Marching Time in the Chesapeake

It has been almost two months since the last blog posting.  No, we haven’t fallen off the edge of the Earth. Rather we have been very busy with all-consuming boat projects.  Since arriving in the Chesapeake we are working seven days a week on the boat with just a few exceptions.  A year ago we decided to have the boat re-painted with Awlgrip.  This is a time consuming and expensive project that takes considerable planning and hopefully is only necessary every ten years or so. In reality, we are not sure our 23 year old boat has ever been repainted.   We chose Hartge Yacht Harbor to do the work, and the first opening to our liking was September 2015.  After a week on a mooring ball in Annapolis where we did tasks that didn’t require a dock, we move fifteen miles away to Galesville, the home of Hartge’s.  It takes another week to strip the boat, remove the mast and wind generator,

It takes a big truck crane to pull the almost 70 feet of heavy mast.

 repair a dinghy davit bracket that also supported the wind generator, and prepare the interior for what is sure to be a dusty and dirty job.  During this time Burt does some interior varnishing and removes the floor boards for refinishing off the boat, and I polish all the exterior stainless. We move into a pleasant, older cottage on the boatyard grounds, maintained for customers who become homeless when their boat is on the hard.  It is difficult to think what we may need to survive for the next four weeks as we won’t have access to the boat once it goes in the paint shed. And, we also take along numerous items that we will work on while the boat is being painted.  I remove all the canvas, bedding, and brass items for cleaning and polishing. Additionally the floor grates in the cockpit come off for refinishing. Inside all items that remain need to be covered in plastic and anything still on the exterior that would be harmed by dust is also covered.

Finally the big day comes when our denuded boat is put in the slings and hauled out of the water 

Starting to go airborne - always a little nerve wracking

and into the climate controlled paint shed (which is really a very large building with a high tech air filtration system). The workers are sheathed in protective suits and with umbilical cords for their air supply.  The dust produced from the process is very toxic.  And of course, all this goes on behind closed doors for days on end.  We do get a few glimpses of what is occurring, though.  First, the old paint surface is sanded down.  

Not much left of the blue hull at this point - note the keel is down below floor level to facilitate the workers.

 At this point they look for any cracking in the fiberglass, and, naturally, we do have some from collisions in the distance past.  Those cracks are routed out and and filled as any remaining cracks would eventually show through the painted surface.  Next, the boat is coated with an Awlgrip primer.

Primer is applied - the painters joke that they thought we wanted a gray boat.

It has enough gloss that any irregularities in the surface can be seen.  More filling and sanding, followed by more priming, occurs until the surface is totally smooth. Finally, the waterline is reconfigured to reflect the fact that the boat leans slightly to one side due to the placement of the battery bank to port.  At some point in the midst of all this, the bottom gets two coats of red anti-fouling paint. It’s time for the final paint job which consists of several coats of blue, along with a gold cove strip and white waterline stripes.   

Pardon the glare - the boat is really shiny.

After it cures for several days, we are allowed to take a look at the results, and they are spectacular.  We just never realized that the original hull surface was in such poor condition.  Finally, new vinyl lettering is applied to the stern, and the boat is allowed to remain in the shed for another week before launching.

And staying in the shed for an extended period is a good idea as we are in the direct path of Hurricane Joaquin.  The boat yard springs into action, pulling many of the 250 boats that are docked there. Boat owners are scurrying to remove sails and canvas and add additional docklines and fenders.  Although we don’t like the idea of a direct hurricane hit, we rest comfortably knowing the boat couldn’t be in a safer place, and we are living in a house well above flood level. If needed, we have extra room in the cottage for any refugees from the storm.  As it happens the hurricane heads off shore, but we still endue several days of torrential rain and wind.  This is the same nor’ easter that brought historic floods to the Carolinas. In the midst of the storm weekend, we attend an SSCA Gam nearby.  As with all other Gams, we go to educational seminars and socialize with new and old cruising friends. I spend one morning there volunteering to help set up and run registration.  We are especially thrilled to welcome Gary and Jana, dockmates of ours from Sandusky, who have just cut the docklines and joined our full time cruising community.

Meanwhile, we are not twiddling our thumbs while the boat is unavailable.  Burt refinishes all the floor boards and repaints most of the mast after repairing a pending failure in the spreaders. The dinghy gets a good scrubbing and its transom is reglued to the tubes where it is beginning to separate.  I refinish the floor grates, thoroughly clean and re-waterproof the exterior canvas in the cottage bath tub, and begin the process of reprovisioning the boat for the coming season.  That is in addition to going to physical therapy for my back three days a week in Annapolis.  We are feeling like work-a-holics.

But we do take a few days off.  After mentioning that I would love to visit the White House, a cruising friend makes arrangements with his nephew who works in the White House Situation Room to give us a private tour.  White House employees are allowed to give tours to friends and family when the First Family is not in residence.  With short notice and some scurrying to get personal information to the Secret Service, we and other cruising friends, Ted and Sally, are told our tour will begin at 9 pm.  We leave Galesville early enough to do a little sightseeing beforehand, but the temperature is stinky hot, and we opt to spend most of our time in the nearby Museum of Natural History which is well air conditioned.   

One of the highpoints of the Natural History Museum is the Hope Diamond - what a rock!

We meet Chris, our friend’s nephew and his wife for dinner first and then walk over to the White House.  

The White House is beautifully illuminated at night.

 Security is tight.  We get grilled, x-rayed and wanded in two separate buildings before being allowed to enter the grounds.   

