Heading south

The trees are turning color and there’s been a frost on the grass this morning so, it’s time to head south again.

 It sounds romantic, just  hop on a sailboat and sail off to tropical islands but to accomplish a dream like this, it takes lots of attention to details…everything is in the details. Just like when we are on the Snow Goose I have to make lists to ensure that all of the details get done. Well, when leaving Michigan it’s just the same.

Winterizing the well

We must winterizing the house, the barn, the cars, boats, finishing projects around the rental houses, our house. Wrap up the last contracting job and help out friends with last minutes things that they need done. Endless decisions about what to bring and of course, even more important,  what to leave behind. Is Edie’s stuff ready to go: her shots, pills, a fresh hair cut. If we plan to go to the Bahamas, did we send away for the correct forms? Seeing friends, and family before we leave and taking care of social engagements. When it’s a month before it’s time to leave it seems like there’s plenty of time to get everything done yet, now with the departure only 4 days away, I realize that I’ve still a LOT of stuff to do! The long and short of it is that “living the dream” can, at times, be a  reoccurring nightmare.

Next stop New York City, see ya there.

Now, doesn't this look like fun?

This year, I hope to bring you blogs that try to catch the feeling of what it’s like to be a live aboard sailor as we travel this winter. If you have any ideas or questions that you’d like to express,  toss them in and I’ll see what I can do to answer them.

Cars and their cost

Just a little rant about cars in general and the cost to run them.

Cars are like boats, their a hole in the road that you pour money into… here’s how to make the hole smaller.

My 1992 GEO Metro just rolled over the 200,000 mile mark and still gets an average of 47 MPG all of the time. This got me thinking, over the last 4 years that we’ve been using the Metro (instead of using our  Plymouth Voyager van which gets 23 MPG) we have driven the Metro about 50,000 miles and averaged 47 mpg during that time (high of 55 mpg and low of 45 mpg), (Oh, I’m not guessing,  I’ve kept records to prove it).

 

Lets do the math…
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GEO Metro

50,000miles / 47mpg = 1064 gals of gas

1064 gals of gas times oh, say $3.50/gal = $3724.00 spent to run the little car over 50,000 miles.

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Plymouth Voyager

50,000miles / 23mpg = 2174 gals of gas

2174 gals of gas times $3.50/gal = $7609.00 needed to run this car over the same distance!

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This is a difference of $3885.00 !!!   that we saved by using the Metro

WOW!

The GEO Metro may be a little cheap rattle box but the savings in gas alone has paid for…

Original cost of the Metro

Repairs to the car to put it on the road

The entire purchase of “pinky” our KIA Spectra-5

The cost to insure both vehicles all these years

The maintenance cost for both vehicles

 

My question to all of you is…

 

When the GEO Metro was built it was designed to get high fuel efficiency because gas was …ready for this… $1.65/gal.!!!!!!

Gas is close to $2.00 more expensive now than when the car was built (22 years ago!),

Why can’t they build a cheap car that does the same today?

 

PS.

Here’s the cost savings over the life of this little car…

$30,400 to drive the Voyager 200,000 miles

$14,000 to drive the Metro 200,000 miles

$16,400 savings over the life of the car

Now, if only they still made this little car think of what you could do with an extra $16,000.00 in your pocket!

PPS.

Never leave an old dog in the yard alone!

 

BEE’ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

We seem to have an infestation of German bees. My son told me to use a vacuum (shop vac) and suck the bees to  their doom.. and it worked! He set the vacuumed up outside of the house where they were getting in and it sucked in every bee that tried to come or go into the house. After that I took down the hanging ceiling and sucked the nest apart. It was amazing to see a bee flying toward you and move the wand to intercept it and… ZOOP! The bee just disappears! Sucked right into the vac.

On the attack

 

Life in Michigan

Lots to do in Michigan this year.

Moving to her summer storage spot

The Goose is high and dry for the summer and has survived the near miss by Hurricane Arthur which brushed the coast of NC where the Snow Goose is stored. Anna has taken up gardening for her clients again and is enjoying our "pavillion" down by the lake with her friends.

I’m deep into contraction jobs but finally had time to put Ginger, our little “cat” boat finally went back into the water and we had a marvelous sail the other day.

 
Now that we live on a lake, the grand kids beg to come up to see us and to stay the night.

                          
 Oh, and we had to get reading glasses for Edie, she is now 14 years old and couldn’t read the labels on her pill bottles anymore.


Woof!, old age ain't no fun!

Enjoy the summer!

Cracking a safe

They had a city wide garage sale down in Oriental NC. (It’s a very small town). There was a LOT of houses with their yard filled with everything from a few items up to tables of stuff. What interested me though was at the Masonic Lodge building. They had opened up the building as a gathering spot for members to sell their “stuff” and the lawn was packed with precious items. Inside of the building there were even more things but what caught my eye was an old upright safe. After talking with the lodge members they told me that they have had the safe for decades and no one knew the combination. I explained that in a previous career, I was a safe technician and that I could find the combination easily for them. After examination of the safe and lock I estimate is that it was from the turn of the century (IE: 1900 to 1910)and in few minutes, I discovered the 4 numbers of the combination for them. It sure was fun getting my hands back into a trade that I really enjoyed and finding a use for the “U.S. Post Office” training in safe cracking that I was sent to those many years ago. Garage sales, you just never know what you might run into!

Little Library

While walking Edie around our little corner of Oriental NC. I came across the smallest library in existence. In front of a house is this small box on a post named the “Little Free Library”.

 

 

 

 

We’ve talked to the owners of the house and they think that it’s a good way to find a new home for the books that you have already read. The Little Library is a “give or take” library so you can take a book or place one into it. I think that it’s a great idea. If you live in an area that needs a library and your own book collection is getting a bit out of hand, try placing a “Little Library” box out front and share the gift of stories with your neighborhood!

 

Life in a marina

What a change a single day can make. We went from finding a quite place to drop a hook at night with the only worry being which way the wind was coming from or how strong the current might be to living at the dock, a car, neighbors (5 feet away) and becoming a ‘working stiff’ again. Within a day of arriving I was offered the dubious honor of removing a rotting bulkhead and replacing it in a power boat. I think I like the Bahamas better!


getting "suited up" to grind fiberglass



Old bulkhead out, new one in

                                                                     We (meaning "I") have several large jobs to do on the Snow Goose. The bimini must come off for refurbishment so, the solar panels need to come off from it first. The rubber on the deck still has to be finished and (of course) the  round of spring varnishing needs to be done.

strange place to put a solar pannel

The underside of our cockpit cover (the bimini) needed varnish and it's much easier to do it upside down.

First though, our trusty 2.5 hp outboard needed attention. A bolt had come loose in the engine letting the magneto hit the flywheel (Ding, ding ,ding) and there’s also a leak from the thermostat cover. It turned out that under the cover is a sacrificial anode (the owners manual doesn’t say anything about it in) and over the last few years, it has sacrificed itself. As it slowly corroded away it pluged up the cooling water passageway and pushed the cover gasket out of place resulting in the leak. $20 in parts later (and 3 hrs of work) and the dinghy motor is good as new again. I truly believe that to be a cruiser you have to be part mechanic or inherit lots of money! Alas, since we’re deficient in one area, I am forced to work on the things that break on our boat.