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Back to the chaos of Green
Cove Springs
10th April - 8th May 2007
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Now we were back aboard and all port side tanks
were back in place over the repaired and repainted hul. Our first job was
to build a new cabin sole beneath the kitchen area, which would allow us to
construct a temporary working galley. Of course, despite a
very cunning numbering system for all the pieces of wood we'd dismantled
from the galley, when we came to rebuild a temporary version, it was the
world's most difficult and frustrating jigsaw puzzle. Tracking
down the right pieces amongst the ever increasing mountain of wooden bits of
boat cabin beneath the boat was not easy, but finally by the end of the day
we had a functional galley, with a worktop constructed of old pieces of
cabin sole and the sink and cooker temporarily reinstalled. At
least now at the end of a long hard work day we wouldn't need to stand
outside in the baking heat, surrounded by bugs, to cook dinner.
Next we set to work on ripping out the
starboard side of the cabin. This side was somewhat more complex
due to the necessity of relocating the fridge and freezer and the fact that
all the electrical wiring for everything on the boat was connected to a
panel on this side of the boat. In addition to this we had to
pump all the diesel from the two starboard side tanks into the newly
reinstalled tank on the port side, to enable us to lift the two starboard
tanks. Luckily we mentioned our trepidation about this
diesel pumping operation to the right person at happy hour and Norm lent us a handy pump he
had aboard his boat for just such purposes.
After all the initial preparations, we
transformed the cabin with much brute force, blood, sweat, tears and
swearing.....
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....from this.......
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......to this.......
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......to this....
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.....to this.
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We were pleased to find that the starboard side
hull, most likely due to the lack of water sources on that side of the boat,
was in much better shape than the port side and no welding would be
required. There were just a few rust spots requiring small
repair and then we would be able to repaint in preparation for reinstalling
the tanks.
At one particularly memorable moment during
the repainting operation, when Phil and Christine found themselves both down
in the bilges applying primer to the hull, it was decided that our next
priority should be to buy good respirators for the job, as we both suddenly
began to feel mighty peculiar! With the aid of the
respirators the job was much less hazardous and the fumes could hardly be
noticed at all, until the moment at the end of each long hard day, after
placing temporary floor panels down to allow us to eat aboard, we sat down
amongst the diesel and water tanks, to enjoy a lovely dinner and some tv
entertainment without the masks!
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A restful evening in front
of the TV, chez Anju!
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On this side of the boat three of the four tanks
were to be reinstalled. Only one was cut in half and removed
using our previous hazardous methods! This was the last of the
obsolete water tanks and this one too had never been used in our ten years
aboard. Taking it out, as we had done with its neighbour on the
opposite side of the boat, would free up a large area of the bilge for use
for storage.
The remaining three tanks were given a paint
job and dropped back into place. Our next job then was to rebuild the
floor, allowing us to begin to rebuild the sofa and lockers, giving us much
more living space. Once we had a place to sit, it was time to
turn our attention to the more tricky end of the cabin, where we had a large
tangle of electrical cables.
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During our 10 years living aboard, whenever we
installed a new piece of equipment we'd needed to run new electrical cables
from the electrical panel to far flung areas of the boat.
With the structure of the cabin and the floor in place, this usually meant
fumbling around under the floor and groping to grab the end of a cable to
pass it from one point to another, using whichever route the cable decided
to take. As a result once the floor was lifted, the tangle
of electrics was not a pretty sight.
Whilst we had the opportunity we spent a day,
firstly identifying each cable and then re-routing cables into a much neater
and more accessible layout. Of course, after rebuilding
the cabin if we should need to install something new, we'd start building a
new cable tangle.
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In two months we'd dismantled the whole cabin,
stripped out everything down to the bare hull and then re-installed
everything. All we had to do now was to rebuild the galley
properly and build a new bathroom from scratch and we'd be back to where we
started from in February. We did have the major benefit of
knowing that whole section of inaccessible hull was repaired, repainted and
good as new, hopefully to last many more years before needing this kind of
maintenance.
However, before continuing our projects, we
decided it was time for another break. We had an offer too good
to turn down from our friends Chris and Vivian in the much cooler mountains
of North Carolina, we were invited to their house to help them build a new
kitchen. OK, so it was a busman's holiday but at least it
was a holiday!
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