eat at Snook Haven since Don had in mind eating at the Myakka River Oyster Bar. It is a few miles further down the river, next to the US 41 bridges. We got there a little after 3 pm and I took this picture of the Cowmaran at their dock. That's the crew walking away into the shadow of the building.

Lunch at Myakka Oyster Bar

We ordered fish tacos and fried oyster sandwiches for lunch and sat at an outdoor table. Mike was feeling bad that I was not in any of my pictures for the day, so he took this picture of Fred, Don and me as we waited for our food.

Tame White Egret

Also waiting to be fed were a couple of extremely tame birds that were obviously being fed by some of the patrons of the restaurant on a pretty regular basis. The large White Egret at right was particularly bold, wandering around between tables full of people and looking for anything that might be left on the ground. I saw him nab a few french fries off a plate as some diners left, before the waitress returned to pick up their plates.

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

Out on one of the tables by the dock was this Yellow Crowned Night Heron, who had also greeted us as we arrived. I suspect this fellow was not so interested in french fries, but was accustomed to being fed unused bait by fishermen who stopped in for a bite.

Dolphin Jumping

After a delicious lunch, we headed on down the lower Myakka River and across Charlotte Harbor, back to Don's place in Punta Gorda Isles. As we approached, we saw something large jumping in the PGI channel. At first I thought it must be a tarpon that had broken a fishing line and was trying to throw a hook out of its mouth. It was quite large and silver-grey and there are not all that many really large fish in the harbor. As we got closer, we could see that it was actually a wild dolphin jumping in the channel.

Not sure whether the performance would continue, I decided not to try to get out my video camera and instead just aimed my iPhone camera at the area, hoping for one more jump. That jump came and I clicked the shutter button. The picture at right is the result.

Dolphin Jump Closeup

Since it is so hard to see the dolphin in that picture, I cropped in on the 800 pixel area around the dolphin to get the version at left. It's not the best dolphin jumping picture I have ever seen, but it's not that bad for a quick shot with an iPhone and it is the best one I have ever taken myself!

We arrived back at Don's dock at around a quarter to 6, just under 9 hours after we departed. We had covered an estimated 78 miles and it turned out that we did not need the 6 gallon fuel tanks at all. Both engines ran on their individual 3 gallon tanks all day long. The trip consumed about 4.5 or 5 gallons of gas, meaning the Cowmaran averaged 15 to 17 miles per gallon. That's better than my truck!

The post Cowmaran Trip Up The Myakka River first appeared on Tropical Boating.

Kyosho Fairwind Sailboat

About 15 years ago, I decided to buy a remote controlled sailboat to get a quick sailing fix in the pond. Not being interested in building a model, I bought a ready-to-sail Kyosho Fairwind from a local hobby shop, took it home, and started playing with it. I really enjoyed playing with it and would take it out whenever the wind was blowing hard. It served me well for years, but eventually I left it too long between sails and a couple of the batteries in the remote control transmitter leaked, ruining the transmitter. I put it in the shed and left it there for several years.

This year I decided to use some Christmas money to put it back in service. I knew I would need a new transmitter and examination of the receiver, battery box and switch in the boat revealed corrosion around various wires and connections. I knew that the boat had gotten water inside almost every time I sailed it, and though I had been careful to wipe it out and let it dry, I figured that the servos and their connections were also about due for replacement, if not already expired. I decided to replace the sail servo and rudder servo along with the other electrical components in the boat. This did not sound as complicated as it turned out to be for a first-time modeler like myself.

On advice from some people on the rcgroups.com sailboat forum, my first step was to take detailed pictures of the set up of the boat so that I could refer back to them when installing the new servos and electronic parts.

Old Electronics in Fairwind

The original installation of servos, receiver and battery pack used double sided sticky tape to secure everything inside the boat. The rudder servo was set on its side on the small interior deck that held all the controls. The sail servo was screwed into a small box and the forward side of it was taped to the box to further secure it. The receiver was taped in place and the battery box had been taped in place, but repeated removals to change batteries had degraded the tape and it was no longer sticky. The batteries were held mostly by gravity, which is not a great way to go in a sailboat that can be blown onto its side in strong gusts of wind. The wires leading out the bottom of the picture at left went to the old through-deck mounted on/off switch.

Old Remote Controls Removed

Removal of the old remote controls from the inside of the boat was surprisingly difficult. That sticky tape was tenacious! The box containing the sail servo came apart when I tried to peel the servo away from the inside and I thought the hull might shatter from the force required to pull up the rudder servo. The old receiver broke away from its base and I had to take the base off by prying it with a small scraper. The only really easy part was alarmingly easy: one quarter turn on one of the two screws that were holding the on/off switch caused it to fall off! I'm very surprised it never came off when I tried to operate the switch.

All of the remote control components in the boat showed some corrosion, which was not very surprising to me because the hatch covering the electronics had always leaked a bit when the boat heeled over far enough to submerge it. A look at the switch confirmed my suspicion that it also leaked around its flexible rubber cover.

The search for replacement remote controls was not as easy as I had anticipated. How hard could it be to buy a transmitter, receiver, a couple of servos, a battery and a switch? It turned out that there are a huge variety of these parts on the market, but most are targeted at the remote controlled cars and aircraft. Many of the websites selling them did not list needed specifications like the size and torque output of the servos and I had trouble figuring out which ones would fit, which were powerful enough to use on sails, and which servos would work with the aluminum arm used on the old sail servo. The good news was that almost all of the RC units available are 2.4 GHz models, which do not suffer from the interference issues that plagued old FM models, and the new receivers are much smaller and lighter than the old one. Also, rechargable battery technology has advanced quite a bit since I bought the boat and my sources on the RC Groups forum advised me to get a battery pack that could be recharged and a power switch with a charging jack so that the batteries would not have to be removed from the boat for charging.

I spent quite a bit of time searching various hobby websites for the parts I needed and ultimately found that Hobby King had the most informative site and the best combination of prices and selection to fulfill my needs. My first attempt at compiling an order did not work out because I was unaware that all parts in a single order must come from a single warehouse, and they have warehouses around the world. The US warehouse did not carry everything I needed, so some parts would have to come from overseas. That meant all parts would have to come from overseas.

My second attempt to order ended when I found that the Hobby King special price offer on a servo was actually a bait and switch trick. Completely turned off by the dishonest tactic and the extremely slow "customer service" non-response, I decided I would never visit their site again. Frustrated by my inability to order a few simple parts online and still unsure of exactly what I needed, I decided to shop the old fashioned way: find a hobby shop within driving distance, tell them about my needs, and buy what they recommended. (The shop where I first bought the boat had gone out of business.)

I found Hobby Marketplace, a dealer with locations in Sarasota and Bradenton, and they were a pleasure to work with. I did end up having to make two trips because of minor problems with the order and my own ignorance about the details of these devices, but I will definitely return to them for any future needs. They also own and operate an online division called Robot Marketplace.

New Remote Controls for Sailboat

The new remote control components I bought were a Spektrum DX5e transmitter with Spektrum AR600 receiver, a HiTec 645MG sail servo, Futaba S3003 rudder servo, Hobbico HydriMax 2000mAH NiMH battery pack, Expert Electronics battery charger and a small standard on/off switch with battery charging jack. After my first attempt at making the new components work together resulted in failure and another trip up to Hobby Marketplace, I asked the guy at the store to plug them together and get them all working before I left the shop, and I left them plugged in until I got home and could take a picture of the proper setup, shown at right.

