Wednesday, January 25, 2012 Sail Covers and Surveys

Got the sail cover out and laid out on the face wall to start putting the fasteners on. Love the little hot knife tool for cutting the holes in the sail cover where the fasteners go. Everything was laid out and ready to go, hot knife, fastener parts, hammer, felt tip, needle nose pliers. Took a deep breath and started the first side. While I was in the process of working on the sail cover, Dennis came by to finish up our boat survey. He’s an interesting fellow. At one time he was in the Coast Guard (I have the utmost admiration for those guys and what they go through), he now does boat surveys and sells boats here at the marina. I had to ask him about a boat that I’d seen come into the boat yard – a little Cape Dory… It looks like it needs some work but it’s a pretty little thing and I can picture it on the Great Lakes in the summer (I kinda miss being able to have a boat there in the summer). Someone was on the boat Monday or Tuesday and I was asking them what the boat was going for… Kinda steep I thought, but it seemed to me that it was Dennis’ company I saw posted on the “for sale” sign. I’d really like to take a peek at it. He said the owner had actually gotten an offer for the asking price but had decided to take it out for a couple of months so that fell through, and the buyers were a little miffed… hmmm…

After finishing up the survey we were chatting about our small motor problems – the 5 hp Mercury, and the generator that gave us calluses trying to start it last year. He’d mentioned to Wayne, the last time, that he had 2 outboards for sale. I was keeping that in the back of my head with the problems we’ve been having trying to get ours fixed… He’d mentioned that he had some generators that he was taking in today to have the oil changed and tuned up. The guy he takes them to does pretty good work and charges $75 for the tune up/oil change. Wayne mentioned that that would be something he’d be interested in since we’d been having problems with ours, and Dennis offered to take ours in too. He said we’d get it back by the end of the week. Woo who! Things are looking up. We’re supposed to have our motor back by the end of the week so maybe we can be out of here on Sunday or Monday then. All we need to do now is get a copy of the survey sent off to the insurance company and we’re good to go past the Turks and Caicos’.

I managed to finish one side of the sail cover today. I have a feeling my neck got too much sun. I’ll finish the other side tomorrow. While Dennis was surveying our boat my phone had rang.. It was Mary Clare they’re in Florida and making plans! Yay!

I wandered down to the water's edge to check out the waterway and the Cape Dory (it's in the water now). Spotted a gator sleeping on the bank. Correct that - it's eye opened and it was watching me...time to head back to the boat.

Time for an Iced Tea… ahhhhh….