End of the season unloading

This weekend started with the first part of preparation for leaving Norwich for winter storage: checking the engines. We know we're old fashioned, but we always check the fluids in the engines, V-drives and transmissions as well as the condition of the belts and hoses before going anywhere. Once again, all looked well.

We also did some shopping for the supplies we'll need to winterize the engines and water systems. This year, Wal Mart came through with the best prices we could find for potable (pink) antifreeze and engine oil and filters.

On Sunday, we had lots of rain, courtesy of hurricane Matthew, which headed offshore but left us with really lousy weather. But, as you can see from the photo above, there were quite a few boaters like us who were there to take stuff off of their boats.

A-dock, our summer home where we have had so much fun, looked pretty drab in the rain.

We also started taking any liquids off the boat that could freeze, excepting things that Frances and Pooka might need over the next week. We use those plastic crates that you can buy at discount stores and we filled a couple of them. We also off-loaded our pink anti freeze. Yes, there are 15 gallons of that stuff.

Here's why we do it this way. Our winter storage yard doesn't enable us to get very close to the boat with our car. Carrying a lot of antifreeze can be very difficult and energy consuming.

We think that it is always the safest way to run antifreeze through every plumbing element of the boat. Yes, we drain the water heater and then let it refill with antifreeze. That means we're protected from the on-board fresh water tank and then through every hot and cold water line on the boat, including the air conditioner. To winterize the engines, we connect them so that they suck up few gallons of pink antifreeze until it spills out the exhaust. Then we check the quality of the green antifreeze in the heat exchangers that actually cool the engines.

We hate to leave but we have to very soon.

Getting gas - How boring is that?

Last weekend, we called for a pump-out. Our poop gauge was showing five red lights and that, my friends, is a true sanitary emergency.

We called for the pump-out boat but it wasn't working. Seems that the steering wasn't steering. Late Sunday, we found that a part had to be ordered and it wasn't going to become available until the next weekend.

By then it was too late on Sunday afternoon to take a cruise to the gas dock where the pump-out machine actually worked, so we planned to do it the next day, Monday.

Monday morning was beautiful.

We called on the radio for a dock attendant to give us gas and he was waiting. Feeling frisky, we decided to turn the boat around and dock port-side to the dock, because that's where both the gas filler and the pump out fittings are. Slid right up to the gas dock. Of course the fact that there was no wind and no current had little to do with it. Just pure, end-of-season skill.

Both the pump-out and the fueling were uneventful. We took just 66.7 gallons of gas, the least that we think we have ever needed. That gas will take up the Connecticut River to winter storage in Portland and bring us back to Norwich next spring for another fun summer.

We shot some video, this time with two cameras, one facing forward and one aft. It's probably a waste of seven minutes of time, but we like it. We should probably have a third camera dedicated to capturing Bill's confident hands on the controls or Frances heaving a docking line, which she does so well.

Maybe we'll do that next year.

Spark plug wires - how boring is that?

Throughout this season, we noticed just a little miss in our starboard engine. Nothing major, but you could see it on the sync gauge. That engine would drop a few RPMs every once in a while. As the season went on, this became more frequent and by the time we took friends to Mystic a few weeks ago, it became a major problem that was resulting in increased fuel usage.

Time to fix it, and we focused on the plug wires because when the engine idled, we could hear a snapping sound and that sounded like spark.

The plug wires weren't that old. We installed them about six years ago and didn't replace them when we rebuilt the heads on that engine two winters ago. They looked good and aren't these things made out of long-lasting, space-age material?  Apparently not.

We had Packard Delecore II, 7-mm wires on that engine. On Chrysler marine 318 and 360 engines, they run from the distributor down between the heads and the exhaust manifold ports to the plugs. No matter how you try to secure them, that puts most of the wires in contact with the very hot manifolds and in our case, one or more of them failed.

We called http://www.marineengineparts.com/ our favorite supplier, and the guy who answered the phone confessed that 1980 Chrysler engines where "a little before his time." We coached him to sell us a plug wire set for big block GM engine, thinking that they would be longer, and they were. In fact, the new Magstar 801 8-mm wires were at least four inches longer than the old wires that were intended for our Chrysler engines.

On Saturday, we installed the new plug wires, running them outside of the exhaust manifolds so there is no contact between the plug wires and the manifolds. The engine started perfectly and ran without the old stumble. We'll put another set of these Magstar wires on the port engine this winter.

Pooka's health emergency

About two weeks ago, Pooka got sick. He was weak and obviously, something was very wrong. Frances rushed him to the animal hospital in nearby Marlborough where he was found to "shutting down" with a very low temperature. That's not good for cats and the Vet treated him, which included putting him in a incubator to bring his temperature back up. He was also tested for several important bodily functions and those tests came back as okay. In about five days and $800 in treatment costs, Pooka, the boat cat, came back to his summer home, apparently well again.

