Touch of Class

After a week and a half goes by, we get a call from Diversified Marine.  Do we want to come and inspect the bottom job.  Of Course! So off we go to check out the bottom job.

There she is!

Lookin good!  The guy in charge of the paint department, Freeman, sees us walking into the yard and motions us over to his “office” which is a medal crate in the yard.  His wife had cooked a yellow bundt cake with chocolate frosting.  He said he knew we were coming today and he brought us a piece of the cake.  He was probably lying, but man, that bundt cake was the best!  I can’t remember the last time I had a piece of frosted bundt cake. Yummy!  Anyway, he took us over and showed us how they painted the bow thruster and prop white so when the scuba diver comes to clean the bottom while it is in the water, he can see if he is getting it clean.Pretty Prop.

That guy that Gary is talking to, is the head of the mechanics that changed the timing belt.  He told Gary everything went fine and was no trouble.  Boy, these people are nice.  They just have to touch up the paint in a few places, throw her in and run the engine to make sure everything is good.  She should be ready for pick up the next day.  So we head back home and leave our baby in their good hands.

The next day Gary and I drive to Diversified to pick up the boat.  We look for it before we go in to pay  There she is!  And she’s floating! That’s good.  Better go in and pay before Gary hops in and takes her home.  They had already sent us an invoice so there was no sticker shock when they handed us a copy of the invoice to pay from, but I will say, the credit card was smokin by the time they got done running the charge thru :).

All in all we were very happy with their service and prices.  And heck, if they are going to give us cake every time we bring the boat in for service, we’ll be loyal customers ;).

While the boat was in getting fixed, I figured I’d put Gary to work and we’d complete another condo project.  This time we tackled the master closet.  Now this is the first time I have had a walk in closet and it can sure hold a lot of stuff.

Stuff

Stuff

And more stuff

Can you see a theme in those pictures?  Looks like a lot of boat stuff.

So it’s off to one of our favorite stores, Lowes, to see what kind of shelving we can find.

We find just what we need.  Some shelving for the storage area outside and some shelving for the walk in closet.  We start with the storage area outside first.  Now ya know Gary couldn’t start to organize without cleaning first, so he cleaned out the area and then foamed all the cracks to keep the little beasties from sneaking in

Foam up those cracks

Then he built the shelf, which was pretty easy, and then started packing

Nice pack job

He always does a good job of packing things in.

The next job was getting the walk in closet ready.  First we have to get all the stuff out. Then we have to take down the shelving that is in there.  Then we have to find the studs in the wall.  We don’t have a stud finder so Gary finds them by pounding nails into the wall to find one stud, then he pounds a few more nails in the wall to find the center of the stud

Found the stud

then measures 16 on center to find the rest :).  Of course if I need to find a stud I just go get Gary ;).

Then it is time to paint

So then we put together our first shelf for the walk-in closet.  We bought one that was more heavy duty to hold all the heavy stuff.  A nice stainless steel one. That went together lickity split

Then Gary packed it with some of our stuff.    I keep calling it stuff but it really is our most precious items.

We bought a pretty one for our clothes.  It came in 8 boxes.  Hmmmmm, I’ve put a bunch of desks, chairs, shelves together at the old law firm, how hard can this be?  Well according to the instructions, it should take us 3 hours and 45 minutes to build the shelf, drawer, two wire baskets and two shelves with rods.  Ha!   3 days later we were all done.

I started with something simple, the drawer

OK, that was pretty easy.  I even attached the metal slides on the side.  Now lets tackle the “ventilated wood tower”

Nuts and bolts

Wood parts

Looks easy enough…..yah right!  I’m building the thing on the bed so I have to take a few minutes to get my bearings as I screw things together  And no one will ever know that I put one of those cross brackets on backwards.  You won’t tell, will you?

The next process is figuring out where to put the two sliding wire baskets and the slide out drawer.  Sure, they give you directions on how to install them, but don’t tell you which holes you need to screw the screws into.  The drawer and wire baskets are options for this shelving unit, so there are holes for shelves and holes to screw this stuff in.  After a couple of tries, we got those on.  Place the shelves on and whala….. the Ventilated Wood Tower is completed.

Now comes the tricky part.  Our wall that we are putting all this shelving on is only 9 feet 5 inches but we have bought 10 feet worth of shelving.  So when it comes time to install the Ventilated Shelves, I pass the torch over to Gary.  He first assembles the shelf brackets

Then he does some measuring on the Ventilated Shelf because we are going to have to cut it off .  Then it is off to Ace Hardware because we had to install the shelf brackets where the studs are and now we need a couple of “L” brackets to screw the shelf to the tower.  He does the same process to the other shelf, anchors all the shelving to the studs and we are good to go!

