April 06, 2000 -- The Agony and The Ecstasy

April 6, 2000 -- The Agony and The Ecstasy Bill and Paula from Wave Dancer came over to listen in on the Cruiseheimers net. We checked in, then called Eric and Susan on Ellysia. The group of us chatted for almost 30 minutes. It was a lot of fun. Mike and I discussed the teak situation for a bit, then we settled on the agreement that I would sand and Mike would tape and put armada on. I sanded 2 sections of rail, then Mike came behind me and put armada on. After we were done with that, we headed to the store to see if the rail hinge we ordered would actually fit the boat. I also picked up the 2 screws we needed for the shore power outlet and new bolts for the storm windows. Then we returned to the boat and finished bedding the shore power plug. Next we spent some time loading our dinghy with the stuff that had been in our old one. One of the technicians from Inflatable Experts came out to fix the tube attachment problem on the dinghy. The riggers came out and installed our main sheet line and our traveller. As we helped with the main sheet, we discovered that the main sheet winch was jammed. We did an emergency winch-ectomy and fixed it (well lubed it). It works better than it has in ages. We now will add winch servicing to the sailing hardware checks once a month. We were relaxing in the main saloon when the boat was rocked by a wake. The floor board in the port stateroom fell, and we discovered exactly where our breaking point was, and we had just crossed it. The floor board fell because the sonar black box (that is what the documentation calls it!) wasn't put back together yet. The freezer guys were supposed to be there, it was 3:00 PM and they still hadn't shown up, the brace for the big hatch in the main saloon still hadn't been reattached. We got on the phone with our service manager to let him know how irritated we had become. He sent someone out immediately to take care of the hatch. Unfortunately, a weld broke on the hatch so it will have to be removed, rewelded and reinstalled. Mare called from the Rybovich store so I headed up there. On the way, there, I ran into our service manager. We walked back to the boat. He told us what was going on with the freezer. The bottom line is that the freezer guy isn't coming until Monday, but we got $400 off the installed price. Finally, we headed to the store. Unfortunately, the replacement hinges weren't adequate. Tomorrow we will check Sea Chest for them. We had cocktails on the aft deck with Bill, Paula, Henry and Anne at 5:30. It was a lot of fun. Time really flew, it was 8:30 when things finally broke up