Biddeford Pool

We found this great place to stay on the way to Portland.  It is Biddeford Pool Yacht Club, located at the Biddeford Pool part of the town of Biddeford.  Now the town population is around 25,000 but here in the section called the Pool there are only a few families who live here year round.  Rumor has it that the local school bus  picks up 10 kids and a few years ago there wee no kids to pick up.

The Yacht Club was built in 1934 by five sets of brothers who built it by hand using shovels and wheelbarrows. 

The majority of homes are seasonal summer places owned by very rich people, or the houses are

summer rental property at around $3,000 per week. The local club has a very large croquet court on perfectly cut grass.

Did not take a lot of pictures but here are two of the boats around our mooring

We stayed an extra night as when we woke up today it was raining and forecast was not that great to sail to Portland, the next stop.  So for $35/night for a mooring we stayed and had a very enjoyable day at the beach.  I walked over two hours, which is a lot for me, and Joy walked another hour.

She bought herself a fresh lobster for dinner tonight.

We head up to Portland tomorrow for three nights. Then on to see the Albiston cousins and then the Simmons College friends.

Joe

Joy has the BUG!!!

Today was the day that we left Kittery Point Yacht Yard. Woke up early, and we moved off the dock onto a mooring just off the dock.  The wind was light and we got off with no problems, and then started to hoist the main sail.  Of course, we always think we know what we are doing, but we did not put the sail into the special slot that runs the length of the mast. Of course, it would not furl, so we pulled it down, recognized our mistake and hoisted it up again.

Off we went about 8: 30 am to catch the 8:45 bridge opening.  Kind of tricky waiting for the bridge guy who took forever to start pulling it up. Got fairly close to one of the abuttments, about 25 feet away, but finally got through.  The picture of the Portsmouth Naval Station, started in 1800.

Took off to Biddeford Pool, Maine, got here about 3 pm, ran the motor was 4.5 hours, sailed for 2.0 hours. Wierd sound coming out of the back of the boat, will nvestigate when we get to Portland.This own is very small, one general store, restaurtant, one US post office,and one tourist store.  Supposedly only  4 families live here in the winter. Mostly all cottages  and large summer estate size houses.

The rest of the pictures are of the tug that was parked at our dock in Kittery, us, the rocks and the oceans.

So I should explain my title. She definitely has the Bug, not the kind that makes you sick but the kind that makes you feel special and fullfilled. She announced at dinner today, that this one day makes her realize how much she loves the ocean and sailing.  We are definitely doing the right thing, now rather than later.

Joe

12 Hour Delay

Well it is 6:30 pm and still blowing hard against the stern of High Spirits. We are kind of
pinned in our position and since we have nobody to help us leave, we decided to stay until the
next high tide at 6:30 am. 

Both of us had bad "vibes" about leaving. Last time we felt like this was in Jamestown, RI where
we decided to come in in similiar winds and ended up damaging a beautiful 46 foot Swan.  Came in because the dock crew said" No problem, we can handle it"  Of course they could not and we
ended up bumping the Swan and nicking both the hull and one of the life line posts

So that is what is new besides I won tonight's Gin Rummy game.

Joe

ps  If anybody is an Eagles fan you can catch the Las Vegas performance in Nov. 2012 for only $250 per ticket.

Waiting for the Tide to Turn

It is almost time to leave Eliot, Maine, home of High Spirits for the past 8 months.  It is 3:50 pm, and we are waiting for the timde to go slack the hour before the high tide of today at 6:17 pm.

We are on an inside dock with a wind directly a tthe stern, so it might be a little tricky backing
directly into the wind.  Then we head down river and wait for the lift bridge to open at either 6:15 pm or 6:45 pm. Shooting for the 6:15 opening. 

The current can hit 6-8 knots when it is running full force especially gong out.

Finished up all the jobs, and you can call her Joy the faucet lady.  Had a small drip in the galley sink and she said it had to be fixed he last day.  So I travelled to two hardware stores, and one industrial plumbing company. Found out that our valves were European, that really was not a surprise since she
was built in England.  Guy said, "I am not responsible"  in terms of removing the washers but
he got off the holding nut without trouble.  We bought some washers and went back to the boat.

He said, "just use the holding  nut to push the washer down until it is fully seated"  Worked for
the first valve, but I broke the holding nut on the second valve at the last second.

We put the valve back in and no leaks, so I guess we did it corectly or just lucked out.

