All Hands On Deck   Adventures on land and at sea

So much to do and so little time seems like the wrong thing to say in this situation. We’ve been hanging out in Maine all summer and it seems like everything we need to do before we leave for real has been put off till these last couple weeks. Certain things, like the auto pilot, have been much more drawn out processes than we anticipated. Who knew we’d have to send the thing in twice just to have it sent back to us in the same state of disrepair…twice. Yes, our auto pilot is a disaster. It’s a good thing Lee can pretty much fix it himself. He can at least keep an eye on it’s leakage and air problems so we hopefully won’t be left without an auto pilot in the middle of the night in a storm. That would be inconvenient.
We are making a lot of improvements to the boat for this second round of real-deal cruising. The one I’m most excited about it the new, custom made, 316 stainless steel holding tank. It is truly a thing of beauty, especially compared to the plastic holding tank we installed last spring. The plastic tank held 6 gallons of, well, waste. The new tank holds something like 20 gallons. That means we can go much longer without having the tank pumped out. What’s even better, though, is that the new tank won’t make the boat smell like…waste. Odors leech through plastic tanks. We knew that when we bought ours but we didn’t have a choice. We needed a tank! No odors are getting out of our stainless tank! Nothing beats a fresh smelling boat!
Other boat improvements include:

AIS receiving VHF radio
Outboard engine for the dinghy
Modified stern stantion with outboard mount
Pressure cooker and blender for the galley
Comfy mattress pad on our bed
Various valves
Various electric stuff
Thingy to cut off the life raft if we need it

…the list goes on.

Lee and I will be spending our last week in Maine buffing the topsides, servicing through hulls, reinstalling the auto pilot, inspecting, organizing, cleaning, provisioning, getting rid of stuff, watching the weather, and soaking up as much internet and TV use as we can squeeze in.
We went for a little hike up to the old Bremen fire tower the other day. It was a beautiful fall day and I got all sentimental about leaving Maine. I like it here!