Let the games begin...

Ed Note: This post spans about a week's worth of being at our home dock.

The marina has been the temporary home for many Looper friends for the last couple of days. The river situation south of St. Louis is a bit questionable at the moment. It looks like they can make Kentucky Lake easily enough with the only concern being how many boats are going to be stopped at the lake trying to decide how hard to push south, a decision made even more difficult with the Florida Big Bend area being hammered yet again by another major hurricane. I'm not sure I could talk myself into taking a boat any further south than I am right now. Both Deb and I are kind of glad that we don't have to make any traveling decisions at the moment. But that doesn't make it any easier for friends who live in Florida and other friends who need to go that way to get home.

Our friends on Number 99 as they pass the arch on their way south.

A couple of days ago, we spent the day as tour guides for our home town, eight of us enjoying the city's zoo and then four of that group going on to visit the Arch. (Deb and I have been there and have no real need to visit it again.) We have also been the target address for some of our friends getting things shipped to them. Getting things shipped is a relentless pain for those of us who travel by boat with a current address being “somewhere on the water”. We have helped out in some other small ways as well. It is what people who live on boats tend to do, as most of us have needed a favor or two along the way. Deb and I have been on the receiving end of a helping hand so many times. It is nice having the chance to be on the offering side for a change.

He seems to think that way is south...

So we headed off to the marina with two granddaughters in tow to a) actually start getting some work done on the boat and, b) meet up for dinner with the gang before they head south in the morning. The  “b” part of the day was a really good time. The granddaughters charmed the group while we shared stories with people who are now good friends that we might not see again for a while.

The “a” part of the day was a little different story. It was the girls' first time on the boat and they fully approve, even if we didn't leave the slip. Deb found some stuff that melts spider poop. Spray it on, wait a minute or two, wipe (or hose) it off. One small step from being pure magic. Ah, but after that things got a bit less fun. I decided to tackle replacing the starboard side midship cleat damaged while on the wall in Grand River. From the start we knew that the outboard wall of the shower stall was the only access point. The was no choice but to get behind that wall.

We didn't remove the wall so much as destroy it. It was mounted with nails buried into the wood, leaving no way to pry it off without trashing the wall itself. I guess nails are cheaper than screws and/or it never occurred to the fabricating or design team that anyone would ever need access to that area again (this in spite of the plumbing lines and wiring runs behind the wall).

Even that brute force method of removal took most of the day. Which sounds bad, and is. But isn't quite as bad as it might seem. The wall is (was) a thin slab of laminated wood-like material  that was showing the damage of decades on a boat. The support wood it was attached to was in even worse shape. And, as is common with boats, the install itself was shoddy with nails sticking out in skin-gouging places where someone kind of missed the target. The wood supports looked like they were hacked off with a dull ax and were even more rotted out than the wall itself. Understandable, as it was untreated raw wood. In my experience it was marine-industry-acceptable since it was all hidden and likely assembled by people making minimum wage with someone standing over them demanding that they move faster and use whatever material was lying around. The low standards of marine industry quality control is my normal expectation whenever I get involved with a boat project, but it is still a disappointment. And, to be fair, it isn't likely the manufacturer ever expected the boat to be in service as long as it has.

After the new cleat is in place, the shower will be rebuilt with new and better material. It's my boat and I can make it as professional-looking as my skill and wallet will allow if I want, even if no one else will ever see what is behind the wall again. 

With the wall destroyed, it became obvious that access to the cleat mounting bolts was still going to be a problem. As expected, the cleat was through-bolted at the edge of the deck with a backing plate. What was not expected is that the three of the four bolts as well as most of the backing plate were then fiberglassed over. It would appear that the deck was assembled as a unit with the cleats installed, then that unit was glassed onto the hull. Thus the outboard bolts are completely buried where the hull and deck are joined. We were stymied for the day, but that was okay as it was time for dinner with our friends. Then home with two tired granddaughters and one worn out Grampy T.

