Boat Maintenance
Living Aboard a Boat
Sum It Up Sunday: 4 . . . I mean 11 Days and Counting!
Sunday, April 27, 2014TheCambriansAnother two weeks have come and gone . . . along with our departure date.
We had some beautiful weather for a while there and
David made real progress on the jobs we planned to attack after we left Kingston
Bad weather can lead to boredom, but we squeezed in
a moment or two of excitement and managed to avoid a potential disaster last
weekend. Our neighbour, Jerry, just
happened to be coming back from the laundry room at the right time – as smoke
was coming from our shore power box. Somehow our connection was loosened allowing for a higher resistance
and creating heat which melted the power prong into the socket . . . all while
still supplying power to the boat so we weren’t aware of the problem. In the end, Jerry alerted us and we avoided
setting the marina on fire, starting with the shore power box. Phew!
We almost blew our chances of being invited back next winter.
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| Inspecting the damage. |
So I guess it’s a good job that we, along with our
neighbours, had arranged a spaghetti feed for the staff at the day
before as a way of saying thank you for all they’ve done for us this
winter. Everyone here has been great and
made the seven months we’ve been here fly by.
Our only regret – we didn’t find Kingston Pacific Ocean ), second place is a real complement!
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| Saying thanks and good-bye to a great marina staff! |
When we weren’t starting fires* or attempting to
schmooze the staff, David was busy working on the boat. The cabin top’s been cleaned and polished,
and he managed to erase every last speck of green from the teak decks (which
look smashing!) and will seal them later this week. It’s been pretty squally over the last few
days; so he’s been passing time by pulling apart the boat, going
through his things, and deciding what comes with us and what goes into storage
(my dream come true!) to make room for this week’s biggest news . . .
a new portable freezer!
It’s something we’ve been thinking about for a
while and with Sally’s inability to digest dog food, we need to carry more
fresh provisions with us and our little 12x10x5 inch freezer box (0.35 cubic feet)
isn’t going to cut it. Of course it
can’t be simple. Cambria lacks
good storage (though that’s not entirely fair – I mean, really, without the 3
guitars, the amp, the Jam Vox, the kayaks, the air chair and the tons of tools
we need, there’d be plenty of space).
So, finding a place to install it was our first obstacle. We decided on the area we call the
“shed”. On paper it’s a pilot berth but
in reality, it’s a catchall for our junk.
But it’s a secure location and has easy access to a 12-volt power
supply, so it’s a logical spot.
But now we have to get it
in.
We narrowed our purchase down to two freezers – the
Dometic CF50 and CF80. The smaller unit would fit perfectly through the doorway to the shed and the larger one is a half
inch too large . . . but 1.5 times bigger.
In the end, we decided to go big or go home, but now David has a
difficult job to deal with (another reason we decided to stay an extra
week). But for now, the freezer is
sitting in the back seat of our truck waiting to be unpacked.
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| The Dometic CF 80 portable freezer. |
As for me, I have to be honest and say that I
didn’t accomplish a whole heck of a lot over the last two weeks but that’s
because the remaining jobs on my to-do list are last minute ones, so I’ve been
enjoying a bit of free time and catching up on some knitting. I suppose one could argue that I could help
David with his list, but one would be wrong.
When it comes to the crappy boat jobs, it’s pretty much every man (or
woman) for themselves around here!
Sally continues to do well on her Canna-Pet but had her first bad
day last week. It was emotionally
difficult for us but, after all was said and done and I could gain a little
perspective on the situation, one day out of 20 is really good. And besides, it was my fault. Just a few paragraphs ago I wrote that Sally
can’t digest dog food anymore, so what did I give her for dinner Wednesday
night? A can of dog food. It’s a long story that doesn’t bear getting
into, so I’ll just say a can here and there to see her through the days I’m too
busy to cook for her (yes, my wonderfully neurotic dog likes her food to be
prepared fresh daily) hasn’t hurt in the past.
But apparently, that was the past.
Anyway. She’s fine now and back
to being a right pain in the ass, which is exactly how I like it.
The next ten days or so will be busy as we make our
final preparations to leave: The
headliner’s still a work in progress, but that can probably wait. We’ve got to install the freezer and then I
have to fill it (ice cream!). David has
to finish the decks. There’s brightwork
to be done. And the hull’s screaming for
a polish and wax. It doesn’t look like
much on “paper” but, like fine wine, these things take time!
* Even though I’ve chosen to write
about this in a light-hearted way, I want to make it clear that we took (and
take) the situation very seriously.
David’s previous profession was in fire and life safety systems and
we’re diligent about checking our power connection regularly.
2 comments
One commonly forgotten item when plugging in is strain relief for both ends of the shore power cord. I use a Velcro strap to secure each end of the cord so that the plug is not taking any strain from the boat moving.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Andy! We have the Velcro straps as well but don't use them. The new cover/plug we purchased to replace the burnt out one has the black connection ring on it, so that will help. But the more we look at how we're set up, the less convinced we are that it was the ferry roll -- there's plenty of slack in the cable. It's possible that it was loosened by local kids who have been known to untie dock lines and unplug power cables once or twice in the past 6 months (but they disconnected them fully). Unfortunately, we're in guest moorage which is open to the public so there's not much we can do about it if that's the case except keep our eyes open -- it's a real concern though.
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