what a mess
The following weekend, we planned to spent all day at the boat cleaning up and just looking at everything. I thought I calculated the time better, but there’s no 8 AM ferry on Sunday, so we didn’t even leave before 9 AM. That means we just got there around noon. Well, that would still give us all afternoon.
I backed up the van to the boat ramp and carried the dinghy to the water. We loaded up our stuff and I started rowing out into the bay. There were some waves and I had to row against the wind. I am not sure how long it took to row out to the mooring buoy, but I was exhausted when we got to the boat.
After giving Leighann and Jeffery a tour of the boat, Jeffery started playing with his toys. Leighann had a little shock, somewhat along the line “Oh no, not another fixer-upper!” I said she didn’t have to do this. And I was thinking of the song “I’m Gonna Miss Her” by Brad Paisley, great song! But she calmed down and started cleaning up.
I had a look around to see what was working and what needed fixing. Both toilets didn’t work, great! It’s always at a moment like that when your kid has to go potty. Not wanting to use the toilet without being able to flush, I gave Jeffery a bucket and left the room. I should have known! When I came back he had used the toilet thinking the bucket was to flush with. Wonderful, not only do I have to fix the toilet, I have to fix a toilet with a full bowl. We’ll I didn’t have the tools with me, so I”ll do that next time.
I turned on the radar which was cool. I was afraid to run down the battery so I turned it back off. I did not dare turn the engine on even though I would have loved to. I thought I wasn’t ready yet. I checked out all the other electronics and just went though every little space on the boat.
There were a lot of sailing and boat design books on the boat as well as charts for the area. Not bad, I thought. Leighann had cleaned up the saloon and the galley and we sat down to eat a snack. The water tank was empty and we washed our hands with sea water. There’s an electric pump for the sink. I’ll have to fill up the water tank somehow.
I went on deck and found a long pole with a scraper. It worked well to scrape off some of the mussels on the hull. I did one side as much as I could. Then my arms hurt too much to do the other side too. So I’ll leave that for next time too.
We had all the hatches open while we were on the boat. As soon as the sun started to set it got cold and we headed back to shore. Of course the wind had died down and I could not use it to get back faster. This rowing experience made me think of getting the outboard working for the dinghy. I need a gas tank, hose with squeeze bulb and a battery. We’ll see.
All in all it was an exciting day going through all the stuff that was on the boat.
Photo credit: photo by me, Daniel
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