NJ: Life after Loop

2 August 2016

A little over a week ago, ten days to be exact, we crossed our wake and completed our Great Loop voyage.

Already it feels like the trip ended eons ago. Slowly we are adjusting to living life in a non-floating house. With both Clark and I having long "to-do" lists, it is hard to avoid falling into an "all work and no play" lifestyle. One of the things I miss the most from our trip is the plentiful material I used to keep a daily blog of our experiences.

The first ordeal we had to face was moving all the live-aboard paraphernalia off the boat and back into the house. Moving from room-by-room, I am still trying to get my life organized. I have one room, my "sewing room", left on my list of rooms I need to work on with the objective of finding places to put the items that came home with us from the trip.

I resolved while on the trip that I would tackle downsizing of our accumulation of "stuff" that we have collected over our thirty-six years of marriage and even before that. Clark had a habit as a youth of collecting other people's electronic junk, bringing it home, and taking it apart to see how it worked. Some of this junk he collected right off the street where it had been put out for garbage by neighbors; other items he received as "gifts" from well-meaning friends. Much of his collection still sits in our basement in the "parts department". Getting Clark to part with any of it will be a definite challenge.

For myself, I have collected my own piles of "stuff" over the years, and parting with some of it will definitely be difficult. While absorbing the items we took on our year-long boat trip back into the house, I hoped to identify items I plan to part with. Other than pulling out a number of outfits from my clothes closet to donate, however, I found this approach impractical. I need to organize first and then go once more room-by-room to reduce the clutter.

Our self-imposed lists of chores seems endless. The first order of business, of course, was filling the full-sized refrigerator with food and running the free washer and dryer to my heart's content. When we first arrived home, the heat and humidity precluded outdoor work, so we focused our energy on inside jobs. Yesterday and today, however, the temperature cooled and the humidity dropped considerably making outdoor work not only possible but desirable. Neither of us could see working inside the house with lovely weather calling us outdoors.

Traveling the Intra-Coastal Waterway, Sea Moss acquired a dirty "mustache" some have referred to as our "badge of honor" for traveling the Great loop. Whatever one calls it, it is quite unattractive!

Sea Moss with a dirty mustache!

Clark spent yesterday cleaning the mustache off the starboard side and today working on the port side. While he worked on the boat, I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and tackle some yard work. While we were away, our yard was taken over by crabgrass. I cannot do too much about that. If I apply crabgrass killer to the yard, I will have no grass whatsoever!

Bumper Crop of Crabgrass in Yard

Crabgrass, and many other weeds, took over my flower gardens as well as my yard. I have lots of opportunities for exercise while getting them back to some semblance of beauty.

Weed-infested Hydrangea Bed.

The ferns planted along one side of our walkway desperately needed to be thinned. I tackled this flower bed first since it was in the shade. The rocks behind the ferns were buried in weeds, and we even had some weeds growing up between the bricks in the walkway.

Fern Garden Currently Under Control

Both Clark and I stopped our outdoor work just after noon for a lunch break. I suggested that we do something fun afterwards, and after some negotiating and perhaps a little begging, Clark agreed to take the collapsible bikes to Sea Bright for a bike ride through town.

Sea Bright Municipal Parking

Having been gone for over a year, we noticed that some changes have occurred in Sea Bright as they rebuild after the devastating effects of Super-Storm Sandy. We noticed a couple of new restaurants and also found that the municipal parking lot for the beach and shopping in town has been repaved and now requires a one-dollar per hour fee be paid for parking that used to be free.

We decided to head south first to visit the marina we use when we have the boat hauled every three years. Clark plans to have the boat hauled this year and wanted to stop in to see the owner to discuss our reservation. (Our negotiations on taking a bike ride included stopping at the marina as part of the agenda.) He left the marina happy with a confirmation that they will be able to accommodate Sea Moss this winter.

From there we continued south and eventually made our way to the old coast guard station in Monmouth Beach, NJ that is now a museum. We found the museum closed, however, as they are only open Wednesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 2:00. Ah well, we showed up at 3:00 on a Tuesday. This museum has been here for years. Perhaps one of these days we will actually get to go inside.

Old Coast Guard Station in Monmouth Beach, NJ
now a Museum

While we biked, Clark had one eye on the weather. Conditions seemed right for a rainstorm. Even though our "rainy days" phone app showed nothing on the radar, it felt like we could get a shower at any point in time.  We turned around and headed back to Sea Bright.

Even though we had put two hours' time on the parking spot and only used one hour's time, Clark suggested that we call it quits for today's bike ride.  I could tell he was anxious to take advantage of the cool weather to finish the work on the boat. Before leaving Sea Bright, however, I suggested we check out the ice cream store across the street - Gracie and the Dudes. At first he resisted the idea, but when he saw that the shop was directly across the street from the parking lot, he decided we could go check it out. Surprisingly, after checking on the flavors, neither of us felt like eating ice cream, and we left empty-handed. This is definitely not "looper" behavior!

No sooner did we get home than Clark changed into his work clothes and got busy. First he had me help him clean some deck furniture out of the garage where we stored it during our trip. We carried our huge and heavy gas grill up the flight of stairs to set on our deck. For a while we got stuck half up and half down until I reminded Clark that to get it down the steps, we removed any easily-removed metal like the lid and the grates. Once these were removed, we nearly flew up the steps. What a difference a few pounds made!

Once the furniture was back on the deck, Clark headed down to the boat to get back to work there. He is using a product recommended by looper friends of ours called "Goof Off Bathroom Rust Stain Remover". When we talked to the owner of the marina in Sea Bright, he recommended another product to remove tough boat stains called "Marykate On and Off Hull Cleaner".  We could not find the Goof Off product in any local stores and had to order it online. The Marykate product is supposedly readily available in West Marine, so we will keep that in mind as a backup for next time. Both products are somewhat caustic and require the use of gloves.

Clark applying Goof Off Rust Stain Remover

Clark Rinsing Off the Boat
What a huge difference

Although I miss our year-long vacation, all the exploration of new places, and regular exercise that felt more like fun than hard work, I am grateful that I was home and available to respond quickly to my son's request that I come to Connecticut to help take care of Lovely Lillian for a couple of days as she recovered from a bad cold.

"Lovely" Lillian
What a doll she is!