Dan in boat uniform
Shy Dan in airplane uniform
Another Christmas has passed on the Belle. We had a house full with son Dan and his girlfriend Cari here for 4 days. So 5 people on the Bell for 4 days. I know now how all those boat people from Haiti feel. No, it wasn't all that bad and it was great seeing Dan as it had been months since Chris had seen him and I think I had only seen him once since the summer. He was a great help on the boat as he has had boats of his own and has mechanical / electrical savvy beyond his years. Now if I could just get him to buy his own beer...
The big project for the week was installing a sea water wash down system. In some cases we can use sea water to preserve our fresh water on board and in some cases it is actually better to use. We can now spray off the anchor and chain as it is pulled up and dishes can also be washed if we are in a clean water area. Washing and wetting down the teak decks before fish cleaning is best done with salt water as the salt is a wood preservative and lastly salt water fish should only be cleaned with salt water as fresh water will affect the taste.
So, the sea water system install. We didn't have an extra thru hull so as to have a dedicated system so I had to T into the head thru hull. At the same time I added a strainer to the system because each time we pumped the head yucky stuff would come thru. We were concerned that it would damage the toilet valves and it looked, well, yucky. I mounted the pump under the vanity and while a bit Micky Mouse the switch is mounted on the front of the vanity. It looks decent but in a perfect world it would be mounted in the DC switch panel. No room. The outlet for the water is deck mounted with a nifty dry break so no valve is required. In the future I will add outlets up by the anchor and one at the back of the boat. Compromises.
Not real pretty but when there is no room...
More later..
Kerm
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