Trip to Brownsville Day 4

We got to Port A. about 1:00 pm. One of our nicest days on the water ever!. It was a short day with only 14 nm plus a stop as we left Rockport for fuel and a pumpout. After tying up and checking in at the marina, I took a nap for about an hour. Then we took the electric scooters and toured the area.

    
They are lots of entrances to drive on the beach along the Gulf of Mexico side of the barrier island. The tires on the scooters are narrow - about the width of a moutain bike tire. However, the sand was damp and very well packed so we went about a mile along the beach.



Then we went into two souvenir stores and one hardware store. As you can see, I was nearly eaten by a shark at one of the souvenir stores...

     At the hardware store I bought a nut and lock washer for 27cents.  We had yet another "event" this morning where the ground wire on the starter on the starboard engine was loose. When I went to tighten the nut on the ground wire, the old lock washer fell off in several pieces.

The Admiral had to stop on the beach to do some wading.

      We are docked at a marina in a small harbor just to the left as you exit the ferry from the mainland. Across this harbor there are 4 or 5 nice looking waterfront restaurants. We had dinner in one, and then as we were just about back to the boat, the battery on my scooter started to die... I got slower and slower until I was hardly moving at all when we reached the boat. The manual for the scooter says "up to 12 mile range"... So I guess that we really had seen a lot of the area even if not quite 12 miles. We could easily spend several days here in Port Aransas, and perhaps we will on the way back.

     Tomorrow we plan to leave the dock at 6:00 am since it is about 88 nm to Port Mansfield... The marina where Terry wants to stay has a pool which would seem nice after a long day on the water.

trip to Brownsville -Day 3

In spite of predictions of a 40% chances of rain for the entire day, we had a delightful, dry trip from Port O'Connor to Rockport. It is "only" 45 nm so we were docked at the Rockport Yacht Club by 2:00 pm.  Our route went along the Aransas National Wildlife Refure where the whooping cranes winter, but unfortunately they had already headed North. We have passed through here in the winter, and the "Whoopers" are a truly magnificent sight!

Rather sadly we will lose our able crew member Jim Gould (Terry's Dad) as Rockport is home. Tomorrow will be a day of rest and relaxation before we continue on to Brownsville.

Cruise to Brownsville

On Sunday, May 13 we departed from our dock on Clear Lake at 8:00 am for a vacation/longer shakedown cruise. Terry' father (Jim Gould) joined us for the first few days until he gets home to Rockport.

Day 1.  After 6 inches of rain on Thursday and again on Friday, the weather turned very good for our departure on Sunday. Our route was down Galveston Bay to Galveston where we entered the Gulf Intra Coastal Waterway to head South and West to Brownsville at the U.S.-Mexico Boarder.  We stopped for the first night in Freeport for a daily run of almost 70 nautical miles.  We celebrated Mother's Day by taking Admiral Terry out to the Seafood Restaurant.  It was about a mile to the restaurant so Terry rode her bike while Jim and I followed on the electric scooters.

Day 2. This can be an interesting day because we must cross two major rivers.  When these rivers flood, they can send enough sediment into the ICW (that is the Intra Coastal Waterway) to block the waterway.  To prevent this situation, the Corps of Engineers has installed flood gates across the ICW at the Brazos River, and actual locks on either side of the Colorado River.  When there is no flooding, the gates/locks are left open and traffic is normal.  When the river floods, they are closed and long delays result as barges are locked through one barge at a time....

     I went on line the night before to check the status of the rivers.  No flooding, but the Brazos Flood Gates were going to be closed for 12 hours starting at 7:00 am.  The picture above is a pre-sunrise view back at

Freeport as we departed at 5:40 am in order to cross the Brazos River before 7:00 am.  THIS IS NOT my idea of a fun day with a start this early, but it was necessary to avoid "wasting" a day. 

The next photo shows us lined up to transit the lock on the east side of the Colorado River. The gates were open, and all we had to do was wait for any traffic inside the lock to exist before we could enter.The last photo shows us putting the Colorado River Locks in the rear view mirror.  Althought neither river was in flood stage, there are eddies where the flowing river water passes the stationary water in the lock.  These eddies trap logs and sticks from the river. At one point we had to gun the engines, then quickly put them in neutral as we "crashed" through one of these swirling eddies of debris...  The boat pushes the smaller pieces of wood aside, but it is not a pleasant sound to hear a long log bouncing along under the keel! Fortunately, we came through this experience with no damage.  All in all, it was a beautiful weather day, and we coverd nearly 70 miles on the way to Port O'Connor where we are spending the night.  On the way into the town, Terry sat on the bow and leaned over to watch dolphin surfing in our bow wave. As she put it, she was totally mesmerized by this experience...

