Back to Portland for the winter

This blog began on Friday, September 27 when our boating friend Stu and I made an 8 AM visit to the boat for the trip back to Portland, our winter storage location. Frances was anxious to accompany us but unfortunately, her legs (while improving a lot over the summer) weren't quite strong enough to enable her to get off the boat once docked on the very unsteady slips at Portland Riverside.

Before we docked for the summer at Norwich, we got new 4-step boarding stairs that enabled her to get on a off easily. You can see them in the video below and they were well worth what we paid for them.

Last year, I made this trip at the end of October and it was, to say the least, difficult and not what pleasure boating is supposed to be. With that in mind, we picked what looked like a good day and made the trip a month earlier.

As it turned out, the weather was nearly perfect. We saw few other boats and the sea conditions (predicted to be "one foot or less, wind from the north at 5-10 kts") was exactly that or better. As you'll note on the video, there were times where we didn't seem to be moving and the boat would hold course without any steering adjustments. It was that nice!

Our buddy Stu, a former long-time boater and I passed much of the time laughing at the foolish things we did on our boats 20-30 years ago.

It was warm and sunny when we got to Portland. I was sad to dock the boat for the last time this year and all we had to do was secure the lines, grab our unused winter coats and drive home.

While we didn't cruise on the boat a lot during the summer, we did visit it most weekends starting in July and Frances always enjoys seeing all of her dock-mate friends.

Next summer

We will be another year older and that has taken its toll. My night vision isn't great and our maintenance on the boat takes a little longer to accomplish that it used to. Frances should be back fully on her feet by spring but even she has to take things a little slower.

American Wharf in Norwich, where we dock in the summer, is for sale and there are now many vacancies, although the dock crew is as helpful as ever. We looked at moving the boat to a slip at another marina but finally decided that our friends were in Norwich, so why not just stay there?

The boat, now 40 years old, is dry and comfortable and has all the stuff on it we need (and a lot of stuff that we probably don't) . Our engines are sound and take us where we want to go. It is definitely our "summer cottage" so in January, we'll write that big check for our summer 2020 slip rental and come May, make the trip back to Norwich, once again.

The video shown below covers a number of weeks from the fall cruise through winterizing the plumbing and engines. That took a little longer than expected due to the discovery of a kink in the hose from our fresh water tank. But we replaced that hose and the pink antifreeze finally flowed.

The video will be a good time to take a 13-minte nap, it's that calm. But it's fun for us to look at during the winter and perhaps it will be for you too.