After another week in the boatyard we are feeling accomplished and continuously sweaty. We are now numb to the constant noise of loud fans, sanders and the hum of the AC unit in the night. Sweat dripping into our eyes and sweat soaked clothes are a common daily occurrence. It's not especially delightful. Today, temperatures have dropped to 92 degrees, yet still accompanied by 85% or higher humidity. This is a pleasant change from the 100+ temperatures last week.
Yesterday, with a forecast of no wind we were able to get our main sail hoisted by 6:30 am. With the sail up, we have freed the interior space of the boat quite a bit. Now, we can continue stowing our things in their proper place. It is amazing how out-of-sorts things are in the midst of our efforts to improve things, empty out and lock up for the summer hurricane season. It is not something we care to do again, if we can avoid it.
This week Dan also installed our nifty new scuba tank rack. It is one of the fun projects we had on our list. It makes it easy to access our gear and will enable us to go diving more frequently. Previously, our tanks were in the aft lazarette and required a day of unpacking piles of things. The effort of digging them out seemed to outweigh the benefit, and we would just don snorkel gear.
We wrapped up all our 'car based' chores this week as well. We filled the propane tanks, got a small supply of bottled water for the first few weeks we'd be out as back up and topped up our dingy fuel. All groceries are on the boat except for what is still in our refrigerator/freezer at the apartment. I only provisioned for about a month this time. It felt more complicated because we've been buying things for 6 months and its been hard to keep track of what we've purchased--and where we've stored it. Some things I bought planning for a 6 mos. supply to get us to Central America, and other things like meat, I only got enough for a month (and really only what i could fit in our small apartment fridge).
Today, Dan took the car back to Tucson to hand it over to Dylan. I'll be doing whatever I can on the boat while Dan is gone for a few days to get it ready for launch. There are still about 20 post it notes on the refrigerator before we launch (hopefully next week).
I started out this morning with the hardest thing on the list. 6 hours of hand sanding the 'tunnel' for our bow thruster. This tunnel is about 4' long (two of my arm's length) by about 10"diameter. The middle section is just barely reachable by arm. All the sanding is done while standing on a ladder about 1-2 steps up so I can reach. I've determined I'm not cut out for extended hard labor. I'm guessing everyone reading this already knows this about me. At this moment, I can't lift my arms over my head--and they are a nice blue color (dust from the sanding). I hope by tomorrow I'll be able to tackle the next thing on the list. I'm defiantly feeling very grateful for the people that help do all the hard things -- especially in hot weather.
Onward!
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