I put my stuff on the new organizer

I think there is something sad to say about a person that only needs 15 hangers to hang up their clothes.  And 5 of those hangers have coats on them :(.  Don’t anyone die anytime soon, I apparently have nothing appropriate to wear :).

So this was a good time filler while we waited for the boat to be fixed.  It kept us both out of trouble.

We got the call  on the boat.  It is not going to be $8000, only $1200 to change out the belt and replace the tensioner (whatever the heck that is).  That was good news.   They must have had a skinny guy with monkey arms that can bend like a pretzel :), and we only have to wait about a week and a half to have it all done.  Whew, good news all around.

It is that time of year again.  Time to spend some money and get some work done on the boat.  We have heard horror stories from the people who are in our boat club.  The amount of money they are spending on their boats is incredible and makes me want to cry.  But it is time to paint the bottom of the boat plus we need some maintenance done on it.  We checked out a few places down here to get the bottom done and our maintenance completed.  We settled on Diversified Marine which is located just before the Fort Myers Beach.  Not to bad getting there by car this time of year but during season, we pack a lunch :).

Anyway, this boat is quite a bit smaller than the Navigator.  Gary was used to an, almost, walk in engine room,

Navigator Engine Room

where he could get to the engines and repair or replace whatever needed to be done. Unfortunately, with the smaller boat comes no engine room :(.

Engine Room on the Albin

The engine is crammed into the engine box so well, it takes a very skinny guy with long arms like a monkey and the ability to bend like a pretzel, to work on it. That is why we have to pay to have someone work on this boat :(.

An interesting Trivia note, we found out that our old Pearson

1972 43 Foot Pearson

was built in the same factory as our 2003 Albin, which was located in Portsmouth, RI. Apparently Pearson went out of business in 1989 and the building was sold to Albin some time after that where they starting building the Albins.  Small world, huh?

Now back to the story at hand….on the bottom, the boat came with white hard paint on it,

See the white bottom

which was OK when it was in a lift all the time but as the boat sits in the water, the bottom can get pretty nasty.

(And the guy just cleaned the bottom the day before!)

As we contemplated the color to choose for the bottom paint, we figured this time we’d get black anti-fouling paint on it. With the black, it at least won’t show the nasty stuff as bad as the white :), although Gary will know it is there ;).

The maintenance we need completed is the timing belt needs to be replaced.

Timing belt

The recommended time to change the belt is 1250 hours or 7 years.  Now, we are considerably south of the 1250 hours but we are considerably north of the 7 years so we figured we should get it replaced cause if the belt goes, now you are looking at a $35,000 repair.  So, we figured we better bite the bullet and get it fixed before that happens.

BTW, you people that have a place to work on your boat on land don’t know how lucky you have it. Down here, if you can find a place, they charge you $75 to $100 a day to store your boat in their lot so you can get work done on it.  Luckily, Diversified won’t charge land storage.

So off Gary goes with the boat to Diversified to get the boat pulled for the bottom job and the replacement of the timing belt.  (As a side note, if you have a car with a timing belt instead of a timing chain, you too need to change that belt at 60,000 to 75,000 miles or you run the risk of it breaking and taking out your engine.  So you better check those maintenance logs 🙂 )

I drove the van to the marina  so I could pick Gary up when he got there.  Look…….here he comes!

Here comes the Touch of Class

Don’t forget those bumpersSee what a good Captain he is?  He is wearing his life jacket.  Good boy!

Look what they’ll be using to pull the boat out with.

There are a lot of these boat lifts down here for the smaller boats.  They have more dry stack down here.  Dry stack means they pull your boat out of the water and slip it into a shelf in a very large building.  They just put it back in the water when they get a call from you telling them to put it in the water.  This can be a nice option if  you have a small enough boat to dry stack.  Keeps the boat out of the weather and out of the sun.

 Ooooooh!  Look at the size of those tires.  They are about 4 1/2 feet high.

  There is our little baby, up on the lift.

 Wow!  Look at that stained bottom.  The black paint will look good on the bottom and hide that nasty stain.  The guy talking to Gary, Freeman, asked him what kind of time frame the office people gave us when we made our appointment. Gary responded, “A week”.  The guy laughed and pointed, “See that big 62 foot sport fisherman over there? See that 50 foot sport fisherman boat over there?  They were here first.  You might get yours back around Christmas time.”  And the guy laughs.  We hope he is kidding.

