Already a month and still dry!!

21:00, 21 Nov, 2013 Still on the hard but counting…..

Another long, hot grueling week but we see the end of the tunnel, finally. The engine has been tested and started with the first push. We love this engine!!!!The shaft and seals are re-assembled and the anti-fouling has been applied. My hands are stained several interesting colours. Gotta wash dishes over the next few days if I want to get them clean again.

Old and new dripless shaft seal bellows.

Second coat of mystery anti-fouling. Bought cheap in an unmarked can but looks good and smells powerful. We'll see if it was such a good deal in a month or so. 

We are way past our original splash date but, with the delays we have been able to get a lot of other items crossed off the “to do” list, and quite a few that were never on the list to begin with. We are now waiting to hear back from Guido, a welder from Linton, who we hope will be able to complete the last job, replacing the compression post. If all goes as planned we will be in the water by mid next week and out of here shortly thereafter. It is costing us a bundle to be on the hard. We just got our last bill and we are looking at over $1600 for the past month, ouch!! Tomorrow we will give Gosling another once over beauty treatment to get her ready for departure.

Since my last input some of our partner boats have arrived. Optical Illusion is here and Rio Nimpkish arrived yesterday. Optical Illusion is on the hard for the next week or 2 with an unexpected engine rebuild. One of his cylinders carboned up and the piston jammed. Luckily we have an excellent mechanic in Greg. The parts arrived yesterday from Miami and the rebuild has begun. While he is waiting we have been attending to some blister issues on his hull. Our last boat, Antares , had a similar problem and I got lots of experience dealing with those. With all of the components readily available it has been one of the easier jobs to tackle.

Volvo in pieces. Our engine would take up most of this space.

The weather really is changing for the better. We have had fewer thunderstorms in the past 2 weeks and only a few showers. That has been beneficial for those of us doing paintwork but it has also meant really hot temps during the day. Fran has been going for walks with a group and has gotten some really good nature shots with her new camera.

Anteater

Coati

Green Parrot

 1:00 following night.

Another hot and busy day. Actually got into some cabinet work today, and a perfect example of how one job leads to another on a boat: 2 years ago we had a problem with the overboard discharge hand pump for the holding tank. The repair was solid but temporary. Today while wandering around I found a similar pump with the part I needed to repair ours. Dis-assembling that one required a cabinet to be removed and it needed some TLC. The pump is back in place and the cabinet will be better than new by tomorrow afternoon.

Great news today! Guido has called back and will be able to do our compression post Monday or Tuesday. Things are finally looking very positive.