(Mostly) loaded in
The first weekend of June saw us heading back to Oestara, loading her up with as much of our stuff as we could, and wrapping up a number of remaining boat projects. We slept onboard Friday night and pulled up to the dock early Saturday morning, where we spent most of the day tied up and working away. The weather was windy and cool out, so we didn’t feel too bad about working instead of enjoying the beach and pool.
Patrick had done some troubleshooting on our masthead lights on Friday night, and was glad to have sorted out why those weren’t working (just a problem with the wiring). On Saturday, he got to work connecting the rest of our solar panels and installing the controllers, while Cecelia and I worked on getting all of our bins and bags on board, and started organizing her cabin. Most of her toys and books got loaded in, and we sorted her clothes into bins in her locker.
She decided to split her cabin down the middle, with storage on one side and a sleeping area on the other, using the lee cloth (which holds you in your bunk if you are asleep while we’re sailing and the boat is heeled to one side) as a handy divider. Stuffies have a new home in a hammock at the back of her bunk. Still a few things to bring aboard yet, but she definitely got a feel for how it will all fit.
Patrick got four of our six solar panels connected, so we have 2/3rds of our array working to provide us with power. It is pretty cool to see amps still coming in even while we’re using electricity on the boat! He also rewired some of the switches on our electrical panel and installed a new blower for the engine.
After organizing Cecelia’s room, she decided to put together some of her Legos, and I spent some time setting up my locker and Patrick’s locker with all of our clothes, and also sorted out a solution for shoe storage in the lazarette in the cockpit. (No shoes in the cabin – they are full of sand and dirt and stuff that makes boat living super messy!) We all called it a night after showers on shore and a dinner with some fellow club members where we had lots of conversations about our upcoming adventures!
The next day, friends of ours offered to take Cecelia sailing and to shore for beach and pool time, and for that we were very grateful (thanks Beers family!) This meant we got to really focus on knocking out the rest of the projects. I replaced all the floor screws in our teak and holly sole, I moved some of our storage around so we could clear out the guest cabin and have better access to Patrick’s tools, and then I cleaned most of the boat, so that we can move onboard to a relatively tidy and clean space later this month!
Patrick organized our cockpit lazarettes to figure out where we could store some of our equipment. He re-connected our old tacktick wireless instruments to our network and we decided we’d put two of them up in our cabin so we can easily see wind speed and depth from there. He also sorted out why our USB charger that sits above the companionway (we use it to charge the iPad that we use for navigation in the cockpit) wasn’t working and got that fixed up. Near the end of the day, he took apart the stove (a much more difficult undertaking than one might think, involving drilling out rivets and manhandling a very heavy metal box while trying not to put dents or scratches in any of our very nice wood floors and cabinets!) and determined that our front left burner wouldn’t stay lit due to a loose thermocoupler. Tightened that up, put the whole thing back together, and voila, all three burners work for the first time in probably ever. I didn’t take any photos of that whole endeavor, and I think he’s probably glad about that. But trust me, it works.
Leaving the boat at the end of the weekend, we felt we’d accomplished a lot. 95% of what we want on board is now there, and the majority of the boat projects are complete. The list is never totally done, as you get one thing off the list and it won’t be long until another task pops up to replace it. But nevertheless, progress is good. We won’t see Oestara again until we move aboard later this month. In the meantime, it’s great to know she’s ready and waiting!
I’m excited for you!
Thank you!