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Ethan's Ark Florida to St. Mary's County Md. |
| Home Dunedin to Chesapeake Oct., 2008 Hampton to Florida Oct., 2009 Florida to St. Mary's County April, 2010 St. Mary's County to Florida Oct, 2013 Hudson to Bahamas and Back June, 2017 Contact Us |
This voyage was to bring the Theodore Robert to St. Mary's county in Maryland. I obtained a job in St. Mary's county, and had no time to travel with the Theodore Robert. My friend Rob Leyden agreed to bring her up, and for the first part of the journey, my friend JimBob Kendall agreed to crew for Rob. After JimBob had to return home, Rob single handed for about a week. That proved to be exhausting, so I called our mutual friend, Tony Battista, and he flew down to Wilmington, NC where he joined Rob for the rest of the trip through North Carolina and Virginia. At this point, I only have JimBob's partial written account, and here it is. Enjoy.
Tale of a ship that sails without her captain.
Intro: This is the narrative of my trip aboard the Theodore Robert as she cruised north to Maryland to be re-united with her captain, Ethan Romans. I’m Jim Kendall, a/k/a JimBob, an old friend of Ethan. Seems we have a lot in common, in the fact that we both worked at Cape Canaveral Florida, both somehow never crossed paths. Then in 2002, we both came to work for Honeywell, and started on the exact same day.
Once we found out about our common past experience and the current lowly position within Honeywell, we became very close friends. Somewhere along the way, Ethan got me to assist him in finishing his project or dare say his retirement plan. I became one of his slaves working to complete the task, before Ethan retired. I was mostly involved with the electrical & electronic systems aboard the ship. The rest is history, but in the process, Ethan got me involved with sailing. See, another thing Ethan and I had in common was we both were licensed pilots, as in aviator. So, I slowly became one of his crew members. Granted, I was a ‘Green Horn’ or ‘Newbie’ but at least I could pull on a rope. I just didn’t always know which one to pull!
Anyway, back to the tale! Ethan had left Honeywell some time ago and was planning on retiring, now that his ship was completed. But alas, the money ran out and he was in need of employment once again. And with the economy the way it was, he could only find a job in Maryland. So, he was forced to move to Maryland and leave his ship behind in Florida. This is where the tale begins; I always wanted to take a mini cruise aboard, which required an overnight stay. This was my chance to help Ethan and get some ‘Seaman’ time aboard his ship.
The plan called for me to join up with one of Ethan’s other helpers in the completion of his ship. Rob Lyden is one of the main craftsmen used by Ethan and Rob is a licensed captain. I would take some vacation days from work and pick up Rob at the marina in Dunedin Fl and we would drive over to Wilbur-by-the-sea to begin the cruise north.
On March 31, I was to pick up Rob at the marina around 3:00 pm and we would drive over to Port Orange, which is just north of Wilber by the Sea. Our arrival time would put us there about 5 or 6 pm. Well, everything went as planned and just like clockwork. Only hitch in the plan was that I learned that Rob had had an accident in the previous few days, where he fell from a mast aboard his own ship and hit the deck. This required a trip to the emergency room and some “staples” to close the wound on his head. Rob insisted his condition was ok and that he could still make the trip. It would just require us to make a schedule stop to have these staples removed, sometime during the trip north.
The drive over to Wilbur by the Sea was uneventful and finding the marina wasn’t too hard. I had brought along my Garmin Nuvi GPS device and plus the fact that Ethan had told me about the restaurant at the marina was always packed. It was called the “Boon-Docks” and he was right! We found a parking place, luckily and off loaded our gear on to the Theodore Robert. It had been sometime since I had last seen the ship. Rob and I ordered some take-out from the restaurant and went back to the ship to eat our chow. Good thing too, cause the restaurant was packed. Sleep came easy that night!
Next morning, I awoke at my usual time of 5:30 am. It seems that I was delegated the job of fixing coffee for the two us. Nothing out of the ordinary, I do it all the time at home. Anyway, this gave me my moment topside to enjoy the quite time – sipping my coffee and taking in the view. The Adventure Harbor Marina at Wilbur by Sea was a fairly large marina with large slips and covered dry slips also. But at day light, the channel out to the main channel concerned Rob.
The task at hand, for today, was to perform major systems checks and ship status before getting underway. One major problem developed, Rob in his inspection of the engine compartment found that a bracket, that mounted the house alternator, was broken and the alternator was hanging on by the belt. He was amazed that Ethan actually made it to the marina with this condition. Also, we knew that the oil in the engine needed to be changed, but our search of the ship founded that there wasn’t enough oil onboard to complete the process.
This “Scrubbed” the departure for Apr. 1 which put us on a hunt for parts and materials. This kind’a worked into the plans for provision shopping, but not knowing the local area. We were at a lost, if it was for my Garmin! Help came in using the ‘Find item of interest, near where I am right now’ function. Needless to say, we spend a good part of the day, driving around to find the bits and pieces Rob needed to modify the alternator mounting system. The rest of the day was spent in the disassembly and reassembly of the alternator mounting. By the later part of the day, Rob discovered that there was one bolt that needed to be longer and there was nothing on board that fit the requirement. We decided to stop the repairs and pick up the next day.
Morning came as usual, and the day’s task was to try and find someone (store) that had the size of “all-tread” rod which Rob could make the required bolt. Again, the Garmin helped in the fact that it also gives out information in terms of address and phone numbers. Save us a lot of driving around! During all of Rob’s work, my job was to install a replacement navigation computer, one to replace Ethan’s laptop. Also, I was to connect the Depth/Knot meter into the ‘SeaClear II’ navigation software. This kept me out of Rob’s way while he worked on the engine. I say this because I too, needed a part to complete my task assignment. Like the day before, the time seemed to slip away and before we knew it, the day was gone! The decision to depart was pushed once again to the next day.
| Home Dunedin to Chesapeake Oct., 2008 Hampton to Florida Oct., 2009 Florida to St. Mary's County April, 2010 St. Mary's County to Florida Oct, 2014 Hudson to Bahamas and Back June, 2017 Contact Us |