Our painting job is running into some challenges now that we are nearing the end of November. The northern Florida weather has turned rainy and cool, making it difficult to complete the 3 coats of paint on the remaining deck areas. We have one more cost to do on the lower side decks so hopefully we’ll have good weather on the weekend to complete that coat. We still have a few outside areas to paint – the lower side deck on the starboard side which we use to board the boat, plus areas close to the enclosure. At this point, we may just concentrate on finishing the outside deck areas and leave the cockpit for another time.
The good part of the cooler weather is that we are getting all the urgent ‘must be done before we can leave’ jobs completed. Mark has been working on all the maintenance items for the engine. He’s changed the oil and filter and he will be replacing hoses soon. The cockpit binnacle has also been reassembled. Over the summer Mark built a new wooden holder for the autopilot controller and the bow thruster controller. The holder with the instruments had to be installed and tested. We’ve also spent a good deal of time cleaning! It’s the perfect opportunity to thoroughly clean while everything is taken apart. The boat is looking pretty good!
Yesterday, Nov. 23, was American Thanksgiving and I cooked a great feast for the two of us. We had the usual thanksgiving meal – turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas – and a new addition of roasted carrots and butternut squash. It’s always fun making a big meal in our little galley!! It’s amazing how you can make it work!
The only urgent job remaining (besides painting) is getting our new anchor chain onboard – that’s our job for today (Nov. 24th). The old chain needs to be carefully removed – we don’t want to mess up our newly painted bow! We are replacing our current 150ft of chain because it is old and quite rusty (we don’t want to trust our safety to a questionable chain). The challenge we have is with the chain locker. We’ve bought 200ft of chain and we’re not sure how well that will fit into our locker. Mark may need to do a bit of a locker renovation to get all that chain to fit well!! There’s also 150ft of rope in the locker that is attached to the other anchor on the bow – it might be a bit cramped up there!! We’ll find out soon enough!!
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 