3 June 2025
We have been home for precisely three weeks, and we have been busy ever since we got here. The boat came home with a list of complaints for us to address. The house greeted us with its demands as well. Even so, we have found some time for fun, family, and friends.
I'll start with the boat task list. Some of the fixes were simple and some complicated and requiring parts.
On the last day of our trip Clark discovered, when we arrived home, that we no longer had a measurable amount of oil in our starboard engine. Given that, that engine got highest priority regarding diagnosis and repair. Clark rather quickly traced the problem down to the lube oil cooler. He found a leak and oil mixed in where there should only be water.
A Google search revealed the following regarding one of several functions of the cooler:
- Lubricating oil absorbs heat as it circulates through the engine.
- An oil cooler dissipates this heat, preventing the oil from overheating and potentially damaging engine components.
Clark did engine checks before we left Atlantic City, and all was fine. By the time we had traveled 13 hours to arrive home, the oil was gone. The oil pressure read much lower than it should have though we did not notice this drop as we traveled. Apparently is was not low enough to trigger an alarm.
Since he did not know how heavy the engine part would be, he requested my assistance removing the part. Of course the part had to be in a place with limited space for maneuverability. Cozy to say the least!
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| Lube Oil Cooler |
We put a board down to limit the amount of space the cooler would fall should we not be able to control the drop as well as we hoped.
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| Part removed! |
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| Corroded drain cock extracted from cooler |
We had to order the replacement part through our local Yanmar dealer. The part came to us from California, so it took a bit of time to arrive in New Jersey. Almost $6000 later, the part was ours, and we could have the fun of reinstalling it.
Besides lifting the part into place, which weighed somewhere around 50 - 60 pounds, (my guess based on Clark's grunts when he was carrying it), getting the bolts lined up with the holes in the engine took some finagling. I insisted Clark put a board in place to help support some weight while we 'monkeyed around' with it. He added some shims to assist with holding it up as well.
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| 2x4 and shims in place to help lift and hold the part in place |
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| Making space to insert part |
As Clark prepared the part to insert it into place, he noticed that a plug was sheared off and wondered why that would be the case. Using a heat gun and some tools, we got the mutilated part out of the cooler. Later, I noticed a part in the packaging and mentioned it to Clark. It was the other half of the part we had extracted. It apparently sheared off during shipping! Good thing we did not need it! Fortunately, Clark had what he needed to fill the hole with a plug.
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| Part sheared off cooler in shipping! |
After a lot of grunting, groaning and shifting the cooler to and fro, we got one bolt in the right hole and not cross-threaded! Yay! Only five more to go! Finally, the part was in place. Clark connected the various pieces needed to complete the install, removed the bungee cord and the boards, and finally refilled the engine with oil. Thus, we had a new lube oil cooler and an engine oil change all in one go.
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| Installed! |
Unfortunately, when the work was completed, we found ourselves at low tide and a bad time to take the boat out for a trial run. We went out the next day around noon and high tide. Clark was pleased with the results as he took the engine through a wide range of RPMs to see how the repair held up. I drove while he went down and inspected the engine.
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| Heading home after our trial run on the repair |
The "fun" does not stop there; however, as a couple of days later, Clark found a problem with the port engine. It never ends! This time he found an antifreeze leak in the water pump. So now the part has been removed from the engine while we await sealant. He actually had the replacement part on hand, but he needs a sealant for the install. Sadly, the sealant is still several days away from arriving. The port engine remains out of commission until this fix is addressed.
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| Port water pump showing leakage age from the shaft |
The cost of parts is bad enough. The cost of the associated labor would be staggering! Thank goodness Clark took a diesel-engine repair classes in north Jersey back in the year 2000 to learn how to work on a diesel engine. Prior to that, he had only ever worked on a gas engine. He drove two hours each way to class, more than once, to "get his hands dirty", but he learned a lot and has used what he learned ever since!
Meanwhile, Clark continues to work on his to-do list - crossing things off and adding new items as time goes on. We managed to cross off a couple of simple ones fairly quickly. For example, the U.S. flag we fly from the boat started to look like Swiss cheese. I had repaired it multiple times until there was not enough material to sew together. It was no longer regulation size as I had hemmed it a couple of times. This was easy, Clark ordered a new one!
