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FROM THE HELM

OCTOBER 2007

Dan is not going to be able to get up to see his family this fall like he wanted to so Dan's brother Jeff is coming for a visit at the end of the month. There should be some adventures to report for November's update.

We just planned a Thanksgiving weekend raft-up at Ft. McRea with our neighbors and we are looking forward to it.

We will endeavour to update the site better than we have for most of 2007.  Please note that we have updated the missing months below.

SEPTEMBER 2007

The weather for Labor Day Weekend sucked.  It rained off and on all weekend, so we stayed in port and just did day trips.  Christina managed to get Dan on a horse for the first time in 10 years.  There were photos that mysteriously disappeared....  Dan convinced Christina to load the dinghy in the truck and go launch it into Santa Rosa sound to go meet some friends at a raft up.  Loaded down with gear, the dinghy only goes 4 mph at wide open throttle.  Luckily the raft-up spot was only 4 miles from where we launched.  We got there an hour later only to discover there was a launch ramp right across from the raft-up location.  Some people we met at the raft-up had launched from there, so we followed them back that evening and they drove us to our truck.  Saved us about 40 minutes on the water.

The big news for September is Christina's ride at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville North Carolina. What an excursion.  It took two days to get up there, spent four days there, and two days to get home.  This trip coincided with the threat of tropical weather.  Dan was constantly worried about the subtropical/tropical/whatever it was, storm that cut across Florida, then re-emerged in the Gulf.  All the forecasters said it was going to head for the LA/TX border.  Every forecast revised the strength and landfall of the storm until at last it was supposed to make landfall smack on top of Pensacola.  With us in Asheville North Carolina, Dan was very nervous and contemplated driving all the way home to secure the boat and ride out the storm, then drive all the way back to get Christina.  Dan called our friends Marty and Lori to see if they could secure a few things on the boat for us and they were more than happy to.  Luckily, the forecaster blew the forecast of the storm and it made landfall about 30 miles East of us.  There wasn't even any wind and maybe an inch of rain.

But, I digress,  Christina finished her first 50+mile ride - 55 to be exact, and has become a true endurance riderr.  Half way through the ride she was ready to sell her horse and be done with it all, but she persevered and finished the ride.  She immediately started to plan her next ride.  While we were in Asheville, we met up with some of Dan's friends from work for dinner.  Click here for the photos. we also went whitewater rafting down the French Broad. As you can see from the photos it was a lot of fun.  

AUGUST  2007

Well Hurricane season has been pretty quiet for us. Christina has been busy training for her first 50 mile+ endurance ride coming up in September.  She has to get up at 3 - 4am to go ride because of the heat.  Dan has been running around a lot in the dinghy spending his weekends out on the water. 

Dan witnessed another Jet Ski accident at Redneck Island.  A group of four friends with two Jet Skis were taking turns riding around on the river.  On of the friends dove off the Jet Ski head first in knee deep water on his way back to the beach to swap riders.  The guy surfaced face down in the water, limp and remained like that.  We asked his friends if he was OK and they said "Yeah, he's just cooling off".  After he remained like that for a minute we told his friends something was wrong and ran to the guy.  We flipped him over and he started to gasp for air.  He could not feel anything from the neck down, and could not move his arms or legs.  We had an interesting call with 911 as we tried to explain the island was boat access only.  We were told they were sending a Helicopter.  15 minutes later the Marine Patrol pulls up with the paramedics. 

JULY 2007

Our friends Bobby and Donna came for a visit at the end of June, beginning of July.  We had a lot of fun with them here.  Bobby brought a smaller armory with him along with tons of ammunition and his own communications depot with him.  We loaded the boat up with friends for the 4th of July, and took the boat out into the Bay to watch the fireworks. 

