Saturday, January 17, 2009

Toronto

The Toronto Boat show was a success. We talked to a lot of knowledgeable people about different items we have on the boat or will have on the boat soon. Lewmar was one of the best. Those guys answered a lot of questions about our new windlass and about the type of chain and rope. Second would be Raymarine, for the E80 package that we have so many questions about, followed by Atkins & Hoyle (Arch system) who we have talked to before about building our arch. They are a family business out of Canada and have made a custom arch system for one of Kasidah’s sister ships.
We managed to sneak in a seminar with Wally Moran, his lecture was on “The Intercoastal waterways”. The room was full and a lot of people had to sit on the floor. It was interesting that a lot of the things he talked about we have done or been in the situation before so we felt more like the old salty sitting there instead of the newbie not knowing what was ahead of us.
It is very cold here right now so we have been making list, fixing things and spending money….
I took the Lewmar winches apart and did a full cleaning on them. They had so much hardened grease and dirt in them that gas was the only way to clean them (Thanks Schyler). We are going to make a fake anchor locker in the basement and play around with the windlass to see what type a room we need for it. We are hoping to split the locker so we can add a second one for the backup anchor and rode.
Our table is heading to Wally’s today to have a piece cut out to make more room for our knees when we go to sit down.
We have been finding some great deals online lately and some we should wait till we leave but at the price we are finding we can’t pass them up. I just purchased a watermaker from a guy on Ebay which is what we wanted, it draws only 4 amp, so our batteries can handle it and by getting the smaller unit we will have plenty of nooks to install it. Also the service parts on it will be cheaper than a bigger model. Jon had originally thought the bigger the better, but when we talked to a distributor at the boat show he had a lot to say about the smaller one and with just the two of us on the boat what he said made a lot of sense. The watermaker also came with supplies and repair parts for cruising and a new handheld small watermaker for the ditch bag. Jill left yesterday for Mississippi to visit with Amy before she heads back to school and yes I count my blessing all the time. She was in the air when that plane went down in the Hudson river. I got a hold of her has soon as she had landed and she had heard that it happened and said to herself “Mom will be calling real soon”….

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Happy New Years 2009


Happy New Year to all of our family and friends!
Jon and I have been busy with family since before Christmas and some of them are still here. The Holidays went by fast but we did get to see everyone and enjoy it. Jon’s whole family came up for the Christmas weekend and we managed to find sleeping spots all over the house for them (house is pretty empty). They brought so much food we could not eat it all. On Saturday Jeremy’s family came to see him and Amy, so we had a huge Christmas dinner for both families. Jon and Jill rolled their famous Martha Stuart Turkey which was delicious. Kathy and Betty made cookies and Bob made ribs.
We managed to get to the boat during the week and took off the winches so we can clean them and check them over. We also measured the deck so we could order a windlass(done) and checked the holding tank one more time before sending it out to have a new one made, we wanted to have a monitoring system and did not know if one would fit because it fits pretty snug under the floor. It looks like we will be ordering the fireboy unit which has 4 readings and no moving parts. The other thing we wanted to look into was a new propane sensor which looks like fireboy will be getting more for our money with the unit also. Jon is looking into putting the propane tanks into their own lockers that sit under the wheel just for added safety, so that’s something else we will need to research before long.
We are heading to Toronto on Friday for the boat show and hope to come home with some more ideas and maybe some boating goodies so we will let you know when we return how victorious we were….