Aboard S/V Nightwinds

Breadcrumbs

December 31, 1999 -- Lucya bound

We decided to move the boats to Lucya after Anne talked with the dockmaster at the Lucyan Village Marina. We headed out at 1220 GMT and arrived at 1700 GMT. 
 
We headed into Port Lucya market place for dinner and to look around about 6:00 PM EST. We had dinner at Allie's. We each had a different conch dish, then tasted each one. They were all very tasty. After dinner, we went back to the market place square to watch the band for a bit before finally returning to the boat to celebrate New Years.
 
We rang in the New Year with 2 sets of fireworks, one from Freeport and the other from Lucya. 
 
All in all, it was a pretty decent way to celebrate the turn of the millennium.

December 30, 1999 -- Bahamas or Bust

At 1030 GMT, we weighed anchor and headed for West End, Bahamas. The seas were a little choppy at first, but settled out as the wind dropped. The winds dropped down to variable, both direction and speed so we had to motor the entire trip, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
 
We saw very little sea life, noting only one flying fish the entire trip, even though Michael did his customary stand on the bow and call for flipper. We did eventually see some dolphins up ahead, though not that many.
 
The most amazing thing was that when we were 24 miles out, we could still see one building on the Florida shore. After that faded, we looked forward to seeing the Bahamas, which didn't come into view for some time as they are low with no tall buildings. 
 
At 1905 GMT we tied up at the Old Bahama Bay marina. We set about filling out our paperwork for customs, then Henri and I headed over to check in. It was a relatively painless process. I had made a few mistakes on our paperwork, but those were quickly corrected. We were checked in! 
 
We wandered around for a while, took some pictures in front of the customs building to prove that we actually made it to another county by boat! We also wanted proof that our plans to spend New Years in the Bahamas actually worked out. We all then walked over to the beach (about two blocks) and watched the sunset.

December 25-29, 1999 -- Waiting Friends and Weather

On Christmas Day, we spent a nice quiet day aboard the boat. Around 2:00 PM, I started cooking and we finally ate around 7:30 PM. It was a good Christmas dinner with just the two of us. We called our families to wish them a merry Christmas and happy New Year. 
 
On December 26, we decided to get off the boat for a while. Ron and Karen on Sea Dancer had just tied up at the Riveria Beach Marina and invited us over. We headed there and spent some time sharing cruising stories and recommendations about places that were a must see. After that, we headed to the grocery store to pick up a few essentials. 
 
On December 27, we headed to the fuel dock at the Palm Beach Yacht Club for fuel. Unfortunately, they did not have enough fuel to complete our fueling. We returned to the anchorage, and after getting settled in and having breakfast, we came back on deck and saw Bob and Sherrie on Shamaal setting anchor. Shortly there after, Ron and Karen on Sea Dancer joined us at anchor. We dinked to Riveria Beach Marina and then walked to the local marine stores, we found some old fire hose to use as chafe protection in the used goods marine store. Finally Ehlissia came in and joined us as well. Needless to say, we had a cocktails evening aboard Nightwinds with everyone bringing food & drink. Bob and Sherrie were kind enough to dinghy sit our dinghy so that we would not have to put it back up when we went to take on more fuel on Tuesday. 
 
On December 28, we headed back to the fuel dock to finish taking on fuel. We were not filling up just making sure we had enough to last our time in the Bhamahs, as fuel is double the cost. On the way to the fuel dock, we saw a manatee swimming south. When we returned, Bob, Ron and I went spear shopping. We heard from Henri and Anne on Sea Flat. They were headed down to anchor with us. After they arrived, we reviewed the weather. Initially we decided that we would cross; however, after additional data was reviewed we decided to postpone for a day. 
 
On December 29, since we weren't crossing, Henri decided to get fuel. We watched his dinghy for him until he returned. On our way to return the dinghy, we pulled out our view bucket to check out the bottom since the water was so clear. Shamaal and Sea Dancer headed for Fort Lauderdale. They reported to us that the winds were from the NW with about 8 foot seas. We were definitely glad that we did not try to cross. Instead, we stayed in Lake Worth and enjoyed a relaxing day aboard the boat. We went over to Sea Flat for dinner of Spaghetti and salad. The evening flew by, and before we knew it, it was late so we packed up and headed back to Nightwinds. 
 
