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!