DIY Yard Living

Burt has made it ! He has Erised tucked in and powered up. The first night was filled with exhaustion and shivers . Burt was able to get the stairs mostly built everything but the railings , Which would be fine except it started sleeting and snowing that night . And Burt’s only scare was having to go down the ice covered steps ( 20 of them ) without rails to go to the shower house . It was bitterly cold but after a while he was able to warm up the boat and stop shivering .  He was glad to get those stairs built could not imagine having to do that in the middle of the night on a ladder . Climbing a ladder has never been an option for us during this whole project . I can’t imagine hauling stuff up and down the ladder during this whole refit . We are very lucky the marina is so welcoming . In fact that reminds me of burt’s new neighbor . Hoarder Tom is what the marina folk call him . Tom is an eccentric 70 year old man , He has 5 boats ( only lives in one ) and three cars ( two on a trailer ) also in the DIY yard  .  He has filled all of his boats to the brim with stuff . Ok … things he collects . At one time Tom lived on another boat that is in the yard until one day it started to sink .. with him in it ! Water was up to his knees and it was still plugged into the dock . After much negotiating they were able to get him to leave the boat for his safety . Now, they were able to pull the boat out of the water and put it on the dry. And what then you ask ? Well …. he moved back in it . Wait for it……….. without cleaning it out !  He was living in it until the mold was starting to make him sick , never attempting to clean it out . So now he lives in one of his other boats and to this day it sits in the same condition . He will not get rid of anything . Burt said he is a nice old man , but lives in fear of burt using up all of the power . You see they share the same breaker and he has just your average drop cord to power up his boat and burt pulled out this 30 amp cord to power up our boat and so the consumption of power war begins .

The only saving grace is the dock worker also lives at the dock and he handles hoarding Tom in a gentle way so all is well . Burt is making friends though . It seems there are several people working on their boats in the yard .  This weekend will be filled with just settling in . He has located our office in Top Sail and calculated his driving time for the start of work on monday. So life in the DYI yard has begun .