Monday February 26: It's a Whole New View ...

So we did make it out overnight last week - everything was working well again. Until it wasn't ....

The small Honda 2000 wouldn't start when we woke up in the morning. No real problem for us as we can always just start the engine (which has it's own battery) and use that and the inverter to cook and recharge the house battery bank.

It's usually so reliable. Pull the chord and it's up and running. Only now it sounds quite weird. Like there's no compression in the cylinder.

Internet forums to the rescue! There was a post from a gentleman describing EXACTLY what was happening to us: ran fine at night then nothing in the morning. Turns out the intake valve was stuck open so of course no compression in the cylinder. Solution was to remove the carburetor (easy to do according to Steve) and then pull the chord as you are squirting carburetor fluid into the engine.  Didn't take more than 5 minutes or so and we were back in business! Next time we'll know ...

Work continues on the dinghy. First Steve sanded and wiped down the bottom. Then applied two coats of the paint. Flip it over and repeat for the top side.


The worst part was painting the inside of the tubes. No way really to stand up and do that. This again after sanding and wiping down with acetone. Two coats. Pain in the back ....


Especially compared to having a chair in which to sit. This was so totally my kind of job!

Another two coats of paint on the topside and almost done.

Of course there was great help from neighbors - Paul, Colleen, Cindy, Randy and I think Flint - when the dinghy needed to be moved, flipped or hauled into the shade.

Everyone here is always willing to lend a hand when needed. I think that's why we love it here so much - super folks that are always willing to lend a hand. I'm not sure how we were so fortunate to land here 8 years ago. No doubt our People watching out for us :-)

Final step: paint the FL registration numbers and add the current year decal.

So the dinghy is now ready for the water. It's still holding air nicely. Maybe we can get another 9 years out of this thing!





My left thumb is now declared 'done' so it's time to pull my bike out. The last time I rode it was fall 2016. When it became apparent that having one thumb and index finger on each hand didn't give me enough control, Steve folded the bike, put it under the front bunk and there it has lived since :-)

Even being under the bunk did not prevent the rust from forming on the chain, in particular. So rusted that Steve needed to use pliers to break the links apart.

With a liberal application of chain oil, it wasn't long before it was declared "safe" to ride! We have become SO SPOILED having our Keys Kruiser here. It's going to need to be a conscious action to ride our bikes anywhere. But critical. Once we move to Guppy this summer, bikes are our only transportation .....

An unusual spurt of energy hit me the other day so I decided to polish the stainless on the flybridge. It was driving me crazy and is something that I can easily do so I did.

I'm much happier :-)

Old view from the flybridge

So as of today we now have a new view from the flybridge!



Randy wants to paint the side of his boat but their slip wasn't wide enough to accommodate the small boat Steve was using so we decided to swap slips - not sure how long but it's really no issue - there is no bad view from this side of the marina :-)

We are now docked on the starboard side rather than the port. All we really have to do is make sure we go out the correct door!

New view from the flybridge

Tuesday February 20: It's Always Good to be Back Home ....

Rebecca and Wendy on Moonlight beach

It was a great visit to San Diego for our family Christmas - Finally!!!

Of course the beach is always on the list of things to do. Moonlight beach is one of the nicest and is only a mile from Matt and Wendy's home.

Steve likes to walk the beach at low tide especially as the tidal pools are then uncovered and likely to have small anemones and other sea life.

Self heating mug

Present opening is always fun of course - as is playing with the toys from previous years.

Matt became quite adept at flying the small 'helicopter'. It wasn't long before the rule of outside the house was enacted!

And of course there were a variety of crafts to be done including a gingerbread house - mostly completed by Becky and Wendy. Take a close look at the smoke coming out of the chimney!

A totally good idea by Becky and completed by me. (She had to head back to LA before it could be finished).

Steve spent part of his time learning how to spin yarn from raw fiber! Wendy is a great teacher and he was a quick learner - perfect combination.

Now he'll have to learn how to knit :-)

Of course we usually went out for breakfast (it's a hard habit to break!). And while Steve often has a fresh fruit as a side instead of potatoes, the fruit provided by A Little More in Leucadia was beyond what we've ever had - even in health conscience California!!

