Stuart, FL to Lake Okeechobee

1/19/2017

56 Statute Miles Traveled

1 Operating Lock (14' lift), 2 Pass-through Locks

7.5 Hours Travel Time

We got a late start today as Clark investigated the battery-charging issue. That, in addition to his walk over to see Skip from Easy Water before leaving, gave us a departure time of close to 11:00 a.m. While waiting for him to be ready to go, I moved some lines around for better positioning on the boat. The previous owners really liked red, white, and blue. I discovered through use that the lines are all marked – blue = longest, red = medium length, and white = shortest lines. I had short where I needed long and vice versa, so I shuffled them around.

Shortly after we left the marina and started heading towards the St. Lucie lock and Lake Okeechobee, we entered an area where the channel was not clearly marked, i.e. it was very confusing. As a result we found ourselves in low water, apparently outside the channel, and we grounded. Thankfully Clark had seen the depth decreasing rapidly, so he was traveling at idle speed. He said that if he had not had to dodge a crab pot, he would have been able to turn before we hit bottom. I was worried we might be in trouble, but with a little maneuvering, Clark was able to get us off the bottom and back on our way.

We locked through our first lock in this boat – the St. Lucie Lock – with no problems except that it took a long time to get through.  We had to wait while they filled the lock, locked through eastbound traffic, and then let us enter. All told it took almost two hours to complete this one lock.

Lock on the Okeechobee Canal through Florida

In this lock they provided nice, dry lines that they dropped down to us. Since they keep the lines at the top of the lock wall when not in use, they were not slimy and disgusting to hold. On Sea Moss, when we locked through, I took the bow and Clark the stern lines because it was easy for him to run up and down the steps to the flybridge from the stern. On Sunset Delight it is a long way from the stern to the flybridge, so I took the stern lines and he took the bow. That seemed to work well.

Everything seemed to be going quite well. I asked Clark if he was becoming more comfortable with the boat. He replied, “Ha! Not after running aground earlier!” Even so we sat back and relaxed a bit and took in the scenery. We did not see very many boats, but we did pass quite a few cows along the way!

Cows along the Okeechobee Canal

We continued on our way, and then suddenly, for no apparent reason, the starboard engine shut down. I was in the galley when it happened, and I thought Clark slowed the boat on purpose as he often does for a variety of reasons. When I poked my head up to the flybridge, he looked at me and said, “I don’t know what happened.”

We lost yet more time on our trip today while Clark played with controls and investigated the situation to try to determine what had occurred. Finally, after I made a comment about the engine shutting down, Clark looked into that. He thought that the starboard controls had stopped working. However, as it turned out, the engine had stopped running altogether. The engines are very quiet on this boat, so it is hard to know if they are, or in this case, are not, running. He started the engine back up and she continued to run, but now we have a new worry to add to the list. What made it fail at random!

We passed under multiple highway bridges ranging from 55 to 65 feet vertical clearance. One of the bridges that we had to pass through is a railroad bridge that is normally open – it only closes when a train needs to cross. As we approached the RR bridge, we could see that it was in the closed position, and as we watched and listened, we saw and heard a freight train coming.  Oh great! Yet another delay!

From our vantage point, mostly due to brush, trees, etc., it was impossible to see any of the train except where it crossed on the bridge in front of us. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, we used to get stuck (in our car) at railroad crossings all the time. I would count the cars as they went by and frequently got up to as many as 100 railroad cars. I hoped the train crossing the bridge in front of us at a very slow speed did not fall into that 100-car category. Fortunately, it did not last all that long, and we found ourselves underway once the slowest ever bridge finally opened for us to pass.

Finally, we got the green light on the RR bridge

At 4:00, we arrived at the entrance to Lake Okeechobee and passed through the Mayaca lock that was in the continuously open position. Yay! As we approached the lock, we asked the lock master there about the lock we needed to get through in Clewiston to get to our marina for the night. We got a bit of a scare, when he said he did not know the operating hours for that lock but knew that the one in Moore Haven closes at 4:30. Yikes! We had 20 miles to go across the lake to get to Clewiston. We reckoned we were looking at an arrival at the lock there at 6:00 at best.

Clark decided to call that lock as soon as we passed through the Mayaca lock. He got no answer, so he called the marina to find out their hours. We breathed a sigh of relief when they told us the lock in Clewiston remained open, and better yet, the dock master at the marina said he would stay after normal business hours to greet us upon our arrival. That was the best news we had received all day.

I had not noticed, but Clark pointed out that as we crossed the lake, we picked up a following of sea gulls – just a few at first and then more and more as we progressed across the lake. By the time we approached Clewiston area we had way more than I could hope to count. Clearly they thought we were a fishing boat and that we would be throwing scraps as we cleaned out fish. Sorry!!!

Sea Gulls Looking for Dinner from Sunset Delight

As we approached Clewiston, we watched the sun set lower and lower in the sky. The colors played across the sky in varying shades of orange and red. Without the worry of arriving at a strange port on a strange boat in the dark, it would have been a pleasure to watch the show take place in front of us. Unfortunately, the sun getting lower and lower only reminded us of the time and that we would need to dock in the dark.

As the sun set on Lake Okeechobee

After sunset on Lake Okeechobee

We had told the dock master our best guess was 6:30. Just before then we heard someone calling “Delight” on the VHF radio. Clark took a chance they were calling us and responded. It turned out to be the dock master calling us to find out our progress. He gave us final approach instructions and helped us tie off for the night. We docked around 6:45 – fortunately with no additional hangups!

After securing the lines and getting the boat settled for the night, I was wiped out. I suggested we take advantage of the marina restaurant since I had no energy for making dinner after the stress of the day. Clark ordered a Bubba Burger which turned out to be three cheeseburgers on a single bun. I ordered something I almost never order – fried fish. Lightly battered, it was delectable!

After stuffing ourselves at the restaurant, we came back to check out the travel plan for tomorrow. Today we traveled 56 statute miles – tomorrow requires about 70 miles of travel plus more locking. We better get a much earlier start! Who knows what adventures tomorrow will bring?!

