Projects for a Rainy Day

Well, as we spent some time here at the Deltaville Marina, waiting out the rain, we realized that a lot of people are having work done on their boats, so...., we put together our list, spoke with the boat repair department, and have come up with 3 projects for them to possibly work on. We have a meeting with Matt at nine o'clock in the morning for coffee and to get the bad news about the estimates. This marina has excellent ratings from cruisers on the work they do, and the cost per hour is lower than even the cost in Cleveland, so it may be best to go ahead with the work here.

#1- Our stove is fueled by compressed natural gas (CNG); however, CNG distributers are very difficult to find. There are none in the Chesapeake and maybe one in Florida. When we called the company that made our stove, they tell us the suppliers are listed on their website, but when you call the suppliers, they all have stopped supplying it. We have known that we need to convert to propane, which is available everywhere. Our original thought was to have it done in Florida while the boat sits over Christmas, but the yard here can do it in 2 days, so it looks like we will be here at least until the weekend.

#2- We rebedded all our chain plates this summer with a product recommended by our boat yard manager. Come to find out, it was the wrong product, and one chain plate has started leaking. The chain plate supports the stays which support the mast, so it is a very vulnerable part of a sailboat. To remove the old product and rebed with the appropriate product is necessary. Thus, we will probably have the boatyard tackle this.

#3 Our boat heater has been on the blitz. They can at least look at it, diagnose the problem and possibly fix it without having to send it back to the factory, which is what we were told before.

In the meantime, we spent the day by borrowing the loaner car to run some errands, moved the boat to the marina so they can work on it, met more interesting people in the boaters' lounge, and had Chuck and Pat for supper on our boat. Chuck and Pat are the couple that Joe mentioned that have been on their boat for 3 years and are getting a watermaker in preparation for cruising to Mexico and Honduras. We also chatted with an older woman, who has been on their boat for 13 years and circumnavigated the world. Quite impressive! Probably not in our cards, but very interesting to talk with.

Joy