Sunny days have been rare, and we were looking forward to a sunny day at Cuttyhunk Island after a three-day streak of overcast showery days at Martha’s Vineyard. We got our sunny day, and it started out well enough. We were able to enjoy breakfast out in the cockpit (wearing our fleece, of course), the sun was warm and the wind was just a breeze. We planned to go ashore to explore the town and walk the beaches. Perhaps we tempted fate by having a “plan,” because that’s not quite how the day turned out.
Shortly after breakfast, Dave discovered that the freezer was not at temperature; it was too warm. He and Dad spent the better part of the day trying to trouble shoot it, first themselves, then with some tech support they were eventually able to reach after several redirected phone calls. They finally decided we needed to replace something expensive and for which we did not have a spare on board. A couple more tech support calls later, it was decided we needed to replace the controller (thankfully not the compressor, or worse, the whole system). After a little online research, we decided to delay our Block Island stop and head to Newport the next day to pick up the part that was fortunately in stock one town over. In the meantime, they turned our fridge into a freezer. It tends to freeze stuff in some spots at its normal setting, so Dave just turned it down more. We moved the fridge stuff into the freezer with our bags of ice to serve as a cooler.
And while the boys were taking care of the freezer…
While making the bed in the morning, around the time Dave noticed the freezer issue, I discovered a water stain all along the outer edge of the fitted sheet that had wicked water up from under the mattresses. Further exploration of the cabin revealed that two weeks of condensation had left its mark. So while the boys worked on trouble shooting the freezer, Mom & I stripped my bed, attempted to wash the water stain out of the new quilt I made, then hung that, the mattress pad and the fleece blanket outside to dry in the now considerable (20-25 knot) wind and sunshine. Dave & Dad hauled the 3” memory foam mattress topper onto the cockpit table to air out, and I lugged the mattresses onto the tramp to dry in the sun and bake the mildew on the bottom dead. I also discovered that the two large wicker baskets I bought for the shelf in our cabin were wet and starting to mildew on the sides and bottom where they were in contact with the boat and thus the condensation, and that their fabric liners were also damp. So I emptied those, hung the liners outside and put the baskets in the tramp to also bake in the sun. Turns out one of them is dyed wicker, and it stained purple the shelf it had been on. I’ll live with that. Then I wiped down the walls, and we opened all the portholes and hatches in the boat to dry her out a little.
We did break for lunch around 1pm and went ashore for a couple of hours to enjoy a walk in the sunshine and to talk with a few very friendly locals. They told us there are only about 20 people who stay on Cuttyhunk through the winter! They’re busy now getting ready for the summer season that starts around Memorial day, when the island population swells to about 400 and their harbor sees about 4000 boats over the three months.
When we got back from our excursion, I reassembled our cabin and put on the spare set of sheets (fresh sheets!). Then we relaxed with a good dinner and a funny movie. We were too fried to play games.
Life on Lady 