Author Archives: Matt

Some call it work

Friday turned into a party instead of a repair day. Turns out that Friday was the 34 th celebration of St Lucia’s independence so all the stores were closed. So as they say “best laid plans”.

Well it’s Friday after all and that means jump up St Lucia style. So jump we did after a bite of pizza. Always fun and exciting. Did not diss appoint with street dancing and food from the street vendors. Long story short Shawn and I got separated when we got back to the marina. I waited diligently at the bar for him before meeting so islanders who lived close by and took me to a bar where the locals hang out. Well we walked there it wasn’t too far but by 4am it was all I could do to shoot a game of pool. Seems 24 hrs awake does not promote great pool playing so I busted on out of there for the 2ish mile walk(er stumble) back to the marina.

I got to the pier security gate and the security guard was no where in sight and I had no idea on how to past the locked gate. All day long there was a guard there to open the door for you. Not so much at 4 am. I waited. Looked around. Pondered the predicament. Didn’t really want to jump in the water to by pass the gate either. There was a local boat close by so I pulled it a bit closer and stood on the bow and went right past the security gate to the other side and slept on the Sugar Shack’s trampoline till it got too cold. M

Long day and no boat supplies or work was accomplished.

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Who said Cleveland rocks was wrong

Great day in St Lucia. Lots accomplished even on the lack of sleep.

Dingy chaps fit again. Rebedded the. El to and it looks to be holding with the hapalon rubber cement I found at an escalator place and had Wayne drag down to Austin for me.

Shawn replace the port starter battery and put the new feet on the Honda generator. And he lugged the battery back from the store too!

Put all the pieces of the fuel polisher together noticed some corrosion on the fuel pump. Cleaned it up a bit but in the end it only ran for 2 seconds before it said no more. So much for marine grade. We will need a new one of those to complete that task.

Added missing snap on the window covers. Put the first one on upside down so had to drill that one back out but it’s all done now.

Got the outboard engine to accep grease by swapping zerks but it’s still hard to turn left and right. Tackled the limp wristed dingy took the arm off. I had high hopes sine I had brought the repair parts. But the bolt broke off where there ain’t much chance if repair without some more told so the dingy arm will be coming back to austin where I have an easyout and tap and die set to correct it. Drilled it pretty good here tho just no easy out to complete that task.

Replaced the wash down pump that has been broken/hot wired since we bought it. Now we can wash own the boat with fresh or saltwater. Still need to get a different connector to complete that job or a larger size hose at the end of the pump.

Excellent dinner at the oceans club and a couple of be enrages on the bow with the cool wind keeping the flags a flittering on all the boats.

Great day.

Time to putz around

Heading down to see the Shack. A few things to tidy up and putz around on for the weekend. This was a free weekend and the airfare was reasonable so booked a quick weekend trip to do some routine maintenance and what ever else comes up. Main projects are stop and pick up a starting battery for the port engine. It’s been tired since we bought the boat and over Xmas we had to jump it off the house bank a few times to get the port engine started.

I have all the parts onboard to make a fuel polishing system and the port tank could stand a good cleaning along with replacing the fuel filters and cleaning the fuel bowls.

Possibly change the engine oil and reattach the dingy chaps are on the list of projects too. Course a couple of Piton beers will be needed to celebrate the small goals along the way.

Currently flying over the Bahamas and the blue water is so inviting. We really need to get up here someday by boat of course.

Shawn got groggy and decided to join me on this weekend trip. Who knows what we’ll get into it is Friday night jump up over in Gros Islet this evening. Wonder I we’ll have energy for that as we left at 2am to catch a 6am flight out of Houston so that the travel time was a mere 6 hrs if you don’t count the 3 hr drive to Houston.

Should be a good weekend to tinker around on boats.