Getting cooler

Once again, Weather Underground was right on.  Forecast for rain starting at 7:30 AM.  7:30 AM, it started raining with gusto,  another rainy day in paradise.  The rain is not so bad, and the water is warmer, it is the wind that makes it cold.  I actually am thinking about turning the heater on today.  What’s wrong with this picture?  In the Bahamas and need a heater.  Time to head further south.
John from the Cape and Island Power Squadron in New England is coming down next week to boat sit.  I don’t have the heart to tell him to bring his winter woollies.
 

Two beautiful  girls enjoying their Christmas Presents.

Mother ship home for a few days.

Once again, weather drives it.  The day started off calm, slightly over cast, but warm where the sun shone through.  This evening, a large fishing boat came in to tie up on the T, and along with came 12 runabouts that go out and collect lobster and conch.  The fishing boat acts like a mother ship with 12 little children gathering their toys and bringing them home.    Forecast is for lots of wind and everyone is coming home to wait out the blow.

Mother ship

Little Runabouts that gather conch and lobster

Weather rules

Squall that caught Bob

Weather still continues to be a big show stopper.  On the good says, many of the sail boats take leave to head over to the Berry Islands or Nassau.  Next day, a new batch of sail boats show up from Miami to wait their turn. Seems that El Niño is having an effect here in the Bahamas as well. 

One night, all was well with 25 to 30 knots of wind blowing boat all over the place here at the dock.  Then suddenly a gust hit with such force that it blew most of the cushions from the marina lounge chairs into the water.  Dan from Quest got into his 100 HP dinghy and ran around fishing out cushions and other flotsam that was drifting by.  A tree down the street was blown over.  Only lasted about a minute, but it was strong.

Palm tree over CJ's deli

A few days later, while walking home from the beach, I got caught in a front that came through.  Felt as if I was getting sand blasted with the rain water and sand.  Never before have I gotten hit by rain so hard that it stung.

Many Faces of Bob's Beach

Many faces of Bob's Beach

Channel into North Bimini

Morning after.  Note Piper the dog on the right.

Transmission Oil Change Day

Transmission oil change day.  Whoever designed and built the Ford Lehman engine had their act together and included a hand operated oil pump-out feature in its design.  Takes a while, a little messy, but it works.  Having done it, now I know why having a yard do the work came out to $600 bucks.

This same person must have been on vacation when the Borg Warner Velvet Drive 7258 was designed.  “Warner drain plug is a hex plug located near the bottom right side.  In some instances, the cooler return hose may be fed into the plug at the bottom requiring removal of the hose, and rotating the brass elbow to facilitate draining the oil.” 

Jiffy Lube has the right idea.  Drive a car into a service bay and a technician goes down stairs, reaches over his/her head and has ready access to all the drain plugs, filters and tools to do the job.  Not true on a boat.  Recall that the engine and transmission are already near the lowest part of the boat.  Standing on your head, removing all these parts and being sure to catch all the draining oil in something other than the bilge would take some ingenuity.

Jim, a mechanic, and the builder of Goldie, the home built sail boat across the dock, and I were discussing things while practicing lifting 12 oz bottles from table top to head height.  “Don’t you have a dipstick oil pump thing on board”?  Hummm.  I recall Peggy holding up a weird contraption consisting of small hoses, alligator clip’s and wires some time back last summer.  Once again, to the PO’s credit, and Peggy’s urge to sort, I found a Tupperware storage bin in the lazzarette with a Dipstick Oil Pump Out kit, and imagine this, all the parts!!  An hour later and the job was done.  Piece of cake.  Still need to dump the oil in the bucket behind the ice maker.

Water Pump Day

Next is the water pump.  Make sure one has a spare impeller before one takes off the access plate on the pump.  Plan ahead.  Fortunately, the PO had spare’s scattered around the boat and Peggy, in her infinite sorting wisdom, put them all in a clear plastic bag, and to my surprise, found it.  Some were brand new, and some dated back to Noah’s ark.  Also have to remember to close the raw water intake which I did.  I was sort of apprehensive to jump into this, but knew that I must, and so, just did it.  Six 8-32 brass screws later, no corrosion as was my fear and the cover plate slid right off.  Wasn’t sure how much water would come out, but that was not a problem either.

Getting the rubber impeller out without the Jabsco Impeller Removal Tool required some ingenuity.  But once again, using tools as they were not intended, 2 screw drivers applied thusly, and the impeller also popped out.  Piece of cake.  Fortunately Jabsco had included raw water intake impeller lubrication juice in a small packet the size of a MacDonald catsup packet in the new impeller box.  Lubricating the impeller, smashing it in the hole with the rubber flaps pointing the correct way, and all was done.  I had to use 3 new brass 8-32 screws to replace the deformed screw driver slots on the old screws, and to the PO’s credit, also had a small bag of them in the pump impeller bag.  Piece of cake.

A quick start of the engine, oil pressure came up, no water leaking around my new installation job, water out the exhaust pipe, and the day was done.  Beach time.

Oil Change Day

Oil change day.  Actually it was “Oil change 3 days” by the time I got all the funnels, used jugs, filters, pumps and new oil all set up.  Remember, this is a Honey-Do list item and can’t rush into it. Starting off with the Ford Lehman book,  among other things, it gave as the every-200 hours maintenance  list to change engine oil, transmission oil and the raw water intake pump impeller.

Changing out the engine oil is not so bad, but the one thing that one has to remember is to have the capacity to hold 19 quarts of used engine oil, and that means 5 empty 4 quart containers.  Plan ahead.  Of course, I was 1 short.  Fellas here at the marina said to just dump it in a bucket behind the ice machine.  Well, ok, but where will it go?  “No worry mon.  We take care of it”.  I wondered whose yard it was going to end up in.  Adding new oil freed up new containers, so that problem is solved.  One days’ worth of work accomplished.