It's for the birds!

Ahh, spring is in the air.
 I can tell that because the birds are nesting at the marina. Little starlings and purple martins and some larger black birds.
The starlings and purple martins took an instant liking to the hole at the end of my boom. I immediately removed their pitiful attempt at building a condo in there and sealed it closed with plastic wrap. Problem solved.
Three days ago, I was awakened by pine needles fluttering down through he rear overhead hatch. Bummer. I went topside to see that they had figured out that my sail cover was open enough to climb inside and had started building a nest on my sail. Eviction was swift. I went below and returned with some clips to hold the cover closed. It hasn't worked as well as I thought it would.
The starlings moved to the front of the main, near the mast. This is higher up. For me to reach it involves climbing some steps we have there, and then onto the winches, hanging on to the mast as I go. Then I have to remove one arm from the death grip on the mast and reach inside to clear out the nest. It must be done however, or the little Bastards darlings will lay eggs in the mainsail. This would be a disaster of the Nth degree, since we plan to go sailing this weekend. Having those broken eggs frying on the deck might raise my emotional ire a few points. I like birds, but not when their future offspring are superglueing their remains to my boat deck.
 I have had to remain vigilant; these little guys (guess I should say gals) have been creating mess for me to run around and clean out on about an every two hours schedule. They have found a way into the rear of the mainsail cover now as well, the creative little devils.
Tuesday we went to Washington, a four hour trip. I went to clean the nests out as soon as we returned. Two eggs fell out onto the deck. Now my husband thinks I'm a baby bird murderer.
 I ran for the hose to get rid of the evidence mess. I had the windows open on the boat. Now I am aware that all water seeks the interior of my boat.That was kind of a bonus I didn't much appreciate.
I am going to wrap the plastic wrap around the rear of the sail cover today and see if I can at least have one "off-limits" area that works. This morning I woke to the usual falling of the pine needles on the overhead hatch. I went up and evicted the nest. This bird didn't get the memo that I was coming. I saw the sail cover fluttering madly. The culprit was still inside! I lightly patted the cover to see which way she would exit. This could be insight for how and where to encapsulate the cover against future attacks. It squeezed through between two of the clips I had put up. I couldn't fit a piece of paper between those clips.
 Now I knew that these creatures would stop at nothing to provide their offspring with the best in nesting accommodations. It's my boat, so they declared war first. Gosh I hope the plastic wrap works. The only other thing I can think of involves removing the main for nesting season.

Wow! We could actually go out sailing now! We have THE ZONE.

If Journey had wings, I could fly this thing!
Al has been working steady for the last week on getting all the instruments and wires connected and installed in what we will now refer to as "The Zone".
I was able to do little custom things, like constructing these cute little spacers to hide the wires as they traverse between the guard pole and the instrument pod. They were made out of the left over spacers in the guard kit in case your guard pipe is a different diameter. But.... they are the ones supplying us with said guard kit and spacers, so... don't they know what they're shipping to us? If you can figure that one out, you're better than me!

Here we see the wires exposed, large hole yelling"YO! Wasps/ Muddubers! Flophouse right in here!

Here we see the same area with spacer shown below at right, covering the holes.

spacer at left was artistically Dremeled into shape to fit snugly.

Close up of the technologically advanced design in use
.

 Of course it was all possible because of the heavy duty work that Al has done to get it to this stage. He had to build this whole thing from scratch. Speaking of that, we must see The Zone as it looks all new finished and shiny. I like shiny.

THE ZONE

Kinda like piloting a 747. Well, maybe not, but it looks cool!

And of course I got to add my touch to the front of the pods as well. Notice the small instrument bottom right?

Our autopilot, Wolley (pronounced Wally)

Raising the mast

And don't forget to turn off the music player in the right hand margin.

Identify the enemy

Ever since Al and I started with sailboats, we have heard the dreaded tales of the cruisers who weren't. For whatever reason, these poor souls had fully intended to spend their days at anchor in gorgeous island settings, and then "POOF", something happened to their plan and there they are, to this day, tied up in yonder slip over there. Reckon they will never leave.
I know what happened.
It was the air conditioning.
Yep, pluggin' into the dock, and experiencing the cool, dehumidified blissful sleep that can only come from the air conditioning did them in.

I am currently in that same state of satisfied nirvana that has grabbed the gonads of many a sailor and laid them low.
Of course, I tell myself, We are still working on the boat and couldn't go anywhere if we wanted to right now; I mean, the instrument pods are dancing all over the cockpit floor, the giant chartplotter box has yet to have us miscut the template, sending us into sure panic and subsequently in search of a restaurant.
But then I think, "This is how the air conditioning works." It lulls you into a sense of false security, slowly, sensually, seductively weaving its icy tendrils around your sweat glands until you don't know if you were even ever meant to leave the dock.
I must remain vigilant.
But that is so hard to do when I step below into a chilled environment that any self-respecting southern boat-dweller would give up her Bahamas chartbooks for.

My ice cup runneth over

For the first time in my sailing life, I have refrigeration.  Smugly, I can say “I made a load of ice today.”
I can keep fresh milk and crisp veggies.

I no longer have to raise an eyebrow at the mayonnaise jar, as I wonder if it’s going to lay us down if I make a sandwich with it. I can now follow the recommendations to refrigerate after opening. No more scraping the mold off the top of the jam and hoping Al didn’t notice.

 My ice tea is COLD. Cold ice tea is very refreshing. Of course I do have some issues. I took the frozen vertical ice trays out of the freezer and stared at them this afternoon. How to get the ice out? First I tried the old standby, run it under water. Soon it loosened, and I had a big wad of ice encasing a plastic tray divider. Try as I might, this would not give up its treasure. I finally watered it down until I could get it to start breaking loose. Al stepped in to help, and soon we had a large bin of watery ice that is sure to re freeze into a mass that only an ice pick can separate. It’s a new bin, so I’m looking into other options. All advice will be welcome. It’s just that, with our history, I’m sure we are going about this all wrong. 

We went to the store tonight and I bought milk and fruit and broccoli. I remember feeling like this when I first moved out into my own place and had purchased my first fridge. I went to the store
and bought my first food that I had picked by myself. I brought it home and unpacked it. I only had money for soup, cheese and bread. I put the cheese in the fridge. It looked lonely. For the first six months or so, all I could afford was cheese. I had a full size fridge with a pack of American cheese in
it.

Today I bought cheese. But I also bought other stuff to keep it company.