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Year End
For the past month, we have been in Sidney,BC at Philbrooks Boat Yard. Idyll Time had a list of maintenance items to attend to. She takes good care of us during our travels so we must also take good care of her. Philbrooks is a great yard for having work done and Sidney is a wonderful place for an extended stay.
Applying two coats of varnish to the cap rails was the first item on our work list. We scheduled this almost a year in advance so that Idyll Time could be in the varnish shed while this was done. It is so much better to do the varnish in a controlled environment.
Tristian and Shawn did a great job of applying the Awl Brite product which is part of the Awlgrip family. It is always a struggle to keep our varnish in good shape in the rainy PNW. We have found the Awl Brite holds up very well in this harsh environment. Our cap rails are now looking like a fine piece of furniture.
While in the varnish shed, we also had Shawn do some paint repairs to our davit hoist up on the top deck.
Our new refrigerator was delivered to the varnish shed on Philbrooks barge.
The original refrigerator was still working great but being 16 years old, we decided it was probably time for a new one. With the help of three guys, the hard task of removing the old refrigerator and installing the new one was completed without any damage to the boat. The woodworking department was able to make some minor adjustments to the cabinet and the new one fits like a glove. As a bonus we gained two cubic feet of capacity.
Our next job on the list was to remove the heat exchangers on both the main engine and generator. They were sent off to the shop to be cleaned and tested. Both came back in good shape but we decided to install new ones and put the old ones under the bed as spare parts. Being 16 years old, we thought this was a prudent thing to do.
Ryan, our mechanic, installed a new ram on our port side stabilizer. He also added a diversion valve to our water heater so that the winterization process will be much easier.
A great new addition to the boat was the installation of our Starlink Satellite. It continues to impress us with its fast internet speeds. We are looking forward to having internet and phone service as we travel through the remote areas of British Columbia and Alaska next year. Thank you Elon Musk!!
While all this work was being done on Idyll Time, Jeff spent some time working on our dinghy. Boston Whaler’s are notorious for gaining water weight between the hulls. A port was installed in the floor board to inspect for water intrusion.
Jeff was then able to attached a suction pump to the port in order to pull out any water from inside the hull that had accumulated over the years. There was less water than we had thought but now we have a way to inspect it each year.
We typically spend most of our time aboard Idyll Time at anchor. In Alaska many of the anchorages require anchoring in 60-100 feet of water and we have chain rode on both of our anchors so we wanted to add some support to our bow pulpit to help take some of the stress. Jesse made a beautiful stainless support brace that has a turn buckle at both ends which will allow us the ability to adjust the tension.
Once on the hard, Philbrooks returned to install two Staples on our stern swim platform. Our plan is to use them for holding our grill and also a fish cleaning table. They also give us something to hold to when getting in and out of the dinghy. These should be a great addition to Idyll Time.
The last project was installing a black rub rail along the swim platform.
After winterizing all of our systems, it was time to put on our boat cover. It took the two of us about three hours to get this four part cover fitted properly. Having done this now for several years we have the routine down.
Idyll Time is now ready for the winter. She is in good company nestled between a Fleming and another Krogen 48.
That’s all for this year. We hope to be back aboard in April of 2023 for another year of exploring the Pacific North West. Thanks for following along!
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