One step forward

One Step Forward—13^th December 2012

If I’d remembered earlier in the day that it was the thirteenth all the pieces would have fallen into place for me.  

After much thinking about it, I decided to tackle the propane tanks today.  Cotinga has three tanks that are strapped down in a propane locker at the stern.  Only two tanks are attached to the delivery system at any one time.  One of these tanks was empty and I thought that the “spare” was empty as well.  After shutting all tanks and emptying the locker of all the extra stuff, I was able to remove the spare tank.  This one turned out to be full.  I removed the empty tank and replaced it with the spare.  Then I carried the empty tank to the car and popped it in the trunk.  As I drove out of the parking lot I thought “what’s that noise?”  I returned to the parking lot to investigate.  Peering under the car I could tell that the muffler wasn’t dragging on the ground.  That left the possibility that the muffler system has a hole in it…. I called my brother Rod for advice.  Then I called Paul (en route to Florida) to find out what he wanted me to do.  For now the plan is to await Paul’s arrival on Sunday.

Well, there are plenty of other jobs on my list.  I started on the Custom’s Decal.  This is issued by Customs and Border protection. Any US boat (over 30 ft?) returning from abroad has to have one. I had managed to find the web site to apply for this on-line during my middle of the night web surfing.  First you have to establish an account.  It’s the usually forty questions sort of thing, password must contain one of these, no more than two repeats, blah, blah, blah. Once you’ve done all that you are issued an account number.  Logging in, you arrive at a screen where you seem to have to create another account—same forty questions all over again (how many times do they have to ask my name?).  Then you get a new account number—yes, I don’t understand it either—and a little message saying that you will receive an email.  Nowhere could I find a button saying ‘order decal’.  I resorted to reading the email.  “Congratulations. You have no created the account that will allow you to order a customs decal from any PC anywhere in the USA. Please note that the on-line system is not compatible with Mac.”  Fantastic, I just spent 45 confusing minutes creating accounts that are useless to me.  Why couldn’t they tell me this up front! 

The vicious no-see-um

The Vicious No-See-Um—12th Dec 2012

The No-see-um or midge is a vicious beast.  The combination of high humidity and light winds has allowed the no-see-ums to take over the marina.  There were so many midges biting me last night as I was trying to read that I decided to go to bed.  After a few minutes of reading in bed, I looked up at the roof of the v-berth to see about 30 midges. I smashed as many as I could and switched to the LED light, hopefully cooler and less attractive to the little buggers.  I feel that I’m always complaining about the conditions.  Recently though it has been raining a lot—resulting in needing to close up all the hatches and portholes.  When it’s not raining I try to open the hatches to air out the boat.  Sadly this allows the no-see-ums to enter through the screening.  So now it seems that I should just keep the boat closed up all the time.  Tomorrow the winds are forecast to be from the north.  I hoping that will mean drier weather.  Maybe the midges will retreat to from whence they came.

I'm still trying to work my way through Captain Mike's List of jobs.  Of the 21 tasks, I have accomplished about three and a half. Today I went to the library and photocopied the documents that we will need to enter the Bahamas.  I stripped the varnish off one of the hatch boards and cleaned the BBQ (not on the list).  This had been left uncovered and the rain had got into it somehow.  The result was that the BBQ was dripping nasty brown water onto the deck.  Now it a lot cleaner and covered so that shouldn’t be a source of dirty marks on the boat.  Sadly the birds (grackles) have taken to perching on our mast with predictable results.  As the neighbor at the dock said “there’s always something to be done when you own a boat.”

Total Let Down

Total let down—11^th December 2012

I had a plan for the football—get the key to the lounge and watch the Patriots vs. Texans there.  In the afternoon I asked for the key in the marina office.  I was told that someone already had it for the night.  The marina staff seemed confident that I would have no problem watching the game.  So I toddled over there at 8:20pm just in time for kick off.  The lounge was locked and dark, even the TV was turned off.  I checked the key return box to see if the other guest had returned it—no dice.  I returned to the boat dejected.  After all these weeks of finding somewhere to watch the game, going to shore in all weathers, returning to the boat in the dark, I feel I have an investment in the Pats season.  Also, let’s be honest, watching the game in the air-conditioned lounge seemed lots better than sitting around on the boat with all the windows and hatches shut.

For a moment there I thought I had a partial solution.  The adapter that should allow us to connect the Sirius radio feed (from the GPS system) to the stereo arrived yesterday in the post.  After much fooling around I did manage to get some Sirius radio signals.  What I got was the sort of master channel that ceaselessly tells you what channel has the football game you want to hear (and any other type of radio station you might desire).  However it would appear that our stero doesn’t have what it takes to select the Sirius station.  All we can receive is this blather about ‘for soft rock with a Christian emphasis tune to channel 97’.  ARRGGHH!  In desperation at 10 pm I walked back to the marina office to see if the mystery guest had showed up—no luck.  All I know is that the Pats won. That’s some comfort I guess.

   

Shopping and lightning

Shopping and lightning—10^th December 2012

I’ve been left in charge of the boat, the list of jobs that need doing and the blog.  I’m not sure all of this is going to get the attention it deserves.

My big accomplishment of the day was getting to Wal-Mart to buy some provisions for the trip to the Bahamas.  Most notable was the RV antifreeze.  We need this stuff for the watermaker.  Once we commission this device, we have to keep running it.  Once we don’t want to use it the membrane has to be stored in the antifreeze to keep all manner of bacteria from growing.  We are a bit concerned about getting this thing up and running.

This afternoon we had an incredible thunderstorm.  I must say I enjoy sitting next to a 59 foot lightning rod on such occasions.  When it rains in Florida it is really something.  I stepped out under the dodger to try to figure out why so much water was pouring down the companionway.  My t-shirt became sodden in about 1 minute.  I had to take it off and put on a dry one.  Each time it rains, I have to close all the hatches and portholes.  This makes the boat really airless and warm.  There are several portable fans on the boat that run off the 12V DC.  However, only one of them seems to work.  As you can imagine, I’m hoping we are done with rain for tonight.  Oh boy, here comes the rain again….

Amazing Coincidence

Amazing Coincidence—9^th Dec 2012

Yesterday morning I got chatting to a couple walking along the dock. They were Karen and Charles and had recently purchased the power vessel tied up near the end of C-dock.  They mentioned that they had just moved onto their boat after selling up their home in Massachusetts.  I asked where in Mass. they had lived.  She mentioned Sudbury and my mouth fell open.  More amazing was that they had lived very near to our rental house in Sudbury and had been friends with the former tenants.  We have mutual friends and their daughter once baby-sat for Tasha.  As Mike put it: you come 1500 miles from home and bump into someone who lived a couple hundred yards away.  Very strange.

Today was mostly spent getting ready for Mike to leave.  We took the engine off the dinghy (as I can’t start that thing). The dinghy got stored on the foredeck.  We put some ice into the freezer.  Mike got packed and off we went to Orlando International.  It took us just two hours to get there.  Two hours later I was back at the marina.  I’ve been watching football in the lounge.  I was just settling in for the start of the 8:30 pm game when I remembered that I had to write the blog.  I’m not quite sure what the next few days will be like.

Position: 27 41 28.6 N, 80 23 41.7 W