Friday, January 24, 2014

Living in the Keys but still working everyday

Trying to update this blog while living on our boat is much more difficult to do than it sounds.  By the time we finish for the day, I just want to take a shower and go to bed.  But I'd like to update a little more often since I'll be here for about four more weeks and can now officially be considered "living on a boat", although "yard-rat" is probably more appropriate....

This time we flew straight into Key West instead of going to Fort Lauderdale and driving 3 1/2 hours to get here like we've done on the previous two trips.  Its just too convenient to land 10 minutes from the boat even if the price is a little more.  Plus, bags fly free and with Tami checking 4 large bags it was more cost effective to fly Southwest.  To be fair, two of the checked bags were just miscellaneous household items such as pots and pans and scuba equipment.

Key West right before touch-down

On the boat side of things, Justin has both sail-drives back together along with brand new zincs and fresh oil changes.  He also changed the belts, oil filters, and all 6 fuel filters on the 3GM30 Yanmars - yes, each engine has 3 fuel filters each - one on the engine and two mounted to the wall.  The two on the wall have a valve that switches between them so that only one is in use at any given time.  But although I've been gone about a month and half, progress is slowing quite a bit as its been difficult for Justin to tackle too many projects by himself. 

The first day after we arrived though, was spent organizing and cleaning - it was a mess - and I was amazed to hear that Justin actually spent a full day "cleaning up" the place prior to our arrival - I would have hated to see it before then.  The organizing originally started in the galley/saloon but quickly moved to the forward port cabin that had been previously converted to a utility room.  Although this cabin had been "de-cluttered" at least twice already, there was just no good way to organize without uniform storage containers.  After a quick trip to Home Depot, I went to town.


I love clear storage containers - i just need a label maker now

Our 12 volt HDTV display also arrived today and we quickly installed it and powered up the chart-plotter before we quit for the day so we could see our Raymarine through the television.  Although its a 22" screen (three inches bigger than the previous display), the overall size is smaller due to the technological advances of the new LED televisions and its about 10 years newer.  Plus it has a built-in DVD player, so the stand-alone one could be tossed in the dumpster along with the TV's 110 volt, brick-sized power supply cord that was taking up about half the free space behind the 12 volt panel.  Now we can display everything from our chart-plotter through this display.

The port engine room displayed on the 22" Naxa

Tomorrow we try and fire up the 15 hp Mercury that's strapped to the dingy so we'll know if we are in the market for just a dinghy or a dinghy and a motor.  There is also some sort of fishing tournament/party going on in the marina next to us that we're going to try and attend tomorrow if we're not too tired by the time it gets going.  







2 comments:

  1. "Trying to update this blog while living on our boat is much more difficult to do than it sounds." I TOTALLY understand that one. By the time you get through the task of locating parts and try to get a little work done, it's very hard to feel inspired to write a blog entry.

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  2. I've noticed how diligent you've been about updating your blog ever since you've moved aboard and have been impressed with your work ethic - seems like such a simple thing but can turn into "work" real quick.

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