November 24-26, 2014 Ready to leave NC

Dave talked to the boat yard on Monday.  He was surprised we hadn’t heard from the insurance company since the charges were sent to them before we left over a week ago.  That’s when they told us that the insurance company wanted further explanation of the charges, so the final information went to them just this last Friday.  Well, you can imagine that we were really frustrated.  We thought we would hear from the insurance while we were in Florida, come back, settle our bill and head out. 

Well, the weather looked kind of bad this week, so we probably wouldn’t leave until Friday anyway.  We spent the day unpacking and getting resettled into boat life. 

Dave was also working on our Single Side Band radio.  He is getting it hooked up to our GPS.  Then the screen on the SSB and the VHF radio will show our latitude, longitude and time.  That will be handy in an emergency.  Also, when you are listening to the radio and hear of an emergency, it is nice to see immediately if we are in the area and can offer help.  So far, I have been writing down this information when we leave and periodically though out the day.  Here was Dave’s thought for the day: Projects have to give you a little headache or else you didn’t really earn your accomplishment. 

Tuesday:  Dave needed some boat parts, so we went out for a late breakfast.  We made a grocery store run to replenish our fresh fruits, bread, milk etc.  But I also planned some food for our passage.  It is good to cook foods ahead of time that will take little preparation while under way. 

Wednesday:  We discovered the walls of the compartments along the hull are getting condensation because the water is colder now.  So  we opened a few and did some repackaging of things we had in storage.  The compartment with our canned foods was wet, so a lot of the labels were wet and some rust was showing up on the cans.  So I wrote on the lid of every can what the contents were in case the labels come off.  Then I bagged several cans in 2 gallon bags.  I also organized the cans into like foods.   Should be easier to find things now.  And I updated the "what's on my boat" list.

We decided to call the insurance company to see when they thought we would have an answer.  That’s when we found out they were closed for the rest of the week!!!  We called our surveyor.  He said he received the info from out boat yard on Friday.  But he didn’t get his part submitted until yesterday!  So now we are looking at leaving Tuesday at the earliest.  The surveyor really suggested staying here until we receive the payment, then pay the boat yard, just in case there is anything not covered.  Then we could discuss it with them.  We are tempted to just pay the bill and leave and take what ever the insurance pays. 

We did talk to the owner about how frustrated we are.  Originally we were told to expect everything to take a month to a month and a half.  Now it's been 4 months!!  So we decided to go out for chicken wings and beer.  I had a new appetizer-jalapeno macaroni and cheese bites.  They were sinful. 

view of our marina from the draw bridge

jalapeno macaroni and cheese bites