Back in another Boatyard

A little update since my last entry….me and matt ended up in st augustine for 3 months after pulling into halifax and staying there a month. After 3 months in st augustine an opportunity arose for us to travel to alaska. We did not take the boat, just ourselves and some warm clothes. Spent 9 months there making money and paying off our boat. As of now, we have spent the last few months since july on dry land building a garage to store all the stuff we don’t have room for on the boat. Now we are leaving for the boat yard in San Mateo, FL.

9/21/11

We left northwest florida yesterday and headed in the car loaded down with various boat parts, accessories, and hardware to san mateo, florida. Oliver rode along in a pet carrier the whole way without too much of a protest. Just the occasional ME-YOOOOW out of him. Made it to the boat yard in just a little over 6 hours, after arriving we unloaded the boat of all the necessaries and reloaded it with the car full of necessities…so needless to say we still don’t have much room. Then we accessed our storage unit and removed our cushions, clothing, and linens that have been marinading in there for over a year. Lots of dust, and we even had visitors…insects. All kinds of kinds, ants, love bugs, ear biters, crickets, grasshoppers, a bugologist’s dream. Not mine. So again, we load the car again with even more boat essentials and now we have even less room. After unloading again me and matt were sitting around and realized we had not a drop of water! We were both soooooo thirsty! So back out again and down to the gas station to get ripped off on gallon bottles of water. To me this was an essential so it was splurged on.

9/22/11

1st day to work on boat. Aw so nice to be back on kindred spirit. We thought she was white but as we started washing her we realized she was more black with dust, grim and the dirt that has collected over the last year. Scrub, scrub, scrub, wash, scrub, wash, wash, scrub, scrub, scrub. That was how cleaning went, only multiply it by 10. We had moochers living in and around the boat, they were quickly evicted, good bye mud daubers! Scuffed up some of the bottom paint today, had nice cloud cover, so the humidity was not at 400% like usual and we were able to scuff a lot more comfortably if there is such a thing with scuffing. Plus the boat got a free rinse from mother nature..woo hoo! During this whole process I learned that ants love boatyards…or maybe they love my toes because at one point in time i looked down and they were feasting on me like my foot like it was a lonely cheerio. They also quickly got evicted or atlas i think they did. I experimented with my slushy soapy water with runny bottom paint mixed in as a “do what you can with what you got” ant killer. I believe it worked quite well, I felt a bit evil doing it…watching them shrivel up and die in the mixture, it was sort of gratifying. I have 10 ant bites on one foot, they itch like crazy!

Oliver is doing well adjusting back to the boat, he’s already doing his business back in head. Because god knows we have no room for that cat litter box. We haven’t found any brown surprises on our pillows yet. Keeping our fingers crossed.

It is still raining! its so nice and cool outside. Matt and I have almost permanent prunes printed on our finger tips. Dishes and laundry and tooth brushing are going to be interesting, we cant fill our water tanks in dry dock because the water we use goes right where we need to be working. So every time water is needed its out up the companion way, down the dive platform, down the ladder, 50 foot trot to the water spigot, to the blue bucket for washing. It’s going to be interesting. I’ll spare you the details of the bathroom situation for us. On the plus side we’ve got the window unit from Lowe’s pumping out the A/C from shore power. This = :)

We are prepping taking the mast down to re-do the rigging and replacing parts on it, plus painting and sanding it. Took the boom off today without too much trouble, it sits beside kindred spirit now. And the ants are loving it.

I reached a very thirsty point today. I took the closest fullest water glass and chugged it. And in the process I swallowed a couplet of love bugs! It was to late to barf them back up by the time I figured out what happened. Later, I made dinner, me and matt had exactly the same thing. Matt was fine, and afterwards sleeping comfortably, Myself, was having some severe stomach situations, abdominal pain, cramps, bloating and yep you guessed just what you want to have while your at dry dock living in a boat…diarrhea. Up the companion way steps, down the ladder, in the rain, in the dark, to the treacherous “bathroom.”It lies tucked away behind other boats in long term dry storage, its also full of bugs, and you gotta bring your own TP. I wont go into details but I spent most of the night there and now we need more toleit paper.

I imagine the next few days will be spent doing more bottom prep work, boot striping, painting, an expensive trip to west marine as always, and probably a few curse words and a case of beer.

9/23/11

Finished barnacle scraping, and more scuffing. Had a moderate issue with the roller furling being froze up. . . after a lengthy phone call to sea furl pricing a new unit and finding out if they made replacement bearings, a stop to the ace hardware for some penetrating oil did the trick. Unfroze, turning nicely, and now dis-assembled in a bucket waiting to be cleaned, lots of corrosion. Took some measurements for rigging, and contacted the crane man to come out to take the mast down.

Bug-wise ants are finding there way up the keel from various spots where the boat is sitting on blocks. Super annoying. Love bugs have super imposed my jerry-rigged dish/clothing washer. The multi-purpose blue bucket is asymmetrically patterned with the black bugs in a matter of minutes with multitudes of them. Big grasshoppers, i mean huge. They look like nasty spit out tabbaco with legs and beady looking eyes. Oh and now there is some weird beetles that likes to fly around and land on the back of your leg when your hands are full.

Cool place for an ice cream cone for a $1.65 found today just down the road. Yay! Plus they have a life size strawberry sugar cone outside.

Between the GPS, antenna, and weather service we are subscribed to, one of them is not communicating with the other. So this has turned into frequent trips to burger king to use their wi fi. Tried software updating and resetting the unit to no avail. Still not working, and Garmin tech support people aren’t back until monday. Add it to the list. And in case your wondering no we have not bought any beer yet.

9/24/2011

Today was a massive work day. Finished solvent washing and painted 90% of bottom. We ran out of paint. Mast is down, process of it was very nerve racking. It sits next to the boom beside kindred spirit now. We have been taking measurements and labeling all the rigging, turnbuckles, etc. Shopping around for a rigging place, along with a sail making place. Now there is a hole in our boat where the mast used to be, luckily i remembered this before it rained. Gorilla tape and a zip lock bag are now our official jerry rigged mast window. Every afternoon it clouds up like dooms day and we find ourselves in a mad rush putting all our supplies either back in storage containers in the car or throwing things from the ground up to the boat to be stowed. We did buy beer today, we earned it, the express mart will stay in business for a little longer.

9/25/2011

Expensive day at west marine, I knew it was coming. But they didn’t have the bottom paint in the size we needed. Since 90% of the boat is painted I did not see the use in purchasing a whole gallon, especially at almost $300, so I ordered a couple of quarts and they should be here next week. Also made an expensive trip to lowes. I am convinced they call it lowes because it does substantially lower what was in your wallet. Plus we had to drive an hour away because we are in a little town with no such major franchises. And again today it clouded up and rained. No boat work really got done, we did have a nice nap though, and so did oliver…not that he needed it.