The new sail servo's plastic disc did not have holes that lined up with my old sail servo arm, so it was necessary to drill four new holes to install the arm onto the servo. In a decision I may one day regret, I decided to secure the four screws and glue the parts together using West System G-Flex epoxy. It may be hard to remove if that ever becomes necessary, but I could always buy or fabricate a new sail servo arm. At least it will not come off in use!

Switch Hole Covered in Fiberglass and Epoxy

Having a bit of epoxy left over and some 6 oz fiberglass cloth on hand, I cut off a small piece of cloth and layed it over the hole where the on/off switch had been installed through the deck. I had decided to eliminate the problem of leaks around the switch by installing it inside the boat. This will mean removing the deck hatch to turn the boat on and off, but it is only secured with two screws and I was in the habit of leaving it open between sails to let the boat dry, so that is really no extra hassle. In retrospect, I probably should have used a piece of fiberglass that did not have ink marks from a previous cut, but the repair was never going to blend in seamlessly since the deck underneath the old switch is the original bright white color and the rest has turned yellow with age. My repair looks kind of disreputable, but should at least be waterproof.

Building Sail Servo Box

I prepared the remote control deck to receive two new servo boxes by sanding it down, blowing out the dust, and wiping it down with solvent, then set about making the new boxes. The old sail servo was a bit larger than the new one, but moving or recreating the notches in the deck that help hold the box in place seemed more difficult than simply putting a shim inside the box. That would allow me to reuse the sides of the old sail servo box with new cuts to accommodate new cross pieces for the servo mounting screws.

The picture at right shows the sides of the old box, one of them with the shim piece glued onto it, the new cross pieces, one of them with servo mounting holes drilled, and some scraps of fiberglass cloth to be used to add strength and rigidity to the box and the bond to the RC deck.

Building Rudder Servo Box

While it was necessary to assemble the sail servo box inside the boat to epoxy it into the notches in the RC deck, the rudder servo box could be assembled outside the boat and then glued in place. At left is a shot of the cross pieces clamped onto the sides of the box, waiting for the glue to dry.

Servo Mounting Boxes Installed

When test fitting the rudder servo in its box to position it properly so that the rudder was centered in the middle of the servo range, I decided it was a good time to test fit the sail servo as well. I found that building the box exactly as long as the sail servo would not work because the wires coming out the end meant that the servo had to be worked in at an angle, requiring a slightly longer box. After a bit of puzzling over how to cut it inside the boat, I ended up using a spiral saw bit and high speed air tool to trim the edge of one cross piece a bit. This meant that the servo mounting holes were very near the edge of the cross piece.

I secured the rudder servo box using epoxy and fiberglass cloth and used the extra epoxy to coat both servo boxes so they would be stronger and more water resistant. I used an old drill bit to clear excess epoxy out of the servo mounting holes so that they would not have to be re-drilled after the epoxy cured.

rc-installation-complete

Success at last! The picture at left shows the two servos screwed in place and connected to the sail sheet lines and rudder push rod. The receiver, battery pack, power switch and charging jack are all held in place with velcro and a couple of plastic wire ties, one of them connected to an eye screw through the RC deck to ensure that the wires will not foul the sheets or servo arms.

On the first test sail, I deliberately let the wind blow the boat over several times to see how much it would leak, and the result was not good. When I removed the hatch, I found quite a bit of water down in the bilge. I put some foam insulation tape around the inside of the hatch lid and caulked around the rudder post with 3M 5200 sealant, just in case some of the leakage was coming from that area. The second test went better, with only a small amount of water leaking into the boat, but it is still not completely water tight. I am still pondering what to do to improve the hatch seal, but meanwhile it is good enough to sail in the pond!

Below is a short video of my test sails. I was holding the video camera in my right hand, which is usually used to control the rudder, so I was steering the boat (poorly) using my elbow. While doing this, I realized that my fancy new remote controls made it unnecessary. The left hand control on the transmitter is designed to be used to control both throttle and rudder on remote control airplanes, and I saw no reason it could not be used to control the sheets and rudder on my sailboat. After I was done sailing, I moved the rudder servo plug from the aileron slot to the rudder slot on the receiver. I will have to train my left hand to do both jobs and have not tried this setup yet, but it should make taking video and pictures while sailing easier once I learn it.

The post Replacing RC Sailboat Electronics first appeared on Tropical Boating.

After a great deal of work by Tropical Web Works and some editorial skimming by me, we are happy to announce the transition of Tropical Boating to the WordPress platform. The change will make it easier to find related content on the site, will enable greater interaction through the various social media networks, including commenting on articles via your Facebook or other existing ID's.

At right is a picture of two Sun Cats sailing, just because I wanted a sailboat picture. Coming soon: the dramatic finish to the Whale Tenders Rebuild story, plus an aborted attempt to loop around the southern tip of Florida in the Cowmaran!

The post Welcome to the WordPress Tropical Boating! first appeared on Tropical Boating.

Miss Budweister to be Sold, and Remembering Piston Powered Unlimited Hydroplanes

The Miss Budweiser Hydroplane, shown here on display at Muscle Car City, was recently listed for auction on eBay.

We saw this Miss Budweiser Unlimited Hydroplane a while back at Muscle Car City, looking a bit out of place along the back wall of the old Wal Mart building, completely surrounded by collectible cars, with not a boat in sight. I kind of wondered what it was doing there, and I guess the owner has come to wonder the same thing, as it recently appeared for sale in an eBay auction.

The likely departure of the boat from our area brought back memories of watching the hydroplane races in the Miami Marine Stadium as a youngster, and of how these turbine boats came on the scene and caused the whole scene to leave.

Most of the old "thunderboats" back in the 1970s and early 1980s were powered by Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the same ones used to power the P-51 Mustang aircraft. When a group of them opened up the throttles, the ground would shake under your feet if you were nearby. We could hear the time trials from school classrooms in Coconut Grove, several miles away, and we went to the races every year. We usually went by boat and anchored off the entrance to the Marine Stadium. One year we got there early enough that local law enforcement designated us the "pin boat" for the safety escape lane. That meant that if a barely-in-control driver had to actually use that lane, we would be the target he had to miss. It was a huge honor.

I remember the first year that we saw a turbine-powered unlimited hydroplane race in the Marine Stadium. It was the 7-11 boat, and some friends and I had managed to get there for the time trials the day before racing. We sat on the shore on the north side of the Marine Stadium and watched as that boat went whining around the track, making a really cool new noise and accelerating with unbelievable speed. Watching the rest of the old-fashioned piston-powered hydroplanes qualifying suddenly seemed a bit boring. We wanted more turbine boats, and could not wait to see what the new beast would do against the old guard in the real races.

My recollection is that the 7-11 boat was in it to win it right up until the first turn, at which point the turbine intake swallowed another boat's rooster tail, the engine flamed out, and we saw no more of them after that. Recollections are often inaccurate, but I know that the early turbine boats did not deal well with rooster tails, especially in salt water. We were disappointed that the new technology was not working out. Our disappointment was only beginning.

As time went by, the engineers figured out how to solve the rooster tail problem so that the boats could take a big gulp of water and still keep going, but that solution spawned a couple of new problems for Miami hydroplane racing fans. The first was that the new boats were so fast, and the arena so small, that they really just did not fit any more. There was not room to race them. The second was that while it is possible to make a jet engine continue to run after inhaling a large amount of salt water, it is not possible to make the jet engine actually like it. Jet engines are expensive and salt is highly corrosive.

Miss Bud Hydroplane

The bottom line was: no more unlimited hydroplane racing in the Miami Marine Stadium. I'm sure there were a number of factors. The fan base in South Florida was not that large, the liabilities of putting spectators along escape lanes are intimidating, and Miami is a long drive from other hydroplane racing venues. But I think the main ones were that the Stadium is too small for the boats, does not seat enough people, and the salt wreaks havoc on the expensive parts of the boats.

