“Fruition Departing!”

“Make all necessary preparations for getting underway!”  For all you Navy pukes, those words mean that you’re heading out to sea, real soon.  For us, it means that tomorrow morning will find us underway for this cruising season.  We don’t have everything finished on our work list (we never will), but this 4-day weather window is just too good to pass up.

"Fruition" sitting pretty from the boatyard, as seen from
our apartment balcony.

Since the yard period took longer than we had hoped, we’re going to hustle during our travels this week.  We’re going to cram 4 normal travel days into two looooong days. We’ll go for over 100 miles/day, and at our trawler speed (Clint calls us a “crawler”) of 10 mph, it will mean some pretty long days.  Tomorrow we’re going “on the outside” to make a straight shot into Beaufort NC across the ocean (hopefully avoiding the live firing exercises within 15 miles of the coast at Camp Lejeune).  The Intracoastal Waterway has so much shoaling that we couldn’t make it in one day, having to time our passage through many areas for mid-tide or better.  Then Tuesday, we’ll make another 100 miles and anchor somewhere in the middle of nowhere.  If everything goes as planned, we’ll be in Norfolk by Thursday night.

Two events this past week showed us just how quaint and “old-fashioned” this town of Southport NC is.  First, we had to get fingerprinted at the local police station (no, we weren’t being arrested), and the Chief of Police himself was helping us.  That is, until he found that he had run out of fingerprint ink a week or so ago.  I guess that there aren’t many criminals in Southport who need fingerprinting!  Then, we went to a Notary to get some papers witnessed, and the notary did not charge us anything.  She said that, instead, we should make a donation to her project of the week – a local stray pet program!  Some people say that Southport is “stuck in the 1950’s”, but that ain’t necessarily bad.

Imagine hundreds of these B-17's flying bombing
missions over Germany

And then, to provide lots of distraction for me this weekend, the local airport was sponsoring flights on a restored WWII B-17 bomber, and it flew over this marina all weekend.  Every time I heard those four big radial engines coming overhead, I ran to find my camera.  Even though the Navy plane that I flew had only one tiny radial engine, I can still dream, can’t I?

For those who don’t know about our travel plans this summer, we intend to go up the East Coast to NYC, then the Hudson River to the Erie Canal & the Great Lakes, coming south through Chicago & the inland river system eventually to Mobile Bay.  We hope to make New Orleans by mid-November (as long as my credit card holds out!)

Splish Splash…….OOPS!!

The Admiral cleaning the transom, amid the 26" props,
the old paint, and the fiberglass blister repairs.

So today, April 29, we’re finally ready to splash the boat.  All the items on the checklists have been checked (and some of them double-checked), the boatyard has finally completed their work (even though it’s about 7 days later than originally planned), the invoices have been paid (without having to sell my first-born child), the boat is in the slings of the TraveLift, and we set her gently down into the water.

The first coat of new paint, a white to contrast with
the blue topcoat, so we can determine the amount
of wear on the ablative paint.

It is normal procedure that the owner and the workers go aboard immediately to check for leaks, and it was a good thing they did!  We found a through-hull leaking a steady stream of water, in an area where no work was performed.  So, here I am, finally getting the boat back into the water, eagerly awaiting the start of our cruising season, and here’s an unexpected problem that will delay us another day.  What to do?  Do I haul the boat back out of the water (since the boat is still in the slings), or do I ignore the leak, start on a 7 month cruise and hope for the best?  This is an IQ test, children.

We raise her back on the “hard” & begin to repair the through-hull, and plan again for a launch tomorrow.

She's all prettied up with new paint & new anodes & ready to go to town!

Hanging in the slings, ready to get her bottom wet

A fish-eye view looking up the anchor chain

 

View from our apartment, with the double rainbow
after the thunderstorms

We have an excellent weather window coming in 3-4 days that we’d love to take advantage of to begin our cruise, but we’re not sure we can recover from the boatyard activities, move from the apartment back onto the boat, clean the entire boat, provision supplies, and be ready to set sail.  We’re looking at how we can make up for “lost time” based on our original trip plan.  We think we can cruise the 250 miles to Coinjock NC (as the T-shirt says, “Where the hell is Coinjock?”) in just 3 days by cruising 10 hours each day.  We’re also looking at cancelling some planned stops in Chesapeake Bay, but the Admiral is demanding her fill of blue crabs before leaving the Bay.  So, I guess it’s just like anything related to boating; all plans are written in the sand at low tide!

But one thing is for sure.  In less than 7 days, we’ll be underway!

Almost Gonna Start to get Closer to Starting

We’re slowly, but surely, getting closer to cruising!

We’ve been traveling for the past 2-1/2 weeks, away from the boatyard, but we’re headed back tomorrow.  And the best news is that the boat may be ready to splash next Tuesday.

