First Night's Sleep...

Last night was my first spent aboard Rafiki, and thankfully it was not the last. I brought one of the interior cushions back to the boat (the rest are still drying out) along with my sleeping bag and a pillow, and hoped for the best. Rain water leaks have almost been eradicated, and I did get one of the finicky interior lights to start working again, but my boat and I are still getting to know each other, and it is quite evident to me. For example, I found out the hard way that the kerosene lantern gets very hot, especially the brass piece that hovers an inch or so above the glass flue. Burning hot. Fingers under the raw water tap for 2 minutes hot. Also, I believe that my depth perception/vision might need to be analyzed again, as the port side settee/bunk is not actually as wide as it looks. In fact, it is approx. 3/4 the width of my body, from shoulder to shoulder, making the inevitable tumble to the floor an immediate issue. Heat is also something that will have to be considered in future sleepovers, as sometime during the night Mr. Heater decided that his life was not worth living, and silently slipped away from us in my sleep. Which made me cranky. And since I discovered that my propane system did not have a solenoid valve installed to secure the system from leakage, I did not attempt to turn the propane heater on either. So my 8:00am alarm was put on permanent snooze this morning when I realized that it was cold outside my 10-degreeF sleeping bag, and I resisted waking until 10am. Yay.

In other news, I'm still working on my 4Runner, as it must be out of Sue's garage by the 31st of the month, and I'm sure it will be. The new fuel tank is being made at Ballard Sheet Metal, I just did the finishing welds and painted my winch bumper, and on Monday I'll be building the rear bumper. After that, the new spring perches and bump-stops get installed, followed by e-brake, safety belts, headlights, interior electronics, and many other miscellaneous items. If anybody has garage or storage space where I could park my vehicles while in Mexico, Alaska, etc I'd love to pay you for it, as long as it's reasonable.

Well, today I'm off to Plain, WA to visit my Auntie Ann and Uncle Jim with Aimee - so pray/chant/sacrifice/put crystals on you head/do yoga poses so we can get some snow!

Cheers,

Danny