Turtle Hospital Report

  On Saturday the 21^st of December 2013 my family and the Romano family went to the Turtle Hospital.  The Turtle Hospital is a small hospital where rescue turtles, rehabilitate them and then release them. Their slogan is RESCUE, REHAB, RELEASE.

 About Turtles

 

Sea turtles eat jellyfish, conch, crab, shrimp, and anything else easy to catch.  But when they are older they are herbivores they eat stuff like sea grass.  Turtles have really strong jaws so that they can break the shell of a conch or a crab.  There are 7 types of sea turtles in the world.  There is the Green, Hawksbill, Leather Back, Kemp ridley, Loggerback, Olive Ridley, and Flatback.

Injuries

Turtles can get tumors, boat strikes, intestinal blockage, and others.  A tumor is a swelling part of the body.  A boat strike is when a boat’s propeller hits a turtle’s shell causing spine and internal organ damage.

What the turtle hospital does to help

The turtle hospital helps by applying surgery and then lets them rest in a pool type of thing for a week to a month.  Then they take the turtle back to where they found it and releases it.

Names of current patients and their injuries:

Corona: 28 lbs found floating and struggling at the surface.

Chris: 7 lbs tumors

Amethyst: 15 lbs had tumors may be released soon

Brett: 113 lbs intestinal blockage

Emerald: 13 lbs tumors

Gizmo: 80 lbs intestinal blockage

Archie: 17 lbs covered in tumors including both eyes

Ron: 10 lbs netted on a coral reef due to heavy load of tumors

Chance: 70 lbs old boat hit caused deformation of shell and has one small tumor

Augustus: 10 lbs heavy load of tumors

Moses: 14 lbs 6 inch split in shell from boat hit

Elena: boat strike causing fractures in head and carapace.  Some tumors

Captain Z: 20 lbs tumors

Zippy: 2 lbs perfectly healthy is a show turtle for at schools

Jack: 5 lbs tumors

Katie Love: 23 lbs tumors

Chuy: 40 lbs missing left front flipper.  Tumors

Curly: 5 lbs lethargy

Dash: 15 lbs tumors

Mae: 10 lbs tumors

Fitzy: 30 lbs tumors

Jimbo: 65 lbs - 3.1 lb tumor (record breaking)

Hook: 18 lbs tumors

Timmy: 7 lbs tumors

Zippy the small one who has no problem and is a show turtle for schools.

The weights on the back of this turtle make it so that the turtle can dive down underwater.

Marathon, FL to Spanish Wells, Bahamas

Well, we anchored outside Marathon Marina to have a simple and early departure early Sunday Jan 6 morning.  Winds were strong E, SE, and were supposed to abate.  That day was supposed to be a good weather window to cross the Gulf Stream, but the winds never lit up: 25-30 knots til early afternoon, and 20 kn the rest of the day.  The waves were high and choppy.  The weather was squally, and within 2 1/2 hours, that sent Sayan, Kehan and I down in the cockpit, seasick and incapacitated like rag dolls bouncing around wet and nauseous.  Avi handled the boat marvelously dodging squalls as well as he could.  I got back onto my feet around 1 am.  Shortly after, we got the side of our stack pack stuck in one of our blocks for the mainsheet.  Incapable of controlling the mainsail, we had to drop it.  It took us 3 1/2 hours the next day to untangle the whole mess.

That next morning, we felt so good the boys and I were dancing in the cockpit, and had a great day despite the fact that we motored all the way to Spanish Wells, north of Eleuthera, in the Bahamas -- the winds were light or non-existent.

Drying gloves after a very wet 24 hours...

Oh and by the way, our brand new wireless wind transducer and display stopped working on day 2... @#%%$ ! That means another trip up the mast with no guarantee once the winds die down here in Spanish Wells.

Getting practice on the VHF

Sayan announcing our departure on the Marathon Cruisers'Net.

And we say goodbye to:
Jim & Rita
John & Angela on m/v La Joie de Vie
Howard & Mary on m/v Nazdar (ce n'est qu'un au revoir).
All the kids at the City Marina

How such an adventure transforms...

Such adventures transform people. Here are 2 examples: We wanted to remove the saftey netting on our lifeline all around Agave. So Sayan spent a few hours doing that, and then announced on the VHF radio during the daily cruisers' net that we had this netting for sale: $10 dollars for each side of 40 feet. He got a taker immediately who came that afternoon and gave him his well deserved $20 for the entire netting.   Sayan was in heaven, and is now looking for other means to make a buck or two...

Kehan is getting very inspired as a cook and creates all sorts of recipes: snacks (the snackers, the sweet fruit salad ...), breakfasts (the waffleicious), deserts (the banana yum...as pictured below).  We hope that continues!

The Waffleicious

Departure Delayed til Saturday Jan 4

Too many things to sort out and a cold front heading for the Atlantic middle of next week. So we're staying on for another couple of days...

Alex Miller (SeaTek) has strong technical skills and finished what Avi could not yesterday...

 

Installation of a brand new LED anchor light

and installation of a new wireless wind transducer.

Plus on the to-do-list before Saturday installation of the lifefraft on the stern, greasing of the port rudder and such....

Departure for the US Virgin Islands Tonight?

Happy New Year everyone !

We're planning to leave at night for the US Virgin Islands.  But the last minute preparations are taking forever so who knows if we will be ready.  We're trying our best because the weather window is really good to go onto the Gulf Stream and cross it over.  Stay tune: more in 2 weeks...

Christmas on Agave

Avi is back on board, and we're having Christmas on Agave:

Besides that, we are getting ready for our next passage. 

Today we drove to Key West to go to the US Customs and Border Protection Officer to get Avi, Sayan, and Kehan's Small Vessel Registration System card (see post below for explanation).

We are also trying our new Single Side Band radio which will allow us to receive weather forecast faxes offshore. We have a free software that decodes the broadcasted faxes onto our laptops.  We'll get surface, wind, wave analyses several times a day. 

Our outboard engine is shutting itself down.  We got to service it. 

In the next few days, we'll repair the anchor light, try to repair the wind display instrument, change the engines oil, set up the liferaft on deck, pre-cook meals, etc...