Monday, April 21, 2014

Waked And Awake

We love Dove dark chocolate..look what the message was this weekend. 

Every sailor you talk to that sails smaller boats, maybe 46 feet and less, will tell you that most motorboats are "disliked". Disliked is a mild term.  Some have much stronger language for them. It's not the boats themselves, but the the "captains" (used loosely) that man them. It seems they have no knowledge of the effect their wakes cause to sailboats with no sail up. Especially in narrow canals and channels. Where, by the way, their is usually a minimum wake zore or no wake zone in place.  So after going through a bridge they speed up past us, usually with little room between us, and we try to maneuver over their wake as best we can. The best way for us is to cross is at a 45 degree angle or closer.  This is so our deep heavy keel can power straight through it. Otherwise we are tossed back and forth with the force of a tornado. (We'll not a tornado, but things go flying down below and we are in the cockpit holding on for dear life). Now this is exactly what happens on our way to Ft Lauderdale from Miami.  This particular 50 foot fishing boat was so close we weren't able to get the right angle on his 6 foot wake. (Ok it was probably 2 foot, you get the idea). This causes Jon, quiet stable Jon, to say swear words that I'm not sure I've ever heard before.  €€<%}~~<¥•>>@&&&@@@;:  It doesn't help that neither of us have slept in a week or more. And we haven't had good sleep for months.  (Side note: we are stopping in Ft Lauderdale to purchase a custom marine mattress to fit in our V-birth).  So we put ourselves and the boat back together and finish our journey to our mooring ball at Los Olas City Marina. 
We are excited to be here. Our friends, Ladd and Denise from the sailboat Blue are here and my nephew, Ben and his girlfriend, Ashley live here.  Ashley takes me to Good Friday service and invites us to Easter service.  We've made arrangements to tour the bed factory and pick out our mattress.  The owner, Don, picks us up Saturday.  That's right picks us up. (Now you know these beds cost a million dollars).  He is a super nice man and we chat all the way. He lived in Queens near where our daughter, Sara lives. He has been making mattresses for 35 years and came to Ft Lauderdale in 1991.  We are impressed with how down to earth he is and hard working. The factory is great and the staff wonderful. Donna helps us with our decision by letting us try different mattresses.  After all the paperwork, Don offers to take us grocery shopping or make any stops we need.  (Side note: (hope these side notes aren't too annoying). Their employee that delivers the mattresses came out to Marathon to make a templet of our V-birth. He had to ride on the dingy and couldn't swim.  It was a pretty windy day and he got a little wet. He was so nice and personable. We liked him immediately). Onward, Don rushed our order and got the mattress to us by Monday  afternoon.  In fact he was giving the sewing employee the instructions as we left the factory Saturday.  

Meanwhile, Jon sees that something is wrong with our overflow resevouir for the coolant and our hot water heater. Seems that when we got waked our hot water heater jumped off its base and drove the board that holds the coolant resevouir into the top of the tank. Oh crap!  We have to purchase a hot water tank.  Even though it's only a six gallon hot water tank they are not cheap. Like almost $1,000 not cheap. (Another annoying side note: I'm glad we had already paid for our mattress or that might have gone on the wayside). When the shock wore off and he had cursed that fishing boat enough times to make himself feel better, our friends Denise and Ladd took us to West Marine and McDonalds Hardware for all our needs. So lucky to have such generous friends, they even took us for breakfast at Lestor's as it's in the middle of all the marine stores in Ft Lauderdale.  

Well, I went to a wonderful Easter service with Ashley and Ben at their church and Jon pulled the tank. He was in such a mess trying to make things workable so that we'd have cold water that he even missed Easter dinner.  We picked up our new tank on Monday morning and got our mattress installed on Monday afternoon. We had a good night sleep for the installation of the hot water heater on Tuesday.  Jon needed it too as it took him all day and into the early evening to get everything in place and stop the leaks. (Plumbers don't make enough money).   I got to go with Denise to Kohls to get some much needed clothes. Guess I've gained a couple of pounds. Miss my Zumba and Nia classes. 

We had so much fun and got work done in Ft Lauderdale.  It pays to have friends and family that have a car--just like when we were teenagers. 

    Lizards every where. I like how their tail curls on the end. 

Ashley and Ben. Ben is in his uniform for work at a marina up the New River. 

Ben and Marguerite 
Crazy raccoons that play in the marina looking for cat food. Their were about six of them. 

Ashley singing at Easter Service. Ben was doing the sound. I videoed some of it and it's on my  Facebook if you want. 

After service 

Ben with one of the Tucker's famous dill pickles.  So good. 

This is what the cockpit looked like Easter Sunday. 
T

Here's Jon's happy face. It's about 85 degrees out and 85% humidity. 

Look how he just fits in that locker.  
Top of the hot water tank

Bottom of the tank...whatever was inside got driven down and out. 

Base of tank that jumped when we were waked. 

New tank installed with Jon's blood, sweat and tears. 


comfortcustombedding.com this is the factory of Cumfort Custom Bedding an Marine Bedding, inc. 
This is Donna's father working. 
 
Richard and his partner coming to install our mattress. Jon that was funny how they called it an installation.  Take old stuff out put new mattress in.  

    Installed matress..Dove, I hope you're right and we sleep later. Or just sleep!

  Our morning view at Las Olas City Mooring  

   Ft Lauderdale from the water. 

  Cool panoramic view. The water looked almost cobalt blue. 

 Sailing past the moored tankers off the coast. 

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