{"id":9199,"date":"2018-10-22T08:11:24","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T13:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=9199"},"modified":"2018-10-22T08:14:28","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T13:14:28","slug":"blocking-up-is-hard-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=9199","title":{"rendered":"Blocking up is hard to do."},"content":{"rendered":"

With apologies to Neil Sedaka, who’s name has not EVER appeared here in the decade plus that I have been keeping this blog, for torturing the title of his song, “Breaking up is hard to do” but somehow that song came to mind as I watched Pandora being hauled the other day, on her way to being “blocked” for the winter.<\/p>\n

Out she came, looking much larger than she ever looks in the water.\u00a0 \u00a0\"\"Conversely, the farther she gets from “terra firma” the smaller she looks and feels.\u00a0 Try 500 miles from land in big seas.\u00a0 Pretty tiny.<\/p>\n

Now, she’s all set and covered for the first time EVER.\u00a0 \u00a0Makes me sad.\"\"There will be a nifty zipper door installed in the stern so I can get into the boat easily and still, sort of, keep out the chill winter winds.\u00a0 Good luck with that.\u00a0 Note that the aft solar panel was kept exposed to be sure that the batteries are kept up all the time.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"I even took some scrap material out of the dumpster and fashioned a cover for our dink.\u00a0 I used an electric heat gun to shrink the material.\u00a0 Pretty neat cover, if you ask me.\"\"Winterizing the boat’s water systems proved to be every bit as complex as I feared.\u00a0 The last time I had to winterize a boat was seven years ago and that boat was WAY simpler.<\/p>\n

I made a list of all of the systems aboard Pandora that have water in them and\u00a0 needed to be attended to.\u00a0 It was a LONG list.<\/p>\n

Air Conditioning, aft
\nAir Conditioning, forward
\nBilge pump automatic, primary
\nBilge pump bilge, secondary
\nBilge pump manual, cockpit
\nBilge pump manual, shop
\nBow thruster bilge pump, Arid Bilge
\nBow thruster bilge pump, primary
\nCockpit fresh water wash-down
\nCockpit transom shower
\nDrink water filter in galley
\nEngine
\nFridge and freezer cooling
\nGalley sink faucet
\nHead shower, forward
\nHead sink faucet, aft
\nHead sink, forward
\nHead, aft
\nHead, forward
\nHolding tank, aft
\nHolding tank, forward
\nHot Water tank drained
\nMaserator pump, aft
\nMaserator pump, forward
\nShower Sump, aft
\nShower sump, forward
\nWashdown pump, saltwater
\nWasher\/dryer
\nWater tank, port
\nWater Tank, starboard
\nWatermaker
\nWatermaker, product hose<\/p>\n

Yikes, the list was overwhelming and if I forgot anything or didn’t get a good amount of antifreeze into every system, I’ll have major problems in the spring.<\/p>\n

As an aside, Brenda and I visited the Custom’s House Museum in Groton CT a few days ago and happened upon a very charming tugboat exhibit.\u00a0 As part of the collection was some original art from the classic children’s book Little Toot.<\/p>\n

I was struck by how relevant these images are for us and our time afloat.<\/p>\n

As the old axiom goes, Sailing:\u00a0 “Hours of utter boredom periodically interrupted by moments of sheer terror.”\u00a0 \u00a0What goes up…\"\"Must come down.\u00a0 You know the feeling.\"\"Of course, as “tough” as we may like to think we are.\u00a0 \u00a0Most of us prefer to see days that feel like this as there is indeed, and to quote Ratty from the classic “The wind in the willows.”<\/p>\n

“Believe me, my young friend, there is\u00a0nothing\u00a0– absolutely\u00a0nothing\u00a0– half so much worth doing as\u00a0simply\u00a0messing\u00a0about in\u00a0boats.”\"\"And, I will work hard to be sure that Pandora is ready for launch and a fun filled 2019 season of “messing about”.<\/p>\n

But, for now, it’s making me sad as, blocking up Pandora is, indeed, very hard to do.<\/p>\n

Good news though, I have decided to fly to Antigua to welcome the Salty Dawg Rally<\/a> fleet and enjoy the arrival activities that I worked so hard to put together.\u00a0 \u00a0 In case you’ve forgotten about all that, click here to see what’s in store<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s going to be great!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With apologies to Neil Sedaka, who’s name has not EVER appeared here in the decade plus that I have been keeping this blog, for torturing the title of his song, “Breaking up is hard to do” but somehow that song came to mind as I watched Pandora being hauled the other day, on her way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9199"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9213,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9199\/revisions\/9213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}