Back on the Water

18 March 2017

“Well,Why Not?” splashed after three weeks “on the hard”.  Then it spent a week tied to the dock in the canal outside Safe Cove Boatyard.  The best part was that we no longer had to go up and down the blasted ladder.  We were getting rather sore and even tho our quads might have become marvelously toned, we were happy to be done with it.  Being on the water also meant we could do different types of projects: washing the exterior, running the engine (which purred to life on the first turn of the key!!), running the dinghy motor (started on the 3^rd try), checking the instruments etc.  Most of the things are not interesting enough to write about. 

Staining the toe rail

Carrying "stuff" up to the boat

Rudy finishing the bottom paint

Rudy doing final touch up to keel

Boat is on lift and ready for the ride to the water

Update on the cockroaches.  It’s hard to tell the score.  The positive side is that we have not seen any more altho we have seen a few little tracks in the boric acid powder we have left out and about. No one is waving a white flag yet.

In between boat work, we have been surprisingly social. Jeff and Jean from Two Can Sail organized a lunch at Burnt Store Marina in Punta Gorda with 3 other couples who had also gone through the boat buying and training process with them.  All three couples have sold everything and are living permanently on their boats.  We just can’t seem to bring ourselves to that ….yet.

We also had a reunion with some of the boaters from “C” dock at Regatta Point Marina.  Seth won the prize for coming from the farthest (Guadalupe in the Caribbean).  We had such a fun group at the marina, but they have since dispersed to other lifestyles or other marinas so it was great to reconnect, even if only for supper. Clive who was part of the “C” dock group (altho technically his boat was on “E” dock) has been down at Safe Cove where our boats were neighbors and he also joined us.  He is here from Canada with a friend working on his boat in preparation for some long term cruising next winter.

"C" dock reunion supper

Ready to be let down into the water

While on the dock we had one gigantic storm roll through – thunder, lightning, and a tornado north of us!  The “silver lining” was that it was the perfect opportunity to see which of our windows leaked.  Sadly the worst were the two over our bed in the aft cabin.   Water poured in and despite Jim’s cleverest and most MacGyveresque solutions he could not stop the final few drips.  So we pulled out every towel in the boat, removed all of the bed mattresses – yes for some reason the bed had 3 mattresses and one thick mattress pad – and strategically placed towels and buckets to catch the leaks.  We escaped to sleep in the dry salon!  Armed with silicone caulk the next morning, Jim went to work on the windows with a vengeance.  Theoretically they are now sealed, can’t be opened and will keep the water out until we can fix them!  

Jim filling the forward water tank

On my final provisioning for the trip, I was rushed.  I particularly wanted to buy a six-pack of beer because friends were coming over to help with a technical question and I wanted to have something to offer them.  When I arrived at the boatyard and unloaded the truck and started walking to the boat I realized I didn’t have my purse.  I looked in the truck – nothing.  I knew I had had it in my cart at the grocery store, so not wanting to take time to drag the groceries to the boat, I reloaded them into the truck and headed back to the store probably breaking every speed limit within a 100 mile radius. My mind was overwhelmed thinking about everything that was in the purse and how I was going to replace it all.  I parked next to the cart rack and there were no carts there.  As I hurried into the store to ask if someone had turned a purse in, I heard a young guy yell out, “Lady, you forgot your purse”.  I answered “I know I left it in the cart”.  He looked at me strangely and then pointed to the tonneau cover over the truck bed and there sat my purse, right behind the cab of the truck.  As my blood pressure returned to normal and my embarrassment and adrenalin faded I could not believe that the purse had stayed on despite my speeding, quick turns etc.  Dare I mention that Jim has often lectured me about putting my purse there.  If anything he has told me to put it on the hood while I unload stuff.  If I had done that, I would have seen it. To his credit, he did not say, “I told you so”.  I needed one of those beers myself and I ended up with a good story with a happy ending!

Well, Why Not? is ready to take off

Sunrise at Safe Cove the morning of our departure

In the meantime the weather had been cold (41 degrees at night) and more importantly the winds had been blowing out of the north at 15-20 plus knots, blowing the water out of Charlotte Harbor leaving depths lower than normal. Things were not expected to change for a week or more so we finally decided to leave and take our chances. Several boats had made it out a few days earlier. The nine mile canal which winds its way from Safe Cove to the Charlotte Harbor is shallow and we bumped a few times but not disastrously so. There is a hand operated lock system between the canal and the harbor and under normal conditions it is 6 feet deep on the harbor side.  But as we left the lock and stopped to pull the closing chain we ran hard aground.  The depth gauge showed 4’2” and we draw 5’6”!! We coulldn’t go forward or backward. The winds had done their damage. Fortunately there were no other boats coming through.The tide was still rising – ever so slowly and we finally got loose from the lock.  We headed toward the channel marker and within 50 feet we ran aground again.  We could move a little, but basicallly we stayed in one place for about a half hour until high tide and maneuvering the wheel set us free! We had no more problems after that and easily found our first night's anchorage at Hog Island. It was isolated, peaceful, and protected from the winds.  And there was no waiting for dinner thanks to the crockpot!!  So began the adventure…..

Sunset at Hog Island