Not the boat named Smartini, but rather “Team Smartini” – Fran and Butch. See, two weeks ago today, we stepped off the boat named Smartini for the last time, leaving her in the very capable hands of her new owners, Linda and Brian Werder. They’ll be continuing The Big Adventure that we started five years ago; already they’ve gone way farther up the East Coast than the boat has ever been before, all the way to Urbana, VA, a little town on the Chesapeake Bay. They’ll stay there until the end of hurricane season, then head back to FL, then the Bahamas, and then wherever their adventuresome souls guide them. We wish them luck, and hope they enjoy living on Smartini as much as we did. They’ll be renaming the boat “Vahevala“, from the 1971 Loggins and Messina tune of the same name.
Continue reading “Smartini Runs Aground”Category: M/V Smartini
Posts that are mostly about our home, M/V (motor vessel) Smartini. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
We’re in Turks and Caicos!
Just a short post to let y’all know, our address has changed from “The Bahamas” to “Turks and Caicos”. We arrived at the Turtle Cove Marina on Monday afternoon. It was a 382 nm run from Nassau to here:
– 15 hours to Cat Island
– 8 hours to Sal Salvador
– 6 nights on San Salvador, with a little scuba diving and island exploration (met some GREAT people from Michigan Adventure Diving in Milan, MI on a dive trip – Thanks, Ty, and Kadee, and Betsy, and Suzette, and Steve, and Elaine, and Tom, for welcoming us into your group!)
– 11 hours to Semana
– 11 hours to Mayaguana
– 7 hours to Provo
The last 20 minutes were the most interesting. Provo is protected on its north side by a lot of coral reef, and there’s only one safe route through it. It’s twisty and windy, and at one point, only 30 feet wide (Smartini is 16 feet wide). So the marina sent out a guide boat for us to follow in. Thankfully, we had high tide and no wind, so it was easy, but still a little nerve wracking.
Yesterday (the day after we arrived on really nice seas), the wind kicked up, and the dive boat that shares our marina went out, and came right back in – too rough! Hats off to the Smartini Trip Planning Department for picking a near-perfect three day window for the journey here!
Killer
“Killer” is the name of our dinghy – the little boat we carry around with us on Smartini that we use for all local excursions after we arrive in an anchorage. He figures so prominently in our adventures that I decided to give him his own post.
Work, Work, Work…
Faithful readers will know that Smartini recently completed yet another longer-than-anticipated haul out (when the boat is out of the water for various repairs, which either can’t, or can’t easily, be done while IN the water). “Why does it always take you guys so long?”, you might ask. “Shut the hell up!!”, I might reply. But no, that would be rude. So lemme ‘splain. No, there is too much – lemme sum up.
This post is a list of pretty much everything we and three vendors did to Smartini from December 4 to February 22. I didn’t try to make it funny, and it’s long, so unless you’re really interested in what it’s like to own and maintain a boat like Smartini, it probably won’t be all that thrilling.
Sometimes It’s The Little Things
In an effort to post shorter tidbits, and more often – here you go!
Ever since we had the built-in benches and fishing tackle storage center done, we’ve wanted to put “fiddles” on a couple of them. (Fiddle: noun – a small ledge or barrier raised in heavy weather to keep dishes, pots, utensils, etc., from sliding off tables and stoves.) These also double as handrails, when going onto and off of the flybridge helm area and the swim platform.
Smartini vs. Irma: The Last Word
Fran, May, and I made it back to Smartini, in the Key West Bight Marina, two days ago (Thursday, September 21), for our first look at her after Irma’s visit. Now that we’ve had a chance to look at the whole boat, the only things we found wrong that we didn’t already know about (from the pictures sent by a friend of a new acquaintance, shown in the previous Smartini vs. Irma update) were a broken radio antenna and a navigation light that came loose from its mount.
Smartini vs. Irma: Penultimate Update
(This should be almost the last update – the last one will come after we have a chance to get on Smartini ourselves, hopefully later this week.)
Smartini vs. Irma Update – new video!
There’s a guy on a sailboat in the Key West Bight who’s been sharing pictures and video on his Facebook account: S/V Andromeda. (I can’t seem to share the video outside of Facebook, but I’ve shared it on my FB page, so if you have FB, just go to my page, and you can watch the video.) With about 25 seconds left in the video, he points to a boat and says “Guy over there lost his mast” – at that point, Smartini is just to the right of his hand. As you can see, it’s perfectly upright, and although his lens isn’t as clear as I’d like, there doesn’t appear to be a solar panel out of place, which we thought might be the case from the satellite image we saw yesterday. Fingers crossed.
The Mayor of Key West released a statement within the last few hours saying it’s likely to be 7 – 10 days before people will be allowed to return to their homes, so unless we can find another way in, we’ve got some time to kill. We’re going to try to find some volunteering to do in the Northern and Middle Keys, as they open those areas up, so that we can be close, and to try to help out. Wish I had a chainsaw!
Smartini vs. Irma Update – Smartini Lives!
We just saw a satellite picture of Smartini, floating in her slip in Key West Bight Marina. Looks like one solar panel is very much out of place, but the dinghy is where it should be. That’s about all we can tell from the image, but at least we know she didn’t break loose, and that the docks stayed in place. 
If you want to look at the imagery yourself, click here, then zoom in on Key West. On the north side of the west end of the island is the Key West Bight Marina, which is labeled in the image. Zoom in on the silver-roofed building in the middle of the marina, and Smartini is in the first row of boats to the east. She’s the one that’s even with the north end of the building.
