December 10, 2014 GA West Marine bicycle trip

The Marina has complimentary bicycles for transient boaters to use.  So we thought we would ride 2 miles to West Marine.  It was close to noon, so we decided to have lunch downtown, make theater reservations for this weekend (more on that later), and ride to West Marine.  Well, there are 3 bicycles and there was only one available.  We have 2 collapsable bikes on board.  We need to service them to use them (fill tires and lube).  That will happen another day.  So I graciously declined making the bike ride and let Dave go by himself.  I even gave him permission not to stop at the grocery store. 

Dave had called West Marine to be sure they carried the impeller that he needed for the water maker.  That was one that they normally stock, and yes they had one.  When he got there, they didn’t have one!  This has happened before with West Marine.  So he let them have a piece of his mind, put back the other things, and left.  But before he got back on his bike, he thought “maybe they sat one aside for him”.  So he sheepishly went back in to check, and yes they had.  He had to apologize profusely and thanked them for their service. 

Dave said the bike ride was very pleasant.  Of course it’s pretty flat here and we were used to  biking in the Black Hills.  Even within town, you had some elevation changes.  Dave said the only hill he encountered was  where the sidewalk had “tee pee-ed”.  He said he handled it like a pro and even got some air on his single speed heavy bike. 

While Dave was at West Marine, he found a solution to our heater problem :)  A nice space heater!  We started running it close to 5:00 with a couple hatches open because of the new stink smell that goes with it.  Around 7:00, we closed things up to warm up the boat.  At about 8:00, I noticed the heater wasn’t running.  I asked Dave if it was set on a thermostat.  He checked and it was totally off.  So then we noticed that other things plugged into outlets weren’t working (such as our laptops working off of battery).  Dave went out to check our electrical box and found out it was a problem with our entire dock.  The marina has several docks with boats that are here long term.  Our dock has all the transient boats, fuel and the office.  I think all of us transient boaters were running our heaters and it overloaded the system.  Well, a repairman attempted to fix it, but no luck.  So we got under our v-berth to pull out the blankets we have stored for guests.  The inside temp was 52 degrees.  I think it’s been worse. 

I think he wanted to curl up around it like dog

When we get into the storage areas under our v-berth, we can lift the mattress and get to a couple sections.  But to get to the areas closer to the bow, we have to pull back the mattress about half way, crawl over the mattress, lift the boards supporting the mattress, put them aside, and reach into the wells, all without standing in them.  Plus you have to shuffle things out of the way to get to what you want.  So we don’t get into that storage often.  And we often have things setting aside to go back into that space “while you are there”.  It’s times like this that I am glad we are sailing now.  I can’t imagine doing some of these things 20 years from now, maybe even 10. 

Dave spent more time working on the AC/heater this evening.  When he came to bed, I thanked him for working so hard.  He said “yeah, like the Tasmanian Devil, spinning in circles and not accomplishing anything.”

This marina has sailing classes.  There were about 4 boats that took off after school with teenagers.  What an opportunity!