It's a boat!

Our tree.

First output from the oven.

Pete, Carol, Bev and Mike at Christmas dinner.

Yes, folks, Queequeg is once again a boat.
We launched her almost two weeks ago and have been busy moving all our gear from Walkure to Queequeg. It's a long and difficult chore and not quite complete. It is amazing how much stuff we had accumulated on that little boat!
When we launched, we noted that the bilge pump ran every few minutes. A leak! It turned out to be the speedometer transducer that was never properly bedded. Someone had used plumbers putty to bed an underwater fitting. We had to haul out (briefly), pull the fitting, clean it and re-bed it. Now we're dry. Whew! dodged a bullet again.
Last Wednesday (my birthday) Bev had to work, so our friends Carol and Peter from Crazy Cat served as crew for the delivery cruise. The wind was just about non-existent so we motored all the way. The boat did 5.5 knots on 2,000 rpm from the old Yanmar diesel. This is way better performance than the previous owner had claimed. I think changing the cutlass bearing made a big difference.
The diesel has been running a bit hot, so I changed out the impeller on the fresh water pump and now she runs cool as a cucumber.
It's a bit of an adjustment settling in to this big boat. We've not quite got all our systems and routines ironed out, but we are making progress. Case in point is the cake Bev made for my birthday (a couple of days late, but that was unavoidable.) With a little help from me getting the oven working, we managed to turn out a beautiful looking, great smelling and even better tasting Pineapple upside-down cake, complete with maraschino cherries!
Yesterday, in between calls to family for holiday wishes, we went to the club house for a fantastic Christmas dinner. Richard Tanner, the harbor master, and his wife put on a huge spread for all the boaters in the harbor. Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, the whole shootin' match. Thanks, Richard!
Right now we're hunkered down waiting out the latest cold front. The wind is howling outside, about 25 knots or so and the whole harbor is white caps. We had planned to go to the movies, but a dinghy ride today is a risk to life and limb and a movie just isn't worth the risk. So, with the solar panels providing the electrical juice, we're sitting here updating the blog.

Sporting new bottom paint, Queequeg goes flying!

Kissing the water.

A boat, at last!

A champagne toast to a successful lanuch!