TEAM WORK

Last month (October), our time on Pairadice was very productive! John and I drove up together on September 30, with another full truck load of supplies and a kayak strapped to the roof of the truck. After a 17 hour drive, It's always very rewarding to arrive at the boat and find everything in order.

Summer was over and it was time to get to work.  Our lists had lists! My Oct 1st window was only for 3.5 days. We spent the weekend unloading the truck, stocking fridge and pantry. My head was filled with locating and cleaning all the storage spaces. We found the previous owner had left Halloween party decor and favors. We took the evening off to decorate and bond with our neighbors who did the same. It was a lot of fun and row G at Salpare Bay Marina looked great!

John would be on board appx 5 weeks. I flew home Sunday for work obligations. The contrasts between being together on the boat and home alone after work, in a big house,  are huge. All the while looking forward to flying in and out for a 10 day stay later.

When I returned Oct 16th, he had completed all the canvas work. What a major accomplishment! Then there was the dock and fender lines. He cleaned and treated the old  ones, even rewhipped the ends. Re-installed and/or replaced with new dock lines and fenders where needed. He took advantage of rain days by working on removing the old A/V system and installing a new home theater system. Another laborious task with many rewards! We now have appx 22 channels without a cable bill and can easily watch our movies and rock concerts, or listen to cd's, Itunes and sirus radio.

My first priority was to get the drapes cleaned! It was obvious they had never been done. That required removing 16 panels, tiebacks, all the hooks and keeping it organized...room by room, so as to ease the re-install.  The dry cleaners wasn't even sure what to charge us. We left a deposit and the cute clerk hated asking for the balance. Another project came out great!

We shopped for supplies. John fixed the search light and replaced all fire extinguisers, with the exception of the Halon Fire Suppression System in the engine room. That is still on the list and will be forthcoming.

That day we started the engine room inventory. We both climbed in and got comfy. I was taking pictures of all the different systems and asking lots of questions.  John has really done his homework!!! I feel confident that we have all the bases covered. The boat had many spare engine parts like belts and filters, but we ordered more. By taking pictures we had all  the reference numbers very handy. We continued by going through the lazarette, pilot house and flying bridge where we identified a leak in the hydraulic steering system. The necessary tools to complete that repair are in Las Vegas, but we have a new switch for the horn!

I completed my time onboard by hanging drapes, cleaning heads (again), reorganizing galley, first aid emergency kits, bunk room storage and the like. We had a neighbor friend over for dinner, trading his IT skills (hooking up new WiFi antenna) for some canvas work.  I think they enjoyed the bourbon more than the task. I was leaving Sunday afternoon and John assured me he would not be on the ladder mounting brackets on the mast by himself. While doing that he would remove the winches and bring them home for rebuilding.

before and after

He worked long and hard on those winches. Testing them with power proved they  came out perfect. The dyneema synthetic winch cable order arrived, as well as, all kinds of other critical supplies. The boxes are piling up in the garage again, getting ready to head north in December. Looks like Santa will be delivering foulies and rain boots this year :-)