MAKING PROGRESS

Got our dinghy wheels installed.  What should have only taken a morning turned into a two day job.  A lot of that time was spent riding a bus to the marine store to get needed supplies, and back.  The bus service here is pretty good, but we had to walk about a mile on each end.  The  issue that made the installation a pain was a void in the transom.  The manufacturer should have laid it up solid to better carry the loads imposed by the outboard motor.  A solid transom would also allow me the tighten the bolts holding the wheels on without worrying about squeezing and cracking the fiberglass.  My solution was to drill a bunch of holes and inject epoxy into the void, creating a hard spot for the bolt. 

It's kind of odd seeing a big ol' set of wheels hanging on the dinghy.  They do swing up when we are out on the water trying to get somewhere, and then swing down when coming ashore.  The idea is to run in on the back of a wave until the wheels hit the shore, then Judy jumps off at the bow and pulls us up out of the break.  Theoretically.  I have seen a dinghy launched about five feet into the air, spilling people, fuel tanks, beer and cameras.  And that was only about a two foot break.  Gonna be high anxiety the first few times.

Injecting the epoxy was a gooey job.  There should be a law against me doing gooey jobs.  If there is the smallest possibility of making a mess, I create a catastrophe.  The epoxy job was a disaster.  I spread the goo everywhere possible.  But, being an old fart, I am learning to outfox the goo.  I wear gloves, and change them minute to minute, I spread tarps, I apply reams of tape, I have Judy stand by with rags and advice, and I have gallons of acetone at hand for mop up.  And I need it all.  But at the end of the day everything kind of looks OK.

Today I went around and spread a special black caulk into and around some of the deck seams that were starting to fail.  Same drill, gloves, tape, tarps, Judy and acetone.  Got it done and it's looking good.

Tomorrow I will start to learn how to run our short wave radio.  We need it to get weather.  No internet to get the NOAA weather reports, we have to download them through our radio.  This is kind of like being back in college.  Back then I never cracked a book until the last week of the semester.  My education, what there was of it, occurred on those NoDoz overnighters just before finals.  I remember whining to my friend, Gale, that I was gonna grow up soon and not have to do this anymore.  Well, forty years later, I've got two or three days to learn the process, starting with: "Which dial turns this thing on?"  Oh well, I'm to old to grow up, so I guess I'll just have to deal with it.

One other thing, we're still in San Diego.  It's warm, shorts and tee shirt weather.