With the lack of sleep last night I found myself slow-moving today. The Faro Blanco marina delivers a newspaper directly to the boat in the morning. We said we preferred the Wall Street Journal, but they have been delivering USA Today. It does not matter. This morning I read it cover-to-cover. It had an entire section devoted to the Super Bowl which I found particularly interesting. Having not followed the regular season I have very little knowledge of the Carolina team.
As I read through the paper I found the puzzles page and that was the end for me. I did all the puzzles (crossword, Sudoku, word search, etc.) After that I read my latest Mary Balogh novel, and suddenly it was time for lunch already. Having just sat on the couch for the entire morning instead of walking or biking several miles, I hardly felt like eating, but the clock said it was time, so I put food on the table.
While I was enjoying my leisure time this morning, Clark was prowling around the boat doing odd jobs. One in particular he took care of today pertains to the starter battery for the generator. He knew that the battery had one cell that was going bad. Usually we do not use the generator, but when we anchor out for multiple days in a row, we need it. Since we have some anchoring in our relatively near-term plans (April / May), we want a generator that will start when we need it.
As a test, he started the generator today, and it almost said, "Oh no. I won't go." It certainly thought about whether or not it wanted to start before it finally capitulated and turned over. Finding that to be the case, Clark decided we definitely needed to make a trip to the store to buy a new battery.
Now, it is one thing to drive a battery to a store in a car to get a replacement. It is quite another to have to carry it there. Clark planned on doing just that!
Folks who follow my blog may remember this picture from last month:
The box he carried several blocks weighed 45 pounds. After that episode and in conjunction with the fact that I wanted something a bit larger to carry my laundry in, I bought a new trolley / cart. It came last week. Surprisingly, I actually had some difficulty convincing Clark to use it today for the battery portage, but eventually he agreed to use it.
I tested the weight of the battery and found that I could not even lift it off the floor. I could not understand why he would hesitate to use a cart to help move it. The new cart / trolley has a removable bag which, once removed, turns the trolley into a hand truck. Ta da! It worked "real slick".
We did have one problem however. With the force of the winds today, the gap between the boat and the dock was huge. I tried to pull the boat closer, but fighting the wind was a loosing battle. With battery in hand Clark tried to step off the boat as I held it, but I could not hold it long enough. He ended up with one foot on the dock and the other on the boat as the boat continued to move further and further away from the dock. Fortunately he did not end up doing a split or going for a swim. We managed to get the dock over, and he got himself and the battery off the boat.
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| Clark toting old battery to store for replacement |
The Marathon Marine Supply store is very dog friendly. Every day appears to be "Bring Your Dog to Work" day. Two times we have been in the store, and both times we were immediately greeted by a chocolate lab carrying a Frisbee in his mouth requesting play time. Besides the chocolate lab, today we saw a Golden Retriever and a dachshund. All three clearly spend every day at the store.
The chocolate lab kept hitting me with the Frisbee until I gave in and tried to take it from her to throw it. That was not her game. Her game is tug-o-war. As soon as I touched the Frisbee she started shaking her head back and forth savagely to "re"claim the toy. The clerk behind the counter said, "Oh yeah! She'll take your arm right off fighting for it." He did not mean she would bite. He meant she would pull my arm right out of its socket! Regardless of the danger to my right arm, I continued to battle her for ownership of the Frisbee for a while as Clark looked at his battery options. I never did manage to get that Frisbee away from her.
After careful consideration Clark selected his Deep Cycle battery, tied it on the hand truck, and we made our escape to go back to the boat. It took several minutes to find an opening where we dared try to cross the street. This town definitely needs some crosswalks! We finally managed to get back to the marina.
As I worked on my blog entry from yesterday, Clark installed the new battery and did some standard boat provisioning, e.g. filled the water tank. He also did some work on taxes (yuck) and banking (double yuck) -- better him than me for sure! When I am writing or reading, I am focused. I was barely aware of Clark's activities. The rest of the afternoon flew by and at 5:00 he surprised me by saying , "Docktails?"
With the winds today, I did not feel like venturing out - either that or the lack of sleep sucked all the energy out of me. Regardless I put on my coat and walked over to the lighthouse with him, but when we got there - no docktails. Since we were over that way, Clark suggested that we walk the docks. The boats were definitely rocking in the wind. The boat in the slip we were originally assigned upon arrival here was bobbing like a cork in the high seas.. Although the move put us away from the heart of the marina, or maybe because it put us away from the heart of the marina activity, I am glad we moved when we did.
Clark took some photos earlier in the day trying to capture the waves on the Gulf and the spray as the water crashed up on the shore. Unfortunately the spray refused to hold a pose for his camera. The picture below did not capture the spray, but it does show the white-caps out on the Gulf today.
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| Turbulent waters in the Gulf today |
When we were out roaming the docks, Clark stopped by our boat and picked up his wind gauge. As he held it up, it regularly clocked winds of 22 to 24 mph, and at least once he saw it hit 28 mph. We noticed as we walked back to our boat that the boats with the best view along the beach now have a layer of sand and grit at the backs of their boats. All their lines and electrical cords are sitting in and covered in sand. I like my slip more and more. Ginger from Roaming the Blue said that the sand brought in by the wind is a real problem today - they are one of the boats with the best view!
Since we found no one for 'dock'tails, we decided to head back to the boat for an early dinner. Using a combination of leftovers and new side dishes, I got dinner done pretty fast. We decided to watch some television shows that we missed this week online. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we get only two stations at this marina, and both are in Spanish. I envy the folks with satellite television on board.
Before getting settled in front of the computer screen, we walked up to the building to use the head. We planned on a quick run up there and then back to sit and relax. The trip to the head took a lot longer than anticipated.
First we ran into Liz and Bob from Knot Sew Easy. They were out walking Brandy, their dog. We stood and talked for quite a while and then I suggested that if they were going to walk their dog, we could walk with them. We ended up taking a walk around the perimeter of the hotel on premises. After the walk, Brandy insisted that they walk down the dock towards our boat, which happens to be in the opposite direction to their boat. Brandy knows that there are boaters on our dock that have doggy treats, so she wanted to go visit them not us.
As luck would have it, the folks on Liquid Assets were home and had dog treats. As Brandy had her treat, we became engaged in a conversation there. Then, as we were all talking, a couple staying in the hotel here walked by and saw that Liquid Assets is from Nashville, Tennessee area and joined in the conversation. The hotel couple, Mick and Jan, also hale from the Nashville area.
As we talked, we learned that Mick and Jan had just purchased a new-to-them boat and were interested in the Great Loop. Of course Clark told them all about our trip and our Triangle Cruise in 2012. He even invited them back to our boat to show them our Garmin Blue Charts and Active Captain cruising tools. They finally left our boat at around 9:45 to head back to the hotel.
After they left, Clark turned to me and said, "Do you want to make a trip to the head?" I laughed and said, "I'm not sure I dare. The last trip there took almost three hours." We never did manage to watch any television shows tonight or anything else for that matter. Clark got on his computer, and I got on mine to do my blog.
The high-velocity winds have not let up all day today. Tomorrow's forecast shows high winds in the morning, slackening off a bit late morning into early afternoon, then picking up again and being wild all through Sunday. It is more than a little tedious to be blown about constantly.
Now it is time to call it a day and see what tomorrow brings.
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