Proud Lady is currently residing Kentucky Dam Marina. We were able to bring her over in September with the help of friends to share that grand day, Ken and Jennifer, friends, we met at Rottering marine, where we worked on Proud lady during the summer of 2011. Proud lady is almost ready to go on the Americas Great Loop trip! After the long summer of working on her, Bill and I have a new appreciation for our adventure and for each other. We worked side by side with many prayers and tears getting her ready to go. Lessons we are learning are: love one another, living on a budget, and all the skills of caring for a boat. We painted sanded, scrubbed, repaired, and waited not always real patiently for her to be restored. Proud lady does look beautiful she's sitting in the water. In October we have had the opportunity to go on a short day trip with my parents Denver and Betty Rauls, my sister and bro. In law Mark and Pam Stamps and my children. Proud lady ran like a beauty queen on a runway going up and down Kentucky Lake. I tried to up load pictures for you to see but I couldn't get this to work from the iPad. I have a really cute picture of Carlie watching for birds with her binoculars, and a picture of my daddy sitting on the aft deck watching the scenery. I also have a picture of our US flag flying that looks beautiful. So just imagine you can see them and smile. Again we are slowly and cautiously preparing our minds and hearts for the trip. For Christmas we have new books about the Great Loop to inspire and educate us both.
Our prayer is that we remain healthy, we grow spiritually, along with wisdom and knowledge for the journey. Love and Prayers, Joy
Proud Ladys adventures around the Great Loop. We started the trip October 1 2012 our Goal to finish in a year or maybe 2
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Making Progress
You know those jobs that can make time feel like it goes on forever? Well this boat prep job is one of those. Here we are right in the middle of watching the bottom of the boat being repaired from the storm on May25th, when another challenge pops up......."Oh dear!", a leak in the fresh water tank. BUT we will be back in the water this month of July 2011. We just gotta remove the old tank and replace it with a new one. So we bought the tools and are ready for the task.
Bill and I read the book "Honey lets buy a Boat" by Ron and Eva Stob and made the decision to take this trip about 2 1/2 years ago, never did we realize we would go through some of the challenges that they experienced, what we thought was funny in the book is not so funny in real life. A wonderful cousin of Bill's gave some good advice and encouragement. He says, "we will appreciate the trip more since we are doing the work our self."I agree but I wish it wouldn't be so many challenges. We experienced our problems before we started the trip.
Proud lady is getting fresh hull paint and her teak is all shined up she will be so beautiful for the trip around the loop, the flybridge looks great, we will have fresh and healthy water. Thank you Lord for watching over us.
Here's an example of our day, up early, work till we are exhausted in the heat, dream of being on the water, take a nap, go to bed at night in borrowed housing, start all over again. We do take time to shop for boat parts and look for a job. Bill and I even took a trip to Evansville, Indiana to visit friends, its a beautiful city on the Ohio River. I had never been there before it was awesome. Again thank you LORD.
THERE is a silver lining to this cloud (besides all the rain we this year). Bill and I have worked our careers, continued education,and taken care of our home the last 10 years, until we were not as close as we could have been. BUT working together on this project everyday has been a marriage saver. Oh! but there have been times we clashed. And again, Thank you Lord for being with us!
I look forward to posting on places we visit and the fun we will have so please stay in touch.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Proud Lady Breaks away
May25 2011 during a storm in the night Proud Lady decides she wants to go wandering. We arrived to the marina on Barkley Lake, Wednesday night she was sitting so pretty among a line of boats that were pulled into the channel to protect them in the flood waters.
Bill and I were so tired we decided to go back into town and get a motel room and dinner for the night. When we arrived back to the marina on Thursday morning anxious to move aboard or new home, Proud Lady was nowhere to be seen. Bill jumped from the truck and asked the marina employees, "wheres my boat?" They pointed down into the cove she had broke free from her anchor and floated to the end of the cove. Kevin another boat owner offer the use of his dinghy so that we could get to her. Arriving to Proud Lady we discovered she had her swim platform stuck in a steele drain pipe. She had bumped around the in the cove possibally bumping several mooring cells on her way down the cove.
She recieved moderate damage and was discovered to be taking on water about 1 gallon per hour. Boat US has been excellent and fast in compensating for her damages. She is in the repair yard awaiting her turn to be restored.
We spent a busy but wonderful 6 days on the water untill she was pulled from the lake, NOW we have to be land lubbers untill she can return to the water.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
February 15/16 Return to Proud Lady
Finally the winter weather has subsided for a time and I was able to get over to Kentucky for a look-see at much needed work to be done. Proud Lady just a week earlier had been covered in ice and snow as Joy and I had ventured over there just to look at her since we hadn't been over in about 6 weeks. Winter isn't good on any boat left out in the weather but she's too big to go into any building at this marina.
During my two days I was able to get the new lift pump installed on the port engine. The old lift pump manual priming handle was broken and not of much use so a new pump was ordered after the trip down the river. Now, months later she has a new pump. I was also able to remove the old inverter as it didn't work according to the previous owner. I don't know how long it hadn't worked but it was totally corroded inside from years of just sitting. Had she been working the heat generated by the inverter would have kept the moisture out, but suffice it to say she isn't redeamable. A new inverter is in our future. I'll put off ordering one for right now but it will go on the list of needed equipment as we hope to do a lot of anchoring out away from marinas.
The biggest job of the two day trip was removing the carpet (affectionately called monkey fuzz by the marina folks at Starved Rock where we purchased the boat) that was installed on the aft bedroom walls. There was some damage to the wood below a window that is cracked, and being replaced, but nothing that can't be fixed in short order. I'll be going back with beadboard paneling and stained or painted to Joy's satisfaction.
I was able to get all the windows measured so Joy can start making new curtains. She has already purchased fabric and will start on that task soon.
Met new folks while at the marina. Joe the engine guy who gave me pointers on getting the lift pump out and Dave the "everything guy" who told me he works on everything but engines. I also met another boat owner whose name is Noel who is fixing his boat up to sell. He is out of work and on total disability. He was good guy and not bitter about having to get rid of the boat and said he had a good six years of fun on her. It is a nice little house boat. Not anything we'd want but nice none the less. That's it for this post.
During my two days I was able to get the new lift pump installed on the port engine. The old lift pump manual priming handle was broken and not of much use so a new pump was ordered after the trip down the river. Now, months later she has a new pump. I was also able to remove the old inverter as it didn't work according to the previous owner. I don't know how long it hadn't worked but it was totally corroded inside from years of just sitting. Had she been working the heat generated by the inverter would have kept the moisture out, but suffice it to say she isn't redeamable. A new inverter is in our future. I'll put off ordering one for right now but it will go on the list of needed equipment as we hope to do a lot of anchoring out away from marinas.
The biggest job of the two day trip was removing the carpet (affectionately called monkey fuzz by the marina folks at Starved Rock where we purchased the boat) that was installed on the aft bedroom walls. There was some damage to the wood below a window that is cracked, and being replaced, but nothing that can't be fixed in short order. I'll be going back with beadboard paneling and stained or painted to Joy's satisfaction.
I was able to get all the windows measured so Joy can start making new curtains. She has already purchased fabric and will start on that task soon.
Met new folks while at the marina. Joe the engine guy who gave me pointers on getting the lift pump out and Dave the "everything guy" who told me he works on everything but engines. I also met another boat owner whose name is Noel who is fixing his boat up to sell. He is out of work and on total disability. He was good guy and not bitter about having to get rid of the boat and said he had a good six years of fun on her. It is a nice little house boat. Not anything we'd want but nice none the less. That's it for this post.
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