Episode 30: Cruising with The Admiral

Bradford: I need to get a podcast out this week. Can you help me with that?

The Admiral: Let’s get the podcast out.

Bradford: All right. You got stuff to say?

The Admiral: Maybe. We’re sailing. Something’s bound to go wrong.

Bradford: We totally sound like From Surfers To Sailors. I’m just saying.

VO: Ahoy, there! Bradford here. I thought that me and The Admiral might just take advantage of an opportunity to get out on the water, to share with you a little slice of the cruising life. And i thought i might also share with you some comments and results from the survey. But we’ll see about that.

Bradford: Another one is, “Ever seen a dumpster fire? It’s nothing like that.”

The Admiral: Sorry.

Bradford: You’re not a part of this one.

The Admiral: Okay.

Bradford: I’m here with The Admiral at Sarasota marina on D Dock where we are undoubtedly the least expensive vessel on the whole dock.

VO: So, if you heard the last episode, you may recall that my buddy Mike was using a blowtorch to remove the engine water pump and an engine zinc.

And I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to complete all of that in time for The Admiral and I to do our usual around about new year’s cruise. Or even in time for the St. Pete boat show a couple of weeks later.

But sometimes you actually just get lucky.

Mike: Put the water pump back on, hooked the hoses back up, made a new gasket for the housing that held the zinc and got the zinc installed in that housing in the head.

Bradford: Liking it.

VO: So Mike was able to rebuild the water pump using a kit I got on eBay. And he took out and replaced the zinc that hadn’t been changed in eight years from the front of the engine.

Mike: There was corrosion that had packed around the, uh, water sender and that’s why it was giving you improper readings.

VO: And by getting rid of some of the corrosion around the water temperature sensor in the engine, Mike apparently solved a problem that had been giving me high blood pressure on a regular basis. Which is that the idiot light in the cockpit showing that the engine is too hot would come on for no reason.

All in all, I’d have to describe it as a much more successful than usual repair cycle.

The only possible wrinkle may have been a nut and washer that may or may not have fallen into the alternator.

Mike: It went smooth except for something flew out of the fan when the engine started up. And then the noise quit. So we’re good.

VO: Sure. Sure we are.

Bradford: That sounds very How Not To Sail.

Mike: Yeah. I mean, when in doubt, shut off when there is excess noise.

Bradford: Right. Right.

VO: How Not To Sail 101: if things are clanking around more than usual perhaps you should cease and desist for a moment.

Mike: Yeah, unusual noises, shut off and then investigate.

VO: We still have a problem in that the ball valve on the engine raw water intake is stuck in the open position, and only the engine and the water pump itself are keeping that from leaking out. But what the heck…

I’ve got a place to haul out lined up for just after the boat show. I think. The Admiral has a few days off. And the boat’s still floating. What could possibly go wrong?

Bradford: Walking towards the main marina building, we pass a Westport motor vessel which is, I don’t know, 85 feet long or so. We also have Missing Card III next to that, which is a similar vessel. Undoubtedly the best boat that I’ve seen here, though, I heard calling on the radio to a bridge on the way down. And I didn’t quite catch it at the time, but I did notice they were enunciating very clearly to the bridge tender, who asked their vessel name again. And they said, the vessel name is Hoof Hearted.

I don’t know if they’re ranchers or what, but, uh, on closer inspection, the name is Hoof Hearted.

I just had to say, I heard y’all on the radio calling the bridge today and I did not fully appreciate the vessel name.

Boat Guy: Oh, okay. Now you get it, huh?

Bradford: Yeah.

Boat Guy: Our pleasure.

Bradford: It took me a minute.

Boat Guy: Hey, the tenders name is Knot Me. K N O T M E.

Bradford: Oh, really?

Boat Guy: So what’s Cruising like? Well, we’re probably not doing it right. I’m probably not doing it right. But we left Gulfport at noon today.

The Admiral: We passed a few bridges that let us by. And one did not seem too amused by the emergency vehicles. So they needed to call ahead.

Bradford: First off, I need to give a bit of grief to my boat neighbor Bernie, who, when we were leaving Gulfport today, warned me about the nine foot seas and high 20 knot winds gusting to something. And not to, under any circumstances, go out in the Gulf. However, I decided that we should have a peek at the Gulf, which was very calm.

I think there’s a lesson to be learned here, which is not to blindly do the opposite of what anybody tells you, be careful, but do your own research.

You may miss out on a lot of good opportunities by listening to other people. Sometimes.

