Over the weekend Sabrina and I ran the dinghy out to visit friends on the hook. On our way out, I remarked that we seemed a lot slower than usual. I theorized that the outboard carburetor might need be cleaned, or the bottom of the dinghy might need to be cleaned.

On Monday, I used the dinghy to wash the topsides, but now the outboard was running very roughly. I thought it might have had water in the fuel. Monday night when we came back into the marina I quickly realized that one spark plug wasn’t firing. I then cleaned the carburetor while I had the motor open. After putting the engine back together, it was running a lot better, and I excitedly ran out to see if that fixed the speed issue. Sadly, it did not, I was maybe 10% faster, but nowhere near as fast as we used to be.

Tuesday Sabrina and I pulled the dinghy out to clean it on deck. I knew the bottom was going to be rough, but I didn’t expect what I found. It looked like matted down shag carpet, with barnacles mixed in! The first time I tried to use a brush to clean the shag, I was more combing than cleaning….

So, I spent the better part of Tuesday scraping barnacles and painstakingly removing their bases. It was very hard work, and required ample amounts of elbow grease. At the end I was pleased with my progress, the dingy looks great.

Hopefully by addressing both suspected issues we’ll return to our expected speed. Our maybe even faster?

Yesterday JV left the slip so that Sabrina and I could clean the hull in preparation of our departure. Sabrina had the important job of cleaning the bottom so we move a little faster through the water. Meanwhile, I tried to remove the last couple months of brackish water stains off the topsides. (Sidenote: It’s a heck of a lot easier to clean your hull in the crystal clear water of the Bahamas where you can actually see something. I had to check the propshaft zinc by feel.)

After some hard work, JV is looking much better. We couldn’t pull her into those snooty New England anchorages with her looking bad. It hurts her feelings.

Lookin’ Good

We’ve been watching the weather for several days.
Our “To-Do” list is now down to one page.
We’re washing the boat and filling the tanks.
We’re packing up the last of our provisions.

Yep, finally we’re almost ready to depart!

After Sabrina finished the bimini, I realized I better get the engine ready to go. I replaced the oil pressure sensor, PTO gear, PTO bearings, and rebuilt the water pump. The Vetus Anti-Siphon Vent gave me a little trouble, but on the second cleaning I was able to remove all the salt build-up and get a good seal. I put our other charging systems back online, resetting the solar charger and Xantrex LinkPro for our new batteries.

Our one big task left to do is to clean the bottom of the boat. After sitting in the marina during this hot weather we have accumulated a lot of bottom growth. We need to clean that off, or our trip north will be even longer than we expect. We’re going to head out later today and wash the bottom, then when we get back in I’ll change the oil and double check the engine after it has had some running time.

There’s still a lot to do, but we’re close, and that’s a really good feeling.

In related news, my dad informed me that there’s currently a lobster glut in Maine, and prices have fallen to a generational low! Here’s the WSJ piece on it. That fact alone should erase all doubt from our reader’s that we’ll make it Maine this summer!

🙂

August 1st already? Where did the time go?

We’ve been busy since we’ve returned to Bohemia Bay. We’ve seen our friends, visited family, and accomplished a lot on the boat. A small sampling of the items we’ve been working on:

• Sabrina has almost completed sewing us an awesome new bimini.
  It goes around the bases of the solar panels, and looks great.
• We’ve upgraded our chain to 150′ of 3/8″ BBB, preparing for the Caribbean.
  We also made some upgrades to our bow rollers and spare anchor rode.
• We cleaned the bilge and now we’re prepared to pack it with food again.
• We cleaned out the fuel tank to keep our fuel system clean.
• We’ve re-provisioned using our car and our local stores.
• We replaced our failed batteries which were covered under warranty. (Yay!)
• I’ve been working with our solar panel company to replace our panel which is covered by warranty. (Yay!)
• We’ve bought some stuff online that we decided we wanted before we headed out again.
  (Including Sabrina’s new bike! Sadly, this one was not $15.)
• We picked up some warmer clothes from our storage unit for the trip north, and we made sure the heater works.
• We unloaded a lot of things that we’ve decided we don’t need, and grabbed some stuff we did.
• I’ve been working on tuning up the Westerbeke and replacing the PTO gear.
• And lastly, I’ve been battling spiders and the effects of 6 months in salt water with no freshwater.

But it hasn’t been all work, we’ve had a chance to go wakeboarding, watch the Olympics, catch some blue crabs, and most importantly, catch up with our friends.

We’ll be heading north really soon, and at that point we’ll be blogging regularly so please continue to follow along. Don’t forget that you can check out our Spot page to see where we are currently. Stay tuned!

Now that we’re back to our car and easy nearby shopping, we’re starting to take care of some things that have been neglected. Today I’m proud to announce we’ve taken care of one thing that’s been missing for over a month:

Back by popular demand – our Spot feed!

In early May, our Spot II GPS Satellite Messenger failed due to water intrusion. (It was my fault, the units are very solid, and can withstand a lot, but it wasn’t meant to withstand what I accidentally put it through…)

Since that time we’ve been amazed at the feedback that we received on our Spot feed from our blog followers.  We never realized how many people enjoyed seeing the satellite pictures of the places we’ve been and where we’re going, all in real time!

A few days ago we were able to make it to West Marine and purchase our replacement Spot. After that, the folks at Spot Customer Care transferred our account to the new unit, and awhile later we were up and running again. It took a little longer than I had hoped, but after a couple emails, followed by a couple phone calls, it was finally operational.

