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| Goodbye winter! |
The time finally came to come out of hibernation and let the light in. Cygnet has be unwrapped and is ready for the warmer months ahead! This past Saturday was sunny and warm so it seemed like a great day to get the job done. Kevin devised a plan to cut the wrap in half vertically so that we could pull it off in two more manageable pieces. Colette cut out the "door" for use next winter and then climbed up on the roof to slice the plastic in two with a box cutter. Kevin pulled the plastic off from the swim platform and dragged it onto land. The front piece was much larger and took some wrangling to ball it up and drag it onto the lawn by our dock and then to the dumpster. Overall it wasn't too difficult a task and we are very happy to see our boat again!
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| Hello Sunshine! |
Now the the wrap is off we can run the engines again. Kevin recently changed the oil and distributor caps but hadn't been able to test his work to see if it made a difference or not. She started up pretty quickly and sounds smooth and happy. Both engines seem to be running better than last year!
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| Hear those babies purr... |
One item that's been on our to do list is to move our fender holders. They were screwed into the railings on the inside near the front of the bow. This caused anyone walking up to the bow to have to step up into the center of the boat to get around and created less space for people to hang out. As anyone who's been on a boat before knows, the bow is a very popular spot to be so this problem needed to be remedied. The one issue was that the existing holes were not in the correct place for mounting on the outside. Kevin worked hard and used multiple drill bits to drill new holes in the railings. We made sure to position them where they wouldn't stick out further than the widest part of the boat so that they wouldn't become obstructions. They are now on the outside and have really opened the bow up.
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| Get out of the way |
Another project we decided to tackle was to begin creating our bar. We have a cabinet on our aft deck that's been filled with random cleaning supplies, flares, and junk. Since we first moved aboard Cygnet we've thought this would make a perfect bar. There is a bar area inside, but it doesn't quite suit our needs and we would rather have it out where we're entertaining. We moved the cleaning supplies and spare screws and washers out to where we keep the rest of that stuff in our dock box. Colette gave the cabinet a scrub down and we filled it up again with liquor. We will still be using the cabinet for some essentials like flares and a fire extinguisher, but there's plenty of room for both uses. The next steps will be to glue fabric to the walls inside the cabinet for esthetics, add a padded mat and some rails to the base to hold the bottles in their place, and finish our new door for the cabinet. Currently there are two doors that open out the the sides. Kevin cut a single door from a nice piece of marine plywood that was left over from when we had our floors installed. The plan is to stain it and seal it with Captain's Varnish, then hang it so that its hinged on the bottom and opens down to form a table for crafting cocktails. Then we'll add some lighting and a lock and it will be good to go!
So what are we thinking about moving into spring? With the challenges we endured this winter we're delighted for the warmer months ahead, but feel confident we can tackle next winter.
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| She shines day and night |
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