Monday, April 29, 2013

Homeless and Vita Gets Her Bottom Wet

What a whirl wind. Everything just seems to happen so fast. We are sitting in our camper outside of Serena's parents house. She is still asleep, trying to catch up on some badly needed down time. I, of course, wide awake and searching for my second cup of coffee.

We hooked up the trailer yesterday, and towed all of our belongs out of the driveway for the last time. As exciting as it all is, there is some trepidation as we leave the known for the unknown, but I guess that's how one makes adventure. The house deal still needs to go through today, and we don't settle into the campground until Wednesday, so still in a state of of constant change, kind of like a science experiment where the hypothesis has still not been proven. We said so long to our friends and neighbors in Riverside Pines. We have no doubt that we'll see them again pretty soon anyway, but just in case. Besides that, we would never do them the disservice of not recognizing their friendship, cause they have been really good to us over the last 3 years.

Vita is wet. Saturday was crane day, and even though the preparations were a little extreme, we had her ready for the water. She started a little rough, but got going, and when I tried to leave the wall, I put her aground. The stern was moving out, but it must be pretty shallow there. Eventually, with some helpers, we managed to get her pointed in the right direction, and headed toward her slip. About half way there the engine quit. And it was not going to restart. Air in the lines, clogged fuel filter, dirty air cleaner, all possibilities. I was planning to do a complete service on the engine anyway, so I'll probably alleviate the problem during that process. The fuel filters haven't been changed in at least 3 years, and the fuel is 2 or 3 years old, so I am afraid she is badly overdue. We haven't used her much though, so most of the problems are from sitting around too much, not from lack of maintenance. I'll add it to the list, but I have to order the parts first.

The good news though; no leaks. PHEW...... I was pretty confident that the new seacocks and thru hulls were good, but human error being what it is, you just never know. An 1/8th of a cup of water ended up below the galley sink, not even enough to make it too the limber holes to the bilge. It took me a little bit to figure out where it came from, because it was right beside a new seacock, but it looks like it was some water that flowed from wherever it was trapped, when the crane picked up the boat.

It was a really good lift-in day. We were finished by 2:00. I was just so fried from all the activity going on in my life over the last couple of months, that it was all I could do to stay involved. Serena on the other hand was a trouper. She loves crane day, don't know why, but its on the list of things she would prefer to do with her weekend. She didn't even stop for lunch. She did however make me take her out to dinner, to a restaurant in a neighboring town, that we always wanted to try. Its not like I was in the mood to cook either.

We did manage to complete a bunch of projects since the last report, but no pictures, just too preoccupied. So I will try and get some of those up later in the week. Wednesday or Thursday we'll be hard at it again, making new lists, re-prioritizing, and trying to get the boat livable by June. Ughhhh....

At least there is no grass to cut.... Fair Winds......

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