December 15

December 15

Emptying the trailer was more of a chore that we thought, but it was gratifying to see the trampoline go up! I forgot to bring my sewing machine to finish the sock for the little jib. Rats, but I brought the cord for it! Today we were supposed to be launched...not happening. It's now 4:30 and they are still working on the "Flying Dutchman"...no mast, no motor or shaft. Don't know how he got it in here, unless he pushed with a dinghy! Been there, done that !!! 

We went to Jacksonville to pick up the t-shirts and stuff for the Regatta. 9 boxes!!! We managed to stuff them into 7 and pack them into the "Study/ guest room" We went to Ft. Lauderdale the day before [and the opposite direction, of course] to get the blades, switch and nose cone for the wind turbine. We called twice to make sure they had the parts, and they assured us that they did. Of course, they didn't, but we got the most important parts...the blades!!!

We put the old prop back on... the extra ones we brought didn't fit.  And we discovered that the whole drive hangs slightly under-hung on the back.  This pushes the nose down but we can't change that until we re-install the locking mechanism so that will have to wait until we hit a beach with really clear water [so when Rick drops the parts, I can find them].  So once again it will be a slow slog over there.

Not much else happening... gotta get the laundry done. 

Dec. 8-9

December 8-9

We got to the boat this morning to check it out... FYI Magic is just fine!  Beguiler and Pearl have left and we searched for Amazing Grace before we realized that you probably aren't here! Haven't seen Copper Penny either.

So the boat has only a few bits of mould...the fridge and a couple of pillows that soaked up the condensation. The pillows were going to be turfed anyway. But what's really creepy...I found a Rubbermaid container of spaghetti sauce sitting on the shelf beside the freezer.  It doesn't smell, has hardly any mould in it!  So either the commercial spaghetti sauce is filled with preservatives or Rubbermaid makes one helluva great seal!!!

We wandered around helplessly wondering where to start and then decided to go visit Mark and Gail in Indian Town, about 20 miles away. They are in the water ready to go, but now the question of a weather window comes up...when is it good to leave. We are all hoping to be in the Abacos by Christmas.

The boat beside us, and the one behind are being launched on the 15th so we need to get moving and get ourselves ready so that they don't need to move us twice. But we have to go to Jacksonville on Monday to get the Regatta stuff.

The boat was fine for sleeping so we ended up in our OWN bed. We loved living with Jack for 5 months but it feels good to be home... on the boat! The batteries need to be supercharged; one of the solar panels had something hit it or rub on it so it will need to be replaced or fixed, and Rick had to go to MacDonald for coffee this morning but we're going to be fine! The cold front hit last night and the temperature went down to about ...16? Sorry! It's grey and drizzling but that makes it easier to work.

My fingernails and toenails are mostly pink and only turn purple when my feet and hands get wet. (OK...before we left, my awesome daughter treated me to a manicure and a pedicure, and they had nail polish that turns colour depending on your body heat...it's really cool...I am going to make it last as long as possible!  It's not going to be easy tripping through the gravel boatyard and working on the boat parts.)

Today we order the new blades for the wind generator, then Rick starts on the drive re-assembly. I will start washing the inside until he needs help, and then we can start unpacking the trailer. Yaay!!

Deember 7

December 7

Last night we stopped and picked up a cooked chicken and salad and dinner in the motel. This morning I took off my socks. The temperature outside was 11 degrees so I packed the socks away and am wearing just shoes. As we fought the morning rush hour of transport trucks, we passed the burnt one that had closed the highway all night. It was the cab that was burnt...hope the driver got out ok...no details available.

We spent the rest of the morning dodging trucks and bumps in the road... these highways are crap!!!! In Georgia, we passed work crews cleaning up the massive sections of fallen oak and pine trees from the hurricane.

At noon we stopped at a rest stop/ information center and made lunch, sitting outside in the 20 degree sunshine...sorry...okay, not. It was great and now we are running with the A/C on!!! We can smell the tidal flats, salt water and Georgia Pacific [the company that supplies bathrooms around the country with paper towels.]

Now we are running along the coast. The clouds are disappearing and we are getting more glimpses of the ocean in the distance. The vistas of grassland swamps and ocean are counterpoint to the anxiety of screaming trucks whizzing by! It is amazing to see the number of trees ripped out by the hurricane, especially through south Georgia and North Florida.

