We are truly checking things off the list aboard S/V Galapagos. It’s almost like we plan to go cruising again or something. I remember this part of preparing to go last time. It did not feel real then, and somehow, it doesn’t feel real now. There are always so many things that can delay leaving the dock, and the attachments we form to life on land are many and deep. It’s just not easy to let go of the dock.  And that’s on every level: physical, emotional, psychological, financial.

Preparing to move back aboard and leave my garden. Again. Transitions between lives: not my forte’.

But we’re doing it anyhow because the good years we have left to live and will be physically able to do things like cross oceans are passing. Fast. Here’s a short list of what we’ve done in the last couple of weeks:

1 Dropped sails off at Ballard Sails in Seattle to be looked over, and have a new ATN Spinnaker Sleeve installed so we can reduce the number of shit shows on the foredeck when we deploy that sail.
2. Dropped the Viking life raft off for servicing at the Viking facility in Auburn.

Get a load of all those life rafts!

3. Made a running start on installing the new radar pole on the aft deck. This pole is complete with a davit for lifting our new-to-us dinghy engine. Photos another day on this.  This involved leaving the slip, docking the boat in a tight space with only a few feet to spare front and back, and getting back into our slip…all with zero drama. Zero. Drama. My favorite kind of drama.
4. After much perseveration, Michael has ordered new blocks for the mainsheet, choosing to go with the Garhauer 50 series, which is a step up from what we had. We’re excited to play with the angles of the sheet in relation to our hard dodger once we have the deck block in hand.
5. We’ve brought home all the lines and washed them so we can examine them closely to see which ones we’ll want to replace.
6. Continued reorganizing stowage, getting rid of excess stuff we don’t need, creating a manual spreadsheet (otherwise known as a notebook) noting where everything is stored. Note: old line, stored in a plastic bag, makes a dandy filler for oddly shaped bilge areas, creating a flat platform that allows things to be stowed in those areas safely. Why didn’t I know that before?

My manual ‘spreadsheet’. Sometimes I just need to be old school. And these lists, divided by cabin, have already come in handy.

7. Replaced the leaky, albeit brand new, Lewmar hatch in the salon. They sent us a new lid. It does not leak. Finally.
8. Removed the clear polycarbonate window inside the cockpit, looking down into the galley. Bought replacement. Refinished teak under that, filled old screw holes with epoxy, sanded, then painted that part of the cockpit with Total Boat paint. It works great and has held up in other areas, including the sole of the cockpit. Replaced window with new, clear version. We are pleased with it.
9. Painted the ceilings and around all the ports. I’m using Dutchboy Cabinet and Trim latex gloss paint in Nantucket Grey. I painted some of our fiberglass with this stuff years ago and it has held up really well under hard use. Impressed. Working on replacing the dated and worn-out curtains. It’s time for a fresh look.
10. Michael climbed the mast and installed the vane for the anemometer. Now we are a yacht. Both wind speed AND direction? Wow. It’s so fancy.
11. Begun bringing stuff back to the boat from the storage unit. Only the important things first. Like books. And Patrick the starfish. But where is our stack pack for the mainsail? We truly are flummoxed. It’s not like this is a small item that can be stuffed in a corner somewhere. Did we get rid of it, because we were never really happy with it? Unlikely. We are generally loathe to get rid of canvas. But searching the basement, the garage, and the storage unit has revealed nothing so far. The search continues.

We know what’s important. Patrick and our snorkel gear.

The big task checked off the list: put the woodwork back around the chainplates. We are dead pleased with how this came together, and with how we’ve showcased our new boat bling. When you pay this much for stainless steel, you kind of want to show it off. So here’s the end result.

The wood we chose was due to a combination of expediency, availability, and cost. A quick stop at our local hardwood shop for woodworkers brought into sharp focus what we’d be up against if we decided to go with something like Brazilian mahogany or, gods forbid, teak. Not only would our costs absolutely be knocked out of the park, but we’d also be faced with needing to have the wood milled, adding time and costs to an already tight budget and timeline. We decided to go the expedient route and get milled poplar, available in a number of different sizes from the local big box store. Although it’s a soft wood, not my preference for this project, the areas where it’s used are protected and these new chainplates are unlikely to leak. I’ve sealed the wood against swelling due to moisture. However,  if this wood, for any reason, doesn’t hold up over time, it will be very easy to replace it.

I apologized to the gods of Teak as I chose all the sizes I needed to do the job, and then stopped by the paint counter to look at wood stains. We wanted something that would contrast well with the blond wood already there, and also be different from the teak trim we have. To try to match that would have been difficult, if not ridiculous. So instead I went with making it look different by design. In the end, I had stain mixed to my own specifications, having the paint counter worker add brown colorant drop by drop until I got the warm shade of almost-redwood I was after.

Re-purposing some extra teak trim at the bottom to give a nod to the rest of the wood trim in the boat.

Back at the boat, the project came together much more quickly than I anticipated and soon our chainplates were the star of the salon, surrounded by painted fiberglass that matches the paint I used years ago to cover the dated almond colored fiberglass used throughout the boat. That paint job has held up really well. I managed to recycle some teak trim we had from other remodeling projects to accent the new frames above and below, tying the new wood to the old. I call this interior look “Nautical Industrial Chic” (TM).

This weekend we are dog sitting with Emmett, who is definitely an adolescent Aussie. We are forced to sit around and do nothing for a couple of days, which is not our style but I guess we need the break. I imagine we will move back aboard sometime in May.

He’s thinks he’s so grown up.

But, wait! There’s more! As though we didn’t have enough going on, turns out we will be losing the tenant in our little apartment early in May.  I look forward to a fast and furious, but seriously long overdue,  re-do of that space before we say goodbye to the dock.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on channel 16.