As I write this blog, I am watching the Two Rivers Marina crane on a barge digging out the entrance to the the harbor! Quite a change from the flood scenario we've seen for the past 3+ months which made the harbor entrance 15' deep most of the spring! Now that the river level is back to normal, the silt deposited in the harbor entrance by the flood has reduced the entrance depth so it is now difficult for larger boats to enter or leave the harbor. Feast of famine???
We find ourselves wondering if "this is our year". Floods, difficulty getting work done, or done right, seem to plague us week after week. The latest saga involves the electronics installer who we've been wanting to install the Garmin radar and chart plotters I purchased last Feb. at the Miami Boat Show. He also needs to get the closed circuit TV system working with the new equipment and complete the hook-up of the satellite TV system and the distribution of broadcast, cable, and satellite signals to the the 3 TVs on the boat. We tried to get him to come do the installation while we were stuck in Louisiana last May during the floods--no luck.
After a long string of excuses and no contact, the installer from the Lake of the Ozarks (actually Iberia, MO) showed up Tuesday July 30. He worked very quickly and did a great job removing some old equipment and a bushel basket of older, unneeded wiring but he need some parts that weren't available locally to proceed. He left Tuesday night and was to return Thursday with the overnight-ed parts. The parts didn't arrive Wednesday, so he said probably Friday. Friday at 6:45am I got an email that his mother was back in the hospital in AR (yes, he used that one before when he didn't show 10 days ago) and he was in AR with her.
Why, you ask yourself, don't you get someone else to do the installation? Surprisingly there is only one guy in the greater St Louis area who installs marine electronics and his work is mostly done on commercial tow boats. He flatly states, "if a tow boat calls me, I leave your job and go take care of them." So I wait for the installer from the Lake who has two days to complete the work I want done.
Other work is progressing while we wait for the electronics installer. Robert Brown installed a couple new 110v AC GFI outlets while Jo Ray Asquith installed decking under the front berth to allow more storage as well as a shelf under the galley sink. He will finish by adding a stainless brace, fabricated by CMC in Louisiana, to steady the handrail on the steps leading out of the main salon this Saturday. Nichole, our computer guru, was on board configuring the two laptops to work with the two systems that receive internet signals. She also got the internet TV configured.
So when the electronics installer leaves, there will be only a couple outstanding projects left on the list for others to do! Sally and I still have a huge amount of work to do--cleaning, inventorying, sorting, and restocking the boat. We are getting closer....................
No comments:
Post a Comment