The warmer weather certainly brought the boaters out to the marina. Finally, there were places to park and we could again walk into the shed where the boat is stored without having to climb through a snow bank.
We used our time on Saturday to install the remote switch for the inverter. This little box plugs into the inverter and allows the inverter to be turned on and off without having to lift a hatch. It is also a receiver for a little wireless remote that also turns the inverter on and off. Not quite sure why we need yet another little remote but since it came with the inverter, we figured we'd install it.
The bottom of the lower steering station console seemed as good a place as any to mount this switch and that location enabled us to snake the wire from behind the console, down under the floor to where it plugs into the inverter. This location also allows the little wireless remote to "see" the switch throughout the salon, not that we expect to use it very often. Seems to us that we turn the inverter on and leave it on most of the time. Guess we'll have to see how this all works once we are back in the water.
Just to test things before we scratched the inverter installation off our list, we plugged some stuff into the inverter outlet and the simulated disconnecting shore power by turning off AC to the inverter. The inverter came on line using battery power in less than a second and the lamp we had plugged in seemed just as bright as when using shore power. Our meter showed nice steady 115 VAC. We let the inverter run for a few minutes that way, noting that the two cooling fans on the inverter came on as they should. We didn't observe any smoke, fire or odd smells, so we shut the inverter down and declared that project finished.
We also took some time to reroute some of the toilet wiring behind the vanity, vacuum up the debris that has been accumulating and take some measurements for the next item on our list; running a length of cable TV coax cable from the cockpit, through the engine space and under the salon floor to the point where our TV is mounted. Last summer, we got by running the coax through a salon window, over the dash and through the lower wheel, which was a pain in the neck when we untied the boat to leave and it also looked tacky.
Sunday, we decided to stay at home and work together on a project we do each year. Frances finished the layout for a spring sales brochure that we produce for Portland Riverside's marine store. This is the 6th year we have produced this brochure and this year, Frances took charge of it and carefully edited the photo arrangement and editing of the more than 120 items that are part of the sale. She also fixed the captions and highlighted the places where we still need pricing information. She would like to say that her hair is a Halloween wig, but sadly, it is real and in need of color renewal (not attended to since SEPTEMBER!!!). We (per Frances) do not intend to go au natural, as is quite attractive on Sue and Carol Ann....Yikes!
Bill decided to take on a project that he has been dreading: cleaning the windows on the 12 sections of our bridge enclosure. We washed each one of them when we took them off the boat in the fall, but the plastic window sections needed to be carefully cleaned, inside and out. As Frances worked on the brochure, Bill got down and cleaned each window on each section.
We knew there were a couple of issues that will need professional repair, among them a sticky zipper on one section and a couple of snaps that look funky and will need some reinforcement. Better get them fixed now because once the boat is back in the water, the bridge top goes up and off we go.
As we post this, the weather promises more snow but what the hell, this week we received our SeaTow renewal and the summer slip renewal contract, so can spring be far behind?
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