Thursday, 1 June 2023 - After pickleball today I returned to the boat, had lunch, removed all the food from the freezer and defrosted it so I could make a thorough leak search in that compartment. I found nothing. I didn't, however, reopen the engine room and check the lines around the compressor, but will check in there again soon.

Friday, 2 June - I reopened the engine room compartment to check the refrigeration lines and connections with the UV light, but, again, found no leaks. In fact, the pressure seems to have stayed at about 18 PSI overnight. I'll check it again tomorrow. Unfortunately, the evaporator is only freezing up about 1/3 of the way up each side.

Saturday, 3 June - We had our "first Saturday of the month" nautical flea market at marina today. As usual, I spent more than I took in, primarily because I didn't manage to sell anything. I did, however, buy an emergency distress flag for one dollar that would have cost me $12 at West Marine. I hope I never have to use it! I also managed to buy two old style plastic 5 gallon gas cans for $10 each. I've had two deteriorate in the last year and are unusable. I had purchased one new one at Home Depot for about $20 of the new, improved, "EPA approved" type with non-spill, "easy to use nozzle." What a piece of junk. The first time I tried to use it half the gas went outside my tank. The o-ring got pinched when I tried to tighten the nozzle down tight enough to not leak, creating a loop that spurted gas everywhere. Then the joint that holds the two halves together at the handle split apart pouring more gas everywhere. I took it back and got my money back, showed them the design flaw, and told them they should send the units back to the factory and not sell them any more. I doubt they listened.

Sunday, 4 June - Ants/Termites - soft spots on flooring - I found 1/4 inch insects on deck and wings in one of my hatch screens over the weekend. I believe them to be ants this time, not termites, and I hope I'm right. I, also, found some frass, termite excrement, under one of the floorboards and a couple of soft spots in the main cabin's hallway flooring. I hope they are merely some that I missed after I had the boat exterminated last year. I vacuumed the frass up and will be checking to see if any reappears. Extermination was expensive and a huge job that I don't care to ever experience again. It was more work to exterminate the boat than it was for Susie to have her home tented last time.

Monday, 5 June - We were down to five pickleball players today. I hope we can keep it going. I returned to the boat, opened the engine room to check on the refrigerant for the freezer and was surprised to see that the pressure was still up. The evaporator isn't freezing all the way to the top and I decided that I may have overfilled the R134, so I reduced the pressure on the low pressure side of the compressor from 20 psi to 3 psi and will observe the evaporator in a few hours. I still can find no leaks in the system.

Tuesday, 6 June - Reducing the pressure in the refrigeration system did not help, so today I opened the system, vacuumed it out with a vacuum pump for 45 minutes, and recharged it again with R134a refrigerant.

Wednesday, 7 June - I discovered that the refrigeration system is worse than ever. Desperate now, I contacted Jay on S/V Foggy and got a referral to a refrigeration repairman that might come to my rescue. He referred me to another, Bob Williams, who I called but had to leave a message. The refrigeration system is running with a vacuum on the low side so I shut it off. I don't know if that will harm the compressor or not but I don't want to take a chance.

Thursday, 8 June - My call to Bob Williams was returned about 8:20 this morning and he suggested I check to make sure the water pump is pumping water and that there is no refrigerant leak where the capillary tube enters the return tube from the evaporator on the refrigeration system. I did that this afternoon and water is flowing back into the water tank and I found no leak at the capillary joint, so I'm just as baffled as ever. This morning around 7:30 I had an epiphany when I realized that since I have two refrigeration systems, one of which runs off the boat's engine and I rarely use, I could move my food into that one and store in there until I can repair my 12V system. I moved the food, started the engine, flipped the switch to turn on the engine driven refrigeration system, and ran it for an hour before pickleball. I shut the engine off before leaving the boat and was totally surprised to see that the cold plate in the compartment hadn't dropped in temperature at all. I thought "Oh my God. Neither system is working." Later, I felt like an idiot when I realized that I had run the engine in vain because I had merely forgotten that that system has a timer on it that I hadn't set. Duh! Upon returning from pickleball I started and ran the engine and refrigerator for another two hours, dropping the temperature on the plate to about 22° F. I ran a fan into the engine room for about two hours to cool it down so I could work in there check the flow of water and for leaks on the 12V system.

