Easy, calm glimmery water day. How DID we become comfortable w/13' of water anyway. We did and this bay/sound was/is beautiful and broad. Both David and I took turns at the helm and doing chores onboard - me scraping the rails, David polishing stainless rails. And we saw a blimp hanger and a blimp! It was tethered. And finally a beautiful sunset.
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| Glimmer water |
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| David doing boat chores |
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| Day is done, gone the sun |
Now from David:
I have been pretty involved with mechanical and navigational tasks and have been a slacker regarding the blog. I got a message today telling me that I should post more about the boat, navigation, etc.
I agree, although I am not certain what is of most interest. So, do let me know what i should focus on. My days are full of maintenance, navigation, charting, upgrades, and having fun with Nancy. GRACE still needs much work, but she is doing great. Nancy and I are doing great traveling and remaining partners and having fun.
So I will start talking about the boat and navigational stuff, for now, in no particular order:
About the diesel engine on board GRACE. It is an English Ford Industrial Diesel Engine, Specifically, a 4D254 - 2712E four cylinder diesel engine. Built in 1980, it is simple and older technology.
The engine is under the floor and one has to lift up two floor doors to gain access. My daily routine is to check the oil, antifreeze, tranny, alternator belt and do a general inspection and weekly or so, check the wet cell batteries, connections, etc and crawl all over looking for pending weaknesses.
Our Nauticat 33 is a wonderful, rugged boat. However, never let it be said that the Ford Diesel 4D254 engine is easy to work on in this installation. It is almost impossible to get at the lower half of the engine.
We built and installed battery boxes with covers for the four large (4D) batteries that sit on each side of the engine in the engine compartment, so I now have a place to sit or kneel on to reach over the engine. It is still a challenge to get into and at anything but the top of the engine or tranny.
Changing the oil filter (which is in a canister case mounted on the Starboard side) is almost impossible without spilling oil into the bilge. I almost got it figured out this time, with a garbage bag full of absorbant pads under the canister as I unbolted it, but the narrowness of the space between engine and turn of the bilge beat me again! Arghhh! So we spent considerable time with absorbant pads swabbing the bilge to assure no overboard discharge. (I have changed this canister several times alone with similar mess, and having Nancy's help, this time, I am trying to figure out how I did the oil change at all.
We split the 200 hour maintenance into several phases. We spent almost 7 hours doing oil change and fuel filters! (including the mess from the damn oil canister.) Tonight we did the tranny ATF change which was a lot less of a hastle.
I am still trying to locate a minor antifreeze leak that causes a loss of about a cup or pint of antifreeze a day. Fortunately it is found in the bilge and can be extracted and disposed of. It is not an internal leak. But I am still searching and looking for the solution. Again, it is so hard to get in around and under the parts of the engine, finding the leak is unnecessaryily difficult.
So, takeaway. When looking at a boat to purchase, do not overlook, nor underestimate the importance of access to and quality of the one most expensive and important piece of equipment aboard; your engine.
That said: Thankfuly, thus far, the Ford Gustovsen Diesel Engine with a Velvet Glide Transmission keeps chugging along.
Other than engine and genearal maintenance, navigation and safety seem most important.
We have a GPS, with RADAR overlay and AIS Receive that comes from our VHF (if you do not know what that all means just understand we have a way to see an electronic chart that shows us were we are and what is under the water where we are and ahead of us, plus we can see most objects (think boats and ships, using radar, and the VHF is a two way radio to communicate. But AIS is an added feature for additional safety:
AIS: I LOVE having AIS receive aboard. If there is interest I will explain more about what this is in the future but, just know it means that on my GPS screen I see a chart of where we are, and I see a triangle on the screen showing me the location, distance, direction and most importantly, how close another boat (with AIS transponder) is to me and most importantly, I can determine if we need to change course to avoid a collision. It helps, especially with fast, large commercial traffic.
Right now we have AIS receive. That means we see commercial traffic and others with AIS but they do not see us. We have decided to get AIS Class B so we will be seen as well. Hi -HO, another dollar and another installation project.
Regarding our current travels:
We are sitting off the ICW near ICW mile 100! We have been traveling for about 6 weeks, traveling hundreds of miles to Virgina where the ICW starts. We started at mile 1 of the ICW a few days ago and have a workable routine. I feel it is starting to change to a more relaxed schedule now that we are further from the threatening cold and storms. Looking forward to more exploring.
Some political pondering: The Welcome Mat of Every Port Town, and what it says:
The access of the boat traveler to the ports where travelers must go is an interesting subject since we live that experience every time we arrive at a new port.
I am doing a lot of thinking about this.
Some ports are designed to accomodate every spending bracket of traveler from those who want to stay at high cost docks with all amenities, to those on a budget, willing to trade some access convenience for a good mooring or reasonable anchorage shelter and reasonable accesss to amenities. Other ports only offer travelers expensive access or very inconvenient access to land, if any.
I have to wonder what leads one community to be so open and accomidating and another to be so tight and miserly. If it were that the towns themselves were extremely exclusive that might explain it, but that does not seem to be the case. It seems to be the personality rather than only the economic level.
Port Washington, NY was an especially welcoming community, though, largely, apparently upper working to upper class in nature. In the harbor one can pick up a mooring to secure your boat in the harbor, free for two days. You pay for a water taxi that takes you to town. After two days you pay $35 a night and the water taxi is free (you should tip the driver, so not exactly free)
With this arrangement you know your boat is secure on a solid, secure mooring and you can easily go to the grocery store, hardware store, marine store, movies, restaurants, for a walk, etc. and go back to you boat til 10 p.m each day/night. Win-win. Traveler has easy access and town merchants make money.
There are marinas as well, where some boaters go and pay $2.50 - $3.50 a foot per night to be a a dock. These marinas can be frequently found in any port. it is the lower cost access that is a challenge for many.
So, now dial forward to Deltaville, VA. We read in the touring guide that there are no moorings, but you can pay to land your dinghy at a marina or you can go to the state dock which is a mile walk from the main road. Cannot speak for others, but we anchored out and then left without re-provisioning.
Dial forward to Elizabeth City, NC: Free dock for 36 hours in downtown Elizabeth City. Located right next to the visitor center (with free loaner bicycles) and lots of information. While we chose an inexpensive "pay to dock" marina for the showers and laundry, we motored over in our dinghy to free dock and got info, went to lunch, to a museum and Nancy explored the historic waterfront while I used a loaner bike to get groceries, go to a hardware store and NAPA Auto. Again, we spent money.
My quick take might be that being generous of spirit has rewards.
More to come when we talk about Rebel Marine.
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