When last you saw us here, we were in the South Harbour Village Marina near Oak Island. A hurricane kicked the marina’s butt, displaced us from our home and I had to have the boat moved to a distant marina, while JoAnne was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer in late August of 2020.

Since that time we stayed with a friend on the island (Pam) who was renting a place there at the time, later we went to Colorado for a few weeks, then returned, and we eventually rented a place ourselves. Right after she finished Chemo for her third time through, in March of 2021, we had found a home on the island to buy – which I did.

In the mean time, I decided to move Adventure to Georgetown, SC, thinking we could get even closer to the Bahamas when we sail again. Unfortunately, things haven’t worked out.

I sailed down with the help of Jay Beard, also a sailor (s/v Knot Working) on an overnight journey, which actually went very well. We sailed all the way down, and wound up in the marina, but the fuel is fouled, and I haven’t had time to clean it.

As of a couple of weeks ago, I put Adventure up for sale. Why?

Because JoAnne had a 4th time through cancer…. which lead to some dangerous blood pressure levels.

On the 17th of November, JoAnne suffered a seizure, and a stroke. She has been hospitalized since then. She has a tracheostomy, and is having some cognitive issues (but many seem to be clearing up now), and can’t walk yet, or do certain things. There is no way she will ever sail Adventure again.

Thus I decided to sell her. Today a deal was struck. The new owner is going to be transferring money to me today and in a few days we will meet at Adventure, so I can finish the deal and hand him his papers, a few items that go with the boat and remove a few things that belong to JoAnne and I that we have yet to retrieve.

For now, I will leave the ad up for Adventure on Facebook, and we will close it out when the deal is completed.

In the mean time, this blog will remain online as long as I live for others to reference and read.

Today is a sad day for me, for we never completed the quest to get to the Islands in the Caribbean, but my promise to JoAnne to “Give her Islands” has been kept. Our new home is called “Adventurer’s Landing” and is located ON an ISLAND. Oak Island, NC.

I’m proud to have been able to sail such a beautiful, well-found vessel with my wife, partner and first mate, JoAnne Renee Donaldson.

I dedicate this blog to her, with all my love, heart and soul.

I love you JoAnne. Get well soon.

Thus ends our sailing journey. For now. Perhaps one day will will once again find ourselves out there, but it won’t be on Adventure.

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This is the story of Perky, a Perkins 4-108 diesel engine who lives inside a Happy Sailing Vessel named Adventure.

When Adventure was a few years younger, Perky came to live in Adventure because a previous owner of the Vessel wanted a better engine than was in the boat.

Perky was newly rebuilt according to the previous owner. Perky appears to have about 900 operating hours since his rebuild, truthfully not even really “broken in”.

A year ago, Perky got sick and ran away. Not from home, but because he had too much oil, which was really oil plus diesel. Eventually, the sump filled and caused Perky to run away – a bad condition for a diesel engine, and the only way to shut this condition down is to remove air from his air intake.

A mechanic came in to make Perky well, charged us a lot of money to make it work right. Pulled injectors, pulled lift pump, stated lift pump was the problem, and supposedly rebuilt that pump.

A year later, and less than 20 more hours on the engine, Perky ran away again – because the Captain forgot to check the oil level before starting the engine a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t realize the oil levels had grown way over where they should have been.

So – after shutting Perky down, the Captain changed the oil. And removed the lift pump and checked it. It had NOT been “repaired” nor, even “rebuilt” or “replaced”. It was the original pump and parts inside. The Captain found out from Perkins they don’t even make rebuild kits any more.

It wasn’t leaking, but the Captain decided to change it anyway, as a new lift pump was only 25 bucks.

The oil, unfortunately, continued to grow.

So, now the Captain pulled the injectors from Perky and took them to a reputable place to test them. The test went well, but one of the injectors, number 2, failed. Without any significant pressure at all, it shot fuel out like a garden hose. Stuck open, or leaky, or whatever.

Injector #2 was rebuilt by the nice people at Diesel Parts of Carolina, brought back a few days ago and reinstalled with the other injectors.

The oil was removed, oil filter removed and changed, new oil added to the engine.

Yesterday, Perky fired right up…. with a little help from the Captain bleeding the air out of the fuel lines of course. The engine ran nicely.

The oil levels were checked every 15 minutes for about two hours with no noticeable change in levels.

This morning, after the engine had cooled over night, the oil levels were again checked.

And they seemed a tad higher than they were after the initial oil change. But not much.

And certainly not as much as the level had risen after the lift pump change.

So, Perky seems happy, but the Captain is still not quite happy.

Tomorrow we will run Perky once more for a couple of hours, bring him up to temperature, and check the levels again. IF the oil levels continue to increase, then we have no choice but to pull the injectors again and do a compression check, and if that is going, pull the Fuel Injection Pump and have it serviced.

We hope the problem is corrected. But, the Captain won’t be happy until we know for sure.

Tune in soon for the conclusion of “Perky, the Little Engine that Could”!

Treating this entry rather like a log book today.

Started engine at 0950 local time here in Southport, NC. I did this after diagramming the fuel tanks, the fuel return lines and marking the tanks again (the old markings are fading). I also cleaned the tank tops of dirt and dust, cleaned the floor panels before replacing them, along with all the interior of the mounting for the panels.

I double checked oil levels today, they are normal.

I made sure the return line is opened to the #1, Aft tank, as that’s where I’m pulling diesel from.

Transmission levels fine.

Coolant fine.

Engine started hard (it’s very cold today, was in the mid 30s this morning. It’s 46 now.

Engine did start though, without any problems, other than taking three cranks.

Checked raw water flow. Good.

I brought engine up to running temperature, 160* F and that took 24 minutes.

Pressure was high (almost 80 psi) at start, but as temp increased the oil pressure dropped to normal.

Brought engine up to 1200 rpm for 10 minutes.

Put at idle speed (about 980) and put in forward gear.

Brought engine up to 1100 rpm in gear at dock.

Pulling against docks now strongly, remained engaged.

Has been running 25 minutes in gear with no issues. (1035)

Oil pressure: 40

Engine Temp: 160

Charge: 14.5

Engine running smoothly at this time. Listening for timing or engine speed changes. Seems steady. (1040)

(Listening to Margaritaville Radio, because I’m sick of the cold)

Ok… 1055, engine shutdown.

Temp, oil pressure, voltages all the same as above. Engine didn’t vary it’s tone or speed from 1100 rpm. All systems “nominal”.

Going to wait a bit to let oil settle, and take a reading. Then will read it cold later today again.

Edit: Checked it as it is cooling, and oil level seems higher than it was. Will let it get totally cool before testing again. Also did an oil blotter test; this is where you place a drop of the oil from the dip stick onto a piece of paper and let it absorb into the paper.

In chemistry, this is called Chromatography. They have gas chromatographs, but I don’t have one of those. I’ve got paper. So I did a cold and warm drop test on the paper and marked it. I will do one more drop test when the oil is cool again. So FAR, it shows it pretty clear of any contaminates other than soot.

I am on sabbatical now.

Ok, not really.

I retired from the military in 2002.  I quit my job at the Missile Defense Agency in 2015.  I took a job with the marina in March 2017, and stopped working on September 16th until next April when I will return to the marina.

So, I suppose I can legitimately call it a sabbatical.

My friend,  Jay calls his boat Knot Working, so could just say “Not Working” but Sabatical sounds cooler.

We’re doing our last road trip before the cruise south.  Long trip, seeing family,  friend, brew pubs, eating good food, having fun.

Back at the boat, I’ll be spending several days putting all the running rigging back together,  sails back up, filling tanks, removing extraneous gear we won’t require, and storing things we won’t need on the boat.

JoAnne will be working on provisions for the trip, probably three months of standard canned foods and things that last awhile as well as flour, sugar and things we use for baking.

I haven’t written for a time due to hurricane prep, as Irma and Maria were headed our way, so this is just a quick, short entry to remind the worls we’re alive.

More to follow in a few days.

I made some minor blog changes to get our friends a bit better connected.

On Facebook, we have a FB Page for the s/v Adventure.  I have now linked this blog with that page, so that when a post (such as this one) gets posted up to the blog, it will also be linked through Facebook.

Facebook is, in my opinion pretty stupid these days, but I use it because I have several hundred friends who whom I like to touch base occasionally, and unfortunately, it’s really the only social media thing that works well right now.  And that all our friends happen to be on (or most).

I run several blogs actually, and FB is connected to each of those as well, through various means.

For our family and close friends, it IS the easiest way to stay in touch, and many don’t follow the blog directly, but can see the messages I post on the blog through FB.  So, it works.

I will be inviting all my friends to the page over on FB, and all they have to do is “Like” it to see the messages pop up (supposedly).

I also am now running the “Sailing & Cruising: Preppers” group on Facebook as well.  It is linked to a blog too.  So, if anyone following this blog is interested, here’s the link for that blog, and you can go to the group site on FB and join.

https://sailingcruisingpreppers.wordpress.com/

Something about telling someone to “grow a pair”.

Lol

Source: A Blogging Conversation — HarsH ReaLiTy- A Reblog!

First, my apologies to everyone who has been so diligent in reading the blog entries and not seeing one since January or so.

Second, not making excuses, but I’ve been pretty busy and I’m going to remedy the situation right now.

I’ve been pretty busy working a part time job in the marina, as well as on the boat.

On the boat, I have been working on varnish and fiberglass, some major (attempts) at cleaning and a few minor things like doing repairs as I need to.  I’ve gotten to MOST of the teak and have three coats of varnish on them.  I’ll be adding another when I have a few days to work on it, when it’s not scalding hot, or raining and blowing hard.

I did some glass repair work on the side of the cockpit the other day.  I’m not sure about this damage I discovered – hidden under a “fake boot stripe” (I’ll get back to that in a moment).  Along the top deck, where the house part rises from the deck, there’s a wall built around the cockpit.  The coaming with a kind of removable door/wall in the cockpit has a straight crack along the length.  It appears to me that something hit the boat and did some damage in the past, though I’m at a loss where the hit could have occurred unless the boat was dropped or smacked against something like a lift.

When we bought the boat in New York, a surveyor didn’t notice or mention any problems and I don’t recall them.  Before we left Colorado in July of 2015 to collect the boat, we had a bottom paint job done by the marina.

Worst of the worst of the places we’ve been at, this marina.  I called them and asked specifically about the paint, the type, how it was applied, and asked about them touching up the waterline and boot stripe.  I paid for paint, their time and an extra $300 bucks for the rest of the work to be accomplished (this included zincs etc).

When we arrived, only two zincs were installed.  The paint was haphazardly sprayed on, and intake grids were blocked by paint runs throughout the holes.  I couldn’t find an indication where the “boot stripe” was painted/cleaned up.

It wasn’t until I made the painter come look at the boat and clean up the mess they made that they showed me the “boot stripe”.  A maroon strip of “tape” had been placed on the boat on the cabin top, along both sides.

So, when I was doing my work the other day and removed this stupid “tape” (and tape it was, a colored, stick-backed maroon-colored tape) I discovered this crack running the length of the starboard side of the cockpit and just forward of the cockpit in the coaming.

The crack was very “clean” like a break, but it wasn’t perfectly straight like a razor, but kind of jaggedy.

I ended up not being able to determine the cause, why it was there or even if they had attempted a repair (as it appeared to have some silicone material in it).  I used my dremmel tool to remove the gunk, take it to the inner wood core, clean it up and have reglassed that part of the boat.  I still need to sand and eventually paint this part of the boat.

As to varnish, I spent a few days cleaning, sanding, wiping, sanding, wiping, cleaning and then varnishing the cap rail, taffrail  most of the wood around the boat.  I have NOT finished (and have barely started) on the platform.  I have completed three coats and will probably do two more, though I’m not sure yet.  In any case it looks wonderful.

The topsides, near the waterline had a horrible, brown stain.  I guess the stain has a name.  It’s called the “ICW Mustache”, some people call it other names, which are not repeatable here.  I had a few names for it, I won’t repeat either.

Anyway, we found that by using a small amount of toilet bowl cleaner with some water in a spray bottle worked wonderfully to remove the stains.  I spritzed it on, went over with a soft bristled brush and it was gone in seconds.

I’m in the slow, laborious process of waxing the hull now, a little at a time to prevent this from happening in the future.  I’m not going to haul the boat this year and likely not next eitgher, so I’m working from the dink on and off.  A little here, a little there.  When I get tired of one job, I go do another.  And so on.

Being inside the marina as opposed to sitting on the transient dock is much better, and thankfully, cheaper too.

At this point we will likely remain here through October and depart sometime in November for the Bahamas (destinations to be determined) and stay from 3-5 months, depending on our ability to remain there.

