More Progress

Here we are in another month already; it’s amazing how time flies. We are both working, Tanya full time, me part time. We are making great progress filling the cruising kitty, the boat to-do list is getting shorter and shorter and we still have several months until our departure.

Our latest batch of projects…I removed the watermaker to investigate a pesky leak, make some minor design changes, and move the control panel to the port v-berth compartment. I brought the watermaker home, hooked it up in the garage, made note of corrections and changes that I needed to make and ordered the parts. Meanwhile I was able to refinish the compartment where the watermaker was mounted, it was in dire need of cleaning and paint. We also refinished the saloon table, replaced our 35 year old cabin lights, installed more LED bulbs, and the list goes on…

I couldn’t bring myself to take a true “before” picture but here is what the watermaker compartment looked like after I cleaned it:

After bleach, several types of cleaners, a coat of primer and a coat of bilge coat paint:

Once the changes are made to the water maker it will be reinstalled back in here. We’re really happy with the end result, clean and shiny:

The saloon table was just like the rest of the interior wood, maybe even worse. It was coated with a chocolate brown mess of a coating and years of “other” stuff. This shot was after sanding the table top and prior to sanding the fiddles on either side:

Same table after cleaning, sanding and one coat of varnish:

The two square reflections on the far end of the table are from two pictures hanging on a wall about 12 feet away:

The finish looks wet but this has been dry for about two weeks:

I mentioned before we bought some new lights (among other things) for the cabin:

Tanya installed the lights just the other day, they look great:

Then we installed socket converters and LED bulbs:

They are very bright:

Aimed downward they produce a beautiful warm white glow:

Our last head (toilet) had been rebuilt about three times in one year and each time it failed quicker than the last, so we ripped it out. There used to be a toilet there:

Our last head was an expensive brand with expensive replacement parts. This time we opted for a main stream brand with more reasonably priced parts. We have used this head before on our last boat and were very happy:

I also made a filter to try and curb the odors from the various tank vents we have. All the vent tubes from the holding tank and vented loops will enter this pvc pipe, the pipe is filled with activated carbon, then all will be vented outside the boat. The carbon should absorb most of the odors and the rest should expel overboard:

Everything smelly will enter this pipe and either stop being smelly or vent overboard. Can’t wait to hook it up:

Also got some monster 8/3 cable to run power to the watermaker:

We ran a couple of stainless steel tubes across the top of the bimini to mount two additional solar panels:

We are making great progress toward our November departure!!

That’s about it for now.