Tuesday, January 31, 2012 Wow the end of the month???? Motor? Generator? Neither????

We were going to put the outboard on the dink using our main halyard this morning when Eric came by and said… “Why don’t you try it out in the tank first?”
Sounded good to me.
Heck if we got it on the dink, then couldn’t start it, we’d have to get it back off to return it to AJ when he got here.
This way we didn’t have to worry about dropping it into the murkey water of the marina channel and scraping it up trying to get it off the concrete wall, onto the dink, and then back off again all without any damage to it or ourselves. Eric might clown around sometimes (he has a sharp wit) but I never doubt that he knows what he’s talking about.
“See if can start it.”
“See if YOU can start it.”
“If you can’t, there’s no sense in trying to put it on the dinghy.”
He also felt we should have a swing arm for loading the motor onto the dinghy – no matter what motor we were using (I’d told him how we get our motor on and off the dink and he just shook his head and said we should be using a swing arm even for our little motor).
Anyhow, we got the 8hp into the cart and took it over to the test tank.
We got it maneuvered and up and into the tank, hooked up the fuel line, ran through the procedure to prime it.
Wayne gave it several yanks…
Nothing…
Eric came by and asked if I’d tried it yet? I said no. So I primed it, and tried to start it too… nothing.
The guys had a pretty good chuckle watching me try to start it.
I finally put my foot to the tank to get all the leverage I could.
Did it help?
You bet yah… at least in the laugh department.
I dang near dumped over the tank, AKA plastic drum yanking the starter cord…
Okay….
We checked to make sure the air vent was open on the gas tank, the bulb was squeezed (it was incredibly hard), it was in neutral, etc…etc…etc… Then Wayne tried again as Eric watched with a bemused grin, then I tried, then Eric tried… ouch!
I couldn’t start it;
Wayne couldn’t start it;
Eric couldn’t start it;
Eric called AJ to tell him we couldn’t start it and told us that if AJ was selling it to us, then he should be here and make sure it started. Good point...
While we waited for AJ to show up, we wandered through a few rows in the storage yard, looking at motor davits, to see what people used to raise and lower their outboards. While we were doing this and talking about our options we noticed AJ was there with the motor. He got it started after a couple yanks when we got there, and it sounded like it was a powerful little motor once it was running.
Wow!
But was this something we wanted?
We couldn’t start it…it was a good price, but was the same age as the one we were replacing.
It just didn’t seem to dependable if when we went to try it out we couldn’t start it annnnd it was a mother to lift…
After some discussion, Wayne told AJ we weren’t interested in it because we couldn’t start it. AJ said the guy had put $200 into it to tune it up but hey…we couldn’t get it to work…
He said that if we gave him ours in trade, we could knock a little off the price. But we didn't think so...
Back to the drawing board again. I let my fingers do the walking on the internet… I did find a Colman model to look at in a sporting goods store called Dicks. They had a floor model and one still in the box.
So, lets see if I can find a carb and how soon we could get one here, or see if the Colman looks like it’s okay or a piece of ballast like I’m thinking all small engines are at this point.
Oh yah…
Our generator…
forgot to mention that we still don’t have that back either…
How long does it take to do a tune up and oil change?
Wonder if he found another blockage in the lines.
I wouldn’t doubt it, since we had fuel problems with the motor and generator last season.
I know Wayne had problems starting the generator last year so at the end of the season he made sure that all the fuel was emptied and burned out of it this time. We’re hoping that the tune-up and clean-up will have her running like a champ (if we get it back LOL). I am disappointed that the outboard wouldn’t start for us today but the weight kinda bothered me too. It just didn’t feel very dependable though…

Monday, January 30, 2012 Looking for a new (or old) outboard motor

Soooo, Wayne talked to Dennis and asked him about the 2 outboard motors that he had for sale.
He sold one already and he and his partner AJ brought the other one to the marina for us to look at.
Don’t know what happened to Dennis, but I’m guessing that it must be AJs motor since he seemed to be the one that did all talking.
It seemed like he was the one that knew everything about the motor, and he was giving us a pretty good sales pitch. The price seemed right $750 if it worked well. AJ said the guy had just tuned it up and put $200 into it. It definitely was all greased up. I got grease on my everything, handling it.
I did discover that it was one heavy mother.
When I tried to pick it up, it decided it didn’t want to be picked up…
I was able to just barely lift it and thought Holy Smokes, how am I ever going to be able to handle this beast. I liked the idea of an 8hp motor – maybe we’d be able to get somewhere without getting soaked (never could get the dinghy to plane with our little 5hp).
We had to figure out how we’d get it onto the dinghy to test it out.
AJ said, “take a look at it, see if you can start it, test it out and if you want it fine, if not, no hard feelings, just let me know”.
If you don’t want it, I’ll get it out of here right now…
We kind of stood around trying to figure out what to do and to see if we could somehow handle it (it was heavy).
AJ said – talk it over and I’ll be back.
We were going over our options and chatting with Klaus about our options. Do we go new with a new little Colman 5hp , or with a used 8hp Mercury. Light weight vs heavy…new vs old (another 2003 motor)…Mercury vs Colman (an unknown in the outboard business)… I don’t remember which one told Wayne that the Colman was an air cooled motor made by Briggs & Straton, but whichever one said it didn’t win brownie points in the knowledge base because it wasn’t either of those things. The Colman is water cooled, and built by Parsun (a Chinese Company as is many other brands now).
Anyhow, I was weighing all the pros and cons of both (We can get a Colman locally)…
We discovered that Klaus uses his main halyard to get his 9.9 on and off his boat and were trying to figure out if this was something we could do when AJ came back.
AJ decided that he’d leave it with us overnight so we could try to figure out how to get it on and off the boat tomorrow morning and give it a trial run. This was under the premise that if we scratched it (it already was scratched up) or dropped it in the water while trying to test it out, that we bought it. Seems fair… So we’ll keep trying to work out a system tonight to see if we can do the same thing as Klaus and use our main halyard to get it on and off the boat and give it a test tomorrow. All I know is we really need a motor.

Sunday, January 29, 2012 Another week down and a new one starting

This was a very busy week.

Let’s see…

We finished getting all the sails up, then I was able to finish up the sail cover for the main. I wanted to make sure that the cut outs for the lazy jacks actually matched up with the lazy jack fittings before putting the twist closures on and it. The closures took 2 days to put on.

We got our survey for the boat finished on Wednesday (1/25) and are pleased with the results we got back from Dennis (Advantage Yacht). So we contacted the insurance agent at Blue Water Insurance for the current rates and to see if anything had changed since his last quote. Hopefully we’ll have a new insurance carrier with lower rates. Then we can travel further than the Turks and Caicos.

The new connection to the microphone in the cockpit is now fixed.

The dingy motor is now in our possession again.

Unfortunately, Marine Max says it’s still flooding when in idle so we’re going to try and use it but not have it sit in idle. It’s yet to be tested but I’m not real comfortable with the idea of taking it out solo .

The good news is that they didn’t charge us an arm and a leg for looking at it and trying to fix it. Considering the fee for the mechanic is $110/hr in labor – I’m ecstatic over that. The number of hours they’ve had it, could have bought us a couple of new motors (whew!) for which they didn’t charge us. I think we’re going to give Dennis a call and see what outboards he has so we can look at them. Maybe he’ll have some news on our generator too that he took in for his mechanic to tune up. We were told we’d have it back by the end of the week (but Friday came and went with no news - oh oh?) so hopefully tomorrow we’ll hear something.

Friday also turned into date time. We went to the show (One for the Money) and had a burger at Duffy’s Sports Bar.