    We dropped anchor in late afternoon and broke out the guns.  Bobby, in typical fashion, provided everyone on board firearms training and we started shooting.  For safety. we were a couple miles from any land and fired into the water a good distance from the boat.  We also stopped firing when any other boat was with in visual range.  After the lesson in how to invade a small country, we fired up the grill and had dinner.  The fireworks themselves were very good.  From our position in the bay we were able to see Milton's, Pensacola Beach's, and downtown Pensacola's fireworks displays.  We then did a midnight cruise back to port which was an adventure in itself since the bay is still poorly marked from Ivan and the new I10 bridge spans are poorly lit.

During all of this, We completely forgot about our anniversary.  We were standing in Target buying supplies for the 4th of July Party when we remembered.  We just looked at each other and couldn't believe it.  We shrugged it off and went on with our day.

Later that week, we took the boat out to Redneck Island with Bobby, Donna, his sister Christy, and her two children.  The kids had a blast on the water.  Christy's daughter Nicole took to the water like a fish.

After this first week of July, it got hot so we stopped taking the boat out since it was just miserable to try to sleep.

We went out to the annual Blue Angels show on a friends boat.  We towed the dinghy behind it so we could go visit with other friends while at the show.  Things did not go as planned.  The boat ran aground in the approach to the anchorage.  All attempts to free her failed so we decided to sit tight and wait for the tide to rise.  We watched the show and then everyone wanted to get underway immediately afterward, but we were still hard aground.  We tried for hours to get the boat free and then Christina and I decided to run to shore to drop her off so she could catch a cab home to walk Bailey since our timeframe to get home was now past midnight.  While dropping Christina off, another large boat offered assistance and tow line was strung between them.   Both vessels powered up and started making slow headway.  It was at this point that a runabout tried to cut in between the two boats.  Our friends started to yell and wave them off.  Luckily the occupants of the runabout saw the tow line and altered course.  Unfortunately, a jet skier at full throttle behind the runabout didn't.  He caught the tow line and went flipping through the air.  We all thought he was dead.  I was on my way back to the boat when this happened, and gunned the throttle.  I was the first responder, got the guy out of the water, and back to shore where an ambulance was already waiting.  The Jet Skier was a young guy with only two cuts to his face.  A couple stitches and he was good to go.  

JUNE 2007

Well, lets start off by recapping Memorial Day Weekend.  We took the boat out, and met up with some friends.  Here are some photo's:

Nothing exciting happened in June, nothing.  Oh wait, Christina did have her birthday.  She decided to spend the day at the Explorium in Mobile checking out an awesome Pompei exhibit.  There were a lot of artifacts and even the plaster casts of the people trapped in the ash.  The timeline of how the disaster unfolded was very well done.

In mid-June Dan rescued two people clinging to an overturned boat.  While walking the dog early in the morning he heard people whistling and yelling.  He jumped in the dinghy and went to investigate.  Luckily he was able to get the people and the boat back  

We also hosted our 3rd Annual Midsummer's Eve Party.  The usual suspects showed up and we had a lot of fun.

Dan also took the Sea Ranch out for a spin a couple times.

MARCH/APRIL/MAY 2007

Wow, have three months really gone past this quickly? Dan spent the first half of March on vacation working on the diesel motors.  He got both of them running finally.  There are a few more things to be worked on but it was good to hear them fire. Our Honda finally needed to go into the shop after 220,000 miles.  All of it was routine maintenance - new drive axles/CV joints, brakes, water pump, timing belt, motor mounts, belts, new tires, and had the muffler reattached.  Christina pole-vaulted the back of the Honda over the muffler after catching it on a rut.  When Dan dropped the car of and list all the above work he wanted done to it, the shop manager got excited and had one of the employees drive Dan home and picked him back up after the work was done. The shop manager gave the employee money before Dan and him left and told the employee to buy breakfast for everyone in the shop on him. Needless to say, we dropped some money on the car - about $1200. 

April was a blur of activity.  Dan continued working on the diesel motors. We also added a washer and dryer to the Sea Ranch. It is a wonderful convenience being able to do laundry whenever you need to without having to go to the laundry mat. We should have done this a long time ago.   Christina continued to ride and train.

