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!

Back in Brunswick Part 1

October 21, 2015 -  We are back in Wisconsin for a few days..  Mary's brother Gerry, passed away a few days ago and we drove from Brunswick, Georgia to Wisconsin for the funeral.

We are located way down at the end of the road

We arrived back here on August 21, 2015.  Brent and Susan had left a few hours before we arrived.  We probably passed each other on I-95 but never knew it.

That huge cameraman pulled in after we had left for WI 

We had a boat load (pun intended) of stuff in the car requiring some manual labor as in 4 trips with 2 dock carts before it was all aboard.  Getting it stowed was, well, is still going on.

It is stewing weather here, very hot and humid.  I was a little apprehensive when I first fired up the A/C units, but they responded with nice cool air thank goodness.

We spent the whole day and the following day organizing and trying to make sense of all that we had brought back.  We intended on doing a number of boat projects and purchased many of the parts etc. up in Wisconsin.

The dock carts next to the grill where I didn't burn the steaks

Sunday, after hours of sorting and organizing we took the car to Walmart about 6 miles away to load up on food and other sundry items.   Unloading all that took us several trips and multiple dock carts.  I dare say we can be considered experts in this sort of thing.  Available for consulting.  Not so much for doing the actual labor.  

As I was loading up the fly bridge refrigerator I noticed is cooling fan wasn't working.  Dang.  So I wired up a window fan and got it situated to blow air across the cooling fins.  That sufficed as a temporary solution but I'll have to order another fan.

The batteries were acting flaky with voltage fluctuations I've never seen before.  I had the solar panels and its charger off line while we were away so maybe that was causing some issues but I've taken to monitoring their voltage readings knowing I'll need to get back down there and probably check all the connections again.

We are right along side the railroad tracks

We hired divers who worked for over 4 hours cleaning the bottom.  They reported it was very encrusted with barnacles.  If we don't leave here in a few weeks I'll have to call them in again.

One of the pot luck dinners/cocktail parties at the club house

The marina sponsors cocktail parties every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with free beer and wine.  The attendees contribute snacks.  There are all kinds of people here.   Aussies, Canadian, Kiwis, a few English couples too.  And they are on all manner of adventures.  One couple, Warren and Monica who we met only briefly, left their boat here and flew to France to tend a country estate for a few months, basically house sitting.

We talked with Paul and Sue on a Great Harbor 37 and she I ended up walking together at night since she likes to take a nightly walk while Paul showers.  She's an older lady, a past marathoner too.  They have been living aboard for 13 years and have been staying Marsh Harbor, Bahamas every winter for those 13 years.  And there are a few who are circumnavigaters.  Round the world cruisers.

And Randy, who is a superb cook and Beth.  They are Canadians on a sailboat heading for destinations south as in Grenada etc.   And Rhonda, the Shark tooth lady I call her, who found a place to collect sharks teeth near here.  It's about 2-3 miles on a bike.

And there are others.  Kim and his wife Kerry Ann, Australians who have a 8 year old son, Keeli, with them.  Their other children are pretty much grown up.  "He was a, ah, surprise", Kerry said in that delightful Aussie accent.  

Ricardo, a mechanical engineer from Portugal.  And Gess (Jess) a Frenchman who is the captain of this huge catamaran next to us.  He lives in Polynesia.    And Bob and Nan who are on a Island Packet 38.  And Rich and Lynda who have been up through Alaska and down through the Panama canal.    

Dock 8 dock party with a band this time

One night we went out to eat with Randy and Beth.  They are on dock 8, the party dock.  We stopped over there for a drink and then headed out to the Thai place here in town, Basil's.  It's about a mile walk from our dock.  Wow was it good!  I dare say it was better than Randy's curry chicken which he made for one of the dock parties earlier.  I opted for his recommendation of a 7 on the heat scale.  Next time we go I'm in for a 9.  We stopped for a night cap at one of the bars downtown before walking back to the boats.

Out with Randy and Beth

The Marina where we are staying, Brunswick Landing Marina, is situated right across from the old town area of Brunswick.  Brunswick is a somewhat depressed area.  The downtown area is on a sort of boulevard that runs for about 5 blocks.   And its old, with many of the buildings from a interesting architectural period, around the early 1900's.   But a majority of the buildings are vacant.  There a few shops and galleries and some restaurants, the Thai place being one.  The other is Fox's Pizza, a really good pizza place, and then a few bars and of course Subway.  And some art galleries, one of which our friend Susan uses as her studio.