First Trip - Fort Pierce to Stuart, FL

1/17/2017 - Harbor Isle Marina in Fort Pierce to Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart, FL


Success! We managed to get out of our Fort Pierce slip and underway at close to our desired start time of 9:00 a.m. Sunset Delight has a two-person bench seat for piloting on the flybridge, so we can sit side-by-side to enjoy the ride, share the steering and navigation responsibilities, and monitor the instruments.

After 17 years on Sea Moss I knew exactly where to look on the instrument panel to find what I needed to know - like the water depth beneath the hull. Not so on Sunset Delight! We both have to learn where to look and how the instruments operate. For instance, I piloted the boat today while Clark ran to get the VHF radio manual, so he could figure out how to get the radio to scan only a few channels (9 / 16) instead of all channels. Everything is a learning experience / opportunity!

It is now the time of year when a lot of boaters are heading to the Bahamas for a few months. While traveling south on the ICW today, we came across several large sailboats who were most likely headed that way. As we listened to the radio calls, I was amazed to hear one come from a sailing vessel called Five Flip Flops. We met the owners of that boat almost a year ago when we were in the Abacos in the Bahamas. When we came upon them today, we haled them on the radio to tell them we intended to pass them and also told them that we had met them when we traveled on Sea Moss. I am not convinced he remembered us, but I was excited just the same.

Overall, for our first real voyage, the trip went well and we even got to see two dolphins along the way playing in the water in front of us. I have given up worrying about running them over, they know full well what they are doing - frolicking out there! I was excited to see them.

We had quite a bit of wind today - enough that we got pushed to the edges of the channel quickly if we lost focus on piloting. I discovered that the flybridge area acts something like a wind tunnel. Luckily I noticed that the case for our binoculars had blown out onto the deck and grabbed it before it flew off the boat and disappeared altogether. Later I spotted a throw cushion moving across the bench seat. Before I could grab that, it took off. Clark was in a better position to chase it, so he did and managed to catch it before it blew overboard! We need to find a way to secure items up there; otherwise, we are sure to lose something as it flies off into the sea!

Our journey today took about four hours, so we arrived in Stuart around 1:00 p.m. Immediately upon docking I grabbed the hose to wash off the layer of salt we acquired on the hull along the way. I had bought a new hose at Home Depot last week, and this was an opportunity to try it out. With the length of our new boat, we need to connect several hoses together. I connected the new one to two older ones so I had plenty of length, turned the water on, and got a big surprise. The connector on the new hose flew off under water pressure!

The connector remained connected to the other hose, but the hose itself flew across the dock! Well, so much for that one, I showed Clark the two parts, and he said, "Return it!" That turned out to be easier said than done. I did not have the packaging as I discarded that back in Fort Pierce. I did have the receipt but most of the SKU was illegible or terribly faded. The clerk at The Home Depot said she could not give me my money back without a SKU.   The Home Depot in Stuart does not stock this particular hose, so I could not find any comparable product to get the SKU in the garden department.

Just when I thought she was going to send me away as an unsatisfied customer, she decided to look online for the product. While she searched her version, I searched mine on my phone. She did not find the product, but I did, and better yet, I got the SKU, so I got my $30 back! We were both happy.

I got the ride to the store with Brenda, the woman who took care of the boat when she was called Wilhelmina. She had offered to take me to her local marine supply store. We went there and I bought a new boat hook then she took me to the Home Depot. We always seem to meet the nicest people while boating.

When I got back from my little excursion with Brenda, I found Clark on the boat with a fire extinguisher inspector. Clark scheduled an inspection with him to get the fire extinguishers certified for insurance purposes. They spent a lot of time going over the boat and testing the equipment. All but one passed as I understand it, so we ended up buying one new one for the boat. One more thing off the checklist!

Surprisingly, since there are so few of them, we were pleasantly surprised to meet the owners of a sister Krogen Express 52 called Easy Water. We are docked on C dock and their boat is on B dock! Karen from Easy Water came over to introduce herself to us and said she would come back after dinner with her husband Skip, so we could meet him too.

As promised, they came after their dinner which was just after 6:00 when I was getting ready to start cooking ours. Their timing could not have been more perfect. I had asked Clark how to get the propane to work on the stove so I could use gas to cook tonight. He had no clue. I had no clue. When Skip appeared, Clark grabbed him and pulled him into the boat and asked him how the propane works! They happily went off together to work it out. While they were gone, Karen and I had a nice long chat talking mostly about our children and grandchildren!

Eventually the guys reappeared and the good news is that Clark, and therefore, I now know how to light the stove. Every little thing is a challenge! We are getting there one small step at a time!

Clark spent most of the afternoon - when not certifying fire extinguishers or learning our propane system - working in the engine room on yet another problem that he discovered on today's trip. The battery for the port engine is not charging from the alternator. Clark noticed that the battery charge continued to drop as we progressed on our trip. This should not happen.

Finally, after hours of working on the problem, he hopes he has put a workaround in place to charge the battery from the starboard engine as a temporary solution.  He said it is a very hard problem to test when docked, so I guess we will find out on tomorrow's leg of our journey to Fort Myers.

My photographer has been too busy to do his job for the blog since we left NJ, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found he had taken time to capture some sunset pictures this evening.

View from the bow of our boat at dock in Stuart, FL

Christmas Boat next to us in Stuart, FL

The boat next to us is all decked out in Christmas greenery and has a lighted snowman on deck as well! Clark said his favorite snowman is one that he can enjoy when the temperature is in the 70s!

Patriotic Snowman in Stuart, FL

Last Prep Before Departure

1/14/2017 – 1/16/2017

Saturday the 14^th was an exceptionally busy day. At 8:00, as promised, the painter showed up to touch up the paint on the bow of the boat. He applied the first coat of paint, instructed Clark on how to do the remainder of the coats and buff the area when completed, got paid, and left. Clark was very happy to be told what needed to be done and finish the job himself. He saved money and hopefully will know next time a touch up is needed what to do.

