Directions

Our latest entry always comes up first...

Click this link if you want to start at the beginning of our trip from
South Carolina (where we bought the boat) to Lake Ontario Click this link:

If you want to see the story of our 2 1/2 year project getting
Blowin' Bubbles ready for our life on board click here:
FIRST "REFIT" BLOG ENTRY - March 2011

If you want to start at the beginning of our trip:
START OF TRIP - July 2014
2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019

Saturday, March 3, 2012

A Great Day in the Aft Cabin.....

Thanks to my amazing father-in-law, we were able to get a big chunk of our new aft cabin done today... More on that in a minute. But first I have to tell you about the freaking WIND!!!
Holy smokes! was it blowing over the last 24 hours... Steady 50kph winds with gusts to 90... When we arrived this morning, almost the whole cover at the back of the boat was in tatters. I am so glad Ed was with me so together we could get things tied down and re-covered... This took us almost an hour.
Last night, my son Steve dropped by and I put him to work in our garage and we stripped the 2 light/curtain panels that were in the aft cabin. I need to repair one corner of the port panel with some epoxy, then I can re-cover them with some marine vinyl, then install some recessed LED lights and curtain rods and the little clips that hold up the open ports... When all of that is done they can go back to the boat to be re-installed in the aft cabin...

Back to the new double bed we are building in the aft cabin... it looks amazing so far. First we made a sub floor that will become the floor area of a big storage area under the bed. I have calculated that will be about 30 cubic feet of dry storage area. Then we added a removable door panel to the front of the foot board on the bed which will eventually access another storage area of about 6 cubic feet. This whole bed is glued and screwed so it will take a small charge of dynamite to change it after we are finished.


 
Next time we are together, I hope to prime and paint the inside of these lockers before we add the plywood top to the bed. This week we also hope to get to Len's Mills (a local millenary store). to acquire a piece of 54x75x4 in regular foam and a 54x75x4 inch piece of memory foam that we will glue together to make our 8" thick comfy mattress....
Ed was also able to help me figure out a great way to make a channel for the hydraulic hoses and other miscellaneous wires that we need to move along our ceiling....
Shelley was kind enough to bring us a great lunch today and she stayed an hour or so and worked away at scraping the ceiling in the main salon... we still are not too sure how we are going the fix that ceiling up yet....
Anyway, in spite of the wind, it was a very productive day....
One last thing... Yesterday I ordered the wind instruments from a company called VMG Marine... We met him at the boat show and found him to be a friendly and knowledgeable man who was selling instruments made in the United Kingdom, and retail for less than half of the same equipment from Raymarine... Now, the truth is, I really think that Raymarine makes awesome gear, but I can replace this stuff twice before I could justify the price of the RM gear.... 
 http://www.vmg-marine.com/Clipper-Wind.html

We also made the decision yesterday to go with the "MACK PACK" lazy jack and sail covers. They have some show specials on right now, so it looks like a good time to buy.
http://macksails.com/mackpack.htm

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