Sept 10, 2011

We took a little trip over to Tarpaulin Cove again. We had such a terrible rainy cold week, and the forecast for the weekend turned out to be a little modest. The weather people had forecast partly cloudy with highs in the low 70's. They were wrong. It was beautiful and sunny and about 78-79 degrees. We made the last minute decision to go, and luckily Chris's aunt and uncle and his parents were willing to come along. I am embarrassed to say that we have been here all summer and this is the first time that we have taken his parents out on the boat.
Chris's family was brave enough to go swimming, while Dahlia and I opted to kayak to shore. As a side note...I love the kayaks and they aren't even that difficult to get on and off the boat. We spent the day swimming and eating, and then waited for the tide to change before we made our way home.
Well, the tide changed and the wind picked up and we got pretty beat up on the way home. We had the current with us but we were beating into the wind, so the opposing wind and current made the seas really choppy and confused. It is only about 6 miles away, but we were getting slammed and could only go about 4 knots. Chris's family was thankfully unfazed and seemed to be having fun, even though the spray was coming over the bimini top to the back of the boat and the secured TV came crashing down.
Then, as we were coming in to dock we were too far off so we had to try a second attempt. In the process Chris tells me that he has to go to the bathroom really bad and can't hold it any longer. So, I had to take the helm. We had just passed our dock, and surrounding our dock is a mooring field. I knew there was an empty mooring off the starboard side, but couldn't see it so I couldn't turn off that way. I had to turn in a small area just forward of our end dock, another dock and the mooring field. For most experienced captains this would not have been a big deal, but I was nervous. I either need more experience piloting or will have to put Chris in diapers. More time at the helm is probably more practical.

Sept 7, 2011

Still here! We wanted to leave this week, but that isn't going to happen with all the storms that are floating around in the Atlantic. Some might say that we are being too cautious, but it isn't worth it for us to leave now. I am hoping that once Katia goes by, we can head out, but only if that new tropical depression doesn't turn into something that might head our way.
Dahlia is now potty trained! She decided that she was no longer going to wear diapers, so we went with it. She has been in big girl undies for a week now and doing really well. I find it amazing how fascinated kids can get with their own "creations"! She has to look at herself when she goes, and practically falls off the toilet at the same time...its also amazing how flexible kids are!

Aug 31, 2011

We are down to the home stretch. This storm was kind of a bummer, but it did get us to go through some of our equipment. When we took our genoa down we noticed that it had some rotten stitching and the stitching was missing in some spots. The good thing is that now it is getting fixed. I only wish that I had a machine that was good enough so that I could do it myself. I have done a few small projects for the boat like; recovering some cushions and the helm seat, and I made safety netting gates that we can attach with snap shackles. I am also going to make some sun shades before we leave so that we don't get crispy like we did on the way up! A good sewing machine is on my list of "wants", unfortunately, there are some pricey things on the list of "needs".
We are checking the batteries off of the "needs" list. We were going to wait until we got down to Lauderdale to get batteries, because they are cheaper down there, but it would have been pushing it. We have 12 size 8G 4D batteries right now that are sealed gels, we decided to replace them with AGM's, and its is not exactly an item you can find on sale...bummer! It will be worth it. Right now if we are at anchor, we would have to run the generator at least once a day to maintain our power needs (which isn't much....fridge, water pump, shower pumps, lights at night, and the occasional fan), but with the new batteries we can go 4-5 days with out running the generator, and with out trying to conserve power.
Once that stuff is done, which is hopefully by Sept 8th, we will start to head south!

Aug 29, 2011

Everything survived! The boat did just fine in the water, but I am glad that we didn't have to go through a real hurricane. We saw sustained 40knot (46mph) winds with gusts of 55knots (63mph). I really can't imagine what it must feel like to be in 100+mph winds. As it was, the docks got a pretty good workout. If that storm was forecast to hit us directly, we would have hauled the boat.
The town was in fairly good shape as well, of course some large tree branches were down. There were also significant power outages all through the town, but everything seemed to be turned back on by 2am. Chris had gone back to the boat at that time to do a double check once everything started to calm back down.
By 8am they had all the beach roads cleared of all the sand that had washed up, and the piles were taller than our car. One of the small inlets had completely filled with sand and debris, and had to be dredged by a excavator. All in all, we were very fortunate!

Aug 27, 2011

These are tricky water tight doors that they have put up around all the doors and low lying windows. Hopefully, these are overkill, but you can never be too cautious...right?





Well, we decided to stay in the water. We moved the boat, and have now lashed down the main, taken down the genoa and bimini top, and secured as much as we can. The storm has appeared to slow down and break apart a little bit, and hopefully this was all for nothing. I like to remain optimistic.
Today, when Dahlia and I were walking around taking some pictures, she stopped to collect some rocks. Collecting rocks is a normal practice for her, except for today she found a small orange rock. She kept repeating "orange rock", "orange rock" and my normal responses of "wow" and "so pretty" must not have been enough for her, because she eventually said "orange rock nose".
As I turned to look at her, she had the biggest smile on her face and was pointing to her nose. Sure enough, that small orange rock was up her nose. Of course, the rock was nice and smooth so there was nothing to grip as I tried to get it out, and the funny thing was that Dahlia was giggling the whole time, obviously proud of herself. After much coaxing, the rock came out, with only a few tears, only after I told her "no more rocks in your nose"!
The whole time I kept thinking that I was never going to live this down, my mother still tells the story of when I was little and she had to take me to the hospital to get a pussy willow (of all things) extracted from my nose. Thankfully, this didn't require a visit to the ER.

Aug 26, 2011

We are on the fence about if we are going to get hauled out or not. They are holding a spot for us out of the water, but if we don't get hauled we will definitely move the boat to a more protected spot than where we are now. Right now we are at an end dock that is pretty exposed to S and SW winds, so we will move inside to a spot that is more protected from the E, and then the S winds that we will face. We will make the decision in the morning, right now it is hard to believe that there is even a threat of something on the way, the weather has been sunny and beautiful. The only give away to this storm is the boats that are slowly accumulating in the parking, and the staff here hard at work.
Deason has been busy helping the dock staff, they have had boats coming in a steady steam all day.

Uncle Bobby

A shout out to Uncle Bobby in Beaufort NC. Deason says take good care of Waterbug!
We hope you are on the backside of Irene, wait, that doesn't sound right....
Well we're trying not to worry about you because we know you wouldn't like that, but we are anyway.