May has been busy as well.  Christina has been competing, organizing rides. or participating in fun rides every weekend.  The wiring harness on Christina's horse trailer gave up the ghost so Dan rewired all the running lights.  Some how he managed to do this even with Christina using the trailer almost every weekend.  Dan then took the truck into the shop for an oil change, before Christina used it to tow the horse trailer to a ride, and got a surprise.  The front ball joints were shot.  This was causing the noise Dan asked the mechanic to check out.  We got the truck back for $900.  Dan insists we are putting someone's kids through college.

In mid-May, Dan took the boat out for the first time since Labor Day.  If you remember, Dan got really sick last Labor Day and the last time the props were cleaned was Memorial Day Weekend of '06. Since it had been almost a year since the props were last cleaned, the boat didn't move too well.  Ten minutes underwater scrapping barnacles made it all better.

Dan has also started SCUBA diving with his friends again.  He came back with plenty of fish last last weekend.

FEBRUARY 2007

Well the big news for February is Dan turned 30.  

On a darker note, a jet skier went missing on the river just outside the marina.  For two weeks we were in the middle of the search operation.  Needless to say, the missing person was not found alive.  It was interesting to see how the volunteer rescue force was ill prepared for a search operation.  If you go missing between the hours of 9-5 and your body washes up into the parking lot of where they are standing, they have it covered.  If you don't wash up in the parking lot or have trouble outside the volunteer rescue crew's 9-5 hours, you're basically screwed. The professional forces - Florida Wildlife Commission, the Escambia County Sheriff's Office, and the Coast Guard were out in force.  We didn't see them standing in the parking lot much because, oddly, they focused their search out on the water rather than looking for the missing person in the parking lot.  As you can tell, I'm not filled with confidence in the volunteer search and rescue force.  The divers didn't even have topography information for the river and used our computer to get to Google Earth to plan their dives.

Dan finally uploaded the pictures from swimming with the Manatees. Check the out here.

JANUARY 2007

We started the new year off with a New Year's Eve party aboard the Sea Ranch.  We were able to gather together most of the old marina gang and had a great time.  

The following weekend we loaded up the horse and headed down to the Goethe State Forest for an endurance ride.  The trip did not start off well.  Before we even left the barn, Dan noticed one of the trailer tires had a broken belt.  Dan quickly swapped out the bad tire with the spare and we were underway.  We made it almost to Chipley, FL (about an hour and a half down the road) when Christina needed a break from driving.  Dan took the wheel and noticed that the engine oil pressure gauge fell to zero as soon as the truck got up to high speed.  We immediately pulled over and the oil pressure came back.  We called our towing service to see if they could tow us to a mechanic.  While waiting for the towing service to locate help, Dan continued to diagnose the engine.  Dan discovered that the oil pressure fell to zero after the engine reached 1750 RPMs but the low oil pressure light never came on.  As the truck engine cooled, the behavior of the oil pressure gauge changed - it started behaving correctly.  Dan figured the sending unit for the gauge had gone bad and there was nothing actually wrong with the engine itself.  So we got back on the road and drove 6 hours with the oil pressure gauge fluctuating wildly or sitting at zero pressure.  The engine showed no signs of trouble so we know its just the gauge that has gone bad.

When we arrived at Goethe, we pulled our trailer in next to friends we have made at previous rides.  Christina had a lot of fun and learned some interesting things about a ride she was going to do in February.  After speaking with people that had done this ride previously, it sounded like a death trap.  If the motorbikes didn't get you, or the Rainbow People (homeless people that live in Ocala National Forest), the endless deep sand would.   The Rainbow People have been known to attack riders and steal their horses.  Dan told Christina she would not be going to that ride. 

Since we were nearby, we drove down to Crystal River to swim with the Manatees.  We had no clue where we were going and we were navigating by memory from our Christmas road trip we took back in 2001.  Luck was with us because we happened to stumble upon the same outfit we rented a boat from back then.  We went to the spring we saw lots of Manatees at before but there was only two there.  So we took the boat up to Three Sisters Spring.  Words can not describe the beauty of this spring.  The entrance was a creek 4 feet deep, about 6 feet wide, with crystal clear water rushing out.  The forest provided a canopy of oak trees covered in Spanish Moss.  Dan took quite a few photos with his new underwater camera.  Hopefully we'll be able to upload some them soon.  This was his first time using his underwater camera so the quality of the photos may be iffy...  

