Art, boat work, furniture moving & mojitos - dan
Everything seems to be accelerating, even more than before; my last few days at work, last days in my house, the little amount of time left to wrap up our boat projects, the last of our days in Connecticut. It’s getting hard to find time to blog but I’ll try to keep posting at least once a week but please know that if I miss a post or two, it’s not because I’m goofing off. Susan has been making great progress with the arduous task of refinishing Gypsy bright work. I built some storage shelves in Gypsy’s head and storage locker. That wasn’t a priority of mine (I would rather have worked on installing the new refrigeration unit and I really should be installing our fresh water catchment system) but it’s something Susan asked for and she it my biggest priority. Also, this is what we do; support one another. Once we’re out on the ocean, we’ll only have each other to rely on.
I started to install the LED interior lighting but unfortunately the first one I put in last weekend proved faulty. I seem to be jinxed with all things LED. Perhaps one of my ancestors entered an Egyptian tomb and turned on a forbidden light or maybe there’s just lots of room for improvement with respect to reliability with this technology. I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be 2-out-of-3 bad units like it did with the masthead light.
Our most excellent rigger, Jeff Morgan, stopped by and finished the last of the work that he’s doing for us by completing our running backstays. Wooohooo! I’m excited; the only thing saltier than running backs is yardarms or ratlines and Gypsy is unlikely to see either of those. It was fun and informative watching him work as he effortlessly spliced eyes into the Amsteel stays. He’s a true craftsman of the highest order and we’ve been delighted with his work.
Speaking of excellent craftsmen, our rigger Jim Funk, also stopped by to take measurements for our bimini-dodger connector and mainsail cover. Jim is a genius with stainless steel tubing and installed a 6’ section between two of our lifeline stanchions. We plan to use it for lashing fuel tanks instead of the wooden boards that cruisers usually lash on. The stainless tube will let us see more out of our port lights than our old boards, they’re low maintenance and look great too. Thanks Jim!
We’ve been getting to know our neighbors (2 boats down), a couple who restore classic fiberglass boats. We’ve seen two of their projects; they’ve done 24 so far. They do an awesome job of restoring old beauties. This graceful double ender is their latest project.
We took a little time out to tour the 50th annual Mystic arts festival which abutted our marina as seen in this photo. They had some beautiful artwork and crafts on exhibit along with lots of made-for-market stuff. It was a nice and easy diversion from boat work.
The extended weekends have been great for getting things done. In addition to all of the above Susan and I moved a van load of stuff out of my house and I even managed to squeeze in a computer class at the Apple store.
Next weekend I’ll start insulating our cold box in preparation to installing the new refrigeration unit. I can’t wait to see how well our solar array handles the demand of refrigeration. Our goal is: cold & ice without running our engine.
Cruising tip: 2 things that have been helping us along; yoga on the dock in the mornings & mojitos in the cockpit at dusk. As usual, it’s the simper things in life that enrich & enliven.
84 days...
