We've got a bunch of chores to accomplish. Parts to order. Things to fix.

Plus, we've got to have some periodontal issues looked at. This means surgery and recuperation. The good news is that St. Augustine seems like a pretty nice place for that kind of thing.

Hopefully, the weather won't get too terribly cold.

10th. Monday.

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Yoga early this morning. Missed the cruiser's net.

Residence

In the afternoon, it was time to become Florida residents. This took a few hours. It's about a four miles bike ride to the county offices.

St. Brendan's Isle has some suggestions about convincing the great state of Florida that you live here, even if you're really just a cruiser passing through.

SBI provides an affidavit of Intent to Domicile in Florida, but our DMV agent wasn't happy with it. What DMV wants is several forms of ID (passport, birth certificate, Social Security card) plus two forms of evidence of your address. Our clerk wasn't happy unless we provided evidence of both post-office box and physical address. The SBI "Unit" was no good.

Allowed forms of ID include:

• Bank Statements. We have two accounts, in separate names. We also have two credit cards in separate names.

• A DMV form from each of us saying we live together, allowing one mailing address to work for both of us.

• Shipping receipts at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina to establish a domicile separate from our mailing address. Just by luck, we had placed recent orders with Defender.com and Amazon.com; the orders provided necessary evidence that we're physically here.

• Also acceptable is a Florida boat registration. Or another state's boat registration with the Hull ID Number. We didn't bring a copy of our Documentation, and we don't have any registration. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, a documented vessel doesn't have any state registration.

We really don't like have the marina as our "domicile". We'd really rather have a "unit" at the St. Brendan's Isle address. We'll file a change of address form at some point; I think we can do it online without having to remember to produce the official USCG Documentation.

Now we have two forms of photo ID on hand (passport and driver's license.) We almost look like real people.

We got back to Red Ranger moments before an epic, blinding thunder-and-lightning rain storm. We were wet from the little rain showers that presaged the real show.

Dinner was from 101 Cookbooks: Coconut and Red Lentil Soup.

The Leak

On Saturday, CA noticed that the forward hatch was weeping. Upon investigation it became clear that the gasket didn't fill the space correctly. Either we need a new gasket or (perhaps) we can stuff some packing material to help fill the space around the gasket.

The forward hatch was rebuilt: we already replaced the gasket, and rebedded the lens. There's no easy way for this to leak without having sustained some of damage.

What damage can cause the heavy cast-aluminum frame to deform enough that we can see daylight around the gasket?

More to the point: what do we do about it?

Since it wasn't raining much on Saturday or Sunday, we ignored it.

As the rain pounded down this afternoon, we looked at the water flowing in. We stared at the gap, distressed at the kinds of repairs that might be involved. Since the frame doesn't really work properly, we may need to replace the entire hatch, chopping a larger hole in the deck and removing the beautiful teak frame.

Staring at the gap, we noticed that the bolt on one of the latch handles had worked it's way loose.

Wait. What? The bolt holding latch is loose?

Get me the 9/16 wrench.

The hatch is fine. The gasket is fine. The latch needed a little tightening. Whew. That saved us a fortune.

Travel

Attribute	Value
Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

11th. Tuesday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Some things to fix:

1. The CQR anchor needs to be even more secure on the bowsprit. In Delaware bay it was completely (dangerously) out of control. Coming down from St. Mary's, it was knocked off it's roller.

2. The binnacle compass light doesn't work unless the engine is on. What about sailing after dark? This is a (hopefully) small wiring change to put the compass light onto the instrument circuit instead of the engine circuit.

3. The failed propane hose is on order.

4. One of the oil lines from engine to filter weeps. This is a call to ADC in Kilmarnock to order replacement oil hoses.

5. Maybe the 38 pound CQR is too small. Maybe it should be a 45 pound anchor. There's a 45-pounder for sale at the Sailor's Exchange.

There are more things to do, but these are small jobs suitable for the Florida sunshine.

Instead of doing those jobs, we toured the Castillo de San Marcos.

We did charge the batteries by running the engine for 72 minutes today. That's more-or-less the minimum charging time. It just finishes the bulk charge phase and enters the float charge phase.

And. I'm deeply suspicious of the voltages being used. Trojan's owner's manual suggests much higher charging voltages than the ARS-5 regulator is producing. Trojan says 2.45V per cell, which is 14.7V. The ARS-5 manual says that 14.6V is used in the "FDC" (Flooded Deep Cycle) mode. I observed 14.2V. I think it's time to manually override the programming and raise the voltage.

The manual says the ARS-5 should report itself as release 3.8. My unit reports 1.5. That may be part of the problem. I have old software that doesn't match the new manual. All the more reason for manual overrides to raise the charging voltage.

Dinner was from 101 Cookbooks: Coconut and Red Lentil Soup.

Travel

Attribute	Value
Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

12th. Wednesday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Cold. Rainy. A stay-below-decks day. We did almost nothing except read.

Dinner was a spicy African potato and squash soup with home-made oatmeal bread.

We invited Scott from Joie de Vivre over for dinner.

