Clogged Drains, Plumbing and New Galley Faucet

This photo was taken by Bruce with his Nikon that I only know how to turn on and off. My cell phone photos are mostly pretty good but when I saw this one! Wow! He took it last Sunday and he just now downloaded his photos.We were sitting on the flybridge of Summer Breeze for happy hour and the sun was starting to set. 

The marsh was glowing and the water reflections and heron were pure eye candy for us. 

This is South Creek, just behind Botany Bay Beach off of the N Edisto River before it empties into the ocean. Our newest and best anchorage yet!

 I'm not sure if I mentioned a few days ago when we ended our Winter Cruise to Charleston that we had a clogged sink in the master head plus the galley sink due to common thru-hull on our last night out. We had tried EVERYTHING! 

It was a good thing that we had already been scheduled to be home the next day as it was not going to unclog. We think it was because of the cold, cold water temperatures and the little bit of cooking we did with olive oil on the salmon and tacos night, then on top of all the years of other stuff. That cold water temperature just congealed it all. He tried a sink plunger, boiling hot water, the zip it thingys, no not long enough as the clog was down in the piping going out to the thru hull. 

Yep, he got to break down all the pipes. Not what he wanted to do. That did the job though as he was able to reach the mucky yucky parts and clear it out. Then the rebuild started which is not always easy and he wanted to rebuild it so he could access any trouble areas easily in the future. 

Rebuild successful. Leaks? Yep! 

Try again, got it. 

Since he was all up in the pipes both below the master head sink and up above in the galley sink, he says, this is a good time to replace the galley faucet! We were waiting until the countertops were done (which we are starting soon!) but this was a good time. Several stops at the stores in town later, we got the right one. 

Below is the old faucet before he tore it out.

 The new faucet. Actually looks similar to the old one. Since the sink is not a large one and we really don't want to put a larger one and lose counter space, we were limited with this style. 

See the fog through the window? 

It's NOT a good day to be out on the waterway! 

Our countertop fabricator is coming out this week to see what we can do! Guess who is really excited about this project?

January 24, 2018, Winter Cruise Day 4, Heading Home

We had a calm night in our new spot in the creek and we had a great sleep, missing sunrise again. In the photo of the chart plotter, you can see where we anchored in Church Creek off the ICW close to Wadmalaw Sound. 

 We weighed anchor at about 10 AM to head home. Still working the docking with a rising tide and we have to make sure we can cross the sand bar. It was a bit cooler today but the sun was shining and there was barely a breeze making it just perfect. 

We were out of Church Creek by 10:15 and entering the Toogoodoo Creek by 11:15. 

Bella is enjoying the warm sunshine through the Isinglass in her chair.

The dolphins were really enjoying the breakfast menu along the way! They were absolutely everywhere! I tried to capture some photos but it didn't work out well. They are too fast for me. Bruce suggested that I try a video and that worked better.

Here is an image of our travels the last several days. We always forget to log the mileage when we start but we have a general idea of how far we go. Basically, we just did a circle tour from home to Charleston and back. 

Winter Cruising Day 3

Well, the storm was a "nothing" for us on the water (Thank God!) but we did have a couple of awake moments at night and we think we did drag our anchor just a bit last night but all was still good in the morning. We had rain about 2 AM preceded by some weird chain or snubber noises before that. After deciding that all is good by Rosie at 1:30 AM and Bruce a bit later, we awoke to a somewhat quiet morning but we only had 2' of water below our keel. Not where we anchored!  But since all was still good, we waited untill high tide and decided to move up the creek just a bit where we might not drag, being the drag queen we were last night! In the mean time, we missed a sunrise photo. We just did some regular household chores, like organizing a closet, grocery lists, changing light bulbs... you know, just regular household chores. At about noon, the tide was higher and we decided it was time to move up the creek just a bit for the night. Storms had been still predicted but the storms never hit with the full force we expected. That is OK! So we moved just a little bit up the creek and spent the day doing chores, I (Rosie) did a bit of gallery work online  and on phone (have cell phone and lap top, will travel! Right?), Bruce read after finishing his chores, then I painted a Toogoodoo 365 painting from a photo I took a couple of days ago. So it was a quiet day on the water, a bit windy here and there but quiet as the night hit. Tomorrow, we will go home and dock. The winds will be a bit less but a bit cooler. That is ok because we got a bit of winter cruising in after all!

Reading and relaxing on Summer Breeze

Paint time!

Toogoodoo 365, Jan 18

 Happy Hour Views

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Winter Cruising Day 2

January 22, 2018

What a beautiful sunrise! Looks like it might be a painting...

We pulled up anchor at 8 AM. It was a calm and brisk morning. The marsh is beautiful in the morning light with dolphins everywhere. It is a rising tide at about mid range and we needed to follow the same path out of the creek because of the sandbar. We exited with lots of water under our keel by positioning ourselves parallel to the dock at about mid creek and pointing the bow just to the right of the Seabrook water tower. (These notes are for our future reference as this is a great anchorage.)

This is the view leaving N Edisto as we passed Botany Bay Island.

