A Week at the Boatyard: 10/31/2021 – 11/7/2021

Hi! Let’s jump right in to this week’s recap-

Last Sunday we moved into a new Airbnb. We were excited to see our new place had a large kitchen and a pool table, so we took advantage of both and had a chill Halloween night in. ❤️

On Monday our new helm seat was supposed to be delivered to the boatyard, so we drove over to check it out- only to be disappointed when it didn’t show. We’ve become increasingly frustrated with the delays we’ve been experiencing. The national supply and labor shortage has definitely impacted our schedule and it’s been discouraging having to extend our time out of the water. 

Luckily, our helm seat arrived the next morning, and we were able to get a welder out to install it the next day!

Our welder, Joseph, ended up being a pretty interesting guy- born and raised in Cape Canaveral, has been welding for decades (and used to weld for NASA)! He arrived around 10am Wednesday morning and set up an entire mobile workshop in front of our boat, with a trailer full of equipment behind it. 

We were able to sort out the logistics of mounting the new helm seat to the original stainless steel frame, lifting the seat a few inches in the process so we will be able to see the horizon while seated (which we couldn’t with our previous seat). Ray and I took Joe out to lunch, then the three of us headed back to the boat to finish up the job. 

We wrapped things up just before sunset, and we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out! We filmed the whole process, you can watch it here, but here is a little before and after:

Quite the upgrade, huh? We think so! We spend a lot of time sitting at the helm and our old seat just wasn’t cutting it. We can’t wait to actually use this one! ☺️

Thursday morning we headed back to the boat to do a little cleaning, and Ray finished up the cutouts for our final nav desk panel.

We spent the rest of the afternoon figuring out the usual: what’s next? We’re set to check out of our current Airbnb on the 10th, but man have we been robbed by these Airbnb prices lately… It just seems so silly to be paying for an overpriced Airbnb, renting a car, and paying storage fees for Sabado in the boatyard. 

Fortunately, our boatyard neighbors overheard us and offered a solution. It turns out they have a rental property nearby that they’ve just finished renovating that they’d be happy to rent to us until a Sabado goes back in the water at a reasonable price. ☺️

With that squared away, we called it a day and headed home. We continued our usual routine Friday and Saturday: boatyard in the morning, work until it gets too hot, then back to the Airbnb to do any computer work/laundry that needs to get done before cooking dinner and watching a movie. 

Overall, it feels really good to be making progress on the boat. The helm seat was such a fun upgrade, and it has inspired us to keep pushing through our other projects! Hopefully we’ll be getting back to our lives on the water in early December…

Anyway, I’m posting this while we’re on our way to brunch. There’s nothing like celebrating a week’s worth of work with bottomless mimosas! I hope you all had a great week. ❤️