As of my last post, we were prepping for the trip, then things got crazy! Thursday and Friday I ran errands and topped off the tank (thankfully our wonderful neighbors did the hard part of pouring the fuel in! Thank you Scott and Tommy). Then I mapped a new course in Navionics using the information our neighbors supplied - a nice short cut to cut off about 1-1.5nm, and where to be careful of dragging bottom.
Saturday we removed the mainsail and tied down everything in the lazarette, and got the name on the boat!! Of course, we had to celebrate that with the bottle of champagne (after pouring some overboard for Poseidon) - test sail was scheduled for tomorrow though.
Sunday we took the boat out of the marina for the first time ever!!! We went about an hour out - far enough to see the Galveston bridge. It was very cool, we had a ton of fun, and did not get stuck anywhere - so it was a success! Unfortunately, when we got back and did an engine check, there was oil EVERYWHERE! It had sprayed all over the engine compartment... so we decided to do the oil and gearbox oil change Monday. We also looked for any loose bolts/fittings/etc that could be the issue. Then we planned clean up the engine and try running it a little harder again to see if we solved it... fingers crossed.
Then of course we drank the red wine, and gave some of that to Poseidon as well - we want to make sure we don't lose the boat in a hurricane after all! ;-)
We originally planned to do the whole ceremony just for fun, but given the time constraints, we just followed Captain Chris's advice to drink a lot and pour some out to the sea god!
Monday, I ran errands while Michael and Bean had a dr appt - got all the supplies we think we need for the afternoon. I admit I was kind of excited to do my first ever oil change ;-) That went pretty smooth - but I did need his help to get the oil filter off - it was on there super tight. We noticed a little drip coming from the area around the raw water impeller, so Michael took that apart and I had to run to the store to get some gasket material to put it back together (thought it would be an o-ring, which we had handy... oops!). While I was gone, he changed the gear box oil since it was getting late and we were still planning to leave on Tuesday (assuming the weather held). Once back, we got everything together, and then did one more pre-departure check. Michael actually climbed in the water with a submersible light and a scraper to check the propeller and make sure it wasn't too fouled. Thankfully, it was pretty clean and he was back topside in no time. Then it was back to the apartment to do laundry and take showers so we could at least start the trip clean!
Tuesday morning it was raining, and the weather was not looking good - thunderstorms all around us, forecast for most of the day... We started the boat anyway to check our work from yesterday, and discovered one more leak - this one in a bolt nicely tucked behind the alternator belt... so off comes the alternator belt so we can get to it. We put a little gasket sealant on the bolt and crossed our fingers. The gasket material wouldn't have the full time to cure, but it was being put on a hot engine, and we had to wait at least a few hours for the weather to decide whether we could leave or not...
We decided to set a cutoff time of noon - if we couldn't leave by then, we would cancel the trip and reschedule the mast pull. It looked like there was a front coming in around 10ish, and once that passed, the rest of the weather MIGHT go around us and we would be able to get to Seabrook in relative peace.
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