a little bit of progress :)

Donnie and I are still snottin' and feeling like like crap, but we decided it was time to just soldier through.  The to-do list keeps growing the more we sit and look around and it's starting to feel a bit overwhelming.  We started the day by going to CVS for some much needed prescriptions (Thank-you, Ness :) then we went to Mamaw and Paps to unload the Jeep!  I'm sure THAT was much appreciated (tsk tsk).  We just took up a small corner in their spare bedroom closet.  We lost our 'garage' (the car top carrier) in a parking garage mishap at Miami Int'l airport last year.  So THAT'S what that bar hanging down at the entrance is for...anyhooo...

Donnie needed to make a trip to Home Depot, our home away from home, and I took time to go over to the garden shop.

My garden's planted! A tomato plant, bell pepper, basil, oregano, chives, rosemary and some pretty flowers. Momma's happy:)

Do you see what I see? Somebody was supervising me from the mangroves.

Donnie made up a new fuel line for the dinghy...that's one thing ta-done.

Willis was taking it tough up in the Vberth with Dad's fan blowing on him full speed. Spoiled rotten cat.

Donnie spent the late afternoon til sundown working on replacing switches for the new glow plug and starter switch.

Willis, of course, was supervising.  As usual.  Dern cat.

Paps offered his two cents worth, too, and handed the Cap'n tools :)

Such a sassafras.  He could be a cat model; he knows how to find the light :)  He is a pretty handsome boy!

Willis was up on the bow waiting for the sun to set.  He clearly owns the boat.

It was a gorgeous sunset, even though it was on the other side of the bridge. So beautiful.

After dinner we took our first hot tub :)  Then tuned in for a sad first half of ND football :(

The other good news of the day was that I got a new blade ordered for our wind generator, and Donnie made a connection with "Louis" a diesel technician who is going to do a diagnostic on Bessie tomorrow (to the tune of $100/hr.- yikes).  Next up, I'm going to do a web search for new cockpit speakers tomorrow, and Donnie is going to install the new fuel line on the dinghy, and we'll see what else gets done.  We're making a little progress...slowly but surely.  G'nite y'all!

 

ho hum Sunday

 

I am on the third day of lousy, so Donnie went to church without me.  Turns out, only Paps was there as Mamaw is also still sick.  It really does suck to be sick in paradise.  I haven't left the boat in two days.  I haven't even felt like laying on a lounge chair in the sun...now you KNOW how bad I feel :(

The only thing I managed to accomplish today was to make a batch of salsa.  Otherwise, just me and Willis...on the couch...watching football on TV. 

In between cat naps, of course.

Willis was in a funk after the Colts lost.  He didn't have the energy to cheer for the Seahawks.  We were happy for our son-in-law, Austin, that his team won.  Looks like now we're rooting for the Hawks or the Broncos. 

Willis isn't rooting at all.

Since I continued to fever off and on all day, stopped up (well, from the neck up), and now have a rash all over my trunk and arms, I decided to put myself in quarantine.  Dan and Biddi had invited us over for dinner and to watch the Seahawks game, but I did not want to expose them to my crud. 



So, they were so sweet to deliver my dinner to me.  Danny, the pork chop was delicious!

Donnie finally called our daughter, who has pulled through yet again for her family, and I will pick up a couple of scripts at CVS tomorrow morning.  In the meantime, I'm laying low, drinking my oj, and hoping tomorrow is a better day.  I just want to start enjoying being here in paradise! 

Such a brave puss

After a fitful night's sleep of fevering, chilling, and snotting, I woke up to the sound of rain on deck...just a good reason to go back to sleep.  In fact, I never got out of my pj's all day :(

The sun came out mid-morning, just in time for Donnie to tag along with Kenny and Fran to go rummaging.  I certainly was not feeling up to it, and Mamaw bowed out, too.  You know she's sick when she passes on a good rummage sale.  Donnie, however, is his mother's son...

He came home with a fishing rod, a blender, a grill, three cans of fuel, two dive masks, a set of swim fins, snorkel, a gaff, a dry storage container, caulk gun, pliers, adjustable wrench, cordless drill with bits, a dive knife, and who knows what all else for $32 bucks.  He was so pleased with himself :)  

Willis watched Dad unload all of his booty, and there was not one kitty treat or toy to be found.  He was thoroughly disgusted, and joined me back in bed.  Though the boat was open all day, he showed no desire in chasing iguanas. 

