Our Last Winter Storage.... (We Hope)

Earlier today Shelley drove me to the boat in Hamilton.  After taking a few last minute items off the boat she left for work and left me to get the boat ready to sail to Rochester NY to store Blowin' Bubbles for the winter...

I plan to leave early in the morning and sail for 15 or so hours and arrive at Shumway Marina sometime Sunday morning...  I will spend Sunday getting the sails off and the engine and plumbing winterized so that they can lift the boat out on Monday...

Shelley and Kelly will come to pick me up on Monday evening and we will stay overnight and come home Tuesday....  It is a long way to travel to store the boat, but the savings are very significant.....

I'll blog the outcome of my trip in the next few days...

While I was here today, a job that I completed was to install a DLink camera that will stay on the boat all winter.  Whenever I want to I can call up the camera on the internet and see what is happening on our boat! I think that is an awesome way to check the boat.  The whole cost for the camera and all the bits was $37.00... WOW, technology is just awesome sometimes...
Here are a couple sample shots from the camera:

Another Step Closer....

Thanks to the incredible efforts of my Friend and neighbour, Mike D. who owns a company that creates and installs various metal components for skyscrapers and big building exteriors, we were able to create today a new aluminum dodger for the boat....

When I arrived this morning, I installed a new bracket that will hold one of the iPads that we use with our Raymarine navigation system...

When Mike arrived we went to work creating an amazing dodger for the boat... the pictures below show some of the steps in creating it today...  On Monday Mike will take it to his shop and have one of his welders Tig weld all the seams and make it indestructible... (well sort of)

When it comes back, I will paint it white and install the 2 windows we bought last month...  I am also now looking for 2 solar panels that are a maximum of 24" x 36".   they will be installed on either side of center on the top of the new dodger...

What an awesome, productive day!