So farewell to one of the turbine powered Miss Budweiser hydroplanes, but I can't say I will miss her all that much. The last turbine powered hydroplane to which I became attached was the old 7-11 boat, and that lasted one day. I miss Dean Chenoweth and the THUNDERBOATS!

The post Remembering The Thunderboats first appeared on Tropical Boating.

FISH Boatworks and Florida Maritime Museum at Cortez, FL

Cortez Traditional Small Craft Festival Fleet At Docks

The historic fishing village of Cortez, FL is clinging tenaciously to its past even as other traditional Florida waterfront communities are irrevocably changed by modern development. Fishermen established the settlement in the 1880s and commercial fishing, particularly for mullet, has been a way of life ever since. Retiring the last of the fishing fleet and bulldozing the fish packing houses to create condominiums and dockominiums for retiring midwesterners and tourists might make more economic sense, but the old fishing families in Cortez might argue that their self-sufficient lifestyle and connection to the local environment have a unique value that is worth preserving.

Every April, the town is the site of a boatbuilders' gathering organized by the FL Gulf Coast Chapter of the Traditional Small Craft Association, at which a large and eclectic fleet of handmade craft and the people who make them gather to mess about in boats. Traditional boatbuilders are a bit like old Florida fishing villages: endangered by the modern world in which they have largely been replaced, yet persevering anyway. I decided to go up to check out the 2011 Great Florida Gulf Coast Small Craft Festival to see what it had to teach an aspiring boatbuilder like myself.

The Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of the Traditional Small Craft Association Festival was held at the site of the Florida Maritime Museum and the Florida Institute of Saltwater Heritage (F.I.S.H.) boatworks. The museum building is the old schoolhouse, restored and filled with model boats and ships and maritime memorabilia. They have also acquired the historic Burton Store, which survived the 1921 hurricane that devastated the rest of Cortez. It is sitting in the FISH Boatworks yard awaiting restoration.

I first stopped in the Maritime Museum to take a look at their exhibits. Out front, they have a traditional Cuban fishing vessel that was used by some Cubans to escape the Castro regime. Inside are pieces of other old boats, diorama models depicting traditional fishing life, and a number of nice wooden model boats. I was taking pictures of the models, including the catboat at left, and talking with one of the museum volunteers when one of my fellow catboat sailors, Paul, walked into the room. Paul signed the registration for the dinner that night, then we decided to walk on down to the docks and check out the boats.

On the way down the dock, we came across these people in the process of extracting their large dog from the cabin of their small sailboat. With the teenager lifting from behind and dad tugging from above, the dog managed to get out the companionway opening, but it was not pretty! Beautiful dog once on deck, but a good reminder for sailors to try to fall in love with smaller breeds.

The dock opposite the one we were on is an active commercial fishing dock with a packing house. The picture at left shows the current state of fishing technology: fast, shoal-draft boats that are capable of netting fish and setting crab traps in the shallow bays and backwaters. Commercial fishermen have come a long way from the days when net spreads for drying cotton nets and much more primitive boats dominated the shoreline.

When we got out to the floating docks where all the little boats were located, the first things we came across were some very nice paddling craft. This one has what appears to be a carbon fiber wishbone boom for the sailing rig. It is hard to see in the photo, but that leeboard on the other side of the boat is a real work of art. I think dragging it on the bottom would give me a heart attack.

The lapstrake rowboat with the flat bottom in the background of this picture was a really neat boat, but this strip built open kayak made me scarcely notice it! A boat like this seems far too attractive to risk using it around salt and sand.

A bit further out the dock were these two junk kayaks, and I'm not saying that to be mean! They were built as part of a competition to build kayaks out of waste building materials, if I understood correctly. They seem to have been made in skin and frame fashion, using whatever wood was around for the frame and Tyvec or groundcloth or something for the skin. That's boating on a budget! The black one looks pretty fast, too!

Catboat Willy and Paul

As we were examining the junk boats and the funny little boat beyond them, our fellow catboat sailor, Catboat Willy, came over from his boat to greet us, so I took a picture of Willy and Paul under the dock shelter.

The funny little boat at the end of the line was drawing a lot of attention, and someone asked whose boat it was.

"Moses," Paul volunteered.

That got a few chuckles, but the actual owner chimed in to explain that it is constructed with a ballistic nylon fabric skin, and the flat part is actually the bow of the boat. The number 13 is in the stern. That pretty much stopped the conversation, as no one really knew how to react to this boat.

A while later, I saw someone attempting to recreate Moses' journey. He appeared to by trying to scull in the direction we had been told was "forward," but was not having much success and the wind and tide were taking him sideways toward that narrow creek opening.

The largest boat to attend the Traditional Small Craft Festival was this gaff-rigged cutter named Surprise, which appears to be built on an old fishing boat design. I guess they stripped the sails off for show, but I do wonder about that monster outboard motor bracket. It looks sturdy enough to take an engine in the 20-30 hp range, big enough to drive the boat. Does that boat really have no inboard power? It looks like a shoal draft design, so I guess they might just put a 25 hp on there to drive the boat. It would not be fun wrestling such a heavy engine on and off the bracket by hand, but it looks like the mainsheet could easily be used for that purpose.

The other "big boat" at the small boat gathering was the catboat Nadine, which is not exactly a traditional catboat, but is a very nice looking cruiser all the same. She has a LOT of cabin and not all that much sail area for a catboat. Aft of Nadine is an old fashioned power launch with glossy black topsides.

Here is a shot of the black launch a bit later, when they were departing. If you're going to have a powerboat at a traditional craft festival, this is certainly a good choice! What may appear at first glance to be a death grip on both rails by the passenger was really more of a relaxed sprawl. The boat is just narrow enough to comfortably reach both sides.

Up in the parking lot, we encountered another powerboat entrant: this outboard powered traditional strip built skiff. I'm not sure what to think of that. I like outboards on small boats and dislike tiny little inboards in tiny little spaces, but that just looks wrong. It kind of looks like someone took a chainsaw to a really nice rowboat and stuck in an outboard.

I suppose if you are driving it, you do not see the outboard and you do not have to row. It does have a certain charm, but I can't get over how ridiculous the engine looks.

Back out on the dock, Willy's catboat Sea Bird is tied up next to another small power launch. This one has a little air-cooled engine in that box, which sounds like a bad enough idea to send me running for a chainsaw and an outboard. Now I think I understand how the boat above came to be outboard powered...

I caught a picture of the little launch as it was leaving with a very nice wooden decked kayak in tow. It sounded like an old VW Bug engine as it went putt putting away.

I walked out onto the sand bar to take a closer look at some of the boats scattered around in the knee-deep water. Being a multihull enthusiast, one that caught my eye right away was Shark Bait, a kayak trimaran with a ketch rig. It looks very light and can obviously carry quite a bit of sail for such a little boat. I was hoping to get the opportunity to see it sail, and after a while, I did, but only from a distance.

I do not know how it got away without my noticing, but here is a picture of Shark Bait under sail. It looks like the sail has zippered panels to reduce sail area and the mainsail is missing one. The jib is completely furled. The wind was not all that strong, so the reduced sail area suggests a light air flyer to me. I would love to take it for a ride! That's a big flag hanging off that sail, though. I think a smaller one would be just as patriotic and much better looking.

One of my favorites as I wandered the flat was this gaff-rigged schooner strip built canoe. It straddles the line between cute toy and real boat nicely, and the workmanship was excellent. I would rather sail Shark Bait, but this one is nice to look at!