There are those idiots that decide that having had an RV, they can suddenly go sailing. And then there are those folks who spend years preparing to go sailing and never actually leave the slip. I’m not saying that’s my boat neighbor. But I’ve seen others.

I did manage to back into the slip with a minimal amount of fuss compared to normal. And we did have some help with the dock lines from our boat neighbors here, which is very nice. At any rate, got in the slip, got some grub. A day well done. And how often do you get to do all this stuff on land?

I guess you don’t.

Peter: If you will give me but one chance,

I’ll surely convince ye that we should be in each other’s pants.

Mine are too big, you see, yours too small.

So gave your pants to me, mine will fit ye stomach and all.

The Admiral: We do not fit in here.

All the boats are much bigger than ours.

They look like the movie Overboard. That boat. Yachts. Big yachts. Not little yachts, like us.

Bradford: I’m thinking we’re doing this all wrong.

We need more, like, time where we can say like today, we’re just going to sit our asses right here. And even if we got to work, we’re just, we don’t have to be any f—— where, and…

I’m going to bleep that.

I mean, aren’t we doing this wrong, usually?

The Admiral: Sometimes we do press the schedule. But it’s because we have limited time and we want to make the most of it.

But I still am missing Venice, Cabbage Key, Boca Grande…

Bradford: So you’re going to have to do like our new boat neighbor friends here.

The Admiral: Retire and sail for the rest of my life?

Maybe.

Didn’t you have a survey or something?

Bradford: So now the survey results,

The Admiral: I never saw a survey.

Bradford: Well… What?

The Admiral: I never saw a survey.

Bradford: I guess you didn’t listen to the podcast, then.

The Admiral: I listened to it many times. I’m sorry. Many, many, many times,

Bradford: But you missed the survey thing.

The Admiral: I didn’t see the survey.

Bradford: Here. Have a sip of the Donkey.

The Admiral: That sounds terrible.

I am drinking beer, for all of you wondering.

Bradford: I just wanted to give you some of these survey results that I have been alluding to. I very much appreciate everybody who’s taken the survey at HowNotToSail.com/survey.

I don’t want to give away all the results yet until we have more, because there are some that are kind of on the edge there, and I don’t want to influence anything.

But there are some trends that we can discover so far.

On the first question, How many episodes have you heard?

By far, the most respondents said, I have heard all of them. So that’s very cool.

One of the questions I was most interested to hear your answer to was: In 10 words or less, how can you describe the How Not To Sail podcast to someone who’s never heard it, so that they would know exactly what it’s about and why it’s different than any other?

We got some great responses there.

I’m just going to read a few.

“A humorous and real account of life, owning a boat, and sometimes even sailing.”

Another one is, “Ever seen a dumpster fire. It’s nothing like that.”

The Admiral: Sorry.

Bradford: You’re not a part of this one.

The Admiral: Okay.

Bradford: One very succinct description, which I think is right on point, is: “An amateur sailor describes his misadventures as he learns the ropes.”

Followed by, “I’d stick with the ‘What could possibly happen?’ deal.”

On the question as to whether to please make the audio podcasts more frequently,

definitely need more answers to that one.

This is getting very boring.

So I’m going to probably cut a lot of that out.

The Admiral: I’ve already stopped listening.

Bradford: All right. I think that’s about as far in the weeds as we need to get with the survey results right now. if you had a very profound answer and I didn’t read it just now, please rest assured I did see it and appreciate it. I was just plucking some right out of the PDF here that caught my eye, and I am taking them all to heart.

The Admiral: This trip is a little more laid back than normal. We’re chilling. Mainly just going to Sarasota, Longboat and then back.

So not, not too much crazy.

Bradford: What’s our plans for tomorrow?

The Admiral: We’re going to O’Leary’s! ‘Cause I need coffee. And then we need food.

It’s a cute little beach bar breakfast bungalow on the other side of the park here at Sarasota. It’s pretty peaceful. It’s on the beach.

Then we’re coming back to the boat and sailing over to– or probably motor sailing or motoring over to Longboat, to Marvista or Shore. Docking there, maybe lunch. And then you hang out at the boat. While I go to the beautiful, peaceful, wonderful Whitney Beach.

Then I come back and you tell me how we’re running behind schedule, and we need to get back to Gulfport before it gets dark. And you tell me how I was at the beach for too long.

We cast off at Marvista or Shore. Wherever, whichever one we may end up at, whichever one’s less crazy busy. Then we sail on to Anna Maria, I believe. There’s a couple of bridges where we stop traffic.

