Back in Brunswick Part 2

I've ridden up and down most of the streets here in Brunswick.  Here's a few pictures of what its like:

I street which is right in front of the marina

I street where it runs by the Housing Authority 

The marina is to the right looking towards the staging grounds for the movie

Continuing with the litany of boat projects, the sundeck repair was next on our list of things to get fixed.  I took off the heavy stainless steel band around the perimeter of the swim platform.

 Then I drilled out all the holes with a 5/8 inch drill.  Also drilled three 1/4 inch holes in the softest arts of the platform where the wood core had softened up.

The new curtains

Then I removed all the stair treads from the swim ladder and the ladder leading up to the sundeck.  They are peeling badly so we're removing the varnish and re-varnishing them a varnish,  Le Tonkinois.   Its the French Navy's official varnish if that is helpful.      It sure is easy to apply and isn't asphyxiating like some varnishes.  Jeff and Linda who are from Scotland, suggested we try it.  And it sure is looking good.  We'll see how long it lasts.

And for Kathy ... as reported to me by other users, it has superb ultraviolet resistance.

Epoxied

I bought 6 epoxy canisters which fit in my caulking gun.  I'm on an epoxy roll.  I shot 4 canisters of epoxy into the voids of the swim platform.  Another two canisters went into the screw holes.  The swim platform is noticeably more solid now.

The stair treads were pretty loose when I pulled them off.  The screws weren't biting into the wood any longer so I filled those holes with epoxy too.  And, noting that the door for the outdoor shower on the swim platform was loose, it fell prey to my epoxy madness.  I took it off and filled the enlarged and chipped screw holes with the last of the epoxy.

Then we started varnishing with Le Tonkinois.  They seem to be turning out pretty good,

There is a movie about to begin filming here in Brunswick.  Live by night starring Ben Aflak.  He's has been strolling around town and cropping up in a few pictures with people from the marina.  I'm a little miffed he didn't call me for lunch.

And the movie people want extras.  As in people who stand around making up the crowd in movie scenes. Sooo ... I think we're going to sign up and see if we are movie star material.  I'm so confident I dug up a Sharpie for signing autographs and started wearing shirts.  Fame is so addictive. :-)

Future excitement may include a hurricane Joaquin which is being projected to make landfall around Delaware but with an increasing chance of a more southerly landfall point near here!  Glad we plugged the leaks up on the fly bridge.  But we'll be watching this carefully.

Oh, I should mention (for Kathy's benefit too) old friends Bob and Martha completed the Loop a few weeks ago.

Linda and Keelie

At one of the Monday/Wednesday/Friday the cocktail party we had a special party for Keelie who turns 11 in a few weeks.  There is a party for him since they are leaving for the Virgin Islands in a few days.  A great little guy.  Linda, the story teller, did a little performance for him and then it was hugs for all his cruising buddies.

Mary went shark tooth hunting with Rhonda and Nina today.  It was strenuous I guess because she can hardly move.  And the sharks teeth are rather anemic, lacking that sinister look some have in abundance.  I suspect tomorrow will be less a boat project day and more of a "rest my weary body" day.

Shark tooth Hunter

Shark tooth hunting entails riding a bike a few miles to one of the spoil areas where dredges discharge their dredging material.  It's mostly sand but the location is in a wild area across from the marina, a heavenly breeding ground for bugs.  The technique seems to be centered around crawling around and sifting through the sand with an implement of sorts.  Mary used one of my now useless screw drivers.

Rhonda seems to the be expert having collected several thousand of them, some of which are used in dangly jewelry.

We're hosting a party tomorrow so it will be an early boat project day.  We're going to sleep now so we can bounce out of bed at dawn (10am) and start boat chores at 8am (Noon).  Life is good :-)
Deb, the office Manager at Huckins Boat Yard where we always take our boat for bottom paint and other repair work, is retiring and we decide to drive down there so see her off.  Huckins is only a few hours away and we can go and be back here in a day.  So I rented a car from Enterprise.  And I was lucky to get one because as they Enterprise guy told me, they dont have  many left due to the sizable crowd of support staff for the movie  shoot.  

