Key West - Dull things

 

A profusion of color

Many consider us on “vacation” but we still have to do the routine tasks of living on a boat. In addition to regular pump outs, refueling, taking on water - one also has to do laundry. It’s like having a house except that you have to do all the tasks that at home, you might have someone else do. Well, it’s possible to have someone else do this stuff but at $100/hour, it adds up in a hurry!

Do not ask me what it is but it grows on trees here

So today it was laundry once again but to make it more of a challenge, four of the five dryers didn’t work - but you didn’t know which ones were impostors unless you knew from previous experience. They all use a common manifold for exhaust which has to be periodically emptied - but, oh well - that’s such a chore for local maintenance so it seldom gets done unless you complain - such is life on a boat. 

A close up view

The great accomplishment on the boat today was finding and stopping the nagging aft leak which wound up in the bilge. The swim locker empties into the ocean but in order for that to happen, the water has to transverse the gap from the swim locker to the ocean, a gap of a couple of inches - bridged by a long through hull. It could be leaking at the ocean to through hull point or at the attachment to the bottom of the swim locker. Out of desperation, I put a cork in the port emptying the locker and that fixed the leak! Evidently, the leak was between the seal to the swim locker and the through hull and not at the through hull to boat’s hull point. When I haul Fleetwing in May, I’ll look into getting a more permanent fix. 

Well, now you have more insight in, “What do they do all day on a boat?” It’s not all a vacation, it’s a floating house with a motor and sails that requires a lot of attention - and some skills to be learned (to avoid that $100/hour going rate on help).