Catching Up

Wow! The last post was back in April! It’s November, 11th, Veterans Day. We left Seaquel for the summer on the hard in the storage yard in Indiantown Marina. It was hard for me to say good bye. It went easier for Eddie. We had planned to spend a month doing boat projects in May but decided to get out of dodge. With COVID numbers really high in Florida, we rented an SUV, loaded it up and drove to our home in Delaware where we spent the summer.  It took me a while to adjust to being back on land but I soon fell into the groove, riding my bike to water aerobics in the morning and beaching or going to the pool in the afternoon. It’s a tough life but hey, somebody has to do it. 

On September 1 we drove to Port St. Lucie, Florida. Our plan was to spend 2 months in an air bnb in Port St Lucie while doing boat projects, launch at the end of October and cruise at the beginning of November.  For those 2 months our days went something like this - 6:30am alarm, breakfast, pack lunch and out the door no later than 7:30. Drive to Indiantown, arriving just after 8 and then work until 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or in the end until 6! Drive back to Port St Lucie, maybe make a Home Depot, Walmart, West Marine or Publix run, come home and shower, eat dinner and go to bed! It was a pure labor of love. 

Projects completed:

Redid the teak on the toe & cap rails

Scraping off the old varnish with the heat gun

Sanding that pretty teak

The rails looking good with  stain and one coat of gloss.
They got 8 coats of gloss. 

Pretty new rails

Removed the port transmission, shipped it to SC, had it repaired, shipped back and reinstalled it

Out she goes!

Here comes the boom to lift her off the boat

On her way for some TLC in South Carolina

About 3 weeks later she returned to us with a total makeover!
She’s a red head now!

And there she goes back to her home!

Figured out what size anchor chain fit our windlass, ordered new chain. You’d think that would have been an easy job but it was a real puzzler. It included FB messaging with the Italian maker of the windlass, dial calipers and a couple of stops locally to see if we could match our anchor chain. After finally feeling confident that it was 3/8th BBB we ordered 400’ of new anchor chain. While we only wanted 300’, the shipping time was going to be better to order a drum of 400’ versus a special order of 300’. We were able to sell 100’ on Craig’s list so it all worked out. 

 Out with the old! Doesn’t look bad but trust me, it was really rusty.

In with the new. Later in our work weeks we marked the anchor chain every 25’ and installed it on the windlass and into the anchor chain locker. 

Rebuilt the bow pulpit which was rotten wood. I spend a fair amount of time on the bow pulpit with the anchor and we had suspected that the box under the pulpit was rotten. What a project. Eddie rebuilt the box and the pulpit, filling them with coosa board, doing some creative fiberglass work, painting and reinstalling her. Not a project that was originally on our list. 

                            Removing the pulpit. 

Lowering the very heavy pulpit to the ground. Figuring by it’s weight it must also be rotten inside which turned out to be accurate. 

The box the pulpit sits on, full of rotten, squishy wood, 5” deep in an 18”x30” box. 


All cleaned out!


After lots of measuring and cutting, Eddie was able to fit 7 layers of coosa board in the box. 


Meanwhile, the coosa jigsaw puzzle continued on the pulpit. 


Box with fiberglass repair and some awlgrip paint. 

The return of the pulpit.

Bolts thru to the chain locker, windlass reattached, new anchor chain in place. Better than new!

Meanwhile, sometime over those 8 weeks, the solar panels structure needed work which proved to be a time consuming project of drilling holes through stainless to better attach the structure to itself. This particular project included lots of 4 letter words. Sorry no pics. 

And Zoom got some attention, Anyone that followed us last winter knows we lost our beloved Zoom while in the Exuma Land & Sea Park. She was thankfully recovered and returned to us with minimal damage. The remote engine control needed to be replaced. Spoiler alert - we ran her today and she ran great!

Oh and did I mention our 35 year old washing machine that used 35 gallons of water for one load of wash bit the dust. Holy mackerel that was a hard replacement. Eddie had to cut the washer and dryer apart, squeezing in tiny spaces to get her out. I found us a great deal on a Splendide all in one vented washer / dryer on Craig’s List. We drive 2.5 hours to buy her and then had to get her installed. I’d say that project alone probably took a week!

Ready for the boom to take her away!

New girl all in place!

There was more - fiberglass repairs, cleaning, waxing the interior woods, and more trips to Home Depot and West Marine. All this in 95º and 90% humidity. We worked hard. And now as we sit in the marina in Indiantown and wait out the current ETA storm, Seaquel is sitting pretty. And we still love each other! 💕 

 Launch day

Waiting out the storm ETA. Cruising soon!