No bikinis or waterfalls!
Uninfluenced by yesterday’s post’s topic, today we will have no pics of Rebecca in a bikini, nor of waterfalls or of hiking in general. Instead, just a couple of tiny boat projects that, along with scrubbing our dinghy bottom and cleaning the big boat’s waterline, rounded out a work day.
Although the white boat bucket in the pic above served us well, it was looking pretty tired and was definitely on its last legs. Having come to us with the boat, it has gotten its fair share of use. Although we did retire the bucket, we recycled the rope handle which was attached to it so, no doubt, it’s spirit will live on.
Our Honda generator has sat near our stern for over 800 days now. During that entire period, each time I went to fuel it up, I was fearful of dropping the fuel cap in the water, perhaps never to be seen again. Now, after drilling a tiny hole in the fill cap and attaching a small lanyard, I am afraid no more! And yes, it only took me 800 days to come up with that solution!
Rebecca, get out of this shot… I promised no bikini pics today! Oh well, the ‘before‘ shot, prior to scrubbing the dinghy bottom. Can you recognize the eco-friendly bottom-cleaning tools?
On an unrelated topic, we just heard that some traveling companions of ours, Johanna and Martin, have their Hallberg Rassy 35 for sale. It’s always sad for us to hear things like this (unless the people in question have another boat purchase in mind) but it would be better to have the vessel traveling as she was meant to, helping some other couple realize their cruising dreams, than sitting in a boatyard. You can read about the boat on their website. The page is in Swedish but you can use the translate feature on the right-hand side of the page to change it if you don’t speak that language. The boat is currently on the hard in Grenada and is for sale for $350,000 Swedish Krona, or by my calculations, about $52,500.00 US.
Snowbird crossed with us from the Turks and Caicos islands to Luperon, DR.
Here they are at anchor at Big Sand Cay where we staged for that passage.
“Snowbird”…..very sexy indeed. Maybe we’ll re-list our house with “Sail Away Homes and Land”.
My very first boat that I bought in Antigua had that sexy Swedish flag too and the same brass mirror.
We could even maybe afford that boat without selling the house.
Sweet dream indeed!
We have met a disproportionately large number of Swedish cruisers!
Where’s the after picture of the dingy?
We were so excited to be done that we forgot to take one. Trust me… it looks great! 🙂
I’m not so sure it’s clean or you’d have taken a pic. Call me a nay sayer but…..
We forgot… honest!
Love the gas cap idea. I’ll be doing that to mine this weekend! Thanks for the tip.
You’re welcome, Eric. It’s so stupid simple I can’t believe I didn’t do it 2 years ago!
1. Eco friendly cleaner was sand?
2. loved the gas cap idea too. It would work for us landlubbers too. Have you ever filled your lawnmower with gas and forgotten to put the cap back on, started the mower then proceed to destroy the gas cap as it vibrates off? D’OH!
3. Every boat needs a bucket on a rope. We used ours alot when fishing.
Sand and coconut husks!
Thanks for slipping in the pic of Rebbecca in a bikini, you had me a little worried with the title!
It was an accident, I assure you. 😉
slightly off topic, but speaking of cleaning boat bottoms, did you ever put bottom paint on the mothership? I remember you were talking about foregoing it and keeping it clean with regular scrubbing.
No, not yet. And further to this topic, the growth on our boat’s bottom is not significantly different than that which is on our friends’ boat which was painted this summer. Explain that!
great to know, thanks! I put a copper epoxy mix on my bottom and reports on it are that it either works great or does nothing at all, but I had to put something over the bare fiberglass. In fact, it’s been on for a year and a half and I don’t have _any_ growth…then again, I’m still building my boat and it’s never been in the water.
I’m really encouraged by where you are and that you’re getting by ok.
When we get around to hauling (or before obviously) I’d like to look at that option (epoxy/copper).
I got the copper here:
http://www.epoxyproducts.com/copper4u.html
It was colder when I applied it, so I had to add some xylene to make it easier to roll…but all in all it was easy to apply.
Cool. Thanks.
Hey guys, They may protest the bikini ad, for Conch Republic bikini!, Lol
Protesting that would be like protesting sunshine or rainbows.