We're Back!

Walking along a beautiful trail at Secret Harbor

Well - we've been back on Storyville for almost 2 weeks now. It seems like the time has flown when I think back on it, but some of the days have just been dragging by. There was an overwhelming amount of work to be done just to get the boat back to some state of liveability. Everything had a slight mold covering it and the boat smelled really musty.  Not to mention that every day is a new day when it comes to seeing what systems are still in working order.  Storyville did not like being abandoned for 8 months!

After a week of cleaning and working, we decided to move the boat over to the next bay so that we can be closer to our cruising family on Pipe Muh Bligh and Keolakai.  Well, that plan didn't pan out as we soon discovered that our hydraulic steering has failed. Troy has been working on getting it fixed, but it is an old system and it looks like we will be ordering a new one and waiting for it to arrive on a ship.

Speaking of ships, we are still waiting for the delivery of our deck box. It arrived on the island last Friday but, true to "island time" form, the container that it was shipped in has not even been opened yet. So, we are still in a waiting pattern for that.  Which is just as well, since we are stuck out on a mooring ball and are not sure when the steering will be fixed so that we can make it over to the dock to take delivery.  We will just have it figure that out when the time comes.

In the mean time, we have been trying to enjoy ourselves as best we can. Luna has adjusted well. She loves the beach and swimming and playing with other dogs.  She's really got the life.  We've also been having some fun. We went to the Caribbean Rum and Beer Festival the other day and had a great time sampling rum and rum drinks.  So, it's not all work and no play!

Luna getting her sea legs back!

Caribbean Rum and Beer Festival

Vee, Silvio, Deana, Troy, Seadog Dave, Hurricane Lisa, Stacy and Rene!
Some of our cruising family, what a fun crew!

I think they missed each other!

Vee, Hurricane Lisa and Me

We Are Headed Home!

If you follow this blog then you know that we've been away from Storyville for the last eight months. We've been in Texas caring for my mother, but the time has come for us to return to our boat and our life on the water. We will be flying back to Grenada tomorrow and we will see just how sad our boat is after eight months of neglect. We will get her right back into sailing shape though!

In fact, we have been sitting here on dry land thinking and dreaming of improvements for Storyville and we decided that we would ship a box back with some of the wonderful things that we have been collecting over the last months. Troy had a great idea. We would purchase a dock box and fill it with goodies and ship it to Grenada. I thought that was a great idea as well since we do need more storage space on deck and a nice dock box would definitely be an improvement over the ice chest that we are currently using for deck storage. The idea was great, but the project seemed to grow it's own legs and get out of control quickly.

We ended up with the largest dock box that would fit on Storyville's aft deck, it's 72 inchest wide! We must thank our friend Bob on s/v Wyndigo. His boat is a sister ship to Storyville and he is currently based in Kemah. He kindly allowed us to use his boat for measuring and even for a trial run with the dock box.

Of course, with the bigger box, came more "stuff" to fill it up. All kinds of stuff, like new kayak paddles (which were desperately needed) and even some new carpet squares to replace the carpet in our aft cabin. We even added things like treats for Luna and a new food chopper for me. We stuffed it so full that I can't remember what all is in there. Luckily, we made a list!

Troy had to make a crate to ship the dock box in. We wouldn't want that pretty shiny box to get all beat up on the cargo ship! Like I said, this project took on a life of it's own.

One of the main reasons for this idea was so that we could get a new water maker with a higher output. We love our Spectra but we love water and the 4 gallons an hour that we were getting made it difficult to keep up with the pace of our water consumption. We have only heard wonderful things about Cruise RO Water and Power. They were very helpful in getting the unit ordered and shipped to us and we are can't wait to get it to Grenada and installed on Storyville.  We will be able to make 30 gallons a hour - yes, that's right, from 4 to 30. What a difference.

I guess it's a good thing that we need to get a bottom job for Storyville soon. We may have to raise the waterline!  I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story:

She's out of our hands and off to Grenada to meet us after our arrival. We will have some busy days ahead but we just cannot wait to get back to our life on the water!

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
It's always our self we find in the sea.
~e.e. cummings