As it stands now, we will be cutting our dock lines Tuesday morning, August 26. About 10 days later than our "optimal" departure date. Our original departure date was to be Sept 1, but many experienced coastal boaters encouraged us to leave earlier for the prospect of calmer conditions on the ocean. There has been so much more work too do to get ready for this trip that our August 15 date became unobtainable.
It looks like we have renters for our house. They just have to pass the background check, which we think they will. It's a very nice family of 4, with two little ones. They love our house and it's location near the pool, playground, tennis courts, and clubhouse. I'm sure they will enjoy it as much as we have.
The living spaces in our house are virtually empty now. Kathy has been VERY busy emptying every cabinet and closet. She's also been cleaning the entire house. We have taken dozens of trips to the storage unit with our belongings. We just keep taking more over there. The worst is yet to come though. My shop and the garage are yet to be fully emptied. That's where the heavy stuff is like a joiner, a table saw, drill press, and bandsaw. By the end of the weekend we will have an empty shop, garage, and house. We think we will need to move onto the boat by Sunday night.
The boat should be mostly ready to move aboard by Sunday night. It's been a tedious and long job wrapping up so many projects on the boat. I have spent a few 20 hour days in the past week trying to get everything done. Not fun. The safety related stuff is now all completed. Now I'm working on the "nice" stuff. The things that will make life better onboard, like having hot water. I just installed a new, bigger, hot water tank in the engine room. But I had to replumb the hot water side, and I had to hook it into the engine cooling system so the engine could heat the water when we are underway.
I finished the hot water tank plumbing today, I also finished the dinghy securing system I came up with, and hooked up our windshield wiper controls, and the two horns. I also made a little work bench in the engine room above the start batteries. I'm trying to wrap up the instrument cluster at the helm, and I need to secure the solar panels so they can't swing outward in rough water. I have most of the parts and pieces, I just need time to get it all installed.
Once we get underway we can relax a little, organize the boat, and think about what lies ahead. We can't wait!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment