Monday night (2-13) the wind was really howling. The radio reported gusts of 50 kts and I believe it. Every now and then the boat would just lay over and it sounded like a freight train was coming through. Really something. The wind was blowing out of the West and it took all the water in the creek with it. We've been through this several times this Winter already but this was the best one so far. The water receded all the way to the first slip on the dock, just two slips down from ours. We were definitely sitting in the mud by the next morning because the wind was still blowing but the boat had stopped rocking. All that wind had two direct effects on us. It kept us awake all night with the noise and in the morning it made it really tough getting on and off the boat. If you ever had a tree fort when you were a kid you can picture what we had to go through to get onto the dock. Well, maybe I tend to exaggerate a bit but it was a climb none the less.
The weather report is calling for this Friday to have temperatures in the high 60's with 16 knot winds out of the SW. Cheri suggested that we should go sailing. I love that woman! This is one of those heat waves I've been praying for. Just a short blob of warm weather so we can go out on the Bay for a day, give us a taste of it to help us get through the rest of the Winter. Everybody else has their boat on the hard and wrapped up in plastic so we'll probably have the entire Bay to ourselves.
This being our first time out since last October (yikes!) we're going to have to spend some time getting the boat ready to go. We've been living aboard just like we were in a house and there's stuff that's been set down or hung up without a thought as to how it would behave heeled over at 20 degrees or crashing through 15 foot seas. As if......
So, we've got a few projects to take care of, things to be nailed down or put away. The aft head has become a walk-in closet / storage unit. We've got all of Cheri's ankle length skirts and coats hanging in there. There's also all the high priority appliances that won't fit anywhere else, such as the coffee maker, hot-air popcorn popper, crockpot and pressure cooker. That list is in order of priority by the way. If we can get this area under control then we still have to work on the forward stateroom. In there we have our new home theater which isn't quite finished, meaning that it's not even close to being ready to go to sea. I think we're gonna need some duct tape or something.
Aside from all the little stuff that needs to be stashed we have three or four major pieces that would create havoc if they started bouncing around the interior. We brought in an ottoman to the Main Salon that's made a big difference in the comfort level out there and has also given us a great place to store Cheri's sewing machine. By itself it probably weighs 20 or 30 pounds, not exactly a lightweight. With the sewing machine and a few other things jammed inside I'm sure it weighs more than fifty pounds. I plan to add two footman loops to the base of the starboard side settee and we'll strap it snugly up against that using 2" webbed strapping. Our cool-man 37" flat screen also needs to be secured for sea. Originally I was planning to make up some nice teak blocks with brass hold downs but for now I think I'll use the footman loops and web strapping here too, only 1" webbing for this one. This'll probably become one of those projects that never gets completed because it got a "temporary" fix. I guess that's OK as long as it looks good and does the job. Another spot that needs securing is the 23" flat screen monitor for our Mac-mini at the Nav Station. This is mounted on an arm that has tension adjustments on each joint so you could really lock it down if you wanted. I just recently got it adjusted the way I like so it's easy to swing out of the way to get to the power panel behind it. I had originally planned to use a hook and eye to secure the arm against the cabinet but now I'm thinking this would be a great spot for some more footman loops and webbed strapping.
OK, so aside from 300 pounds of small stuff scattered around the boat I think we have it all under control. We have a regular routine of putting stuff in designated places each time we go out sailing. I say "we" but it's really Cheri who has this all organized. Anyway, during the sailing season we have it all down to a science and can be ready to go in about 20 minutes. This time it'll take a bit longer so we're working on it ahead of time so we can get an early start.
Woohoooo! We're gonna go sailing!
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