Sebastian's Tiki Bar has good beer, a river front location and live music on a Sunday afternoon. Jenny and Russell joined us.
In the afternoon Jo caught up on some reading at the marina pool.
Later the same week we had lunch at the same location but with our dock neighbour Frank from "When Pigs Fly".
The evening dock cocktail hour seems to be a robust collection of friends. Dennis (standing) bought Zoe (standing) with him...
...allowing them to meet Daisy (foreground) owned by Mark (sitting). All the pets on our dock have great personalities. Even Spooky has become friendly to most for a few moments.
Randy and Nancy finally left for the Bahamas. Regulars of the cocktail party we will miss them but hope to see them again in the Thousand Islands.
I have succumbed to the practice of selfies so I practiced one with Jenny at Kelly's.
This toad looked like a lump of dog doo-doo when I first saw it in the entrance passageway to the marina office. It didn't move as I approached so I took a picture of it. Turns out its skin has a poisonous coating which can kill cats and dogs. Read all about it here.
The one thing a boat owner can guarantee it's that something will go wrong with some system all the time. The worst system for wrong doing is the head (sanitation/toilet) system for obvious reasons. I have become quite adept at fixing ours as it received almost no attention by the previous owner. The system works by using a pump (I carry a complete spare) to generate a vacuum between the toilet and a small tank. When one has done our business one uses a foot lever on the toilet which releases the vacuum which sucks the business to the small tank where the pump generates a new vacuum and pumps the business into a large holding tank which is pumped out later.
The forward head system developed a vacuum leak that manifested itself as the vacuum pump cycling every so often. It started as a cycle every 2 hours but progressed to every 10 minutes which meant it was time to act. I bought a vacuum gauge and isolated the problem, to my worst fears, to the hose between the head and vacuum tank. "Why my worst fears?" I hear you say. That hose is 14 feet long and runs everywhere that is difficult if not impossible for me to get to. I decided to get someone in to fix it.
Then along came Debbie. Debbie is a little blonde dynamo who is a neighbor on our dock. She guilt-ed me by volunteering to help me do it myself and save a small fortune in bills. Debbie had already changed a discharge pump for me in a spot where I could simply not get to. Not only is she able to get into spots only Spooky could reach but when she is there she is as capable as anyone of fixing things. This is Debbie going down into the galley bilge:
Dan also volunteered to assist and Jo was our gopher. I know I could not have done this job alone and Dan and I agreed that it would have been very difficult for the two us. But the three of us made it easy and we had a blast doing it!
For those that might be wondering, K-Y lubricant is recommended for its benign chemical properties when pushing hose onto hose barbs. The new white hose is part of the 14 feet that runs through the boat.
As I said, it was a fun project.
While Dan and Debbie (out of sight somewhere in the bilge) secured the hose in the galley bilge I took the forward head apart so we could remove the old hose and attach the new.
As an illustration of one of our team's capabilities we see here the insertion of Debbie into utility room bilge:
Going...
...going...
...going...
...gone!
The Sea Ray manual was inaccurate about the length of hose. Even though I ordered three feet extra it was still too short so we had to send out for some more. As it happened it made the installation of the last piece to the toilet easier to have a join.The toilet was done. I checked the vacuum and all was perfect. Job well done.
We all headed off to shower and we hosted our team for lunch at The Riverside Cafe. The lady on the left is Dan's wife Jacque, then Bilge Buddies: Dan, Debbie and the management. Gopher Jo took the picture. Great job and thanks to all!
