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Published: April 12th 2010
Winter in DC
These were what was considered the "cleared" lanes when driving around DC on our way to MiamiYes, the world is still round and we have not fallen off yet! We know it has been some time since our last blog entry but guess that just indicates that we have been quite busy since then. So, what has been filling our time? In February we took the planned trip to Miami to the boat show. It was a road trip as we wanted to see friends along the way, stop in Charleston to have our life-raft inspected, and just take our time now that we are both retired. Well, not everything turned out as planned, but luckily some of it did. We left Trumansburg with lots of snow on the ground heading toward Washington DC area where they were being hit with the 2nd of 3 major snowstorms. The travel went well until we got close into DC where we found that it took 2 hours to go 20 miles. We think we found out that some of the reason was that we saw many snowplows going by, but with their plows in an up position rather than down. Bob thought it might be a great idea if they took some lessons from the road crews up in
Good friends Joe & Meredith
Joe & I taught together in TBurg and the 4 of us have been friends & travelling companions for years our area. The hardest part about the driving there was that the “cleared” lanes kept switching so sometimes the 1st and 4th lane would be the better ones and then suddenly it would change to the 2nd and 5th lane - seemed like quite a strange way to manage the snow on the roads, but we did eventually get past there and on to warmer areas.
We first headed to Charleston to get the life-raft that came with the boat inspected. The place told us that they would inflate the raft so that we could see what it was like and then they would repack it and have it ready for us a week later on our return trip. Well, when they cut open the hard fiberglass case much to everyone's surprise it was full of life-raft and thousands (no exaggeration) of ants, large black carpenter ants (see that biology degree comes in handy). The ants had eaten through the material and it had numerous (thousands) of un-repairable holes. The guy who reconditions the life rafts was as surprised as we were. Needless to say this resulted in adding one more item to our shopping list for the
Old entrance to St Augustine
A nice break for a long driving day was visiting historic St.Augustine Miami boat show.
Things got much better as we then headed to Hilton Head to meet up with our great friends, Joe and Meredith. Hadn’t seen them in some time but it was like it was yesterday - so nice to have friends like that! We had a great time with them and even if the weather wasn't the best we still had a lot of laughs and a walk on the beach.
Heading to Miami we wound up having some major car problems. It happened at 5:15PM on a Thursday evening, luckily near an exit off I-95 so we were able to get to a place where we could make some calls. The outcome was that we had to have the car towed to the nearest VW dealer in Melbourne FL, find a rental car and continue on without knowing when we would get the car fixed. The people at AARP were a great help.
Finally made it to Miami much later that same evening, but at least made it in time to get to the boat show on Friday. For anyone that hasn’t been to the Miami Boat Show, it is quite different from the
Fort at St Augustine
A nice place to walk around in historic St. Augustine Annapolis show. Miami is mainly powerboats/yachts with a few sailboats sprinkled in for good measure. We were mainly in Miami to attend a 2 day weather seminar and of course to do some more shopping for items on our “must have” list which took up the other two days. Friday we spent most of the time searching for a new life raft - it is amazing how much you have to spend on something that you hope that you will never need, but definitely want to have on board. Unfortunately it's a real battle between cost and weight. We also were shopping for a 12V computer and found that at a place called Cactus Marine in Massachusetts (interesting name). It's built by a British outfit called Digital Yachts and it's quite the unit. Got an excellent deal and had an opportunity to talk extensively with one of the designers about installation.
Unfortunately Janice got a nice head cold, but the class had to go on so forged ahead on Saturday and Sunday all day in classes. Learned quite a bit which is a good thing seeing we will definitely need to determine the best “weather window” for leaving port.
Cannons
The cannons had been refurbished & were being put back in place soon at the Fort Luckily the class was held in close proximity to a number of the vendors booths that we needed to talk with. This meant we were able to buy the new alternator and visit a number of booths collecting information on the energy monitoring system we need to install to replace the one that died last summer.
Having always gone to the Annapolis boat show we sometimes forget the difference between power boaters and sail boaters. No offense to either group but it seems that at the shows you see the extremes of both groups. The sailors arrive at a show looking like they were wearing the same clothes for the past week (which usually is the case if their cruisers). The power boaters, two distinct groups here; the fishermen and the yachtsman. The yachtsman show up at the boat show well pressed and with partners who are dressed in the current fashion with a significant amount of gold and diamonds ostentatiously exhibited. A side observation, it appears that the size of the power yacht is in direct proportion to the age difference between the captain and his wife/partner. We saw one yacht at the yacht brokers’ portion of the
Castillo De San Marcos
This was a Spanish fort begun in 1572 which stood against English attacks for many years. Then in Am. Rev it was a British stronghold show that had a helicopter and were told by one of the brokers that if you buy the yacht for $11 million the owner would throw in the helicopter for free. We were tempted, but decided the inflatable with the 9hp would be better on fuel than the helicopter.
We still haven't made a decision on what type of battery we are going to use. Bob thinks he has looked and read just about everything that's out there and he is currently looking at a battery made by Odyssey batteries. It's called TPPL (thin plate pure lead) and it looks like we can get the amperage we need in about half the volume and a lot less weight. Plus these batteries recharge rapidly and can be discharged further without damage. Talked to the people at the booth and think and it would solve a lot of the technical problems we’re currently looking at. We'll let you know when we finally decide and how it goes.
