January, 06

Jan. 29th, 2006, Well the new water tank is completely installed and all wood work done.

After the wood work was completed, I contacted another company at our marina called Canvas Connection and had them install all new carpet from stem to stern (except the dining and galley area). The carpet is a medium grade commercial indoor/outdoor carpet, bound with sunbrella, that can be washed with a garden hose. It also is completely safe to use chemicals on it (even bleach) without damage to the fabric or color. One thing we need is to be able to wash off any salt that is brought on board and this will fit the bill. Nancy is still in Florida and has not seen it yet. Come to think of it, she didn't even get to say what color or kind of carpet she wanted. Oh well, life will go on.

The boat is becoming more of a home, finally. I am now slowly going through everything we have onboard and determining if we REALLY need it. I have already hauled off two boxes of stuff. It is surprising how much of the precious storage space is taken by junk. Things that are kept because someday they may be needed. Some of the stuff has been onboard 8 years and never used. One bad thing is the collection in triplicate of many things. This is because at one time we had three boats. A sailboat in Florida along with a sailboat and cabin cruiser in Oklahoma and each boat needed its own equipment (forgot the dinghy and all its equipment). When the day came that we only had 1 slip rental, we were happy, but, we kept all the stuff from the other boats. True, some of it was useful but that might be 5% at the most. It would have been easier just to buy new when it was needed instead of hanging on to the old.

Jan. 23rd, 2006, Nancy left me on Sunday. At least I have the boat and the cats. She decided that warmer weather is what she wanted and not the cold of the north land. So off to Florida she went. Some progress is being made on the boat. The new water tank is in place and waiting final installation tomorrow. At least I don't have to heat water from a 6 gallon jug anymore. I also had a water leak on the diesel generator. The gasket on the exhaust end of the heat exchanger blew out so I got a new one. When I took everything apart to replace it I found out the coupling flange had been bent and cracked by a previous repair done before we got the boat. Another part ordered. It took 3 days for the part to arrive and since I was just waiting I decided to clean and inspect its attach point on the engine. Guess what. That flange was bent also, only not as bad. So I sat on the engine with sandpaper in hand and a file and after two days and 5 hours of filing and sanding I got it level. The difference between it and the coupling flange is that it was not cracked. When the new part arrived today, they matched up perfectly and that leak is now fixed. Nancy should be back in about 2 weeks. She is at a management training class at our Florida Management Training Center. It is a class that she should have had 8 years ago when she first became a manager. She is proud that she avoided it that long but the training records finally caught up with her. The other liveaboards on the dock are making sure I am fed. Got a chicken salad sandwich tonight and another is making spaghetti and lasagna. Good folks/friends.

Jan. 15th, 2006, We woke up today with a strange event taking place. The old timers that we talked to said that it has never happened before. I had a call from another boat owner asking how his boat was as he was worried because he had never see this before. What happened was the lowest tide that they had ever seen on the Chesapeake. One gal in a slip next to us was stranded on her boat because she was afraid to try and climb up the slip to get to the dock. What caused this to happen was a low tide coupled by 60 knot north wind blowing the water out of the bay. The wind lasted for almost 24 hours and really displaced a lot of water. Some of the folks familiar with Clear Lake Texas, know what the wind can do. We had experienced this in Florida also. The water in Tampa Bay would go about 2 feet over the docks with a strong west wind blowing water into the bay from the gulf.

The picture itself doesn't look all that bad, but if you look at the boat next to us it is about 4-5 feet below the finger pier. That is the boat with the gal that didn't want to try and climb out. Our dock lines are pointing down, normally they come straight across. The tide fluctuation here is normally one foot. This one will be about 6 foot from normal high tide to the low tide we had. Several boats around us were tipped over in their slips. We were grounded but our lines held us upright.

Looking at the pilings you will see a dark band around the pile. This is our normal high tide. The second lower dark band is our normal low tide. Not much. Below the lower dark band is the sea life growth that never sees the light of day, until today.

This picture I took sitting in the cockpit looking directly under the docks. The basket hanging in the water is a Boy Scout project to grow oysters and then replant them. All of the oysters have probably died because of not being in the water. It was too late to save them by the time I saw that they were in the air. You can also see the sea growth on the pilings better in this picture. Nobody had ever seen the water so low.

