Key Largo … and the devil

Calusa with the rental car parked under. Last night we bought
lots of groceries and drove in under the boat to the escape hatch, opened it up
and Andreas was able to unload directly from the boot of the car onto the
kitchen floor

29 October 2010

Andreas is sanding off the antifouling paint on the hull of the boat today.

Antifouling is so toxic –

I keep away but he is kitted out so should be protected as well
as possible. Funny thing is there is no control in the yard regarding the toxic
dust from all this boat sanding. It just washes away in the next rain into the
sea a few meters away. But our 1 – 2 litres of diesel is a major catastrophe it
would seem. I think the real situation is that Sam the boatyard owner has just
zero’d in on naive foreigners to give a mate a job for a few days. I have been
checking through the Florida regulations governing this situation and I do not
find anything that calls for such a “clean up” when the
“spill” is so minor. I have found out from the people that we bought
the boat off that fuel can go out the fuel vent outlet in some situations so
probably that is what has happened, otherwise it is sabotage (unlikely, I do
not think they are that desperate here yet !)

I would like to ask Sam for a couple of spades and we could go and dig out the
contaminated part for him but of course that would be a bit like admitting
liability and while it is hopefully going to become an insurance payout I can’t
do that.

In the
meantime Sam comes up with different “rules” for us everyday.
Yesterday’s one was that we had to be out of the yard in 10 days… then later
in the day it was “we won’t relaunch your boat until the payment from the
insurance has been made” … every so often he demands that I give him a copy
of our insurance policy. I told him I don’t have it with me. Then he wanted my
policy number … but if I gave that to him that would be also admitting
liability.

I am waiting on the insurance company to get
back to me and am holding Sam off with the other hand.

Key Largo… small hell

25 October 2010

Florida is hot and humid and I am itching all over from mosquito
bites and fungus allergy and god knows what else.

I wish I was home ! (almost)

We are staying in a motel / resort on one side of the Gulf of
Mexico side of The Keys and about 300 meters across on the other side is the
boat yard where Calusa is.

The boatyard owner says we would have to pay US$ 42 extra a day to live aboard the
boat in his dusty polluted ( antifoul dust etc ) boatyard so we decided for
US$18 extra a day we would live across the road at the air conditioned motel.

This is a nice motel where we are staying. It has a peaceful
meandering garden going down to the beach. There are big shady trees with
hammocks and swinging chairs hanging from them here and there. There is a
shaded concreted base barbeque area, an outdoor spa, a jetty and lounging
chairs under palm leaf covered sun shelters.

Little squirrels live in the motel gardens too … I really like them and very
little geckos are scurrying everywhere. Try as I might they are too fast for me
to catch. It’s a pity we didn’t have more time to enjoy this garden but we are
paying $ 84 a day for the boatyard site now and we have to work hard and fast
on the boat to get free of the boat yard.

See how they store the small boats here. This is just a little
stack, I have seen really long high stacks and many with a galvanised steel
roof over. Are they doing this in NZ yet ?

30 October 2010

I am still itching all over and have been so for at least five
days now… allergic to mosquitos, no-see-ums (sandfly things so small you can,t see
them ) ,fungus ( the mould in the boat I had to kill and clean ) the cleaners,
the diesel, the antifoul paint, and the boatyard full of antifoul and
fibreglass sanding dust blowing about in the wind. Then when it rains much of
it washes down to the sea.

I feel so concerned for the four fulltime workers here.The mechanic is the only one who
is American and who should know better than to live and work in this boatyard
if he wants to see old age, but he is high on dope most of the time. The others
are immigrants, also living as well as working in the yard; no doubt illegally.

Key Largo……pirates

23 October 2010

                        

We have found doing business with Americans, in Florida, generally an
unsatisfactory experience. Unlike in New Zealand and Switzerland integrity
escapes these Americans.

We also experienced this in the process of purchasing the boat last year.
This year in January we had prepaid Sam Stoia of AAAA boats and Tires
US$5000.00 to store and care for the boat after had it had been delivered for
us by a boat captain we had employed to do this.

We have been criticized for not being on hand to deliver and oversee the
“storing” of the boat but we had waited too long – 4 weeks -for the US
Coastguard to delete it from the registry. It had already cost us two Delta
flights from Orlando to Los Angeles – no you can’t just change your booking
dates, you have to buy new tickets. We do not refund but you can use your old
one another time.