Late in the afternoon, Dad went to play guitar with Bryan, and Willis started to show an interest in the outside world.

Bravely, he set two paws into the cockpit for a sniff around.

He looked out over the water's edge, and realized once again where he was...

As the sun was setting, he also rediscovered his favorite laying spot, up under the dodger.  He likes the new big windshield for seeing out.  He was starting to get a twitchy nose with all of that looking about.

Right at sundown, One Eyed Jack and Peg Leg were calling from the mangroves.  I heard the jingle of quarters in his pocket as he hopped off the boat and made a run for it down the dock. Dern cat. He'll come crawling back when his belly starts growling.

I have a stir fry all ready to go once my husband decides to come back home as well.  I'm actually starting to feel a bit hungry, though my head is still pounding and full of snot :(   I'm hoping I round a corner for tomorrow as we have big plans with Dan and Biddi for the Colts game! 

I wonder if Willis remembers that he has a curfew?  I have to cut him some slack, though, as he was pretty sweet about laying with me today, handing me kleenax and tylenol, and bringing me drinks of water.  Dern cat. G'nite y'all.

We've got air!

Willis was his usual helpful self this morning, helping dad locate the air conditioner water valves.  They did, and the aircon fired right up without a hitch.  Something else that IS working, thank the good Lord!  It is much needed already down here.

The Merry Maids arrived at Mamaw and Pap's this morning to give their condo a thorough top to bottom cleaning.  It was too big of job for them to tackle alone, and our good deed was much appreciated as both are feeling a little under the weather.

Well, I am also feeling punk.  I slept horribly last night.  I have a good old fashioned head cold, I think.  My head is throbbing, my sinuses are burning, I'm all stopped up, and my eyes are watering.  In a word, I'm a mess.  After the cleaning frenzy and lunch, I came home and crashed for a long afternoon's nap.  Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling much better, so it was a trip to Walgreen's for some Tylenol sinus and congestion.

The good news is while I was resting, Donnie tore into Helga for the fourth time.  This time, Cap'n was met with success!  Helga is working, so no more late night trips to the marina restrooms, which makes for one very happy First Mate :)

We were invited by Kenny & Fran to join them and Bryan and Polly at their place for Friday night pizza night.  We have not been to their new apartment.  The back yard is beautiful, complete with a tiki bar imported from Burma.  Nice!

Their neighbors down the street have a boat house.  Bryan informed us at dinner that it really is a boat house, for the guy's 65' catamaran.  The place also has an apartment.  It's quite the showplace for a boat house!

Since I was feeling so lousy, and Cap'n is also getting a cold, too, we called it an early night.  I have no plans for tomorrow.  I have got to get well.  I haven't felt this lousy in some time.  If I get a sudden burst of energy, I would like to work on my garden.

As for Willis T. Cat, he is clearly quite content in Marquesa, so he will be sprung from house arrest tomorrow so he can get back to chasing iguanas.  We saw One Eyed Jack hanging around in the parking lot this evening looking for his buddy.  I counted my laundry money tonight so I will know if he tries to pull a fast one and make a break for the Kit Kat GoGo  Lounge.  He's a pretty good cat-cat.  Most of the time.  Gnite y'all :)

Marquesa is all dressed up....

....but not yet ready to go. We haven't even tore into Bessie (the engine) yet.  However, ONE thing got done today, and that is Laura and Bill came over with Marquesa's new dodger.  She sewed a new helm cover, made a dodger, and replaced the torn zipper on the bimini.  They came over at 11am to fit the dodger on, and take some final measurements.  She then worked her magic, and they were back at 5:00pm to install it, including new snaps on the gunnels.

Here they were discussing how to and where to mark and make a final cut around the rail.

Meanwhile, Cap'n got the barbee working again, complete with new briquets.

Next he tackled the propane stove, and once we were certain that it was in working order, I invited Kenny and Fran over for our first dinner aboard.  I marinated some chicken, made a salad, wild rice, fresh broccoli and chocolate banana parfaits.  It was delicious!

Bill and Laura were back at 5pm for the final install.  The dodger is wonderful- the windshield is much bigger, and the canvas comes further back along the sides for more protection.  They installed three more snaps on each side of the gunnels to extend the length of the dodger.  Here the starboard side is all done, and they were working on the port side.

