you must understand the difference between boat showers and land showers.
Boat showers are the ultimate in water conservation - quickly get wet,
quickly turn off the water. Lather up, quickly rinse, quickly turn off the
water. Pump out the bottom of the shower. End of shower. No luxurating in
cascading hot water on the boat. Boy, did I luxurate last night! Standing
under uninterrupted hot water - wow, how fantastic is that! It's amazing
how non-events can become something to celebrate when they are no longer
commonplace.
We are now moored in our boat's new home where it will live for the next
five months while we head back to cooler climes for other adventures. We
had a good, interesting trip in. After an overnight in a great cove (that
we will go back to), we headed up the New River for Cooley Landing Marina, a
mere four bridges and two miles away. New River is narrow, lined with
multimillion dollar homes and multimillion dollar yachts. It's really
narrow, wide enough for just one boat in some places. It was very
interesting trying to manuever our wide, slow boat up the creek - especially
considering what you might bump into!
When we do these new things (such as manuevring up a narrow river for the
first time), I'm driving this big awkward boat and it can get a bit tense.
My rule is if 'they' are behind me then I pay absolutely no attention to
them. I don't care if they're riding right behind the boat, I focus on what
is to the front and the sides. That's enough for me to worry about and
they're responsible for not bumping into us. Applying this rule was a bit
difficult coming up the New River as we chugged along at 4 knots when the
Jungle Queen, a big paddle wheeler tourist boat, came up behind us at 6. It
was too big and too noisy to ignore in such a narrow space. We chugged
along a bit further with him looming over us and finally came to a place
which was just wide enough for me to pull over a bit and let him by. Calm
was then restored.
There are 4 and 5 story yachts going up and down this river all over the
place, I wonder (and don't want to find out personally) what happens when
they meet head on in one of those narrow bits where only one boat can get
through?
At each bridge, we had to call the bridge master to open it for us. They
monitor VHF channel 9 and you do have to specifically request that they open
the bridge, they don't just see you coming and open it up. They were very
nice and obliging. After going through them all, we tied up to some pilings
alongside the River House and walked over to scope out the marina.
The slip that they had for us is what's called wet slip storage, essentially
in the water storage for the summer. You're not supposed to live on it for
more time than it takes to close or open it up. It's about half the price
of a regular slip. But (there's always a but), the slip is 'tricky' to get
into. The depth looked okay after we measured it. The issue was getting in
around the bridge bumper barriers (pilings to protect the bridge supports
and keep boat traffic from running into the bridge) in the tide. The guy
from the marina said to wait until an hour after low tide to try it.
At the appointed time, we cast off from our 'staging' spot and headed up the
river. We went past the slip and turned around to come at it from a better
angle. It's sort of like parking a car, it's always easier to come up a
street and cross the lane to a space on the left rather than attempting to
angle into a right-hand spot. I performed a one point turn after we came
through the bridge and we headed back toward the slip. To reduce the
momentum from the tide, I kept throttling back and back...and back and back,
until we were in neutral but still moving. Finally slowed enough so I was
comfortable to make the turn and headed in. The angle was right, we were
sliding in nicely, looked like there would be a gentle touch to the dock and
CRACK! 'What the 'heck' was that?' The tide, still going at a good clip,
had caught the back of the boat and swung it and the dingy into the bridge
pilings. The crack was the noise that a davit makes when breaking in half
and dropping the back side of the dingy into the water.
Och well, my friends from Scotland say. Besides that, it was a fantastic
and very successful day. We encountered all sorts of new situations and
managed to get through them relatively unscathed. And Steve says the davit
can have a couple of holding plates put on and be welded to make it almost
as good as new.
Key learning - pay a lot more attention to the correct tide timing for
entering / leaving a slip, it can have a huge impact (no pun intended) on
how easy or difficult your experience is!
It's a great marina and in a great area, within walking distance of all
kinds of shops and restaurants. We're packing up the boat quickly because
it's getting hot here in FL. Managed to squeeze in some haircuts (more
luxury!) so now we look presentable and a bit less boaty.
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