Chapter 3 – Full-Timers
More than anything else now that we were living on our boat we wanted to cruise, to spend quiet time in secluded anchorages, to visit new places. But we knew that we could not do this immediately, that we would have to wait due to a number of constraints.
A pervasive consideration and constraint was that of finances. We were very conscious that we needed to conserve our funds, though we did not want to be so frugal that we no longer enjoyed our new lives. But we knew that we could live this new life only as long as our money lasted. We were paying slip rent at Summit North according to a long-term contract that resulted in slip fees of slightly more than about $10 per day including electricity. If we were traveling it would cost us between $40 and $50 each night we stayed at a comparatively inexpensive marina, in addition to the expense of the diesel fuel required to run the boat. Nor was anchoring free; at anchor we had to run our generator to charge batteries and to provide air-conditioning, which we deemed a necessity in this hot weather. This also used diesel fuel to say nothing of the wear on the generator that would result in increased maintenance costs. And of course we could not stay at anchor indefinitely; it would be necessary to stay in marinas periodically to reprovision, get mail, see to personal business and perform required maintenance. We would need occasional shore leave.
And then there were considerations of weather. When we moved onto the boat it was the beginning of summer. We knew that a Chesapeake summer could be uncomfortably hot without air-conditioning, and this was most easily and cheaply provided at a marina. Certainly, it was no time to head south. Our dream was to follow the seasons, to go south in the fall with the onset of cold temperatures. We did give some thought to cruising to the north but we knew from our own experience that as soon as we got to the Jersey coast marina fees would double and then increase even further if we cruised north toward New England.
Finally we had to consider the condition of the boat. There was considerable boat work that we wanted to do before we departed for places unknown, including both improvements and needed maintenance, and Summit North was an ideal place to do this work. We were close to excellent sources of supplies, good hardware stores and boating stores, and we had our car for transportation, which would not be available when we were cruising. If we needed professional boat services there were many nearby resources. And Summit North's system of floating docks and finger piers that were low to the water made it easy to work on the hull while standing next to the boat. So we decided to remain at Summit North at least until needed boat work was completed. Then, perhaps, we could re-assess our possibilities.
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The boat work began in earnest on Day 2, our first full day on the boat. We had known since we launched the boat in March that our air-conditioner was not working, and we knew that at any time the temperatures at Summit North could become hot enough to require air-conditioning, so we had made arrangements for a technician from Annapolis to come to the boat to repair our unit. We knew we needed professional help.
What we had on Summer School was a typical marine air-conditioner unit, really a heat pump similar to that often found in houses. It could provide cold air to cool the boat in hot weather as well as hot air to heat the boat when the weather was cold. At least it could when it was working properly, which ours was not. Evidently, all the Freon (R22 unfortunately since it was an older installation) had leaked out of the compressor. Since we had put Freon in the unit only a year before when we were in Marathon, we knew we had a significant leak in the system. And we knew we could not keep recharging the air-conditioner so frequently; the old Freon was getting hard to find and much more expensive. So on this our first full day on the boat the interior was in disarray while the technician leak-checked the entire system and tried to repair it. Instead of finishing our unpacking and putting-away, we tried to keep out of his way and find other things to do. Finally after four hours he declared the system fixed and submitted his bill. We wrote him a check for almost $300, the technician went back to Annapolis, and we reclaimed the interior of the boat. Of course I knew by the time he finished that his charge would be substantial, but I was dismayed that we had encountered our first large maintenance expense on only our second day on the boat, and I could not help but feel that $300 was disproportionately large when I knew I could buy two good window air-conditioning units for a house for this amount. What was worse, and we had no way of knowing this at the time, the air-conditioning system was in fact not fixed, it was not leak-free, and this was just the beginning of a series of problems and expenses we would have with this system.
