October 19th, 2013

Three thousand six hundred and seven days ago we pulled the dock lines onto Kintala's deck, motored away from Oak Creek Marina, and headed out on our cruising adventure. Now, all those days later, First Light is anchored just a couple of hundred feet from those docks. And I swear that the trawler tied to the end pier is the exact same boat, sitting in the exact same place, as the day we first headed out.

It seems surreal to be here again.

The last leg of this part of this particular journey was near perfect. It was a bit after 0700 when we pulled out of Kent Island to take advantage of a day with wind forecasts of light and variable. Grandson Eldest had the helm, backing us out of the slip and out into the river like he had done it 100 times. Just before 1100 the anchor splashed into Rock Creek and settled into the bottom. It will be a quiet couple of days of sitting in a picture perfect and well protected little anchorage while waiting out the holiday weekend. After that, things will get pretty busy with the normal prep work needed to safely leave a boat on the hard for a winter.

I was hoping to never have to do that again. All the work that went into having a boat included getting it near enough to St. Louis to be a regular part of our lives. Pulling the boat when needed for bottom paint, and then only for a few days, was the plan. For the most part it would be just a short drive away, available for weekends, vacation days, and just plain hanging out for fun or when the need to be back on the water grew overwhelming. It will be close to another year before that is the case. Still, we make plans but the universe has veto power. So I will accept this last bit of sitting as a really pleasant way to end what has been a less than stellar summer. Living on a boat at a nice anchorage is, to me anyway, about the perfect vacation spot. So this is a mini vacation before having to get back to work. I intend to enjoy every moment of it. I intend to enjoy every minute of being back in St. Louis with most of the people I love most in the world. And I intend to enjoy being back here next year to splash First Light yet again, and get her “home”.

Dinner Sunset at The Jetty in Kent Island

The anchorage at Oak Harbor Marina

The view from my chair in the cockpit. I need to frame it and
sit it by the couch in the apartment.

Boat Projects and Old Man Winter

This is our  last night on First Light for this trip. Today we finished up the last of the winterizing tasks—the A/C. Getting the engines, genset, and A/C winterized were the "must do" items this time around. (We swore we were never going to have a boat somewhere that required winterizing again, but this is how cruising plans go...) It took several days of effort and multiple trips to cobble together the stuff needed to get it done. First Light now carries a pump for A/C winterization, a gizmo for doing the engines, and a modified plunger / pipe set up for the deck wash.  If we ever have to winterize the boat again, it will take us about two hours. Having a clue as to what you are doing is an amazingly good thing.

A quick-disconnect fitting goes through the  board
for the hose going to the bucket full of
antifreeze. The fitting extends into the sea
strainer. If we were actually going to do
this frequently, we would make a much better
model of this prototype.

The board has a rubber backing and wingnuts that
run down on the screws to hold it in place on the
sea strainer for the engine raw water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I struggled with the aft cabin doors for the better part of three days. The doors work better than they did,  but are still not right. And there was still the puzzle as to why the doors were so screwed up in the first place. But we think the puzzle has been solved along with a chance to make the doors actually work as they should. Deb, while searching through one of the piles of stuff stashed around the boat, ran across a bag of bits matching some of those we found on the doors.  It turns out the doors have already been fit with an aftermarket kit, likely installed years ago. As the years went by, and wear and tear accumulated, they deteriorated to barely working.

This leaves me with two ways of looking at the last few days. One? We spent the better part of three days' time running around in circles with little to show for hours of effort. Two? We were working our way though a maze, figuring things out and parsing together ancient history with few cues. The better part of three days is just how long it took. I think I'll go with option two. When working on an older piece of equipment that has seen endless upgrades, hacks, replacements, and modifications in an industry where there is no tracking of such things? And on a piece of equipment that is new to you? Time spent wandering around in the dark is inevitable. In many ways, this is like rebuilding a classic motorcycle or antique airplane. When it comes to this kind of work, we have all heard the saying, "You can have it, fast, cheap, or right...pick two." But when it comes to the kind of repairing and rebuilding required on something like an old boat, one that needs to be safe for traveling and comfortable for living on? You can do it done right, but fast and cheap are not options. It will take all the spare time you have and all the money you can spare. 

New door kit parts are on their way, so the next time we tackle the doors we will have a much better idea from where we are starting and the direction we need to go. We got a little cosmetic work done on the inside and I had a chance to get  more comfortable with the engine room. Likely a good thing since I suspect I'll be spending a lot of time in that space. There are exhaust hoses to replace, heat exchangers (3) to pull, have overhauled, and reinstall, and alternator belt covers to reinstall. I'm not sure why they were removed. The idea of working around running engines in a bumpy sea (something that is certainly possible) with those belts exposed does not give me warm fuzzies. 

Most important, we are ever more pleased with the idea of First Light being a part time home and looking forward to having her on the water. There will still be trials and hurdles before we are floating down the ICW somewhere. But we have figured out a bunch of things and have a good idea of the next bunch of things we need to figure out. Meaning this has been a good bunch of days. 

Bodies and Boats and Woolly Buggers

So, about 48 hours after coming down with the flu that swept the family after our Indy get together, I decided to head off to the airport to check on some things. A little breakfast, a quick shower, dressed, shoes on...and right back into my chair. (I think it was picking up the shoes that did it.) The airport can wait until Monday. The boat however, can't. Last night the temperature dipped to something like 17 degrees around here. That, friends and neighbors, is FREAKING COLD for November. I am not worried about one night's winter blast. If the little pond in our back yard didn't freeze (it didn't) there is not much chance anything on the boat would have.

Still, it is time to admit that the sailing season is pretty much over for this year. I know that scientists are sure global warming is a reality and for the most part I believe them. But the woolly buggers around here are almost all black, suggesting they think Nomad will need a little bubble protection from ice before this winter is out. Who am I to argue with woolly buggers? So beat up body or not tomorrow we need to tend to little Nomad's engine, get her oriented into the winter wind and probably move her to the other side of the slip so she is in place to share a bubblier with Margaritaville. There is some other stuff to do as well but it may have to wait. And this will probably be the first weekend since Nomad joined the family that we will not spend a night on board when not off somewhere else. With only 4 to consider winter is still about #10 on my favorite seasons scale.