Life Goes On

After the joy of attending Ron and Nancy’s wedding, Carl received an e-mail from his brother Kurt in New York that his father had died. He was 92 and lived a full life, but 8 years ago he suffered a stroke and his health started to decline. We were expecting him to die for a while, but when it finally happens it is still a big shock. Being the season in St. Thomas we could not get a slip for the boat for a week, so we anchored in Brewers Bay. Unfortunately bad weather came in and a couple boats drug their anchors. So with more bad weather forecast Leslie said she would stay with the boat while I flew up for the funeral.



Some of the family gets together

We gather at Dad's house

Carl’s brother Bret, from Florida, arrived in New York with his wife, Val, and daughter Daryl, as well as Alan, his brother from Australia, all within an hour of Carl so they went together to Kurt’s house.

The next day Carl and Val left the others to prepare pictures for the viewing while they went to the airport and picked up Carl’s sons Eric and Aron, who also arrived within an hour of each other.

Aron, Daryl, and Eric greet people

We lay Dad to rest

Funerals are never fun, but it was good to get so much of the family together. Everyone did well, but it was tough to hold together when they played taps at the grave site.

We gather at the fireplace

We burn Dad's vest

Everyone was on short visits, except Alan, so the next day we made a final fire and cooked some chicken as a tribute to Dad in the fireplace he built so long ago and had cooked so many meals over the decades. At the end of the night we burned the fur vest he had worn for many years as he worked drawing houses in his basement office.

Leslie was busy making cushions

New sunshades on the stern

When Carl returned he didn’t recognize the boat as, unbeknown to him, Leslie had made cock pit cushions and sun shades!

We gaze at our objective, The Cliff

We start the climb

The climb is tough

Our friends Alex and Vince were to soon leave on a new adventure so Carl took them on a hike up to the cliffs with another friend Bruce. It was something they had always wanted to do for the time they had been here. It was harder than normal as Carl took a “short cut” through the jungle and briers, but the view was terrific!

Some ones washed out shanty on
the way up

We made it to the top!

What a view!

We all made it down again

Nancy and Gordon on Ron's last show

Ron plays his last set on the island

Our other friends Ron and Nancy also decided to leave for a new adventure so we went to watch Ron give his last show and later met them for their last meal on the island.

 

Nancy and Ron's last night on the island

We glue in the track for another sun shade

The new sunshade is up

Back at Brewers Bay, projects continued with Leslie making another sun shade and Carl and our friend Denis, off Beagle Knot, taking apart the windless to repair it. They didn’t get to replace the parts they wanted to, but it still works better now. Carl also reinforced the cockpit hatch covers. 

Reinforcing the propane locker hatch

Port cockpit hatch is reinforced

 

Working on the wench

friends party with us before the last sunshade is up for
our anniversary

However, we still had good times. We invited a number of our cruising friends aboard for drinks and hors d’ovuers to help celebrate our anniversary.

A week later we got a visit from two baby and two adult porpoise, and Carl jumped in to swim with them.

 Leslie continues with her chiropractor appointments to get her leg in shape and when she finishes we will be off to other destinations.

Projects and Celebrations

The new Lagoon II kayak

We left the BVIs and went to St. John, St Francis Bay to relax, snorkel, kayak, and swim. Oceanwings traveled with us and we had fun, but realized out kayak was a bit tippy and slower than Oceanwing’s kayak, so we tried theirs. Leslie really liked it so now our Sea Eagle is for sale and we have a Lagoon 2 kayak, it’s not a catamaran.

Our old Sea Eagle

When Carl checked our starboard engine for the weekly maintenance there was water in the engine room. It was coming from the raw water pump and after many checks he localized the problem to the pump’s shaft seal. The pump is only 2 years old! So we headed to Brewers Bay, where it is usually calm, to do repairs. We bought a new pump and replaced it, and then bought a new shaft seal and after some serious work to take it apart, no one mentioned the nut to remove the shaft was left hand threaded, he replaced the seal and put it in ready reserve.

All put together

The new rail installed

We are ready to cook!

