A week of nice weather

We have had a week of excellent weather and this looks to continue for a few more days.  The barometer has risen fast and the skies are sunny with temperatures in mid 60's to 70 degrees.

My ham radio friend NW4GT brought his trailerable sailboat up today for a few days.  I helped him rig her and the last I saw of him he was heading up the Black Creek for find a calm anchorage.  The east wind was kicking up the waves to about 1' and making his boat a bear to rig.  Hopefully, the weather cooperates with his endeavours.  I'' snap some pictures later and add them post-facto. 

Ortega Landing Marina visit

Today we drove north on hwy 17 to buy some wood clamps and other misc materials.  In the end, we spent more that we had expected to spend but left the place in good spirits.  Having completed our Ortega Landing Marina on the Ortega River just off the much larger St. Johns river and on the south side of Jacksonville.

task early we decided to visit

The marina is very nice and has all the buzz words and amenities one would expect at a more upscale marina.You can read about it yourself and while you are at it look it up on Active Captain.  We were suitably impressed and even got a very good deal on an Edson pedestal arm - like free.  The owners were cleaning out very good junk and giving it away.

All shopping is mere minutes walk or bike ride.  We at at Chick-Fil-A for a quick bite before checking dingy prices at West Marine,  Later I took the Admiral to a antiques shop while I rested off the meal.  All-in-all it was a wonderful day of clear skies, warm temperatures and beautiful sites.

Generator Day, et al

Today was start the generator day.  After returning from the "Coffee Cliche" about 1015 hrs I lubricated the start/stop pivot assemble and cleaned the  shaft a bit and greased it and then started the motor and let the generator run and hour to charge up the battery.  Everything turned out fine.

Quest departed this morning bound for Miami and point further.  We are a bit jealous but the fact is our season will be over in less than 6 weeks and there is still plenty to do on the boat.  I would still like to put in larger gauge running up to the windlass and that will be a  job.

However, the punchlist is getting shorter and that is good.  Moore later.

Our Little Corner of Paradise

On a calm day the reflections of masts on the water makes us realize "We Are Living the Dream".

Happy Valentines Day

The Admiral and Captain Chuck went out for valentines day dinner this evening with our church group. We had a great time with the theme Hee Haw and a home grown country band along with the jokes and a newly married question guess the answer game.

The hours before the 1700 hrs dinner were sunny and moderate wind and the river had several sailboats out and about.  We did two batches of clothes, filled the boat tanks with water, scrape teak. I took my first shower in the forward head and learned a few lessons.  Lesson 1:  Do not bump the single handle lever to hot in a confined space.  Lesson 2: Have a dirty towel ready to dry off everything but better yet have a hand squeegee and use it before the towel.

From the lessons learned, I am going to remove the long handle and put on a custom built much shorter one with more of a golf ball shape and perhaps one made of teak.  The squeegee will make cleanup and dry down much easier and quicker.

Marina Politics - GCS

The marina we are at has told us today we can no longer access their internet, which is very poor I might add, since we were not considered customers.  We told them we considered ourselves

customers since we spend a lot of $$$$.$$ with their tenent maintenance facility but they disagreed and cut our internet off.  However, we could get their measly 1MBPS up and 0.25 MBPS down for $40/month.  OK, so I go to Verizon and activate their 4MBPS up/down. Ok, Captain of Reynolds you made a mistake here since I am a highly trained wireless engineer and offered my services free of charge to expand your system,

End of rant.

Very cool period and many accomplishments.

The weeks seem to fly by here on the boat at GCS.  Since I last wrote  the weather has been cool to cold with the barometer rising and falling in large swings.  We have endured heavy rain too.  We enjoy the fully enclosed cockpit.

The mast top work is done: a new windex wind vane, new RG-213 cable from the masthead to the  nav station below, new LED Steaming light and a few other improvement around the spreaders.  We spent several days tracing cables from the nav station area to the helm sttion in the cockpit.  I added a terminal buss in the instrument pod, pulled a new SeaTalk cable from the autopilot controller to the Depth/Speed/wind instrument pod and installed the new Ritche SS-2000 compass and dimming switch,  While doing all this work I installed pull string in the tubes for any future work I want to do..

When the weather was warm we pulled off the "eyebrow"  so SAM can refinish it and re-seal the screw holes.  When better weather happens we will re-install the eyebrow and re-seal the screw holes.