Life at the Dock - November

Life at the dock in the Brunswick Marina means we don't check the weather every morning or worry about the weather every night ... come what may, we are securely tied to 4 cleats on the dock, hooked up to cable TV and WiFi, and there's a boater's lounge (and free laundry) close by. 

We've traded a lifestyle of moving every day to one where we work, work, work every day.  Everyone knows that creature comforts come with a price!

We'd like to be heading south in a month, and we've got a looooong list of boat projects to knock off before we leave.  So, we may not be getting up at 7a.m. any more, but we are working steadily until sunset, and usually ending the day with a longer list of boat projects to get done. 

Since our next goal is the Bahamas, we have 2 key things we must get accomplished: 

#1. We need a new autopilot. 

An A.P. is an invaluable 3rd crew member, especially during overnight passages.  We currently have a wheel-mounted autopilot, which attaches to the steering wheel.  We suspect it's just worn out since it's old and has faced multiple repairs.  Parts are no longer available so we cannot fix whatever is causing it to no longer hold a course.  It will be easier and less expensive to replace it with another wheel-mounted autopilot, but finding one that can control a boat of our size has not been easy.    Most of the recommendations we got were rated for boats ~15,000 lbs and Maja weights in at about 30,000 lbs.  The alternative is an A.P. that is mounted below the deck and uses hydraulic steering to control the boat.  These systems are much more robust and complex and EXPENSIVE.  After much research and polling of other boaters, we found a link at http://www.cruisersforum.com/ that we think will meet our needs and can still be mounted on the wheel.  http://www.cptautopilot.com/ .  That only took 2 weeks ...now the next step, discussing the installation and purchase with the company.

#2.  We need to replace our water tank. 

Our current water tank is made of aluminum which has a shelf-life of about 10 years.  It's got a leak someplace which limits its holding capacity to half-a-tank ... roughly 50 gal.  Since water will be a hot commodity in the Bahamas, we really need to be able to hold closer to 100 gal.  The tank sits under the cabin floor, so every day we work on it means we have to remove the cabin table and floor.  Not much fun.  After about 10 days of investigating possible ways to repair the tank, we've moved on to designing a replacement and finding a source who can fabricate a new plastic tank for us.  Our best possibility so far is a company in Lake Worth. Florida.  Most likely, we'll move the boat down to Lake Worth, have the tank made and do the replacement there.  Since the tank takes up such a large space in the hull, there has been considerable debate over what will happen to the hull when we remove the tank ... such as, "Do you think the hull will crack like an eggshell when the supports that hold in the water tank are removed?"  Ouch!  So we will probably haul the boat out of the water in order to safely remove the tank and install the replacement.  At this point, we can only cross our fingers that the process will go smoothly.

The remaining items on the list include fixing the head -- we are on our 3rd macerator pump!  It seems the impellors on these pumps are pretty worthless, and since replacing them is such a yucky task, Dan is investigating installing a manual pump so we can empty the holding tank when offshore -- engine maintenance since we've put about 500 hours on the engine, varnishing the teak (a perpetual task), purchasing a lift for the dinghy motor since it's recommended that the dinghy be raised every nite in the Bahamas (both to protect from theft and the nasty weather that tends to blow in at night) as well as looking forward to 2011 finances (e.g. how are we going to file our income taxes from the Bahamas?).

4 coats of varnish on the bow sprit.  Goal = 10 coats.

Holiday Plans . . .

Being new to the vagabond life, the holidays are presenting their own set of new challenges.  We started the month of November thinking we'd take the boat down to St. Marys, GA for an annual Thanksgiving feast put on by the town for boaters.  The anchorage is generally packed with over 100 boats!  However, when the opportunity opened up to spend Thanksgiving in Ohio with Michelle and James, we opted to rent a car and drive to Ohio to be with our kids.   We drove 12 hours from GA and arrived on Wednesday ... James drove 12 hours from MN and arrived on Friday ... on Saturday, we slept in and ate all day long!

As for Christmas, we've long been planning to return to MN, missing the decorations and friends and family.  Then came the first winter storm of the season, and watching Minneapolis covered with 9in of blowing snow, made us wonder WHY we were thinking of trading Florida for Minnesota!  I hate the cold and if we don't get out of GA by mid-December, we risk getting hit with cold weather like we did last year (and the Brunswick Marina has a tendency to suck us in and hold us here!).  So, current plans have us moving the boat to Lake Worth, FL to replace the water tank and then on to Miami/South Beach FL ... then the big decision will be to continue on to Key West or make the Bahama crossing and head towards the Exumas.

As we near the end of our first year of retirement, the adventure continues and the fun never stops!