We still need a first hand report from someone in Key West, so if anyone reading this knows anyone who’s still in Key West, and has any way to communicate with them, please send me an email at ba58smith@gmail.com with their contact info.
Smartini and Turtle E. Awesome vs. Irma
Smartini was left in Key West Bight Marina, secured as well as we could, and we drove north to Satellite Beach, our old stomping grounds. As you may have seen on the news, Key West got hit pretty hard, but our initial “insider” reports are that it wasn’t as bad – at least, not as much damage – as everyone was expecting. We’re still trying to get an update from someone who’s in Key West – someone who can actually go take some pictures of the boat. 
Steve Powers, whose family now owns Turtle E. Awesome (we were half owners with them originally), drove to Melbourne last Thursday, and all three of us (Fran, Steve, and me) spent all day Friday getting him into a better-protected slip, and all tied up. Initial word is the marina’s in great shape, so we have no reason to believe the Turtle isn’t, too. We’re heading that way in a few minutes to see for ourselves. 
We’ve all spent the last several nights at dear friends’ places – first at Robin’s in Indian Harbour Beach, and the last couple nights in Melbourne, at the currently vacant condo of the father of our friend Q. Can’t thank you guys enough for letting us hang out here – it’s been great to have comfortable digs during this whole thing.
And in case you’re wondering – May seems to be fine. 
More news later, when we have pictures of the Turtle and Smartini.
Irma vs. Smartini
A brief update on Fran, Brian, May, and Smartini, in light of the #$%&@ hurricane that’s heading our way.
Just to let everyone know, Smartini is in Key West, pretty much dead center of the predicted path for Hurricane Irma, 4 – 5 days from now. We’ve considered all of our options, and “running” doesn’t seem like a good one. Where would we run that wouldn’t have at least a decent chance of being the actual location of Irma’s landfall? The Florida Keys aren’t an ideal cruising ground for Smartini – with our 6′ draft (how deep under the water we are), there aren’t many places that we can get into. Marathon and Key West are about it, and although we could make it back to Marathon before the storm hits, then we’d be on a mooring ball, surrounded by an awful lot of boats that aren’t in such good shape, and whose owners are either completely absent, or at the very least not too concerned about their vessels. In other words, we’d be very likely to get slammed by one or more loose boats. Here in Key West, we’re in a nice marina, protected on three sides, with what seem to be solid pilings to tie up to.
It’s now Tuesday night. Tomorrow morning, we’ll finish the boat preparations (bringing everything inside that we can, and putting every line and every fender we own between the boat and the dock), and tomorrow evening, we’ll drive north to our old stomping grounds – Satellite Beach / Indian Harbour Beach / Melbourne. There, we’ll visit friends, get some wings at Long Doggers, drink lots of great beer at Intracoastal Brewing, and watch Irma from a safe distance. When it’s safe, and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office says we can, we’ll drive back to Key West and hopefully find a fully intact Smartini, ready to continue the Big Adventure. And if not… well, that’s why we have insurance.
Back in the Water Again!
What started as a planned two-week haulout to re-do a poorly done bottom job finally ended last Saturday, after 5 months, 1 week, and 3 days, when we got Smartini in the water again!
What started as a planned two-week haulout to re-do a poorly done bottom job finally ended last Saturday, after 5 months, 1 week, and 3 days, when we got Smartini in the water again!
I’ll do a more thorough article on a lot of the things that were done, but here’s a partial list (in case you think we’ve just been goofing off!). Also, we were away from the boat for various reasons (some good, some not so good) for a total of 56 nights during that stretch – almost two months!
Putting Things Back Together
Just a quickie update. We’re FINALLY wrapping up all the projects on Smartini at the Cracker Boy Boat Works boat yard, in Fort Pierce, FL. The final painting of all the small repaired areas is almost finished. Most of the hand rails that came off for refinishing the caprail are back on. The rudder is back on and filled with propylene glycol (don’t ask). Eleventy-seven other projects, big and small, have already been completed.
In these two pictures, you see how we put 14 gallons of anti-freeze back in the engine yesterday, in no time flat! The fill hole is about eye level, and too close to the ceiling of the engine room to just pour it in. So we used a handy little pump that’s turned by a drill. Well under a minute to pump each gallon.
We expect to be ready to be back in the water before a short visit to Fort Collins, CO and Houston, TX, coming up on the 25th. When we return on June 5, we should be no more than a day or two away from splashing!
Christmas in the Bahamas
(If you just want to see all the pictures from the trip, click here.)
Like all ocean crossings (I know – it’s only 54 miles from FL to the Bahamas, but it’s still an ocean crossing!), we spent a good bit of time planning this one. Weather and sea condition forecasts, fuel planning, provisions, and the hundred other details that must be considered for an eleven day trip. But this one was actually in the planning stages for over five years! Because this trip was going to be the first time that all three of the original dreamers got to go somewhere on a big boat together. It was at least five years ago, in the warm comfort of our living room in Indianapolis, drinking good homebrew, that Fran, me, and our dear friend and neighbor Steve Powers started dreaming about traveling the sea on a trawler.
Up in the Air
Here’s a little something for you to ponder while I put the finishing touches on the “Christmas in the Bahamas” post. In the above picture, Smartini is:
a) finally being converted to the hovercraft we always dreamed of.
b) being fumigated, after a rat infestation was found in the bilge.
c) being sandblasted below the waterline, in preparation for the second “10 year bottom job” in the last 11 months.
If you have another guess, post it in the Comments.