Derek had a Kepler teleconference this morning, so we only had time to put in a half day at the boat, but with a nice warm sunny day that was just fine!

I finished another canvas project, this one a door for the restroom (until we get a solid one). I completed it in one night: purchased the fabric (a cute tropical blue-and-cream floral print on heavy outdoor fabric: heavy and canvassy but not as stiff as sunbrella) on 40% off sale at JoAnn Fabrics, sewed it completely last night including top and bottom mounting strips, zippers, and tie-back, so that it was ready to fit to the space today. Derek says my seam-work is getting good :-)

This morning (while Derek did Science), I finally started the main salon cushion covers, and I feel more comfortable; I'm getting a good feel for thread tension, how many yards will go on one of my bobbins, sewing hook tape for hook-and-loop closures with the needle facing the hook (never with the hook side down... what a mess!). I also learned that leftover sunbrella fabric is stiff enough to make a good stiffener for the top and bottom panels to which the curtain-door is attached. It looks pretty; I'll try to get some images up on the holding site for images in the next few days (or nights), but it may be a week or more; we have to move out next week and clean the house we've been renting, then we will stay a couple of weeks in the Airstream trailer of a friend who offered (it's the fellow who sold us the boat, and he's a wonderful guy!); he has a larger, newer one he uses on his jobsites and the older Airstream that's near his house. It's a classic, with that curved silvery look of a really solid toaster from the 1950s!

Anyway, to the boat: hauled out, both rudder pintles are still dripping a day later. This would be scary, except for the sea life: oysters like confined spaces and they will colonize ANY confined space they find in their happy breeding grounds. Which in this case means the space between the rudders and the ends of the hulls. It also means the raw-water intakes for the diesels... as previously mentioned. We had noticed that the port engine was throwing about 20% of the water of the starboard engine's exhaust, and we had even theorized that this might be due to oysters colonizing and blocking the intake, but today Derek attacked the intake with a large screwdriver, and, um, OH YEAH. You could have served what was growing in there (not that you SHOULD), it was huge. Derek is still wondering how it was possible that there was ANY water getting to the cooling system. So tomorrow we go after the rest of the oysters in the rest of the throughhulls, and when we do the bottom paint, we will poke a paintbrush as far up all of them as possible, to try to discourage whatever seems to want to live in there.

Hauling:


Installed on the blocks:


Our slip is missing its tenant:


I finished making the lanyard pulls for the lifeline pelican clips today also, so at least we can get on and off even when it's raining -- plus, it looks sort of pleasantly nautical that way.

Whoah, I seriously owe you guys some pictures... OK, got three of 'em up...