Temporary Pumping station at one of the County Administration buildings

Across the street, just east of us are the Glynn County administration grounds.  The county detention center, a rather nice modern building with no windows, is also right there.  The administrative  buildings have portable generators running water pumps from what I can tell.  Or maybe they are sewage lift pumps?  But whichever, it pretty much portrays some crumbling infrastructure.

Brunswick downtown at night

More Brunswick downtown at night

Beyond that though the neighborhood deteriorates into a pretty depressed area.  Many of the homes here are just trashed up.  And not a few are vacant.  It's a poor area with a startlingly high crime rate.

The Marina is a few miles south of  Coastal College of Georgia.  The closet shopping area is the Lanier Plaza Shopping Center which lies about 1.5 miles directly east of the marina.  But directly east  is a questionable neighborhood with a reportedly the high crime rate.  In other words, one must ride through it to get to the stores.

Sue my walking partner warned us not to ride to the Winn Dixie.  The store is in the Lanier Shopping Center along with a Dollar Tree and a West Marine.   But I've ridden there many times now, right up "I" street which is right in front of the marina.  Never had any issues.  I've met some good people, some interesting people and a few wholly stoned guys.  The streets are dirty, many houses are crumbling, even those surrounding the county administrative grounds. 

When we first returned Mary needed a prescription so I walked the few miles to the CVS which is right in the middle of the not so nice neighborhood.  But everyone was quite pleasant and I never felt unsafe.  The general consensus here at the marina is just don't walk around beyond main street after dark.

The urban gardener

I ran into a women on MJK blvd. who had converted a vacant lot into an urban vegetable garden.  I've forgotten her name.  Hey, it was four words long and I have trouble remembering three letter names!  Her intent is to pass along some gardening tips to those in the neighborhood with the hopes of seeing others start up urban gardens.  It was an impressive garden but I fear her goal of education might not be attainable since she reported there were very few people interested in what she was doing.
.  

Downtown Brunswick

Brent & Mary on First Friday

The new looking construction is for a movie set

The first Friday of every month is called, well First Friday.  Most of the downtown shops and restaurants offer free snacks and there is music and usually very cheap beer.  When we went there it was crowded with plenty of local folks and us marina people who, of course were wandering around and hitting the more desirable shops where the offerings were of higher quality.  Some pretty fancy hors d'oeuvres.

So there might be some curiosity as to what boat projects have been keeping us here.  Glad you asked!

We began, in earnest and with boundless energy.  First were closet lights in the master stateroom closet.  We had been using battery powered stick-on lights which proved wholly deficient.  So I bought a few LED lights and spent 2 days wiring them.  Simple job you might have thought and

Lights in the closets

indeed it is ... conceptually.  Not so much on an old boat threading wires through tight spaces and only after finding a convenient 12 VDC power source.  But they are in now and working great.

As an added bonus the aft shower sump pump float switch stopped working so after riding to West Marine for a replacement I re-wired it and its back working again.

Yes, those thin illuminated areas are the fly bridge lights

Next, fly bridge lights, again a conceptually easy project which took 2 days.  The lights themselves are some cheapie things I found at Ikea when LeAnn took us there.  I wired them up and sealed them with caulking.  

 I had to make a little wood piece to fit in between the two fly bridge seats.  Easy except not so much with only a rough hand saw.  But it turned out ok, and I found some stain/varnish on board that matched all the other stains too.  So now we have fly bridge lights and a light illuminating the stairway up to the fly bridge.

Primed portion of the forward stateroom headliner

We painted the forward stateroom ceiling.  That took a few days, with cleaning it, priming it and then two coats of paint.  It seems to be holding up well.  We decided to do this because the headliner wasn't responding to any cleaning agents we tried.  It was just to old and stained.  I got the idea from another boater who came to the same conclusion we did when he tried to clean his headliner.  He suggested the Gripper for the primer and Marquee for the paint.   We found both at Home Depot.
    
Spent some time and got our media player working on our wireless router so now we can watch NetFlix.  Perhaps it was bad Karma but the day we got the media player functioning the satellite TV conked out and I cant access the KVH satellite antenna data port to see the diagnostic logs until I get a D9-to-USB serial cable converter.  Thank goodness for Amazon.