There were two large projects we wanted to complete before leaving Summit North. The first of these, and the more difficult, was to refinish all the exterior teak. The second was to thoroughly clean and wax the hull. Though not as big an undertaking as the teak project, it would be nevertheless very arduous. And both of these projects would use to good advantage the dock system at the marina, which allowed us to tie the boat close to the full-length finger pier while we stood on this pier to work on the sides of the boat.
One criticism that many people have of traditional trawler designs is that they employ copious amounts of teak on the exterior of the boat, both for structure and decoration, as opposed to fiberglass and stainless steel. This was certainly the case with Summer School. We had a teak swim platform at the stern with a teak step on the transom leading down to it, a teak cap rail all around the boat that sealed the hull-deck joint, teak rub rails on the sides of the hull at both the bow and the stern, a teak bow pulpit with a large teak platform below it, a teak door and sliding cover on the aft hatch leading from the cockpit into the aft cabin, teak steps from the cockpit up to the bridge, a teak handrail all around the boat, and so on. Now teak is a beautiful, durable wood if it is maintained, but if it is not it assumes a dull gray color and is subject to rot and deterioration. The traditional way of finishing teak is to clean it, sand it smooth and cover it with coat after coat of high gloss marine varnish carefully and laboriously applied. There is no doubt that this produces a very beautiful surface, but the varnish is easily damaged and it deteriorates rather rapidly from exposure to the intense sunlight and salt water encountered by a cruising boat, necessitating complete stripping and refinishing. Alternatively there were a number of other products on the market, various synthetic coatings, stains and sealers, and I had tested several of these during the past winter while in Easton. After evaluating newer products that had become available, I decided that we would again use a brand of teak sealer that we had used three years previously. This had stood up reasonably well though we had used only one coat. This time we would apply two coats and hope that it would last while we were able to cruise and remain full-timers. It took us ten days to complete all the stripping, brightening and sealer application, but when we were done Summer School's appearance was striking and drew the attention of anyone walking down the dock. But more importantly, we knew the valuable teak was now well protected for our anticipated travels.
Finishing the hull was a shorter simpler project but it took three days of arm-aching effort, Nancy and I working together in the developing summer heat. Previously, while the boat was in storage at Harbortown Marina in Fort Pierce, Florida, prior to our extended cruise in 1994, we had the hull professionally compounded, to remove all the accumulated oxidation, and covered with a high quality wax. Now we applied two coatings of a Teflon-based wax, standing on the finger pier and working on one side, then turning the boat end-for-end in the slip and completing the other side. When we were finished Summer School gleamed.
There were many more minor tasks and projects we completed during those weeks at Summit North. I always kept a Maintenance Log for the boat where I recorded all work done, and there were a total of 87 items recorded for all the work we did while in our slip, including both improvements and routine maintenance. Some examples of the latter included washing and water-proofing all the canvas (the weather cloths around the bridge sides, the Bimini top, the bridge cover), repairing the air-conditioner thermostat (it broke the week following the visit from the repair technician), changing the fuel filters on the Perkins diesel engine, and replacing the raw water impeller on our old Onan diesel generator "Tommy." Some of the improvements were installing a carbon monoxide detector in our aft cabin where we slept, installing an excessive heat sensor in the engine room, installing a high water sensor in the bilge (both of these sensors could sound alarms in the main cabin and warn us of dangerous conditions), installing a new VHF radio on the instrument panel on the bridge with a PA speaker mounted on the front of the boat, installing a new horn (the old one was so quiet it was seldom heard by bridge tenders or other boats), and mounting stainless steel rub strakes on the edges of the cap rails towards the bow to prevent the teak from being marred when we rubbed pilings while docking. All of these tasks, and the many others I have not mentioned, were completed in about five weeks after we moved onto the boat.
