Sunday 14 October: Edgewater, prepare the boat for haul-out.
Chilly day again, and from the warmth of our saloon we are reluctant to go out in the cold and start our jobs for the day. Decks are covered in black bird poop again. Just what fruits are they eating? And why do they have to poop all over our deck? They certainly stain.
The first and biggest task is to take the head sails down. Oh, how annoying. That is such a big job, especially as we have to flake the genoa on the deck. Not a breath of wind this morning, so perfect time to do this. Geared up in thermals we roll our sleeves for the job. And in the process of flaking it, we notice minor damages on it, plus the bottom part of the luff is almost completely gone…again. Re-stitching will be needed. As usual, it was not easy to flake it on the deck, but we have the genoa rolled and in the sail bag just as the rain starts. Hm, the sails bags are another story that needs attention: the eyelets for the string are completely corroded, and now the fabric has rust stains all around them. Add to shopping list: stainless steel eyelets.
During the rain, on the jobs inside the boat front, we start by taking the floorboards out in our cabin. The reason to do that was for Glen to look at the batteries switches. In the process, he noticed a drip line on the glass fiber. He traces it to the through hull fitting for the deck drains. And sure enough there is a minor leak on it and some corrosion. He removes the ball valve leaver, cleans all the corrosion and applies grease. Will have to keep an eye on that one. Then back to the original objective, batteries and battery switches.
So off come the floorboards in the galley too. The battery box has been nagging Glen for quite some time. He was very happy with the new batteries place till earlier in the year. Now he wants either the box watertight, or move the batteries in the original location under our bed. So he spends some time looking around to find solutions. So he says. But I think he just loves looking at his Li-ion batteries, which he is so proud of! For a couple of hours he looks around, measures once, measures twice, then verdict is the batteries and bikes can’t fit together under the bed. So more out of the box thinking is needed, to find the perfect way to watertight the battery box, yet ventilate them at the same time.
After the rain stops and decks dry off, we take the cutter down and flake it. A lot easier than genoa. And definitely a lot lighter. Seems like a kids job compared to the enormous and heavy genoa. But by bringing it down, we discover yet another issue: the cutter halyard is severely chaffed where it goes over the top sheave. So it too needs to come down and taken for fixing. Will put a splice at the other end and turn it around.
Hm, today nothing seems to be straight forward. Not even the cooking. I only just started, had the bacon on the pan, and gas stopped. No problem, we have another gas bottle. Which Glen connects the hoses to within a minute. But this bottle is empty too. Good that they are now both empty and we can get rid of these European camping gas bottles that are non-stop rust problems. To be replaced with the new glass fiber ones which we bought here in the USA. Trouble is new bottles are empty! Luckily, we have one of the original Swedish gas bottle, which I can finish my cooking with. So all of the sudden, we have yet another priority on our to do list: if we want to eat once Cloudy Bay gets back in the water, we need to fill these new gas bottles. And start nice, clean and rust free! So we hope.
After lunch, it’s back to work. While we are on the “gas” theme, Glen checks the new fridge gas gauge and fridge gas bottle R134a, which we bought few weeks ago.
Then bimini off. My oh my, how can it get so dirty, and so much mildew… it’s been rained on it so much, it should be clean, at least on the upper part. So looking forward to give it a good scrub, once we find ourselves with a bit of sun, near a flat concrete pontoon with a water hose connected to it!
Outboard comes off the dinghy, as we plan to install the prop protection on it while we are in the yard.
While pottering on the deck Glen notices some screws on the forestay Furlex were coming undone. So he attends to that with his tube of lock-tight.
The new rust remover we bought at Annapolis Boat Show comes out for a real test. It was advertised as a brilliant gel against rust in small spaces where one can not scrub. So we applied it on the pulpit. At first we didn’t think much of it. But after we read the instructions and let it settle for 30 minutes, it cleaned the rust off nicely and it left everything shiny as new. Scrub with wire brush was needed though. By the time we finished with it, it was pitch black outside, so looking forward to see the results in day light.
Darkness, cold and mosquitoes are chasing us off the deck, so we move the activities indoors. Tidying up and storing everything that might be in the way. Then time to have a bit of a rest and enjoy a nice Canadian pear cider before we set about trying to finish the next video. We are sooo behind on our editing.