Working at the marina has been a mix of very simple to very difficult tasks.  I’ve done everything from repair the ramp for the golf cart we use to collect and move trash to the dumpsters (about a quarter mile away) to changing flats on the cart, bringing in boats, pumping fuel (diesel, gas) to selling ice, oil and collecting money, making change, putting up and taking down flags, handling the radios, coordinating slip assignments and boat moves during the dredging.  Dredging was a royal pain in the rump too.  Everyone hated it.  Even the dredgers appeared to hate it.  The poor manager here was inundated with constant complaints about noise to hating to have to move their boat for the dredgers to get their work done.

The dredge kept breaking.  Things kept floating away.  You name it.  Thankfully, the dredging is finished.  We’re slowly getting boats back into their proper slips, a few here, a few there.

The manager has called me in for extra hours several times to assist with various things.  So, a few extra bucks is ok.  I’ll feel more comfortable when the retirement pay kicks in from the military in a few months though.

Midges.  AKA No-See-Ums.  They are demons from hell.  I hate them, and I will kill them all before I die.  I’m apparently having allergic reactions to them.  I get welts on my skin when they bite me, and they LOVE my blood type I suppose.  If there were ever a true vampire, midges would be the creature.  I am reasonably certain that the vampire mythology was built around these tiny insects.  They run away in bright sun normally, come out when there is dampness in the air, and buzz around incessantly in your face, your ears, up your nose and somehow find places to bite you that is completely covered with clothing.

Deet does NOT help.  So far, I’ve tried a dozen things.  Today I used, Picaridin, a type of “Off” type stuff, which actually worked for about 5 hours today.  The rest of it doesn’t seem to work.  Home remedies, lemoneucalyptus whatever that is, somewhat worked.  I’ve not yet been bitten by a mosquito, however, another of the creatures on this planet I’ve been trying to destroy my whole life because my body has begun to absorb deet to the point I feel I need it….. ok, maybe not true.

We went to Michigan in late January to go see my brother in the hospital.  He is doing significantly better now, even though he doesn’t remember us being there.

We went for a day sail with our friend Jay aboard “Knot Working”, a 37 Beneteau.  Beautiful boat, turns on a dime (ok, maybe a half dollar, and certainly in less than a full boat length I think – whereas we turn on two or MORE boat lengths given the conditions).

At some point soon, we hope to get out of the marina for a day or two, do a sail or two on our boat.

Finally, we’re going to try brewing beer in the next few days.  Will be the first time for us to do that since we moved aboard.  We will see how that goes.

I’d love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All to myself alone

Writer · Frank Loesser
Singers: Jimmy Buffett, Ela Fitzgerald, Bett Middler, Bing Crosby, myself and numerous others….

I used to sing this to JoAnne as a fun thing to do.  But, it’s funny actually BEING on a slow boat to China (or in this particular case, Florida).

We’ve dilly dallied a lot coming down from New York since last year.  We’ve had dangerous things happen, we’ve had scary things happen, we’ve had terrifying thing happen, we’ve had wonderful things happen, we’ve had health issues happen, we’ve met a lot of wonderful people, a couple of “interesting characters” and we’ve enjoyed most of the journey.

Yesterday we finished going over our charts, anchorages, weather, you name it… and decided to hang out here in Morehead City (Beaufort) a couple more days so JoAnne can have some fun and do a Thanksgiving Dinner on the boat, without rocking, without worrying about anchors, winds or wakes.  At this point we’re planning to pull out of here either Friday or Saturday morning (we’re paid up through Saturday here).

And it’s chilly here.  It’s actually colder inside the boat than outside today. haha.  Thursday should be in the 70s though.

Our instructor from San Diego from a few years ago used to say, “Get the boat that’s right for your voyage”.  Ralph Waldo Emmerson said, “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

It’s about the people you meet, the things you see and do, it’s about making friends (and occasionally in my past, I’ve found, fighting enemies).  Fortunately there is much less of the “fighting enemies” parts these days as I age.

Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. We’ll spend a quiet one here on the boat, the second time ever in our lives we’ve both been away from our family on this holiday.  Over the years we taught our kids to get together on Thanksgiving, spend the time together, get over your differences, and take the time to communicate about family things.

This year it appears there won’t be much “gettin’ together” for our kids.  Guess they’ve moved on from the family stuff.  We’re sad about that – but, they’re adults.  They can do whatever they feel is right, or not as they see fit.  We gave them the tools and brains to thin, to make their own choices.  I personally can not say I’m happy with many of the choices they and the grandchildren have made.

I’m unhappy about the fact the entire family has a few little bones to pick with each other, whether over politics, each other, grand kids, how-to-do-things… I guess it’s irrelevant now.  They are equipped to deal with life.

And the Journey.  If only they grasped that the Journey is life, and not the destination.

JoAnne and I happy together, happy on the boat today.  I have been personally frustrated over and over about various things.  About the ICW (it’s too shallow, the boat is too deep), about the weather (it’s too cold, it’s too hot), about the boat (this is broken, that isn’t working, I have to fix that thing for the 4th or 5th time) and I don’t know what day it happened but suddenly, none of that as important as living and going and doing.

We do have a destination.  Bahamas.  Florida.  Someplace Warm.  Anywhere Warm actually will do now.

So – after Thanksgiving, we will set out again and head south.  We did decide to spend a bit more time in the ICW though.  Surprisingly, it’s becoming fun and less nerve wracking than it was at first.  Even getting stuck again at Jarret Bay.

The side story here on Jarrett Bay is that we were supposed to be on the dock until 9:30 or 10AM the other morning.  But instead they Dockmaster knocked and told us to move to another dock, right away.  We were still preparing the boat to move and we certainly weren’t ready to pull off the dock.  I wasn’t sure about the currents, and then the slip he pointed to was by the land.  Not good.

So I asked, “How deep it that?”

“Plenty of space for you, I’ve put a lot of boats in there your size before…”

“But, how DEEP is it?”

“You won’t have a problem getting in.”

I noted the tide was coming up, about half tide, rising.  Good enough I said.

And pulled off the dock, the current preventing me from getting off easily and backed hard into the  channel, into a cross current.  Turns out it was swirling in there.  Ok, I managed to keep off everything, spun the boat around and headed south.

I turned nicely into the slip watching the water depths.

Water was at 17′, dropped rapidly to 13′ and then we slammed into the mud.

When the water cleared the depth finder was reading 4.5 feet.  Nice.

The Dockmaster was waving us in.  I yelled to him to say “We’re aground.”

His response?

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

I waved him off, and instead of cussing, or kicking something I laughed, walked back to the cockpit and assessed the situation.  We were on rising tide.  I only needed a foot to pull the bow out of the mud.  So I placed the boat in reverse and ran the rudder back and forth to wiggle us. Then I used the bow thrusters (probably NOT the best idea I’ve ever had but it worked) to blow the mud away from the bow.  In about 5 minutes we started moving slowly back.

So, after “I don’t know how many groundings” in mud I’m getting the hang of getting out of it.  Just not getting the hang of not getting stuck yet.

One thing I learned is to stop listening to others. Period. I always assumed that a dock master would know their depths and widths at a dock, how to tie a line, how to take a wrap on a cleat or piling to slow or stop a boat.  The answer to that is “Nope”.  I’m sure MOST do, but I seem to keep getting my share of folks that actually have no clue what’s in the water near their docks.

Ok, side story over.  Why continue down the ICW?

10 hours of day light.  If we pull out of Beaufort Inlet and can do 5 knots (pretty much our cruising speed either under sail or engine power) it’s 72 nautical miles from inlet to inlet (Masonboro being our next stop).  That gives me (assuming I started and stayed at 5kts) 14 hours to get there.

So we have to leave at about 0200 (that’s 2AM) to be able to arrive with enough light left to get into an anchorage.  Leaving in the dark isn’t keen from my point of view either, as I’ve not see the inlet yet except on charts and satellite photos.  Not happy with doing it.

But, we can drive 25 statue miles down the ICW a couple of days and still make it there.

In the Day Light.  I’m good with that.

After Masonboro is Cape Fear River.  And Cape Fear inlet.  And we’ll be on the inside and can go out on the other side of Frying Pan Shoals.

We’re looking at heading off shore after Cape Fear and just spending the next few days sailing now.  I think we’re both ready for a few days of actually SAILING and no motoring, and so we’ll look for the right window and go as soon as practical.

Aiming for St. Augustine, Jacksonville, or Titusville.  Don’t care.  Just want to go.

I hope my kids read this, get the message and have at least a quick get together for Thanksgiving Day.  It would mean a lot to JoAnne and I. And I hope they understand we’re fine, that we’re going to be fine, and that we’re going to continue doing what makes us happy.

Communication will beat demons.

To all my friends and family that follow the blog, have a very Happy Thanksgiving this year, spend time with your families.  Spend time listening to them.  Spend time putting up with the “nonsense” and remember, as Jeff Foxworthy says, “We’re ALL crazy!”

Fair Winds!

Rick

Ten Hours ago, I made a decision to remove the canvas and crap on the deck.  I took down the foresail, all the dodger and most of the stuff on the deck.

I still have a bicycle, generator, some gas and fuel cans up there, and minor stuff.  I’ve mostly tied down the bimini and solar panels.  But I’ reconsidering those things, and taking them down come Thursday.

We should know more tomorrow about the direction of the hurricane.  At 1700L time they said it was likely going to slam into the coast of Florida.  Florida and South Carolina Governors have put National Guard on Alert, something like 1500 in each state.  They are going to require evacuation tomorrow.  Those states want people moving 100 miles off the coast starting tomorrow.

OK, we’re a LONG way from South Carolina, and Florida, and no one seems to be sure about Georgia.   No one really, and I’m talking important, intelligent, well-trained, well-educated meteorologists.  (Somehow, I have this distinct feeling that since the Katrina screw up, NO ONE wants to make any sort of definite prediction, because you know, Bush got blamed for Katrina even though he (or Obama) have nothing to do with the weather…. So they don’t want to be definite.  Yeah, it’s a COP OUT, you idiots, you KNOW where this thing is going without a freaking Computer Model, even I can see it.)  Given that we’re able with 72 hours ahead to predict the possible paths within a few hundred MILES and without knowing what’s coming offshore from the US, we should be able to predict within 200 miles the exact path of the hurricane.

Why computer models suddenly became the most important predictor, I’m not sure.  What happened to good old human intuition?????  Oh well.

I’ll tell you this. I STILL say this thing will turn East.  Long before Virginia, and probably before it gets to North Carolina.  Why?  Because there’s a low and a “stationary front” sitting JUST off the US coast.   Behind it is a High.  Behind that, and three days from the coast is another Low Pressure/Cold Front moving through.  If anything the hurricane will meet with some “resistance” and push off shore.  Might not be perfectly timed, but from my position sitting here up the Potomac, just off the Chesapeake Bay, I see nothing getting here.  MAYBE some rain.  But nothing significant.

Then again, my weather training is from the National Weather Service, about 20 years of it, plus my own studies of the atmosphere.  Never been “tested” on it, except in storm chasing and I’ve generally be right, I’m alive to talk about it and tell stories, and I’ve been through two hurricanes and lived to tell about them as well.

What’s ALL this mean?  Nothing, to anyone really, except me and my boat.  I have NO intention of putting us in the path of a storm and if I have a chance to sit it out, a good distance away,  I will choose prudence over heroism.  What is there heroic about going to meet a hurricane face-to-face? Nothing.  It’s stupid.  Sitting tight is better.

Of course me, and the other guy on the dock, Pete, are the only captains here worried about our boats.  Everyone else isn’t here most of the time.  He lives aboard, and so do we, so the two of us have discussed who is going to anchor out and who ain’t.  He chooses to drive over and anchor out.  I’m staying on the docks.  No real choice, but I’m taking a lesson from the Bahamas and going to pull the boat up between two slips, sting my many lines out, and I’ll drop an anchor off the front of the boat at the last minute to keep the boat, and docks breaking apart in one spot if I can.  My boat isn’t going to sink, unless it goes aground on the far side… which it won’t.   And if I can hold things together, I will.

Truth is, I suspect the hurricane will hit Florida and turn right and head to sea, rather like Joaquin did with the Bahamas.  But, then, they predicted Joaquin would come up the coast and into the Chesapeake Bay and right over Galesville Md where we were hanging on a mooring ball last year.

So it comes down to two things… why aren’t they predicting what they SHOULD be?

And why do they THINK it MIGHT come as far north as Norfolk?

Got me, but we’ll see.

Obviously, I’m not a professional.  But, I trust me more than more TV weather guys, and especially The Weather Channel People who have proven to be wrong more than right.

Tomorrow… we pack our bags.

Thursday I decide about the solar panels.

Friday we depart and stay on the site in a house here, or we bail out and run for the cover of Richmond, VA.

Tomorrow is a new day…..

Fair Winds.

Spent the day today getting laundry done and I removed almost everything from the forward compartment… because that’s what you do on a boat.  Move things around to see how much space you don’t have and try to play Tetris to put it all back again, better and with more space left over.

I found that if I removed some things from the boat, I had space left over.  When I promptly refilled with other things I brought on the boat.

