This post covers nearly 2 weeks so might seem long but includes some funny stories about becoming boaters! 🙂
After our time at the cabin for the 4th, we spent a few days at home, seeing friends, going to doctor/dentist appointements and reorganizing. After dropping Rocky off with Nate and Megan, we hit the road again – headed east this time, for Hayes, Virginia! The Blue Odyssey is at Severn Yacht Center and we need to learn to actually drive and park the thing!! The drive to VA is shorter than the trip to Marco Island, but still about 20 hours. After much debate and looking at the weather forecasts we decided to take the “southern” route to miss the traffic near Washington DC. We got to drive thru parts of the country that neither of us have been to before!
We drove as far as we could before stopping about 2am, a little before reaching the mountains, parked in a LOVE’S truck stop parking area and slept for about 4-5 hours. Considering we were in front seat of the truck, we actually slept really well! Chad got some coffee and we hit the road. I was able to sleep for another 3 hours!! Glad we decided to drive thru mountains in daylight – less stressful and so pretty! Was also nice to get to the marina early Monday afternoon – giving us time to meet some new marina people, unpack and do some grocery shopping.
We were so so excited to start “living” on Blue Odyssey! Our plan was to stay on the boat, while we were learning about, cleaning and working on our “big” boat. There were so many projects we had in mind! We knew that we didn’t have a mattress to sleep on so we brought our camping air mattresses and planned to put them on the bed platform in the lower bedroom. When we bought the boat we budgeted for possibly replacing the A/C units – they were old and possibly unreliable. The marina service dept confirmed before our arrival, the A/C was not running well. This became slightly more worrisome, as the forecast was saying it would be VERY hot and humid. The “feels like” temp, ended up being well over 100 for our entire stay!! Our boat has 2 A/C units…the one in the main stateroom (bedroom) was making noise when we arrived, but NOT actully putting out ANY cold air! Hmmm…not good for sleeping!! The unit in the salon (living room) was sending out some cold air but was SO LOUD – we could hardly speak while it was running. We debated finding a hotel room but we had Bebe with us, most hotels were at least 20 min away and everything was at least $300/night! We ended up buying ear plugs, an outdoor rug to put over the plywood floor and slept on our air mattresses. The main A/C was working well enough, that we stayed coolish at night, but it could hardly keep cool during the day. This was not starting out as the most glamorous beginning to our great adventure but we were determined to figure it out! After 3 nights like this, I had a bit of a shock walking onto the boat and finding a 60ish year old, sweaty and shirtless man, basically upside down in a cabinet in the front stateroom. Mike, the marina A/C guy, heard how we were “surviving” the heat and took pity on us. He came back to replace one of the units – leaving his girlfriend in her hospital bed to recover, from surgery! Turns out Mike is originally from MN – in fact, he grew up about 15 miles from Chaska! We still had one very loud unit but to have a new unit in our stateroom was heavenly! We moved our mattresses down and slept great all night!! I should maybe re-word that last line…Chad slept great all night. I slept great until my air mattress tore and lost air sometime in the middle of the night. I ended up on our pretty uncomfortable couch, by the loud A/C unit for the rest of the trip. I was just happy that it was cool enough to sleep!
We did lots of projects on the boat on this trip. Lots of scrubbing inside and out! The big job was cleaning up the cushions on the flybridge! We were ready to throw them out as they were completly water logged and pretty gross. Chad did an amazing job and we are actually going to wait to replace them…we will pay for some other boat stuff and replace them later. We found a company to make us a new V-berth mattress, flybridge enclosure, a redo for the name on the stern and replace the carpet. When we come back after Labor Day we are hoping the boat feels more complete!
Driving and parking a bigger, single engine boat is very different experience than the boats either of us have ever driven. We were nervous, so we hired Captain Allen to teach us how to drive this nearly 40 foot, single screw diesel trawler. He is a retired Navy man, former charter fishing captain and grew up in a commercial fishing family…needless to say he knows his way around a boat! When Chad hired him, he was very specific that both of us would be learning to drive/park the boat. I was happy to hear this but had no idea how serious he was about it! The first day we met him, he and Chad spent an hour or so looking at the engine, crawling around in nearly every cabinet and just giving Chad a better feel for the engine and boat. They even fixed a few of the issues we thought might be expensive and time consuming problems on our checklist! Then he talked us thru the basics of driving a boat in the big waters. We covered current, wind, shoals, fetch, catinary, propwalk, springlines, and even more! Let’s just say I was already exhausted and we hadn’t even left the dock!
When we did leave the dock, Chad did well! The thing you always want to remember when in a marina on the helm..don’t go any faster than you are willing to hit the dock or another boat! So if you remember to be patient, go slow even if you do hit something, there shouldn’t be any damage. Capt Allen, let us drive around Mobjack Bay for awhile, we learned how to use the Auto-Pilot (so cool!!) a bit about anchoring and then he wanted to practice parking. As a purist, Capt wanted us to learn backing up, without a bow thruster. He put out a bouy and wanted Chad to “visualize” a dock. It did not go well. There were many failed attempts so after a bit, we decided to come back and practice on a real dock. Our boat neighbor was gone for the weekend, so we had a good space. Every time we had a “fail” we had to pull the boat back out of marina and try again….it got to be a long afternoon! By the end, I was very disheartened and wondered if our boat dream was already over!
The next day, after a good nights sleep, we decided to take the boat out to try again. We had a great afternoon of driving, we even made it to the mouth of the Cheasapeake Bay! We had decided before leaving port, that we were going to park using the bow thruster and Chad added an extra line (rope) on the dock for me to catch as we pulled in. I called it the “Chad line” and with the thruster, it worked great!! We slipped right into our spot and felt very accomplished! After our success, we talked about how our next lesson would go. We decided that Chad would soak in as much as possible from Capt Allan and then I’d learn later – seemed like the best way to get more bang for our buck. Working the lines on a boat isn’t easy either – I needed practice so I was good with this plan.
At our 2nd lesson a few days later, Capt Allan was NOT a fan of our plan – he seemed almost angry. He said, when he took us on as clients we agreed that Chad and I would both learn as equals. Chad was not allowed to drive at all that day and would only be handling the lines. Time for small panic attack – I would be at the helm all day!! I kept my cool – didn’t want to seem dramatic in front of the Navy guy after all! The day was awesome! We even saw a few dolphins! Captains insistence was a really good thing – we both feel good with me driving. Chad is now comfortable leaving the helm occasionally, check the engine, visit the head or even make lunch. 🙂 ha
We ate on the boat everyday this trip. It was just too hot to leave Bebe alone with our sketchy air conditioning. We did stop at a great waterfront restaurant one day on our way home from West Marine in Deltaville. The Hole in the Wall on Gwynn’s Island had a shaded deck, cold, local craft beer and fresh oysters – does it get much better? We only wish we could have tried more local seafood! We learned that Mobjack Bay oysters are very buttery and some of the most desired. Apparently, oysters that are closer to the Bay are saltier – so it is a preference I guess.
We had a great trip even tho we only got to take the boat out 3 times. Getting used to living on a boat is fun, stressful and so far we are really liking it. We hope to make another 2 week trip out in September. The plan for that trip will be anchoring out over night and going to another marina or 2 to stay overnight. Hopefully, we will have a mattress and carpet when we come back!
