The first full day was spent getting caught up on sleep and on the computer. There actually is some stress involved with sailing, believe it or not. So it's nice to just have some down time. We then spent the week mixing routine maintenance, projects (and complications there of), and site seeing.
We added our SPOT locator to the blog site. Now if you click on it, you can follow our location. Hope it works.
One of the reasons we decided to stay here a week involved getting mail. Dave needed to order a new autopilot drive. We also had important mail waiting for us in Florida, so we decided to stay a week instead of a few days. That also gave us time to do more projects and take our time as tourists.
This small marina is cheaper than the city marina, but it sure is rough. We haven’t felt this rock and roll motion since we left Mobile Bay (with a little in St Augustine). There is only one shower for everyone to use, but we often shower on our boat. BUT they have free laundry, which is rare. Marathon was $3.00 per load each machine. And free laundry means washing bedding and rugs, too.
Maintenance for me: clean the heads, floors, refrigerator maintenance (important because it is so small), defrost the freezer (every 3 months), grocery shopping, rearrange food storage, prepare food to be eaten under way, and laundry.
Maintenance for Dave: changed the oil on the engine (every 100 hours) and the high pressure pump of the water maker.
Since we weren’t using the water maker, he had to flush it.
Scrubbed the deck and cockpit. Cleaned off the back end of the boat. Small barnacles can enter a small space but then they grow and expand and can separate layers. So always a concern. They are sharp, so you have to wear gloves. Not sure when he is going to clean the entire hull again. Alligators and sharks are a concern.
Projects: Replaced autopilot drive, no complications. Old one had a broken wire which Dave fixed, so now we have a spare autopilot (just need to store it on board). The real test will be once we are on the move again.
Received RayMarine part in St Augustine and installed here-NMEA multiplexer-used to connect all of our electronics so they mesh. But you risk loosing everything that is connected if you are hit by lightening. What we want is for the AIS to show up on our chart plotter. It will show ships that could possibly collide with us. Previously, it only worked in our cabin below, not out in the cockpit. After several days of working on this, 2 phone calls to RayMarine and one to iCom-AIS, it still wasn’t communicating. Dave was going to give it a break, look at it again in another port, and maybe hire someone to get everything to mesh. He updated firm ware the on the chart plotter (that runs the chart plotter) and the soft ware. THEN it recognized the AIS!! Happy Dance on the boat!!
He placed a shut off valve for our forward water tank. Then if he is working on the system, he can shut off the source.
Mounted an additional wench handle pocket.
Friday-discovered fresh water in the bilge. Dave retraced everything he had done involving water. We checked all bilges and storage areas under the bed and in the lazerettes. No other areas with water on board. So far the water hasn’t returned. There was air in the water lines making the water pump run longer than normal. That was taken care of but has returned. So Dave is going to look at all the water connections to see if there is a leak anywhere besides the areas he had been working on. May need to replace the water pump.
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| cleaning the bilge |
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| Our boat is second from right |
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