Rather than relate the month to month life aboard the Misty Lady and living at the DC Wharf, I think that doing a summary of some key events might be best. Perhaps a overview of significant events for our time so far at our waterfront home. In a couple of weeks we will have been resident at the Capital Yacht Club aboard the Misty Lady for three years. Seems that the time has flown in certain circumstances, yet dragged like a turtle crossing the road in others.
Over those many months, we have “floated” from dock to dock and slip to slip as circumstances dictated for the “good of the club”. We finally won a slip on the B dock that was actually designed for a catamaran yacht (much wider than a regular sized motor yacht). It was convenient, since it was located one slip away from the ramp up to the clubhouse and access to the Wharf proper. We lived in that slip for a year, then won a standard yacht slip on the A Dock (A 4) that was more suited to our yacht (60 feet long) that gave us some wiggle room at the aft of our floating home. The further out your slip is for the main dock, the better because you are further away from the huge bulkhead and catwalk between the docks.
We then, after a couple of months, played boat hopscotch and bid on and won the compete for a slip further out on the A Dock winning the Slip A 10. This is where we are located now.
The photo below is the early sunset from our A-10 slip dockage. One of the best parts of being afloat is the opportunity of seeing sunsets and sunrises over the waters of the Washington Channel and the Potomac River, as well as the Chesapeake Bay.
During the late summer of 2017 we finally had our new clubhouse finished and available for our relocation from the temporary space. In October of that year, we were also able to both christen the new Club House and celebrate our Founders Day, for 125 years of the Club’s existence. Our Celebratory Cake is shown below.
During the previous Founders Day, we had the Mayor of Washington, D.C. Muriel Bowser as our guest speaker. Charlotte was able to spend a few moments with the Mayor and I snapped a photo of them.
All is not without an adverse incident however, back in April of this year, Charlotte was coming home from her office and took a spill at the L’Enfant Metro Station. The photo below is her in the surgical unit hospital room at Howard University Hospital. She fell face first into the sidewalk alongside the escalator while wearing a full backpack including her computer. Took a ride in the DC Fire EMT Ambulance with me following. She doesn’t remember anything about the fall, about giving my contact information so a kind DC person could tell me of her accident. She doesn’t remember talking to me in the ambulance, and she doesn’t remember the ride in the ambulance to the Howard University Hospital. And after all sorts of tests (MRI, CAT, EchoCardiogram) the doctors still don’t know what caused the fall, was it a heart thing, perhaps blood pressure loss, did she faint? Their concern was the situation where she doesn’t recall anything about the fall or anything else until the emergency room when she started asking where she was and where her husband was. We both think that she may have tripped and fell, and the resulting trauma to her head and brain caused a memory lapse.
Anyway, my lady is tough and heals rapidly. A few days later the abrasions on her face and hands were pretty much healed, the yellow cast to the bruises were almost invisible, and once the stitches were removed from her eyebrow area that healed pretty cleanly too. Scared this old man quite a bit I tell you. This lady is my rock and my life, the thought of losing her like this was terrifying. But we still have no idea what happened, the medical folks don’t know either. She still gets dizzy spells once in a while, but, as we have all our life together, we will take it one day at a time, and address what ever comes our way as life partners.
Talk about excitement, on August 31, this year, we were awakened by our alarm system telling us to evacuate the boat. This was around 2:30am so we were still sort of groggy. I called 911 and the fire department arrived both by land and water, the fire units on the fire boat, brought their gas testing equipment. WE were able, with the help of the firefighters to get the two sea cats into their carriers and bring them off the boat and onto the finger dock. There was no fire that we could ascertain and this was borne out by the firefighters. But there were a lot of gases and a couple could have been very bad with one possible fatal from heavy exposure. Lucky for us, we were not exposed that badly. The firefighters cleared out all of the cabins, opening windows and bringing a large fan device to clear out the air from the various cabins. The young man in the photo below was the person who, with his oxygen tanks and mask, searched through the boat with sensing devices to determine what type, and the concentration levels of gasses that were in our boat. He then found that one of our main batteries (starts the engines), was 185 degrees while the other batteries (we have a lot), were at a normal heat temp of 82 to 85 and determined that was the source of the various gasses. He shut down our battery charger system to remove the source of voltage feeding the bad battery. This battery by the way, weighs over 150 pounds and is approximately 4 feet long by 1.5 feet wide. Once the gas incursions were cleared out and the measurement of the gas concentration was down to normal levels we were allowed back on the boat and the firefighters left to return to their station.
Later that day, Charlotte called into her office and worked from home for the day. We were both pretty draggy all day. The bed was a welcome sight that evening. Our marine technician came over that afternoon, disconnected the battery cables from the bad battery, tested it and found it failed, which is why it kept fooling the charging system into sending power into it long past when it would be needed. Once the battery cables were disconnected and taped off, the marine technician was able to turn our charging system back on to allow us the ability to use our DC voltage equipment. Two days later, and a couple hundred dollars, a new battery was delivered, installed and the Misty Lady was all back in good condition.
If you look closely at this young firefighter, you can see he is rather tired at 3:30 or so in the morning.
I think I will stop the entry here and write more in the next blog. We have a couple of things working and I want to ensure that I have the right level of clarification.
More Later, Stay Tuned?
Misty Lady Thought and Comment 