Waiting For The Mechanic.......

....Or Someone Like Him......... *

First, the good news:  the Volvo manifold arrived from Sweden last Friday.  Woo Hoo!   Apparently, it was held up in France for two days, for reasons only the French can comprehend. But it is HERE, damnit!

Our/our seller's mechanic, Carlton Gizzard (yes, really)  is scheduled to make the install on Friday,   July 3rd.  Dare we speak out loud that we might be able to leave the slip this weekend??????  (Shhhhhh! )

In the meantime, we have been staying busy.  It seems every time we open a new part of the boat we find something new to clean.  I found a thriving biological colony beneath the foredeck sun pads.  Commodore Kathleen found wasps nesting above the doors from the cockpit to the side decks.  And we hauled the interior carpet covers and exterior windshield covers to the laundromat.

Wade spent time working to gather a basic set of spares for the engines and generator; filters, pump impellers, V-belts, and the like.  With COVID-reduced marine inventories, this effort has taken us to Norfolk, Hampton,  and Portsmouth in addition to here in Virginia Beach.  He also got to spend a delightful morning headfirst into the aft bilge to repair the transom shower and to re-secure the hydraulic pump for the autopilot that had been adrift since its original mount rusted away.   Ah, boating.

Our new friends, Bill (from Coeur d'Alene) and Anjanette Schlemmer, took us on a cocktail cruise aboard their 27' center console.  A beautiful evening and a gorgeous sunset.  Thanks, guys. We needed that.  (And a tour of the proper channel outa here. 👌)

Chris, from Virginia Beach Diver Services, cleaned Irish Lass's bottom this week.  With the boat essentially immobile since January, we had "quite a colony" of marine growth on our hull and running gear.  Including 4 oysters that were starting a commune in the raw water intake for the port engine.  Yikes!

We know that many of you have been waiting for more boat pictures.  We will post more in our next update. Promise.

Thanks for watching..........








(* with apologies to Phil Proctor and the rest of the Firesign-ers)