9/10/14 – Catawba Island, OH
Posted by Bill

In the last post I was expounding on the virtues of inventorying everything on the boat so you can find it. There are more than 70 storage locations on our Island Packet 40. We have been inventorying and stuffing things away and noting the location of where it is stuffed. Today I was doing a boat project installing 12V cigarette lighter receptacles in the navigation station (nav station). We have a pretty elaborate electrical system on board which allows us to use AC power at the dock or through an inverter when not connected to shore power. The inverter converts DC power to AC power and works very well but uses battery power at a feverish pace, all depending on the power draw. Charging phones, iPods, iPads, laptops, etc… is very inefficient compared to just plugging in to a 12 volt receptacle like you would your car, so this is a good project. I look up the location of the electrical supplies storage and it reads “Starboard – salon – forward – settee – under” which means it is under the bench seat on the right side of the boat in the “living room” at the forward most seat. I know this is wrong because there is an air conditioning unit in that storage location….crap! I begin to search around that area and after 20 minutes of pulling out storage bins and tearing the inside of the boat apart I find what I need. At this point I realized 2 things: 1) Don’t drink vodka while you are putting stuff in storage, and 2) it’s a good thing we are inventorying all of this stuff or the process I just went through would be a standard routine every time I need to find something.

I got my project half done and then we went to have dinner with friends we consider family. They grew up in the Port Clinton/Catawba Island area, lived in Columbus for a time (where we met), and then moved back up to Catawba. While in Columbus we had a dual wedding where we all got married together and had a huge party. Great fun! We have a special bond with them and it was great to spend time together again. We will miss them!

We continue to press forward, hoping to be able to leave Saturday as planned, and we just might make it!