SSL504 ~ Time for a change...
Now that my friends is a beautiful way to start the day, San Andres style oh yeah. enjoy your breakfast Tiki, see you soon we'll be back in a little while **record scratch** that was fast, oh well what can you do early morning checklists don't work so good, I always forget something sunglasses, check, take two let's try this again, ciao ciao Tiki, see you in a little while I feel strangely like we've done this before, deja vu but yes as you can see it is a beautiful day and today marks the start of 2021 for us, this is our first day out going for a walk in 2021 so we're very fortunate to have a very beautiful day for sure somehow we ended up in Paris, don't know how that happened must have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque but yes I think you can see there's a fairly strong degree of normalcy returning finally to our lovely island of San Andres, that's good to see, lots of people out lots going on, playing on the beach, everything, and no problems no issues reported and we just finished the Christmas and new year's holiday season with literally tens of thousands of new tourists and visitors here from mainland, you know Medellin, Bogota, everywhere even all the hot spots in mainland and no issues reported, so that's, that's good happy to hear that (somebody told them and they knew that the the contagious go down a little bit) yeah the news here has been reporting that contagious have been decreasing and that's with all the new people coming in and there's been no restrictions you know, they request to wear masks you know when you're in close proximity with a bunch of people or anything like that but other things yeah cleaning your hands when you go into stores and shopping centers those are really the only places where there's requirements but other than that up in uh public places the beaches everything is pretty much returned to normal so (yeah everybody responsible for himself) everybody's responsible for themselves so they expect you to just, you know be diligent, don't be disrespectful if somebody is worried about it don't just be up in their face or anything like that *coughs* don't do that, but yeah, no they've left it up to the individual and so far it's working, people have been very respectful and been working along and making it happen because everybody wants to return to normal so last thing they want to do is screw up a good chance (send the weather come back to the normal start the summer time in the same hour live start to come back and the normal start the year and we start the budget, they work) yeah a long time we've been dealing with lots of rainy squally days and stuff like that you know even since the hurricanes but that's all starting to fizzle out, now each day is becoming more and more like what we were used to last year in San Andres when we first arrived, this is the nice season, January, February, March, those are the best months of the year before it starts to get really hot so yeah we're looking forward to enjoying some nice weather again after all the rain and everything we've had lately, it's been a nice, nice change welcome to our SSL barber shop (yes) it's time (I think it's new year new look) yeah, like I say time for change, the change starts with me (okay I don't know) should I be scared? (oh I think it's no i try to cut short but not too much) well normally I've been cutting my hair by myself for over 25, maybe longer, years but now we have Maddie and she wants to do it so we're gonna go for a new look I'm gonna take off get rid of the ponytail so we're gonna cut at least probably two three inches off shorten the sides, yeah, get out the chainsaw I feel like David Cassidy back in the 70s okay, next answer you ready? you ready? let's do this, it's time that's how you make changes. (which is there? where is Capitan Rick?) who? (where is Capitan Rick?) who? (where are you?) that's how you make change, but I think it's enough change for one day it's time to go do something else of course you know sooner finishes scalping me it feels weird I gotta admit, I can't remember the last time I had short hair, I don't know, did I ever have short hair, I think they did yeah but I think it's been 15 years or so, that feels good it'll be different good for a change hey it always grows back so it doesn't matter if i don't like it or not but uh (yeah strong, make more strong) that's what I was saying, she no sooner scalps me and she's doing a hit and run, she's off with Melby, Melby's here now? (Yeah, she's in the dingy) okay so yeah they're going to do their second round of gift giving to all the local kids this January 6th which is a big holiday of course and it's a celebration so they're going to give some more of the less fortunate kids in the neighborhoods some of the gifts from our good friend Jersey Jeff, thank you again Jeff, salute still got it in the Christmas paper (I don't have any box i need to bring something different, I'll be one minute) yeah this is the last stuff to give away, cool (good morning) ciao guys how are we doing? (okay) yeah look she scalped me (oh very nice) yep all gone, the fresh clean Captain Rick I guess now I gotta change my wardrobe, I don't know... huh? (new year new style)