“Good” I said, thinking I would be returning to the boat the following year,
“Can I use it from Los Angeles to Orlando rather than Orlando to Los Angeles”.
”No” she said “Only Orlando to Los Angeles”

That’s why we do not fly Delta any more.

So with huge costs in having to already once change flights for a later
return to New Zealand and then the ongoing costs of the rental car and living
aboard on the marina in Ft Lauderdale

And with no glint of when the US Coast Guard was finally going to process
the deletion, we reluctantly left the boat to the captain to sail down to Rock
Harbor as soon as the “paper work ” was completed. In New Zealand or
Switzerland this is something that you could comfortably leave to others to
competently do but not in Florida!

Even when specifically instructed to do so as soon as the boat came in in
mid January (we wanted to limit sun damage) Sam Stoia did not have the sails
down and stored until May. The mystery is; did the person who placed the sails
in the saloon not smell the diesel in the bilge? Why did he not investigate and
deal to the problem.

Whoever took the sails down must have been over powered with diesel fumes
when the saloon doors were opened.

All the boatyard owner, Sam Stoia can think of at the moment is “insurance”.
I asked him if this is what americans are living on these days, other people’s
insurance, and then gave him the “good news” about all the damage on
our boat as a result of his negligence.

But I am not looking forward to the morning….

They will try and make a mountain out of a molehill and all the while they are
polluting the environment with uncontrolled removal of anti fouling paintwork
off boats less than 100 metres from us!

God, how I hate the American way of things down here. It is not a nice place… they are
like sharks circling

So not good news … we hope it will be one day though

PS:  We are insured and Neil Bailey and his team in New Zealand have been good to work with.

Key Largo Florida… An awful start to a long journey

  

 19 October 2010…………………………..

It was not a pretty sight when we climbed on board our boat in the

AAAA Boats andTires Boatyard, Rock Harbor, Key Largo, Florida.

The savings in having it brought here for storage 9 months ago have turned into
costs. Nobody had properly checked our boat at any time, that is clear.
A window latch on the starboard side in the saloon had not been secured and two
latches on the bottom window in the forward starboard bedroom had not been
secured.
Lots of water had come inside. It caught most of the boat manuals up on the top
shelf behind the seating, there was a “Jacuzzi” in one of the under-seat compartments
– filled to the top. It flooded down from the saloon into the shower box below
which was full of green yukky water and of course, caused mould to grow. Most
of the starboard side was badly infested with mould. The forward starboard
bedroom was all over black with mould and I had to toss out the mattresses in
there.

I have cleaned and cleaned and it is nearly back to normal but of course there is
still probably mould growing where you can’t see or get to.

The Port bilge was flooded with diesel.

We removed just over 100 litres of diesel from the hull. It was very very close to triggering
off the bilge pump!

We were very careful in removing the diesel – it was clean and had no water in it.
We strained it back litre by litre into a fuel container then very carefully
(me holding the funnel ) tipped it into the starboard tank, listening very
carefully to hear if it was coming up the pipe. ( we could not use the
electronics to watch the fuel levels because nobody had disconnected the
batteries when the boat was put on the hard and everything was dead flat). We
stopped when we heard it coming up the inlet..

The rest of the diesel we gave away.

Next day the boatyard owner came by checking around
and found a small patch of diesel on the ground – below the fill . He went into
a rage and all hell broke loose.

He called in a company from Miami called Branching Out to make a report and take
soil samples away for testing! In the meantime we have worked out that a little
diesel must have gone out the fuel airvent , which is sited down the side of
the boat, below the fuel fill.
I contacted Bob Ross of The Moorings in Ft Lauderdale about that and

he said that has been known to happen before
– so watch that one on Leopards. Imagine if that happened while fueling up on water!

A ” Proposal to clean up the “ spill” of US$6880.00 has been handed
to us and they will not put us back into the water until that is paid. We are
talking about 1 – 2 litres here !

In the meantime the boat was transferred from a storage site (on grass) @ US$
14.00 a day to a worksite (onto broken concrete) 20 metres away for US$84 a
day.

Also in the meantime there is another large catamaran in the “storage area
” owned by absent Germans, oozing diesel / oil onto the ground in several places
and looks like it has been doing that for some time and Sam is doing nothing
about it !

We are feeling very tricked and trapped. Insurance will cover it. There is a scam
going on here but right now we don’t want to be the scam busters.

We just want to be rid of America and go cruising.