Soon

We have been busy this week.

The solar panels are mounted above the davits and the dingy is now hanging from the davits. Normally when we make a passage the dingy is deflated and stowed on the foredeck but since we will be on inland waters (Puget Sound, San Juans, Straits of Georgia, etc) for a while we will hang it from the davits.

The refrigeration is complete for now. We are starting to put the fiddles on. This helps keep things from sliding onto the floor in the galley when we are sailing.

Rich had taken the old hatch from the forward head shower a few months ago and we had plastic covering. This was not sufficient for passagemaking. Since we have been so busy with other projects, we had Dave install the new hatch. It looks great.

Rich installed the new watermaker. It is not connected yet so it will not process sea water. That will be a project for some anchorage in the future. We carry 140 gallons in tanks below the settees in the main salon so we will be okay for a while.

I am starting to vacuum pack spares and storing them, such a engine fuel and oil filters which are stowed below the settee in the aft stateroom. I have a Foodsaver vacuum packer that we got at Costco before we left in 2001. It is still going strong. I use it for lots of things, spare parts, food stuffs, paper goods, clothing, etc. Toilet paper takes a lot less space when it is vacuum packed!

We went through some items in the storage unit today to bring back onto the boat such as paper charts of the west coast of Canada and from Neah Bay to San Francisco. Other items included the storm sail, Galerider, genicker plus some spare parts.

We have been waiting for our batteries. They finally arrived at the trucking depot. Instead of waiting for them to be delivered to the place where we bought them (Tuesday at the earliest, since it is a holiday weekend), Rich and I drove down to the depot and they used a forklift to load them in the back of our Subaru. We purchased 2 batteries, 270 amphours each and each one weighs 140 or so pounds. The rear end of the car definitely went down when the batteries and the pallet they were on were loaded. Tomorrow we will take the bed apart in the aft stateroom, remove the old batteries, and replace them with the new ones. It is not easy getting these heavy, awkward items out and into the salon, then up the gangway and out onto the dock and then reversing the process for the new batteries.

Thursday nights the liveaboards get together for BBQs. Everyone brings their own main dish plus a side to share. There was quite a crowd on the main dock by Windarra. Some friends, Linda and Brad, left last year to go cruising. While they were in New Zealand, they had a mishap on an unmarked reef near Doubtless Bay and their boat went down. Luckily they were able to get out and launch their life rift with no injury. They fired some flares and someone on shore saw them and rescued them. The fellow that rescued them was from a nearby Maori village. They were able to stay there and collect the items that washed onshore from their boat. They had insurance and they have already bought another sailboat in New Zealand and will be working here for a bit before going back and cruising again. Cruisers are hearty folks.

Now if we can just get the batteries in and get everything stowed.....