Up the mast

When does the Relaxing Part Start?

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while.  We have been very busy doing uninteresting things.  We have gone into the water, but we haven't gone anywhere except for a couple of engine tests, to get diesel and to move to a better dock.  We decided to go through all our systems and to fix everything here in the states while we still have access to our car.  We checked all of our pumps and bilge pumps and automatic float switches and found one bilge pump's motor was dead and one bilge pump had some electrical problems that Arthur had to fix.  While he down in the dregs, I had to find a correspondingly dirty job.  I decided to rebuild our main head (the manual pumping toilet for those of my non-boating friends).  The head is a relatively simple pump and you can buy rebuild kits for it.  They recommend that it is rebuilt every two years, but people seldom do that.  They usually wait until it becomes an emergency fix.  You know, that time, underway when the the bowl is full and you used too much toilet paper and it just won't pump......   Well I wanted to avoid that, and by the way it squeaked when you pumped it, it was way past due.  We already had a rebuild kit on board with all new gaskets and o-rings and such.  It was actually a simple job that took way longer than it should have.  The first time taking something apart is always like that because I read and reread all the directions, making sure that 13A in the diagram  is the same gasket in my hand.  Next time it needs to be done it will take me 1/3rd the time.  How did I become the head mistress??  We also finally tackled the watermaker.  Again for my nonboating friends, a watermater is a reverse osmosis system that basically pumps saltwater through a membrane to get fresh water. I thought for sure we ruined the very costly membrane over the past year by ignoring it and not changing out the winterizing solution from last year.  Arthur spent a whole day rinsing the system and cleaning it with an alkaline cleaner. But wonders of wonders, it works!  We filled our starboard tank with good fresh water, not the brown stinky stuff that comes out of the faucet here.  Another thing holding us back was the dinghy motor.  We decided to test the dinghy since we hadn't used it since the summer.  It magically started the with the first pull, but there was no water pumping out to cool the motor.  We had to rig up a block and tackle to hoist it up to the high dock (we were not on a floating dock at the time).  We managed to get it into the truck and over to a great guy, Larry Holt, in Havelock.  It was the impeller and it took an extra day to get the part.  Our last job (why we waited for it to be our last job I'm not sure) was the anchor light.  I think we just forgot about it.  Last summer while anchoring off  Norwalk, we noticed that our anchor light was out. I remembered this the day before we were planning on taking off and anchoring for the night.  This morning, bright and early, I was hoisted up the mast to check on it.  Arthur tried yesterday to use our self climbing device that we bought this summer, but the main halyard got twisted when he tried to hoist the climbing rope. So, I had to fix that while I was up there also.  I had to be hoisted on the spinnaker line which doesn't quite reach the top of the mast by Arthur and Stephen was working the extra safety line.  I couldn't see to get the light down, but I could reach up high enough to take pictures of it so we could buy the replacement.  This lead to another trip to West  Marine where they know us by name.  Of course, they didn't have it in stock since it is a very pricey item.  How can a light be $500?  I hoisted Arthur back up on the main halyard this time, with Stephen again manning the safety line (he is becoming a pro at this).    Since it was on the main, I got to use the electric winch which was much faster and easier and he was able to get high enough to take it down.  We have to decide if we want to overnight a new tricolored  LED one like we have for Tuesday or to get just a regular anchor light.  The forecast is for rain and thunder storms tomorrow, so I don't think we will be heading up the mast until Tuesday AM anyway.

We are finally in the water!!!!  And suprise - our waterline is not too bad!  Maybe I can go back into the truck and add a few things I took off....

It was a long trip from Core Creek Boat Yard to Jarrett Bay Yard where the lift is.  I am amazed at how smoothly it went.

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Moving Along

Well it stopped raining and we're getting a lot of jobs crossed off our to do list. The kids are having a great time running around the boat yard. They have been carving little boats and sailing them in the mud puddles, and riding around on their scooters. I am soon going into town to look for a laundromat. We are counting this week as their spring break. We are taking our time getting into the water. While we are in the yard, everything is much easier and we have access to our truck. We are having a great time even though we are working very long and hard days.

It's raining again

It's so hard to be motivated to work when it's raining. I would much rather recline and read a good book or knit while listening to one. Wait- I thought that what life would be like now that we've quit our jobs and left our house, but it takes a lot of hard work to get to that point. We still haven't moved onboard. It's been pouring for the last 3 days so we went shopping, got our hair cut, went out for dinner. We are taking advantage of the fact that we still have a truck available. Right now the biggest fiasco is the electric system that we spent thousands on this past summer. Our new inverter is not working so we will have no power to our outlets. The good news is that is under warranty but the bad news is that we have to take it out, send it to them and wait about 5 weeks before they ship it back. We have no idea where we will be in 5 weeks. We can surive without it for a little while and we can have it shipped to the Bahamas. Arthur is messing with - I mean testing and fixing- electrical problems. All the salon cushions are in piles around the boat and electrical boards are pulled out and he needs to find that short in the freezer. I guess it's another night in the motel. That's alright, at least we have TV there and hot water.

We are scheduled to go into the water on Monday. Once we are in the water, we are going to anchor in the vicinity until we test all our systems. That way, we will still have access to our truck if we need to get parts. My main concerns are the watermaker and the autopilot.

Sorry if I haven't answered people on facebook. We've been working all day then the four of us fight over use of the computer at night.

Now for Unpacking.....

We just arrived in Beaufort, NC late Monday night and spent the last two days unpacking. It's rather like putting a puzzle together, trying to get all the pieces to fit. We are staying in a little motel off the ICW in Core Creek. It's just what you'd expect from a motel except it smells a little less moldly than some. We are planning to move aboard in a day or two once everything is put away and I launder the sheets. Morning Glory is on land right now and we try to fix a few things before we go. I would love to post some pictures but we can't find the cable to connect the camera and it's not a standard connection. I may have to have a friend look for it and mail it to us.