Jan. 11th, 2006, What I have learned about WATER TANKS, so far. Ours is being replaced. Last year we had suspected a leak but it was so small we thought it could be condensation from the cold winter months. Well the trip here did the rest and water just flowed out and filled the bilge with water until it got about half empty. We now KNEW that we had a leak. Since taking it out involves wood work, we called Buster from Phipps Boat Works and he and I start the process. Morgan Yachts did not make it easy to the remove. The wood work is all screwed together with a laminate put over the screws (hiding them). A pry bar helped locate the screws and they were cut with a hack saw. Once the outer wood work was removed the tank was exposed. What we saw was a tank that had corrosion spots all over it starting about half way up and going down.

I sanded the spots and found that there was some minor pitting and one hole about pencil size. It looked like it could be repaired and refurbished. I cleaned the tank and gave it a acid bath then placed an epoxy putty (that is made for steam boiler repair) over the small hole. Water was then put in the tank and no leaks appeared. The bilge stayed dry and I smiled. The smile lasted about 1 hour when I then saw water back in the bilge. Closer examination of the tank found more corrosion on the ends that I could not reach unless the tank was taken completely out. I took out the 12 corroded screws that held it down and it was ready to slide out. Nope, it didn't budge. More screws were located outboard, holding the tank to the port hull. Now this was getting serious since to get to them it would involve taking all the wood work out of the port side of the boat. Plan "B". Since the area of the screws is covered by cabinets we decided to use a hole saw to cut into the areas where the screw were. That worked but it took 4 people all afternoon to drill and get the corroded screws out. Some of the screws had the heads twisted off at the factory and that just made it harder. Finally the tank came out. The water tank is made of 3/16th aluminum. A little thin to hold 125 gallons of water. Because of that, the tank had bulged outward about 1 inch and really made it difficult to remove from its tight enclosure. One look at all the corrosion made us decide to replace the darn thing. Of course it wouldn't fit out the companion way (2 inches to wide) so we had to cut it to get it out. The next day we started the OPERATION. With drop clothes and surgical tools (saws) we cut off 4 inches from the conical shaped outer side. What we saw inside was horrible. There was 10 X's more corrosion and bigger holes.

The picture shows the tank laying on its side. The hull side up. There was a hole about the size of a fifty cent piece in the bottom (#1, in the picture) and the bottom was filled with a substance like oatmeal, about 1 1/2 inches thick. It appeared to be calcium, corrosion material and mineral deposits. It was this stuff that stopped the water from poring out of the hole but also appears to be the material that caused the eating away of the bottom. We removed about 1 gallon of the "stuff" and took the picture. Some of what is left is #2 in the picture. Since this is a special shaped tank it has to be custom built. I got a quote about 2 hours ago, $1250.00, plus the labor to take it out and install it again. Buster is checking on other places. If you have a steel or aluminum tank, I would suggest to cover the inside and outside of the tank with a corrosion barrier and treat it like the city does the water tower, drain, clean, inspect and repair any corrosion. I will be covering the exterior of the tank with Boeshield T-9, that was developed by Boeing Aircraft for protection of aircraft parts. I haven't decided on the interior cover yet. We will also be using a filter when filling the tank. We use a Brita filter on the galley faucet and have noticed that since we moved, the filter works a lot longer (3 to 4 times) that what it did when we were on Lake Texoma.

Jan. 1st, 2006 Well we started the new year out with a blast. The live aboards on our dock got together and threw a party. What a diverse and interesting group - we hailed from all parts of the US, plus Ukraine, Ethiopia, Thailand, Scotland and Canada. It was a progressive dinner and of course all of the food was great. The first dish was shrimp on the Barbi.

Ok, bad joke, we agree, but that started out the evening just right. All the food was great and all of the calories were taken out prior to presentation.

We held the party on the only powerboat live aboard on our dock and it worked out quite well. Most the the activities took place in the aft saloon which offered the most room.

Today, Nancy did her annual polar bear swim but with a new twist. We went to the little town of North Beach, MD which is next to our south marina and participated in a real organized Polar Bear Swim. The town sponsors the event and gives all total emersion swimmers a tee shirt, hot chili and hot cider. Sooo, here she is.

The picture makes it look like she is coming in early when if fact she was one of the first in the water and did her swim while the others were a little slower. I think the antifreeze in her system from the night before helped a lot. If you look at the picture real close you will see a long wake behind her. Tells me she was cold and coming out of that water FAST.