A worthwhile trip

 Last week Benno, the dogs, and I took another trip across the border to the US. We have a mailing address in Detroit at a warehouse called “MyDetroitAddress” it comes in handy for purchases when the seller is shipping free of charge within the USA. If the goods were sent to Canada like with UPS, shipping, a customs broker charge and taxes would make those goods a lot more expensive for us than crossing the border and bringing them over ourselves, even if we had to pay taxes at the border. However, we are allowed $200/per person of tax free goods per trip, so most of our day trips do not involve us paying taxes.

On this last trip across to Detroit we combined that with a visit to the "Bontrager's Surplus" warehouse in White Pigeon, Michigan. Refitting a boat has similarities to a RV. Both use tanks for water/waste, have stoves/ovens/fridges made for travel and are outfitted for 12Volt systems etc. So there are items in a RV that can be used in a boat as well. 

Wow were we surprised. This surplus warehouse was filled with RV items from top to bottom. They are surplus, so not used but probably leftover materials from the manufacturing of previous RV models and the ticket prices of the goods were kind of 75% less than if you were going to order them from a RV dealer. 

Benno had been looking for some panelling material and there were several choices we could pick from. Our choice were three 4x8' AZDEL panels with decorative Polypropylene fused onto Fiberglass. These are inside wall panelings with no paper covering, but plastic, which most /RV models now have. We figured they are also perfect for a boat. Also we found a holding tank just the size we wanted and to top it off, they had the Furrion three burner gas cooktop with the foldable glass top at such a bargain price that it had to come home with us. In our Grand Design Imagine RV we have the Furrion propane oven and I have been happy with the three-burner top. However, the oven is too small for my liking and in the boat I will have an electric combo that is an Air-Fryer/Convection Microwave unit. 

So, if any of you RVers need anything for your rig, go there and see what they have. Even better bring your RV along for the exchange/addition of the things you need and for the Canadians if you stay a week you got $800/per person of tax free goods to bring home with you. Btw, they also ship. Following are some photos I took so you can judge for yourselves. 

Although it was an all day excursion for us, we spent quite a bit of time inside that warehouse and I am sure it was not the last time we went there. Thanks for dropping in again and following the refit of the Albatross trawler.

Below and behind the walls of Albatross plus home happenings

The month of July is coming to an end and what a hot month and summer it has been so far. We are alive and well, in case you are wondering since I last posted at the beginning of June. Other than a couple of trips across the border to our Detroit mailing address to pick up parcels containing boat parts, we stayed close to home.

Keeping up with the cutting of grass, flower and vegetable plant maintenance, housekeeping, grocery shopping and you know everyday things, take up a big chunk of every week. 

Our longtime cruising friend Richard and his girlfriend came for a visit where we talked boats and reminisced on the days we cruised together on our respective sailboats. Now his son Ricky, who was a young lad back then while accompanying Richard, is presently on his own sailboat in Papeete - French Polynesia, on a world circumnavigation with his wife. Speaking of boats, Benno has been steadily working on ours. The boat is still wrapped in shrink-wrap which does not help with the hot temperatures we are experiencing. There were days when he had to quit working mid day coming out drenched in sweat even though a fan had been running full blast.

Happenings in our neighbourhood were a fire in the middle of the night at an unoccupied vacation house facing the lake, about a 200 yards from us. It was a total loss and involved 5 fire trucks. 

Then a strong summer storm the other day brought down half a tree onto the front yard and driveway to our neighbours across the street. We did have a tornado warning as the storm tore fiercely through the area, but it was just a twisted wind that caused that damage like we had a couple of years ago when our fence fell down. And on a return grocery run this happened to me: A flat tire, piece of a sewing machine was stuck in the tire, how did that stainless steel presser foot with the name Singer punched in it got onto the road? By golly what is the world coming to! Thanks to our nice friends and neighbours who lent Benno their car to come to my rescue, this mishap got tackled in midday when it was like a 100 degree F. Now the truck got two new tires at the front. The damaged tire could not be fixed.

In better news our adjacent neighbour to the west held a huge surprise/karaoke birthday party for her husband. That turned into a lovely event (no, I didn’t sing) but had a great time. Benno and I also celebrated another wedding anniversary with German wine and scrumptious food cooked at home :-) and in lieu of cut flowers for this occasion that Benno always presents me with, I opted to pick a nice perennial flower from the garden centre I will enjoy every time it blooms. 

There were so many technically accomplished jobs on the boat that were not documented but will be visible and explained further on. It is more like what goes on behind the walls, so to speak. Occasionally my assistance was needed for jobs that need a third hand or I be better suited for ;-) So, for the guys or anyone interested in the more detailed technical things of boatbuilding, Benno will explain a bit.

Here is Benno: On the boat front battle progress is happening. I like to inform you that the diesel tank fuel gauge is working fine now, the new fuel sender must have been assembled on a Monday morning in China and the fuel level signal was shorted out. After I took the unit apart and reassembled it properly this problem was solved (Picture below of fuel gauge). 

