I was sitting on the boat this past weekend, winter cover and frame is off, new lifelines are on, lifeline pads I made for the cockpit look very "shippy". Sun was shining and I was very pleased with things. In spite of the recent snow, I began to go over the Spring pre-launch in my head, reviewing all of those things to check, potential problem areas, etc..........realization set in while looking int the port cockpit locker that if the shaft packing leaks when we are dropped in the water (like it is prone to do), I can't fix it.

One of the things I overlooked when doing the once over prior to purchase is that I have somehow gotten old. Standing on my head in a cockpit locker with packing nut wrenches is no longer an option. The layout and access to such things in the Islander is not so good. I can see the shaft packing, and the transmission oil dipstick, and the steering cables, and the manual bilge pump, and through hulls, just not get to any of them. Well, quickly anyhow. The process for most may be to empty everything out of the port locker, pull the batteries and battery boxes and hope for the best. By comparision, sitting in the port cockpit locker of the Catalina 25 every weekend for a month, rewiring the electrical panels was a breeze. But then, that was also 15 years ago.