Time is Growing Short

Shelly has painted the Japanese symbols for Yume on the throw cushion we keep on the lifeline. She is practicing for painting it on the transom!

It is hard to believe we have been tied to this mooring ball for almost three weeks. The days fly by and we make jokes about how busy we are. And now we are getting short. We have less than 10 days before we leave. We are not sure why we are leaving or where we are going but we know it is time.

Softball three days a week, walking Goose twice a day, scraping and sanding the hull, and sewing all the new canvas are just a few of the things that take so much time.

Life is perfect though.

Shelly stepped right back into her awesome sewing skills without a hitch, and turned out the mizzen sail cover in a day. The main sail stack pack will take a bit longer but is coming along.

The new mizzen sail cover!

The other big project is stripping all the old paint off the hull, taking it back to the gelcoat, sanding with 320, 600 and even higher wet/dry paper, buffing and waxing. What a difference it makes! But it is a LOT of work…

You can see the old white paint vs the gelcoat even before the buffing and waxing. It will look nice when done.

Shelly got the first coat on our name on the transom yesterday. The front that came through last night has us waiting for the wind to die down before we can continue that task.

I got the guitar out and hit a couple of local places for the jam nights and we have made some new cruising friends. We met Paul and Linda on the catamaran Blind Faith and had a couple of fun nights with them before they took off for the Bahamas a few days ago. We were a wee bit jealous watching them leave the harbor and wish them fair winds.

Ryan continues to impress the local population with his softball and internet skills and all the retires have all adopted him.

This image of our two Exide 4d batteries is for our friend Bill who has the same boat in Texas and helps with advice. These poor batts are history I am afraid, as they have been abused both before we got here and since. We ran the generator 8 hours yesterday with an equalization charge, and the specific gravity barely budged. New batteries are going to run us $450-600 for 4 big golf cart batteries with as much amp hours as we can get.

The next big expense is replacing the refrigeration system. The old 110v Crosby compressor and the two holding plates, although working, are old technology and can be run much more efficiently, quietly, with much less hassle using a 12 volt compressor and evaporator plates.

Whether we can accomplish that before heading back north is yet to be seen.

Here is a question for you. How would your life be different if you had to replace all the water you used in your house in two 6 gallon jerry jugs. We do.