One of the nice things about AYB is it's location to the things we need. We called and picked up a rental car yesterday after we arrived which enabled us to head over to Sam's Club where I picked up 15 gallons of oil to go with what I had on-board. Pam got to scope out the hair salon and nail place that Liz from AYB had suggested. And we stumbled across a Carrabba's Restaurant that we couldn't get past.
Anyway back to Saturday. When things started stirring around here I got going on the work order. The first engine went well and I was able to get the old oil out and the new back in without spilling. Engine number two didn't go quite so well. While I was draining the oil I had to transfer the drain hose from one waste oil jug to another. Not a complicated task. Shut the pump off. Let the remaining oil drain out. Pull it out of the full jug and transfer it to the empty jug sitting 6 inches away all while covering the end of the hose with a rag to catch any drips. You guessed it. Somehow the hose took on a life of it's own and slipped out of my hand covering the floor and my left shoe with warm black oil. X&@*"X@! I'm sure they heard me in downtown Norfolk. Clean up time.
Oil drained it was now time to fill the empty engine. Once again while transferring the hose I spilled! WTF! I haven't done this in a long time. Clean up again. Let me tell you this is the easy part of an oil change on Tourist. I still had the filters to change which are in a much more precarious position. At this point I thought about quitting for the day. But stubborn as I am I kept going and completed the filter change without a drop spilled. On to the generator.
Oil out. New in. Now the filter. But first! It's been awhile since I replaced the sea water impeller on the gen set so I thought I'd check it out since any worn fins that come off of it collect in the heat exchanger which requires the oil filter to be removed before you can get to it. Great design huh? I pulled the cover off the pump and found that I was only missing 2 fins. Pretty good for the number of hours on it. But of course that meant taking the cover off of the heat exchanger and digging the 2 fins out of there so they don't restrict the water flow. Once the fins were found and retrieved the exchanger cover went back on. The oil filter went on. A new impeller went in complete with O ring and the hoses were reconnected.
Oh yeah. I also changed all of the pencil zincs on the engines and generator before the engines were started.
I'm happy to report that everything is back together and working with only my pride and a mysterious scrape on my ankle as casualties of the day. Rum time!
That evening just before dusk a Euro styled boat named Karlou went past. I thought it looked familiar and then I remembered seeing it on Drift Away's blog just a couple days before as it passed through Isle of Hope below Savannah, Ga. Is that possible to cover that much water in that short of time? We're at mile 12 and Isle of Hope is at mile 590. I was trying to do the math and forgot to take a picture so I had to borrow one from Drift Away. Thank's Dave!
We finished the day with Pam's Asian Salmon on the grill for dinner. Fantastic! Fed, fat, and happy, I passed out on the couch!
6/10/12 Sunday Another bright day with temps forecasted to be around 90. More boat projects to get Tourist ready for sitting idle for a month. On tap today flush out the cooling system on the dinghy motor. Wash the boat. Defrost the bridge refrigerator. Clean the A/C filters. Find the shop vac and clean out the sump. But first a picture.
Other than the transients staying here and the dockmaster AYB is pretty quiet on a Sunday. Probably because it's more of a working boatyard than the typical marina which would be jumping on a week-end. This works out for us since there is a place to dispose of our old oil. All 17 gallons of it! And if you need anything they have a fairly well stocked ships store. Combined with friendly people AYB is a good place to spend a few days, or a month.
Associated with AYB is Virginia Yacht Brokers, a used boat sales outlet. After looking at their inventory we strolled over to the sheds and checked out a 2003 53' Selene named "Prime Time". Nice! Interestingly I have a history with this boat. The previous owner did a blog that I stumbled on a few years ago and started following. Unfortunately for him his wife wasn't into cruising like he was and apparently not into him either. They ended up selling the boat and parting company. Maybe not a good omen? Anyway it never hurts to look.
6/11/12 Monday Just a few more details to take care of once we're under cover and then we're headed home. With that in mind I walked over to the office to find out where they're going to put us and at what time. I started talking to Liz who I've been dealing with and she had to find someone else. Hearing our conversation another gentleman standing nearby said that it wouldn't be going under cover for 2 to 3 days. I started telling him that that wouldn't work and why when another gentleman named Jack came around the corner. I suspicioned right away that he had a lot more clout than the first guy and I guess he does. He owns AYB. Anyway I explained the situation to him and what we had hoped the time frame would be. He had Liz make a call. Asked if we were going to be on the boat and said he would come down to the boat in a few minutes with a plan.
True to his word Jack showed up at Tourist not long after I did and told me where we would be going and that the dockmaster would assist us when we were ready. Now that's service! First we got the holding tank emptied and then headed around the corner to our appointed slip in building 5.
I backed in and and got tied off without taking down any supports. Just then Pam looks at the clock and tells me almost it's 11 a.m. and time to pick up our rental car that we'll be driving home. Not people to do things in a simple fashion our car rental situation is typical for us.
When we came in on Friday we decided to see if we could get the car from Hertz early. Of course we could but for a price that I thought was a little steep. On a whim I called Enterprise which of course we went with as I stated previously. Now it was time to switch vehicles so off we went. Needless to say our timing was perfect. Every hour we've been here we've heard the whistle of the bridge as it prepares to open for boat traffic. We heard it again only this time from the perspective of a motorist.
Our vehicle transfer including a stop for lunch only took us 3 hours. And we were hoping to get out of here today. Ain't happening! Guess we'll hit the road tomorrow.
Make sure you watch that engine room scrape. Bob had also scraped his elbow in the engine room and a week later we were visiting the hospital emergency room to have it drained. He's was on antibiotics for almost two weeks; it was diagnosed as a mersa virus! He has an appointment with an orthopedist on Wednesday, so keep an eye on that scrape!!
ReplyDeleteWe are at Half Moon Bay, leaving boat for a month and heading home on Thursday. AYB is a great group - but, bring a gallon of spider poop remover when you come back.
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