Travel

Attribute	Value
Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

13th. Thursday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Rode our bicycles to the periodontist to have a pre-surgery consult. Surgery next Monday, then three more weeks (more or less) of recovery here in St. Augustine area.

We picked up some packages we had shipped here. The new propane hose. Some wine glass racks. Tea. A duffle bag. Lock-n-lock storage boxes.

Our Manufacturer's Statement of Origin for our dinghy finally arrived. Now we can have it notarized at a local bank branch and send it off to the Commonwealth of Virginia to get our official title and registration. And while we're at it, we can get our fake registration-only from Virginia so that Florida can't complain about our legally documented vessel.

CA installed wineglass racks in the bar.

We charged the batteries by running the engine for 126 minutes today. That gets us well past the bulk charge phase and does about 36 minutes of float charge phase. Why the weird times? The regulator works on an 18-minute cycle: each phase is a multiple of 18 minutes long. Usually it's 36 minutes of bulk and 36 minutes of absorption followed by float charging.

I think the voltages may be right, after all. I may be observing lower voltages because of where the voltmeter is in the circuit. The alternator may be putting 14.6 into the batteries, but I'm measuring the battery's voltage under a load, not the alternator's output voltage.

Dinner was a spicy African potato and squash soup with home-made oatmeal bread.

We took the dinghy back to the dock to walk up to Meehan's for some drinks with the cruisers from the marina and St. Augustine area.

Travel

Attribute	Value
Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

14th. Friday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Someone stole my bicycle. We had a nice chat with the St. Augustine Police.

We did laundry today. And notarized our Manufacturer's Statement of Origin for our dinghy. Eventually, we'll get it registered and get official numbers (and a state sticker) for it.

We ordered some gear to help with fresh water. Several cruisers suggested that we buy a large bladder (close to 40 gallons; 350 pounds of water) and a pump. The idea is to put the bladder in the dinghy, fill it at a dock, and then pump that into the main tanks on the boat. Using 5-gallon jerry jugs to fill a 100-gallon tank means filling and hefting 40-pound jugs up onto the deck 20 times. Using a 40 gallon bladder and a pump means no hefting.

Dinner out at A1A Brewpub.

The wind has finally slacked off, so the ride back to the boat in the dinghy didn't give everyone a bad case of dinghy-butt.

Travel

Attribute	Value
Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

15th. Saturday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Walked to the various nearby bike and pawn shops. No trace of our stolen bike. Nor was there a suitable replacement.

We bought some newer, beefier locks at the bike shop.

We should have bought the big U-Bolt style locks, since they're the most secure. They're also a awkward to carry on a small folding bike.

We walked over to Sailor's Exchange. Right inside the front door was a folding bike (an "Adventurer" made for Camping World.) It looks good enough. So we bought it and returned to the marina.

After lunch, we went back to the Castillo. On Saturdays, the re-enactors are there. They fired the 6-pound guns, and drilled with their muskets. One of the displays in the casemates pointed out that back in the day, soldiery was a part-time job. Like the re-enactors, the soldiers of the various Spanish occupations had day jobs and periodic duty at the fort to drill with the weapons and maintain watch for enemies (including pirates.)

[I was too awe-struck by the canon-firing to take a picture.]

Dinner was Pasta Cavliflora (check the Moosewood cookbook for the recipe.)

The fog settled in heavy, dense and wet. It would be hard to go ashore (it's not visible) and hard to get back to the boat.

Travel

Attribute	Value
Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

9th. Sunday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

The sun peeked through this morning. We opened up every cabinet and cupboard to air out the boat. It's time to wash down some of the surfaces that are growing mildew because of the run of cold, foggy or rainy days we've had.

We recharged the batteries for an hour and 48 minutes today. While the engine was running, I felt better about using power to scan and print all the paperwork for registering the dinghy. Yes. the MSO arrived on Thursday, and I'm only finalizing the paperwork today.

CA dismantled and cleaned the aft cabin. We thought we had a small mildew "concern". No. We had major mildew.

We had a puddle of standing water under our mattress. The Hypervent pads totally kept the bedding dry. It was serious work to wash and rinse and dry the walls, and bed platform.

After the cleaning, we're all snuggled back, hoping for some more dry days to come. We're not optimistic, though. There's a series of cold fronts coming through next week that will drop temps into the 40's F (less than 10° C). That means more rain and more condensation.

It appears that three months between major cleanings is too many. We're going to try to clean the aft cabin every two weeks.

Dinner was spicy oven-fried sweet potatoes, veggie burger and a small salad.

Tomorrow is periodontal surgery, followed by a few weeks of recovery. Then we'll look into moving further south. Next stop will likely be the Ponce de Leon inlet, near Daytona beach. After that, Ft. Pierce. But. Let's not overplan.

Travel

Attribute	Value
Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

This Week

Engine Hours: 3. Diesel Gallons: 0. ICW Miles: 0.

Books: continued The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.

Read Aloud: A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire (still; it will be a while).

Travel

Attribute	Value
Engine	3. h
Fuel	0. gal
Distance	0. mi