Making Waves - Living the Dream on S/V BETULA: CRUISING SEASON 2017-201 - The not so romantic side of cruising life!

CRUISING SEASON 2017-2018

The not so romantic side of cruising life!

I can’t believe we are starting our second season of cruising. It all still feels so new, and we still have so much to learn, we only just scratched the surface. So I am very excited and looking forward to getting back on board, I am eager to get going. We leave Winnipeg on Oct. 30^th, and our route takes us straight down south, towards Biloxi, where we are picking up 5 new batteries for the boat. We needed new ones, so Warren did some research, he wanted to get this special kind, carbon foam AGM’s. But because they are apparently the cat’s meow, we were not able to get them in Florida, back ordered till December or even later. So he called around and found the last 5 available batteries in Biloxi. Biloxi is not really exactly along the route to Florida, but the detour only added about ½ day driving, and for special batteries, we will do anything!

We arrived in Fort Pierce 4 days later, and wisely had rented a condo for two weeks. Living on the boat, on the hard at Riverside Marina, can be a bit of a challenge. People do it, we even did it for our last week of prep, but if you don’t have to, don’t. The hardest part is the bathroom and shower situation. Enough said.

We already knew before getting there that the boat made it through the hurricane, but still, we were very curious to see for ourselves. We drove straight to the marina, just to take a quick peek, and sure enough, she looked fine. We quickly realized though, that we had a tremendous amount of work ahead of us to get her looking clean and pretty again. For now, we were happy she was in one piece, work could wait until we had a good nights sleep at our condo.

Next day the hard work began. And lasted for a whole month. We worked so hard, but little by little, our Betula came back to life. Now, sitting in her cockpit, and writing this blog entry, I am once again proud of her, as she looks real good.

We even hired help, because Warren quickly realized that we would not be able to get all the jobs done by ourselves. Charlie was a real help, we hired him to first sand the hull and fill in the bad spots, next he buffed the gel coat, and lastly, he painted the burgundy stripe along the waterline. Myself, I started with cleaning the inside of the boat (this took days and days, everything was full of mold from the humidity and all the rain they had during Hurricane Irma). I had to wash and clean everything, thank god for the condo we rented. Every night we hauled laundry baskets full of dirty sheets, towels, sofa covers, and all my dishes, pots and pans, you name it, down the long ladder, into the car and up to the condo. There I spent the evenings using the washer and dryer and dishwasher. Next day we took the stuff back to the boat, up the long ladder, and repeated in the evening with even more loads.

Warren wasn’t sitting idle either, he was busy getting the boats systems back up. Removing and installing the new batteries proved to be a bit much for his back, but he of course just powered through the pain. Then he installed a new solar panel, and many other projects of improvement. Then the sails had to be put back on, that alone took a day. Suffice to say, before we knew it, the two week condo rental was over and we were nowhere near done. We were able to extend the condo by one week, and then spent our last week on the hard. By then the boat started to look like a boat again, and we were actually quite comfortable (minus the shower and bathroom situation – again, enough said!)

We finally were ready and got on the list to be put back in the water. We waited for three day until it was our turn, but once we were in the water and at anchor by the Fort Pierce bridge, we felt like a million bucks. We took a well deserved day "off", to test out our dinghy and motor, and went exploring around Fort Pierce. We also had to get up our courage once more to actually sail the boat, so we picked a nice Sunday to go out on the Atlantic for a "test drive". It spent a beautiful couple of hours sailing, and then went back to our spot at the bridge. We fixed up a few more issues that came up, and then we waited "for a window" to cross the Golf Stream. But more about that in my next posting.

October 30th, 9:00 AM - The car is fully loaded, we are ready to go. We have a long drive ahead, but Warren doesn't mind driving, so he drove most of the way.

We are eager to take a quick peek at the boat when we arrived at Fort Pierce. All is well, she is just dirty, dirty, dirty. But made it through the Hurricane, so we are happy.

The tarp that had covered our dinghy has been ripped to shreds, that's the only damage we had from the hurricane. The sun also does a number on them, so we would have had to chuck them out anyways. We threw out the one covering the cockpit as well.

The inside of the boat, all OK. Just a mess, we had to store so much from the deck down here, like all the sails, cockpit cushions, bimini frame and covers, fenders, grill, ropes, and much more. Walking around the boat is very difficult for now.

Here you can see that the bottom has been sanded and the bad spots were filled in and then primed. Now she is ready for her bottom paint, that's my job...

Here I am putting on the first coat of bottom pain, an "ablative" paint. Ablative means that when you are sailing the boat, the movement makes the paint come off a little bit at the time, so it's hard for barnacles to take hold. Oh, and you are wondering about the fuzzy white slippers??? Well, I had just bought a brand new pair of expensive sandals, and I wasn't going to use those to put on paint, so I went to three stores to look for cheap flip flops, and this is ALL I could find, so there. Charlie almost fell off the scaffolding when he saw me!

Charlie buffing the hull, me painting away. Charlie was a little skeptical at first about me wanting to paint the bottom, but once he saw the bang up job I was doing, he was very happy.

Some not so lucky boat owner. All in all there were a few tipped over boats, but it could all have been way worse.

And another one...

This is the electrical "headquarters" at Riverside Marina. From our boat to this panel was about 5 long electrical cables. We were parked at almost the furthest point of the yard.