In the water!

On Thursday, May 1, we got the call. "Your boat is in the water!" Perfect. We jumped into the car and headed to the boatyard to check the lines. Everything looked fine except that the rain earlier in the week had pushed up the river level and the current was running at 5-6 mph amid a number of floating trees. Not problem. We still had a few things to do before we left for Norwich.

On Saturday, we fired up our little generator to charge the batteries. There isn't any electric or water on the docks right now but we're used to that, too.

After a new minutes of charging, the generator went into quiet mode, indicating that there was very little load on it. Then we gave each carb a tablespoon full of gas and off they went, with good water flow through the exhaust system. We let then run for about 15 minutes at 1,000 rpm to top off the batteries.

While the engines were warming up, we checked the transmissions and the hydraulic steering - all just fine.

It is nice sitting on the fly bridge and listening to those old engines

The boat was pretty dirty and we had brought an extra 100 ft. of hose from home. That, combined with the 50 ft. of hose we keep on our summer dock, was just long enough to reach a shore-side water source. We turned on the water and "pow" the hose burst right next to the faucet. We cut the end off, added a new hose connector (amazing what we keep in stock) and turned the water back on. "Pow" and the hose burst again.

We have to admit that the 100 ft. section of hose has been in our garage, unused, for about five years. We guess it aged out while hanging over a hook for all that time. Anyhow, it was off to Home Depot for another 100 ft. of hose. Cha-Ching!  $30 for hose that we hope won't burst when we use it again, who-knows-how-many years from now.

We hosed the dirt off the boat (thorough wash will be done when we get to our summer slip) and filled the water tank.

On Sunday, the wind really picked up. The water level had dropped about a foot but that left it 11 feet or so above its normal level. No one was going down river. We hope to do so next week sometime but we need to check the clearance at the East Haddam swing bridge. In fact, we need to get its opening schedule. As it is now, it doesn't look as though we can fit under the closed bridge, even with our antennas down. That could mean waiting up to an hour for the bridge to open. We'd rather not waste fuel doing circles north of the bridge.

With not a lot left to do, we devoted Sunday afternoon to cleaning.

Bill forgot is maid outfit so this will have to do.

We shot some video which we hope you'll like.

Hope to see all you A-Dock folks soon.