In Deep By Michael

The wide angle lens is very distorting. The shallow-looking cavity
where the floor is removed held two wedge-shaped water tanks
that are 50 gallons each. It took two days to get to this point.
Note the furniture suspended next to the mast. There is a solid
metal rod that runs parallel to the mast that passes through
the nice trim on this piece. It was easier to slide it up on the
rod than to remove either the trim or the rod. I have no
idea what this rod is for.

A close friend emailed the other day to say she was enjoying recent posts about boat work, but would really like to hear more about the girls and what they are up to. So anyway, I got the water tanks out, both sitting on the dock tonight. I didn't get them out in time to take them to the machine shop today, but that is the first thing on my agenda tomorrow morning.

I'm borrowing a car from Tim aboard Sababa. He has an old Hyundai he brought down from Arizona a couple of weeks ago. I figure I'll stick one tank at a time in the back and bungy the trunk lid down.

I'll know more tomorrow, but assuming the turnaround time on the tanks is one week, and assuming it takes me three days to reinstall them: I could complete this project by the first weekend in December. And if I can wrap up the chain plate and anchor roller projects in the interim, we could be out sailing that weekend!

Oh, Windy and the girls are probably going to head into Puerto Vallarta tomorrow to check out the new Happy Feet movie, a nice respite that will keep them off the boat while I paint the bilge with some special-purpose, toxic polyurethane paint.

--MR

This is how things looked at the end of day one. Note the shiny, still-unremoved,
stainless steel water tanks beneath the floor joists. Oh, and there is Frances
in her skivvies, trying to squeeze past the stack of tool boxes on the way
out of the head. Of course, since the holding tank had to come out to access
the water tanks, nobody is using the head today...nor tomorrow, nor the following day.