Packing Up on Kent Island
—Blogpost written by Bob
Saturday, September 25
The outside temperature plunged into the mid to high 50’s last night. We slept very comfortably with the hatches open. The afternoon high temperature was expected to be only in the mid 70’s—perfect Autumn weather!
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| The morning sun as viewed from the v-berth. |
As we sat in the cockpit with our cats in the morning we were serenaded by the whirring of lawn mowers driven by landscapers working on the lawns of the neighboring townhouse development off to our port. They weren’t so loud that we couldn’t talk to each other in the cockpit, but close. We discussed how we are going to go about packing, both items that go into our storage unit and others that go into our car and the order that we have to pack things.
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| Maggie made a delicious fried egg quesadilla with sliced peaches on the side for breakfast this morning! |
We discussed the need to empty our dock box of most items early in the week (after our next shipment of four deeper storage containers arrive), moving most of the items to our storage unit. (I am concerned about unusually high tides from a named storm flooding our dock box while we are away. Even though it may be unlikely, flooding would destroy my power tools for sure.)
Sunday, September 26
I started on a small project early this morning, to stop a leak in the small port hatch near the stove in the galley. The rubber seal was clearly detached from the plexiglass window portion of the hatch. While I was working on this hatch it was a natural extension of the project to fix it so that the black handle would turn freely on the 5/16” diameter stainless steel threaded post. However, the knob completely disintegrated (UV degradation) upon attempting to remove it. Of course, what was left was a brass insert from the plastic knob—I had to cut this off with a Dremel tool. Then, I couldn’t remove the pin holding the post in place. The stainless steel pin was corroded in the aluminum alloy clasp—so I had to cut the end off the post so that I could use a stainless thumb screw and fender washer in place of the disintegrated knob. (This is typical of how a simple boat project turns into an all-day effort.)
We adhered the new seal in place on the plexiglas hatch and clamped it to a 3/4” thick piece of plywood before going out to lunch at a nearby tavern, Rams Head in Stevensville. (We deliberately did this so that the adhesive had more time to cure—it fully cures in 24 hours.) while the adhesive was curing we went to the local Verizon store and replaced Maggie’s iPhone 7 with a new iPhone 13 and then drove to the Queenstown outlets for me to get two long-sleeved lightweight shirts for Mexico. We also stopped for some groceries to get us through the next couple days.
By the time we got back from our afternoon errands (4 PM), the adhesive had cured enough that we could handle the hatch. I put the hatch back together and tightened the clasp which put adequate pressure on the adhered seal. (We will leave the hatch tightened down for at least 24 hours, maybe even longer, so that the adhesive fully cures.)
We had Happy Hour in the cockpit tonight as usual. The evening was nice and cool...
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| Maggie's white wine in the cockpit. |
Monday, September 27
This morning Maggie drove to Annapolis for an appointment while I started packing my clothing for Mexico. (I will use only one small duffel bag for my clothes for Mexico, except my shoes, but I will have a small travel bag for while we are on the trip. The small duffel bag will be packed into our rooftop cargo carrier while the travel bag will remain in the trunk for daily access. We do not intend to open our rooftop carrier until we reach our destination in Mexico, although we may be required to open it for inspection at the border.)
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We got three bags of clothes packed for Mexico today and loaded them into our rooftop cargo carrier. (There is still room for one more duffel bag or so.) Also, six new (deeper) storage bins that I recently ordered were delivered late in the day (to the wrong address--we had to drive around looking for them!). (We will be packing things in them tomorrow morning. Also, some of our clothing which is currently on the boat will be packed into some of these as well.)
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Today was rather uneventful--the most challenging effort was driving around the neighborhood looking for our delivered storage bins.
Tuesday, September 28
From our marina we can hear the morning traffic on Route 50 heading toward Annapolis and “DC” (as it is known here). It is difficult to imagine all the fuel consumed daily by cars and trucks in this area and even more difficult to imagine all that traffic as being electrically-driven someday and how quiet it would become. The magnitude of the upcoming transition to electrification must be similar to that of the horse-to-automobile transition—it must have been difficult to imagine back then too.
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| Kali in the cockpit this morning. Her tail is really filling in! |
Saturday is shaping up to be the best day to move our boat to Galesville because there is a significant chance of rain on Sunday. We tried to get a car rental on Friday but there were no cars available--we plan on borrowing the Hartge company van on Monday to retrieve our car.
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Unloading our dock box was the primary objective on our agenda for the day. The morning was busy with our efforts related to putting items (including some items not stored in our dock box like summer clothing) into large plastic storage bins. We were finished loading all the storage bins (all eight of them) into our car by 10:15 AM. All the storage bins were labeled per their contents and our dock box was completely empty. (It felt good to accomplish this much so early!)
We left on our drive to Annapolis with a carload full of blue storage containers at about 11 AM. We stopped for lunch at Carroll’s Creek Cafe (we both had great salads with grilled salmon) and ate outside despite the raindrops spotting the nearby surface of the water—the rain didn’t last long. Our table was under roof and stayed dry. (Maggie experienced the “invisible avocado” again! Avocado was in the description of her meal but not delivered for the second time at this restaurant. This is still our favorite restaurant in Annapolis!)
Our next stop after lunch was to drop off the eight storage containers at our storage unit.
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| A few of our labeled storage containers being unloaded at our storage unit. |
After dropping off the storage containers, we ran some errands (getting our propane tank refilled, a couple documents laminated, filled our car with gasoline, and made a stop at the new Container Store in the mall) and returned to the island shortly after 3 PM.
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When we returned to the boat, I sprayed the little port hatch to check if we fixed the leak yesterday—it was fine—no leaks at all!
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One thing I will not miss when in Mexico (hopefully, at least) is the attempted scams that occur quite frequently here in the U.S. I just received one this afternoon from McAfee--they were trying to collect $423.99 for a 2-year subscription that I did NOT order. I called them to cancel the subscription and they tried to get access to my computer (this was clearly their aim)--it was a total scam using a reputable company name that provided them some credibility. What a frustrating ending to my day!
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| A scam emailed subscription renewal notice--their aim was to get access to my computer. |
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| A frozen mango margarita for Happy Hour! |
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| In my quest to help mankind understand female communication, this gesture means "propane tank." |
Stay tuned as we prepare our boat for winter storage and it's crew for a trip to Mexico...
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