Wax on-Wax off

We began our normal summer routine on Friday, April 26th by moving onto the boat for the weekend and enjoying our first cocktail hour on board.  The weather has finally turned toward spring like conditions.  We still used the furnace Friday night & an extra blanket but Saturday was gorgeous.  While waxing all day Saturday, we actually were warm & changed into shorts for a bit.  We really made great progress on Saturday, completely waxing the entire bridge.  Friday's forecast for the weekend, gave us hope that we would be able to wax both Saturday & Sunday, but alas the forecast took a dramatic change & instead of sun & warmth on Sunday, we experienced cool temperatures & all day rain. Drat!!  How many people would be disappointed that they couldn't spend all day tiring out their muscles?

Saturday evening, we were fortunate to dine aboard, Waterford.   The four of us enjoyed a splendid dinner, both of us having contributed our share.  Jacque found some delicious fresh baby beets that Garry put on the grill for a LONG time, but boy was it worth it.  Jacque threw together a wonderful salad of fresh arugula, beets, avocado's & pine nuts with a tasty balsamic dressing.  As Doug told Garry & Jacque, he has "never had a bad meal on Waterford".   Shoot, I've never heard him say that about Day Dreams. :)

Although we were disappointed about the rain on Sunday, we did enjoy waking to the sound of soft rain drops, so much, that it lulled us back to sleep till almost 10:00 AM.  Doug then got busy & was able to get the AIS (identifies freighters) up and running, all he needed to do was to buy some more connections. The hot water tank needed a new valve, which Doug replaced and has ordered a new one with a higher release pressure of 100 instead of 75.  We'll see if that holds up longer. The Satellite weather module still wasn't working totally, so the experts decided it must be defective, so Doug was instructed to return it and the company was sending a new one to us.   There are always rainy day projects to work on and a good excuse to go shopping, which we did.

Today @ home, was another beautiful day, so we decided after dinner to try out our new foldable Kayak, called a Foldbot.

Isn't she pretty? 

The kayak, not the muddy Maumee River.  It took Doug about 40 minutes to assemble the kayak by himself and for the first time.  It is supposed to take about 20  minutes.  Doug is sure he will get more efficient and of course Jan will help from now on. 

Jan does paddle sometimes!!

The Kayak worked great & so did both of us! The paddles are light and the kayak really glides along nicely.  It is not tipsy and we both felt very safe & secure.  We can't wait to explore with it in Lake Superior!  Well, here's hoping for the continuation of this beautiful, now summer like weather.  Today was 84 degrees, the trees & flowers are all blooming and the grass is a lush green, just splendid!!

Weather, who knows!

Last Thursday, towns around us broke records for high temperatures in the 80's. Last night, towns around us broke records for low temperatures in the 20's. Our short exposure to the warm temps only lasted that one day. The cold temps continue to torment us. Friday was a horrendous day of cold & high winds. The water level in the Marina was the lowest we can remember. Waterford's (Garry & Jacque) depth indicator read 0 feet under their boat. We didn't read ours because we decided to stay home until Saturday & not contend with the miserable weather. Saturday morning the water was still low but only @ 0 chart datum instead of minus 20. Windy, cold but the sun was out. The water @ Toledo Beach Marina has been turned on & the bathhouses opened. We decided to work inside the boat today instead of washing & waxing the exterior. Doug filled the water tank, thought he removed the air from the lines, turned on the hot water tank & then later Jan did dishes & ran out of hot water, which never happens. Hmmmm... What does that mean? Still have air in the lines, water was still sputtering. So ran the water some more till the sputtering stopped. Turned hot water tank back on. Water heated up again, nice & hot-good. A bit later though the engine room bilge pump came on, that's not a good sign. The hot water tank's pressure valve opened & drained the nice hot water into the bilge-shoot! We have to trouble shoot this. On to other challenges: this winter @ the Miami Boat show, Doug purchased many fun electronics & has spent March & April installing them. He installed AIS, which stands for Automated information system. It allows us to identify ships in our vicinity, their course & speed & those ships will in turn be able to identify us in the same manner. He also installed a cool multifunctional display (MFD), which is used as a chart plotter, displays AIS & satellite weather, which he also installed this spring. Doug designed & built a really neat mounting bracket for his MFD, I have included a picture. Why I have applied the term challenge to these new electronics is because now Doug has to get them all to recognize & talk to each other-Good luck. During the cold winter months while Day Dreams was shrink wrapped & sitting beachside with a beautiful view of Lake Erie, Doug also built in a microwave in my galley & installed an inverter. The inverter will allow us to run the microwave, the bullet & charge our phones & iPads without running the generator. Doug is so handy!

Day Dreams is now floating!!

We launched Day Dreams Saturday, April 13th in the clouds and cold temperatures. Everything went smoothly, thanks to our expert hoist driver; Scott & our fellow Krogen buddies; Garry & Jacque.

We were fortunate to be invited to use the Lathrop suite @ the Mudhens game for Saturday evening and since it was Jan's birthday, we invited a few friends to enjoy the game. Thank you all for a fun, wonderful evening.

We spent the night aboard with the furnace cranking to keep us snugly warm. The sun did shine on Sunday between the snow flurries & rain drops.

Spring is finally here!!

These beautiful flowers have been picked from my yard. We worked on DayDreams both Saturday & Sunday. She's looking great. We launch @ Toledo Beach next Saturday, only 6 days away. We are ready.

Trip preparations

We are continuing to plan for our latest adventure. We are trying out this blog to see if this will work for us.