MIDORI ADVENTURES

We left Manitoba on November 1st and traveled for five days to reach our destination of Port Charlotte, Florida. We have spent many hours and a lot of elbow grease washing the exterior and the interior of MIDORI, but learned (the hard way) that we need to pace ourselves in the heat of 80F.

After being away for six months, we forget where we left things, for example, where is the tape measure? We thought that we kept pretty good notes last season, but where did we put the notes?

There has been a few trips to the storage unit, to bring back the "stuff" that we need to make the boat comfortable - like bedding and pillows for the stateroom and cushions for the salon area.

This boatyard has a great place for the live-aboards to use which is a screened in pavilion which we call "the hut". It has two bathrooms with showers, a kitchen area with a hot plate, microwave, toaster oven, fridge. And several picnic tables and chairs and an ice making machine! Until we get the fridge turned on, we keep our drinks and food on ice in a cooler. The fridge won't be turned on until we check out the batteries which will require shutting things down for 24 hours.

I know that some of you wonder what takes us so long to get the boat ready, but here are some of the things still left to do:

- test the four batteries and possibly buy new ones
- test the fridge
- polish the hull(s)
- sand and paint the bottom(s)
- service the winches (which involves taking down the ceiling in the staterooms)
- check out the rigging and instal some new line
- move the dinghy from the bow, fill with air, and attach to the davits
- get the dinghy motor from storage, test it and mount on the stern
- re-instal the auto pilot which was sent for repair in the spring
- buy a new chart plotter and instal

It's nice to see familiar faces as other snowbirds continue to arrive. The first potluck supper was held this past Saturday and, as usual, there was great food and a lot of laughs.

First Mate,
Lynn