Mermaid’s Meanderings

[gancanny]

24 minutes ago, Lulu said:

We’ve decided not to bother with any gauges as we can work it out now. How many days on board and just using a torch to peer into see what fuel is left. 

i had a safari for a fair number of years and i made a dipstick out of timber with marks every 3 inches, it does give you a good idea of the amount of fuel in the tank,  keep the dipstick in the gas locker

[Lulu]

Friday 29th March

Surprisingly, we all slept really well despite the wind. The plan was to go back to the marina early. We were moving berths as Luna’s old berth was for larger boats but we now had a lovely spot further down. I knew where it was from land but approaching from the river everything looked different! We went past, turned around and found our new berth.  
 

Next job was Graham to take up our anti slip treads from the old berth and put down on our new pontoon. All set up we unloaded as much as we could and packed the car.   A little while later we had our second visitor onboard, JawsOrca. Absolute pleasure to see you Alan and meet you properly after only a brief meet at Horning Boat show many years ago.  We had a good chat and I hope you can get Orca back in the water soon.

We decided to stay in the marina for the last night. The weather forecast was calm but a bit chilly. In the evening I went to fetch the ceramic heater from behind the bedroom door and it was wet. There was also a large puddle of water on the floor. I should have checked under that window after the leak on the other side after the torrential rain. Looking under the shelf there was white fungus stuff and the drawers also had it when we pulled them out.  We had wondered why the drawers had never shut well. All week Id been saying I didnt think we needed drawers and wanted a cupboard or just an open space to put our holdalls in so decision made, drawers removed, panelling cleaned up and Graham temporarily covered the leaking window.  The third leak we came across was from the shower taps but we have already bought a shower bar so that will get rid of that issue.  
 

I will admit I was a bit disheartened about the leaks  but Graham is his usual practical self and said its all fixable.  Also it resolved my indecision about the drawers.  I’m also glad we were onboard to find these things during bad weather before it dried out again and we wouldnt have known. 
 

On Saturday morning, we packed the rest of our belongings into the car and set up the dehumidifier so that will help the drying out process before we go up at the weekend to fix the windows. 
 

Overall a fantastic first week on Mermaid, met great people as ever, incredibly lucky with the weather when cruising, learned a huge amount about Mermaid, her handling quirks, tank capacities, finding places for everything, what we do need and what we dont and finding the faults and  a plan to rectify things.  Thank you Mermaid x 

 

[CambridgeCabby]

Agreed , @grendel would you be able to move the you tube discussions over to the YouTube thread please ?

[grendel]

1 hour ago, CambridgeCabby said:

Agreed , @grendel would you be able to move the you tube discussions over to the YouTube thread please ?

done

[Lulu]

Renovation episode

Last weekend we went up for the day to sort out the rotten drawer situation in the bedroom.  Desmond and I stayed out of the way in the saloon. Lots of noise and splitting wood, then an ominous silence followed by ‘Sam, you’d better have a look at this’ . Worse than we thought.  I could have cried. Graham just said it would set him back for the other jobs planned and would concentrate on that side of the boat.A couple of hours later…..rebuilt and primer on

We did manage to put up our bargain buy of another grey cupboard which boosted our spirits. We now have all the galley space we need.

This weekend Graham finished the ‘holdall cupboard’ which is now a fantastic space for our bags so out of the horror that we found, it’s actually done us a huge favour for space and storage.   We have now decided to add a shelf above the bags as we think we can put the microwave in there and handily there are already some sockets above unlike in the galley where we have to run an extension lead each time. The damp meter showed 19% so considering it had all been saturated the week before we and it has rained since, we were very pleased.

Next job was to see if there was any more horrors on the other side. There had been a small leak which Graham had fixed previously but now it was about seeing if there was any hidden rot.   The vinyl under the gunnel? (Think that’s what its called) was all brittle, split and falling off but the wood was completely dry now so got covered in some vinyl flooring. No one can see it but we know its there and smart!  
Next job was fitting the shower bar and new sink taps. Unfortunately after dismantling the old fittings, we didnt have all the parts so they are now on order. Not a problem as the plumbing jobs Graham can do while we are out and about.   We hope that is it, at least for a while or anything else will just be what we call ‘pottering jobs’ and we can enjoy the season, fingers crossed.  Beautiful sunset last night to finish off a very successful day.

 

[kpnut]

The photo of the new cupboards in the galley look like they’re in a house, rather than a boat. Very smart indeed!

[Lulu]

16 minutes ago, kpnut said:

The photo of the new cupboards in the galley look like they’re in a house, rather than a boat. Very smart indeed!

Definitely made it feel more homely. £37 off good ole Amazon

[addicted]

That really does look good Sam. You must have felt wretched when you found ll that hidden damp damage. Let's hope that is the last of nasty surprises for you on  Mermaid and it's all plain sailing from now on or should that be cruising?

 

Carole x

[Selsie]

Sam certainly felt wretched , I thought ‘ here we go again’ , just another fix on another boat!!

As my mate JanetAnn told me many moons ago ‘ it’s a boat…it gets wet’ 😂 

All is well on the wonderful Mermaid, thanks to Sam telling me what I’m going to do ……… on a closing note, I would like to personally congratulate Sam on putting 5 and I do mean 5 draw handles on draws, all on her own….. oh and looking after Desmond.😁

 

[Lulu]

Only four door handles, please don’t exaggerate my new found skill with flatpack furniture! 

[Karizma]

Nice work Graham (and Sam)

When you've done on Mermaid, Tracy has a list to keep you going if you run out of jobs !!!!