Friday, 9 June - I started the engine and the holding plate refrigeration that is powered by the engine at seven this morning and ran it until eight thirty. I called Bob Williams to tell him the results of the checks that he'd suggested. We decided that he's going to have to come on the boat so I'll be taking the boat to Marathon Boatyard on Monday. He did suggest that I remove the R134a with the dye in it so I'll do that on Sunday. In the meantime I'll have to keep running the engine each day to keep my few groceries cool but not frozen. Luckily, I don't have much in there. When I returned to the boat after pickleball I decided to tighten the two drive belts on the 130 amp alternator. The arm on the alternator was already extended all the way which means that the belts probably need to be replaced but I thought it would be quicker to just extend the slot in the arm by 1/2". I could do that with a file but that should be quicker with the drill press at the marina. A twenty minute job turned into about an hour and twenty minutes because people have abused the drill press to such a point that even though the motor was turning the belt, it wasn't driving the drill bit. It took me awhile to figure out why. Someone has kept lowering the chuck until it drove the bearings on the drive off the spindle. I was able to get it to temporarily work for me but will fall apart each time it is used. I'll try to fix it if I think of it this weekend but may not be able to get the bearings reseated properly. While in the engine room working on the alternator I noticed a broken stainless steel 2.5 inch hose clamp on the cockpit drain hose so I replaced that, too.
                  I still can't get used to the weather patterns we get here. It's been threatening to rain all week but we've hardly gotten a drop. Many storms come in thin bands and if they approach perpendicular to the string of keys many of them run right at us, then split and go around or skip right over the land. Others that are running primarily parallel to the keys skirt mostly just offshore as they go by. We may just catch the edges of them on land and in the harbor. The locals say we have a bubble over the island and it certainly seems that way.

Saturday, 10 June - This morning I spent about 2 hours repairing the drill press in the Marina's cruiser's project room that people have damaged in numerous ways. Within a week of acquiring it, someone had bent the chuck key and lost a spring and a pin out of it. Next, they broke the drill press vice that I had refurbished, then, with the replacement vise, they started drilling holes in the vise, then the drill'l platform. Recently I realized that they had broken the depth stop mechanism. I re-glued that this morning, but doubt that the Super Glue fix will last more than a week. The spring that should raise the chuck and bit has been broken and that got ordered today. Since the depth stops haven't worked, someone has pressed their bit so hard that it dislodged the main bearings on the chuck shaft. When I noticed that yesterday the bearings had been replaced upside down and the sheaves wouldn't align properly, so the belt had been self destroying. I think all is fixed now but the broken return spring. That should be delivered in about a week.
                    Wow! I'm really not having good luck with this 12V refrigeration unit. The repairman suggested that I open the system and vacuum it again to remove the dye that I had installed, suggesting that that might be the reason for the over-pressure on the high pressure side of the system. I was to then recharge the system with pure R134a refrigerant so that it would be charged for him to detect leaks on Monday. I pumped a vacuum for two hours, attached my can of refrigerant and injected enough refrigerant to bring the pressure up to about 50psi on both sides. I started the refrigerator and immediately heard a leak. A double gasket on he high pressure side of my pressure gauge manifold has gone out. I'll have to order more gaskets...and I'll have to re-vacuum the system yet again, but not tonight. Now I'm running the engine and engine driven refrigerator to refreeze the holding plates. I had thought I might be able to avoid having to do that again today if I could get the 12V system frozen for just one more day. Such is life on a boat. If it's not one thing, it's two or three.

Sunday, 11 June - Right after the morning Cruiser's Net this morning I restarted the vacuum pump on the 12V Isotherm refrigeration system and ran it for over two hours then recharged the system with R134a, then left it running. After that I started the engine so I could run the engine driven Sea Frost system and ran that system for two hours bringing the holding plate down to 21°F to keep the food in temporarily in there from ruining. I hadn't checked the fuel level in the boat in quite a while, so I got out the measuring rod and found that I still have about 59 gallons of diesel left. I need to fill the tank soon in preparation for hurricane season.

Monday, 12 June - I took the boat to Marathon Boatyard for Bob Williams of S.A.L.T. (Sea Air Land Technologies) to detect and repair leaks. He spent about an hour and a half on the boat. The good news is that he didn’t charge me anything because he didn't repair it. The Bad News is that he detected two tiny leaks, one where the Capillary Tube enters the Coolant Return Tube and the other is at the Top Rear Corner of the Evaporator. He can’t repair either of them. He gave me several VERY EXPENSIVE alternatives. I GUESS I’M GOING TO JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH TINY LEAKS AND HOPE THEY DON’T GET WORSE. For $3000 to $5000 I can buy a lot of R134a.
                    More good news. Home owners here are handing out mangoes like home gardeners most other places hand out zucchini. They are tree ripened and so much better than the green picked and store ripened mangoes in stores.

