Hurry Up and Wait

As mentioned in Tim's previous post, we somehow neglected to decide to work on the outboard first when we arrived two weeks ago, which would have allowed the shop it inevitably found its way to sufficient time to fix it before we were ready to leave. As a result, we finished the "have to do before we leave" list two days ago and now we're waiting on the outboard repair.

Since neither Tim nor I seem to be able to Just Sit and Do Nothing, we're moving on to some of the less pressing issues on the boat. One of the things nagging at me was the fact that we have a lot of heavy stuff stored under the pullman berth, at the forward end of which is one of the air conditioning units with the ever-so-delicate cooling fins just waiting to be smashed with a parts box tossed by a too-enthusiastic ICW traveler's wake. I'd given some thought to how I might section it off without restricting the inbound airflow, so a trip to the local hardware store was in order.

The local hardware store, Village Hardware & Marine Supply, is a small-town hardware store with some amazing treasures tucked into dusty corners for the shopper willing to peruse the aisles for a time. I was hoping for some of that perforated tin that comes in sheets that I could mount in front of the unit in some sort of frame. After some long discussion with the guys who work there (they know me by name now), one of the guys who is nick-named MacGyver went out back to see what he might find in their storage area. He came back a few minutes later with an old display shelf that was destined for the dumpster. It was absolutely perfect. If you had custom designed the thing you could not have done a better job. A few screws, washers, and L-brackets later and I had the perfect partition to protect the unit.

Tim has been busying himself with teak work. The teak rail on the sides of the boat had been finished with Captain's Varnish and I can't possibly describe how much we hate that stuff. Our intention is to do the teak in Awlwood finish because we loved it on Kintala but that will be a St. Louis project as it's more involved to do it well than we have time for now. The peeling Captain's Varnish was sharp on your hands as you used the rail so, for the time being, we just wanted to sand it off and get some teak oil on it till we get back to St. Louis. Took him two days, but it looks great and it's soooo much nicer on the hands.

I've been doing some organizing and rearranging of cabinets and such to make things accessible where they should be. One of the things I did was to move some racks that were in the wrong place for us to where they were more useful. After the fiasco that was the horrendous storm last week, we discovered we needed a place to keep our coffee cups and water bottles when not in use. These served well.

I spent a full day cleaning the flybridge this weekend with a Magic Eraser and some Better Life All Purpose Cleaner. I figure if I keep telling you how amazing this stuff is then you'll break down and buy some. (And, no, I don't have any relationship with the company other than buying a truly quality product that works even better than they claim.) I only brought a quart of the concentrate and I should have brought the whole gallon. We.Use.It.On.Everything. Then yesterday while I was at the store, Tim tackled some of the green moldy stuff that had built up on the sides of the flybridge and the cockpit. I really think he just wanted to play with his new toy - a deck wash down! He loves the thing and it makes it so much easier to do some of the deck cleaning, something we needed badly after hauling the anchor chain out of the chain locker to check the length markings and the general condition of the chain. 

I also spent some time organizing the cave that is the upper helm storage area. You seriously could sleep four of our grandkids in there and, as a result, it tends to accumulate stuff. I bought some of these bags and they worked so well I got another set. One for our air conditioner cord, one for our super long extension cord, one for our hose, one for extra lines...I may eventually order even one more set because they work so well.

Things are winding down to Departure Day now as can be seen by the fact that I'm route planning and reinstalling weather apps that had lain dormant the 4 years we were on land. The Navionics subscription has been updated and routes from here to my nephew's house in the Chesapeake have been entered. Now all we have to do is hurry up and wait.