Did some provisioning and seems like we spent way to much this week. It has to be time to hit the water way. Hopefully this week we’ll be making our way once we get the generator back and find out the last details of the insurance. It looks like there might be a weather window to cross maybe this Thursday or Friday. Hopefully we’ll be in place and ready for it.

Yesterday as I was getting ready to take some potato salad over to the Saturday Potluck I noticed a rather large Motor Yacht hovering at the marina entrance by the name of Glorious Dei. They finally entered and I called to see if they were staying the night. They said that they’d been trying to hail the office but nobody was answering, and that they had reservations for the night along with another boat that was right behind them. I told them that Deb would be in around 9am tomorrow and they seemed to think it was kind of late. I mentioned that it was Sunday. “Oh Yah” was the response. Alex, Klaus and I helped to tie them up to the fuel dock. They asked if there was a restaurant nearby and Alex mentioned the BBQ here and I said just bring a dish. Nice looking couple. She said they were bringing the boat home (crossing the Okeechobee to the West side of the state) and it was kind of new to them. They’d had it about a little over a week now and this was the first time they had moved the boat by themselves. She was kind of nervous about it, and he went down to check on something with the engine. I wish I’d gotten their names, because after they’d left this morning and Deb got in, I asked her if they’d paid in advance, because I’d noticed they’d left early, or if their friends in the mast-less catamaran paid for them when they left? She didn’t show any record of them calling for a reservation. Why is it that these people come in, park it and take off without paying like this!!!! Then it was like a slap in the face that we’d even helped them tie up, and to top it off, they shared our meal with us without contributing anything or even leaving a tip for Moose! Gee… With a boat almost twice our size and gerth, you’d think that they could at least pay for their bill…

They seemed so nice too. If anyone see’s the Yacht Glorious Dei – tell them they have a debt to pay yet whether in actuality or in bad Karma… Doubt they believe in karma though.

Saturday, January 28, 2912 the little motor that just couldn't...

Well we heard from Marine Max…
prognosis – bad…
the little motor is still jinxed.
Wayne asked if we could run it as is – just not in idle. Paul talked to the mechanic and he said it runs fine in gear but if you let it sit in idle for more than 30 seconds then it will flood and not start. Same old same old… So, while they didn’t charge us for all the time put in, we were charged ½ hour diagnostic and parts… sigh… we picked the little motor up and brought it back. Klaus, Barb and I tried to hold onto the dinghy and lines while Wayne got our little outboard on the dinghy and tried to start it. It did start right up but Wayne wasn’t fast enough to get away from the dock, and the motor stalled. We got him back to the dock and, yep… same old, same old… it wouldn’t start again. Klaus said to disconnect the fuel line and let it run dry while trying to start it, but that still didn’t help. It seemed like it wanted to, but just couldn’t do it again. Once a day seemed to be enough for it. Sooo we let our hands do the walking to see if we could find a new carburetor and what was available on the market in the way of little outboard motors. There wasn’t much in the line of used outboards and trying to figure out which carburetor we had proved to be a job. There are about 5 different ones for 5hp Mercurys… tomorrow is another day…
The potluck was very sedate tonight – not many people here and it felt almost like a buffet line. Chicken, burgers and sausage, cole slaw, potato salad and no line rushing up to get to the food. It felt very strange – almost restaurant like. I’d say this is probably the last Saturday night potluck with the free meats. It was a good conversation with Klaus and Barbara. It sounds like we might be crossing together and traveling with them up to Georgetown. They still have time to get there and mosey back along the way, and we still have February and March to get to wherever we’re going. A month of travel before having to make a decision to head back or keep going…

Friday, January 27, 2012

It was a fun kind of day :)  I got to watch as Klaus hoisted Barb (SV Klabara) up the mast. So figured I'd get a few shots of Barb going up the mast! For me, it's always more fun when someone else is going up the mast besides me!

 Ready Barb?

 Up she goes!

Well we haven’t heard anything on the generator yet but thought that maybe Dennis would be in on the weekend (in case someone wanted to look at a boat). We called the Motor place and still no news. I am determined that today will be a good day. “One for the Money” opens today and since I can’t drive across the state (waiting on motor and generator) to see the movie with Di, we’re going to go to Stuart to see it.

It was a fun movie and I don’t know if there will be any sequels to it or not but I enjoyed it. I thought Ranger was miscast but got into believing that Morelli was Morelli and Stephanie was Stephanie. It was a fun afternoon and we went to Duffy’s for dinner after the movie. Duffy’s is supposed to have an awesome burger. Some fellow boaters said it was the best but the place in Vero and the Golden Grouper still win hands down if competing with Duffy’s. It felt like a date night and I enjoyed the outing.

Thursday, January 26, 2012 Working on the boat…

The second side of the sail cover was more of a challenge and it took most of the day for me to get it done, but it is done and now covering up our main sail! Looks pretty good! My neck feels like it’s a lobster red and I think it’s going to be an interesting night trying to sleep on it. Wayne put in the new fitting to the cockpit mike and changed the head outlet to a GFIC receptacle. We don’t seem to be going anywhere quick but we ARE out of the boat yard and in the water at least.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 Sail Covers and Surveys

Got the sail cover out and laid out on the face wall to start putting the fasteners on. Love the little hot knife tool for cutting the holes in the sail cover where the fasteners go. Everything was laid out and ready to go, hot knife, fastener parts, hammer, felt tip, needle nose pliers. Took a deep breath and started the first side. While I was in the process of working on the sail cover, Dennis came by to finish up our boat survey. He’s an interesting fellow. At one time he was in the Coast Guard (I have the utmost admiration for those guys and what they go through), he now does boat surveys and sells boats here at the marina. I had to ask him about a boat that I’d seen come into the boat yard – a little Cape Dory… It looks like it needs some work but it’s a pretty little thing and I can picture it on the Great Lakes in the summer (I kinda miss being able to have a boat there in the summer). Someone was on the boat Monday or Tuesday and I was asking them what the boat was going for… Kinda steep I thought, but it seemed to me that it was Dennis’ company I saw posted on the “for sale” sign. I’d really like to take a peek at it. He said the owner had actually gotten an offer for the asking price but had decided to take it out for a couple of months so that fell through, and the buyers were a little miffed… hmmm…

After finishing up the survey we were chatting about our small motor problems – the 5 hp Mercury, and the generator that gave us calluses trying to start it last year. He’d mentioned to Wayne, the last time, that he had 2 outboards for sale. I was keeping that in the back of my head with the problems we’ve been having trying to get ours fixed… He’d mentioned that he had some generators that he was taking in today to have the oil changed and tuned up. The guy he takes them to does pretty good work and charges $75 for the tune up/oil change. Wayne mentioned that that would be something he’d be interested in since we’d been having problems with ours, and Dennis offered to take ours in too. He said we’d get it back by the end of the week. Woo who! Things are looking up. We’re supposed to have our motor back by the end of the week so maybe we can be out of here on Sunday or Monday then. All we need to do now is get a copy of the survey sent off to the insurance company and we’re good to go past the Turks and Caicos’.

I managed to finish one side of the sail cover today. I have a feeling my neck got too much sun. I’ll finish the other side tomorrow. While Dennis was surveying our boat my phone had rang.. It was Mary Clare they’re in Florida and making plans! Yay!

I wandered down to the water's edge to check out the waterway and the Cape Dory (it's in the water now). Spotted a gator sleeping on the bank. Correct that - it's eye opened and it was watching me...time to head back to the boat.

Time for an Iced Tea… ahhhhh….

