We Were Tourists Today!

Welcome to our Blog. Our latest entry always comes up first... 
Click this link if you want to start at the beginning:
FIRST BLOG ENTRY
If you want to start at the beginning of our trip:
START OF TRIP
If you want to see the story of our trip from South Carolina
(where we bought the boat)
 to Lake Ontario Click this link:
  SOUTH CAROLINA

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The other day we left off with our dinner in the solar oven...  Well, it turned out awesome... Beef Tips and Sweet potatoes in a tomato sauce... Yummy...

We often hear about "Southern Hospitality"...  Shelley and I can attest to the reality of that statement.  We have commented a number of times about the kindness we have experienced in our time here in Myrtle Beach, and yesterday was no different.  We had just sat down for dinner, when our dock neighbor, Tracy popped by with a bag of fresh Tomatoes and a sprig of fresh Rosemary! She decided that living on our boat we would be missing the benefits of a garden, so she shared some of hers... WOW!  So kind!

Yesterday we rented a car for a few days to pick our friends, Bill & Maryann from Philadelphia, PA who will be flying in on Monday evening to visit for a few days...  We were given a Tahoe... What a nice truck!  I felt like a local in that thing....

So yesterday we took advantage of wheels and did a major provisioning run (shopping) and spent way more than we should have, but have a whole bunch of food now...

Today, we though we should see some things we can't see on our bicycles or by boat, so we traveled by car to Southport and Wilmington North Carolina. On our way we stopped at a Waffle Restaurant and treated ourselves to breakfast out then arrived in Southport where we bought some salt water toffee and a beautiful table cloth...  Be found the cloth in an antique store that was discounting everything by 25% today so paid the grand total of $24 for a hand embroidered linen...

We then went to visit the USS North Carolina, a battleship commissioned at the beginning of WW2 and made into a museum in the 1960's.  What an amazing ship... Everything on it was BIG and HEAVY...  We both decided being a seaman was was less fun than being an officer and any job on that boat must have been LOUD and DIRTY... and DANGEROUS...  Hats off to those who serve their country!

Those are BIG GUNS!

Aiming the BIG GUN...

SO MANY DIALS!

The enlisted men were stacked 3 high... Lots of room & privacy... NOT!

The red ones were practice bombs...  the blue & yellow ones were REAL...

The view from the bridge...

Just like our helm....

Shelley and a GUN... Scary....

Now THAT is an ANCHOR....

I'm on the left...

Shelley's feet and the anchor chain...

My GUN is smaller....

Everything on this boat was BIG!

 A great day being a tourist!

A Busy Few Days...

Welcome to our Blog. Our latest entry always comes up first... 
Click this link if you want to start at the beginning:
FIRST BLOG ENTRY
If you want to start at the beginning of our trip:
START OF TRIP
If you want to see the story of our trip from South Carolina
(where we bought the boat)
 to Lake Ontario Click this link:
  SOUTH CAROLINA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
During the re-fit we painted our decks and were quite proud of the outcome...  We also thought that it would be a number of years before we would have to take on that task again....

That said, we just spent the last two days painting our deck and the vertical surfaces of the boat...  The decks were SO dirty and grimy all the scrubbing in the world could not make them clean again... 

Some may think we have lost our minds, but we found Rustolium Marine Paint in Home Depot for $15 per quart (litre)!  

Compared to Interlux and other marine quality paints it worked out to about half the price!  Weather it will last is another story.  Only time will tell, but for now the decks look AWESOME! and we just have to re-finish the bright work (teak) and we will have that chore out of the way for a few years (we hope)....

"Before" on the right, and "After" on the left...

Yesterday, we invited our friends, Bill & Carol for dinner.  We realized that this was the first time we have invited someone for dinner...  We made our table "full size" and BBQ'd some steaks and boiled some tasty "Peaches n' Cream" corn.

But the BEST part of dinner was our first use of our SOLAR OVEN.  Purchased online before we left, we baked potatoes that turned out GREAT!  We started them at 1pm and we ate around 6pm.  The oven baked them with nothing more than sunshine at approximately 275 degrees using NOTHING but the SUN!

Today, Shelley made a stew and we have put it out to cook in the sun.  More on how it turned out later...  

 As for today, we will be just having a day of rest..  That is after we finish the laundry and water the herb garden, balance the checkbook and update our blogs...

Our You Tube Videos...

From time to time we get asked if we have any videos from our trip.  While we have some raw footage already, we have not yet acquired the skills to publish videos on a regular basis.  Eventually we will start to publish You Tube videos.  But for now we have just two that relate to our journey.

The first one explains much of our story and what our "Right to Write Ministry" is all about.

The second one is just a much shorter version of the first.  We used it to raise funds with service clubs before we left. It just talks about the work we plan to carry out when we get away from Canada & the US.

Here is the link to our Right to Write Blog. Feel free to follow that blog.  We will be updating it much more regularly when we get to Cuba in November and beyond...

Cheers!

Just Another Monday...

Welcome to our Blog. Our latest entry always comes up first... 
Click this link if you want to start at the beginning:
FIRST BLOG ENTRY
If you want to start at the beginning of our trip:
START OF TRIP
If you want to see the story of our trip from South Carolina
(where we bought the boat)
 to Lake Ontario Click this link:
  SOUTH CAROLINA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This weekend we met another really neat couple who keep their boat at the Myrtle Beach Yacht club.  Rich & Tracy have a lovely 39' Benateau and hope to do some cruising in the next few years... We joined them for dinner at a local restaurant called Rockefellers.  They served great oysters and other seafood.  After dinner they were kind enough to take us to the grocery store where we picked up a few things we needed...  You know when you don't have a car, shopping needs to be really well planned or you need to take advantage of kindness whenever it comes your way...

On Sunday we toured each others boats and I have to say that they have the newest 10 year old boat I've ever seen... It is so wonderful when we meet so many really cool people....

Yesterday I decided that I was fed up with the mess in my workshop and took almost 6 hours to empty it out and tidy it up.  Now maybe I'll find things when I go looking for them...  

While I was messing with the workshop, Shelley spent a few hours and cleaned the rest of the boat...  Not bad, but I have to say that I am more proud of my one room than Shelley is of all the rest she did....

For supper Shelley made some sausages and served some fresh garden tomatoes from the Yacht club, some really nice balsamic vinegar and some fresh Basil from OUR herb garden! How cool is that!

Today was a chore day.  We started with 2 loads of laundry and then tackled the big locker behind the settee in the main salon.  I have been hiding bits and pieces in that space for months, so today was the day we straightened it all out and and inventoried everything.  

When that job was finished I built straps to hold down the batteries in the event we ever get knocked down... The last thing we need after something like that is to have to clean up spilled acid, or worse get it spilled on one of us in what would already be a bad day....

  

The last job today was to repair the diesel generator (problems with the fuel lines) and then fill a few empty scuba tanks...  We discovered that the 220 volt motor that runs the compressor was not ventilated properly and it over heated until I installed an additional fan to keep it a little cooler...  In the end we filled an 80, a 65, and a 50 tank all in less than an hour... Not Bad...

Lastly, we checked the weather today and it looks like we have dodged another hurricane bullet... It looks like Cristobel will nicely veer off to the east and not cause us any concern...  Two months to go before then end of hurricane season...