May 31, 2011.

After 2 mornings of varnishing, followed by 2 afternoons of mast climbing and port polishing we decided to sleep in this morning. It was the third morning of our holiday weekend, I figured we were entitled.

After a leisurely breakfast it was time to knock off the biggest chore of the weekend, the new hot water heater. On a side note, its kind of a stupid moniker isn’t it? Theres no need to heat “hot water”, why aren’t they commonly referred to as water heaters rather than hot water heaters. Anyway…..

Our old water heater was leaking from a cracked fitting and unfortunately I was going to have to remove the water heater to replace the fitting. The thing is of undetermined age so if I was going to the trouble of emptying and removing it I may as well replace it.

The only problem was that I forgot that all of my tools are at the shop. Crap. Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit. I had a Philips screwdriver and a small pair of pliers. I put in a call to MacGyver and he said I was screwed.

Fortunately Alibi II is only a dozen slips away and Bill dropped off 3 of his toolboxes. A couple of hours and a few quarts of sweat later, the old one was out and the new one was in. Perfect, just in time for a cold shower.