In the end, I removed the wood pellets and some coal (for the Chummy Stove) and placed that stuff in our car trunk for now.  Not sure we’re going to keep it.  Not sure we’re going to keep the chummy stove for that matter.  It was a royal pain in the behind to use.  We had trouble getting it to light well, keeping it running and coal has to get so hot before it really ignites that it wasn’t working for us.

The space I emptied is now filled again with other stuff.  So, I honestly didn’t do more than exercise all my futility muscles today.  And get laundry done.  Oh, and clean the floor up.

Tomorrow I have it in my mind to clear the engine room off, clean out some gunk down there, and prep the engine to start later in the day.  But JoAnne is going to get some ice cream tomorrow for Mother’s Day, first.

Floor looks ok in the forward cabin now.  Have to work on the main salon now.  I need varnish to repair some scratches and cove the wood after sanding.  Might get the varnish but won’t start that work until this summer some time.

Spoke to Nicola from s/v Averi on Facebook today.  They are headed back here to this marina, but were delayed due to a low pressure system hanging off Hatteras  They said they are coming up ICW, but might not stop here at all now and head on up north a bit further.

Added some friends to our online boat card – well, requested to be added anyway.  Morsan friended up (Barb and Tom).  Waiting to see if anyone else does.

Ok, tired. See you soon.

We’ve been staying with my daughter, Kristy and her husband Carlos.  They bought a new home recently and it’s beautiful, and we have a room in the basement.  Well, we got the first huge snow storm that JoAnne and I have seen since last year.  About 18″ fell where we were.

When I dug out the car today, there was a lot of snow piled around and I had a difficult time getting out.  Ended up driving down the block to come back to the drive way to park so JoAnne could get into the car and not hiked through 2 feet of snow!

We had to go downtown to deposit a check.

Since there was a court hearing today in Virginia about our boat damages from October I won’t go into too many details just yet.  But, the owner of the boat that hit us is trying to settle out of court.  Technicially, its not him I wanted to drag in to the court system.  I understand that accidents happen.  It was his insurance company,  which, on the day of the accident was Seaworthy.  Apparently they were being bought by Geico that week….

The claims we and the marina made have been denied…. without just cause.

At this point, the guy that hit us is trying to make things  right.

Geico is not.

We will await the clearing of the check and move on.

I can only hope that Geico gets theirs in the end.

http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/csdl/seamlessraster.html

Somewhere there is a rainbow waiting for us to see.  We’ve been stuck in this marina now for over a month.  Tomorrow will be one month since the accident and we’re JUST getting our rigging repaired.

At this point, I’m absolutely certain the marina has been dragging their feet to get us out of here.  Suddenly they are trying to push us out before Thursday.  It’s Thanksgiving on Thursday.

We’re sitting here being a cash cow to them.  We’re going to be out over $10,000 dollars to the marina and to contractors for the damages suffered to our boat because a man thought better of himself and his shitty driving than to let marina people assist him to prevent an accident.

Then, he hit us, destroyed the front of the boat, exclaimed “I don’t see any damage” and left (according to witnesses).

There were roughly 12 witnesses.

I have copies of his insurance paperwork proving he was covered at the time.

Insurance adjustor is jerking us around telling us to “proceed as if we’re not going to pay out”.  I told him that wasn’t possible as I have liability only and my company isn’t going to pay on the damages. That the marina won’t let us leave until we pay the bill… so we’re stuck here.

I’m done playing games with insurance people.

And there WILL be a pot of gold on the other end of that rainbow.

I guarantee it.

So about two weeks ago now we ordered a new stove.

The old stove was a Shipmate, and I’ll be darned if I can locate a model number on it.  In any case, the inside was pretty rusty.  The stove top worked but the oven didn’t work hardly at all.

Basically, the burner tube is a steel tube with holes, sealed at one end with a pipe fitting being fed from the gas line on the other.  The insides of those parts are so rusted that the gas would barely come out of the tube.  The thermocouple was fouled up pretty badly too.

I messed with it for a couple of weeks on and off, but stopped short of attempting to remove the rusted bolts and brackets for fear of breaking the inside of the oven, venting propane inside the cabin, and/or losing use of the stove top.

Eventually, I decided to do the prudent thing and order a brand new stove.  We looked over several but settled for a Force 10, 3 burner stove with oven and broiler.  I do like broiled fish.  I like baked fish.  I like raw fish.  I just don’t like it immersed in oil very often…. but I digress.

Friday last week we rented a car and retrieved our new mattress and new stove (two trips to the Virginia Beach area to deliver the stuff back to the Norfolk marina area we’re currently stuck in (due to the accident a few weeks ago).

Yesterday, I removed the old stove and stored it topside in the cockpit until I can determine what to do with it.  The new stove was sitting below in the way constantly for the past few days.  So, I started measuring, moving, fiddling, doing this and that, eventually figuring out that the catalog dimensions didn’t match what we bought, nor the space we have to put the stove in.

The old stove was 20 inches across.  The pivots on the gimbals were about 2 inches on either side, and almost an inch in diameter, with this massive brass bracket on each side.  Wouldn’t work for the new stove.

New stove was 19 inches acr0ss with these little, tiny 1/2″ pins sticking out.  When we did our measurements, we measured the front of the stove.  The catalog took into account the extra inch for the little pins, thus we found ourselves with a 19″ stove in a 24″ slot.

So, problem mostly solved, except, as usual, I didn’t make all the measurements and after I added the blocks to hold the brackets.  I “missed it by that much”.  I needed another 1/2″ on the block extending to hold the gimbals.  I also found that the stove is taller than the last one and I’m going to have to both raise the blocks, and move them forward in the space.

Ok, so I said “I’ll get that figured out soon, right now I need to make sure we can even connect the propane tanks”.

I pulled the old hose off the stove, and then realized an old steel pipe system was inside the stove, and attached was an elbow, and then an adaptor.  Upon looking over the hose connection, and the adaptor I found the they were inverted flare fitting on the male adaptor and a female hose connection.  And the threads were reversed.  Wrong twist.  Not American apparently.

So, I tried to rent a car yesterday morning.  Which soon turned into afternoon waiting for them to get back to me.  It didn’t happen.  At 4:30 PM I called and simply said “Have a car for me at 0900 in the morning and I’ll get it then, pick me up.” (It is Enterprise, they are nice that way).

All was going relatively well with the stove in the evening, I was discovering it wasn’t going to mount right, etc.  This morning at 0900 I called.  They were “on the way” in 15 minutes.  An HOUR later, I’m calling trying to find them.

They claimed the young lady was in the parking lot looking for me.  I saw her pull up 5 minutes later and drive through the gate.  She was not at the right marina apparently.  So, now, it’s an hour later and I already know the day isn’t going to go well trying to find parts.

But we set up, hit Lowes and I dig through all the brass fittings and am not finding the right part. Next we headed Comet Plumbing, then Ray Johnson’s Fireplaces, then to West Marine.  At West Marine I started realizing I has probably not explaining things correctly to the other folks because they were sending me all over Hell’s Half Acre.  So, I bought a 2′ propane hose extension with 3.8″ male fittings so I could extend what I knew would be a short hose on the back of the stove.

West Marine sent us to Snyder’s RV up the road.  The man there was about as unhelpful as one can get.  He wouldn’t at first even look at the adaptors, I assume because he wanted the work of installing it or something, not sure, but sent me instead to a gas company, Amerigas.

The lady was somewhat incredulous for me even walking into the door to ask a stupid question. She send me 5 miles away to A&B Propane whom I called before driving over.

By this time I knew all the right connections, the terms, what I was trying to explain and said “I need x”.

He said, “Come over, I will get you set up.”  I was sceptical.

True to his word, I walked in, he took one look at what I was doing and said, “One minute”.  Walked back out with exactly what I needed.  Then took the old adaptor, cleaned it up for me, showed me where to put my teflon tape, and where NOT to put Teflon tape.

He charged me $1.25 for the part, wished me luck and kicked me out the door.

So – the car was about 30 bucks, $5 for teflon tape, 20 bucks for the hose, and 10 bucks for gas.  All to find a $1.25 part that I probably could have gotten at Lowe’s if the people there would have taken a second to listen to me instead of trying to rush off to do non-work.

Then it’s really my fault for ordering a stove.  And not running all over creation trying to find parts for a stove as old as me almost. Or spending more money to have someone else install it.

Guess I got off pretty cheap.

Oh, here’s the stove.

Of course, it’s not properly mounted in the space, but it is sitting there fine and at least we can brew coffee in the morning and cook breakfast for the first time in a few days (between painting our quarters, the stoves being in the way and disconnected, we’ve had to eat out in the mornings if we ate anything at all).

Tomorrow I take back the rental car in the morning and come back over to the boat to start the rest of the stove installation.

We have liability insurance at the moment and want to increase it to a full coverage policy.  In fact, I’m talking to my own company about that.

Yesterday though, I had a long conversation with Reeree from the company whose client hit our boat the other day.

After a 30-40 minute conversation, I’m being assured they will pay for all the damages (I don’t believe them, because frankly I don’t believe insurance companies) and they will be paying for most of our stay here due to the delays in getting the work done.

But, I’m hopeful.

Howdy Bailey ran into me yesterday at the marine store and told me Monday they should have the steel back together.  I spoke to Linda yesterday as well and she should have the platform repaired by then.  Bob and I finished rewiring the mast, and the surveyor (Rick M.) is coming back today with a second set of eyes and an expert in rigging to look over the forestay that appears twisted.  They are trying to determine if the insurance should pay for that as well.

The marina folks have been helpful, except they told me “We will present you with the bill and you will have to deal with the insurance company” and the insurance company is telling me they will pay them…. /sigh

I’m strongly considering having a lawyer have a chat with everyone involved to arbitrate this so I don’t have to be the middle guy.  Since when do victims have to do all the dirty work?  I spoke to my son last night, who happens to work at a law firm to get his take on things…. I won’t go into details of what he said, but he certainly seemed to think there was a good cause to have a lawyer involved.

For now, I’ll let the people do what they are paid to do and see how this goes.

We’re starting to feel the need to get south.  If this goes beyond the 10th of the month, I’ll be reconsidering getting a delivery skipper and that bill might just go to the insurance company as well.

Today they pulled the mast off our Adventure.

It took a couple hours to do all the work, to de-rig it, remove the boom and a few other things.
The mast is currently sitting on the hard and I went over it to check for problems.  Didn’t find any.  Tomorrow though, the surveyor is coming back to pull the boat out of the water to look for problems under the water line after the collision by the power boat the other day.

The wind gear was hosed badly.  Even though all the wires were cut at the bottom by a previous mast removal, we pulled in new wires today and new wing gear has been set up and will be put back in after the mast goes back up.

We are renting a car tomorrow and we’ll hit West Marine for a mast head light, spreader lights and a steaming light for the mast.  The guy doing the wiring has given me a list of things to get for him (it’s cheaper if I do it) and I want it all done by Monday.

I’m not sure that will be the case either.  I’ve authorized the work to start on the bow of the boat and since the mast is down it should be easier.  Hopefully Mr. Bailey will get on it right off.

The boat sure looks funny without her front mast.

Did a video and it can be found on FB.  So if you’re friends with me you can see it, if not, friend me.

Today is Tuesday, 27 October 2015.  JoAnne and I thought we’d be in Florida by now.

She and I have had a pretty rough time and at times we take it out on each other.  We yell sometimes and get mad over no reason.

Turns out though we still like each other a whole lot 🙂

We’ve been married over 38 years now and have known each other about 40 so as much as we get on each others nerves at times we still know we love one another.

My job, besides making this boat move, is to take care of her.  To keep her warm, to keep her dry, to keep her from getting seasick.  I’m a miserable failure in those things.  She’s gotten sick, drenched, dripped on, spray washed over her, and she’s been cold since August.  But, I keep trying.

Today the insurance surveyor is coming by to examine the damages on the boat, and I’ve completed my statement, collected names and numbers of witnesses, provided the police with information for their report, organized the paperwork and will email it to the insurance adjustor this afternoon.  I’ll let the surveyor do his job before I limit my options.

Tomorrow morning sometime they will pull Adventure up to the other dock, get the crane out and hoist our mast out of it’s traditional place on the foredeck, laying it down on the hard where I can inspect the upper mast and mast head, lighting, rigging and probably install a new halyard or three.  (I need a new main halyard, and at least one on the spreader for things like courtesy flags and such.  I’ll add two or three because I see there are places to add them).

I’ve asked the boat builder in email if he can start work almost immediately.  I’m not waiting for the insurance agent to say “ok”, because I want the front repaired so we can get out of here.  I’ll let him and the insurance guy worry the small stuff.  Not my circus, not my monkeys….  The damage is obvious, the work is clear, the guy that hit us admitted he did it, the insurances have been notified.  So, get ‘er done….