We’ve basically been living out of our car for the past 2-1/2 weeks.  It was packed tightly with our winter coats & clothes & heaters, which we left in Birmingham AL a couple days ago at our storage locker, in exchange for our summer clothes.

We left Southport over 2 weeks ago to first spend a week at a resort in Florida for a lot of R & R.  It was a very relaxing week, and I only got wrapped up in boatyard issues for one day.  Sue thought I had forgotten how to relax and do nothing, but I quickly showed her that old dogs can learn new tricks!

Then we drove our poor little car (now pushing 220,000 miles) to New Orleans, where I had some more MOHS microsurgery to remove 2 spots on my head.  They were not stitched closed, so I now literally have 2 holes in my head, covered tightly in bandages so my brains won’t fall out.  In New Orleans, we also spent time with our son & his family, and our wonderful ideal perfect can-do-no-wrong granddaughter.  Their new house is looking really nice, and may be ready for its new occupants in June.

After stopping in Birmingham to trade clothes, we continued north to Lynchburg TN (a.k.a. “Mecca” for all you Jack Daniels folks) to visit our boating friends Leigh & Clint.  We traded sea stories (most of which were true), and made plans to get together with our boats around October when we’ll be heading south down the inland rivers from Chicago.

The next stop was Chattanooga TN to visit Sue’s mother, who is still holding her own.  We again were invited to stay at Susan & John’s home, even though they were not at home.  Instead, they were traveling in Europe on a long, well-earned vacation.  But John still left me a list of chores to do around the house!

When we get back to North Carolina, it will be Sue’s turn to see the dermatologist in Wilmington for removal of 2 spots of potential skin cancer.  So, as we start cruising, we both will have to change bandages or remove stitches on the other.

It’s been a significant effort to plan our upcoming trip around the eastern half of the US, especially through Canada with their charts, rock-strewn waterways, dollar exchange rates, and Canadian/US Customs.  I can’t imagine how some of these “Loopers” travel the entire loop in less than a year.  I don’t think that I could learn so quickly all the information about charts, navigation, marinas to stay, anchorages to visit, lock operations, water levels, weather patterns, customs requirements, etc, etc  to the point where I’m comfortable heading out each morning.  But by now, we know the boat’s capabilities and our own, and we’re ready to start heading north.

10 Days on the hard so far

10 days since we hauled out the boat, and the yard is pretty slow to get going.  Sue & I have gone from our apartment to the boat nearly every day to work on our list of chores.  Kinda like having a J-O-B all over again! 

We've accomplished nearly all of our chores, while the yard has only spent 1-1/2 days doing their list of tasks.  I reiterated to the manager that we wanted to "splash" the boat about April 23 (only 3 weeks away), so we'll see if they can prioritize any better.

In the meantime, we've decided to drive to Florida for a week to visit friends and for some R & R.  Then we make the "pilgrimage" back to New Orleans for more of my skin cancer surgery; and then to Birmingham AL to our storage locker to trade winter clothes for summer clothes; and then to Chattanooga to spend a couple days with Sue's mother (who is a feisty 92 years young); and then finally back to Southport NC.

We're planning about 7 days to clean the boat from the yard period, move back aboard, and finally provision the boat for our cruising.  Planning to make the Great Lakes this summer, coming back south via Chicago and the river system.  If we make it, we'll complete the "Great Loop" when we get back to the Tennessee River & meet up with our old cruising buddies from several years ago.

"On the Hard" in Southport

Sue checking the keel where SHE ran aground. For
some reason, all the paint was missing!

We took the boat down the ICW two miles on Tuesday March 23 to be hauled out.  We tried to time our arrival for slack tidal current, so we could have at least some chance of getting into the narrow slip for the Travelift.  We made it on our second try, so that's not too bad.

A bit of a climb to get aboard!

The haulout went smoothly with no unexpected surprises (like dropping the boat!)  Our initial walk-around showed that the hull was very free of barnacles, so the periodic bottom cleaning which we had done through last summer served us well.  Most importantly, I thought that in general we had fewer large bulging blisters on the fiberglass hull than I've seen on previous haulouts.  Maybe the fact that we've been in cooler waters for the past year (Chesapeake Bay) has reduced the severity of the blisters.  But make no mistake; this boat was built in Taiwan in 1987 (during a time when inferior resin was used in the fiberglass lay up), so it will always have some blisters.

Sue is earning her new title of "Lead Barnacle Buster".
That anode on the prop shaft (near her head) might
need replacing!  The red/blue paint on the keel are
the 3 coats of paint from last haulout.

