What to do, what to do....

We slept in this morning, and it was glorious!  The warmth of the sun streaming in our hatch woke us up.  We were refreshed and ready to tackle the day.

I may have said this already...we have discovered that no matter whether you leave a boat in the water or up on the hard, simply leaving a boat sitting unused, for eight months, in the elements, is hard on it.  We have a ridiculous to do list already.  I have a feeling the more we tear into the boat, the more we will discover something else that doesn't work!  The absolute MUST DO before anything else is to get the head properly working again.  The switch is getting power, but the motor for the macerator (poop grinder, if you really want to know!) is seized up.  You press the button, and nothing happens.  You know how much the OCD in me hates filth, especially anything involving body fluids or someone else's dirt, so I wanted no part of The Helga Project.

So we discussed what all needs to get on the To-Do list, and come up with the following items so far:

GET BESSIE RUNNING- we are dead in the water without an engine.
Fix Helga
Order a new blade for Windy
Fix the winch for the main halyard
Sand, stain and varnish the cockpit table
Get the bbq working again
Get the propane stove working again
Check on the refrigerator and pray that it fires up!
Get the dinghy put together and launched
Get our bikes out of storage and serviced
Get a cable box from Larry and get the TV hooked up
Provision the boat
Continue bleaching and oiling the teak in the galley and chart table area
Bleach and oil the teak flooring
Change out the carpeting down below
Run to Home Depot to get gardening supplies
Give the topsides a thorough washing and waxing
Sand and oil the teaks on deck
Get with Laura and Bill to get our dodger up and bimini zipper fixed
Get Willis moved on board!!!

Just MAKING the list was tiresome, and just THINKING about the list was exhausting.  So what did we decide to do?  Go to the pool to hang out with the family and play a rousing game of chickenfoot!  And so we did :)

Here's my niece Meagan and baby Reece that had just gotten out of the pool. So cute.

I ended up taking Derek and Courtney (my nephew and his wife) back to the airport.  They had a 7:30pm flight back to Indianapolis, but we needed to be on the road by no later than 2:45pm as we were heading up to Ft. Lauderdale.  It's quite a haul, and there's the usual construction and it was rush hour traffic- oh joy.  I got the kids to the airport in plenty of time, and then I headed to Walmart in Florida City where I pick up Hwy 1 going back down to the Keys.  I figured I could at least accomplish something off the to do list, so I decided to go ahead and provision the boat, even though the galley is not thoroughly cleaned yet.  Donnie stayed behind and he and Paps tore in to Helga until dark- she's only half fixed.  Now the macerator come on, but the water just spins and won't go down.  Seems like there's a clog somewhere. Nuts.

I finally came dragging in to Banana Bay at nearly 11:00pm.  It was after 1am by the time I bleached the galley, oiled the cabinets and got everything stowed properly away. The good news is that the refrigerator does work- at least something doesn't need fixed!

To be honest, it was a dream job for somebody like me- cleaning and organizing. Hooray!

So, tomorrow is another day...perhaps we'll scratch a few more things off the list- or not!  We're in retirement-mode, afterall :)