Back to the dirt house

We traveled on the boat from May to the end of August on this section of the loop, heading up to New England and ending the Leg at the northern tip of New York near the Canadian border. The boating season is short up here, it would have been fun to stay in September or later to see the leaves change, but the boating community closes up fast around September.

We left the boat at the dock with 15 other boats waiting to be hauled and put away into the heated building, like others, we are having the boatyard crew do an oil change before we are hauled. I would rather do that work myself but up here where the season is so short the yards have the maintenance system down to a science and are very reasonable in their prices. Leave it with us and your boat will be all ready to go in the spring is pretty much the way it is. Unlike in Florida, where there are a ton of do it yourself yards and the full service treatment is not requested as much (by middle class boaters like us).

We are hoping to get a clear plastic enclosure installed on the flybridge this winter, as well as a new propeller. There was nothing wrong with the old prop but it has never been taken off the boat for servicing and balancing. After 21 years it’s the smart thing to do. We we have been very lucky to not ding the prop in 4500 miles, especially this year with all the flooded rivers in the north, I remember zig zagging to miss logs as we traveled up the Hudson River when 8 inches of rain came down the night before.  We probably should have stayed in the harbor for a couple more days. Since you could only see surface logs, one thing on my mind that day was “I wish I had a spare prop onboard”. I’m not sure where we will store the old prop but it will be nice to know it’s there.

Ellen’s dad and the kids took good care of the house while we were gone, it’s a typical 1960’s California 4/2 ranch house with @1800 sq. Ft. After being on the boat, the place feels way too big for just the two of us. It is fun to have my garage/shop back and Ellen has her sewing room back in shape and has started making a new quilt.

The grand girls are great to be around, we take care of Erik and Maya’s little girl Samsara a couple of afternoons a week and we see Greta and Tabitha on the weekends (Josh and Kathryn’s little ones). But our sons are now very much on their own track, working the hamster wheel like we did back then, we have a lot of time on our hands and a lot of that time means thinking about next years boat trip.

     
Props are cheap compared to new heater ductwork in a 62 year old house !

Future plans are we basically want to be closer to the boat and the large recreational boating area of the East Coast. To that end we are looking at moving to the Middle Peninsula, Chesapeake area after next years boating season.  This would allow us to take the boat north any summer or back south to the Bahamas and Florida for the winter.