Life Aboard: Still Here

Still in Morehead City

Lauren came for a visit. I’d like to say she volunteered, but not really. We had told her we’d come to visit her and never set a date. So, Shay told me to call and tell her we’d be down in a day or two. She had picked up something for me in Wilmington and I had picked up something for her here in Morehead. When I texted her she asked how long we would be staying. That’s how we communicate now, by text not by talk. Well, I guess that makes us normal. Anyway, I told her a week or two. Well, I was kidding, but she didn’t know it. She texted me back saying “that’s now an option now. I am working two jobs, a friend is staying with me until her room is ready, my roommate will be back soon, I am still getting settled in and classes start soon”. I started laughing… she thought I was serious and she was seriously against the idea. So… I texted her I was kidding and we would stay a night or two. She texted me back that she would come to Morehead Friday after she got off work. It would be late since she had to work, but she would be here…was she on her on for dinner or would she eat with us? I reminded her that we would come down there but she insisted on coming to us. I think she decided it would be easier for her to leave the boat, than to get us to leave her place once we were there. Anyway we had a good visit. I fixed her blackened shrimp alfredo one night and she said it was good. I thought so too. She and I went shopping before she left and she got some more stuff. She like the coral shorts I had gotten her.

Lauren looks great in her new coral shorts.

On her way out of town she and I went to her favorite…Ruddy Duck and she had her favorite…fish tacos. She commented that she had eaten really well during this visit. Maybe she’ll visit more often if we fed her good.

Lauren in her "cave".

We have been working on more projects recently.

Shay extended the crane. This will make it easier to raise and lower the dinghy.

Engineering in progress.

Shay added a pump to remove water from the dinghy. We have had times that we have had lots of rain during the night or when we were away from the dinghy and the boat has gotten water in it. This could be a big problem, if it rained a lot and messed up the battery. So now we have a pump that will prevent the dinghy from filling up when it rains.

Shay moved the battery and fuel tanks in the dinghy. They were in the back of the dinghy and this extra weight in the back made it harder to get up on plane. He had to remove the old brackets, fill the holes, then drill new holes and attach. This did several things… got the weight in the center of the boat and opened up more floor space in the dinghy.

After he got it moved, he decided we’d attach a cover under the seat to cover the fuel tank and life jackets. This will protect them from UV rays and make them last longer. We went to New Bern and got some Sumbrella to use for the cover. We got a dark blue and the cover looks great.

Making the cover.

You can see the pump in the back. The fuel tank and life jackets are under the new cover.

Shay ordered a remote control to use on the crane so he put it on and it works good.

Shay had been concerned about what we would do if our crane didn’t work. So he did lots of research and finally found an apparatus that would work. So off to West Marine to get the stuff and put it on. After it was on, we put the dinghy in the water and tried it out. Shay said it hard work to pull the dinghy up. We have it on, know it works, and hope we never have to use it again.

We had some hatches on the front that were cracked and leaked. So we took off the covers, filled the screw holes, drilled them back out and put them back on. They look good and seem to be doing great.

Filling the old holes.

Drilling new holes.

Putting the hatches back on.

We have been chasing a leak on the starboard (that’s the right for you landlubbers) side that has let water into a storage compartment for a while. It doesn’t leak every time it rains, but sometimes, so it’s been hard to find. Shay decided to find the leak with a water hose. He sprayed all the windows on the starboard side--- front, door and side. Then door itself--- top and bottom. And guess what? No leak. So he started spraying the deck itself. Finally several days of spraying and a million gallons of water he found the leak. It was the mid-ship cleat. So he removed the cleat, cleaned the goop off the cleat and deck, and then remounted the cleat. Cleaning off the goop was a major job but now its done and so far so good. He feels like he has solved that problem for good.

Let's hope this fixes it for good.

The latest project is more deck repair. Shay and a guy have gone around the boat and marked the places that need attention and are now in the process of drilling them out and filling them back in. Then they will paint them and that will be it.

I’m writing this the middle of September and the weather is beautiful. The temperature is cooler, the humidity is lower, and there is a great breeze all the time. Its great weather for outdoor projects like the deck work.

Until the last week it had been a hot humid summer, with lots of rain. Last year was a dry year, but not this one. I guess its fall y'all.

Rainy days

We have a new backup anchor. We ordered a Fortress 55. Shay looked at other boats to see how they are mounted and didn’t really see one that fit our needs. We talked about putting it in the lazerrette, but want it to be easily accessible. So what did he do? He came up with a design for one. He made it out of starboard and it works great.

We took another trip to the Cape in mid September. It was beautiful and we had a great time as always. We saw some very unusual clouds. I called Shay out to look at them. They were funnel shaped, but as you can see in the picture, not tornado clouds. But I thought they were unusual.

