April 1, 2010http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SQc5G74LvUg/S7QGVKnMehI/AAAAAAAAAA0/Za4YtJ7f6Og/s320/P1030491.JPG - No Joke in St Pete

This is what happens if a boat stays too long in the Salt Creek Marina.

It's day 33 of our trip and we are in sunny St Pete. We had originally hoped to get out of here by April 8th, but now I will be happy to be floating anytime in April. Linda's prediction is the 19th but I think that's optimistic.

Our life has become a series of breakfast

s at the Comfort Inn, shopping for boat stuff, working on the boat until 7:00 or 8:00 and then home to the hotel and maybe dinner. We had a bit of a break over

the weekend when we went to the St Pete Grand Prix. They had a bunch of different race classes from sports cars up to full fledged Grand Prix cars racing through the streets of waterfront St Pete. They postponed the Sunday final due to torrential downpours but we saw(and heard) lots of up close high speed racing. This photo was Linda's choice and is Danica Patrick signing a girl's tee shirt. For those who don't know, Danica is famous for being a successful woman driver for the "GoDaddy.Com" team. She came in 7th in this race out of around 20 cars. Pretty good!

Overall, this is really

hard work, physically and mentally. Every time we go to do something, we find something else that needs to be done. It's dirty work, the boat is filthy due to all the work going on in the yard and in our boat and we get filthy every day. We are spending more money than we hoped.

However, there are also many good things to report too. Our new shafts are back and ready for installation. We have our new chartplotters and are keeping them in the hotel room until we are ready for installation. The company that is helping with some electrical mods and toilet changes started today and seem to be doing a good job. I actually started putting some of the engine stuff back on yesterday. Linda has pretty much prepared the bathrooms for a little "remodel" work. I figured out a way that I think will fix the leaking hatches and won't be too hard to do. Etc. etc. I did a tally today and of the roughly 55 projects that we identified six weeks ago, we have completed or at least started 36 of them including all of the "biggies". We are in a great spot about 15 feet from the water so any break from work includes great views.

We miss all of you and hope you are well.

More on the 15th unless something interesting happens between now and then.

Bye for now - Tod and Linda.

3/26/10 - A day in the life at St Pete

It rained HARD last night but it was a beautiful morning. We started the day at a real fiberglass supply outlet and got penetrating epoxy, epoxy paste, a few other fiberglass supplies and lots of good advice. This is all for Linda of course. We went to the boat for a bit and then walked over to the St Pete Grand Prix (about two miles). Incredible noise and lots of very well organized racing teams. We saw Danica Patrick up close as well as a bunch of those "men" drivers.

Got back to the boat about 3:00 and Linda started sanding the rub rail again. See photo.

I talked to big Jim who runs the yard and it looks like we need new cutlass bearings ($1k) as well as the shaft on the starboard side ($1.5k). This was our daily surprise.

I poked around on the generator exhaust hose and the fitting that goes through the genny "box" broke off in my hand. It was a mess. I took off the hose (2" dia) on both sides of the fitting and they were full of rust and corrosion. I knocked out the fitting, cleaned up the hole and now plan on putting on a new hose that goes right through the hole where the fitting was. Then I moved on to the head "demo" work. I determined that the hose that goes from the back head (non operational) that goes through the engine room and up to the holding tank area should go. I started in the holding tank area and cut the hose close to the bulkhead. AAAAAAh. Boy did it smell. Stuff dribbled out and I had to hold a small bowl under it while it drained out of the Lectra San (sewage treatment device that we are discarding). Linda supervised from above and handed me towels and stuff. The hose is completely full of fresh brown stuff. We called it a day and will ATTACK this tomorrow. Something to look forward to. Heading home to the Comfort Inn at 8:00 for showers and then crackers, cheese and wine.

Estimated launch date is now late April.

3/15/10 - Working on the boat in St Pete

Hard to believe that we have only been gone for two weeks. It seems much longer (that sounds bad doesn't it?). We are well entrenched in working on the boat at Salt Creek Marina. Big Jim who runs the place is a fine fellow and very cooperative although not much has happened yet from them. Linda, Bill and I have been falling into a routine of shopping for supplies first thing in the morning and then spending the rest of the day until around 7:00 at the boat. Then it's home to the Hampton Inn and showers, dinner and bed. So far, here is a partial list of what we have done.