There were many wooden boats finished bright, which is always a more attractive look to me than a painted boat, but this one really stood out. I think that is a mahogany deck on this Melonseed, and the rich, red color goes nicely with the tanbark sail. By far the nicest finish job I saw at the festival. If I owned such a beautiful boat, I would lock it in a nitrogen-filled storage room. It's just too pretty to expose to the Florida environment. Or maybe I would just paint it and use it, but I don't think I could use it if it looked like that. What if I scuffed it or something??

I met the proud owner of this little lapstrake skiff called Rascal when I was standing out by the boats. I commented that his engine seemed a bit big for the boat, and he told me that she sails and rows nicely, and that 5 hp two stroke engine will actually make the boat plane with a light load! OK, so maybe it's worth it to carry the larger engine around, if you're going to have one aboard at all. It is not traditional, but significantly changes the capabilities of the boat. Places that are out of range at slow speed are suddenly not so far if you are in a planing skiff.

In the background of this picture, you can see the beautiful Melonseed from the above photo attempting to leave under sail. They kind of got blown into the pilings over there, and were having a bit of trouble getting out. You can also see a little green catboat sailing in the channel.

The little green catboat is named Mar, and aboard were an old salt who seemed to know how to handle a dinghy and a young girl who seemed a bit terrified by the whole thing. They were moving right along downwind, then picked up some speed turning up toward the flat where I was standing. The young girl yelled, "We're going to crash!" About that time, the skipper turned the rest of the way into the wind to stop the boat and I grabbed the bow, though it was not really necessary. An expert landing, I was just being polite. The girl seemed astonished and pleased that the boat and dock were not a joined mass of splinters.

I was walking around in the water when this lady paddled by in this really gorgeous wood kayak. That light wood used for the deck really had a nice glow to it that does not come through in the picture. This is the same little kayak that was being towed by the black motor launch in a photo above.

I believe the moored boat is a Core Sound 17, and since I am very interested in that boat's big sister, the Everglades Challenge 22, I wanted to take a closer look, but it was out kind of far in deeper water. I did not want to that badly, I guess! I got close enough to take this picture as a Melonseed sailor went by, then turned back toward the dock.

The Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP) Boatworks is a traditional wooden boatbuilding program up in St. Augustine, FL, and the LAMP volunteers brought their skiff down to the festival this year.

Though a bit plain to the eye, this was one of my favorite boats at the festival. It just looks very practical, capacious, and well thought-out for a boat of this size. It also looks like it would not require a nitrogen filled storage facility.

I would not mind a bit using it and scratching it up. It looks easy to fix, and a fix on one of these is a lot easier to hide than on one of the gorgeous wooden boats.

I found a short video of this boat, or one just like it, under sail:

Next to the boat from LAMP Boatworks was this little catboat. I like the cockpit grate and the wide side decks, but it needs oarlocks and a place to use them. It is about the size of the LAMP boat, but looking at the two of them, I would rather sail the LAMP boat with a couple of friends, the catboat by myself. That's a big mast, and while I never saw the whole sail, it must be pretty large judging by the boom and sprit laying in the cockpit.

Sallie Adams was the biggest boat out on the flat. She's a Cortez boat, so the ability to get around on these shallows is important. Out beyond Sallie Adams is a kind of boxy looking microcruiser. I think that one is even smaller than the SCAMP, which is my favorite entrant in the "smallest is best" cruiser department.

Displaying her own shoal draft capability, this Americraft catboat has a businesslike appearance. I like the tanbark sail and simple Marconi rig, but the sail looks a bit small to my eye for a catboat. Many carry a gaff sail that overhangs the transom, with quite a bit more sail area. It looks fun and easy to sail, though, and if it is not too heavy should perform OK in all but the lightest winds.

Some fellow multihull sailors brought a couple of ultralight trimarans. One of these has a Marconi cat rig with a roller furling mast, while the other has a fractional sloop rig with roller furling jib. It is hard to tell, but it looks to me like that mainsail rolls around the boom when not in use on the sloop rig, which looks considerably more powerful. The boats are not very different in size, almost twins it seems, but the rigs are very different.

As I was getting ready to leave later on, I saw the trimarans disassembled and loaded on their custom trailer. Lots of parts and pieces!

We decided to walk up to the parking lot restaurant to get some food, and along the way I saw these fishing boats jockeying for dock space across the canal. The skiff in the foreground has trim tabs, and I was wondering...

...ummm...guys? The fishing skiff? In the foreground? There are fishing boats in that picture. And an S2 sailboat... Nevermind. Moving along...

OK, in this picture that contains no distractions, you can see that the fishing skiff has trim tabs on the transom. I was wondering where the controls are? Usually, trim tab controls are on the console near the throttle and steering wheel, but that is a tiller steered boat with no visible console. I guess they just hang them on the side of the seat or something.

Up in the parking lot, they had this replica of a Spanish scout/raider ship of the type that people like DeSoto would have used in the exploration and colonization of Florida. The shallow waters and strong currents in inlets along the west coast of Florida would have been hazardous for an old square-rigger, so the solution to approach a new shore was a small boat with six rowing stations. The cannon had to do with what to do when you get there...

I guess a scout/raider should have a gun, but I have to wonder whether something like this could really present a danger to anyone besides those aboard? It does not look powerful enough to damage a ship, nor accurate enough to hit a small boat. I guess it would make a heck of an impressive BANG!

One last shot in the water- this one of a classic rumrunner style runabout, but a bit modernized and with four stroke outboard power instead of the conventional inboard. The finish on this boat was outstanding. I thought the matching shirts made the whole thing a bit too attractive to be in the water, but I seem to have that opinion about a lot of good looking boats.

At the other end of the boat appearance and condition spectrum, this neglected ketch sat in the parking lot with a condemnation sticker on the side, or what was left of the side. You can see a crack that is several feet long on this side, and the rest of the boat was not in much better condition. It appears destined for a date with a chainsaw. Boats in this condition always make me wonder: on the day they launched this boat, did anyone imagine it would come to this end?

The sign pointing the way from the museum parking lot out to the FISH Boatworks area is an old boat, very appropriate. This one looks too far gone to ever make the restoration list, but it makes a great sign. On the way back to the boat building area, I saw the old Burton Store sitting in the field awaiting restoration. It looks like a pretty ordinary Florida Cracker Shack, but a bit larger and older than most.

There were several project boats in various states of ruin and restoration around the yard, but the showpiece at the moment was clearly this wooden Bahamas cruiser that is being restored under a tarp in the yard. I recall someone saying it is 28 feet long. It has quite a large pilothouse for a boat this size and a good sized cockpit. I wanted to get up and look inside, but no one was around.

Also under restoration at FISH was this long canoe, or possibly it is a kayak. The hull shape looks a lot like the native dugout canoes on display in the museum, but it is not a dugout. Whatever it may be, any boat that long and skinny is going to be fast to paddle!

I do not know what this boat is, but my first reaction to it was "Incredible Hulk." The bilge underneath the engine compartment was rotting out, among other things, but I guess someone has in mind restoring the boat.

I left the Traditional Small Craft Festival feeling a bit overwhelmed. I wanted to see a slice of what people out there are building to get some ideas and came away with more than I expected. Subsequent research about the boats I saw has led to many more boats, and at this point they all seem to highlight something else about boat building that I do not know. I'm guessing another year or so of this might be enough to teach me all of the things I do not know, at which point I can start learning some of them! Maybe it will not take so long...

The post Cortez Florida Small Craft Festival first appeared on Tropical Boating.

Thursday started out with the underside of high clouds painted red by the sun. The breeze was still blowing, but not quite as hard as on previous days. The persistent wind made me wish we were allowed to bring our sailing kayaks out on the Silver Bank. I asked Gene whether I could bring my foldable kayak, but he said it is against the rules to kayak with the whales on the Silver Bank.

