November 8th 1997 - The Admiral's here

• High temperature this period 32.2 Celsius
• Lowest temperature this period 14.2 Celsius

The admiral has arrived! The party is over. Just kidding, the tough part is over! From now on there is no schedule and no destinations other than moving towards the Caribbean at a snails pace.

Joni, Mik the dog and our friend Gail showed up a day early, so instead of arriving to a dressed ship, they arrived to a boat with it's electric gut torn out and a skipper who needed a beer. Oh well, at least it wasn't a ship that needed a beer and a skipper wearing a dress! (One of the warning signs that you've been sailing alone for too long!)

The next couple of days were filled with a couple of hours visiting Daytona Beach, and several days visiting marine, hardware and grocery stores.

For those of you following the trip so far, the amount of money we went through on this leg probably is shocking. Let me break a few things out for you.

We are beginning to stock for the Islands, so we now carry (you guessed it) about 15 cases of beer and soft drinks. There will be twice that when we leave for Bimini. In general, we have spent almost $400.00 this week on longer term stow away food. Stuff like canned chicken, salami, soap, Joy detergent (only cheap stuff that works in salt water), dried fruit, nuts, crazy skippers (oops!!! that was on the boat since Montreal), and all sorts of things to drop into the bilge.

We also added new batteries. Luckily I scored a pair of pretty good golf cart batteries for free from our new found friend Tom Bergman who is heading south on board "Destiny's End". (popular name isn't it?). The 6 volt golf cart batteries are wired together in series to create 12 volts and about 220 amp hours. A new battery bank, a new group 27, 12 volt'er serves as battery #2, and can provide an additional 180 amp hours.

I also redid all of the connections, to the fuse box, bilge pumps, grounds and anything else to salt proof (as much as I can) against potential wiring screw ups.

Equipment wise, this meant that I spent $ 250.00 on the other battery, wiring, panels, two more navy anchors to use as kellits, rope, spare outboard motor impeller kit, and a bunch of extra filters and widgets and stuff.

I also installed a water collection system that I dreamed up, and I sure hope works. I took a couple of transom plugs and put them on both the port and starboard decks, at a point where I've noticed that the water never completely drains off (just behind the Genoa track on the CS27). I then put a hose from those two fittings, through to another transom plus fitting, just inside of the cockpit. Plugs are easily screwed into the system so that it only pours water into the cockpit and containers for fresh water, when you need it. I hope that it works!.

To install all these new toys I stayed at the Daytona Halifax Harbor Marina, one of the largest marinas in the USA. (about 550 transient slips!!!!) That cost $ 22.00 per day pro rated for a stay of nine nights.

I dare anyone to stay in a downtown marina and not spend more than they'd like on eating and drinking out! That ate a pretty penny as well, but you have to realize that now, it's for two people, not just me.

I sure hope that we can get back onto the "free is good" system soon or there'll be no beer money very soon into this trip!.

On the subject of beer, an alert reader of these pages recently wrote to me on the subject and computer viruses. She writes in part:

"At least they haven't invented a virus that can use the inter net to sneak into your boat and drink all your beer!!"

I had not though of that! Is everyone sure that they haven't invented a virus that'll do that yet? I mean they've got them that can clean out your bank account right...it seems to me that cleaning out the beer fridge could be next.

Another observation about beer occurred at a local establishment called "Hooters". Gail and Joni took me to the Daytona location of this giant chain against my will for crab and beer while Gail was stationed here, hoping to meet sailors. I objected because I believe that the scantly dressed waitresses detract from the flavour of the fine ales and lagers served there. In my opinion, jiggling young things in hot pants do not help a man concentrate on his beer, or the TV football game shown on big screens through out the establishment. I will endeavour to visit several more "Hooters" before I leave Florida in an effort to see if they all treat beer the same way.