blog | belgo.com | Christopher Shepherd

Purgatorio

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:23:39 -0500

If I didn't know better, I'd have to say things looked kind of bad for me. The boat blew up an entire engine in December, and I thought Kirk was going to cry as he broke the news. It was a solemn, contemplative day, like the loss of a loved one. Nobody, least of all me, could say if the boat would ever be fixed, or what the next step was. I eventually had it towed, pulled up, engine-swapped, and made seaworthy again (for a nominal fee just north of 6 grand). While I was at it, I went to great pains to legally register and tag the trailer, and add a ball hitch to the Honda Element. Crisis resolved? In February, it broke down again, and it is back in the hands of the marina (thanks TowBoatUS). But what we do know, is that it has a brand new engine, new prop, and a bottom job. It's likely to yield a summer of fun, if the winter would ever give way.

In the depths of December's crisis, I also managed to suffer a complete failure of my iPhone 3GS, as well as the clothes washer and clothes dryer. Colby (the orange cat) got a terrible bladder infection and nearly died, in an expensive predicament now referred to as The Incident. Repair bills from the condo in Orlando meant I wasn't getting full rent checks, or in the case of February, any rent checks. Meanwhile, drastically cutting 1099 work in 2009 meant that in 2010 I now faced the large annual tax bill amidst decreased means to pay it. It was something to worry about as the dermatologist used liquid nitrogen to freeze painful precancerous cells off of my forehead. When it rains, it pours.

Eventually, I got through February by simply putting my fingers in my ears and waiting for the next bomb to go off, and not being very surprised when it did. But it is dismissive to say I've had bad times.

I passed my first college class, College Algebra. I got halfway through English Composition I and continue making fine progress to this day. My weight of 195 pounds was reduced all over again to 169, and it continues to drop, because I've adopted a pescetarian, 1300-calorie-per-day diet and I either run 3+ miles, or bicycle 7+ miles, every day, depending on the weather. The financial setbacks (all the difficulty of the past few months boils down to just that, an enormous financial setback), while certainly not negligible, are going to pass, and when they do, my expenses will be low enough that I can hold just about any steady job and still pay all the bills (April's huge tax bill will be the last of these annual headaches that I have suffered since 2004). And Colby has been much closer to me since The Incident. The main reason for all this personal progress in the depths of disaster, is simply that I was always too bone-headed to give up on the idea of a halfway-pleasant someday. And would you look at that, some interpretations of the events could even lead one to say I've benefitted from the hardship. My golden handcuffs may one day self-destruct, but damn if I won't be educated and in shape, with a new closer relationship with Colby.

Work has also gone in new directions, as I send ISO-8583 payment messages directly to major cardbrands, and create pretty Cocoa-like web user interfaces with Cappuccino. I'm even baking bread from scratch again (which 2 or 3 of you may remember was the original raison d'etre for belgo.com's predecessor blog, belgo.org). I haven't been in Key West wasting money on booze, but I have been in Big Pine Key and Little Duck Key walking beaches in solitude and figuring out how to save money on groceries. I haven't been driving every day, but I have been bicycling new trails on several Keys, and those trails have taught me about hidden places and forgotten history unknown even to die-hard locals.

The Man, the cruel universe, whatever you want to call it, can and will extract all the dough from me that it possibly can. But I admit no defeat whatsoever, until the flame of discovery is extinguished completely. And right now, the wind only seems to be fanning the flames. Maybe I was overdue for some flame-fanning.

-Chris

US-1 Picture Show

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:38:12 -0500

October Surprises

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:28:53 -0400

Sorry for the nearly two months without an update. I assure you I've been busy restructuring my home, having the yard landscaped, and addressing as many deficiencies as I can identify. Yep, I've been keeping secrets from you, and today, my planes will fill the sky. So let's talk about some of those things.