We arrived at the boat at 6 pm but it was too dark to do much except make sure that the dinghy is still intact [yay!] and the stuff we left on the deck is still there.  We went to Steak and Shake for dinner and then we checked into an America's Best motel for the night. It is stupid noisy with a bunch of contract workers in town on some project. They're still partying and it's 10:30. I guess you get what you pay for ...only $44.00 a night. I hope the boat is ready to sleep in tomorrow night !!

Hopefully the projected temperature change won't bring precipitation so we can get the boat ready to launch as soon as possible.  Later...

December 6- Virginia to SouthCarolina

December 6

Today was a tough day...lots of hard rain, transport trucks and huge mountains. There's no way to describe the enormity of the Appalachians, because they are so round and treed all the way to the top. Sections of the road were reduced speed due to fog danger. Okay...that's a joke. The speed limit is 70. (115 km) The speed was reduced to 65. (105 +/-) REALLY?!?!?  I can barely get up to 60 without freaking out...that's over the limit on ANY Canadian !

We went through two mile-long tunnels in Virginia and as we headed south the air warmed. Right now we are in South Carolina, almost at the Georgia border and the temperature is 13 degrees (Can). It's supposed to get colder by the end of the week, so we will head to Value Village and get a coat or sweater. We left all our winter clothes up in "winter country".  If we are lucky the "cold" weather coming will be Canadian Sweatshirt weather and we can forego the coats!

Later!!

Tied down !!!

Heading into tunnel

Inside the tunnel

Lots of trucks

Lots of ra

December 4-5, 2016

December 4, 2016

We're back...no, no, no, not back back. I'm back to blogging again. I'm just hoping there are still people out there who are reading still and interested!

First I want to apologize to all the people we didn't get to see this summer. Working made it difficult: he worked Tuesday to Saturday and I worked Thursdays through Monday. Sometimes we had a day off together but it was a fluke when we did. And Rick worked until the end of October. When we weren't working we were fixing, looking for parts and collecting the stuff we needed to bring back down to the boat.

Yesterday at noon we left after packing the trailer. We went through Southampton and Port Elgin... the closest border crossing for us, and managed to stop at the gymnastics club to say goodbye to Quentin, where he is a coach now. He is really good at gymnastics!! Luckily Liz arrived at the same time to pick up Natasha and she had Todd with her,  so we got to say goodbye to all of them again, except Geoff but we had seen him at the house earlier., as we were heading to Port.

It was cold and blowy and by the time we got south of Port Elgin, it was raining and snowing on and off all the way to Grand Bend, after which it just drizzled a bit here and there.

 We crossed the Bridge at Sarnia / Port Huron with absolutely no hassles except the guard wanted to know how many cabins we had. But we are on the wrong side of Florida apparently...he prefers the Gulf. We stopped at a Super 8 - whoa expensive in the States - but comfortable. We left this morning at 9 am and started south.

The car is handling the trailer well. The roads in southern Michigan SUCK!!! Our mileage is up probably because of the rough roads but gas is less than 60 cents a litre! Woohoo! Add exchange and it makes it around 75 cents.  Ohio roads are 100% better!

Our next stop is to visit the Iguana Man [Dr. Iverson] at Earlham College, Indiana, then on to North Carolina to catch up with Carol and Ross. Hope to be at the boat by the weekend, but...y'all know how well we plan things!!! Later!

December 5, 2016

We stopped in Centreville, just outside of Richmond Indiana, and visited with John and Sheila Iverson. They have a magnificent property that they are converting back to indigenous forest, and we talked about everything from tiling floors, raising dogs [they have a beautiful Doberman named Rosie], to the election tragedy! We had a great visit, played a fun game of Rummikub [?] and talked some more. We stayed over night and after a morning coffee were on our way to North Carolina.At one of the Rest stops about 4 hours from Indiana, we checked the trailer.

Uh-oh the whole box had shifted backwards off the frame. So we had to unpack it and find the spectra line [super rope for sailors] that we picked up. It was just long enough to tie down the box. When we got to a town with stores in the Appalachian mountains [West Virginia] , we stopped to buy ratchet straps. It seems to have worked. When we stopped for the night the box was still where we put it back. We have been discussing ways to re-build or re-attached it when we get to Florida.

Seems the weather is going to change and snow will be chasing us down to the boat. We are hoping it will turn to rain but the amount of rain predicted for Georgia the Carolinas and North Florida is a bit scary...5-10 inches..

