And Back to Ohio

Day 39:  Friday April 3, 2015

We got on the road at 7:00.  The skies were overcast and there was some light drizzle.  Traffic from Charlotte into Virginia was quite heavy.  We made good time until we got into the southern part of VA when we started up into the mountains and ran into thick fog.  Luckily, our heavy load required us to drive in the truck lane and clime the mountains slowly.  Amazingly, we passed through a long tunnel and when we came out the other side we were traveling in sun light. 

In West Virginia we ran into rain that continued the rest of the way to Ohio.  We arrived home at 3:00pm and met our lonely dog, Louie, for the first time in 40 days.  He was most excited to see us. 

Our other great dog, Buster Brown, ran away from home about a week ago.  A neighbor found him and brought him back but when she let him out of her truck, he ran into the woods and kept going.  The gal who takes care of Buster and Louie while we are away, along with her dad, looked for three days but were unable to find him.  Buster was over 15 years old and quiet frail so we knew that he would not survive away from food and water for more than 24 hours.  His quality of life had been declining over the past year and we were aware that his days were numbered.  So! 

As we look back over the past weeks, we are pleased that we had a great trip.  As typically happens as we make these excursions, things happen.  However, I look at all happenings as part of the adventure.  We lost our ballast.  That was bad.  The boat was still seaworthy.  That was good.  The fact that we started our adventure in Stuart FL, the site of the Seaward factory who are in the process of moving their operation to western Florida but could still build us a new keel and install it immediately upon our return was amazingly good.  Had it broken in Maine or the Great Lakes, we would have had to truck it down to Florida for the repairs.  Working with the guys at the factory was good.  I picked up a number of hints and improvements of which I was not aware was serendipitous.  The truck broke down.  That was bad.  The fact that this year, for the first time, I attached a truck/trailer rider to my Boat US tow package so that within an hour of the breakdown, we were on our way to a Dodge Dealership who had the parts and the inclination to fix our truck immediately was good.

And, we had a great time.  We met great people and saw and stayed in beautiful places.  We ate great food and experienced life in a very different culture. 

Interestingly, during the first week from when we left Florida until we arrived at Green Turtle Cay, I was wondering if this trip was worth the pain of the rough crossing and the rough banging trip east through the Sea of Abaco.  We didn’t see or talk to anyone and didn’t find civilized land during that entire time.  That would not have been so bad if the trip had been comfortable.  But it wasn’t.  And then we arrived at the Leeward Yacht Club and our tide turned and the trip became amazingly interesting and enjoyable.  Even the return trip across the Florida Strait was easy and not at all painful.

So, would I do it again?  Absolutely. 

Finally, the “Name the Dink” contest.  The committee assigned the task of tabulating the results is currently working on the project and the results will be announced in the near future.  Interestingly, as you may remember, the day that we announced the contest, we received our first email informing us that Buckeye Lake’s dam was unsafe and they were considering draining it.  As you might imagine, that has become a hot political potato.  They typically drain the lake every fall and refill it in the spring; however, the governor has said that the lake will not be filled this year or in the future until the dam is repaired.  The estimated time for the repair is 5 years.  Locals are understandably up in arms.

Stay Tuned

s

On the Road Again, Heading North

We had little obligation for the morning until we got a call from the Dodge dealer informing us of the completion of the repair job. So, after breakfast, we loaded up our little rental car and headed into old town St. Augustine and the old Spanish

fort built in the late 1600’s.  The fort, Castillo De San Marcos was started by the Spanish and changed hands to the British then back to the Spanish before finally being ceded to the US in 1821.  It is the oldest masonry fort in the US and is a truly magnificent structure.  We spent a couple of hours roaming the grounds and reading the signs before our call finally came.

We returned our rental car and arrived at the dealership at around10:30. I took a look at the old water pump whose bearings were shot, loaded up the truck and got on the road.

The trip north was quite routine.  We are amazed by the amount of traffic on I-95.  We were in that high volume traffic virtually all day until we swung west on I-26.  Traffic was still heavy but somewhat lighter. At 7:00, we pulled into a Hyatt hotel in Charlotte, NC where we secured a room for the night. 