Sunrise Behind Cloud Line

As the sun came up, it was obscured behind lines of clouds. The effect made the horizon area quite dim, while the sky above us was bright and blue. There were small storms scattered around, which looked to be about 20,000 feet tall, a few miles across, and barely raining. The tops were blown off in the classic "anvil head" shape, but I'm used to seeing that on much taller, bigger storms. Kind of like the Pan-Tropical Spotted Dolphins were miniatures of the ones we have back home - miniature anvil head storms!

Whales Turn Toward Me

We had a nice breakfast and got out on the tenders, and right away Brandon found a mother and calf resting and called us into the water. We all formed up in a line beside him, and I wound up on the end of the line nearest the whales. It looked like they were going to pass on one side of the group, then the calf turned to go the other way around us and his mother turned right toward me!

This is a bit like having a bus turn right toward you, and my initial inclination was: I need to get out of the way of this giant creature! I remembered what we had been told, though, which was that if the whales want to swim right up to you and check you out, that's good! A sudden movement to avoid them would be bad, so I just sat on the surface, hurriedly switching my camera from video to still picture mode as I watched them come closer.

Whales Turned

With her calf crossing in front of her, the mother whale finally turned to go by us when she was about 15 feet away. The scarring on the right side of her face indicates she is a Stellwagen Bank whale. They were studying me closely, probably thinking: I did not know they made humans that skinny! Or maybe: These people must be seriously lost! Possibly: Tourists again? Who knows what they think about, but this mother did not seem to view us as any kind of threat to her baby.

Whales Surfacing

The pair of whales surfaced to breathe right in front of our little group of swimmers. Being this close to these enormous animals and watching them watch us was not like anything else I have ever done in a lifetime spent getting out on the water as much as possible. I can see why people return year after year, and how Gene came to want to do it every year and share it with as many people as possible through his business.

Whales Breathe

The mother whale was in no hurry to go anywhere, and she just slowly descended nearby. Her calf was feeling playful, and would loop around her head. I caught one of those on the video below. Human mothers of the world should be thankful that their babies cannot twirl around their heads while mom is trying to have a nap!

Lumix Underwater Pic

My underwater camera is a Canon Powershot D10, and for comparison, Elliot Davidson was kind enough to share these two pictures taken with his Panasonic Lumix underwater camera. The two both received good reviews online, and the Lumix was my second choice when I bought the Canon. Interesting to see how differently the two cameras draw the blue of the ocean. I think his captured the actual color better. It could have to do with the settings used, or the fact that he knows what he is doing with a camera, while I do not.

Calf Descends

Elliot also shared this picture of the calf descending in front of its mother. She is that large, dark blob with white spots at the bottom of the frame. The splotchy background is actually the ocean bottom, barely visible about 80 feet below.

Back on the Tender

We must have been on "whale time" while we were with the mother and calf, because we were with them for quite a while without really realizing it. Meanwhile, the Sea for Yourself group had not found any cooperative whales as yet, so we did a whale "handoff" to their group and we all got back in the boat. I really do not have any reason to publish this picture, but since I already apologized in advance to Elliot for publishing a picture of him with seaweed stuck in his dreadlocks...

Dropped the Mooring at Lunchtime

We headed back to the Sun Dancer II, and when the other tender returned it was time to leave the mooring. We planned to depart early in the morning to head back to Puerto Plata, and since this was the last week of the whale season, the mooring had to be removed. That meant a night spent at anchor a bit further out, away from the cluster of coral heads that protect the mooring area from most wave action.

Chef Jerry prepared a delicious fish curry with rice dish and other good things for lunch, and we ate as the boat was moving out to anchor.

Dominican Fishermen Follow

Some Dominican fishermen came over to see Scooby again, but their timing was bad, approaching as the big boat picked up speed toward the anchorage. They wound up tagging along behind us as the boat moved out, then came up to the dive platform to chat. I think they might have traded a few parrotfish for cold Cokes. In the picture you can see them following along, with whale tender Bago on a short tow line. The other whale tender, Trini, was out on a whale tagging mission with Oswaldo and Amy.

Tagging Pursuit

At one point, the whales that Oswaldo and Amy were trying to tag with satellite tracking devices came near to the anchorage, giving us a front row view of the tagging operation. On the surface, you can see a female and her escort. The escorts sometimes view the tagging boat as a rival who might be trying to take his woman, so they get pretty worked up.

Breach Sequence

While we were waiting for the afternoon dive, some whales were breaching not too far away. As soon as I saw the nose break the surface, I would hold down the shutter on my camera, making it shoot continuously. This is where a better, faster camera would have been nice, but those tend not to be waterproof and rugged, at least in my price range. I spliced together 3 sequential images to get each of these pictures.

Breach Sequence

I also got a bunch of pictures of empty ocean and pictures of giant splashes. I threw away hundreds of them.

Lobtailing Near Spectators

While we were out on the afternoon trip in the tenders, we saw this whale lobtailing and pec slapping over near two of the tenders from Turks and Caicos Explorer II and Bago, our companion tender. This seemed to be a pretty common occurence, but they never did it near the tender we were aboard.

For those curious about the capabilities of my consumer-grade underwater camera, the picture at right was taken without zooming at all, using the default "action" setting. The lobtailing whale and the three boats in the picture are about half a mile away. I preserved the original pixel size of the inset (circular) blow-ups when optimizing the picture for the web.

Lobtailing Splash

The picture at left was taken using the 3x optical zoom of the camera, and was cropped to be 700 wide (the expanded version, click to enlarge). It was not otherwise altered, other than JPEG compression using Photoshop's "Save For Web" function.

Humpback Whale Fluke

We were not successful in finding whales that wanted to swim with us in the afternoon. We rode around quite a bit looking for them, and got in the water a couple of times, but got only a dim view of one mother and calf, who left the scene fairly quickly.

We encountered some whales that were on the move, and I took the opportunity to try to get some fluke shots for the scientists. That is harder than you would expect! I got the one at right, which is pretty good, but that is the original pixel size, altered only by cropping and JPEG compression.

Fluke Failures

As with the breaching photos, I was using the camera in continuous-shooting mode, and got lots and lots of junk. There were also quite a few in which the camera took a shot the moment before the fluke was exposed to us, and another shot the moment after. At left is a compilation of some of those fluke failures.

The last time we went into the water, Brandon was calling us over to see a mother, calf, and escort. I got to him first, and when I arrived, he swam down a short distance, then returned to the surface and started pointing down. I could see nothing down there but blue gloom, not even the bottom. I lined up to look down his arm as he continued pointing. Nothing.

This went on for a little while, and the rest of the divers around me were also looking down where Brandon was pointing, apparently seeing nothing. Meanwhile, back on the boat, Luis and Captain Eddy were about to die laughing. The had seen the mother and calf surface a couple of hundred yards away, and were certain that Brandon was showing us a rock or something, not a whale. I was beginning to wonder myself.

I was just getting ready to ask for permission to dive down a bit (something they told us is prohibited when swimming with the whales) when I saw a big, white pectoral fin loom up out of the gloom. I turned on the video and caught the escort whale as he came up to breathe. It is unusual for an escort to let the mother and calf wander away like that, so Luis and Eddy had been certain we could not be looking at those whales. If that whale had not shown himself, Brandon would probably have been given a hard time about it for years.