Tuesday, 13 June - Since I recharged the Isotherm system on Sunday and left the charging manifold attached I checked the pressure again today. I don't have the high pressure side connected, but the low side has dropped to about 5 psi. That's Ok, still usable, but the freezer still isn't frosting nearly all of the evaporator. Only one corner is freezing and the rest is at about 40°F. I ordered a replacement valve for the refrigeration gauge manifold today. Later, I met Susie at Dockside and she brought her new half chihuahua / half mutt. She's pretty cute and so is the dog, although the dog is about three times the size I was expecting. The dog rescue facility that Susie got her new dog from in Key West believed that it is about eight months old and, unfortunately, not house broken. That may take a while. In the meantime, Susie is having to take the dog out way too frequently to make sure that it never pees or poops in the house.

Wednesday, 14 June - Vacuum oil that I ordered came in ahead of time today although I wasn't in any rush for it. I could have purchased it cheaper somewhere other than Amazon but shipping would have added about $10 to the price and I've found that many things shipped by Amazon include free shipping, if the total is over $25. By adding a pound of walnuts to my order, which I like and will certainly eat, that put me over the $25 minimum and beat the other company's price, too.

Thursday, 15 June - Shortly after returning from pickleball and checking for mail at the marina I got a call on the VHF radio. It was Brandon Hyvolt letting me know that he'd been sailing his sailboard for an hour or so and his girlfriend would like to try it. Would I come over and give them some instructions? You bet. I'll trade an hour of lessons for the ability to sail for 30 or 40 minutes. I spent about an hour treading water helping her but I needed the exercise. I think the water is about 80°, very comfortable. While treading water, their neighbor, Nick, on Wind Shadow, another CSY-44 returned to his boat and I said hi to him. He asked if I'd seen his new boat. "No", I said, "When did you get a new boat?" He said, "Yesterday. It's the next boat over, a 36 foot Pearson and it was FREE! Some lady's husband had passed away about a year ago and she hadn't been out on the boat since and just wanted to get rid of it. The only stipulation was that he had to move it within a week...a done deal. It had been docked at a posh marina and is in very good, clean condition. Lucky man. In fact, the fellow that drove him over to look at the boat offered him $30,000 for the boat before they arrived back at the harbor in his car.

Friday, 16 June - This afternoon I transferred 25 gallons of diesel that I've had in jugs on the deck for probably a year into the fuel tank. My fuel gauge is a dipstick and apparently not exactly accurate. It said I had 59 gallons before I added 25 gallons, then it read 80 gallons...close enough. I also added enough 134a into the refrigeration system to bring the pressure on the low side to 10 psi from 3 psi.

Saturday, 17 June - Thunder rumbled all along the north side of the island almost constantly all day long and MyRadar app sent me numerous lightning warnings but I only felt one drop of water fall on me. I went kayaking here in the harbor for about an hour to see how well the shoulder therapy worked. That's the first time in a year that I've gone further than to the marina's dock. My shoulder hurt a bit and since I haven't done anything except the therapy and a little pickleball for six weeks I can tell that a four hour trip through the Boot Key mangroves would be excessive at the moment. Right after I wrote that only one drop fell we started seeing water spouts along the Gulf side of the island, the storm that had moved from west to east reversed directions and we actually got about two hours of good rain and an exceedingly beautiful lightning show along with four water spouts. Thunder was loud and absolutely constant for about an hour. It sounded like there was a WWII naval battle going on in Florida Bay just to our north. Spectacular! Lots of people were on the VHF talking about it.

Sunday, 18 June - Working on the refrigeration again. I removed the gauge from the system and installed new valves with new gaskets. The refrigerant was a tiny bit low so I raised it from 3 PSI on the low end to 10 PSI, The high end pressure had been at about 150 psi but immediately went to 375. That shouldn't happen. Baffled, I turned the system off to think things through and eventually gave up on it for the day. I frequently admonish people here in the harbor to put their names on things so that if they misplace them they'll get them back. I proved the theory today. I got a call from a stranger telling me that my pickleball paddle had been left at the park and that they had hidden it under the ramp to the bleachers for me. I went immediately to get it and called them back to thank them once I picked it up.