Monday January 23, 2012

Well Good Goose and Klabara are now both in the water. They both feel like long time neighbors to us now so it’s kinda nice that we’re all in the water now too. Good Goose will be heading down to the Keys and their time is almost up so they’ll be heading out pretty quickly. I’m gonna miss them. Klabara is heading over to the Bahamas so we may be on a similar time schedule as them but I’m not sure how far they’ll be going. They were talking about the Abacos.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Little by little we’re coming together on the boat. The windlass is now done. The halyard completed. So today we decided it was time to put up the sails then I can finish working on the sail cover for the main.

We got the main up, then the Yankee. Rourke came by to see how we were doing. After getting the Yankee up, we went over to his boat (Good Goose) to help him get his rudder back up and in place so he could drill the holes in it to reattach it to the boat. Sherry & Rourke did a real nice job building a new rudder…some exterior plywood, saber saw, Dremmel tool, some epoxy, paint, new holes drilled and it looked like it belonged. Nice job and Wayne got a new saw out of the whole process too. We’d loaned Rourke our 20 year old saber saw and it bit the dust while he tried using it. He felt obligated to replace it even though we told him not to bother that it was probably way past its death through. After telling us that he was just going to donate it to whoever needed one in the boatyard, we decided that welllllll okay we would need one and sheepishly accepted it (thank you sooo much Rourke).

Saturday, January 21, 2012 An alligator named Stubby

Well after cutting off the part of the line that I thought I’d done wrong yesterday afternoon

I discovered that I’d actually done it right – oops! So we’re a foot shorter than when we started. I couldn’t believe that I’d done all those splices last year for the lazy jacks. Now after a full day of reading, I truly can’t remember the procedure (except for the basics). I kept re-reading the directions that came with the Fid, but they made no sense to me. After scratching my head a few times and running through the process in my head, I finally got the cajones to plunge in and just do it. I finished splicing the new halyard for the main, and it looks pretty good, but I sure needed the set of directions that I used last year!

I was working in the boat when Wayne called me up top. While he was working on the Windlass (he took it apart and rewired it – the wires were reversed so up was down & down was up) he spotted an alligator. The first one I’ve seen this year! Needless to say I raced up top with my camera. I was hoping it was Elvis. It wasn’t. It was a nice healthy looking one, but only ½ to ¾ the size of Elvis. Someone said that they had a big un removed last year. It was probably Elvis then. He was a monster. This one was a new one to me. The only other one I remember is Half-tail and everyone has seen him (but me). This little guy (okay not so little – one guy said it’s the biggest one he saw) came swimming right into the marina like he owned the place, so I’m wondering if it’s one of the babies I heard chirping last year… Saw him later on the shore and one of the other boaters brought it to my attention that one of its feet were missing. Soooo this one is now named Stubby…

Helped a trawler tie up to the wall. Nice one. Loved the people’s names – Jack and Diane. I ran Diane up to the Publix to get some taco fixings, and I needed to pick up something for the pot-luck tonight too. It was interesting chatting with them over dinner. They were in their 70s and had a sailboat before going to the trawler. They’re heading across the Okeechobee tomorrow for the other side. Very nice couple : ) Moose had sausage, hot dogs, burgers and pork on the menu tonight and the pork was killer – he used Butt Rub and Everglades seasoning on it. Sounds weird I know, but the seasoning IS called Butt Rub….and it’s a wonderful thing…

Friday, January 20, 2012

Well, the bilge pump kicked on at 2am this morning so I laid there listening to it and couldn’t get back to sleep for an hour. I am glad that the pump works, to be sure…

Mark showed up a little after 8am to work on the leaky impeller/water pump. After he got it apart, we could see that the O Ring was pinched between the cover & plate. Not conducive to a dry boat. He had also noticed that our packing at the cutlass bearing was dripping more than it should be and tightened that too. So after 3 hours work, then lunch and another hour, we now should have no leaking problem. Fingers crossed.

Wayne moved on to working on the windlass and I began the process of splicing the halyard. How quickly I forgot… after reading through the sheet and looking at the diagrams, I scratched my head in wonder then started pulling the core through the cover. I then marked it all off and in doing so, discovered that I’d pulled the core of the rope out through the wrong spot. I tried to push it back into the casing to no avail so a foot of our new halyard needs to come off. I think I’ll wait and restart the whole thing tomorrow. I think I’ve lost patience for the day…

Oh - Marine Max called while we were both working on windlass and halyard. Good timing with Wayne’s hands all gooped up and me counting strands in the rope. They think they’ve discovered our problem with the little 5hp Mercury outboard. After rebuilding the carburetor and ordering a diaphragm for the fuel pump, they still had problems. (It’s become a challenge for their mechanics. They work on all these huge engines all day long and now are stymied by our little 5 hp… it’s become a big challenge…) Anyhow, they discovered a broken needle or something and think that’s the problem – one of two needles in the controller are broken. The place where they send the parts out of Atlanta Georgia isn’t open on Fridays. Sooooo they won’t get parts until Wednesday or Thursday. They are pretty confident that they’ve finally found the problem though. At $100/hr labor we probably could have gotten a new motor by now and been done with it… They say it’s the challenge though and said they weren’t going to charge us the 2 hours that the guy has into it already… What? Only 2 hours into it? They said that it looked like whoever worked on it put it together backwards…
Time to make a nice large salad for dinner….

Maybe a G/T with it…

Maybe 2 G/Ts with it…

Thursday, January 19, 2012 Last morning in the Work yard (Day 29) First day in the water…

Well, launch day! I went to the office to see where they were putting us.

I ran into Eric in the office… “We have you on the schedule today for the impeller” “oh, uhm, Wayne gave up and ended up doing it yesterday”. “Oh…well, okay… I’ll tear up the work order then.” “Uhm, okay.” We had an option of slip 13 or a couple places on the wall. After looking at 13 – it had a finger pier that would be difficult to load things on and off the boat, we decided on the corner of the face dock. Nothing against #13 being unlucky or anything, just figured we could get on and off easier at the main dock…

We got launched and into the water with no hitch. The engine started right up, white smoke, but it was all good, then Wayne started checking for leaks to see if we were taking on water. We had water… The bilge pump kicked on and vigorously started spewing water… Yikes… Wayne did some exploring below and discovered that we had water spraying all over the engine compartment from where he changed the impeller. He said once we cut the engine and closed the seacock that it would stop leaking so we got our boat around the corner of the dock quickly. Hmmmm we seem too big for the space allotted to us. Back up, and go to the front facing wall near the fuel pumps…bilge pump kicks on again…move the other two boats down a little further so we can fit too…tie up to the wall…cut the engine and close the seacock. Bilge pump kicked on then off. Wayne said “Well at least we know the bilge pump works” as it kicked on again…and again… Uhm, hun, now that the seacock is closed, why is the bilge pump still working so vigorously? “It will quit as soon as the water pump empties” “oh…okay…”

He went in search of Eric to see if we could get someone to look at it. I didn’t think Eric was going to like this much. He didn’t. “Your wife said you did it yesterday and I don’t know if we’ll be able to get to you today or not. I had to reschedule people again.” Wayne said to wait for them today. The bilge pump kicked on again… Yep, the bilge pump works… may it continue to work…

Debbie came and told us we had a package in the office. Yay! The new windlass is here! Heavy little sucker, but I got it back to the boat.

We worked on the wireless and now have a new hole in the boat and the wire run through the cabinets to the socket where the TV. was (it’s no longer on the boat – didn’t work much anyhow except for DVDs). After we got the wiring through the wall and hooked up, then the antenna up to the spreader and power on…it didn’t work… no signal… wreckin, frecking, smecher (insert favorite cuss words here)...