Shortly after the painter left, and while Clark was watching the clock to know when to apply his next coat of paint, Brenda, the woman who has been caring for the boat, came to visit. We toured the boat with her to learn her boat cleaning and care secrets. She explained all the cleaning products she uses, etc. While on tour, we opened one of the hatches to the bilge area and found rusty water. Uh-oh! Looks like the hot water heater is failing. Very soon we will need a new one. They only cost about $1000!!!

All told, we spent well over an hour with Brenda learning her secrets. When done, we walked her to her car to say goodbye and get some lines she had for us. By the time we got back to the boat, the diver had arrived and was already under Sunset Delight scraping away. He says he is meticulous, and we did not doubt his word. He scraped, scraped, and scraped some more for around three hours in total. Clark thought he might have to take out another mortgage to pay for his time, but the fee was reasonable considering the time he spent working on the hull.

I decided I had to get seriously organized in the galley. I found the constant shuffling of a pot to here and a pan to there most annoying. Finding a balance between looking nice and being serviceable presented the largest problem. If I had it handy (whatever it was), the kitchen looked cluttered. I needed to find more cupboard space somehow.

In my quest for a more organized galley I decided to pull out everything under the sink – most of which was left by the previous owner. Fortunately I pulled out everything including the non-skid padding under there. In doing so I discovered that the drain pipe was leaking a constant drip - drip - drip and everything was sitting in water. I could actually see the water beading up on the pipe connection and then dripping off, so I had no problem identifying the root of the problem. I never would have noticed if I had not removed the non-skid pad!

When Clark looked into the problem, in between the thousand other things he was doing, he went to loosen the nut holding two pipes together and it fell into multiple pieces. He came out with a handful of pieces to show me his findings. With all the earlier activities, we did not get to the sink repair until 3:00. Ace Hardware, just down the street from here, closed at 4:00, so we hurried ourselves over there to get the replacement part. By the time we got back to the boat and had the new part installed, the clock had struck 4:00. The only problem with this, however, was that the part did not do a good sealing job, so we had to get another part.

Since Ace Hardware was now closed, we had to drive to a Home Depot about 30 minutes away to get a washer that cost $1.69. We would have bought a part to serve a similar function as the washer while at Ace Hardware, but the salesperson in Ace said, “Oh, you don’t need that!” Clark should have gone with his gut and bought the piece anyway. At $1.69, it would have saved us an hour’s drive!

Sunday found us with a list of three places to visit while we still had a car to get there – food provisioning at Publix, visit the local Verizon dealer, and check out a boat part at West Marine. We decided to visit them in the reverse order due to location and not wanting to leave food in the car while we spent time in the other stores.

Clark wants a converter cable for the electric to the boat to allow for a 30 amp connection at the dock coming into our 50 amps on the boat. West Marine had what he wanted but cost about $100 more than he had seen them online. We passed on this purchase opportunity and went on to our next stop.

Next, we went to Verizon to find out what could be done about my new phone. I got the phone on the Sunday after Black Friday last year, so it is very new. I had suffered with the GPS / Google Maps being dysfunctional all the way from New Jersey to Florida and made annoyingly wrong turns as a result of it. Something needed to be done and now! I asked about the warranty and was told that the last day I could return / exchange the phone was, are you ready, “yesterday, the 14th”! Just my luck!

Although nice and full of suggestions to work around my problem, neither Clark nor I thought the Verizon rep knew exactly what he was talking about. He suggested I abandon Google Maps and use an alternate navigation app called Waze instead. He showed me the features it has that Maps does not. Unfortunately, I like the features Maps has that Waze does not.

After a lengthy discussion on how I might go about getting this issue resolved under warranty (he did not hold much hope for it getting approved as a warranty item), he came up with one “last-ditch effort” to solve the problem. He went into Google Maps and deleted all my data and emptied my cache. My cache was full of junk – many, many megabytes worth. I left the store with a bunch of notes on the warranty approach but truly hopeful that he had somewhat accidentally found the root cause of my problem with the over-stuffed cache.

Clark suggested we have the phone take us back to West Marine to see if it got lost on the way. Unfortunately, the problem is not predictively repeatable. It took us to West Marine and then Publix successfully. This really proved nothing.  Only time would tell if the problem was resolved or lurking to get me when least expected!

After we got our provisioning at Publix done and got back to the boat, I busied myself doing a little this and a little that – still trying to find better ways to get organized mostly. At some point I found Clark in the salon with the covers to the salon light switches removed and the wires all hanging out. Apparently that dimmer that only dims the cockpit lighting but never turns the lights off annoyed him enough for him to dig into the electrical boxes.

As he worked to resolve the problem, he found he needed 14-gauge wire to make a connection, but not wanting to drive an hour to Home Depot and back, he managed to work with the existing wire to address the need. When he finished making the necessary connections, he had a mass of wires to stuff back in the box. Somehow he managed to pack them all in. When we tested his work, we found that Clark had successfully rewired the light so that the unused switch (left over from when the prior owners installed dimmers in the salon area of the boat) had been repurposed to be the off switch for the cockpit dimmable lighting. Fortunately, all the other lights still worked as well!

Whether it was the shopping, organizing, or something else entirely, I will never know but I passed out on the sofa around 8:00 Sunday night. I woke up an hour later, decided to minimize my activities so as not to wake myself up more fully, and fell into bed just after 9:00. I knew from experience that if I allowed myself to wake up completely, I would most likely be up until 1:00 a.m.

Even though I went to bed several hours earlier than usual, I still only woke up this morning, the 16^th, when my alarm went off at 7:30. Then, I still laid in bed for a while before getting up. In fact I fell back to sleep and woke with a start about ten minutes later. I knew I could not sleep in this morning as we had reserved a rental car for 9:00 pickup. Today’s chore was to drive two cars to Fort Myers and one car back to Fort Pierce. We left our personal car at the marina there so that it will be there when we arrive by boat in a few days’ time. Round trip, non-stop driving, took us just under six hours. The good news – my Google Maps did not fail to position me correctly for the entire trip!

