Your making it worse!

So this is going to be all three, or four days of weekend work rolled into one post because I just cant be bothered splitting it all up. I left home about 4:30pm on Thursday and gave our new car a thorough test and everything went great...by the way I LOVE cruise control!! anyhow arrived in Havelock with the last of the days light so unpacked all my stuff into the boat and set right to work. I removed the old fuse block under the rear bed which has corroded really badly (due to poor positioning previously), I installed the new fuse block and wired everything back up and guess what! the electric toilet works again, I guess the man from Burnsco was right and it was a current issue due to a corroded fuse. Anyhow a quick chat to Emma and then it was time for bed. The next morning I was woken up by Simon at 8:15 asking something about something but I cant really remember...then it was right back to work and I made a start on painting the front head (bathroom for all the land lubbers out there). Next I thought I would tackle the leaking diesel tank and after mixing up a few batches of the steel epoxy I thought I was on top of the leak when I noticed a bit of the fiberglass I had laid was loose (the repair job to the tank in Florida) and low and behold it wasn't even adhered and a huge chunk came off with little effort, then the next piece came off and before I knew it there was not really much left and the diesel was pouring into the bilge a lot faster! shit! I am making it worse. So after some pacing, swearing, a little bit of panic, some more pacing I decided the best option was to put the flooring back down and pretend nothing had ever happened and the problem didn't exist...right onto the next item of business....kidding! well sort of, I decided to take a major step and call that tank stuffed and work out where the hell to put a new one and what kind of volume I could achieve. So it was pretty obvious really, basically right above the old tank and under the saloon table seats was a great place allowing a 1200mm long, 500mm wide and 380mm high tank giving me a decent 230L tank which should be good for 50-60 hours of motoring. Then the next question was cost, now I was scared, to get a custom stainless steel tank of that size made...hmmm, so I jumped on the phone to Fin Sheetmetals back in Christchurch and was surprised to find he thinks about 400-500+gst so not too bad really. By now I had enough and decided to do some work and wrote up a quote, watched some Top Gear, cooked tea and fell asleep at the saloon table until I assume the middle of the night but could not be bothered moving so went back to sleep until about 5am when it got really cold. I grabbed another blanket and went back to sleep, and happily woke to a beautiful sunny morning. After a quick brekkie it was outside and I was right into ripping off the front hatch and one small hatch over the front head, bog up all the holes and then head into Blenheim to pickup Emma who is coming in by train. A quick stop at Bunnings for some sealant and new knife blades, pick Emma up, grab lunch, buy a boat vacuum cleaner and rush back to Havelock as it was raining nearby and I had two gaping holes in the top of the boat....we got back and found everything dry and then it was work time. We sanded back the two hatch areas, cleaned the hatches and sealed down with Sika 11FC and screwed in place. Next was the other small hatch and the bigger one above the saloon table seat, again cleaned up the hatches, bogged holes and sanded back, sealed and screwed down so hopefully no problems now!! By now its time to get cleaned up and head to the Pelorus Boating Club Xmas party, and after a slow start we got chatting to a few lovely people, had a fantastic dinner, some dessert and secret santa. Oh and tin bum Emma won a spot prize of a hand held GPS!. It was then back to the boat, watch an episode of House MD (well I did, Emma just slept) then it was bed time as we were both shattered after a hard day in the sun. Sunday was again an amazing morning and looked to be a hot hot hot day so we decided to get one of the other larger hatches removed, bogged and off to lunch while the bog dried. Return, sand and reseal and screw the hatch back down. The rest of the day was really just spent cleaning up, stowing the dinghy, organizing mooring ropes and then time to head home. We managed to leave Havelock at 3:30pm and had a rather frustrating drive home with all the sunday drivers and just downright moron drivers who struggle to do anywhere near the speed limit. Until next weekend....keep checking back because its going to be a mammoth weekend coming!