.....--- Boat Re-supply and Finally on The Water ---
....................................................--- March 9 to 11, 2011 ---
Nights Anchorage: 026o 55.144' N -- 082o 12.019 W -- Fresh Water Canal System
Trip Odometer: 6.0 miles
Days Mileage...: 6.0 miles
Wednesday we returned to the boat and began organizing it for the trip. I put aluminum angle support brackets on the bow rollers in case we decided to run into any more pilings. But put them in the wrong place on the boat as you will see later! I hoisted the main and tried the new powder coated steel slug gate I had made and it didn't fit right. I went back to the aluminum one, but I had modified it at home and it didn't fit well either. A little hand sledge hammer work got it working, but not as well as it had before. I Can't remember what else we did, but ended the day in the dark and went back to town and ate and got to bed late.
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One item that was different for this trip was that we were using colored 5 gallon buckets that had a snap on outer lid with a screw-in center section that made them air tight, see arrows. The yellow would be to store the head's output of Double Duty bags and the blue would be used...
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... to store supplies and as they were emptied we would then use them to hold trash.
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Above was part of our liquid load for the boat. We will usually drink a pop during the day and I'll have a beer with dinner and Ruth will have one of those small wine bottles that come in 6 packs.
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Above the enormous aft berth area that the Mac 26's are famous for is beginning to fill. I don't think there is a boat under 34-36 feet that has as large an aft berth and it will easily suck up a queen size bed mattress. We don't use it for sleeping, but for storage. There is also additional storage under it beneath the plywood hatches. There are 4 of them with one showing above. We had pulled the mattress out of this area and it sure was a lot easier to use for storage after that.
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Thursday we bought $400 worth of food and other supplies at Walmart. At first it seemed like a lot, but then I thought we had bought enough for about 6 weeks on the water, so that made the per day cost about $10. Less than what we probably would of spent on food and other junk at home in the same time period. We took all of this to the boat and spent the rest of the day getting it all stored on the boat.
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It didn't take long for all of the supplies to fill the aft berth area of the boat. The arrow points to the 63 quart Edge Star compressor type 12 volt frig/freezer that is unbelievably nice to have.
Again we quit and got to the motel late and to bed around 11 again. Oh yes after the first night we told the clerk we either wanted our money back or move us to a room with a working phone. He did that and the rest of the stay there was great. Nice room and only $56 a night and pretty quiet. Except for that first night we were happy.
We had been thinking about trying to launch on this day, but a big storm came in with heavy wind and rain and then backed away from that idea. It was for the best as we still used up the day getting ready. It is hard to imagine how much you have to do when you hope to not resupply for over 30 days.
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At this point we were pretty much ready to go and things were coming together. This is part of the area on the starboard side of the v-berth and my area. Ruth gets the port side.
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Under the v-berth we have 38 gallons of water stored in 8 different containers, six 4 gallon Reliance containers and two 7 gallon Reliance containers. One of the 7 gallon ones is connected to the sink and we pump from the others to it as needed, keeping the boat balance. Also under the berth you will find food, clothing and a spare anchor chain stored.
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Ruth's miscellaneous and clothing storage. The arrow points to the assembly for the forward hatch that can hold it open at stepped intervals. Finally...
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...a view looking from the cabin into the enlarged v-berth, the head is gone and in the cabin now, documented elsewhere on this site.
The next day, Friday the 11th of March, found us at the boat about 9 a.m. Thursday we had bought all of the food except for the items for the frig. We had turned the frig on Wed. and it was working great, but we wanted to buy food with the best dates as far as freshness, so waited until the last minute to buy our refrigerated food and loaded it up on this morning. We also packed the last of our items, like computers and such, that we had been using in the motel.
We had hauled the new Tohatsu 3 1/2 HP long shaft for the dinghy down from PA in the Suburban. We had it shipped there to Ruth’s daughter's house. Daniel, who works on boats at the storage yard, came by on Thurs. and changed the lube and oil in the 9.8 HP Tohatsu as I wanted to service it after the Fall trip when it had been new. He came by on Friday and he put oil in the 3 1/2 HP Tohatsu and using a tub he had we were able to test run it. It started new on the second pull and ran great in the tub.
We launched the boat a little after 1 p.m. with absolutely no problems this time vs. the last time when the anchors and bow rollers hung up on the forward bunk tubes I had installed on the trailer. I unbolted the forward bunks and tied them down and let them spring out some and that took care of getting hung up. I had the anchors on their chains, but put them on the foredeck. and didn't put them on the rollers until we had the boat in the water.
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We blew up the Zodiac and pulled out from the dock about 3 under Ruth's steady hand on the tiller.. The first 3 miles down the fresh water canal was peaceful, but when we turned north in a very wide area of the canal system we were hit by 15-20 mph winds and soon had on sweatshirts as it was chilly on the back side of the front that had just slid past.
........We motored past the homes that were on the north side of the canal just down from the boat ramp and soon were in the ...
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..... narrower section after a couple miles and started a couple mile run to the east.
It was less than an hour before dark by now so we decided to anchor and tried
in an area that was just to narrow.........
We moved on about 1/3 of a mile, about 2 miles short of the fresh/saltwater lock, and tried again in a much wider area. I didn't like how we stuck out near the main channel when a fishing boat went by at a good rate of speed. We pulled the anchor and went much closer to the north shore and put down one anchor and then another east of it not far from shore. I pull us between them to the point we had about 30 feet of chain and 50 feet of line out to each on a Bahamian Moor. We were now much closer to shore, but after seeing another boat speed by us barely 100 feet away I sure hoped that some drunk didn't go by after dark and run into us. We had the anchor light on and two bunches of solar Christmas lights hanging from the solar panels at the stern. Hopefully that would do the trick still I didn't like where we were.
The highlight of the day was that Daniel took us by a Catalina 30 that had been in a hurricane and the new owner and him were repairing. It was a work in progress, but we loved the boat compared to the Endeavour we had looked at. We will probably be seriously looking for one of these. Ruth loved it. It is the perfect size for just the two of us. We are also interested in looking at a Catalina 34. If anyone that has owned one of these and would like to give us some pointers as far as looking at them before buying or their thoughts on them for our type of cruising we would appreciate it if you would contact us at ( contact20 (at) purplesagetradingpost (dot) com). We are interested in the shoal draft models and are aware of the 'smile' and 'compression post' potential problems on the 30, but don't know much about what to look for on the 34's. Thanks, Sum and Ruth.
With thoughts of cruising in a Catalina 30 or 34 we went to bed not too long after 9 p.m. I was relaxed for the first time in weeks. It was great to be back on the water in our cozy MacGregor 26.
