Finally underway

Finally underway

Southbound

After more than a week delay, SERENITY will leave the slip early this morning as the sun comes up. For numerous reasons (including Snowy's death), my trip south has been delayed, but by the time anyone reads this - Jan and I will be headed south.

Jan will be with me for just today and in fact - I don't know how long I'll be gone (but I do know that I have to be back for work at the end of the month).

We had some bad weather earlier during the week and then as we got near the weekend, Jan said she had saturday off, so I devised a plan to to take her car to Titusville yesterday and leave it there. She will go to Titusville with me today (around 50 miles) and we'll dingy ashore to her car and then she'll either come back tonight or stay on the boat with me and leave from Titusville very early in the morning on Sunday.

I'll be posting mostly from my cell phone - so it'll be more photos than words - until I go ashore and find internet access.

While at the Titusville Marina yesterday - there was a herd of Manatees playing in the basin. Here's a couple of photos.



In the photo below, you can see the head of a manatee (see the arrow) sticking up out of the water. It is drinking fresh water as it drops off the dingy hanging above the manatee.

Stardust Returns

My friends Jim and Kathy Lee have returned from their northerly trek on STARDUST while on their way south. You may remember that they came through here in September on their Hunter 450 while going north on the ICW. Click Herefor my blog post about their stop on the way north. They made it as far north as Hilton Head Island in South Carolina and then spent a couple of months in Jacksonville while Jim trade out flying lessons with Scuba lessons (Jim being the flying instructor - and now a scuba diver).

They called me this morning and said they'd be passing through and would meet up with me at the marina around 10:30. I went to the draw bridge just north of the marina and caught them coming through.


They came aboard SERENITY for an hour or so and then they headed out again - toward Miami - where they will prepare to cross over to the Bahamas. If I indeed get out of here on Wednesday or Thursday (we have some weather coming in), I may meet up with them again in South Florida.

This photo is of them leaving the fuel dock at the Halifax Harbor Marina.

Head work done

I've finally finished redoing the head and all the sanitation system on the boat. This job took twice as along as I allotted and probably cost 50% more than I'd figured just because I kept 'upping' the quality of what I was doing. I have this opinion on thing that if I'm putting in the labor to improve something - to go with the best quality of decision and parts that I think applies.

In the top photo above, you can see the old system. It was functional. You could either pump the waste directly overboard from the toilet (only legal 3 miles offshore) or you could pump it into a holding tank. From the holding tank, you could only remove it by having it pumped out by a machine onshore. I don't like the idea of holding waste on the boat any longer than necessary.

The lower photo above, shows my new routing system - and it's almost complicated - but I labeled every hose and what it does.
The waste comes from the head (toilet) through the wall on the lower left and goes up to a vented loop (to prevent siphoning back). From the vented loop, it goes to a Y-valve. At this Y-valve, I can either send it overboard (like before) or to the holding tank (like before). Then (and not pictured) from the holding tank - it goes out and to another Y-valve which then can either divert it to the deck to be pumped out by the machine on land (like before) or to a macerator pump which grinds it to less than 1/8th inch size and pumps it overboard (if you're 3 miles offshore).

So, it sounds like after all this work, I'll I did was change it to where I can pump overboard from the holding tank - and actually, for practical use - that is all that I did - but it couldn't be done without changing the whole routing system - because there's only one spot to pump through the hull and I wanted to feed it from 2 places.. In the process, I used all new hose, 2 new Y-valves, a new macerator pump, all new stainless steel hose clamps, new bronze fittings at the 'thru-hull fitting' and while I was at it - went ahead and put a new head in. Every few years, you have to rebuild the heads. That means that the valves which are made from rubber and the gaskets have to be replaced. They just wear out from use and from age. The kit to do this is $62. A new head is $130. That seems like a no brainer since this already was a $500 job, to spend $70 extra on a new toilet.

My buddy Bill Miles is coming up from Key West in mid week and we're going to head south. I'm really looking forward to it.