She's back!

Back in the Galley!

Deidre arrived "home" at about midnight on Thursday May 24th. She had been away for 2 weeks, 2 days and 14 hours. The trip back was a little faster than the trip out, but still about 30 hours door to door. We had a rather quiet day Friday, but today we are starting to get organized once again.

David and family arrive next week on Wednesday. We plan to head North on Thursday morning, however Tropical Storm "Beryl" is churning offshore at the moment and no one seems very sure where it heading! (Its a very sunny but windy day today, with 30% chance of rain.) This is the Memorial Day weekend, and the island is very busy.

We are working hard to get the boat ready. Deidre and I spent a couple of hours today wrapping up the battery installation and I changed the oil in both generators while Deidre went "provisioning". I plan to give the boat a good wash on Sunday.

Only 16 days to wait

Tuesday May 8th, 2012

On her way home.

Deidre left for the airport 1 hour and 18 minutes ago. That means she will be back in about 16 days, 6 hours and 22 minutes.

One of our old neighbors was kind enough to give her a ride. I did not go with them to the AP because the neighbor was going shopping on the way home. Deidre just called, she was through security, her flight was going to be 5 minutes late. She sure has a long day ahead of her, starting on the East Coast just does not help. But all in a good cause.




A Quiet Week (and 2 more to come!)

The electrician came yesterday and confirmed that the "house" batteries are shot. One of thm even had a slip in its side! We plan to order 10 new 6 Volt 187 Amp Hour batteries this week. They are $251 each, and will cost "a few dollars" to install. On the one hand I am pleased that we have (probably) found the root cause of some of our power issues, but a bit bummed that the survey did not bring this issue to light in March. We have scheduled to install the batteries May 22. He also tested the two starting batteries, and they looked bad also.

I have about 2 pages of jobs to attend to while Deidre is away. Overall, I can see spending $10K on the boat, but when its all done I expect we will have resolved all the "issues" and the boat will be easier to manage and more convenient to live on. Some of the items are "important" (batteries, fuel, extending the davit) and some are just for comfort (Satellite TV aerial)

Apprentice Helmsperson

On Sunday we took the kids out on the boat for the day. We just went a few hours west through the harbor and a little up the Wando River. The weather was a bit "iffy" and we anchored for lunch in the lee of Danielle Island. Oliver came also, he was confined to the deck area (we do not want dog hair in the cabins) and he was a good boy.

When we came back to the Marina it was very low tide and a series of thunder clouds were blowing past. I was quite nervous backing the boat in, but all turned out OK.

I am installing new site gauges for the 4 fuel tanks. So far I have 3 installed with just the hard one remaining. It would appear that we need to buy 600 - 700 gallons of fuel, so I have been shopping around.

Shrimper in Charleston Harbor

My theory is that the shrimp boats buy a lot of fuel and they do not buy it at the marina. Looks like the best price I can get will be around $3.60 a gallon at one of the commercial docks, but I will have to "open an account".










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Deidre's Birthday

The Birthday Girl

Thursday May 3, 2012

Breakfast in bed, with the morning paper and first dibs with the iPad. Its a good thing it only happens once a year. We are having a rather quiet day. I did a bit of paperwork this morning and we went for a bike ride this afternoon. Both Ryan and Kylie are working late, so we plan to have the birthday dinner tomorrow night - Friday.

Marriage Savers

One of the great benefits of living on a boat is that you get to buy all sorts of cools stuff. Yesterday one of Deidre's gifts arrived - a set of "Marriage Savers". When we are anchoring, recovering the anchor and docking, there needs to be lots of communication between the deck hand and the Captain. Shouting is not the best method! So based upon recommendation from fellow married sailors, we bought ourselves a pair of "hands free two way walkie-talkies. I will report how they work

Visitor

We see hundreds of porpoises when underway, but they are difficult to photo. This little gay was in the marina yesterday, just wandering around between the boats. I stood on the bow and clicked away with the camera hoping to get a shot - and got this one..