As an added bonus (no pictures sadly) Craig and Karen from Rahn DeVous whom we met on the Trent Canal two years ago) drove down from San Juan Capistrano to spend the day on Friday. So nice to see them!!


Overall it was a great trip. Not sure where or when Christmas will be this year but it'll be fun :-)

Matt, Wendy, Rebecca, Me, Steve

What was really nice was Matt and Wendy put their Christmas tree back up for our gathering :-)

Once we returned to the boat, it seemed we never left! It was time to deal with the leaking circulation pump on the engine before we were going to be able to go anywhere - and there was good weather on the horizon

First, the old water pump needed to be replaced. First was to prime and paint the new pump and the old pulley.

Easy enough to do. Next was to install the new pump.


Steve could do it but it meant turning himself into a pretzel to be able to do that! I, however, could simply sit directly in front of the engine and install the 4 bolts on the pump.

It took me a little while to convince him that my hands are now ready and that I can return to the engine room :-)  It's been quite a while for sure!

Installation - done! Now simply refill with antifreeze and we're good to go. The weather is promising for a night at anchor tomorrow!

Mmmm .. it seems to still be dripping. Not good. Antifreeze is coming from the weep hole - which is how you know the water pump is bad to begin with.

What the heck. I mean I ordered this from Cheepo.com but really - leaking from the get go???

Well, it was docktail time anyway so we stopped for the night.


Up early the next day. No more leaking. Very strange. We continued filling the antifreeze and headed out for an overnight. We'll keep an eye on what the antifreeze level does.

The anchorage off of Little Bahia Honda Key was very nice. The key itself was really devastated by Irma - very little greenery left. Most of the vegetation of the key is dead.

Steve kayaked over to check it out but who knows if it will ever come back .....


There was a bit of snorkeling but with less than desirable clarity, there wasn't much to be seen.

It was a beautiful evening. How nice it was to be away from the marina for a night :)

Quiet time on the flybridge was in order for sure ...

and the sunset was crazy nice.

Plus a gazillion stars to be seen as there was little light pollution that night away from the lights of Marathon.

Morning might have been the best with my new self-heating mug :-)

It keeps my coffee at the preset temperature of 145 degrees - right down to the last drop :-) Thanks, Becky !!













We were greeted back by one the manatee the next day - stopping by to catch the drips of fresh water dripping from the leaking water line in front of our dock.

Nice trip both to CA and out at anchor :-)

Thursday February 8: Clearly We Made a Mistake .....

As the plane broke through the cloud layer - this is what we saw - YIKES!!

So maybe we made a mistake by flying into Columbus, Ohio 'on the way' to sunny southern California :-)

Didn't expect to really see much snow. I mean we're 2 hours south of Cleveland and Lake Erie - home of the lake effect snow.

But we were here for just a day - long enough for a quick  stop at the eye doctor one hour north of Columbus. Stay overnight then back to Columbus today and San Diego by 8 pm.

I do not expect to see this view out of the plane as we begin our descent to southern CA :-)

Tuesday February 6: Ready for Christmas!!

So the real question is are we early for Christmas 2018 or late for Christmas 2017? Well, since we hadn't yet celebrated in 2017 with our family, it's a late Christmas for 2017 of course :-)

Time to head to California - home to Wendy, Matt and Becky!

But not so fast - still a few things to take care of before we take off.

Old aft hatch cover

Nice and new!

It was nice to do a couple of things that have been getting on my nerves: the state of the front and aft hatch covers.

I'm not really sure how they became so stained - all I know is they weren't like that when we left the boat last May!

Forward hatch

New cover

Next was the forward hatch. What actually prompted the cover for this hatch originally was that it was just impossible to stop the leaks!

No matter what we did .... so finally - just make a cover for it :-)

Meanwhile the dinghy continues to dry. It takes a full week for the new rubber coating that long to "cure" fully.

Steve was concerned about the rain so he added tarps to the area by the electrical panel structure.

Worked great - the next step will be to paint a coat or two of single part paint to finish off refurbishing this dinghy.