Monday, Juneteenth - It's a holiday! I remember when I was a kid in Texas all the negroes celebrated the day and few showed up for work, but they were the only ones. Now it's national. This afternoon I started working on the refrigeration again. Since the repairman had told me he had discovered two leaks, one of which is where the capillary tube is inserted into the refrigerant return tube and "is the most likely place to leak because they don't stabilize that joint well", I decided to simply seal it with a blob of JB Waterweld, which I have had good luck with in the past and hardens enough to drill and tap it. Upon cleaning the joint up and looking at it closely, I realized that the installers had wrapped the capillary tube around the return tube very well, then soldered the joint. I don't know how it could be done any better so I decided that is not likely to be the problem and did not use the WaterWeld. I put soapy water all over in and started the system up. No bubbles there but I decided to test the High Pressure Schrader valve with the soap. Keep in mind that I have already replaced that valve at least once. I think twice. It's definitely leaking now. Did you know that there are different grades of Schrader valves? I didn't and have been using valves for automobiles in there. The ones I have have red or black gaskets and, apparently, I should be using green or clear gaskets. I learn something almost every day here. I bummed a ride from Bob Stoltenberg of S/V Majestic up to NAPA Auto Parts to get the right valves and found out when we got there that they only had one...I need two. At least I didn't have to pay $24 for a taxi to get a $3 part, but I will have to go back tomorrow for a second valve. We stopped at Advance Auto on the way back but they had none. Back at the boat I cleaned up the front two refrigerator compartments and am drying them out with a fan.

Tuesday, 20 June - Well the color coding on Schrader valve cores, it turns out, are pretty insignificant although there are at least 27 different kinds of valve cores. The differences are in what type of chemicals are in the system they are used in: air (bicycles, car tires, etc.), refrigeration, fuels (gasoline, diesel), gasses (Propane, MAPP gas, oxygen), etc. Each of those have gaskets that are made of different materials like Neoprene, Nitrile, Viton, White Silicone, etc., and each style may have several colored gaskets. Bob Stoltenberg took me up to NAPA Auto right after pickleball and I got three more Schrader valve cores for a total of four, two extras for backup. I returned to the boat, removed the existing valve cores and attached the vacuum pump to the high pressure side hoping it would suck out any blockages in the system and pulled a vacuum for about 15 minutes. Next, I detached the vacuum pump, started my air compressor, blew out the line, and tried to blow pressurized air through the low pressure side of the compressor. That didn't work well because I couldn't attach it directly and firmly to the Schrader valve. I did the best I could then inserted the new Schrader valve cores and reattached the vacuum pump and let it run for two hours to make sure that any and all moisture was evacuated from the system. I recharged the system with R134a, removed the fan from the inside of the refrigerator, and turned the refrigeration system back on the see if it will freeze any better than it has been doing. I'll leave it on and check it after dinner and dancing at Dockside. Well, I didn't even get that far. The evaporator wasn't cooling down at all. The high-pressure side will back up to 435 psi again so I shut it off and went to dinner after cleaning up.

Wednesday, 21 June - For the first time this summer we couldn't even get four people to play pickleball this morning. Because of that I decided to spend the whole day on the refrigeration. Not fixing it, I've given up on that and have shut it off. I'm trying to find a cabinet maker that will tear out the cabinets that it's in, re-insulated it, and rebuild the cabinet. I probably won't end up doing that but I want to see if it's economically feasible at all. Otherwise, I think I'm just going to have the refrigeration guy replace the Isotherm unit that I have with another one just like it. The refrigeration unit itself will run around $2000 plus installation and that won't include re-insulation and the cabinetry. I contacted one fellow that sounded like he might do the cabinet work but he wanted pictures of the cabinetry and refrigeration boxes so I spent all afternoon taking the photos. The second cabinetmaker didn't sound like someone I care to hire. They will do the countertop but subcontract the cabinetry. The third contact never returned my call from the message I left. It was a long day; from about 9:30 to 9:30.

Thursday, 22 June - We were back up to eight players and two courts for about an hour and a half this morning at pickleball. It's getting really hot on the court, especially when there's no wind. In about an hour and a half our clothes are all soaking wet from perspiration. It's hard to believe we are perspiring as much as we are drinking. The rest of my day was spent dealing with the refrigeration, taking more pictures and putting things back in order or away.

Friday, 23 June - We had eight pickleballers again this morning although they're only lasting about an hour and a half because of the heat, humidity and lack of breeze. I spent part of the afternoon and evening coming up with a solution to keep my propeller from catching the float lines on lobster and crab pots, then illustrating it as a digital file so I'll remember what I was thinking the next time I have the boat hauled out. The solution is a cable that will run from the back of the keel to the front of the rudder's protective strut, under the prop, but it needs to be able to break in two just below the propeller if something significant were to put pressure on it so it won't damage the rudder's strut which is much weaker than the keel.

