Preparations Are Coming Along 3/30/08

Things are moving along quite well considering the
weather has not totally co-operating. The AIS from
Milltech Marine is installed and connected to the new
Standard Horizon chartplotter and the installation
went surprisingly well. We can pick up targets 20
miles away. The new side curtains for the cockpit are
up and look great. The painting has begun but the wind
has been blowing 15 to 20 almost every day. And today
it has been raining so this part will be a bit slow.
Susan is making pretty good progress with the teak
also. She is stripping the old finish off and redoing
everything with 3 coats of Cetol Natural Teak and
three coats of the clear gloss. It really looks great
and we have been very pleased with how the Cetol holds
up over the years. The new natural finish gives the
teak a much more natural look than the older style.




Upon unpacking the last parts for the masthead sensor
for the wind instruments we found a problem with the
anemometer cups. Simrad was great and sent out a
replacement part immediately with no questions ask. As
soon as the wind is down a bit I will be up the mast
to finish that part of the installation. We have also
been testing all of the electronics and doing some
tweaking on the SSB ground plane. So far all is well
and each time we tweak the SSB we seem to get out
better and receive better so we must be doing
something right.
We are counting down and plan to move the car and van
to our relatives in south Florida for storage in about
a week. That means departure should be in about two
weeks. We have learned a long time ago to be flexible
so we will wait and see just how that timetable works out.