Getting a Grip!

To finish off the fiberglass work we needed to paint the non-skid areas of the deck. Kiwi-Grip is a product that paints on and is fairly easy for do it yourselfers. The most important thing is a nice clean tape job.....Ed is an expert at this!



After cleaning and taping we put a tarp over the areas to be painted. We needed the paint to stay dry (rain seems to pop up out of nowhere around here). Also the tarp shaded the area from the HOT sun. The temps were in the 90s and we had high humidity. Believe it or not the humidity was very helpful, slowing down the drying time for the paint. You trowel the paint on, roll it and remove the tape.....and repeat.






Looks really nice!



So the paint is on, the deck hardware replaced, it's time to move north to cooler weather.

Making Progress!

Well, we didn't make our one month deadline; not surprised.
But we did make progress. It took me almost 3 weeks to sand and scrape the bottom of all the loose paint in prep for new paint.




When that was finally done, in 90 d heat, we rolled on 2 to 4 coats of bottom paint. We hope to get 3 to 4 years out of this paint job.











Also took the opportunity to change some old thru hull valves.



Shiny new bronze!



We also added a line cutter to the propshaft for our trip thru the lobsta-pot minefields of Maine.

Chris did an outstanding job of cleaning and waxing the hull. One complete cleaner treatment and 2 coats of paste wax, by hand. 2 weeks of working on a scaffold.




With all that done, we finally got back in the water.






Soooo nice! No more 12' climb up and down. And that was for working, taking breaks, eating, and...every bathroom trip day and night plus showers! Top it off with no A/C in 90 degree heat. Yea, we're definitely happy to be back in the water!
We still have to repaint all the nonskid on the decks and of course rain is predicted all week. We'll also have to reinstall the jib tracks pluss some new rigging hardware.
But we're still confident in getting to Maine this summer.

Living on the Hard

Do they call it living on the hard because your boat is hauled from the water and placed on hard ground? Maybe it's because it is a hard life? Scaling a 12 foot ladder to get on and off the boat and living with dust from boat bottoms being sanded. Systems that work while in the water, don't work while on land. For us it is the air conditioner and toilets (no way for a pump-out here). Our neighbors refrigiration System won't work without seawater! Either way, we're doing it. This place is a good place for it. Cool at night, very friendly and knowledgeable staff, decent restrooms, scaffolding available for waxing the topsides, a pool (who has time for that?), and bike riding to stores and restaurants.




The first step is a doozy!




A long climb home.

On The Hard

Arrived Oriental NC last Sunday and hauled out Monday to do more work.









We'll be climbing a 12' ladder every day, all day, up and down, for several weeks!

We're having some fiberglass repairs done while here. This yard has a great rep for doing this sort of thing. They got started right away even tho they are quite busy.






Hope to get everything done by the end of the month...stay tuned, we'll see!

Timing

We departed Fernandina Beach Fl on Sunday at 9AM, headed for Southport SC and the Cape Fear River inlet. Our departure was timed to ride the current out the St Mary`s inlet. We had 2 days of good weather to reach Cape Fear.



A nice pic of us sailing taken from S/V Willet who sailed with us for a while.



Of course we had the mandatory visits at dusk and dawn by the dolphin patrols.



Speaking of dusk, another great sunset.

The Cape Fear River inlet only gives about 5 hours of favorable flood current before turning out on the ebb. On Tuesday that window was from 4AM till 9AM. We didn`t want to enter till dawn so our window was 6:30 to 9AM. We spent 2 days calculating and recalculating our speed and timing. We arrived at 7AM! Perfect timing. Of course, it`s always something and this `something` was fog and a giant tanker passing us in the narrowest part of the river.



Our timing was so good we rode the flood all the way to Snow`s Cut where it turns against us. We arrived there just as it turned and rode that favorably, the rest of the way to Carolina Beach. That was nice timing! We took a mooring ball and stayed 2 days, comfortably letting severe weather pass through the area.

The MOST Viscous Creature

Ed and I have been attacked. Our friend, Ben from Old Rosie, calls them "pound for pound the most viscous creature". Alligators, sharks, killer whales or maybe sting rays? No, none of those. I'm talking about the tiny blood sucking creature known as no-see-ums. AKA, sand fleas or midges. Man those little suckers bite. For me, it takes 2 to 3 days before the bite appears and WOW do they itch. Thank goodness Freedom has not been overrun by them. We encountered them outside. Another good reason to start heading north.


These are the little buggers

Milestone

Yay.....we're moving again! We even got to sail today for a few hours. We have a trip odometer on our GPS chart plotter. We set it to 0 the morning we left for our cruising adventure. Today, just south of Melbourne, Florida this happened:




What does it mean? Well, just before that happened, we got this:








Wow! 10,000 nautical miles. We're having fun so we look forward to the next 10,000.

Getting our Bearings

So we moved down the coast to Stuart, FL but the work continues!

We had our mainsail furler removed to replace the bearings. We also replaced the bearings in our wind generator.



Here is the elaborate setup to keep from dropping important parts into the deep.






Chainplates are big beefy hunks of stainless steel that run through the deck. The standing rigging that holds the mast in place are attached to them. Ours did not look to be in poor condition, but they are old. Stainless steel chainplates tend to have cracks hidden at the deck level and ours had a line of rust at that level. A little preventive maintenance is in order. We removed one, had a new one made, reinstalled it and then did the same to the other. We also had our dinghy davits lengthened by a foot. Every time we raised and lowered the dinghy on the davits it would catch on the stern ladder...a wresting match ensued. Mack Sails has done all this work, furler maintenance, chainplates, and davits. They are headquartered in Stuart and we are very happy with the quality of their work.

