Pre honeymoon preparations

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As usual, I've been stupidly busy and haven't posted anything. But I did write a few entries from our honeymoon! So I'll put them up now - better late than never!
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We're off on our honeymoon to the Abel Tasman national park and Golden bay. The weather is divine! I thought I should do a quick update on all the maintenance we did before leaving though, because it was two days of solid work.

First of all we had an anchor winch installed while we were off getting married. It's the prettiest thing I've ever seen in my life. Aside from my husband. Anchoring now is just delicious, and I want to do it over and over just because we can. We have to have the engine running to use it because of all the power it draws, but it has a winch handle to do it manually if we have to. Or if we want to just sail away without the stinky engine. But winching it up is still ten times easier than just pulling it. The anchor winch also came with a brand new anchor which is more universal and has much better holding power than the old one, and new chain and rope. Almost all of our boat fixing funds have now been depleted, but it was 100% worth it. It's a peg winch, because our anchor well wasn't reinforced enough to install an old lady anchor, which I think Garth called a drop anchor. For that type you just press a button from the cockpit and its done. For ours you have to walk up to the bow and stand on a button while you feed the chain into the well. It would just go in on its own but that's probably not great for the deck. I like this way better anyway, we're still spritely enough to walk to the bow and back.

Shiny new anchor winch

Shiny new rope and chain

We also got the fridge installed. Well, Garth did. Kind of. The freezer bit hasn't been installed properly because we're not sure how. So it just kind of hangs there. But we have a fridge! And it doesn't use as much power as we were expecting, which is a plus. The only drawback is that we had to install the compressor in the same compartment as our water bladder. Garth put in a divider and an air vent, but it still heats up the small space and makes the tap water quite warm. Annoying. But our food is cold! We're not really sure how to solve that problem.

This is what it looks like with every single removable panel taken off the floor, with Garth sitting in the bilge

Taking out the old fridge compressor

And it's out!

All of the old fridge pieces

I made a headboard for our cabin, so I don't wake up in the morning with a sore neck to look over at Garth lying on my pillows, while his are in a pile where they've fallen into the walkway. It's not fancy - it just slides into place when we want it and lives on the side of our cabin when we don't. I spent all morning cutting it to size and sanding it down though, and it makes me happy when I can do useful things, because installing electronics is not my best skill. I also fixed the lock on the hatch, so we can actually lock up the boat properly now. Unfortunately that also means we have to actually remember the key all the time.

Sanding the headboard

Fixing the lock

I also oiled all the teak, thoroughly scrubbed the deck and figured out how to service all the winches, which fixed the broken one we're supposed to use for the vang and for reefing. But didn't fix the broken one that's supposed to be for the furler. I really want to get a self tailer on at least one of the headsail sheets and swap out the one already there for the furler. But I'm not sure that will happen, given how much winches cost. I'm a lot stronger than most girls, what with all the aerial acrobatics and pole dancing, but when the wind picks up I really struggle to trim the headsail without somebody to tail me. I'm not sure how Garth does it - I've seen him juggle the wheel and both sheets. And he can steer and furl the headsail at the same time as well, which requires at least 4 hands. He manages it with 2 hands and both feet, somehow. I would be much more likely to trim the sail if we had a self tailing winch, instead of knowing I should do it and then waiting for Garth to get annoyed enough at our inefficient speed to do it himself.

I think those were the main things we fixed, and the boat is all ready for our trip now! I just hope it stays in one piece.

Much love!
Monique xxx

All shiny and clean