School

It's true, I'm going to school. I'm taking a few classes through Straighterline at the moment, since they transfer relatively easily into Florida community college credit. I'm most of the way through College Algebra (MAC1105), and it should be the last math class I ever have to take. After that, I'll be telecommuting through Comp I, Macro-Econ, Micro-Econ, and possibly others. I won't have to appear in person for many, if any, Freshman classes. So what's the goal? I'm so glad you asked.

The intention is to transfer all of these credits to Florida Keys Community College and pursue their AS in Marine Engineering, where I'll learn to build boats from the keel up, and most importantly (to me), learn to fix inboard and outboard engines. Marine engine repair appears to be my best bet to get out of computers and integrate with the local economy on a somewhat comfortable basis, although that's more of a longer-term plan. For now, there's no danger of me leaving the programming world.

Fitness

Longtime belgo.com readers may know that I lost 40 pounds at one point with my fitness drive of 2007-2008. Moving to the Keys threw it off track in many ways. There was a lot of new food to eat, and gallons and gallons of booze to drink. The end result saw me regaining some 30 of those pounds, not to mention smoking cigarettes while boozing it up in an Islander haze. But for a few days shy of a month now, I've been doing half an hour of cardio 5 times a week and not smoking, as Grace prepares healthy dishes for us that are full of veggies and low on calories. This is the same formula that worked in the past, and it's already taken several inches off my waist, and several more pounds off my weight. I went pretty quickly from a heart rate that raced over 160 when I stepped onto the machine, to a heart rate that takes a lot of work just to push over 140. My heart is back in shape, thanks to a revitalized elliptical-path training program.

Projects

Ohh yes, there have been some interesting projects. The yard got pretty heavily landscaped a month ago, but I can't really take credit for much besides having the initiative; I paid people to do it. But the inside of the house got pretty nicely squared away too, as the office and living room got reorganized. Grace's computer got replaced with a very nice new Mac, and I also got a nice Mac desktop, my first fixed desktop computer in most of a year. The Macs have Geforce 9800GT graphics running dual 24" Dell LCD displays, and dual-core 2.93GHz processors, with 4GB of RAM and 1TB of disk each. It's the first time in years that I've had computers nice enough to compel me to stay up late playing with all of the cool things they'll do.

We're still boating, also walking trails and geocaching, and sometimes I still spend a day or two in Old Town Key West, but I gotta tell you, right now the biggest emphasis is on living life as well as possible, and often that means I don't make time for narcissism on Facebook or here at belgo.com.

But I still promise some cool pictures soon.

-Chris

Backcountry

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:15:57 -0400

Today, we took advantage of a high tide and adventurous spirits, to take the bowrider into the "backcountry," a term which means, in the Lower Keys, those islands and shallow waterways which lie north of US-1 and south of the Gulf of Mexico. It isn't something to undertake lightly, as some of the water would not cover your ankle at low tide. Surprising even ourselves, we cut through the backcountry and went all the way to Johnston Key Channel.

That tide sensor on the backside of Sugarloaf Key was reading over a foot and a half, and we had no problems planing the entire route. But also, Grace had brought the 8-year-old, 5-megapixel Nikon, whose optical zoom makes it far superior to our iPhone cameras.

On the way out, we passed by this family enjoying Cudjoe Bay with all manner of floaty toys:

And then we got on our way on full plane:

And before long, we were approaching the US-1 bridge, which must be crossed under:

And our intrepid captain remains calm about the whole thing of course:

First, we pass the seemingly-limitless fun at the Sugarloaf KOA:

And finally under the bridge. Watch your head:

New bridge on the left, old bridge on the right, looking between them:

We're officially in the backcountry, what now:

Towards the northern edge of Cudjoe, you get the best views of Fat Albert:

Eventually you come to a narrow passage, marked at each end. When heading north, keep these markers to starboard. I kept them to port, but it didn't matter at high tide:

The other marker on the north side of the passage:

After this, we proceeded north to Johnston Key Channel:

We anchored up briefly and took a few pictures. We had to turn around at this point, to ensure we had enough fuel left to return safely. Here we are looking due East, towards Pumpkin Key:

Planed all the way back to the bridge, time to cross under it again:

And past the people hanging out at the Sugarloaf KOA Marina,

And through a few turns of Bow Channel:

Suddenly we're back in Cudjoe Bay, almost home, going past the sailboater who's always there:

This trip proves that the backcountry is accessible to us, and destinations like Sawyer Key and Marvin Key are reachable with a full tank of gas and some planning. It also sets a new distance record, but lately they only stand for a week or two before being broken. Let's hope that pattern holds.

-Chris

Atlantic Expeditions

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:25:50 -0400

The average powerboat is said to be used weekly, if that. Often, it is only used biweekly. And beyond that, it tends to be trailered, not left in the water to rot. I decided from the very beginning, that my patterns would be somewhat different: I would launch every 2-3 days at minimum, daily when possible. And I'd keep the boat in the water, mitigating the resulting corrosion with regular use and having a bottom-job done once every 1-2 years. Everyone thinks they're going to use their boat often, but only time can tell if that is actually how it ends up.

In that case, I have good news to report: Once we did go about 4 days without launching, but that was because Grace had a heavy work schedule. In most cases, we've gone out daily, or if we didn't, it was because we were sunburned and/or hung over from the prior day's boat partying.

Often, we find ourselves sitting at anchor, either at "Blue Crab Spot" in the middle of Cudjoe Bay, or in the knee-high shallows of "Chris' Office" near Sugarloaf Key where Bow Channel splits, or off to one side of Bow Channel by the bridge, or even in the ocean towards the American Shoal Light. We've placed crab traps and used Navizon US East on the iPhone (we converted to iPhones a little over a month ago, but that's another story) to mark their positions, and successfully pulled them without fouling the prop with buoy rope. We've anchored up for no reason at all, except to have lunch and relax. And once, we even weathered a rainstorm at sea, hiding under the snap-on cover, suffocating in the resulting heat. The engine itself shows over 10 hours of use on the hour meter. Actual time at sea is at least double or triple that figure. We've grown tremendously from the Porta-Bote days. Some of our "for the heck of it" cruises in the ocean down Hawk Channel are even longer than the distance records set in the "Transit" posts on belgo.com.

Upper blue push-pin marks the area where it's safe to trim down and get on plane. Middle blue push-pin marks "Blue Crab Spot," where, despite the name, none have been caught yet, although some have been observed. Red 'current position' arrow marks split in Bow Channel. The shallow in the middle of the split is informally known as "Chris' Office" and has good EVDO coverage.

Pippi has also been known to join in on the action:

... And of course, work gets done:

I've had to work on the boat itself a little bit too: I've had to exterminate ants and start spraying the dock lines to keep them out. I had to disconnect the always-hot wire to the bilge pump when the automatic float sensor shorted out (causing the pump to either stick on or stick off when in automatic mode). The resulting loss of automatic-mode means I do have to mind the bilge water myself until the pump is replaced, but at least it's an electric pump. While sitting in shallow water, I like to trim the lower-unit up and scrub it a little bit; Once I found some buoy rope wrapped up around the prop (oops). Overall, I consider these to be relatively minor issues for the careful mariner.

It does need to be hauled up for a bottom job, new propeller, new zincs, and a few other details, if we'd just stop using it long enough for someone to work on it.

Blast you dolphins, stop interfering with maintenance.

It's been seven months since we first took to the water with the Porta-Bote and electric engine, and we're still finding new ways to enjoy boating. And that's a good thing, because the land isn't what's special about the Keys.

Anyway, the good ole Nikon is ready to return to action to take some much nicer pictures of our exploits, and I just got a 5-year saltwater fishing license, and our crab traps are ready for action. I'll try and post some of that soon.

-Chris