Doesn't Marquesa look sharp? I love that big windshield!  Our other dodger was ghetto-fabulous, duct tape and all!

While all of this was going on, I went and got the furry beast from Mamaw and Pap's condo.  When he was let out of his cat carrier, he promptly went exploring all over the boat, to his usual haunts and hiding places, then he settled right in on the chart table for a much needed cat nap.  Dern cat.

It was so good to visit with our traveling buddies and friends, Kenny and Fran Hagemann.  Willis bought her some chaw-clate for Christmas.  He's a good shopper; he knows what Frannie likes!

Donnie was so tickled over his gift to Ken...does anybody know what his tshirt says?!  lol

While I cleaned up the dinner dishes and galley, Willis was supervising....

But he was so very, very tired he could hardly keep his eyes open.  It's good to be 'home'...

Yep, it's so good to be 'home'...love that view.

What to do, what to do....

We slept in this morning, and it was glorious!  The warmth of the sun streaming in our hatch woke us up.  We were refreshed and ready to tackle the day.

I may have said this already...we have discovered that no matter whether you leave a boat in the water or up on the hard, simply leaving a boat sitting unused, for eight months, in the elements, is hard on it.  We have a ridiculous to do list already.  I have a feeling the more we tear into the boat, the more we will discover something else that doesn't work!  The absolute MUST DO before anything else is to get the head properly working again.  The switch is getting power, but the motor for the macerator (poop grinder, if you really want to know!) is seized up.  You press the button, and nothing happens.  You know how much the OCD in me hates filth, especially anything involving body fluids or someone else's dirt, so I wanted no part of The Helga Project.

So we discussed what all needs to get on the To-Do list, and come up with the following items so far:

GET BESSIE RUNNING- we are dead in the water without an engine.
Fix Helga
Order a new blade for Windy
Fix the winch for the main halyard
Sand, stain and varnish the cockpit table
Get the bbq working again
Get the propane stove working again
Check on the refrigerator and pray that it fires up!
Get the dinghy put together and launched
Get our bikes out of storage and serviced
Get a cable box from Larry and get the TV hooked up
Provision the boat
Continue bleaching and oiling the teak in the galley and chart table area
Bleach and oil the teak flooring
Change out the carpeting down below
Run to Home Depot to get gardening supplies
Give the topsides a thorough washing and waxing
Sand and oil the teaks on deck
Get with Laura and Bill to get our dodger up and bimini zipper fixed
Get Willis moved on board!!!

Just MAKING the list was tiresome, and just THINKING about the list was exhausting.  So what did we decide to do?  Go to the pool to hang out with the family and play a rousing game of chickenfoot!  And so we did :)

Here's my niece Meagan and baby Reece that had just gotten out of the pool. So cute.

I ended up taking Derek and Courtney (my nephew and his wife) back to the airport.  They had a 7:30pm flight back to Indianapolis, but we needed to be on the road by no later than 2:45pm as we were heading up to Ft. Lauderdale.  It's quite a haul, and there's the usual construction and it was rush hour traffic- oh joy.  I got the kids to the airport in plenty of time, and then I headed to Walmart in Florida City where I pick up Hwy 1 going back down to the Keys.  I figured I could at least accomplish something off the to do list, so I decided to go ahead and provision the boat, even though the galley is not thoroughly cleaned yet.  Donnie stayed behind and he and Paps tore in to Helga until dark- she's only half fixed.  Now the macerator come on, but the water just spins and won't go down.  Seems like there's a clog somewhere. Nuts.

I finally came dragging in to Banana Bay at nearly 11:00pm.  It was after 1am by the time I bleached the galley, oiled the cabinets and got everything stowed properly away. The good news is that the refrigerator does work- at least something doesn't need fixed!

To be honest, it was a dream job for somebody like me- cleaning and organizing. Hooray!

So, tomorrow is another day...perhaps we'll scratch a few more things off the list- or not!  We're in retirement-mode, afterall :)

on the move :)

This morning was divide and conquer.  Donnie went to Bryan's to catch a ride to Driftwood on his fishing boat, and I packed up our belongings (again) from Dave and Diane's (again) and drove to the boatyard.  Four trips between the Jeep and Marquesa loaded down like a pack mule had me in a sweat and it was only 11am.  The sun was shining bright today, and it was at least 80 degrees.  I'm not complaining.