And it was going to be a nice day Sunday - maybe we should take a short cruise on the bay side to run the engine a bit and more importantly clean the bottom of the boat (just moving through the water cleans the bottom).

Have I said this boat doesn't like to sit?

Another 'sitting' issue: the raw water circulation pump had a very slow leak. This pump is very similar to the circulation pump on the front of a car engine and needs replaced every so often. Drain the antifreeze, remove belts, remove 4 bolts and replace. So the pump is on order and all is ready to put back together when we return from CA. And so Steve spent yet another couple of hours 'down below' :-)

Sunday: time for the Super Bowl!! There was a gathering in the marina and an opportunity to gamble on the game. What could be better ? :-)

Playing Flip Cup or was it Cup Flip????

So we forked over our $40 for 8 squares. It's a fun investment even if we don't win as my thought was it would take the sting out of the Patriots winning yet another Super Bowl.

I mean really - did the Eagles have a chance?

As it turned out, we had the winner 9-3 at the end of the first quarter and the winner 2-2 at the end of the first half. Total of $160 in returns! Best part? The Eagles winning :-)

And a beautiful sunset to boot ....... what's not to love about living here ......

Meanwhile Steve's little engine that could - couldn't. This is a picture of the bucket he used to run the engine for a bit. All of the 'junk' is oil. Something  must be wrong, right?

Off to the repair shop again. But the mechanic said all is well - just has sat too long (one month) before running. So back it came and we'll see how that goes .....

For now though no dinghy, no engine, beautiful day, no problem. Go fishing with Flint and Leslie on Grace Full!


Result not too bad - a nice Bermuda Chub  and a nice Mangrove Snapper.

Not the best day fishing but still not a skunk :-)

And so we are off tomorrow. A quick stop and x-ray at the clinic to verify the thumb fusion is well healed and then off to Fort Lauderdale and Christmas in California!

Back in a week ......

Thursday February 1: Good Start to a New Month

Paul, Steve and Randy (Colleen's legs behind the dinghy!)

I can tell already it's going to be a good month!

Time to take the dinghy to the next step - painting on
a layer of liquid rubber!

First step: Randy, Paul and Colleen helped Steve move the dinghy to underneath the steps. an ideal place to do the painting.

Paul, Colleen and Steve

The rubber coating takes between 24 and 48 hours to dry to the touch so the dinghy needs to be protected from the possible showers that are due in tomorrow.



First thing is to use the stir stick included with the paint a drill to stir the paint - for a total of 20 minutes! Gotta love using a drill to do this ....

Now let sit for an hour. Just enough time for a quick breakfast and a stop at the gymn.

Once the paint set up a bit, it was time to start.

Before

As you can see in the before picture, there were numerous places where the original rubber coating was rubbed off during Irma (dinghy was sitting in the holder on the swim platform).

After

It's not going to be perfect but hopefully it will hold up another 9 years :-)

It was definitely a no fun job. The paint is the consistency of cold honey. Steve used a stiff paint brush and a squegee to apply it. He held in there finishing up within 3 hours.

And as a nod to Safety Matt, respirator was in place during the entire job :-)


The rubber coating has to dry for a week and then it will be a coat of paint to finish off the dinghy project!!

I finally got around to making a cover for the small gas tank for the dinghy engine.

Should really help by keeping the rubber hose out of the sun. It's amazing how quickly that kind of thing can deteriorate in the sun. It should last another 9 years as well!



There was some fun to finish out January - my brother Pat and his wife Becky came to stay a couple of days!! Not the greatest weather - very windy and cool - but there were a few hours of sunshine and a trip to the pool. Besides, they kept saying it was still nicer than in Ohio!

We had a good time anyway and even managed to get in some games of Euchre and dominoes.

From here they were headed to Key West for a few days as they met up with friends. Better weather once they went there. I know Sloppy Joes was on the list of places to see .....  It was nice being able to spend more time with them than usually happens when we go to Ohio to visit.

We actually ended up in Key West also as we stopped by Rosie's office (hand therapist).

And since it was lunchtime, it was a great day to stop by Salute! on the beach.

Good lunch, wonderful view.