Hilo and one of the clean fans

Sooted and Furred

The fans we figured we liked the best and got were the kind without a safety grating: they consist of 2 'soft' blades that have 'lattice' type edges. I think this must be what makes them 'soft'. They are the 12V type and we hard wired them into the ceilings. Sure it still hurts alittle to even accidentally hit your wrist against the blades while they are spinning but they don't even draw blood so they are pretty safe.

The funny thing about the 'lattice' type edges is that when the blades get some soot on them (from a smoky kerosene stove mishap) Hilo's cat fur sticks on too. So you now have dirty, sticky fans with cat hair sticking out around the holes of the 'lattice' type edges. I figured I should clean them off once in a while at least but the cat hair looked kind of funny, just one of those things that people without cats and boats don't get to see.


The Escapee

Since it is so hot we have taken to leaving the boat with the wind scoop up. Which means that the forward hatch is wide open. I figure that since we leave the screen in the companionway hatch, if someone really wanted to get in they could just cut open the screen anyway. So I opt to feel better knowing Hilo is getting a nice cool breeze while we are gone with the windscoop. The other day we left the boat around 5 to go to a beach party and left the windscoop up and the screen in the other hatch as usual. Though Hilo can jump up through the forward hatch I thought maybe he couldn't with out the 'v' part of the v berth in. well when we came back to the boat after our party at about 9 pm Hilo was up on deck! He had escaped thorough the forward hatch! I guess he can jump up without the 'v' in. I figured he figured it out because nighttime is his time to prowl around. I just wonder if he was meowing for us like he is known to do and how soon after we left he got out - he wouldn't tell me.