Monday, December 18, 2017

Holidays and Projects


Happy holidays everyone! 
Over Thanksgiving, Melissa, Jordan, Caitlyn and I each created new Christmas wreaths. The girls were excited to have their very own for their doors at home and school.
Summer Breeze now has her own!

It's not been ideal weather to go out lately. Either too cold, too windy or too wet. And when you are in the comfort and warmth of your home, it just does not sound appealing to be on the water. So it's project time! An easy one was to build a simple fender holder on the fly bridge. We don't need them at our dock but do need to have them handy, so they are on the flybridge and always either in the way or rolling around. Over the rainy Thanksgiving holiday, Bruce and Matt built this out of PVC pipes. Now the fenders are in place and easy to grab. 

And it's a good time to think about working on the steps. They are still covered in carpeting and we are hoping to restore them to the natural wood and install some clear non skid stair treads. The carpet installers were really happy using their nail guns on these! 
This is going to be a bigger job than we thought.
Bruce is working on "fixing" some of the nail holes. He was actually not cussing then. And we do plan to do something about the wallpaper on the sides by the doorway. 

The refinished steps!
 


           


We had a couple of days that the weather was unseasonably warm and nice so we decided to take a day cruise to just "shake the cobwebs off". We had a beautiful day and perfect tides to cross the sandbar coming and going and very low winds, so off we go for a day cruise. We need more times out like this to get comfortable still. We were 30-40 minutes into the cruise and just about to exit the Toogoodoo Creek when an alarm and THE red button goes off on the console panel! We had an overheated starboard side engine and after deciding that it is most likely a sheared impeller, we decided to turn around and get back on the one engine while we could. The tide and winds were still calm and we were going to need that to turn around in the creek and dock on one engine. We limped back and docked easily though we feel that it could've been a real challenge for us. We were also trying out a new docking line system and that was a total failure but we docked and fixed the lines after. More lessons learned today! These things happen on boats like this and it's always a learning experience. Happy to say that both engine impellers have been replaced and we are ready for another day cruise to test it out. Hopefully soon.

Back to our project list, I decided to update the master bathroom a little more with some backsplash tile. Here is the image with the plain white. I chose Tic Tac Tiles, Antimold, Peel & Stick Wall tiles. Got them from Amazon, here.The reviews were great so I decided, to try them. 
About $50 later and an afternoon plus an hour another day, because I ran out and had to order 1 more tile sheet, we are pretty pleased with it. I do have some places that a professional tile layer would not approve of but Bruce didn't notice!


There are still more projects to tackle this winter. The counter tops and a floor refinish is NEXT on my list though Bruce is already starting to work on the battery bank replacement among other mechanical stuff. Doesn't he realize that he can do all that other stuff later? And if he would let me finish my list now, then he will have ALL the time in the world to do his list without me bugging him? They never learn, do they?

Merry Christmas!
Summer Breeze back home with a beautiful sunrise.


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