About ten miles from the end of our trip, Clark abruptly pulled off the highway into a parking lot and told me I was driving. He managed to get a cramp in the ankle of his gas-pedal foot and said he could not drive any further. I said, “It must be bad if you are stopping this close to being back”. His response, “I see no reason why you can’t drive as you are a perfectly good driver”. That comment pleased me no end, and I drove with a smile on my face for the rest of the trip. Getting a compliment out of Clark is difficult indeed, so I make the most of whatever I can get!

Since I used my accrued points, today’s car rental at Enterprise cost me a whopping great $2.98. For practically free, I can’t say too much about the car we got except that I would not want a Ford Focus even as a gift! When the Enterprise agent dropped us off at our marina, it was late afternoon and we still had a number of tasks to complete in preparation for leaving here tomorrow to head to Stuart, Florida - our first destination with this boat.

In preparation for departure in the morning and to get his hands on the controls one more time, Clark decided to “spin the boat”, i.e. change it from docked bow in to docked stern in. This proved to be a useful exercise. He had trouble operating the boat, and I had my hands full worrying over lines and fenders. Clark made a couple of phone calls to the broker during our test run for helpful instructions on boat operation.

Apparently, he can “spin the boat” a lot faster than I can move two fenders from port to starboard! He asked if we were clear to dock, and I still had my hands full of fender lines! Once ready, he backed in. We had left the lines on the dock to pick up when we came back, but they were set for our bow in tie up, not the stern in, and I found them to be incorrectly positioned. We docked, but it was not as pretty as when we dock Sea Moss. It’s a lot of boat to handle! I expect to improve with time!

While spinning the boat, Clark found yet another problem with the boat. The engine room filled up with exhaust fumes! He turned on a blower to push the fumes out, but it was pretty clear that something was wrong. After we got redocked, Clark left on the blower and spent time trouble shooting the issue. Eventually, he found a large hole where a bolt had come loose and fallen out. He replaced the bolt and has hopefully resolved the problem. Meanwhile, I got a major headache from fumes up in the salon. I hope we don’t have a repeat of that problem.

It took us years to work through all the issues we found with Sea Moss, and she was a new boat. Now that she is just the way we want her, we are selling her. Whether new or used, boats come with problems that need to be worked out. It’s part of boating. Clark says it is like owning a home – there is always something in need of repair or replacement! I am forever thankful that Clark and I are able to work together to resolve issues without calling a repair person for every problem that presents itself.

Boat Provisioning and Training Sessions

1/11/17 to 1/13/17

One would think that two cars full of supplies would be sufficient to provision the boat, but alas, that turned out not to be the case.

Of course we needed to buy groceries. I got a lunch out and one more restaurant dinner on Tuesday because “Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard” was quite beyond bare. We got the lunch special at the Publix supermarket. Instead of $5.99 for a half a sub each, we could share a whole sub for the same price. The only catch was that we both had to get the same meats and cheese. For a “free” lunch, I decided I could eat what Clark ate which meant turkey on whole wheat instead of ham on whole grain – disappointing but edible. Publix provides a dining area, so we could eat right there and then do our grocery shopping.

I only wanted to buy a few essentials and seriously shop on another day when I had a grocery list, but Clark wanted to stock up. I guess dinner out three nights in a row is more than he can handle. On my aisle-by-aisle trip through the grocery store, I picked up a family pack of chicken breasts. When we got to the checkout, the clerk said, “These are buy one get one, so you need to go get another.” Knowing the chicken was at the furthest point away from the cash register and that I had already picked up the family pack, I politely declined the offer, but she and the bagger both insisted that I needed to go get the free chicken. I left Clark checking out and made the trek across the store. I hadn’t noticed on the first package, but the second one I picked up showed a price of around $22 – quite a savings! Thankfully this new boat has a full-sized refrigerator and freezer, so I can actually store that much chicken!

Besides the food provisioning, we came up with a list of other items we had either forgotten to bring or didn’t know we needed until talking to the boat broker (John). John came to visit us and give us training sessions on each of three consecutive days – Wednesday through Friday. Each time he came Clark had a list of questions that he had compiled while exploring the boat and reading through the stack of manuals that come with a boat this complex. The first night on board, just turning on the lights turned out to be a significant challenge. I looked and looked and could not find a light switch for the pilot house. Later, I noticed the lights on in there and asked Clark where the switch was. His response, “… the obvious place”. I have yet to see this obvious light switch though, to be honest, I have not looked for it a second time.

Clark was fascinated by the lights in the cockpit. He found that they never completely turn off with the dimmer switch. The work around he found is to turn off the circuit breaker for the salon lights which has this cockpit lighting on it as well. That works well until we need to see in the salon area at night! He found that out himself when he tried to turn on a light in the salon in the evening, and it didn't work!

On Thursday, Clark took a break from the boat to go in search of an immediate care medical provider. Right after we got back from Colorado, we both got sick with a cough and congestion. That was ten days ago. Although I still have a bit of congestion, mine eventually, mostly went away. Clark had asked if I thought he should find a doctor, but given I was getting progressively better, I thought he would be fine. By Thursday morning we both knew this was not the case. He sounded awful – hacking and coughing.

I have no idea what the doctor thought was wrong with Clark’s health, but he must have thought it pretty serious. He gave Clark a shot of something there in the office and then prescribed a chest x-ray and four different medications. When I saw his stack of pills, I called him a “walking medicine cabinet”. He now needs a personal secretary to schedule his pill taking. I cannot believe how complex the schedule is for one of them – it changes every day for five days regarding how many pills to take and when to take them – with dire consequences of side effects should the patient not adhere to the precise schedule.  

Later that day, the broker came by as promised to go out with us on the boat just to get a feel for how it handles. We did not go too far. Clark did most of the driving. Thankfully he did not take the medication that said in bold print “do not operate heavy machinery while taking this medication”. I would say the boat qualifies as “heavy machinery”.