Yesterday we went to see"  Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" really enjoyed it and recommend it. Steve Carrell and Kiera Knightly.


Headiing to the other Kittery Yacht Yard mooring field for tonight.  Still need to put on the main sail.  Should have done it Monday night but Joy was feeling tired and said, "we will do it tomorrow"
Of course now the wind has been too high and the wrong direction. Should be able to put it on in the mooring field, as the boat should point into the wind.  Then we are headed to Portland, Maine for a couple of days, hopefully on a morring on the Portland side of the river.


Joe

ps  Seems we rebuilt High Spirits again as we had everything checked out.

short list from memory:  windlass , new radio wire in the mast, new connectors at the mast, winches overhauled and greased, engine tuneup, hull waxed and buffed, bottom repainted, some rewiring of the elcrical panel. new dodger, new connecting strip to bimini,  and new side pieces for the cockpit,

Sleeping on High Spirits

Well last night, Sunday, we moved onto High Spirits.  Many thanks to Sara Funk for letting us stay in her garage apartment for the past two weeks.

So we woke up today early in the morning, and the yard crew started in at 7:30 am working on some of our old and now newer maintenance items.  Things that got done: engine is running fine and ready to go.  New problem areas:  seems like the lights up the mast, mainly the anchor light, runing lights, steaming light and foredeck light do not work. After exploring the connections on the deck with a volt meter and the fact that the lights were tested before the mast wnet up, this means most likely that the connectors are not functioning properly and need to be replaced. 

Hopefully that will get done on Tuesday.  We did put up the jib sail this afternoon. May sail tomorow if the winds are low and not raining.

The other major problems to fix are no water out of our new cold drinking water filter system, and the front head overfills after flushing.  Nothing critical but would like to have a boat that works 100% for at least one day in the next year. Not too much tro ask.

Then about 5 pm, after a big electrical storm, we found out from two guys who rowed in from a sail boat off our dock that the bridge that we have to go through was hit by lighening and can not go up. 

So basically we are trapped up river and can not ge out to the ocean until the bridge is repaired.  Going scouting tomorrow to find out if anybody knows how long this will take. I just remember from our Cleveland days that there was a  bridge in the Flats that was shut down for a long time due to mechanical failures.

No pictures today, perhaps tomorrow. Supposed to return the Rav4 on Wed but need to find out about the bridge before we do it.  If the bridge  is kaput for a while. we will have to change our plans and keep the car until we can leave.

Bye for now

Joe

SPLASHED

 High Spirts splashed in at 2:53 pm EST, June 22, 2012.  Here are some photos of her being loaded into the boat carrier, and moving down the hill backwards into the water. It is quite an operation.
The yard is a quarter of a mile from the water on the top of a hill, so they can not use a Travel Lift device.  The truck was specially made for them, and last year the owner, Tom Allen from Cleveland said it cost $80,000 just for the carrier.  By the way, Tom went to St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland.  Small world.

This weekend boat jobs are to clean the inside, and move our stuff onto the boat. The plan is to sleep on her on Sunday night. Monday is rig tuning day, engine checkover, water heater checkover and change various fuel filters.  She did start up today, first time.  Plan on turning in the car to Toyota on Wed  morning and then we are off, up the coast of Maine to visit family and friends.  We have been communicating with Joy's Albiston cousins.  Skip's sister's grandchildren.  Uncle Joe and Aunt Dot.
Dot was Skip's only sibling. Also for weekend after July 4 we will be visitng with Joy's college group, Lisa and Steve Wallace along with Peg Gould and Harry Malone.

Right now at 9 pm we are  having a thunder and lightening show. No rain yet. Still is very hot upstairs in the garage apartment. Thunder is getting closer. 

Joe

MAST IS ON

Well today was the day the mast was loaded onto  High Spirits.  Here are several pictures of Brian and Bob handling it, and it is very heavy.  Also notice Joy the supervisor standing in the shade.

The last two days it has been very hot, 95 to 97 degrees. It is extremely hard to work in this heat.  Yesterday was hard as we still had some painting to do.

Also June 20 was our 42nd anniversary. We celebrated by going to a Japanese restaurant for dinner and then afterwards to a movie about global climate change that was sponsored by 350.org.
350 refers to carbon parts per million in the atmosphere.  Several scientists believe that carbon in the atmosphere has to be reduced from 397 back to 350 to prevent an increase in global temperature.

Very interesting movie and speakers after the movie. 

