Super Bowl Sunday

It was quiet at Portland Riverside Marina today probably because most of the boaters who we usually see tinkering with their boats were home polishing up their giant flat screen TVs before the big game begins. We don't really care about the game but do marvel at the economics: Five million dollars per 30-second spot.

We get access to all the new Super Bowl TV spots via the internet. We'll watch them tomorrow morning.

Installing a fuse

If you read this blog, you know that we've been adding much needed lights in the head and upgrading the ones we had in the galley. All of these lights are wired directly to the port side 12-volt distribution buss that is behind the lower helm. That's fine but everything needs to be fused and today, we installed a fuse in that line. We would have preferred a 12-volt circuit breaker but those made for marine use are way over-priced in our estimation. So we drilled a hole in the side of the lower helm and mounted a fuse holder that no one will ever even notice.

The rotten port-side triangle

That project continues. We have the new 3/4-inch plywood pieces cut and almost ready to go.  They don't fit perfectly yet so we'll have to a little more trimming and sanding before they can be fastened into place. That will happen next weekend, hopefully.

Tinting the boat windows

This is something that we began exploring once we found out that replacing our slowly deteriorating blinds on the boat was nearly impossible. No one seems to make marine blinds and if they do, they are extremely expensive.

Tinting the side and back windows seemed to make sense since we could potentially reduce the load on our air conditioner and retain some degree of privacy.

Frances took charge of this effort and she came up with two companies that work on boats. The first, in Fairfield County, gave us a quote that was close in cost to replacing one of our engines. The other, in Montville, gave us a much lower price and will visit us here in Hartford this week to show us how the various tint options work.

Nothing will happen until we're back in Norwich for the summer but we think that tinting is in our future. Let's hope it works the way we want it to.

The Marina at American Wharf

Speaking of Norwich, we check the Marina at American Wharf website each week just to see what they have in store for us next summer. So far, nothing. The website is now woefully outdated, with events back as far as 2015 still listed. The Sunset Burger Company is shown as about to open but as we remember, they struggled though last summer and then left, much like the restaurant operator before them.

Right now, they have $2,300 of our money for a slip next summer. Let's hope they come up with a business plan that works.