We debated whether to put the dinghy away then or to wait until morning. Ultimately we decided that it would be better to put it away immediately. We hoisted the dinghy aboard and prepared the boat to get underway. That way, we could get an additional 30 minutes of sleep!

December 24, 1999 -- It's Getting A Little Cold

Today was a relatively light day, work wise. The main thing that needed to be completed was changing Ling-Ling's oil and oil filter. We also needed to check the pulley and belt tension on the raw water pump. 
 
I crawled into the engine room, and started taking the sound shield apart. The sounds shield tool slipped from my hand and into the bilge. This is a cast aluminum tool provided by Fisher-Panda. We could not use the magnet to retrieve it from the bilge. Mike saved the day though, by moving the tool up far enough so that he could reach it. 
Now that I had the tool back, once again, I started taking the sound shield apart. Everything went surprisingly quickly. Both the pulley and the belt tension were fine. While I changed the oil, Mike changed the oil filter. 
 
Having completed our work list, we spent the rest of the day relaxing. Around 1:00 p.m. EST, Bob and Sherrie on Shmaal called us on the VHF. We chatted with them for a bit; we received information on anchoring in North Lake Worth, as well as information on a boat supply place that sounds kind of cool. 
 
The rest of the day was spent quietly, losing multiple games of Topsy-Turvey Queens. This is a solitaire game with two decks. After giving up on the game, I continued reading my book while Michael napped.

December 23, 1999 -- Today We Rest

What started out to be a nice easy task yesterday, turned into an all day affair. This was not what we planned for our first day after an ocean cruise of 36 hours. So, we decided that we would rest today. 
 
We spent the morning lounging, reading, and snoozing. Around 11:30 a.m. EST, we decided to check the location of the fuel dock at the Palm Beach Yacht Club. We went outside and the first thing that I noticed was that I could see the bottom. I pointed this out to Mike and Mike's first question was, "What is our water depth?" We aren't used to seeing the bottom of the water unless it is extremely shallow. Neither of us can remember being able to see the bottom the last time we were here; of course, neither of us looked either. 
 
We climbed into the dinghy, and spent the next 20 minutes trying to find our anchor and looking over the side of our dinghy at the bottom. We wanted to try to find out our anchor to see how it was laying. It was a new experience for us and one that I look forward to repeating as we cruise the islands. We finally gave up because we believed that the anchor was actually underneath the boat due to tide and wind. 
 
We headed south in Lake Worth to the Palm Beach Yacht Club. When we got there, we saw a 120 or 130 foot yacht. There was certainly enough room for us to tie up at the fuel dock behind it with no problem. We headed back to the boat. 
 
When we got back to the boat, I decided that I wanted to go swimming. Of course, I had to check the water temperature; it was 76.9 degrees. I was going to go in slowly; Mike said I should just dive. We were in 10 feet of water after all. I. dove in and came back up freezing! I let everyone within earshot know that I was freezing! I swam back to the boat in a strong current while Mike rigged a line for me to hold onto. One of my goals, while swimming, was to clean the knot log on our B&G network system.
 
I experimented with going underneath the boat on the starboard side. I found that, due to current, I was unable to make it very far. I half swam and was half dragged to the bow of the boat where I rode the current down the port side of the boat. I tried to go under the boat to where the knot log is, but I was unable to get far enough under the boat in the current. I gave up on that until we had a slack tide and no wind. Mike tossed me a brush so I could start cleaning the bottom of the boat. I could not get very far down, but what I could get is now clean. Mike got tired of pulling the other side of the line and I was getting tired in the water, so he dragged me back to the bow of the boat and I floated down the starboard side to the ladder. 
 
I climbed aboard the boat and used our deck shower to rinse off. Way cool! We had lunch of cheese and crackers. We sat outside reading for a little while, then Mike decided to call Liz. He spent the next 15 minutes tormenting her at the office with a description of our day, the temperature, and basically what a lovely day it had been.
 
