Pausing in Charleston, Post 25-18

Jimmy Lee
May 4
3 min read

Updated: May 7

Utopia will be sitting still for about a month as we tackle various projects, both on and off the boat. This post is basically an overview of why Utopia will stay put for a few weeks.

A view from the Marina to Maybank Highway

Boat Projects

After taking it somewhat easy over the weekend (except walking 4 miles roundtrip to the grocery store to reprovision and taking the marina courtesy car out for errands) we started our boat work in earnest. A little blurb of the work and its status is below.

Radar

I took the radar down in Brunswick, but I didn’t send it back for the warranty work until we were going through Beauford, SC due to Raymarine not getting me the pre-paid mailing label. As of now Raymarine has the radar and will hopefully ship it back “fixed” next week.

Autopilot

Although the existing autopilot still works it is 15 years old, and I wanted to upgrade to the latest equipment, so that it will communicates properly with all of the other instruments. Our contractor was here most of the week (with me as his helper) removing the old system and taking out a lot of old abandoned wiring that was original to the boat but no longer used. I think the boat is a good bit lighter because of it. Once the old wiring is gone, the plan is to find a proper path for the new wiring this week.

Instrumentation

We our upgrading our speed, depth, and wind instrumentations for Utopia. Again, this week we removed the old instrumentation and wiring and preparing the new location for the new items. We are also moving some items around like the AIS. At the end of the day, we hope to have a more compact and tidy system. Some of the existing wiring that needs to come out is under a headliner for the boat. It is our hopes we can remove and run the new line without too much damage. We will see.

Air conditioner

Our 18-year-old air conditioner is on its last legs, so I pulled the trigger on the new unit. We expect this to arrive next week and hopefully it won’t be too painful of a project since it’s a comparable sized unit and we won’t be running any new ductwork.

Water Maker

I finally got the pump I needed for the water maker repair delivered here at the marina. I plan on tackling that this weekend since the contractor won’t be here, and I can concentrate on that without pausing to help him.

Teak

The teak combing on the sailboat needed to be refreshed so I put 4 coats of varnish on this week. We can call this one done.

Travel Plans

Doctor’s appointment in Tallahassee and Family Visits

Sitting still helps create an good opportunity to visit family and friends and take care of those pesky doctor appointments.

Work related conference in West Palm Beach

Sondra will be flying down to West Palm Beach to spend time with colleagues and to earn continuing education hours for licensure.

Hiking in Georgia

If you guys know me, you know that 1700-mile hike last year was a wonderful experience but at the end of the day I didn’t really care if I finished the Appalachian Trail or not. Sondra on the other hand really wants to finish the last 500 miles of the AT over the next few years. She plans to hike from the Amicalola Falls Visitors Center to The Len Foot Inn and then to Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. From there she will hike along the AT (northbound) into North Carolina, covering about 95 miles (85 on the AT) over a 7-to-10-day period. I plan to drop her off on the trail and head back to Charleston to continue the boat work. When she is done, I will drive back to pick her up…maybe.

Sondra weighing her backpack contents for the hike

Other items

Other than that, we hope to actually spend some time visiting areas around Charleston but with the work schedule we are not sure how much we will see. Hopefully, we will get done with the work and have some time to play before we leave.

Post 25-18

See link below to read about the trip from Beaufort to Charleston.