Let the Purging Begin

 

 

Hans and I really lucked out on our family trip to Pennsylvania for Christmas this year. We had no issues with snow (there wasn't any), we had sun shine nearly every day (unheard of when I lived there for 50 some winters, and doesn't that just figure), and our return flight (which we found to be completely topsy-turvy and had us leaving St. Louis, Missouri at 6 AM when we were indeed in Pittsburgh?) got straightened out and we enjoyed a smooth trip home.

We managed to stay awake to usher in the New Year and after spending a very lazy New Year's day watching the Twilight Zone Marathon, I decided the next day was time to start cleaning house (or rather boat).

How in hell have we managed to collect so much junk. While living on a boat.

Usually when the urge to clean out the garage (guest berth) hits me, I take one look at the mass of junk accumulated in there and calm myself by mixing a Wilbur Wow-Wow and settling down with a good book. But that just won't cut it anymore since we've decided to cast off our lines this month and start cruising again.

I'm still puzzled over why we have so many blankets, coats, gloves... for people who live in the tropics (because folks that's exactly what Florida is; the tropics), and don't get me started on all the hockey gear we have. Among some of the junk I yanked out of the garage was a massivesleeping bag. "But that's the sleeping bag I used when I lived aboard in New York City during that record breaking cold winter (a bazillion years ago)." Hans told me. It still ended up beside the dumpster (a place for great finds, I should know). Our heavy leather coats are going to get boxed up and sent north to sit in someone else's closet for our next visit as we do not need these in the Bahamas this spring. Since Hans no longer has to report to a desk job, I'm putting his huge Brooks Brothers dress shirts (they really do take up a lot of room) up for auction on eBay although we did hold onto three of them for future dressy functions. Also on eBay will be a size 3 Jessica McClintock cocktail dress (I wore it exactly one time) and a fancy schmancy propane/smoke detector because it needs to be wired electrically to the boat and we don't feel like doing that. We have battery smoke detectors and we're happy with those, and every time I cook we're reminded of how good they are.

Other than a lot more weeding, I need to make another trip up the mast to drain the water out of one of our spreader lights, take down our bimini and dodger in order to clean the mildew off of them and then treat them with 303 so hopefully they don't leak all over us when it rains. Clean, buff, and wax as many outer surfaces that I can reach, meaning not that many, but I'll bitch about it anyway.

At the age of twenty, our VHF radio has become a bit of a prima-donna and while she has no problem listening in on everyone else, she's taken a dislike to bridge tenders and refuses to speak to them. There will be no oil for that squeaky wheel, she's getting dumped like a first wife. We also need a breaker for our water pump (also acting up) since I'm pretty sure Hans wouldn't be able to live with me if that sucker failed.

Days before Christmas, divers replaced our old worn out feathering props with big new bronze props. We took the Knotty Cat out for a spin and she put on quite a show. We found ourselves zooming about at 7.1 knots under power. Our last trip (right before one of our propellors siezed up on us) had us struggling to make 5.

A very tired propellor. It did its job well for nearly 20 years.

The same week we were having fun with our propellors, we had also been wondering where the hell the water was coming from that we would sometimes find under the port engine. There are too many 'things' that could have been leaking, and during one of my stints in the engine room where I love to try out new yoga poses, I did find a very tiny drip on a fresh water hose. We thought that might be it but of course it wasn't. Finally Hans narrowed it down to the raw water impellor. Some people (very handy people) here at the marina told us how we could fix it quite easily by tapping out the wadda-you-call-it, buy a thing-a-ma-jig at the auto parts store, and jam it all back together. We called our old mechanic up north and he told us to replace it. Period. So even though our handy friends laughed at us, Hans went ahead and replaced both of them. I'm not crossing the gulf with something held together with spit and tie wraps.

Today we're getting hauled out in order to get her highness's bottom painted. Again. Of course today is windy and getting out of the slip should be interesting. We will then spend a few days at a luxury (pet friendly) motel where I sincerly hope no one gets murdered in the room behind us like the last time. They did capture the killer (the poor girl's ex-boyfriend) but not before he stole a couple of cars and killed yet one more person.

Now I've got to figure out what to do with all the stuff in our refrigerator since it will be shut off while on the hard. I hope Hans doesn't mind having chicken for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

At least Wilbur will be happy!

 

Wilbur inspects the latest interloper.

 

 

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Thanksgiving on the hook. With a spin.

 

I realize Thanksgiving is long gone (wow, it was over a week ago; an eon these days I daresay). But regardless of how much time has passed I'm going to post now or forever hold my peace (like that's ever happened!).

Two years ago we anchored out for the holiday (I still refer to it as the Turkey Tour) but last year Mother Nature put the nix to a repeat performance so were stuck here in the marina (Oh, the humanity!).

This year, with the weather acting up, we figured if we wanted to spend the holiday at anchor this was only going to happen if we left our slip on Thanksgiving Day in order to zip over to Boca Ciega (a whole 45 minutes away), drop the anchor, and get to cooking. Luckily, I baked our apple pie on Wednesday and was trusting my pressure cooker/fabulously new fun toy, to allow me to get a full Thanksgiving meal on the table in a timely manner.

