Upcoming Trip to Savannah

I will be headed out to Savannah for a long Thanksgiving weekend in a little over a week. It will be a chance to check on Whispering Jesse for the first time since April and to spend some time with my parents. Nan will not be going with me. She is recovering from her hip replacement surgery and should not travel for a few more months. She is making excellent progress and is now fully mobile around the house with a walker and cane. We're looking forward to clearance from her doctor that she can drive again so she's not so housebound.

There are many boat projects awaiting me in Savannah. I have already placed orders with Defender Marine Outfitter for the replacement port navigation light and plastic scupper fitting that I wrote about earlier, along with some teak items: an outboard motor mount for the stern rail, a drinks and binoculars organizer for the binnacle, and some plugs to fill miscellaneous interior holes. And West Marine called yesterday to let me know that the order I placed with them is waiting at their store in Savannah: two lengths of L-shaped teak molding for making frames around the raw cut-outs in the cockpit, a quart of Cetol to varnish all the new teak with, some 3M 5200 sealant to fill some leaky deck holes, and a 12-volt receptacle like a car's cigarette lighter that I'm hoping to wire in for connection to an inverter for charging battery-powered electronics.

All that should keep me busy for a few days, but I'm also hoping to find a good length of pressure-treated 2x12 lumber to make a gangplank out of. I'm thinking it could serve double-duty as a ramp over the steep companionway steps to make it easier for Scout to get in and out of the cabin and possibly also as a ramp between the swim ladder and the water, with some fenders attached for flotation, to give Scout a way to get out of the water on his own.

More later from Savannah...