by Judy Handley | Apr 20, 2015 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 10 |
Day 192, Year 10: Home from the Hospital
Date: Monday, April 20, 2015
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Rain Overnight, Temp 80 degrees F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC
My sister Patsy was released from the hospital today. The doctor told her that the CT scan did not show a blockage and he had no idea what had caused her problem. But whatever, she is fine now and that’s all that counts. I went to the hospital early this morning and spent some time with her and when I got back to Lightkeepers, I did the laundry while Mark went to pick up our repaired dodger and buy a few items at West Marine. When he returned he brought all of the boxes of photos that we picked up at Lynda and Lee’s Saturday down to the boat from the van and we got those stored in the v-berth. The new zipper in the dodger is fantastic. Jack at Sunset Canvas does fantastic work and his charges are quite reasonable. If we decide to have a new dodger and bimini made, we would sail all the way here to get the work done. High quality work at reasonable prices is hard to come by in the boating community.
Tomorrow we will decide whether or not we are leaving here on Friday or Saturday or whether we will stay for two more weeks. We’d love to stay longer, but it would also feel good to get home. Mark found out today that his work at West Marine can start as soon as we get there and I think he also has the possibility of a consulting job. While he’s busy working, I’d like to work in our storage unit trying to pare down to a 10 x 10 unit. That means getting rid of half of the stuff we have in storage and I don’t know if I can do that. But it’s worth a try.
We went to Patsy and Joe’s for dinner tonight and for dessert Joe made what he called ‘world class’ shortcakes. And I must agree with his classification as they were really good. Patsy added the strawberries and I added the ice cream. Yummy, as you can see here in the photos.
by Judy Handley | Apr 19, 2015 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 10 |
Day 191, Year 10: No News is Good News . . . We Hope
Date: Sunday, April 19, 2015
Weather: Overcast All Day with Heavy Rain Tonight
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC
What we know for sure is that my sister Patsy is much better and will probably be coming home from the hospital tomorrow. What we don’t know are the results from any of the testing, x-rays, and scans that were done. The doctor on duty handling her case was called into emergency surgery before he was able to get results to Patsy and it was late this afternoon by the time a nurse was finally able to get through to him to get orders for Patsy. In the meantime, they couldn’t even give her a piece of ice to suck on. But before Mark, Joe, and I left the hospital the nurse came in with a regular dinner and announced that things look good and that the doctor indicated that Patsy will probably go home tomorrow. But there were no details. Those must come from the doctor in person and he should be in tomorrow morning. It appears that there was some sort of blockage that resolved itself. So hopefully the no news today is really good news.
Patsy and Joe are trying to sell their home so they can make the move to the Nashville, Tennessee area near one of their daughters. There was a showing at 1:30 this afternoon, so Mark and I went over this morning to help Joe get the house ready. Patsy always keeps an immaculately clean house, but it is amazing how many things you have to do to make it look perfect. The guys finally left while I waited for a laundry to be done. Then I drove to the hospital to join them. This evening Mark and I returned to Patsy and Joe’s to fix dinner. I wanted to use up some of the leftovers from a couple of nights ago so they wouldn’t go to waste. Just before dinner, we got a call from Justin who said it was a good time for a Skype call with Ziggy and Coco. We love seeing them in action and they are always in action! We had a great call and got to see the aquarium we got Ziggy for his birthday. The one aquarium has turned into three. Mark and I made it back to Windbird just before the sky opened up. It is raining hard here now but hopefully by morning, the rain will be gone and we can have a bright, sunny day or at least a partly sunny day. I’m tired of rain and clouds, but at least the weather is warm. I guess you just can’t have it all.
by Judy Handley | Apr 18, 2015 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 10 |
Day 190, Year 10: Positive Thoughts for Patsy
Date: Saturday, April 18, 2015
Weather: Mostly Cloudy with Rain Overnight and Early Morning
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC
Today was certainly a better day than yesterday aboard Windbird, but we can attribute that to the fact that we weren’t on the boat for most of the day. This was our day to go to Patsy and Joe’s and get a few jobs done there. Unfortunately we overdid it as my sister Patsy had to be taken to the Emergency Room tonight. Joe left with Patsy after dinner and will call us as soon as he knows something. But as he said when he left, he’s pretty sure he knows the drill by now. This is the third time Patsy has had to go to the Emergency Room with a partial bowel obstruction. She was working with me in the attic this morning and was doing a fair bit of bending over. That seems to trigger something in her intestines and almost immediately causes the bowel to twist. I know she must be terribly frustrated with this recurring problem, but if surgery is the solution, she hopes to avoid that. Joe was insistent that he take her tonight, but we are going to head to bed early in case reinforcements are needed. All of our positive thoughts are with Patsy tonight.
