Our first order of business at Green Turtle was to do some shopping. Before leaving Alton, we had ordered some things from Amazon and also some parts from Caterpillar. The Amazon stuff got delivered to the marina, but we had to pick up the Cat parts. As well, we wanted to get some odds and ends for various things around the boat at Home Depot and Walmart, and we also needed some groceries. Many large marinas offer a courtesy car, and we booked one together with Rich and Melanie for our first morning at Green Turtle.
Heron hanging around on the docks.
The first stop was Caterpillar to pick up engine parts. Then we went to the UPS store to return some things to Amazon. After that we hit Lowes for some lumber, Home Depot to pick up some chain, and Walmart for various odds and ends and groceries. By this time it was close to lunch, and Rich and Melanie suggested we go to Chick-fil-A. We had never been to one of these restaurants, and they told us the food was really good, so in we went. The place was really well run, clean, and the food was really tasty. I can see why this chain is so popular in the U.S.
Part of the transient docks here at Green Turtle, full of looper boats.
Moving a boat to the travel lift for service. They have a couple of service boats here that are rigged up to push boats around.
Chrissie left us a care package at the marina office. Just the kind of stuff you need on a boat.
Back on le boat, Louise hung out at the pool, while I did some chores in the bilge. We had a visit from Peter on Nabi, a Norhavn trawler, who we had met over a month ago in Orillia. They were leaving that day, and he had some beer to give away. He explained that all the other loopers on the dock did not drink alcohol, so he could not give away this case he had on his boat. I told him that I no longer drank "regular" beer, and now was a consumer of non-alcohol beer, but that our friend Chrissie liked the brand he had and I would get Steve to drop in to see him. Later in the day, Steve dropped by our boat. Chrissie had gone back to Utah, but he was here to get their boat ready to hand over to the new owners. He was busy cleaning, and removing the last of their stuff. Turned out he did not want to bring the beer back to Utah with him. Later, back on the boat, I discovered that Peter had dropped the case of beer off to us before they left, and it was now on our transom, so I guess we were now "it".
Because everyone needs a pink tractor.
Huge add that takes you back in time. Haven't seen this since the 70's. Reminded me of hanging out with my friends when we used to ride our bikes all day around the 'hood. Our allowance was just enough that we could buy some gum each day, or perhaps one or two pops or chocolate bars each week.
We went for dinner with Steve, Rich and Melanie. Initially, Steve wanted to take us to the tiki bar on the resort, but they were having bingo night, so we could not get served for a long time. After hanging around for a bit we decided to go back to Patties. Steve had brought his pickup truck, and there was not enough room for everyone in the cab, so Rich and I rode in the back. Have not ridden in the back of a pickup since I was a teenager.
Rich and I in the back of Steve's pickup. All kinds of fun until someone loses an eye.
When we got to Patties there was an hour-long wait, so we went across the street to a smaller restaurant. The waitress was really flirty and kept trying to upsell us, but we managed to resist and kept it simple. After dinner, we rode back to the boat in the truck and crashed for the night.
Louise, Renatta (Lady in Red), Melanie (Jewel) and Jamie (Naut Lost) went down to the dock to feed the turtles in the morning.
The next morning, Louise and I set out on a quest to pick up our Amazon stuff. Turns out they have several offices here on the resort, and we had to visit each one to get all our packages as each different office will accept deliveries for boaters. Eventually, however, we tracked everything down. That afternoon I went for a boat ride with Steve in Miss K. He wanted to test some systems on his boat to make sure all was good for the new buyers, so we took Miss K our for her final run before the sale. He made sure everything was working, and then we ran the boat at various speeds to ensure there were no issues before the upcoming survey.
Back on our boat, I walked around the docks trying to find someone to take the case of beer Peter had given me, but there were no takers. Either the people did not drink alcohol, or did but did not like beer. Wow, Who knew it would be this difficult to give away beer. After supper, I rigged up our spare anchor rode by splicing a thimble into one end of the rope so we could attach the piece of chain I bought for it. When I took the seamanship course with the Power Squadron I had to make an eye-splice, but it had been a few years since I did that, so I had to practice on a piece of scrap rope first. It was the first time I was splicing in a thimble, so had to account for this as well, but after doing it on a piece of scrap, and watching a couple of Youtube videos, was ready to give it a shot. Rich had some plastic FIDs which he lent to me, which made the job a lot easier. Will add some of those to one of our next Amazon orders. The final version was not very pretty, but it was functional. I had bought some chain for the spare anchor at Home Depot, as the chain at Westmarine was really expensive. The type of chain I got is not super-good for salt water as it is only zinc-dipped and not galvanized, but it will work for our spare anchor since it will only be used a few times, if at all. If we ever find we are using it a lot, I will get some galvanized chain from a marine source.
There were lots of loopers at the pool, and we visited with many crews who were passing through on the loop. Each day a couple of boats would leave and a couple more boats would arrive, so the composition of the crowd was always changing here. Finally I found a looper who wanted the beer, and turned over the case to them, so now they were "it". Over the week we visited with many crews we had been boating around recently, and some we had not seen in several weeks. Every boat goes its own pace, so the composition of the fleet you are in is constantly changing.