But tomorrow we will be on the road again. 

End of Summer 2016

September 2016

OK the summer ended on August 31 and the temperature has not gotten above 25, or its so cold at night that by the time it gets to 27-28 the sun is about to drop behind the horizon.  We are living in a forest so it's difficult to see the sun sometimes.

The job is winding down. Sauble Beach turns into a ghost town after school starts and is only open on weekends ...literally.  Today being September 19 will probably be my last day. Rick; however, is working until the end of October so I have no excuse for not getting everything done that I had planned to complete this summer.

I had applied for two jobs at the local college: one was as a student advisor to the new students who were foreign or were first-family [who were the first in their families to actually attend post secondary].  The other was as a writing assistant to help students with writing essays in proper English. I got neither position. 

I think I was not acceptable firstly because when they looked at my resume which covered all of my post-secondary degrees and my Ontario teaching qualifications [public and high school], and looked at the dates, my age gave me away. Secondly, there were no typing mistakes in my cover letter and my resume, so that was a mark against me. {There were typos in the ad listing the requirements for the positions} And thirdly my B. of Arts, B. of Education, teaching certificate; having taught both high school and adults in re-training and being a published author did not equate to their requirement of some obscure certificate that said I knew how to teach English to adults. Oh well, I would have stayed the winter here, but maybe the Universe is telling me I don't have to now! [Besides, I was afraid Jeanne would have hunted me down...]

I am NOT without skills. I re-made the sail cover...gave up the lazy-jack idea and just made it better, and patched the wear spots. I completely repaired the spinnaker. Yeehaw! And we have lots of extra patching material. I have made up the UV strip for the small jib and if I can't get it sewn on, the sail-maker will finish it for me. Plus, I have done so many repairs to jeans, pants, shorts, shirts, and kid's clothes, I COULD have opened my own shop this summer ... hmmm ... next year?

We finally replaced the van. We had to when the strut fell through the engine compartment and sat on the wheel. I had been driving our old Kia that my brother bought when we left. Rick was driving at time the Tobermory Marine truck [a well-used Ford] and when that didn't work, he drove his boss's Cadillac XLR ragtop...very scary to drive a million dollar car that isn't yours...especially on gravel roads!!!

We search all through the Auto trader and various other sites; we scoured the yards of auto dealers here and even private offerings but there was nothing that was under $2000.00 that didn't need an equal amount of work and had less than 200,000 km on it. We finally went to London after a couple of false starts, to look at a vehicle at one of the dealerships.  No go; so we drove around London for a day, scouring their lots, this time with the dealer's agents or mechanics as guides. We passed one car in a lot and the agent said laughingly "You should take this one. It just came in yesterday...little old lady... only on Sundays."

It was nothing close to what we were looking for but it was a beautiful car: a 2000 Chrysler 300 M with only 72,000 km; only $3100.00. Not a mark on it: white with cream leather interior and it could do everything except make coffee. I sat in it, pretending I was a queen while I admired the elegant instruments and the faux wood trim...for about 45 seconds, and then slid back through the portal into the real world, where we continued our search for a van/truck/SUV in which we could carry shit without guilt.  We found another bargain and they agreed to pre-examine it before we bought it...just in case.

I drove back to Owen Sound because I had to work the next day but Rick waited for the SUV to be ready. Around 10 am the next morning, he texted me and said that it was junk and was being scrapped, so the hunt continued. He and my brother-in-law continued to look for another 'bargain'.

For some reason I was starting to obsess over that car. I bawled all the time I was making beds and cleaning toilets that day, trying to send him mental messages to go get that car. Completely not what we needed!! [I think I might have texted him once or twice...]

So we have this lovely luxury car that we could actually live in and it will kill me to park it for the winter! The mechanic who certified it told Rick it was a great deal and it would last us another 10 years. Aha! There's the justification! It is a $500.00 -a-year-car instead of replacing it every year for 1-2 thousand, right?  So the Universe provided the car instead of a job. Now if it would only let me win a lottery...

So many changes happening this winter too.  People changing boats; changing destinations. It feels like we are going back to a new community. I hope we see some of them back in the cruising community somewhere, and I hope we see all of the people on our land list before we leave, too!  It may take until Christmas but...

I got an email from the College yesterday to tell me that there was a job posting that I might interested in. OH LOOK, it's the same one I  already applied for...think I'll give it a second shot to see what happens. I can always say "no". And if it's offered, I can also take it for a while and if I don't like it, quit...not as if I need to replace it with anything.

