On Mother's Day, it is critically important to remember what is truly important.
It has been a tough week or two.
But, I think it is easy to forget where we actually are and focus on what is not going right instead of keeping things in perspective. We start with realizing we are in a pretty cool place, certainly a thousand times better than where we could be going through the same stuff.
And we have Moms. Without Moms to bring us, love us and raise us, (and for them to be there to be loved) all this would not be here anyway. Thanks to my Mom Marjorie gone for too long already, and Shelly's Mom Sally (our last remaining parent) for all your efforts!
And – we (I) have to remember that we bought a boat we knew needed a lot of work to make it a true cruising live aboard vessel, and that the initial price was simply a deposit on the full price of such a boat, and that we were choosing to make “payments” through sweat equity and parts when cash flow allowed.
It still can be depressing.
We have leaks in one of the two fuel tanks under the floors. This is not good as fuel in the bilges tends to get pumped overboard and the authorities and our neighbors do not like that at all.
Before I could get to the tanks I had to get under the hot water heater (that I hate) again. I decided to go ahead and move it and found a great place under the galley sink. Of course the sink had to come out, and all the plumbing and wiring redone. One full day and a half later, the tank is in a new place (yay!) and I have a nice open place to access the bilge and the generator.
Next day – clean the area, and get all the fuel out of the bilge, and figure a way to find this damn leak.
First, I cleaned up all the wiring and plumbing lines, then built a sump in the bilge to run the shower drains so I could get the bilge dry. Plus I cut a few extra access hatches in the floor so I can run lines and plumbing.
Then, lay a nice white oil absorbent cloth in the clean, dry bilge and see where the fuel drips from… Voila, the port tank is leaking.
We pulled up all the wood floors in the salon, and cut an access into the top of the fuel tank. I could see pitting in the aluminum tank, and after much deliberation decided to use epoxy and fiberglass tape to try and seal the tank.
It was a pain in the butt! And two weekends of work…
Finally, yesterday, we started the fuel priming pump to force fuel from the starboard tank through the filters to the newly repaired port tank. About 5 pm the last three 5 gallon jugs of fuel were poured in to make sure the tank was full, and the new cover was screwed in place. Success!
The circle in the floor is where the table legs go so I had to not cut there!
The plan this morning was to mark the access for the starboard tank, cut it, clean out that tank and epoxy it just to be safe.
However, when I checked the bilge this morning I almost cried when I saw fuel. Apparently there is still a leak somewhere.
Today we moved 50 gallons of fuel back out of port to starboard, opened up the tank again, and cut out the outside fiberglass trying to ppinpoint the leak. The tank does not look good on the outside but to take it out means some serious work. In the boatyard cutting a lot of fiberglass work. Yuk.
I ended up laying much more glass and epoxy in the tank, and praying that I have covered where it was leaking.
Tomorrow will tell.
Then for Mother's Day Shelly rode up and rented the second Hobbitt movie and we watched that. She also fixed a very nice supper to enjoy with the rum to help with the depression. We just try to move on and try to figure out what the good is in this situation…
Time is again flying by. It looks like Ryan's friend Sam is coming to visit, then they are flying back to Atlanta for a vist before we pick Ryan up in ft Lauderdale first week of June. I have promised to work for the shop here until June 1, and we still have refrigeration to install. And of course now the generator needs looking at since I have access with no hot water heater in front of it.
3 weeks. Plenty of time.
We sure are looking forward to moving again!
We hope all the Moms had a great day! Until next time…