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| Wind-shredded U.S. Yacht Ensign Flag |
For as many years as I can remember, a U.S. flag collection bin sat in front of the local Acme food store. We drove there to properly dispose of the flag, and of course, the bin was no longer there! Now we need to find a Boy Scout to take the flag and dispose of it via one of their flag-burning ceremonies. Trouble is, we don't know any Boy Scouts any more.
One other repair that should have been easy turned into a small challenge. The zipper tab on one of the full-enclosure panels corroded through and fell off. Fortunately, it was an easy panel to remove. We took it to our local canvas-supply store for repair. Both the repairman and me thought the fix should take a few seconds. Hah! He fiddled with that thing for quite a while until he finally went to get a different tab. Turns out the one he first tried must have been defective as the second one slid on as it should. Bonus on this one, they said, "No charge".
Clark is not the only one with a boat chore list. He asked me to redo the painting of the boat name on the stern. The red lettering is fine, but the gold paint on top of the red had worn off from too much salt spray. I said it looked "antiqued". Clark said, "It needs to be redone!"
We went to the store and bought a tiny, tiny can of paint for the job. Because we needed to use the gold color, the can of paint cost over $50! Of course it was the most expensive color. Before the salesman rang up the bill, he asked if I had noticed the price. I said, "Yes". He told me that some colors cost less than half the price of the gold. Of course they do! I used maybe an eighth of the can, so we will have more should it need to be done again. The hard part was applying masking tape to the rounded edges.
Crawling back and forth on the swim platform and trying not to scoot all the way off the end or the side into the water for four hours was not fun. Trying to stand up with cramped legs from the awkward positions I had to sit in was not fun either. It took a while for the blood to start flowing in my legs again before I could move.
Eventually, however, I got the job done. I hope it lasts as I do not want to do it again any time soon. I stood on our neighbor's property to inspect my work. I was surprised that it actually looks great from a distance. Thankfully, few people should be coming in for close-up views.
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| Skinny swim platform I crawled back and forth on for four hours with paint brush in hand |
With the above task list, I have only scratched the surface of Clark's list of boat items. Meanwhile, I have a list of house items! We hired the company that cuts our grass to put down some grass seed in our front yard. We had to dig up the front yard last year for a sewer line repair, and the seed I threw down has done nothing. Fortunately, these folks seem to know how to do the job correctly. They put down dirt, seed, and hay to keep the birds out, and we see signs of growth.
Young blades of grass are sprouting up! Of course, that means we, i.e. I, have to take care of it. We had several days of light rain after they did the job, but then that stopped. So now I have the daily task of watering the grass. After I set the sprinkler going, I find other gardening chores to keep me busy. Number one of my list is my never-ending battle against the small black ants that love to build their tunnel entries between the pavers down to the boat.
All the way down the walkway I see ant hills! Not wanting to use harsh chemicals, I have been battling them with Boric Acid powder. It seems less toxic than other solutions. After all, we do have nightly visitors that cross our backyard.
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| Young buck by the edge of the creek in our backyard |
For years we have had deer crossing our backyard. Frequently we see a doe with one or two fawns. Never before have I seen a buck and I wondered where they hung out. I was pretty excited to see a buck in this year's traffic. He had two doe with him (not in picture).
We have a plastic fence along the edge of our property that was put up by the previous owners of the house next door. They wanted privacy and put up fence panels and a lot of trees and foliage to block the view of their property. I noticed while the grass was being watered that the fence had taken on a green hue and aiming the hose at it did nothing. I got a bucket of water and a Mr Clean Eraser and washed it down. Now it's white again!
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| Hydrangea Blue (not yet in bloom) in front of white fence |
I have put up some decorations on the outside of the house.
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| Mobiles on the back deck |
Years ago I had a hobby of buying cement statues and painting them. I positioned them along our front porch to greet visitors when they come. (Our visitors are mostly people delivering our packages.) The statues are mostly either animal or nautical in design.