Just another one of those days…

On investigating, I noticed that where we are is directly behind a large metal gantry between us and the marina wireless antenna… hmmm… guess our wireless either doesn’t work or we don’t have line of sight for it to work with the steel gantry between us and the internet access point. Nice bee’s nest up there though… I’m going to assume for the sake of something going right today that our wireless works and we are just in the wrong spot. Go figure…

Bilge pump kicks on again and it’s almost time for the crew around here to quit and go home. Okay, Time to see if I can find Eric…

Okay… after tracking him down, he’s going to send someone our way tomorrow morning…

Sigh…

5:30pm bilge pump on again… I’m gritting my teeth…

I’m thinking it’s a Burger King kind of night for dinner…

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 Day 28 in the work yard…

Wayne worked on the impeller today and I went into town to stay out of his way. I got the last items on my list that I was looking for. One last provisioning trip for fresh stuff before we leave and I’m good… Did I say that Wayne spent the day working on the impeller? They don’t make it easy to get to on our engine and he had a dickens of a time doing it but hopefully it’s all good now. Our engine is the Yanmar 4JHE. To get at the impeller you basically have to get at it from behind and there is very little maneuvering room in our engine compartment. Someone had said there was a trick for getting these things off but Wayne couldn’t figure it out. That’s why he wanted the crew here to do it so he could see what it was that they did. But what cha gonna do? After a couple of weeks, and nobody showing up, we needed to get it done. It took Wayne a little over 8 hours but it looks like it’s done. Wayne says that he wasn’t sure about an O ring that was there. He said he couldn’t figure out where it went or how to keep it in place in putting it back together. But he feels pretty good about it all. I think. His arms are covered in grease and I’m sure he was doing a lot of cussing trying to get it apart, then back together.
Tomorrow (???) we get put in the water. We still need to get the dinghy up on the davits and clear up our space in the work yard. Then the boatlift can get us into the slings, across the work yard to the marina and into the water. Then, the rest of our work can be done in the water. Yay!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 Day 27 in the work yard…

Klaus (Klabara) was telling us about a marine store in Ft. Pierce this morning. We were getting ready to go into town for various parts and ended up going into Ft. Pierce first to check out the Marine Connection Liquidators.
Oh…My…Goodness…
That place was like Toy’s R Us for sailors. They have tons of stuff there and even stuff for the art lovers… I found a mermaid mirror that I absolutely loved… but had to leave it… not in our tight budget… we did find our light bulbs, straps, and various other items we were looking for…cable, lines, fuses, fuse holders… on and on. Good place to get line to if anyone needs dock lines or halyards…

From there we went to West Marine, Sam’s Club and Wally World then it was back to the boat… Felt like a long day…

Monday, January 16, 2012 Day 26 in the work yard…

Ever have one of those days?
Called Quick and after a discussion of the problem and trying to order one online, we were put in touch with another Quick dealer. Originally I tried Overton’s that advertised them on sale for $799.00 (really!). Got nowhere with them so called Quick. Overton’s said they’d sold out and were no longer a distributor for Quick. Quick didn’t seem to know that. They put us in touch with another distributor and with a few wrong starts, we got it ordered. The dealer had a problem with his Paypal account so we did it the old fashioned way – over the phone with credit card in hand….

Rourke came by to see about borrowing a drill to work on his rudder. Brave soul – we could have put him to work again
Next up?
The Bad Boy Wireless…after a few trial and errors we got that up - and running. So our test run is good. Now we need to figure where to set it up. Where do we put a new hole in the boat?

Little by little…

Sunday, January 15, 2012 Day 25 in the Work yard…

Got up and checked the little weather station from the Mehall family before making coffee. Hmmm, it was 39 outside the boat and 59 inside the boat. Good job Wally (our Wally-world special heater). I turned it off, just in case…, before making coffee. I didn’t want to go down a cold, wet ladder, run to the circuit panel, by the work yard office, in the dark. I wanted my coffee in peace… ahhh! Coffee, mafia wars, and a heater at my feet. Day 25 in the work yard -

Let the festivities begin…

I finished putting the bimini and dodger together while Wayne took the windlass apart. The windlass looked like it’d been welded together by rust and corrosion. Yikes! There’s no way we can just clean it up, add grease and slap it back together… it’s pretty well gone.

Dennis in the boat next to us was telling us about his “Anchor Lift” so we were looking on the web for one for our boat. We then looked at the footprint on our deck. After browsing and searching I went to the “Quick Windlass” site. If we got the same one, it theoretically should fit the cutout… right?
Right… then maybe a few days less in the boatyard…

Saturday, January 14, 2012 Day 24 in the workyard…

Okay - I'm starting to count now... 24 days in the boatyard...
Dinghy is put together and holding air still (except for the bottom section with no cap) …
Wayne struggled with the remaining bolt to the windlass all day…
¼ turn an hour again, upside down, laying on the deck - half in and half out of the anchor locker… 
I’d forgotten to mention yesterday that he had a fan club…

of vultures…

They were circling him while he was laying half in the chain locker, half on the deck in his red jacket. I’m thinking that because he was in red and so still, while trying to loosen the nut that the vultures probably thought he was carrion. He’d remarked that upside down in the chain locker he’d periodically look skyward. It looked like they were getting lower and lower at times. There were about 12 of them. I kid you not and I think they were thinking they’d found the Kolibrie Diner jackpot. Wayne looked like there was enough of him to go around for everyone. Anyhow they were checking him out again today. Is it lunch time yet? I think we need to find a different color jacket for him to wear in the cold, other than that burgundy wind breaker… Shoo, shoo!

Around 4pm Rourke and Sherry (Good Goose) came wandering by to check out our rudder and propeller shaft. Bet they were wishing they didn’t. I was putting up the bimini and struggling with it and the dodger while Wayne had been struggling with the windlass. Needless to say, they ended up, up top with us, with Rourke half in and half out of the chain locker. New buzzard food... Sherry and I were struggling with the dodger to get the zipper re-zipped on the dodger…tight fit. An hour later after Rourke had started (he wasn’t going to let it get the best of him) we had the other bolt off. He’d had a product called PB Blaster that seemed to help loosen things right up. That called for a Yuengling! Then they were off to Home Depot to get wood for a rudder and we were throwing on our sweat shirts to go to the potluck.

Originally I thought “wow it’s too cold, let’s not go…” But with the pound cake sitting on the counter staring at me and nobody here to eat it but us, anddddd the chance that they might have more of that delicious corn like last week, we bundled ourselves up and headed down to the potluck. We spotted Klabara (Klaus and Barb - the boat next to us in the work yard) at a table and joined them. We had a wonderful evening getting to know them in spite of the cold... If anything the cold kept the mosquitos in check for the evening while I was learning about Klaus being a pastry chef, German Army Sergeant, Life Guard and world traveler. They’d met while he was taking classes at college and she was a professor. He’d ended up taking one of her classes after they’d met and he’d told her on the first date that he wanted a sailboat and was immigrating to Canada. Long story short – they’re together and working on their boat now :) Nice and interesting couple. Plus hey – they like similar things like ice cream (at Cold Stone) and parts at West Marine (right across the street from Cold stone)

Brrrr…. It’s going down into the 30s again tonight. Towel over the louvered door, check; Wally out and turned on, check; spare red, plaid, travel blanket from Tanzania on the bed, check; Now some mafia wars, then a little light reading before climbing into my berth…

Friday, January 13, 2012 oh oh.... and oh yes: Life in Da Boat Yard...

Oh ohhhh Friday the 13th Muah ha ha ha….
Glad I’m not superstitious…

Made breakfast today – felt like eggs and potatoes with English muffins soooo that was what was for breakfast (with oranges). I figure I’d better use the toaster while I can :0) and since it was a nippy night, a warm breakfast sounded like just the thing. I hooked up the heater and proceeded to cook.

