Boat work (with rain)

The bar never closes, down the harbor from Schooner Wharf

It seldom rains in Key West, at least in February, but rain it did today. With the outside not too inviting, we just worked inside today. Our water pressure to the forward shower has steadily been decreasing over the past several months - I've done my best to ignore the problem but when the hot water barely dribbles out, one is forced to take action. So the problem solving approach started with measuring the gal/min flow rate directly out of the cabin pump (turned out to be 3 gal/min, to spec). So the pump was putting out enough water, something was limiting it downstream. Next was a check on the main galley sink (2 quart water pitcure and a stopwatch) resulting in 1.5 gal/min, still okay given the EPA's fondness for forcing us to conserve water with specs on faucets (flow limiter in the faucet per the EPA). They obviously don't think we're mature enough to conserve water on our own. They ought to try living on a boat sometime. However, the passing grade said all the distributor valves in-between were good.

Some people just like blue, underwater lights I guess, right behind us

All the other faucets likewise checked out except for the hot water out of the forward shower, about 1/2 gal/min. Disconnecting the hot water supply line to the faucet revealed mineral deposits at the input to the faucet line - eureka!, such are the exciting moments in the field of boat maintenance! Removing the deposits resulted in a nice, strong shower once again, ahhh. All this excitement was hard to take so to calm down I worked on the marine sanitation system, such investigations are not fit for human consumption so you'll have to use your imagination.

We are due for the strongest cold front of the season to come through Saturday afternoon through Sunday with sustained winds around 30 kts and a high of only 62 for Sunday. Before you feel sorry for us, the temps are due to recover back to the high 70's by Tuesday through the rest of the week, the usual Key West weather.