Don't Fall in the Bilge!

In the midst of all this work and projects needing to be completed before we can go in the water, we decide to get our floors redone (yeah Steve, it wasn’t a joke). Our reasoning is that it would help to improve to look of the cabin immensely because the current wooden flooring is chipped, scratched and covered in paint drips. And in the back of our minds we’re always thinking about re-sale value. Another reason is that we really like Ishmail and he offered us a good price on the job. Not sure how good of a reason that is, but too late now! Today Ishmail came to take our floors away. I wasn’t really prepared for this and especially not the fact that he was taking all of the floor boards with him. I think Mike could see the panic in my eyes and he thought I was going to run. It didn’t help when our neighbor asked us seriously if we were going to stay in a hotel. No floor boards means that we don’t have anything covering our bilges and so we get to step on the wooden braces that are every few feet. If you miss then you fall in the bilge. Kind of like hop-scotch. But actually it ended up not too bad because we were able to place some various wooden boards in the high traffic areas. And the door to the head fits perfectly in the salon. We also dropped the table to make our big day bed which is really cozy. We just have to sometimes yell “left! left!” (my job when Mike was driving in Cyprus to remind him to stay on the left side of the road) when we get out of bed or walk in the dark! Other than that, today I went around and fitted the varnished trim into the windows. I was also able to cut some old foam into pieces so they could act as insulation for the head. The ‘ceiling’ was just the steel deck and some flimsy panels. During the day the steel would get really hot to the touch and just radiate heat down into the small head. It often felt like a sauna in there so happy that those old foam cushions came into use. After a beer in the cockpit (and an unintentional meal of peanuts) we skipped dinner but settled on the day bed and started a new movie marathon….The Godfather!

Floors...

...now no floors