A good book BTW. W/ laughed out loud all the way through it. Written by a guy who’s mom took it to a college prof after he had passed away and the professor liked it so much he sent it to a publisher. You’ve got to like New Orleans and the wackyness of the South for this book to really stick out. (
From the Library Journal: The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel with the sad history turns 20 (LJ 4/15/80). This story about a young man’s isolation still rings true at a time when millions interact more with computers than with other people….
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Anyway….. I’ve been doing projects in the engine room. W/ now wants to call it Dave’s room. I’ve changed both March pumps from Vertical to Horizontal (as called for by March), I’ve made a new 3rd generation salt water manifold we affectionately
Mike & I 2nd Gen Bong :)
call the boat ” bong”. The second generation leaked and even after I tried to fix the leak I still got a drip. I’ve changed the orientation of one of the valves on the watermaker; wasn’t happy with it, put in a manual one, stopped the oil leak on the Kubota generator, re-plumbed the cooling system on the generator, and replaced two suspect hose clamps on the seacock. That’s what got us.
To replace the hose clamps, I actually had to cut one off. But before I did anything on a 1 1/2″ hole in the bottom of the boat I closed the seacock. Replaced the one, added a second, removed a third, cleaned and put the clamp back on. Then I went on to cleaning up the engine room a little and retired for the day.
Do you see what I missed? Yep. So hours later after we’ve counted Lobsters to get to sleep we had about a dozen mini rain showers. Early in the am when W/ was awake and making her stroll to the aft head she wakes me up by saying we have water in the boat. I stumble back to check the hatch (thought I had left it open), hatch was closed and as I grab the handrail on the aft vanity I discover it’s full of water, as well as the sink. Oops, I forgot to open the seacock up so as rain gathered in the cockpit it ran out the hose to leave the boat. But; the seacock was closed so it backed up into the aft vanity sink and filled that area up. As we were rolling some all night from the Southerly ground swell water would slosh out of the vanity / sink area. I opened the seacock and we began the process of cleaning up at 4 am.
Now to make sure you don’t think we’re on a continuous vacation other things we’ve been doing: we now have all our shots for travel anywhere in the world, we’ve removed the sail and had it fixed; we’ve removed the furler and ordered a new one from Famet. Great system and I’m staying with it. We’ve cleaned some of the boat. We replaced a connector on one of the solar panels, we’ve purchased supplies for some repairs or upgrades. We’ve discovered where Home Depot, K-Mart, the mall, the auto parts store, 3 boat supply stores, a good fruit / vegetable market, and food specials are. We’ve met some of the regular local sailors that are rebuilding their cruising kitty. We’ve been busy, I’ve done more Suduko’s than I care to admit, finished one book; oops I’m talking of a life of liesure now; so I’ll stop.
Fair Winds