Glorious weekend

It was a glorious weekend indeed.  Lots happened this week- we placed our children in a private Christian school this year and Monday was their first day.  We had thought about homeschooling them again but everything worked out for them to go to the new school so we are excited, though it means we probably are not leaving next week to do the great loop!  :) Our son also has started football and our daughter cheer.  Saturday we had their "Jamboree" which was a series of 20 minute scrimmages between several different teams so Saturday until lunch was spent cheering on the football field and having fun.  

The weekend weather was amazing though.  Gone, at least for now (and hopefully for good this year), are the 105 degree days with high humidity.  This weekend had highs in the low to mid 80's and the Saturday night the low was around 60.  Plus Saturday night had a forecasted meteor shower!  Can you say perfect??!!  

So- Saturday afternoon we got up to the boat and cruised over to our favorite cove to anchor out.  

The evening was peaceful to say the very least:

It was so nice to be able to be out all afternoon, evening, and night and not need the generator running for the air conditioning!  It was so peaceful and beautiful out.  Just before we went to bed I could resist hopping in the kayak and paddling out a bit from the boat and just looking up at the stars and all the meteors.  So peaceful on so many levels.  I loved looking over and seeing our boat sitting there at anchor with the cabin and pilothouse lights on, stars and the universe as the background, my family safe aboard, just pure bliss.

The dawn was just as wonderful, with mist rising up off the river as the sun came over the horizon:

I may have mentioned previously why we like this particular cove so much for anchoring.  Not only is it just about the perfect size for our boat, well protected from weather, currents, and winds, surrounded by a state park on all sides of the cove and completely wooded with deer and blue heron everywhere, there is something even better that boaters and cruisers can appreciate...a small dock at the back end of the cove with a grassy spot we can take our dog, Daisy, to shore to!  :)  Sarah and I are on our morning run (you can see our boat very far in the distance on left side of cove):

Ours is the 4th boat from the left...small spec out in the distance:

And coming back to the mothership with Daisy and Sarah:

After breakfast and our "boat church" that we do as a family on Sundays when aboard, we spent the morning fishing out of the dinghy around the edge of the cove, went for a long dinghy ride at full throttle around Harrison Bay, went swimming, relaxed, and finished off the afternoon with a nice slow cruise around the area just enjoying the sunshine and being on the water.

Summer bliss

What a great summer on the water it has been!!!  So much to say!  :)  The kids have been having a great time on the water.  Biggest event for them this summer has been learning how to really wakeboard properly.  If you follow our blog a bit you know we bought a nice little 17' Boston Whaler Dauntless this winter.  I tried taking them wakeboarding on it once but it did not go well.  :)  Luckily, my good friend and broker who works with me, Steve, used to be a professional skier and is an excellent teacher.  We spent an afternoon with him and WOW what a difference it made.  Not only did I learn how to properly pilot the boat to help them get up easier but he used a boom on the side of his ski boat to really walk them through how to get up and ride on the wakeboard.  They both graduated to the long rope behind his ski boat and then we tried pulling them behind the whaler...an admittedly less than perfect wakeboarding vessel but the kids hopped right up on it.  So- lots of weekday evenings on Lake Allatoona (10 minutes from our house in Woodstock, GA) have been spent wakeboarding with them all over the place.  TONS of fun watching them do it and to see how much they love it.  Here are some pictures:

And of course every once in a while you have to stop wakeboarding and just go swimming:

This weekend was the perfect weekend for us as a family anchored out.  We went to our favorite cove not far from the marina and dropped anchor and enjoyed life.  Work has kept me largely up in Chattanooga between brokering boats and doing boat projects after the storm such that Caleb and I spent most of the last month living aboard the pilothouse, with my wife and daughter going back and forth some due to our daughter having horseback riding lesson (she LOVES horses!!).  Here we are anchored out in our quiet little cove:

My beautiful bride, Tarne, and my wonderful daughter, Sarah, relaxing in the cockpit:

First order of business was swimming for everyone!

Saturday was a hot but sunny day but then out of the blue a passing storm cloud came over us.  The sun was shining and everyone was swimming but it was pouring out for maybe 10 minutes- very fun!  Luckily no thunder or lightening so just a nice summer rain.

One of the favorite activities for the kids is jumping off the flybridge into the water.  That extra height makes it a lot of fun.  Tarne snapped a picture of the 3 of us jumping off together- such good times!

Daisy likes our "new" pilothouse a LOT more than our Monk 36 trawler.  That being said, she still does not seem to really like the water all that much.  She likes the dinghy ride and doesn't mind being on the dock but she seems to have little to no interest in swimming with us.  Usually when we are anchored out and swimming, this is the view we have of her as she does not want to come out on the swim platform with all the splashing going on haha:

And or course, it would not be a weekend anchored out for our family without the kids paddling around the cove exploring.  Here Sarah is shuttling Caleb around as he sits in the back of our kayak:

And Saturday night Sarah went for a solo paddle to watch the sun going down and contemplate life it looked like from our vantage point.  Our "quiet" anchorage became pretty popular and ended up having 30 boats or so anchored in it during the afternoon.  A few stayed the night anchored out but thankfully everyone was nice and quiet and it was extremely peaceful.