Okay, so running the coffee pot, heater, toaster and hot water tank to wash dishes might not have been a very good idea. Especially since every other boat on our electrical pole was doing the same thing. Suddenly, I was met with dead silence. The toaster stopped, the heater stopped and the coffee pot light went out. Wayne said, “Gee, ya think that the hot water tank to wash dishs was maybe too much???” Ha ha ha… Well during the middle of frying potatoes, scrambling eggs, and making breakfast, I decided that the power could wait until AFTER I was done on the little alcohol stove. Who knows, maybe someone else in the boatyard besides myself knows how to reset the circuit breaker. So we had half toasted English muffins with pretty good eggs and potatoes. I thought about getting half toasted too (kidding).

Well after breakfast we were still without power.
Guess nobody else knows how to reset the circuit breaker.
Fun.
Went down to reset it, and it wouldn’t reset… hmmmm…
Unplugged the power cord from the post and tried a different socket.
Back up the ladder. Still nothing.
Back down the ladder and over to the circuit box. There was another circuit off, turned that one on.
Still no luck.
Klaus and Barb were up and they had no power either.
Okay, it’s not just us then.
After getting a hold of Steve (he’s the one that showed me what to do), I learned that if one thing doesn’t work, there are a series of things to do... in order… it's a process....
so after doing them with Klaus observing, we then got power back. Gotta love cold nights when everyone is using power. Couldn’t have been my cooking. Nope. Not that. But now Klaus also knows the process so I won't be the only one tippy toe-ing down the ladder in the cold...

Hmmm Marine Max never called yesterday. Wayne gave them a call and Paul never remembered saying that he’d call back in ½ hour. Hope this isn’t a sign of things to come again…
Anyhow, he said they had to order some parts. It looked like it might have something to do with the diaphragm to the fuel pump the way it keeps flooding and shutting off.
They wouldn’t be able to get to the motor until the middle of the week, since the parts wouldn’t arrive until the beginning of the week, next week.
Soooo we wait again. Hopefully the time waited will result in something good this time – like with a working outboard motor.

We got the dinghy put together and discovered we’re missing one of the caps/air valves… That won’t work… We searched the boat and the field where the boat was stored and nothing. I did some searching online and West Marine has one in stock so they’re going to hold it for me near the checkout counter. Yay!

Wayne spent the rest of the day working on trying to take the windlass apart. We really need it with an all chain ground tackle. It’s no fun hauling up all that chain by hand. I spent the day putting stuff away and sorting through some of the stuff I brought. I decided I brought way to many clothes and was trying to figure out what to bring and what to leave.

By the end of the day, I had stuff stashed, nuts for the trip vacuum sealed, and Wayne had 2 of the 3 nuts removed from the bolts that hold the windlass to our deck. The last one was going to fight him all the way since the nut is right next to the fiberglass and he can’t get a grip on it to loosen it. It’s right next to the fiberglass wall so no grip room. It was basically a ¼ turn with the open end wrench per hour, while hanging upside down in the anchor locker... He really enjoyed that - working upside down in the chain locker all day. I could tell… Gin and Tonics anyone? His color is coming back now that he’s upright again.

I guess you call Friday the 13th a “nutty” kind of day aboard Kolibrie.
Nuts anyone?
We have stainless steel nuts, cashews, pistachios and peanut bars…
Good news?
Since we’re not in the water yet… we haven’t lost any of them overboar and in the water he he he…

Thursday, January 12, 2012 LIFE in THE boatYard.......

Today we spent running around Stuart… The guy that was working on our outboard never did call us back so when Wayne called him he said he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. After putting a rebuilt carburetor on it, it was still flooding and shutting off after 30 seconds. He said that he didn’t have the time to figure out what was wrong with it and wouldn’t have until next week sometime. We said we’d pick it up.

He was recommended by Mac Sails as someone that worked on small engines. We should try him. It sounded good. We were told it was a little place with not much overhead, but the guy did good work. I really want a working motor. It’s no fun rowing against wind and current in an inflatable zodiac. So he sounded like the ticket. We’d taken it to him gee… a couple weeks ago, and now we were picking it up, no further ahead. He didn’t charge us for his time or the parts. While we didn’t have a working motor, I still felt pretty good at giving a small guy a chance before going to the big guys.

We called Marine Max to see if they could help us and they said “sure” bring it on in. So we picked up the motor and ran it over there. Odds are if anyone could fix it they could since they’re a Mercury dealer. Grant it, they’re in the market of selling biggggg motor boats, but they also work on Mercury motors (yes, I guess even our little 5 hp one). So we dropped it off there and Paul said he’d give us a call in ½ hour after his technician was able to look at it. This is the place we were able to get the zinc for the outboard from before so we’re feeling confident that they’ll be able to help us.

After dropping it off there it was on to Home Depot for miscellaneous parts (locks, dowels, hooks…), Sam’s Club for provisioning and then back to the boat. I picked up a rotisserie chicken for dinner mmmmmmmmmm….and some pound cake for the Saturday night potluck. Love Sam’s rotisserie chicken.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 LIFE in THE BoAtYaRd....

We have storm warnings up for today. Got up to cloudy gray skies and made coffee using the water from the boat. We filter the water going into the boat and now have an under the sink filter on the cold water tap. The water tastes okay but seems to react with the coffee and cream so that it looks like it’s forming a pudding skin on the top. Not to appetizing looking. Tastes okay, just don’t look at it I guess. I don’t understand what is causing it to do that. It has Wayne wondering what he has to do to get decent water on the boat too.

I figured I’d better get myself down the ladder and to the office before the guys showed up with the boatlift to put us in the water. When I got there they were going over the launch schedule. It looks like they’ve already got 8-9 boats lined up to go into the water on Friday. We were put at the end of the list. So if we don’t get launced Friday, then it will be on Monday (I wonder how many dock hands are taking bets on this). Dock space is at a premium so I think they’d like it better if we went in Monday. Erik came into the office right on cue and I said “It’s Erik’s fault we keep getting backed up. He keeps forgetting about us”.
“Now, no I don’t! Everything is backed up with Jesse out. He has my mechanic driving the boat lift!”
Uh huh… sure Erik…
“By the way… Pat keeps coming by to pet my puppy!”
“Huh???”

That soooo doesn’t sound right the way he says it…
But yep, I do. He has a cute little mutt that he’d rescued and I like to bop in to the boat yard office and give her some pets and coo at her. I think he’s just jealous because I come in saying “Hi Baby” and I’m talking to the dog…
Yesterday I caught myself doing it again. I went in rubbing her head saying “Hi baby! How are you today” in my doggie cooing voice. Then caught myself and said oops. Hi Erik, how are you today?” Laughing.
He just shook his head at me and said “fine”.
Well today in the office he said “well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!”
“Pat keeps petting my puppy…”

Sigh…

The office is notified that (yet again) we’re not ready.
Erik knows we’re still waiting for his mechanic.
I’ve got to stop going into the office to pet his puppy.
Time to head back to the boat…
So begins another day in the boatyard.