While there Carl put up the barbeque rail he and Eric had designed and fabricated in St. Louis. The post angle turned out perfect and it works great!

The hard top arrives

All the hard top hardware

We received word our new hard top was in to replace the bimini, so we went to Crown Bay marina for 3 days to get and install it. They delivered it from the warehouse and we opened up the box of parts to discover there were no installation instructions. We called the installer and he said yes there are no instructions as he would walk us through it. It took a dozen calls and 3 days, although we didn’t start until 2 PM the first day and had to deal with rain showers the other two days, and the help of Tom, off Lone Star, and Gordon, off Oceanwings, to get it installed.

Tom and Carl debate the support
placement

Gordon and Carl add the aft supports

Hard top and solar panel installed

Suzanne, Gordon and Leslie all
decked out for the party!

The girls had a ball!

While we were there was a Mari Grai party at the Marina Bar, Tickles, so we went and had a great time.

 

The Mountain men band

A pirate ship arrives at Crown Bay
they unloaded it and we never
saw it again

We left the marina $500 poorer and anchored to wire up the solar panel to the controller and batteries. Suzann, off Oceanwings, birthday came so we went to our favorite restaurant, Island View, for a dinner celebration.

We celebrate at IslandView

The way it was! We wanted to reclaim it

Leslie made all the baskets

We wanted to reclaim the starboard forward cabin, which has become the tool room, so Leslie was inspired by Suzanne’s solution on Oceanwings. Suzanne showed Leslie how to make screen baskets, so she made a bunch of baskets and Carl put up shelves in the hanging closet. We labeled each basket and it provided storage for all the tools.

Carl installed the shelves

The new tool storage

Then Beagle Knot showed us their storage shelves, so Carl made shelves in the cabin and more stuff was removed from the cabin bed. It is almost sleepable now.

The new shelf It worked well so we put one on the other side too

Kids activity area

We saw a poster for a Jazz in the park party so we went. It was fun! There was a kids activity area, food venders, craft booths, and of course jazz bands. We endured a short shower and had to leave early to catch a Safari back to the boat before they stopped running at 8 PM.

Leslie meets a local at the Jazz

The music went late

The new selector switch

One of the failed batteries

The projects continued with installing a selector switch so the solar panels can charge either the house batteries, or the start batteries. The new solar panel adds 250 watts of power to our other solar panels of 180 watts. The old panels charged our batteries, on a sunny day, fully by 2 or 3 PM, but we could only go for 3 cloudy days before we had to use the engine to charge our batteries. Now with so much solar power we decided to increase our house bank from 270 Amp Hours to 380 Amp Hours by adding two batteries. Carl installed the two batteries, but when he went to move the negative lead off an old batter, the negative post came off the battery! We went and bought a new battery and he installed it. When he checked all the connections another old battery negative post came off! He went and bought another new battery and installed it being careful not to touch any of the old batteries!

The new battery bank

We go to the show

The cast

We saw a poster for a show at the performing arts center called Hover Space. Dancing using a hovering platform so we and Lone Star and Oceanwings went to see it. It was interpretive dancing and Carl didn’t get the theme, but enjoyed the dancing.

the solution the extended hatch

Carl complained about the new sliding hatch not covering the instruments, so Leslie and Suzanne studied the problem and came up with a fabric cover to fit on the hatch and fill the area. It came out really well!

The Bride, Nancy

The groom, Ron, on left

Friends of ours invited us to their wedding at Honeymoon beach on Water Island. We of course accepted! It was a lovely wedding and a lot of fun. They had only met a little over a year ago and had bought a boat and lived on it off Water Island for almost a year. They decided to get married, sell the boat, and do some other traveling. We will miss them! They became good friends very quickly, and now they will be going as the boat has been sold.!

The cake

The pot luck dinner

The happy couple

The runway

The minister

The ceremony

The married couple!

The toast

They eat the cake

The band and dance

This edition is going out and new adventures starting.  Hope spring and warm weather are heading your way as we deal with 80 degrees and a swim off the boat everyday.