I don't know about you, but when I make a substantial purchase that doesn't have a "list" price, but a price that is negotiated, I'm always wondering....did I overpay?
I'm delighted with the Metafora. Even more so today.
I got a call from the broker that handled the sale in Charleston. He said that he has been contacted by a person that was interested in the boat before I bought it. That guy is kicking himself for not acting sooner and now wants to know if I would sell him the boat for about 50% more than I paid for it. (The percentage is big, but the raw number isn't all that big).
I had to only think about it for about three seconds and the answer is no.
So now I don't have to listen to the little voice that says I paid too much.
The voice now says "The broker was trying to make you feel good".
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Long Home Stretch
Saturday, February 13th was looking discouraging for getting out and making our last 135 miles home. But we didn't recognize it and besides, the next day was Valentine's Day and we needed to be with the sweeties!
Greg swept most of the three inches of snow off the boat and we got off at 7:02 am, which was two minutes after the hot coffee store in Surf City opened.
The scene was amazing. Everything was covered with snow and the traffic on the streets was at a standstill. We were off on the waterway, however, and we were making good time with the fuel filter change allowing the engine to run well.
Today the engine ran cool for the first time in about twelve engine hours and we were glad to have that concern off our mind. This more or less proved that the engine thermostat needed to be changed and the mechanics in Southport hadn't done it yet.
The waterway on NC's coast is absolutely packed with gorgeous homes. All pastel colors and so expensive looking. About one in twenty was for sale and many appeared vacant. Greg and I wondered how many were having coffee looking out at us on a snowy day navigating on the ICW? We had to appear crazy and we were heading NORTH to boot.
We bought our last fuel for the trip at Sea Gate Marina in Newport, NC. We were still 70 miles from home but this was the last convenient stop for fuel. We called ahead to see if they were open since North Carolinians are paralyzed when it comes to driving in snow. They were thinking of closing up early, but, no, they'd wait an hour for us.
When we arrived, they were dealing with about eight inches of snow and were incredulous that we were boating. They tried clearing their gas dock but it was too heavy to deal with using a broom. We got our fuel and made friends there.
One curious fellow explained that his wife was filling in running the marina for her friend who owned the marina and that they were transplanted yankees too. They agreed that NC yankees are better than NC natives because we chose to live in NC.
I tried to buy coffee but they hadn't made fresh coffee. They had a brewed on demand machine but it didn't make hot coffee. Only hot coffee would do. They let me use a microwave to heat it up. I went to pay. Lady said no she couldn't accept money for the coffee what with the walks not shoveled and having to use the microwave and all. I thanked her and told her she made a big mistake. If she knew how much we were willing to pay for that coffee she would never have given it away!
We got to the Neuse River, near Oriental, NC just about dusk. It is a pretty big body of water and we expected that we might have a bumpy ride here. With the sun setting, the waters calmed and we had a great ride. We could see far ahead a tug boat pushing a barge. We were amazed that we were able to catch up to it at our slow speed.
The tug was actually timing his entrance into the last narrow part of the ICW due to a southbound tug was already in the "ditch". When the southbound tug cleared, the northbound tug started with us only 200 yards behind. Since it is now dark and we don't have radar, it was VERY comforting to be on his coattails.
We arrived at the Pamlico River, on the western side of the Pamlico Sound at around 8 pm and we were able to navigate our home waters intuitively until our 10:30p dock time. We had a hard time docking however.
You see, the boat was covered with a half inch of ice and we couldn't get on deck to tie it up!
Believe me, after almost 16 hours, we found a way.
Joe Miller
February 15, 2010
Fuel Lady is NOT On The Christmas Card List
It turns out that at the same time we were beginning to deal with our overheating problem, we were beginning to deal with a contaminated fuel problem. We had about 20 minutes of the engine surging before putting in to deal with our overheating problem.
This was at Southport, NC near Wilmington.
We had purchased fuel just south of there. We have since changed water separator/fuel filters three times and we are not yet completely free of the trouble.
In Surf City, we were at a marina that was across the street from an all night fishing and boating store. (How cool is that!) I went in and gave them the Wix (brand) filter part number and they gave me two $30 filters. We got back to the boat and found that they were not compatible. I went back to the store to find that they had no alternative. But I'm a lucky shopper and I found a cross reference to a third brand that claimed to be compatible to the $30 filter. It was perfect. Plus it only cost $7.
There I made a mistake. I only bought two of them. I should have bought out the store.
Thus we ended our February 12th having made only 50 miles again.
