And the Beat Goes On

 Sunsets on a boat.

The heat is on, too. Holy crap it’s hot. It’s a good thing we got acclimated to the heat by living in it, because there is no way we would be able to sleep at night otherwise. It is funny though that when the cabin gets down to 27 deg C. it starts to feel chilly. The fans help, they keep the moisture off of us while we sleep. The problem is during the day with the UV index maxed, and still trying to get work done. Both Serena and I are suffering from sun burns, and I have even started using sunscreen. There is a first for everything. I never once used sunscreen in Kandahar, Afghanistan, but on the boat…..

We have running water. Or at least manually operated running water. We removed the original pressure water system in order to save H2O. I eventually plan to connect pressure water from outside, but it’s not a priority yet. So we connected the taps, and filled the tanks, cleaning the gunk out, filling, cleaning the gunk out, filling…. You get it. The only issue was that I never changed the vent lines, and they were full of crap, crud, and corruption. So the next day we bought some new water line and replaced both vents. Now the system is clean, and I would feel fine using the tanks for drinking water. The problem though is that the tanks are not the size I thought they were. The previous owner told me that they were 40 gallons, the literature from Bayfield said they were 30 gallons, and after measuring we find that they are in fact 20 gallons each. Which means that we are short 30 to 40 gallons for happy cruising. I guess that will have to come in the form of 1 ½ litre water bottles stashed all over the boat for now. Eventually we may install a watermaker, but not this year.

Awe, our illustrious Captain. Okay, just me.

Wiring, wiring, and more wiring. We are getting close, I think, to finishing. Both blowers for the engine compartment are installed. One to bring air from the cabin, one to take air outside. All the wires that run through the cockpit lockers have been run. We are trying to finish up in them so that we can start filling them with stuff, and get it out of the truck. We have a masthead tri-light, the speakers have been mounted, we have new LED nav lights, of which the port bow light is more of a blue-green instead of green. The accessory plug is wired, so now we can start using all of our 12V stuff, like the vacuum and cell phone chargers. Its been slow, but there has been progress. Tonight I plan to finish wiring all the mast lights, the radios, and maybe the nav station. Cross fingers, knock on wood.

All the switches have been labelled, and you’ll notice in the picture, I am out. Have to get creative if another one is needed.

And this is the aluminum cage we built to go around the fridge compressor to protect it from things flying around the cockpit locker. I am thinking that I might wrap some pipe insulation around the lines, just to provide them with a little of the same. The cage is made of ½” x 1/8” aluminum, cut bent, and riveted together, right in the cockpit, not rocket science, but it works fantastically.

There is more, and I really should get to it all sooner or later. Problem is finding time to blog. This afternoon we are hiding in a laundry mat, making dirty cloths clean, and abusing their air conditioning. Hey, nobody is perfect….