Hilton Head Island: a growing to do list

I went down to GANNET a few days ago to hook up one of the outboard batteries to charge from the ship’s batteries overnight.  That charger plugs into a cigarette lighter type outlet.  I was able to slither aft on the port pipe berth and bring the battery forward into The Great Cabin and attach it to the charger.  When I did a green light came on on the charger and a red light on the battery to indicate it was charging.  When fully charged the light on the battery turns blue. 

I returned the next morning expecting only to have to disconnect the battery and charger, but found no lights on either.  I plugged two other electronics into the lighter and established that the circuit was dead.  I wired GANNET except for the mast so I traced the wire and found that the positive cable to one of the two ship’s batteries had corroded through and was no longer connected.  I had a crimp end fitting of the right size and was able to reconnect it.  However it was not quite that quick or simple.  I had to remove and move half the interior in the process which necessitated contortions that provided definite proof that I am healed from my surgery.  In the end I plugged the charger into a new cigarette lighter outlet.  The green light came on.  Plugged the charger into the battery.  The red light came on.  And left.

When I returned the next morning.  The green light was still on on the charger and the light on the battery had turned blue.  Good.

While on GANNET numerous small needed tasks came to my attention.  My to do list is now twice as long as it was a few weeks ago.  So I have established a routine of biking down relatively early each morning to avoid the worst of our heat and doing one or two of them.  However it seems that while doing one task, two more appear.  Here is the list as it stands today.  The last five on the list need to be done by others, but the rest I can and will do myself, and hopefully if it does not continue to grow too extravagantly in a couple of weeks the list will be tamed.

Some of these I have already done.  Or at least think I have.  I have ordered two new flashlights after I found the two on board were irreparably dead and I think I have cured the compass leak. I have also waxed the stern and starboard side of GANNET’s hull and will do the port side after I go sailing and bring her into the slip bow first.  I will order new sheet bags today.  The Blue Performance bags in the cockpit have rotted beyond disgrace and repair.  The first set of these bags lasted for many years and I replaced them at the end of the circumnavigation only because they had become exceedingly moldy.  Sometime after I bought the first set Blue Performance went to cheap materials and production.  The ones inside the cabin remain satisfactory, but I will never buy Blue Performance again.