Weekend at the Lake

Well two exciting things happened this weekend:

1.  Philip accomplised the first half of the water pump repair (remember back in the spring when this broke and we had to be towed back into the marina from the middle of the lake??). Well he got the first half of this finished on Sunday.
This picture does not do justice to the uncomfortable position he has to get in to do some of these repairs!
The second half of this job will be done during the next weekend.

2. There was a rather huge storm that occurred this weekend and ravaged some boats and other structures.

This was taken from inside the boat looking out toward the lake.

Several party barges were caught out in the storm. These two had to be towed to the shore (not where they boarded, by the way) by Sea Tow.

This is our deck after the first round of the storm when we turned over the furniture to hopefully keep it from sliding into the water. We had already lost two of the straight back chairs to the waters of our slip and the big table had gone into the lake but PD pulled it back out. All but two of the tables tiles were missing! The catfish are probably aready making themselves comfortable under them.

You can also see the end of the courtesy dock in the picture. It should not be visible in this view.

This is the other end of the courtsey dock, broken loose from the shore and sunken. However in the middle of the lull between storms, the marina crew got out and quickly fixed it.

And this was round two of the storm coming with one more after that. Some lightening but lots of very loud thunder occured in this storm. Three of the houseboats on our marina were caught out but made it back. One suffered damage to the bimini top. Three other neighbors in big Formulas and Sea Rays rode out the storm at anchor in different coves.

We.... on the other hand, had made it wisely back into the marina before the storm because we had been out on the JET SKI!

Adding Official Documentation and a "Fitting"

There are so many things to do to one's vessel to make sure she is legal. We have the official yearly Texas registration decal already affixed to the bow.

Yesterday, Philip added the official "Poop Sticker". Actually, this sticker certifies that you, as a boat owner, have "certified" that you have the correct sanitation device on your boat and that it is in good condition. You can be stopped by officials if you do not have this sticker displayed. So..... PD applied this sticker to the both sides of the bow of Hey Jude.

The port side was easy for him to do. The starboard side... not so much!

Now, lest you think I have been idly doing nothing except taking pictures, I have evidence that I have been making progress on sewing the enclosures for the back deck. (Remember that heavy duty sewing machine I bragged about purchasing in an earlier posting?). Well after seeing two other Manatees with enclosures that are screen only (and therefore one must have a separate set that have the "glass" windows.), we decided that's what we want. So, I started on the first panel and with crossed fingers and tried it out yesterday. I thought I'd better make sure the top of it actually fits into the little track that is installed at the top of the deck. So all I have completed is the top part of the enclosure and the screen. AND HOORAY!!!  It fits! It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but if you squint, you can see the screen.



Now. I have to rewatch those instructional videos again from Sailrite and tackle zippers on each side and fasteners at the bottom and do the wole thing six more times!!