It’s been quite a while since I’ve written something. By the end of the day, I’m too tired want to get anything written. I guess I’ll start off with Hilton Head. We had a fantastic lunch with some old friends at a waterfront restaurant. Good memories, good food and fun times.

The day before, we decided to go to WalMart to restock the groceries and other incidentals. We had already put in about 4 hours on the boat. We ordered an uber, and made the trip. Then we spent almost 2 hours in the store wandering around trying to find everything on our list. At the cash register, I asked to split the total between two cards. The cashier looked confused, but set it up. I stuck my card in the machine, and all of a sudden, she was reaching around and hitting the red X on the keypad. Then she put the remainder on the other card. When she gave me the receipt, i checked it to make sure that it was done right. I pointed out that she had put the amount for the first card as cash, and I did not give her any cash.

She went and got her manager who sent us off to the customer service desk with a “I’m right behind you.” (She never came over.) We were first in line at customer service, and the representative went to get her manager. We were told we had to go back to the register and I balked. I told her that wasn’t going to happen. To which she replied that we had to void the transaction and re-ring everything… almost $180.00 worth of merchandise. I repeated that wasn’t going to happen. (I could just see the cashier just starting an order for 100 items and we’d have to wait… No, just… NO!) she said that she couldn’t do it from there and I replied to return it all. It turned out it could be handled there at the service counter. She seemed to be pretty ticked off about it, but nowhere near what I was feeling. We went outside and waited for another uber. I did end up making a purchase of a cold coke and a bag of chips to snack on while we were waiting.

We could have walked out of the store with all that merchandise (I did have a receipt showing it had been paid for), but that wouldn’t have been right. I was also concerned about the cashier loosing her job when her till ended up so short. Karl commented that no good turn goes unpunished. He also commented that I seemed to have taken some lessons from him. (Returning everything is something he probably would have done a bit quicker than I did.) In the end, I was just too tired to let them keep running me all over the store.

As purchased, the boat had limited instrumentation: two old VHF transceivers (one operational with an almost unreadable screen), a 12″ chart plotter no longer supported by Garmin, a working small screen chart plotter, and non-working engine instruments (tachometer, volt meter, and coolant temperature), and a good autopilot plus Garmin radar.

Over the ’23/24 winter, we replaced the pilot house VHF radio, added two way AIS capability (so you can track our location when its turned on), up graded the Garmin depth sensor, and started the long process of having the engine instruments repaired. Late last year we found a competent Volvo Penta tech who didn’t give up till he fixed them.

A previous post described using Dolly’s old iPad as a rear view mirror when wifi connected to the security camera in the pilot house roof.

Last week I switched the iPad to display our route on the Aquamaps app that is our primary navigation source. The charts on the 12″ Garmin plotter have much less depth information and are mainly useful showing the location and names of other AIS transmitting vessels. The small Garmin plotter is set to display depth data.

Other bits and pieces on the console are an ancient Lorance depth display, the air horn and windshield wiper switches. The two side windows are glass with wiper blades. Center window is lucite and openable. It has no wiper blade to prevent it being scratched.

“ …from Tedium to Apathy and back; about five days each way. It makes an occasional trip to Monotony, and once it made a run all the way to Ennui…”
Mr. Roberts”

― Thomas Heggen

Its been over two weeks since our last post. Now we are 34 days into the cruise. We started with the excitement and adventure of a new phase of our life. It was great for about ten days.

The stress of six to eight hour days following the waterway, listening to the drumming hum of the diesel engine, the biting flies, and the movement of the boat began to leave us extra tired at the end of the day.

And now, something wonderful is happening. Our muscles are accommodating. They aren’t sore anymore. When one of us asks “Are we having fun yet?” the answer is likely to be yes.

The second boat in the photo is the Solitude. We met the owners, Mark and Teresa Carpenter last evening. Then last night our air conditioner threw an error code and shut down. Today, Mark gave a master class in marine air conditioner maintenance and we are cool again. He cleaned the raw water strainer and found an air pocket in the line that kept the A/C unit from receiving cooling water.

The Belhaven Grand Manor Marina is the best we have encountered. Reasonable dockage ($2.00 per foot per night) is offset by free golf carts. The carts are allowed on the streets throughout Bellhaven. We have gone to Ace Hardware and to a grocery store a mile and a half away on the cart. Today we used one to have lunch in town. No Uber fees!