Last winter when we went to the boat show, we deliberately talked to various insurance companies about getting insurance for the entire loop, as we knew we would need special coverage for the sub-tropical portions. Our current insurer assured us that there was no issue, to just call them to get an extension rider for the lower latitudes when we needed to. OK, sounds simple. Well, last Thursday things got complicated. We knew that our policy would only cover us above a certain latitude, but for some reason I thought this was 30 degrees latitude, so we had decided to wait until mid-September before getting the extra coverage. So Louise phones the company, and finds out that their latitude cutoff is not 30 degrees north, but 40 degrees north. We were now around 37 degrees of latitude and so had no insurance coverage! Ooops. Louise started working the phones, and found a couple of places for coverage below 40 degrees north, but by the end of the day we did not have anything set in stone yet. Needless to say, we did not sleep well that night.
The next morning we spent several hours rounding up documents and filling out forms to try to get new insurance coverage. We submitted applications to four companies, but all were closing early for the weekend and could not answer us until Monday - I thought bankers had the good hours? So, we were in a bit of a stressful position until we could re-establish coverage. Why do we discover this kind of thing just before the weekend when these businesses are closing? The good news was that we were here for several more days, we were in a safe location, and there was time to get things worked out.
Louise was upset about the insurance and was not sleeping well. Jamie got her a gift of turtle food and left it as a surprise on the steps to feed the green turtles here. It made her morning. They have a feeding station which is jam-packed full of turtles looking for food.
Turtle food yum.
That afternoon, I replaced a couple of small parts on the engine and did some cleaning in the bilge, while Louise hung out with Melanie at the pool. After finishing my chores I went over to the pool, and we visited with all the local loopers. The dock was pretty full with boats that day, and the pool was full of looper crews. We had restaurant leftovers for supper on the boat, even Eevee. Louise had some catfish left over from one place, but it did not reheat well, so Eevee had semi-fresh catfish for her supper. Both Louise and I crashed that night, as we had had long days in the sun, as well we were still stressed out about the insurance.
The next morning was engine maintenance day. When I replaced the fresh water pump at Heritage harbour, I had checked the idler pulley on the belt and it seemed fine. However, I have learned over the years that when one part on a system fails, other related parts often fail at about the same time. Therefore, I wanted to replace this pulley just in case. Would have been smarter to do it when we replaced the pump, but I did not think of it at that time, it was a couple of days later when I realized I should have done everything at once. Anyways, getting the old pulley off was easier than I thought, and I also got the new one on quickly, but had trouble torquing the bolts as I could not easily get at them. This was starting to take time, and it turned out I could not finish it that morning. So, I put all the tools and parts in the engine room where they would be out of the way, and had to wait and finish the next day.
More engine room work.
We had reserved the courtesy car for the afternoon to go to Paducah for the barbeque festival. Rich and Melanie from Jewel and Russ and Jamie from Naut Lost were going as well. We wandered around for a bit and had some barbeque for lunch, then Louise and I went to the Quilt museum while the others wandered downtown.
I think we were expecting something different, the quilt museum turned out to be an art gallery with quilts instead of paintings.
One of the quilts in the museum. Each colour is a tiny piece of fabric. This piece was about 15 feet long.
There was not much else to do downtown, so we all went to Walmart to pick up some odds and ends, then headed back to the marina. The weather is hot here all the time. We are up at 5:30 each morning, and it is pretty warm out, even at that time. So, we are spending a lot of our time at the pool in the afternoon. Even this does not completely cool you down, we are in the direct sun, so late afternoons become nap time. Once again, we ate on the boat, then turned in early for the night.
The next morning was another maintenance day, at least in the morning. I started out by finishing the pulley install. In the end I had to move the alternator and air cleaner in order to tighten the bolts, but I have now done this a few times and it is not as intimidating as it was at first. Ran the engine for a bit and all was OK. We had not run the dingy for a while, so decided to take it for a run to make sure all was fine with the engine. Stuff on boats makes trouble when you don't use it, so it is important to use everything every once in a while to keep them operational. The dingy and engine were covered in big spiders, and I spent just as much time flicking them off the dingy as setting the dingy up and driving it. These things had safety silk that seemed like 20 pound test line, and it usually took 3 or 4 swats to get the spiders off the boat and into the water. Rich and Melanie also got their dingy out for a run, so we did a tour of the marina, then had a short run up and down the shore outside the breakwater. Louise had to watch the laundry since there was a big demand for the machines and she didn’t want anyone waiting for her to take stuff out.
As you can imagine, storage space on the boat is at a premium. We have piles of stuff everywhere that we have not been able to stash away. Well, Louise found an empty drawer. How did we miss that? And how come only she gets to use it?
