Coming to America

Tomorrow Chris flies to D.C., rents a car and heads over to Annapolis.  She’ll spend the next 2 weeks working on Shearwater.  I’ll fly over in about 2 weeks to review her work.  Err, I mean to help her finish things up.  Actually, I’m just flying over to go sailing!  That’s right, after almost 6 months of glorious boat ownership we are going to put the boat in the water and go for a sail.  What a concept.

We got word on Friday that all the canvas work (dodger, sail cover, wheel cover, and companionway cover) are finished.  Can’t wait to see the photos of that when Chris arrives tomorrow.

The list of projects for the next 2 weeks is almost comical.  This is what happens when you have all the time in the world to dream up projects, but not a single minute to actually work on them.  I won’t amaze (bore) you with the complete list, but the highlights are:

• Remove old bottom pain and apply Coppercoat
• Replace the speed, depth, and wind sensors and displays with new NKE stuff
• Install new NKE autopilot
• Install new batteries
• Install new alternator
• Install an inspection port in the diesel tank
• Clean diesel tank
• Clean the freshwater tank
• Replace the head
• Replace the faucets
• Replace a few interior lights
• Wash & wax the hull
• Apply new boat name graphics
• And on, and on, and on…

With a lot of hard work, a fair bit of planning, some help from Jean & John, some luck, and a sprinkling of patience we’ll go for a sail on Sunday the 29th.

I’ll be living vicariously through phone, text, email, photos, and maybe even some video.  This blog should get a whole lot more interesting too.