Aft boarding ladder improvements

When the previous owner painted the boat, he had some brainy idea that the stern scoop non skid should be painted with awl grip.  Because that has as much traction as glycerin on ice.  Dumbass.

The ladder itself is just a series of rungs with no step or nonskid either, besides the foot cramp I get going up the ladder, not happy about the safety.

When you got off the ladder, there's an area of the boat with NO nonskid, just flat and slippery.

We had to fix that, pronto.  (remember, I break ME, not the boat)

So, we added some nonskid and a step to help the process out. MUCH better.

The transom scoop with nonskid added.

New dead sexy step, which makes handling dinghy easier also.

Non-skid tape added to rungs.

More non-skid painted on slippery deck area.

Have boat, will break it.

Not me! Not me! Not me!

Okay, only one thing can be attributed to my spouse and his need to use the power winch in inappropriate manners.

So-----here goes: DON'T USE YOUR JIB SHEET POWER WINCH ON THE JIB FURLER. PERIOD.  Especially when the sail is under load, like 20kts under load.  The captain got demoted to Gilligan after that maneuver, but our furler guardian angels came and were able to fix without too much dent to our pocket book.  (and I got to sit there and smirk while they went to Tim--WTF did you do THAT for?)

But in my lovely husband's defense, he breaks the boat, I usually work on breaking myself.  Boat heals faster.

So our most recent trip, maybe because our luck has been SO fabulous lately, Tim suggests we try our windlass out before actually anchoring in a 2kt tidal zone.  Okay.

So what is supposed to be down only goes CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK. Anchor doesn't move. Shit.

After some debate, we still decide to go anchor out at Bahia Honda, there's absolutely no wind and if we can get the anchor and chain down and set, the boat will be fine.  Windlass is working in the UP position just fine.

So after three tries, we get anchor, some of it to do with the fact that Elysium handles like a tank, good in choppy waters and wave action, but not when you are trying to anchor amongst other boats and two bridge spans.  Of course, when we go to shore, the peanut gallery was there with their commentary.  To my credit, I didn't even say stuff it.

We did get some grief from the tour boat, but we were not blocking his way and he was in a twin screw pontoon--he could stuff it.

More pics of Bahia Honda later...  oh, and we are 0-2 in anchoring without incident in Bahia Honda. It's not a hard anchorage, but it seems to make our boats go...um, no.

Final update on previously mentioned projects.

Heads--are awesome.  No more pumping a handle 15 times to find that it didn't flush.  The build work that George did is fabulous and looks like it was always part of the boat. The man is a fiberglass god.

As I might have previously mentioned, the day head can also convert to be salt water, manual flush, so backup plan is in place.

Some experimenting with how the heads use up our fresh water supply (no water maker--yet), doing good, the holding tanks fill up before we make a dent in the water.  Not a problem if we are in open water, because we'll be set to pump and dump.

Fridge--We we first started the nonsense with the fridge (previous post) , we thought it was not enough refrigerant.  So after a while with the new (and most awesome) thermostat, we called the guy that runs the service department at the marina, sure enough, needed refrigerant.  So he charges it and also shows us how to charge it ourselves.  YAY.

Now--now we have a fridge and freezer that works TOO well, as our last trip testified with frozen stuff in the fridge.  When we are on the hook it helps to place a towel over our fridge to help with condensation, but those suckers work with authority now.

Here we go.

Procrastination over. I can do this. 

I decided to stop worrying about what I was GOING to talk about and just start hitting some highlights so I can catch up.

So bear with me, getting my thoughts together.