Clark did well handling the boat and even gave me the controls for maybe 5 minutes on a straightaway. Then he asked me what I thought. I’m not sure what revelation he was expecting. I told him, “It drives like a boat.” I am sure I would be a lot more intimidated by it if I had to steer it in close quarters. When we got back to the slip, Clark backed her in like a pro, and then since he wanted to “play with the dinghy” later, he turned it around and docked bow in.

As the mate, I have a lot to learn too. I paid close attention to the instructions on how to drive the boat. The controls are nothing like what we had on Sea Moss, and Clark said they are very sensitive. The lever for Forward/Neutral/Reverse easily slides into reverse from forward (a definite no-no) if the driver is not very careful when aiming for the neutral position. Of course this boat has a totally different set of navigation systems than either of us are used to. We had Simrad on Sea Moss; now we have Raymarine.

Mostly I drive the boat when Clark needs to visit the “head” or he needs to check on something. I remember being near terrified when I thought I was going to have to take Sea Moss into a lock while on our Great Loop trip. I can only imagine my level of terror if I have to do anything even slightly complicated with this one!

This new boat is nominally 17 feet longer than our old one – 35 versus 52 feet. In actuality, this vessel is 57 feet long overall – that’s a lot of boat. Where Clark, sitting at the helm, could hear me just about anywhere I stood on Sea Moss, I now have to position myself within hearing range. Thanks to my son and his wife, we do have radios for communication on board. I expect them to get a lot more use on Sunset Delight.

With a bigger boat, the lines are fatter (3/4” instead of 5/8”), longer, and heavier. The fenders are bulkier. I could see the swim platform on Sea Moss when standing on the top deck. Neither Clark nor I can see the swim platform on Sunset Delight from up there. I will need to be below and be his eyes to tell him how close he is to the dock as he comes in. With Sea Moss, he just knew.

In the process of moving onto the boat, we compiled a list of non-food items we needed. The broker, John, recommended that I go shopping in Vero Beach instead of Fort Pierce since Vero Beach has a better selection of stores. I left today (Friday) before 11:00 and didn’t get back to the boat until after 4:00. I went to Michael’s, Bed Bath and Beyond, Lowes, CVS, Home Depot, West Marine and Walgreens. I haven’t tallied up my total cost of my shopping spree, but I am sure it’s not pretty.

I am not a shopper by nature. Some folks love to shop; I would be very happy to forgo this activity. First I had to find each of these stores and then I had to navigate within them. At least for the former, I had GPS to assist. Once in the stores, especially Lowes and Home Depot, I was on my own and inevitably found myself at the wrong end of the store whenever I asked a clerk where something was stocked!

While I was trudging up and down the aisles of stores, Clark was learning how to deploy and use our new dinghy. We have a crane on this boat to lower the dinghy into the water. He had to learn the idiosyncrasies of that procedure, and then he went out for a ride. We had a 4 HP motor on our old dinghy. The outboard on this one is more than ten times that! Clark said it goes “scary fast” when opened up to top RPM. Sorry I missed that ride; sounds like it might have been fun.

After our three days of instruction and the broker patiently addressing all of Clark’s questions, we are now on our own. I am very glad we went out once with the broker as it did take the edge off the nervousness of the first time out. I’m just thankful that I am not the captain!

Tomorrow we have a diver coming to scrub the bottom of the boat. Sitting at dock for the past few months, it has grown a green beard on the bottom. We are also expecting someone to come with some touch-up paint to cover a couple of nicks on the bow of the boat as well as the woman who took care of the boat for the previous owners. The painter shows up first at 8:00, so that means an early morning for us.

Things are slowly starting to come together. We are getting things in order and stowed in a more organized manner. As we get more familiar with the boat, we find better places to “hide” things. I am more than a bit worried that we will “hide” things so well they won’t be seen again for months or years. When we first moved on board, for example, I found a place for the vacuum cleaner. Two days later I opened a cupboard and was surprised to find the vacuum there. I expect I may encounter more of that, but it is better to find something unexpectedly than to lose something on the boat forever due to its “perfect” storage place.

One might ask, “Are we having fun yet?” The answer to that question would have to be no. Besides being sick, we have been extremely busy. Neither of us have really had the time yet to sit back, relax and enjoy this experience. One thing for sure, I have no trouble sleeping at night. I pass out almost as soon as I turn the lights out!

Driving from NJ to FL

Jan. 8th to 10th 2017

1/8/2017 ... Jersey boys Don’t Make U-Turns!

With our car and a rental SUV, both fully loaded with our boating needs, we left home in Rumson, NJ at 11:00 a.m. on January 8^th. We had planned on making our escape on the 7^th, but a heavily falling snow and predictions of nasty weather south along Route 95 prevented our departure. Instead of driving a car that day, Clark was pushing a snow blower around the driveway. With the snow stopped and the driveway mostly cleared, I hoped for an early start on the 8^th.  I quickly learned that was not to be the case when I realized Clark meant to continue where he left off the day before with snow removal.

After thirty-something years of marriage and living in a snowy state, I know that Clark is basically OCD when it comes to clearing snow from the driveway and sidewalks. I just thought that this once, since we were leaving and would not be seeing or dealing with it, that he could leave that inch or so of snow and just drive away. Hah! He declared that with the low temperatures the remaining snow would freeze and still be in the driveway come spring. Rather than discuss or argue the point, I picked up my shovel to follow along behind the snow blower and clean up the crumbs left behind – my traditional role.

Of course, after we finally finished the driveway and sidewalks, we still had to close down the house by unplugging appliances, turning down the heat and turning off the water. Before leaving the area, I had to make a stop at CVS for a prescription that I could not refill earlier and then we both needed to fill up with gas. Why is it that rental cars are now handed out low on fuel?? It used to be the case that they needed to come back full ready for the next user. Grrr! Finally, after the stop at the pumps, we set off.

