Day 329, Year 9: Finally . . . Done with Tomatoes
Date: Monday, September 15, 2014
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Daytime Temp in the high 60’s F
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
Finally . . . I’m done with tomatoes for this year. Mark and I went to Heather and Jed’s today to finish canning the last batch. The Goldstones will have plenty of marinara sauce to make it through another year and Mark and I will have plenty to take with us when we sail south. So it was a successful year for tomatoes. And when we arrived at H & J’s today, we saw another success. Jed finished the installation of the new flat screen TV and the new shelves in the living room that will house all of their audio and video equipment. Heather has to do one more coat of paint on one of the shelves, but basically that project is completed. And it looks great. Congratulations, Heather and Jed! And a third success–all three boys seem to be settling nicely into their school routines. So things are going well.
Tomorrow Mark and I will turn our attention to boat projects. Today Mark worked on bureaucratic issues. We just discovered that our Ham Radio licenses (mine and Mark’s) expired in April, so he applied for new ones. He also found out that our boat call sign for using our single sideband radio expired in 2011. Oops! He was filling out an application for a reciprocal Ham license in the Bahamas when he made these discoveries, but he now thinks he has done what is needed to get all of those licenses updated. He is also still trying to decide whether or not to change our boat insurance company. We read some pretty damning reports on our current insurer, but we have been reassured that they are aware of the problems and have made changes to solve the issues. Mark has quotes from other companies and is making comparisons. We have until October 1st to make the decision, so we’ll keep researching. Today Mark also went to the Post Office to send the Airmar heading sensor that we bought last year to a new owner. Raymarine and Airmar could not figure out how to get the Airmar heading sensor to ‘talk’ to our Raymarine autopilot controller, so we finally gave up and sold it on eBay. We now have a Raymarine heading sensor that should work with our Raymarine auto pilot and Mark will probably spend tomorrow installing that. The heading sensor helps to keep the boat on a precise heading when using the auto pilot and we will need that in the waterway. It’s not quite so important when you are in the open seas, but in the confines of the waterway, it is very important. I, on the other hand, will not be doing anything quite so interesting tomorrow. I will continue to clean out and reorganize cabinets. Fun, fun.