As the sun started going down, we headed back inside. After a good dinner of chicken fajitas, we spent the evening reading our books. I also converted the voyages section of our web site to a new format. I converted to the new format so that it would be easier to upload pages as well as cheaper when we leave the U.S. Lotus Smart Suite Word Pro up loads an entire document every time I want to update the web site with a new log entry. By using Lotus fast site, a table of contents is automatically generated and only those pages that have been modified will be uploaded! With no duplication of effort it is much cheaper and much faster to use.

December 22, 1999 -- Only A Light Day Of Work

We woke up this morning around 08:00 EST. Bear in mind, we went to sleep last night at 16:00 EST. First on the agenda, breakfast! While I ran the net, Mike fixed cinnamon buns. Mike also put together our to do list. After breakfast, Mike rinsed the boat while I made phone calls. I finished my phone calls well before Mike finished rinsing the boat I headed outside to find out where an abnormal sound was coming from. As it turns out, one of the engine alarms was making noise with only the positive cable connected. After disconnecting the positive cable, I went to put the plate back on and broke it. This should have been my first sign. 
 
I went back inside, rearranged the refrigerator, and discovered that we have a lot of room there. Next on the agenda, get Tinky working. That was easy, all we needed to do was reseat the relays. 
 
Next, Mike felt that we should change the impeller on the raw water pump on Tinky. We opened the cover, and on visual inspection, Tinky's impeller looked fine. By touch it felt a little squishy. Mike sent me forward to check the raw water strainer to see if there were problems there. I checked the strainer basket and that needed to be cleaned. I checked the raw water bowl and that had growth. I set about removing the bowl so that could be cleaned as well. That should have been my second sign. 
 
While I was working on the raw water strainer, Mike was examining Tinky. He discovered that the belt needed to be tightened. I handed him the bowl; he took it upstairs to soak it and a Clorox water mixture. I came up because I needed air. After a quick break, we headed back to the engine room to tighten the belt on Tink. Also, we needed to finish installing the new impeller. We were successful on both counts. 
 
Back to the sea strainer! Mike handed me the bowl and I started to reattach it. After everything was together, I opened the seacock and what to my wandering eyes should appear but drops of water coming from the sea strainer! I tightened and I tightened and I futzed, but it kept leaking. After fumbling with it and dropping it, I pulled it out and discovered that the plastic butterfly nut was broken. It was time to head to Boat U.S.
 
We dropped the dinghy, showered, and I headed to Rybovich Spencer. A short cab ride later, I was at Boat U.S. buying a new sea strainer and several other things on our list. I got back to the boat and this time Mike installed the new sea strainer. We fired up Tinky, and he had a great water flow. 
 
We decided at this point to end work for the day and fix dinner since neither of us had lunch. 
 
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing.

December 20-21, 1999-- West Palm Beach Here We Come

At 11:00 GMT, we weighed anchor and headed towards the St. Mary's inlet on our way to West Palm Beach. It was a stressful trip for several reasons. I had plotted the course out of Fernindina Beach to close to the buoys that Mike was steering to. It was also foggy and smoky from the paper mills. However, we made it out with no problems just as the sun broke the horizon. 
 
As we were leaving the St. Mary's River a fishing boat with nets out came up behind us. We attempted to call him on the VHF. He was not maintaining a proper radio watch; of course he did not answer us. At 11:58 GMT, we sighted dolphins at the end of the jetty to the St. Mary's inlet. 
 
At 12: 19 G M T, a courteous fishermen waited outside the channel for us to pass by before he continued on across the channel with his nets out. At 12: 30 GMT, we made our turn south. We had east to southeast winds, and 2 to 3 foot swells.
 
Mike and I have found that three hours on, three hours off watch rotation works well for us when we are under way. During the day, we relax the schedule somewhat. Occasionally if we are feeling up to it, we will extend our night watches as well. 
 