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| Fisherman carving wood |
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| Fairy collecting stones in her skirt |
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| Mermaid sitting on a Conch |
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| Lighthouse |
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| Captain and Wheel |
The man who made the statues cast his own molds and used a secret recipe for the cement. When I met him, he was confined to a wheelchair and this was how he spent his time and earned his money. He and his wife went from craft fair to craft fair in our local area. Once I found him, I looked for him wherever I went. One day I took a wagon with me to have something to carry them home in. I was somewhat addicted to adding to my collection.
The first one I ever did was what the craftsman, "Harry", called the "Frog on a Log". After that, I was hooked!
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| Frog on a Log |
I have to admit to being sad. My go-to store for craft supplies has permanently closed - JoAnn's Fabrics is no more. I drove by shortly after arriving home to look at the store in hopes that our location had not closed. It had not, but it was on its way out. I stopped in to take a look.
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| Empty racks at JoAnn's Fabrics store |
The sign out front said "4 more days" until doors closed permanently. I wandered around to see if there was anything I wanted. All merchandise was 70% off with an additional 50% off after that. Sadly all the material that was left was not anything I could find a purpose for. I bought a couple of packs of bias tape, a couple of packs of needle threaders, and a bouquet of fake flowers. Normally it would have been over $30. It rang up at $4.98! It felt almost criminal.
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| $2.00 Bouquet of fake flowers from JoAnn's Fabrics |
I am missing my boating buddies. We have quite the community of friends in Marathon. I know more folks there than I do here in New Jersey. I did manage to snag a lunch date with my long-term friend Janet. A few days later, Clark and I managed a dinner date with friends we know as a result of Clark's guitar lessons he used to take. The first two restaurants we tried had almost two-hour waits for a table. We tried the Nauvoo Grill close to our home and found we could walk right in to sit down. We went there.
I thought one way I might meet more people would be to attend church. We used to go to a church here before we left for our adventurous boating life. The last time we attended this church was 10 years ago when we left to do the Great Loop.
When we attended in the past, the congregation was small, and we wondered if the church was still operational. A week ago Sunday, we decided, spur of the moment, to drive over to see if a service was being held there. The sign out front said 11:00 service. We arrived about 10:55 and headed in to check it out.
A woman greeted us at the door clearly surprised to see us. We asked about service, and she said the English-speaking service was at 10:00, and the Spanish-speaking service would start at 11:15. I can speak about 6 words of Spanish so that did not seem like it would work well for us.
This past Sunday, we dressed up and tried again - this time for the 10:00 service. We got there at 9:45, and the place was empty. A man saw us, came out of the church office, and introduced himself as the pastor's husband. At 10:00, when the service started, four people sat in the pews. Clark and I had actually doubled the church attendance by being there.
Pastor Isabelle started the service by saying it would be spoken in "Spanglish". It was a sad state of affairs. During the service, the pastor mentioned that she recently attended "Conference" where she learned that 8 more churches had closed. This one appears to be holding on by a thread.
The pastor rearranged the service slightly as her musician had not yet arrived. She put off the opening hymn until later. Eventually, a woman rushed in, spoke rapidly to the pastor, and then rushed to the piano. Apparently, she had been contacted as a quick replacement. I gathered from the pastor's reaction that the regular pianist / organist was not coming perhaps due to illness or other emergency.
After services we talked to the pastor's husband again briefly. Clark inquired as he saw instruments in the corner and learned that the Spanish service makes use of bongo drums and tambourines. Clark suggested we might want to attend that service instead. Not knowing Spanish might make it challenging though.
Missing my boating friends and the ones I spend time with putting jigsaw puzzles together, I decided to buy a puzzle to work on. I may have bitten off more than I can chew however, as the puzzle appears to be about the same size as my card table. It should keep me busy.
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| 1000 Pieces - "The Beach Hut" I have a little room at the bottom to work! |
When I am not working on the boat, maintaining on the garden, or taking care of the house, I can be found reading my novels or riding my bike. Mostly one will find Clark on the boat.
