Visiting Duane and Dianne’s place, and a sunset cruise aboard Diva Di.
09 February 2009
• Punta Gorda, Florida
by Mike
This has been a good news bad news sort of day, with the good outweighing the bad, fortunately. First off Rodney, the Varnish Magician, called me up and said that Lewmar wouldn't deal with him directly any more as he didn't order enough from them annually. That was the bad news. But then he said that he did business with another supplier that would help him and that he'd call them. A little later he called back with good news - they would help and that the price would be something in the order of $1850US. The bad news was that they would need two weeks to "build" the windlass. Later in the day, I finally grew a brain and called the Binnacle back home. Yes, they sell the same windlass and their price was $1850Cdn! As of my writing this I am asking them to confirm that they can get the 24VDC model with the gypsy to take the chain type that I have aboard, plus I need to know the delivery times. This will be better in general if I can give the business to our friends in Halifax especially since they have an "American" store from which I hope they can ship to us.
Other than that the day was spent very profitably with Barb helping me up the main mast to fix the steaming and deck lights and with Dianne driving us into town. While there I was able to buy several things at a marine consignment store including a backup national flag, a book on sea ghost stories and a turnbuckle that I hope to use to ease the strain on the lift points for the dingy pulleys. I was even able to buy some fish net floats that I will use to make a tide minder to allow the lines to rise and fall with the tides on the pilings.
Dianne and Duane's neighbour has volunteered to take us to his yacht club to buy fuel which will mean a saving of thirty cents a gallon. The only kicker is that we will have to use Jerry Cans to carry the fuel to the dock. A small price to pay for sure. We have two full cans at present which will go into the tank. We will probably need an additional 20 gallons to that and Duane and Dianne have a couple of cans and the neighbour has another so that should make for only one trip.
Barb had a swim in the Ising's pool which impressed everyone including me for the water was only 65 degrees. It did take her a while to inch her way in and then she finally did the Bluenose thing and jumped the rest of the way. Up to that point the body language was the entertainment; after it was the look on her face as she tried to convince us that "It just takes a little getting used to!" I guess she never really did as the swim lasted about 30 seconds and then we both lounged in the hot tub for a bit.
While giving Peri his walk I ran into Jack, one of Duane and Dianne's neighbours, that had been over to their place last night for the happy hour and to whom we had promised our old AYC burgee for their yacht club. Jack is a nice fellow who has had some back problems so he can no longer sail a sailboat so he has crossed over to power to stay on the water. In addition to keep up his affair with the wind he has gone into model sailboat racing and he showed me four of his boats and explained how the technology of the boat works and how the races are run. That looks really neat and from his description doesn't seem to be too expensive. I think I am going to suggest it to AYC when we get back. We have several members that are a bit old for actual racing but would probably enjoy racing with the models. The rest of us could benefit from their experience and learn some tactics from them. If what Jack says is true someone could get into the model boat racing for less than $200. Who knows, maybe even some of the power boat members would give it a try.
Then, to mark the conclusion of a perfect day, Duane and Dianne were kind enough to allow us to accompany them and their guests on a sunset cruise out into the harbour. Diva Di is a beautiful well equipped sloop that easily handled eight people aboard and was skipping along at five knots under a full press of sail. The sunset was beautiful but even better was the full "Halloween" moon rising behind the clouds. I really enjoyed being crew on Diva Di, undocking and docking and working the sails. Great fun! Then, back at their home, they had a superb chilli awaiting us. I will have to get Duane's recipe to stick in our cookbook. Unfortunately Barb and I were both tired so we were the party poops and left early to get some rack time.
Tomorrow I hope to finalize the deal about the windlass, one way or the other, fix the anchor light, put up the loud hailer, and maybe even buff out the scratches on the hull. Stuff to do in the beautiful Florida sunshine while waiting for the high tide level to rise.
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