A summary of our June adventures, including burnt up shore power cords, Cars and Coffee Charleston, a baby shower, the octopus at the SC Aquarium, and a chance encounter with the people who first tried to buy our boat!

We arrived home from work on a Tuesday to find that the AC was off. And we couldn’t turn it back on. I left Kyle to search out the electrical gremlins in the AC unit, but he didn’t have much luck sorting that out and couldn’t get through to customer service to ask any questions.

On Wednesday he traced the wiring all the way back to the dock and realized the shore power cords had fried connectors (we need to use two cords in order to reach the electrical box at our slip). So we took a quick trip to West Marine and bought two ends to replace the fried ones. Kyle got right to work replacing those, but in the process realized that the end that connects to the boat and the boat socket were also fried. Obviously we should have checked those too, that one’s on us.

Thursday we headed straight to West Marine after work. They didn’t have the outlet we needed so we had to go to a second West Marine to pick up the parts we needed. Kyle replaced the rest of the fried connections that night, but still no AC, the touchscreen seemed to be acting up. Charleston heat and humidity is stifling in the summer, and we weren’t sleeping much this week because of it.

On Friday Kyle rigged up some tin foil and cardboard apparatus to fool the touchscreen. Customer service wasn’t much help, but they were willing to replace the unit, provided we proved our current unit was inoperable (by cutting the cord and sending them a photo). So they were going to wait until they received the photo, send it to their warranty dept, and then they would ship us a replacement – it would be at least a five day wait. That’s right, another week of no sleep.

Weirdly, the AC unit was working that night, so we weren’t willing to risk cutting the power cord and initiating the warranty process.

It’s been working fine ever since.

Boat problems – there’s nothing a couple hundred dollars, three trips to two different West Marines, and some really weird luck can’t solve.

Speaking of which, our transient neighbors, Chris and Sarah, said their final goodbyes and left Saturday morning. A couple hours later, the towboat brought them right back to their slip – their engine was overheating. To help ease their pain, we took them out Pawley’s Island Brewing to try the newest beer, What The Shell, brewed in collaboration with the SC Aquarium/Turtle Hospital. We’ve been there often enough that they recognize us, although since we usually take the bus we’re extra recognizable.

The following weekend, Kyle wanted to take the bus to Cars and Coffee, mostly because it happens right in front of Mens Warehouse and he had to stop in for a tux fitting for a wedding he’s standing in. That was a pretty good time, despite the blatant sexism. The worst was a guy who was giving out flyers for his car appraisal service, Kyle and I were standing right next to each other and the guy introduced himself to and shook hands with Kyle, all while completely ignoring me. If he were the last appraiser in the world we still wouldn’t call him. Later, while Kyle tried on a tux and I was alone with the bus, a guy started chatting with me. He was the man who started Cars and Coffee in Charleston, and he treated me with total equality – he wasn’t afraid to ask me questions about the size and type of engine in the bus – so I was a bit mollified. It’s infuriating to be completely invisible because of my gender. Kyle is a champ in situations like that, if he can tell someone is ignoring me he’ll usually try to a) have me answer the questions or b) he’ll casually let them know I have an engineering degree, or talk up how much work I’ve done on the bus, etc. That being said, even if I didn’t have answers to any technical questions, I still deserve to be treated like a human being.

We spent the rest of the day serving beer: Kyle agreed to be a celebrity bartender again and I joined him. It’s like getting paid to drink. It’s work, too, but I would never pay such high prices for sour beers so it’s a lot of fun to be able to taste them for free while serving. We made it home around 1am, which meant some serious grumpiness in the morning but we had to get going early to help set up for our friend’s baby shower.

We were in charge of making a bagel bar for the baby shower brunch, so I had a lot of fun with different bagel toppings. However, there was so much other food there that I think people only at like four bagels so we ended up taking most of it home – better to have too much food than too little though! The baby shower was so much fun, the dad-to-be is such a clown so he opened all the baby gifts and had to guess what they were. We also tie-dyed some onesies and they turned out really cute.

Kyle’s boss took us out to a ballgame, which – it’s really important to note here that when Kyle’s boss does something he does it in style. So we didn’t just go to a baseball game, we got tickets to the Joe Riley Club level, with free food and drinks and air conditioning. We were a little concerned the whole thing might get rained out, but instead the rain cooled things off enough that it was a perfect night. I 100% cannot tell you who won, so you know I had a good time.

We originally had the AC in the berth where we sleep, and I had noticed it was causing some serious condensation outside the berth and in my clothing locker. I meant to empty the clothing locker and air everything out, but didn’t get around to it, and now I’m paying for it – I’ve started seeing mold on my clothes. So now I’ve got a big pile of laundry to do. Gross.

We were walking to work one morning and another liveaboard told us there was a manatee near shore! I haven’t seen one of those in years and I forgot how huge they are. Sure enough, there was a manatee bumbling along the shoreline! I nearly dropped my phone in the water trying to get a photo, so please forgive me for what follows, I hadn’t had any coffee yet.

We spent one weekend in Oak Island, NC where our friends Evie and Shari have a beach house. We arrived a little early, so we went straight to the beach and cracked open a nice refreshing All Day IPA for a walk along the beach. We talked about how we are stressed about how little we’ve been getting done when it comes to boat chores, but when we reflected on how freaking busy we’ve been lately, plus our 11-hour workdays, I think it’s easy to see why things have stalled out. However, we committed to making some projects priority, because there are a few things we really need to fix soon. It was a really good chat.

As payback for letting us stay at the beach house, we took Evie and Shari to the SC Aquarium. We have volunteer passes that get us and two guests in for free. For the first time ever, the octopus was out and about! It was so crazy to watch how fast she changed colors.

I complained about my moldy clothing to a friend and she invited us over for a laundry night / porch drinks! So we spent one night this week hanging out on their porch, making friends with their toddler, blowing bubbles and drinking whatever was cold, because the heat index was up to 112° this week. It’s been HOT.

I assume this insane heat wave is responsible for all the growth I’ve been seeing – the mold is growing faster, we’ve got mildew growing (which we’ve never had before) and even the growth on the hull below the waterline seems to have accelerated. Part of the issue is that we have to close the boat up during the day because of the pop up storms we get, so we’re not ventilating our living space.

One day this week we got home and there was a catamaran across the dock from us named Alibi. No one was home when we arrived so we went about our night. As I was walking back from the shower I saw Kyle on the dock talking to some of the ladies from Alibi in very familiar terms, so I assumed he must know them. I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out how Kyle might know these women, but I couldn’t come up with anything reasonable. When I reached the group, one of the ladies called to me by name and introduced herself as Sheila. I gave her a weird stare for about 10 seconds before it dawned on me – these were the original group of buyers who tried to buy Hobbes back in the day – Sheila was the one I called to ask if I could purchase the survey from them!

We caught up with them for a hot minute and scoped out the boat they ended up buying – a small Lagoon (by small I mean it is the same size as our boat but the layout makes it feel so much smaller). They tried to tell us that they love the boat they ended up with, but to me there’s no comparison. Hobbes is the perfect boat, it’s been months but I still do a little happy dance every time I think about how great my home is.

Finally, some friends of ours are out of town this week and we’re cat-sitting / garden-sitting for them, so we’ve been able to hang out in an air conditioned house for a minute after work before heading home to the boat. I really miss gardening so I’ve been getting my green thumb fix this week.

It was a very busy month.