Friday night we got to the boat about 6pm and dove right into the project of getting the water system winterized.  It took an hour, but all went well.  We emptied and cleaned out the water tank and ran antifreeze through the plumbing lines.  We also cleaned out and dried the bilge so that’s done for winter too.  Saturday morning we got everything ready and had the boat pulled out of the water around 10:30am.  By 11:30 it was all set on its cradle and safely on land for the winter.  It was a beautiful day and we walked up to the Village Inn for some lunch and then back to the boat.  We winterized the engine and air conditioning systems and it was way easier than what we had done in the past.  Winterizing the engine, we simply pulled the cover off of the freshwater intake strainer and poured antifreeze into it while running the engine.  Two minutes and we were done.  The air conditioning system was just as easy as I had installed a port this summer that allowed me to run antifreeze directly into the lines from the access area behind the engine.  I removed the cap on the port and in went the antifreeze while running the system.  Winterizing was a very quick and painless process this year and it’s good to know that the systems are all protected for the freezing temperatures ahead.  Our winter cover is a very simple system of three Top Gun covers that zip together and tie to the cradle.  Usually this cover sits on our boom, but because we have removed the mast for the winter to do work on it, we built a wood frame in the place where the boom usually sits.  This proved to be a very simple and easy solution.  The cover went on in about an hour and a half – start to finish.  It fits so good that one of our friends said it looks like she’s wearing an Italian suit!  Anyways, Wandering Toes is all winterized and put away for the season.  We have lots more plans and things we’ll be doing to her over winter and next year.  We were home by 7pm on Saturday.

Sunday was a day of cutting wood for winter at home.  We usually need about 6 cords of wood to heat our house for winter and we were able to cut and stack about 1 cord on Sunday.  I have about 2 cords now cut and stacked and 4 or so left to go.  The next couple of weeks will be wood cutting and doing outside house projects to get the house ready for winter.  I hope to have time at home to work on getting a few of our videos published and uploaded for all to see.