Hot, Busy Bee's in Paradise?

In the last few days we got our 675 lb. pallet of "stuff", dropped Dan off at the airport, washed the outside of the boat, got launched in the water, blew up the dingy, started finding places for everything, went to the dog beach (the real one this time), went to West Marine 10 times, and moved onto the boat.

We (Jalapeño, old Driftin' Days) are currently docked in Fort Pierce right behind the new Driftin' Days.  Robert & Mary, who we bought Jalapeño from, have their new boat docked right by us!  

I have been told that this is the last of all our stuff that needs to fit on the boat.

I am on day 3 of finding place for everything and almost have is all put away.  Let me tell you that moving around in a boat that is 100 degrees is exhausting.  It feels like 124 degrees all day everyday.  We thought that once we got the boat on the water that the air temp would feel cooler, boy were we wrong.  It is just as hot and last night at 10:00pm we booked it to Walgreens to buy a big box fan and a smaller desk fan.  This barely got us through the night.  Winter can't come soon enough!  

2nd Day of Putting Things Away

This little guy was helping us wash the boat

"The Launch" Dun Dun Dun

If you remember our last launch didn't go very well.  We started this launch knowing that we only had reverse in one engine, because the other won't lock down.  So with only one engine we lowered down and started up.  Preston was at the helm and I was holding a bumper standing on the engine that doesn't lock and running around the boat getting the lines tied and ready to throw, and running back every time we needed to reverse to stand on the engine.  I hope in the future that every docking goes as smoothly as this one.  I was nervous, because we were squeezing between a multimillion dollar powercat and the new Driftin' Days.  I was already thinking about having to call Mary and tell her we just hit their new boat!  There was no need because Preston pulled us around flipped a U and swung us in perfectly.  Both dock hands were impressed and commented on how easy we made it for them.

Oh yeah it is sooooo HOT down here.

Still Hot

We are still hanging out down here roasting in the sun everyday.  The guy we hired to fix our keel has pushed our launch date to Wednesday.  Hopefully we will have our stuff ready by then too.  We will be parking on the dock for a few weeks, fixing the window leaks, refinishing the floors, and still working on that starboard engine lock.  We are still waiting for our pallet of tools and things that was supposed to be delivered in 4 days, but has now been 7 days.  Hopefully it will make it to us tomorrow.  We have been scraping off old caulk and putting new caulk around some deck fittings and seams.  For every 15 minutes of work we need 1/2 hour of break in the shade.  We did manage to get all four corners of the boat caulked today though!  PROGRESS.

Before

After

A Hole in Our Hull

I have always loved getting packages in the mail, but down here they are SOOOO much fun!  Today We got the hardware for our table, that is too big, and my very favorite new item on the boat!

Isn't she BEAUTIFUL?  I am dying to finish a few projects on her next week, but first we have to fix the hole in our hull.  The boys sanded off the bottom paint, where the supposed "crack" was leaking water.  When they got down to the fiberglass they found a hole the size of a nickel!  The hole started draining water slowly so Preston made a smaller hole to start air flow and drain all the water out.  After visiting West Marine and spending a pretty penny we got some information on how to fix it.  We knew we had to dry it out and so I bought a hairdryer and we started drying/draining the hole.  After 4 hours of it slowly draining what we thought was a lot of water Preston got out the shop vac and we pulled out at least another 2 gallons of water.  We patched the hole and called it a night while it dried.  This morning we talked to the body guy working on the boat next to ours and decided we need to drill some small holes lower to ensure all the water is out.  He is going to re-glass the hole, mud, topcoat, and bottom paint the mess we have made tomorrow.  I forgot to take pictures of the patch job West Marine told us to do.  I'll post them tomorrow.  We decided that because it is under the waterline we need to spend the money to get it fixed right.  We do not want to deal with blistering in the future.

97 Degrees & 97 Percent Humidity

After arriving to Fort Pierce, FL late Tuesday night we finally got to our boat Wednesday.  All the old places that used to leak water were fine, but we have 2 new leaky windows.  One filled up a floor board and the other dripped on top of the fridge and ran down the cabinets to the sink!  I stored my bamboo cutting board that Preston made me on top of the fridge.  Now it is covered in mildew and I had to throw my favorite kitchen item in the garbage.  Other than the 2 leaks everything else inside seems good.  The crack that attaches the keel to the hull has moisture leaking out again.  This has moved to top of the list of things to get done this week.  Before we put the boat in the water we need to fix that seam and fix the motor locking mechanism.  We are hoping to be done in 2 days and get the boat put in the water, she needs a good washing.  My sister, Holly, came out for 2 days to see the boat and helped get Lucy down here too.

We are all about saving a dollar so I only reserved an economy car, and it wasn't a problem until we tried loading the kennel Lucy traveled in to the back of the car.  It was about 3 inches bigger than the back of the car, so we just folded the back seats forward 3 inches.  Preston and I didn't mind much, but I'm sure Dan and Holly's 1 hour drive to Fort Pierce was very uncomfortable.  We had bags on top of our laps and Lucy was sitting on my lap!

With the temperature in the high 90's and the humidity in the high 90's as well it is hard to focus on the work on the boat.  We had all the fans going and even a breeze coming through the windows, but we were all too hot to do anything so we decided to take a beach day.  On the way to the beach we looked up and found spiders as big as our hands, got to the beach and had a blue crab patrolling the shore, on the way back to the car ran into a black snake, and then walking into the hotel we had a frog climbing the wall.  We were happy to have Holly's help the first day back on the boat, even though the heat about killed us.