October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!  No scary costumes or decorations for me...a fast-approaching departure date is scary enough.

Much of the effort this week was devoted to purchasing gear and provisions and getting it all stowed away.  I cleared out about 200 lbs of gear and supplies from the aft cabin and stowed it in plastic bins for later transport south in the truck.  Unfortunately, the aft quarterberths are still stuffed to the ceiling.

I bought an AIS and antenna splitter, and a personal locator beacon (PLB) for safety.  Still need to install the AIS.  I got the faulty WH autopilot electronics back from Wil, and they were repaired at no charge under warranty.  It now seems to work fine, with the lock-to-lock electronic limit working and the lock-to-lock time now 6 seconds or less.  With the autopilot set, I needed to build a sturdy guard around the motor and hydraulic pump to prevent shifting gear in the lazarette from getting caught in the drive belt or damaging something.

I also decided to replace the ship's batteries which are of unknown age and have been neglected by me while I dealt with other projects.  House bank is done, and I'll do the other bank if I can get some more of the cheap Walmart (Johnson Controls) deep cycle marine batteries locally.

If all goes as planned, I will be enroute by this time next week.  It's exciting, but I'll definitely miss the friendly folks here and the beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  Future blogs will need to be posted when I have access to wi-fi, so they might not be as regular.  Might be more interesting though....

 

October 24, 2011

Signed the final papers on the house today; escrow closes tomorrow.  Moved myself and the last of the stuff for the boat onto Circadian.  I am now officially a homeless, unemployed orphan.  But I'll have more time to enjoy the natural beauty around me.

October 17, 2011

With escrow expected to close in a week or ten days, all my efforts this week focused on clearing out the house and disposing of unwanted possessions.  Everything had to either be sold, given away, tossed, stored, or moved on the boat.  Thank goodness Carol flew up from LA to help me with the weekend yard sale.  Not only were there the logistical impossibilities for one person, but I came down with a nasty sore throat and chest cold on Saturday, which really slowed me down.  Thanks Carol!  Despite my being under the weather, we had a delightful dinner at our favorite Afghan restaurant with my friends Jim and Cathy.  During our dinner conversation, Jim and I committed to his joining me on Circadian for the trip down.  Yahoo!  Knowledgeable, fun crew (who can catch lobster and cook, too!) will make the trip nicer and faster.  The other good news this week is that the gal who is making the new berth cushions for me seems to be coming through, finally.  Looks like I'll have them in plenty of time.  I'm still waiting to hear back from WH Autopilots on the state of the components I returned to them last week.  Sunday night, again despite my feeling crappy, we had another great evening dining al fresco with my neighbors.  But by the time we got home I was ready to collapse, which I pretty much did.   As soon as I returned from dropping off Carol at the airport this morning, I crashed for four hours.  I managed to get myself up and going just long enough to update the blog, but that will be it for today.  

October 10, 2011

I've continued working hard on house and boat, but it's been a good week with some small and some large victories.  With less than two weeks to move, I'm running out of time, so this blog will be a bit different.  I just don't have time to do much writing, so I'm going to let the pictures tell most of the story.  PLEASE, let me know if like this style better or worse.

The house made it through the FHA appraisal CLEAN; no more to-do's!  My realtor said she'd never seen a clean FHA appraisal before.  The hard work paid off, but I also had an easy-going appraiser, which was pure luck.

For Circadian, I did a bunch of work in the shop and onboard to make her more sailable and more livable
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I finished rigging the secondary anchor, although I still expect stowage arrangements to evolve.

It was hard to find a replacement oil lamp chimney for my restored trawler lamp (the original was a casualty of the move cross-country), but I finally found one on ebay.  I carefully measured the base diameter, but naively neglected to measure the height needed, thinking the lamp had plenty of clearance.  Of course the chimney was too tall.  I decided to try cutting it down using a cheap glass cutter.  At a tenth the cost of another chimney, it was worth the risk.

 

I finally got to making a cover for the instrument wiring using the same method I used for the ceiling panel that I installed back in June.

Completing the new engine mount transom for the dinghy was a major undertaking.  I also needed to get the CF numbers and registration decals on so I could test the engine.  It all happened, but the outboard still has some issues.  It ran fine slow, but when given any throttle, it ran great for 20 or 30 seconds and slowed back down.  I think there's an obstruction in the fuel filter or line.  No time to test this week.  I also discovered that the fuel tank I had been so clever in repairing and modifying interferes with the motor tiller when making sharp turns.  Sigh.

 

Last, but not least, I finally removed the household drain from the shower sump so I can replace it with something that I can plumb properly.  Heck, it's only been waiting on the back burner since April!

My early morning drive out to the delta was through some thin and patchy fog, making for some nice light as the sun rose and burned it off.