Back to Projects

Now that we are settled a bit, and while Dave is healing, we are doing some smaller projects.

What are you up to today?

First on the list was cleaning the engine raw water pickup screen. Dave could explain how it works. I just know it needs to be checked and cleaned to make sure no debris is in it that could clog the engine heat exchanger.

And it’s time for another oil change. What a messy job. I think the motor was installed to make oil changes as difficult as possible. No stopping by Jiffy Lube to let some other poor guy do this job.

Mary is cleaning the inside and outside of the boat. We needed new winch covers and two new hand rail covers, so out came the sewing machine.

Mary using the solder gun to cut her fabric.

Our second head could use new seals. We have a maintenance kit with about 30 toilet parts to be replaced. It’s toilet maintenance. It’s not fun. How long can I delay this task?

The freezer needs to be defrosted. We are in the tropics. There’s lots of humidity. All that humidity condenses in the freezer box in nice thick sheets of snowy looking ice. Very quickly. And ice on the freezer plates makes the whole thing work less efficiently. We have to eat-down the freezer before this task starts.

Keeping fuel tank full is important so that moisture doesn’t condense into the tank. water in the fuel is bad. We find it pretty easy to transfer the fuel from our jerry jugs on the deck. The hard part is getting our jerry jugs refilled. At this marina, there is a fuel barge – our first-ever fuel barge. It is quite an operation. We wheeled our empty jugs to the barge where a couple men hooked up the hoses, one pumped it into the jerry jugs while another watched the gages. All this for 21 gallons of fuel!

And we refilled our water tanks. We brought out our trusty three part filter/sanitizer system and put about 80 gallons into our tanks. Three parts: sediment filter; carbon filter; UV light bug killer. And we have another sediment and carbon filter in the boat to help our water be extra tasty clean.