Video from our morning encounter with mother and calf, plus a brief clip of Brandon's Invisible Escort Whale

When we got back aboard the Sun Dancer II, the big evening excitement at the Sundowner Party was a little land bird who had decided to take a rest aboard. At least, it was very exciting to the bird people. In addition to having bright yellow and orange colors, this particular bird is pretty rare, and Amy reported that the only time she had seen one before was on a ship at sea. She tells me it is a Blackburnian Warbler. They gave him some water and some crackers or something.

The bird was probably pretty tired, but not too tired to fight his own reflection in the salon window. He was still aboard the next morning at dawn, hiding behind the ice machine in the bar.

Humpback Whale Lobtailing

Another whale lobtailing not too far from our ship as we watched from the aft deck. Turns out this was the last Silver Bank whale to wave bye bye to us.

Sunset Thursday

It was a really fantastic sunset view from the ship's bar that evening. The camera really does not do justice to the band of gold on the underside of that cloud. Spectacular.

Baked Alaska

Are they really serving us Baked Alaska on a boat? Yes, they did, and it was great! The picture is not so great, but I thought I was doing well just to make sure the flash did not go off and spoil Chef Jerry's moment!

Leaving the Silver Bank

Sunrise on Friday

One last sunrise on the Silver Bank, and we were soon under way back to Puerto Plata.

Squall with Rainbow

There was a small storm near our path as we left, with a nice rainbow. Weather was generally good, but the quartering wind and seas did cause some rolling.

Dominican Mountain

Approaching the north coast of the Dominican Republic, I was really enjoying the view of the mountain sticking up into the clouds. Those cloud bases are probably less than 3,000 feet up, so I guess to many people it is not much of a mountain, but I am from the flattest part of Florida. It looks like a mountain to me!

Dominican Hills

Our destination is tucked in the foothills surrounding the mountain, dead ahead in the picture. I'm glad that no one set off that four-trumpet horn while I was next to it! They say it's LOUD!

Ocean World

This is the Ocean World Casino (left of center), hotel/marina (right of center) and boat dry storage (further right), all protected by the rock breakwater. Some wave surge does make it around the breakwater and into the marina basin, so even the big boats are never quite still at the docks.

Luxury Yachts

Shortly after we arrived, the larger of these two luxury motor yachts approached the dock, and they put on quite a show. The first attempt was nose-in, but that was aborted. The crew quickly went to work resetting fenders for the stern-to docking, but a few of them were clearly too high. We were placing bets there for a bit on whether someone would fix them before the boat got scratched.

Papillon Restaurant Bar

For dinner on Friday night, most of us went to a restaurant called Papillon not too far from the marina. It was a really interesting place, with no exterior walls, thatch roof, driftwood sticks for chandeliers, and all kinds of interesting nautical decor items. I really like the giant schooner model over the bar. The proprietor, Thomas, is a man who understands food, and more specifically, the unbelievably large amounts of it that Gene wants to consume. He knows how to keep him coming back!

Papillon Kitchen Window

The pass-through window to the kitchen at Papillon was capped with driftwood and topped with the exoskeletons of cowfish. One of the dining tables was also constructed of driftwood; it was a large, split log.

Joel and the Sea for Yourself Group

I wandered over to another section of the restaurant, where Joel and his Sea for Yourself group had a table.

Our Table at Papillon

A couple of passengers did not come along, so our table consisted of Robert and Michaela, Gene, Sonja and me. The tall beers you see are Weihenstephan, and it turned out that one of Michaela's relatives actually worked in the brewery that produces it. It was very good! I could see why Germans will not drink our beer.

Sonja and I ordered a Chateauxbriand that was large enough to feed four people, cooked to perfection, and served with a vat of bernaise sauce that would drown a cow. For the first time in any restaurant, I did not ask for more sauce. This was followed up by a bite of Gene's chocolate mousse, which I had to agree was quite possibly the best thing in the world. Last but not least was some of Thomas' "special" coffee. I'm pretty sure that what was "special" about it was that no actual water was used in producing it. It was blended using brandy or something, and there were chocolate, cinnamon, and a few other flavors in there. It was powerful stuff, and made you feel really good, even after a too-big meal. It should probably be illegal.

Disembarking

Disembarking in the morning was easier said than done! With the tide low, it was quite a step up to the dock! Some of the passengers went around and exited at the bow, where it was not such a big step off the boat. Here Terence is helping Sonja off. I was probably supposed to do that!

Leaving the Boat

A last shot of the Sun Dancer II as we left the marina. We were not going far, just walking down the street to a restaurant that Gene had told us about that has a good wifi connection.

Chris and Maddy's

Another great restaurant recommendation. Chris and Maddy's was built to look as if it grew naturally out of the Dominican jungle, incorporating limestone into the short walls and floors and vines hanging from the thatch roof beams. The roof supports are concrete, but made to look like parts of trees. The little bridge in the picture goes over a Koi pond that runs through the restaurant. The bright sun blotted out the best part: the view across the street is a beautiful Dominican beach.

We had a hot breakfast and surfed the net for a while having an after-breakfast coffee. I could have lounged around there all day, and could see why Gene sometimes uses the place as his "office" on Saturdays while the boat is in port.

Marina Dry Storage Area

After a while, Gene called us to come back over to Ocean World. Conscious Breath Adventures is buying the whale tenders, and they are coming here to my place for some work. We wanted to have a look at what we would be doing. I could not resist taking a picture of the red sailboat with the pinched transom.

Knowing I would want to poke and tap on the boats, I had kept my Gerber Multitool and my SOG pocketknife on me. Sure enough, they came in handy, and since I wear them all the time at home, I forgot all about them right up until I arrived at the airport security check point. There went over $100 worth of knives. How annoying!

Bahama Bank Fish Mud Plumes

Going over the Bahama Bank west of Andros, I spotted several fish muds out on the bank. These mud plumes are caused by feeding fish stirring up the bottom.

Alligator Alley Sunset

We got into Miami in the evening and escaped the airport and the city with little hassle. Driving back across I-75 (Alligator Alley) I caught one last sunset picture for the trip.

The post Swimming With Humpback Whales – Day 5 & End first appeared on Tropical Boating.

We woke up Tuesday to strong winds, above the 25 knot wind limit set for Silver Bank whale watch operators. The weather delay meant a leisurely breakfast watching for whales around the mooring area. The coral heads scattered around us all had breaking waves washing over them, and some of the splashing off the irregular surfaces shot straight up. They really do look a bit like whales breaching or spouting in the distance, so we spotted lots of "breaching" reefs and a few actual whales as the morning progressed.

The inclement weather was not bad enough to stop the Dominican fishing fleet from going about their daily work. The video below includes a clip showing one approaching our boat, and you can see the two divers using the air compressor with long hookah rig hoses as a seat/leaning platform. A pile of pole spears and Hawaiian slings sits in the corner of the boat. As they depart, you can see the sun shining right through the thin fiberglass hull of the boat in places. In another shot, a skiff driver is bailing as he plows along through the waves, making it look a bit like the skiff is spouting sideways.

Uno Game

A game of Uno in the main salon occupied some of the guests, while others can be seen through the window as they read out by the bar. Not wanting to read or play games, I decided to wander around with my cameras and see what I found.

Chef Jerry

I wandered over to the galley door and caught Chef Jerry as he was preparing our lunch. Mmmm... Jerry's Mexican-themed creations were outstanding! Burritos, fajitas, bean and corn salad, guacamole and more!

Breaches Near Moorings

Out on deck, I videotaped this Humpback and her calf breaching near the the mooring field, beyond the bow of the Turks and Caicos Explorer II.

Watching these huge animals launch themselves most of the way out of the water does not seem to get old. We were captivated every time, and even the experienced crew would always pause to watch a moment if a whale was breaching near the boats.

Coral Heads "Breaching"

While I was at it, I took pictures and video of some coral heads "breaching" near the boat.

