After we returned to Baltimore from Disney, we did have a few boat projects to get wrapped up with. Primarily, re-fixing the hydraulic swim platform where our dingy sits. If you recall, when Brent and Mary visited us over the summer, we had a bit of a disaster on their last day where the hydraulic failed. We managed to get both arms to a repair shop, but after replacing the supposedly-rebuilt parts, one of the arms started making a whale-song as we were lowering the platform. It had been doing this all summer, but still seemed to work. David placed an order from the platform’s manufacturer for a new one, so that we’d have a spare, but otherwise went on our way. Over the winter in Baltimore, we noticed the platform was slowly sinking again. The job to take out the arms is quite challenging and involves getting a bit wet, so we really didn’t want to do the project in the freezing cold weather. After we returned from Florida, the weather was much nicer, and we really couldn’t avoid the fact that the arms were simply failing again. David found a local hydraulic shop that had some time on their schedule and went ahead with removing them and sending them off for another rebuild.
David also worked on a project to replace one of our toilets – the one in the master bedroom seemed to have lost its seal and we didn’t want to be dealing with a dead toilet while in more remote areas in Canada.
Meanwhile, I took the opportunity for the few extra weeks that we were there to attend a bunch more classes at the Baltimore pole studio – yay! I kept letting my new friends there know – this might be the last time that I see you…and then I’d show up again the next week :).
On one of the weekends, we hopped in the dingy and followed Russ and Jax to a fish and chip restaurant a couple of (nautical) miles from the marina. We had forgotten that it was Mother’s Day weekend, and since the weather was nice, the place was packed, but we did get a spot at the bar and had a nice lunch.
I also got to work on a project to find a way to build my pole on the front of the boat so that even when we’re on anchor this summer I will be able to train. We purchased some bed/furniture risers and I used power tools (gasp!) to make them fit around the pole legs. I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to use it soon!
We also met some of Russ and Jax’s friends who will also be cruising the Triangle Loop with us this summer and did a trivia night at the local tap house across the street from the marina.
The hydraulic arms were re-delivered to us and David was able to re-assemble everything. No whale-song!!! Now we were finally ready to get cruising, and started making plans with Russ and Jax for the next leg of the journey which involves the Delaware River and New Jersey Coast, meaning that we needed a 2-day weather window (ideally on a weekend due to our working schedules). Unfortunately, as we were finally ready to leave, a bunch of bad weather hit the forecast, which left us waiting day by day in Baltimore for our time to head out.