“Not All Days On The Water Are Fun and Games” by Karen Posey - June 15, 2015

The title for today’s report is…“Not All Days On The Water Are Fun and Games”, subtitled “Karen, Please Quit Your Whining”.  I am including it because I felt that I had to balance the previous reports with one that shows the not-so-glamorous side of cruising.  We pulled into Oriental, NC at ~noon yesterday (June 14) and were immediately aware that it is REALLY hot here. Temperatures were almost 100 degrees yesterday, and predicted to reach 102 degrees today!  It barely dropped below 80 degrees last night.  To make matters worse, the air is completely still, I mean NO wind or breeze, and VERY sunny.  Needless to say, living on a sailboat with no air conditioning is not the most pleasant way to experience such a heat wave L.  The photo below shows the thermometer INSIDE the boat this morning (95 degrees), and it was even hotter OUTSIDE the boat in the sun!

Thermometer in cabin of boat

Despite the heat, we decided to make a much-needed trip to the grocery store.  This involved pushing our grocery cart a mile in the heat to the nearest grocery store!  Thankfully, someone at the store gave us a ride back to the boat.

At this point we had been dripping wet all day, but the fickle finger of fate was not finished with us.  There was a leak in the water system, which had required that we turn off the pump the day before.  After returning from the grocery store, Murph crawled into a locker in the cockpit to find the leak.  Turns out that there was a broken connector and the water tank on the boat was empty!  Hmmm…not the best time to run out of water.  Murph was able to jury-rig a temporary connection.  We’ll have to wait until we pass a marina tomorrow to fill the tank.  The water heater is not operable, but heck, who needs hot water in this heat??

Windscoop rigged at Oriental dock to capture the light, elusive breeze

Oh, by the way, my laptop got wet from water coming into the boat yesterday. (Someone needs to point that fickle finger in the other direction!)  I let it dry for 2 days, but it is acting squirrelly.   For example, when I press certain keys on the keyboard, it types a pair of keys, then I have to edit all the text.  [Fortunately, it began acting normally a few days later.]

OK, I’m finished whining. One has to smile through all this and look on such things not as an ordeal but as part of the adventure.  :-)