Another Sunday, Another Work Day on the Boat

Another work day at the boat. Today Dave and myself got a number of things done. I installed a new head and it should work lots better than the old one. We tried to save parts from the old one, but nothing was worth saving, so it was off to the dumpster for it. We installed the wood tops in the icebox that Dave had made and sealed this week. So the only wood working to do is trim pieces and varnishing.
We also pulled and tested the new coaxle cable for the speed sensor. Dave had brought the new autopilot down during the week, so we laid out where it all goes. It has a motor that mounts to the wheel, its own compass, a control panel, and circuit board. All of them mount in different areas of the boat. We  rough pulled most of the wire. Next weekend I hope to get it all running. The location where we want to mount the control panel is a bit tough to get the wire to. We ended up spending about an hour to get the wire 3" in the space between the deck and the ceiling of the aft cabin. After all that effort, we found that the panel would not mount the way we had planned. However, we think we have a way to make it work and look good too.

The turtle is in the middle of the photo, swimming away.

While Dave and I were working in the rear of the boat I heard a big splash. I looked behind the boat to see a huge turtle swimming near the boat. His shell was over two feet long and in total he was about 3 feet long. We also had a bald eagle fly right over the boat, about 50 feet above our heads.

This week Dave will be working more on the interior and he will be racing his car this coming weekend, once he has a new clutch installed. I plan to spend one day at the boat next weekend, wrapping up some of these projects.