Thursday, 11 August 2016 - Hmmmm. Nothing today lived up to last evening's excitement. As I was preparing to go over to Moss Marina to watch a little of the Olympics on TV, a squall hit, seemingly out of nowhere. I had just put the backup generator on the aft deck to charge the batteries a little about 20 minutes before I felt the light breeze shift, then start to gust. When the wind hit about 20 kts., I knew I'd better bundle up the awning on the foredeck. By the time I got that done, it was hitting about 25 to 30 kts. and starting to sprinkle so I quickly shut off the generator and moved it down below, out of the rain. I quickly closed up the boat, all the while watching the distance between Island Time and the totally immovable objects (dredging barges) that were, by now, only a couple of hundred feet away. My 100 ft. of chain on the anchor seemed to be stretched out pretty good. I knew, however, that unless my anchor dragged, I wouldn't ever reach the barges, and I was confident that it would not drag. But, from seeing other boats drag and talking to their owners, the one thing I know is that the more convinced you are that you won't drag, the more likely it is that you will. There have been at least four boats drag anchor right here in the pass while I've been here, and of course, all the owners were convinced that they wouldn't. One of the boats had no one on it when it happened. They were lucky, their boat crossed the bay and ran aground just before hitting the sea wall.
                  I stayed aboard long enough to see the winds die off a bit, then headed in to watch the Olympics for the evening. Last evening's competition was swimming, beach volleyball when the American girls lost a set, but not the match, to the Swiss ladies, and men's gymnastics. The gymnastics, both men's and women's, blows me away. I'm amazed what the human body can be trained to do.
                 The distance from my boat to the barges looked a lot closer as viewed from the back of the boat than it did from ashore. When you're standing on the back of the boat, looking at the possibility of total disaster as I was and realizing that if the anchor breaks loose, you only have a few very short minutes to get the engine started and pull away, that distance looks very short.
                  So far today, the weather has been beautiful, although the same could be said for yesterday until about a quarter past six o'clock. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing happen this evening. Thunderstorms are located to the east of us and are headed this way again. It's 5:30, I already heard thunder in the distance and my phone app, Storm, just sent me a message that there is precipitation within 10 miles.
                  This is a little hard for me to get used to. In Utah, the storms get blown in by and travel with the wind. Here in Florida, much of the time, the clouds form, then suck the air in under and toward them, so the clouds are moving one direction and the wind from the other.
                  I'm still hoping to go over to the marina this evening, watch a little Olympics, and wash my clothes at the same time. If that's going to happen, I'd better get busy. Later!

Friday, 12 August - A very discouraging day. The fresh water pump has been giving me problems. It doesn't want to shut off when I turn off the faucet. And now the refrigeration unit won't chill again. I spent over $600 on it up in Gasparilla having it recharged and some leaks fixed. Then, again a couple of months ago, it got to where it wanted to cycle off, then immediately back on, but not cool. It's doing the same thing again, but the cure I did on it that time doesn't appear as if it is going to work now. The compressor and the cooling pump both vibrate as if they are pumping, but I don't think the compressor is actually pumping any refrigerant. I went through all this last time, and it finally started running again. Not this time. I called Isotherm, the company that makes the unit, and the technician there said it's probably about time for a whole new unit. That will be expensive, I'm sure. I asked why not just get a new compressor and she said that that is the major cost of the units, and if you spend that much money on it, you might as well get a whole new, updated unit. Even if I did that, I think I'd still need the whole unit re-insulated, and I KNOW that would be a major project and expensive. I think the whole thing needs to be ripped out and rebuilt. There's no easy way to inspect the state of the insulation in it. I believe the thickness is probably ok, but I suspect that, over the years, frozen condensation in the insulation has taken its toll by breaking it down through many freeze/thaw cycles. There's just no way to know without totally dismantling it.

Saturday, 13 August - I spent all day testing the refrigerant in the Isotherm compressor at different levels, but to no avail. I just can't get it to start and continue to run more than about two minutes. It just comes on, runs about a minute, shuts off, then restarts immediately. I also checked the pressure in the fresh water accumulator, lowered it from 50 psi to 40 psi, and will see if that will make fresh water pump shut off properly. Another thing I finally got around to is taping up the boot on the through-deck fitting of the mast. It has some bad spots and cracks in it. I doubt that the tape will last long, but it's better than doing nothing.

Sunday, 14 August - Most of Sunday was panicking over the fact that last night I lost my rather expensive phone. Luckily, the person that found it was honest enough to call a friend of mine, Tom Vance, and let him know that it had been found. I was also lucky enough that, the second time I called my phone from another, the fellow that had it answered and told me where to come get it. In the evening, I watched Olympics on TV, very relaxed and relieved after having gotten the phone back.

Monday and Tuesday - Both of these day were spent researching Isotherm / Danfoss refrigeration systems and running and rerunning tests on the unit. I still can't get it to run. Now I'm trying to make sure whether the problem is with the compressor, the electronic controller, or something else. There seems to be lots of conflicting info on the internet about the fault codes that the controller blinks out, and no way to confirm anything.

Wednesday, 17 August - I've finally given up on being able to troubleshoot the refrigerator myself and am now spending the day trying to find reasonably priced suppliers, the correct parts, and reliable repairmen that will come to the boat to do the repairs. With all the thousands of big boats down in this area, I thought it would be a lot easier to find someone close that could do the work. In fact, I've had several people tell me to call "Felix", but they don't even advertise that they work on refrigeration. They are electronics technicians that will install super-loud stereo systems, navigation, and other electronics on your boat for you. I'm not sure that is the company I want working on my refrigeration. I already spent $600 on it up in Gasparilla, and this is probably going to be WAAAAAY more involved than that was.
                  Happily, I got a return call from a supply company in California that had promised to have one of their technicians return my call to help me troubleshoot the refrigeration problems. Although I couldn't run the tests while we were on the phone, he was very helpful. I now have to send out this post so I can stop typing and follow up on the procedures that he suggested while they are fresh on my mind. Wish me luck!

            Until next time.
                        "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!" - Hunter S. Thompson

                                          Rick