Settling in at Wrangell

In the last post, Jim says I made up the saying, “We want to blow this pop top.” It indeed does not come up when I google the phrase. But, I think you got the gist. 🙂

We walked to the Harbormaster’s office to get our power form for city hall. Got there at 12:45, it was closed until 1 for lunch. Drats. We walked over to the Hungry Beaver and ate some lunch ourselves while we waited. We felt reassured after our visit, according to their records, our neighbor has a 14-foot beam and if there is an issue with both of us fitting in this slip comfortably, she said she will get together with the harbormaster and work it out. We have had such positive experiences with the harbor authority here. It was nice to meet in person after our plethora of emails back and forth this year.

We walked over to City Hall and got our power going. Again, so nice and helpful! After blowing the breaker several times, we found out that we only have 20 amp power at this slip. (it is not marked on the breaker) Wait what? I don’t know that we would have accepted this slip had we known. We naively saw “it has power.” and assumed. You know that old saying. But, it does work. The power keeps the batteries charged and we use them for the fridge and freezer. We’ll have to run the generator for hot water. It isn’t the end of the world. We just need to find a space heater that will not blow the breaker for the winter. That and the batteries will be the only things drawing power during the winter.

We canceled our haul out and rescheduled it for spring. Instead, we hired a diver to come and clean the bottom and change the zincs. They have all the zincs in stock here except our thruster zincs. We always meant to have spares. (face palm). I ordered some from boatzincs.com and had them sent to us General Delivery. According to the tracking number, they should be here Sep 11th. We located the post office and asked about retrieving general delivery packages. It is quite easy and does not seem uncommon in these parts. Whew.

Got our plane tickets purchased. We get in at midnight so we are going to get a shuttle and stay at a hotel so we aren’t disrupting folks in the middle of the night.

We shopped for the items Jim will need to winterize the dinghy motor. On our way into town, we stopped by and talked to the guy that is doing our boat winterization. We assumed that we were on the schedule for October 1st. Haha. Nope. Cody does all the winterizing after Moose season.

The weather has been spectacular recently. We walked to the City Park, got our 10k steps in, played games on the flybridge, read, and took naps. We set out to take a spin around Woronkofski Island – it is the nearest adjacent island. A storm blew in so we turned around and came back. By the time we got back to the marina it was blue skies again. Go figure. My countdown widget tells me we have 22 days until we blow this pop top. (see? doesn’t that sound like that should be a thing?)

We took a walk after dinner and the sunset was above and beyond. Of course, neither of us had a camera with us.

Jim diagnosed the problem with the autopilot. We need some parts. Since it is not urgent, we can pick them up this winter. Speaking of winter, we are still not sure what we are doing! Our camper does not have a bathroom/shower and the kitchen is on the outside, which is pretty nice in the summer. Not so practical in the winter. At this point in time we are thinking we might buy a camper and head south, to the Texas Coast. We aren’t in any hurry to get there as the hurrican season ends November 30th.

Main goals are bicycles, campfires, stars and no snow. Oh, and I’d like to physically go to church every Sunday. That is the major thing I miss about boat life.

We are settling into a routine, which is pretty nice after six months of nonstop travel, but is probably pretty boring for you to read about!

Talk Soon.