Stay Safe out there!

     Well, here it is April of 2020 and we are hold up in our little house trying to avoid the virus. Never been quarantined before so this is a new experience that I'm not real excited about. We have been stuck inside now for just over a month. We don't go out for much of anything. Yesterday we had to run to the drug store because we ran out of tooth paste but other than things like that, we just stay in. We get our groceries delivered by Walmart so we don't have to go shopping for that either. They have an app that allows you to do your shopping on the computer and then they deliver your order to your front door. Pretty good deal if you are worried about this virus. I have pneumonia right now, and lung damage from emphysema. I had pneumonia once before and I had to spend over two weeks on a ventilator in the ICU and almost died with it. So, I don't think I would survive the onset of this COVID -19. That's why we are strictly adhering to the guidelines set forth by the CDC. Linda is not much better with diabetes and heart trouble. So, we hope all of you out there are doing well, and staying safe. Take care, & God Bless.

A New Home

     Here it is, Christmas day of 2019 and we have a new home. We finally sold the Molly B although I really hated to part with her, I just couldn't keep up with the repairs anymore. All my artificial parts just don't seem to work well enough to do the work I needed to. We were in a slip at Morning Star Marina on St. Simon's Island in south east Georgia when a neighbor down the dock from us had a visitor and he told him about our boat being for sale and his visitor thought it might be just what his dad was looking for so he told his dad about it and his dad fell in love with the Molly B and bought her. So, there we were in the middle of October with no boat and no place to live. We had to find a house and quick. I had been looking around Frostproof, FL where we lived before we moved onto the boat and I found a little house in a sub-division called Sun Ray just a little ways out of Frostproof. We put a deposit on the house and applied for a loan. I didn't realize that it took four to six weeks to close on a house so we still had a long time to wait with no place to live. Linda and I decided to take a trip to Minnesota to visit my brother and my step dad since we hadn't seen either of them for over five years. It was good to see them again although we couldn't stay long because of the house deal. We also stopped at Woody's place in Michigan. Woody is the guy that helped work on the boat a bit when I was building it in Florida and it was a long time since I had seen him as well. We left Michigan and headed for Virginia to visit all the kids. It was really good to see everyone again. We headed back down to Florida and got an air bnb until we closed on the house on the 13th of November. We started moving in on the 18th of November. As I said, here it is December 25th and we are still moving in! Oh well, I guess it doesn't really matter how long it takes to get moved in. We are doing some painting, insulating, and other work around the house getting it fixed up. We are going to replace the kitchen cabinets so that will take awhile. There was no insulation in the attic so we had to get that done, and the AC was about dead so we have to get that replaced, then we should be ready for the hot summer that's just around the corner.

Still Here!

     Believe it or not, we are still here. It's been just over a year since I've posted anything on my blog. We are still trying to sell the Molly B to no avail. We have dropped the price several times since we listed her. We are now down to $50,000 and did have a buyer with a contract signed and deposit made. We were supposed to close on the 23rd of Aug which is today however the buyer ended up in the hospital last Tuesday so everything is on hold for now or maybe forever, just don't know at this point. Sure was a let down after a year of trying to sell her. Time will tell I guess, I sure hope we can find another buyer real soon.

The Molly B

The Molly B

     Linda and I have decided to start looking for a house. I can't afford a house payment and slip fees and insurance for the boat so I guess we will have to try to sell our boat. I really hate to do that but I can't really keep up with all the repairs and maintenance required either. I guess I'm just getting too old. So, I have listed the Molly B on a facebook site called Trawlers for Sale. Got a lot of real favorable remarks, but no takers yet. Hopefully it won't take too long to sell, but I don't think that's a realistic expectation, I think it might take quite a while. I'm asking $125,000 OBO. It will most likely be the OBO that will sell the boat, not the 125k asking price. I just hope I can get enough to buy a small house somewhere in Florida, I have a little over $200,000 invested in the construction of the Molly B, and the surveyed replacement value was set at $675,000 in June of 2014 so 125k should be a fair price for her. If you are interested, or hear of anyone interested, please refer them to the following Link. Molly B 