I’ll only mention one other thing and that is the weather. It has pretty much been raining ever since we got here and today was no exception. But we did have a couple of hours of partial sunshine this afternoon and I took advantage of it to take some photos around Patsy and Joe’s house. Rain or no rain, it is certainly springtime here. The azaleas are in full bloom and are just beautiful. And when the sun came out this afternoon, every bird, bee, and butterfly in the neighborhood was flitting around the pink blossoms on the azaleas and the Indian Hawthorne shrubs in Patsy and Joe’s yard. It was beautiful.
by Judy Handley | Apr 17, 2015 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 10 |
Day 189, Year 10: Water Tanks and Broken Glass—Not a Good Combination
Date: Friday, April 17, 2015
Weather: Overcast, Drizzle, Warmer and Humid, Winds ENE 5
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC
Today was another day of checking jobs off the boat TO DO list, but this morning we added cleaning one of our water tanks to the list. And that ended up to be a job that took much longer than expected. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first I’ll explain our need to do things that take lots of water while we are here. We did not have easy access to water this winter in Florida or the Bahamas, and once we return to Cape Cod, we will be on a mooring for the summer. Our only source of water all summer is either using the water maker or carrying jerry jugs to the boat from shore. So doing things like cleaning out water tanks, washing the boat down on the outside, cleaning out sink drains by forcing pressurized water through the drain pipes, and washing down the engine with fresh water need to be done while we are here on a dock with running water and a hose. What a luxury. We started today by cleaning out the starboard water tank. This first requires emptying the tank by running water through the faucets in the boat. And that takes longer than it feels like it should. Mark really did most of the work, so he then opened the water tank from inside our boat by lifting the floor boards and loosening about 20 bolts that hold down the metal plate over the opening. Our water tank opening is about a foot in diameter and this allows us to reach down in and wipe down the sides and bottom of the tank. Mark did that and then sprayed it out, added West Marine Water Tank Flush, filled the tank, and let it sit for 30 minutes. After that he emptied and filled it two more times, but in between we had a bit of a disaster when Mark accidentally flipped a canning jar off the sink with the hose. It hit right on the edge of the open water tank. Shards of glass flew everywhere and the broken jar fell right into the full water tank. Needless to say, it took more emptying, more wiping down, and more filling to complete the job. Mark feels confident that he got all the glass but thankfully we have filters and fine mesh strainers on all of the faucets, just in case a little piece was missed. We still need to clean the other tank, but the West Marine here had only one gallon of the Water Tank Flush and we used all of that on one tank. Hopefully they’ll get more in next week and we can do the second tank. But if not, we’ll just wait and do it next year. We only clean the tanks every two to three years, so it can wait. But hopefully whenever we do it, we won’t have the glass disaster with the second tank.
In addition to water tank cleaning, I cleaned the v-berth book shelves and prepared the v-berth to accept all of the boxes of photos that we are taking back to Cape Cod. My sister has been storing our boxes of photos from pre-digital camera days, but it makes no sense for her to move the photos to Nashville with her. So we’ll get those onboard Windbird this weekend. In addition, Mark defrosted the freezer and I helped him defrost the refrigerator. We were both up to our elbows in water all day long. Tomorrow we will take a break from boat work and go to Patsy and Joe’s for the day. We hope there are some jobs that we can do to help them get a little closer to being ready for their move to Nashville this summer.
by Judy Handley | Apr 16, 2015 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 10 |
Day 188, Year 10: Obsessions
Date: Thursday, April 16, 2015
Weather: Overcast, Rainy, and Cool, Winds E to ENE 12
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC
I would say that Mark is obsessed with making To Do lists and then checking jobs off the list as fast as he can. He just can’t stand to let something stay on that list. When we were much younger and lived on a farm in southern West Virginia, I would dream up all of the things that I would like to have done to improve the property and write them down on a list. I was thinking in terms of years to complete the jobs. But as soon as they were written down, Mark would take that as a mandate that they had to be done immediately. Since this involved projects on 40 acres of land, he could never get that list to what he would call a manageable level. Today he continued working on his boat To Do list. He got a lot of the jobs done yesterday and today he completed was purchasing and installing a new Teleflex gear-shift cable. That was a difficult job, but he got it done. He has a few jobs left, but not many, so he’s in a good place and not feeling quite so compelled to work, work, work. But still, his To Do list will always be his obsession.
