Thursday, 27 August 2015 - I bought and installed two Type ABC fire extinguishers for Island Time today by going to Ace Hardware for them. Walmart only has Type BC extinguishers and ones at West Marine would have been $25 more. By the way, if you have fire extinguishers in your home or car, they ought to be ABC. "A" is an extinguisher that will put out fires that are burning something that will leave Ashes, like wood, cloth, paper, etc. "B" is for things that will Boil, like gasoline or grease. "C" is for fires that are burning something that carries Current, as in electrical current, like wiring and electronics. Of course, many fires are combinations of two or more fuels. For instance if you spill grease onto your stove and it sets the curtains or cabinets on fire, you need a fire extinguisher that will put out both types of fuels. Water would put out the curtains and cabinets, but simply spread the grease unless you got enough to cool the grease, but a type AB extinguisher would put both fuels out. Unfortunately, I've never seen a type AB extinguisher. Walmart and many others sell type BC because they are cheaper, but I think that is a disservice to their customers, because most people don't know the differences. In the situation with the grease/cabinet fire, the grease would be put out, but the cabinets, curtains, or your clothing could continue to burn. The best choice for most people would probably be the type ABC extinguisher, although they cost a little more. By the way, the ABC dry powder extinguishers will put out electronics fires, but may ruin the electronics. There are type C extinguishers that won't harm the electrical equipment and electronics, but they are considerably more money. CO2 works, but sometimes needs to be used in a confined space in order to displace enough oxygen to suffocate the fire.
                I have three ABC extinguishers onboard, as a vessel the size of mine requires, and I think I shouldn't have to replace any of them, but the surveyor (inspector) of the boat before I bought it listed two of them as outdated. His only clue to that is a piece of heavy paper attached that was supposed to be filled out to keep a voluntary record of them having been inspected monthly. The piece of cardboard supplied with the extinguishers has space for about 6 months, but the extinguishers I just bought are warranted for 10 years. Of course, the previous owner quit recording his inspections years ago. My point, however, is that the only thing required or that you can inspect on the extinguishers is their general condition, the pressure registering on the gauge, and whether or not you can hear or feel the powder inside shift from end to end as you invert the extinguisher. If you can't feel the powder shift, it may have compacted over time, so whack the extinguisher with a rubber mallet to loosen it up. That's all the "Pros" do. Really! Oh, except they charge you $15 - $25 to do it. Well, all three of mine pass these examinations, but I still had to buy new ones because he listed it in the survey and the insurance requires anything on that survey to be "corrected."
Now, go bang on your extinguishers! You probably haven't even looked at them in years. Oh!, and remember that 3 lb. extinguisher is only going to last about 10 seconds, so make sure you point right at the base of the fire. You don't want the fire still burning when the 10 seconds is up!
                Okay, it must be about 5:30 here, I here the osprey chirping outside, and that's about when he shows up each evening to roost for the night.

Friday, 28 August - This morning I emptied my holding tanks on the motorhome, then came to the boat just in time to avoid getting drenched in a one hour squall that passed right over me. Lightning and thunder less than a second apart with strong north winds and hard rain. When it ended, I thought it was time to do something about the leaking stanchion. I removed it and sealed the base of it. Unfortunately, there is some wood rot in the teak, so I'll need to do a more complete job it the near future, but since Tropical Storm Erika is on its way, this will have to do for the moment...and none too soon. It looks like Erika will pass right over us. I can only hope it doesn't develop into a hurricane. So far, they are only predicting 50 to 60 mph winds. If those come from the west, we may be in trouble. We're in shallow water only about 5 miles up the Manatee River, whose outlet into Tampa Bay is due west of us. The river is about a mile wide here and waves and storm surge could be huge. Not only that, but waves coming up the river pass the marina, then bounce back off the abutment to the road just a hundred yards away, causing very confused and choppy waters. It's bad enough with 2 to 3 foot swells, I can only imagine 12 footers coming in here. This marina, and probably all the others near here have been very lax in building up for surviving hurricanes since a hurricane hasn't hit Florida in ten years.
                Tomorrow's going to be a busy day preparing for it. I'll remove the sails, canvas, windows, and reroute and double up my lines, then batten down the hatches. Erika could miss us or fall apart, but I can't count on that.
                I'm still not sure what to do with the motorhome. I certainly won't leave it under the trees where I've been parking it!

Saturday, 29 August - Wow! What a difference a day makes! I didn't have to be nearly as ambitious or busy today as I thought I would, since tropical storm Erika seems to have broken up significantly overnight as she crossed over the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It hit them pretty hard then was weakened by the mountains on that island. Thank goodness! Erika was a wakeup call for me! I realized today that I probably couldn't have accomplished all the things in one day that I needed to. I hope to be better prepared next time. I did get 200 ft. of 1" anchor line out of the trailer and use it to double up on my spring lines and rerouted some of my lines to give more length to them. I also went of West Marine and bought one more fender and to the lumber store to get two 8' 2X4s to use as fender boards, then drilled holes so I could tie lines to them and hung the boards over the side. I'll probably cut at least one of those down to 6' before I head south, but, since I was rushed to get things done, I skipped that today. There's still a chance Erika could rebuild into a stronger storm again. Erika did kill at least 31 people, though, so there was good reason to worry.