In the morning we woke to a perfect blue sky and calm waters:

The boat projects have been coming along nicely.  We have 7-8 coats of varnish down on all the brightwork.  This, plus the full wax and compound from waterline up before relaunching after the storm all translates into the boat looking MUCH better these days.  There is nothing I love on boats more than new varnish!!!

After enjoying most of the day in the sun on Sunday, we decided to pull up anchor and cruise a few miles up to Aris' Restaurant up in Soddy Daisy, TN.  Good food and a nice outdoor deck overlooking the water.  Here is a picture of "Watermark" tied up to their docks there at the restaurant while we ate an early dinner:

After dinner we went back to the dock to plug in and relax after 2 solid days in the sun.  The kids love fishing off the dock, usually catching tons of bluegill, etc.  I fished with them and surprise surprise, look what I caught!  This bass was HUGE!  I should have weighed it but it had to have been in the 8-10 lb range.  It was by far the biggest largemouth bass I've ever personally caught.  The kids were so excited.  Caleb picked the spot we were fishing at, Sarah picked my lure, and poof... I caught the fish.  We actually were watching him before I caught him as he was just sitting there 12" below the surface staring at Caleb's hook with bread on it.  I grabbed my pole and put the lure I let Sarah pick and dropped the lure in the slip he was in and worked the lure past him and he took off and grabbed it right away!  It was very cool and the kids were so thrilled.  Caleb REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to cook him and eat him!  I was certainly tempted but Tarne and Sarah wanted him to be able to live so we took some pictures and put him back in the water to live another day.  

And then a beautiful sunset on the docks....

All in all, it was an excellent weekend on the water.  We spent last night on the boat and today (Monday), I worked on some varnish for our trawler that we are selling and spent time with a client, his wife, daughter, and grandson that are staying at one of the cabins at our marina since we sold their boat sooner than they thought and their older grandkids were going to a sailing camp this week.  We fished on the docks with them and while their youngest grandson did not catch a huge largemouth bass like I did the night before, he caught one heck of a big catfish and had a great time.  

Boat name finally installed!

We finally got the name on the boat!!

We debated for a while what to name our "new" boat.  We have liked all the names of our previous boats for different reasons.  Probably our favorite thus far was our trawler's name, "Living Light."  Nice, simple, happy.  But, we felt the pilothouse had a different feel to it.  Since the primary reason we bought the pilothouse was to have increased space to meet clients, sign paperwork, entertain them, etc. it only seemed fitting to name the boat after our company.  So, "Watermark" is the new name.  Now every time we hail or are hailed on the VHF everyone will hear our yacht brokerage firm's name.  :)

And a creative idea a friend of ours gave us involved our open array radar.  If you are looking for a good way to dress up your boat and customize it in a fun and easy way, you can add your name onto the radar array like we did:

A long over due update!

Where to begin?  I am terribly behind in updating our blog and LOTS has happened since we brought our "new" boat home from Mississippi.  We bought her with the plan to do some refit work but little did we know that we would be doing more than anticipated.  As fate would have it, on March 2nd a tornado came directly through our marina.  In doing so it destroyed about 70% of the docks at the marina.  The devastation was unbelievable.  Our docks are covered with tin roofs and the entire roof super structure collapsed on all the boats.  To make matters more fun, we still had (have!) our trawler for sale and both boats were on the same dock that got damaged.  Surprisingly, both boats weathered the storm amazingly well.  On our bayliner it was not too bad because about half of what we were going to replace anyway was beat up in the storm so insurance money has helped take care of all of those items.  Luckily neither boats sustained any structural damage whatsoever which was fortunate.  There were about 30 boats, mostly 30' and under, that sank on the storm.  Both our boats had taller vessels in the slips next to them so most of the steel landed on the neighboring boats instead of ours.  Here are a few pictures of the damage to the marina:

And our pilothouse in the midst of the rubble.  Amazingly no steel was left laying on our boat at the end of the storm and it was also the only boat on the entire dock that, when the storm was over, was not pinned in to the dock in some manner and she was literally the first boat to leave the dock once the recovery efforts started:

Lots of damage to other boats!

So, our refit plans got adjusted and more work was to be done but it has all worked out.  We had her up in the service yard for quite some time getting some cosmetic fiberglass work done, new radar arch installed, straightening a bowrail out, etc. but that is all done and she is back in the water thankfully! Here's a picture of our old radar arch...cut into pieces and thrown into the dumpster:

We replaced the old arch with a very nice aluminum pipe frame arch that we ordered online from Atlantic Towers.  We also ordered a hinged mounting kit for it so that it can be lowered at any time should we ever ship her over land.  We love how it looks on the boat.  We spent the last 2 weeks on the boat since she is now back on the water.  This was a combination of fun and work...my son Caleb and I sanded down all the varnish since old cetol finish had been beat up beyond repair (and we didn't like the looks of it anyway), we've been replacing the ugly colors and soft goods on the interior (getting rid of all that patchwork quilt stuff!), running electronics up through the new arch, etc.  Here are some miscellaneous pictures from the last 2 weeks aboard....

