We did it! We are now the proud owners of a 1989 Hunter 34, soon to be renamed to "Dragonfly". (You don't even want to know the existing name.)
The photo above, in case your wondering, is not me. It's a 30-year-old photo I found in the nav station, apparently of her original owner when the boat was fresh out of the factory. Today she is still sound and seaworthy, but needs some love, and a bunch of upgrades.
Numerous parties have evidently owned this vessel. I never met her last owner, but he left enough evidence behind to prove that he was one major screwball. For example, he purchased a really nice Garmin GPS chart-plotter. But when I went to plug it in, I find that the power cable was about a half-inch too short!
Then, as we were going thru all the lockers and cabinets, we discover a huge stash of garbage bags, filled with ... you're not gonna believe this ... about a hundred pounds of lead buckshot! (No, there was no other shotgun-related paraphernalia found aboard.)
And there were those confounded TV sets. It's not unusual for boats to have TVs aboard, but this tiny vessel had TWO of them. Well, in his zeal to plug them in, the previous owner, rather than run the power cable unobtrusively behind the furniture, this nutcase stretched the wire straight across the middle of the cabin. And yes, BOTH sets were plugged in this way.
Wait - there's more: the boom has a topping lift, to hold it up when the mainsail is furled. But nobody adjusted the topping lift, and thus the boom was resting atop the bimini. It totally ruined the fabric, and now the bimini must be replaced.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
Wait - there's more: the boom has a topping lift, to hold it up when the mainsail is furled. But nobody adjusted the topping lift, and thus the boom was resting atop the bimini. It totally ruined the fabric, and now the bimini must be replaced.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
As of today, our plans are to fix her up, and then cast off in December. Joan and I will head down the Intracoastal Waterway to Miami, and then strike out for the Bahamas, island-hopping all the way down to their southern-most point.
But with the coronavirus pandemic raging, things could get messy. The Bahamas just shut their borders again - although this directive applies to commercial traffic, not private vessels. And we will still need to get Covid testing there and quarantine for two weeks. But things could change again - who knows. Meanwhile, it's not clear what restrictions we may have to muddle thru in Florida.
But with the coronavirus pandemic raging, things could get messy. The Bahamas just shut their borders again - although this directive applies to commercial traffic, not private vessels. And we will still need to get Covid testing there and quarantine for two weeks. But things could change again - who knows. Meanwhile, it's not clear what restrictions we may have to muddle thru in Florida.
So, for the next few months, this blog will be pretty much just a bunch of maintenance, repairs, and upgrades. As we near our cast-off date, things will start getting a bit more interesting. Stay tuned!
Ok - Ok- Ok. I will tell you the existing boat name. It's "Wayne's World". See why we want to change it?
Ok - Ok- Ok. I will tell you the existing boat name. It's "Wayne's World". See why we want to change it?
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