Boat is Launched and it is HOT

Asante has been splashed!  While this might seem like quite the milestone, I assure you, we have a LONG way to go.  As we learned with the refit of Rasmus, when it comes to boats, projects seem to beget projects and multiply overnight.  It's the nature of what we like to call the "onion peeling" game:  you solve one problem but in the process discover another.  And so it continues...

On the immediate list at this particular moment is getting our air conditioning working.  If you have never lived in the lower latitudes, you seriously have no idea how hot the interior of a boat can get in a yard or harbor devoid of breeze.  Our shirts are completely soaking wet (and I mean soaking wet) within the first five minutes of being down below.  You can literally feel the water pouring out of you.  Yesterday, the temperature inside our boat was 97 degrees with not a whisper of a breeze to provide relief.  The heat is even more oppressive because we don't have any fans installed yet, so getting the AC up and running is numero uno on our to-do.  Scott should have it fixed today and we're pretty certain we'll not only increase productivity, but lengthen our shortened fuses tremendously.  Turns out extreme heat is just as much of a mood killer as hunger or exhaustion.

I know, I know.  Yes, Asante has "air conditioning".  This was not something we were looking for when buying our next boat, but because she had it - we're keeping it.  AC is something that is very common in Florida-based boats, because the inland waterways and harbors offer little breeze and the summer is so god-awful hot. We had no AC on Rasmus and we were fine without it.  It's a system we foresee hardly using once we get underway.  In our experience, we found that with our fans running and hatches open, the boat was comfortable in 95% of anchorages so the need to run a power sucker like AC is nil (and they are power suckers!). 

You know who's taking all this heat the best?  Isla.  She's just happy as a clam as long as she has some item not intended for babies in her possession.  Whether it be my iPhone, camera case, car keys or sunglasses in her chubby hands, she's content.  Her face, hair and body might be all slick with sweet baby sweat, but she just happily entertains herself with whatever she can grab, flashing us her beaming two-tooth grin every now and then in between chews.  Such a trooper.

Many of you are curious about what we're doing to the new boat.  Here's the short list of "big" things on our "to-do" list, in no particular order:

• Install antenna tower with outboard motor hoist
• Install new AIS
• Install new Rogue Wave wifi booster
• Purchase and mount dinghy davits
• Purchase and mount solar panels
• Install new Fusion Stereo
• New AGM batteries
• Mount new Viking life raft canister
• Mount new EPIRB
• Replace broken breaker switches
• Replace fresh water pump

We also have about a thousand little things to do like double up hose clamps on thru-hulls, replace a wire here and a hose there, service winches, re-bed some hardware and the like.  We'll get it done, we've done it once before and we can do it again!

Love,
Brittany, Scott & Isla