Work Continues on IQ

Work continues is an understatement. I don't know if I will ever be done, but I have to eat this elephant one bite at a time. Sharon is in California for the weekend so I am trying to rewire all of the 120 volt wiring in the boat while she is gone. I got a lot done today. I am hoping I can get the majority of the rest of it done tomorrow. It was absolutely crazy the way the wired this boat. They used wood boxes to hold the receptacles. WOOD BOXES!! Wood boxes are bad enough when they are new, but now those boxes are 35 years old and as dry as any kindling wood I have ever seen. Another one of the design features that make you wonder if the Taiwanese were secertly trying to take out a few gringos. To top it all off they used 16 gauge wire. Never been legal in the US. Oh well, it is almost history now.

We also bought a washing machine and installed it in the aft cabin. I ordered two retractable clothes lines to hang up the clothes. No place for a dryer. I will be building a cabinet around it in the future along with a closet. It will be awhile before I start that job though.

Hey, we can wash colthes now.

Wood electrical box and 16 gauge wiring.

Ah, metal box and 12 gauge wire.

New outlet for our bathroom. The original one was under the sink in the back corner. You had to open both doors and get on your hands and knees to reach it. Don't know what the thought process was there.

Hey, who's living under my boat?

We got back to Tavernier on Saturday. It was an 8 1/2 hour trip. All went well with no problems and no rain. There were not many boats out which surprised me. A nice summer weekend in the Keys and not many people out. I must admit that I don't mind that though. The busiest place we saw was when we went through a cut called the cowpens. Rightly named as it is a narrow cut through the mangroves. It figures you pass three boats the whole day in open water and three more in the cowpens. It has been good to see all of our friends here again.

I am having some problems with the rudder on Queeny, as I think it is too small. I have someone helping me design a modification to make the boat more responsive to the helm, but I needed to take some pics of the existing rudder. I borrowed an underwater camera to do this and grabbed my snorkel mask and fins and went for a swim. There were all kinds of fish under Queeny when I got there to take the pics. After I got the rudder pics I snorkeled around my end of the marina watching the fish. They are all over the place. I had a good time with the camera. I am going to have to get me one of those when we get some more work.

I never realized just how handsome I was.

Our prop and rudder.

One of the pillings we are tied up to.

Mixed Emotions

We are leaving Boot Key Harbor in the morning and heading back to Tavernier. We love it here in Marathon but it just makes more sense to be in Tavernier. It is getting close to the time of year for me to go off to work. If we kept the boat here Sharon would have to rent a car for the time that I am away working because it is too far for her to ride the scooter from here. If we are back in Tavernier she can ride it to work while I have the car. Plus while I am away if she has a problem with Queeny there are people at the marina there to help her, not so much here. Once the storm season which is also my work season is over we will probably come back here.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have some nice picks of our trip back. It is about 55 miles and will take about nine hours.

Possible Mutiny

I came across this very enlightening and educational video and thought hey I am pretty handy I could do that. We got room on the flybridge, why not. We would be going "Green". There is also room on the aft deck for the compost pile. We're set. There was a slight problem with the crew though and some talk of a mutiny. Oh well some people just can't see the big picture. Guess we will stick with the holding tank for now.

Rudder Packing

WARNING: If you are not into boat maintenance this will be a boring post to you. The rudder packing has been leaking every since be bought IQ, but I have been apprehensive about tackling this task. I even went to a mechanic here in Marathon to have him do it. He quoted me a couple hundred dollars and told me to get ahold of him the next week as he was too busy right now. Well that was enough motivation for me to learn something new and take a little risk.

The boat is in the water, so that means I would be taking out the seal around the rudder shaft that keeps water on the outside of the boat which is where I want to keep it. I did not know how freely the water would come in once I removed the old packing, but since I have 3 bilge pumps I felt that we would be okay and not sink our home. It turned out that once I had the old packing out that the water did not come in much faster than it had been coming in. I had the new packing cut and ready to install. It went very smooth and only took about twenty minutes. Twenty minutes work and $9 worth of packing material. Maybe I should look at a career as a boat mechanic. Wait a minute, that would mean I would have to go to work everyday. Never mind I will just work on my own boat. It took longer to take everything out of the butt hold and put it back than to do the packing. After I was done I did clean everthing up and paint though, that took awhile.

"Butt Hold" where the rudder shaft enters the boat.

Rudder shaft and hydralic steering components.

Rudder shaft and packing gland.

New packing lubed up and ready to install.

Old packing removed.

New packing in and not a drop of water. How needs a mechanic? We don't need no stinking $100 an hour mechanic.

Pics I like.

Good Practice

Well, I had an interesting afternoon today. I usually start the boat every couple of weeks and let it get up to normal operating temperature, then put it in forward and reverse a couple of times just to make sure everything stays working as it should. Well this time I let it stay in reverse a little too long and wrapped one of the dingy lines around the prop. I had to get my mask and go under the boat and cut the line off and unwrap it from the driveline. At first I thought what a pain, and then I thought well this is good practice for when we are out and about cruising. I am sure we will be snagging a crab pot here and there, so this was good practice.

We have had two solid weeks of rain. Today was the first sunny day we have had and it was fantastic. The sun has just set and I am sitting on the flybridge writing this. It is a beautiful evening.

I got our first solar panel installed the other day. We will eventually have four 120 watt panels once we have the dingy davits installed, but that is about $3K away. We need some insurance work to finish that project.

Solar panel temporalily mounted on top of the bimini.

Ah, 6.71 amps of solar power. Can't wait to have 4 panels.

Interesting Phenomena

I have been meaning post about this for awhile but haven't taken the time, but it has been raining for a week now so I have lots of time.

When we were on our trip from Tavernier to Marathon we came across an area of water that looked totaly different from everthing around it. It was a lot lighter and just looked different. the charts did not show that it was shallow there. It was not due to sun or clouds. I do not know what caused it, but it was a strange sight to see. As we were coming up to it another boat was coming the oppiste direction. as they got close to it they went arround it. I decided to do the same thing. I went just right on the edge of it to get a better look at it. There was another boat following us. They went arround it as well. After we got to Marathon I was talking to my friend Ivan who has sailed all his life including crossing the Atlantic twice. He told me he had gone through one of those before. He did not know what caused it either, but he went through the middle of it with no surprises.

Normal seas that day.

Light area off in the distance.

Skirting the edge of it.

Beautiful, even if I don't know what it was.

Passing by it.