Our Boating Life Had Officially Begun … Sort Of!

The time had finally arrived. After so many months of hard work Becky was finally going to fulfill her destiny … as a floating cottage!

Leanne and I arrived in Wiarton on Friday evening and found they had moved our boat to another slip. This was so they could be close enough to their shop so that they could work on her over the next few weeks.

After getting all of weekend stuff into the boat (they won’t let us use those nice carts to carry everything) we were settled in for our first relaxing evening on the boat. That lasted about 3 minutes until we saw our first mosquito. Then our second. I think the numbers grew to match the Fibonacci sequence. 1…1…2…3…5…8…13…21… You get the idea.

The issue was (and still is) we don’t have the companionway door sealed up and still don’t have the hatch screens. Pretty important things I guess. We spent the next 3+ hours fending off these things that, as far as I can tell, have no purpose being on this earth.

We used blankets to seal everything up as much as we could and had a small fan running to move the air around. That’s right. No air conditioning either.

We were happy though. We were finally on our family boat and the weather for the weekend looked amazing.

We have the custom fitted sheets for our bed.

The next morning Donald and Leanne (that’s right … her name is Leanne too. Both lived in Barrie, ON and they actually knew each other before Leanne … my wife … and I met) arrived with their trailer. There is a small campground right on the water beside the marina.

As he usually did Donald immediately got to work!

Of course I’m just kidding. We agreed that we wouldn’t do more than a few hours of work on the boat when we were up there. This is why we don’t actually plan to have it finished until August … of 2021. I guess this just means that I will have to keep this blog going a lot longer.

The main job for that day was to get the septic tank installed. It was just a matter of hooking up the pipes to the original fitting that went through the transom and thru hull for the venting. Of course the waste outlet was no where to be seen. More $$$ at the marine store. It sure looks nice and shiny!

Donald fastened down the platform for the tank. Sorry for the gratuitous skin shot in this photo.

You will notice of course that Donald didn’t change into his work clothes. Someone had to go down into the engine room to fit the tank through that small opening on the right (and to take this artistic shot) and that would be me. I had my work clothes on.

Things had changed since the tank was in place before. In behind the sewage pump is where we put the motor for the davit … for now. If we ever have to access that area we can always temporarily remove it.

Once the tank was in place…

I was able to start hooking it up. Here I am using a heat gun to soften the pipe to fit around the outlet fitting. I found out later that using a little bit of the Dow Corning Molycote 111 helped the pipe to slip over top easily.

I still have to get that vent attached so that it is higher than the tank.

We were done for the day and it was time to use our BBQ for the first time.

I’m not sure how long we can keep it looking so nice.

Over the 4 weeks there will a big change in the cockpit and especially the helm area. For now it looks like this (we hope the table dresses it up a bit).

Donald and Leanne stayed in their trailer on Saturday night and we joined them for a campfire. Becky is somewhere in among the other boats.

The next morning I had to head into Owen Sound early to get a wet/dry vacuum. It was a perfect morning. There was a heavy mist on the wat… wait … why did I have to go get a wet/dry vacuum?

Let me start from the beginning. We had no water hook up on the boat. I found out earlier in the day that the fitting for cold water supply in the galley sink was leaking. So much so that I ended up with about 20 litres in the storage area under the mid-ship floor. It is exposed right down to the hull and any water that had come in from a leak in the bimini in the past ended up here. It usually wasn’t much but when I ran the water to test it out I kept it on for about 3 minutes … and I could hear water running. Turned it off and opened up access hatch to see quite a bit of water there.

So back to the Owen Sound part… I picked up a vacuum and a small industrial fan and will keep these on board to deal with any future leaks. I did manage to get the leak taken care of that day after about 2 hours of working on it. I am 96.3% sure that it won’t leak again.

Back to the mist on the water.

It was a beautiful morning.

My mentor for all things boat related (now known as Right Jeff) came out to help with getting the starter batteries hooked up.

In the time he was there he was also able to test the fore and aft bilge pumps and hook up the emergency bilge pump. I am very slowly learning more about the systems on this boat.

We were able to make full use of our new galley and we love it. It is small but we are finding that it works well. I love cooking and guess I call myself a bit of a foodie.

I might as well point them out now … when the boat arrived in Wiarton we noticed that we had forgotten to secure the microwave in place. It fell out and damaged a few of the doors and drawer fronts. These will be repaired in the next month or so.

I was able to get out on the dinghy on the weekend. It definitely has some pep … and yes I wore a life jacket. The water in Georgian Bay is so cold right now I wouldn’t last long if I fell in without one.

This is how we left her until we are back on Friday.

I will have another update next week

Until then stay safe.