After removing the retractable clothesline, we drilled a hole big enough for the boroscope

so we could be sure the nuts were where we thought they were. Alas, all you could see was one tiny bit of nut edge under fiberglass.

After removing a bit of fiberglass and one of the nuts, the backing plate became visible.

After a day off, we were back at it.  The forward inboard sheared bolt wasn't glassed over and was easily removed. The aft inboard bolt was the one that didn't shear and was still holding the cleat to the boat. That nut was covered with fiberglass but was accessible. A few seconds with a Dremel and I could hold the nut while Deb unscrewed the cleat from the deck. (The nut was spinning in a glassed in pocket.) 

We will be replacing the cleat with a different style that has just two mount bolts. Not as beefy as the original, but it will get the job done. Particularly since we will not make the mistake of running fore and aft spring lines to those cleats while getting bashed against a wall in three-foot rollers.

When the new cleat is installed, we will tackle the job of rebuilding the shower stall. The goal is to make it look more professional and "tidy" than it did. That is not going to be an easy job and will likely take a while. Fortunately, we are not in any hurry to go anywhere. Which is particularly good because the cleat repair and shower rebuild is far from the biggest job we need to do. With the replacement cleat on order and the shower cleaned up from its disaster-in-progress state we decided to get one more task done. It took less than an hour to replace the low pressure water pump that we had shanghaied into serving as a deck wash pump with an actual deck wash pump. Big difference. Not sure when the next time will be that the hook will come up covered in mud but when that happens we will be blasting that mud off with ease.

A day or so after that : With the new cleat in hand, we headed back to the boat. The first task was to "move" the original mounting holes through both fiberglass and backing plate a few fractions of an inch so the new bolts would go in. A brand new beefy round file moved them where they needed to be. Some fiberglass and gel-coat work followed and, had I mixed the batches a little hotter, we might have finished up the install. But  the gelcoat was going to take a while to set and we were about out of day, so homeward we went.

This morning, Grandsons (two) and I headed back to the marina to finish the cleat repair. The Grandsons did the sanding, washer filing and fitting, and final install. All I did was watch, lay down the sealer, and put the final bit of torque on the install. There is still a little gelcoat work to do around the new cleat. Actually, there is gelcoat work all over the boat awaiting attention. The cleat will get its share.

So we are now several days in to our "the-boat-is-a-hobby-not-our-home" post Loop life. A few projects are already well along. It feels pretty good.

The old cleat just taped on till we made it home

The two inaccessible outboard holes glassed in

The two accessible holes ground out so the new cleat bolts would line up with the holes

Waiting for the new cleat to arrive

Guess what needs to happen to that ever-too-long screw???

Washers to beef up the backing plate.

The new cleat installed

Yes, much more gelcoat needs to be done...

More photos from our zoo trip

He told you south was that way!

Flu, Falling Leaves and Falling Snow

All the years we lived on the boat, we would come back to St. Louis to visit and we would get sick. Didn't seem to matter if it was winter or summer, although the holidays did garner their share of extra virus bugs. This year it appears that maybe it's a virus that most of the family has been exposed to some time previously, as so far the only ones to succumb are the baby, the 4-year old, and me. It may be that it's a flu or just a really horrific cold but, either way, it's knocked me flat for almost two weeks as it traveled from my sinuses to my throat to my lungs. Thankfully, the wage-earning member of our household hasn't come down with it yet.

Just before the onerous bug took up residence in my body, we were enjoying the amazing two weeks of fall weather we usually get in St. Louis. We were riding our bikes in the parks, and going on long walks, and sometimes were just simply sitting outside with our faces turned into the sun. If there is one thing that living on the boat taught me, it was to enjoy beauty whenever and wherever you find it. Being terrestrial dwellers again has accented the importance of this in so many ways.

From early November through the end of March, St. Louis is not known for its colorful vista. Most of the trees have dropped their leaves, the grass is faded, the sky is gray, and houses are all painted variants of the same taupe or gray color as the surroundings. After living in the Bahamas and Florida for so many years, the lack of brilliant colors is perhaps my biggest challenge. The time change this year even prompted the purchase of one of those Seasonal Affective Disorder lamps that are purported to help with winter blues. Time will tell if the claims are justified. In reality, I think that the leaves that I picked up along my walks in the parks and coated with polyurethane will yield similar results.

