Wednesday Afternoon, 12 August 2015 - It was suggested to me by one of the marina employees that since the unit is water cooled via the onboard water, perhaps there just wasn't enough water in the tank to be above the water intake for the refrigeration. The water tank holds 200 gallons, but was filled over a month ago by the previous owner, so I thought that might be a possibility. In fact, I've been trying to use more water than normal because the water supply still stinks and I've been drawing it down in order to refill it with fresh water and treat it with Clorox. On checking, however, there was still about 85 gallons in the tank, so water below the intake shouldn't be the problem. The unit had recently been cooling to as low as 20 degrees F, so I doubted that the coolant would have leaked out this quickly, thus I determined that the problem must be the water pump. I disassembled it and could find no visible problem, but one of the bearings felt a little sticky. I lubed it and reassembled the unit. I connected it to 12V and tested it several times before I reinstalled it. Worked fine! I'll leave it overnight and see how things go.

Thursday 13 August, 2015 - This morning the refer is still at only 70 degrees. The problem must be the water pump motor. I disconnected everything again and disassembled the water pump and the motor that runs it. I cleaned it up and since I really don't see anything wrong, I put it back together and retested it. It will run if, when I connect the electricity, I spin the rotor on the motor, but sometimes it won't self-start. Must be a bearing. I called the manufacturer to see where I might find a whole water pump assembly. Clearwater, 60 miles north. Too far to drive, plus they run $154. More than I want to pay unless I absolutely have to. Started looking for a bearing retailer online. Too late, they're all closed. I'll deal with it tomorrow.

Friday 14 August - Decided to enter the engine room one more time and check out the pump and motor one more time. Pulled it all apart, even further this time, and realized that the roughness that I thought I felt was, in reality, just the magnetic fields on the rotor magnets passing each other. The bearings were, indeed, just fine. I cleaned it all up, lubed them and reassembled. This time, after I had totally reassembled the whole unit, I tested it 50 times to make sure it would self-start. Perfect! 50 out of 50. Reinstalled it. I let it run for awhile, but it's not cooling. Running out of ideas. Okay, it must, in fact be low on R-134 refrigerant, so I added a can. Voilá! It's cooling. I'll let it run all night and check it in the morning.

Saturday 15 August - The refrigerator is down to 40 degrees F this morning. Yahoo! I'll reset the thermostat and see if it will go lower. I may still need to add more refrigerant. Boy! It sure will be nice having something cold onboard to drink in this hot, muggy weather. Now I can get back to finding more space for what's left on the motorhome and in the trailer. I'll sure be glad to get it all aboard and have permanent locations for everything. I've moved things so many times that I can't find anything.
                My water still smells bad, but not as much. I think I'll add some more Clorox to the tank.
                Ooooeeee! A little excitement just now. A storm just blew in from the north, not the normal direction. This was a real squall. I'm glad I was onboard. It really started pouring, and since a storm yesterday got a little water into one of the cupboards I quickly got down on my hands and knees to see if I could tell exactly where it was coming in. Just as I hit the floor, the boat hit the dock. That's not supposed to happen. I ran onto the deck, stepped off onto the finger pier right where it had hit and the wind immediately shifted and moved the boat away. Earlier in the day, I had shortened the bow lines to let the boat get a little closer to the main pier and had been aware that I needed to recheck it as the tide went out to make sure it wasn't too close. The boat hadn't hit at the bow, but I still decided I'b better go to the port quarter to pull the boat back a bit. I could barely jump aboard now, since the wind had shifted, and the wind was blowing so hard it hurt my face. Lightning flashes with about 1 - 2 seconds before the thunder was heard. With the speed of sound at 1127 ft/sec you do the math. That's pretty close. When I got to the stern, I released the stern line to pull it in a bit and could barely hold on enough to keep from letting it out instead of pulling it in. I finally got it in about two feet and re-cleated. With this wind, I knew it would be raining in the three transom portholes that Rick, the previous owner, said he never closed because of rain. The transom has an overhang, so those portholes are pretty protected, but I was right, they needed to be closed. Everything needed to be closed! Luckily, I already had almost everything battened down, but since the wind was from directly astern, I needed to move stuff forward in the cockpit to keep them from getting wetter.
                I heard someone recently say that with all the electronic gadgetry for keeping an eye on the weather today, there's no excuse for getting caught in a fierce storm anymore. Well I'm here to tell you he's dead wrong. Down here, these storms can develop right on top of you, and if you don't start battening down the hatches at the first sprinkle, it's too late. You'd have to be monitoring the weather constantly to see them all coming. The only reason I had the boat closed up to some degree was because it had rained a bit about an hour earlier and I hadn't gotten around to opening everything up again.
                I never did get to find out exactly where the water was getting into that cupboard. By the time I got dried off, it was too late. All I got to see was another puddle. Anyway, all's well and I got my Saturday bath without having to go to the boater's shower. It came to me.