Sunday morning Dave from USA Fuel Services came by and “polished” the fuel.  He ate through 5-6 filters on the coarse pump out which at first I considered surprising.  Then I thought about it.

Dick Stapleton, the former owner had met with us on August 5th for dinner at Sheerans, in Stony Point NY area, and we went over a lot of things on the boat.  He had said he’d cleaned one of the tanks.  Wasn’t 100% sure which.  The other tank he was unsure of the quality of the fuel.

When we started out, we began using the forward tank, starboard side filler.  Neither fuel gauge worked so we never knew how much fuel there was.  When we got here, towed in, because the engine shut off, it was due to the fuel having gunk in it. Water, bacteria, and who knows what else.

Dave discovered a LOT of crap in the forward fuel tank and cleaned it out.

Dave also found that the back tank was clean.  In other words, that tank would never have done what the front tank did had we been using it.

He pumped out close to 25 gallons of bad fuel and we’re down that much.  But we have roughly 55 or 60 gallons at the moment, and I’ll top off the tanks before we leave for the ICW (soon I hope).

A mechanic is coming down to check the engine, help me replace the filters, drain the fuel lines and get the engine started today as well.

Things are coming together (again) and with luck we will get the mast back on in a couple days, rigging adjusted properly, engine running, JoAnne happy, warm and dry and us on the move again.

We decided to take the boat south ourselves after that rough day on the Bay.  It was a long conversation and various “What Ifs” bandied about, various options, ideas like JoAnne going on to Florida by plane and me bringing the boat down alone, getting a delivery skipper, me travelling with a delivery skipper to learn and other things from selling the boat and giving up to trading for something different.

None of those options except sticking together and travelling down the ICW, together, worked.  Or will work.  We do this together, or not at all at this point. (I won’t rule out a delivery skipper later if this becomes any more ridiculous though).

Speaking of ridiculous.  We’re in a place we came for minor repairs.  We ended up getting hit.  We’ve had the engine shut down because of fuel problems (because we were TRYING to get here after they called us and rushed us, and then didn’t even bother to really help us until a week later) and it’s getting cold, it’s raining today, and I’m still working my ass off.

Yesterday, I tore apart the binnacle, galley, electrical panel and the radio shelf over the navigation station searching for wiring that was causing the short, and subsequently taking out the chart plotter.

I never found the actual short, but I found the wire and where it disappears into the wall someplace over behind the electrical panel and nav station.  I cut it loose and reconnected the stuff I have to have working.  I know forward, there’s no power being supplied to the auto bilge pump and toilet.  So, I suspect that is the problem somehow.  I have repaired the bilge pump by rerouting power from another location and adding a switch to make sure the two pumps don’t power up at the same time.

—

1315: Surveyor is here.  More in a minute.

13:45:  Surveyor, Rick Milner was here.  He went over the damage and checked it all out.  His assessment pretty much agrees with mine, except he wants a rigger out to check the rake on the mast, the stays from the bowsprit, and a few other things.  Time to email my statement and pictures over to the insurance adjustor.

Looks like it’s gonna be awhile before we get out of here.  If we get out of here.

If anyone out there has a Formosa, specifically we’re looking for the 41 center cockpit version, we’d like you to get in touch.

You can write me at Adventure.Rick.JoAnne@gmail.com and let us know. We’re on Facebook in a group started by Kurt Seastead for the Formosa.

Kurt has done an awesome job of pulling together people who own the TW Formosa and we’ve been helping each other with information, pictures and stories.

Kurt is also a fun guy. He likes to make memes too.

So if you see pictures of me with a meme, you can be sure he made it. 🙂

Yesterday about 4 PM, JoAnne and I were sitting about 3 blocks away having a burger and beer when the phone rang. It was Peggy from Cobb’s Marina. Peggy is the marina manager.

She said, “I take it you’re not on your boat, right?”

I told her we were having lunch. She then told me my boat had been hit by another boat. Instead of freaking out, I asked “Anyone injured, and how bad is the boat hurt?”

She said a 55′ power boat had hit us pretty hard. We returned to the marina and checked in with Peggy. They provided the insurance information for the power boat operator and we heard several witnesses accounts of what they saw. All of them matched.

Big boat, one engine out, trying to turn around in a tight area, wind caught him, out of control, bam…

The damage to the boat pulpit is pretty significant. However, the bowsprit was my biggest concern. It holds the main mast (and by default through a triatic backstay, the mizzen). It also allows the jib to furl and unfurl. Without the bowsprit the boats functions would have to moved backward and be less efficient. You can lose your entire rigging if something goes wrong. So it is imperative the bowsprit be solid.

I examined it this morning and to my untrained eye I saw cracks. I assumed they were all new. I’ve taken pictures of the whole thing, all the damages and that I think might be damages caused by the hit.

This morning I put any work on the boat on temporary pause until I could get a good determination of the status of the bowsprit. Speaking to some of the marina folks, other sailors and a special couple who stopped in to visit us today (Tom and Barb Björkholm of s/v Mörsan), we were considering fixing the fuel issues and heading south under engine alone. I truly want to be out of here before the cold sets in which is the reason I stopped work.

This afternoon a carpenter from Howdy Bailey come over to examine the boat a few minutes ago. He stated clearly that the bow sprit was NOT damaged in the attack of the evil power boat (lol) but is suffering some aging issues, and aren’t we all.

He recommended against having it pulled and “fixed” and that there is no structural damage to the boat, fiberglass or the sprit itself. The stainless steel is another story and it must be repaired, along with the platform/walkway. The pulpit supports a couple of pulleys in a block and tackle used to haul in the jib sail, therefore it could not in its weakened condition function without possibly damaging the pulpit further. He suggested getting that fixed.

Howdy Bailey (http://http://www.howdybailey.com/ Howdy is a boat designer I understand and a pretty famous one in these parts, though I’d not heard of him before a few days ago) is coming by personally to look over getting a wind generator installed and giving me an estimate. I’ll ask him to look over the steel at the same time and give me an estimate of repairs for that as well, since I need it for the insurance company.

Bob from Trident Marine Electronics is going to rewire my mast.

Monday I’m having the mast removed and placed on the hard to do the work. I’ll inspect the rigging at the head then, along with lighting and wiring connections before Bob gets to it. I’ll replace bulbs and connectors and inspect the lines going up there, and so forth myself.

If this all works well, we ought to be on our way sooner, rather than later.

JoAnne and I had a rough few days. Yesterday, after the delivery skipper wrote us back and told us he’d have to beg off, because he had family commitments we discussed our situation.

She is cold a lot. She gets cold in the summer time.

She got seasick in the pounding surf, but loves roller coasters (I do not).

I got worried, but mostly for her. I knew the boat could handle what was happening.

I wasn’t scared, I didn’t have time to be frightened.

After a long discussion we both came to the conclusion that we bought this boat, we are going to get it to Florida and beyond, we’re going to live aboard and we need to learn to handle it… which we’re doing pretty well actually. Seasickness is a terrible, but fleeting thing. Fear, except for spiders, is also only going to last a moment or two.

We contacted the “backup skipper’ who wrote me yesterday after the first one said no, and told her “We’re doing this on our own. We might have been over our heads at first, but we think we have this now”.

We decided that the ICW is the right way to go, until we get past Hatteras, and perhaps Frying Pan Shoals. Maybe.

So, once we get the engine, fuel and rigging repaired, we’re heading out of here. We’re shooting for Jacksonville. And doctors for JoAnne. After that, Marathon Key is calling to us.

We have several reasons to visit there, but it is a jumping off point to Tampa, Puerto Rico. the Virgin Islands and the Gulf of Mexico. Bahamas, not so much… but oh well. There are also “jobs” there, so I hear. And we’ve been offered a kind of “floating boat broker” job of sorts already. And I have my electronics skills (and people have asked me already several times if I would look at this or that, so far, I’ve turned them down because I’m not ABCY certified yet…. I’m considering that though).

Not that either of us want jobs. It’s something to consider though.

Anyway, we’re shooting for 1-10 November to be out of here. Today is “Back to the Future” day, 21 October 2015, and I love science fiction. That means the future is not yet written, and we make our own.

I plan, along with JoAnne, to make our own future come true, where ever and whenever it happens to be.

Yesterday morning we woke up and it was downright cold. It was in the high 30s or low 40s and JoAnne was cold and complaining about it. I hate when she’s cold, I feel sorry for her because I can’t keep her warm enough.

At about 10:45 we received a phone call from Cobbs Marina in Norfolk area and told me if I could get there on Sunday evening they could look at the boat first thing on Monday morning (today is Monday) so we made a dumb decision.

We decided to go late in the day without doing a major weather check. We did a cursory check on the winds and such and it looked fine to leave.

And it was.

To leave that is.

Getting there was going to be quite another thing.

It was so chilly and windy that JoAnne couldn’t remain in the cockpit so I told her to go below and stay warm. We used the ham radios to talk to each other until her’s died.

I actually raised the main for a bit but kept jibing so it was not a good situation alone. I finally took down all sail and motored. But the swell was coming in from the fetch the wind had over the water.

I did NOT know about the cold front moving through or the wind speeds at 18-20. Then I measured 18.8 knots and it wasn’t slacking.

I knew the wind was going to cause bigger and bigger waves over the next few hours and I was 5 hours-plus at 5 knots away from the destination. It was going to get rough before it got better.

I warned JoAnne it was going to get choppy, and I expected it. What I didn’t expect was that the swells would be as much as four feet every so often, hitting us on the stern quarter.

It was getting pretty bad.

Finally, about 5 miles out of our destination to Cobb’s Marina, we got hit pretty hard. The boat got picked up and slammed hard tossing anything lose about the cabin. The things I use to navigate, like my binocs, my calipers, my charts and my pencils got shipped to the floor. Followed by me.

JoAnne was dealing with crap flying in the cabin below, including her. She was so sick she couldn’t really function well.

On top of ALL of the incessant pounding the swell is doing to us, even with me trying to change course to take it on the stern, we get slammed again, and my chart plotter goes out. Dead, blowing the breaker. I go below, grab my hand held to get my exact position to plot on the chart (mostly because I’m driving the boat near to markers and have a good idea, but not exactly where I am and now I want to be dead on accurate).

I got the lat/long, find the spot on the chart, find a buoy and start looking for it. Then the boat starts going up and down in the swell and the engine is freaking out.

I am concentrating on not getting killed, thrown from the cockpit and checking on JoAnne below, who is now puking her poor heart out. I felt bad for her but I couldn’t help right then.

So, we’re getting our asses kicked, I’m working on getting my precise location because the chart plotter is out, but at least the depth finder it working and I know the direction the wind is blowing – from dead behind me at the moment.

Finally I spot the buoy I’m looking for, and now I can get a pretty good idea on the chart where I really am. By the way, the little Gamin hand held is cool, but it sucks at trying to find your course and a few other things. I can ascertain my location, but not necessarily which way I am going at the same time, or for that matter the bearing on an object. Or much else. I don’t know why I even have it now.

Anyway, it did help verify my location. I was two miles from the shore, and way too far to the east for getting into the entrance of the marina (and Naval station and other marinas, etc) without a lot of trouble.

I tell JoAnne “It’s about to get really rough for a few minutes, I need to change course!” I shouted.

She can’t hear me, she’s sitting below, door mostly closed, engine roaring, wind howling. Damn, the sun is shining and it should be a beautiful day, but other than my poor wife whom is the only beauty I see around me at the moment, and she’s throwing up, I can’t figure out what the HELL I am doing there.

I turn to my starboard and head for a compass heading that ought to bring us close to the entrance of the marina. Hell, Warships go in and out, I can’t miss it!

I make a 35 degree change, and get hit once, twice then three times by breaking waves on my starboard side and the engine roars once, coughs and quits.

I hear JoAnne yell, “What happened!”

“Engine died” I mutter.

“What?”

I respond with trying to start the engine. Nope. I’m looking a mile off at the shoreline. I look at the water depth, 30 feet. I glance at the gps, 2 knots over ground. South. Right at the shore line.

Yikes.

“JoAnne! Get BoatUS on the phone as fast as you can!”

She begins working on that. I look up at the rigging. The back stay is pretty loose but I decide this is it. In less than 30 minutes we’ll be sitting ON the shore, not looking at it if I don’t do something.

I debate internally what to do. So, I do what any sailor would do. I grab the outhaul on the main (ours is a Seldon in-mast furling system) and I crank out about 4 or 5 square feet of sail. Tighten the boom to dead center and watch as the wind grabs the tiny amount of sail and we take off at five knots. I slowly turn the boat to starboard, the direction I want to go, and we start doing almost six knots.

Wow. Now we’re sailing. Not quite what I envisioned when I took this job on. I measure the wind. 18.9 knots.

JoAnne has the BoatUS people on the phone, hands me the phone and goes to try to fix up things below. I give my coordinates, tell them we’re in a bit of trouble, and I don’t think I can sail us in with the rigging issues, we have no engine and they connect me with a Tow boat driver.