So we leave our baby in good hands and go back home to wait for the verdict on the price to fix the timing belt.  It is either going to be over $8,000 cause they have to pull the engine out of the boat because they don’t have a skinny enough guy with monkey arms that can bend like a pretzel, or it will be about $1400.  We’re hoping for the $1400.  We’ll keep you posted.

One Sunday, the weather was pretty nice.  Sunny, 82°, low winds.  Let’s take the boat out and check out the Bimini Basin!

Now you’ve seen this basin before by land, when we went to the cardboard boat races, so we figured it was time to check it out by sea.

We left our canal and drove past the house in our neighborhood that they have been working on for about a year  Those tiles for the roof have been there since May.  Shoot!  I could have roofed that place by now!

Then we head out into the river

Where is everyone?

We left about noon, not a boat in sight.  It doesn’t take us long to get to the channel that we need to go down to get to the Bimini Basin

Then we start to see the million dollar homes

 this one is getting a new roof, wonder if they will finish before our neighbors ;).

This guy is still up north, see the hurricane shutters.  Notice these are all corner lots?  Couple of bucks just for the property.  Then you run into this house that no one loves anymore  Poor house :(.

As we drive down the main canal, there are off shoots to other canals

 and each canal has a name

Ours is called , that way, as you are driving around in the canals, the names will hopefully help you get back out to where you came from :).

Anyway, we did make it to the Bimini Basin. There are always some boats anchored in it…..it’s free dockage :).  So we spooked around a little more and then headed home.  A few more people out in their boats by the time we headed home.

All in all, it was a nice little outing.

So even though we live in Florida, we do have a furnace.  Of course attached to that furnace is our air conditioner.  Down here the air conditioner gets used way more than the furnace.  As a matter of fact, we have only turned on our furnace once since we bought the place and that was just to make sure it worked :).  But you still have to do the same maintenance that you would on your furnace as if it were up north.  So we replace the filters ever few months.

Our furnace has the filters behind this slotted thingie

Here is where we replace our furnace filter

(And no, those aren’t big dust bunnies, they are cat toys 🙂 )

We have purchased several replacement filters since we  have been here.  The first time, we didn’t know what size it was because we forgot to measure it before we left.  We ended up buying one that was way to big and Gary had to cut it to size.  But that was OK, the filters are pretty cheap, right?

The next time we needed a filter, Gary took some measurements.  We needed 19 1/2 by 19 1/2.  Great!  Now we know what size to get.  Off to the store we go.  Hmmmm.  They don’t have any that are 19 1/2 by 19 1/2.  Well, let’s try a 20 X 20, that’s pretty close.  We got it home and Gary was able to trim it again to size.  Humph!  Still not the right size.

Next time we needed one we asked someone at the store.  They said to check the actual size that is usually listed somewhere on the filter.  Well that will help, goodie!  So we find one that is 19 1/2 X 19 1/2, according to the actual size listed on the filter, we get it home and it still doesn’t fit.  Gary again trims a little off so it finally fits.  What the heck?  These stupid filters.  I know our place is old but come on!  There has to be a filter that fits.

So the other day we went to a little hardware store down the road from us called Family Hardware.  Gary figures if nothing else, he’ll order filters to the right size.  So we go in the hardware store and asks if they will order furnace filters?  The guys that helps us, who is obviously from New York, kind of snickers and says “Ya mean air conditioner filters?  They don’t call them furnace filters down here”  Yah, yah. Whatever!  So Gary tells him his dilemma.  “Oh”, the guy says, “You want a grille filter”.   Huh?  He takes us back to the filters and takes out a regular 20 X 20 filter and a Grill 20 X 20 filter.  Low and behold the Grill filter is just a smidge smaller.  Very nice!  We buy one and run home to try it.

Perfect fit

Would you look at that, a perfect fit.  Who’d a thunk?  Back to the hardware store to order a case ;).

I’d like to apologize to the citizens of Florida.  Everywhere we live they have “highly” unusual weather.  While we were in Iuka, Mississippi, they had such a cold winter the Tenn-Tom froze over, while we were in Orange Beach, they had an ice storm that lasted 2 days and shut everything down, while we were in Chattanooga, they had the warmest summer they have had in years.  Now we have moved down to Florida and

here comes Tropical Storm Hermine.  They haven’t had one since 2005.  I tell ya, we just bring the bad weather with us where ever we go.  So…..sorry Florida :).

Holy Tamoly, it’s the end of August!  Where has the summer gone?

