Saturday, May 21, 2011

I was not raptured

Well, I'm still here. Guess I'll purchase the solar panels, before the zombies take over. I should probably add a wind generator, as the sun may not be shining for a while, after all the earthquakes, and things start burning. Amazed at some people, but not surprised at how they handled the predictions of an old engineer, who calculated the end of times, and spent gobs of money advertising said prediction.  I feel bad for the children of the parents who sold everything, figuring they were being raptured.  How do you face your family after you find out you were wrong about all this? Probably feels the same as telling your family you bought a boat. I remember those faces clearly.

We are in Kokomo Indiana for a wedding. My daughter's college friend is getting married, and we were invited. Only an eight hour drive from Rochester,  ugh.  We do get to see Nicole, however briefly. Jonathan is here too, and we get to grill him for a few hours :)

The vessel is ready for launch, as I took Thursday off of work to take advantage of the sunny skies. Finally got the anchor light to work. The stupid design of the spring loaded contacts was at fault. You would push in the bulb, and twist it, and the contact post would hit the bottom of the lamp housing, rotate and not pop back up. I shimmed up the socket with a few washers, and this worked well. Oh, I also switched to an LED. Hope it's bright enough.
We always add another light, just above the deck to light us up at anchor. I figured a drunk power boater is not going to notice my little lamp, sixty feet in the air.

Well, the next post should be from the water, if all goes according to plan. Unless the end of times was slightly miscalculated, and things do start to fall apart. We'll still be on the boat, fighting the zombies.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Still on the hard

Who'll stop the rain?  I can't remember the last time we had such a miserable spring. It feels like november out here. We are still trying to wrap up some projects before we splash. The davits are in, but we still need to mount the rail supports. We tried last night, in between squalls, but we managed a few holes drilled before the rain and darkness moved in. Deb was shivering last night trying to assist me, and I could see in her face the question, "Can we just go south already?".
 
Nothing really freaks me out more than drilling holes in my boat. When that drill bit finally breaks through, it sends a chill down my spine. I guess it would be worse if I was drilling through the bottom of the boat. There are enough holes there, we don't need anymore. Trying to keep the drill bit at a 90 degree angle on the sloped transom was not easy from a ladder, which is on plywood, on top of rocks along the shore. They really did not make it easy for me to work on the barge this year.
 
On a positive note, our fuel polishing seems to be working, as the Yanmar fired up after bleeding the system, and ran enough to get up to temperature. Good sign, as the fuel was pretty dirty, and I had never polished fuel before. I emptied about 10 gallons from the port tank, which was overfilled, and leaking out the tank vent. Oops. I just need to add some biocide to both tanks, and, maybe some more polishing on the port side, and we're good to go.
 
We are scheduled for launch, sometime in the next week, so let the good times roll!  Can't wait to get out of that apartment, and into some fresh air.