End-of-season winterizing

We certainly don't look forward to this job and it was made just a little worse because the day we did the engine winterizing, it was a beautiful day. While the go-fast boats roared by our slip at Portland Riverside, we dragged down the oil, filters and our vacuum pump and got down to the dirty work.

As usual, we warmed up the engines, spread out the Puppy Pads in the bilge and changed the oil filters. Dropped one but caught most of the old oil in a zip-lock bag along with the old filters. After that, we used the vacuum pump to extract the old oil from the engines and then started them up and let them suck up about three gallons each of anti-freeze. A shot of Marvel Mystery oil down each carb and the boating season was officially over.

We certainly hope that this year's weather isn't a hint of what's to come. The week before we brought the boat up from Norwich, the sea conditions were not pleasant and we picked our day to travel carefully. It was a rough ride in the Sound but nothing that rearranged the furniture. A few days later when we did the winterizing, it was like summer. As we write this, a couple of weeks later, we've experienced a big storm that downed some trees in our yard that punched some holes in our garage roof. All's good with the boat, however. She's safely in the big shed and we've found the time to pump antifreeze through the boat's fresh water system.

For  those of us who know us well, we can report that Frances is doing well. She was slowed down a little by what appears to be Arthritus but she is coping and in great spirits to get through the winter and begin another boating season. If you know her, I know she'd love to hear from you. You know her email address.

We shot some video of some of the winterizing agony. Not a lot of detail there since we've done that in previous years and frankly, changing the oil really doesn't vary much from year to year and it is anything but exciting video.