1. General cleaning (needs much more)
2. Removing the 10 zincs
3. Removing all of the hoses on both engines and the generator (there are many and they are TOUGH to get off).
4. Cleaning the raw water strainers including trying to remove all of the barnacles that lived inside (they smell great as they die!). Might have to replace the worst one.
5. Removing both transmission coolers (need replacement)
6. Removing the heat exchanger on the generator (corroded and needs servicing)
7. Doing some bright work (varnishing - Linda of course).
8. Rough cleaning the rust off the top of the fuel tanks in prep for treating and painting. See the photo
9. Trouble shooting/repairing the four bilge pumps.
10. Trying to trace many of the electrical circuits.
11. Installing new filters in the water system.

Note that the items that say "removing" still need to be replaced. There are enough active jobs that little bags of parts are stashed all over the place and can get misplaced.

The photo is Linda as she was preparing to start work this morning on the fuel tanks. She wouldn't give me permission to take her picture at the end of the day - use your imagination.

Although there are lots of things that need doing (and it's hard for geezers to work hard), in general the boat is pretty easy to work on. One exception to this is the electrical and electronics wiring. There are THOUSANDS of wires running all over the place and none are really marked. Quite a challenge. Oh well.

I just asked Linda what she would like to express to you and she said "Tell em it's really hard". It's one thing to know it will be hard but a whole 'nother thing to experience it.

Although we haven't done any tourist stuff, we really like St Pete. The people are friendly, the weather is nice this time of year and prices are pretty cheap.

Hope everything is well with ya'll (hey, we're in Florida).

I still plan on doing a post on the first and the fifteenth of each month plus occasionally in-between.

Bye from Tod, Linda and Bill.

3/10/10 - Working on the Boat in St Pete

Stormy day today. It really blew and there were dark clouds all day. Luckily it didn't rain until about 6:00 and we were getting ready to quit for the day anyway. The power went off briefly several times and the hotel elevator died. We're on the 2nd floor so it isn't too bad.

I can't remember when I had a lifestyle that required me to shower at the end of each day instead of at the beginning. Boat prep is HARD work! Linda spent a long time down in the "hold" today trying to figure out how to paint the fuel tanks. There is only about 1.5 inches of room above the tanks and that is where all the rust is. We have concluded that they are quite thick and are probably OK even though they are UGLY. Hopefully paint will arrest further deterioration.

Bill did lots of trouble shooting including working on the old ice maker. If he can't figure it out it will be moving to the dumpster shortly.

I talked to the fellow who did most of the work on the boat over the last 5 years and learned many interesting things about the boat. I also started removing the zincs and found that the mounting bolts on some of them were really threaded rod and had come loose. This means they will require rebedding. Damn.

We lost our camera temporarily in the madness of trying to work on a boat (that has all of our junk stashed here and there) while we go back and forth to a hotel. We'll try and put a picture of the boat on the hard in the next posting.

Things are moving slowly but overall it was a good day and we are in good spirits.

3/7/10 - HERE In St Pete

Made it to the boat yesterday at noon and started digging around. MUCH to do. Just cleaning up is a monumental job. I have taken ten trips to the dumpster so far and Linda is cleaning like a Hurricane. Found a hatch under the galley sink that went down to the top of the port fuel tank. Major rust. Not sure if this means we will have to change out the tanks soon or if they are OK for a while. Otherwise, lots of fun straightening things out and figuring out how things work. Water on board smells like rotten eggs (sulfur) so we drained out the tanks today and refilled them after putting a cup of bleach in each one. We will let it set for a day and then drain it again. I pulled the water filter out and it was black. AAAAgh!!! No where to go but up. We stayed at a Hampton Inn last night but not sure what we will do tonight. Do we dare stay aboard?

3/5/10 - At St Pete

We just made it to Florida. We decided to stop about an hour short of St Pete thinking the hotel might be cheaper (plus we were tired of driving in the heavy traffic down here!).

This picture was taken somewhere in the middle of Texas and shows what an excellent job we did of packing. This is slightly under 800 pounds of junk, most of which are tools and boating stuff. All went well on the drive - 3700 miles, six days and about 65 hours of driving. We're glad to be here and are still talking to each other. We plan on going to the marina tomorrow morning to start figuring out what we bought!

2/1/10 - On our Way

We headed out from Seattle yesterday morning after a night of packing and celebrating with friends (too much). Made it to Sacramento last night and are trying to get to Phoenix tonight. Lots of passing cars give us a hard look but so far no pointing and laughing. The truck is running fine except the heater won't work. I think the problem is in the controls but I'm not sure. The weather is good so it's not a problem right now. My Wifi seems to work good in the car so I will take advantage of the time while Linda is driving.

Hope to get to St Pete on Friday or Saturday and put the boat in the yard on Tuesday. B