Revelations and Nasty Weather

The Admiral and I decided that even though the weather was not going to be nice we would "Load In" this weekend. We loaded the truck Friday night and on Saturday we drove out to the marina and assessed the situation. The wind was blowing out of the East North East which means the wind and wave had the entire fetch of Lake Erie from Buffalo on out to us to get quite angry. We took a load of stuff to the boat, which included our dog Rudy, and we got onboard and inside. The technicians that replaced the impeller and verified water flow left everything off so it was COLD. We turned on shore power and fired up the reverse AC units in the master and salon to generate some heat. They worked nicely and it got comfy warm quickly. Chris started to clean and I started to cut the carpet padding which will be underneath the new carpet that we bought for the Master Stateroom and the companion way.

Once I was done with that I started unscrewing panels near the electrical console on the Port side of the pilothouse and found the cable chase up to the flybridge console. So now I figure that I have found the way to route the Starlink cable and place the control unit for the starlink and we have options for placement of the wireless router. We will mount the Flat High Performance antennae where the Satellite Dome is currently mounted.

I put the paneling back together since we were not going to do any of that work in the current weather conditions so we will do that work another day. We also decided NOT to raise the mast in this weather since it was cold and wet and windy. The wind was blowing in a helpful direction but everything else was working against us. Once we had made good progress we decided to go shopping for some food. We have kitchen facilities, castiron and implements to cook we just needed food to cook. So we left Rudy in the comfy confines of the boat and went to Bassett's Market to shop for food.

We returned with some good lookin food from Bassett's and got back to cleaning and generally getting Ship Shape. It is Saturday May 3rd so it is Derby Day and we did eventually get the fixin's for Mint Julep's. I tried my hand at making a Julep or 2 and was pleased with my efforts. The Admiral was suitably impressed as well. We were able to hook up the coax cable to the boat and get signal from the DirectTV service that is available from the marina. We were able to program the TV to sense about 20 channels so we can use that instead of the streaming App that uses the Marina WiFi. The whole streaming WiFi thing on the iPad works but the TV is nicer.

We watched the Derby, which was a muddy mess, but entertaining just the same. We get the 3 major networks, FoodNetwork and a couple of the ESPN networks. All in all a reasonable lineup that we can watch. We will eventually have the Starlink up and running and that will give us more options.

Bed time came and the wind was still blowing. I went out with Rudy and he did his best to "water" one of the plants. We got back on board and closed things up so that we could go to bed. Even though we are well situated, the wind is blowing and the boat is making unfamiliar noises. That keeps my lizard brain on alert and I do not get good sleep. In fact at 3am I get up as the wind is blowing harder and check the lines and decide to get a few more out and double up on the existing mooring lines. Looking back on it I really did not need to do that but it made me more confident so I was able to get to sleep for a couple of hours. Rudy woke us up at the usual 5:30am so we went out. Heavy wind with some rain that reminded me of riding my motorcycle back in the day.....

Chris got up around 7 and I followed around 8 and we turned on the TV. Willie Geist comes on NBC at 8am so we were able to watch that and then at 9am we switch over to CBS for CBS Sunday Morning. All low key and NOT political. I forgot the paper filters for the Aeropress so I had to do without my morning coffee on Sunday but that is OK. I needed to drink some water after the wine and Mint Julep's the night before and I had Oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar. We finished up our work and then got things ready to load back into the truck. I took a load to the truck and MAN ALIVE was the wind blowing. I backed the truck down the access way so it was half the distance to walk with stuff.

We got loaded into the truck and made our way home. We are now about 90% ready for the season. We just need to raise the mast and install the Starlink. Once that is done we are ready to go cruising and have guests.

Oh yeah...... We need to get the name and hailing port on the transom. Still work to do but we are making significant progress.

Just Us II out and back to 16......