Happy Easter...

Today was "launch day" for Wild Blue. I was patient, not rushing my first mate. We had coffee, then some breakfast, then I started taking stuff to the boat: fenders, lines, PFDs, paperwork, etc. I put the local chip in the chartplotter. Just waiting for the "OK"...

When the time was appropriate (I don't know how that is determined), we hooked Big Red up to the boat trailer and pulled her around to the ramp. All was going well with the launch; the motor fired right up (I had test run it yesterday). Joan started rinsing the trailer while I put up the antennas. As she pulled away with the truck to put it in the parking lot, I discovered I had no power to the radios... or the autopilot... or the horn... or the wipers... or any lights... oh, crap!

When she got back to the boat, I had to tell her that we weren't going for a ride, we were heading right for our dock. Some stuff was working: the fuel flow meter, trim indicator. It was a lovely day, about 79º at 11:00, a light breeze, sunny, and the humidity seemed a bit lower than the past couple days... this would really be a good time to go out and shake down the boat after being in storage.

Instead, we pulled the boat around to our dock. Seems that in those 15 minutes, the temp went up, the humidity went WAY up, and my patience went down. We got the boat tied at our dock, and I got my multi-meter to see if I could track down the problem. About 30 seconds later, I was soaking wet with sweat. I got out our red-neck air conditioner and put it in the front window... it ain't pretty, but it might mean the difference between survival and expiration by extreme sweatiness.

I let the boat cool down for a bit and went in the house to hydrate. Back to the boat, I started trying to track down where the power quit. Now, keep in mind that I am no electronics or wiring kinda guy. You know that old saying, "Even a blind chicken gets a kernel of corn once in a while"? Well, after only about 45 minutes and a lot of talking to myself, I found where the power stopped: it was a connection to one of the main busses. I put it back together and climbed out of the v-berth (where all the wiring comes together) to see if that helped... the VHF crackled to life, the chartplotter and autopilot beeped, the cabin lights lit! Hmmm, this is my own little miracle today.

I went back in the house, dancing the Happy Dance! We may still get a boat ride in today! More rehydrating, and I went out to the boat to take out the air conditioner and get her ready to to head out.

It felt good... really good! I checked my log: one day short of 3 months since we had her on the water. It felt like a lot more than that. As we cruised down the ship channel, I started checking out everything on the boat. I need to put water on to check the fresh water pumps, but everything seems to be functional... that weight on my shoulders lifted.


Joan took the helm while I walked around the boat. Did I mention: this feels good!


All the excursion boats were out, and yes, we all saw dolphins. The excursion boats had good crowds onboard; here's a few of them...


We made our way out the jetties. Looking over to the beach on South Padre Island, it was a sea of beach umbrellas and tents - the huge crowds are still here.

We had been chugging along at displacement speed while checking everything out. On the way back in, I put the coals to it: 24 mph, burning 7.8 gallons per hour... just over 3 miles per gallon. Non-boat owners are probably gasping right now, but that is pretty good mileage when running at that speed... for a boat. With gas prices the way they are, I doubt that we'll be doing a lot of that speed, but we wanted to make sure that all was right.

There's more work to finish: the bimini needs to be treated with waterproofing and put back on, I need to check out the fresh water system, the windows need to be treated with Rain-X, and the window tracks need to be scrubbed out and treated with slippery stuff. But, Wild Blue is back in the water, and I have several weeks to get that all done.