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But let there be no mistake: Nancy and I thrived on all that boat work and the lives we were leading at the time. Although some of the work was physically hard, much of the time we were working outside, enjoying the air and the water, the sights and sounds and the nature around us. Our lives seemed to be so improved now that our boat was our only home. We felt our manner of living to be all of one piece, to have a wholeness and unity that we had never known before. We were no longer living in a house waiting until we could go somewhere else, or merely staying on the boat knowing that we must soon leave to return to our "normal" life. We were home and this was our "normal" life. It gave us a wonderful feeling of completeness to be living full-time on Summer School.
All the work that we did was immensely satisfying. Our efforts were no longer divided. We were free to focus on our one residence, our one home, our one center of living. We took great care with everything that we did, making sure it was done to the best of our ability. And as each task was completed, and each item was added to my Maintenance Log, our pride and satisfaction and sense of accomplishment grew accordingly.
But of course there was more than boat work during this time. With the exception of a few days while working on the teak refinishing, we did not work all day. We made sure we had time for other things, time to enjoy all aspects of this life in our new home.
I developed the practice of using at least part of the morning to work on my writing, a practice that is still with me. I now had a vision of what I wanted to include in Lessons from Summer School. I was finished and reasonably satisfied with the draft of the piece describing our first cruise south through the Chesapeake in the summer of 1993 and I had a tentative chapter outline, which, curiously, placed this piece approximately in the middle of the book. I was now working on what I thought would be the first chapter. Often I would awake early and get in an hour's work before Nancy awoke, at which time we would have our customary juice and coffee, pills and toast. I found working in the little office we had made in our forward cabin to be both satisfying and pleasurable. The desk surface was more than ample and everything was arranged conveniently with all my books and references surrounding me on the shelf that lined both sides of the cabin and the removable shelf that I had made to fit between these over the back portion of the desk. The feelings were of privacy and quiet with everything within arm's reach. The only feature that was not entirely satisfactory was the stool, which did not have a back rest. After about an hour I would find it necessary to get up and walk and stretch.
Almost without exception we ended each day with a hot shower and a cold drink followed by a leisurely dinner in our cabin, always with a glass of wine and music from the CD player. Nancy would sit on the helm seat at our lower helm station just inside the cabin door, while I prepared our meal at the small galley area no more than seven feet away from her. Though the galley was small with a very limited work-surface, it did boast a four-burner propane stove with oven and a microwave, and I took pride and pleasure in preparing attractive, satisfying meals. During dinner we would talk of our day's work, of the other things we planned to do tomorrow, or next week, or next month. We would talk of ways to improve our boat, to make it more seaworthy or more comfortable or more convenient. And we would sometimes talk of the work of our writing projects, or the books we were reading, or those we wanted to read.
The time after dinner was our social time when we frequently took walks along the various docks in the marina and talked to other boat-owners. Most of these were what Nancy and I called "weekenders" although there were a few other live-aboards at the marina in the summer months. Some boaters we had known since the previous summer but many were new to the marina in May and June of this year. We often talked with Charles and Connie, who owned a brand new Sea Ray express cruiser down our dock. They were new to boating and were finding it hard to learn how to handle their boat, but they had ambitions to travel the ICW in the fall to go to the seafood festival in Morehead City in North Carolina. There was also Michael and Sheri, a younger couple also having difficulties with their new Sea Ray. Sheri seemed very fearful but Michael was eager to learn. We visited with Glen and Robin, one dock away, who were making major renovations to their older 36-foot Island Gypsy trawler, including the complete repanelling of the entire interior with new teak. They were knowledgeable boaters. In contrast there were Dick and Janet who, in the middle of June, came into the slip opposite ours in their newly purchased 39-foot aft cabin style Marine Trader trawler. They had hired the previous owner to bring the boat up to Summit North from Baltimore because they were afraid to try to handle it themselves. However, they had ambitions to live aboard and follow the ICW south. They hired one of the technicians from Suburban Boatworks to give them boating lessons. And there were others. Although we got to know a few fairly well, we did not form any close friendships with any of these people, perhaps because we knew our stay at the marina was only temporary, that we would soon leave and probably never return.
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