When I got back to the boat and down the companionway, Wayne was sitting there drinking coffee.
I got the one eyed, Good Morning from him and gave him a good morning back. LOL

Let the day begin…

We got the wifi down that we put up on the wind generator yesterday.
Stairs are varnished and back up on the the boat.
The rust has been removed from the BBQ and put on the rail.
The wiring to the wind generator hooked back up.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 liFE in THE boat YARD

Journal catch up, then off to the Dollar store to see if I could find some match sticks that AREN’T childproof, a tea/coffee pot, and other various items… No luck. I’ll have to wait till we go to Wally World again… The last few days have been work work work… We were supposed to be put in the water a Thursday or so ago, then Monday, now tomorrow. Amazing how long things take…

Wayne got the solar charger out of the galley hatch and emptied the battery compartment. Little by little… He put the Bad Boy antenna on the pole to the wind generator and got the isolator attached to it. Boy I hope that the isolator works. The noise that the wind generator makes, sometimes goes right through me. It never seems to bother Wayne, but because it’s never the same pitch, it can definitely keep me awake all night. I don’t think he ever believed how irritating it could be and probably thought I was just being a whiney female until a couple of our friends commented on it when they came aboard. Sometimes it helps having confirmation. Anyhow after he got the wires out, isolator on, Bad Boy Wireless attached. Then we got the blades put on the wind generator and got her raised after dropping a nut. Oops! Ping… as it bounced off the deck and 15 feet below to the ground. Hold the wind generator up and I’ll go find the nut. Down the ladder Wayne went to search for the nut. I can’t find it. This one is not it. He showed me one 1/2 the size of the one we dropped. But hey we have another stainless steel nut for something. I can’t see it. You try. Okay. Your turn to hold the wind generator. Wandering below the boat in search of a nut towards dusk… I noticed that the people were sitting aboard the boat in front of us. We were their evening entertainment. Mhmmm… Raise the wind generator. Lower the Wind Generator. Hold the Generator while I fix this. Okay, blades on. Okay, up we go. Down we go. Oh no… we dropped a nut. Down the ladder. Found the nut. Back up the ladder and the wind generator is finally up. Oops dropped the wrench… sigh… well the good news is, we’re not in the water so we can retrieve the wrench… unlike the one we dropped in the water last time. Not rewired yet, but the wind generator is up. Wave to our audience watching our antics and smile. Mmmmm…. not only are they having their sundowners, but they’re grilling something that smells wonderful! Steak? Chops? Chicken? Not sure but dang it smells good. mmmmmm… What’s for dinner aboard Kolibrie? Think I’ll make a bologna sandwich.

Hmmmm… I don’t think we’re ready to go into the water tomorrow. I wonder if Wayne will do rock, paper, scissors with me to see who goes to the office to tell Ann to back us up another day or so…
We also need to go see Eric about helping us change the impeller. I think he may have forgotten us or they could just be backed up with Jesse in the hospital. When we saw Jesse last Thursday or Friday he disappeared half way through the day and we found out later that he had appendicitis so things are backing up in the boatyard without him. Hope he’s feeling better though. Ouch, ouch, ouch…

Monday, January 9, 2012 Life in the BoAt YaRd...

Well Wayne finished varnishing the teak on Sunday and started waxing the hull and managed to finish waxing it today. The guy on the boat in front of us exclaimed “You should post a warning to wear sun glasses in the vicinity of your boat”. “It’s that shiny”. I was wondering what the sunglasses was about that Wayne was wearing… Guess I shouldn’t have asked…

Sunday, January 8, 2012 Life in the Boat Yard

Hmph…

Looks like it was a good game last night. But!

The Lions lost…

Enough said…

Wayne’s waxing the hull today so I’m trapped up on the boat. Good day to journal and bleach some of the fungus that seems to permeate things around here.

I decided that it’s time to make my first dinner aboard so made a wonderful pork roast with apple sauce and potato salad. Tastey.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

While Wayne is still Varnishing, I decided it was a good day to go to Walmart for “stuff”. Half way there, the phone rang and I thought it was Wayne. I told him to call me if he needed anything. It wasn’t Wayne, but Stephanie :) It was good to chat with her and catch up on how she was doing and how Rob’s recouping, along with how the boys are doing… I sat in the parking lot chatting with her for a while.

Once inside Wally World I found some shorts $4.00 (Wow!), Dramamine, veggis, and other items along with the all-important dessert for the potluck dinner tonight. I was after another carrot cake or Key Lime pie but found the cutest little miniature cupcakes – turtle, red velvet, and carrot cake. I couldn’t resist. I guess the other cruisers couldn’t resist either because for dinner there were miniature cupcakes galore! We sat with Lee from Passage and Ron and Jolene (Thyme Hyssop & Wry). I looked for Klaus and Barb (Klabara) but never saw them. They said that they made it there though. Moose made chicken legs and wings and we had some sweet candy stick corn that was locally grown along with all the wonderful side dishes and multitude of miniature cupcakes LOL. The Lions were playing the Saints tonight in the playoffs. As much as I wanted to see the Lions, the game started at 8pm though so I didn’t stay to watch it. I probably wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes open to watch it (as much as I wanted to). Jolene had shared more wine with me tonight – a cranberry wine – tart, but good and I was feeling its effects. I did get to meet her little cat though before heading back for the boat. They have a little seal point Siamese and he’s sooo pretty. When I first went on board and saw him, the light hit his eyes and they actually looked lavender! Wow! But as he came out to investigate me, I noticed they were a beautiful turquoise color. What a little sweetie!

Friday, January 6, 2012 Life in the Boat Yard....

What a delightfully picturesque morning.

Temperatures are in the mid-30s and there’s a fog covering the boatyard.

Brrrr… Climbing down the ladder, my hands registered shock at the cold metal and wet dew hanging from the ladder. Maybe I should head back up the ladder and climb back into my warm bed. Nah… My bladder is saying “look, I’m full; you’re subjecting me to icy water and cold metal on the body, not to mention the goose bumps crawling up your skin… When ya gotta go, ya gotta go, so quit being a baby and RUN to the bathroom. It’ll probably be warmer…”

My bladder and brain lied… the bathroom wasn’t any warmer and the toilet seat was a definite shock to the tush!

Brrrrr….. Walking back (at a brisk pace) I looked around the work yard and storage yard. Wow! It looked ghostly with fog shrouding the boats. I was wishing I’d brought my camera with me. Soooo I did what any person with a picture taking addiction does… Back up the ladder to find the camera, then back down the ladder (screw the cold, damp chill in the air).

Snap. Snap. Snap…

Even though my teeth were chattering, my body seemed to forget that I had goose bumps on goose bumps as I wandered the boatyard snapping pictures. Hope some of them came out. As a bonus, I found a rock by the barbwire fence. At first I thought it was a rhombohedra yellow calcite but on picking it up I discovered that what I thought was a rhomb was actually a lot of little bladed crystals. Pretty. Pocket that one and continue looking at the old boats by the fence. One was an old, wooden, double ender that had definitely seen better days. You could see through the slats that at one time were the rudder. It had to have been a fine vessel in its day but had succumbed to time and neglect.

When I got back to the boat, Wayne was up and drinking coffee in the salon. One eye focused on me and said good morning… Grin. Sometimes he’s so cute when he’s groggy. This was one of those times.

After the fog burned off and the dew dried from the boat, it was time to get to work.

Scrape, tape, varnish…

See about getting that survey…

Bottom paint… we need to have the jack stands moved to finish painting the bottom. Alec came by and moved the jack stands for me so I could paint under them and finish putting the bottom paint on. We decided that I should wait though until after the guy for the survey came out.

The guy for the survey came and checked out the hull around noon, so we have the outer portion that needs to be done (out of the water) and the remaining part will be once we get put in the water. One of the guys in the boatyard asked if we were selling the boat. NO…. Goodness… I may swear at her sometimes (like when we run aground and can’t get unstuck, during storms, and when our anchor drags) but sell her? I’m like a guy with his first car when it comes to my boat! Laughing… We need to have a survey so we can change insurance companies. Our current policy holder will only insure us to the Turks and Caicos. We’d like to go farther… ever farther… from horizon to horizon. I know, I know… next life.

After the surveyor left it was time to complete painting the bottom. One more gallon of Pettit’ Hydro Coat on. Finished! She’s starting to look pretty again from a distance (just don’t look inside or up close).

