2016 Season Start

      SummerTime went back into the water and the slip at E-19 on May 17th. Took boat for a ride on 27 May and got 15.4 knots out of the bottom cleaning we did.  On 4 June we took an island hopping and dinner trip with old friends from past projects. We got back at dark in what became a heavy rain.  We docked in the dark for the first time. On 11June, I took some of the men from church fishing. Weather was not the best. A number of fish were caught by my standards, but as we caught no Walleye, the rest considered the trip a bust. Drifting with the anchor just touching to slow speed, we  snagged an abandoned fishing buoy marker and its block anchors. We did not realize this until we got in the river at the bridge and a couple of boaters pointed and stated we were dragging "our anchor" . It did not make sense as I could see the anchor in the bow roller.  We also put the "Trick Davits" back on with the distance shortened between arms. Barb and I could easily pull the dinghy on now. We went to PIB with my sister and her husband on 19June when they came to visit. We got the mooring ball on the first attempt. No more trips in June.
      Our house sold, and we vacated and moved aboard on 7 July. We had a lot of boxes we thought we needed on board, and it was congested. We spent the 8th resting after packing and moving. The 9th we tried to re-organize and stow all the items we had brought on from the house. We discovered we had things intended for storage, and things intended for the boat had not made it. Our goal was to be away from the port the week of 11 July, but it became apparent we were not going to make this. In the interim we did projects on SummerTime. We built in a settee/ sleeper on the port side. It gave us more storage space underneath. And it let us open the engine hatches while the settee is in position which the futon we had the first year would not let us do. In the second week I built the base for an hi-lo table, and mounted an oak table top I bought as a surplus item from Great Lakes Skipper. It works much better than the TV trays Barbara and I had been using. We can both sit at the settee and eat on  the table. The last week of July we upholstered the settee with a beach motif material that blended very well with the Mainship's tan/brown checkerboard curtains.
      On 2 August we finally got rid of the last land item (car trailer) keeping us from departing. On the 3rd, we cleaned out and organized the lazarette. We got out the 80# of play sand used for ballast in the aft port bilge that was put there by the previous owner for what reason we do not know. We said our good-byes on the afternoon of the 3rd to the  Brands Staff who have been so good to SummerTime and us since Sep2013. It was later than planned, but we were on our way.