He tells me “Get an anchor out, asap”. So I tell him I will, turn the boat into the wind, drop the sail and tell JoAnne I’m going forward. The boat is pitching like a bucking bronco, up about four feet, then back down.

I hook my tether to my makeshift jackline and head forward. I note the only boats I see now around me are giant ships, one is passing just past a marker buoy I’d passed minutes before. Where he came from, I’m not sure, but I had not seen him before. Either that or I was so preoccupied with my predicament, I failed to see him previously.

Now I am crawling forward, grabbing bold as the swell comes in and back out. Three more times before I can get there.

I untie the line on the anchor, remove the windlass wrench from the slot by the windlass, loosen the clutch and kick for the anchor… and miss as the boat makes a nose dive into a wave. The wave drenches my feet all the way to my waist. My face takes a lot of it. My ears are ringing from the water that hit me so hard it was like a cold punch in the face.

When the boat settles I regain my feet, grab the stanchions knowing they will throw me overboard if I get hit like that again, and I kick the release. Out goes the 50 lb CQR and chain. Lots and lots of chain.

In 30 feet of water my math told me I needed 150 feet of rode. The other night, we dragged our anchor in lesser winds than this, 300 yards and I didn’t catch it until it was almost to late.

Not today, Mother Nature, not today.

I let out 280 feet of chain before it bound up under the deck in the locker. I grabbed my snubber line and tied it off and cranked 30 feet back in, then connected the hook and was hit by another swell, but this time, we yanked to a sudden stop by the chain.

I sat down and slowly let out the snubber line with my feet braced against the windlass. When it was nearly out, I tied off the last of the line, and let out some more chain to give us a little bit of slack.

The wind howled, and the swell kept coming, but the bouncing was lessen a lot.

I made my way back to the cockpit and called out that I was still alive. She acknowledge I was there, but was busy being sick again.

And I waited. The driver said “an hour, at least”. This was going to be a long, long hour.

I turned the rudder to the swell which was no longer coming directly from the wind now, to help guide us into the swell.

True to his word, the tow driver, Captain Byron, called me and said he was there to start pulling the anchor. I looked but did not see him. We communicated back and forth several times and even through binoculars I could not spot him.

I told him I would NOT pull the anchor until I could get a visual on him. Suddenly, like the cavalry in an old movie, there he was, flag flying and everything. Just not bugles.

I ran to the front and sat down and started trying to get the windlass to haul up almost three hundred feet of chain and a fifty pound anchor, a foot at a time.

It took me fifteen minutes. I signaled for him to drive in font and block the swell several times, but he wasn’t hearing me or understanding me at all. Finally, something clicked and he powered up hard, drove in front of me and the swell stopped.

I gave him a thumbs up and the last 50 feet came aboard in record time, but not without breaking something in the platform. He threw me a messenger line, and I hauled it in, then got the bridle and we were hooked together in a couple more minutes. The tow in took almost an hour.

But we’re alive tonight and that’s all I care about.

Tonight, I’ve gotten the electric working again, the chart plotter is back online, I know why the engine died (fuel and gunk in the fuel) and we’re having maintenance done on the mast, lights and rigging in a few days, the diesel “polished” and we have a plan to get JoAnne down to Florida to get her doctor check up she needs, us to have insurance for medical and I’m putting full coverage on the boat in the next day or two.

I’m also likely going to hire a delivery skipper to help me, and train me, to deliver this boat to Jacksonville, FL in the next month or so.

And, tonight we finally wandered away from the marina and got some food and beer outside.

This last part is for Kurt Seastead, who did the video the other day and likes making these little memes for me. The foregoing story is a true one, the meme is not. (But it IS funny!)

We left Solomons on 14 October early in the morning headed for Potomac River, with some place marked on the chart to stop. As we were getting close to the Potomac, we made the decision to go on to another area simply because we’d not gone too very far to begin with.

We ended up heading to the Great Wicomico River near Reedville area and anchoring in a bay behind something called Sandy Point, at Kurt Seastead’s suggestion. Not sure if he’d been there before but he seemed to know it so we stopped.

Turned out to be a very cool place with only one other sailboat there. We dropped anchor and spent a night there enjoying the silence. Location was in 18.5 feet of water at 37 degrees 49.346 mins North and 76 degrees 18.686 minutes West.

I’d noticed several issues over the past couple of days with the forward sail, not the least of which was the fact it was not working right and had changed to the genoa a few days prior to this. Well, turns out the car carrying the sail up is adjusted incorrectly (and I still need to fix it as of today) but also I couldn’t get everything working right. The sail is not going high enough, it’s not letting out all the way, the inhaul wasn’t doing it’s job correctly either. I needed to add more line around the drum… so I fixed all that stuff only to find out my line is now too short to let out the entire foresail. Grrrrr. I’ll have to change out the line on the drum soon.

The following morning (15 October 15) we sailed off the anchor, with the engine running just in case. Ended up needed it since we were leaving is a pretty narrow channel going out and didn’t have enough to room to tack back and forth. As usual, I ended up giving up on sails after we has very little wind.

The boat is literally so heavy that 6-10 knots of wind barely fill sails, let alone make the vessel move at one or two knots. With a time constraint, this is not good. So, engine power it is.

Our destination was Fishing Bay. We intended to catch up with Kurt (S/V Lo-Kee), and Barb and Tom Bjorkholm (S/V Morsan) – other Formosa 41 sailboats.

Arrived at 1445 and dropped anchor in 21 feet of water and put out what I thought was just enough scope to keep us situated in the same spot over night. I dropped just under 100 feet of chain. Because, you know, weather reports said “calm” and “5-6 mph winds”. No big deal. So, a little less than 5:1 scope.

It was almost our undoing that night. More on that later.

That evening Barb and Tom came by and picked us up, gave us a tour of their beautiful Formosa, Morsan and took us over to a small Mexican restaurant. Since JoAnne and I LOVE Mexican food, it was heaven. Ok, well, it was alright anyway! We went back to the boat that night and headed for bed.

Later in the evening, the wind picked up and began to whistle through the rigging. I wasn’t concerned. At midnight I was still checking things and we were fine. I finally dozed off and at 0400 the next morning, JoAnne awakened and told me to check things – which I did. Not one fraction of an intergalactic declination or sidereal hour had we moved, or a latitude and longitude either.

I fell back asleep. At 0630 I woke up and something didn’t “feel right”. I got one of those weird feelings, in the pit of my stomach that something was very wrong. I still can’t figure out what the feeling was or why I thought there was a problem but I opened the curtains by my head and looked out and saw a house. Closed the curtains and lay back down, then sat bolt upright.

I looked again. Yup, definitely a house, I wasn’t sleeping and dreaming either. Next to the house, or more accurately, next to US were several very large, very strong and sturdy telephone poles. Right outside my window.

(Note, these were pylons. not telephone poles, but my mind saw them as telephone poles because they were big, they were close and they should NOT have been there). I finally came to my senses and woke JoAnne telling her to get up, I needed her help. I pulled on my pants, rapidly climbed the ladder, removed the boards, the hatch and started the engine.

We were less than 40 feet from the shore and I was SURE, three feet of water at the edge. I ran forward and started pulling the anchor up. The windlass of course, was not on, so I yelled for JoAnne to enable it and ran forward again. She came up, took the wheel and I pulled the anchor up, as she drove us away from the dangers of the shore and the giant posts – and from what I am guessing, the kitchen of the folks that lived in the house whose yard we’d nearly invaded.

Somewhere in there is a lesson.

Never trust the weather report, never, EVER believe your anchor is secure, and ALWAYS drop a few extra feet of rode.

A few hours later I was dinghying up to the fuel docks and filling diesel cans, to fill my tanks and a couple from Canada and I started chatting. When he realized which boat I was driving he got agitated and said, “Oh my God, you must have missed me by less than 200 feet!”

I won’t repeat the entire conversation, he was not horribly mad, but was perhaps a little miffed at it all… 🙂 I did promise not to anchor anywhere near him if I saw him again though. haha

Actually, he was a pretty good sport about it and when I told him what amount of chain and so forth, he implied he didn’t have any more out than me and I could see his anchors were similar. So why’d I drag and he didn’t? Not sure.

But, we’ll get to more about anchoring later.

Fishing Bay, was a nice place. Enoguh room for about a dozen or so good sized sailboats, good holding if you have the right amount of rode out, and your anchor holds… 🙂 but still pretty. The showers (or rather use of the facilities) costs 10 bucks a person. Meaning, you can use shower, laundry, bathrooms, and the “Captains Lounge”. We paid our money and took our chances. Worked out pretty good because we got a total of FOUR SHOWERS (YES! We’re shower pirates, lol).

Over the course of the two days, we visited with both Barb and Tom and Kurt came down too. We gave Kurt a tour of the boat and he made a video. The video can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-KIv8m-VZo

We left on 17 October for Chisman Creek at 0930.

Left this morning at about 9:15.  No problem getting out of the harbor, except for the massive number of crab pots everywhere.  JoAnne was complaining at first then said something about “I shouldn’t complain, I really like crab!” lol

We tried to raise sails after we were out of the harbor but there was almost no wind, and what we did have was on our nose.  It was more efficient to motor (again).

About an hour or so in I checked the charging system.  It wasn’t.  Charging that is.

The damned alternator quit AGAIN.

We motored all the way down, for about 9 hours without worrying about it.

I hoped I wasn’t cooking the batteries, but they are holding up very well. I ran the generator when I arrived, after getting the anchor light up (another thing to be repaired).  As I was putting up the anchor light, JoAnne started screaming for me below. Sounded bad.  As I fell down the ladder into the companionway (I never make a quiet entrance it seems) she was screaming something about a leak.

And it was.  She’d turned on the water pump and water was spraying everywhere under the sink.  Fortunately, it was an easy fix.  For the faucet, not my back.  I had to reconnect the copper pipe to the sink (yep, copper pipes in this baby).  Anyone ever mention copper isn’t good in some things?  Boats for instance?  Anyway, 20 minutes later she could cook dinner, I could complete my clean up on the deck and finally sit for a few minutes.

We aren’t leaving first thing in the morning.

I have to replace the alternator.

Again.

The trip down was great until the last couple hours when the wind was doing 15 knots off my nose, I was down to 3 knots, so I started tacking (I had the mizzen out partially so I used it alone).  By the time I could actually USE the sails we were under the gun to get here before dark.

We barely made it onto anchor before it was so dark I couldn’t see.

A young man named Dan rowed over on his paddle board to ask me anchoring questions.

When we came in I circled the area once, slowed, asked him how the holding was and stopped the boat, kicked the anchor lock out and loosened the clutch and set the anchor in about 3 easy steps (I’m getting pretty good at it, along with ensuring it’s NOT going to drag me anywhere at night).

Dan apparently had trouble with his catamaran last night.  They drove to the boat show in a rental today and came back and found their boat a mere 10-15 feet from the pilings.  Bad.

They moved it back and dropped anchor again, but were unsure what was happening.  Apparently not enough rode after he said they had about 20 feet out.  So I explained to drop anchor, let it hit, add a couple of feet, maybe 5-10 MAX, back the boat down on the anchor to set it, then let out the rest of the rode.  I also told him 5:1 here would be fine, unless it gets really windy, then let out more.  Except I’m near so not so much he swings into me.

This is a really small place and there are a lot of boats, and three rivers converge here.  Cool place.

Tomorrow I’ll replace the alternator.  My back hurts tonight, and I’m tired.

We’ve been here eleven days, arriving 28 September. Had no intention of staying that long, but we go comfortable I suppose. The hurricane was coming, that never came. Then I was preparing to go last weekend and we found another engine issue with the same alternator.

So, finally, yesterday after messing with the marina here, and waiting again, for days on them, I took the old one in, found some one who fixed it, and the same place ordered me a spare.

We are planning to get out of here on Sunday if the weather holds a bit longer.

We will try to get to Deltaville for a day or so and visit with friends and after that, we’ll head for Florida, one day at a time.

Last night I put up the genoa and checked it. Awesome. We’ll be cruising with that sail for sure. The old one, the working jib is junky, and while it was ok, I couldn’t really coax much more out of it.

Between the main and genoa we should be able to pull 6 knots out of the boat without the engine. The mizzen sail is hopelessly stuck, and I’m going to need help getting it out of the mast. But, it is an ok sail.

I’m considering replacing both main and mizzen at some point in the future. Probably not new, but likely used sails. Then again, it will depend on the cost of new and used.

Refrigeration is not, and never has worked. JoAnne was good with that at first, now it’s a complaint. I guess that will be on our list to fix next or very, very soon.

With refrigeration we will need significantly more power than we have. That means more batteries, and a way to charge them. That means solar and a wind generator.

We have a small, 2kw gas powered Honda. It’s quiet, so it isn’t very noisy from a short distance from the boat. I had it running yesterday and couldn’t really detect the noise it made from a couple hundred feet away. So I can continue to use that as long as I can get gasoline.

