Just sitting and waiting.

Leaving CT after a great meal with my bother Tim and his friend Christopher was our next journey. But what a meal and night we had with them. Christopher is from Vietnam, he and my brother must have cooked all day for us. It was a short ride to the house from Mom and Dads onto Winterberry Pl. in some town. Setting my Waze App (Love this App) we arrived and a call to my brother revealed that we where at Winterberry CR, a minor mistake my Waze and a 20 Minute back track… Mom and Dad, Arline and I, ate great Vietnamese food, soup, spring rolls with hot home made Hosni sauce, and on and on, finishing with Vietnamese coffee WOW. We didn't get to sleep until about 3am that night. Did I mention that Arline and I gave up CAFFEINE? WOW!!! Mom and Dad had 2 glasses of wine and I haven’t seen them in such good spirits and up that late and really enjoying the evening in years. I think that’s why it was called “Spirits” years ago, rightfully so. Thanks Tim and Christopher.

Traveling next to Amy and Jeremy’s in PA, they are in a small apartment waiting to close on their 1st house. Everything was on track for them and they were to close in a week or so. We visited and spoiled Cal as best we could in a short time. We played tennis, did a little sight seeing and we babysat one night so they could go to a movie. Cal had been being nursed but Amy had some stored that Arline was to feed him,…..well he wanted no part and was putting up a fuss for his mom. It wasn't until we distracted him and took his mind off the bottle that he would stop fussing, it worked and he took the bottle. Of course I was now tired from jumping up and down. That’s how we distracted him, Grandpa was playing and waving his floor toy over his head and showing him his mirror and stuff. Thanks Amy and Jeremy.

Jeremy always thinks of Arline’s addiction of chocolate and made sure she was set for the entire season, filling the Jeep with Hershey.

While with Amy and Jeremy I traveled just 25 miles to Philly PA to do a job at a customer’s house; he’s a prominent lawyer/judge in that town and also has a house in Skaneateles just off the lake. I did a nice job for in NY and he found out I was traveling by his real house and wanted me to install a generator switch for him and take care of a couple of motion detectors. He does a lot in the aviation field in his practice and we had some great talks about Amy and her plans. Thanks Chris

We only stayed a few days with Amy and Jeremy and headed to Kasidah and Florida. We had one last job in West Palm Beach too. Another customer from Skaneateles, the owner of a well know Rug retail and service store in Syracuse that I’d been doing work for many years, figured out how close Kasidah was to her summer home. She was having a problem getting some lighting fixed around her pool and yard. Somebody had come in and promised her that they’d have to pull up all the

landscaping and dig 18 inches down with a machine and blah, blah, blah$. Arline and I got there and saw none of the low voltage lighting working. We found a loose connections on a transformer, some bad bulbs, lose connections on light fixtures and it all worked. It took longer to drive to Home Depot to get some new LED lights and a few motion detectors than it takes to install them,…well almost anyway. We stayed the evening had a great meal with her and a couple of friends and a neighbor that invited us to do a few things for her. Thanks Lucia.

Next day we had another drive to Home Depot for the neighbor’s parts. It really was a few simple things but she is an older lady that just wanted it done right. The thing she was the most pleased with, and she was willing to take her new Ford back to the dealer and get a new one, was to program and sync her visor button to her garage door opener. (It’s the simple things in life that make you happy). Glad we could help. What an active great lady she is, at near 80 she reminded us of Katherine Hepburn, so alive with stories of her winning fishing tournaments, trophy turkey hunting, trophy Sailfish hanging in her study. Thanks Maryanne.   

 

Thanks Jeremy

We arrive at Kasidah to find her in the best shape yet after a summer in the yard. Her deck was nearly

clean meaning the down stairs had no mildew or anything. All the lockers and the storage areas were dry, the stored lines did not need cleaning, and it got better and better. We did find some signs of water but again nothing was really bad.

No one steals Jack's dinghy!

We have run into many of our cruising friends and have also been having a great time with all of them. Sid and Kate on an IP 40 have been with us for years,…this is our 5^th year I think in the yard or traveling with Sid. He’s an electrician on the west coast so we really have a lot in common. Kate has been with him for 2 years now I think. Sid had some Prop Speed left over from doing his prop. It’s a slippery kind of anti-fouling epoxy mixture just for marine prop$. I think he paid well over $100 for enough to do his. He mixed up a bit too much and brought it over to us, then Arline and I got busy on our prop getting ready for the application. It really is an amazing product makes the prop slippery, pretty and marine growth is not suppose to like it. Arline thinks we picked up ½ a knot on our trip motoring to Stuart. Thanks Sid

I changed the hot water heater that leaked last year. The old one would not come out of the locker. Lucky for me I brought my Milwaukee saws all. Now the old one was round and the new one was square. I looked and planned for a full day to figure out how to take some wall apart so I could get it in. There is absolutely no where else on the boat it could go. Then I took a drawer out of the aft cabin to show Arline the heater and why it was taking so long. The drawer is full of tools and heavy, as it came out it dropped hard and came unglued, Busted.  BUT I could see the heater and a way for it to slide into the area. I just had to take the 2^nd draw out, cut a simple piece of the section between the two drawers out, then knock the back wall out of the drawer area, build a new platform under the heater after it was in place mind you, rework the plumbing, put the drawers and cabinet area back in and it was in,……All of this while blindfolded, one arm tied behind my back, on my stomach in the 80 plus degree heat. One of the hardest things I’ve done on the boat in a while. But it’s in and works great. Thanks Kasidah.

After the launch we rigged Kasidah for the season but this year we did all our shopping from Indiantown. We figured we’d leave the Jeep in Indiantown instead of bring it to Stuart and do our shopping there. We did our runs for canned goods, another for real food, frozen food, and another run for booze, and diving needs. A few trips also for parts and we were done. Happy not to have a car in Stuart, the parking here can be difficult and other than shopping we wouldn't need it here.

Our trip to Stuart was for the most part uneventful till after the lock when we were passed by another sailboat that came into the lock with us. After he was in front of us he went on the wrong side of one buoy then almost went down a channel that wasn't a channel. If he’d gone another 50 ft up the non-channel he would have been aground and going at hull speed he would have been quite far up on it. Thanks Crazy Ivan.

Sitting in Stuart is always a nice time, the breeze keeps the bugs away, it’s always cool at night and on days that the Canadians keep their weather to themselves, it is in the 80’s and mostly sunny. The solar panels are keeping the batteries charged, and on days when those Canadian’s let their cool air come here the wind generator kicks in. Downtown is a short walk away, with great priced restaurants and shops. The showers are great here, WiFi is less than so-so out on the boat, but good on shore near the office. All the cruisers here are looking at weather, studying charts and sharing plans and stories.

Today is a cool day and raining so Arline caught the marina bus to Wal-mart to get a few last item things, I hitched a ride with Sid and Kate to get more parts for Frankenmotor. It’s now going to be 15hp with parts from an ‘87, ‘77, and these new parts will throw in a little ‘82 also.

Last night when most of our friends and family were getting cold blowing record snow we got a pretty good blow too. I heard the wind generator kick up and I know the sounds it makes at different speeds and the corresponding out puts of electric. Doing a battery system check I saw 30 amps going into my batteries. With all the boat lights on, the inverter on for the computers and a refrigerator or 2 running this was record setting and maxed out.  

We are now looking at a weather window that might open up for Monday or Tuesday to cross the Gulf stream.

We will see if it holds or not.

 Weather rules here……………