Getting to Know Blue Turtle
At the end of February, I departed from Newport, RI and headed south in a 10’ UHaul, laden down with tools, electronics, and parts for Blue Turtle. We’re intending to move aboard fully towards the middle/end of April, but prior to doing so, a few things need to happen.
Most significantly, she is going on the hard for a bit, as we pull the mast, replace the standing rigging, tangs, chainplates, and prop. Knowing too that this was an opportunity to clear out the rental house we have in RI, I also wanted to tackle a number of other projects:
Familiarize myself with the engine layout, from the fuel tank to the exhaust, and check the oil, alternator belt, and filters
Do the same with the electrical system (especially the house and engine/generator batteries, and the charging systems)
Install at least the new chart plotter and depth sounder, get both working and calibrated before moving the boat
Make some changes to the main cabin (add some lighting and fans, find storage for my charts and books, setting up the Sonos speakers, remove some older stuff I didn’t need)
Do the same on the aft cabin (especially installing the new TV mount, soundbar, television, Apple TV, Starlink, etc.), and begin removing all of the older electronics from the nav station
Dos some basic provisioning of non-perishables
Do a deep clean, inventorying the boat as I went, digging through every locker, emptying and discarding anything I don’t want to keep, etc.
Finding a home for my life raft, removing the old expired one
Storing all of my tools, spares, and so on
Packing up the truck.
Joy would be staying in RI with Copper, given her patient schedule, so I picked up the truck and began packing it up. It took most of a day, and I left the next morning, aiming to put as many miles in as possible and arrive in under two days. The drive was monotonous, but easy, aside from high winds as I crossed the rivers into MD - a box truck on a bridge in 30kt+ winds is exciting.
Crossing over the George Washington Bridge in high winds.
I am not, in general, a huge fan of long drives. When I was a kid, “going for a drive” was an activity we sometimes did; I was young, but I have memories of long, hot, driftless rides in the summer, sometimes with family drama, often simply silent and dark and boring, for a kid.
Put me on a motorcycle and I can happily eat the miles up, but inside of a car, I still find myself tired and antsy after a few hours, audiobooks / podcasts / music be damned. That said, I knew I wanted to get there in under two days, as I had a ton of work to get done in a compressed timeline.
My initial plan was to drive as far as I could on this first day, find a hotel en route, and then finish up the second. After 8 hours on the road, I booked a hotel north of Richmond with HotelTonight, which I’ve been using for years and sometimes get reasonable discounts with as a loyalty perk. Luxury was not the watchword - I just wanted a clean bed and a quiet room.
Minutes from arriving at whatever budget hotel chain I’d booked for myself, they called to apologize, explaining that they had mistakenly overbooked the hotel, and no rooms were, in fact, available. I stopped on the way into the city, stretched my legs, and found a replacement, albeit further south. It would be a 10 hour day on the road.
Stopped on the way into Virginia.
The next morning, with just over 8 hours to go, I made myself a cup of Hilton Garden Inn lobby coffee and got back in the truck, and headed for the South, with the Carolinas between Blue Turtle and my current location.
The breakfast situation was dire.
I generally like Charleston, and was sad to not have time to stop on this trip. In its stead would be a strange rest stop / amusement park / fireworks store, with a strange (not-so-subtly racist?) Mexican theme, for inexplicable reasons.
A weird rest stop in SC.
I reached Brunswick in the early evening on Sunday.
The following few days were a blur of carrying things down the docks, probably a few thousand pounds of tools and parts, and I was utterly exhausted by the end of the end of it, with various aches and pains.
One thing I’ve heard said about this life is that often, through kismet and community, the things we need work themselves out; I experienced that for the first time on Monday.
Joy and I both like to cook, and the galley stove on board Blue Turtle looked like the original Shipmante stove from 1978. While obviously solidly built given its age, it was tired. Moreover, Shipmates don’t have thermocouples (which shut off the gas if the flame goes out), the push-button ignition was long dead, and the ability to lower the flame for simmering was non-existent.
The new galley stove.
After some research, I ordered a Dickinson Mediterranean stove, known for its ability to heat quickly (with an 11,000 BTU burner) and hold an even oven temperature (critical for Joy’s baking). And, of course, simmer. Dickinson is a great company to work with, and the stove shipped from Canada to the marina on a pallet.
Once the truck was empty, I drove over to the office, and began trying to figure out how to get this enormous package back to Blue Turtle. And, as mentioned, enter Lady Luck: the UPS driver for the day arrived right as I was staring at this large, 100lb+ crate; I offered him $20 to help me lift and put it in the truck, which was readily agreed to. I drove it back to my dock, disassembled the crate, and hauled the beast down the dock.
We had a major storm coming in, and so I covered the stove in tarps. A few days later, a local mechanic who helped me replace the steering cables came by, and we hoisted it into the cockpit.
Protected from the weather, and waiting to be installed.
The only issue I ran into was that the oven door handle had been dented in and damaged in shipping, and it was difficult to (nearly impossible) to open. A single email to Dickinson resulted in them shipping an entirely new door assembly, at no charge (!). As mentioned, an exceptional company.
On Tuesday morning, I drove the truck to an unmanned drop-off, took a Lyft back to the marina, and started planning my next few days. In a week, Brenton was joining me, and the plan was for us to depart on Friday for St. Mary’s Boat Services, a yard off the St. Mary’s River where Blue Turtle would be hauled out, and where I’d have the mast unstepped to do all of the rigging work.
I spent the remainder of the week getting the boat to feel like home, removing old and unneeded things, installing many (many) new lights in the cabins, adding bookshelves and storage for my paper charts and tools, and settling in.
New lights, fans, chart storage, book cases, oil lamps, and more…
Main cabin barometer, thermometer, and ship’s clock.
The most vital piece of equipment on board.
Ship’s compass, fully refurbished.
Over the remainder of the week, I also removed the old electronics, and setup both the new Raymarine chart plotter and an in-hull depth sounder, ensuring we’d have proper readings for the trip down to St. Mary’s. Getting the wiring done was generally not a huge issue, although I did manage to nick (and have to repair) a water hose - the only casualty from drilling and routing for two full days in the heat and amongst the no-see-ums.
New chart plotter installed!
Sage advice, Yukon.
I was exhausted by the end of the week, but glad to have my friend and sometimes-delivery-captain Brenton and his wife joining me aboard. They took the cleaned up v-berth for the night, and we planned to set off for St. Mary’s early in the morning after filling the fuel tanks.