The toilet in the back works. The Y valve is broken and everything always goes to the holding tank. That means pumpouts, docking, paying the costs, etc. The forward head toilet has a bad motor.

Electric toilets aren’t any fun. They are pretty new, but I’m either going to replace them, remove them, or make it so they can be both manual and electric or something. One more headache.

The former owner doesn’t know the size of the holding tank, but it seriously can’t be more than 20 gallons at most… if that. One more complaint JoAnne has.

Finally, there’s the bed.

The existing mattress is old and pretty much done for. It’s a closed cell foam of some kind. We bought a 3″ memory foam mattress I could modify to put in, and it worked. Now that is not so good. JoAnne spent the day at the boat show looking for some solution.

Priorities I guess.

Anyway, we will be moving on Sunday – I hope, or Monday at the latest.

We’ll figure out our plans for the boat as we go.

On the bright side, we met Linn Pardey today. She was nice and allowed us to have a picture taken with her.

We met Kurt Seastead – he’s the owner of the Facebook group for the Transworld Formosa 41s. Very nice man. We all walked around the boat show looking at things, kind of wandering around.

JoAnne and I had gotten there about an hour before him so we rushed over to purchase some headsets we need for anchoring. Neither of us can hear the other usually when trying to anchor the boat, so we got the headsets specifically for that job, though they are bluetooth and can be used on our tablets or computers for Skype too. They are charging now, we’ll test them before we actually need them.

Kurt went back into the show to look at boats. We moved on to get JoAnne out of the sun, and off her feet. We eventually came back to the area, stopped at Thursday’s for a beer, then came back to the boat.

Tomorrow I have to collect the new, spare alternator, get gas and diesel for the boat, prep a few things and take back the car we rented. Then we can leave.

That’s it for this update.

We arrived at Galesville, MD at the Hartge Yacht Harbor marina a few days ago to meet up with a friend of ours who took the time to drive up from Woodbridge, Va. It was much closer for us to stop here and him to drive than for us to head down to the Potomac and hope we could get far enough up river to make it convenient for him.

Instead, Phil went out of his way to drive up and deliver equipment we had left in his care, all intact and ready to go.

Thank you Phil!

In the mean time… a small tropical depression started developing off the coast of Africa, moving slowly westward, building in strength and speed until he was named Joaquin.

Personally, I feel the name is both ridiculous and laughable. In fact, I’m not even sure what the name means in whatever language from which it comes but it’s not even pronounced well in my opinion. But that’s just me I reckon. (Actually, none of that is terribly true, and I know that Joaquin is the Spanish version of a Hebrew name which has something to do with Jehovah – but none of that is here, nor there when I am writing.)

What Joaquin DOES mean to me is that it is currently a Category IV hurricane beating be the bejuzus out of the Bahamas at the moment. It’s also a storm that has been damned difficult for meteorologists and hurricane experts to tie down to any one particular path.

I’ve seen a dozen different models of the storm’s projected path and NONE of them coincide with a second one. This has been most unusual and strange for over the last few years I’ve been watching hurricanes with interest and studying them.

Apparently I missed the course on “stupid hurricanes with stupid names who won’t follow one stupid path”. Or something.

Joaquin, as of tonight is projected to slam into Bahamas some more tonight and tomorrow (and please keep those folks in your thoughts and prayers because the islands where it is centered are low islands and could be swept clean of life there…..)

Yesterday at 6pm the center of the storm was projected to come right up the center of the Chesapeake Bay and go right over our heads. Yikes. Eye and all. Tonight, as of the moment I copied and pasted that image above, it will miss us BY THAT MUCH.

Now, something you should all understand that cone is a cone of uncertainty actually. The eye can fall ANYWHERE within the cone. Including as far left as the edge. So, theoretically the eye/center could wind up coming to landfall anywhere from the Carolinas to Nova Scotia. Yuk.

Me not being an ancient mariner – ok, let me qualify that by saying my kids and grand kids think I am ancient, and technically I AM a mariner, but I’m not THE Ancient Mariner – I have little knowledge except book learnin’ about what to do in a hurricane. Most books say “Run like hell puny humans!”

Unfortunately, I’m both puny in comparison and stuck where I am sitting right now.

JoAnne is scared, a little bit. I’m calm, cool and collected and have faced many dangers in my life, but nothing quite like this. So, technically. I’m only “semi-petrified” at this point.

But to put things in perspective, JoAnne spent her day doing laundry, in a nice, warm, dry room up at the marina. Me, I stood or sat in the dinghy, sometimes with water over my ankles today (as it is raining like cats and dogs here) while I put rubber hose over all the lines connected to the mooring ball to prevent the lines from rubbing through.

I’ve added three lines to the ball in three different places, in the hopes that if one snaps, the other two will hang on for dear life, and if two go, that last one is the last, best hope for the boat.

I have two 50 pound anchors sitting there which, at a critical moment may be kicked off the boat into the water to hold us against a tidal surge.

That brings me to the critical moment. I’ll have to be on the boat for that.

I have rented a Jeep and JoAnne can flee. If it is looking bad, I’ll send her off to some place safe and I’ll stay here with a radio to run the engine if I have to drive it at a stand still against winds.

However, I do NOT foresee any of this happening.

When it comes right down to it I might chicken out, but I don’t think so. This boat is really all we have. I trust my luck (I dunno why, I’ve never won the big lotto….) to help the boat. The boat is our home. I can’t let the boat down and I can’t let JoAnne down.

I believe that John Casey once said of sailing that it is 90% boredom, 10% terror. Or words to that effect. So far, I’ve had my few moments of sheer terror when not one, but TWO ghost trawlers (not little ones mind you,. giant assed, Deadliest Catch boats with rigging extended to look like evil Transformer-Terminators who click on their lights after passing silently me 4 miles off the coast of New Jersey at 2 AM or so. I think they were being asses and saw me on radar and did what they did to scare me. They did.

My radar isn’t working…. what can I say.

This hurricane is not something that one can easily wrap their mind around. I’ve been in two before. Neither of them were that close, probably passing center about 90 nm distant. We got lots of rain, but not a lot of wind.

If we’re lucky, this will happen with Joaquin. If we’re not we get to experience sheer terror. Again.

I’m hoping for the former experience, not the latter.

So, this likely my last entry for a few days. The storm is due to be passing here about Tuesday now (was going to be Saturday, but it has slowed down and hasn’t yet turned this way).

We will be sitting on this mooring ball a few more days.

Saturday or Sunday I will begin removing the rest of the stuff topside. Any lines I can remove, all the canvas I can take down. I’m not going to worry about the safety lines because the boat has enough freeboard that a few wires aren’t going to make a bit of difference in the resistance.

And that my friends is that for now. I’ll be around Facebook on and off as I can, and my kids and family can reach either of on our phones or text messages as long as we have power to the surrounding area. When the power goes out, the cell towers will go dark not long after, so please be aware if we lose electricity to the local area we lose internet.

If we lose the cell towers, we’ll be out of communication until we can get a message out.

Remember this though, we’re hams and we’ll get a message out. One way or another.

When all else fails, Amateur Radio. 🙂

See you guys on the other side – unless I can publish before the hurricane hits. Oh. Expect pictures if I can get them safely.

We are bailing out in the morning.

Mike from Total Boat Works came by with our new parts (water pump) and some spare parts this morning and completed working on the boat.  The engine is purring like a really, really big cat.  NOT over heating, not even warming the cabin up now like before.

We did a lot (I say we, because I was helping most of the time, so I could learn).  And I think we got it now.

I think I have everything ready for tomorrow except putting away the hose, the electrical cables and the lap top here.  We’ll have breakfast and coffee and head out the canal to Chesapeake tomorrow and probably sometime in the late afternoon will find someplace to anchor.

After that, it’s on to the Annapolis area and meet up with some friends.

Not the best place to be stuck (though we aren’t actually stuck now, we can leave when we’re ready) but other than have a good mechanic here and showers a 1/2 mile off, up a hill, through the woods and mosquitoes, it’s ok.  We have fresh water and electricity.  I’m taking advantage of that.

As it turns out, we have two water tanks.  I think I mentioned that before.  One of the tanks is on the port side and has a separate valve to control its flow into the water system.  It was off and I hadn’t found it yet, and didn’t KNOW it was off.

When we arrived I was looking over plumbing and locating things I still needed to find.  As it turns out, when I opened the valve (not thinking about what might be in the tank) I contaminated the water supply with antifreeze.

Stony Point Marina didn’t do ANYTHING to the boat without specifically pointing it out.  Zincs was my first real issue with them.  Then duct tape on the shut off.  Now this.  I’m sure now I’ll find other things.  Commissioning should have involved flushing the water system and filling it, should have involved checking and topping off the oil, coolant, transmission and making sure belts were right and things were going to go well.

They didn’t do anything of the sort.  If you’re a power boater up in that area, you might have good service, but I strongly recommend against sail-boaters using the place.  Even for storage.  I think the manager is a jerk after charging me for duct tape (he didn’t tell me that’s what it was) and just being an all-around slimy guy.

There was one young man there, I want to say his name was Darryl maybe, who was helpful and nice, offered advice.  Eric, their yard manager and mechanic was the one that had to have used the duct tape.

Avoid the place.

Back to Summit North.  You’re more than a mile from ANYTHING here.  It’s a 1/2 mile to walk from the office to the road and there is a small store up the road (No, I haven’t walked it, but have had people tell me how far it was).  The next closest stuff is several miles away.

There is a restaurant here called “Aqua Sol” which was ok.  But they are like a high end place for boaters.  Kind of expensive.  Beer isn’t bad but the food… well, the burger was ok.  I guess JoAnne’s food was decent, service was so-so, but it was expensive.  And there’s nothing else.

I feel like I’m back out at Schriever, AFB inside the restricted compound, one place to choose from at high prices because you’re in a captive audience.

Internet service here works up by the main office.  No in doors place to be.  Internet at the Aqua Sol doesn’t work and they made an excuse about the fire wall blocking the public/free stuff and “nothing they can do about it”.

T-mobile service is limited here.  Internet connections through my phone are limited because I can’t get a good signal.  So, they get a 1 on service.

The mechanic, Mike, of Total Boatworks was helpful and when he looked in the engine, in 30 seconds he said, “Found your problem”, and pointed out some kinks in hoses I’d not seen or would even recognize as being a problem.  Remember, I’m used to cars and trucks, I’m NO mechanic but can pick my way through an engine slowly if given time and not under stress.

The hoses in a car or truck are rarely if ever a problem until they split open. Some of the hoses had holes being worn into them from vibration.  We replaced them all, put some anti-chaffing around others, added some missing nuts and bolts, changed the oil, added coolant, added an overflow for the coolant, rerouted the shifter cable, rerouted the exhaust water flow so the hoses weren’t kinked up and in general cleaned up all the loose and vibrating parts.

I have one big job to do, to cut a bracket away from the engine block, which is being hit and vibrated on by the block.  I just need to cut away a corner…. not an easy proposition, but he said he didn’t want to do it and charge me hours of work for it.

The engine is running much cooler now, and in fact using the laser heat gun he had showed me it was running cooler than it had before.  Simple stuff.  I hope that’s all that was causing the issues now.

We were going to leave today, but we need to do laundry and I need to rearrange a few things on the boat to redistribute some of the weight a little further back in the boat, and manage the forward compartment better.  Right now we have it crammed full of stuff and no real place to put it, and of course no place for a visitor to sleep either.

It will be a few weeks before we’d be ready for visitors, but then the family members who might visit are in the middle of doing their own things at the moment and probably won’t come out for at least a few more months.  Which is ok.  We’re still learning anyway and I don’t want to stress them out!

Last night we were up by the office visiting the rest rooms and checking the bulletin board and I ran into a couple who were just coming back from Baltimore and heading home.  We got to talking and she asked us how they were treating us in the marina and I gave her the “ambivalent” answer.  So she checked on our “condition” – that is she started asking me questions of if we needed a ride into town to get food, how was our fresh food supply, etc.

They were very nice and at the end of it she offered us some strawberries which I kept refusing to take, finally she thrust them into my wife’s hands and said, “Please take them”.  It was a very heartfelt response to us “not having fun”, completely unnecessary, but very, very sweet of her.  It’s not like we’re indigent or something.

But, they were the best strawberries I’ve ever had walking down the docks back to the boat.

So for today that leaves laundry, boat cleaning, paying the mechanic and probably one more long, hot shower today….

Somewhere along the way I never learned anything about engines.  Well, that’s not really true, I can tell you all kinds of things about how engines work, how they function, what this or that part is and I’ve even repaired my fair share of mechanical issues.

There’s something about a diesel motor though that just is daunting to me.  In the past three hours I have learned a lot.

I learned they are simple.  I learned they don’t break easily, but if they do it’s usually something simple.  I learned that an over heating engine can be due to any number of things, but in general it’s something obvious (assuming you’re a mechanic and used to looking for obvious things that someone not practiced in diesel engines wouldn’t see anyway).