Our down foot switch for the windlass on the fore deck hasn't been working for months so I ordered a new switch.  And got the wrong one.  It's circumference  was about 1/4 inch too big to fit in the existing hole and I really didn't want to try and drill a 2 1/2 inch hole in a 2 inch thick deck.

Epoxy to the rescue

And upon close inspection I noted the old switch was an Ideal not an Imtra.  So I ordered another new foot switch from Ideal.  In the meantime we had to take care of some water rotted deck coring, in and around around the hole.  Luckily West Marine was having a sale on tubes of epoxy.  I dug out the rot with a small screw driver and let it dry in the hot sun for a few days.  Then, after drilling out the existing screw holes to 1/4 inch we pumped epoxy into the holes.  I had previously taped up the interior of the large hole to contain the sticky, mud-like epoxy and it worked great.  After a day we had a perfectly hard deck again and a near perfectly round, epoxy filled hole.

Back months ago when we were in Stuart we had purchased a big roll of material intended to become new curtains for the staterooms.  And now was the time to make the transformation from roll of material to curtains.  We had brought it along to Wisconsin but never had the chance to make them.

Mary hauled all her material and sewing stuff to the yacht club and laid it all out on the bar to cut them to size.  It took two days, because the bar is, well a bar.  And drinks are usually being mixed around 4.  

We typically dont start any work until after noon, so the time crunch between working and cocktails can be tight.  But perseverance won out and it only took two days.  Then eschewing a sewing solution, she used Perky Bond Plus, a sort of iron on adhesive.  Once she had them completed we spent another day taking down the old curtains and hanging the new ones.  Pictures forthcoming.

New head light over the mirror

And since we were in the aft stateroom we decided to replace the "hideous" (Mary's term) mood lighting with new LED strip lights.  I ordered the lights and once they arrived it was another day removing all the old rope lighting and hanging them and then wiring the new ones.

We were on a roll.  Next I put up a stained board and hung a mirror/rail light in the aft head.  We had been living with, literally, a hole in the wall above on of one of the mirrors for months.  Now, its a nice rail light of all LED's.

Rebuilding hinge back of the sink lid

Then we used epoxy to build up a crumbled section of the sink lid where the hinge had been loosely hanging.   The sink is on the sun deck and can be covered up by this lid.  The hinge basically fell off the lid.   And, we did the same for a locker door located up on the bow where its hinge had fallen off due to broken wood.

The blue tape is holding it together while the epoxy sets up

But why stop now.  I epoxied up the broken shelf in the galley refrigerator door too!  And then applied it to some large cracks that formed in the crisper. 

I had ordered 3 refrigerator fans and they arrived today.  Why three fans?  Well, because the fly bridge refrigerator fan was not working when we returned.  I had also planned on putting an additional fan in the galley refrigerator space to exhaust the hot air which will (hopefully) keep the fridge from cycling on so frequently.   And one always needs a spare.   The fans are basically just computer cooling fans.  I had the fly bridge fridge one installed in no time.  

Our new cabinet exhaust fan

The galley fridge is really cramped into this space and getting it out is always a pain, but I managed, and cleaned off the heat exchanger fins before mounting and wiring in the exhaust fan.  Luckily the fridge manufacturer, Vitrifrigo has an electrical connection for this very thing which made it easier than digging into the wire harness.

On order now is the digital TV antenna, a new router, new GPS antenna, and a new dinghy VHF antenna.  Like I said, we're on a boat project roll.

Speaking of GPS, we have been enduring an autopilot only capable of steering compass courses.  It took a day, but I re-wired all the connections and adjusted the computer port settings all in an attempt to get the autopilot to follow a route that I can enter into the navigation software running on the computer.  And it I finally got it working!  Cant wait to try it out.  It means the boat will automatically follow a set course which I can pre-load.  It'll steer while we nap.

I've been regularly visiting Central hardware which is only a few blocks from the marina up "H"

The hardware store

street.   I trade witticisms with one of the hardware store employees, an older lady named Mary.  She's one of those hardware experts who knows everything,  Fun person.

