Golf Brings Another Boat
04 July 2014 | Baytown and Texarkana
Jill
We went back to the boat again, this time with Adler. There was no day camp the week of the Fourth of July, and Jamie had to go take a course in Little Rock the last weekend in June. So Bud, Adler and I headed down to Baytown.
It was hot, but not oppressive and the air conditioner on the boat kept up with the heat pretty well. We are only running the aft air conditioner so it would be too hot for Adler to sleep up in the forepeak. Instead, we set up the lee cloth and let him sleep in the salon. He chose to sleep on the dinette bench. Both benches in the salon are equipped with lee clothes. These are canvas panels secured along the front edge of the bench under the cushions. They are usually folded under the cushions, but when underway they can be strung with lines up to the grab rails above the bench to keep a sleeper from rolling out if the boat is heeled the wrong way or the seas are rough. We put it up for Adler because the bench is narrow and it made a secure little bed for him. He liked it and slept well.
The highlight of the trip for me was getting and trying out my new inflatable kayak. This is another boat that can be blamed on my poor golf game. Bud says our initial venture into boating came about because I said we needed to take up boating as I trudged up a fairway after yet another series of missed shots. Different fairway, different set of missed shots, this time I said, "We really need to get a kayak." Bud told me if I wanted to, I should look into it. I did and the result was the purchase of an Advanced Elements inflatable kayak that can be used as a solo or tandem boat. Inflated it's 15 feet long. Packed in its bag, it's 35 by 21 by 12 inches and will fit in the trunk of the land barge and somewhere (location to be determined) on the boat.
We bought it Sunday morning. We headed from the store out to the beach, but I didn't try to launch it there. We let Adler swim after driving around to a few beaches to find one that wasn't too gross. This time of year the gulf beaches are covered with seaweed. The high tide line is between two and three feet deep with seaweed and the water is full of it. There were nice waves, but the water was brown, not blue. We found a well-tended beach that had a path through the piles and Adler braved the floating weeds and brown water for the sake of the waves.
Monday I unpacked and inflated the kayak. It took be about 20 minutes, working by myself. Adler and I paddled around the marina and over to Kooky Dance. We roused Scott and Tamera, and about 45 minutes later I was able to pry Adler out of the cabin of Kooky Dance, where he and Tamera had been having a fine time. I went and got my camera and Tamera took some photos of the return trip. I've put some others in the gallery.
Tuesday I took Adler to a beach on the bay that Tamera had found. It's only about 15 or 20 minutes from the boat. There was no seaweed there, and though the water is still brown, it was a lot nicer than the beach on the gulf we'd driven and hour and a half to find. There were still pretty good waves, and Adler played in them for more than two hours, until a threatening thunderstorm drove us back to the boat. Bud was working trying to install tank gauges for both our holding tanks. I helped him finish up installing one of the sensors and helped put the aft cabin back in order, and that's the only work that got done this trip. It's too hot to do much in the summer, and too difficult to work around Adler.
Wednesday we drove back. The land barge gave us a scare. We were about 125 miles from Texarkana when the car started to overheat. Bud stopped and found water to cool down the radiator so he could check the fluid level. It was fine. We started out again. The car was missing and it started to heat up a bit. Bud drove more slowly (60 to 65 instead of the speed limit of 70 to 75) and we turned the air conditioner off. It was over 90 out, but with the windows opened just a bit it wasn't unbearable. We finally made it home in 6 hours. Adler slept through most of the drama, and when he woke up never complained of the heat. We took the car in yesterday and they found a bad coil (I guess there's a coil for each cylinder in this engine). The guy at the garage said he thought the coil was feeding bad information to the temperature gauge. He thought the engine hadn't actually overheated at all. Right now it seems to be running OK, but it's scheduled for new spark plugs and a cooling system flush on Tuesday. Come on, land barge, we need about 16 more months from you.
We're back in Texarkana and today Bud and I went golfing again. I hope later this weekend we'll get some kayaking in. At least we have an alternative activity now, and it involves a boat.