Beyond the reef line, you can see the white caps on large waves being stirred up out in the Atlantic Ocean. I could not believe it when I saw it, but some of the Dominican fishing skiffs actually ventured around to the outside of the reef to hunt that morning. They have a lot of faith in the seaworthiness of those little boats!

As lunch was being served, a group of whales were approaching the boat from astern. I decided to wait on the eating and stayed on deck with my video camera to film the whales as they passed by.

It was worth the wait, as they came by just off the side of the boat. You can see them in the video below, but I never put down the video camera to take any still shots.

Storm Approaching

After lunch, a storm band came through the anchorage, accompanied by some very strong wind gusts and a brief but heavy rainfall.

Whale Surfacing as Storms Recede

The storm line went away, and as the rain let up and I was able to get back outside some more whales came through the anchorage. We never had a shortage of whales, but sometimes conditions for watching them could have been better! Nature does not always cooperate, but that does make it more special when things go right!

This video shows the activity aboard the Sun Dancer II on Tuesday morning through the lunch hour and an early afternoon storm.

With the storm band and continuing wind preventing us from going out in the tenders to swim with whales, Oswaldo Vasquez and Amy Kennedy agreed to give a slideshow presentation to the group about their whale research work on the Silver Bank and elsewhere. They are trying to learn where the whales go, and when, to help prevent collisions with ships and entanglement with fishing gear, and with a view to establishing and expanding whale sanctuaries. Figuring out where they go is not that easy, and researchers use an array of techniques, including visual surveys from ships, aircraft, and from shore, photo identification, genetic analysis, bio-acoustic "fingerprinting" and using the satellite telemetry devices that Amy is here to deploy.

Oswaldo Vasquez Presentation

Here Oswaldo Vasquez, Advisor to the Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources of the Dominican Republic, is holding an arrow that has a hollow stainless tube with a foam rubber float wrapped around it where the point would ordinarily be. These arrows are fired from an ordinary crossbow. When they hit a whale, a small biopsy "plug" is captured by the tube. The foam rubber tip then expands, popping the arrow back out of the whale. It floats, so the researchers can easily retrieve it from the water immediately and preserve the sample. Oswaldo told us that the whales generally do not seem to feel the arrows at all, but they react to the boat. The biopsy samples obtained are useful in tracking whales through DNA analysis and in determining the diet and health of the whales and any contamination that may be in their tissues.

Researchers collaborate with each other, and with ordinary whale watchers, in assembling photo identification records of individual whales and dolphins. Oswaldo asked us to be sure to photograph Humpback Whale flukes at every opportunity, since every humpback has a unique pattern on the underside of the fluke. This long term tracking technique is literally "hit or miss" but has yielded important information about whale movements, their lifespans, mating habits and more. I did my part and got a few fluke photos of dubious scientific value along the way. I hope the people with better cameras did a better job. The waterproof Canon Powershot D10 I carry is perfect for me, but the shutter lag makes catching a fluke at the moment it is in the air difficult.

The Humpback Whale songs can also be used to identify whales and help to learn where they have been over time. We did not encounter any singers, but here is a great recording on the Conscious Breath Adventures website. All the whales in a given population sing the same song, and the song changes over time.

Amy with Line Throwing Gun

After Oswaldo wrapped up, NOAA National Marine Mammal Lab whale researcher Amy Kennedy got up to tell us about her work. I already put up a picture of Amy testing her harness on the introductory page, and here she is with the line throwing gun that they use to plant telemetry tags on whales. The gun is powered by compressed air from a SCUBA tank, and fires a small dart that sticks in the skin and blubber of the whale, leaving only the transmitter and a small antenna wire trailing on top. The satellite transponder units are made by Wildlife Computers, and are able to sense when they break the surface. They only transmit when they are on the surface, so that the satellite can receive the transmission.

Amy and her fellow researchers are trying to establish where the whales that visit Guadeloupe, the Silver Bank, and other parts of the Caribbean region come from, how long they stay, how individuals use the breeding grounds and what sex and maturity classes appear in different areas at different times of the year.

Caribbean Whale Movements

This slide shows the movements of Humpback Whales in the Caribbean that were tagged with satellite tracking devices during the 2008 season. The whales moved around the area quite a bit, from the eastern extreme of the Marine Mammal Sanctuary across the Silver Bank and all the way past Turks and Caicos, with one returning via the north coast of Haiti. This kind of information can help to guide area cruise ships around whale stocks and give regulators solid information to create speed limits in congested areas.

Southern Whale Migration by Brazil

The Large Whale Project that Amy heads also tracks whales in other parts of the world, and she showed us this slide of the migratory paths taken by South Atlantic whales as they pass close to the coast of Brazil and then head to South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. She also had a slide showing the path of one whale that crossed the Bering Sea over a two week period in August 2010, then hung around near Russia for another couple of weeks before the satellite tracking device fell off.

Afternoon Whale Watching

Weather conditions improved during the presentations and we loaded aboard the tenders for an afternoon of whale encounters. At least, that was the plan. For once, the mooring area was completely devoid of whales, and we actually had to go look for a little while to find some. Eddy headed out to the deeper part of the bank downwind of the moorings, where we might find better visibility in the water. The chop had died down, but the water was still pretty stirred up.

After a while we came across a mother Humpback, her calf, and escort. They were moving slowly back toward the coral reefs, and we followed alongside some distance away for quite a while. They paused once or twice along the way, giving us hope that they would settle down to sleep, but then they moved off again.

Silver Bank Coral Head

While timing the breath cycles of the whales and watching for their reappearance on the surface, Captain Eddy would sometimes keep a coral head like this one between us and the whales. I guess the boat disturbs them less if it is beyond a big rock and coral formation.

Underwater Reef Picture

When Eddy got particularly close to this coral formation, I again stuck my camera in to see if it could capture a reef scene from above. Not bad! Some blue wrasses of some kind, sea fans, brain corals and all kinds of old coral skeletons. It's hard to believe this is not the big attraction here!

Baby Whale Breathing

The whales led us quite a ways upwind, and we wound up right back where we had started! Here the baby whale can be seen surfacing near the Turks and Caicos Explorer II. The whales then turned around and led us back downwind quite a ways, at which point the wind picked back up and they turned and started heading upwind again. A plot of our track around the area that day would look like a model of drunken indecision, but it was really all the whales' fault!

Humpback Whale Fluke

I kept trying to get useful shots when the whales would stick their flukes up to descend, but did not get close enough to get great detail. I doubt this picture is scientifically useful in identifying this particular whale, but maybe... We were perhaps a hundred yards away at the time, so I circled the fluke in the picture and enlarged it in the inset portion.

We were looking for whales up close to the barrier reef line toward the end of the day when Gene and Eddy told us about a clueless adventurer who had appeared earlier in the season. They noticed a cruising catamaran outside the reef line and thought it might be attempting to cross the reef. Captain Eddy called the boat on the radio and said, "You see that steel structure up ahead of you? You are about to make the same mistake he did! Turn NW and go around the reef!"

The boat continued to maneuver around outside the reef, and Gene said to Eddy, "They are about to do something stupid." Sure enough, the boat came right across the reef! They reported hitting it twice on the way, and Gene said the only reason the story did not end with a dramatic rescue attempt was that they did it on a high tide in a shallow draft boat. The cruisers reported that their chartplotter, set on 100 mile range, did not show the Silver Bank reef, and they were distracted by setting up the BBQ before sunset. I really don't know where to start with this story, so I'll just let it speak for itself.