Clark decided that even though I was now also a driver, I should continue to be the navigator, so he put me in the lead. He claimed that his rear visibility was too poor to be able to keep track of me if I followed. Well, he should try leading with a black SUV as the following vehicle. At one point I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw no less than six black SUVs. I had yet to figure out any distinctive features on his Nissan Pathfinder to distinguish the one Clark drove from the other five. I just hoped he was back there somewhere and kept going!

We drove as far as just before Richmond, Virginia the first day. I always get drowsy driving long distances, but surprisingly, I felt like I could continue on further with no problem. Clark pointed out the diminishing daylight, and with my eyes not what they used to be, we decided to call it quits for the day. Driving at night is not fun for me, so we found a hotel for the night.

Route 95 presented no issues in terms of road conditions as we tootled along at speed limits ranging from 55 to 70. When we exited the highway for our hotel, however, ice-covered streets greeted us. Areas of clear pavement were few and far between. As I entered the parking lot, I managed to keep the two passenger-side wheels mostly off the ice. The two driver-side wheels rode over several mm of glare ice. It made me proud to be a Pennsylvania girl who learned to drive on snowy and icy roads!

I breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled into the parking spot but then took my life in my hands when I got out of the car to walk across the icy parking lot to the less-than-pristine sidewalk.  It is one thing to walk across ice on worn-down sneakers. (I will not be needing boots in Florida!) It is quite another to carry luggage while doing so.

A sign on the hotel entrance mocked us with, and I quote, “Sidewalks may be icy”! Clark was tempted to cross out the may be and write in “are”. I thought we could just cross out the “may be” and not even have to add text to the message. Finding any sidewalk to walk on without ice was the challenge we faced.

It took several trips to bring things into the hotel. Clark said anything liquid would freeze overnight at a predicted 7 degrees, so I had to bring in items I had not planned on removing from the car including his guitar. Once we got everything in the hotel room, Clark pointed out that we needed to take both cars to the restaurant and to get refueled to be ready for the next day’s departure. Okay, so I go back out on the ice rink parking lot yet again. Clark said he had directions on his phone, so he would lead. First we headed to the Wawa for gas about three miles down the road.

As we drove down the street, I saw the Wawa on the left side of the road – unfortunately on the other side of a divided highway, so no left turn. When we arrived at the traffic light, I expected Clark to make the U-turn to go back, but instead he made a full left turn. Not wanting to lose him, I followed. At the next intersection, I expected him to make a U-turn. He did not. Frustrated, I followed him again. At the next intersection, I thought he would make a U-turn. Instead he turned left into a parking lot to use that as a turn around. I decided I had had enough and made a U-turn to go back to the gas station. I guess Jersey boys don’t make U-turns! They take jughandles!

I was sure he would be close behind, but when I turned down the ice-covered street to the gas station, I saw no signs of him in my rear-view mirror. Now where did he go!!?? I figured he would arrive eventually and went about pumping the gas into my car. He finally pulled into the station having taken the main road (probably safer than my ice-covered entrance) to arrive at the pumps. When finished, he once again led the way to the restaurant. He pulled into the parking lot for a complex of stores and a movie theater and then just stopped at an intersection and did not move. The cars behind me finally went around the two of us as we just sat there.  Hum-de-hum, now what?

The voice on the GPS had told Clark “You have arrived!” so he stopped because he did not know where to go. “Hello?? Try pulling into a parking lot maybe to figure it out?!” I pulled up next to his car and asked him what was going on. After some research on the phone, he figured out the restaurant was next to the movie theater, and we made our way there to get dinner. I led the way this time! After a reasonably good meal at the Texas Roadhouse, we left and he told me to take the lead back to the hotel. Thank goodness!

When we arrived back at the hotel, Clark backed into a parking space ready to go in the morning. I pulled my car around to do the same, and when I stepped on the gas to reverse, the car slid a little down the incline I was on. Hmmm … so much for backing up. I pulled ahead into a parking spot and called it a night.

  

1/9/2017 ... Jersey Girls Don’t Pump Gas!

By the time we had breakfast and left the hotel in Richmond, Virginia on the 9th, the temperature had risen from an overnight low of 4 to a whopping great high of 7 degrees. It made me appreciate the heated seats that came with our “new” car even though Clark thought they were an unnecessary luxury.

As we prepared to leave, I surveyed the surrounding ice flow to see what I might encounter leaving the parking lot. Remembering my slide down the slope the night before, I worried that I would be unable to back out of my parking spot. Then I decided that if I managed to back out, I would probably have the same problem as the night before – no go uphill on ice! When Clark gave the “thumbs up” that he was ready, I backed out of the spot with no problem, but when I put it in drive, whoops – I began sliding backwards not moving forwards.

I had worked out a game plan for this contingency, so I backed up (only way I could go) into a parking spot with, amazingly, little-to-no ice and then put the car in drive on dry pavement.  Once moving I figured I could keep going and that worked. As I maneuvered out of the parking lot, often times driving with all four wheels on ice, I thought of my high-school driver’s ed. teacher, Mr. Bujno, who told our class a story of one of his student drivers who encountered ice on a driving session. “Don’t stop!” he said to the student, “Whatever you do, don’t stop!” The student stopped! Remembering the unkind words my teacher had to say about that student, I kept going – right through the stop sign! I wasn’t stopping for anything!

Back on the highway, Route 95, I found the roads going south towards North Carolina to be in rather dismal shape for an interstate. Instead of clearing the roads, they posted warning signs “slow down - roads may have patches of ice”. They were not kidding. Especially under bridges, the roads had rather a lot of ice on them particularly in the fast lane. Most drivers took slowing down to mean drive the 70 mph speed limit instead of speeding. In places, I quite literally held my breath as someone would pass me on ice at 70 plus mph. A couple of times I found myself traveling at faster than prudent speeds on ice when it jumped out and surprised me. With a weather report of a predicted 70 degrees by end of week, I guess the state of Virginia did not see a need to apply salt or clean further.

