Airline Lurgies and All That Good Stuff!

The day after we arrived back on the boat, and I was outside washing our baby clean of all the green stuff that had grown on her in our absence, I got a headache when I put my head down. It was windy out, and overcast, which was a blessing, and I enjoyed the hard work, but felt a bit off, as you do after flying half way around the world in the opposite direction and have a little bit of Jet Lag.

The following day (Saturday) Waz's sister and friends arrived and we took them to St Simon's Island for a tiki-tour, but I still had the pseudo migraine. I say pseudo because it wasn't THAT bad, but annoying enough to not go away with hydration and rest. Drugs were taken to ease the pain.

Eyes felt funny...just tired, right? hmmm... felt a little stuffy in the sinus...Just airlines, and jet lag...and a bit weary still.  Hmmm....sneezing...a little at first, then that feeling like you KNOW you have a Lurgy! Bah! It is so long since I had a cold of any kind I had to think long and hard about what to do with it...or better still...for it! I now swear by Nyquil Night/Day! They dry you right up...make you feel a bit like a space cadet at the same time, but perhaps that was the lurgy too?

So, four days later, I'm dried up and not sneezing at all... a little stuffy in the sinus and heaviness behind the eyes, but no sneezles...good, right? On the mend!!yayaya!  NOT!

Two days later...COUGH! DRY!  Bah x 2!
So for the next however long we have been home...Since the 8th  Oct...I have been hacking dry coughs, tight sinus and then Waz came down with it too! The two of us had Dr appointments for last Monday 19th, in Jacksonville, so we went and saw to all that stuff...Waz took an hour, and I wondered what was going on, in there. Turns out he has fluid on his lungs and they tell him he is sicker than he thinks. They put him on the nebulizer (he is asthmatic anyway) and waited for his breathing to clear a bit more before releasing him. We then went a long way to buy us a mini nebulizer of our own for the boat. He has made good use of it so far, and the last 24 hrs have seen improvements to both of us. It has taken it's time, and thank goodness we weren't this sick while we were in France! Phew!

So, some good news?? Lets see!

On the 16th, we were feeling ok enough to go with the dock gang for Soul Food and Ribs! This meant we had to go over to St Simon's Island to the Soul Bar-b-q place. There was a line out the door, and we had to make our selections fast. Waz got the half rack of pork ribs and I got the pulled port sandwich without the bread.


Our fun dock mates from L-R...Brent and then his lovely wife Susan, George and Tam, and Tam's hubby Craig, and then Waz and lastly, Georges wife Mary. They are all just a bunch of Old Hippies!:) I guess they look like it. George and Craig have SO FAR managed to side step my offers of free haircuts for their rather piddling pony tails. Craig in particular is trying to grow enough hair at the back to comb right over the gap on the front...or so he tells me... Good luck there Craig, lol.

There were a few tables inside, but those were full, and though we were sitting right next to the parked cars, it didn't seem to matter much. We took George and Mary in our car and went off in search of ic-cream, which Brent said he HAD to have, and then said NO...so we left the others and went our own way...in search of the Ice-Cream, and we knew exactly where, on SSI (St Simon's Island) to go for it.

George and Mary had not been to the Island before, so we gave them a tiki-tour in the waning light, ending up at The Cow, a little hole in the wall Ice-cream parlor in the Old Town, that makes all it's own ice-cream, with some interesting flavors...including Bacon! We tried it, but decided to go with something else. Waz had a Georgia Peach and something else, which was divine and I had salted caramel and something else, which was to die for. I'm now writing this blog on the 28th, so my memory is a bit dull when it is now so far down the line.

Soooo...all good things come to an end at some stage, right??? Well, this one wasn't on the agenda, unfortunately, and I didn't see it coming, though we had our doubts as to how long the fabric would last out in the sun and sea air. The Olefin fabric has been widely used on the boat for fender covers and seat covers, but they don't get quite the workout the dinghy cover gets.
This is what the dinghy cover looked like when Waz put it back on the Dinghy. Hmmm....the blue color comes off on our fingers and the fabric is just shredding. We thought it would stand up to the sun and salt much better than this. It is almost exactly a year old!

Only one thing for it....replace it. We have to have the dinghy covered, and my sewing machine doesn't like sewing Sunbrella fabric, which is the best choice for such things, apparently, so Waz spent a long time online trying to find a cover that would fit not just the dinghy, but the dinghy with the engine on it. These are somewhat hard to come by in the right size, and when it arrived, having found the appropriate cover, we had some doubts that it was indeed the right one. For a start, the straps that go underneath the dinghy were on the inside going out. Because we cant get to the outside of the dinghy, they were useless like that. Off they came, and off to West Marine we went to buy some marine grade webbing to sew new ones on. But wait? we already have marine grade webbing straps on the old cover, and they are perfectly good! yay! So, off the old one and onto the new one, and while I had the sewing machine out, we sewed one on in the middle as well, so the cover is well and truly not going anywhere! Problem solved. The new fabric is sturdy and much better quality than we anticipated. Let's hope it lasts more than a year!

