Time Winding Down

As many have told us that the closer to the day we leave the more things you find to do. Such is so true. Both Jeannie and I are done working now. That for me is good as working 10 hour days gave me no time to get much done. Jeannie is now enjoying her first few days from not working since she was 20. I know it will be an adjustment for both of us in spending but we will manage. Were both looking forward to living aboard and know it will be a challenge for us both.

The last few weekends we have been doing a deep clean and putting things back in order on Mutualfun. As always I am told I have to many tools but I have managed to get them out of site, just as out of site out of mind, lol I just hate not to have tools to work with as that is all I have done all my life. It has actually been fun figuring out where we are putting things and what were taking.

We had to give the popcorn maker a try at the dock to see if the inverter would handle it and as it did I watched the amps and it was not as bad as I figured. In about 4 min we had popcorn and a big smile from Jeannie. So that was a go to stay on board, but the microwave is going bye bye in a few weeks. I have added more insulation in the last week to the inside of the freezer side of our fridge as it work well last yr but it has to be better with one more inch of insulation inside.

06/02/10
Over Memorial Day weekend we had our grandson up for 2 nights 3 days and what a time we had.
He is at a age that he is fun to have around as you never know what he will say or do. He just graduated from kindergarten last week and everyone in class received an award. Well his was Mr Joker, go figure. Him and I spent a lot of time in the dingy tooling around different marina's and going up the White River looking for shells.

Now that Jeannie is finally retired, it is a realization that our time is drawing closer to shoving off. We have a few appts to do yet and friends to see. We were at the Flat River grill with a few friends that will be missed but we know many more will be made. Trying to cut cost as we are now on a fixed income and we still have a few things to get.One was a better camera. I stopped by a local pawn shop in Lansing and found a like new Canon full body camera.
We were looking at this riverboat and it is actually setting on the bottom, the hull is about gone. They use it only for stage shows. We still have boat projects to do as in teak and I need to get things but back on but it is all falling into place slowly.

We Splashed Finally

After 6 months on the hard were back in the water. Oh what a good feeling it is. The night before (Thursday) MutualFun was hanging in the slings so the 4 pad spots could be redone as I had to take the old VC 17 off and put back on Micron extra to match the rest of the boat. The weather was touch and go but it did cooperate as the cold front came through on Friday evening. It blew like stink Friday and Saturday and lot of rain so it was a down below weekend. Just as good as I had to get the boat all back in order and livable. In prep for leaving this summer we had to give up our slip that we had for many years. We actually are in not a bad location over over on "C" dock. Were able to actually drive up a lot closer to our boat instead of walking so dang far down the dock on the weekend lugging our bags.

I guess it is a omen as the slip we got had no stinkn dock box to put all of our stuff in. So everything we bring up has to be on the boat.
We could have left our boat cradle there at the marina but I wanted to have it here at home so I could store it in the barn instead of sitting in the weeds and rusting for the next year or longer. It is not actually heavy but more bulky then anything. It is 8 ft wide by 12 ft long. I just took my time bringing it home as I stayed off the super slab and went the back roads. Now begins the process of going through and giving the whole inside a good cleaning and wiping down. There are still a few more projects I need to do for more storage and convince, then the process of loading and packing the boat begins.

The End of Mutual Fur

Ah it is a long story but here it is. When we first got our 36 and put our name on it, I remember it was a cold day that the name was being put on. The starboard side worked out well but as we were putting on the port side name it was getting colder and the decal stated to tear as we were in the process of pealing the backing paper off and I was not happy. So in the heat of the moment I pulled the rest of the backing paper off and also some of the name came with it. Hence it was part of the name as many looked at it and wondered how come we named out boat our boat Mutual Fur. I thought oh my god,
So over the last 7 years or more we have been known by either Mutual Fur or Mutual Fun. We had a lot of calls on the vhf for Mutual Fur but we usually knew who it was but we answered anyhow. But actually we still will be known by Mutual Fur. We figured we better change it before we left so others will not know, but if we hear Mutual Fur on the radio it will be only a select few that know us.

This past weekend I also got installed a new Maxwell VW1500 windlass which we will be a highly used piece of gear for us. We did this on recommendations of other cruisers. They told us that this is something you can not skimp on.

The boat is finally taking shape and things are getting put back together as it seems like each year I have the inside in a disaster. We launch this Friday.