All in a Day’s Work

Work days. They’ve been happening a lot since we’ve had so much to get set up and organized on the boat. Most of the big projects are Conor’s. I spend the time working away on my laptop either with my college consulting course or writing blog posts. 🙂 Conor spends time on his laptop too as each week he’ll have a handful of Zoom calls/meetings with his Plenty team.

We’ve made endless trips to hardware stores, some home goods stores, and the local ship chandlery (marine store). They love us. When you start with a relatively empty boat, there is a lot of gear to find. With gear in hand, various projects are possible…

Blowing up the Dinghy (so we can anchor out and get to shore)

We had a dinghy that was all folded up in one of the large lockers. Conor spent pretty much a full afternoon getting it blown up and assembled. With the first layer complete, he took the dinghy for a row with the oars. For those that don’t know, Conor used to race C1 canoes competitively on white water. Even paddling this dinghy was fun for him. Then he installed the electric motor. Amazing how quiet it is. We have yet to use the dinghy, but it’s now fixed to the back of Sabática and I’m assuming we’ll use her in the next week or so as we find our first anchorages.

Replacing the main halyard (the rope used to pull up the main sail)

So Alex #1 (our instructor back in April) suggested we replace the main halyard as it was old and worn. This was a multi-day project and would not have happened so well or safely without our amazing new neighbor, Steve. He and his wife, Chris, are from the UK and have been SO very helpful teaching us all kinds of things. Back in California, our family loved to go rock climbing in the local climbing gym. Conor thought to bring his climbing harness with him as he figured he’d have to climb the mast at some point. Sure enough… Conor is strapped in and Steve is showing me how to hoist Conor up the mast and back down. It all goes totally fine and Conor looks like he’s been missing the gym. I hope we don’t have to do this often because Steve is much stronger and more experienced than I!

Pumping out holding tanks (for the toilets)

I will spare you the details of how we discovered our holding tanks were full, but suffice to say we learned they needed pumping out. On a boat like this with all the systems and controls we have to see levels on the batteries, solar panels, water tanks, etc., you’d think they would have included a sensor for the holding tanks. Somehow that slipped their minds. We’ve learned that newer models now include this sensor. We’re looking into whether creating our own sensor will be possible. In any case, we had to make a special trip out just to motor over to a different dock to the pump out station. With all the work that goes into prepping the boat for departure and return docking, I requested a short motor out into the bay once our business was finished. Might as well enjoy a beautiful view for a while for all our trouble. 🙂

It is simply amazing how a single project can take up most of your day. Time just flies when you’re working on a boat! #boatlife