Mike
06/16/2009, Charleston, S.C.

June 7th... Charleston, SC

Did he mention yesterday that he and Steve ate 7 dozen raw oysters ??? (Okay, Kim and I maybe ate 6 oysters)

I spent an hour or so wandering around talking to folks on the docks this morning and then met Steve at 11 for a run out to West Marine. The marina van makes a trip out there once a day at that time. The store was brand new and having grand opening specials. I did lots of looking but most of the things we need will take Kathy's ok. I did order some stabilizers for our outboard and will have to go back this week to pick them up.

At about 1 we headed out for lunch with Kim and Steve to the King Street Grille. We had a nice meal and then walked to Harris Teeters which is the nearest grocery. After loading up a cart we called the marina van to pick up. Kathy and Kim stayed downtown shopping while Steve and I returned to put things away.

After finding places for all of our purchases, I filled our water tank and made two trips to the fuel dock to fill jerry cans and top off our tank. I still need 10 gallons but can pick those up any time.

Steve and Kim wandered down to visit for a while and then we ate the rotisserie chicken that we'd picked up earlier. It was quick and easy.

Two more episodes of "Cold Case" and we're done for the day.

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Mike
06/07/2009, Charleston, SC

June 6th... Charleston, SC

After some coffee I began putting things away and straightening up the boat. I replaced the sink, which had to be removed to access the compressor portion of the refrigerator and turned on the water system.

Things were going fine until I tried to flush the new toilet and it clogged. I hesitate to write a blow by blow account of process I went through to remove the clog and put the new toilet back together, but suffice it to say that it wasn't fun.

After getting cleaned up I wandered over to "Fine Lion" to pick up our frozen food and chatted with them for 30 minutes or so and made plans to go into town around noon. When I got back to the boat Kathy informed me that the toilet was again clogged. Wonderful...

As an expert on the inner workings of our new toilet and its drain system, I psyched myself for another round of fun. I had learned some things earlier in the morning and had deduced that the clogging problem was not the toilets fault but that of the drain hose. (I hesitate to add here that I, Kathy, had advised replacing all hoses in said area when replacing the toilet.) Over time, the inch and ½ hose forms a layer of what looks like a calcium deposit. In the process of installing the new toilet I had moved the hose around enough to break some of the deposit away from the inner wall of the hose which collected on a low spot and caused the clogs.

So I removed and loosened the drain hose on each end holding the bottom on tightly to the toilet and then quickly moved that end to a bucket. We ran a water hose through a hatch and I had Kathy turn on the water which I ran through the section of drain hose.

Then I took the hose to the dock and pounded it with a hammer breaking loose about a half of bucket full of calcium deposits. Finally, after putting things back together, we had a working toilet.

By this time it was about 11:30, so we called Steve and Kim to delay our trip to town for an hour which gave us time to clean and disinfect the boat as well as ourselves.

We ended up meeting them at 1pm and took the marina van into town where we shopped a little, but spent most of the afternoon at an oyster bar. We watched the Belmont race, wandered to another oyster bar AND ate more oysters and we wandered around a little more and ended up at the Roof Top above the Library for the sunset and the first two periods of the Redwings game. Charleston is a wonderful city to wander around at night.

We got a taxi back to the marina and hit the sack...it had been a long day.

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Mike
06/07/2009, Charleston, SC

June 5th Charleston, South Carolina

After coffee I removed our old toilet and installed the new one. There were a few problems as always, but had the job done in about an hour and a half. After getting cleaned up, we hauled all of our laundry in to shore and took over the little laundromat which a joins a small restaurant close by.

Kim used 5 washers and Kathy had 4 so there was no room for anyone else and luckily, no one else came in. After getting things started we walked over to the restaurant side and order a huge breakfast.

At one point Kim and Kathy went back to move clothes to the dryers and about the time we finished with our meals most of the clothes were finished.

Back at the boat with clean clothes, I began the process of removing our refrigeration system. It took most of the afternoon to get the old one out. Kathy walked up to the office about 4 to pick up the evaporator section which was to arrive today and returned with it in about 10minutes.

We worked until about 9pm, but by then had the thing operational. The boat was a mess with tools everywhere and nothing in its proper place but we quit anyway and went to bed.

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