And the weather forecast was for a significant snowfall over night.
This was at Southport, NC near Wilmington.
We had purchased fuel just south of there. We have since changed water separator/fuel filters three times and we are not yet completely free of the trouble.
In Surf City, we were at a marina that was across the street from an all night fishing and boating store. (How cool is that!) I went in and gave them the Wix (brand) filter part number and they gave me two $30 filters. We got back to the boat and found that they were not compatible. I went back to the store to find that they had no alternative. But I'm a lucky shopper and I found a cross reference to a third brand that claimed to be compatible to the $30 filter. It was perfect. Plus it only cost $7.
There I made a mistake. I only bought two of them. I should have bought out the store.
Thus we ended our February 12th having made only 50 miles again.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
From Too Cold to Too Hot
On our second night out we stopped at an Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) marina in Ocean Isle Beach, NC. We thought we were going to make it much further along but we didn't account for the only bridge on our 330 mile journey that was going to be a problem.
At Sunset Beach, NC, there is a pontoon bridge across the ICW. It floats and the middle section is like a barge with a bridge tender. There was nothing tender about the state worker running this bridge. We arrived at the bridge around 2 pm thinking we had four more hours of running time to the marina that was three and a half hours away. Wrong.
We arrived at 2:04, precisely, to find the bridge tender unresponsive on the radio. After about five minutes he tersely announced: "We open on the hour". So we circled in the ICW for 56 minutes. When he opened the bridge, we could see a cable strung across the opening that we were to go through. Mr. Tender wouldn's answer my request for info about what was going to happen to the cable as I approached. He did drop it, but I was thinking about how stupid I'd feel if I ran the boat over the cable, got stuck, and had no explanation for what I was thinking. Best I could think of was to turn the controls over the Greg, but he was wise to me.
As a result, we only made it another hour and a half to our stop.
The temperature had dropped to freezing. The marina's idea for preventing the water lines to freeze was to leave them spraying on the dock. Which became a dock/rink. We wound up having to leave at dawn however. Because I went to the parking lot and shoveled up lots of sand and dirt to put on the ice of the docks so I could walk.
Probably a mess when it melted.
The marina manager probably hasn't walked "two blocks" for many a year. He told us that there was a pizza place two blocks up the road. Greg and I bundled up and walked two mile long blocks up the road to find that any restaurant must be another "two blocks". We couldn't see any comercial place.
Greg was cool, though. I noticed three cars with Dominoes Deliver signs wizzing past us. We started to walk back. Then he had a great idea. He flagged a little truck down to ask directions to the restaurants in the area. He picked Ceasar and Julio driving a 1990 S-10. And they didn't speak English. Greg conjured up enough of his 10th grade Spanish to determine that the pizza place was "two blocks" down the road. We demurred.
God bless them....the spanish guys turned the corner and then pulled off the road just ahead of us. They tried to make room for 480 pounds of extra guys in a two person vehicle. They were going to drive us there! We thanked them and walked back to the boat.
We didn't know how to get the phone number for a local pizza place. Greg called second mate Vicki at home, to get on line, and determine a local place for us. Greg ordered pizza after finessing the lack of a house number with the order taker. We had a hot dinner of pizza in minutes.
For the third night in a row, we had no trouble falling asleep.
On Sunday, January 31, we charged off good and early. Unfortunately, as we reached Southport, NC, just south of Wilmington and only 30 miles from where we started, the engine started to overheat. We found a mechanic, incredibly, who would come down on a Sunday midday to see if he could get us going again. After a few adjustments, a false start and a second visit from the mechanic, we bagged the day. Greg called his very good friend Kenny to come and get us. At this point, we are two and a half hours from home by car.
Kenny called after about four hours embarrassed to say he'd be another hour. Gladys gave him bad directions and he had to double back. Following Gladys' instructions, he wound up at the entry ramp for a ferry that would carry him across the Cape Fear river to our location. But it wasn't going to do so for another couple of hours! Gladys is the voice of the built in the GPS in his smokin' Dodge Charger. He had to drive 30 miles north, cross a bridge and 30 miles south to catch up to us.
Kenny is a saint. And his car can go 0 to 60 really fast. Or as Greg commented on the way home: "it goes from 0 to 60 to 55 to 60 to 55 to 60 really fast".
Joe
Joe
At Sunset Beach, NC, there is a pontoon bridge across the ICW. It floats and the middle section is like a barge with a bridge tender. There was nothing tender about the state worker running this bridge. We arrived at the bridge around 2 pm thinking we had four more hours of running time to the marina that was three and a half hours away. Wrong.
