currently in: Myrtle Beach, SC

Well, we're here. Unsurprisingly, yesterday was utterly insane: we got up at 5:15 a.m. and finished shutting the house down, our friend Andy drove us the fifty miles to the tiny Cortez airport, Britt nearly had his toothpaste confiscated at security for being one ounce over the TSA limit...and that was just the beginning. Four airplanes later, we disembarked at Wilmington, North Carolina, discovered our luggage had not made it along with us, drove to the Motel 6 where we had a reservation only to find nobody at the desk and no answer to our repeated hits on the "call night clerk" buzzer. We found another motel, turned the fan on high to mask the noise from the partiers down the hall, and shortly before midnight we finally fell asleep.

But today has been, for the most part, much better. After good coffee and a shared muffin at a coffee shop in Wilmington and a quick look at the lovely old homes in the historic downtown, we drove west along a quiet parkway listening to the rental car's satellite radio and making fun of the names of seaside developments advertised on the billboards we passed. (Southeastern North Carolina appears to have two major industries: churches and real estate.) In Myrtle Beach we found a relatively inexpensive kitchenette hotel room. And then, with great trepidation, we went to the boatyard. After a pleasant chat with George, the owner of the marina, who assured us that he could probably find whatever we needed to get Windom going again, we headed out to look at our boat.

Yep, Windom was right where we left it. Some of the tarps we'd used to cover the deck had ripped in places, and only a few shreds remained of the white plastic garbage bags that had covered the solar panels, but for the most part, Windom's exterior looks pretty damn good. The teak trim needs a little sanding and re-oiling and there's dust and dirt across much of the deck, but it's a far cry from the thick green slime that greeted us the last time we came back to the boat.

We got a little nervous when we opened the companionway and saw a few dead wasps on the floor, but it doesn't look as though there are any nests in the boat. There's very little mold or mildew, and since we didn't leave any nasty formaldehyde preservative in the boat, like we did last time, it doesn't smell horrible, either. Best of all, when we turned on the main breaker, we found that the batteries are fully charged - we even turned on the inverter and used boat power to run the vacuum cleaner!

When we'd gotten back to the boat in 2004, after it had been on the hard in Florida for two years, I was depressed for days at the mess that faced us. This time, it was entirely different, as we bustled around the cabin discovering all the things we had forgotten we'd left aboard. Look - our nice, heavy insulated coffee mugs! Look - the water filter! The clothes we'd left in the cedar-lined closet weren't musty, and the tools we'd left under the settee weren't rusty, and even though we'd stored the wheel in the shower and the dinghy motor in the middle of the salon, it didn't take a lot of imagination to look around and remember all the wonderful cruising experiences we'd had - or to anticipate the ones to come.

There's still a lot to be done, of course, and we haven't even tested the major systems that will have to be operational for us to get underway. Some things we can check while we're out of the water; others, like the refrigeration and the watermaker, will have to wait until we get splashed. But right now we are pleased and excited, and ready to get this show on the road and this boat heading to the Bahamas.

And hopefully, our luggage will arrive before we depart!

Labels: boatyard