See... not much news. It's more exciting on the boat!

Summer 2016

August 2016

The summer is passing so quickly!!  A number of people have commented that I have not posted anything for awhile, so here goes. This is not as exciting or interesting as being on the boat but you asked for it...

We are both working right now.  First it was to pay for boat repairs but after the accident...oh, wait, I didn't tell you about that...

Up at Palm Coast, after we hurriedly cleaned and packed the boat and managed to get away a day earlier [the mosquitoes were literally driving us mad!], I was driving and blew a tire! I managed not to hit and other vehicles in the four lanes on our side of I-95 but hit a guard rail!  There were two cops who passed us going the other way; one turned around and radioed (I assume) for back-up, and a few minutes later a highway patrol and state trooper pulled up behind us.  Before they arrived, Rick was trying to change the tire and every time he jacked up the van, the kack went throught he frame. Uh-oh...not good

Initially I wanted a job that did not involve decision making, personal interaction with strangers, or thinking of any sort, so I found a housekeeping job at a motel.  The pay is minimal but I don't care...the whole idea was to supplement the cruising kitty. I get about 15-20 hours a week, but it does two things: gives me money for boat repairs and keeps me fit!  I can completely clean a bedroom and a bathroom from stripping and making two beds, to completely washing the bathroom including walls and floor to vacuuming the whole place in 30 minutes. I am stronger now than when I started and still flexible!

I also made some boat cushion covers for friends' boat, which took about a week to complete.

Rick, on the other hand, is working at Tobermory Marine Services four days a week. He drives an hour each way and loves it! He's back in "his natural habitat...marine retail"!  He will be able to get the dinghy motors repaired and we can decide which one we want to keep. He will be there until haul-out in October.

We took the sails and the trampoline over to a sail-maker yesterday in Collingwood - K-Force Sails. He is replacing the edges of the tramp with an amazing material that is not sail cloth. It is a poly-vinyl that has reinforcing in it so that it cannot rip. We tried!! And it is UV protected so it will not get sun-damaged!  He also told us we should be using 303 Sun |Protecter on our fabrics to prevent sun-damage. He will look at the small spinnaker to see about repairing it and told us to get the measurements for him to see about building a new one for us that fits the boats.

I have started to make repairs to the sail cover. I am changing it so it can be eventually converted to a lazy-jack bag.

We are staying with my brother Jack in Alvanley. Liz's house in Hepworth cannot support 7 people on a full-time basis ...neither will my sanity. We have been working with him to get the Rockford house [mom and dad's place] finished so he can get it rented out. It's beautiful. If it were mine, I wouldn't let anyone else move in!!

[FYI - all these little communities are about 10-20 minutes apart...not really different towns; more like suburbs with farms in between ]

Quentin is back at home. He is also working part-time with me, actually. He does maintenance around the motel and he is also on the call list for another one and a roofing company.

The summer here has been horrible. At first, it was so cold I couldn't get warm. There has been no rain except for two days since we got back, and the whole area is tinder dry. At night the temperature drops to 10-12 degrees and it is freezing but in the daytime it goes up to 25. [For our foreign friends that's 50 at night and 75 during the day...25 degree change and it's tough on the body!!] 75 is not really hot but everyone here is complaining of the heat. If it's humid, it's worse and there is no reprieve. Apparently the water in the lake is still very cold. I wouldn't know...I have no intention of swimming until the water is 25-27 degrees [Caribbean warm]!

We expect to be back down in Fort Pierce by the end of October. We are taking the scenic route back: via Thunder Bay, Kenora, possibly Billings, Montana; Indiana and Charlotte NC. That should take about 3 weeks but we will see many of you that we have missed.

We finally got the see the last Star Wars...not impressed, but the Star Trek was awesome!!! And we managed to watch "The Martian". I loved the movie but the book was so much better!  It's a little scary how easy it is to fall back into old habits...watching TV, especially baseball games and favourite comedies. I still can't listen to commercial radio and I snarl at stupid drivers. I hate the City [Toronto] and the suburbs, love the countryside, but I still love the challenge of driving on superhighways.

I am waiting for a couple more things to happen but until they manifest I am not going to mention them. Suffice to say, there will be more news soon...maybe...or not.

Enjoy your summer, and stay warm...god knows I'm trying to!!