At the suggestion of the gal at the front desk, we drove to Mac’s Speed Shop restaurant where I had a wonderful meal of pulled pork, black beans and rice and cheesy grits.  This place was reputed to have the best barbeque in Charlotte and although I had not checked other barbeque places in Charlotte, I would agree that they are the best in town. And a group of bikers bellied up to the bar agreed with me.

We got back to the room at about 8:45 and nothing to do but to prepare for bed.

Replica of one of Columbus' ships in the distance

  

Heading Home and Truck Breakdown

Day 37: Wednesday April 1, 2015

We got to the factory at 7:30 and work at getting the boat ready to travel was well underway.  They pulled the jack stands out from under the boat and touched up the spots with bottom paint.  Using a forklift with a trailer hitch ball on one of the forks, they rolled the trailer under the boat and lowered the boat onto the trailer.  They then put the mast back on the boat and moved the whole rig out into the lot where we could hook up the truck. 

Second Wind back on the trailer and ready to go home

We were on the road by 8:45.  We headed north on a very busy I-95.  The trip was uneventful until we got about 15 miles north of St. Augustine.  At that point, the truck warning system gave us several strange dings and checking the gauges, the temperature gauge was pegged on hot.  I rolled off onto the shoulder and shut down the engine, raised the hood and found that the serpentine belt was off and the water in the cooling system was boiling. 

Nothing to do but call Boat US for a tow.  I had fortunately purchased a trailer towing package with our boat towing policy so they sent a truck to haul us to a Dodge dealership.  The guy arrived in about 45 minutes, pulled the truck onto the roll-back and hooked the boat on behind for the trip back to St. Augustine.  I had meanwhile called the dealership and told them that we were coming.  As we drove up, the entire service department staff stood staring at this strange entourage pulling in.  The time was 4:15 and after a brief inspection, they determined that the water pump had failed causing, one, the engine to overheat and two, the belt to come off.  They assured me that they had the parts in stock but they closed at 5:30 and would not be able to complete the repair unto tomorrow. 

So, we rented a car, found a motel, and drove into St. Augustine to check out this historic town.  However, being spring break, we could not find a place to park the car so we left the main part of town and found Schooners Seafood House that had been recommended by the lady at the motel desk.  When we got there, we were amazed by the number of cars in the parking lot and the large number of folks waiting to be seated.  We waited about 30 minutes and were served a huge home cooked seafood meal that was way too big for either of us to finish.  It was a great no frills place that was obviously extremely popular to folks in the know.

Back at the motel, we read some and went to bed early.  Amazingly, we have had no desire to turn on the TV since we have been back in the States.  We are news ignorant and it is great!

Finishing the Keel Repair and a Coat of Bottom Paint

Day 36:  Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Today was the wrap up day for the keel installation.  They mixed a big batch of epoxy and piled it onto the end of the keel and then lowered the board onto the Torpedo.  They then tightened the nuts down, cleaned and faired the epoxy.  The final step was to put plastic caps in the counter sink holes and seal them with a caulking compound.  The epoxy dried in a couple of hours.

New Torpedo and fresh coat of bottom paint

They lifted the boat off of the trailer to facilitate the installation of the Torpedo so while the boat was up in the air, they sanded the bottom and put on a coat of copper based antifouling paint.  That will have to dry overnight so by noon, the project was basically finished.

I did some work on the mast while they were painting.  The boat has a steaming light in the middle of the mast that also has a small spot light that shines down on the deck.  The deck light has never worked since I got the boat so I replaced the whole structure.  We also spent quite a bit of time working on my wind speed and direction indicator transducer located at the top of the mast.  It seems to have demons living inside of it.  Sometimes, when I install the mast, the system works like a dream, and sometimes it works for a while and then quits and finally sometimes it doesn’t work at all.  I have checked all of the wiring and connections several times but have never been able to find a problem.  The folks here at Hake have a test system set up to check the whole system so we hooked up their tester and it appeared that my anemometer at the top of the mast was not working.  To be sure, we got a brand new one off of another boat and it also would not work.  We tested the wire for continuity and they all tested fine.  We got a new wire and connector fitting for the anemometer and it wouldn’t work either.  We began to wonder if the test equipment was not functioning.  We unplugged the tester from the battery and the new boat tester and anemometer and wire worked.  We put my anemometer on the new wire and it worked. And

A new 32 foot Seaward 32RK

finally, we put the tester back on my old wire and my anemometer worked as though nothing was wrong.  There are demons!

