Abundance

Why is T's mouth open and his eyes have that look of incredulity?

That's because he's holding $9000 dollars worth of Raymarine chartplotter and radar electronics that we got for free! FREE!

These units, although installed previously in some rich guy's boat, still smell like new plastic, and their owner's manuals don't have any, evidence of spilled drinks at all!

You see, another perk of T's job and a huge testament to the generosity of Diversified Marine , is the stuff we get handed down to us when a boat is being upgraded with new systems. In this case we scored a Raymarine RL80Crc Plus and a RL70C Plus, which is basically a radar and

chartplotter that is capable of integrating with our current Raymarine instruments. Its actually two separate displays that you hook up together so that you can see the chartplotter and radar both below deck and in the cockpit. Awesome! We also got a Raydome (radar) which is another $2000! That pretty much completes our must have electronics list for Me Voy! All in one swoop and three boxes, we got roughly $11,000 worth of electronics one evening. I'm blown away and so so grateful! Thank you so much Tom!

Also in the pic you may notice a thing getting knocked off of our to do list on L.M. , and that is the rotten shelf in the galley. This small project, once again proved the age old wisdom that there are no small projects on a boat, as I had to rip out half the bulkhead (wall) in the galley and a part of the hull the get rid of all the rot and replace it with new wood. After painting the new bulkhead, and varnishing the shelf, together T and I hung our new galley light, which, we're on a roll, T found next to a dumpster! People throw away such nice things. Is that only in America? When I lived in the van, Yumbum, (b.t -before travis) I would drive around looking for nice things in the trash. I lived in L.A. at the time, and by going to the rich neighborhoods, I found some really neat stuff, that I would later clean up and re-sell at flea markets. It was quite a successful venture, especially if I hit the jackpot and chanced upon a movie set that just finished shooting. Once I found a roll of the most beautiful upholstery fabric, a huge roll, brand new, that I sold for $250 to a fabric warehouse. That was quite a score as my expenses were low, spent mostly on gas which was about $1.15 p/g, and I ate at a organic farm that I hung around at. It was a lovely set up. Then I met T and there was no more room for storing stuff in the van. In fact with two people, Yumbum, became quite small, quite fast. But that's a story for another time and a coffee table book!

Back to the now. The shade T found is all glass, in perfect shape. It casts the most pleasing 12v light, making our galley booth feel very romanitc. Notice the chains that are preventing it from swinging as the boat rocks. That's what's so fun about working on a boat. All the details that one would never think about while on land, are critical to making something work on the water. Case in point was yesterday. With gusts of over 60 knots, Lucy Maru lurched and rocked in her slip, but our new light remained centered.

I wish I could say the same thing about us. We were, however, quite puckered as we listened to the howling wind, the groaning docklines, and the occasional screeching of the fenders as they held us off of the dock. I wonder how a night like that would be on a mooring bouy.