Thursday, January 5, 2012 Life in the Boatyard

It’s a definite work day, the weather is perfect. Temperatures today are in the 60s to low 70s with a nice breeze. Wayne went back to sanding/varnishing topside and I got the first of the bottom paint on the hull.

I’d picked up a couple of TV dinners yesterday to break in our little alcohol stove and it’s nice to see it still works. One side heats faster than the other (oops I’d forgotten about this) so I switched sides – meatloaf to the other side and stuffed peppers where the meatloaf had been. Hey, it works… both were small portions but after all the good cooking at home this summer we both could shed a few pounds.
Besides, its major work cooking in this galley and after working on the bottom paint, my arms, wrists, hands and neck are screaming at me to stop…
Where’s that aspirin?
Boat’s supposed to go in the water tomorrow.
I don’t think so…
We need to have a survey before it goes into the water so I went to the office to let them know we wouldn’t be ready until Monday.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 Life in the Boatyard

Today was a “running around” kind of day today. We bounced around from place to place after I located and wrote down directions for the various stops we had to make. First stop was to a local Yanmar dealer to get a spare key for the boat. I’d originally ordered one on-line from Torrenson Marine back home after googling Yanmar dealers and spotting a familiar name. Well 6 days after ordering the key, they emailed me back saying I was out of their delivery area and would have to find another Yanmar Dealer. Nice to let me know…a week later… I guess. Glad we weren’t in a hurry or anything… I figured that it would be here yesterday in the mail. Anyhow, I found another Yanmar dealer not far from us that had the key so… $10 for the key and I saved $11 in shipping cost so it was actually a good thing that Torrenson wouldn’t ship to Florida :) Next up – GTO wire for the SSB… We went to several electrical supply places and a Marine Electric shop and after several recommendations, which didn’t pan out, someone recommended we try Radio Shack. The guy there decided to give Wayne a speel on how he just doesn’t understand how all these guys that spend millions (???) on these big mega yachts can’t just go to a marine electrician to get their parts… why do they want to spend their money on parts that aren’t made for saltwater and why are they such tightwads… yadda, yadda, yadda…” I was in the back of the store looking at wireless stuff and gadgets and then decided that I didn’t much want anything from here. First, we have a small sailboat that while it might be worth a million bucks to me in my heart, wouldn’t fetch close to $100,000 or maybe $50,000 let alone $1,000,000.00 Who is this guy to get off lecturing a prospective customer? Anyhow after a few more trips we finally found the GTO15 wire at Flamingo Sign. They make neon signs and a host of other type of signs there. I actually wouldn’t mind working there, it looks like a neat place to use graphic skills…

Next it was Sam’s Club for some provisions, then Walmart for a few items, and I think we’re both zonked from running around today. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer so it’ll be back to boatwork.

Tuesday, January 03, 2012 Life in the Boatyard

Wayne was dreaming of scaring the kids and roared in his sleep – scaring me awake at 1:00am! I guess he was dreaming about jumping out of the closet to scare them when they were little. Brrrrrrrr… It’s colddddd this morning. It seemed like I’d just gotten back to sleep when the phone rang at 5:45am… I forgot that sub-service was still calling me which means that I needed to turn off my phone until I got up and notified them that I’m no longer in Michigan. I got up and was going to make coffee and find Wally - the little Wally World heater we got a couple years ago (when our Espar heater ceased to work) - and discovered that we had no power. So I had to empty the little electric pot and turn on the alcohol stove and dig out the ole metal, stained with soot, coffee pot. I was glad that I’d already filled the alcohol canisters in the stove. Time to get used to using the stove again :)  Next, I went topside to check our electrical connection in the boat – it looked securely connected; next down the ladder to check the connection at the electrical pole. I never realized how cold a metal ladder is when the temperatures go into the 30s. Add to that thin t-shirt, sleeper shorts, and wet sandals and brrrrr…. The connections looked good from what I could see at 6:00am. It was still dark out. Back up the ladder after jiggling the wires and still no power. Screw it – it’s too dark and cold to keep running back and forth up – above deck, below deck, then up and down the ladder. Plus if I wanted to conserve what heat was in the boat I needed to close the companion way hatch each time. That’s kinda noisy activity in the quiet twilight - which would tend to wake up not only Wayne (if he’s sleeping) but the fellow boaters next to us.

After coffee and running down my computer batteries, it’s back to bed where it might be warmer. 43 degrees brrrr… the word for the day – brrrrr….

After Wayne got up, it was down the ladder for him to see if he could get the electrical working… no luck. Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle… anything yet? Nope. Now? Nope. He went to get his multi-meter… No luck switching sockets and couldn’t get a reading from the multicenter. He plugged the jig-saw into various sockets. No luck. Steve was in the yard now and said he’d check the main switch.

It had tripped.

With everyone running heaters etc… Last night the main was tripped. So if it happens again Steve showed me where to reset it on the main board. Back into the boat and the little heater is now dug out and putting out a bit of heat in the cabin. Yay!

I found my missing journal notes from last year. It might be a good day to catch up and write in my journal if it’s going to be too cold to put on bottom paint (it should be here today). Wayne tried to change the impeller and after both of us trying to get at it we decided to see if Eric could send someone to get it done for us. Maybe Thursday or Friday but definitely not tomorrow. The boat yard is starting to get busy again after the holiday.

Monday 1/2/12 Life in the Boatyard

Today was a day of sanding, varnishing, and general work in the Boat Yard.

Wayne continued working on sanding & varnishing the rub rails topside. He cut out a piece of wood to replace the piece of floorboard we left at home (wouldn’t be normal if we remembered everything). I sanded parts of the floor, worked on routing out the floorboard that he cut (it sits around the mast), then staining and varnishing it. It’s not good to have a hole in the floor you can step into in the dark. So this piece, while it doesn’t quite match the teak floor, will do until we can get the other piece back to the boat.

During breaks, I kept going to the office to check to see if our bottom paint came in. At the end of the day after chatting with Ann I discovered that “duh…” today was the holiday for New Years. So… no deliveries, no mail, no banks open today. I asked her about emergency numbers to call in the event of an emergency and got the local sheriff’s phone number (597-2101). I’d told her why I wanted it (last year with the gas in the water, this year the couple’s spat/fight). After telling her what happened, she thought I should tell Scott about it since I hadn’t seen the young man involved, only the young lady. Maybe Scott could go and check on them to make sure everything was okay!

Temperatures are supposed to dip down to the 20’s tonight as the cold front comes through. Brrrr… time to get the snuggies out… If the temps stay low, we may not be able to get the varnishing and bottom paint done on time to be launched. We’ll see. It’s Dee Steffano’s for pizza and beer/wine for dinner tonight.

January 1, 2012 Life in the boat yard…

January 1, 2012 Life in the boat yard…

The last year was actually pretty good to us, so I can’t really complain. This year we’re starting the New Year, not with the pirates and friends of last year in Ft. Lauderdale, but in the boatyard. Working on the boat! Getting ready for this year’s adventures... I’m hoping that the wee hours of this morning aren’t a harbinger of things to come.

The boatyard is an eclectic mixture of people from different places and with different lifestyles. Some of us are gregarious souls, and others quite private. It’s the differences and sameness that makes it such an interesting place. There’s always someone new to meet, and if we’re lucky, old friends to meet that were once new friends in the boatyard. About 5pm, last night, we headed over to the patio area to enjoy a wonderful dinner, to celebrate the old year, with fellow cruisers. We met old acquaintances, new acquaintances and an interesting mixture of folks that live and visit here. Most of us have a transient lifestyle in the boatyard, but, not all of us. I love the Saturday night, get-together barbeques that the marina sponsors for its guests. They’re wonderful. They supply the meat and everyone else supplies the accompaniments. When we were here last time, Steve did the grilling. This year – it’s Moose. For the New Year’s Eve dinner the marina had London broil and baked potatoes with all the trimmings imaginable for those potatoes! The appetizers, different salads and desserts that everyone brought (I brought a carrot cake) was a delight to the eyes as well as the stomach. To cap off the dinner and evening, the marina also supplied different sodas and quite a few bottles of champagne! We met and ate dinner with another couple from Michigan. I discovered that she and I share a common interest! Rocks!!! I loved it! Jo is a fellow Lake Superior cobble/agate enthusiast! She’s looking for a book on Lake Superior. I need to remember to look at my books and get her the title of those two Michigan books… note to self – on returning home email the title of the 2 volumes dealing with a history of Michigan. Look for the Superior book too. Old fuddy-dud that I am – we called it a night about 8:30/9pm. Guess I’m last of the big time partiers. Jo wanted to share some champagne with me over dinner & I said just a little. I think I ended up splitting the bottle with her, so I was ready to call it an early night after sharing tales of rock collecting around Michigan and other various places.

I woke up about 11:30 and dozed back off again and didn’t wake up until someone’s car alarm went off around 2am, then 3:15am. Around 3:30am I heard what sounded in the distance a young girl screaming but it sounded so far off… I listened for a few minutes and my entire body became alert. It sounded like someone screaming for help and I heard… my mom… oh my god… help… my mom… I sat up trying to hear where it was coming from and couldn’t quite pin point it. Thought it might be one of the houses in the distance. Then it became louder with a girl yelling and screaming to get away from her. It sounded closer now, maybe in the boatyard. I thought about calling 911… then questioned that… surely someone was going to help her? The screaming continued… If I call 911, will it go to here? Or will it go to my home area code since I’d be using my cell phone? I wasn’t sure what to do… as these thoughts went through my mind nobody seemed to be coming to her aid … Was someone attacking her? Why wasn’t one of the other boaters awakened to come to her aid? If this was my daughter, I’d want someone to help her. She sounded close now. I threw on my pants and t-shirt. Down the ladder I went… I wasn’t sure where I was going, but followed the screaming to the next isle of boats down from us.

A small, frail female with shoulder length frizzy dark hair was standing outside a truck, with not much on other than a t-shirt and boxers. She reminded me of Laura standing there like that barefoot and in boxer briefs, but only for an instant. She was banging on the window and crying/screaming at the truck that nobody deserved to be treated that way. He didn’t have the right to hurt her head. I came up behind her and asked if she was okay? Still weakly crying and hitting the window: “NO, I’M NOT OKAY!” I asked how old she was and did she need any help… She said she was 26, which shocked me since she only came up to my shoulders and looked so tiny. She said, she’d be okay if only she could get some sleep with him. She was crying and saying that he hurt her hands and nobody had the right to harm another person, that it wasn’t right. He’d pushed and hurt her head. I asked her if there was somewhere she could go, if there was someone she could call? She said no, there’s no-one… just him and that didn’t give him the right to hurt her. She just wanted to sleep. “Do you want me to call the police?” “Yes. Call the police.” I headed toward the office area to see if there was a phone or someone there that could help. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t know if there was a phone or phone number that was accessible for help. I didn’t see anyone but one man snoring away in a chair, oblivious to the world, or a phone but thought there was one there, somewhere.

After searching the office area and other parts of the boatyard I returned to the truck. She was still yelling at the truck and I was still trying to get an idea of what happened. The back truck door opened and a young man, also thin, with longish light brown hair and a sparse beard/mustache was looking at me. I said: “I don’t know what’s going on here, but when I hear a young girl calling for help, I have to respond” He thanked me and told me they’d had too much champagne at the dinner/party and she started screaming at him. You hurt my fingers, and head and she was yelling that “he was pulling out my hair”. “Nobody deserves to be treated like this.” She then launched into him pulling his hair and grabbing the skin on his back, hard. She screamed something about just because he has her on this f-ing island… He started asking her to stop, and I tried to pull her off him then thought better of it and was amazed that he didn’t launch back into her. I thought she started to settle down but she started screaming again that she’d be better with some sleep. With him…??? I said that maybe she could get some sleep in the marina office area where the TV. lounge area was? She didn’t like the idea of sleeping outside in the cold. I told her it was warmer inside the lounge area and she could sleep there and calm down. They could discuss things in the morning after sleeping off whatever was going on. She wasn’t having any of it. It wouldn’t be any better in the morning. I just wanted to separate them and make heads or tales of the situation… It sounded like it was some sort of drunken and disorderly domestic squabble and I wasn’t sure of calling the police anymore but thought that if I could get them away from each other, that things would settle down. If she wanted to press charges she still could… She didn’t want to go. So I asked him if he would sleep in the lounge area or boat. I really didn’t want them together at that point. He obviously wasn’t dressed any better than she was and as he looked down at his bare feet, then back at me, I noticed he was crying. He agreed to let her sleep in the truck and he’d sleep elsewhere. She climbed into the truck and he closed the door. He and I both noticed what looked like a prescription bottle, and eye dropper bottle and a plastic syringe (no needle) type instrument on the ground with other items and he proceeded to pick up the items. We talked for a bit and he didn’t seem like he had any intention of hurting her. He kept thanking me profusely for stepping in and referred to me as being his savior? I’m nobody’s savior, but don’t want to see anyone hurt. He asked me my name and where I was from. I told him, and then asked him his name and her name and where they were from. She came out of the truck and screamed at him a couple more times then went back into the truck. I kept trying to get him to go elsewhere and yet listen to him too. He finally said he’d sleep in the boat, after I said it would be better if they slept apart tonight. They both seem to think that it’s over. He said they’d gone through this before – last New year’s. They’ve been together about a year but it sounds like it’s about over now. She screamed at him that she didn’t love him anymore and that seemed pretty clear… He apologized profusely for causing a ruckus and waking up the boatyard. He kept trying to tell her that she was sharing their business with everyone here. All he wanted to do was to be able to fit in to this community. He couldn’t believe I was the only one to help. He was feeling ashamed and commented on how vulnerable he felt several times. I finally got him to go up into his boat and as things quieted down, I returned to mine at 4:30am. I noticed Wayne up top looking for me and we both went back to bed but I must admit, I had one ear at alert. I don’t know how, but I did manage to doze back off at some point… When I woke again, it was light outside.

Happy New Years? I thought about how we’re all vulnerable and yet at the same time can be all powerful too. It’s an interesting thought - how each of us can be so powerful and yet so vulnerable at the same time.

Welcome to 2012… Life in the boat yard.
We all have our stories...
Yep…

December 31, 2011 The end of an old year...

I’m not sure how the last year got away from me but going back to my blog I noticed that my last entry was January 2011. Yikes! Somehow I never got back to it and here it’s about to become January of 2012!!! Okay…. New Year’s Resolution #1… Keep up with my journal this new and coming year. It might not be every day, but I’m resolving to keep up with it! While I’m at it, I’ll try and post items when I can to flush in the missing parts of 2011… Hopefully it won’t be too confusing.


This past year seemed to zoom by me in a blur! New recipes, conch horns, sea beans, shells, and sand; new friends, old friends, relatives, and deaths… I have to keep reminding myself that death is the outcome of life, and life is never clean-cut or always easy… sometimes it can be hard and downright painful. I think that’s how it gives you a reminder that you’re alive and to live your life. You’re the only one that can. Each one of us is responsible for living our own life and becoming the person we want to be. I find that I often wonder if either of my parents was ever proud of me or the woman that I’d turned into. You really can't control what others think so... I’ll never really know. Somebody once said that “Each day is a gift”. And, so it is.