new year new style yep, not just the new year it's 2021. oh are we disturbing him on day at the office? Sebastian is back (yeah) time for some projects so we're gonna get some of the work done today, I'll get Sebastian helping with engine, we'll get that ready and then we just need to pull up our second anchor for sure (yeah me as well) yeah we still got hurricane anchors down (yeah, two anchors forever) so we'll work on that today and see where we end up (let's see okay) good luck with that, guess we're not getting any footage today every time she says I understand and don't worry, yeah I know we're screwed (after she's coming with a lap time) no footage for you! Maddie we love her but yeah she doesn't get cameras so well we'll see how she does, hopefully she figures it out, now we get back to work because yeah we've got to do some engine maintenance as we were talking about because we might be getting to go for a little test sail later this week, the weather looks good it's just a matter of if we can get the boat ready, so Sebastian's back on board we just finished uh, well he's working on a project with the microwave right now because it wasn't mounted in there properly and it kept falling back into the counter so he's working on that, and look what he just finished doing over here, this was a new gift for Madeleina, a new faucet, so she's got a new restaurant style faucet here, so that's cool so that's all installed and ready to go, and I've got a couple of my own projects on the go but today yeah just doing a little work on the computers because we got a lot of footage to put together so I've been working on that, so busy day... (we are now away for giving the gift to the little child, today we decide to go in another place or maybe give to a different child and make a happy day) wow, wow, it's very powerful, it's very smaller as we approach as you can tell, projects very seldom ever go how they're supposed to we no sooner opened up the engine compartment, realized the engine bilge was full of seawater like full, so we pumped all that out, just hand pump, and then realized okay there's still a little bit of water coming in from the back so obviously where did the water come from, we started searching it back and it's underneath the prop shaft so the prop shaft seal has started to leak a little bit you can see Sebastian is in here, we've had to rip apart this cabin to try and find the problem, which of course he has found underneath (yes we found it) (we got two drops every 30 seconds) two drops every 30 seconds (yeah) it's not beyond reasonable but it definitely is indicating that there's a problem with the shaft seal and that is something I can tell you we've dealt with many times before, I've owned this boat almost 16 years now and prop shaft seals do not last forever, now I've been fortunate I've only had to change it maybe let's say three, four, maybe five times, I've tried different seals that all claim to be dripless none of them are ever fully dripless, at least not for long, now the one you just saw there that's one of the Volvo penta shaft seals, those are the most economical and reliable that I've found so far that's why i'm still using it, I had shifted to some of the bellows type shaft packing, you know and the two-piece ones that have the dripless seal and the problem with them when they go they just explode and now you've got a real problem, you can't fix it you can't fix it, there's nothing you can do until you actually have a replacement to put on the on the shaft so at least with the Volvo penta seals when they start to go they start to drip they give you warning and now you know, okay we need to pick one up, means we could still get away with probably another six months but our next haul out we need to change that seal so, they're somewhere around 250 to 300$ typically but usually I get three to four years out of them which is not bad, it's not unreasonable it just has to be in the plan whenever you pull the boat out and... actually you don't even
have to pull the boat out I've changed that twice in the water because we've been able to just pull the shaft back put the new seal on and put the shaft back in, and you'll gush a little bit of water for you know 30 seconds until you get the new seal over top of the shaft but that's it it's very harmless so.... but alright so that's gonna have to be next on our list for haul out, but now we can get back to well we were thinking we could get back to our oil change (yeah) next problem the girls have hidden the bag of all the spare parts for the engine including the oil filters I've checked all my normal places or where I would think they would put it, can't find it and of course Maddie's gone for the morning so we got to wait until we hear from her and find out where's the bag of parts because we can't take all the oil out of the engine until we have an oil filter to put on so that's the next step, so I guess for now we'll kill a little time looking around see if we can find it, but otherwise we just wait to hear back because that's all we can do, we're just guys who don't know where [ __ ] is on the boat anymore, so what can you do, get used to it guys I mean if you want to have women on the boat, yes they're lovely but they love to just look at stuff and go "why is that there? it would be so much better over here, he'll find it when he needs it" oh boy (and after you ask for something, um the answer every time is "I never touch it" yeah, yeah every single time "where's this part? I need this part? I didn't touch it, I don't know anything" yeah typical response but, oh we love them, yes ladies we love you, but just please leave our stuff alone wow okay Sebastian did get the microwave fixed perfectly, that's great, yeah it's braced in there nice now, opens up perfectly it doesn't fall inside the cabinet or pull out it's locked in good perfect, and what did we end up using to fix it? (uh a little piece of wood) and a piece of exhaust you'd never believe what we have to use sometimes just in a pinch because, you know you don't have the right piece of wood or something to use so we found a piece of four inch exhaust tubing that was only three, four inches long it's just a spare piece, a waste piece it's not really good for anything but it happened to be the exact size we needed in space behind the microwave to brace it in place yeah (really smart solution) perfect do