Figureheads & freezers
Two days in Newport turned into nearly two weeks. Our first job was to fix Olaf, our new Viking figurehead, onto the end of the bowsprit, where he will watch out for us and keep us safe from marauding seamonsters.
Then our friends arrived on the ‘Bonnie Lynn’, after a wet ride down from Penobscot Bay in strong head winds. They are spending the winter here in a marina, or ‘dockside’ as they say in the US. They get free use of the neighbouring hotel’s facilities, including an indoor heated swimming pool. We joined them a couple of times for an evening dip in the deserted pool – a real treat!
We also met up with some old Topsham acquaintances, friends of the Eddingtons, (Hi Dave and Sian!), who are currently working nearby on a new-to-them yacht after their last boat got destroyed in Grenada by Hurricane Ivan.
Every day, a couple more boats around us disappeared from the anchorage – mostly heading south or to Bermuda, which seemed a sensible move as the temperature has seriously plummeted. Thank goodness for our log fire! Just when we’d decided we were ready to move on, the weather took a turn for the worse and several big low pressure systems blew through, creating sloppy waves even in the harbour.
In the meantime, we spent days agonizing over whether to install a freezer or not, and if so, which type and where should it go? No sooner had we decided not to bother than we changed our minds, ordered the thing and the components arrived by courier the following day. Then followed a major operation to take out the recently installed (but not often used) spare toilet and convert the space into an ice box.
To enable foodstuffs to stay frozen even in the tropics, you need 6” of insulation around the unit, so a reasonable size freezer eats up a huge amount of space. We spent several days measuring and fitting the bulky insulation, cursing the fact that nothing is square on a boat and piling up a great heap of mis-cuts. (Measure twice, cut once… get it wrong and start again!) That job is finally done, though the electrics and pipework remain to be finished.
The rest will have to wait as we are hoping to take advantage of a break in the weather to make a move towards New York – still three or four day hops, and another gale passing through on Saturday.
Then our friends arrived on the ‘Bonnie Lynn’, after a wet ride down from Penobscot Bay in strong head winds. They are spending the winter here in a marina, or ‘dockside’ as they say in the US. They get free use of the neighbouring hotel’s facilities, including an indoor heated swimming pool. We joined them a couple of times for an evening dip in the deserted pool – a real treat!
We also met up with some old Topsham acquaintances, friends of the Eddingtons, (Hi Dave and Sian!), who are currently working nearby on a new-to-them yacht after their last boat got destroyed in Grenada by Hurricane Ivan.
Every day, a couple more boats around us disappeared from the anchorage – mostly heading south or to Bermuda, which seemed a sensible move as the temperature has seriously plummeted. Thank goodness for our log fire! Just when we’d decided we were ready to move on, the weather took a turn for the worse and several big low pressure systems blew through, creating sloppy waves even in the harbour.
In the meantime, we spent days agonizing over whether to install a freezer or not, and if so, which type and where should it go? No sooner had we decided not to bother than we changed our minds, ordered the thing and the components arrived by courier the following day. Then followed a major operation to take out the recently installed (but not often used) spare toilet and convert the space into an ice box.
To enable foodstuffs to stay frozen even in the tropics, you need 6” of insulation around the unit, so a reasonable size freezer eats up a huge amount of space. We spent several days measuring and fitting the bulky insulation, cursing the fact that nothing is square on a boat and piling up a great heap of mis-cuts. (Measure twice, cut once… get it wrong and start again!) That job is finally done, though the electrics and pipework remain to be finished.
The rest will have to wait as we are hoping to take advantage of a break in the weather to make a move towards New York – still three or four day hops, and another gale passing through on Saturday.
posted by Katie at 8:07 PM
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