Been a while, lots of changes.

Well people, it’s official. I am now among the ranks of the retired. My last day in that hell hole was July 18, a free man as of 2300 EST.

As noted previously I was thinking about doing this more than a year ago, last October to be exact. But the contract was up, possibility of a package kept me hanging on as things got worse. My companies avowed mission in life is to get rid of all the Canadian workers they can, (Except for the hands and feet types) and farm the work out to offshore operations. I discovered well over 9months ago that my work had been shipped to a company in Egypt. Only way I found out was by chasing down the employee number of the guy who was now working my tickets and answering my phone. Needless to say, I got to watch a lot of Youtube, write more fanfiction and contemplate GTFO of there.

So the papers went in, I worked my last shift and then burned up 5 weeks worth of vacation. Officially I was retired on August 31st. I am finally able to start working on SD again, and have put in about 35 hours so far, getting back into the swing of it. The boats are all out now, so I can work on her in peace. Had to go down and rearrange the access ladder, we are packed in like sardines. But no problem, that’s been taken care of.

What I have done is mostly finishing up the welded framework for the settees, the galley counters and the chart table/cooler. The starboard side is mostly done, and the mistake I made in the port side settee has been corrected. I have to say, my welding is the pits, burned a fair amount of wire just trying to get back into the swing of it. Some of those first welds were down right scary. I haven’t got round to taking any photos yet, but soon.

Right now the major push is to get all the welding on the interior done. Once that is finished I can cut crap wood panels to fit, and use them as templates when I finally go to put in real marine ply. I have been tinkering with the DC panel, getting that built and a panel cut to fit into the hole in the aft bulkhead where that little odd ball locker was. Part of the welding is to fab up clips and weld them in place so the panel will have something to hang onto.

The fuel system will have to wait, the water is now turned off, so I can’t attempt to run the engine. Besides, if I did, all the winterizing would be blown out the exhaust. Spring for that little job. A buddy said it would be simplest to bring a compressor aboard and blow the lines out. Fair enough I have a 5gallon compressor that will do that nicely.

My battery solar panel crapped out, bought a new one, and have to schlep it down there, get the batteries up to snuff for winter.

Anyway, that’s it for now. More to follow as I get back into it.