We arrived at 2:04, precisely, to find the bridge tender unresponsive on the radio. After about five minutes he tersely announced: "We open on the hour". So we circled in the ICW for 56 minutes. When he opened the bridge, we could see a cable strung across the opening that we were to go through. Mr. Tender wouldn's answer my request for info about what was going to happen to the cable as I approached. He did drop it, but I was thinking about how stupid I'd feel if I ran the boat over the cable, got stuck, and had no explanation for what I was thinking. Best I could think of was to turn the controls over the Greg, but he was wise to me.
As a result, we only made it another hour and a half to our stop.
The temperature had dropped to freezing. The marina's idea for preventing the water lines to freeze was to leave them spraying on the dock. Which became a dock/rink. We wound up having to leave at dawn however. Because I went to the parking lot and shoveled up lots of sand and dirt to put on the ice of the docks so I could walk.
Probably a mess when it melted.
The marina manager probably hasn't walked "two blocks" for many a year. He told us that there was a pizza place two blocks up the road. Greg and I bundled up and walked two mile long blocks up the road to find that any restaurant must be another "two blocks". We couldn't see any comercial place.
Greg was cool, though. I noticed three cars with Dominoes Deliver signs wizzing past us. We started to walk back. Then he had a great idea. He flagged a little truck down to ask directions to the restaurants in the area. He picked Ceasar and Julio driving a 1990 S-10. And they didn't speak English. Greg conjured up enough of his 10th grade Spanish to determine that the pizza place was "two blocks" down the road. We demurred.
God bless them....the spanish guys turned the corner and then pulled off the road just ahead of us. They tried to make room for 480 pounds of extra guys in a two person vehicle. They were going to drive us there! We thanked them and walked back to the boat.
We didn't know how to get the phone number for a local pizza place. Greg called second mate Vicki at home, to get on line, and determine a local place for us. Greg ordered pizza after finessing the lack of a house number with the order taker. We had a hot dinner of pizza in minutes.
For the third night in a row, we had no trouble falling asleep.
On Sunday, January 31, we charged off good and early. Unfortunately, as we reached Southport, NC, just south of Wilmington and only 30 miles from where we started, the engine started to overheat. We found a mechanic, incredibly, who would come down on a Sunday midday to see if he could get us going again. After a few adjustments, a false start and a second visit from the mechanic, we bagged the day. Greg called his very good friend Kenny to come and get us. At this point, we are two and a half hours from home by car.
Kenny called after about four hours embarrassed to say he'd be another hour. Gladys gave him bad directions and he had to double back. Following Gladys' instructions, he wound up at the entry ramp for a ferry that would carry him across the Cape Fear river to our location. But it wasn't going to do so for another couple of hours! Gladys is the voice of the built in the GPS in his smokin' Dodge Charger. He had to drive 30 miles north, cross a bridge and 30 miles south to catch up to us.
Kenny is a saint. And his car can go 0 to 60 really fast. Or as Greg commented on the way home: "it goes from 0 to 60 to 55 to 60 to 55 to 60 really fast".
Joe
If You Are Too Hot, Deliver a Boat
We left Charleston on January 29th. That day faked us out. It was below average in temperature, but it was well into the fifties. And that was no problem...we were comfortable. The following day was all rain and the temperatures never got out of the low forties. We were able to helm our boat from the enclosed lower station, but we had humidity condensing on the cabin windows, so we struggled to see. Keeping the cabin door open became a necessity and we did without heat all day.
The first day we made Georgetown. Son Greg was the crew and he beat his brains out keeping windows clear and his poor old dad as warm as possible. He received a great prime rib dinner as a reward. He had a further reward that he treasured more, however.
You see, we both forgot towels for showering. Luckily, first mate Barbara packed, of all things, elbow length oven mitts with my stuff! They were made out of double layers of towel cloth. One for Greg and one for the old man. Grandson Patrick had made them for us in a sewing class run by Aunt Beth. His gift was highly appreciated.
The next day was enjoyable. It was clear, sunny and exta cold. BUT, the humidity was way down so we could keep the cabin door closed and allow the 270 HP heat generator below our feet warm the cabin some.
I was partially brilliant. I had purchased Rain-X before the trip and it was very important to our safety on the rainy day. Greg was brilliant because he brought for the trip a Rain-X product called Fog-X. It was used to minimize the fogging on the inside windows.
Goes to show you: between the two of us, one great mind!
And if you miss the cold and snow, deliver a boat with me and I can cure you.
Joe
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