So High Spirits gets splashed tomorrow, weather permitting. Then over the weekend if it cools down we will clean the inside and start moving onboard.  We have a car loaded to the top of the inside with our stuff and clothes all over the Funk's garage apartment.  The plan is to move out of Sara's place onto the boat for Sunday evening and stay on the boat.  It should be cooler since the boatis in 55 degree water.

This heat reminds me of our stay in Charleston, SC when Joy took off for her Simmons reunion and left me behind when it hit 105 for two days. 

Joe

Clean,Clean,Clean

Today was cleaning day.  See the attached photos.

The young man, Jake is doing the wax and buffing job on the boat.  He is about 40 %
finished.  He is doing a great job, but he keeps getting called off to do other jobs in the yard.
We figure that they are down to only 4 boats to launch.

Our big job today was washing and cleaning our 50' mast.  It is made out of aluminum and we found a great cleaner at West Marine.  It is easy to do, but takes a long time to do 50 feet of aluminum.  This job is about 80% finished.  It will be done by tomorrow noon. 

The older guy on the top of the boat is Bob. Bob is drilling a hole for the radar wire to go through
the deck to a connector that hooks the unit up to the power console.  Hopefully it will be fairly easy to disconnect as it has to be disconnect to pull the mast.  However we do not anticipate pulling the mast again for 2 years or so.  Once it is up this week, that is it for a while.

The really good news today was that Brian was able to move the aft cabin seacock so no big job of putting in a new seacock and all that entails is going to be necessary.  So we are on kind of a track to go in the water on Thursday if the radar mounting unit shows up tomorrow.  Somehow it was either not ordered last week or the vendor forgot to ship it.  Just another bump in the road for a boater to handle.

So that is the news for now.  We did go candlepin bowling after working on the boat.  Joy has a new delivery which boosted her scores in the third and fourth games.

Joe

TODAY - FATHER'S DAY

It is almost time to turn in, about 9:10 pm here in beautiful Dover, NH.  Notice the photo of Joy and Sara around the campfire.  Except it was too windy for a fire tonight.

Today was Father's Day and I had a great day.  It started off  kind of shaky as our new Verizon 4G Wifi card started acting up last night. Would connect to the computers but not to the Internet. Found the Verizon store and showed up at 10 am.  Also found out that we had bought our new 4G device from a Verizon Reseller, a franchise store as compared to a company store. Long story short, we are getting a replacement on Tuesday.  Just have to get that activated and hopefully it will not have the problems the one we got in New London has.

Went to Durham, NH which is the home of University of New Hampshire. Walked around a little before church.  Very nice church, on the smaller size but good service and good music.

Then off to York, Maine where we had lunch at the York Harbor Inn. I of course since it was Father's Day picked the place for lunch. Joy had Seared Salmon Eggs Benedict, and I had a lamb salad.

We walked the cliff walk around York Harbor, and then went into town and found an ice cream store. Had been purchased by an employee of Pfizer whose division was sold and all jobs exported overseas. The owner was in manufacturing of vision products.Now she is in her 4th year of  retail sales of a specialty product.

Finally back to Dover and some time talk with Sara.  Had to stop because of mosquitos were getting prety severe.

Tomorrow we find out if the aft seacock works or has to be pulled out and replaced.  They finally had someone look at the seacocks after being here for five days.  Of course, there had to be one trouble maker in the batch. If it has to be pulled out, then we probably will be here for at least a week longer.

The process is to cut around the hull on the bottom of the boat.  Pull out the seacock and possibly the thru hull pipe.  Then put in new seacock, redo the fiberglass making sure there are no leaks.  Let the glass cure, and then repaint.  Let you know what happens tomorrow night.

Joe

ps enjoy the photos. Some explanations.  Top one is Sara and Joy.  The third picture is of Nubble Ligh house in York Harbor, Maine, one of the most photographed light houses in Maine. You can not get to it except by the little gondola car shown in picture 2. There is abut a 100 feet of space to cross with water below you.

Picture 4 is the Bossy Lady, lobster boat at rest and picture 5 is me at the York Harbor Inn.  Very nice place if you are ever up there. The chef has been there 30 years and the dining room manager, Sean, has been there 25 years.

SOME WORK DONE, MORE TO GO

It is now 8:05 pm and another day of work is over.  I just got back from a short walk with Joy.  She decided to keep walking for a little longer.  My back was starting to ache so I turned and came back.  We are trying to walk more, a little after every meal.  That is what we have learned from Nick and Sue Buehler.  They walk at least a half mile after each meal.