Basically, we over heated because several hoses on this machine were hastily put in, are too short, are kinked here and there, are worn because they are bouncing badly off other items, and there’s no brackets, clamps or other things to keep this chaffing from occurring.

Essentially, everything the mechanic Mike has told me I could have found, IF I knew where to look and what I was looking for.  Since I didn’t, I needed a mechanic.  He’s going to fix all the weird issues, change the oil and we ought to be underway by sometime tomorrow, assuming I don’t decide to spend one more good night to sleep since I’m exhausted for some reason.

Anyway, I’m headed back to help him some more.   He’s back with hoses, clamps and parts.

I’ve not got a really good, paid for, type of weather application. I’m doing my weather the old fashioned way, watching it, smelling it, looking at the clouds, and reading several sites for weather information.

Everything I am seeing says we’ll have a decent weather window Monday to head south. Winds are promising to be relatively light 8-15 mph it looks like (depending on who you look at) and the winds will primarily be from the west giving us winds on the beam. Nice for us!

We spoke to two other cruisers and they are confirming what I think, one has programs (I think) and the other was using someone else’s data from a weather service (paid for). One, a lady, said she would be going over the weather tonight on her computer and figure it out.

The other said he’s leaving very early Monday morning. I think we’re also going to bail out of here as early as we can, at first light, depending on the sea conditions then.

We turned around yesterday and I felt crappy for doing it. I thought I chickened out. Turns out it was a pretty wise decision. JoAnne and I think we made the best decision for us. So did others who watched us go out and come back in, lol.

I changed several lights inside – think I mentioned this already – but I took some car head lamps, LED replacements, and rewired the sockets for the LEDs set to Bright. Made a SIGNIFICANT difference on power usage.

Right now we only have two high amp hour batteries in series. I want to add two more in parallel (the two I have in there are 6v golf cart batteries at 215 AH). If I duplicate that, and parallel them I’ll have 430 Amp hours of energy. Plus we bought a nice little generator set. So we’re ok on power for now. I still have not connected the solar panel up, but it’s on the small side. It will only supplement the generator, and not replace everything we use over a day.

I’m looking over at another boat who has a neat little wind generator. It makes a “swishhhhhhh” sound as it spins, but I think I can deal with that noise knowing it is giving us power. I need to find one that will supplement the engine alternator and generator. Once I do that, add batteries we can get the refrigeration working and have cold food in the ice box. Right now, we’re on a no-refrigeration diet, lol.

Today we got up early and took the day off. We only took the dinghy into the docks, hiked to town (about 2 miles there and 2 back), went to the grocery, hardware store and stopped for coffee and a sandwich along the waterfront.

Then we came back and JoAnne unpacked the food, marked it, put it away while I cleaned up the dinghy and put away the propane cylinders, bag and other stuff I keep in there, and cleaned up the deck, stowed lines, set up the generator and ran it for an hour to charge the system, put everything away when I was done, Not bad for a day off, huh?

For those wanting to know our location, we’re at Atlantic Highlands (still, one week today) in an anchorage near the marina. We’re about 10 or 11 NM south of NY city and can just make out the Verazano Bridge at night, and the city when it’s not hazy, at least the tall buildings.

When we leave we have to sail north, tack right and head east, go off the coast a ways (3 miles maybe) and turn south and then we have about a 100 mile trip in front of us – perhaps a 20 hour sail, unless we can hit hull speed – which I doubt.

On a good note, I got the chart plotter working again, cleaned the connectors very well and got the green corrosion off the pins. I really don’t know how to use it well, which is ok, we can read/use charts, and really it will just help verify our position and nothing more. I can use the autohelm, which I can set to a course and let the boat drive us where we’re going so I have have to tend the wheel constantly. Unfortunately, the autohelm and gps/plotter uses a bit of power, so we’ll be motor sailing on and off too, to charge batteries as necessary.

My nav lights are incandescent lamps so at some point I’ll be changing those over to LEDs when I can find something that meets Coast Guard requirements. Energy saving….

That’s all for the update for now.

Last night we were on anchor, they had kicked us off the mooring ball. I don’t sleep well when not absolutely certain of our status and I wasn’t 100% sure of the anchoring last night because we got a very strong wind through here, a thunderstorm and we were rolling and pitching pretty badly.

Boats were anchored all around and while I was pretty sure my own anchor was holding, I wasn’t sure about some others. Needless to say, I was pretty exhausted this morning, and so was JoAnne.

But we left anyway. In the beginning we did well, but the winds picked back up and were blowing us onto a shore. I could NOT get the boat to come away, because we weren’t making much headway in the wind. Finally, I did the prudent thing, turned the boat around and went back to the anchorage.

We’re set securely tonight.

Our next window is Monday morning.

We’ll try then,

Yesterday was Saturday.  We had chosen to remain at anchor in New York over near Coney Island.  Except the night before we were getting whipped around by a combination of incoming tide, a current fighting the wind, which of course was in another direction.  So getting tossed about like we were in 8 foot waves (when they were barely 1 foot high) was not on our “want list”.

I decided it prudent to move the boat to a more protected area.  And there was no wind that morning.  So I started the engine.  We moved, dropped anchor and then I went to shut down the engine.

Back up a couple of days.  On our way down the Hudson River to Nyack we’d had belt issues.  I’d fixed them, so I thought.

On the way down the Hudson from Nyack to Ross Dock Park I’d tried to stop the engine and the engine stop cable came loose down in the engine compartment, requiring me to open everything up, rather quickly actually, trace the cable, find the shut down lever and find a tool long enough to reach the switch without burning the royal crap out of myself to shut down.  I could NOT fix that easily.

Back to present.  After anchoring, I went below to shut down the engine with my screwdriver only to find the belt has shredded itself.  Terrific.

I contacted a tow and we were brought south 9 miles….. to Sandy Hook area.  Could I have sailed? Yes, but there was absolutely zero wind where I was.  Did I need a tow?  Perhaps not, but, it puts us 9 miles further south and it was free, and they helped me locate a mechanic and parts.

Mechanic showed up at 2:30 after we were on a mooring ball at Atlantic Highlands Marina ($50 bucks a night, ouch)  and worked on things.

What he discovered was; 1) the pulley on the alternator was wrong, too small.  2) The belt was too long, 2) screws, nuts, bolts were missing in various places (I suspect strongly the marina where the boat was stored did the shoddy work at this point, especially knowing about the damned duct tape used to hold the stop switch).

Bill took my alternator to replace the pulley, find the right size belt, get me part numbers and to perhaps locate a replacement and/or spare alternator adjustment bar.  He’s due back here Tuesday sometime.

We’re planning a short, 16 hour haul down the coast to Barnegat Bay with a stop someplace to drop anchor to get some rest, then on to Delaware Bay – we hope.  We plan to sail.  The Mizzen sail is horked up pretty good, and jammed.  I’ll have to work on that as we go, but we can sail like a sloop.  Assuming the mainsail works ok.  We’re going to find out.

JoAnne and I have been rather …. well, scared of trying to head south, partly due to the medical issues we’ve experienced recently, and secondarily the fact we’ve not sailed anything this large in a long time – and in fact, we have not sailed in over four years.  We’re rusty.  Jumping to a 40 footer from a 25′ sloop wasn’t too bad when we did it last time, but, we did it pretty quickly.  For instance we sailed on a weekend before we left for BVI.  It wasn’t difficult to slip back into it easily.

This time though, we have nothing to give us the confidence we had back then.

So today we were talking (and last night as well) and have decided that we just need to go.

Cold weather will be upon us before we know it – it is, after all, September.  I for one don’t like the cold any more.  Not that the stifling heat of New York has been much of a blessing either, but at least I can feel my hands when working outside.

So, if we get the engine running properly on Tuesday, early on Wednesday we are heading out.  We have rudimentary equipment, but at least the autohelm IS functional (for now, lol) so it should be easier as it acts like a third crew member.

Here in Atlantic Highlands we don’t have Wifi or even phone most of the time.  We’re struggling to get through THAT little thing too.  I’;m writing this on my Linux laptop using a built in editor so I can just post it when I can, so forgive me if it is out of order or date later on.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve scrubbed the Starboard Side of Adventure with soap and water and found a beautiful teak wood surface under the grim and dirt.  Today, I oiled the wood that I’ve cleaned and the boat is absolutely gorgeous under there.  When I have time, the To Do list has the port side listed too.  I’ll get that done.

I have a list we put together today containing around 35 jobs, big and small.  Everything from working on getting the Wifi antenna put together to pick up and give us wifi aboard (using open access points) to cleaning the oil lamp fixture, converting the incandescent bulbs to LED, wiring a charging port in the aft cabin to working on hanging things up, moving things around to get the weight lower down, and the finding of things more efficient.

Some jobs will get done soon, some will get done someday.  No priority except on things like through hulls we need to ensure are closed when we sail.

Right now, we’re relaxing a little.  JoAnne is reading, as usual, and I’m doing the blog.  Trying to get the phone to pick up 4G is infuriating here, irritating.  And there it is, there it ain’t.  Aggravating.

We stopped in at a place called “Gaslight 33“ over on 1st Street here in Atlantic Highlands.  They aren’t a microbrew, but do have a lot of different beers, even some from Colorado we found.  Heck they even had Oskar Blues beers there.  But everything here, including beer is damned expensive.  5-7 bucks a pint from New York to here thus far.  Geez.

And with that, I’m done with the update for now.

Today is our first day.  Living aboard.

Sorta.  Had some big plans to get over here, get some stuff on the ship, JoAnne was going to arrange a few things, I was going to get the jib set up, finish working on the water pump and do a few other little jobs – but I digress since I haven’t mentioned the hell we’ve been through the last few days!

A few days ago, everything started going wrong.

We discovered bad house batteries, a bad starter battery, the water system was hosed up, the high pressure washer connections were very, very corroded, to the point of breaking parts off of them.

We met with the former own a few nights ago.  A very nice man, very helpful and sad to see his boat go – but happy I think, that we have her.

So over the last few days, I’ve been repairing this and that.  Our plan was to move aboard today.  We checked out of the hotel in Newburg and stopped at Walmart to get a starter battery, we had breakfast and were coming down here to  unload a few things.

We were excited.  As usual, I was moving too fast for JoAnne and she ended up tripping on the dock.  She landed pretty hard on the concrete and got some scrapes but the worst part was her glasses.  I couldn’t catch them and they went KERPLUNK next to the dock in three feet of murky water and a foot of mud and two feet of grasses.  I hunted for them for an hour but never got in the water.  I used a boat hook.  I was afraid I’d never get out of the muck again.

So we went to a mall over in Nyack and spent the next 4 hours (they said “Oh, just an hour!”) waiting on glasses.

Great.  We decided it was lunch time. We went to Joe’s Crab Shack.

The young lady waiting on us was Deborah.  A sweet girl with a New York accent.  We ordered our food and I asked for a substitute of cole slaw instead of fries.

I got my slaw with a side of rubber glove.  Gross.  Yuk.  Crap.  Appetite went out the door.

Deborah came over and I tried not to complain or anything, but I wanted her to let someone know.  I figured a manager would come out.  Nope.  Never did.  And in fact the young lady went to bat and ended up getting both our meals and the two beers comped.

We did, finally get JoAnne’s glasses and got back to the boat about 6pm.    I brought her to the bathroom since ours aren’t really working just yet and then we went out to dinner (since it was now several hours after the lunch fiasco.

Once we came back from dinner – no, our stove isn’t working yet, either, or more accurately, it’s not been completely checked out and isn’t yet safe to use so no cooking for us yet – we had to go out….. anyway, finally I brought down our back packs, pillows, a blanket or two, guitar and a few small things.

So, as I write this, it’s almost ten PM and she is laying on the couch area reading facebook.  I’m writing this at the table.  Below decks is a disaster.  We don’t have a bath room complete functional.  A storm is supposed to blow through tonight so I had to add an extra line to the boat and retie the dinghy off.

And we’re both physically and mentally exhausted.

But, we’re happy.  We finally, finally, seven years after thinking it up, spending those seven years planning, practicing, going through cancer for her, heart attack for me, and tripping and falling all over ourselves in everything we’ve done and tried to do – we made it.

We’re really, truly, here on OUR ship, Adventure, rocking to the waves coming in from the Hudson River, listening to some rigging making noises in the wind.

We’re here.

Tomorrow will be a new day, plenty of stuff to do, cleaning, repairs, and did I mention cleaning and repairs?

We’re supposed to leave here on the 15th sometime.  High Tide won’t be until early afternoon, so I’m not sure how that will work out.  I don’t think the marina manager wants us here for reasons I won’t go into details about right now, but we can ONLY leave at high tide and we are ONLY leaving on our terms, not theirs.  A sailboat (something they admit they know nothing about) doesn’t work like a power boat (most of what they have in this marina) so life is rough but we’re going to do this our way and the right way and not be pressured by someone who doesn’t know anything about sailboats.

