The Big Fix
23 November 2014
Kimber
Back to the Mainland...again :/
Once we left "Sailor's Disneyland", it was a lonely ride back to the Mainland. No Dolphins, Whales, Sea Lions and the rare Bird?! Quiet, solemn, pensive. The joy and enrichment from our flotilla was merging into a new level of thought, transitioning into stress. There is a lot of stuff to fix on the boat, quite possibly whole replacements?! In the back of my brain, all I heard was the "Cha-Ching" of a cash register! Yep, it's a boat!!
Back to Dana Point, and full circle with the chaos of management there! We originally planned on about ten days there, but then it came back to the whole, "you have to move one slip over in two days and then over again in the next four days." WTH kind of organizational skills are those?! The morning of the move, there were three of us out on the dock, all shaking our heads and muttering under our breaths. One guy was a school teacher and had to take the day off of work to move his boat. The other scenario down the dock, was an older guy that just recently lost all his electronics, because his boat had sunk at the slip and wasn't sure that all things were working?! Greeeeaaaaate!! It was now past Noon and the dock-Nazi, complete with the pencil thumping on her clip board, with a very determined march down the dock, gave us all a chill. She issued the "you must move" commands to us. Well, we all tried to plead our case and tell her that we were all just trading places, same sized boats, same sized slips and we were all comfortable as is, plus no one was interested in moving. NOPE!! Wasn't having it!! "You ALL MUST MOVE NOW!!" Wow!! Whateva... Have it you're way! Guy #1 pulls out and is so flustered that he forgot to unplug his power cord and just rips it out by the roots! His power cord whips through the air and into the water, trailing behind his boat. Guy #2 pulls out and is trying to maneuver around Guy #1 (who is freaking out over his power cord flailing in the water!!) and Mike and I are waiting for some semblance of order?! We can't really move until someone gets out of the way. Geeeeeeze!! Guy #2 pours on his bow thruster, shoves it into forward and blows past Guy #1 (cord still in the water!!) and winds up taking out part of his beautiful wood taffrail on the concrete piling, into the slip. Mike and I had backed out and had decided to take a stroll around the inner harbor, to wait for the guys to get settled, when.... Ooooop'sie!!! We forgot that we had closed all the through hulls, when we had left the boat for a couple of days?! No cooling water to the engine!! Engine was running way hot!! Mike tells me to put the engine into idol, so he can run down below and open the through hull. Unfortunately, as he opens up the engine compartment, the through hull lever is in a skinny spot between the bulk head and the flywheel/alternator belt that is running fast and furious!! Mike yells up at me to kill the engine. It's too dangerous for him to try and squeeze by the fan belt. I push the kill switch button and turn the engine key to the off position...NOTHING HAPPENS!! Whuuuuuuut???!!! It was totally possessed and would NOT turn off!! Now we are at idle speed, really no steering because we are going so slow, floundering around in an anchorage cove, can't cut the power, impending engine overheat and Mike is now screaming at me to hit the kill switch, for the tenth time!!! He's not getting the whole, IT WON'T DIE, deal!!! Things are smelling very hot and life is getting a tad bit stressful!!! Mike comes running up and goes through the series of tasks that need to be done to turn the engine off (two tasks!) and GUESS WHAT???!!! Yep, engine didn't turn off!! Okay, breathe, breathe, breathe....
Mike runs up and grabs the boat hook. We are now starting to smoke a little. He runs down below and throws open the engine compartment and like a very large, life size version of the childhood game of "Operation", squeezed the boat hook down through the skinny spot and hooks the through hull lever, to pull it open and start the water exchange going through, into the engine. Good gravy!!! We maneuver through the anchorage waving the Princess wave at folks and get into our slip. We are officially, "Guy #3"!!
We had enough of this Marina. Time to leave and ask for a refund, because we don't believe we will be back! Unfortunately, because we actually really liked the area, my best friend lives just up the road, kinda sad actually :(
Off to Oceanside! Kinda like Oceanside! After all my squeaky wheel episode to get signs up, so the tourist masses would be informed to stop harassing the Sea Lions. I met with qthe Mayor, Jim Wood, himself and had the pleasure to express my gratitude! The signs are up all over the Harbor! I'm feeling pretty good about that.
We came in after hours to tie up to our favorite dock. It was a very pleasant evening, quiet, making a simple dinner. Mike was sitting in the cockpit on a call with his Mom, when I pop my head up, (we call it "prairie dogging") to tell him that dinner is ready, as I look over to the sailboat that had recently pulled in behind us...
Shut the Hell up!!! Herb and his wife Tami from Astoria, Oregon!!! Small world!! I ditched dinner and grabbed a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses to go next door and chat with our peeps! What a great visit!! Turns out, we are both traveling in the same holding pattern for awhile and it was just so great to visit with them! Only for them to leave the next morning. They were off to Catalina for a couple of weeks. We were headed to San Diego to our new favorite Marina to fix things!
Fixes;
#1) the head
#2) the dinghy engine thang...
#3) the way too much crap on board thang...
#4) finish some art projects (that I have been working on for awhile!)
#5) clean Bimini
#6) waterproof Bimini
#7) go thru lazarettes
#8) clean everything in lazarettes
9#) find shit?!
what ever else pops up, chore! It's a BOAT!!