May 08, 2008

It’s been awhile since we posted to this blog.

We’re still in Norfolk, VA and have really gotten to like the area. Since we are going to fly home in the early part of June for our oldest granddaughter's graduation, we decided to stay put right here because it’s so convenient for getting to and from an airport and we’re settled nicely into a good marina at a reasonable cost.

March saw us getting pretty tired of the cold and wet weather that we had been experiencing. Florida was really looking good to us and our friends Brian and Tina Armstrong were going to be at their place in Palm Coast for awhile and invited us to come visit. Well, they didn't have time to change their minds because we rented a car and got on the highway before they could. We spent 4 glorious, warm days with them and had a ball. I'm not sure that our livers will agree, but we really enjoyed our stay.

On the way back, instead of driving up Hwy. 95, we decided to travel on some secondary hwys. and see something other than Interstate scenery. We travelled almost all the way on Hwy. 17 which goes through all of the little towns and out of the way spots. It took us a lot longer, but it was really worth it.

In the latter part of April we had a really great surprise. A couple that we have been friends with for a very long time (Ed and Barbara Kutchma) shipped their boat to the East Coast to cruise. They put the boat in the water here in Portsmouth, which is very close by, so we had old home week with them before they departed and started up the Chesapeake. Since they shipped the boat and then drove out here in their car, they didn’t have anywhere to store the car while travelling on the boat. So Ed called one night and asked if we would like the use of the car for a month while they travelled up the Bay. Of course we said YES!! They’ll pick the car up and move it up to Ed’s brother’s home somewhere in New York, probably around the end of May.

The weather (that we complained about during the winter) has finally started to get nice. We still have some severe thunderstorms now and then, but mostly it’s nice and getting warmer every day. Since it’s nicer outside we have been able to get a lot of our projects, on the boat, out of the way. We decided to pull the boat out of the water in April so that we could repaint the bottom and do all of the routine maintenance that is required every year or so. It had been three years since we had done ours last and it really needed attention. The bottom paint wasn’t in really bad condition, but all of the metal parts; i.e., props, shafts, rudders, trim tabs and all of the thru-hull fittings were really in need of care. Because the water back here is so warm (as much as 85+ degrees in the summer) the barnacles and other growth really flourishes. The metal items is where the bottom paint wears off first so that is where all of the growth happens the worst. The metal was so bad you really couldn’t tell what was under a clump of growth.

The yard where we did our haul out was very good. They gave us some really great advice as to how to help our growth problem with the metal, which was to use a product on the metal called Barnacle Barrier by Pettit. So we had all of the parts sandblasted to make sure they were perfectly clean and then they applied the barrier paint. Hopefully it works! We won’t know that for awhile. But everyone we talked to about it said it was a good move. When we got back into the water we continued to do projects. One by one they are coming off of the to-do list. Hopefully we are seeing an end in sight.

We still have a little time before we travel home so we’re doing some sightseeing. We drove down into North Carolina the other day with our destination the Outer Banks. We had heard a lot about them so we decided to go and see for ourselves. We weren’t disappointed. They are a very narrow band of islands that run offshore of North Carolina. It appeared that most of the houses that we saw were vacation rentals. Some very small towns mostly geared towards summer vacations. The homes were built up about 10’ or 12’ above the ground because of the tidal surges that occur especially when hurricanes approach. These islands are heavily exposed to hurricanes. The one thing that the Outer Banks have are great beaches. They’re wide open and not crowded at all. A lot of surfing going on without much surf.