We have been looking at other boat’s bug screens. We finally decided to try to make our own. We borrowed the heavy duty sewing machine from Bad Bunny and got to work. We got some screening from Lowe’s, some Velcro from the hardware store and some heavy nylon webbing from West Marine. We measured; cut, sewed and they look and work great. We made one for each salon door. We had bought a “Magic Mesh” screen from Wal-mart and worked some magic with scissors, webbing, and Velcro and made it work for our backdoor.

How is this thing supposed to fit?

Boats sure have strange angles and corners.

How am I supposed to fix this corner?

We had friends from Mount Airy to visit in mid September. Doug and Sylvia came down to spend a week in a condo at Atlantic Beach and stayed couple of nights with us. We ate lunch after they got here then took off to our favorite place…yes the Cape.

There were a lot of big boats in the turning basin when we passed thru.

We had a great trip on the way over and when we got there we put the dinghy in the water and went to shore. We went on a long long long walk. We were all tired when we got back. We had a great time at the Cape. We saw several turtles and I told Sylvia it was very difficult to get a good picture. When they come up near a boat they take a quick breath and dive, so unless you are very lucky it’s hard to get a good picture. Well. I’m not lucky, but I did get a picture of a turtle head.

Sylvia and Doug having coffee at the Cape. What a great place to be.

See that speck behind the dinghy? Well that is all I could get of a turtle sighting at the Cape.

Another project was working on the covers for the hatches under the daybeds in the flybridge.

We decided to make a last trip to Mount Airy before heading south. We stayed with Daddy for a couple of nights. I started a big crockpot of chile beans the morning we left and that’s what we had for lunch. They were good and I’m sure he will have lots to freeze for later. We met Jason, our oldest son, and ate with him one night. He knows how much I love garden tomatoes, so he brought me some heirloom tomatoes he had grown. Yummy.

We spent the next few days with Shay’s mom and visited family and friends. I got to see my sister Michelle three times before we left, once on Sunday afternoon, once at Chile Rojo for dinner one night and one day we went for a walk on the trail. We enjoyed our time together. We had a big family meal with most of Shay’s family at his mom’s. Jean took good care of us and fed us great meals while we were there. I told her we couldn’t stay with her, we ate too much!

The day we were leaving, Joey, Shay’s brother brought us some garden tomatoes. Lisa knows how much I love them so she sent some for us to take back. She even sent some green ones so I could fix Shay some fried green tomatoes. He loves them and this will be his only chance to eat them this season. Yummy again. I have missed garden “stuff” since moving to the boat. People at my and Shay’s work, my aunt, Shay’s mom and other friends and family would give us garden tomatoes, green beans, corn, peppers, cucumbers and lots of goodies.

Our good friends, George and Pam, drove us back down to Morehead City and we left our car in Mount Airy. We won’t be back to use the car until Christmas so we turned in the tags and cancelled the insurance. If we’re not using the car, there’s no reason to pay for tags and insurance. Remember we are frugal.

So we got back to the boat late Friday night. We went to the Cape for one last visit before we leave. We had a great time and enjoyed our time with George and Pam. They headed back home on Monday and we started getting ready for our trip south.

The last Cape Lookout sunset we'll see for a while.

Just before sunrise.

No need for words

We had gone by the election office when we were in Mount Airy to get absentee ballots sent to Jean’s house before we left. They didn’t get there so I called and they had been returned to the office. So we had them sent here so we could vote before we left. So we could check that off our list. We made a long list of things to do and get before we left, but every time we checked something off we added 2 more. Will we get done? No way, we’ll just have to work on some things later.

The first weekend in October is the Seafood Festival in Morehead. We really enjoyed the “Cooking with the Chefs” last year and wanted to go this year too. We spent some time there on Saturday and went back Sunday to judge the “People’s Choice” shrimp and grits cook-off. We were judges last year in the crab cakes cook-off and had some great crab cakes. I was disappointed in both dishes. I didn’t think either one was really special, but we had to choose one so we did.

We spent the next week trying to finish more stuff on our list. We had originally planned to leave on Wednesday, but found out that Lauren was going back to Mount Airy on Friday for the Autumn Leaves Festival. So we checked the weather and decided we’d leave on Friday and go outside. On Thursday, we walked around the marina and told our friends good-bye till the spring. We stopped by Seaveyor and told Linda and Dwayne we’d miss them in Marathon this year. They wished us a good voyage and told us to be careful and keep in touch. We stopped by Salty Turtle and told Vic and Gigi we’d see them later, since they were traveling south. We told Ann on Incentive we’d be back in the spring and she told us to stop by McCellansville and check out a restaurant they liked. We had already told John and Dave, on Bad Bunny good-bye when they left the marina around noon today. They wanted to make sure they wouldn’t have problems with the bridge, so they left at low tide and anchored out to wait to leave that night.