48 Days: Little by Little, Bit by Bit...

Eight days since my last post and our accomplishments are adding up.  Last weekend we traded our old dinghy for a new Brig hard bottomed inflatable (10'10").  Our dinghy engine was traded for a new Mercury 9.9HP 4-cycle with electric start.  The old dinghy was the same except in name...it was a Zodiac and served us well these last 5 years.  It came with the Ocean Breeze so had been in saltwater for its first 3 years of life and the skin had deteriorated.  Inflatables only last so long.  We decided now was as good a time as any to update.

Our old engine was a Mercury 9.9HP as well, however it was a 2-cycle.  It has been a faithful partner for the last 10 years.  We are giving it up only because it is a 2-cycle and is needing more and more maintenance because of it's age.

Also, we had 'Spiderman' come to rid us of those ugly arachnids.  Once he did his thing, I cleaned all of the dust and webs off of my saloon blinds.  I always wanted blinds in my boat thinking they would be so much easier to maintain than curtains, especially with all the spider filth we get from our little Great Lakes friends.  Well, now I have learned that isn't true.  The blinds are a horror to try to take down and washing them in place is difficult and much less thorough.  Nothing is perfect in an imperfect world.  But the spiders ARE GONE (for the time being!).  I have a new gallon of Home Defense to help me keep them suppressed.

I tried to fix a leaky faucet at the bar sink last weekend.  The new washers failed so I decided to try to find better washers during the week at home.  No luck there so that's become an ongoing project.  It may well result in a new faucet at the bar sink.

I also had ordered two LED lights to replace the bulbs in our fixtures over the galley sink.  It was more of an experiment to make sure they would work in our light sockets.   All of our lights are DC and pull power from our house batteries.  At dockside, that leaching of power is no problem because the batteries are being charged by the supplied AC dock power.  However, when we are at anchor or on a mooring ball, we depend on the batteries to keep our refrigerator running and our toilets flushing.  So we are trying to decrease the amount of draw created by other DC applications.

The LED lights slipped into the fixtures and work fine!  I got the warm white so the light is much like the bulbs that they replaced, however the draw is very little.  I immediately ordered 5 more LEDs to replace bulbs in our two bathrooms and our master stateroom.  Because they are expensive, I am only replacing lights necessary to see our way around the inside of the boat.  The rest of the fixtures will remain with bulbs and are fine for dockside.

I installed a new towel rack in the master bath.  The ones that came with Ocean Breeze look pretty but aren't very functional.  I also put a hand towel rack inside the bar sink cabinet.  It looks much better without a towel hung over the cabinet door!

We went home Monday only to mow the lawn (the grass is growing at an unbelievable pace this summer!), Todd had vestry on Monday night at the church and he was attending a friend's retirement party on Tuesday.  Wednesday, before we came back to the boat, all of our navigational books and charts were delivered.  We will be pouring over those during the weeks to come.

Last weekend's projects led into this week.  I liked the bar sink hand towel ring so well, I added one to the master bath over the sink.  I also hung some clothing hooks behind our master stateroom door, inside my closet door and in the guest stateroom.

All the while I was putting more holes in the boat, Todd was cleaning the upper station in preparation for a new (to us) dock box I found on Craig's list last week.  We had been looking for a dock box to store our fold-up bicycles.

This was a great deal and not only fits our bikes but cushions we use in the dinghy and other odds and ends.

We also took our dinghy harness to West Marine to price out adding another cable.  The harness is necessary to lift the dinghy from the cradle on the top deck to the water below with the winch (small crane).  Our new dinghy has a four-point attachment instead of the three-point of the old dinghy.  They had everything necessary to build the cable, except a pin cutter and the crimps needed for the cable.  They said they would have all that today so we hope to complete that project this afternoon.

AND, after all the problems with the anchor and the shackle, Todd slipped the Peerless Shackle on with no difficulty yesterday morning!

On the electronics side, all we have left is the installation of our Raymarine Satellite Dome for the television.  Until we find our installer, it sits quietly taking up space in the pilothouse!

We also keep checking in with the canvas folks...still waiting there.  Patience is a virtue...but I know I have great difficulty in that category.  Todd talks to most of the folks we are dealing with.  He is so much more patient than I.