On Mon, 31 Mar 2014 08:34:06 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

Neal will chortle and others will shake their heads...

Indeed! Skippy, you manage to lend veracity to all
my dire predictions about you.

This isn't a log, just a snippet. I haven't written a log in months, out of
disgust and frustration, not to mention lack of motivation.

This is a reply to friends in Georgetown, who say the bunch there misses us:

You? Miss you? Ha ha! I doubt it. Nobody wants to see a hairy old man
playing volleyball. The probably miss seeing your hawt wife in her
bikini! ;-)

I just can't tell you how distressing this past 15 months has been.

Yes, life ashore is a real pain in the butt. It's like living in
a madhouse.

Every time we move the boat, some gamestopper breaks.

That's your own fault. You just won't listen to me when I tell
you that you have too many systems that make you a slave to them.

On the way to our mechanic in Stuart (ICW, yuck, run from Vero), our 4-154
FWater pump gave up the ghost, leaking coolant until it got down to that
level, which resulted in overheating.

You should always carry a spare.

Limped in, docked, plugged in, mechanic did his work and broke a line
getting it off; workaround achieved, and 8 days later, we're back in
business. In addition, while we were stuck, I found 3 sources of
NEW-from-Perkins, in stock, no-problem water pumps, where the word on the
street had been that they were unobtainium. All set for when we get back to
Vero.

Not so fast, bucko.

Our 4 L16HC batterie$ gave up the gho$t at the dock, and will no longer hold
a charge overnight.

Batteries are like that. Replace them every three years and replace
them as a group. Don't buy anything but old-fashioned, flooded, deep-
cycle 12V marine batteries. Case size 24 or 27. Nothing larger. Derive
your amperage capacity from getting as many as you require. In your
case, probably about 12 case size 24 or 10 case size 27.

PS our new $ea Fro$t refrigeration is struggling, too,
maybe batteries, maybe the water pump with gunge from our grounding.

I TOLD you not to get Sea Frost brand as it's a POS. Throw it all
overboard and get an Adler Barbour air cooled unit. In your case
you probably need two of them. It's a simple system and quite
efficient. Mine's been working like a champ now for over two years
since I fixed a hole in the tubing going into the evaporator with
electrical tape.

Cleaned out the filter, backwashed the line, bled the pump, restart.
Batteries, I sincerely hope, because I don't think I can deal with
refrigeration again so soon (total replacement after 4 months of
troubleshooting, etc. and 10 weeks of fiddling to get this one installed and
set up right, including 2 replacement temp probes, starting over on the
evaporator plates, and a replacement constant pressure valve - the only
significant component not replaced was the compressor, from NEW).

Throw it all overboard. You'll be shocked at how good it makes you
feel. Go with a couple brand new air-cooled Adler Barbours.

We sailed on staysail alone (did I mention that the furler line failed on
the last trip; new line is waiting for us ashore today) to Ft. Pierce where
we went aground in the channel under Causeway Island. Lots of shifting sand
in there, apparently.

Haven't I told you many times to lose the wind-up sails. They are an
accident waiting to happen just because they are more complicated.
Isn't it bad enough that they are unreliable compared to hank-ons but
worse yet, they are also less efficient/

No problem, we were going to get a tow to Vero, anyway; let's just do it
now. TBUS arrives, we're immediately under way (very soft grounding), and
30 minutes into it comes the NOAA 40kt/tornado interruption on the VHF.
Around we turn, and back to the anchorage, scheduling for the next day.

Which went well, until we got to our mooring where we'd left the dinghy to
assure it was available, on the advice of staff, $till paying for it, and
found someone else tied to the mooring with our dink streaming next to it.

So many stupid and rude, so-called sailors these days. I'd have simply
cut them loose.

No biggie but we had to go forward, secure to an open mooring there, get a
ride to the boat behind us, remove our mooring line from their boat and the
mooring and install theirs, remove our dinghy and returned home. Whether we
can browbeat the staff into abating the rent for that time remains to be
seen; that was a preferable float and a preferable location, so to require
us to pay for the space when we couldn't have it would only add insult to
injury to our gymnastics required.

Next time just set them free since they were tied up using your lines.
They were trespassing and deserve no consideration.

And that was just yesterday; the entire 15 months has been like that.

You're too passive, Skippy. People will **** all over you until
you grow some gonads. You've got to take charge of your life.
You've got to simplify. You are frustrated because you went sailing
for the simple life but somehow you managed to never divest yourself
of the complications. Instead, you managed to bring them all aboard.


--
Sir Gregory