A Week of Projects

October 21, 2022

I can’t believe it has been over a week since my last post. Home Free is still nestled at Deltaville Marina, and we have been quite happy here. Great new docks, good service and good amenities all supported by friendly and helpful staff. It has been a good place to be.

We have been quite busy on the boat, working on various projects to prepare for our move to warmer climates. I think my last post mentioned that we will be heading North first to Baltimore and that is still the plan. We had to prep the boat in a variety of ways, and we are filling the boat up with a variety of toys and tools to make our little boat a livable cocoon.

I know I mentioned adding Starlink to the boat. It is expensive, but we are really looking forward to the connectivity whether at anchor, at a dock or underway. The speeds are much better than cellular and we hope the reach is amazing as well.

When I first got things up and running I simply plopped the antenna/dish on the bow of the boat and ran a cable to the flybridge. After reading various internet sources for ‘Starlink on Boats’, I discovered a drum kit Multi Clamp is a perfect fit for installing a Starlink dish on a railing (who knew). The results are great, although I am still jury rigged on running the power cable to the flybridge.

For the foreseeable future, it will be more than good enough.

We had big plans to put the antenna in one of the KVH domes on top of the stack, but that looks to be pretty complicated. Instead, and partly because we like the people here at Deltaville Marina so much, I have asked them to help me remove all of the equipment from the domes. That was to have happened today, but the yard is busy and they couldn’t get close enough to my boat. First thing in the morning the yard will try again.

The goal now is to extricate all of the obsolete equipment from the domes to reduce weight. While they have a lift up there, we will see if the Starlink cable will even go through the openings (conduit etc.). I won’t perform a more permanent install though until Starlink settles down with all of their service and pricing changes.

Some other outdoor projects have been on the go. A new stern light on the dinghy and new bow chocks for lines have been installed. I also had to install yet another new battery. I let the last one run down again!! There is a wiring update coming to the dinghy soon to prevent that failure.

The Todd helm chairs on the flybridge look brand new now. We have replaced the cushions on both chairs and they have gone from looking a bit shabby and moldy to brand new.

With the updated chart plotter, the helm chairs and the autopilot control head, I may even use the flybridge more in the coming months. It remains one of Jinhee’s favourite spots on the boat.

Jinhee is getting used to having a lot of spare time, and unfortunately my waistline may take the brunt of the effort. This was the afternoon snack the other day. I can’t remember why we had the champagne out, but I think it was because it was Tuesday.

In expectation of being away from stores for a long time in the Bahamas, Jinhee is also working on her bread. The temperature changes aboard make that a bit trickier than at home, and so her miracle, no knead bread is not reliable, and so she is trying focaccia. Really, things are hard here.

Beyond that there is a lot of other stuff going on as well. We bought a new telephoto lens for the Nikon Z7. At 400mm, I expect that we will be able to get much better wildlife photos. Jinhee is also learning to use the drone (Featured Image is from Jinhee’s first solo drone flying experience. It is the Deltaville Maritime Museum). There is a good chance this blog will get more visually appealing soon.

Just mentioning visually appealing we have a lot of love for the design characteristics that were considered with the boat (thanks David/Angie), but we wanted to make a change on the look. Today we received our bits and pieces from SailRite and recovered the headboard in the master cabin. We think it looks pretty good.

The SailRite package contained lots of goodies, but my best guess is that doing that recover ourselves saved $1,000. So we are going to chock up the ‘DIY’ savings as a win.

Finally, and certainly not least, those troublesome toilets are no longer troublesome. Again, a few hundred dollars and some patience has given us a guest head with a seat that fits and works (and it isn’t plastic either), and a working flush mechanism in the master head. There is a long story behind the fix in the master head, but after $200 in parts, the necessary fix was a tiny spring which was sold to me for $4.50. In any case, guests will appreciate a guest stateroom head with a less risky seat.

There is a lot more . . . a new skin for our two person inflatable kayak, a new cable to deploy our anti-roll stabilizer and storage solutions everywhere. We have also enjoyed some socializing with Greg and Perri on Madawaska, Olaf and Andrea on Antares and some others around the basin as well. We also took in a local festival last weekend which was a bit underwhelming but still a nice change of pace from all of the projects.

If anybody is paying attention to the economics blog (Latest Post was Friday, October 14 – That Was Awesome!), I haven’t had too much to say, but boy the world is changing fast. I will write something up again before the weekend is over. Financial markets are truly crazy and they are getting a lot of my attention despite all of the work.

It has been busy, but we are almost ready to move. Next update here will probably be next week in Baltimore.