Then we come on through Egmont, then Pass-a-Grille, then Boca Ciega Bay.

Then we dock and you’re going to be really, really nice and not curse while you’re docking.

Bradford: So you, you don’t seem to be impressed with the part that gives me the pucker factor right after Anna Maria bridge.

The Admiral: Oh, well, I don’t know. You’re pretty chill. So…

Bradford: That is an awesome illusion because the couple of miles north of Anna Maria bridge is a place called The Bulkhead, which is puckeringly shallow. That’s, when I’m, you’re telling me something, I’m like, Uh huh, uh huh, mm hmm, uh huh.

The Admiral: And that’s different how?

Bradford: All right, we’re done here.

VO: So we did stop at Longboat Key, where we had lunch and dinner at the restaurant called Shore. Where, after dropping a large quantity of cash, we may or may not have remained tied up to their dock overnight and may or may not have been well served and may or may not have engaged in some untoward behavior in the cockpit and the v-berth.

Oh, and The Admiral did visit the beach.

Mission accomplished, for now. I still need to haul out the boat soon to deal with those thru-hulls. And one more thing.

The Admiral: What’s going on with the boat show?

VO: Oh, that.

Come join me again in two weeks on February 11th, when we’ll find out if I made it to the boat show, and ditto for the haul out.

Meanwhile, this is a great time to binge listen to all the previous episodes if you haven’t already.

Thanks as always to our awesome Patreon patrons. We had a great time at the meetup the other day.

I really appreciate you.

And to Latitudes & Attitudes magazine. They ruined my life. So why not let ’em ruin yours today at LatsAtts.com.

And by the way, if you’ve already heard all the How Not To Sail episodes, let me tell you about another great podcast by a friend of mine, just in case you haven’t heard it.

The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast with Captain Jeffrey Wettig.

Not because I’m a guest on Episode 125 or anything, but because he’s always a great listen.

It’s like sitting across from a good friend at the pub, as he talks to a cool guest.

And maybe they have a beer or too, metaphorically speaking. Who knows?

And I mean, don’t you want to have a beer with them?

So check out the Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast at TheEscapePods.com.

That’s TheEscapePods.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

And I’ll put a link in the show notes for this episode as well.

VO: Also, don’t forget about the How Not To Sail Hotline at 7 7 0 4 5 8 3 8 3 8 for your questions, comments, et cetera.

And we have our very first caller right here.

Bill: Hey Bradford and all you other HowNotToSailers. This is Bill Ramsey. Sorry I missed you guys at the meetup the other day, but I’m looking forward to getting to the next one. Also looking forward to another great year of learning how to do stuff wrong on the boat, and sometimes right. Talk to you guys later.

VO: Thank you kindly, bill, and I’ll see you soon at the undisclosed location.

We also had a call from this guy.

Peter: Hey there, HowNotToSailers, Captain Pete here with another installment of Ruminating On Minutia.

Why is it that my main leech can luff, but my main luff can’t leech?

And if it could, what would that look like?

VO: Now, that is a good question.

Peter: It seemed like something that would be inane enough for your show.

VO: Uh, thanks?

Anyway, don’t forget that you can call the How Not To Sail Hotline at 7 7 0 4 5 8 3 8 3 8 with your questions, comments, or minutia.

And if you’re outside the U S and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, I can guess you add either a 1 or a 01 country code to that. I don’t know.

Also just a reminder, if you have applied to join the private Facebook group and have not been admitted yet, you must answer the three questions as well as agree to the group rules before you can climb aboard.

Yeah, we’re crazy like that. .

Don’t forget anyone who hasn’t taken already the survey at HowNotToSail.com/survey, I would love to know your opinions. It only takes a few minutes, or I guess you can quit any time you want…

Thanks to everyone who’s bought the book How Not To Sail and all of you who’ve left a nice five star review. Thanks to those that have joined the Patreon crew. And thanks to you for listening to this podcast.

You can find all this stuff at one place and that’s HowNotToSail.com.

The events and descriptions in this episode represent the editorial viewpoint of this person only, and none other.

Don’t try any of the stupid stuff described here without consulting your psychologist, attorney and/or a licensed captain.

And I’ll see you next time on:

How Not To Sail. Screwing up is part of Cruising. Let me show you how!

Bradford: Here. Have a sip. Have a sip of the Donkey.

The Admiral: That sounds terrible.