All they had at Enterprise, a SUV of sorts

We drove to Huckins in Ortega and had a wonderful time.  Deb will be missed.  She is so competent and fully aware of what was transpiring around the boat yard you could go to her with a question and almost always get an immediate answer.  She is being replaced by two young girls, Sara and a part time helper whose name I dont recall.

That's Deb on crutches

Deb giving a little speech.  Cindy is in the green shirt next to her

Pretty big crowd in the work shed

We had munchie food and cocktails in the big work shed.  Cindy the owner gave a little speech and presented Deb with a necklace I think, which prompted a teary eyed speech from Deb.

We only stayed a few hours and then drove back to Brunswick after sadly discovering that Sailors Exchange had packed up their store and left because the building they were occupying was being renovated and the leasing costs doubled.

The day left Brunswick in the late morning and stopped at a mall in Jacsksonville to buy a few things before continuing on to Orlando.  The party was at the Waldorf Astoria Golf Club on the Disney grounds.  I snuck into a suspicious parking spot after dropping Mary off, but I couldn't walk in to the reception because they were having some sort of presentation right in front of the entrance door.  SO I walked to the hotel instead and had a drink at the ornate bar.  $15 for a tiny little glass of rum.  Guess you pay for the ambiance.

I finally got in the reception area which was in the golf clubhouse and talked with several people I had met before from previous parties years ago when Mary was still active in CUPA.  The reception was being held for former and retired officers.  Mary is one of those old timers.

We stayed a few hours until the party broke up and then drove to The Villages near Orlando.  This is where Dona and Greg have their Florida residence.  We rolled in rather late and stayed up for a few hours catching up.

Golf carts only

Next morning Dona took me golfing and I had a pretty decent round for not playing frequently.  After we collected Mary and Greg and went off to for a little tour and lunch at one of the Village Centers before heading back to Brunswick.  Golf carts are the favored mode of transportation here and noting that, there is a golf cart only gas station.

We had the car until 4PM the next day so made out shopping trip to Walmart and Publix to stock up for our impending departure.  

Adding GFI outlets turned out to be a big job

The next day I started installing GFI's.  GFI outlets are easy to install.  Except on an older boat.  The GFI outlets are a bit larger than standard outlets which meant I had to hack a bigger hole using a key hole saw cutting through 1 inch plywood bulkheads (walls) with a fiberglass facing.  It took a while and I was only able to install two, one in the aft head, and another in the forward stateroom.  The galley outlets are going to require some thought since there isn't much room to enlarge the hole and the GFI outlets are thicker than standard outlets meaning the wont be covered up well by the existing cover plates.

It's another First Friday.  This time we  ended up with Nina and Bob at Foxes for pizza after sampling various goodies from many of the stores along the main drag.

Next morning I submitted our official application to be movie stars.  We'll see how that goes.  The application process was pretty much just an email address and a picture.   

That dark hole in the cabinet under the TV is where my armed was just able to grab the cable

Having finally received the digital TV antenna I plunged into the installation.  It was easy to mount it to the platform where the old, since removed, radar sat.  It was snaking the cabling down to where the TV was located.   It took a whole day but sure gave me a good perspective of where some of the cabling was located.  The previous owner, Alan, had cut access wholes with cover plates in most of the critical areas!  This made it much easier but still, it was a pain.

The antenna came with a digital amplifier which works great provided us with beautiful HD picture. Of course we only have 4 channels here in Brunswick, 2 of which are shopping channels, a preacher channel and an ION channel showing old TV series.  And the satellite is not picking up the second satellite so no TV.

Next morning the pump out guys arrived.  I requested a pump out ,discarding the cheaper idea of moving the boat the 1 mile to the fuel dock and back.  Its a pain to disconnect everything and remove all the lines for such a short journey.  I opted to pay the $35 for the dockside pump out.

It was worth the entertainment.

