Boat Maintenance

It's been a week since we were last out of our slip here in  La Conner.  We're doing lots of boat maintenance, primarily changing oil, filters, and anodes on the many motors involved to make this boat run.  The first oil change was to the Cummins diesel engine.  Because Jerry is so careful and researched it thoroughly, that job went very well.  The surprising part of the process was the fact that the diesel engine holds 5 gallons of oil!  We also changed the oil in the genenerator and the transmission.  All told, this boat holds about 10 gallons of oil.  I, for one, was amazed.

Doing all of this work in our "engine room" is a multi-step process.  Access to the engine room is through the floor of the salon.  So...move the chairs, move the carpet, pick up the hatches, and step down into this relatively small space.  The engine room isn't tall enough for Jerry to stand up, so he crawls around on his hands and knees, over pipes, lines, and machinery.  Every once in awhile, Jerry does the "prairie dog" move and pops up through the floor to request more paper towels, turn a switch off/on, etc.

Jerry also changed the anodes in the engine compartment.  Very important thing to do and these little hunks of zinc were just about gone.  Apparently they had not ever been changed.  The "stubs" were on the engine heat exchanger.  Yup, sounds important to me, too!

The new ones are about 3 inches long and the best one in the photo on the left is about 3 inches long.

Yesterday was work on the dinghy day.  Perhaps you've already read that the dinghy has issues all of its own.  The Honda engine just isn't happy, so it got new oil and filter and a new gas filter.  During the purchasing of this stuff at the Honda shop in Anacortes, the salesman told Jerry that he only needed 1 quart of oil for the change, but Jerry pointed out to him that the Honda book says it needs 1.4 quarts of oil.  So we bought 2 quarts.  It would be ludicrous to expect that the required 1.4 quarts of oil be sold in one container!  I suppose that's a corollary of the rule about 10 hot dogs in a package but only 8 buns.  Anyway, what would you guess was the amount needed to fill the motor with oil?  1 quart?  Nope.  1.4 quarts?  Nope.  1.2 quarts!!!  That fact doesn't really inspire confidence in the service manual.

I don't want you think it's all hard work and pain.  The picture at the left is a shot of the marina from the boat deck.  Lovely!

Last but not least, friends from Visalia, Barb and Andy Balerud, are in the La Conner Thousand Trails campground for two weeks and we've had wonderful visits with them.   They came for dinner on Cosmo Place last Friday night.

Today we had a $3.99 buffet for lunch at the casino outside Anacortes, and would never have know about it if not for Andy!  He's always got his eye on something to do. 

They're coming over tomorrow and we're going to circumnavigate Fidalgo Island (that's where Anacortes is).  Should be fun!