There I am!

Hello all,
This weekend was a productive one. Next weekend we're expecting guests and hoping to go sailing so there were some things we absolutely had to get done and we did!

Last weekend the fuel and tank were cleaned. This weekend we replaced both the primary and secondary fuel filters which enabled us to start the engine again. We didn't want to take the chance the junk in the tank had clogged up the filters so we replaced them before we attempted to start the engine. Interestingly enough, there are two fuel filters but they are backwards from what you would normally want. The most restrictive filter, 2 micron, was first and then the fuel goes through a 10 micron filter that mounts to the engine. If you were going to design it you'd do it the other way. Talking to the guy we bought our supply of filters from, Yanmar (engine manufacture) doesn't know if you'll put a primary filter in front of theirs. They assume theirs will be the only filter and they use 10 micron as a good all around filter. In our case the boat manufacturer added a primary filter that has a replaceable element. The previous owner used 2 micron filters in the primary and it seemed like a good idea to us to stay with that. So the secondary filter probably only needs to be replaced every year or so.

Once the filters were changed we primed the fuel lines and started it up. Diesel engines have high pressure fuel systems, it is important to get all the air out of the fuel lines should some get in there. When you replace fuel filters there is at least air in all the filters. Most diesel engines have what they call a lift pump that you operate by hand to pump the fuel through the filters and into the fuel block (I think it's called a fuel block, a bit fuzzy there). In our case, there is a primer bulb (just like the one in the gas line of a boat with an outboard motor) to pump the fuel into the system. It works great! We left the bleed screws out of each filter and as fuel came out, we closed them. We turned the key on, pressed the start button and it fired right up. We were very impressed with ourselves. There was one small leak where the secondary fuel filter wasn't quite tight enough but that was fixed easily.

The next important thing on our agenda was to hook up the new GPS receiver to the chart plotter. Rather than take the chance of doing a lot of work mounting the receiver and running the cable only to find out it didn't work, the receiver was wedged between the bimini  and arch so it wouldn't fall off and the cable was plugged into a converter so the new system GPS could talk to the old system chart plotter. It didn't work. The chart plotter still didn't know where we were. After a bit of trying this and trying that I discovered I had accidentally unplugged the chart plotter from the network that carries all the information to it. Oops! Not bright on my part but an easy fix, the kind I like. There I am! The chart plotter now showed the boat as being in a slip at the marina. How very fortunate because that is exactly where we were!

Figuring we were on a roll we decided to do a couple of more things we've never done before. First, we motored away from the dock with just Susan and I. We managed to remove all the dock lines, unplug from shore power and back out of the slip without hitting anything. I'm on a real roll when it comes to not hitting anything. Knock on wood. The next two firsts were to address two different tanks. One you always want full and one you prefer to have empty. First we went to the pump out station for the marina to pump out the holding tank. Holding what? You don't want to know. But when those heads flush, it has to go somewhere and preferably not into Galveston Bay. Not knowing where we were going, but having a general idea, we only made a couple of wrong turns. Once again I will say having a bow thruster on a boat of this size is a huge help. It got me out of a "pen" made of dock after one of the aforementioned wrong turns. But we made it! Susan read the directions for the pump out and handled the dock end while I took care of the dirty end. We are still learning our boat. That's the excuse I'll use for the fact we pumped out one holding tank only to discover later that we have two. Oh well, it'll give us something to do next weekend.

From the pump out station we motored past our slip and headed to the fuel dock. The closest fuel dock is right across the channel from the Kemah Boardwalk. If there was ever a place you could make a spectacle of yourself in front of a large audience, this is the place. But all those folks were disappointed because we managed to get there, get fueled and get away without incident. We even made it back to our slip without running aground, a first!

It wouldn't be fair to skip over the part of our weekend where Susan organized the chaos that was left behind by the two guys that were there last weekend (Jim and me). Though anyone that knows Jim knows he got the heebie jeebies being around the chaos of all the stuff that we put on the boat but didn't know where to put it so it was stacked on top of every flat surface.Susan organized the mess, thank goodness.

Saturday evening we had a fun dinner with our neighbors and friends Bryan and Cindy. We're trying to convince them they should head out when we do but we still have a little work to do on Bryan.

Before heading back to Dallas on Sunday I borrowed Bryan's drill and drill bits and permanently mounted the GPS receiver. We still have to run the cable as it isn't put away nicely but it is enough out of the way for next weekend.

Susan took some pictures while we worked. As soon as she downloads them off her phone I'll post them here.

Take care.
Brian