Ticking-off the departure list

Friday 26 Nov, re-launch 2021, HHN day 58: Sew galley carpets, laundry, reprogram Raymarine instruments, secure dive compressor, put in new storage box.

Very leisurely day today. Frankly, just what the Dr. ordered. Alarm at 8am and we are woken to the sound of howling wind in the rigging and the boat leaning in the strong gusts of this low pressure system coming through. We are somewhat glad we didn’t try to leave on last evening’s high tide. It would be a wild ride today, even if we had just anchored out in the bay. The air temperature is just above freezing, but the forecast says it’s a -5 degC real feel. Brrrr.

With the maintenance carpets-to-save-carpets put away, Oana declares that she would like her double galley carpet reinstated. Previously, we had hand sewn 2 pieces of stairway carpet together to give a softer feeling under foot rather than the standard issue hard-wearing HR carpets. So this was to be a quick job before I stow the Sailrite sewing machine away for the passage. But even the Sailrite struggled with 2 thicknesses of carpet. I broke a needle and had all sorts of problems getting the walker-foot tension correct before I could attain semi-good stitches. In the end it would have been quicker to get the hand needle and thread out! Poor old Sailrite. I think it was glad to be put away!

Then to the laundry. Previously, we had found the marina machines pretty useless. So during my last visits I used the laundromat in Deale. It’s quite the cultural experience going there – always a few entertaining characters around, if you can understand what they are talking about! The employee there today is an extremely large black woman and I tell you, she could chatter for an Olympic medal! Initially non-stop diatribe to others doing their laundry, then the same on her phone. She hardly took a breath between sentences for the full 90 minutes we were there! Gladly, she didn’t try to engage with us.
But we did try to engage with her. When our washer loads had finished, we found many items had gained large white, pink or yellow patches. Looks like someone had left a lot of bleach in the machines? But we used 5 machines, surely not all of them could have had bleach? We alerted the chatterbox supervisor about our problem, but she really couldn’t care less. It was clearly no concern of hers ☹
Luckily, most of the damaged things were just old work clothes and oldish towels. But still annoying.

Then it’s off for a few more bits and pieces from the hardware store, then back to Cloudy Bay, trying not to have our clean(ish) laundry blown out of our hands as we walk down the pontoon in the freezing wind.

With laundry ticked off the departure list, it’s onto the next line item: to reprogram the Raymarine instruments, so they show the screen format that we want. Two evenings ago I linked the Raymarine system to the marina WiFi and updated all the software for the individual plotters, instruments and autohelms. But I had forgotten that when I last did this, it wiped all my personal settings and replaced them with funky display items I don’t want to see. There must be a way to save my settings, but I’m buggered if I know how. So, with my body in the warmth of the saloon and my head and arms in the cockpit, it’s an hour of frenzied button pressing before I get the five i70 instruments showing what I want to see, again. Pfff. I tell you, if you are bored in life, buy a boat. You will never be bored again. Like ever!

I then try to do a couple of things on deck. Putting on the jack stays (life-lines for clipping onto with the safety harness) and finding the pennant halyards, which are not yet installed on the lower spreaders. But within 20 minutes I’m totally frozen and nothing to do but head below to warm up while Oana makes a bowl of steaming soup for me. No more outside jobs today, thank you.

Two days ago, we had placed the new dive compressor into the engine room. This afternoon I lift it up with a block and tackle and work out how to strap it down for sailing. In the process, it catches on one of my plastic storage bins from Ikea and breaks it. Bugger. Stike-1 for the compressor! Or is it strike-2? If getting itself damaged during shipment counts against it. Luckily, I have a couple of extra Ikea boxes. But it takes me an hour or so to modify the new container to fit the space. Then another 30 minutes to find some sealant that actually flows out the tube. It’s annoying, isn’t it. You buy these damned expensive tubes of silicon, 3M 5200 and so on, use a little bit for the job you are doing. Then just weeks later, no matter how hard you try to seal them, the tube opening is rock hard, even though you can feel softness inside. The trick is to drill out the dried plug. But that usually ends up in a big mess. Seriously though, these companies are ripping us off. Surely with a bit of brain power, they could come with a solution. I bet big money that at least 70% of any tube of goo goes hard and is wasted on most private boats.
It would be interesting to know if others have a magic solution to this niggling problem.

In the evening, with clean-ish towels in our bag, we head off to the marina showers, which seem to have an endless supply of steaming hot water. Shear bliss! But of course, we pay dearly for the pleasure as we walk back to the boat in the freezing conditions with damp hair.

We are definitely getting more relaxed now. Soon, maintenance and provisioning will be a distant memory as we pass into cruising mode. Can’t wait to get south of the Hatteras and feel the southern warmth.