Making Sense out of Chaos

I forgot how much there is to do with a new boat. On old Good Karma everything had a place. Char Houser and I sat on the stops and found a place for everything then we labeled it. When we left Good Karma in the fall we took 7 truck and 2 car loads of stuff off the boat – clothes, equipment and supplies. The boat lifted at least a foot out of the water. The new owners bought a clean but very emplty boat. We sorted and stowed the stuff in the basement over the winter. The mount of stuff looked huge.

To outfit new Good Karma just reverse the process. Oddly enough it only required one truck and one carload. I can’t explain where the other stuff went.

Kermit and I took the first truckload up on June 11, 2014. Cart after cart dumped into new Good Karma.

I sat on the steps without Char this time to figure out where everything should be stowed. Then just as before we put labels on everydoor and cubby to remind us where to find it when we need it. A quick trip to the grocery store and we were set. At least we could now sleep on new Good Karma. 

Our first night we laid awake taking it all in. This will be a good home for us.

We returned home on June 15. The final transition to the boat took some gymnastics. 

Kermit and Paul Bates took the dinghy up to Saugatuck MI on Tuesday June 17. Paul designed a really  neat system to hold the dinghy on the swim platform that allows us to walk across the swim platform bhind the dinghy. He installed two stainless tracks perpendicular to the boat's back wall. Then he secured two 4" PVX tubes across the tracks. The dinghy has straps across the front and middle that hook to the crane. The crane lifts the dinghy and holds it over the water where it is dropped ever so gently into the water. Pretty cool! Set setup allows the 20 hp motor to remain on the dinghy. All in all this system is a huge upgrade over the last dinghy setup.

On Thursday after setting everything up, Paul returned to Canton with the truck and Kermit stayedin Saugatuck to manage some last repairs. A contractor fixed the window leaks that keps the back deck perpetually damp. He poked a hole to remove old inadequent caulking releasiing a deluge of pent up water. We are dry now!

See the fog coming off the lake? 

The biggest headache was the ice maker in the back deck. After 6 trips, the thing still does not make ice. Butit keeps pop and beer nice and cold s I guess we live iwth store bought ice for a while.

On Sunday June 22 I rented a car, loaded up the final load, kissed Jack good-bye for the summer andheaded to Saugatuck.

Sunday was gorgeous. Then it started to fog in and stayed that way until Thursday June 26. We stayed put too. Without a car and in the rain we were kind of stuck. We grilled out or cooked on the boat. It was a quiet way to get accustomed to the new boat.

Saugatuck and Douglas are sister cities between Holland on the north and South Haven on the south. We visited for Labor Day in 2012 on the Loop. That is where we met Charlie Crawford on Bama Belle!! We also hosted Dan and Marilyn Lipka that Labor Day weekend. This time around Dan visited again!! He tested out the new v-berth and pronounced it just fine! We walked into Douglas for dinner in the back garden cafe at Everyday People Cafe. We had a wonderful dinner.

The clouds over the lake are really amazing. The water is so cold (it is in the 40s still) and the air temperature was so hot (in the 80s and 90s that week) that fog and cool clouds were inevitable.

Paul and Maeo Bates came to the boat on June 26. They will be traveling with us for the summer so they settled into the v-berth. The weather did not cooperate much at all. It rained and blew for several days so we walked and biked all over Saugatuck and Douglas, cooked out, and got settled.