After we swam with the Manatees we drove over to Eustis to visit our friends Rick and Kellye.  If you remember, we boarded our horse with them in Milton until the moved away.   They have a very nice place out in the country.  Its a little hard to find because every road in the area is Route 44, 44 N, 44 W, 44 Leg A, 44A, or some other strange derivative.  We got lost following our map.  We quickly discovered someone at the map place screwed up because the map we had was actually a mirror image of what it should have been.  So we were looking for a road you could only turn left on when in fact you could only turn right on the road.

Dan has continued working on his diesel motors and has started the reassembly process on one of them.  It passed the compression check with flying colors and Dan hopes to have it running with in the next couple weeks.

Dan has also updated the Nature Photos section.  He added some pictures of the moon and Venus together in the Astronomy/Images of the Moon section and has added a Swamphouse section which show cases the marina where we live.

DECEMBER 2006

    UPDATE:  Check out our updated Photo Album.  Dan has added a bunch of pictures under the Nature section.

    Wow, We have been busy.  Christina has been busy chairing the first endurance ride her horse club - the Five Flags Horse Association - put on.  Christina executed it without a hitch and it was a great success.  The sheer number of man hours leading up to the event were staggering.   Dan provided Lunch from 11-2 on Friday when everyone started arriving. On Saturday, the day of the ride, he started breakfast at 4:30AM then cleaned up and provided lunch from 11 - 3.  Sunday morning was spent cleaning up the venue after all the participants left.   Both of us were thoroughly exhausted by the end.   

December 1 brought an end to this years hurricane season and what a difference from last year!  We had absolutely no threats this year.  Hopefully next year will be a repeat of this year - yeah right!

NOVEMBER 2006

Dan has been Scuba Diving when not crewing at endurance rides for Christina or working on the diesel engines for the Sea Ranch. 

Dan went out with our friends John and Alice to see the November Blue Angels show.  The weather was perfect until 10 minutes before the Blue's started their show.  At that point, a cold front came through and kicked the winds and seas up and the temperature dropped from the upper 70's to the low 60's instantly.   

We wanted to take the boat out for the long Thanksgiving weekend, but unfortunately, the tides were just way to low for us to get the Sea Ranch out of port.  Even bass boats were bumping bottom at the entrance to the marina.  We spent Thanksgiving Day with our friend Christy and her family.  We had a lot of fun and enjoyed a great traditional Turkey dinner.

We went to the beach on Black Friday to avoid the crowds and our plan worked perfect.  There were very few people on the beach and the weather was beautiful.  We rolled up our pants and walked out into the emerald surf.  

SEPTEMBER 2006

    UPDATE:    We took the boat out for Labor Day weekend and had a great time up until Dan got sick with food poisoning.  Before he got sick, our outboard motor broke down - the spark plug died of all things.  He planned on borrowing a friends dinghy to run back to the marina for a parts run the next morning.  When he woke up, he immediately started vomiting profusely.  He still borrowed the dinghy and ran into town, puking over the side of the boat and out the window of the truck the entire way.  By the time he got back, he was beat and his strength was waning.  We made the decision to head back to port, however we had one problem - someone had to hoist the anchors!  Christina isn't strong enough to lift the anchors with all the chain so Dan did it.  It took him some time to do and he basically collapsed afterward.  When we got back to port, Dan climbed right into bed still covered in mud from the anchors.  Twenty Four hours later, Dan was feeling better but his stomach wasn't right for the next week.

    Rygiel is back!!  Christina found him living under the deck of the Marina office.  She picked him up and brought him home.  He immediately fell back into the groove after a two and a half month hiatus.   He has lost a little weight but does not seem worse for the wear.