Today was a watershed day.  The yard started on the radar/electonics project.  They decided to run the radar wire down through the floor rather than in the ceiling. Of course this meant taking the elecrical panel apart, pulling out the table to open up the floor.  Should be finished tomorrow.  Bob is waiting on a new circuit breaker and also the radar mount bracket for the mast.

Jake, one of the younger yard crew, started waxing the sides about 2 pm this afternoon.  Supposed to get done wthin 12 hours of labor.  See how that works out.  Once Jake is done, then the yard has to work on the keel rust project, check the keel bolts and Bob has to rewire our major anode underneath the keel.

Joy and I washed the dighy this afternoon and put in the leak sealer. This is the second time have had the dighy up on its nose, forgot to take a picture of it. We also worked on cleaning up the prop shaft which still had some barnacle growth on it. Had to get it clean to put on 3 anodes before we launch next week.

Looks like next Monday but probably Tuesday to get into the water. Then the yard says they will work on the front head issues and any other issues.  We will have to check out all the elctrical work. Last time we had some major work done, down in Deltaville, the electrician put the boat together incorrectly so when you turned the battery switch to off,  NOTHING HAPPENED, EVERYTHING STAYED ON. 

Hope all is well with everyone.


Joe

pS  The Dog House is where we had lunch today. It is about 5 minute drive from the boat yard.
Joy had their lobster roll while I had Italian sausage with sauerkraut.

PAINTING DAY

Today was Painting Day.  Even have a picture of me to show Steve Franko that I actually do some of the work on the boat.

Showed up this morning with Dunkin Doughnuts for the yard crew.  Always helpful to treat
the yard crew to some goodies once in a while.

After wiping off the paint dust from yesterday, we started painting about 10 am.
Around 11:30 Joy left for her hight school girl friends luncheon.  I kept up the painting and finished the first coat about 1:30 pm.

After a short rest, 15 minutes, I was back painting, Joy showed up and we finished the second coat abut 4 pm. Due to the fact that we were running out of paint, $350 a gallon, we only did a second coat at critical areas like the water line.  Had to save some paint to cover where the jack stands are holding up the boat and for the keel where we have rust spots. We seem to be the only boat in the USA that has an iron keel versus a non rusting lead keel. Guess iron keels were popular in England back in the 80s when High Spirits was build, 1984 to be exact.

Tomorrow has rain on the forecast so we are going to do some land jobs like find me another CPAP machine as mine is broken.  Also the yard to going to work on grinding out the rust spots, covering them with epoxy so we can slap some paint on.

The electronics man showed up today. Looks like they will mount the GPS on the back of the boat so as to not have to move its wiring. But the radar leads have to be changed for the radar to be mounted on the mast.

that is it for now. Hope all of our broken down boater friends get back on the water soon.

Joe

ps  Pictures today are of Joe painting and a photo of the apartment we are staying in for the duration here in Kittery.

AT THE YARD - NEW SEASON

Well , Monday, June 11, 2012 was the first day working on High Spirits which is sitting on the hard at Kittery Pont Yacht Yard, South Elliott, Maine.

Also working with new blog editor, so hopefully I can figure out how this new fangled software works.  I always wonder why people are changing software all the time, except that it keeps them employed and paying social security taxes which is good for us.  Keep those tax revenues coming into our checking account. We just send it right back out to the boating industry.

So we arrived at the Funk's garage apartment.  Sara and daughter Willow are friends of Mark and Jennifer.  Mark and Sara go way back to when Mark was a grad student at Universty of New Hampshire. Beleive he got his Masters at UNH. It is a nice apartment with lots of windows and ventilation.

Went to the yard first thing. There sat High Spirits, in need of a hull paint job, wax and buff the sides, and no rigging on it.  Howver, please notice our new dodger.  The side pieces to enclose the cockpit are being worked on this week.  We spent most of our time there working on hull preparation, scrapping off the dirt and lightly sanding the paint. 

Tuesday is painting the hull day.  The big job will be the radar/gps installation on the mast. The elecrnics guy is supposed to show up on Tuesday, or course he was supposed to show up on Monday afternoon but never made it.  We wll see what happens Tuesday.

It is not 6:47 am on Tuesday, Joy just got up.  Time to eat and get some doughnuts for the yard crew.

Joe

Ps  The first picture is the living room of the family house in New Hampshire.  Just wanted to show the contrast between living in a house and living on a boat.