Not dead, just washing

What can I say? Paying work slacketh not during my summer, nor do boat part suppliers move faster. I've made some progress on Alchemy, but nothing I consider blogworthy at this point. Valiente has supplied some actual sailing, on the other hand, and I decided to clean her up a bit...also an excuse to buy a new, on-sale power washer.

The stowed Portabote may be a source of windage.

The missing bits needed on Alchemy are part of the raw water supply circuit; I need to work in part to pay for the AWAB-brand hose clamps I insist on using below the waterline. What can I say? See a few boats sink at dock because of poor hose clamp choices, and it affect a man. So your garden-variety Tridon and whatnot are kept high and visible. The new, mandated "wet exhaust grade" hose is pretty spendy, as well, when compared to Ye Olde Radiator Hose, found on most boats.

Almost beautiful in their way, but they are frighteningly expensive...and I get a discount.

I will shortly be moving onto other hook-ups in the Drive to Drive, but I'm still sourcing a decent house bank price. I've decided that the L16 format discussed here is probably the way to go, but that I need not go with Trojans, which I have come to believe command an unjustified premium. But I can get motoring with just a start battery. On the near horizon is getting a skin fitting and punching a hole for it through the hull for the bilgewater hose; the current set up is using the port side of the dual exhaust setup noted here...I actually have all the requisite parts in place and aboard, but if I set it up in the fashion I want, there's no outlet for the bilge pump. Which is, of course, a touch problematic.
 

A reasonably clean old girl

Well, at least my decks are, if not shiny, less grubby. Dockmate Jeff's sparkly Dufour 36 is, frankly, of unusual gleam for a 12-year-old vessel, and while no one would accuse me of nautical fastidiousness, I like to be in the top half of the Grubby Barge range, even if it doesn't help the speed as much as a hull scrub.

The guy on the other side of Valiente got a dock just for his jetski. Go figure.

It has been pointed out that I have been spending more time on Facebook than on this blog, and while technically true, this is arguably because Facebook is far more hit-n-run for a quick blather than an essay about whatever's occupying my boaty mind, featuring 20 links and 15 non-blurry photos. But I can see a bit of time opening up shortly, and hope to get back to the work my work subsidizes...and even to blog about it...soon.