So these two young guys show up wearing wife-beater t-shirts and pulling a small cart with an engine on one end and a tank on the other.  A longish hose was on top of the tank.  They hauled it right next to the boat and one guy, the guy with a pistol in the waist band of his pants, fiddled for a few minutes trying to get the engine started.  If finally fired up and the other guy got the hose in the pump out fitting of the boat and proceeded to empty the holding tank.  Except after a few minutes, and while I was sticking my head out the salon door, the hose fitting broke off sending a geysers of holding tank liquid right at the pistol carrying guy and also spraying me and the door which I thankfully closed quickly enough to block the worst of it.

It took me an hour to clean up the deck.  The guys mumbled something which I think was an apology and wandered off.  Seems the pistol carrying guy rejected the idea of taking a shower.  I took a nice, long hot and soapy one.

But at least we were able to empty the holding tank.   Somewhat.  We have a 45+ gallon tank.  The portable tank the guys had only 30 gallons and it wasn't entirely full.  But we can enjoy a week or so of no walks to the bathrooms in shore which, to be fair, are a few hundred yards away and are very clean, and air conditioned.

On a positive note, I tried the dockside cable again and now, after adjusting the TV to scan correctly, we have 70 channels.  One of us is giddy with excitement!

We had to lead the cable in through the salon door which isn't good for keeping the hordes of noseeums at bay not to mention rain.  So I was able to get the port side cable hookup in shape enough so we can use that as the cable input but had to run a cable under the carpeting in the salon.  It'll be another project to lead a cable wire down through the bilges and up to where the TV is mounted.

Speaking of noseems, known as gnats locally, I seem to be their idea of prime rib.  I get eaten alive and dont even see them or feel them bite until a few days later when the itching and welts appear.  Then there are those who walk around with all manner of skin exposed and never get a bite.  It's so nice to be special

Next day I checked the fresh water pump on board.  When we left, the water tanks were full of water maker, water.  The pump worked fine and the water in the tanks wasn't cloudy or smelly so all looks good when we leave the luxury of dockside water and return to living on the finite water in our tanks which we have to make.

Sue, off of Odyssey a Great Harbor 37, had asked me to fix her computer which couldn't connect to the internet.  I finally got over there and installed a new set of drivers for her wireless adapter and everything worked fine.  

Sue is the lady I walk with at night.  She's equipped with one of those Fitbit things and is always  walking somewhere.   We have good conversations when we go out together for a mile or so every night.   We always see the private security guys there, Leon, Gary and Anthony, in their little pickup truck keeping an eye on the marina grounds.  And us.

Brent and Susan bought a house here for less than $10,000.   They plan on fixing it up as a rental.  To celebrate we went by the house and then to DQ for ice cream.

The next day Susan was busy at her art studio while Mary, Brent and I went to Foxes for pizza.  Earlier that morning I had just discovered a flat tire on Mary's bike and Brent was on the way to pick up his car from a repair place.  Turns out the bike shop was right near the car repair place so he took me along and stopped at the bike shop where the guy had a new tire on in less than 2 minutes. Good as new,  And Brent's car starts just fine now.

Our hull cleaner.

In the afternoon we had a visit from a sea turtle who was graciously eating the green growth off the hull.  He munched for several minutes before moving on to, I'm guessing, a more gourmet buffet. 

Ahhh... heat!

We had a brief cold snap the other day.  It only reached 70 in early afternoon.  Some people were displeased and reached for their heaters.

I've been fighting this damn touchpad on our Dell laptop and after several go-rounds with the helpful tech support, I came to the realization that the things are just, well, crappy.  So I ordered 2, small blue tooth mice for us thus bypassing the erratic touchpad behavior.  

The original, long lasting varnish

We broke out the sandpaper and existing varnish, a organic soup of exotic chemicals to touch up the salon door where the varnish was peeling off.  It only took an hour or so to sand it down and apply this varnish concoction that was left on the boat  when we bought it.  It matches the varnish/stain on ll the wood outside and in.   We did two coats on the parts of the door we tackled this time. 




 It  looks great although we probably should through another few coats on.  But I think we may try the Le Tonkinois varnish we used on the swim platform stair treads.

