Fedex, UPS, and USPS are at our door every few hours delivering last minute items for our voyage. The largest delivery was an 83 lb 9.8 hp Tohatsu outboard engine. Michael, our son-in-law, playing the role of strongman just picked it up off the front porch and lugged it down the steps to my car. Our son Chad (cruisingsabbatical.com) helped wrestle it aboard the boat. We had previously been advised to buy a Mercury or some other engine with a well known brand name. After discovering that all Mercury engines up to 40 hp and all Nissan outboards are built by Tohatsu it seemed unnecessary to spend the extra money to have Mercury written across the cowling. I am very concerned about how I will get this engine on and off the boat to and from the dinghy. Stay tuned.
I winched Chad up the mast today. My big fear was that I would drop him 60 feet to the deck and thereby ruin my entire day. Winching 200+ lbs up the mast was exhausting even though he did help by climbing as much as he could. We now have LEDs in the masthead. Each light draws .1 amps from our 4 six volt golf cart batteries instead of the 2 amps (25 watts) the incandescent bulbs used. We discovered one of the glass bulbs had separated from its base some time this summer. We now have a Tri-color navigation light atop the mast. We will probably rarely use it since it is only for offshore but the anchor light will be used practically every night.