Today we ate real food under way. For breakfast I made cinnamon buns. Of course, they were out of the can and simple to make. After breakfast, we saw Dolphins playing in the waves everywhere. Then, I went below to sleep. 
 
At 17:00 GMT, I got up and fixed us hamburgers for lunch. After lunch, Mike sacked out while I stood watch. At 19:50 GMT, Mike was once again up, and we saw a sea turtle getting a suntan. We turned to avoid the sea turtle, and just as Mike tried to take a picture of him, he became camera shy and dove underwater. Mike still isn't sure he got the picture. We won't know until we get the film developed. 
 

With Mike awake and on watch, I headed below to sleep again. 

At 20:50 GMT, we saw dolphins! They also saw us! They made a beeline for our bow wake. Mike asked me if I wanted to go see the dolphins. We moved our tethers down into the forward jack lines keeping tethered in the entire time. Mike went forward port, I went forward starboard. We met at the bow and watched dolphins play for 20 minutes. They would jump out of the water, do 360 degree roles, and occasionally they would roll on their sides and watch us. We need to see how these pictures turn out also. 

At 22:00 GMT, I headed below to fix dinner. We were going to have stew. I was inspired by Mona on Mutual Fun. During their aborted trip to Bermuda, she fixed stew several times in near gale force the conditions. I fixed stew in two to three foot swells, and eight knot winds. 

After dinner, I headed below to get some sleep. At 22:48 GMT, Mike saw a single dolphin leaping out of the water several times about four feet off our starboard side. He received a private show. 

At 02:00 GMT, December 21, I came on watch to winds that were good for sailing. I let the jib out further. The wind, noting that I had put the jib out further, promptly changed directions. So I put the jib back in, not completely, but enough so that it was sheeted in tightly. 

At 05:00 GMT, Mike came on watch just as I was about to let the jib out again. He told me that he preferred the jib left where it was because it was night and the probability for squalls was high. Besides, common theory states that you should reduce sails at night. 

Shortly after I went below, the first squall hit. Winds gusted to 24 knots; Mike was very happy that I had not put the jib out further. In fact, when I came back on watch, Mike repeated this incident to me, and made me repeat, "At night, we reduced sail. "

I had about two hours of quiet on my watch before the next set of squalls hit. I noted a darkening of this sky forward, so I set the radar to view atmospheric conditions. I saw two heavy lines of squalls directly in our path. If I altered course to 164 degrees, from 175 degrees, we would pass between the two squall lines. I went below and set the port radar to view atmospheric conditions, altered course, and made a note in the log about what I had done. Mike woke up just as we were hitting the edge of the squall line and approved of my course of action.

After a magnificent sunrise, I went below to get some sleep. Little did I know that this would be the last relatively smooth portion of our trip. I woke up at 13:00 GMT to Mike talking to Eric on Ehlissia. They figured that they would give us a call on the VHF to see if we were nearby. They were located in Vero Beach. 

Shortly after I woke up, the seas moved solidly into the 4 ft. swell and chop range. There was also an occasional rogue of six plus feet. By this time Mike felt that it was too rough for him to get any sleep. So together we navigated the seas with multiple "Bell ringers" and many "Hold ons." The boat, of course, performed beautifully. Our nerves, and stomachs, on the other hand, were a tad bit frayed 

When we reached the inlet it was my job to bring us in. I have shot this inlet several times, so I knew approximately what to expect. Because of the prevailing northeast current, I took the boat almost even with the green buoy before making my turn. The boat passed through beam to beautifully. Now that I had the waves on my port aft quarter, my biggest worry was staying inside the buoys. 

Just as I passed inside the jetties, we saw a two hundred + foot boat heading out. We hugged the red buoys, they hugged the green ones. We passed port to port as is customary. As soon as it quieted down, Mike took the helm while I went below to plot our course to our anchorage. In short order we arrived and dropped anchor at 19:30 GMT. 

We cleaned up the outside of the boat, and brought in our "Oh shit" bag; then we both headed below for breakfast. While I cooked, Mike tried to sign on to send a mail saying we had arrived. We wound up calling my parents since we could not reach Yvonne who usually sends mails when we cannot get connected. After showering, we both sacked out. I woke up about 12:00 GMT or 19:00 EST. I managed to get connected and mail went out.

