It has been more than a month since my last input to the blog! This won't be long, but I am committed to putting more on paper, and I really want to finish the Bahamas adventure. But today, I just want to keep you up to date with what we are doing.
We are sitting right between Brunswick and St. Simons Island, Ga. We have been here about two weeks. We arrived here in Ga on July 3rd, and went straight to Brunswick Landing Marina on the west side of Brunswick. Nice place, walking distance to town, but we found it a bit buggy and NO pool!
So after the first month, we ventured over here to the east side of Brunswick, and are in Morningstar Marinas at Golden Isles. We are just off the ICW. Airy most days. We have had thunderstorms most of the afternoons we have been here except yesterday which was beautiful! There is a Kingfish Tournement going on right now, and 30 plus boats are here to participate. Probably 70 boats overall in the tourney.
The boat behind us on the pier last night offered us a 3 foot cobia they didn't want.
Now that is not me, I ripped the pic off the internet to show you what they look like. Actually that is about the size we were given. Now a Cobia doesn't have scales. It is much like a catfish. I had never seen a fish like this, so we had to ask around about the quality of the meat. Everyone to a person said it was excellent. So I laid it out on the deck, got my filet knife and a pair of pliers to pull the skin off with, and went at fileting the fish. Talk about HUGE chunks of white meat coming off this guy!! I figured we sloppily were able to pull off 5 pounds of meat from it. Renne' baked a third of it last night for dinner with a little olive oil and slivered almonds. That with broccoli and sweet potatoes made a feast for us!! More of it this evening! I will do that again!
I am waiting for Renne' to wake up this morning. The sun is shining and clouds are pretty distant. I fixed oatmeal from Winn-Dixie (Old Fashioned Rolled Oats). Those are the best I have ever eaten! I add molasses and chopped dates or raisens and I'm well satisfied for the morning.
I was up early today - 3:15am - and yesterday (4:40am) thinking about our court case coming up next week. I have sued Marathon Boat Yard in Small Claims Court, and our first appearance is scheduled for the 29th (next Wednesday). We were contacted by their attorney 10 days ago for possible settlement out of court. Now the bill for the repairs to the improperly installed engine, to bring it up to snuff 8 months after installation was about $15,000. That was in addition to the $24,000 we spent last May to have the thing installed. Well, there are three areas of contention:
IMPROPER INSTALLATION OF THE MOTOR MOUNTS
IMPROPER SIZED MUFFLER
IMPROPERLY INSTALLED EXHAUST RISER (actually lack thereof)
Now the attorney stated he was authorized to make the settlement, and you do the math - 1/15th of the cost. I explained he didn't have a leg to stand on. Thursday, he returned the call, and offered a smidgen more. Yesterday, he called a third time with a hair over the last! I said we would see them in court unless they offered us what we were asking! I am so-o-o-o looking forward to this battle. I have the documentation, and they haven't a LEG to stand on, and they know it! He thinks he has some experts to counter our arguements. We have pics, paperwork, and ABYC (American Boat and Yacht Council) Standards behind our arguements! They are headed off in a direction, it appears, that will be interesting and away from the actual issue. Wish us luck!
So we leave tomorrow, by car, to Key West. This should be interesting as TS Isaac is about to pass over Marathon on Monday! So we will see what happens! I have to call the emergency number today for the courthouse to find out if the offices will be closed next week. KW is resilient. We would like to get this going!
So Renne' and I are in good spirits! We had the dinghy repaired from a leak developed while we were in the Bahamas. I have replaced the anchor that was stolen at West End in the Abocos. I have replaced the antenna that got torn up when we first arrived. We had the front panels on the dodger (windscreen) replaced with new Eisenglass as well as the overhead panel in the bimini (cockpit canvas roof). I also have replaced the worn out ventilation blower for the generator and put in a new blower for the engine room. Hopefully, they will keep the accumulated heat down while we are out crusing. Today, I get to pull the exhaust hose off the engine, again, to get into the bilge to repair the bilge pump switch. Damn tight place! I guarantee!
The water is sooooo bad and muddy here, we have had to replace the 5 and 20 micron water feed filters for the watermaker each 8 hours of operation. we have gone back to one tank of RO water and one tank of dock water.
All for now. Come down tonite for sundowners and more Cobia on the docks!! CYA there!
JonNe'