On one of by visits I walked the extra few miles to Electrical Supply on Norwhich street.  I needed GFI (Ground Fault Interrupter) receptacles because I want to begin replacing the standard receptacles with GFI's.  Our inverter was equipped with one until it died this past February while we were in Marathon, and I could never get a replacement that would work properly.  It's about a 3 mile walk through some of the more interesting parts of town.  Glad it wasn't nightfall!   

Electrical Supply

Electrical Supply has a very informative staff and a wide variety of electrical stuff and advice.  Its in an older building which probably accounted for the large garbage can in the center of the floor collecting an impressively voluminous leak from the roof.   But the GFI's are top notch and the advice was rich.

Winn Dixie, Dollar Tree and West Marine hidden off to the left

The Winn Dixie grocery store, about two miles away is a pretty decent store.  Finally getting smart I took my bike down, oiled it up and put air in the tires.  Now my grocery forays are much easier because I can load up the bike basket with an impressive amount of groceries.  The only problem is the bike lock tumbled overboard so no bike lock.  I've been warned by others that this is the bike theft capital of the world.  

One day I rode there and realized I'd forgotten my glasses.  I cant read a label without them.  But since there's a Dollar Tree next to Winn Dixie I just stopped in there and bought a pair for $1. 

There is also a surprisingly busy MacDonald's there with $0.49 cones.  When I stopped in the ice cream machine was out of order so I saved $0.49!

Rocna is the silver anchor.  The whiskey bottle is holding down a patch protecting the epoxy

We had finally purchased a new secondary anchor, a 55 pound Rocna and it was waiting for us in Sherry, the dock masters office when we returned.  It's meant to replace the old Danforth we had been carrying around and never used.  In the Bahamas, some of the anchorages have grassy bottoms and the pointy end of this anchor will easily penetrate the grass.  Our 66 pound Bruce will to some extent but the Rocna handles these grassy bottoms much better.

Anyone have a burning desire for a 60 pound Danforth?

So we are trying to get rid of (sell) the old Danforth.  No takers yet.   However I have high hopes for the nautical flea market later this month.  Hope we're still here.

I had to make a trek to Walmart to buy a few things, one of which was a bike lock.  It's a trek, about 6.5 miles but there is a Lowed along the way too, so it's going to be a fruitful expedition.  Our wash down hose expired and spouts little jets of water from half a dozen holes.  Makes for a humerus spectacle but also renders the darn thing useless.  So we need a new hose from Lowes.

The route was through some pretty depressed areas, the passing by the College there is a shopping area and of course the ubiquitous Walmart.

I parked the bike in a bike rack at the Walmart and went in.  Knowing what I had to get, I loaded up the cart in record time.  20 minutes later I emerged lucking our grocery bag and three brightly colored bike locks.  Trouble is I didn't see my bike, only a mangled rusty looking thing in the spot where I left mine minutes ago.

It took me a few seconds before bulb began to brighten.  Crap!  My bike was stolen!  I couldn't believe it.  20 minutes!  The junker that was there didn't appear ridable and I really wasn't keen on stealing a bike.  Now what.

I was pissed.  So I decided to walk back to the boat lugging the 15 pounds of stuff.  I think I was secretly hoping I'd spot my bike somewhere along the way.  I walked back the same way I had ridden to Walmart.  Passing by Lowes, I had to stop there and buy a flexible hose to replace the leaky one we had to toss.  I had just enough room to cram it in my back pack.  The shopping bag was already overflowing.

It was a long walk with no bike!

It was a long walk and of course it was a nice, hot, sunny day.  Mid 90's.   As I was strolling by a Day Car center this large man sporting a huge gold cross popped out of a brilliant white Lexus and offered me a cold soda.   Said I looked hot and could he offer me a ride.  Sweet man

I walked by a small school and this nice man, wearing a huge golden cross, jumped out of his car and  offered me a cold soda noting that I looked a little wilted in the heat.  He was large, large man and the pastor at one of the many little churches around here.  Nice fellow.  I declined the offer though and trudged on.

Our only transportation now

I made it back to the boat and after putting everything away went over to the club house to share my cycle travails to those around the bar.  Turns out Jeff and Linda who are on our dock had two bike theft incidents, one where the thieves actually came on their boat attempting to steal one of their bikes.  Jeff, a short wiry Scotsman jumped out on the deck  and chased them off but then chased them all the way down the dock and out into the street where they got away.

So now we are down to a single bike.  But that isn't hindering our parade of boat projects, described in Part 2.