"Get A Little Bit Done Every Day"

That's always been a philosophy of Carter's.  So while we're at anchor, and it's too cold to work outside, we decided it's time to tackle the navigation station.  We have purchased a new Kenwood stereo that we want to install, and we'll see what else we want to put in here.  Right now we need the shelving and we are going to put the nav station table back in here for use as a small dinette for us.  We'll get a couple of small stools that will fit underneath. 

And here we go...

Kicking out previous inhabitants!

Mud Daubers

Progress so far...

We put the nav station table back in and decided it's too big so Carter will make a smaller one when we get back to the oxbow.

Yesterday, we worked in the engine room.  We cleared off the starboard side storage shelves in order to clean the walls.  It's all temporarily stored on the top bunk for now. 

It warmed up a bit and we decided to take a whaler ride to the beach.

Some well deserved time off!

January 2, 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
2012

The holidays are over and all family visitors have returned home.  Carter and I have decided to stay anchored in Fort Myers Beach...do some work on-board AND

mix in a little vacation time for ourselves! 

We worked very hard for 3 weeks straight getting the boat ready to go cruising with the family.

Carter worked steadily and got 4 of the total of 12 solar panels installed and secured before we left.  Once they were installed, he wired 2 of the panels to run the tv and refrigeration so we wouldn't have to run the generator all day and night.

He is changing out the support system from the wood canopy to aluminum but the wood is still in place until the aluminum is complete. 

We took the boat out just past this bridge into the Gulf where Carter was able to scuba dive to inspect the cutlass bearing and the prop.  The cutlass bearing is not in as good of condition as we hoped thus our decision to return to home base.  It will be necessary to haul the boat out to repair the cutlass bearing and we will paint the entire boat at the same time.

Unfortunately, there just happened to be a red tide going on causing fish to die.  We spotted many, many dead fish along the way.  This was a huge jew fish.  It was the size of a small manatee.

Since we originally had planned to continue on down to 10,000 Islands for a day or two ourselves, I set to work on the mosquito netting which is a necessity down there.  We have enough netting to completely surround the cockpit. I will only have to make slight modifications to get it to fit the new cockpit dimensions.

It rolls up and out of the way when not in use. I plan to sew nice ties with the black sunbrella but the rope will have to do for now with our tight timeframe to get underway.   I also still have to install the section around the front and rear of the cockpit.  I may work on that today if it's not too windy.

Carter did a great job with the Christmas lights to go on parade!

The final detail was the installation of the GPS chart plotter and we are ready to head for the Gulf.

We plan to anchor out for a couple days as we lazily make our way back to the oxbow.

Mantanzas Pass Anchorage, Fort Myers Beach