Internet Stalkers or I'm Not Fat, I'm Big Boned!

August 5, 2006

Saturday, August 5, 2006 - Steve and Sally Dock, Oriental, NC
By Tom

Progress continues on the boat projects. Let me take a moment to bring you up to date:

I have finished the floors and they look great, but I am having some trouble using this T molding stuff to trim the access hatches. Other than that the I am really happy with how they have turned out. Anybody have any ideas on how to keep the T molding attached?

Our new Engle mobile freezer (model 35) arrived and seems to be working as prescribed. I'm thinking we should have plenty of ice making capabilities this year, enough so that I may need to get my blender back from my little brother. Hmm.

I made two new fish whacker covers for our new rods and I have also included photographic evidence (see over there ->) of my over indulgence in the quest for fish. Remember, I am a bozo.

We test fitted the new dinghy and it raises into the davits without problems, so we won't have to make any serious modifications to our existing layout. I will probably take the solar panels off so that we can paint the arch pieces as they are beginning to show signs of rust, but I don't expect to have any problems with this.

I've added new red light LED's in both the salon area as well as the cockpit. I hope these will make it a little easier to see while we are offshore without turning on the bright fluorescent lights that we normally use. If not, at least the red lights will look cool at happy hour.

Speaking of light, I swapped out our white light in the master stateroom for a much nicer and less harsh yellow light. This will hopefully make reading before bed less of a head ache inducing affair.

The long awaited rebuild of our manual bilge pump is now complete. For any PDQ owners listening out there, the model used on our boat was the Whale Gusher Sea Urchin. It only took 6 stores and 9 trips to get it right, but at least its done.

I finally got around to installing two more ammeters to monitor our twin outboard engines. This involved making another custom plate for the nav station and then running new charging wires to the alternator ports. I think at times we have charging trouble with these guys and don't realize it. Hopefully now I'll be able to look at them and know for sure.

I have replaced our longest wind gen stay with a stainless steel support which allows us to start using the port side gateway again. It was kind of a pain in the ass before as you had to step around the little guy wire thingy when boarding the boat.

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but Amy had me cut down the size of the cockpit table. Ours was too big and as such, I cut 12 inches off of one side. It definitely makes it easier to move about the cockpit now.

I replaced the refrigerator door spring so that we no longer have to either hold the door up with our heads or wedge Milo in the crack as we rummage for food. Milo is appreciative.

I swapped out the three broken latches that we had on various cupboard doors in the galley. Mila is extremely disappointed in this as she liked to climb in the hole left by one of the broken latches and play with the pots and pans. I think there is some serious gender based role playing going on here.

Lets see, what else? Uh, ok, our old fruit hammock has been replaced with a much larger and cleaner one. Amy says we have to load test the new hammock to verify its vegetable holding capacity, so we may be stuffing Milo in there sometime soon. Here at Team Dream Catcher, everyone knows how to play their position.

I replaced the one fan the burned out in the guest cabin as well as loaded two new fan blade replacements into our spare parts bin. I'm not sure what it is, but we seem to destroy a fan blade every 3 months. Sounds like strategic under performance by the Caframo Corporation. If their aren't careful, they may end up on my list of "Shitty Boat Part Makers" (SBPM) and their sales may suffer.

I had to remove a port side cabin house hatch to fix the hinge mount that allows the hatch to hold itself open. This is the 9th one I've fixed on the boat since we have owned it. I think there are only 5 more that still have the original rivets in them. I suspect I'll be visiting them this coming year.

We have ordered a new spinnaker kit from Sailrite. I'm looking forward to having it to use, but not looking forward to sewing the damn thing together. I'd like to farm that job out, but I don't think its in the budget. More to follow on this one.

I re-bedded the baby stay on deck. This is the third time in 7 years I've had to do this. I think the loads generated on that little guy keep the silicone from staying put more than a year or two.

Not that this is a boat job or anything, but Mila's fur is finally growing back. She doesn't look nearly as funny as she did.

We made it to the Office Depot and purchased new business card stock so that we can print out more boat cards. We took 200 with us last year and ran out on the trip home. Oh well.

While we were at the Office Depot, I snagged a six pack of t-shirt print outs. My understanding is that you make your own t-shirt designs and then print them out and iron them on via your laser printer and a house hold iron. We have yet to make one, but I have come up with a design which you can see at right and I will post our findings as soon as we actually do it. Remember, respect my authoritay!

For those of you interested, authentic "Milo isn't a fat ass" t-shirts will be available in the gift section for $9.99. All proceeds to benefit the foundation for abused marsupials. (i.e. my cruising kitty)

In between working on boat projects, I have started riding my bicycle most mornings with Sally. We generally try and go once around the "loop" which is 7.2 miles door to door. It takes us about 30 minutes and afterwards leaves me feeling tired and worthless for the next hour.

One morning Sally brought her camera along for the ride and she captured me bowing to the Japanese Peas that are being grown along side our route. Domo irrigato Mr. Jap-Pea-san.

In other news, we just crossed the 125 movie plateau this past weekend and the 200 total goal is well within reach. I think we will have so many movies on board, I may start an afternoon matinee when we get to the Bahamas. I hear they are getting 5 - 6 bucks a ticket for a daylight showing.

Also in the news this week, Amy is tending bar on Friday nights for the next 8 weeks at our friends Paul and Rose's bar called Paradise Cove, which is right across the creek from us. If any of my Alcohol Appreciation Society buddies are reading this, meet me on Friday night for FREE booze. Nice!

Amy has also finished making digital copies of all of our Cd's on her lap top so we can remove another 20 pounds from the boat. Every pound counts here at Team Dream Catcher.

On the crustacean front, we crossed the 200 crab threshold two nights ago when I steamed up a freshly caught dozen. Why is it that no matter how many crabs you eat, you never get full?

This past weekend we met long time website followers Doug and Cheryl. They keep a boat on the same creek as the Steve and Sally Marina, Car Rental, Hotel and Spa Resort. We've traded email off and on for several months and we got together Saturday night over at Paradise Cove.

We were both a little leery about meeting people off of the internet in real life. I mean what if they had been Islamic Fundamentalists bent on stopping free range cruisers? They could have detonated a swim fin bomb or something and blown up the ferrets.

Fortunately, they turned out to be nice people and we stayed out til almost midnight having beers and telling each other sailing stories. Doug and Cheryl have less than 18 months to go before they too head out cruising. They stopped by our boat the next day for a tour and an impromptu cookout before their three hour drive back to their home and (gasp!) jobs.

By the way, did you know that all sailing stories start out: "No shit, there I was..."? My friend Kenny told me that along time ago and after listening to all of us telling stories the other night, I realized he was right. Huh.

And finally, I am sure many readers will be as disappointed as me when I tell you that Don and Sandi have pretty much decided not to come back out next year. We're kind of bummed as we really liked hanging out with them. It just won't be the same without Don (aka The Shark Magnet) around. Of course, this will cut in half the number of fish I have to catch to feed us, so maybe there is an upside? Just kidding Sandy.

Stay tuned, more to follow.