Ah, so nice. I can see the un-ceilinged hull again in all the places I’m supposed to be able to see it! It is simply amazing how things creep out of lockers, bins, and duffles to end up strewn about everywhere aboard Mahdee. Certainly part of the issue is that we’ve been living out of an arrangement of cargo netting and duffle bags with only a few lockers to use. Even so, I believe other liveaboard boaters/cruisers probably have the same problems that we have with keeping things stashed away where they belong.

The real issues of having so many things out and about are two-fold. First, things can go flying across the boat while we’re underway. Since we’ve been in sheltered waters of the SF Bay and the flat calm of the Delta we’ve been spoiled and not really had to worry about things crashing around inside the boat of late. Less obvious but also important to me is the fact that I can’t easily clean when so much stuff is out and about. We need to wipe down the painted surfaces of the hull, bulkheads and so forth with a good cleaning solution to ensure no mold will crop up. And that requires access!

Finally, access, I have access! The boat, lucky for me, hasn’t picked up a case of mold or mildew in the last 60 days (about the period it’s been since I last thoroughly wiped everything down) but is amazingly dusty. Yesterday, David cleaned the engine room while I went about the business of sorting and putting away all the stuff that creeps out of the lockers when I’m not looking. David swears he has nothing to do with that creeping, but I dunno…

I also managed to get several loads of laundry done and since it was so hot and dry yesterday, things dried almost immediately even though I hang thing inside the boat, not outside as many people do. Today, another load of sheets and sundries and I’m done! It is really nice to have a washer aboard to keep up with the laundry but it’s rather amazing how I prefer to wait until we’re on shore power rather than run the Honda EU2000 generator to provide the washer with power. I never use the dryer feature since the machine is small and the dryer is truly the bottleneck in terms of slowing down laundry progress.

Onwards, we’ve got a conference call to attend to in a bit and then errands to run including picking up food and drink for the weekend’s boat guests. My brother and his wife will join us aboard Mahdee for the weekend and we’ll have a few other people aboard for the race. I suppose it would be nice to feed them all something more appetizing than our recent fare of grapes and trail mix (me) and Oreos (David)!

The wind isn’t howling. There’s no wind. Because of that, we’ve gone from sweatshirt and jeans weather here in the SF Bay to 98F! Hot, hot, hot. I’ve been down below all day putting away various things that seem to defy being put away and noted that there was a hot breeze coming down the hatches rather than the normal “cool” breeze. Yup, just went online and discovered it is very hot today! I’m glad I’m inside where it is cool rather than out in the heat. Shortly we’ll wet down the boat. Almost certainly Mahdee doesn’t like 98F and only 15% humidity.

Everyone always like photos so here are a few more:

Motoring along the Georgiana Slough

Sometimes there are trees IN the water, too, so you have to keep a sharp lookout

There are farms along the Sacramento River

We saw many boats anchored in quiet spots and various bends of the sloughs.

Sometimes we saw little shacks along the sloughs and rivers that were clearly someone’s little “getaway” but this one was really amazing–looked like a scene from Gilligan’s Island. That is a shelter/shack on the beach to the left of the power boat.

We took lots of pictures of the opening bridges…that for a later post..but the bridge operators often came out to wave and look at Mahdee as she passed by. This operator is at the Mokelumne River Swing Bridge.