This marina in Southport, NC is so nice. Virtually everyone else going south has already passed through, so the marina is empty and they are giving us first class care. I am on the 7th load of laundry and have taken many hot showers so far.
Upon arriving, we sent William off to join family for Thanksgiving. We cleared out the galley (kitchen) and the main salon in order to, yes, remove the 450-pound engine, disconnect the transmission, and haul the tranny quietly to the rental car. This was on 3-hours' sleep and in the cold after dark, since the heater isn't working. So the sink, the plumbing, the table, etc, were all shoved out of the way to make way to lift the engine out of the floor. Green built a wooden structure and used 2 block and tackles to hoist (grunting) the engine inch by inch out of the space below the floor. Everything had to be disconnected: blowers, gear shifts, hoses, engine mount bolts. We had to do this after the marina employees left because we didn't want them to know we had dismantled the guts of the boat at their fancy marina. We kept the exterior looking all prissy and nice. Little did they know!!!!!
Yesterday, Wednesday, we drove to Wilmington to drop off the transmission at a place that could fix it. We ran errands and got a few supplies and felt it to be a successful day. In the afternoon a distant relative saw Green's post on facebook and came over to visit. Turns out they live 5 minutes away. It was a brief visit, as 4 giant sailbags were all over the floor, a hose running into a watertank, and the cockpit was soaked from a fresh water rinse off. I was in the middle of making a sweet potato pie. They were good-natured and generous, offering food, laundry facilities and transportation.
Here's a photo Green took of one of the various sunrises on the trip, perhaps at dawn off the NY/New Jersey coast. We also saw a MOONBOW after the lumpy passage from Cape Hatteras to Beaufort. A small reward for enduring Neptune's wrath of nasty squalls off the Gulf Stream.
No comments:
Post a Comment