Back at the room, we both read for a while before we went into the downtown area of Stuart for our evening meal.  We came upon a really neat waterfront restaurant called the Boat House.  We had another wonderfulcake sea food meal.  I don’t remember the exactly but it was something like a Maine crab roll which turned out to be a pile of crab meat on a slice of bread.  Janine had crab.  I washed my crab down with a Guinness.

After dinner, we walked along the waterfront for a while before stopping at a great ice cream place for a scoop of New Orleans praline ice cream and four  dark chocolate turtles with pecans.  We are going to miss the great food we have enjoyed down here.

Back to the room, we read some more before we crawled into bed at 9:00.  It is also going to be hard to get back onto a non-cruising sleep schedule.

Boat is in the shop and we went EATING

Day 35: Monday, March 30, 2015

Believe it or not, I didn’t sleep well in my first night in a large, king size bed that didn’t roll.  I got up in the middle of the night and typed on the blog but that wasn’t enough to stimulate sleep either.

We were at the breakfast bar in the motel when they opened at 6:30 and enjoyed the Hispanic chef who tried his best to make the wakeup on Monday morning for his guests a positive experience. 

Removing old Keel

I left the motel before 7:00, drove to Sandspit Park where we had left the boat, hooked her up behind the truck and arrived at the Hake Yacht factory at 7:25 as the workers were unlocking the gates. 

I backed the boat into the yard and they immediately moved her into the large bay and proceeded to work on removing the mast and finally the old keel.  They had to remove the cover over the winch that raises the board and then the winch. The original winch is still good, however, they have a new high tensile strength rope system that raises the keel so I get to purchase a new winch that facilitates that system.  I assumed that they would have to raise the boat really high to get the board out but they actually took it out through the top.  They attached a winch to the board and easily lifted it out.

The newly fabricated keel has 3 stainless steel all thread rods that are imbedded in the full length of the structure and will bolt the 990 pound

lead “torpedo” onto the bottom.  One workman and the shop foreman worked all day mounting the new winch, configuring the board, wiring in a new switch system for raising the board, and finally installing the new keel.  Tomorrow, the boat will be lifted off the trailer and the torpedo will be bolted in place.  They will then add fiberglass fairings to streamline the whole structure.

Old Keel where missing Torpedo was attached

At the end of the day, I returned to the motel and picked up Janine who spent the day doing our large pile of laundry and we headed for downtown Stuart for dinner.  The historic downtown area is really neat with many high end shops and eating establishments, obviously an attraction for the tourists who flock to this area at

Installing new Keel

this time of the year 

We selected a place called Mulligans for our dining pleasure.  We both enjoyed what was almost a lobster salad with parmesan cheese on toasted flat bread.  After dinner we walked the streets looking in shop windows and had a cup of New Orleans praline ice cream.

New keel from under the boat showing the three stainless steel all thread rods.

Installing new 990 pound lead  torpedo onto the bottom of keel

Back in the motel, we both started reading and when my phone dinged for a text message, we realized that we had both fallen asleep and had passed through our usual bedtime hour.

Prparing the Boat for the Repairs and EATING

Day 34:  Sunday March 29, 2015

Not much to report today.  We did have memorable meals today, however.  We ran out of sausage, but we still have some gravy mix left and, as a safety precaution, I brought along several jars of chipped beef. So for breakfast, we had chipped beef on Bahamian coconut toast (SOS Bahamian style!) It was my favorite breakfast when I was in the service.  For lunch, I was privileged to have Spam with Horsey Sauce on the last remnants of Bahamian coconut bread and for dinner we ate at the Clarian Motel restaurant.  What I ate there was not as important as the atmosphere in which we dined.  We were told that they had a good band starting at 6:30 so we decided to get to get there early to beat the potential crowd.  The dining room was located just off the lounge.  There were probably 10 tables set up but only three had table cloths and those were in the entrance to the lounge.  The lounge had a number of tables around a large dance floor.  At one end, a man and wife were setting up their electronic key boards and adjusting their volumes. The lights were dim and the mood was set by LED spot lights that changed colors and flashed in random patterns. 

We selected a table in the second row away from the dance floor but were told by a very skilled waitress that our selection was reserved, so we picked one of the tables in the dining room. The waitress took our order. 

