Frances gets ready to move onto the boat

Frances spent a lot of time this this past week cleaning the boat interior and putting things away. When we arrived on Saturday morning, everything looked great. We had two things left on our list: caulk under one section of the rub rail on the starboard side and install some lights in the various cabinets and storage spaces.

The caulking project didn't get very far. We arrived on Saturday with new screws and our caulking gun that contained a tube of 3M 4000 caulk but when we tried to use it, we found that most of caulking material had cured in the cartridge, so it was time to find some more. There was none to be found in Norwich, so we planned a short ride to Defender Marine on Sunday to get another cartridge.

That left the lighting project, and since we had all the stuff we needed, we began the installation.

We should explain that getting some light in the cabinets and other storage places on the boat is something that we have wanted to do for some time. We got to talking about it last winter and found some LED lights on the Internet that looked like they would work. They were battery-powered and we normally aren't fans of battery-powered accessories, but running wires to all of these spaces would be a big job so we ordered some of these battery powered lights. Actually, to save on shipping, we ordered quite a few.

These lights look pretty good. They each use three AAA batteries and have a clever mounting plate that has two adhesive strips attached. We have no faith in adhesive strips on a boat, so we mounted the backing plates for each light with a #6 half-inch long flat head screw as well as the adhesive.

Frances decided where she wanted the lights mounted and Bill crawled around and mounted them. There's no fancy door switch; when you want to see what's in the cabinet. you reach in and push the button in the middle of the light.

Of course, you have to remember to turn them off but from what we saw, they really light up the inside of a dark cabinet or clothes locker. We put in a dozen of them and we'll just have to wait and see if they can withstand the marine environment. Our guess is that inside the boat, they will probably be OK.

As you may know, we get nothing for mentioning these things. We just thought that for those that have larger boats and actually spend a lot of time on them, these lights might be useful.

Last winter, we paid $9.95 for a bubble pack of three lights. Now they are available everywhere, including Wal Mart. but are now $13.99, but even at that, they just might bring light to your cabinets.

Next weekend we finish the rub rail caulking project and get ready to cruise to Stonington, about 12 miles to our east. We're looking forward to dropping the lines and going somewhere!