First (of many?) shakedown cruise

Arrived in Galveston about 5:30 pm after a leisurely 4 hour cruise from Clear Lake. The engine break-in consists of varying the RPM every half hour or so.  Glorius weather with a high temperature of about 72F, and the skies cleared to be nearly cloudlees by arrival.  HOWEVER, there was a sometimes bothersome 19 knot North wind, which was never from quite dead astern. We got a nice push to add to our speed, but the waves shoved us around some. We rode our scooters about a mile to have dinner at Fisherman's Wharf downtown. Great seafood and a colorful sunset view from our waterfront table (see picture). Boat ran very well, but I found myself nervously checking the gauges far more often than necessary...

The shakedown cruise ended with a relaxing cruise back to our home on Clear Lake.  I should qualify that to be uneventful trip with respect to the engines. Since the installation of the new autopilot in January, the steering has become increasingly less responsive.  Specifically, the wheel should make about 9 full revolutions from lock to lock.  Before the cruise to Galveston, we filled the reservoir in the hydraulicc steering with fluid.  The hope/thought was that there had been air in the system after the installation of the pump for the aautopilot.  No luck since the problem persisted, and we found a small pool of fluid beneath the hydraulic cylinder that actuall pushes/pulls the rudders.  Fortunately, the cylinder could be rebuilt with hew seals.  The bottom line is that this has solved the problem.The photo shows the cylinder (brass colored) with new hoses (black).

Successful sea trial of re-built port engine!!!

Whoop! On Friday we had a very good sea trial of the re-built port engine. Along the way, the starboard engine also had much work done on it also including re-built fuel injectors, timing set (it was 15+ degrees off), valves adjusted, etc.  Both engines performed far better than in the nearly 6 years that we have owned Lucky Us. Right at the very "start" it was very positive. Both engines started in under 5 seconds instead of the 4-5 five minutes of grinding away on the starboard engine in particular.
    We hope to begin the break in process with an overnight trip to Galveston tomorrow... Stay tuned!

baby steps (while we wait...)

No news on the status of the testing of the fuel injection pump, which is supposedly the last hurdle before the re-built diesel main engine can be run and tested. However, while we are "patiently" waiting, we have installed two new pieces of our new electronics package. Namely, we have installed a new Garmin VHF marine radio. It has stations at the upper and lower helm stations and a two-way intercom adjacent to the galley. We could still add another remote microphone and several remote speakers in the future if we felt the need. As part of this we also have a loud hailer that also listens and includes a programmable fog horn. The final (?) "gadget" is an AIS (Automatic Identification System) that both sends and receives information. Commercial ships as well as some pleasure craft transmit a VHF signal that contains their name, location, speed, course, size as well as a lot of other information. Our unit transmits similar information, but it also computes important information like closest point of approach of the other vessels and plots the other vessels on our chartplotter. Whew! Just when we were starting to get our learning curve down to a reasonable size, we go and add some more complicated (but very powerful) new electronics. The AIS transceiver required its own GPS antenna, and it is also networked into the GPS and the VHF radio. Bottom line: lots of wiring, power, network connections, remote microphones, etc. Also, we added an extension to the crossbar on the radar mast to make room for the additional GPS antenna for the AIS transceiver (see photo). Phew! We sure know how to have fun and enjoy our retirement...

We are back (after 5 days in Las Vegas)

We got home at 2:00 am on Tuesday morning after a wonderful trip to Las Vegas ("Lost Wages") for the wedding of Terry's nephew. Neither of us is an avid gambler, but we did log a few hours playing the slots. A major highlight was the show "Jersey Boys". While we were gone, the engine was put back down into the engine room and totally re-assembled. Evidently it ran, but there was a problem with the fuel supply so the fuel injection pump was removed and sent out for diagnosis... The large round opening is for the gear (about 10 inches in diameter) that drives the fuel injection pump. As usual, we are now at the mercy of yet another specialty repair shop.

The second picture shows the new hoses (black) for the oil cooler and oil filter. The old hoses were virtually new, but they were a smaller (3/8 inch) diameter than the new 1/2 inch hoses. The larger diameter should result in more efficient cooling of the oil and better lubrication (?) of the engine.

One of our long term goals has been to learn how to perform as many basic repairs as possible on all of the many systems on the boat. My personal goal for the diesel engines is to be able to remove the fuel injectors. We had them removed and tested before our initial start last February, and at that time, I learned the basics of that process. However, with the engine completely disassembled I had the opportunity to review the process. The next picture is one that shows the top of the fuel injectors installed in the head. I was able to label various parts so that IF I find it necessary to remove a clogged injector at some future date, I will have better information than the generic shetches of a "typical" installation in the manual.

Well, hopefully the next post will be soon and will report the results of a successful sea trial of the engine...