Run Aweigh Home

Finally a nice day….. I take off to renew our car rental lease for another week. Susan gives me a grocery store list for a dinner we are making for the Inde’s this afternoon. I return to find out Debbie’s has made flight plans to return to Culpeper in the morning….wow.

Mike is working again on the dingy. He installing the spark plugs I got a day or so ago, finds another fuel filter I need to get, replace some fuel line. I go out again to pickup additional items so we can try to get the dingy started before they take off tomorrow.

Mervin shows up to fill a void in the fiberglass and recaulk a section of flooring on the aft deck. Also tells us that steering problem has been resolved and should be reinstalled Monday. OMG that would be incredible. We may possibly be able to make the Bahamas before the end of next week…..

The engine starts. Not smoothly but starts. We think there are still some carburetor issues that need to be resolved.

 

Mike finds this on a walk…. I think it’s Wilson….

Rainy day…..windy overcast and showers. Mike and I install a new compass in the pilot house and finish tubing supports on the fly bridge. Then we head out to Blue Water Charts to upgrade my paper charts for the rest of the trip. Then Sailorman so Mike can get purchase bronze port lights for his boat. I can pickup a few more 12 volt lighting kits to convert more of our fixtures from halide to LEDs….Then back to Boat Owners Warehouse to return windshield wiper blades that were too short and pick up an off shore flare kit.

Every day we watch monster boats being towed up and down the South Branch of the New River. I need to put a picture here…..

We had thought our boat was big until we got here….

Don shows up today to remove the faulty drive units for the steering…..Mervin starts digging out caulking in the decking to find the leake…..all is well. Mike and I tackle the dingy. Install new battery, start cleaning, get lighting going, etc. everything powers up. Old fuel in the tank needs to be removed. Anchor line and attachments need upgrading, were getting there.

Take off to stores for parts and more filters…..and introduce Mike and Debra to Duffys Bar and Grille and a minor grocery run.

The liferaft is picked up to be inspected and analyzed to see how much money I need to throw at this to make it go away…..can’t wait.

Sorry no pictures help tell this story…….

Mike left Culpeper yesterday to make his way back down here. Debbie told us he would be here early this morning. 5:00ish Debbie calls down the stairs and says Mike is here but security wants to talk to me…..just wanted to check to make sure Mike was one of the crew. I met a couple of the security team here the first night we got here. It’s nice to know someone really is watching after the place……I’m pretty sure we are the only livaboards staying here….

Got Mike in and he went to bed. Susan and I made a pot of coffee and stayed up. Couldn’t go back to sleep.

Mervin showed up and took the wooden stair tread off the cockpit ladder to repair and checked the decking he was trying to dry out. He’s come up with a reasonable plan to repair the wood treads…good news.

I make my call to have life raft recertified. They will send someone over to pick it up, unpack and inspect it,  and let me know what it will cost. The bad news is that the process will take a couple weeks….issues are the age of the raft (8years), my desire to have a case installed to be able to stow the unit on the fly bridge, oh and it’s a six man raft….. We plan on having six guests with us…..plus us equals eight people. So two people will have to swim. Don’t think that’s going to work.

So I’ve asked for a price for a new raft. About $4,000. She is checking price and availability. more bad news.

Im feeling sick to my stomach….really want a smoke, but thankfully grab Susan and head out to find bulk oil and filters to do oil changes on both mains and the generators. I’ve put a little over a hundred hours on them so for. NAPA auto has great prices on all the good stuff for marine engines. We find Duffys Bar and Grille, two for one drinks, all day every day….

Mike awake when we get back and he and Itackle the mains before dinner. A little messy but we get it done.

Up early to review my list of projects……mechanic will be here 8:30ish. Trying to determine what I can do in a week and what I need help with. Mike will be back tomorrow so he can help me.

Don the mechanic and Mervin arrive. Mervin does odds and ends mainly woodworking and finishes and Don does the mechanical stuff. I layout what I need from each of them and they indicate what they need to get started.

Now I’m ready to go out and secure some of the items I need. The really great thing about this area is that there are so many choices for supplies.

Meanwhile….. Our lobster friends are making their final prep for departure.

 

Got here Friday. Spent Saturday securing a rental car, making lists of projects to be completed, finding sources for parts and products……. Our mechanics will be here Monday morning to review the work we need them to do….I am in panic mode….a lot to get done.

There is absolutely nothing around the marina. Lots of graffiti, the houses have metal bars over the windows, and there is a fairly substantial police presence in the neiborhood. Having a car gives us some mobility and take care of business. First…. We need to do laundry. Lots of it. I haven’t been to a laundromat since I was in college. $3.75 for a load of clothes… Omg then the dryers were $.25 per 10 minutes…..and English wasn’t the language of choice. An interesting several hours….