As I drove through the Richmond, Virginia area, my Google Maps app decided to flake out on me completely. I had been having some difficulty with the GPS positioning on my phone, but in Richmond, it went “haywire”! Repeatedly it decided my car traveled the local roads of Richmond, and the “lady on maps” tried desperately to get me back on track. As I drove down 95 South, with no exits in sight, the phone literally screamed “Make a U-turn”! Ahhhh, no, I don’t think so!

We stopped at a rest stop just as we left Virginia – actually I think it was the North Carolina welcome center. As I waited for Clark to emerge from the men’s room, I woman walked past me with a broad grin on her face. When she saw that I had noticed, she could not wait to tell me that she and her husband were heading to Florida. I told her I was going there too. Then she said, “We live there. I’m from New York originally. We just drove up to Virginia to see the snow. I haven’t seen it in 30 years!” She was so excited. I told her, “If I had known, I would have brought you some from New Jersey!”

I wondered if Clark’s Google Maps app was acting strangely. He said, “Yes, she won’t talk to me!” Oh, if only I had that problem, all she did was talk to me telling me I was totally screwed up and giving me bizarre driving directions. I must say on the positive side that she kept me entertained enough to keep me awake while I drove. We decided Clark’s problem was related to his phone’s connection to the car’s Bluetooth.

At some point, a few hundred miles down the road, we needed to stop for gas. I exited the highway and found a gas station with a multitude of pumps. Clark managed to pull right into one and start pumping. I unfortunately had to find one where I could pull up with the pump on the passenger side (the one thing I hate about this “new” car). I pulled up to wait for a pump and noticed that the car at the pump had no one in it and the nozzle was not in the tank. I figured they ran in to pay and sat to wait. They never came back, so I looked for another slot.

I saw one several bays over, so I moved over there and backed in to get the pump on the correct side of the car.  Annoyed that I had trouble getting to a pump, I got out and used my credit card to start the pumping process. The card did not take, so I tried again, and still nothing. The woman at the pump next to me told me to turn my card around, so I did. Then I got “System Error – call 1-800-dummy” twice.

Finally, I gave up on the credit card of choice and used my alternate. The card went through and it said “remove nozzle” on the display. “Strange”, I thought to myself, “how do I choose the octane?” About this time, the woman next to me noticed my New Jersey plates, and said, “Jersey girls don’t pump gas!” I smiled and said, “That’s right, we don’t.” I turned back to my car, put the nozzle to the car, and noticed two things at once – 1) the nozzle would not go in my car and 2) it was green. “Crap, it’s diesel!”, I said to myself, “Now what?”

I put the nozzle back and tried to figure out how to cancel the pump. There is no cancel button. I ran into the store and asked them to cancel pump #10, and they did so. When I came back out, the woman at the pump next to me (same one) said, “That’s diesel. Does your car take diesel?”  “No”, I said, “Maybe this Jersey girl should go back to Jersey for gas!” Sadly, she agreed with me.

Shortly after that, she finally finished washing her car windows and left, so I could take her pump. I went to get my credit card out of my purse, and voila, it was gone! In order not to miss out on finally getting gas, I used yet another card and this time got to choose my octane.  I took the nozzle to my car and found it to be about a foot short of reaching the fill for the tank. Somewhere in here, I had about had it with this gas station experience.

I desperately wanted Clark’s assistance, but he was gone. Having filled his tank and washed his windows, he was merrily sitting in his car playing with his phone trying to get Ms. Google Maps to talk to him. I backed my car up the few feet required to reach the fill, got the gas going, and ran over and banged on his window. I told him I had lost my credit card and was in full-blown panic mode. He came to help look for it. I searched my pockets multiple times as well as my wallet. We scoured the grounds all around the pump and into the store since I had run in to request they cancel the gas pump. Nothing! Even other customers looked around – nothing!

Since others wanted to pump gas and were waiting for me to get out of the way, I pulled the car to the side and went through my totally empty pockets and my wallet one more time. I found the card hiding in an obscure pocket of the wallet that I don’t normally use. In my haste to get the job done I had slipped it in to the wrong slot. Phew! By the time we left the gas station, we had had a nice, long, thrity-minute break, and we both had so much adrenaline flowing, we were wide awake for the next stretch of road.

We drove a long way on the 9^th to cover as much ground as possible and get as close to Fort Pierce as possible to arrive there with enough daylight to unload the cars. We got as far as just outside Savannah, Georgia. Unlike the day before when I felt I could have continued on for longer, I could not wait to get out of the car. The last three hours felt like torture. Only NPR radio kept me going. Even though all the talk was about Trump taking office, it kept me more alert than music, so I listened intently.

We rewarded ourselves with a yummy dinner at the Sweet Tea Grille and an early night to prepare for yet another day of driving. The good news – no ice in Savannah!

1/10/2017 ... Finally, Fort Pierce!

Another six hours behind the wheel, listening to NPR all the way, I finally arrived in Fort Pierce without losing Clark in the process. I noticed, when we stopped for gas along the way, that Clark hovered over me and helped with the pumping of the gas. I said, “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me to do it?” He had no comment!

As with most marinas, the one containing our new boat has wheeled carts somewhat like oversized wheelbarrows but with two front wheels instead of one. We took two of those and loaded them to transport items from the cars to the boat. We did that repeatedly. All told, we made at least five trips with both carts. When done, we had basically run out of floor space on the boat to put all the bags, boxes, etc.  Once the cars were unloaded, the hard part began – stowing the goods. Clark asked me several times where we should put things, and all I could say is, “I don’t know this boat. I don’t know where to put anything!”

I decided to start with turning on the refrigerator and getting cold food stowed. We had some we brought with us from NJ. Then I knew we would need a bed to sleep in, so I tackled the master stateroom. Clark had piled clothes, towels, and a multitude of other items on the bed, so I had to dig the bed out from under before I could put sheets and blankets on it!

Since we had nothing on board for dinner, we walked across the street to a local restaurant to eat. Before we could lock up and leave the boat, however, we had to take everything in the cockpit and move it into the salon. Oh my aching back! I slept well that night that’s for sure!

