October 23, 2014
Earlier this week we completed our annual shake-down cruise. The purpose is to reactivate equipment that has not been used over the summer and test EVERYTHING we possibly can.
We left Twin Dolphin marina in Bradenton on Sunday morning and motored down the Manatee River and across Tampa Bay to Egmont Key where we anchored.
Egmont is not the best anchorage, but it has the best water within miles and we like to reactivate and test our water maker there. We never run it in the marina, where the dirty water would clog the filters within minutes. The process hit a small snag when a control panel would not power up. A quick debug indicated that some unnamed incompetent marine technician had installed a new RJ12 connector backwards on a 'telephone cable' connecting the control panel to the computer; however, Joyce says I can still work on the boat because I work cheap :-).
Sure enough the east wind built up a little and it started to get bouncy at Egmont. But that gave us at least a little wind to test out our new sails as we headed back across Tampa Bay. We purchased a new head-sail and stay-sail from Mack Sails in Stuart FL this summer. We were very pleased! The sails looked and set great. With a little under 10 knots of wind close-hauled with full sail, we were making over 5 knots through the water. We can't wait to give them some more wind!
We then returned to the Manatee River where we spent 2 nights at anchor at Emerson Point.
Overall, the shake-down was very successful and the boat appears ready for our winter cruise.
In early November we will leave Twin Dolphin Marina and head down the west coast of Florida and eventually to Miami where we will stage for a crossing to the Bahamas. Our exact itinerary for the season is still a bit up in the air, I guess we will figure it out as we go.
Tom
Docked Twin Dolphin Marina
Bradenton, FL
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