June 29, 2018

Friday Funny 6-29/18 (Food, Fun, and Family)

I'm on it.

I just realized that our current lifestyle could be considered a permanent staycation. It's also an odd thought that friends, and family are coming to visit, for their vacation, while I'm on staycation. 

A staycation (a portmanteau of "stay" and "vacation") is a period in which an individual or family stays home and participates in leisure activities within driving distance of their home and does not require overnight accommodations. Wikipedia

My brother, and his wife are coming next week, and we're looking forward to the visit. As usual, whenever someone is coming, it's a good time to get some procrastinated projects out of the way. The shower stall is getting a fresh caulking, it'll be clean and bright. I posted about the overhead hatches last week, and I've been polishing the interior brass. I wanted to get the salon cushions recovered last winter, but you all know how that went, so I'll be content with doing a good cleaning.

Barometer, and clock.

Inside steering station.

Ship's bell.
All of the doors have old-fashioned skeleton key locks, and of course they need polishing as well.

I stubbed my toe during the cleaning this week, and shhhh don't tell Bill. His mantra is that all injuries will be amputated, and I would like to keep all my toes attached. I'm pretty sure I broke it, so just add that to the list of appendages that I have broken. (Good grief!)

Ouch!

Wrangell has a whiz bang fun 4th of July Celebration, and the hotel, and all B&B's are full. I have my google calendar all set for the activities I want to attend.

I really wanted to participate in the egg toss this year, but since I'm still on crutches, I don't think it'll be a good idea.

2017 egg toss on Main Street.

Wrangell has had a tradition since 1950 for the month leading up to the 4th festivities, they organize a royalty contest. The teens sell food, rummage sales, car washes, and drawing tickets everyday for a month, whoever sells the most tickets wins. The winner gets to keep a portion of their earnings for scholarship, earns the title of King or Queen, and the rest funds next years celebration.  Seems odd to me, that the 4th is all about our freedom, and the break with England's royalty, but we crown someone King or Queen here. Maybe we should give them the title of President instead? The first four tickets that are pulled at a drawing, also win prize money, so it's a win/win no matter what you call it.

2017 Royalty on their parade float, throwing candy, and waving.

There's sunny weather predicted for next week. Woo hoo, bring on the parade, food, games, and fireworks!



 As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page




June 22, 2018

Friday Funny 6-22/18 (Maintenance- Boat and Me)



Don't you think that would be cool? Imagine having a work team come and take over all of the household chores that you put off for someday, unfortunately, I don't think that's a possibility with a boat. Most owners I know, do almost all of their own maintenance, or mechanical work, and only have a few tried, and true experts come to do specific jobs. You have to trust your boat, and it's parts, and pieces with your life, so it's more serious than someone messing up a part of your house.

While I was gone in Anchorage for my doctor's appointments, Bill did quite a few of the chores we have on priority. You have to put your jobs in an ordered list, or you'll get bogged down with what's next. 


We had teak framed bug nets on the hatches in the main salon, you unlatch them, and swing them down to open the hatch.



Bill changed them out for these new shade, and netting hatch covers. They slide open to access the hatch opening, slide the netting across, or slide a cover over the entire thing. Pretty slick.





I know we just got a new Espar heater and controller, but now we have a newer new controller. This one you can set to temperature. [And it interprets diagnostic codes from the heater and provides clues in English...]

He was also working on running the new wiring for the solar panels he installed last summer, not quite done yet, but in progress. 

While new projects are being completed, alternate issues always make themselves known. I was doing laundry, hanging up the clothes to dry in the work room, and something dripped on me. I looked at my arm, and it was some kind of red liquid. Eeek Blood! No, not that... silly me. Bill came, and said that it looked like hydraulic fluid from our steering column. Wrangell has had temperatures in the 80's this last week, (WHAT!?! Yeah, Alaska southeast rainforest has hot weather....), and he thought the line had burped from the heat. 

The ceiling in the workroom, under the steering pedestal.

Overhead in the workroom, he jammed an oil absorbent cloth around the line, to see how much, or if it would leak again.

The steering pedestal.
Then he took the back off of the pedestal, looked in for more leakage, found some, mopped it up, and now we'll wait to see if there is more. It's important to keep steerage, for obvious reasons....

Bill even took time out to make some cat videos. Who doesn't like cat videos?


"I can jump in"



"I can jump out."

That's all good news, Denali Rose getting more new stuff... now for the bad news.

I was going to be in Anchorage for 3 days, and ended up with 8. My surgeon sent me to another doctor,  a foot and ankle specialist. After more x-rays, and a cat-scan, we're still not quite sure what the problem is. They sent me home, with instructions to put my post-surgery boot back on if it relieves the pain, and try to put as much walking weight on it as pain allows. They see some bone loss in the ankle that concerns them, possible minute cracks, and need me to weight bear on it to increase bone mass. The ankle/foot doctor will call me in about a month, and see how I'm doing. 

Here's to MORE bone, LESS pain. 

Bring on the vodka, Grey Goose please! (maybe with a few green olives in it, oh well, just make me a dirty martini.)



 As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page