Sunday, 30 August - I was expecting rains this morning, but when I saw sunshine, I thought I might have just enough time to redo the stanchion that I did the other day. I removed all the screws and realized that I had done such a good job that it just couldn't be what is leaking, so I put the screws back on and poured a couple of gallons of water over it. I was right. It wasn't leaking, but something still was. There are four things that come through the hull and deck right near that point, the stanchion, a fresh water intake line, a scupper, and two holes for another deck drain, one in, one out. That made it difficult to tell which was leaking. I finally decided it was the scupper which goes through the bulwark above the cabinet in the galley. It is a 5" oval hole that passed through the bulwark for spring lines to pass through and for water to pass through to drain off the decks. I thought this would be easy, just unscrew 4 bolts in each side, pull it out, reseal around it and put it back together. Easy! Wrong! Try as I might, I couldn't get it out. The previous owner had been touting a 3M sealant/adhesive product called 3M 5200. Others have warned me not to use it. I just looked it up and, sure enough, 5200 is PERMANENT. The owner probably used it and to remove the parts, they would have to be cut out of the fiberglass.
                When I got it opened up but realized that I couldn't fully disassemble it, I almost panicked. My one hour job had put my boat in eminent danger! If it rained before I could get it sealed up, I'd be sitting there with a 6 inch hole that all the water on the port side of my foredeck would pour through into my cabin.
                I had also run into the old one man doing a two man job problem. The bolt heads are on the outside of the boat and the nuts are on the inside. You can't be in two places at once. I was able to get the nuts started on the bolts, but I couldn't tighten them. I had to wander the docks looking for a volunteer that I could bribe with beer to screw the bolts in while I held the nuts in place. After an hour of preparation, that part of it only took about 5 minutes in the cramped space, laying upside down on the counter and across the sinks and working with a mirror to see the bolts on the back side of the interior of the bulwark. Piece of cake! Thank God the weatherman was wrong! It didn't rain until about 7:30pm.
                I think I set a record for being able to take all day to do one little job that should take about an hour...but it only drips a little now! I'll deal with that when I have some help that has a little more time.

Monday, 31 August - Again, by listening to the weatherman, I expected rain all day from what's left of Erika. They have issued flood warnings again. It's noon and no rain yet.
                Next up, Fred; and it's already a himmicane just off the coast Africa as I speak. We'll see where he goes.
                Wait a minute! The weatherman was right after all and I want to give credit where credit is due. At five minutes 'til midnight, it sprinkled, so it did rain on Monday after all.

Tuesday, 1 September 2015 - I solved my propane leak. I thought for sure the O-ring on one of my tank's valves was bad, but when I attached the hose to the other tank and had the same problem, I had to rethink the situation. What are the chances that both O-rings had gone bad at the same time. The hose's connector looked perfect, but now it seemed more likely to be the faulty part. I found a place to replace it and solved the problem.
               I brought yet another moving box of books over from the trailer today. I'm already out of shelf space. It will be a challenge finding room for them. Many of this batch are the logs from my folks two sailboats, the "Eric" and "Reverie." Frequently, when Dad was alive, I'd find him reading something and ask what it was and he'd say, "The greatest book ever written, our ship's log." Of course, it had memories of everything they'd done for those 10 years. I'm sure it will be fascinating reading for me, too.
                I finally managed to get all the radios and transmitters licensed with the FCC today. Their notice of paper reduction said it would take about .44 hours. It took me about 3.5. It would sure be nice if they wouldn't use abbreviations and acronyms that only they understand. After all, they type it once on their paperwork or the internet and thousands have to figure out what it means. Of course, that wasn't the only problem I had. I was on and off the phone with them several times, had internet problems, etc. I also tried to register my emergency beacon with NOAA, but can't get their website to load at all. Maybe tomorrow.
                I see that Fred, the himmicane, has already died down a bit too, and they believe that he probably won't rebuild, so that's good news.

Wednesday, 2 September - Brought a little bit more "stuff" from the trailer and found space for it, then started trying to compile a list of all the energy consumption devises on the boat and their wattages in order to determine how much energy I might consume on an average day. Then I'll figure out how much energy I should expect out of the solar and wind generator to see how much of a deficit I'll normally have. That will determine how long I might need to run a generator or the engine on a daily basis. I tried to register the EPIRB (emergency transmitter) with NOAA again today, but they indicate that the previous owner hasn't relinquished ownership of the serial number yet. They'll call him for verification and get back to me. He had said a few weeks back that he'd do that. I also tried to get my call letters for my radio license from the FCC again today. They were supposed to shut down their servers for upgrading today at 6:00pm EST TODAY through the holiday weekend. Apparently, they shut it down yesterday. Eager beavers.
                  I'm still waiting for the return and installation of my fuel pump. I'd be very surprised to get it before the holiday weekend.

            Until next time,
                        Dream BIG, or Die from Boredom.

                                          Rick