Anchored out in our favorite cove and swimming with the kids.  New radar arch installed!

Teak prior to working on it:

Caleb is a true boat addict as well and helped me sanding and varnishing:

And now after 4 coats of Epifanes varnish (plan to do 4-6 more!):

 

Chattanooga's annual "Riverbend" festival was last week and we decided to anchor out for a night for the festival.  The aquarium is visible behind our boat- love downtown Chattanooga!

Dawn in downtown as the sun was just preparing to rise:

After the night at the festival we cruised back up to our favorite coves to anchor out.  Caleb loves driving from the pilothouse:

And the kids LOVE jumping into the water off the flybridge!

I took a video of the view from our anchorage just at dawn that next morning...so peaceful with the birds chirping everywhere.  We shared the cove with a nice classic Chris Craft:

Father's Day we were anchored out and then enjoyed a fun cruise up to Aris Restaurant at Harbor Lights Marina.  From our outdoor dining we a great view of our boat which I still enjoy seeing on the water after the storm repair!

My good friend and yacht broker that works with me took these 2 great shots of us cruising down the river heading to Riverbend:

Well, there is a quick update anyway.  Lots went on in the last 2-3 months but we are back on the water and the boat is in great shape.  We still have more to do...having a new bimini and eisenglass enclosure made, working on upgrading our house battery bank for longer times anchored out, more varnish, organizing the interior but the big stuff is all done and WOW was it great to spend 2 weeks on the boat!  I hope to update our blog more frequently now that we are back on the water so stay tuned.  If all works out we will do some longer cruises on the river this summer!

A GREAT time on the boat!

We've spent a lot of time aboard our boats over the years but I must say, the entire family seems to agree the last 5 days we had aboard were the best ever.  We had SUCH a great winter break together!  The last few days we mostly spent relaxing.  Even our dog, Daisy, got in on the relaxing via her naps in the salon:

Daisy honestly never enjoyed our trawler.  She would sit and cower in the aft stateroom and just did not look super happy the entire time we were aboard.  Not on our new boat though!  She seems very much at home, relaxed, and happy.  I think she likes all the extra space.  Due to the winds blowing the last half this week pretty much non-stop at 20-30 mph though we had not done much boating!  Saturday we  were planning on going home but everyone was having fun hanging out on the boat relaxing so we never got around to actually going home.  :)  We had some friends from a couple of docks over come say hi and tour our "new" boat.  We hadn't seen some of them pretty much all winter so it was fun to talk boats and catch up with them.  My broker Steve had told us he and his family may go to a well known restaurant in the area for dinner.  Our friends Terry, his family, and Tommy and his son told us during their visit they were going there too in their boats.  So before we knew it we were underway to Steve's Landing restaurant which is a 10 mile cruise up the river.  This was the first time underway on the 4550 for my wife and our daughter (and Daisy!) so it was a lot of fun.  Their Ribs have been reported to be incredible and I must concur- they were great!!  Terry and his wife own a newer sistership to our boat...the 4788.  Here they are as they are pulling into the docks at Steve's Landing:

We had a great dinner and despite it still being winter, the place was packed!  Our cruise home was a nighttime affair.  Yet again we find how much the pilothouse simply is wonderful!  We had a great time with Tarne and I and the kids as we following our radar and GPS (and Terry's boat as lead!).  We had fun with the kids laughing and telling stories the entire way back to our marina.  A picture of our pilothouse as we cruised home in the dark:

We also took this week to work on some projects.  One of those was getting the dinghy davit winch motor working so we could raise/lower the dinghy.  I took apart the motor and this is what I found...one new solenoid and one very old/rusted solenoid:

I called the company that made the winch motor and ordered a new solenoid on the hopes that is all it was.  They overnighted it to us and I installed it (learning on the process that the winch motor is hard wired it seems b/c the switch on the panel sure doesn't kill the power to it!!).  This may be the first boating project that was completed in about 30 minutes and for only $28.   :)  So...this morning I could not resist anchoring out so that we could test out the dinghy.  This would let us test the windlass for the anchor AND test the dinghy which makes it a win-win event.  We cruised over to one of our nearest anchorages and dropped both a hook AND the dinghy.  Good news is that the dinghy davit and winch worked great, the dinghy is awesome, and we had a blast.  The dinghy that came with the boat is a 2003 11' RIB and a 2003 Mercury 15hp 4 stroke outboard.  Compared to our little 9' RIB with the old 6hp outboard it had, the new dinghy FLIES!  Wow is it fast!  The kids and I had a great time zipping around the cove buzzing by the "mothership" and having fun.  

A few pictures of our boat from the dinghy:

Sarah on one of our dinghy rides:

Heading back to the boat:

All in all....I can't wait for summer!!!  We are glad every system works on the boat thus far.  We even tested the washer/dryer this week and it works (dries a little slow as do all combo units on boats).

COME ON SUMMER!!     :)