We spent the rest of the week starting to work through our list of things to do.  The major effort for us is to closely inspect the boat below the waterline for needed repairs.  And then to clean the barnacles and crud from the hull & running gear.  And then to knock off the old zinc anodes & get ready to install the aluminum anodes for use in fresh water this summer.  And then to closely monitor the boat yard workers as they do the chores that I just don't want to mess with anymore.

We'll have just 2 weeks to finish our own list of chores on the boat, before we hit the road again for 2 weeks to Florida, then to New Orleans, then to Birmingham AL, then to Chattanooga, and finally back here.  Still hoping to splash the boat around April 22, but I have yet to see a schedule from the yard.  Just hope my yard experience doesn't turn into a nightmare like John & Susan's boat in Mobile AL.  Their original 3 week yard period turned into a 9 week horror story!

Southport, North Carolina

The Admiral is back in charge!

We’re on the road again!!  After returning from Florida, we spent only a short week on the boat before we left our winter home in Little River, South Carolina, and headed north to Southport North Carolina.  (yeah, sometimes even we get confused which way we’re headed!)  It has been three years since we’ve hauled the boat out to check the fiberglass blisters and paint the bottom, so we’ve scheduled a 4-5 week yard period.

A mess of Anhinga birds sunning on the dock canopy

We had a weather window on March 18, so we got underway to take advantage of the tidal currents.  In doing so, we ended up traveling on the Intracoastal Waterway across some ocean inlets (that continuously have shifting shoals) at low tide – which means “skinny water”.  We were so focused on recording depths across the inlets that we maybe possibly might have strayed outside the channel just a wee bit, and started plowing through the soft bottom.  Sue, who was driving, said “Something doesn’t feel right” and I responded “Because we’re aground!”  Luckily we were able to plow forward back into deeper water, with no apparent damage (which we’ll confirm next week when we haul the boat).  Oh well, as they say, “there are only two kinds of boaters:  those who have been aground, and those who are going to go aground!”  At least we hit bottom on our first trip of this year, so we got it out of our system & we can check that off our list!

Sunrise along the ICW from our aft sundeck

This Monday we plan to go 2 miles to the boatyard, where we’ll be on the hard for hopefully no more than 5 weeks.  We have big travels plans this season, so we need to be heading north by May 1.  We’ve brought several credit cards with us & closed out two checking accounts in hopes of paying for all the yard work that is needed.  BOAT = Break Out Another Thousand.

We’re spending a couple days now unloading all our stuff from the boat, since we can’t live on it while it is out of the water.  The best part is that Sue was able to rent an apartment right here at this marina, so we only have to transport our stuff a couple hundred yards.  Then, 5 weeks from now, we get to reverse the process!  Ain’t boating fun?!?

We’ll see what condition the hull is in next week.  Should make for some interesting photos and an interesting time!

Reunion

Jacket weather at St Augustine Beach, doing what
we do best

As we’re sitting around this coooold winter, pretending to be busy, we keep seeing how warm the temperatures are in Florida.  Sue starts talking to our boating buddies who used to keep their boats with us at “Hell’s Bar” marina outside Chattanooga, and the idea of a reunion creeps into the conversation.  We hadn’t been together as a group in about 3 years.  Two of the couples (Roger & Laura and Ken & Betsy) have already been smart enough to move to Florida, but the other two of us (Clint & Leigh and Sue & yours truly) still try to freeze our patooties in the middle of the country.

Eating our way around St Aug

So Sue gets busy on the internet, and finally finds us a nice big beach house to rent for a couple days on St Augustine Beach.  We set the dates for the reunion as March 5-9, and, wouldn’t you know it, a strong cold front comes through the area on March 5!

Just before the get-together, we are saddened to hear that Laura had a death in the family, and she & Roger will not be joining us for the reunion.  The rest of us missed them terribly during our few days together.

Sue shucks her first oyster!
(say that quickly 3 times!)

The other 3 couples tried to live up to our reputations, as we ate and drank our way around St Augustine.  Clint & Leigh were our guides, since they had been in the area several times.  We ate at all the good restaurants (and one not-so-good).  We went to the cold beach & squished some sand between our toes.  We told one sea story after another (some of which were actually true).  But most of all, we re-connected with each other and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.

It was a great way to break out of the winter doldrums.  There will probably be another reunion of the “Hell’s Bar Yacht Club”.

Acting like tourists in St Aug

Main tourist attraction

The crews of M/V Fruition and S/V Nemo

And then, on our drive back north from St Augustine, we stopped outside Savannah to visit ANOTHER boating couple who we traveled with last summer from North Carolina and around the Chesapeake Bay.  Bill and Jeanie from their S/V Nemo met up with us several times at several different places around the Bay, and helped us eat many many crabs.  They were just launching their boat for the spring, and will probably be heading north for the summer again.  It was great breaking bread with them again!

 

The definition of "contentment"