Stayed on Monday to finalize on some of purchases and then headed across the state of Florida to visit with our TYC sailing friends, Jim and Judy. Unfortunately we had to cancel out
Fountain in St Augustine
One of the many things that reminded us of the Spanish roots around this area on some other friends due to Janice’s lingering sickness. We did get a chance to go to the factory where they build the Caliber boat that we own. They were great in answering questions as well as letting us on one of their new boats to take measurements & check out the improvements in order to help Bob with some of the things he wants to do to Tsamaya. The car also kept changing our plans as we kept in touch with the dealer and we thought we might get the car back on Wed. of the following week, but it changed and we couldn’t get it until late on the following Friday. With that we had to spend an extra couple of days in Florida which actually turned out nice as we used our folding bikes to explore the Fort DeSoto state park near St. Petersburg FL. This actually wound up being our most laid back time since arriving in Florida. With this change of plans it was unfortunate that we had to cancel out of seeing a number of other friends will. So much for plans… just another example of the need to be flexible!
When we
Will we look like that?
Just think, maybe someone will be taking a photo of us doing the same thing at this same place later this year. returned from Florida Janice cracked the whip reminding me that if we wanted to get the house sold we needed to get it on the market and that meant we needed to finish all those projects that have been on the list for several years. Well, with full speed ahead and some great help from our nephew, Ken, the house turned out really well.
This was accomplished even with another 5 days out for a trip to Massachusetts to attend a 3 day diesel maintenance class. We and I mean Janice and Bob took apart and put back together an engine just like the one in our boat. The best thing was that it actually started again after working on it! One thing we all said however was that it was actually nice to be able to walk around the engine and see it from all sides, as that is definitely not the case on any boat they are installed in! We feel much more comfortable knowing more about the engine and ways to diagnose problems. The class was made up of 9 guys and Janice. Janice made a big hit in the class. All the other guys were
Are we happy yet?
A great balloon we got from Joe & Meredith to celebrate our retirement. Decided to put in our "sick" car to help it feel better. Luckily we were able to bring the balloon home & it lasted another whole week! very envious of Bob because they were impressed by the fact that not only was Janice willing to go on a long term indefinite cruise, but she also took an active interest in knowing how to maintain the engine. They were a great group of guys to work with and we all learned quite a bit and had fun doing it. Larry the instructor was an old shop teacher from Pennsylvania, he was great. My compliments to Mack Boring for putting together a course that was well worth the time and the money.
Upon our return from class, we met with a couple of realtors and made a final decision so we now have a for sale sign in the front yard and our house is officially on the market. It is definitely hitting home that this is becoming quite permanent. Just one more step toward getting us to our goal of cutting the dock lines and heading off. We will see what comes of this - it appears that the housing market in our area is still doing OK but time will tell. Even with having the house on the market, we are finding a few things to
This view was worth the long drive
Here is the view of our section of Miami Beach from our condo - nice for February! finish on our “punch list” so are trying to knock those off as well.
One more reminder that we are getting closer to being ready to leave is that we have started our immunizations. We were fortunate that we still had our records from when we were in Peace Corps so at least didn’t have to get our Hep A, but are working on our other numerous shots. Starting to feel like a human pin cushion, but definitely want to get the protection provided.
Janice figured we needed a little more excitement so the last weekend of March she had an emergency appendectomy so spent the weekend in the local hospital. Things went well, but definitely slowed her down, but now after a couple of weeks is getting to be more herself (with still a few limitations such as climbing ladders).
We are hopeful that we can now turn our attention to working on some of the numerous boat projects we have lined up. The weather has really been nice lately which will definitely make it much nicer for starting those projects.
We promise to be a bit more conscientious with our blog entries. It just
Lats & Atts Party
Had a chance to celebrate at a Lats & Atts Party at the Miami Boat Show - great fun with music from Eric Stone seems that since Bob's retirement in January time has flown. As Bob’s Dad would say, “we have been busier than a one arm paper hanger with an itch”. For those of you that are too young to know, a paper hanger puts up wallpaper - make sense now?!
All the best and we hope all of you are having as much fun as we are. This sure has been keeping us busy in retirement with lots more to learn!
Janice and Bob
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Angelika Woelfing
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Hallo, Janice and Bob, I do not know, whether you ever got my short notice, because I have no experience with blogs. I'd like it much better to get a nice mail from you and to answer. I like very much to be retired. It's good to have so much time. You know that I have a very sweet grand daughter in Berlin, the daughter of Christiane and Philipp. She is now 16 month and likes very much to go into the kindergarden for the littleones. I myself could never think of taking my child in such age to a playschool. But, visiting in Berlin, I noticed how happy she is there. She starts talking now. I´m so happy to watch her devellopment. I did also some travelling. One week on the river Nil in Egypt. So super!! Now we are planning to spend 2 weeks in the south of France and in summer we want to get to know the noth east part of Germany. I'm just organizing this, therefore I tell you this. Im looking foreward to meeting you at the french or spanish coast some day. Lots of love from Angelika