Dan has been SCUBA diving again.  Check out this pic of him holding a big Spiny Lobster:

AUGUST 2006

    Greetings all!  We have been enjoying a quiet summer here on the Gulf Coast.  Dan painted the cabin of the Sea Ranch and is turning his attention to the deck.  He has started diving for fun again and has been enjoying it.  Christina has started training for her first endurance ride coming up in October.  We have been spending a lot of time down on Redneck Island since it is an easy dinghy ride away.  We always debate taking the Sea Ranch out, but its sooo hot that we always decide we'd prefer to sleep in air conditioning.  Nights go down into the mid 70's but with high humidity.  Its comfortable to sit outside and enjoy cocktails, but sleeping is another matter.

We've also been successful in rebuilding a new community in the marina and we usually get together on Saturday nights to grill out and have cocktail hour - or rather hours :).

Bailey has adapted well to heat.  We keep his coat trimmed and he has even started wading into the water on his own to cool off.  Rygiel is MIA and presumed dead.  He was acting funny before he took off in June and we think he just wandered off to die. 

JUNE 2006

    June got hot quickly so we finally broke down and fired up the air conditioning.  At the beginning of June we celebrated Christina's 31'st birthday.  Instead of a party, we got a group of friends together and took a four hour tubing trip down Coldwater Creek.  The water was definitely cold and it felt good in the hot June weather.  

    On the 17th, We had our 3rd annual Midsummer's Eve party.  It's basically a reason to wear a toga and drink :)  Unfortunately, Rygiel went missing that night and we have not seen him since. 

    Dan took a week vacation to work on the boat.  He managed to get a coat of paint on the cabin.  One more coat of paint, and it should be finished. 

MAY 2006

    May has been uneventful.    We took the dinghy to Redneck Island a couple times and visited Pensacola Beach a few times.

    We took the Sea Ranch out Memorial Day Weekend and anchored off Redneck Island.  We had a number of friends on board and rafted up with some other friends.  It was a great party.

    Christina started the application process to join the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Posse.  

    We did learn our friends Rick and Kellye were moving within two months so we are starting to look for a new stable for Ice. 

APRIL 2006

    April has been beautiful on the Gulf Coast.  We've started spending more time at the beach and swimming.  There is a great little sand island at the mouth of the Escambia river just down stream from our Marina.  It's a short dinghy ride to it.  Bailey enjoys running around on the beach and wading out in the water.

    Dan finally washed the Sea Ranch for the first time in 18 months.  It took all day and a lot of elbow grease just to wash the top side.  He knew it was going to be a big job which is why he was postponing it.  After living at anchor for a year with no running water for a hose, the boat had areas that were turning a luminescent green.  When the boat started glowing in the dark, Dan decided it was time to wash it.

    We also went to the Kenney Chesney concert.  Dan received free tickets from work.  It was one of the best concerts we have ever attended. 

MARCH 2006

    March has flown past.  Christina went to Lost Posse Run Endurance Ride in Apalachicola near Tallahassee where she moved up from 25 miles to 30 miles.  Dan continued to work on the diesel engines.  Other than that, not much has gone on.  Finally, things seem to be quieting down. :)

FEBRUARY 2006

    Well, its been awhile since we updated the website so here we go.  We started the new year off partying with friends. Dan installed the power pole and Gulf Power hooked us up to the grid at the beginning of January so we are no longer living in the 18th century!!!   It is so nice to have electricity back.  Our lives are finally back to normal since Ivan.  January also brought some good storms.  One of them damaged our back curtains.  The winds were so strong the teeth from the zippers actually broke out.  That storm was almost like a hurricane in its intensity.

    February has flown past.  We went to an Endurance ride in Sylvester GA where Christina bested her time by a half hour.  We also attended a Mardi Gras ball hosted by Neptune's Daughters in Mobile.  We had a great time as usual.  And finally, Dan had his 29th Birthday. 

    Dan has obtained two diesel engines for the Sea Ranch and he is in the process of rebuilding them.  Once they are installed in the Sea Ranch, we will have a 2000 mile range and the boat will be a lot more economical to run.  The diesel refit is the first hurdle in our dream to go cruising.

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This page was last updated on 10/05/07.