Hi All:  Finally got the picture upload to work, not sure how, it just worked today.  The fellow in the top photo was cruising around the boat a few minutes ago and Traci spotted him.  A couple fellows tried fishing for him but he wasn't interested.  The bottom photo is the water regulator / back flow preventer that makes marina life so much nicer.  I have it and the shower all isolated on valves with new hose as the old one kept blowing off deep in the bowels of the back of the boat once in awhile.  It's been raining like crazy the last few days and I'm wishing I hadn't said "I dare say that may have been the last leak."  Really proving me wrong.  Is it just me or is it anyone who requires not an inch less than a quarter mile of paper towel every time you have a caulking gun in your hands?  Well I best go and get some of the chores done so the engines are ready to go in case of a hurricane.  I'm off to Louisiana to work this week and leaving Traci with paint and brushes so we'll see what I recognize when I return.  Her birthday was yesterday, the 28th and I must say, she got a little spoiled this year.  I got her a new little laptop so we could Skype while I was traveling and kara painted her a picture that Traci fell for while we lived in California, first picture above.  Later,
Dave

Ongoing improvements

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/74105973/Cruisin%20with%20Terry%202010.wmv
Hi everyone.  A little video test on the link above, just click on it and it should take you to a video I constructed a couple years ago and gave to my bff Terry.  If it works well I'll put some more in the drop box. 
We added a water pressure regulator, back flow preventer that allows us to hook the reverse osmosis - desalinated water from the marina directly to the boat through an RV carbon filter so we don't have to keep filling the onboard tanks and running the pumps for water pressure.  I had to cut a 3" hole in the transom of the boat to mount it and I took the shower out of the transom for access.  Upon pressuring up to test the install, I noticed a leak on one of the fittings for the shower and after fixing this I realized this has been leaking all along and now there is no water collecting in the rear quarter and the pressure stays up in the plumbing system as it should have before.  The city water inlet won't do much for us on an anchor but it sure is sweet while in the marina.
Tomorrow the new mixing elbows, zincs, injector return line and the heat exchanger cleaning get started and hopefully completed as the week after next we are HEADING HOME!  Yup, I have to go home to renew a work permit and drivers license and close a land deal so we should be home for a few weeks. Yahoo!
Blogger has a new format and it is seeming to take forever to upload pictures so I will check it out farther tomorrow.
A torrential downpour the other day allowed me to finally find a nagging little leak we've had forever in one of the coach windows, I dare say it was the last one.
Bye for now, will figure out how to add pics over the weekend.
Dave

Pics from the past

Hi Folks: Since our last blog was shut down and all was lost I thought I'd put up some of the memories that were lost so these pics are from a couple years ago and I'll post more in the near future.

The first is of the active volcano at the island of Monserrat where the capital city of the island has been deserted and buried under a pile of lava, ash and mud. We passed under the plume, perhaps closer than we should have been, and got gritty, volcanic dust in our eyes, hair and all over the boat but wouldn't have missed for anything. Anchored on the north side of the island that night we almost got plowed over by a huge barge and tug that was docked and being loaded when we anchored but must have thought he could use us as a bumper when leaving.

The next is a picture of what we refer to our kids as our only chart for the trip which is on the back of playing cards. Why would anyone worry about us?

Next was a full moon while we were docked at Rum Cay. We were anchored on the east side of Long Island and the wind wasn't right to go around the northwest end so we went to Rum Cay instead and it turned out to be one of those life changing moments that would have been easily missed. How much it changes our lives will be decided in the future as we've been asked back to help out around the marina and told that when there's nothing to repair I'd get paid to take people fishing, sweet! I looked at his water maker that he had all ready put over a thousand dollars into without results and we fueled up, ate, drank beer, showered, did laundry, filled with water, got ice and docked for 3 nights and he wouldn't take a cent and he's the best cook in the Caribbean I'm sure.

Next one is where we anchored off Cockburn Harbour on South Caicos and where the water is so turquois. We went ashore there to sign in with a young fellow named Dirk we met from Germany who crossed the Atlantic alone and came over to introduce himself. That night he came over and played cards and drank some rum and we travelled together for a couple days. We ran into him again in the Exumas a week or 2 later and we keep in touch with the odd email. On this island there were dirt roads, hardly a vehicle, friendly people and the dogs laid around too lazy to bite. Terry, my BFF, said it was his speed and he was going to look for property there.

Last one is of Terry on his first real day of sailing, January 16th, 2010, just four days after the earthquake that devasted the capital of Haiti and we happened to be on the north side of the same island in the Dominican during the quake. We were waiting for some weather that was suitable but after the quake things got a little crazy as it seems Dominicans and Haitians don't like each other due to the Haitians ruling the Dominicans by force a few hundred years ago and I guess they still haven't gotten over it. I decided we were leaving the next morning, come what may, and it turns out the swells were around 14' high coming at us from the starbord beam an indication of which can been seen behind Terry in the picture.

Talk again soon,

Dave