Pooka is an important member of our crew. It's great to see him back and home.

Just to show us that he was fully recovered, he climbed to the steps to the fly bridge and, for the first time, climbed back down without assistance. Go Pooka!

Frances cooked one of our favorite dinners while Pooka and I watched. It may be getting cold, but boating is still good.

Summer is definitely over

 We turned on the heat in the boat one night last weekend, just 12 hours or so after the temperature at the dock had been up to 80 degrees. A 40 degree change in temperature in one day really gets your attention, but that's New England weather. Unfortunately, that means that we have to begin planning to move the boat back to Portland, Connecticut for winter storage. That will probably take place in mid-October.

Even though the autumn weather can be beautiful, we really have to be careful. Several years ago, we went up at the end of October and when we went back to the boat the next day to winterize the engines, we had eight inches of wet snow on the boat. We learned the hard way that fly bridge enclosures aren't meant to support the weight of that much wet snow.

Labor Day Weekend: No boating around here

Not much boating this weekend at American Wharf (or anyplace else around here) as former hurricane/former tropical storm Hermine churns away off the coast. The sky was overcast for a lot of the time and we had to content ourselves with lots of socializing on the docks. That's something that A-Dock does very well.

A high spot for us was the fact that September 5 was Frances' birthday. Of course, she received a birthday crown and a bottle of wine from our dockmates.

And a shot of her sitting down, crown slightly askew... She'll wear that crown for the next week!

 One member of our crew couldn't care less about tropical storms or special birthdays. Pooka knows how to relax.

 The media loves to characterize Labor Day as the "end of summer" but for us it isn't. We have another 45 days or so of wonderful fall weather ahead of us. We're in a great "hurricane hole" so even if it blows, we're relatively safe. We have a few complaints about how the marina is run, but all in all, it's a nice place to be.

A Visit to Newport

We were invited to a very elegant wedding in Newport at the end of August. We're normally scruffy boaters, but for this occasion, we dragged out our best duds and headed out in the old station wagon.

Newport is a busy place in the summer but Frances was able to book us a room at the Pineapple Inn. It doesn't look like much but it turned out to be very nice, run by great people and only cost us a little more than $500 for the weekend. Oh, Frances made that reservation last winter so if you plan to visit and not spend the entire budget on a hotel, book early.

On Saturday, we (Frances' brother Fred and his wife, Kathy and Frances' sister Tina and her guy Dan) took a tour of the island, which was well worth doing. Our driver gave us a complete history of Newport that actually seemed pretty accurate and part of the tour included a stop at Fort Adams, where we got a good look at the harbor.

Our tour also included admission to two mansions and we selected The Breakers and Marble House on Bellevue Avenue. The Breakers (the most popular tourist destination in Rhode Island) is really overwhelming in size, especially considering that Cornelius Vanderbilt II, who built it, considered it a "summer cottage" and rarely spent much of his summers there.

One can only imagine sometime in the late 1800s when the butler called the staff together with the dreaded news that the boss was coming that weekend and will be giving a party for 200. Staff must have been busy especially considering that the vacuum cleaner wasn't invented until 30+ years later.

 As you'd expect, The Breakers "back yard" afforded a really great view.

 Next stop on our tour was Marble House, the summer "cottage" of William K. Vanderbilt. Built entirely of imported Italian marble (at a cost of $11 million in 1892), this place simply staggers the imagination. We guess it's worth noting that there was no income tax back in those days.

Needless to say, Marble House has a lot of stained glass windows and they are really breathtaking. These mansions aren't what we'd call exactly "homey" but they served their purpose, which was to impress a lot of other rich people, we'd guess.

Anyhow, seeing these two mansions was time well spent for us. It's always fun to see how these really wealthy people lived, even if they used these huge places for only a few days out of each summer.

On Sunday morning we took a hike along the Cliff Walk. We couldn't have asked for better weather but after a mile or so of the Cliff Walk, we certainly could have asked for better shoes. There were lots of rocky sections where we were only a few feet from the edge. Amazingly, there were no fences or the constant warning signs that we are used to here in Connecticut. It was nice to see people with their kids enjoying it all.

We shot just a small amount of video. Many of the people who follow this blog have been to Newport numerous times so the video is really just for us to look at next winter after clearing the snow from our driveway.

It was a fun weekend!

Taylor Made

If you have more than a casual interest in boating, it's likely that you've heard of Taylor Made marine products. If you own anything but a high end yacht, it's likely that you own a Taylor Made product. We have several and that small hatch shown above is one of them.