We were out of the N Edisto River channel by 9:20 and heading NE towards Charleston harbor, passing Seabrook, Kiawah, and Folly Islands. We could see both the Morris Island lighthouse and the Sullivan Island Lighthouse. 

The weather was projected to be a high of 70 today inland but it is definitely cooler out here on the water! 

We entered the jetty channel between Green 16 and 17 markers, a 3 hour offshore trip. This is our 1st time in the Charleston channel with Summer Breeze and we were immediately faced with sharing the channel with Allie B and a barge but had plenty of room to spare. 

We passed Sumter Fort and the harbor was beautiful and very calm.

View of Charleston waterfront and the bridge

Wappoo Creek and Elliot Cut had a raging current which kept us watching the rocks. 

With the approaching storm tonight, we hope to be anchored where it will affect us the least. Most of the anchorages along the ICW don’t seem ideal to weather out a storm so we kept moving on towards Church Creek. We have spent a couple of nights there and know that it is a good anchorage and safe harbor.

We actually got to Church Creek sooner than we expected. We had slowed down through Wappoo Creek and Elliot Cut but made great time the rest of the day. It got quite warm as well, enough to take off the jackets and sweatshirts! 

Here at Church Creek, we went around a couple of the bends in order to be protected from any winds that may come from tonight's storm front. We will hang here tomorrow until the front passes and then decide about the next day. 

Happy Hour

 Sunset, Church Creek, just off ICW 

We traveled 73 miles today

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Winter SC Cruising

January day in the Toogoodoo Creek

Yes it has been since the 1st week of October since Summer Breeze has been away from the dock. Hurricanes, rain, holidays, valuable family time, snow storms, ice, wind.... have kept us away! We had some time blocked off on our calendars for a January trip but the weather has not cooperated and it seems that we might be blessed with a couple of wonderful days now. So, off we go for what we think might be 3 nights, Sunday through Wednesday for some coastal cruising, 

still learning Summer Breeze.

Pelicans flying across the creek at 10 AM

Bella in her boat bed

 We left the dock at 10AM this morning with an incoming tide and we had a smooth departure. The incoming tide seems to to suit us. It is a beautiful day with no wind and the water is as calm as can be. It took us about 2 hours to get to Botany Bay Beach so we tested out South Creek entrance for a possible night anchorage and at high tide, we found it sufficient and then we tested it going out again at about mid tide to confirm that we could leave early in the morning. It was fine. Being that it is a beautiful day and calm waters, we exited the creek and decided to go play offshore for just a bit.

We cruised to Red#6 buoy and the turned around so we could get back into South Creek before low tide. Offshore is smooth as glass today and we are hoping that it will be the same tomorrow for an offshore trip to Charleston.

We got back into the creek without any worries and decided we would be fine for the AM departure and we anchored about 2 PM. We had thought of putting the dinghy down and exploring the island but it is a bit cold out even though it hovering in the mid to upper 60s and it cools off real fast in the afternoon. So, we just relaxed and had a nice evening in the creek.

We hope to leave early in the morning to leave the creek at about mid tide and go offshore to the Charleston inlet, past Morris Island Lighthouse and by Sumter Fort and then back into the ICW through Wappoo and Elliot Cut to anchor by St Johns Yacht Club. We hope because it will be a bit rainy on Monday night, Tuesday morning. This should position us well for an ICW return while we have experienced some good offshore time.

I decided to capture the image of our nav charts of our location last night. It was a good one! Protected, easy access to Botany Beach if we want, easy access to offshore or anywhere around Edisto. We will be here again!

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Holidays and Projects

Happy holidays everyone! 

Over Thanksgiving, Melissa, Jordan, Caitlyn and I each created new Christmas wreaths. The girls were excited to have their very own for their doors at home and school.

Summer Breeze now has her own!

It's not been ideal weather to go out lately. Either too cold, too windy or too wet. And when you are in the comfort and warmth of your home, it just does not sound appealing to be on the water. So it's project time! An easy one was to build a simple fender holder on the fly bridge. We don't need them at our dock but do need to have them handy, so they are on the flybridge and always either in the way or rolling around. Over the rainy Thanksgiving holiday, Bruce and Matt built this out of PVC pipes. Now the fenders are in place and easy to grab. 

And it's a good time to think about working on the steps. They are still covered in carpeting and we are hoping to restore them to the natural wood and install some clear non skid stair treads. The carpet installers were really happy using their nail guns on these! 

This is going to be a bigger job than we thought.

Bruce is working on "fixing" some of the nail holes. He was actually not cussing then. And we do plan to do something about the wallpaper on the sides by the doorway. 

The refinished steps!

 

                                                                          

           

We had a couple of days that the weather was unseasonably warm and nice so we decided to take a day cruise to just "shake the cobwebs off". We had a beautiful day and perfect tides to cross the sandbar coming and going and very low winds, so off we go for a day cruise. We need more times out like this to get comfortable still. We were 30-40 minutes into the cruise and just about to exit the Toogoodoo Creek when an alarm and THE red button goes off on the console panel! We had an overheated starboard side engine and after deciding that it is most likely a sheared impeller, we decided to turn around and get back on the one engine while we could. The tide and winds were still calm and we were going to need that to turn around in the creek and dock on one engine. We limped back and docked easily though we feel that it could've been a real challenge for us. We were also trying out a new docking line system and that was a total failure but we docked and fixed the lines after. More lessons learned today! These things happen on boats like this and it's always a learning experience. Happy to say that both engine impellers have been replaced and we are ready for another day cruise to test it out. Hopefully soon.

