January 21 and it's 52 degrees... now we can get some things done!

We hit the boat early on Saturday to take advantage of the good weather. It was so nice to be able to work without four layers of clothes on. In fact, we didn't even bother with the electric heater.

We cut an accurate cardboard template for the patch we need to repair our so-called triangles.  We have the 3/4-inch plywood ready at home with one side primed with fiberglass resin. We'll cut and test fit the two pieces next weekend. Once we know they fit properly, we'll take them home again and apply resin to the other size and all the edges. It's a little too cold to mess with resin on the boat right now.

In our last post, we mentioned removing the dreaded "white" VHF marine radio at our lower steering station and replacing it with the newly repaired Icom radio, which is black. You'd think that one radio could easily replace another since they are supposed to be a standard size but no, the Icom was just a hair too big fit the cutout used by the old radio. We used our multi-tool to shave off just a little of the panel and in it went. We love that multi-tool!

Rather than pay Icom $49 for a "Flush Mount Installation Kit," we bent and drilled a couple of short lengths of aluminum we had on hand and made our own. Worked fine and when we turned the radio on, the nearest NOAA weather channel came in loud and clear. Frances will now have a nice black radio to work with rather than that ugly white one.

Next we ran the wires needed to power our new light in the head. This took some time because we like things nice and neat (and safe) and because it meant making the connections in a locker not quite wide enough to crawl inside. It all worked out and before we left for the day, that new light was working.

On Sunday, the warm weather continued so we went to the boat immediately after digesting much of The New York Times (as well as some breakfast). We weren't through in the head.

When we remounted the LED strip lights in the galley, we bought another string of LEDs so that we could make the galley lighting a little longer by just adding a short section of new LEDs and splicing them in. But when we were finished with that, we noted that the remaining unused new LED strip was just the right length to mount under the front of the vanity in the head. And for us, the head could always use more light.

It took us a while to figure out how to mount the LED strip so that it wouldn't be obvious and all of the wiring was hidden. Once we had a plan, it took several hours to get it done, since our head isn't the easiest place to work.

Here's the head before installation of the new LEDs. 

and after they were installed and powered up. We'll mount a switch inside that cabinet next weekend.

Before we left, we turned on the VHF and heard the weather forecast for Long Island Sound over the next few days. "Seas 13 to 18 feet, wind gusts to 60 miles per hour." We're glad to be where we are.