Even though it was pretty windy here in the marina I managed to get us out of the slip without mishap (this is an important detail considering what happened later). While we were motoring over to our trusty achorage we were a bit surprised at how slowly the Knotty Cat was slogging along. Hmmm, the tide must be working against us (a favorite excuse of ours) we thought (even though the wind really should have been giving us a boost). As for me, I didn't care about the wind or the tide dammit! I had a turkey breast to cook.

Honestly, I'm really looking at the chartplotter! And I got all kinds of crafty with my photoshop stuff here.

It was extremely windy when we anchored and Hans tried to convince me that our wind generator would supply our batteries with ample juice until the next day and that I should start cooking 'right now'! I knew that no way was 'Windy' going to keep up with our activities and insisted that we unfurl our portable solar panels. The only problem with that plan is that in all the years we've had these solar panels we've never really come up with any kind of permanent solution for keeping them from blowing overboard. And so we put dinner off for an hour or so while we came up with a solution. I dug out some sailcloth, brass grommets, duct tape, and got to work. We completed one panel (we have two) and I deemed this enough to get through at least one night because dammit! I had a turkey breast to cook!

Sail cloth glued underneath each panel with brass grommets at the corners. We tied the panels to whatever was handy; cleats, life lines... We had a lot of wind but thankfully these guys stayed put.

 

I started dinner much later than I'd intended but luckily my pressure cooker saved the day (oh, don't think there isn't a huge pressure cooker post a'comin' because there is!!).

My new toy is on the left. It's magical.

 

Mashed potatoes. The real deal.

 

Hans is happy, dinner is finally on the table.

 

From start to finish I had dinner on the table in two hours. It included: turkey breast, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and crescent rolls. As I've already mentioned, I'd baked our pie the day before.

 

We ended up enjoying a rather cold and windy yet nonetheless wonderful holiday at anchor, and instead of venturing out into the gulf, we decided the next day, and the day after that to just stay put. For the first time in my life, being lazy turned out to be a wise decision.

 

After a relaxing Sunday morning in the cockpit with our coffee with all the fixin's (I'll never tire of this term for coffee laced with Irish liqueur and whipped creme. And btw, Wilbur won't eat his breakfast on these particular days unless it's also topped with whipped creme; wow imagine that) we decided it was time to head on home so we started the engines.

 

Wilbur and his whipped creme topped breakfast.

 

We weighed anchor the way we always do; Hans on the electric windlass and me at the helm.

"Away!" Hans shouted, so I spun on a dime to starboard in order to head into the channel.

"Let's go that way instead," Hans pointed in the opposite direction. So I throttled the Knotty Cat full speed ahead and cranked the wheel hard to port but the Knotty Cat kept spinning on a dime to starboard as if I'd never changed course.

Hans asked me what the hell I was doing and in order to prove I wasn't nuts I gladly handed over the helm. I watched him (and not without a little satisfaction) struggle with the Knotty Cat's nonsense as she continued to pirouette about the anchorage. Hans wondered if perhaps we'd lost our transmission. He finally figured out that our port engine was working properly but the starboard engine; not so much, so he shut it down.

 

At this point my stomach was in knots but Hans was very calm. We were so busy discussing what might be wrong that we motored right into the middle of what we discovered was a sail boat race (I cringed in horror as Hans calmly crossed astern of a few of them but, once again he was quite calm) and headed for our marina. Wilbur must have sensed my unease and got into the act by pacing and panting in the cockpit. Luckily, he's docked with us so many times he knows when it's time to go below and he couldn't get down there fast enough when we approached our marina.

I'm just incredibly thankful that we came back on a day when the wind was basically non-existent (compared to the day we left!) because otherwise I'm not sure how we would have backed into our (tight) slip on one engine. We were also fortunate that our neighbor was working on his boat and was able to hail the neighbor on his other side to give us a hand. I have to admit, Hans did a calm and admirable job of docking us.

 

The next day as soon as I left the boat to run errands, Hans started up the engines. I'm pretty sure he finds that he can concentrate on the job at hand much better without my yipping at him the whole time. Anyway, when I got home he was quite excited to share this discovery with me; apparently our Knotty Cat is quite the prankster, because the starboard engine now goes forward when shifting in reverse, and in reverse when shifting forward.

Our trusty diver getting into the water to check the propellors.

 

It turns out, our propellors are old, and tired, and need to be replaced. We have feathering props and the one on the starboard side was solidly froze up in a contorted angle (probably like me when I attempt yoga). New propellors have been ordered and they will be of the boring 'standard' kind as opposed to the fancy schmancy feathering kind. Feathering props run around $3,000 each. Not happening here!

 

Once the new propellors arrive, a diver is supposedly going to replace those big stinkers here at our slip as opposed to being hauled out at a boat yard.

 

Why do I feel like that sounds too easy? Probably because I've been there, done that, way too many times.

 

 

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