Back to our project list, I decided to update the master bathroom a little more with some backsplash tile. Here is the image with the plain white. I chose Tic Tac Tiles, Antimold, Peel & Stick Wall tiles. Got them from Amazon, here.The reviews were great so I decided, to try them. 

About $50 later and an afternoon plus an hour another day, because I ran out and had to order 1 more tile sheet, we are pretty pleased with it. I do have some places that a professional tile layer would not approve of but Bruce didn't notice!

There are still more projects to tackle this winter. The counter tops and a floor refinish is NEXT on my list though Bruce is already starting to work on the battery bank replacement among other mechanical stuff. Doesn't he realize that he can do all that other stuff later? And if he would let me finish my list now, then he will have ALL the time in the world to do his list without me bugging him? They never learn, do they?

Merry Christmas!

Summer Breeze back home with a beautiful sunrise.

The 3 Rs of buying an older boat...Redo/Repair/Remodel...

We've been working a bit on our Redo/Repair/Remodel list and it's GNAT season!

No-See-Um Screens, Bath Fixtures, Fans...

Well, on the east coast, it's often gnat season. So we've been working on converting a couple of the porthole screens to gnat screens. After some research from other cruiser's blogs and Youtube, I came up with solution. We haven't put it to the real test yet but plan to soon. We learned from Carolyn Shearlock's blog, The Boat Galley to use wedding veil material! It is a lightweight fabric, not netting. So with our 50% online coupon we bought some at Joann's Fabrics. 

We chose black instead of white as it allows a clearer view out and it seems to also provide a bit of privacy in! We cut the fabric about 2" larger than the existing screens, then doubling the edge over for extra strength, leaving an overlapping edge to fill in any of the gaps in the portholes, then glued the fabric to the metal screens. We tried several glues and the best one is I use to also glue linen panels to boards for my artwork! Above you can see the wet glued edge. Looks messy but dries clear.

On the back side or other side of the screen, I added some black Gorilla tape catching the fabric and metal parts for extra strength and support. 

Here is the screen with "no-see-um gnat" fabric in place. The extra overlapping fabric fills in the gaps that the regular metal screen had. And the view is not compromised at all. We are hoping that incoming breezes won't be compromised either.

     

We made one for the forward hatch and the two side doors by simply attaching with velcro (by some simple hand sewing and more Gorilla tape) and they snap on with the existing fabric screens.

And for the main cabin way, we attached the fabric with glue and Gorilla tape to a slim strip of wood, kind of like a yard stick baton. Then velcro strips to the wood baton and the wood bar just inside the hatch that opens. Then we hand sewed some plastic coated weights from an old cast net to the bottom. Voila! It can sit just inside the doorway or outside. We need to test it in a breeze to see if it will work best in or outside the doorway. We are prepared with some small velcro squares to apply just inside the cabin way for full protection when we are not constantly going in and out.  You can see how clear it is to look out but the view in is obscured. Can't wait to use them on a trip. Hope it works or it will be back to the drawing board!

Next up is the plumbing fixtures for both bathroom sinks and shower. 

Here is the old one. 

And here is the new one! 

It was not easy. I could go on with a very long story about taking the old one off and installing the new one(s). After buying 4 of them between Home Depot and Amazon and after 4 days of attempting, we got one to fit. Then after buying new hoses for below, none which would fit.... well it got done. And no leaks!

Here is the old shower head and fixtures.

         

And here are the new ones! Unfortunately, the fixtures we wanted would not fit as the handle and plumbing is right next to the wall so the new one looks just like the old. It's just new!

View of master sink with new fixtures

And then we did the forward sink fixtures. The old faucet would NOT come out due to rusted/frozen on piping. I've been wanting to get the chain saw to do some remodeling and Bruce just says, no, no, no. But he got to use a version of a chain saw to get this one off! Its a "fine tool", Bruce says its just a chainsaw with finesse.

New faucet fixtures in forward head. Ok but we still can't use it because now the seacock plug has evidently separated from the shaft in the closed position, per conversation with Patrick at Groco. We discovered this as the water would no drain after our last haul out which "freed" the stuck seacock. To replace it will require a haul out which we just did this past summer and don't plan on doing it again for about a year. So for now, this will just look pretty.

Fans! We decided to add a couple of fans, which are 12 volt, 0.3 amps draw therefore great energy efficient.

  One in the main salon....

And one in the master stateroom. This one had to be wired to the 12 volt light that was already there. You can just see the wire running down from the light but it is tucked away behind the wood cornice. We chose one that clips on so we wouldn't have to drill any holes in the wood and we can also move this one a bit for more comfort adjustment.

 

We have one for the v-berth but not installed yet. 

So, we will get to test this all out on our next trip out.