Returning to Sun Dancer II

We eventually made our way back to the Sun Dancer II without getting in the water with any whales that day. We had fun anyway, saw lots of whales, and enjoyed learning about them from Oswaldo and Amy. That is all you get to do when watching whales in most parts of the world, so being in a place where not getting to actually swim with them is something of an irregular disappointment is pretty special. Gene looks a bit wind-whipped and disappointed in this shot as we approach the Sun Dancer II, with Scooby standing by to receive our bow line.

Because waves can be pretty large in the mooring area and the ship can swing quite a bit at anchor, the standard procedure for bringing the tenders alongside is to toss out a heavy bow line, which is then secured to the ship, then reverse hard with both engines, backing the stern of the tender around to the stern of the ship. By the time the two are close enough to hit each other, the big, orange ball fenders are in between to protect them. It's a good time to remain seated until the captain has turned off the "fasten seat belts" sign. They told us that moving from the tender to the ship would be the most dangerous thing we would do all week, and I think that is true. Timing your step to the motion of the boats is crucial.

Scooby Chats With Fishermen

After we got our gear rinsed and got showered and dried off, we went up to the Lido Deck for the daily Sundowner Party. Looking over the aft rail, I saw some Dominican fishermen approaching in their skiff. These are friends of Scooby's, and they stopped by the boat a few times while we were out on the Bank. I think he might be negotiating for fish for our dinner or something. I was pretty impressed with the pile of lobster to one side of the boat and the pile of conch on the other side. Those are some big lobsters! I think the barracuda on top of the lobster pile was destined to be their dinner.

Tuesday Sunset

Thanks to Elliot Davidson for sharing this picture of the sunset on Tuesday, showing the spectacular gold sky and black water of the Silver Bank.

As we watched the sun go down, I could tell I was causing great pain in Oswaldo's heart by mixing really fine sipping rum with Coca Cola, so I decided to try drinking some his way: on ice. I had never really enjoyed rum like that before, possibly because I never really gave it a chance, but it was really good! We went inside at dark and had a rich dinner with pork chops, then stayed up chatting with Gene for a while about his plans for the future.

I guess all of it was a bit too much for me, and I woke up nauseated at about 1:30 am, so I did not have a great night's sleep, but I felt OK by morning.

Fourth Day on the Silver Bank

Swimming with the Humpback Whales

Whales at Sunrise Wednesday

As we were getting coffee at sunrise, Elliot and I were alerted by Barbara and Carlos to some whales resting beside the boat. "Logging" was how another of the crew described it, and one was floating on the surface very much like a log. It can be seen in the video below.

Fly Calf Air!

Out looking for whales, we came across this Humpback calf breaching energetically. It was really getting into the joy of flight, as you can see in this picture.

Waves Break On Coral

The wind continued to blow up to 20 knots Wednesday morning, making conditions a bit difficult for swimming with the whales. The plume of mist that the whales make when they spout dissipates quickly in strong winds, making it hard to find whales in the first place. Once whales are found, the surface chop and wind affect the boats and divers, making it difficult to remain in one place. Last but not least, the several days of wind had stirred up the water quite a bit, and visibility was poor.

I took the picture at right of waves breaking over the large coral patch while we were waiting for Gene to call us into the water. He swam over to whales several times, but each time that we tried to get near them with him in the water, they moved off. Gene explained that whales, like humans, have a certain personal comfort zone, and do not appreciate intrusion. When divers slowly drift into the zone in good visibility, the whale monitors the intrusion and may accept it. When a group of us appears out of the blue already within the comfort zone, the whales move off.

Patch Reef

In this picture of a small coral patch reef, you can see the tip of Sonja's fin. We were once again awaiting the signal to go in the water when I took the picture. In the background, you can see the Turks and Caicos Aggressor II on her mooring. Small patches of coral like this one are the reason several of the crew on these boats keep a sharp lookout when approaching the mooring area. They are everywhere, and while they are pretty easy to spot, they can do a lot of damage if you fail to notice one.

Coral Bleaching

I never got tired of trying to photograph the reefs by sticking my arm over the side of the boat! In this one, you can see a bit of bleaching on the tips of some coral branches. Some of the giant coral heads show extensive damage from deliberate bleaching by fishermen. It's hard to believe anyone thought this was a good idea, but one way to get lobsters, fish, and everything else to come out from all the holes and crevices in a reef patch is to inject the whole thing with a bunch of chlorine bleach. Of course, it kills most of the coral when they do that. The method is no longer used, but coral grows slowly, so the damage remains.

Surface Action

We saw a Humpback calf playing on the surface off the bow of the Aggressor  and headed over that way to see if the mother was sleeping and would be receptive to divers.

The whales were moving around slowly, not seeming to head anywhere in particular, but we were still frustrated in our attempts to get in the water with them. Several times Gene got in the water, only to get back out when they moved a short distance away again. When we did get in the water, we generally did not get close enough to get a good look before they moved. Again, the low visibility was causing us to suddenly appear too close to the whales. They were not alarmed enough to bolt, but just slowly moved away.

Whales Fly By

After a while, the whale pair we had been watching started to move along steadily, and we decided to try a "fly by" in the water. The whole group of us dropped off the boat near the path of the approaching whales to see if they would pass by near us. They did! In this picture, you can see a bit of my wife, Sonja, and the mother and calf Humpbacks beyond. The mother is on the surface, the calf below. As you can see, we were within the mom's body length of both whales, and still barely able to see them.

Whales Below

In this picture, taken as mother and calf passed in front of and below the group of swimmers, the calf came out nicely, but mom is barely visible. Her mouth and the tubercles and barnacles around her chin can be seen in the lower left corner, and her body actually occupies the entire bottom part of the frame.

Calf On Surface

The calf approached us near the surface in the picture at right, and I could see why Gene has that fisheye lens on his underwater camera housing. Whales are large subjects, and I was barely able to get part of the calf in this frame while getting a small piece of his mother. She came out looking like a film developing mistake, so I cropped to get only the calf.

Mother & Calf Swim By

The two pictures at left were taken using the continuous shooting mode on my camera. In the first one, mom and calf are just lazing along, having passed by the group of divers. In the second frame, you can see the turbulence created by the calf as it darted down in front of its mother. That was the end of that encounter, since even the mother's slow cruising speed was far too fast for humans to follow.

Elliot Imitates Whales

As the whales departed the area, Elliot decided to have a little fun while waiting for the tender to come and pick us up. He dove down a few feet and started swimming with his fins together, imitating the motion of the whales. It looks funny when a human does it!

At some point during the whale swimming fun, I got a pretty bad cramp in one calf, making the muscle sore, and I also managed to wrench my shoulder a bit climbing back into the tender from the water. I was feeling a bit beat up after all that, and a cheeseburger for lunch knocked me right out.

Whale Tagging Mission

I missed out on an opportunity to go along on the whale tagging mission during lunch with Amy and Oswaldo. In the picture at left, Terence is securing the bow line, Amy is already looking for whales, and Oswaldo and Sonja are in the back of the boat near Gene, who is driving. Also slept right on through the afternoon whale watching, which I was told went about like the morning session: limited success due to poor visibility.

Tom & Sonja at Sundowner

I was feeling better when I woke up, and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon sorting through my photos and videos in the salon before the whale watchers returned. Once the boats got back, we had the afternoon Sundowner Party, and Sonja and I were both feeling quite jolly. Thanks to Elliot for this photo!

Wednesday Sunset

Another spectacular Carribean sunset, but no green flash this night either. We all went inside for a delicious dinner of pork ribs, after which Gene did a slideshow presentation on environmental issues impacting the oceans and whales.

See the video below of our activities on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The post Swimming With Humpback Whales – Days 3 and 4 first appeared on Tropical Boating.