what you got to do man (yeah) Maddie's home, where's our filters Maddie? we need to work (yeah don't tell me nothing please, it's in all the time it was in here, inside this point is under floor) yes exactly right now where are they though? because they're not there anymore (yeah but why?) because somebody moved them (no) and not I (never the fault of the Capitan) the captain has a place where filters have been for 15 years and that's under the floor in front of the companionway stairs (yeah I know) but they're not there anymore are they Maddie so cute, so cute, yeah where's my filters Maddie (hey capitan wait) you want to go sailing we need filters (yeah me too and I wait a lot of time this time) sorry what? (you're making me a joker it's not carnival you know it's no fish of every in the first of ever or something) that's not a black bag (yeah but yeah) or white (is the same, I changed the bag, I, I think but why is in the storage in the bow up over the tank of gasoline?) that's a very good question (yeah) can you tell me that please? (yeah I don't move) because I would never put my engine parts outside anywhere (if you need to clean everything me and Sebastian, Sebastian was organized all and no no no never was) I guarantee you I would never put anything outside in the storage compartment, that's called a sail locker (right I think...) it's not an engine parts locker yes know (no it's not me, I don't...) is it the right bag though? yes! filters, filters, filters, and more filters (we need one orange filter) all right, at least we got our filters, we can get back to work and then this happens yep, unfortunately my last filter I have in stock, the bag was up in the sail locker it must have taken a splash of salt water or something, the other filters are okay but of course you know even the gas like the fuel filter it's okay, the Raycor filters are okay, they're all in plastic bags, but yeah, this guy unfortunately has a lot of bare metal exposed and... it's toast, I mean there's not even threads left on the canister, so there's no way I'm gonna be able to save that, so hopefully we're going to find one of these on shore, so that's next step, somebody said we just take it into nanny's marina and he'll either have something or tell us where we can get it because it's just a standard filter for Perkins, Cummins, anything like that so see what we can do, but that effectively puts our oil change on hold for today so we revert to next project in line which is our solar controller you guys might remember our last uh well a little while ago during the... after the storms we had the lightning strike and this guy took a hit so we lost that solar controller these two, everything else is working fine no problems, but this is the one that's hooked up to the panels that are on the rails, and the rails must have been electrified with some stray current toasted it, I can't believe it still but BattleBorn saw that video and immediately upon seeing the video just shipped me a replacement, said here plug this in this should do the job, wow I mean that's that's very cool, I can't thank you guys enough salut, that's very appreciated and we're gonna get that installed right now so it's a good time to do it it's late in the day mid afternoon the sun's low in the sky so no problem to disconnect the panels from the other controllers right now so you remember I hook it up to one of our backup 50 amp controllers and this is the 70 here, so we're just going to remove that, I've got Sebastian's here ready to disconnect that and we'll bolt in the new one and then just switch the wires back over because all i've got is the wires just connected from the 70 over to the 50 and we're just going to move them back to the 70. plug it in, turn it on, and we'll be back in business good as new so thank you again very much BattleBorn I can't tell you how much I appreciate that service, it was amazing you got it to my destination in Miami on time, the ship got it here and we're good to go (okay perfect) okay and that's it for that one guys now we got to do is just go into the bluetooth setup and turn it on and it'll be back in action, okay with that hooked up all I got to do now is go into my Victron Connect app right there, we'll boot it up, up comes all my systems and there it is right there, you can see it's the brand new one that says smart solar it doesn't have a name yet so we click on that and as you can see it's already putting out almost 300 watts, so that's about 22 yeah 22 amps at 12 volts so that's very cool working well, all I gotta do now is go in and just make sure the parameter is set up properly for my system to be a couple different... a couple different settings to change that's about it, but we are back in business
but that's today's theme, be the change so that's going to mean something to every one of you, so you got to figure out what that is and don't wait for the world to change around you be the change you want to see, so on that I will say good night have a good one and we'll see you next episode over and out (it was always in this, under the floor in a... before in a white bag, under after in a black bag because we clean all we organized last time) I've never heard of them in a black bag so I don't know I always kept them in a white bag, under the floor, under the stairs there's too much stuff inside (yeah) a leprechaun (a leprechaun) yeah it's called Maddie (guys very with two men, inside the boat, they make a power, make a force together) us? we always put our stuff in the same place, it's the women that change it (no, no it's not true) that's why she's looking because she knows I didn't move it, if it was where I left it (was always here, I, I I think so, we don't, it's not a little time ago then we checked that all defeated things with Valentina)
2021-01-11 17:29
