Failure to Launch

It sounds cute when it's a fun filled movie complete with quirky characters and popular actors, but for cruisers the term Failure to Launch isn't fun at all.

Today was the day we were supposed to put the Knotty Cat in the water and make our great escape.

It didn't happen.

I'm probably partially to blame for this as last night I bemoaned the fact that unlimited hot baths, comfortable king size beds, and being able to jump into a car at a moments notice was soon to be history. Be careful what you wish for.

Yesterday when we initially visited the Knotty Cat I was relieved to have overcast skies and cool temperatures since we would be working outside for most of the time. I have to admit though that even with these conditions we were still sweating at the end of the day (that damn Florida humidity just never goes away) and I hoped today would be just as cool.

At 9 AM this morning, just as I was drying my hair (when will I learn that any attempt at taming my hair in Florida is a direct invitation to trouble?), the marina called to inform us that all launches for the day were being cancelled due to the weather. We looked out the window and, Holy Crap! We could barely see the whipping palm trees through the slashing rain. And just to make things more interesting there was a tornado warning until 5 PM. You can imagine what Wilbur thought when Hans took him out for his morning constitutional. So then another decision had to be made. We'd used up the last of our credit card points for this hotel room which meant we'd have to come up with cash for tonight. Or we could try for a room at a hotel where we still had some credit. The hotel with the credit had just one room remaining and would only accept pets under 25 pounds. And while Wilbur has been on an odd kind of hunger strike lately, no way could we diet him down to that weight in one day.

This doesn't even do justice. Outside our hotel window. It just dumped rain.

My jeans were soaked nearly to my knees after trekking through Walmart's parking lot. It rained so hard a frog leaped into our car when Hans opened the door. We don't pick up hitchhikers so out he went!

So we ponied up the money for one more night here and then went on a provisioning run.

Provisioning. It kills me. I don't like shopping to begin with but starting from scratch yet once again...it drives me nuts! Salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, coffee, do I need sugar? flour? Not really so I'll skip those for now. Lunch meat, bread (Hans and I never agree about bread, but since I was the one shopping... he had to sit in the car with Wilbur), condiments? I bought mustard, laundry detergent (there went a chunk of change), back to the spice section for cumin and chili powder (no way can I make chile without those), TV dinners for tonight (yay for hotel room microwaves), and on and on. A couple of hundred dollars later I was done and I've barely scratched the surface, but it's a start.

We've been told to arrive at the boat yard as early as possible tomorrow as they will now have two days worth of boats going in the water. It's a long drive and arising before the crack of noon isn't my thing.

Why do I have a feeling there will be a long line ahead of us and it won't make a bit of difference when we get there.

Oh, one more thing. I've lost count of how many posts I've written about our (completely outdated yet thank god we have them or we'd be totally screwed) solar panels. If I've said it once, I've said it a bazillion times; we've nearly lost them too many times and we need to be more careful with them yada, yada, yada.

Did we learn any lessons? Apparently not, because after putting up all our canvas (dodger and bimini, and aren't they just wonderful 'wind catchers'? I'm glad we didn't remove our hurricane straps) before we departed the boat yard yesterday, we also decided to leave the solar panels out in order to 'juice up' the batteries. Sure!! Because one day of solar power is really gonna make a big difference after not being used for nearly seven months! Duh!

So once again I'm not looking forward to what we may find tomorrow.

 

Wilbur loves his new nest and would prefer to stay

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The push is on.

And that push being; our decision to cruise to the Bahamas.

We spent our Easter Sunday with Hans sweating in the engine room, and me sorting through my stash of dog collar hardware (I do admit to sneaking in some selfish time perusing all the new-to-us books I picked up at the exchange library and I'm absolutely giddy over some of my finds). At the end of the day Hans managed to replace a lot of ground wire connections along with two new transmission oil dip-sticks, and I had a bag full of sewing stuff to take ashore today where I fashioned a new leash and harness for Wilbur in between doing a couple of loads of laundry. Alas, the harness is a tad too big but can be easily fixed.

When we decided to spend an additional week here in Boot Key Harbor we thought we had tons of time to get some loose ends tied up. Every night we'd discuss what we would need to accomplish the next day and then for some reason the next morning those very tasks didn't seem to get done because some other matter would take precedence. But, all of a sudden we are down to a couple of days and even more stuff has cropped up. One thing I hadn't counted on was the propane tank to my stove crapping out on me. When we were living in a marina I could get one of those suckers to last me over six months. This one lasted two. This is a direct result of constant heavy winds making it impossible for me to use our grill and therefore relying solely on our stove. We are very thankful to have a place to fill our propane here and this morning, in addition to a much needed liquor run, we got that out of the way (and don't think crossing a four lane highway with a full tank of propane sans a traffic light isn't exciting).

First and foremost: every day Wilbur needs to go ashore for some much needed sniffies. This dog has been in his glory here, and as soon as our sun screen and my orange dry bag make their appearance Wilbur becomes unglued and starts snorting, huffing, and pacing. Surely some other dog on some other boat has dared to piss where he's pissed and he. will. not. stand. for. it. So, ashore we go with him because he's our baby and that's how it is.

And then there was the morning I knew if I didn't do something about my hair the world just might as well end. Hans and I spent an hour and a half of sweaty labor pulling my hair through one of those bleach caps with a crochet hook (if Hans ever wanted to exact some revenge upon me, that would have been the time), and after all that fun I took a pair of rusty scissors to the whole mess. Actually, the result wasn't all that bad and I saved us about $90.00 (the going rate here in this area).

One day I boldly made the slightly over one mile trip to Winn-Dixie by myself. I discovered, via my trusty luggage cart, that my duffle bag full of groceries, two 24 packs of beer and four 12 packs of soda, weigh a lot more than the 8 rolls of paper towels and the 4 rolls of toilet paper I'd hauled the day before. Yesterday, as a couple, Hans and I made a huge provisioning run to Winn-Dixie and filled two carts to the absolute max. We then ended up in line behind a couple who tried to pay for their purchases with an out of state check. With her french manicure, the cashier clacked and clacked at the touch screen, but the transaction wouldn't go through. After much more clacking, she got on the horn and called for help. When another call for help went out Hans very politely informed me that he'd been in line ahead of this out-of-state-check couple but had lost his place when he had to rescue me from floundering down the wrong aisle in search of more sun-screen.

My very first 'easy' run

 

Hans had departed the dinghy dock and took the first half of our haul to the Knotty Cat while I waited for him to come back and pick me up along with the remainder of our groceries (from our taxi run)

Even though we were waiting in line with refrigerated items and knew our taxi was due to arrive any second, I wasn't nearly as distraught as the young lady rushing about and hysterically waving her arms around with her mini-cart of groceries and wailing, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! I only have a half hour before I need to get back to work!" Unfortunately for her; Jesus, Mary, and Joseph never did arrive to help, but, Jesus (pronounced Haysoose), Maria, and Jose, did arrive at our checkout and even after more collective clacking they could not resolve the out-of-state-check issue. In the meantime the out-of-state-check couple continued to stand placidly by without ever seeming to understand that what they were trying to achieve just wasn't going to happen. It was just about the time the holy trinity was ready to cry uncle and call in the Federal Reserve that the out-of-state-check couple got with it and the wife grudgingly unlocked her purse and produced a credit card.

The damn finally broke and we all flowed with relief from the Winn-Dixie. And on this particular wave we hope to push on to the Bahamas.

Our cockpit with a miniscule amount of the crap we hope to haul to the Bahamas

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