Sunday, 16 August - Wow! I got another surprise last night. When I got back to the motorhome, another 1/3 of the tree that had a limb break off last week had another 1/3 of it fall in yesterday's wind and rain. It's a good thing I had moved the motorhome further away from it. I didn't really think more was likely to break off, but thought better safe than sorry. Well, I didn't move quite far enough, but the damage was minimal. In fact, you couldn't do much less damage than it did. All that it did is break one of the six small overhead running lights on the front of the vehicle, but it's sure a good thing that I had moved. This one would have crushed at least one side of the motorhome if I had been in the same spot; probably breaking out the windows and tearing off the door and awning.
                Back at the boat, the refrigeration is down to 20 degrees F. I don't really need it THAT cold, so I'll turn the dial a bit. ...Wait a minute; I don't know which way is up! It's a damn icon. I hate icons. Why can't it just say Warmer and Colder. I don't know if the icon means more refrigeration or more temperature, hotter or colder. Icons ought to be illegal. I have icons on the controls of the dash of the motorhome that I don't even know what they're for. Little squiggles and sunrises and others. Why can't they just say lights, or battery, or start, or flush the toilet, or whatever. I hate icons. We're in America. Speak American. By the way, why do they say we speak English? We don't. I can barely understand the British. And did you know that much of that is on purpose? In the dictionary that Webster first published it America, he intentionally spelled many words, like colour and harbour, by leaving out the "u", or by changing the "s" in many words to "z", as in civilization, because he thought the American people should be different and have their own language. We speak English about like the Mexicans speak Spanish; not very well. Or maybe I should say, "Close, but no cigar." I still hate icons!

Monday, 17 August - Today, I decided to tackle the problem I'm having getting internet communications onboard. There are at least three different antennas on "Island Time" that are supposed to reach out and snag a weak wifi signal, amplify it, and feed it to my computer or iPhone, and I can't get any of them to work. Many hundreds of dollars have been spent on these devices and, to me, they are, so far, worthless. To make a long day's story short, I accomplished almost nothing. Not only that, but as I sat at my computer, I heard a "pfffft" or "fffzzz" or something like that and saw smoke coming out of one of the electronic devices at the comm station. One is a $200-$300 AC/DC inverter and the other is a Pactor Modem worth about $1500. Guess which one I hope it was. Guess which one it probably was. Both had power to them, but were turned off. I'm hoping it was the power supply to the modem and that I can get another one of those cheaply. It's probably old enough that I can't get the power supply and will have to buy a complete replacement at today's prices. And the new one will probably be incompatible with something else that I have, meaning I'll have to replace it, too. And it will be incompatible with something else. This could go on for awhile.
                I might as well go out and buy a new boat now!

Tuesday, 18 August - Still trying to get WiFi to work right. Another afternoon of hard rain and I had to wait in the Boater's Lounge 'til midnight to keep from getting drenched on the way to the motorhome.

Wednesday, 19 August - I picked up my mail at the post office today for the first time in about 2 months and went through most of the mail today. A not very exciting or productive day. Tried all afternoon to get the internet and my photo program to function properly to get this blog out. I've also been trying to figure out who's been throwing small fish parts onto my boat. I finally figured out who the culprit is. It's the osprey! He can't sit on my mast top because there are instruments there, but my neighbor has a mast with a flat top and I spotted the osprey having breakfast up there the other day. When the wind is out of the west, it blows his leftovers and trash my way. Tomorrow will be better, I'm sure.

Thursday, 20 August - I worked 'til 1 pm to get my internet and photos uploaded so I could send this out and had to go to the boater's lounge to complete it. I can't believe the problems I'm having with everything I try to get accomplished.