First Night on First Light

This is our third St. Louis to New Bern foray. A good part of it is a nice drive through the Blue Ridge mountains, this time with some of the trees just starting to turn. It was a reminder that seasons change. Though it will be a while yet, it certainly feels like a seasonal change is in the works for our lives as well. We are boat owners again, and are working toward spending a lot of time on the water. It must be admitted that our little car didn't enjoy the trip. Loaded as it was with tools, dishes, hardware, parts, more tools and more parts, hauling that load up the mountains had our little engine howling in protest and put a good dent in our usually impressive MPG.

It was 15 hours worth of “nice drive” with a New Bern arrival time of 10 pm. We elected to spend the night in a hotel and start our first full day on First Light fresh. Since we would be in the hotel for less than half a day, most of the stuff would stay in the car with just a few bags and musical instruments going inside with us. Almost to the front door, I remembered that we needed one more bag for the night. I headed back to grab it while Deb checked us in. As usual, I had backed into parking places because the scraping noise that comes from the bow when the curb is too high makes me wince. Said bag was in the trunk. It was dark and I was tired so it didn't register that the ground was really soft as I popped the lid and started to rummage around. Soft, because I was standing in the middle of a giant ant metropolis with a population likely larger than that of New York City. Those little buggers took offense at me stomping through their world, swarmed my Keens, and tried to encourage me to depart at once.

They succeeded.

Just as I closed the trunk I felt the first little prick of hurt, Moments later I danced into the parking lot with bag in hand and feet on fire; dropped the bag, shed the Keens, and started sweeping the little demons off my skin. Staggering into the lobby barely able to walk was a bit of a show. Now in the light I could find the few remaining assault troops still chewing their way into my nervous system, popped a Benadryl Deb keeps on hand, and limped up to the room. (A good bee sting can put me down for days. The Benadryl was an at-hand, hope-it-works-if-there-is-a-problem kind of thing.) While I iced my burning feet, Deb ran to the local store to get some med spray and bandaids. It all helped, and by midnight I was in bed after an 19-hour day.

The next morning, we rolled into the Marina for a third time as owners of a new-to-us boat. Day one was spent finding our way around, getting some things cleaned up, and starting a new to-do list. We put up the shower cap, (big cover that goes over the fly bridge.) It was at least as much of a job as was putting up the bimini and dodger on Kintala. Then we figured out a way to get power on the boat. Man, has it been a while. The big power plug had no match on the pole. Oh yeah, there is an adapter thing that goes from big to small, plugging the boat into a regular looking socket. But that doesn't carry a lot of amps so careful selection of what went on and what when off was necessary. Fridge and battery changer only. The boat's batteries are toast but, with the charger running at least we have some light. There is a pallet full of new batteries to be installed, a task for later. A couple of pieces of furniture got tossed off the boat with the help of a couple of young yard workers. A few other odds and ends were accomplished.

So, I sit here in our new salon, first night on First Light. First impressions....

The interior of this thing, compared to Kintala, is massive. Not quite as big as the two room apartment that is our land-side home, but for a boat? There are big picture windows all around. At the moment all they look out on is boats on the hard in various stages of repair or decay. But it isn't hard to imagine the view in No Name Harbor or Crab Key. The forward cabin looks to be twice that of Kintala's V-berth. Two people can fit in the galley without rubbing (Deb says she's not sure that's a good thing...) The lower steering station seems a bit tight. But it is still bigger than that on Kintala, and it is INSIDE. 

There is a big-screen TV that is tied to some kind of magic box that actually has stations on it. Weird. We haven't had any kind of commercial TV in our lives for nearly 20 years. A quick run through stations I've never heard of was all it took to convince me that we haven't missed anything. But there was also a DVD player and Deb and I like to watch movies. Since moving to Kintala all such watching was on a tiny screen. But this big screen came with the boat so why not give it a try? Deb bought a DVD while at the store picking up some other stuff so we could see if the DVD worked at all. There was a total rat's nest of wiring, TV, DVD player, router, power strips. One would think tie-wraps are some kind of state secret. There are also two different remote controls. I haven't had one of those in my living space for nearly a decade. Now I have two. So we ate dinner and watched John Wick off a bunch of bad guys because they stole his car and killed his dog. 

Pure cartoon violence, BANG...BOOM...SMACK...GRRR...we got a couple of good laughs. Then we hit the shower, I put some more goo on my still-aching feet, and it is time to call it a day. It was a good day, and holds promise of more good days to come.

Can't beat that.