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$26.99 Sept was fun... Not!! So instead of being able to go to Sarasota as planned we are forced to stay at the dock again but this time it's not because we aren't ready to go. There is another hurricane coming and his name is Milton. So after putting everything back together from Helene, we have to do it all over again. There goes our vacation. But let me back up a little bit...
Oct 3rd ~ We think we may have some water in the fuel tank, possibly from Helene with all of the boucing and such so we need to remove the water, we make a DIY fuel polisher to clean the tanks. That was easy and took a a few hours but we managed to get all of the water and disel bugs out.
Oct 4th ~ So we are supposed to be on vacation, friends around us are still cleaning up from Helene and we need out of town. So off to we go on a little road trip. We make to down to West Palm only to come back the next day. Well apparently we aren't supposed to be able to have fun right now, because Hurricane #2 is now upon us. So we haul buns back to Clearwater without really getitng anywhere or doing anything. Time to get the boat/RV ready for Hurricane #2
Oct 9th - Milton has made landfall litterally less than an hour from us in Bradenton. Because this one was so close and expected to be worse as it really was going to Tampa at landfall, Nancy and the dogs evucated to stay with friends at their house. Again Andy stayed behind and prvided support for work and checked on the boat when he could. The flooding here again was terrible but not as bad at the marina as Helene was with the storm surge. Now don't get me wrong, there was plenty of flooding and damage around from both storms.
Oct 12th ~ We make it back to the boat for hurricane damage inspections and our typical weekends. Unpacked the boat and get her all settled back again.
Somewhere between Helene and Miton we suffered our most expensive loss..... Frankenstien is now dead! After trying to get him stared and getting the fuel tanks cleaned we discovered that there was water in the engine that has now seized to engine and it's no longer able to start, run or anything. So much for trying to leave in Nov... I mean April... So as much as this hurts, now we being the process all over again doing a full inspection of the boat (minus th sails and rigging) find some more damge that either happened during Helene or Milton or whene we don't know. All we know is that while we were planning to start crusing we can't do that any longer until we can get a working engine again and start the process all over again.
In the meantime, we can reassess what things we want done before we leave and what we need done and move ito overdrive to get this boat ready so all we are doing is waiting for engine to get completed.
Oct 26th ~ We take the dinghy out to do some exploring and get a lttle time on the water to play while we still can but when did this water get to be so cold. The temp dropped drasticly from the past 2 hurricances, not to mention the beaches are destroyed right now....
Another eventful month! Where to begin.... So let's start with Labor day weekend... We finally should have Frankenstein (the enginge) completed and ready to go for our 1st shake down cruise however, due to another delay with the mechanic, this was not possible and the trip that we had with friends for that weekend left without us. So dishartening and upsetting for us as we keep getting delay after delay. Additionally, we had a power cord fail on us so off to west marine on a holiday weekend we went to get parts needed to remove the burnt plug and put a new one on. Andy also made some cable ends with his new spify cable crimper and so we start to work on getting prepped to finish off some additional projects that are needed for us to be able to get off the dock and get going.
We did finally have enough boat work and needed off the boat. We new where generally speaking our friends were so we packed up and off in the dingy we went... We found them and had a great day on the beach with them and then enjoying a meal on Viscaya for the day. We then come back and take the puppies for a play at the beach.
We get some items in that we ordered a while ago and were on back order from Ray Maine. So we get Brad with Paradise Yachts our to install the new wind sensor and climb the mast to get it installed.
We finally get the generator running this month as well. Hooray!! We finally have both a working genrator and Frankenstein is back to life! We have plans to sail to Sarasota with some friends in Oct so wish us luck this will all be ok and we can go....
