The sun sets on Pathfinder once again after a spectacular series of long overdue nice days. True they’ve been hot, but it hasn’t rained, no drops in temperature and overall the evenings have proven to be quite pleasant. In any case I find myself relaxing after driving back from my parents house this weekend on the front deck looking at the full, yet quiet, B Basin of Toronto Island Marina with the CN Tower to my left lit up by the setting sun. Life couldn’t get much better than this really.

The summer has so far been a rather busy time for me with work and the boat but mostly work taking up a large amount of time. Again I find that refitting a vessel while living on it while still working is, if anything, a test of patience and extremely flexible on board project deadlines. Many of you know that I’m still wrestling with the plumbing for the boat with special focus on getting our head (toilet) done. Everyone seems to marvel at how long we’ve lasted without one on board but honestly after having essentially lived a life style more akin to camping than in a (floating) condo Jeannie and I have (miraculously) gotten used to it. Every day I work on Pathfinder gets us closer and closer to being a fully fitted out live aboard vessel, but with every step forward one tends to run into “surprises” along the way forcing one to either rethink, redo, or rip out something on board. This isn’t due to a lack of planning mind you as I’ve found one of the best ways to shorten project times is to literally think about how to do stuff on board for days and even weeks before actually starting on it. I know this sounds like me being incredibly lazy but I’ll guarantee you that this sort of project requires careful planning above and beyond what normal house renovations require. Here’s an example:

Behind where our toilet will go I have to build a rectangular box to house the sewage hose, water pipe, and electronic system for the toilet. One would assume this would be a straight forward series of 12 pieces of wood (roughly) that is split into 3 different sizes to make a proper box (4 for width, 4 for height, 4 for depth). Well no. Since this is a) a boat and b) an old boat things have warped and shifted into odd angles and what not. One cannot even use something as basic as a level since the boat rocks with the waves and also tends to list (lean) to one side. As a result every piece is a different size yet it is now perfectly square to the floor and to every other piece. Weird eh?

Regardless of all these hang ups we now have both side of the galley completely done cabinet wise (counter top, water, electricity, lighting are still in the works), we have a window AC unit installed (inside the pilot house it can easily hit 30 degrees without the blinds closed and the AC off like we had for the past 2 days while we were gone), ventilation for the cargo hold retro fitted into the cargo hold hatch done, and part of the starboard side repainted with black paint to cover the rust and scuffs from it’s 5 years of neglect in the ocean (Thanks Jeannie!).

So as one can see things are progressing, but life throws things in the way which one needs to take care of.

In the Marina itself our little community expands and contracts depending on the sort of events going on on or around the island and the weather (psch… These fair weather boaters I tell ya). The tour boats still fly on by putting us on display and mentioning Pathfinder prominently, however incorrectly, in their tour speeches. The wild life knows which ships to harass for bread, and we still end up giving tours almost weekly to people who have dreams of working and living on a boat such as ours. But for now I shall sign off calling it a night on my little 65′ slice of cottage life heaven in down town TO before starting the work week anew.