Saturday, October 17, 2015

October 1-7, 2015 shark teeth, sinking boat, sea trial

Thursday, October 1
This morning, I joined 2 other sailors at 7:00am to go hunting for shark teeth. Across the channel from our marina is a peninsula made from dredging the channels.  There are shark teeth just laying on the ground and some you have to dig for.  Rhonda has found hundreds of them.  I found about 6 today and hope to go with her again.  But I am taking a marina bicycle next time.  Too much sand in the gears.  That just helped us make up our mind about whether we should take the bikes to the Bahamas this year.  We were debating on how much we would use them vs the room they take on the boat.  So they are going back into storage before we leave the States.
Rhonda searching for shark teeth
the bike ride back with our marina on the right
my stash
Nina modeling her shark teeth

This evening, my sister, Beverly, started a group text to see if we were OK on the east coast with the storm off shore.  We ended up with a 5 way conversation with our other sister, Janice and two other sisters, Tracy Perdue and Tami Petersen.  Tracy had a booth at the Zonta Expo in Rapid City.  It is a fundraiser that I was involved with for over 20 years.  She said she wished we were there to have a gin and tonic with her.  So we decided to share one “virtually”.  We all had one while we continued to text each other.  Funny!

Oct 2
This morning while we were having our cruiser’s net on the VHF radio, there was an emergency break in our program.  A boat on dock 12 was sinking and they asked for any help, especially if someone had a pump.  Several people heard the announcement and offered their help.  They started with using 5 gallon buckets to bail out the water.  Then someone arrived with a small pump which was used until the marina could get their industrial pump to the dock and working.  The owner of the boat was not here.  He lived 5 hours away.  Evidently, he had left a sea cock open and something must have happened that allowed water to come in through that sea cock.  A neighboring boater noticed the boat starting to tip towards the dock, contacted the dock master, and put out the call on the VHF.  The boat had to be towed to the boat yard to be hauled out.  The engines were half covered in sea water, which is not good.  It was really a great group effort.  And we ordered a manual pump with 30 feet of hose that day.
the trawler on the right is leaning into the dock as boaters help remove the water and stop the leak

On the first Friday of the month, downtown Brunswick has entertainment and stores stay open later.  We didn’t feel like going downtown, but a lot of the boaters in the marina usually do.  After we had dinner, we were sitting on dock 9 visiting with a couple other guys.  Then Dave got the crazy idea to go over to dock 8 and bring all of their patio furniture over to our dock.  They really brag about the “ambiance” on their dock.  We sat around waiting to see their reaction when they came back.  One couple walked onto the dock, stopped and looked around, even looked over the railing into the water.  They just shook their heads and walked to their boat.  The others stayed uptown later than usual, so we went to bed. 

Oct 3
The next morning we had a knock on our boat.  Bruce, from dock 8, was there.  I said “you missed one hell of a party on dock 9 last night.”  He said “evidently we did.  When is our furniture coming back?” Me “you have muscles”  Bruce “I didn’t move it over here”  Me “ok” thinking “whatever, it was a joke”  Bruce has a quiet demeanor, so I think he realized we were just messing with them.  He later said that Rhonda didn’t notice it when they came home last night.  This morning she wondered where it was and Bruce said he would bet it was on dock 9.  She got out her binoculars to check.  After enjoying coffee in their furniture, we returned it :(

enjoying coffee in dock 8's furniture on dock 9
Dave went for a sail with Ricardo to check his engine after cleaning the fuel.  They spent a couple hours on the water.

Ricardo and Dave setting sail

We all ended up in the clubhouse later in the afternoon to watch Alabama college football.  There were lots of people in the clubhouse this afternoon working on projects or BS-ing.

Sunday Oct 4
Happy Birthday Ricardo!  Ricardo went to church with me.  Part of his name is Francis Xavier and that is the name of the church.  He thought it was the Feast day of Francis Xavier, but later found out it was the feast day of Francis of Assisi.  We returned to a fabulous brunch that Dave prepared for us.   I baked a “turtle cake” for him.  It is a family recipe that layers pecans, caramel and chocolate chips between layers of the chocolate cake.  It was a hit at the pot luck at the marina today.  People were even trying to scrape the sides of the pan.  I had everyone join in to sing Happy Birthday to Ricardo.  He was overwhelmed with the friendship everyone had shared with him. 

Monday, Oct 5
Today I walked to the catholic church with Olivia, from dock 9, to take her dog to the blessing of the pets.  Since yesterday was the feast day of St Francis Assisi, they had a blessing at the end of the school day.  Anyone was welcome to bring their pets.  We ran into another boater there with her dog.  The cutest one I saw was a 3 year old with a pet frog named Jumpy. 

Olivia with Madeline and Sharon with Ely


On the way back to the marina we checked out downtown Brunswick.  There are many changes for the movie that is being filmed here later this month.  It’s cool to watch it progress.

Tuesday, Oct 6
About 30 people from the marina went to lunch at Jerry Lee’s BBQ today.  It is a market place with a cafeteria type lunch atmosphere.  We all gathered in front of dock 8 about 11:00.  Those without cars just piled into a car that was going.  The food was awesome.  We brought extra home with us, since it is too far to bicycle there.  

 

I spent the afternoon doing laundry.  Then I enjoyed the music jam that is held on Tuesdays  and played trionimoes with a couple friends.  3 of us closed the clubhouse about 11:00pm and agreed to meet for yoga in the morning at 7:15.

Dave painted the anchors with zinc paint that, according to Dave, is meant to stay on only while you are looking at it.  Once it is used, it all comes off like ablative paint on the hull. 
He spent a lot of time checking electronics and updating charts.  The wifi is so unpredictable here.  So that caused a few headaches.  He also spent time getting everything in running order to take the boat out for a “sea trial”.  We haven’t had it out of the slip since the engine work was completed.

Wednesday, Oct 7
I made it to yoga this morning at 7:15.  Nothing like the power of a buddy for exercise.

We spent the morning stowing “loose cannons” in the cockpit and below.  About noon, we left the slip with 3 crew members.  Ricardo, Olivia and Bob.  Olivia and Bob have a motorized trawler on our dock.  Olivia said she had never been sailing, so we took them along.  And Ricardo was anxious to see how our boat handles, since his is similar, 383 Beneteau. 

We went out onto Turtle River and into St Simon’s Sound.  That is between St Simon’s and Jekyll Island.  We didn’t go out of the inlet onto the ocean.  We had a large commercial ship come though the channel.  We had to get out of their way.  Bob was at the helm and Dave asked him to go starboard.  He wanted to discuss it, but he doesn’t sail.  So by now the big ship is giving us the 5 horn blasts to warn us that we are in danger.  So Dave started the motor and took over the helm.  Olivia and I were out on the deck just watching the ship come at us thinking “the guys will handle it”. 

We were back in the slip by 2:30.  So we had lunch with the left over BBQ from yesterday and started cocktail hour by 3:00. 


Olivia the "deck doily"

Ricardo relaxing because it is not his boat

Bob at the helm

deck hand

Olivia and Bab

One last game of Pass the Pigs before Keeley leaves for the British Virgin Islands.  Their family is from New Zealand.  His father, Kim, has a job in the BVI's.  So maybe we will see them there in a couple years.


























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