While the machine was out, and we had purchased new webbing, we thought to replace the webbing on the straps that keep the back curtain tied down. The webbing that was now falling apart on those, we had purchased from JoAnn's fabrics, and it was definitely inferior quality. You live and learn!

Everything ship shape, I decided to scrub the back and two side curtains while I was at it. We had discovered a Clorox product (spray bottle) that cleans mold of pretty much anything! It sure does, and the curtains are now all clean and mold-free.

The Eisenglas is almost all clean, on the fly deck, with only the front windows to clean, now. I will do those this weekend, because there is little use in cleaning them now and have to clean them again just before we set sail on the 4th November.

This last weekend...Sunday, to be exact...my, how time flies! (Today is Wednesday!) Rhonda, Waz Susan, Donna and I went out for brunch to the Coastal Kitchen at Morning Star Marina on Lanier Island, just across the Causeway on the way to St Simon's Island. Rhonda and her hubby Bruce have been here all summer...she is the Social Calendar queen!, and Susan and her hubby David are boat owners and dock residents (sometimes) living in Cincinnati. We thoroughly enjoy their company when they fly in. Donna and Susan have been best friends for 30 years, and were enjoying a weekend without the menfolk. Waz enjoyed the attention and the wit and conversation, even though he doesn't look too happy in this photo. Rhonda was trying to give him bunny ears!:) She is just a bit of a girl!:)

Waz, Rhonda, Donna and Susan...not mentioning the excellent waitress on a very busy morning.

The girls were drinking Mimosa's to our coffee, and then Susan ordered the best looking  Bloody Mary I have ever seen...shrimp and all! in a Jam Jar, which is the latest craze, apparently.

 We left just as the band was getting off to a good start after a delay due to rain, but the girls stayed to listen for a bit.

Waz and I went for a quick stroll down the walkway to take a look at the Marina. They have a few live-aboards here, but nothing like the population over at Brunswick Landing where we all are.

 Susan and Donna didn't have the quite girl's weekend that they had planned. They arrived at the boat, a Carver 53, to find that they (David and Susan)  had not turned off the water pump before they left the boat last time, and over the course of 6 weeks, it had dripped a significant amount of water to cause flooding throughout the galley and salon. The wooden floor in the galley cupped and had to be pulled out, and the salon carpet was drenched, and they removed the sodden underlay. The two of them managed to dry out the carpet, over the next few days, so that the boat was dry when they left it this morning. Not a fun trip!

I forgot....while the sewing machine was out, I also though to replace all the plastic anti-bird flags on the boat. The second lot of flags didn't last as long as the first, and we thought to replace the plastic with rip-stop nylon fabric. If you cut it on the bias, as I did, it wont fray...so they tell you.

I chose Orange, lime green, blue and purple for the new flags and sewed twice as many as the previous flags. I figured this would work better ...??? Maybe! Jury is still out on that one!

Apparently there were three super tides while we were in France. We didn't know about this until we got back, and in the past three days, we have had the same. This is a sight to see.

 and is not just a *little* freaky! There is almost no definition of the area, and it would be very tempting, if you didn't have a chart, to veer off into the marsh!

This is what the marsh  NORMALLY looks like at High Tide.....below.

 

There will be another Super Tide in the morning.

 

Around 11am tomorrow, we have to go down the dock  and help JC, on the Moxie 61 Cat, leave the dock. He is heading south to the Ft Lauderdale boat show. The boat is for sale...$2.9 mil.

 

She is a unique craft built for racing. An all carbon fiber hull.  She is a big girl, as you can see here with Waz standing next to her port side.

He told us earlier today that he has been the Captain of this vessel for 4 yrs, and hasn't seen the owner for the past 3 yrs. Being a Captain of a private vessel (that isn't chartered) can be a lonely life.

 

There isn't much room for him to manoeuvre, where he is, so all hands will be on the dock, I imagine.

 

The boat is a mess. We have our new outdoor seats piled high in the VIP cabin up front, our suitcases still in the pilot house...they have to go under the VIP bed, which is pile high....you get the picture...and no show of that changing any time soon.

 

 

We are going down to Jacksonville (Jax) for all my pre-operation 'stuff' early next week, and then we too will be casting off the lines for the two day journey down to Jacksonville.

 

Life may be a bit hectic when we get there, but we will have more opportunity to put things away once we are settled there.

 

In the meantime, we help others off the dock, say our farewells...mostly fondly, and get on with out lives. We will miss our happy Summer family, but know we will see each other some time somewhere...maybe back here is Brunswick next summer??? Who knows.

 

Ciao for now. Time for a cuppa before turning in.