...and high temp is forecast at only 49 degrees, so we'll probably drive over to Clear Lake to look for spare parts. We're thinking about where to situate the cabin heater, and what to do about the sole of the head (if we paint it will probably peel). Tom found the hoses he needs at a plumbing supply across from Ace Hardware. Ironic how an area the size of Williamson County has no plumbing supply but a community like Palacios does. We need to figure out a way to stop the portholes from leaking when it rains; a little drip of water on your head is no fun. Eventually we need to take the ports apart and reseal them. Also the forward hatch is starting a leak that needs to be filled. I spent the end of yesterday vacuuming out the little cracks and crevices of the starboard settee lockers. Two of them had apparently been the village of 1000 roaches at one time (probably when the boat was on the lake in Denton). When we get through, every locker will be clean enough to store food in. Tom pulled the formica off the bottom of the starboard settee exposing a cutout space of the lowest set of lockers. Now we have two more places to store canned goods (with a can-sized opening) and additional access to the aft locker. Tom suggested we tear the formica off the port side lockers and turn them into open shelving but I wasn't ready for any more demolition. "If it ain't broke..." so the saying goes...We tried sleeping with our heads at the aft end of the settee this time, as the heater will probably be mounted at the forward end. I am anxious about our bedding being so close to the heater even though the instructions say you only need 2 inches of clearance. If we run the heater overnight we can simply remove the cushion from that half the settee. The port side settee has a flip-up section that makes it into a double bed. We've talked about adding a flip-up section to the starboard settee so it too can be a berth. I thought we could alternatively make lee cloths and have a small space for one person. Other construction planned is some kind of shelves in the port side of the head where the sink was removed long ago. For years this has just been an ugly empty space. I envision it for laundry, hanging laundry, maybe storage of bedding or toiletries? We have to fit the first aid kit somewhere. We still need to wall off the aft end of the quarter berth from the no-man-s-land locker at the back of the boat.
For the meantime, all these discussions are academic; we are concentrating on painting and cleaning.
Here's my blog entry from yesterday:
Today we didn't get to paint as planned.
Painting has to be the ultimate delayed-gratification pastime. Even though Tom spent hours sanding the cabin top with a rotary sander, replacing one sandpaper after another, finally deciding that this was enough. Even though I went over the same areas with a scraper, giving up at the layers of glue on the v-berth. After sweeping up the mess and vacuuming up the rest, washing with water, there were still chips of paint everywhere. Again we swept, washed, and vacuumed, and found more areas of congealed and peeling paint. Finally we decided that enough was enough and Tom wiped everything in the V-berth down with solvent and we'll hope for the best. Even so, we know we cut some corners. The paint can said "sand down to bare wood" and it's probably a little cool for any of the stuff we're applying. But if we followed all the instructions to the letter, it would take us six months just to paint. We'd have a gorgeous interior but have to get jobs to refill the cruising kitty.
Tom decided the head was an ugly impediment to painting, so he pulled it out. Later that day a leak appeared much to our alarm. I always obsess about the seacocks going and the boat going down in seconds in a rush of water. Fortunately the water came from the toilet, and we finished scraping and taping the head. Will have to rebuild the toilet anyway so it will just be easier on the outside of the boat. Tom is going to re-plumb so that hopefully there will be less ugly pipe all over the head. We discovered some sort of ugly liner material on the head sole. Probably installed for the shower that used to be there. In any case it's glued to the fiberglass so we can't easily remove it. We'll just paint it and expect to re-paint it when it flakes off in a few years.
At the moment it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Everything is still raining paint chips, we are in our second day and still haven't started painting. I remembered that we also have to paint our house before we leave. Doubt about everything, how can we possibly get done with enough to leave? It's a cliche but this too shall pass.
