Day 280 Groundhogs Day!

I hope you all enjoyed Ground Hogs Day yesterday(sorry-six more weeks of Winter).  We had a great day here.  Sunny and bright where I actually walked around outside with no coat.  We made it up to 50 degrees and the forecast for the next several days is for the same.  It was wonderful to experience the warmth of the Sun again.

We took off on errands yesterday.  We went to Lowe's and bought a dehumidifier for Zephyr.  As I said in yesterdays post, the humidity has been getting bad inside with water running off the port lights and the hatches.   You walk under a hatch and suddenly drops rain down from above.   

We plugged her in and let her rip.  We bought a hose for it so we can funnel the water it takes out of the air down into the bilge and can then be pumped out from there.  When we 

brought it on board, the humidity was over 70 percent.  As of this morning, we're down t0 46 percent.  There is a lot less moisture on the port lights and the water on the hatches is gone.  I haven't looked down into the bilge to see what is down there but will later.  This baby pumps up to 25 pints out of the air daily-at least that is what the box says.  The fan on it is quite noisy and we had to have the TV at close to full volume just to hear it last night.  We switched it off until we went to bed and then let her go all night. The fan moves lots of the heated air around that had normally been at the ceiling.  It does make for better distribution of the warm air inside Zephyr but it sure make a good bit of noise.  Using this machine will help us battle the mold and mildew that we have been having.

As I said before in an earlier post, Zephyrs steering failed again just before I pulled into the Port of Brownsville two weeks ago.  We lifted up the mattress in the stern cabin and down I went.  Ends up that the bolts the workman had put back on the steering assembly when we had the rudder post repacked were not tightened any where near enough and not only had the shims I had put in to hold it tight slipped out, but I could take off the nuts that hold the turning mechanism together with my fingers.  No wrench was needed.  There were no lock washers(bought new ones yesterday) between the nuts and the bracket.  This time, I'm going to fix it the right way.  I took some measurements and am having a circular disk made to fit under the turning arm mechanism.  It has to be made of stainless steel to avoid any chance of rust.  With luck, I can pick it up today and get this project done once and fore all.   It took several calls to find a machine shop that would fabricate it for me.  The one I finally found didn't return my calls so we just drove down and talked to them.  It must be nice to have that much business that you can turn away jobs like that by not returning a phone call.  I'll post picture of the process of fixing it as soon as I get it done.

With all the sunshine yesterday, we let the fur people out to tour the deck.  With the otters around, you have to stay on watch just in case they return.  They'd kill the kids if they saw them.  Territorial disputes.  "This place is mine and you're not welcome"mentality.  Shadow was the first on deck(amazing).  Snowshoe and Blue saw him go up and out they went too.  Kitties on parade.  They stayed out for about 15 minutes and then came back inside to take naps.  I find it amazing how much sleep these kids require in a day.  A tough life!

Oh boy, it's Shower Day today.  It's a nice 5 minute walk to the showers.  Well, nice if it's sunny-not so nice if it's raining or cold and blowing.  Then off for errands and jobs when we get back.  Still more to do.

Have a great day everyone.