Long Week-End

Travis:

We just survived a four day work week-end on Me Voy. I woke up with more than a few bruises, scrapes, and aching muscles and joints as a result, and from the looks of it Maggie is no better off than I am. So, we decided to take all day today off. It has been a nice time for us to catch up on all of our computer work. I put up a few ads for work and I believe Maggie made some progress on the web site. It's been a pretty kicked back day. It has also been a nice time to reflect on the progress we have made on Me Voy. She has really been coming along now for a while. I think we are finally getting good at all of this terrible work. Don't get me wrong, it's terrible work, but it seems to be getting nicer and coming along faster than it used to. Which is good, because the work is hard and mean! I have never done anything harder and I have never worked with anyone who could outwork Maggie. I can't even believe some of the crap she's doing. Anyway, she got the big part of the bilge painted this week-end and I built new frames in the chain locker. We kicked butt. My friend Tristin welded our leaky fresh water tank on Friday, and had a hell of a time from the sound of it. The stainless steel tank was badly corroded on the low seam which leaked. I welded the worst problem but since I am not that great of a welder I got my friend to do the rest in exchange for fixing a dent in his car. Sweet deal for me! Neither of us knew when we made this deal that there would be any trouble but there almost always is trouble on our boat, and Tristin was about to be dragged into the nasty bilge stinky depths of terror where we have lived for over a year and a half now. Anyway, the tank was so badly corroded that every time he would weld a spot, a new leak bigger than the last would open up next to the old one. I'm not sure what he ended up doing but it must have been pretty lame even though I believe he has succeeded in sealing up the tank. So it will go in next week when we get back from Chicago, visiting Maggie's folks. Then we will build an apparatus of some sort to lift and move the engine into the saloon where it will be looked after. There is a real bad spot of rot under the engine. That will be the last of rotten hull work and we will be ready for floating. Well, nearly. More good times and bad memories to look forward to.