ARRRG, THE BILGE!
The bilge on any boat is a horrible ship-hole. A stinky, oily, mildewie hole, and in my case, my bilge is 40 years old. All the paint has chipped away and it catches every piece of gunk that falls through the floor boards, and has been doing so for four decades. Whenever I have extra epoxy paint I will take a section and give it new life.
Well, I’ve glassed the cat pump and electric motor into the engine room and it was time to mount the hi-pressure vessel for the water-maker membrane. I decided to mount it in the bilge by the forward head. It took 3 days as I had some repair work, but Carla and I managed to transform this section of bilge into 
something usable and clean. As you can see we’ve built a mount for the pressure vessel and it is ready to accept another vessel as soon as we can afford one, doubling our fresh-water output to about 40 GPH.
Carla is the organizing tupperware queen and likes to maximize every square inch of 
space on Splendid, I like it 
.
All I need to finish the watermaker now is plumbing. I have a new (used) feed pump in Panama City and I need to have some hi-pressure hose made up and to buy some belts and fittings. It shouldn’t be long before we’re making 20+ gallons of fresh water an hour.
I just got news. A friend of mine is coming on the 10th for a surprise visit. I don’t know if you remember Gary on “Plan B” but we transited the canal years ago and spent a lot of time bumming around Panama together. Gary sold “Plan B” a few years back and may be 
looking for another boat.
I just had to post this funny picture of Carla, she looks so sleepy. Carla isn’t finished with her first canvas job, and she already has her second. Our friends were having dinner with some Italians from a 72’ boat. The Italians saw Carla’s cool fitted sunbrella table cover and asked for our number. Well we had to go bid their job early in the morning and neither one of us is used to getting up and about that early. The Italian job is a big one and they need their bimini re-stitched, new cockpit cushions, and everything covered below, it’s a big boat and Carla has her work cut out for her. I was teasing her about this photo as it looks like she is off for her first day of school with her little backpack.
Sail far and live slowly.
– Alex