Category Archives: Boat Details

Time to putz around

Heading down to see the Shack. A few things to tidy up and putz around on for the weekend. This was a free weekend and the airfare was reasonable so booked a quick weekend trip to do some routine maintenance and what ever else comes up. Main projects are stop and pick up a starting battery for the port engine. It’s been tired since we bought the boat and over Xmas we had to jump it off the house bank a few times to get the port engine started.

I have all the parts onboard to make a fuel polishing system and the port tank could stand a good cleaning along with replacing the fuel filters and cleaning the fuel bowls.

Possibly change the engine oil and reattach the dingy chaps are on the list of projects too. Course a couple of Piton beers will be needed to celebrate the small goals along the way.

Currently flying over the Bahamas and the blue water is so inviting. We really need to get up here someday by boat of course.

Shawn got groggy and decided to join me on this weekend trip. Who knows what we’ll get into it is Friday night jump up over in Gros Islet this evening. Wonder I we’ll have energy for that as we left at 2am to catch a 6am flight out of Houston so that the travel time was a mere 6 hrs if you don’t count the 3 hr drive to Houston.

Should be a good weekend to tinker around on boats.

All the excitement

All the exciting things happen after dark

When stern tied there is the yin and yang of it all. The anchor holds us from going backwards and the poor ole palm tree holds us from going forwards. Its all good when there isn’t much wave action or swell. As the action increases so do the sounds of the strain on the line. Till POING something gives. Of course it was at 4:45am. We all spring out of bed to see what’s up.

The line the rolling hitch was made from couldn’t take the load so our stern bridle was a single line. At first I was just going to let it ride and keep an eye on it. I tried that for a bit tried to take in some line so that speeds forward and art would be reduced. In that process watched our stern cleat and some pretty good fiberglass deflections and decided to get the heck out of dodge before it was an expensive repair.

Got wayne and christine up and formulated a plan where I would swim ashore to release the palm tree from it duty and christine would man the boat as Wayne pulled the line and me back to the boat. And then we would retrieve the anchor and bust on out in the darkness.

All went off without a hitch. The only thing was our navigating lights wouldn’t come on so a quickish bulb replacement and the rest of the boats could ow spot us too.

So a much earlier star to this leg and we will miss the boat boy and the provisions he was to bring. We will have to swing. Ack in there and catch him on the down island trip.

Squeaky belt gets the grease

Top belt the Squeaker, the bottom belt the replacement. Already installed seems the pulley on on the crankshaft has been wet a time or two, and storage 6months at at time doesn’t keep the channel clean, a little wet dry sand paper and maybe this one will last a bit longer.

note to self, bring a couple more on next trip just to be sure.

Water tank approaching the 1/2 way mark. While working in that port engine compartment, I took a closer look at the water maker production and saw that the strainer had some crud in it and after cleaning it, the production per hour is almost doubled what it was earlier.

Bout time to keep a diligent eye out for the garden tour to return and need a lift back to the boat.

Nice and sunny here, hot and sweaty in engine rooms.