Swabbing the deck. This weekend Lisa and I were busy with "de-shedding" the boat; in other words, cleaning the aftermath of having a black lab on board last visit. We were only able to spend one night in Oriental this weekend due to those darn land lubber jobs we are tied to at the moment. However, we will be right back down in four days so no crying about how short the trip was this time. Lisa spent the whole day giving the inside a good scrub while also getting organized and vacuuming all the dog hair. There was so much dog hair we could have made our own "dog-down" pillow. I spent my time swabbing the deck and topsides. I went over it once with boat soap and a hand brush to get around all the grabrails, wenches and everything else on the boat then again with a long handled deck brush for all the larger areas.
Once we had our daily chore list complete we untied from Pecan Grove to navigate our way over to Oriental Marina to top off the diesel. Next weekend's trip (Labor Day) will be a lot of motoring through the ICW and I wanted to have a full tank of fuel before we departed. We only had to motor about a quarter mile across the creek which sounds like a quick and easy task BUT, this is how it really went down- -- we have to untie all the dock lines, back out of the slip, navigate a very shallow and narrow snake- shaped channel that brings us to a fairly busy crossing where we have to always be on the lookout for powerboats speeding across our path. After a good 15 minutes and a few radio calls hailing the dock master we are given clearance to pull in for fuel. Lisa becoming a pro at docking slid Starjewel smoothly into the slip. I tied her off, pumped gas and paid. It was a reverse process to motor back to Pecan Grove. The whole trip took about an hour just to fill up the tank. It's not as easy as running to the gas station in your car, but I didn't want to fool with it next weekend when we take off at sunrise for Cape Lookout.
After refueling we decided to take it easy for the rest of the night. Lisa's co-worker made me a birthday cake, thanks Debbie! It is a yellow cake with a whipped cream icing that had bits of pineapple mixed in. It is similar to an upside down pineapple cake, but different, and it was fantastic. Delicious! Since it's just the two of us it will take a week for us to eat, but we'll enjoy every bite.
Early Sunday morning Lisa started making templates for a window film covering that she'll apply next time we do projects on the boat. She is dressing up the windows to give the boat a fancy feel and keep prying eyes out while we are at the dock.
My projects were to replace the topping lift and mainsheet. It seems I'm replacing a line or two every month. By the time we sell Starjewel every line will be new. I have secretly been training Lisa to open and close down the boat by herself. This trip I busied myself topdeck while she opened the seacocks for the engine and air conditioner, flipped the switches on the electrical panel and prepped the cabin. Upon leaving I loaded the truck while she closed the seacocks, flipped the switches off, turned on the dehumidifier and locked up the companionway.
Each trip to the boat this captain is impressed by his first mates progress towards making this our lifestyle.
Once we had our daily chore list complete we untied from Pecan Grove to navigate our way over to Oriental Marina to top off the diesel. Next weekend's trip (Labor Day) will be a lot of motoring through the ICW and I wanted to have a full tank of fuel before we departed. We only had to motor about a quarter mile across the creek which sounds like a quick and easy task BUT, this is how it really went down- -- we have to untie all the dock lines, back out of the slip, navigate a very shallow and narrow snake- shaped channel that brings us to a fairly busy crossing where we have to always be on the lookout for powerboats speeding across our path. After a good 15 minutes and a few radio calls hailing the dock master we are given clearance to pull in for fuel. Lisa becoming a pro at docking slid Starjewel smoothly into the slip. I tied her off, pumped gas and paid. It was a reverse process to motor back to Pecan Grove. The whole trip took about an hour just to fill up the tank. It's not as easy as running to the gas station in your car, but I didn't want to fool with it next weekend when we take off at sunrise for Cape Lookout.
After refueling we decided to take it easy for the rest of the night. Lisa's co-worker made me a birthday cake, thanks Debbie! It is a yellow cake with a whipped cream icing that had bits of pineapple mixed in. It is similar to an upside down pineapple cake, but different, and it was fantastic. Delicious! Since it's just the two of us it will take a week for us to eat, but we'll enjoy every bite.
Early Sunday morning Lisa started making templates for a window film covering that she'll apply next time we do projects on the boat. She is dressing up the windows to give the boat a fancy feel and keep prying eyes out while we are at the dock.
My projects were to replace the topping lift and mainsheet. It seems I'm replacing a line or two every month. By the time we sell Starjewel every line will be new. I have secretly been training Lisa to open and close down the boat by herself. This trip I busied myself topdeck while she opened the seacocks for the engine and air conditioner, flipped the switches on the electrical panel and prepped the cabin. Upon leaving I loaded the truck while she closed the seacocks, flipped the switches off, turned on the dehumidifier and locked up the companionway.
Each trip to the boat this captain is impressed by his first mates progress towards making this our lifestyle.
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