1 Sept- 2010 7:13 pm
OH the bilge…the dreaded bilge. While Mike was sitting on
reserve in Chicago, I was sanding and prepping the bilge for paint and our
shiny new water tanks. I was also able
to complete the fiberglass work in the anchor locker and the bilge. I am pretty
proud of my work and excited to show Mike tomorrow when he gets home. He will
need some cheering up; we are saying good-bye to the red Jetta tomorrow. It is
going to be like saying good-bye to an era. I know some may say that it is just
a car, but we grew up with that car. Our road trip of 2003 was in that car…we
fell in love that summer while driving across the US in that car. We will miss
her and hold those memories close in our hearts.
School starts tomorrow for me………yay! Can you sense the
excitement? It was nice to have the summer off from classes. Now that I think
about it, it would not have been possible to accomplish school work while doing
so much work on Haicu. Back to the grind of online classes and on more semester
away from graduation…hopefully!
The ongoing problem with the Bimini has now been solved.
After many arguments, Mike went over to settle the dispute with Andy over the
price he wanted for the work we never authorized. Apparently he thought we were
being “typical sailors”, so not only was he going to overcharge us, he decided
to insult us as well. We are not cheap and are not typical sailors, we just do
not have a lot of money. In the end Mike handled it and Andy wrote us a check
for the amount he overcharged. Solution to this problem: Buy sewing machine and
do all of our own canvas work.
We have had some company on Haicu the past 2 weeks, Mike's
mom and brother both came out to see all of the work we have been doing this
summer. It was to have them out to see all of our hard work. We have spent
nearly every free moment this summer working away to get things completed. Just
a few more weeks and Haicu will be on the Severn.
15-Aug-2010 10:50 am
This summer has surely been a lot of hard work for us but we keep finding the courage to press on. We are learning that not everyone in our lives will understand why we want this way of life. At times, it almost seems impossible to make them understand. “Why don't you work for 20 more years and leave when you are 45?” Life is so uncertain....will be even be able to go in 20 years? Perhaps there is no real way to make them understand, all we can do is to continue to go after our dreams.
08-Aug-2010 12:04 pm
Did a little shopping yesterday for the interior of the boat, our move date is approaching and I am trying to make the inside a little cozy. We are just about finished with the deck repair and sealing everything off. After some thinking, we have decided to wait to paint the deck until we get to Tim and Rene’s house. Financially that helps out immensely and is more logical to paint the boat in less hot and humid temperatures. This week coming up, we will focus on finishing up the deck repairs and moving down into cleaning the engine room(yay!).
06- Aug-2010 11:30 pm
If I ever have fiberglass in my skin again, I will give myself a major lecture. Wearing long pants and shirts is very necessary.
29-July-2010 11:10 pm
We have now learned the hard way that in the Marine industry work will be done without authorization. Mike took our Bimini over to the canvas shop to get an estimate on how much a repair would cost and when we were told the price, we declined and said we could not afford it. In turn we were told that some barter deal could be worked out....whatever that means. The owner of the shop requested we do some teak work in exchange for the repair of our Bimini. When Mike told me this, I laughed and told him to look around our boat; did we really have the time to work on another persons boat? After all of this, we were told the next morning that our Bimini was almost fixed and it would be brought over. Now we are obligated to pay with money we do not have or do teak work. The invoice was printed and we laughed at the price because the owner added an extra hour to the price. It never feels good to be taken advantage of, and from now on we will be more mindful of our future decisions.