Sept 1 thru 10

Again, in the interest of not boring people with the everyday, non-nautical details, I'll condense many days into the highlights. 

We had two more visits with old friends whom I haven't seen in many years.  We spent an afternoon with my daughter and grandkids at my daughter's grandmother's house.  Now if that confused you, that would be my first mother-in-law's house.  I have always kept in touch with her and it had been a couple of years since I last saw her.  We also spent a few hours with some old neighborhood friends that I hadn't seen in thirty years.  The Fillingham family lived about a half mile from me growing up.  There were four daughters who ranged in age from one year to five years older than me.  I spent a lot of time with them during my teenage years, but other than the occasional e-mail from Bunny, the oldest, I had pretty much lost touch with them.  As it turned out, three of the four were going to be having a family picnic, so Barb and I crashed it.  There were four generations of their family there.  It was good to see them.

My brother owns a 1927 Chevrolet sedan.  He bought it twenty-some years ago from his brother-in-law who had restored it.  It has stayed in his barn for many years, as he did not have the time to drive it much.  As is the case with boats, lack of use can be as bad as over-use.  My brother and I have always had different strengths.  He can build things and grow things, but he can't turn a wrench.  So over the years, projects like making the old Chevy run again have been put off until I visit.  Last time I was here, we determined that the vacuum operated fuel pump is not working.  This time, we have tackled rebuilding this pump.  Of course, you don't just run down to the local NAPA store and pick up parts for a 1927 car.

We have visited the boat several days this week.  We found that when we left it last, we had left the battery selector switch in the ALL position, which meant whatever is draining the batteries now got to eat the starting battery also.  Since the boat is on a mooring, we had several choices.  I could tow it to the dock with the dinghy and plug it in, or take the battery out and charge it, or buy a jump start battery.  I opted for the last choice.  I figured the money spent on the jump starter might make me a hero in some remote anchorage someday if somebody else needed a jump.  So, we went to the local Auto Zone and bought a jump start battery.  Of course, it needs to be charged first, so we took it home and plugged it in overnight.  The next day, we went to the boat with high hopes.  Well, the jump start thing didn't have enough guts to do the job.  The motor turned over twice slowly and the cables on the jump starter got real hot.  On to plan B.  To remove the starting battery, I have to remove one of the floor panels.  Not the access pieces that are made to lift out, but one of the panels that requires removing about fifteen screws.  Of course, each time I go through this exercise, one of the screws heads will invariably strip out, requiring use of a Dremel tool to cut a notch in it.  The flaw in this picture is there is no electricity to run the Dremel.  So, I had to get mean with a couple of hand tools and make a mess out of one of the holes.  I finally got the floor up and the battery out.  We'll take it home and charge it overnight.  I did install the new multi-stage voltage regulator today.  For a change, it was a task that went perfectly.  Even though it was replacing a totally different style and brand, the new wiring harness matched up exactly and no hassles were encountered.  The other project I wanted to do today was install the new remote control for the stereo.  But, that will require drilling a hole, and the batteries for the cordless drill are almost dead too.  Can't recharge them on the boat, so they will have to go home overnight too.  On the way home, I swung by Auto Zone and returned the jump starter.  I expected they might balk at taking it back, thinking I just used it and was returning it, but they took it no questions asked.  Once back at the house, I realized that my starting battery, which I thought was a maintenance-free battery, is not.  I took the caps off and found it very low on water.  So I filled it and put it on the charger overnight.  Next day, we carried the battery back to the boat.  I installed it and Barb hit the starter.  No joy.  The motor barely turned.  Apparently the lack of care of the four-year-old battery and the deep discharge has taken it's toll.  So, back to the store for a new battery.  This time I did get a sealed maintenance-free one.  Back to the boat and one more trip down the long dock and out to the boat in the dinghy carrying a heavy battery.  Of course this time the motor fired right up.  I revved the motor up to about 2000 rpm, and let it run to try and recharge the house batteries.  While it was running I set about installing the stereo remote.  I mounted the remote near the remote VHF mic at the helm, so I can easily mute the stereo to hear the VHF when needed.  The stereo remote is a wired device, so I took this opportunity to redo the cable for the remote VHF which we had simply hung through the aft head when we replaced it back in New Orleans.  With the stereo wires and the VHF cable all wire-tied together, we pulled and pushed and fished it the right way through the wall so it is properly hidden now.

While I was working on a lot of this, Barb was outside in the dinghy, working her way around the boat cleaning the brown stain off the hull from intra-coastal travel.  Boaters fondly refer to this stain as an intra-coastal mustache.  The hull is now a nice shiny white again, just in time for us to head south and make it brown again.  After the projects were done, it was clear that running the motor was not going to do the job of recharging the house batteries.  So, we made plans to come back the next day and move the boat dockside so we could get a full charge off shore power.  The next day, we went to the boat in the morning and moved it to the dock.  I got it plugged in and went to observe the battery monitor.  It did not act as I expected.  As soon as the charger came on, the batteries showed fourteen volts and the charger stepped down to float mode.  This is not right, and I'm afraid the deep discharge may have damaged the batteries.  We'll leave it slowly charging over the weekend and see what happens.

We did meet several other boat owners since we are at the dock now.  Most are very interested in our story and what we are doing.  The folks here at the Marlboro Yacht Club have been very accommodating.  They are very transient friendly, reasonably priced, and you don't have to be a yacht club member to use their facility.  If you ever find yourself traveling the Hudson, I recommend this as a good place to stop.

Saturday the 10th, we had a very interesting day.  Wallkill, NY, where I grew up and where we are staying, was home at one time to the Borden family.  This was in the 1800's, when Gail Borden invented the process to condense milk.  Borden's condensed milk was the first advance in making milk useable and transportable more than a day or two.  Gail Borden's son John wanted to find a place to have a large park, open to the public, where families could get away from the city and relax.  To that end, he purchased a farm in Wallkill.  Subsequent land acquisitions made the farm almost 2000 acres.  The farm was self-sufficient, with it's own water system, power generation, and of course food production.  When John Borden died, his daughter Marion took over the farm and the business.  Over the years, she was very generous to the neighboring town, giving money to build the school, and public library, expand the church, etc.  The farm is no longer in the family, but much of it has been preserved and restored by the current owners.  Each year, the Wallkill Historical Society puts on Borden Day, which consists of exhibits at the school, and then a bus ride to the farm and a tour of the house and grounds with a narrative of the history of the place.  While I knew vaguely of the Borden story when I grew up here, I had never been up to the property before.  I found it extremely interesting to hear all the history and see this place.  I also ran into several people that I hadn't seen since moving away thirty years ago. 

Of course we have been following the news of Katrina.  I found pictures on NOAA's website of the marina and boat yard that we were in while in New Orleans.  The marina was simply decimated.  All the boats are piled up in the parking lot.  The docks are empty.  The large paddleboat casino that we were next to pivoted ninety degrees and wiped out the pier that we were on.  The boatyard is right in the center of this picture.  The large white roof is the new dry-stack storage they had just built.  The buildings seem to have survived, but the yard is almost empty of boats.  It was full when we were there.  It really brings it home to see these places where we recently were.