Spring is here and time is short

Well here it is spring. A time Dirk and I have been looking forward to for a very long time as it signifies that we are getting down to the wire. In fact our countdown indicates that we have 85 days till his last day of work. I am noticing in the blogs I read that everyone is beginning to wind down their winter cruises and beginning to make tracks back home to the U.S. and Canada. As much as I hate seeing their cruising season ending I know that Dirk and I will be among the group heading out next season. On the home front here, things are beginning to get mentally hectic for us as we have started making piles. Piles of stuff that will be going on board with us, piles for long term storage, piles for the dreaded garage sale, and finally, piles for giving away to family, friends, and to charity. Once we make the final jump to living aboard then I think maybe we can begin chilling.

Work on board is coming along great. Dirk finished installing all the shelves in our back berth closets and he did such a great job that now I'm looking for other places for him to do the same. The last time we were down at the boat we took the new dinghy down. We had to wait until we sold the old one before this one could go down, so for several weeks we had it sitting in the middle of our living room. We picked up the new outboard on Saturday morning and after reading instructions for it Dirk got it up and running. I had to mention reading instructions in the same sentence as Dirk as that doesn't happen very often. I even had to capture a photo of it.

Alright, alright, sorry. Just that men reading instructions before they do something is almost unheard of. Usually its only done when they have exhausted all other means. I will have to say, I have been guilty of the same in the past, I just don't like to admit it.Once Dirk got everything up and running we decided to head out to the bay and start breaking the engine in. I had driven our last dinghy exactly once so looks like I needed a lesson. It was so nice how easy it started for me and I had fun zipping around the bay. We both agree that this new dinghy is to our liking.

So the last couple coats of varnish are going onto the new cockpit table and it will be installed this weekend. Little jobs here and there to be done but for the most part the big jobs are behind us now. I think.......

Solar panel & wind generator up and running

Well we had four full days of beautiful weather to work on the boat this past weekend. Although we didn't get everything done that we wanted to, we did get two important things marked off the list. First thing was to get the wind generator installed. Last time we were down we had mounted the main bracket on the transom and measured the two support poles to cut. Well the two support poles were mounted and the generator itself got wired and mounted. We didn't have much wind, but what little we had showed us that we will be happy with our choice. The solar panel that we chose was the Kyocera 135 watt solar panel. Its fits very nicely on the dinghy davits but proved to be a pain to install. We figured that it would go in very easily, first mistake. We measured twice and drilled once, well maybe twice on some. We have an aluminum bracket that goes across the davits as extra support. Dirk added two more brackets to support the panel pictured below.

Here the panel is being attached to the new aluminum brackets.
Below is a photo of the wind generator and solar panel in their final homes. We still have plenty of room to use the swim platform for entering and exiting the dingy, or showering using the transom shower without hitting your head.
A few other items that we did not get to was the install of the shelves I am putting into the hanging lockers. I think adding shelves will increase our storage space dramatically. We did a rough cut and took them down to do a final fitting. With the curves in the closets it always makes for interesting cuts. Haven't found an easy way to do it yet. And after the time and effort I put into refinishing our cockpit table and drink holder we decided to purchase a different one anyway. Dirk was going to build one, but that was before we sold the house and had to put all our woodworking tools in storage. Our current one is more for a snack and drink table but doesn't afford you to be able to actually eat off it as its too small. After hunting around we actually found one reasonably priced. If anyone has ever priced teak cockpit tables you know what I mean when I say I got sticker shock on most of them. The table does come unfinished but I like the fact that I can finish it to match the other outside teak. The one downside we found and I read this in the feedback that others left was that the table was tall. If you mount it like they say to, yes it is a bit tall. Anyone have a booster seat I can use? So we have decided to alter it to fit our height preference. Not a big deal at all from what we can tell, we haven't started on it so its still up for debate.
Here is the table with the leaves open, closed they are still larger then our existing table. Hummmmmm, looks like it will make a good poker table to me. And it holds four drinks or two drinks and the binoculars, I think I like it. You can tell spring is in the air as the docks were occupied with owners working on and prepping their boats for some summer fun. I know that both Dirk and myself are more then ready to head out to the island for some R&R. Our count down is now 106 days to go till retirement and moving aboard. Woooohooo, were excited, can you tell? Hang in there readers, interesting stuff to read about is right around the corner.