Sunset Delight - Our Next Chapter

A little less than six months ago when I said "The End" at the end of our Great Loop Adventure blog postings, I did not realize it would literally be the end of our boat travels on our beloved and faithful Sea Moss! A lot has happened in the last few months, and we made some life-changing decisions. Though she served us well, we are selling Sea Moss.

In mid-September, Clark and I went to visit our son and his family in Connecticut, and while there, attended the Newport, Rhode Island boat show - a relatively short drive away. For at least five years, Clark and I have dreamed of owning a Krogen Express, so while at the boat show, we took time to salivate over the one they had on display. We had no intentions of buying; we just like to look. The owner of the company knows us by name since we have toured his boat so many times. He did not even bother to show us around this time - he just told us to wander at will.

We have spent hours on board a Krogen Express at one boat show or another and never left port! The Rhode Island boat show proved no different. We had no interest in seeing any other vessels on display. We toured the Krogen Express, again for some rather long period of time, and at the end of the day headed back to Connecticut.  As we drove away from the boat show, I told Clark that we needed to stop attending boat shows as it was too disappointing to keep looking at a Krogen Express when the possibility of actually owning one seemed far too remote to consider a possibility. Sadly Clark agreed with me.

While at the boat show, we learned one extraordinary bit of news, however; it seemed, by the remotest of possibilities, not one but two pre-owned Krogen Express vessels had come on the market. Our hope has been that at some time in the future, perhaps a couple of years from now, one of the existing owners would decide to sell.  That two came up for sale virtually simultaneously is beyond remarkable.  Clark inquired, and the broker sent us literature and pictures of the two boats up for sale.

Interestingly, we had met the owners of several Krogen Express vessels at the Krogen Express rendezvous in Marathon, Florida in March of 2016. One couple there told us of all the improvements they had requested in their model (hull #8) when they had it built, and they advised us against buying any model built earlier than their hull number. The two boats that came up for sale consisted of hull # 6 and amazingly hull #8 itself.

The advertised differences between hull #6 and hull #8 included stabilizers in 8 and a hard top on 8. When we talked with him in Florida, the owner of hull #8 implied a number of other improvements. Perhaps, as with the multitude of enhancements we have made to Sea Moss, the changes are not as apparent as the two most notable, and advertised, differences. After studying and comparing the material on hull 6 and hull 8, we decided if we bought one, it would be hull #8 or later.

A Krogen Express almost within our grasp was too much temptation for Clark who suddenly started pouring over our finances with a "fine-toothed comb".  Much to my surprise, he decided we should go after the boat, and a little more then two months later, we find ourselves the owners of hull #8. The boat was named Wilhelmina as the owners were Danish and the wife's name Wilhelmina aka Willie. Alas, for us, the name would need to be changed.

For a while we thought about keeping the Sea Moss name and moving it to the new boat, but "No more techie names please", I begged Clark and, for once, he listened. After many choices tossed about and discarded by ourselves, we went to our children and their wives for advice on a name. Their insistence that we not use the word "Lady" in the boat name astounded us, but since both sets of families were adamant that we not use that word, we decided to comply with their wishes. Of course our first choice name had the word "Lady" in the name! Thus, given Clark's pursuit of the perfect sunset every day of our Great Loop Adventure, we have chosen to name our "new-to-us" Krogen Express Sunset Delight.

As a result of suddenly having a new boat with a new name, I found myself with a dilemma regarding my boating blog http://cmosboating.blogspot.com - should I now start a new blog for our next set of adventures? When we were on our trip, folks starting calling Clark and me "Sea Moss" as a nickname of sorts. If someone we knew saw us on the street or at a party, we would hear, "Hey, it's Sea Moss!" So, perhaps, we are as much "Sea Moss" as the boat was!?  With so many folks already familiar with the cmosboating link, I have decided to keep the same blog going.

Buying the boat turned into an adventure in and of itself! I have never seen so much paperwork from a bank for the loan as we did for this one. We signed well over 30 disclosure statements. I know we signed some of them multiple times just to update the date on the paperwork. The good and bad news was that we could do the documents electronically. Good news because of convenience; bad news because the web site said "max file size of 15 meg" but in actuality it was 10 meg. The bank repeatedly requested we transmit files 1 thru 10 of 30, and we did multiple times. After the third or fourth try, and much loss of valuable time, we found out the files were not being received due to file size. Instead they were just being thrown into the "bit bucket" by the computer!

During our frustrating banking experience, the broker applied a lot of pressure on us to speed things along which only added to our stress. With fall boat shows in full swing, if our sale fell through, the broker did not want to miss out on the next buyer. We literally had a race against the Fort Lauderdale boat show. If we could not get a commitment from the bank before the show, the broker threatened to put the boat back on the market. Somehow, and what feels like somewhat miraculously, we got the commitment just in the nick of time.

In the midst of all this chaos, we drove to Florida to see the boat, have an inspection done, and take it out for a test run on the water. Needless to say it met with our approval. In fact the inspector said he was desperately looking for something to put in his report! On December 7th, after much nail-biting on my part and lack of sleep on Clark's, we finally took ownership of our dream vessel - 25 years to the day after moving into our dream home. It must be a lucky date for us regardless of its normally dismal remembrances (12/7/1941). I'm no more likely to forget 12/7/1991 when we moved into our new home than I will 12/7/2016 when we took ownership of our new second home.

We rented a van, packed up all our boating belongings, and planned to leave Rumson today to drive to Florida to move onboard Sunset Delight. Mother Nature had other ideas! Snow storm Helena has blocked our departure. Instead of driving south, Clark is out in the driveway with the snowblower! We hope to leave tomorrow; however, with the cupboards and refrigerator all but completely bare, I cannot help but wonder what our dinner will look like tonight. Perhaps a "once-warm" pizza will find its way to our house through the snow!

I will pick up on posting stories to my blog as we encounter more adventures on the sea. When we get some pictures of the new boat, I will post them. Meanwhile, here is one from when she was named Wilhelmina!

Thanks for reading!

If interested, the ad for Sea Moss can be found here:
http://mainship350forsale.blogspot.com/

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!