Exciting news… our sails were removed last week! We’re having them restitched (reinforced) around the stress areas where the lines connect, as well as having a new stack pack (the bag that the main sail drops into) and a new UV shade for the front sail made. We went with a charcoal grey for the stack pack and a bright orange for the UV cover on the front sail (see very bad Photoshopping attempt above). The guy at Quantum Sails where we’re having the work done, said our boat is going to look “so pimp”. His words, not mine.
Compared to the before look of all teal, it’s going to look like a new boat!
Pretty pimp, right?
We’re also working on making new cockpit cushions that will be a charcoal grey as well. Friends of ours are letting us use their basement as a work space, thank god, because trying to unroll seven yards of fabric and two pieces of 4? x 6? foam in our salon would have been a disaster.
Matt got our stereo working, so we finally have tunes outside in our cockpit again! Not sure exactly what he did, but he worked his magic and made it happen. Love him! Next step is to get XM satellite radio installed, which involves adding a connect tuner to the back of our existing stereo and a marine antenna that Matt will probably mount on the back of the boat somewhere. The thought of having on demand music during our trip gets me giddy as a school girl. I can’t wait to listen to some NPR in the mornings over a big mug of coffee or sailing to Christmas music as soon as it comes on in early November. We’ll probably be in Charleston by then, enjoying temperatures in the mid 70’s, wearing shorts and taking pictures of the decorated palm trees.
We’ve been looking for a better solve to store our life jackets, which were previously a tangled mess in the front storage peak. Shopping around for some online, we kept seeing the same horrible bag popping up on our search. Seriously? Why call it a T-Bag? What does T stand for, anyway? Any why is it $75?!
Much better solve… Matt’s cargo net from his truck! Brilliant and free!
We’ve been busy getting to work on the list of boat projects we’re hoping to complete before we leave. In order to keep us organized, I’ve created a “command center”, which involves three lists taped to our wall.
Pretty high tech, I know. We have a list for all of the things we need to order at West Marine, a Spare Parts list, and a Misc. Stuff list that we’re jotting down all of the random stuff that pops into our head that we don’t want to forget. Things like: buy extra batteries; order D’s snorkel gear; get extra padlocks for outside lockers, etc. We found that writing this stuff down as we think of it helps to ease some of the anxiety that inevitably comes as we’re lying in bed at night trying to fall asleep. There’s been a few times already when one of us has crawled out of bed mumbling “gotta add something to the list”. Besides West Marine, it looks like Amazon and Target will be getting a lot of our business in the next few weeks as well.
