New Journey soon..

On to Europe for the summer...

On May 7th I will be crewing on a beautiful Passport 43' sailboat from Stuart, Florida to somewhere in Spain. Our crossing should take 5 - 6 weeks, in addition, I will be staying on board helping the owner, Merrie Bergmann, sail around the Mediterranean for an additional couple of months.

Here's our expected route...

There will be 3 of us for the ocean crossing, when we arrive in Gibraltar Joel, our third crew member will be flying back to the USA.

If you want to follow my journey, I will have actived a device called inReach. It will track my progress across the ocean and around the Med..It is a satellite device that  allows me to maintain contact with certain people and shows where we are every 4 hours, click on the link and then bookmark it for future reference. -
https://us0-share.inreach.garmin.com/roland2019 

Here's what it will look like ..

If you want to book marked my blog here is the link -- https://svkoda.blogspot.com/

If you want to subscribe to my blog, here is the link to learn how to do it..
https://svkoda.blogspot.com/2017/05/subscribing-to-my-blog.html.

Images of Rock Hall

   

Still working like crazy 7 days a week to finish up the boat.Blisters are drying out and I have about 1/3 filled. The main salon floor is sanded and ready to varnish and the stairs have been varnished. Cockpit and starboard non-skid is re-gelcoated.. all make for boring photos, so I thought I would post photos of Rock Hall.

Click on any of the photos to enlarge them..

Entrance Rock Hall Harbour

Clammer Memorial

Gratitude Point

Locals

Mary Beth and Ed's house where I'm staying. Lovely!

Hawthorne Ave.

Rock Hall Village 

`New Rock Hall Village stores

Unexpected delay - Ouch

I hate stupid accidents!

OH boy did I have a good one Monday night. I learned, NEVER use a charcoal BBG grill with bare feet. Yep, one coal got loss and I manged to step on it. WOW did it hurt! One big blister right on the the bottom of my foot, anywhere else I could deal with it. Makes walking and standing really difficult.

So work on the boat has slowed down, shame since the weather is so beautiful here now. I cant stand more than 20 minutes at a time before I need to take the weight off my foot.

Have a nice work area set up under my boat now.. still working to get things done.. just at a slower pace. Hoping that in a week I'll be back to 80%.

Subscribing to my Blog.

Some of you are not on Facebook and then unfortunately cannot see when I post a new Blog page. Sometimes it's also inconvenient to keep checking back to my blog to see if I've added anything.

Well now you can subscribe to this Blog, very easy - look at the top right of where the date is and there is a new gadget. "Follow by email" if you type in your email address and then click submit.. you will be sent by email my blog each time I post something.

Trust me - your address does NOT go to anyone other then my blog. You will not get unsolicited emails or junk by submitting your address. Hope you try it.. and my blogs will get a lot more exciting once I start sailing in June.....

Gratitude Marina and the BIG B

Hauled out at Gratitude Marina

Gratitude Marina, Rock Hall, MD been coming here to Rock Hall for over 20 years. It's a great little town and am so glad that I decided to haul out here. Nice change of pace from being in downtown Philadelphia for the past 3 years. Plenty of space, good store, restaurants and bars.

Main building for Gratitude marina

Most boats are in the water, have the area almost to myself.

 

Road to downtown Rock Hall.

The BIG B "Blisters" - for my boater friends

From Boatsafe.com -"Water being absorbed through the gelcoat and fiberglass laminates in the hull causes blisters. Once thought impervious to water, it has been discovered that constant contact with water can cause it to be absorbed through the gelcoat from the outside and through the exposed laminate on the inside of the vessel (from standing bilge water).

 The water absorbed causes changes in the physical makeup of the hull and reacts with the resins, which build up residues and finally raise blisters by increased pressure on voids between the laminate and the gelcoat. This is what you see on the hull. This phenomena usually starts occurring, although it may occur earlier, from the fifth to tenth year after the manufacture of the boat. It occurs when boats are left in the water for long periods of time and happens more frequently in fresh water. It is estimated that one in four fiberglass boats develops hull blisters. Most will never be more than a cosmetic concern, particularly if they're treated rather than ignored." 

These are blisters that I chiseled and the liquid oozed out. 

I have about 100-120 per each side of the boat, not a hard process to fix, but a tedious one. 

Find And Grind ( simplified) 

• Break open each blister.
• Grind away the broken dome of the blister.
• Scrub until squeaky clean with a stiff brush.
• Paint the inside of each cavity with epoxy resin.
• Trowel the filler into the cavity, smooth it, and then fair it.

After 3 days, I believe I've gotten all the blisters ground down, since they are calling for rain, I covered the boat to try and dry them out. I should be able to fill them in 2 -3 weeks. Fun stuff!

Good Bye Philly

Finally left Philadelphia.

Had an interesting motor/sail leaving Philadelphia for Rock Hall Maryland. Left Philadelphia around 6:30 AM in the company of Full Circle with her new owner Tom, motoring down the Delaware River running with the current- doing a steady 7-8 knots even with the wind on our nose.

Some steady freighter traffic glad I had my AIS,  could see if they were moving or anchored. Plus it's fun to see their names and port of calls.

After 5 hours and 32 miles, we made it to the Delaware River entrance of the C&D canal- connecting us to the Chesapeake Bay. Unfortunately since we had the current with us all the way down the Delaware river, we  now where running against the current thru the C&D, our speed slowed sometimes to 2 knots. The canal is 14 miles lone.. at 2.5 knots that's a LONG trip.

 There is one stop along the canal- Chesapeake City; which has a couple of marinas and a small but nice anchorage. I decide, since the wind was still strong from the west which is the direction I'm heading, to stop here for the night.

Up bright and early- 5:30, now heading out to the bay. Beautiful sunrise!

This is the classic Chesapeake Bay bridge/City photo. Will be passing this way again on the way north to Maine.  After a grueling motoring, then sailing in 25-35 knot winds, with a 4 hour stop on the Sassafras river to wait for the wind to change direction, finally made it to Swan Creek in time for a happy hour and a sunset.

Sunset Swan Creek

One of my favorite photo that I've taken

This is Haven Harbour on Swan Creek at Rock Hall Maryland, beautiful spot and marina. Always a wonderful sunset to be had and am looking forward to spending a month here.

Planning on installing a new transducer, moving my engine exhaust, gel-coating part of my deck and the new cockpit lockers I built a couple of years ago, and finally sanding and varnishing my interior floors. Hoping for a month of good weather..