This morning we loaded into the Amy-mobile and headed up to Little Washington to meet Frank at West Marine for the fall marine flea market. We unloaded several seasons of accumulated stuff out of the back of our ghetto-fabulous ride and by 8:15 we were ready.
Once setup was complete, I scored an Egg-a-Moobi muffin and a hash brown from McDonald's and Amy and Frank had a cup of mcSwill (McDonald's coffee). We hung out in the chilly morning weather and waited for other buyers and sellers to arrive.
By 10 am it was apparent we were not going to get the turn out we had hoped for. Only four people showed up to sell stuff not counting us and we had maybe twenty or thirty people straggle by our feeble yard sale. We made the best of it and after picking out the choicest morsels from our fellow sellers, Amy and I sat around watching Frank do his best used car salesman impression. He was pretty funny.
Of course he did manage to sell just about everything he brought while we only sold two things, so I guess he's probably laughing the hardest. I think I might be a yard sale loser.
The turnout was so bad that for a while it looked like we were going to end up spending more than we made, but just before we called it a day, a couple of guys from South Carolina showed up and bought our little Honda generator and that pushed us up and over the break even point. Whew, close one.
If anyone is interested, we bought two mondo-sized fenders, 150' of never used, 5/16 Spectra line for our spinnaker sheet, a new pair of sunglasses for Amy and four previously experienced, closed cell foam seat cushions that we will re-purpose for our own needs.
By 12:30 we had packed our unsold wares back into the ghetto ride, said good-bye to Frank and then headed down the road to New Bern.
I think I forgot to mention that our brand new Honda EU2000 generator stopped working last week after a whopping 8 hours of use. Shitty death!
I had to fight hard to keep from beating the Honda to death with a sledge hammer just on principle. Fortunately, Amy was present and so no equipment was damaged. The local Honda dude diagnosed a faulty on/off switch and replaced it under warranty, hence our stop in New Bern.
After picking up the genset, we swung by Lowes to pick up a third air conditioning exhaust port and a four foot piece of trim for the spare stateroom.
From Lowes, we walked next door to Halftimes sports bar for an emergency beer and wing session. We ended up hanging out for two hours because I found a Manchester United game on the soccer channel and so we had to stay and cheer on the red devils.
By 4 pm, starvation had been adverted and it was safe to continue on our journey home. Back on the mother ship, we wrestled weasels and then got out the "master" list of boat projects. I dare say we are dangerously close to being ready to ship out. It looks like we are going to make our October 15th departure date.
There are a few projects left to do and we need to make a final trip home to drop off my motorcycle and the Amy-mobile, but all in all things are coming together nicely. Hopefully the next update will include the an exact departure countdown and we can resume our life afloat.
Stay tuned, more to follow, end of line....