My pallet of personal goods which I had shipped from Canada in early January finally arrived on Monday March 23. The plan to take the boat to the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club and move the boxes by pickup truck from the delivery location at the Yacht Brokers to the Yacht Club worked out well. The rain which had been steady all day ended as I was taking the boat into the yacht club and the move of the boxes onto the boat went quickly. I took the boat back out to the mooring and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening unpacking them. Tuesday was mostly spent working out where to put items in the various lockers. Almost everything is now put away.

On Wednesday, I spent much of the morning having video calls with family including my parents, my brother Don and nephew Andrew. Everyone is well and Don and Andrew have been told to work from home. Robyn’s contract was ended since she was supposed to be giving talks to school groups and the schools are closed in Ontario. On Wednesday afternoon, I went into Mona Vale to get a hole saw drill bit I needed to install a USB charging outlet in my stateroom and to pickup a few groceries. I hit the jackpot at the grocery store because they were just putting out toilet paper in the empty paper goods isle. The limit was one package per person so I got my allotment. They were completely out of pasta, rice, UHT milk, eggs, flour and orange juice so I was not able to get those items. Luckily, I still had a supply of the items out of stock at the store.

Today (Thursday), I finished installing the USB port in my stateroom which involved a bit of boat gymnastics. First, I had to remove the mattress from my bed which is very heavy and unwieldy in the tight space. There are access panels on the bed platform which allowed me to get into the area under the bed where I had run the wire from the power source over to where I would drill the hole to mount the USB outlet. I needed to reach about 18” up between two walls which are about 4” apart to get to the mounting location to secure the nut holding the USB outlet. The problem was that the central vacuum blower motor was installed directly below the gap I needed to reach up through so I could not bet my arm up between the walls. To remove the vacuum blower, I had to disconnect its hoses (4 x pipe clamps) and remove the bracket which held the motor to the boat (4 x screws). With the motor moved aside and much body twisting and contortions, I was able to reach up to the top of the two walls to the location where the USB outlet would be mounted. Once I knew that I would be able to properly fasten the USB outlet, I proceeded to drill the 29mm (1 1/8”) hole through the teak top surface, vacuum up all the dust with my little shop vac, run the power wires up from below, test the usb outlet to ensure it worked and then install the fastening nut for the outlet from below to finish the installation. Of course, I still had to reinstall and reconnect the central vacuum system, put the bed platform access hatches back, wrestle the mattress back onto the bed and put the bed sheets back on to be able to call the job a success.

After a quick lunch of bacon and tomato sandwiches on home made bread, I fired up the boats generator to 1) charge the main house batteries (it has been very rainy and dull this week); 2) run the water maker to top up the fresh water tanks (not really needed but when complete, the water maker does a fresh water flush of its filters which should be done every week or so); 3) run the central vacuum to make sure it worked correctly after my re-installation and also to clean the floors; and 4) to bake a loaf of banana bread in my electric toaster oven which had arrived in my goods from home. I could have used the gas oven to bake the bread but since the generator was running for the other items, I decided to use the electric oven at the same time.
The rest of the afternoon was spent reading, listening to the latest news on the CBC streaming service and having a nap. I’ve just finished dinner now and wile enjoying my coffee in the cockpit, took the picture for this blog entry.

I hope all of you reading this and your families are in good health and remain that way. Its hard to know what tomorrow will bring but I’m still planning for the future. My deck hatch which is out for repair is scheduled to be back early next week and then my current plan is to sail with one or two locals either North or South along the coast for a short trip. This trip will of course depend on weather and any other currently unforeseen developments.