Back on the mothership, I scrubbed the inside of the dingy as it was filthy from sitting out. Rich then helped me to build a rack to secure our spare anchor. I wanted to store it out of the way, and the best place was in the lazarette. However, the anchor is big and heavy, and so it was important it be secured so it did not damage anything if the seas ever got rough. I also took some time to make some fender boards for when we get to tidal areas. Some places have fixed docks that do not move with the tide, and so you tie your boat to pilings. These can be difficult, as you need to ensure your fenders can protect the boat, so one solution is to use some fender boards. These are pretty simple, just four-foot long 2X6's with rounded edges and holes for ropes. You set them up in such a way that they ride on the pilings between two fenders. I bought a 2X6 at Home Depot, and cut it in half to make two boards. I will post more info about them when we go to use them in tidal areas.
My new wood-working shop.
That night we went for dinner with Steve at Patti's restaurant. We need to cut down on our restaurant spending, but we won't see Steve for a while once he goes home so we wanted to have a good visit with him.
Patties is huge. It is laid out like a big house, with lots of smaller dining rooms of various sizes, each one decorated in a different style. We got to enjoy the festive season with our dinner.
Everything was lit up outside Patties. They had Christmas lights, Halloween lights, all kinds of themes.
Golf cart parking everywhere here. People in the resort and village move around by golf cart.
Water wheel at Patties.
In the early morning we started to make our plan for the next few weeks. We needed to order some parts from Amazon, so needed to have an idea of where we would be in a week or two so we could arrange for delivery. What we try to do is to find a marina we plan to stay at that will accept packages, then get the stuff delivered there about a week before we plan to arrive. This way we don't have to worry about waiting for deliveries. With the itinerary roughed out, we placed our Amazon order. In the meantime, Louise got in touch with the insurance company. They had approved us being insured with them, but we had more hoops to jump through to arrange for the insurance rider to continue travelling south. I took a couple of hours in the afternoon to work on the spare anchor hold-down, but work was interrupted by a thunderstorm that rolled through. For the rest of the day, we had small rain squalls move in-and-out.
During one of our daily weather checks, we discovered that tropical disturbance nine was forming in the Gulf, and that it was forecast to become a hurricane and eventually track north, perhaps into our area. This was Monday, and it was looking like we would have some windy conditions on Thursday and Friday later in the week, at least one of which we were originally planning would be a travel day for us. We will not travel when it is really windy or with lots of lightning, so will need to monitor the storm and plan accordingly. More things to juggle.
This was the forecast track for Hurricane Helen on Monday morning. We are located right at the bottom tip of Illinois, just south of the forecast location at 2 pm Saturday, and would potentially start encountering the storm Friday. We started making plans, having a plan A, B, C and D to adjust for changes in the weather pattern going forward.
Our last planned day at Green Turtle began with more calls to the insurance company. Louise had set alarms at various times of the day to follow up with them and make sure we got our coverage. Each time she called, they had more questions for us. I went into the lazarette to work on the anchor hold-down, and got everything done except for one screw. Turns out it was in a tight space, and I would need a special drill bit to set it. This is not the first time I could have used one of these bits, so I added it to our shopping list for later in the day. Towards noon, we got in the courtesy car with Rich and Melanie to head off to Paducah.
First stop was Caterpillar. When I ordered parts the previous week, one of the parts was an oil pressure switch. Turns out the switch was discontinued, and replaced with a different part. The new part had different threads and a different electrical connector than the original (why?), and so I could not install it as is. After a call to Cat, we discovered that we had to buy an adapter fitting and a new wiring harness for it. So, we had to pick up these parts to do the job. From there we went to a few other places to pick up some small items, then to a couple of grocery stores to get provisions for the upcoming week. Back on the boat, I finished off the anchor hold-down and then re-loaded all the other stuff in the lazarette.
Anchor rack in the lazarette. The anchor is secured in place with bolts, rope and big zip ties.
We also picked up around the boat to get her more ship-shape for travelling. In the late afternoon, Louise got a call from the insurance company confirming our insurance, and they also sent us the paperwork by email, so we were now covered again and good to travel. We both slept really well that night, for the first time in several days. Perfect timing as we were planning to leave the next morning to work our way down to Chattanooga. We have some time to loiter, as we do not want to get near the Gulf while hurricanes are still possible, so we are planning to go slow for the next little bit and do some sight-seeing, staying well away from any kind of tropical storm activity. We will visit Chattanooga, and hopefully Nashville as well as part of this wait.
Boat life has emotional ups and downs, and this week we have had a couple. We have really enjoyed hanging out with all of the loopers we encountered here at Green Turtle Bay. It was really nice to see Steve again, and to visit on the phone with Chrissie. At the same time, we had to say goodbye to Steve for the second time in a few weeks, as he was off to Indiana after his boat-sale survey, so this was a bitter-sweet time for us. We really enjoyed the month we spent with Steve and Chrissie on lake Michigan.
A few days ago, Rich had a family situation arise, and had not been himself for the last couple of days. The night before we were planning to leave, he and Melanie decided that it would be best if they left their boat Jewel at a marina here, and travel back to Florida to be with their family. We were really sad to see them go, as we have really enjoyed their company over the past few weeks, but that is boat life. We will be going slow during October, as we want to stay well north of the Gulf of Mexico and out of the way of named storms, so we hope we will get to meet-up and travel with them after they return to the boat. Another sad parting, but this is the way.