Saturday, 24 June - I worked on the boat a bit today then met Susie at Havana Jacks for dinner and a bit of dancing. She left the dog at home and I guess it barked enough to upset the policeman that lives in the other side of the duplex and needs to get up at 4am to go to work. The evening at Havana Jacks got cut short because it started raining pretty hard about half way through the band's last set. I guess ending early was a good thing or he might have been even more upset.

Sunday, 25 June - Just about the time Susie and I were about to get out of the house to do something, it started raining so we watched a movie on Netflix. In the evening we headed over to Dockside for the Sunday Open Mic Night entertainment. Two of the band members are on vacation and one is recovering from back surgery on Wednesday so Tony Napoli and others filled in and we didn't think the music was as entertaining as usual. Susie took the dog along and when we dance she barks because of the separation, so we didn't dance too much. I'm sure that she'll get used to it. At home, when Susie leaves and at night, Susie puts the dog, Tika, in a travel cage but that hasn't kept her from barking. I suggested that she cover the cage so the dog can't see anything else and I believe it helped, but time will tell.

Monday, 26 June - It was sunny and hot at 9am for pickleball, but about 10:30 it started cooling down and getting a bit breezy. We had had 7 players with three rotating in for each game but three left about that time. Four of us stayed to play one more game but before we finished it started raining. We played anyway and by the time we finished it had cooled down and we were pretty wet. I suggested another game and was surprised to hear everybody say, "Sure." By the end of that game and with about a half inch of water on the court, we were all totally soaked but felt like kids playing in the rain. The pickleball won't bounce off the court with that much water on the court so there was a lot of laughing going on. As I was leaving I stopped in the park office to ask who had turned on the sprinklers and when they all saw how drenched I was they all blamed each other.

Tuesday, 27 June - I spent this afternoon trying to contact other cabinet makers here in Marathon. No one seems to want to take on my project. I also spent about 3 of hours communicating with a lady in the Netherlands that has tailboards, the scrollwork that you sometimes see at the bow of boats, that will fit my boat. She is willing to let me have them if I'll pay for the shipping. There's a fellow here that has molds for the tailboards but he wants $2000 to make a pair. Way too much in my opinion. Shipping won't be cheap, about $400, but it will be WAAAAY LESS than the $2000 that the greedy jerk here in Marathon wants.

Wednesday, 28 June - I spent some more time messaging the lady in the Netherlands this morning before pickleball because I found that I must initiate the shipping through FedEx from my end if I'm going to pay for it. She can't. The international shipping form must have about a hundred items to fill out and I'm not sure what they are all talking about. I kept needing more information from her, so much so that she must think I am some kind of scammer. It took me several hours to fill out the form completely, slowed down by waiting for her to answer my questions. I finally got it done, looked at the bottom of the page and it said the shipping fee will be $825, Wow! I decided to try DHL, but they indicate that they won't ship anything over 47 inches long...and UPS's quote page has said, "Temporary Service Issues, Please try again later." for hours. I give up for the evening. Since my refrigeration isn't working, I tried out my countertop ice maker today. It worked better than expected. Aaahhh! Cold water! None of the cabinet makers have returned my calls.

Thursday, 29 June - We started pickleball at 8:30 this morning and 12 people showed up. I don't know if the early start had anything to do with it but it was nice. If there was any difference in temperature it couldn't have been but one degree. We had zero wind and it was still hot. After that I paid for another month on the ball. As soon as I got back to the boat I started trying to ship the tailboards from the Netherlands to me again. FedEx had quoted me $825 and I hoped to beat that price with UPS, but it took me 7 hours and 50 minutes and three support personnel to make the transaction work. At least I hope it works. If it did, it saved me a lot of money. UPS quoted me $279 although that is just for transportation. I don't know how Customs in going to deal with it. Tho UPS price may go a bit higher, too, since I don't know how the lady in the Netherlands packaged the tailboards. If she just bundled them in bubble wrap, not cardboard, the price will go up I'm sure.

Friday, 30 June - After pickleball this afternoon I placed grommets in two covers that I have for individual gas jugs so that I can run short lines through them to attach them to the stanchions so they don't accidentally leave the boat in rough seas. I also found out that at least something worked about the trailboard shipment. It was picked up in the Netherlands and is, supposedly, on its way here. Yay! At around six o'clock I went to shore to the Friday evening soirée, snacks and conversation but I didn't stay long. I still don't have refrigeration on the boat because I have shut off the 12V system and really don't want to have to run the engine for an hour at idle each day to run the cold plate system.