11 Feb 2018

11 Feb, 2018

A good sailing friend reminded me about the image most folks have of cruising. It involves a fancy yacht, white sails on blue seas, palm trees, white sandy beaches, crystal clear waters and beautiful young people diving off the yacht wearing little to hide their charms.  Nothing ever goes wrong and when it does, just write a check and all will be well again.  For the modest number of wealthy, this is true.

The basic definition of a yacht is any pleasure boat.  This includes the palatial sailboats and power yachts conjured above as well as little 7 foot sailing dinghies or even canoes.  So, we do indeed have not one but two “yachts”,  one 27 foot and one 36 foot, both 50ish years old.

My friend pointed out how our blog isn’t all mai tais and palm trees.  It is a reality check and a reminder  the majority cruise on a budget or with limited means.  Even if you have much smaller sacks of gold it is possible to enjoy spurts of the cruising life.  There are other ways to pay your way cruising besides writing a check.  They can include investing time and elbow grease and risking sun burns and temperatures in the 70’s and 80’s or higher. 

Some cruisers do their own work because they cannot afford to hire someone else to do it.  Some cruisers love to do the work because they just love working on and love their boat and want to keep it as much their own as possible. Some do it because they have learned the hard or expensive way that they can do it as well as or often better than anyone they can hire.   Some do it because they can’t conceive of investing so much money in a boat which may be pretty and durable and operational but which has very low market value if/when their cruising is over.  I guess we are little bit of any and all of the above.

Most of our focus this past week was installing the aluminum toe rails which replace the antique teak.  It could not have been done without the help of friends.  Vic, Tony, Barbara and Marilyn all helped.  Vic and Toney went way above and beyond.  Vic can get into and out of places in a second which I avoid squeezing into if at all possible.  Tony provided mechanical expertise, muscle, guidance and special tools (big C-clamp) and they all provided encouragement.  The rails are bedded and installed with 1/3 of the total bolts.  Barbara counted 166 total if I recall.  I’ll now go back and add the rest of the bolts and cinch everything down.  Then I can work on the replacement bow plate and its backing plate. That will entail living in the anchor locker at the bow of the boat, an area which is not as large as I am.  I must say I think the new-to-us toe rails really look good and make “Submit” look like a modern classic.  Yes, I’ll try to remember to include pictures, but we are usually concentrating so hard on our tasks that we forget to document and take pictures.

Barbara has received the new material for covering the exposed hull on the inside of the cabin.  She will be divining ways to exactly cut it to fit and then adhere it to the hull.  The entire interior will be really spiffy when she is all done.

We hope to begin painting the deck soon.  Deck in this instance covers where you would walk and the cockpit where you would stand and sit and the sides of the cabin, etc., in other words everything between the new toe rails. 

We’ve come to the decision to continue working on our list of high priority projects.  This includes painting the sides of the boat (called topsides in the boating world) and replacing the old teak rub rails.  As a result, we may not get to launch her and do any traveling this year.  However, she should be virtually turn key for next visit, knock on fiberglass.

We did take a small vacation.  Thursday night we attended a local theater group production of “The Nerd”, well done and very funny.  Friday we drove to St. Petersburg for two nights escape to a motel.  Saturday we attended a gathering of Seven Seas Cruising Association members at the St Petersburg Yacht Club (wow!).  The SSCA arranged 10 different seminars covering things like weather knowledge and beginning forecasting, provisioning your boat for cruising, wind and solar power aboard, diesel engine basics, must have items aboard and less costly alternatives for many others, etc.  The closing presentation was from a lady with Asbergers Syndrome who circumnavigated the globe alone at age 38 in a 28 foot sailboat which she resurrected (refit) herself,  and then decided to do it again at age 55 in the same boat which she again had to rebuild and repair along the way.  Her book may be done soon and should be interesting reading. 

Tonight we are back in the old rented travel trailer and seeing fewer fire ants after placing ant bait and ascorbic acid powder.  The toilet is a little too aromatic and the ceiling light over the sofa still is half full from the last rain storm.   There are palm trees, the view of the St John’s river is great, it is partly sunny and in the mid 80’s, the air conditioner works as do the washer and dryer, the beer is cold and projects don’t start until tomorrow, maybe, given a forecast of an 80% chance of showers and thunder storms.

Gee, ain’t the cruising life grand?