I had a very productive day yesterday on Akupara. I was there for approximately 6 hours and accomplished a lot of little tasks that had been piling up. The admiral over the last couple of months had competed sanding a lot of cupboard doors and drawers but I had not been installing them as I did not have any screws. Now I know that sounds a little funny. I mean there are a hundred stores within 10 miles that all sell screws I am sure but, the problem with all of those stores is that they are newer up to date modern stores. Like Home Depot or Lowes. What these stories lack in my opinion is a couple of really important things, like customer service and in a lot of cases, quality items. So I have been holding off on buying screws as my favourite store, which is about a block away from Akupara, is Wolff’s Marine, but Wolff’s Marine is not open on Saturdays during the winter months. Good for them but bad for me. Wolff’s Marine is an old time kinda store. The kinda store where there is a greasy stained old coffee pot that is always on and the coffee is free. The guy behind the counter knows almost every item in the inventory and precisely where it is in the store. The entire store has a distinct feeling and smell to it that reminds me of going to the hardware store with my dad when I was a kid. Wolff’s Marine has 2 floors of goodies and the aisles are narrow and the shelves go almost to the ceiling. It is a paradise. I am sure that somewhere inside that goldmine is every single part I will need to complete Akupara’s refit times 2. When Wolff’s makes an order for new items, they don’t buy just 1 or 2 to have in stock, they must order in the 100’s. Case in point, I will need 2 new heads, West Marine downtown Vancouver might have one on the shelf, and 1 in the storage room. Wolff’s has 10 piled right to the ceiling. So to make a long story short, ok shorter, Wolff’s Marine is now open on Saturday mornings for the summer again. Hooray! I bought a can of Bilgekote, a can of Cetol, 5 boxes of number 8 Robinson screws and 2 boxes of finishing washers. I bought 1/2, 3/4, 1, 1 1/4, 1 1/2 inch stainless screws and lined them all up inside a drawer like prized possessions.
It is amazing how happy I was, okay still am! I wanted to hug the guy and tell him how much I have missed him since October. I refrained of course, but I did tell him I would see him every Saturday until October. 🙂
So after buying all of the screws, I hung what seemed like 100 cupboard doors. I also permanently fixed another issue yesterday and that was a leaking chainplate. I had temporarily “fixed” it a while back, but it was still leaking but I had to wait for a day of no rain in order to fix it properly. Now I only have another 9 to go. The gigantic pile of wooden pieces in the cockpit is almost gone now, hopefully today we will see the last of it and I can complete the rough sanding of the decks in preparation for painting the next time we are down.