I no sooner got all of our stuff loaded, and all of the tools and mess from yesterday cleaned up, and I heard the boys coming down the canal.  Good timing.  I also happened to look back towards the boatyard and saw two manatees in the water!

They are such gentle giants...cute in an ugly sort of way :)

That's the look of contentment...she looks like she's sighing and saying "ahhhh!"

Bryan and Polly were so kind to offer their boat, and assistance, in getting us out of the boatyard and over to Banana Bay.  There was a good southerly wind; we just needed some help getting through the canals and out to the ocean.  (Jay came along for the ride :)  They side-tied to Marquesa. Bryan's motor provided the propulsion, and Donnie did the steering on Marquesa.  Pretty ingenious idea, really.

We passed this sunken boat and were reminded that it could always be worse! Do you see what I see up on the bow?

Cap'n was just happy to be on the move and at the helm again :)

It's a beautiful sight as we entered the channel, to have nothing but the wide open ocean in front of us.

If was a very LONG channel, as the water is so shallow throughout the Keys.  Unfortunately, we were nose into a strong southerly wind.  We were bouncing in 2-3's, but poor Bryan was slamming into them and into Marquesa, too.  They were really getting beaten up, so we had to cut ties before the end of the channel and cut the corner as well, praying we had enough depth.  It was a little dicey exchange; throwing tow lines, gathering lines and raising the jib all at once.  Thankfully, there was no harm, no foul.

We immediately hit over 7 knots under jibsail only- Marquesa was like a race horse charging out of the gate!

The wind direction and speed was to our favor all afternoon.  God was smiling down upon us, for sure.
We put a reef in the mainsail and cruised along on a beam reach to the seven mile bridge. We never had to tack until we turned to go under.  There, we had the wind directly behind us to push us under the bridge.

Bryan and Polly were on standby at the bridge, in case we had any issues trying to go under.

No problemo!  God continued to smile, as the tide was running with us to carry us through :)

You can't really appreciate the beauty of those two sails...but they are SO NICE.  The jibsail is brand-spanking new as we blew ours out last season crossing back from the Bahamas.  The mainsail is only a year old as we had blown the former one out when the boys sailed to the Dry Tortugas the season before.  We attempted to have it restitched, but it too, gave way by the end of that season.  For those of you that are sailors, you'll notice in the picture above that there is some 'bag' in the mainsail.  When Donnie raised it earlier today, after shaking out the reef, the main halyard winch on the mast blew apart in pieces all over the deck.  Even with turning into the wind, there was still too much pressure and force for him to take it all the way to the top. Hence, the bagging.

We had another beautiful beam reach sail four miles along the Gulf of Mexico coast to bring us back to our winter home at Banana Bay.  It was glorious sailing today; we averaged about 6 knots and made great time.

Late in the afternoon, Bryan and Polly were again right there for us.  We side-tied as before, and Bryan gently eased us up the channel and right into our slip at Banana Bay.  It was calm on the Gulf side, and the plan worked perfectly!  We owe these two dinner out AND a tank of gas for all of their help. We couldn't have done it with out them. What a great way to start the new year!

All of the family was there, and our good friends Dan and Biddi, to help us turn the boat around and tie down.  Then, I hand-delivered a Christmas gift from Greg and Wanetta to Danny- apple cider moonshine!  Great gift for a KY boy :)

We met up with our niece and nephew, Courtney and Derek, at a Mexican restaurant. Sadly we didn't get them on the boat this trip, and they have to leave for IN tomorrow.  But we ordered margaritas, and toasted to making plans in April for them to fly down to Cozumel and join us for some fabulous scuba diving!

We mostly ordered Cuban food, from our Cuban waitress, and it was ah-mazing!

All in all, the day was a success, for sure.  Yes, we already have a to do list a mile long of boat projects and such, but those are the joys of owning a boat.  They say boat stands for B reak  O out  A nother  T housand, and boat ownership is working on your boat in exotic places!  That's for sure.  The salty air and salt water is hard on a boat, no matter if is it left in the water, or up on the hard like we did last year. But, we work like h**l and save like crazy for eight months, so we can have the privilege of sailing and living on Marquesa for four months out of the year. The good news is we're on island time now, and there's no pressure :)   If we want to tackle a project, we do, and if we don't, we won't!  Calling it a night, for tonight, and more on all those projects tomorrow.