Even after I was sentenced to a few days' rest on the couch, I found beauty in the reflections of the tree branches blowing in the wind on my living room wall, oddly reminiscent of the water ripple reflections that used to dance on the headliner of Kintala's  interior.




So I'm clinging to the beauty that I've collected in my mind these last few weeks in an attempt to get through these winter months. In the meantime, Bean the Boat Bear is sitting in his windowsill watching the early snowfall, 3" of fluffy white stuff accompanied by 30 kt gusts, all the while plotting his escape to the crew of Blowin' In The Wind down in sunny, warm, colorful, Stuart Florida...

Cruising in a new location

We chose to live right in the middle of downtown St. Louis during our cruising hiatus for several reasons. We wanted a very small space to live in, boat-sized to be exact, so that we wouldn't accumulate stuff that would have to be dealt with when we go back to a boat. We also are so used to the simplicity of small-space living that we had no interest in spaces too large. Suburbia didn't interest us at all. The community-centered cruising life left us with no desire to live in the highly insulated life of St. Louis suburbs, o. We were used to interacting with people, and used to being able to walk to most of what we needed. Then there was also the idea of trying something new that we've never done when living here before. We'd lived in the city limits before when we lived in the Central West End condo, but it was on the outskirts. We've never actually lived right smack dab in the middle of a metropolitan city. On top of all of those reasons, I desperately needed to see the horizon, something that you couldn't do from any suburban house in the area. We found our place on the tenth floor in a high rise building about 15 blocks from the river, western exposure and sunsets included.

Yesterday was one of those unusual winter days in St. Louis - warm, sunny, and almost no wind. Just like we did when anchoring in a new place for us on Kintala, we took advantage of the weather to explore our new cruising grounds. As Tim said in his previous post, we started out by strolling the 15 blocks down to the river and the Gateway Arch, passing many other city parks that line Market Street along the way. On the way back, and via a coffee shop, we stopped by the Central Library, which is happily only two blocks from our apartment. One of the other advantages of living in a major metropolitan area is beautiful, old architectural structures. The library is one of those. We signed up for library cards and took to exploring what will surely be a place we spend many hours in.

The library was renovated right around the time we were casting off the docklines to go cruising, and we hadn't been there since. It's three floors of amazing collections of books, magazines, rare documents, visiting art exhibits, computer rooms and even a cafe. All technologically modern, housed in an architectural feat.

On the way up the split grand staircase there are a pair of beautiful stained glass windows. The staircase is a marble affair, cool to the touch, and I imagine the whole building would be a good respite from St. Louis summer heat. The staircase takes you to the third floor where the rare documents section is. After asking what the oldest manuscript they had there was, we were told it was cuneiform clay tablets from Mesopetamia. Most things in this section are locked behind a door to a temperature controlled room, but they are still available for public viewing with an appoinment.

We had to take a tour of the children's and teen's sections so we would be prepared for visits from grandkids. The sections are huge and filled with all sorts of books, games, puzzles, and fun but comfortable furniture for reading. They run a children's story hour weekly and once a month they do a theater production in the basement ampitheater for free. The teen section was as big as most libraries. Several of my grandkids would go nuts in there - long story series abound as well as walls of audio books and DVDs. 

The pièce de résistance, though, was a creative experience lab. They have a room with four pods equipped with very high-end computers and large 42" wall-mounted monitors. The computers are complete with every creativity program possible for digital project creation and editing - Photoshop, Indesign, music creation - you name it. You can begin a project there and take it to completion, or you can bring your project in and polish it off. It's good for both professionals and novices and they make a host of tutorials available for anyone that needs help. In one corner of the room is an enclosed music recording studio that you can reserve. It's an amazing resource, and it's all free.