Now . . . he would say that I am obsessed with taking photos and then editing and naming every single one of them that’s worth keeping. When the photo is in the flora or fauna category, I try to do the research necessary to name each plant or animal with its common name as well as its Latin name. This takes hours and hours. I know that no one that looks at the photographs cares, but it’s something I really love doing. While we were in the Bahamas the number of photos and videos taken, including those taken by Claire, was 3,490. Today I finished the final editing and posting of those photos (hurray, hurray) which ended up to be 1,711 photos and videos in 85 different folders totaling 10.3 Gigabytes. Some people play Sudoku, some play Words with Friends, some work crossword puzzles. I don’t do any of those things. I just see life as an adventure that must be documented through photos and then each of those photos must be edited and named with love. Today I completed all of the photos from our Winter 2015 Adventure, so I can now go back and edit and name photos from last fall that never got done—grandchildren playing soccer, our trip to Battleship Cove in Fall River, etc, etc. I will always have a “Photos to be Named” folder on my desktop and when I don’t, I’ll know I haven’t been doing anything worth recording. So now you now know why I am constantly saying that what I did on a particular day was edit and name photos. It is a never ending job that hopefully will never go away. That is my obsession.
Late this afternoon, we headed over to Patsy and Joe’s. Patsy had called earlier to invite us over for dinner—pork chops, kale, pinto beans, and corn bread. Now who in their right mind could turn that down? Certainly not us, so off we went. Dinner was delicious and after dinner, Patsy and I looked though two huge under-the-bed type boxes, each filled with old 33 rpm records. She really doesn’t want to move them to Nashville and wanted me to go through them to see if any were mine. Some were, but we’re not interested in keeping them either. I pulled out a few Beatles albums and left the rest to go to the Salvation Army. Hopefully over the next week while we are here, I can help Patsy go through other things that she needs to sort out before moving.
by Judy Handley | Apr 15, 2015 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 10 |
Day 187, Year 10: Boat Work Day
Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Weather: Overcast, mid-60’s F, Winds NE to ENE 12
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC
Today was a boat work day. It was a mix of blue (male) and pink (female) jobs. You can probably figure out which ones were which.
–Removed the dodger and took it in for repairs
–Cleaned white tarp and hung it to temporarily replace the dodger
–Cleaned the cockpit cushions
–Went to West Marine for bilge pump switch and oil
–Changed the engine oil, oil filter, and fuel filter
–Checked the transmission fluid and topped it up
–Cleaned the speed log impellor
–Took the pedestal apart to check out gear-shift cable (more on this in a minute)
–Did 3 loads of laundry
–Spent 3 hours naming and editing photos from the Bahamas
This list doesn’t really give the full picture of how the day went for the blue jobs. Mark would have to write that story, but let’s just say that one thing led to another to another and to another. He really didn’t plan to do anything but work on the gear-shift cable, but that led to checking the transmission fluid which required him to get into a compartment in the v-berth where he keeps all of his oil. While there he realized he needed to change the oil and as long as he was in that compartment, he figured he should clean the speed log impellor. This necessitated the use of the bilge pump which reminded us that we need a new pump switch. This led to a trip to West Marine to buy engine oil and a bilge pump switch. After he changed the oil, he started the engine to get the oil running through and discovered that the prop was turning because the transmission was in gear and shouldn’t have been. While investigating this, Mark discovered that the gear-shift cable had broken—better in port than at sea. The saga went on from there.
Sea Turtle arrived today around noon and Lynda’s comment was that it was cold when we left here the end of December and it was cold today when they arrived. It is not really cold, but the north wind definitely cools things down a bit. When I checked Weather Underground for the temperature, I saw that it was 60 degrees in Woods Hole and 65 degrees here. The good news in that is that spring must finally be coming to the Northeast.
We had a wonderful dinner with Patsy and Joe last night and tonight we went out to dinner together with Bob Stout. Bob is our nephew Tommy’s father-in-law. He lives here in Little River and his wife Ginny is currently visiting one of their daughters in California. So Patsy and Joe invited Bob to go out with us. It was fun catching up on family happenings and talking a bit about our sea adventures.
Mark’s comment at the end of the day was that Windbird is starting to show signs of aging—just like the crew! Today would have been my parent’s 92nd wedding anniversary if they were still living. No wonder I’m starting to show signs of aging!