One of the things we had scheduled when we got back was a bottom cleaning.  On the boat, not us!  We have to have someone come every month during the summer and every few months during the winter to clean off the scum and barnacles that grow on the bottom.  As the previous owner kept the boat on a lift for the past 10 years, the boat didn’t come with anti-fouling paint on it so the growth from the beasties builds up quicker than it did on the Navigator while it was up in Minnesota.

We were home about a week and a half when we left for another boat trip.  We were going with 3 other couples who belong to the boat club.  We went to the South Seas Island Resort which was located on Captiva Island.

We left early in the day.  We drove by Beartrax South

They still have those babes on the upper deck ;).

Of course is was hot out, even this early in the morning.  Look at this guy 

I think he is trying to air out his arm pits…..he must be hot too.

We passed this barge……

Propane truck, I wonder where he’s going???

Then as we were driving along, taking our time, as we were in no rush, we hear this loud horn behind us.  I turned around and there was this 75 foot cattle boat about 40 feet off our stern.  What the heck!  We were hugging the reds, plenty of room for him to pass, no one coming, what’s with the horn?  Gary, as cool as a cucumber, just held his course and kept on moving.  I on the other hand would have been giving it gas and getting out of his way.  He was a lot bigger than us!  I guess that’s why Gary is the Captain and I’m just the Admiral :). Here is a picture of that not so courteous boat pulling off to his destination.

I hope he runs aground….whoops…..did I say that out loud?

We finally arrive at our destination without further incident and no more honking horns.  A couple of guys meet us and helped us tie up.  Snug as a bug in a rug!  That is one thing about the marinas down here, there is always someone to help you tie up your lines.  I’m not used to that and it is more stressful for me.  Now I’m running from the front to the back to toss lines to the guys.  Before, I just jumped off and tied a center line and got the bow and stern line from the dock.  A lot easier for me.

Oh, BTW, notice the new Bimini?  We had that made for the boat while we were up north. We were hoping to get a little more shade out of it.

After we got tied up we went to the ships store and checked in.  This is a resort, so they gave us an arm band so we could use their pool and trolley.  Then they also gave us a plastic card. You know, like the ones you get in hotels to open your door.  The way the card works here is, you use this card to pay for everything and then when you leave, they charge everything to the credit card you leave on file.  So ok, I can handle that.

As a side note, I get notifications by Email if there is a charge over $10 on any of my credit cards.  By the time I make it back to the boat, I receive a notice that they have charged my credit card $610.00.  Holy Hoot!  I am not staying here if the dockage is $305 a night.  I march back up to the ships store, smoke coming out of my ears, Gary is there trying to calm me down and make sure I don’t hit anyone.  I tell them what happened.  They say that because we have never been there before they do a pending charge (I’m sure to make sure our credit is not denied) and then they run thru the real charge at the end of the visit.  Ok, I get it, but there is no way I am spending $610 in 3 days here, I hope.

The place was pretty though

Ships Store

Fishing Dock and Putting Green

Jet Ski’s you can rent

Kids Pool with 2 slides

Hot Tub

Pool Number two

Pool Number three

See those tents?  You can rent them with all the comforts of home, all for a nice price :).

Pool at the bar

It was pretty hot in afternoon on the first day, too hot for a Minnesotan who can’t stand the heat and humidity yet.  (I am told this will come with time but for now, I was melting.)  I spent the rest of the afternoon in the boat in the air conditioning.  I had my kindle though, so oh well…could be worse.  Gary stayed out squirting himself with a hose all afternoon and watched the comings and goings of the marina.  Happy as a pig in mud.

On the second day, it was cool enough for me to get out of the air conditioned comfort of the boat in the morning.  Gary found me a nice place under an umbrella by pool three. After sitting there a while, we decided to order a couple of strawberry daiquiris.  So $30 later, Gary brings me a solo cup with a cherry on top.  Yup, last ones we ordered.  They weren’t getting that $610 no matter now good those daiquiris were ;).

Both nights we took the free Trolley, that goes from one end of the resort to the other, and left the resort to have dinner on Captive.  The first night we went to Doc Fords.  They had a wide selection and the price was pretty typical.  On the way home, the trolley was full so 2 of us couples had to stand in the back of the trolley and hold on.  There were two younger people that stood up and offered us their seats.  Chivalry is not dead.

The next night we were going to RC Otter which was a small restaurant on the main drag of Captiva.  We had to hop on the trolley again.  As we neared the trolley stop, the seat in the Trolley stop was full of people, a few people jumped up and offered us seats.  Hey! Once is chivalry, twice mean we are a bunch of old people and the young people are giving us their seat cause we are too old to stand and wait for the trolley.  Well keep your seat bucko!  I’m not that old yet! 😉

We made it to RC Otter and didn’t even have to use our walker.  That place was pretty small but it also had good food.  I guess during “season”, people are lined up outside waiting to get in.  We all had a good time and enjoyed the short walk back to the trolley.  Thankfully it was pretty empty and we didn’t have any people offering up their seats again.