Removing old varnish from the swim platform stair treads

Finally, on correctly

Speaking of stair treads, we used a heat gun to remove the old varnish and then put three coats of Le Tonkinois on them and re-installed everything.  Only trouble we had was when I put the swim ladder back together and installed it backwards on the swim platform.  Oops ...

As the date of our departure looms I asked Ricardo, a Brazilian we know here to check our running gear and maybe get a bottom scrapping.  He's doing odd jobs around to make enough money to purchase a new boom for his sailboat.  He looked  and said we should at least get the running gear (propeller shafts and propellers) cleaned off a few days before we leave.

Craig, Tam, Warren, Mary Susan, Monica (partially hidden) and Brent

Several of us were planning on leaving in a few days so we all went over to St. Simmons island and a famous rib place there, Southern Soul BBQ.  Its almost like a takeout place with long oicnic tables in the front.  The food was superb!  We drove with Monica and Warren and were treated to a little tour of  St. Simons Island.  We just hit the downtown area but Monica said its a great place with lots of large old houses and a nice big beach.

The island itself forms the eastern boundary of the ICW and is a few miles from Brunswick.  A very quaint place from what we saw and one we need to return too.  It's only about a 5 mile bike ride out there and back but along a highway with no bike lane.  But this is Georgia.  Bike lanes aren't all that common.

On the return trip we made a quick stop for ice cream at Moo Cow, which appears to have been an  old gas station.  They made the stuff on site and it was particularly good

Mary's brother Gerry passed away suddenly and we ended up just driving back to Wisconsin in lieu of flying.  Air fare were incredibly pricey out of Jacksonville.  I rented a car from Enterprise and all they had was a Hyundai Azera so at least we had a comfortable car.  

Gerry is Mary's older brother (87) and was constantly exercising and in great shape.  It's sad he's gone.

We drove up and stayed only a few days before heading back.  Sad occasion but it was great to see all the family, cousins, nephews, nieces.  There are a lot of them!

Odd Generator Water pump

While we were in Wisconsin I tracked down a Kohler distributor (we have a Kohler marine generator) and finally found a water pump.   TJ gave me the new part number since the old pump is obsolete now.  Did I mention I had just loaded up on a rebuild kit, impellers and gaskets for the old pump.  The old pump was leaking profusely out the weep hole which usually means the seals are bad.  Even though I  have plenty of rebuild kits, TJ told me it's far better to just buy the new pump.  So I did.  Back checking reports of rebuilds confirmed his suggestion.  Many of them fail and people end up buying new pumps.

New water pump

New main engine water pump with the old one dangling off to the side

Time to install it.  It has a completely different bracket and comes with several shims so the pulleys line up.  Another day bent over fiddling with screws, hoses and brackets.  I finally had it all lined up and fitted.

Next was the fuel pump, an electric one which went in without too much fuss.  After it was all put back together the test run was a resounding success.

And the last thing to do was pull off the sea water pump on the starboard engine and replaced it with the spare pump we have on board.  That was rather easy and when I ran the engine it worked perfectly.  The old pump was leaking badly.  Another rebuild project.

Royal Marsh Harbor Yacht Club burgee

Sue, the lady I walked with left a few days ago but I finally took her advice and joined the Royal Marsh Yacht Club.  Does that make us yachties now?  It was not real expensive at all and there are some benefit we can take advantage of here in the states and in the islands.

On my way to the store (biking of course) I stopped in at Clyde's Music Store.  He's going out of business and the guitar prices keep falling as does my resistance to buying one.

The movie set with old cars

Then took the opportunity to swing by the movie set.

There goes Jessie

Jesse, the captain of this huge Maxi 61 catamaran that was next to us, left today.  He and a new crew member eased the big boat out of a tight space and off they went to the Virgin Islands I think  Or somewhere south.

Brent stopped over one morning showing me his burnt out fuse holder.  Scary that he almost had a fire as the AC fuses which handle shore power seemed to have shorted and charred the fuse holder.  Luckily they were on the boat and saw it happen so no fire!

