Finishing up those last few things...

We're heading out next weekend and that means we have to take care of a few last things and make sure that all the mechanical stuff works.

The inside of the boat is finally getting back to normal. We think we've finally put away just about everything and now we even have places to sit.

There is a section of rub rail on our starboard side that we couldn't remove a re-caulk last winter because we were too close to the boat next to us. Fine, but now was the time to get that done, so on Saturday, we pulled out all those old screws, applied new caulk to the hull-deck joint and re-screwed it back down. Fun job, if you like 3M 4000 fast cure caulk. We also polished off the old stains and rust on the rub rail. No one will ever notice, but it made us feel good to get this completed.

Saturday night, Frances made a great dinner and we enjoyed it in an air conditioned cabin. Bill turns the air conditioning up and Frances turns it down. We make a great couple!

On Sunday, Bill cleaned the windows on the fly bridge and Frances vacuumed the boat. We also tried to put a new cover (if that what it's called) on our old sofa that we named Klobo, after its manufacturer. The two small pieces of carpet shown in the picture were there just temporarily.

Unfortunately, the new cover was too big. Frances says she can return it. Seems to us that the old sofa looks fine even if it does have a stain or two. Stains? Hey, that boating!

On Sunday, we opened the engine hatches and made sure the engines, v-drives and transmissions were functioning and were full of lubricant. One pair of batteries needed a little water. The batteries are now six years old so we'll have to watch them more carefully. We also checked the steering and made sure the heat exchangers were full.

The old Chryslers fired up and we ran them long enough to get about as warm as they get at the dock. It will be good to get them up to speed next weekend. In our view, nothing damages a marine engine faster than not being used.

Next weekend, we're off to Stonington, Conn and Dodson's boatyard where we'll dock and then go see a group of people give a mini-concert on the beach. That group is led by the guy who worked on our air conditioner a couple of weeks ago.

We're going to have to give the old boat about $500 worth of gas. We've calculated that we have about 45 gallons remaining in the tank. It will be interesting to see how good our numbers are.

The video isn't very exciting but what we don't need right now is any boat-related excitement.