Going in the water tomorrow!

At least that is the plan.  Hopefully, before noon, Latitudes will be afloat again, temporarily tied up at the marina's docks to wash out our winterized water tanks.  Fingers crossed!

Luke finished up  putting strainers on the water intakes on the hull of the boat. They are now painted with bottom paint. Last year we had problems with grasses stopping up the water flow to the engine and the generator.  SO, this year Luke installed strainers designed to allow the water to flow into the engines, but keep most of the grasses out.  Boy, we hope they work! They will be closed before we go back into the water.

Latitudes got a "dry run"  to be moved.  The yard is shuffling boats around in order to get them all launched.

We did celebrate finished up the interior of the boat with a walk into downtown Rockland for the Summer Solstice festival.  Mostly child oriented, it was fun to walk around.  Here is a local dance troupe.

With more and more boats preparing for the summer, a lot of the shrink wrap from the winter is piling up!  Good thing the marina has the dumpster (hidden in the shrink wrap which went around 3 sides) dumped twice a week. Latitudes on the left.

 

Back to inside projects, Luke did a preemptive replacement of the engine water pump impeller.  Good thing!  Several of the vanes of the impeller had cracks. When one those things break off they are likely to take a few more with them. Hunting through the cooling system to recover and remove them is a PAIN.

We've been using the frig/freezer for 2 weeks now.  Sitting in the cold water, it takes a while for things to need defrosting.  Not here, on land!  I had to defrost the darn freezer.

New chain...boy,  did we hate to spend for that.... but the old chain had been re-galvanized and the ends switched.  It's given a good 11 years and it was time to replace it.  Here is 200 feet of chain, sectioned off into 25 foot runs to have depth markers attached and then ready to be hauled up to the anchor well.  It's all done now.

And the dinghy is back!  We scrubbed her down yesterday and applied conditioner to her. What a dirty and time consuming job.  It would have gone a lot quicker if we had a running hose.  But here she is, ready to be lifted back to the stern of the boat.

And you know you can't get a post without Smokey.  She's never been much of a "box" cat, but she apparently likes "boxes" she can see out of.  My collapsible dirty laundry basket...and a content cat...

Hopefully the next time I blog it will be from the crispy blue Penobscot Bay waters.