More new toys equals more projects

When we were down at the boat weekend before last we had a few new goodies along with a list of projects set out to do. First order of business was for Dirk to climb to the top of the mast to install the new wind instrument. The old one removed would tell us direction but not speed as that portion was not working. So off with the old, on with the new. Afterwards I lowered Dirk down to the level of the radar to begin that project. Tools hoisted up, and after quite some time and a few choice words being overheard across the marina I'm sure, the radar and mount was lowered. I lowered Dirk for a rest of being up the mast about three hours and find out the radar mount is too small for the new radar. Aaaarrrggghh, why cant something be easy? So Dirk gets on the phone and finds a welding shop that can weld a bigger plate to the existing mount and they can do it while we wait. Yeah! So spending much of the next morning running to the welding shop, waiting, road trip back to the marina because we forgot something, return to the shop, we get it done. Of course we had to get our mandatory fix at West Marine on the way back to the boat only to find we aren't going to have enough cable to run it. Aaaarrggghhh again. So Dirk decided the Radar project just wasn't happening that weekend. So he decided he would install the new Tri metric meter we got in last week.
Im sure we will find it comes in handy once we start cruising and living away from the marina and the access to shore power. We played with it a bit this weekend and its pretty neat as it shows you the impact of every item on the battery. So we are becoming conscious of what our power loads and demands are. Time to switch some lights over to LED and get that wind generator we have been talking about. While Dirk busied himself with other projects I finally got started stripping and sanding the topside teak. I need to get busy with this as I really cant see myself doing this in the heat of summer. Of course our four day weekend ended much too quickly, and as usual we hated the idea of coming back home. We ordered a cable extension so that crossing fingers, the new radar can be installed this weekend. We also have the new anchor winch coming in tomorrow along with the new navigation pod to hold all the new instruments. After Dirk spent so much time up the mast and us trying to communicate we decided to finally order those "marriage savers" headsets I keep reading about. Got them in today and we will play with them this weekend when Dirk is dangling in the air.

Looking forward to using them when we start sailing again. Especially when I'm retrieving the anchor and doing the so called "anchor dance" that I have heard it so affectionately called. Will keep you posted on how well they work.

Tybee Time getting new toys

Wow, I look back and see how long its been since I last posted an up-date. Dirk and I all summer said we couldnt wait until fall and winter so that we could get busy doing projects that were best suited doing in cooler weather. I said all summer I wanted to get all the teak topside re-finished. Still yet to be done....It has actually been a fairly wet cool winter for us considering how dry and hot our summer was. So many weekends we spent at home here trying to tend to some things that get neglected being gone every weekend. But it looks like the weather is turning a bit milder. So let the games begin again. Let's see now. We have done a few items on the inside to spruce things up some. We have added a new wine glass holder over the galley. Now I can have my nice plastic glasses up out of the way.
Kind of an oxy moron, nice plastic. But as every boater knows, glass breaks. I have been going through the boat measuring my cabinets for additional shelving. Seems to me some areas have wasted space and once we start crusing we will need all the space we can get. I also have been digging around the boat and located several spots to use for storage. Who knew there was so much space under the bottom drawer in the vee berth. Looks good for wine storage.....Also been finishing up the last bits of floor in the back berth. As for outside projects we will have our hands full for a few weeks. We brought the teak cockpit table and cup holder home. we decided to build a new table with the left over teak flooring. It will be a tad longer and will open up to double its size. Dirk is also wanting to upsize to a larger navigation pod to hold all the instruments. And speaking of instruments, Tybee got herself a new 24 mile radar and wind instrument.

It will all go together with the C-80 we put on when we purchased the boat. So this weekend Dirk has lots of cable to run from the mast to the cockpit. fun, fun.....A few other items that we did was to install a new manuel bildge pump in the cockpit. There was an existing one, but it was not connected as it needed new parts. So instead of trying to replace parts we just installed a new one. Now, lets just hope we never have to use it. We have installed some mid-ship cleats which always can come in handy. Dirk also replaced the footblocks for the genoa. Im sure the ones we took off the boat were probably original and in bad shape. So Dirk made new mounting blocks, I finished them and now they look out of place on the boat. The only wood that is pretty.

So now I guess I need to get a move on and work on the other teak. Planning on working on Tybee this weekend we shall see how far we get. Spring is quickly coming and we want to be able to start enjoying the fruits of our labor as we sit at anchor somewhere, sipping sun downers and watching the sunset.