Summer Returns, But Just For the Weekend

We're having some company next weekend for an overnight cruise to Mystic , weather permitting.  Frances is looking forward to seeing her brother Fred and sister-in-law Kathy.  Since they are avid boaters in Florida, it's always fun to have them aboard.

But that means that there was a "to-do" list and we got right on that on Saturday. First, we installed two new tachs that we had around since the old Chris Craft days.  The tachs on Act Three were original and didn't work that well unless they were tapped once in a while.  So, under the upper helm we  installed them, cutting away some useless old wiring while we were at it.

Then there was the accordion door that closes off the V-berth.  One of the supports that fits into the overhead track had come loose from a section of the door, making the whole thing fairly useless. We experimented with some fixes and finally came up with one that worked. All it took was two tiny bolts, two matching nuts, four washers and some duct tape. Sounds weird but it worked fine and no one will ever notice the repair.

On Sunday, Frances started our day with a delicious cheese omelet, but before that she enjoyed her usual cup of milk and eight pills. Don't laugh.  The pills gives that woman power!

Our dockmate Bob's boat was suffering from a weak house battery and by afternoon it was time to get out the instruction book for the charger and then drop down into the engine space and have a closer look.  As always, Bob had all the help he needed  - or perhaps didn't need.

There is always a "peanut gallery" when a project is in progress...

On Sunday, we wanted to gas up the boat for next weekend, so we went through the disconnect everything routine and found that the starboard engine wouldn't start. This was something new. Both engines always started up after a few tries.  So, now it was my turn to get down into the engine space and see what was wrong.

The ubiquitous "peanut gallery" strikes again.  Trouble attracts them like iron to a magnet...

We had no ignition on that engine and we quickly traced the problem to the ignition fuse on the lower helm dash. Earlier that morning, as the cheese omelet was cooking, Bill had carefully removed all 12 fuses from the lower helm, polished off any corrosion and applied some electrical grease.  Seems that's all the starboard ignition fuse needed to fail.  We gave it a wiggle and the engine started right up. It stalled a little later and the First Mate suggested that we put in a new fuse.  We were good to go.  (Note to self: install two new ignition fuse holders next Saturday morning.)

We pulled out of our slip quite smartly and went over to take on 139 gallons of gas. That's about $420 worth of go-juice. Hey, to us, every gallon is a gallon of fun although it does put a crimp in our checkbook.



 

As we arrived, our dockmates Frank and Barbara returned from fishing on their boat with Daryl and Deidre .  We'll let Carol Ann's video tell the story.  Our only comment is, "We ain't kissing no women who kiss dead bluefish no matter how good looking they are! the women, that is"