Next a grocery run and booze and of course finding a local bar for happy hour. Flanagan’s half-price drinks all weekend long…..

This waterway we are on has a lot of boatyards and marinas on it. Larger boats are “towed” up and down the southern branch of the New River. Maneuvering the large boats is quite difficult here. We see a dozen or more boats towed past us in a day. Average cost for a one way tow is $1,000.00.

Our new lobster catching friends continued loading their boat for their return trip on Monday. This morning they had delivered 8,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

Building materials, bathtub, gas grilles, freezers, mattresses, it just keeps coming. At one point the boat was sitting on the bottom because of all the additional weight.

Sunday Susan and Debbie met up with one of Susan’s friends and met for a nice lunch….. I spent the first part of the day repairing the bilge pump in the generator room. Turns out I had reversed a couple wires on a float switch.

Sunday aftrnoon we met up with Miriam and Ed Inde for drinks and dinner. The Indes had recently relocated here from Culpeper. Nice time and we got to see the Redskins loose their playoff game…

Debbie was here with us but was too into the game for the picture…

and I’m still not smoking……the urge to twist off the heads of chickens is beginning to subside.

We shove off about 8:35am and head for our first bridge of the day….maybe 200′ from where we tied up last night. I hail the bridge and realize I missed an opening by five minutes…….got to wait til 9:00 to get through.

The forecast called for a high percentage of rain and a good chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Our path today would carry us through the Jupiter area and the Palm Beach areas. Incredible waterfront real estate. As we approached Ft. Lauderdale the mansions and the boats tied up in front of them got bigger and bigger.

In Ft. Lauderdale we have plans to have a few repairs made. A mechanic we contacted made arrangements in a boatyard where he could have access to the boat. Some marinas do not allow work on boats other than their own forces. The yard he directed us to was several miles from the heart of Ft. Lauderdale harbor down the south branch of the new River. The river was narrow and windy and crowded with activity. We crept for what seemed hours . And finally ended up at the Fort Lauderdale Boatyard and Marina.

Pretty crude, no frills, or showers or wifi…….well it is cheap.

Across the dock from us a lobster boat from the Bahamas…. All afternoon and into the night provisions to last three months were carted down the dock and piled onto the boat. They come here three times a year to provision the boat for the lobster season. The boats name is New Wrinkle and was part of a reality show several years ago about the lobster wars in the Bahamas.

We have watched several Uhaul trucks packed full of stuff arrive and stuffed ….

The weather is looking good for the day. NNE 15-18 knots. Slight chance of rain and a fair chance of seeing the sun today.

Mike left the other day to drive back to Culpeper to work for a few days. So I gave Debbie a crash course on line handling yesterday. She and Susan will be handling all the docking duties for the next few days.

We left this morning about 8:00 and crept around the island and back to the channel of the intercoastal.

Within an hour or so of reaching the channel, I had Susan at the wheel and Debbie working the charts and iding markers.

Susan and Debbie did great today….Mike may have lost his job. I bet Susan negotiated a dozen bridges today. She was getting real comfortable at the wheel.

I was real proud of my crew today. They did great.

We stopped at Boynton Beach today. Great restaurant on the waterway and happy hour!!!

still not smoking……when was the last time you saw one of these. $9.00 a pack !!

 

The winds yesterday did not subside and continued to build until sometime after 2:00am this morning. At 10:00pm last night I was on the fly bridge checking the fittings on the canopy to make sure they were remaining intact in the howling wind……by 11:00am the winds were finally subsiding and the rains should subside this afternoon.

Looks like we may get out of here tomorrow. I’m trying to get charting software updated on the laptop today….having issues with manufacturer.

Im making lists for Ft. Lauderdale. Will get the steering system serviced and the dinghy engine operational. I think I rent a car for the week for provisioning.

Still not smoking…..doing lots of walking. Happy hour at Shuckers starts at 3:00……

At 5:00am again searching weather forecasting. Early this morning I woke to the sound of something blowing around in the cockpit. Wind gusts at least 30 knots. The forecast for yesterday’s winds never materialized. But I think today will be a different story. We’ll wait a bit and make a decision.

Still blowing at 10:30. I’m staying put today. I got Susan some bubbly for mimosas and she rewarded me with a Bloody Mary.

i walked through a portion of the island. There are still trailers here but there are a lot of folks “building” new homes in place of the trailers.