Summer in Baltimore

August 8 thru August 11

—Blogpost written by Bob

Thursday, August 8

We drove to Annapolis this morning for several reasons and got all our errands accomplished early and returned to the boat by 2 PM.  We immediately started to do the last few things (electrical wiring and connecting several hoses) needed on the water maker installation.  We actually completed the water maker installation by 5:30 PM.  (I have no idea why it took 3-1/2 hours!)

The completed installation of the Katadyn 40E
water maker under our starboard settee.

The labels for the control panel have not been finished yet--so, the control panel is blank at this point though the hour meter has been mounted and wired.


There is not a lot of space remaining in the compartment--I thought I would have a lot more. I have installed a seawater valve ahead of the raw water strainer so that I can shut off the seawater to clean the raw water strainer or to change filter cartridges in the pre-filter.  All I have to do for access is to lift one cushion and open the lid to the water maker compartment.  I am very pleased the way this project turned out even though it took longer than I expected--make that a week longer than expected.  (Of course, we can't use it in Baltimore Harbor because the water is too polluted.  We plan to take a week-long trip to the Choptank River later in the summer to try out our new water maker.)

We really enjoyed our delayed Happy Hour at 6 PM!

Friday, August 9

We had been having some issues with our air conditioning late yesterday afternoon. We would get a “high pressure fault” alarm in intervals of about a half hour to forty-five minutes. This was unusual because usually a “high pressure fault” is caused by a blockage in the cooling water system, sometimes a jellyfish or a plastic bag will be sucked up into the raw water strainer but the results are typically immediate and lasting. This time, if I simply waited a few moments I could restart the A/C without any problems until thirty or forty-five minutes later when it would stop again. We were tired and decided to go to sleep and simply use our onboard fans to keep cool.

In the middle of the night I woke up with an epiphany (and a sweaty body)—I thought that the seacock may have been partially closed and when I checked, it was. Even though the handle on the seacock was vertical the hull starts to slope upward about 20 degrees from horizontal at the point where the seacock was installed. So, the seacock was closed about 20 degrees, just enough to cause a partial blockage of seawater flow. Ever since repositioning the handle of the seacock to about 20 degrees from vertical, the A/C has been running flawlessly.

Our newly installed seacock now serves the air
conditioner and it was partially closed
causing the "high pressure faults"
at 30 to 45 minute intervals.

There was also about a 6-inch “hump” in the hose just inside the seacock. Later in the morning, I removed the “hump” by redistributing the hose’s length among the three bilge compartments. (I was concerned about the “hump” being too close to the waterline elevation and causing an air lock in the system.)

There always seems to be something on a boat that challenges you, even in the middle of the night.

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In the (more normal) morning hours we printed some labels and prepared some items we purchased (that didn't fit) to be returned.  I also reorganized our three onboard first aid kits and checked under the galley-to-head floor board for fresh water leaks (there were none).  Today was not one of my most productive days on the boat.  

However Happy Hour was very productive.  We've been trying different type of drink mixes to replace carrying sodas on board.  In the process we ran into some sugar-free alcoholic drink mixes--one of them was Baja Bob's Pina Colada Mix.  To make the drink, combine 4 ounces of water, one packet of Baja Bob's (sugar-free) Pina Colada mix, 1 cup of ice, and 1 ounce of rum and blend very thoroughly.

A (sugar-free) pina colada made from a single
drink packet of Baja Bob's Pina Colada Mix.

The first Pina Colada I made was so good that I had to have another one with a little twist of my own--I added a dash of cinnamon, 1/2-ounce more rum, and a packet of Splenda.  The second one was even better.  I'm sure that a good bartender can make much better Pina Coladas but as the sun is going down with turquoise water all around, this drink would be pretty special plus it takes up very little onboard storage space.

s/v Rainy Days has never looked
better than she does right now!

One of the light posts in our
marina near sunset.

Saturday, August 10

This morning was absolutely beautiful, relatively cool and with a nice westerly breeze!  It was more like a September morning than one in mid-August.  I feel like I've had enough boat projects for a while, having just completed the water maker installation.  I decided to do something easy this morning--sorting out my tools, with the primary goal of getting rid of weight on board by reducing duplication of tools.  Sounds easy enough, right?

Actually, this task WAS easy. The yellow tool box shown in the above photo stays in our dock box at the marina—the red canvas tool bag remains onboard. I had been carrying five vice grip pliers which I boiled down to three of different sizes, as an example. Applying this same type of reduction to screw drivers, wrenches, and electrical tools saved quite a bit of weight and onboard storage space.

The pliers on the cockpit cushion was the ones I'm
keeping onboard--the excess ones were put
into the yellow toolbox which will
remain in our dockbox.

Next up was to reduce the number of raw water pumps I’ve been carrying onboard from three spares to just one spare (the most recent changeout). (On our new Yanmar 3YM30AE engine, raw water pumps have a history of lasting only 500 hours—so, we replace the entire raw water pump annually during our haulout.)  I broke down the two other spares pumps into parts that we are most likely to need in the future.

I ended my day by adding some thickened epoxy fillets to the primary raw water strainer mount which was fastened to the hull with Marine-Tex last week.  It was nice having a relatively easy day today!

Sunday, August 11

A couple weeks ago after installing our new AIS transponder I looked for evidence of our AIS transmission using my iPad app called Marine Traffic.  The following image is from the app with our transponder turned on but our boat was sitting still in her slip.

How we show up on AIS for other boats to see us.
When underway, the symbol changes to one
that looks like a sailboat from above.
(This image was taken from the
Marine Traffic app on
my iPad.)

Today was another beautiful day, warm but with low humidity.  I managed to complete a couple small tasks around the boat, like putting the head cabinet door back in place and screwing down the floor board panel in the companionway, but nothing too strenuous.

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I got a phone call late in the week about the plastic labels for the water maker control panel being completed--I can't wait to see them in use!  Stay tuned for a photo of the new labels...


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