The marina had a lot of manatee and dolphins in it (although I didn’t see any).  The manatee munched the grass on the bottom of the maria  See the mess they made of the marina.  That is the grass they pulled but didn’t eat.

Later Thursday night, a big boat pulled into the marina  112 feet with lots of toys.  Didn’t see any people get off the boat, just the crew taking the toys off.  The boat was so big the marina didn’t have a power box big enough for them to plug into.  They had to run their generator all night.  I hope they didn’t get charged for their electric like we did, hee hee.

Early the third day we headed out.

When we left, we went out the Red Fish Pass to the Gulf.  

Here are some pictures of the resort from the gulf side

While we were driving we saw a group of dolphins so we slowed down

I saw one dolphin swim in our wake in the middle and another jump thru it.  You’ll have to use your imagination….I wasn’t quick enough with the camera.

We made it home with no further honking or fist shaking.  I decided, and Gary agreed, it was too hot!  We had a good time but I think I’ll pass on the next boat trip if the weather is going to be that hot again.

We always run up to Minnesota in the summer and winter to visit the family.  This year the main reason for going was because our daughter was having our second grandchild.  The baby turned out to be a boy!

6 pounds 14 oz.  20 ½ inches long.  He was a keeper :).

Of course the first grandson was thrilled to be shoved to the back row of mom’s attention 

Your days of chillin on the river are done for this year, you little Pirate :).

And the dog was like 

Whoa is me, now I am really the last man on the totem pole :(, and I had brown eyes first!

While we were there, both mom and dad did a great job making sure they passed out just enough attention to keep everyone happy.  Of course we were there to step in if someone needed a bottle,  someone needed someone to play with them or if someone needed an extra scratch behind the ears.

We were sad to leave but we knew we’d be back in less than 6 months for another visit.

We have been doing things around the condo to get it ship shape.  Aside from painting some rooms, and loving and kissing the boat, we had to re-varnishing our front door.  A few of the people have had trouble with termites in their doors.  (One of the good things about living in Minnesota….No Termites)  The people had to pull off their doors and send them to an exterminator to be bagged and smogged to kill any termites in their doors.  Then they re-varnished their doors so they looked like brand new.  Now ours looked like crap so looks like another project for Gary ;).

So we were going to be without our front door for a few weeks.  Luckily we had a lanai door (for those of you Northerners who have never heard of a lanai, a lanai is like a screened in porch 😉 ) to go in and out of.  Again, Gary does some thinking outside of the box.  Everyone else just stapled some plastic on their door frame, hoping a praying no little lizards would get past their weak attempts to keep them out.   Gary, on the other hand, went and bought a sheet of 1 inch foam insulation, cut it to size and duck taped it into the door frame.  There weren’t any creepy crawlies getting into our place, no siree Bob!

Luckily, after varnishing over 150 feet of railing on the old Chris and 75 feet of railing and toe rails on the Pearson, Gary was up to the task and had plenty of experience.

Front door

Looks pretty tricky doesn’t it, with all those little curly q’s and everything.  But all you have to do is sand down the flat area, scuff up the really dark areas and you are ready to varnish.  But the sanding alone took 3 or 4 days…..per side :).  Ya know the neighbors didn’t spend that much time sanding, but they didn’t have the Captain of the Touch of Class working on their door, now did they?

Well after all the sanding was done, Gary was ready to apply the varnish

Gary in a Tarp

Lookin good there Hermes :).  Well he might look funny but he did an excellent job on the door AND he kept his clothes clean!

The finished productThen we found this neat turtle to hide the spot where the old door chime went

Now, not to be outdone, I was given the task of cleaning up and repainting some of the condo mascots.  Mr. Frog and Mr. Heron, they look awful!

So sad 😦

After much sanding, but not 4 days worth ;), and much painting, the job was done

Mr. Frog – So Handsome 🙂

Mr. Heron, I’m watching you Lizard!

Pretty good for a lowly Admiral, huh?  See, Gary’s not the only one with talents.

We also had a section of dirt between the two buildings that looked pretty bare.  Gary got some plants from a friend of ours who was thinning out her herd.  So he planted these

Pretty good job there ex-florist.

Wow!  Look at the time.  We need to get going to travel up to Minnesota for the birth of our 2nd Grandchild. See you later!