I went back to sleep at 23:00 EST. Mike was asleep the entire time!

December 16-19, 1999 --a Quiet Set of Days

December sixteenth was a quiet day, we didn't do a whole lot. We spent the day relaxing and reading, and in the afternoon, I sat down to do some log entries. The high point of the day was discussing with Ehlissia and Mutual Fun plans for departure and inlets that are safe to come into from the ocean. We discovered that Ponce de Leone inlet is navigable for us.
 
December 17, bright and early at 7 a.m., Ehlissia and Mutual Fun left the anchorage. Before the net, I heard Ehlissia talking with Vagabond Tiger. After they were done I hailed Ehlissia to find out what the sea state was. Eric reported that the seas were 3 to 5 feet with apparent wind of 27 knots. We were expecting mail so we headed into town about 11:00 a.m. we had mail that needed to go out so we walked up to the post office since our package had not arrived When we got back to the dock office, our mail package had been delivered. We dug through the mail to find the piece that we were looking for, filled it out and made another walk to the post office. That was our main excitement for the day. 
 
December eighteenth dawned rainy and cold. We spent the day quietly, reading and dictating logs. I am starting to get used to IBM's ViaVoice to dictate the logs to Lotus Smart Suite.
 
December nineteenth, today, turned out to be much warmer with very little wind. We headed into town to pick up a few essentials that I had forgotten when I went to the grocery store. On our way back we stopped at the little Italian place that had always been closed when we went by. We discovered that we had not missed much in not going to be little Italian place. Before going back to the boat we decided to take a little trip to the inlet to see how the sea state was. It was a little bit rough today that we expect it to be fine tomorrow so we returned to the boat and put the dinghy away. The rest of the day was spent getting the boat ready for ocean travel and then waiting for the shuttle launch which we hope will occur in about 10 minutes. Well we stepped outside for about 15 or 20 minutes and did not see anything. We do not know whether that was because of the heavy cloud cover or if they did not launch tonight.

December 15, 1999 -- Out of the Marina, Into the Anchorage

Today we decided to move the boat from the pier out to the anchorage. There are several reasons that we decided to move the boat today, the first being there was no wind, the second being that we had completed by a tour of the town and purchasing Christmas gifts and the third being that we only tie up to recover from overnight trips.
 
Today was also the day that I ran the net. So after the net was over, we quickly got the boat ready to move. Ken who was on the boat behind us offered to help by handling lines. This allowed us to leave immediately. Mike had already picked out a spot for us situated between Ehlissia and Mutual Fun. 
 
We maneuvered the boat out and to our desired location and dropped the hook. The biggest question a cruiser has when anchoring around other boats is how much scope does any particular boat have out. With that in mind I radioed Mutual Fun, who reported to me they had about 40 feet out. We were anchored in about 20 feet of water so that was a scope of two to one. We had out a hundred feet which is a scope of 5 to 1. After a quick conversation we decided that we were between two hundred and three hundred feet from a Mutual Fun, Ehlissia chimed in and agreed that we had enough distance. 
 
After anchoring the next step was to drop the dinghy. Mike opted to stay on the boat while I went into town to do some grocery shopping. I went over to Mutual Fun to ask if I could pick them up anything, they decided to come with me since they also needed groceries. 
 
I headed into the dinghy dock, and then into the dock master's office. The dockhand was helpful and found the number for Winn Dixie. I called them and they sent out a van to pick us up. As we moved out front to wait for the van, we saw Eric and Susan sitting next to the little train place. We told them that we were headed to do some grocery shopping and invited them to come with us. They had just realized that it was their twentieth anniversary and exuberantly told us this. So off to the grocery store we went.
 
After finishing our shopping, of course we headed back to stow our new provisions. Susan had agreed to split a bag of potatoes with us, so I headed ever to drop them off. She invited us to come to cocktails that evening at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. 
 