So if you haven’t checked it out in awhile, take a look at the Where are we? page at the top of the screen. And I promise I’ll keep the Spot safe in the future so this doesn’t happen again!

Before the storm came through on Friday, our good friend Sean took us wakeboarding and skiing. It was miserably hot, but the water was flat and still somewhat refreshing when you jumped in. With the long days we had plenty of time to play around before sunset. Sabrina and I were a little rusty, but she picked it up quickly enough. After a couple of turns wakeboarding we switched to slalom skiing and everyone took a turn running up and down the river.

We had a blast, we had really missed wakeboarding since we sold our beloved Centurion last summer. It was good to be going faster than 7 knots on the water, and I’m sure we’ll have more time to get out on the water in the near future.

In fact, I’m guessing we’ll be dropping a boat in here at Sabrina’s parents to go tonight or tomorrow. More pics may follow!

UPDATE:
I don’t know how Delmarva Power did it that fast, but yesterday I heard that they got the power back on at the marina! Check out the photos below to see the mess they were dealing with. We hope everyone without power gets it back soon, stay cool since it looks like this heat will continue through the Fourth.

Early Saturday morning strong thunderstorms ripped through our marina, generating winds in excess of 70 mph, approximately 3″ of rain, and knocking trees down throughout the area. These were the same storms that earlier on Friday ripped through most of the Midwest, West Virginia, and then Maryland. If I would have been following Facebook, I could have tracked the storms from my friends’ status updates! We hope that everyone affected by the storm stays safe in the heat.

While all the boats inside the marina seemed okay, the marina sustained some damage. Two trees that sit up on the bluff in the marina were uprooted and lying across the parking lot, luckily no one was parked there. (We’ve already replaced one sunroof due to a tree branch this year, I didn’t want to have to do it again!) The sailboat mooring field out front was astonishing, one boat had dragged to the other side of the marina entrance, two boats ended up on the marina jetty, and I could see two more hulls upside down in the water. Reportedly four boats in total had sunk. I hadn’t heard anything about the boats that were anchored out on the Bohemia for the Friday evening, but it had to be miserable for them. The wooden dinghy storage area had broken apart, and 7 or 8 dinghies had been flung into the water behind. Numerous sailboats had flogging headsails from the strong winds.  And the boats that were safe inside the harbor of the marina looked like someone had been spraying leaf debris from an industrial shredder.

We’ve told you that we love Bohemia Bay Yacht Harbour because it’s quiet and is located along a quaint tree-lined country road. Unfortunately, those trees obliterated the power lines heading to the marina. When we drove out of the marina on Saturday morning, I realized that we may not have power for a week. Or maybe two.

The prospect of being without power shouldn’t have fazed us, after all, we’d just spent 6 months unplugged from the grid. But our marina is on well water, and no electric means no water. It also means no gas dock, no pump-out station, no showers, no restrooms, and no pool. Not to mention the obvious fact that there is no air conditioning during this heat wave. Now the marina that had protected us so well during the storm would also shelter us from any wisp of a breeze that might keep us cool until the power was restored.

In addition to the sweltering heat, Sabrina and I have a lengthy “To-Do” list that we’ve been saving until that time that we have dockside power and water. One look at the list and we realized we had no chance to shorten it until we had electric. Even the things that could have been done would have resulted in heat stroke if we were doing them in the bilge with no A/C. So we double-checked our list and realized that one item, “Visit Family,” could still be done.

We packed up the car and the cat and pointed it towards Sabrina’s parent’s house, arriving 24 hours after the storm finished its destruction. We’ll stay here through the Fourth and we brought a couple of projects that we could work on while we’re away from the boat. Hopefully by the time we return the electric will be restored and we can get back to work.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going… to their parent’s house… where there is A/C and running water.

Friday night we got a chance to hang out with our good friends Steve and Heather on their boat M/V “Bottoms Up” in Galesville, MD. Galesville is on the West River, and is a pretty cool place to keep a boat. We had fresh rockfish onboard while thunderstorms swept through the area.

Saturday we motored up the Bay in light winds to the Bohemia River and rafted up with Jay and Tanya on S/V “Minx.”  We were also joined by Sean, Shannon and little Cara on M/V Badfish. (You may remember Sean and Shannon from their visit to Long Island.) We had a blast Saturday night with Bill joining us from the marina. Bill and I missed each other earlier in the dark while I ran into the marina and he ran out to the raft-up, ‘…like dinghies passing in the night.’

Sunday morning we bid farewell to Minx as they headed north to Rhode Island for a few months. It was a short visit, but that’s more incentive for Joint Venture to get cruising north even sooner to catch up with them. After they left we pulled Joint Venture into Bohemia Bay Yacht Harbor, her home for the next couple weeks as we take care of some things.

From there we headed back out to meet up with Merrill, Katie and little Nathan and the crew of the Badfish for some more fun on the water.  After a long day of catching up with great friends, grilling out, swimming, and relaxing we dinghied back into the marina.

Monday morning we started working on the to-do list. BBYH has new free wifi, and I started taking care of some things we’ve needed to do but haven’t had a chance to until we got fast wifi.  Readers of the blog will notice a few format changes on the pages, and we should have a new Spot messenger soon. Along with the improvements, we also have added few ads.

Don’t worry, we’ll be sure to stop before we look like these guys: