Tanks for nothing

Well, the wait is over. We have our water tanks. We took delivery and I immediately measured the aft end of the tank to make sure they were seventeen inches or less to get through the doorway into the forward cabin. Seventeen inches exactly. Cool. Debra and I left the tanks on a skid for the guys in the yard to help me load into the boat on Monday. Things are looking up. Last 'must do' project on the list.

I woke up Saturday morning with a terrible thought. Something about the tanks under all that cardboard and shrink wrap didn't look right. The way the tanks were situated on the pallet we could see the aft end of one tank, and the front end of the other. Why was the front end the same height as the aft? These tanks are in the forward section of the hull and the bottom of the tank rises with the hull shape. The front of the one tank should be much lower. I actually started sweating while laying there thinking about these tanks. Maybe I just dreamt the tanks were screwed up. I grabbed my stuff for the shower along with a tape measure. By the way, never walk into a shower stall with a tape measure. On the way back from the shower I cut through the yard and took another look at these tanks. Son of a bitch! They cut the tanks straight across the bottom with no taper. The simpleton who built them could not read a sketch that any junior high school shop student could interpret. I was so mad I had to walk around the yard a few times, then measure again before I went back to the boat.

Poor Deb. This is our last project. We are officially cruisers after these tanks get installed, and this just delays us some more. Deb is not happy. If we were closer to Jersey I think that clown with the Joe Pesci accent would find Deb's knee in his groin. OK, maybe not, but it's a nice thought. She so wants to get the hell out of here and it was pretty depressing to see the disappointment in her face. There wasn't much I could do on a Saturday, so I fired off an email expressing my disappointment with the company and their resident idiot tank builder. Much to my surprise I got a call from the nice woman in the office that I had been dealing with who said they would build new tanks immediately and apologized for the screw up. Supposedly we have new tanks being rushed out their door. This will set us back at least a week, minimum. It's a good thing Jersey Boy didn't call. I'm sure we would have exchanged a few pleasantries and a much longer delay would have resulted. I believe I posted last time about the insecure feeling I had dealing with this guy. I guess I was right.

We needed some cheering up so we went into town for the kickoff of the Celtic Festival, and headed straight for Ann O'Malley's for a pint. Lot's of people laughing and dressed in green helped us forget about the tanks. We spent the rest of the day poking around town in the sunshine and getting a great lunch. We walked there and back which also helped. We both needed some exercise.

Deb feeling a wee bit better

I'm always smiling. Or is that a smirk?

We went exploring St Augustine's inner parts

Pipes outside Ann O'Malley's. They're annoying actually.
Sounds like cats being pulled through a fence.

We surprised a few shopkeepers while lurking in their alley's

Our goal is to get beyond that bridge in the next week or two.

Here we sit. Waiting on tanks again. I am going to keep busy by getting the barge ready to shove off so that when the tanks get here all I have to do is secure them and plug in the hose's. Not much else we can do, but hey we're in Florida and living on our boat and just two tanks away from living our dream.

Cheers!
P