We spent the rest of the afternoon recovering from last night's cocktail party. At 6:30 p.m. we headed over to Ehlissia for another fun evening. Their boat is a center cockpit vessel that is very well designed. We also learned how to use a manual head. We spent the rest of the evening exchanging stories of cruising, family, friends, barfing and of course Marine heads. The party broke up about 11:00 p.m., and we headed back to our boat for a good night's sleep. 
 
It's an amazing what a quantity of alcohol will do for your sleep.

December 14, 1999-- Fernindina cocktail party

The day started out normal enough, we received an alarm to check our battery water. We dug out the battery water container and filled it. Then I headed into the engine room to start checking the battery water level in 14 batteries. Surprisingly the batteries required no water. 
 
We had expected the battery water checking to take until about 2 p.m., when that did not occur we decided to head out to do some Christmas shopping and to get lunch. We went in the first toy store we found since we had to purchase gifts for my niece and nephew, Mike's grandson and Mike's nephew. Our first cursory run through the toy store showed us many toys that we thoroughly enjoyed, but at first glance, no toys that were appropriate for the kids we needed to purchase for. I did find a really neat Lego set that had a remote-control that could be used to run the vehicles to perform actions in this Lego town. Mike started getting hungry, which loosely translated means he got grumpy. 
 
We decided that we would come back to the toy store later and went in search of lunch. We checked the menus of four places before finally settling on an Irish pub for lunch. Lunch in an Irish pub is about what we expected the food was OK but it hit the spot since we were both hungry. Having satisfied our craving we headed back to the toy store. 
 
This time, we developed a game plan for the toy store. I found gifts for Kimberly, James as well as for little David. Michael went in search of gifts for his nephew Barry Jr. as well as for his grandson little Brian. We rendezvoused at the cash register having found all the gifts we were looking for. Fortunately for us, the toy store shipped all the presents for a minimal fee. 
 
We returned to the boat to get ready for the cocktail party we were hosting that evening. We invited Ehlissia, mutual fun, and Effie. I fixed the salmon pate. We also laid out chips and salsa, the standard food and fair of the cruiser. 
 
The first people to arrive were Ehlissia. Eric and Susan came aboard and immediately received a tour of the boat. While I gave the tour, the folks from Mutual Fun arrived, and we met Bob and Mona. Finally Ian arrived from Effie, and shortly after Paul and Lise arrived as well. We spent the evening sharing cruising stories. Bob and Mona had the most to share since they had made it to within a hundred miles of Bermuda before turning around and coming back to Beaufort. Eric and Susan shared their attempt to make it to the Virgin Gorda. The conversation ranged from what everyone did in previous lives to what their plans were for the cruising season. 
 
I have heard it said that when more than three cruisers get together the conversation devolves to discussions of heads and other such messy details of cruising. Surprisingly this did not happen at this get together. The party finally broke up around 9:30 p.m. EST. It was a fun time and one that we will remember for a long time.

December 11-13, 1999 -- Leaving Charleston?

On December 11, we knew we weren't feeling quite well enough to leave; however, the weather sounded like it was to good to pass up. We decided to try to leave. We made it to just past the jetties and decided to turn around because the sea conditions were rougher than we wanted to deal with since we were still recovering from the flu. We returned to the marina and tied up for another night.
 
On December 12, we again tried to leave. This time, we were successful. The seas were pretty comfortable and the winds were in the right direction. We were on our way! Almost immediately, I became sea sick. I was sea sick the entire time, whether I was on watch or not. The trip was just as rough for Mike because he also wasn't fully recovered. 
 
The trip was fairly uneventful, We did hit a spot where the phoriscecnse was so thick that it looked like flash lights with green lens going off under the water. Mike woke me so I could see this, it was so different from all of the other phoriscecnse we had ever seen. Later, I talked with a tug that was pulling a barge. He was helpful and let us know our radar return was good. 
 
On December 13, we arrived in Fernandina Beach around 8:00 AM, EST. On our way in we saw Henri and Anne aboard Sea Flat. They were making the run from Cumberland Island to St. Augustine and crossed the St. Mary's inlet just as we were coming in. After a quick chat with them, they were on their way and we stopped at the Fernandina Harbor Marina. 
 