Time to go topside and see what is slapping in the rigging.  I think it is the main halyard.  Gotta fix it.

Funny… it wasn’t OUR boat.  It was the rickety docks making the racket.  The wind is up about 15 mph or so, so everything is rattling in the marina.  We are the only sailboat here, riding the high tide right now and rocking like a horse ready to get out of here.  I think she wants to GO somewhere, anywhere.

Soon, very soon, we will.

Because, you know I stole this….

I just want to say that even though JoAnne and I have not “truly become live aboards” we’ve definitely become (and always have been) travellers.  About a dozen of these things are already things that have happened to us.  Everything from borrowing a washer and dryer to looking for good Wifi signals. lol

How will you know when you truly become a live aboard?

If you’re living on a boat these descriptions may ring your ships bell?

1. When staying in a house you always come down stairs backwards
2. You find yourself bleeding from random places at random times.
3. You and your wife define “taking a break” as moving about six feet apart and looking in opposite directions.
4. You avoid telling people you live on a boat just so you don’t have to explain to them you actually sleep on it as well… again.
5. You think butter only comes in soft or liquid form.
6. You only have 3 cooking pots.
7. When invited to dinner at someone’s house you spend all night turning unnecessary lights off.
8. When invited to dinner at someone’s house you ask if you can do your laundry.
9. The doctor assumes your body covered in random bruises is a sign of physical abuse.
10. You are the only one who doesn’t want to win the big screen TV at the charity raffle.
11. You think “Game of thrones” is something you do when two people need the toilet at once.
12.  Kids think you’re the coolest person on earth. Adults think you have lost your marbles.
13. When you don’t like the neighbourhood you just move.
14. You are content knowing that sailing is code for boat repair in exotic places.
15. You can assemble a gourmet dinner using only one pot and mouldy cheese.
16. Doing laundry involves a net bag, a moving boat, and 50 feet of line.
17. When asked for a piece of paper, you ask if they want course or fine.
18. You don’t want anything for Christmas that isn’t on a Kindle.
19. Cardboard boxes, wrappers, and packing are thrown away before getting onto the boat.
20. You define a good anchorage as one where you can get Wi-Fi.
21. Your wallet contains more boat cards than business cards
22. You know what a boat card is.
23. When visiting ashore, you wake everybody at daylight screaming “We’re aground “when you open your eyes and don’t see water.
24. You define an easy chore as one where you don’t have to pull everything out of the locker first.
25. You covet new solar panels more than a new car.
26. You can identify boats by the sound of their halyard slapping against their mast.
27. Removing things from the refrigerator is like playing Jenga.
28. In shoe shops you go straight to the flip-flops.
29. You accidentally put your life jacket on when you get in a car.
30. You walk in the rain all the way back to your boat, carrying a backpack, a load of laundry,  groceries destined to fall out of their bag at any second… all while thinking how lucky you are.
31. Filling the water tanks is a full day’s work.
32. The only thing you do religiously on Sundays is wonder what day it is.
33. The first thing you do after setting the anchor is to see what other boats you know.
34.  You talk to your boat and give parts of it stupid names.
35. You understand and pay attention to the entire weather forecast.
36. You spend weekends sitting in your cockpit with a boat hook beside you, waiting to fend off the next holiday charter boat.
37. Every time you consider buying something you have to decide what you’ll get rid of to make room for it.
38. When visiting ashore you look for instructions on how to use a push button toilet.
39. A three minute hot shower is pure indulgence.
40. You covet your neighbour’s engine more than his wife.
41. Ice cubes are the ultimate luxury.
42. You have to strap a bag full of water to your boom & wait a few hours before you can take a hot shower.
43. You’ve googled to see if there are any companies that make triangular bed sheets.
44. You know that duct tape was invented by God.
45. You only bring out real cups for fancy occasions.
46. Trying to find a partner to sail away with you isn’t being romantic, it’s kidnapping.
47. Your computer homepage is the Weather Service
48. You’ve spent mornings standing naked on the deck of someone else’s boat, adjusting halyards, lashing lines & freezing your ass off.
49. You have given up trying to defend your lifestyle and are content with smugly thinking…..they don’t know just what they are missing.
50. Having sex always rocks your boat.

(stolen from “Living on a boat” at http://www.cygnus3.com/living-on-a-boat-whats-it-really-like/)

Note: I was going to put some funny title up there, but gave up because it didn’t sound right.  So, I’ll start this with a song for you….

I’m on the highway to hell
On the highway to hell
Highway to hell
I’m on the highway to hell

AC/DC

Day 16:  New York.  If anywhere in the world can be described (besides Canning Highway in Australia where AC/DC takes the nightly road trip to the pub at the end of the road) it could be ANYWHERE in New York.

New York drivers are the most aggressive, horn blowing, tailgating, cut-you-offers I’ve ever had the pleasure of not-quite coming into contact with. Thus far anyway.  That is the “coming into contact” with part.

On the other hand, the folks in the local pubs, stores and the marinas are some of the most congenial, nicest, kindest people you’d ever want to meet.

I can’t quite reconcile the differences between the two because I KNOW for a FACT that those nice, gentle, helpful smiling people turn into road rage warriors  and screaming, name-calling Hell Spawn the instant their foot touches the gas pedal in a gasoline or diesel, four-wheeled or two-wheeled road vehicle.  I’ve not yet had the pleasure of encountering then in a boat….

However, on land I’ve been cut off, tail gated, yelled at, honked at, flipped off, passed on blind curves, passed by people in the wrong lane, wrong side, and people coming at me from the other direction with their wheels and three quarters of their vehicle where I should be!   Holy crap, I can NOT WAIT to get out of New York or at least stop driving here. haha

On the other hand, almost everyone we’ve met with a couple of limited exceptions have been nice as pie to us.  Some wanted to hear our stories or tell us theirs.  The waiters and waitresses in eating establishments, in particular Applebies have been very nice, even sweet to us.

I’m thinking of writing a new book.  I think I’ll call it “Escape from New York” minus Snake Plisskin…

We’re easily more than two weeks away from sail date.  I might have to extend the hotel stay…. ack!

We’re staying 20 miles from the marina, the hotels closer are pretty bad.  The boat is missing its batteries.  The running rigging is all hosed up, I need to figure out the winch for the anchors, and do some minor sail repair.  We have so much junk that we’re never going to get it on the boat and if we do we will be on the next episode of “Boat Hoarders Goes Redneck in New York”.

We went through the locker and stuff that the former owner left for us/  There were hundreds of items.  More than we will ever be able to put on the boat.  However, JoAnne came up with a plan to use the settee area for storage of pots and pans and bigger kitchen items in the forward seat, and all the nuts, bolts and engine parts (among other boat parts) in the forward set locker).  It’s good because it works well.  There are small spaces under the seat on the port side both forward and aft with a large tank in the middle (I have to crawl under to work out which tanks are which and I’ve not had the chance to do that yet, but I think it is a water tank).

In those areas we can store a small amount so I’ll put things we rarely need in there, and she can use her end for kitchen items we hardly use.

Yesterday we managed to spend somewhere upwards of 6000 dollars.  Batteries, rope for rigging (two kinds, 1/2″ and 3/8″), a lot of smaller items, a pig tail power connector, a dinghy and of course an engine for the dinghy.

We didn’t buy a “cheap” dinghy, we got one that should last a couple (or few) years in the Caribbean Sun Shine.  Made of hapalon, it’s a RIB-310.  But know it wasn’t the most expensive one either.  And it was an inflatable, not a hard sided sailing dinghy like I really wanted.  We just need a dinghy, and this will do the job.  We’ll get our sailing dinghy along the way, or I’ll build one eventually.

We also bought a different kind of engine.  I’m not sure how it will work out though.  It’s a 5 hp engine, and runs on propane. Yep, propane. I joined the Green Crowd yesterday.  Don’t ask me why. Some reviews were bad on it, but we learned something about the engine – that you have to bleed the air from the lines after you connect your tanks, or the engine doesn’t run well.  I’ll reserve judgement.  The tanks are the small grill tanks you can buy at Walmart (or anywhere).  There is an adaptor to connect it to a regular propane tank though.  Again, I’ll reserve judgement for the time being.

On the bright side, we’re well under our projected “Refit Budget” bu a few thousand bucks.  Now, it’s just a crap load of work.  I probably should count the hotel bill into “refit”……

We are looking at extending at the hotel until next Saturday because the majority of our parts won’t be in until this coming Thursday, 6 August.  We’re NOT sure of the batteries, but if they get in Tuesday we could move aboard Wednesday evening or Thursday.  I don’t want to move us aboard until I have the battery system back in and rewired up.

We do have a power pigtail we needed at this marina.  One of the mechanics, Erick was nice enough to Frankenstein one together for me and lend it to us for the time being.  He said he needed one for his boat and would lend it to me until mine comes in.  Thanks Eric!

I’ll rectify the problem when my part comes in (yuk yuk – that’s an electrical joke, but 90% of you won’t get it, lol)

I’ve got one halyard that is completely toast.  The outer braid came apart due to, I’m sure, chafe at the sheave at the head of the main mast.  It’s all wrinkled and fallen down on both sides.  I need to change it soon, so I don’t have to climb up there.  I’ve got to check the lighting up there too, so if they are out, I can get someone ELSE to climb up there. lol

Other running rigging is all messed up because a lot of it puddled water around the lines and caused algae to grow, not to mention most of it has been in the sun so long it’s got UV damage.  So I bought several hundred feet of each type of line so I can replace the various lines.

Now, on to the Marina.  They’ve changed names at least three times that I can determine and possibly that many in a couple of years.  The current manager is not the guy I’ve been talking to on the phone the past few months, but a new one.

Old owner is still there.

Then I find out the entire staff has changed out.

The boat was put here, I assume because it was cheaper to store on the hard than anywhere else.  I still find that difficult to believe after paying my yard bill….

The old manager was very nice, is a sailor and seemed to know sailboats, but he apparently has cancer and isn’t managing any more. though I understand he is still here at the docks on his boat.  I wish him well.

The marina itself lost 70 plus slips and boats during Sandy.  And I suspect it really screwed up the water depths here.  I’m sitting in a seven foot deep slip at the moment, during high tide.  The keel is 6’1”. So, we settle into the mud every time it is low tide.

I have been checking the dock lines and my other lines I’ve tied off to prevent the boat from leaning very far over.  I’ll probably need to swap out my dock lines in a day or so, or add some more to prevent chaffing of the lines.  The water is 3-4 feet deep at low tide and I can see the prop.

Which brings me to my next gripe.  When the old marina manager was there, he said they’d take care of the zincs, put it on my yard bill, along with the paint job, boot stripe (which I really, really wish I’d NOT done) and nothing was accomplsihed until a few days before I arrive.  A boot stripe was put on, up on the cabin….. didn’t really need it on the hull, lol.

The paint was slapped on, the intakes were gooped up with paint and none of the zincs were changed.

When they DID change the zincs it was ten minutes before splash, and they only did the two on the back of the boat.  They didn’t replace the prop zinc.  Me, being a non-expert on sailboats (yet) I asked “Where’s the shaft zinc”.

“Ain’t one”, I was told.

“I know there ain’t one, where is it?”

“Ain’t there, no place to mount one….”

They mount around the shaft like a doughnut, I didn’t know that at the time.  Figured it out later.

On the bright side, the boat is sitting in 3 feet of water at low tide, I’ve got a dinghy on the way and I can paddle my little butt around the back of the boat, install the zinc myself by putting my forearms into the water…. so I guess I’ll add that to the list of jobs.

Oh, the best part of the marina came today.  It was 70-72 degrees this morning, tide coming in making it easy to get on the boat, so we drove there.  Gates were closed at 8:30 AM.  Hmmmmm  I didn’t have a code.

I do now.  They didn’t think to give it to me…..

Tomorrow is Monday.  Won’t be a lot of people in the marina tomorrow.  Everyone went home tonight (or is leaving in the morning).  I’ll have my choice of parking spots close to the dock that goes out to my slip. If all goes well, I’ll pull the chain in the morning, determine if I need to order any and get my call into West Maine (only place in the area I can find so far) for 300 feet of chain (if I need it) or clean what I have and put it all back.  Sure wish I had some muscle guys to help me with this part…. but oh well.  30 links at a time (lifting) won’t be bad, it’s the dragging through the boat and on deck that make me cringe. lol

Ok, I think that’s the update for today.  We ate at Lynchs pub for lunch (late, 3 O’Clock-ish) and found it to be nice in the pub part, but appeared a bit dressy for the dining area.

Last part of the update.

Wednesday is 5 August.  I turn 58.  We will be married 38 years on that day.  My eldest son turns 37.  So, Happy Birthday to him, and a Very, VERY happy anniversary to my darling bride, JoAnne.

We are also meeting the former owner that evening to chat with him and have a drink, probably at Lynch’s..