The old chainplate, complete with yucky rust.






Ooooh look how it shines. The new chainplate.



We do like it here in Stuart! Lots to do, lots of friends, and a nice little town to enjoy.

A feathered friend.




Love the sailfish fountain.



Love the vegetation.


You can walk to town a few ways. You can go one way and walk over the railroad tracks, or the other and walk under!


The walkway UNDER the train.



Hope to wrap things up this week and get north. It's getting hot here....89 degrees today.

Windless in Fort Pierce

Our three months in Fort Pierce has flown by. It's a great marina with a fabulous community of boaters. The farmers market is one of the best! Lots of wildlife here; fish, manatee, owls and waterfowl. I can't tell you how many times we ran to check if there was a man overboard because of the loud splashing from the fish or pelicans.....there are some BIG fish in the water here. We reconnected with some old friends and met some new ones too! It has been a fabulous time with great sunny, warm weather.

Our dock at the marina




Farmers Market




Circling Fishes




Pelican




Friends coming to visit





This is the longest time that Freedom has not moved since we started our cruising adventure. We have been without our anchor windless and our mainsail since January.

Lots of projects done! Here is our anchor windless before.




Here it is after! We had it serviced and then Ed painted it.




This is how it was re-installed!




We have a number of items undone. We are headed south to Stuart, FL to have a company finish replacing the bearings in our mainsail furler, to pick up our re-cut mainsail and replace some stainless steel items including our chainplates.....just hardware that keeps our mast standing....so nothing important.

The Sky is Falling

There is no such thing as a simple repair on a boat. Our lights in the main salon (our living room) began working intermittently. A short in the wire? Simple, right? No, it's a boat, nothing is simple. The wiring for the lights runs in the ceiling under the vinyl headliner. We have to remove many teak trim pieces and cut back the vinyl. This is ok because we can re-staple the headliner under the trim pieces. We spent a lot of time talking about replacing the headliner, it really should be done. This added two or three new projects to the list. You have to draw the line somewhere! We decided, for now we will put the old headliner back in place.


The sky is not falling, but living with THIS mess is not fun!


With the headliner pulled back we gain access to all the nuts and bolts holding the deck hardware; blocks and line guides. Rebedding/re-caulking all this hardware is on our to-do list. I guess it jumps to the top of the list. There are also old "repairs" from previous deck hardware. Repairs that needed to be dug out and filled with epoxy. All these new filled in holes will require new painting of the nonskid areas on the deck.....add another item to the list!


Here is all the old hardware in place (mostly)




The deck hardware removed with butyl tape to cover the holes in case it rains.


Now, we can't just put back our crummy old stand up blocks, might as well get all new! Our old ones just had turning wheels, the new ones have nice bearings and should make our line handling much smoother!




See the nice shiney new one next to the crummy old?


Rember the lights? The LED lights were too small and dim for the job. Yes...might as well buy new, brighter LED's. Thats OK, it's only money....BOAT = Break Out Another Thousand. Stay tuned.

I Saw A Glimpse Of The Future

I watched a rather poignant episode of life today. Next to us in the marina is an old beaten 70's vintage Cris Craft 38. Al, the owner, has been coming down to sit aboard for an hour or two almost every day. He told me stories of how he cruised it all over the Chesapeake Bay and down to Florida and the Bahamas for the past 30 years.
He'd been trying to sell it with no luck, so today he gave it away. A marina will strip out the engines and scrap the boat.
While it was getting towed away I was chatting with Al on the dock. A big line of tears began to flow down his cheek. This wasn't just saying good bye to a boat, it was saying good bye to a life on the water.
Eventually I suspect we will be in Al's shoes too. Can't stop the march of time. We're working as hard as we can in building up something to eventually cry over.

Happy Valentines Day

"The only way to get a good crew is to marry one".
-Eric Hiscock

Special Delivery

My sweetie had this special delivery for me for Valentine's Day! Happy Anniversary to you, too!

Grabbing the Brass Ring

Project time on Freedom! Although we got a slow start, the projects are in full force now. Ed and I both came down with our first cold since we started cruising. One of the worst chest colds we have ever had. It was unusual that we started getting symptoms at the exact same time. We are now well and have been working on many improvements. Here are just some.


These brass rings are part of our teak lighting fictures. There are 10 of them! I am polishing them and using an insulater wax (in hopes that the shine will last a while). I also polished our brass trawler lamp.





Here is a before and after of our fender covers. Fenders are used to cushion the boat from docks and pilings and are notoriously dirty and ugly!






I bought some vinyl and made new covers for our jerry jugs (they hold extra gas and diesel). Our canvas ones became stained and ugly. I hope these will wash off easily. I had extra fabric and made this bag for the anhor rode for our stern anchor. We don't often use the stern anchor but the rode (rope used to attach to the anchor) needs to be readily available in an emergency. This bag sits in the back, out in the elements. I put some mesh inserts to allow air flow.






Our salon fixed ports (windows) are really hazy and have needed to be replaced. It was a project that always got pushed down the list. One of them started leaking consistently so this project moved up the list. We now have two of the four done. Here you can see the old hazy port next to the new clear one. The blue is masking tape that gets removed so we have a nice clean line of calk. The silver washers will also be removed. They are there to keep the plexiglass in place until the calk is fully cured (14 days).





We have many other projects ongoing and more projects on the list. Hopefully we'll take a break and update you again.