We tied up and following our standard procedure, cleaned up the boat then went in search of food. Unfortunately, every restaurant in Fernandina Beach stops serving breakfast at 10:00 AM, EST, and doesn't start serving lunch until 11:30 AM, EST. We waited the hour and a half then had lunch. Right after that, we sacked out for a couple of hours. 
 
When we were finally conscious again, we spent the afternoon wandering around Fernandina Beach with Paul, Lise and Ian from Effie. That evening, they came over to do a book and movie swap.
 
That ended our trip to Fernandina as well as our first day here.

December 05-10, 1999

On December 5, David and his family left around 10:00 AM, EST. By 11:00 AM, EST, I was running a temperature of 102 and I was achy, all over. I had come down with the flu. I sprawled on the couch sleeping while Mike washed all of the sheets in the guest cabins. The day flew by for me in a haze, the hardest thing I had to do was to get up to use the head.
 
December 6 was much the same as the fifth. Though in the evening, Mike asked me how my flu started. I told him and he groaned a little bit.
 
On December 7, Mike was down with the flu. I was still down with the flu. 
 
On December 8, I was starting to feel a little bit better, at least enough better to read a book. I managed to fix us both food, and that exhausted me. 
 
On December 9, Mike wanted milk. We were completely out, and it was close to a quarter of a mile to the store, or at least that is what it seemed like. I braved the elements and headed out to the store to get milk for Mike. That pretty much did it for me for the day, but it helped Mike. 
 
On December 10, we both were starting to feel better, though not quite good enough to really do anything.

December 03-04, 1999 -- David and Yvonne

On the third we were expecting my brother and his family to arrive in Charleston. We also knew that we might be in for a hectic weekend so we figured that taking the day off to rest up would be the perfect idea and that is exactly what we did. 

David, Yvonne and the kids arrived around 8:00 PM, EST. We stayed up until 3:00 AM, EST talking about everything from the Coast Guard to computers! It was the first time we had seen each other in over 6 months so there was a lot to catch up on. 

In the morning, everyone got up, and after a quick breakfast, we tried to figure out what to do for the day. I mentioned an open air market that was downtown and everyone thought that would be fun to wander around. 

We decided that we would take the trolley downtown. Mike and I had done this previously and it was a pretty fun trip. We made it downtown and then wandered through the market. There were several interesting displays but nothing that piqued anyone's interest enough to buy. Just as we finished going through the market, we decided that we really needed something to eat. Thus began the search for food! 

One person told us about a pizza place that was relatively close. Unfortunately, she did not know her left from her right and we didn't find the pizza place. Finally, we found a pub and had lunch there. 

After lunch, we started wandering slowly towards a place where we could catch a trolley back to the marina. As we were going, we found the pizza place that we had been searching for. We continued on to the trolley stop and began our wait. All three kids were starting to get very tired and that translated into fussy arguments followed by manic attempts to stay awake. We decided that we all needed to take a nap when we got back to the boat, and that is exactly what we did. 

It was peaceful for 2 hours. Everyone was crashed out hard. Finally, Mike and I got up and started fixing dinner while the kids watched TV. Everyone else got up shortly after that. The rest of the evening went quickly as we played Mill Bournes and Pigs. Everyone turned in by 11:00 PM EST; it had been a tiring day!

December 02, 1999 -- Cleaning Time!

Today we cleaned. Today we shopped. Today we repaired Ling-Ling.

I hate cleaning. Shopping isn't so bad though. Working on Ling-Ling is just plain old painful.

We knew that my brother, his wife and three kids would be joining us for the weekend, and would be arriving on Friday evening. We knew that each of the older kids would need a place to sleep, as would David and Yvonne. We knew that all three staterooms were used for temporary storage. We knew that we had a lot of work to do to make the rooms habitable. We started cleaning. 

Michael's type A personality started surfacing; we didn't only focus on cleaning the three staterooms that needed to be done, we also cleaned the utility room, our stateroom, the main saloon and the pilot house; to sum it up, we cleaned the entire boat. While I worked on the staterooms, Mike started working on the utility room. 

