New Looper Friends and “The Guys”

We haven’t written much lately because we’re doing things that aren’t so interesting: working on repairs/upgrades on the boat, everything from added towel rods in the head to new electronics at the upper helm on the flybridge.

Last night we went out to dinner with Steven and Charlotte, two folks also moored here at Harbour Isle who will start the Great Loop this spring.  They’re from Jacksonville, FL and have a gorgeous 52-foot Kadey Krogen they’ve been repairing and upgrading for the past 3 months to get ready for the trip.  We had cocktails on their boat, then went to  a Sushi/Japanese/Thai restaurant for dinner, and the conversation revolved around personal history (former careers, kids, grand-kids) and Great Loop plans.  We may do some buddy-boating with them, possibly starting out of Jacksonville in a similar timeframe. They’re very nice people, and we enjoyed meeting our first 2012 Loopers.

Today the boat is crawling with “The Guys”.  Dave is a marine technician who works on just about everything on a boat other than soft goods like canvas, upholstery, elelctronics and the like. He repaired our shower last weekend (no hot water, though the tank worked fine and produced hot water in the kitchen) and is spending today down in our engine room working on items that came up in the Survey.  Our salon (nautical speak for “living room”) has a giant hole in it with the hatch opened up for engine room access.  The big black thing in front of Dave’s face is the air intake filter for one of the two Caterpillar 3126 diesel engines below. This morning we were taught how to clean that air filter periodically with a special kit.

Darrell and "his guy” Michael are electronics professionals, and they’ll spend two days this week installing a new Garmin GPS/chartplotter/radar/AIS receiver.  The boat came with 1994 electronics that are worthless today, which we knew at the time we bought the boat. We hate investing so much money in a boat we’ll probably own only 15-18 months, but we’ll have an easier, safer time with the new stuff.  And besides, Bob LOVES new electronic toys! Cathryn always comes to love them eventually, but is a wary buyer when discussion of purchasing new toys begins. We’re working hard this week, but pleased to be making so much progress. We look forward to the day when we don’t have to make a trip to West Marine . . . hasn’t happened yet!