Rain Drops Are Falling & Falling & Falling…
Enough rainy pictures for you? I could keep posting photos of rain to give you a feeling of what we’ve been going through. But I know many of you have experienced much worse. Rain, flooding, power outages & evacuations were just some of the things going on this last week in Santa Cruz.
We were lucky, as there was only an alert that we might have to eventually evacuate. But the rain decided to subside for a few hours; putting the river level back down.
Doesn’t the rain know that I need it to stop for a few days & for the sun to come out? -So that we can get stuff done on the boat. -So that I can have stuff to blog about & people will see us actually making progress in our sailing goals? Oh if only the world revolved around us! Nah, that would be too much pressure.
I am ready though to start making a dent in our to-do list for our departure in 8 months. Wanna help? Come by our house & take away some of the junk we need to get rid of. You know you need a juicer! C’mon!
Thursday, there was a break in the rain & we went down the street to the beach to see what had transpired during the stormy weather.
Tons of logs have washed up on shore. A lot of them looked burnt. We think that they were victims of the fires back in 2020. Hey, California really does have it all: flooding, landslides, fires, tsunamis, earthquakes, heat waves, high cost of living…. what’s not to love?
In actuality, our immediate area didn’t bear the brunt of the storm. But several of the surrounding areas did experience flooding. We have more rain scheduled to come but hopefully the forecast will be wrong & it won’t be as bad. It’s hard to get too upset because the world is in a drought. Fresh water is severely needed.
Storm aftermath - including big surf & the local news.
We did make it down to the boat on Friday. It was so nice to see a bunch of our dock neighbors! I’ve really missed them.
We got on MerSea & saw the mildew growing before our eyes. Okay, we didn’t actually see it grow but it was a lot worse than it had been the previous week. White stuff on all of the wood inside the cabin. This is something that we can hopefully get rid of soon. It’s just that the rain hasn’t quite stopped long enough to open the hatches, let it air out & start spraying it down with vinegar inside. Yes, vinegar. It does get a little gnarly which is why I always bring some salt & potato chips. In all seriousness though, the strength of the vinegar is a little on the severe side. Ventilation is a necessity. Luckily, it does kill the mildew off but the smell doesn’t linger on forever.
When we go back, I think we are going to bring the dehumidifier to help suck out all of the moisture inside. There aren’t any leaks but the condensation during the winter time is crazy. Even the windows in our “land home” drizzle water all over the sills during winter.
I’m just getting antsy to get on the boat again & start doing something on her in some capacity. Sailing won’t be an option for a while. Even if the weather clears up & conditions are right, the harbor mouth is really shallow now that the storm has pushed back all the sand that the dredging had gotten out of the way. Gotta love that thing called weather!
Proof that we were on our boat & that the piling that is holding our dock is about to rust through.
It does look like the rain will let up again on Thursday. So I guess we better make a list of stuff to take care of on that day. It would be nice to air out MerSea a bit & clean up some of the mildew. Maybe change the oil? -If it seems that I’m speaking to Matt through the website right now to make our Thursday plans, you would be right. Matt, let me know in the comments below if this works for you. He is just in the other room but this is how we spice up our relationship!
Come back Sun!
Zephyr says, “Scaring birds away from the boat is like riding a bicycle. -It just comes back naturally.”. To which I reply, “When the hell have you ever learned to ride a bicycle?”. -The secret lives of dogs.
Thanks for reading! Hopefully this week the comment section will work. To test this, I’ll ask the question: What do you do to combat the cabin fever of being stuck inside on a rainy or a snowy day?