I found storage places for the new TV antenna that hasn't been installed yet and stowed our harnesses and jack lines. That completed the port stateroom. Next, I focused on the starboard stateroom. There really wasn't much to do there. We have several 5 gallon boxes of coke syrup that needed to be stored; unfortunately, there really wasn't anyplace to store them. So I moved them as far out of the way as possible. Fortunately, the main living space of the V-Berth didn't require work since we try to keep that stateroom completely ready for habitation at all times. 

I emerged from the forward of the boat to see most of the contents of the utility room occupying the companionway aft and the main saloon. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done about the insulation that we still need to install; however, we managed to stow a sizable chunk of everything else in various storage areas. The utility room was now complete. 

Next, Mike focused on getting Ling-Lings new water pump belt installed while I worked on cleaning the pilot house. Mostly the pilot house needed picking up. When we travel offshore for a long period of time (more than 6 hours or so) things tend not to make it further than the pilot house, so at the end of each voyage, we have a lot of clean up to do with coats and foul weather gear and everything winding up on the pilot berth. It isn't difficult or time consuming, just tedious and as such is one of the last things we do. Generally, we wind up doing this the day before a new passage. 

While I completed the pilot house, Mike put the new plastic protector on the water pump and attached the new belt to Ling-Ling. To get the final tension on the belt right, it took both of us and 2 enforcer screw drivers. It was a good thing that we picked up several in Wrightsville Beach! Once that was done and the sound shield back in place, we could focus on the last bit of work in the main saloon. Since we spend a lot of time there, the main saloon was actually relatively easy to clean. 

Once everything was done, we took a break while trying to remember what else it was that we needed to do. Finally, it dawned on us. We would have 5 additional people on the boat, three of whom would be children; we needed to go grocery shopping to get food for the weekend as well as 'kid stuff.' 

Off to the store we went, and boy did we shop! Of course, I was concerned that we hadn't purchased enough 'kid stuff,' but Mike assured me we had. So after stowing everything, we realized that we would get a day off Friday. 

As a treat, we went down to a neighborhood bar and spent an enjoyable evening out.

December 01, 1999 -- Starboard to, Right?

After the disastrous day of trying to find water filters, we decided that we would work on things that we knew we could accomplish. We decided to rebed the running back stay chain plate bolts. We hadn't worked on this since Deltaville way back in October! After about an hour of searching, we finally located the bolts and I headed outside with them to start work while Mike cleaned up from our search.
 
Once outside, I started removing the first of three sets of bolts. Surprisingly, these bolts were in good shape so I reused them and rebeded the bolts. The second set of bolts were extremely corroded and significantly shorted than the bolts that we had purchased. By this time, thankfully, Mike had completed the work he was doing inside and received the lucky task of cutting the new bolts short enough for us to use to resecure the chain plate fittings. While he started on this, I started removing the bolts from the third set. When we originally bought the bolts to replace the current ones, we had three sets of bolts to choose from. At the time, we did not know this. All I can say is that I am thankful that we picked the longest bolt to base our purchase on! Though it would have been much easier had we purchased the right sized bolts for all the holes. Anyway, we developed into a routine, Mike would complete a bolt just as I completed removing one bolt and rebedding the one that he had given me a few moments previously. In this way, we made short order of rebedding all of the bolts. Out of eight bolts, there were only two that had to be cut a second time, pretty good cutting on Mikes part, especially since there wasn't a single one that was cut to short. 
 
As a reward for completing one of the major lingering tasks that we had successfully been putting off, we decided to head to the Charleston Yacht Club for drinks after dinner. When we arrived there, there were, perhaps, six people at the bar. We chatted with a few people there who gave us some background on the City Marina and how the waterscape (is that a word?) has changed over the past several years. We also heard about the proposed commercial shipping terminal that developers are hoping to build in Charleston that will almost double the size of the shipping port. After a fun evening, we braved the veritable Arctic chill, OK it was only about 50 degrees out, to return to the boat and sack out for the evening.