VAMPIRES on the Neuse River

Sunday September 23, 2007 – I should get a Red Cross Donors Pin

Karen and I had a nice ride the boat Friday evening arriving a little before 8pm. We unloaded the car and headed for the boat – almost immediately we were descended upon by large voracious mosquitoes. Karen had long pants and shirt on and they just bit right through it. We did a hurry unload and only made the one trip to the boat – the mosquitoes were terrible. I ventured out later around 9:30pm but they were still very bad.

I was up early Saturday morning to get the chores done before going to play at South River today. Top of the agenda was to De-Floridaize the boat. I received my registration number plate from boatnumberplate.com for the dinghy and I finished the board with the documentation number for Temptation.

I started by dropping the dinghy into the water about 7:30am – damn – those mosquitoes were still at it. 1 – 2 – 3 bites immediately while standing on the deck!! They showed no mercy. I retreated back into the boat. I installed the Coast Guard Documentation board in the Nav Station area. I then installed the labels on the rope clutches identifying all the lines led back to the cockpit.

About 8:30am I started on the dinghy again and dry fit the boat number plates --- ohh boy. These things are one piece assemblies that contain the entire registration number and a spot for the registration decal. They fit perfectly over the old iron on numbers. Great I won’t have to remove the old – just glue over them.

It was quite damp with a heavy dew so I wanted to wait till things dried before using the humidity sensitive contact cement. We puttered around on the boat and put things away. Then about 10am I checked the weather online and looked at the weather radar to be sure nothing was in the offing – and it wasn’t – just a few showers well out to sea and heading East – away from us. I pulled the dinghy up in the dinghy dock and cleaned the area to receive the number plates. I masked the area and wiped everything down with toluene. The sky looked pretty good with a lot of puffy clouds. I put the glue on the portside of the dinghy, the number plates, then the starboard side of the dinghy. I had no sooner made the last stroke with the brush when I felt a drop of rain --- one dark cloud overhead – blue everywhere else!! What kind of deal is this!! I scrambled for some plastic bags and ripped them open and covered the fresh glue as the rain intensified. I covered both sides and slid the number plates under the dinghy – ohh it’s raining hard now – out of ONE CLOUD!! Aaaaaack!

I settle down and go back to the boat to complain to Karen. I check the weather radar and there are numerous pop up showers in the area. No general pattern just little tiny red dots sprinkled across Eastern NC and more appearing. Grrrr!! It stops raining after about 15 minutes. We go back to the dinghy and survey the damage. The boat number plates are fine. The glued areas on the dinghy each have some water droplets in the glue. I blot them up with a paper towel. Hmmm no too bad. Ohh what the hell – we affix the plates to the dinghy. They look good and adhesion looks good. Only time will really tell. Oh I’m just disgusted with this weather.

I then remove the Florida registration sticker from the dinghy and then back on Temptation I remove the Florida Registration numbers and sticker from the bow. It went pretty well but the adhesive removal was a pain. Even the 3M Adhesive remover took a lot of elbow grease.

It’s about 1pm when we have lunch – the sky is dark to the south and thunder is rumbling.. We decide to wait till 3pm to decide whether to go to South River or not – the rest of the gang has already gone.

The weather never improved. The mosquitoes would attack whenever we walked around the clubhouse – the worse I have ever seen here at Matthews Point --- it has got to be worse at South River!! We decided to remain at the dock. We grilled a nice beef tenderloin on the Barbecue grill for dinner – it turned out GREAT. We had a 2 person party. After dinner and cleaning up we had some Baileys and mini éclairs --- Ummmm good. Spent the rest of the evening sipping a Rum Swizzle and reading the book – Hurricanes Wake -- great book.

Sunday morning dawned beautiful but still the voracious mosquitoes were at it early.. Damn those things.

I wanted to go up the mast and inspect the deck light and steaming light at the first spreader. I wanted to use the anchor windlass to get up there too. I set it up using the Main Halyard re-routed to the windlass. Karen operated the switch and tailed the line. We did a couple of practice runs just a few feet off the deck. Good thing – she needed to learn how to keep the line from wrapping both going up and down.

The trip to the spreader was uneventful. The assembly looks bad – it will all have to be replaced. I played with the bulbs but no luck. I’ll replace the whole thing on a cooler day – it was already 85 degrees at 9:30am!!

Back on the boat we gave tours to Steve and Debra, I went down and Gave Sward a hand troubleshooting here TV antenna hook up – there was a short in one connector and she had a splitter on the wrong side of the preamplifier.

After lunch Vic returned from South River and I talked to him – he said the mosquitoes were worse down there last night – good thing we didn’t go. I told him that I had some cracked welds on the companion way stairs and needed a recommendation for a stainless steel welder. He said he knows a great one – “Stainless Steel Fred’ Fred Lindow in Beaufort. He offered to take the steps to him for me – what a BUD… I took him up on that.

We cleaned up and I removed the steps – Vic’s buddy John offered to take them in his truck since they were a very tight fit in Vic’s car. I love these boaters.

We left the Marina around 4:30pm Even though we didn’t make South river we had a very productive and enjoyable weekend on the boat … and Ohhh Yessss – the water system worked flawlessly all weekend on Temptation --- don’t touch a thing now.