At least the delays are more fun when you live on a boat

Where to start? I guess with an apology for the long pause. But, really, you haven’t missed much. We moved onto Rockhopper in late July and have been in a St. Petersburg marina for almost 4 weeks now. 

Although many of you knew how disappointed we were with the delays that kept us from moving onto the boat in the spring, we are thankful about them at this point, because they gave us extra time to spend with Dad in his last days. We saw lots of our family and friends May-July, and we were grateful to have that time with everyone. It is never enough though, and we hope to get some good quality visits in later this year.

Tree of Death

The folks in Florida finished up with all of the work in late July, and we had Rockhopper transported her from the manufacturing facility to a nearby boat yard on July 28. Unfortunately, the poor girl was damaged in that short transit. The tree (pictured) and the really nice driver (not pictured) are ultimately to blame. We moved onto her the next day, and started going through the process of having the custom stainless structure rebuilt.

Resulting damage

The owner of Caliber Yacht has been incredibly helpful with all of the arrangements, and the transit company is picking up the bill. The new structure was completed about 2 weeks after the original damage, and we moved back over to a boatyard to have the welding done.   Our latest bad news is that the elaborate canvas bimini, connector, and enclosure that was made for the boat in early July will not work with the new structure. They are currently rebuilding the bimini and will see if the rest of the canvas will work from there.

We thought we might have some time to get out on the town and visit beautiful St. Petersburg, but we are staying busy with boat projects, and the suffocating heat zaps any extracurricular energy right out of us. We are so thankful to Simon and Kristi for lending us their portable AC unit; without it, we aren’t sure we’d be able to stand the heat. With the unit, we can get our berth down to about 80 degrees at night, which doesn’t sound too bad until you remember that I slept with the window open in Antarctica every once in a while.

We spent almost a whole week just putting stuff away. Trying to get everything we brought down in the cargo van to fit in a logical place took days longer than we imagined. For the most part, everything has found its place.  There are a few items we are disappointed haven’t found a home on Rockhopper (like our precious iMac); those things will be making their way back to our remaining storage unit in Charlotte.

Rockhopper on 8/15/15 in the midst of repairs

Reinhart has been commissioning the boat systems, although many had to wait until the new structure was built. He has worked on antennas, instruments, wiring, lighting, network, entertainment, the RO unit (reverse osmosis system or fresh water maker), and the fancy-pants hydronic heating system. He is in the process of putting up the wind turbine and solar panels today. I’ve spent a lot of time “detailing” the interior of the boat. Every nook and cranny (and fan blade and light bulb) was grimy and filthy from sitting unused since last summer, not to mention the wood work and insulation that added a lot of dust to the area. Oh, and we finally finished those curtains we’ve been making on two continents for the last 8 months. 

We were hoping to be out of here by September 1, but maybe we should just aim for sometime that week. It is getting pretty late, so now our only plan is to get up to Annapolis by late September so we can get to work with the US Boat Shows in October.