Making some progress/

     As we progress through the list of needed repairs we really need to raise the debt ceiling! My new engine start battery was the cheapest item on the list, and that was $108.00. I have my new air conditioner installed finally, what a blessing that is with temps in the upper 90's and feels like temps around 112! That new unit is really working hard to keep the boat cool but it's doing a pretty good job. I've had some trouble with the new unit in that there isn't enough air circulation around the unit with the way it's mounted under the flybridge deck. I'm going to need some more vents in the deck up there to help cool the unit a bit more. Right now I've just removed some of the panels up there and that seems to provide a little more fresh air to the unit so it keeps running instead of cutting in and out like it was doing earlier. The total cost on the air conditioner and installation ran $2,072.58. That's a lot, but around $300.00 less than the first unit I installed myself, except this one doesn't have a heat pump but it's a 15k unit so it's a little bigger than the first one.

    Then there is my new Inverter/Charger. The unit is a Go Power 3000 watt unit and it cost me $1,417.98. I hired a couple guys from Fernandina Beach to come up and install it for me. I started removing the old one and gave up. I just don't bend enough anymore to work under the cabinets on the bridge. I haven't gotten the bill for the installation yet so I don't know the total cost of that but I imagine it will be quite a bit since they had to travel a couple hours to get up here and back plus the time on site working. I need to have a bigger circuit breaker installed for the new inverter so they will have to come back up to do that for me. I changed one breaker in that distribution panel and I don't really want to try to do it again. You have the really tear the thing apart to get to the breaker you want to replace. You have to take the whole row of breakers apart to replace one in that row and this one is a double main breaker which makes it that much more difficult to do. 

     I just about had my credit cards paid off, and now they will be back up there again. Oh well, it's only money. I just need to live long enough to pay them off, again!

We made it; but just barely!

      We limped into Brunswick Landing Marina on June 8th on one engine, no air conditioner, and no battery charger on my inverter. Something new seemed to be shutting down with every passing moment. I also cooked the port engine start battery. It must have shorted out or something, causing the port engine not to start. I tried to jump the engine with the starboard battery, and it still wouldn't start. The stater wouldn't even turn the engine over. So, I think maybe the starter on the port engine must have gotten damaged during the battery problems. I had normal voltage output readings on both engines so I don't think it was an overvoltage problem that caused the problem with the battery. I had a house battery do the same thing once, it just cooked and boiled over in the battery box. I do have a spare starter so I can change that out easy enough. I'm going to wait until Tim, my oldest son, gets here with our car and I can go downtown and get another battery. Then I can see if it is the starter or not. I have also ordered a new inverter/charger and made an appointment for an electrician to install it for me. I have also ordered a new air conditioner and have a local company ready to install it for me as soon as it gets here. This is really going to cost me a small fortune to get this boat back up and running again. I was just getting my credit cards paid off and now we're going back in debt again! 

     We got a slip close the the club house so we can take advantage of that free beer and wine they offer without having to walk too far. The marina is nice with floating docks which is a good thing, because there is a tide of around 6.8 feet here. The next high tide is tonight and is supposed to be 8.4 feet, floating docks are a must here.

On the Road Again.

     Our stay in Florida is just about over for this year. We're getting ready to head north around the end of the month. It's been a nice stay here at the Nettles Island Marina except when the wind blows out of the south, it gets pretty "rocky" in our slip. We are all the way in the marina almost up against the bulkhead on the north end and we still get some pretty big waves in here with that south wind. Other than that, it's a pretty nice place to spend some time. It's only a short run over the Indian River Lagoon to all the shopping you might want to do. 

     We will won't be going all the way up to the Chesapeake Bay this summer, it's just too far to travel and getting rather expensive with the fuel prices along with everything else along the way going up. Instead we will be stopping in Brunswick, GA for the summer. That's just far enough north to satisfy my insurance company, and only about 300 miles from here so we can make the run in about a week instead of a month to the Chesapeake. We'll be coming back down to pick up our car so we'll have transportation this summer. Now we just have to wait out this tropical disturbance moving north from the Yucatan into the gulf. Don't know how bad that might end up getting, so we have decided to sit tight until it passes and then head out. We'll be staying at the Brunswick Landing Marina which is at 1701 Torras Landing, Brunswick, GA. If you happen to be in our neighborhood, stop by and say hello. Take care, and have a great summer.