Outside the side entrance to the West Wind with our friends Ted and Sally.

We are going to see the rarely visited West Wing, but we are not allowed to take pictures inside.  We walk through meeting rooms including the one where the Cabinet meets and peer into the Oval Office.  The art on the walls is impressive.  Apparently, the President can choose to borrow anything from the National Gallery or other national museums.  We visit the press briefing room which is much smaller than we imagined and features assigned seating for one representative of each major news organization, both national and international. Finally, our tour should be over but since Chris works in the Situation Room he manages to get the security guard to allow us to go inside.  We always assumed the Situation Room was some subterranean chamber, but in reality it is less than one story below the Oval Office.  We have to deposit our phones and cameras in a locked cubby before proceeding inside.  It has three meeting rooms that are wired for all types of secure communication.  We see where the iconic picture of President Obama and Hillary Clinton receiving the news of Bin Laden’s death was taken.  Chris is one of several employees who run the computer and audio-visual links, and he describes his responsibilities as we overlook that section.  In another area are tiers of desks with many computer monitors.  Here members of the intelligence community compile information for daily briefings and meetings.  It has been an amazing opportunity to get a glimpse of how the executive branch of the government functions guided by someone at the center of it all.

We also take six days to drive out to Wisconsin to see our son and his family, making overnight stops each way in Ohio to visit with Burt’s sister and brother.  It is a rushed trip, cut short by one day as we need to get back to Galesville earlier than expected.  We do have a wonderful, but brief visit with everyone.  In Wisconsin, the grandsons are eager to show us their new schools (William is in third grade at an intermediate school and Daniel has just started kindergarden at the elementary school).

William introduces his Dad and us to his new teacher.

We attend both boys’ soccer games 

Daniel really gets into his soccer game. After playing for years with an older brother, he finds himself elevated to a first grade team.

and take a tour of Epic where our son works.  The company has grown from 500 employees when he was first hired to 6000, currently. The campus is ever expanding, and we visit his new office in the recently completed “Farm” complex 

The complex consists of four large buildings reflecting traditional Wisconsin farm architecture, each housing around 350 offices.

and take a stroll through the new, mostly underground auditorium, themed around The Lord of the Rings, which holds 12,000 people and is used by the company only two times per year. 

 

Daniel and Grandpa pose near/in a sculpture decorating the entrance to the auditorium.

Nearby are two more complexes under construction, one designed around the Harry Potter books and the other around fairy tales, including Alice in Wonderland.  We could go on and on, but the basic sentiment is that we have just visited a corporate Disney World.   Obviously the company is booming due to all the changes in health care and electronic medical records. Finally, each day we take bike rides along the many trails that lace the Madison area.  It has been a fun and relaxing break from boatyard chores.

We dash back to Galesville in time to oversee the launching of the boat and our move out of the cottage.  

Exuberant goes back into the water with her new color scheme.  Now we will chew nails over any potential scratch.

Now we get to clean up all the mess and reassemble the boat.  Long days later, we have an almost livable home on the water.  Almost, because we are also having the 4000 mile check up done on our engine.  All goes well, and we are happy to learn several concerns we had are unwarranted.  That is until we replace the fresh water cooling pump, a routine matter, and find the connecting hoses are disintegrating.  These become known as the hoses from hell, as they are impossible to remove and replace.  Two engine technician work two days (at $90 per hour) and refuse to allow Burt to assist.  Come the weekend, they are gone and Burt removes some batteries and, voila, the hoses become accessible.  Monday morning the job is finished up in a few hours. As the saying goes, “It’s a boat/boatyard.” Finally, partway through the battle with the hoses from hell, a crane comes in and resteps our refurbished mast. 

Our stay at the boat yard is as pleasant as the staff could make it – both the employees and the resident boaters are very friendly, and the setting, overlooking a sloping lawn into a tributary of the Chesapeake, is lovely. But, we are anxious to get underway.  When we arrived at the end of August, it was stifling hot; now we are getting our first tastes of cold weather and are itching to begin heading south.  We take an extra day to attend the Annapolis Boat Show, browsing some amazing boats and buying nothing as at this stage, we feel we own everything we need.  We conclude the day with the ritual stop at Pussers for Painkillers with cruising friends, talking late enough into the evening that we are the last table remaining on the deck.

Burt enjoying a late afternoon Painkiller with friends on the deck at Pussers - the many masts of the boats displayed at the show are in the background.

We begin our trek south with an overnighter down the Chesapeake. We are in a hurry as a day later construction will begin on a railroad bridge in Norfolk that will result in severely restricted openings.  We stop at Great Bridge, a suburb of the Norfolk/Portsmouth area, for a quick bike ride to the grocery store and dinner out with other cruising friends. Then we start down the ICW, motoring the first two days and anchoring out along deserted shores. The third morning we wake up to cold temperatures and rumors of high winds, but all is quiet at the anchorage.  We head out into the ICW and unfurl the headsail but as we ease our way from the protection of the shoreline, it becomes obvious we are in for a spritely sail.  The wind continues to build, and we find ourselves sailing faster than hull speed with the wind dead astern. Finally, it dawns on us that we are sailing in gusts up to 35 knots and that perhaps a reef would be a good idea.  It remains an exhilarating sail, and we pull into our reserved dock at River Dunes, an upscale residential development and marina that offers discount marina rates to keep business rolling during the real estate downturn.  We enjoy a relaxing two day stay before making our way to Beaufort, North Carolina, where we hope to begin offshore hops down to Florida.  It is cool and forecast to get much colder, so we dare not tarry along the way.