As the hour of entertainment approached elderly couples began to file in.  And, as they arrived, they hugged and kissed every other elderly person there. Most of the men were dressed in Hawaiian shirts and the ladies wore fancy tops and slacks. One gal wore cowboy boots with stiletto heels.  These folks were all most animated and talkative.  One gal loudly discussed the fact that she had light eyebrows and had gotten tired of drawing them on everyday so she went to a tattoo artist and had eyebrows and eyeliner permanently inked into her face for $1,000.00.  But, in a number of months, they disappeared so she went back and the artist told her that she was “one of those” who sucked in the ink but that for $500.00 she would replace them.  Well that wouldn’t do because being “one of those,” they would just be sucked in again.  She then spent an inordinate amount of time talking about where the eyebrows had gone and that when they cut her up, who knew where they would find them.  She also talked about her sciatica and the fact that it made her legs hot so she was wearing slacks with mesh designs (holes) in them to keep her legs cool.

  The singer and the keyboarder were also of the older set and they obviously knew and were known by all of the crowd because they too were part of the hugging and kissing group. 

When the hour of kick off for the band arrived, the key board guy started playing a repetitious set of chords and the singer began the Tina Turner prolog for Proud Mary as the folks began to flow out onto the dance floor.  At one end, a group of about 7 or 8 ladies formed a circle and danced to the rhythm while at the other end several couples danced.  When the tempo changed you would see some of the ladies in the big circle go back and get their partners.  These animated ladies would lead their men out onto the floor. Most of the guys went through the motions as their partners strutted and gyrated. 

It was really fun watching this large group of friends (senior groupies) enjoying themselves.  A sign on the lounge door stated that, in order to keep the band, a minimum order of 2 drinks per person was required if you did not order a meal. Very few were eating. Need I say more?

And other than dining?  We cleaned out the storage area under the v-berth where the factory staff will be working.  The stuff in that area was put in the truck to be taken to the motel.  We took down the mast.  I disconnected all of the mast’s rigging to allow for the installation of the keel’s wiring.

The factory told us to plan for three days’ time for the repairs.  We will have the boat at the factory gate when they open at 7:30 tomorrow.  

Into Manatee Pocket and Pull Out of the Water

Day 33: Saturday March 28, 2015

What a way to end this grand adventure!  Our last night on the water and it was a stormy, windy one.  We lay in bed in bed hearing all of the sounds of the wind in the rigging and the twang of the taunt anchor rode wondering which sound is new and which is significant.  Again, the anchor held and we were safe.  Last year, on two occasions, the anchor drug a significant distance causing us to do research over the winter and to purchase a new and improved model.  That said, the experts warn that there is no one anchor that holds well in all types of bottoms but our new one scored high.

We pulled the anchor in a strong north wind and headed towards Stuart which is only 5 miles north up the Intracoastal Waterway.  The air was quite chilly and I layered up against the chill.  The Waterway is quite narrow most of the way so waves were not a problem.

We pulled into the Manatee Pocket off the St Lucie River at about 10:00 with

Is she happy about being back in the US?

apprehensions of landing in the high winds but as we approached the dock we were rewarded with calm water and fairly light air.  I pulled in close to reconnoiter the area, made a 270 degree circle and glided alongside of the dock in a 9.7 grade landing. 

I called a cab to take me to pick up the truck and trailer.  He said he would be there in 30 minutes.  About 25 minutes later, I received a phone call from the driver asking me if I had called the cab and I affirmed that I had and he said that he was in the Lincoln sitting at the end of the dock.  He was this old guy retired guy (probably 3 years older than me) who was using his personal car to haul people around.  We had an interesting conversation during the ride to the storage lot.

Our welcoming committee

Back at the dock, I backed the trailer into the water and easily slid the boat onto the trailer and thus ended a truly epic journey for us.

The rest of the day was spent packaging the boat in preparation for the trip to the factory.  We have stored under our bed a lot of spare parts and stuff that we seldom need all of that will have to come out so that they can modify the wiring for the keel winch.  Some of it will have to go into the motel room while we stuff the remainder into nooks and crannies within the boat.

At dinner time, we drove around looking for a restaurant that is not on the water and not going to soak our remaining cruising fund.  We ended up at a place called Cowboys.  I had barbeque ribs and Janine had mahi mahi.

I wonder how we will sleep on a boat that is not rocking.