The library was built beginning in 1901 with a substantial donation from Andrew Carnegie and a collection of  1,500 books. Today it houses over 4 million items in 16 branches. All through the library are displays of the original construction and the rehab of 2012. I'm sure if you spent a lot of time there, the stunning detail in the architecture would fade to the background, but for the time being I was pretty satisfied to just walk around and look. Everywhere you go there are painted ceilings, carved wood and stone, and embellishments of the sort that no one can afford to use when building these days. It's a wonderful place to spend an afternoon. Maybe not quite as good as turquoise water lapping crystalline beaches, but when it comes to man-made structures I'm pretty satisfied to have this five minutes from my apartment.

Closing doors

The alarm drags me from a deep sleep. Within minutes our air mattress is deflated, last minute items stowed in our bags and the car packed. The house of Tim's childhood now stands empty, his parents having been moved into the nursing home last year. The sounds of childhood laughter, old TV programs, running toddler feet and shared meals echo faintly in the empty rooms. The family picture wall is blank and painted with fresh coats of bland paint suitable to market the house, but my mind still sees them there, denying the For Sale sign in the front yard. We know we will never be back inside this house of memories because an offer has been accepted and the new owners will take possession before we return. We take a last sweep through for missed belongings and close the door.

Kintala safely on the hard, we're headed across the country to our old condo to get it ready to put on the market. The renters are moving out next week and we'll begin the process of cleaning and painting in preparation for our own For Sale sign in the yard, hoping with all our might that the real estate agent's assessment of the market is correct and that this time we will successfully divest ourselves of this land anchor.

We've closed a lot of doors in our forty years of marriage. Aviation kept us moving a lot and Kintala is our 17th home in those years. Some of those doors we were happy to close, others left me weeping as I pulled the door shut. All of them brought significant change to our lives, but probably none as much as closing the door to the condo and moving on to the boat. During this brief visit we listened to Tim's sister as she recounted the horror stories of dealing with 55 years of stuff embedded in every nook and cranny of his parent's house. We sat around a restaurant table last evening and listened as my niece-in-law (is there such a thing?) recounted her frustration with corporate society. We dodged distracted drivers in frenetic traffic, surfed hundreds of cable channels to find nothing, strolled through malls filled with useless merchandise. While some doors will always hurt to close (grandkids are the number one reason people quit cruising...), closing the door on our condo, two years after going cruising, is an affirmation of this new life we have chosen. I'll miss the kids terribly, but I'll be ready to head home soon.

Ice Cream home run …

Or is it touchdown this time of the year? Not sure. Don't care. But you know you have scored big in the ice cream department when, on a cold, rainy, gray, winter-time day in St. Louis, the ice cream shop is filled to capacity with the line stretching clear to the door. And just a short walk from Daughter Middle's house.

Photo courtesy of icesplainandfancy.com

The four adults bundled up the five grand kids and headed off down the block, not even sure the shop would be open on a day like this. The timing was right and we got in just before the afternoon rush. Why would an ice cream shop be doing such a bang-up business on January the third in the middle of snow country? Simple, because Ices Plain and Fancy serves about the best ice cream I've ever scooped up with a spoon. They make it right in front of you, using liquid nitrogen to chill the mixture in seconds while it gets whipped in the bowl. Cold smoke flows out of the bowl and over the counter aa the flavored cream is whipped, which is a pretty fun effect that will thrill grand kids to no end.  It also makes for a smooth, flavorful concoction perfect for waffle cones, which are made on sight fresh each day. I had Cherry Cordial, the best I've ever tasted. Deb had Butter Pecan, the best she's ever tasted. Two of the grand kids had Mint Chocolate Chip. Two others had Rocky Road. The fifth stayed nestled close to Mom being, at five weeks, a bit young for ice cream. 

If someone builds a shop like this one in the Abacos somewhere, it would be hard to find a reason to be anywhere else.

With any luck we will be back on the boat soon. And soon after that heading east. The Abacos are calling, even if they do lack the best ice cream shop in the world.