Blue Jobs

Most of the big jobs on the boat were “blue jobs”, so Brad has been especially busy this week. Perhaps his biggest chore was changing our exhaust elbow, which has needed to be done for at least a year now. He has been putting it off because he wasn’t sure how involved it would be. He tackled that job yesterday and it turned out great! He is becoming such a handyman! He completely removed our old elbow (all rusted and corroded) and replaced it with this shiny new silver one! And when we turned on the engine, it didn’t even leak!
Old One:

Bright, Shiny New One:

He has also gotten very good with electrical work. Most 12V work is pretty straightforward (so he tells me!) and he has gotten great at dissecting things, figuring out the problem, fixing it up and putting it back together like new. He replaced our old 90s salon lights with new LED strip lighting (blue for party nights on the boat!). All the old bulbs have been switched over to LEDs and he has had to replac many of the wire connections that were starting to get corroded. He is a huge fan of heat shrink connectors!

Today he replaced the speakers in our cockpit – a must have for our upcoming travels!
Our wind generator and Honda generator are working so we are ready to unplug. And once we get our dinghy and outboard running, we will be ready to be back on the hook! A few more intense “blue jobs” and a little more provisioning and stowing on my part and we hope to pull out after Thanksgiving.

My parents have arranged to meet us down in Georgetown for Christmas and while we are very excited to share our world with them and to have them there for the holiday, that puts us on a schedule and we are starting to feel the strain. Hopefully it all works out!

To Do List

I should really write these posts more often so I don't bore everyone with these long rants, but bear with me while I get back in the swing of blogging!

This has been a very busy week for us as we prepare the boat and ourselves for our upcoming departure. As usual, our To Do list is much longer than we had initially thought it would be and it seems to be growing by the day. But for everything we add, we are able to cross off two or three items, so we are making progress, albeit slowly.

Although most of the big jobs are “blue” jobs for Brad to accomplish, I am staying busy with my fair share of pink jobs. Not to mention cleaning up after Brad and lending a hand when he needs my expertise. The most important thing I wanted to get done was to reinstall our lifeline netting. We had opted to get new netting this year since ours was starting to wear out. To keep both of our fur babies securely on the boat and out of the water, I put this as one of my top priorities. After many curse words and lots of starting over, I finally figured out the best way to get this done and make it look beautiful at the same time! It was extremely tedious and took me one whole day for each side. But I am thrilled with the final product!

We have been slowly stowing and organizing below deck as well. It has been slow going because of course the area you want to put items in will be covered in piles of stuff that has yet to be put away. And by the time you move everything to another area of the boat, you realize you either need to get underneath your new pile or you have barricaded yourself in, as I found myself on several occasions.

For increased storage I wanted to have Brad install shelves in our Vberth starboard side hanging locker. I was hoping to use that as my linen closet since we always seem to have way more towels than storage. We had measured out our dimensions and picked out our wood and were ready to start building. At the same time, we decided to purchase a new mainsail, as you will remember ours ripped on multiple occasions on our last voyage. My packrat husband decided that we needed to keep the old mainsail…..just in case. I usually acquiesce, stow the item in question and slyly throw it away shortly after, with him none the wiser. I doubt I could sneak a sail out to the trash without him knowing and to be honest, I actually agreed with him on this issue. So, I watched my precious storage disappear as Brad crammed our mainsail into the hanging locker. But, as with so many things in our lives, we came up with a great compromise. We were able to fit one shelf on top of the sail which I have decided will be our seasonal storage – bathing suits and such now, once we reach the Bahamas those will be swapped out for fleece jackets and sweatpants (which we have needed far too often here lately!).

Another exciting addition to our lives was our much needed new grill - an anniversary gift from my parents! We were so excited to get that installed and cook our first meal! We grill out most nights while we are on the hook so this will get lots of use!

I finally got around to tearing off our ratty old wheel cover and am tying paracord around the wheel to give it some grip. Of course I couldn’t do it the easy way – I have decided to tie half hitches every loop to make this cool looking design and also to give us a better grip if the wheel gets wet. It looks great but it is tedious!

A few more big items to check off the list and we will be ready to set sail!

It's not all beaches and cocktails...

Sometimes I feel like our lives are like those memes...where most people think we sit on a sunny beach and sip cocktails all day and I think we spend most of our days elbow deep in some kind of grimy project. Getting a boat that has been vacated for six months back to sailing shape is no easy task. This year, after learning our lesson last time we put her up on the hard, we made sure there were no leaks and put out the obligatory roach traps, dryer sheets and damp rid buckets and made sure to cover our thru hulls with duct tape. Before opening up the companionway for the first time I prayed to every God out there that there would not be mildew in every nook and cranny, as had happened last time. Well, my prayers were answered. She looked great! No mildew in sight! I was so relieved and thought to myself what a breeze this was going to be. HA! Although I didn't have to contend with mildew on the teak, our vinyl walls (which already had a slight mildew issue) have gotten a bit worse. And our teak was in much need of some serious TLC. So, I rolled up my sleeves, got out my bleach bucket and teak cleaner and went to town. It took a solid two days to clean and another two days to apply teak oil to all the teak we have below. But, it was all worth it - she looks spectacular! While I was fighting off the dirt, Brad busied himself with checking the batteries, insuring our wind generator was still working, checking all the fluids and hoses in the engine, and replacing a few of our waste system hoses (another not fun job!). And, although I appreciate all the hard work that goes in to all those jobs, (as much as someone who doesn't do any of those things can appreciate them...) I was most ecstatic about him tackling our water level windows. They have been foggy and useless since we got the boat. They allow some light in, but you cannot see anything out of them.

We weren't exactly sure how to clean them (hence them being dirty for all these years) as you are only supposed to use soap and water and that didn't seem be helpful at all. But, Brad had the thought that these windows were similar to car headlights and he attempted to clean them with the headlight restorer kits. And Wallah! Clean Windows!!!

(Yes, that boat was there in the before picture, too) What a difference!!! We finally had the boat clean so decided to start moving all of our stuff from the storage unit back onto the boat. This was quite the task, as our 5x5x8 storage unit was crammed floor to ceiling with all of our stuff.

Now, it's just a waiting game. We are currently living in an apartment at the beach while we wait for the yard to finish the repairs to the boat and put her back in the water. Hopefully this will happen sometime this week, although, as is the case with most things boat, they move at their own pace. We are stealthily sneaking on and off the boat to accomplish small tasks so we are not wasting time waiting for them, but unfortunately, until we are back on the boat, we are at a standstill. We are still hopeful for a St Pete departure before Thanksgiving and colder weather. And we will be in Georgetown, Exumas for Christmas!! If we can ever get her back in the water.....

Year at a Glance

11.6.14 We are finally back in business!!! It has been 16 long months since we have been out sailing on All In and we are working hard to get her looking good and put back in the water. Here's a look at what we've been up to.... A touristy Beach Day with Coworkers:

My sister and I participated in my mom's Cardboard Regatta Fundraiser and won Second Place!!! (yes, I know I am holding the 2 backwards...)

A few baseball games - GO O's!!:

Lots and lots of weddings!!

A new toilet!!!! And got hauled out:

We finally made it to a Virginia Tech game!!!

Celebrated our 3 year Anniversary with crabs and beer in true Maryland style:

Took in a couple Ravens games in various cities:

Kissed the brick at the Brickyard in Indianapolis!

And a few other sites along the way:

It's been a great year so far but we are ready to hit the water. So now that you're all caught up, let's talk boat....