Life on the hard

October 14, 2016

Beaufort Marine Center

Lets see, I last wrote to you on October 6th, that was 8 days ago.  I can’t tell you how much has been done since then, but I can tell you there has been a lot of work and a lot of play.  We are very thankful to have a port in the storm close by with family.  We had a great time. We watched home movies, played Canfield, had family dinners, and kept watch over the weather.  I had a pedicure with my sister and found a new consignment store.

Real life is going great but we can’t figure out what we should do.  Word is the ICW is a “mess” but we don’t know what that means.  We are still on the hard and would like to do a splash and move to a marina so we can hook up all of the facilities we have on the boat. We have found a couple of great marinas to stay at close to here, of course the cost of staying at a marina would be significantly more than staying on the hard. So here we sit for now. Tomorrow we are going to call the Coast Guard to see what they have to say about traveling south on the waterway.  

We have a lot of work to do on the boat and a lot that has been done.  For those of you that have boats you will recognize the list and agree that when this list is worked on it will only get longer.  I know a chant that boaters do is “there is always something”.  Well here is our something.  I am telling you simply because I want sympathy and for you to be impressed.  

The List

1.paint the bottom of the boat

2.scrape and poly the rub rail

3. wash down the entire boat after it being left out to the elements for 5 months and from      Hurricane Matthew

4.wash windows

5.clean the inside of the boat

6.spray bimini with sun protection

7.put the bimini and side curtains up

8.spray paint increments on the anchor chain

9.wash the dinghy and spray it to protect it better in the sun
10.put up the rest of the head liner

11.Rob finishes installing the Ubiquiti (Wi-Fi antenna)

12.loading the boat with all the STUFF we brought from home (I can't imagine how many steps I made up the ladder to get everything in the boat)

13.wash the fridge to spotless

14.shop for provisions that don’t need to be cooked while we are on the hard

15.empty the three water tanks that hold 75 gallons each

16.fill all three water tanks with added bleach to clean them out

17.drain the 225 gallons of bleach water

18.fill the three tanks again with clean water

Life isn't that bad

Maggie and I walked the Greenway and found this turtle crossing the path, Maggie was afraid the turtle would be hurt if we left her in the path so she moved her to the side and the turtle headed right back.

Updating

A new splash date is set for Monday October 17, 2016. We considered going to Ocracoke to putts around until we could go south on the ICW. I called Seatow (AAA for boats) and they said that there had been lots of travel on the ICW in the last few days and no one has run into problems.  He did caution us about marker 61A, a green marker near Brown’s Cove.  He said the marker is in the right place but people are not trusting it and they go aground.  The green 61A marker is about 80 ft. off shore and the boat has to pass between it and the shore.

Never a dull moment:

There is a 40' Cat across the dirt road from us.  This is the family that I mentioned in a previous blog.  They had a splash time of 3:00 yesterday and the Travelift came exactly on time, however it doesn’t always go as planned.

The pictures will tell the story the best but the narrative might help.

When the Travelift was moving out with the boat the starboard side front tires sank up to the hub in the mud.  As you can see from the pictures they brought in a large army truck and that didn’t work, then they brought in a front end pay loader. Until the pay loader came 4 men tried to shovel enough dirt out to be able to move the Travelift ahead.  

Friday morning October 14, 2016, the CAT leaves.  Goodbyes were said in hopes of running into each other along the way.

Remember how earlier in this posting I told you the list would get longer?  While trying to lower the anchor chain to paint increments of 10' on it the housing on the boat broke off and we need one to be fabricated locally or try to find a used one from Anchors Away, a used marine items store. We found that the windshield wiper motor will cost around $250.00 but that includes labor.

I think the highlight of Rob's day yesterday was getting to drive the yard golf cart around.

All is not work I had time to show you how to fold and store plastic bags.  For those of you that think we are wasteful getting plastic bags instead of using reusable bags at the grocery store, hold on.  We use the plastic bags to line the waste basket in the heads, that way we don't have to waste money on the boxed plastic bags, brilliant!  We didn't think of it Susan told us about it when we were starting out this adventure.

A lesson in folding bags 

Store on end in a small container so you can just pick one out when needed.  Ruth would be so proud of me!

Another day begins.  If we can't get the housing for the anchor our splash date will be postponed, one can't leave the yard with an anchor that doesn't work.

Have a good day,
If there are typos please overlook them if I don't get this out today I will be another day behind telling you of our adventures.
Tricia

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