We've gotten past the "fix that right now" stage of boat ownership to the "let's fix that before it breaks" mode and that's what we did this weekend. Case in point: one of the two small Taylor Made hatches, this one over our guest berths. It didn't leak and never has but it also didn't open. Time to get out the tools and take it apart.

But first, let's get this out of the way: No criticism of how the Taylor Made hatch was made. For its time, 36 years ago, it was probably a fine and inexpensive hatch and many thousands of Silverton boats came equipped with them, ours included.

To open the old hatch, we disconnected the two sliding struts from inside. The gasket around the hatch was in amazingly good condition but the struts were frozen. The two latches, one missing its knob, were also removed. Don't think these things were supposed to squeak when turned, but both of ours did.

With all the hardware removed and the hatch glass cleaned, we hit the local Ace Hardware for some new 8-32 stainless bolts and matching stop nuts and washers. We also bought some large neoprene washers, which we trimmed to fit.

The struts required a little more work. Penetrating oil eventually got them working and a lot of intense work with steel wool burnished off most of the corrosion. The missing knob was replaced with a wing nut that no one will ever notice. Better yet, it works, just like the missing knob did.

With all of the parts laid out on the deck and all of our tools in place for reassembly, a really spectacular thunderstorm blew in, forcing us back inside.

Once the weather cleared, we finished installing the parts and enjoyed being able to open and close that hatch easily.

But, at least for us, opening those hatches will be rare. In warm weather, our air conditioning makes the boat very comfortable. Underway, in most conditions, running with those hatches open invites hull spray or even water into the boat. Maybe the occasional guest in that berth may want to open that hatch and if so, they can.

At least now, the damn hatch opens and closes as it should.

Block Island Cruise - 2016

 We left for Block Island on Thursday, July 21 (after waiting out one of those pesky "Small Craft Advisories") and came back a week later. It was a short week for us, since once we faded into BI vacation mode, the days simply slid by. We met lot of nice people, many friendly dogs and as always, had an experience that makes owning a boat really worthwhile. Should we add that we love Payne's Dock?

It was warm on the island while we were there but with a nice wind from the west, we never once used the air conditioning on the boat. Our fly bridge became our new living room, where we could watch the many boats come and go.  Frances insisted on cooking and we had many memorable meals, including a few breakfasts powered by Payne's famous killer donuts.

On Friday, we walked across the island to Old Harbor, where the ferries come in. One of the many ferries had just unloaded, and we were literally pushed off the sidewalk by the crowds. We retreated without exploring any of the Old Harbor shops but did some food shopping at the Block Island Market.

It's too bad that Block Island's tourism efforts have been so successful that the big ferries that arrive every couple of hours each disgorge 1,000 or so anxious people looking for the beach or food or a Moped to rent. Needless to say, Old Harbor is nice once the last ferry leaves in the evening.

We treated ourselves to lunch at Dead Eye Dick's one weekday and found it very nice. Earlier we had tried to get into The Oar at Block Island Boat Basin but were told (slightly after 1 pm) that there was a 90 minute wait for a table. No restaurent, in our view, is worth a 90 minute wait.

On another day, between ferry arrivals, we went to lunch at the old Surf Hotel. We've walked by this place at the corner of Dodge and Water Street for years and it was always closed and shuttered. Now it's not only open but has a very nice dining porch looking right over the beach. The food was good and the prices reasonable, so much so that we invited our boating friends Lou and Jane to join us there for dinner several days later.

From our vantage point at Payne's we were able to watch an amazing variety of boats come and go. Many of them were high-dollar cruisers but others were just people like us who were happy to chat, (and we all know how much Frances likes to chat, don't we?). A coastal cruise ship docked one day and its guests took a tour of the island on a waiting school bus.

No blog entry would be complete without mention of Pooka, our boat cat. He made the 45 mile cruise with only two pukes but once at Payne's, was in his element.

He gets a better view by climbing up the steps to the bridge and is happy to get a good snooze up there. But once we're sitting in the cockpit, he simply has to come out a join the party. He lets us know when he wants to come down and, of course, we always help him.

One afternoon, we took a walk though a nature path just off Beach Avenue. Frances spotted birds and we marveled at how beautiful the undeveloped parts of the island are.

On our way back, we shot pictures of some of the mansions that look out over New Harbor. This area can be really cold and windy during the winter but it certainly is beautiful in the middle of the summer.

We also visited the Block Island Marine Institute where a docent showed the kids live sea creatures that they could actually hold, albeit gently. The kid on the right is Frances.

Particularly around Payne's, it's obvious that others love Block Island as much as we do.

How can you not like this place when Payne's has this unique sign to identify where the men's room is?

 All in all, a great cruise and one that we'll remember as fondly as all the other times we have been here.

We put together some video, which we'll really enjoy watching again next winter after operating our snowblower.