Brent's burnt out fuse

Steve and Liz, arrived in the afternoon.  And then Em and Bev came in a day later.  They  are cruising friends we met in Ft. Pierce and Marathon last year.

We all went out to dinner at Foxes Pizza.  Luckily Bev and Em like veggie pizza so I sat with them while across the aisle sat the meat eaters.  

The meat eaters.  Steve in the blue shirt and Liz next to him

Bev and Em

Teetering on the edge of leaving we cleaned the boat!   We had a few people over for cocktails before the Halloween party.  The marina throws a rousing Halloween party.  We, of course, went.  And wonderful Susan, the artist made, costumes for us.  We were the face cards, Kings, and Queens, and planned on singing "... know when to hold them, know when to old them ...".  

Our costumes were originally meant for Steve and Liz, but they were in a hurry to get to Ft. Pierce so left after a few nights.  So it was us 6 bumpkins, Brent and Susan, Em and Bev, and Mary and I.  Susan, knowing my singing skills lie south of none, provided me with a duck whistle.  I was going to be the rhythm section I guess. 

The Halloween party was thrown by the marina.  They provided the wine, beer and pizza while us patrons brought the other fixings.

What dorks we are

Sherry in the purple shirt.  You can barely see Mary standing next to her

We didn't win best costume (it was won by Bob and Nina the pirates)  but it was a fun evening with Sherry the dock master telling stories and even  Boneeto, a Guatemalan,  telling his movie story (he was hired to be a boat driver).  The movie is titled, Live by Night.  Sadly we, that's Mary and I, have been dumped from the "A" list to the "never-had-chance" list.  I've relegated my Sharpie to labeling oil containers.  Oh well 

So many choices, such diversity of tastes 

After the party minus Mary we all went for ice cream and ended up at Winn Dixie since all the other ice cream places were closed.   No one could decide on a flavor so we all got our own half pints and brought them over to Quimbee to eat and play Farkle.

We had been planning to go out with Tim and Ann off of Ivanhoe, a Ocean Alexander power boat, but were never quite able to consummate the date until today.  They have a car here and took us to Marsh Side, a nice little a few miles form here right on the water. Tim and Ann have been living aboard for a few years longer than we have and gave us great info on the St. Johns River which is where we plan to head after hanging in Cumberland Island for a week after we leave Brunswick Georgia.

Great time with them.  Hope we meet up with them again which I'm sure we will since they too go to the Bahamas.

This morning I noticed a boisterous little parade of tiny ants along the rub rail.  We were left with ant killer by the previous owners and so I murdered ants with great relish this morning.  I think they came aboard from the plants we had left on the dock when we left in June.

Dinghy ride and checking out the dredging barge

We got the dinghy down and I ran it for a bit.  The power tilt works but doesn't keep the engine tilted at the selected angle.  That's probably a leaky check valve in the hydraulic pump which is something I cant fix because I don't have a schematic of the darn pump.  It also is a little balky when trying to start but I can get it to run after moving the shift lever up and down a few times.  That could be the neutral safety switch.  We ran it up the channel a few times, and filled it with gas before hauling it back aboard.

One of the last things we did was haul the old 60 pound Danforth anchor over to the dock masters's office where Cindy, said to leave it if we just wanted to get rid of it.  So now we only own a Bruce, Rocna and FX-37 Fortress.

Ricardo, came buy and cleaned our boat's bottom.  He lost a snorkel so we gave him one of ours.

After paying the marina bill since we are leaving tomorrow, Mary and I walked over to watch the movie being filmed.  The set was alive with people, cars and lights but we didn't see much of anything happening. There was a good sized crowd kept back by security guards who admonished everyone to turn off the flash on any cameras.

Movie set

Crowd watching the movie set

We loitered around a bit before heading over to Subway since we didn't want to have dishes to do tonight.  We are leaving at 7:30 or before tomorrow morning.  We have to go out in the ocean to make water and check the water maker for leaks so I wanted to leave in the morning calm.

So it would appear we are ready to go!