Sept 26th ~ What in God's green earth is happening here... Hurricane Helene is coming for a visit and is slated for a direct or new direct hit to Tampa Bay. Not good boo! She needs to go somewhere else... We had record water surge of 10 ft in the intercoastal. The marina was less than a foot from coming over the pilings. There is water everywhere and there is no way that you can even get to the marina. We finally make it there to check on things and there is just mass flooding and devastion everywhere. The dock is taking on water and water has come up to the parking lot and crested over the walls and up to the steps that lead to coachman park. Park of the ramps are under water as well. All we can do is hope for the best and there we will fair ok. The boats are all bouncing and there boats that broke loose during the storm and just bouncing out there. I am so glad that we didn't stay on the boat like we normal do. Because this was to a very near direct his and predicted storm surge we decided to just stay at the RV and hope that we don't get flooded there either.
We get back to the boat once the water has receided and the marina is accessible again, we intially do an inspection and all seems ok.... but we can't do a complete inspection of everything as it will take time but upon 1st look, she's still floating. We can hopefully bring the portable coolers back that we took off and get the boat back into working order. We did notice at 1st some small items like some gel coat scratches, some torn canvas and one of the aft chaft grards that were screwed into the hull was completly torn off as well as the engine hoist was bent and came off it's holding points but overall everything apears to be ok....
We take the dinghy out and the devastation is beyond anything we have seen personally before. We attempt to do our part to help people get their boats moved and pick up debris where we can. Restaurants are closed and anything on clearwater beach that was under water is now closed and no ETA for when they will allow people to come back yet alone start the repairs and then.....
10 days later it happens again.... stay tunded for October updates to see what happens
Another month with more progress... again moving forward is alway to goal... We have a targeted "soft date" to launch on our adventure and this now leaves us with just a few months to get the "life sustaining" items completed and done so we can leave.
We started out this month with a huge list and started it off with a weekend of beach time with some friends who have been gone for several months and just returned. What a welcome home party that was! Work this month was extremely limited as Andy's girls had to come home for college and return 2 weeks later back into their dorms. That essentially took out 2 full weekend this month so we squeezed in what we could when we could.
A new fresh water toilet was purchased for our cabin (it's yet to be installed but on the list "to leave").
Andy finished the bushing that was needed for the Auto pilot and today (8/24) is working on the wiring of the auto pilot. Once this is done, we can calibrate while in our slip. We will do the full calibration when the engine is running again and we can get off the dock for our 1st true shake down voyage.
The engine is and continues to be an ongoing issue. As of today (8/24) the engine is still not running. We have had to replace the 4 injectors and now the pump appears to broken so the engine is not getting any fuel to start running. Anyway once the wiring is done on the autopilot, we can empty the aft head "garage" and move all items back to their storage location under the bed.
I have gone thru and updated the perishable provisions list... again... and just need to get some filler items to top off. My goal this weekend is to get this boat ready to leave by next friday for the shake down cruise and fully test this girl out to see if we will need more time to make more repairs or if we are able to leave as planned.
Andy did get the GPS unit installed which goes to the navigation system and auto pilot. So once again, baby steps, it's all a move forward in the right direction.
Hum... what will this month bring us project wise and how close to making the needle move for us to be able to leave???
We installed an outlet in the cockpit so it makes it easier to grill and use that outlet to charge electronics when out there. That was a nice surprise for sure!
We got the shore power switch for the generator installed so now we can just click the dial and between shore power and generator use to turn it on. And we actually got the generator started and fully functioning, yeah-rah!
We had an amazing 4th of July! There was ton of food and plenty of time spent with Friends. We are so grateful for this life and the people we are around. I made some delicious corn bread for the feast and some blueberry cobbler which I was told was not to be shared! It was gone with just the immediate and super close friends. We ate until we were stuff and then sat outside with cocktails in hand and watched the fireworks show put on by the City of Clearwater. Not much else got done this weekend so it was really a weekend off for us to play and relax.
This past weekend we got so much accomplished and wow, does it feel good to start making the progress again. Andy is on a mission to get some items ticked off the list and who am I stop him? I let him take over when he's ready and will and stuff gets done. We were left alone to our own devices this weekend (no kids/no dogs) so we can focus on getting stuff done.