We have installed onto this boat a so called aluminum “Day Tank” (15 gal) above the diesel engine right under the helmsman seat to compliment the two 90 gal diesel saddle tanks left and right next to the diesel motor. A 12 volt vane pump draws the diesel fuel from both saddle tanks and pumps it thru a large Racor filter with water separator into that above mentioned day tank. This warrants always clean diesel fuel will reach the engine and a future diesel generator thus avoiding a headache of dirty fuel and engine stoppage while motoring with the boat toward a nice place. (Bahamas?)

To stay with the tank business, we have two 70 gal stainless steel water tanks left and right off the salon in which, after our inspection, we noticed some mud inside them from Lake Huron. We suspect that the previous owner may have taken on some clean lake water into the tanks, which over the years left a deposit of settlement inside the tanks. I opened up the inspection ports and with Marlene’s help the inside of the tanks are sparkling again after hours of heavy cleaning. (Picture below) 

I fitted new stainless steel 1/2 inch NPT ball valves on the bottom of the tanks (Picture below) to draw the water for the water pressure pump (Picture below). I have to mention that we replaced all hot and cold water hoses with 1st class Marine grade re-enforced 1/2 inch hose that does not get soft and balloon’s up with hot water under 45 psi pressure from the pump. I installed as well an additional pig tail hose and three ball valves for winterizing the water system with antifreeze when the need arises.

We had shipped in from Defender Marine, Waterford CT, the famous Marine Chandler in the States to our Detroit address a 5 gal water heater that is using the hot engine coolant or a 120 volt heater element to heat the water. I installed the unit including running heater hose for the engine coolant, plumbed it to the motor and hooked the heater to the cold and hot fresh water circuit of the boat. (Picture below) 

Done that gave me the opportunity to drive to the Kubota Dealership in Essex, Ont. some 20 miles from our place to get the Kubota specified Mono Ethylene Glycol Based Extended Life Anti Freeze Coolant and the Kubota SAE 15 W 40 Engine Oil, which I filled into the 38 HP Beta Kubota Marine Diesel (Picture below)

Having all this accomplished gave me finally time to instal the Webasto forced air heater in the salon which is later covered up with paneling. But it will have a removal panel for service access. (Picture below). 

To mince up the instal we show you a picture of a previous installation of a Webasto instal in our “Diesel Duck” years ago. Our DD had two Webastos fitted. One in the aft cabin and one forward in the utility room to heat the main cabin. We liked these heaters, they never gave us a problem and they ran well and quietly, and warmed up our boat comfortably at the southern tip of South America, Patagonia and Cape Horn while having snowflakes on the deck.

The Head compartment (nautical term for bathroom) has a shower provision as well and the shower pan drains into a sump tank with builtin pump to pump the water overboard. I took this tank unit apart, cleaned it out, installed a new float switch and relocated it. The previous location of the sump tank would only let you service it under difficulties, so I found a more suitable location for the unit for better access. (Picture of old location and new location) 

So, I think this update will be enough for today as it will turn into a technical overload. There is more stuff I am working on and those items will make it into a future post.

Thanking everyone for staying with this blog and wishing all a wonderful summer. Next posting will take not so long, promise.

Trouble in my garden

Life is not without complications. Every summer I look forward to do a bit of gardening and I’m delighted when my efforts show beautiful results. This season my plants seem to struggle a bit. Some of it is my fault. First off, our ground is all clay so I have to add topsoil, fertilizer and compost to help out for those plants that don’t like acidy soil. On the west side of the house the flowerbed is of course shaded until early afternoon and then the sun bakes everything in it until sundown. It also gets beaten on windy days. Only the most hardy and common native plants thrive in this area. It is disappointing when not all perennials make it through the winter and I keep buying more plants every spring.

On the south side of the garage I have potted veggies that were doing good in previous years. This year not so much. We haven’t had any rain now for weeks and I have been out watering every other day. I think I overwatered as the zucchini plants started to show powdery mildew on the leaves. I have sprayed them with a diluted vinegar/water solution now twice and I hope it will remedy that problem. Also I had to cut off two zucchini that started to yellow on the top. My fault, I guess.

Then I noticed on the Slicer Tomatoes tiny black flies. Those are fungus gnats! I sprayed those with a horticultural oil solution. If it will help, I don’t know. If you think those are all my troubles, nope, all the bushes along the side of the garage have spidery fall webworms. Oh, for goodness sakes, that is a new one. I had been neglecting those shrubs because they usually don’t need much attention and just yesterday when I trimmed them I noticed these unwanted guests. 

But there is good news in the garden. This little blue spruce tree that had turned green over the winter has grown tremendously and shows off its blue needles.

There are always chores around the house and if I want to, I could be busy every day. So that is why I decided to take our large barbecue apart and give it a deep cleaning. Really? Yes I did and it was messy! 

Benno has his own chores or rather his hobby work on the boat. There are so many things he’s done lately but they all required parts that were not so easy to obtain. Amazon has us on their preferred customer list, I think and the delivery guys know now our address by heart.

In the travel trailer Benno installed a new converter that will automatically detect the battery source, i.e. from the traditional lead/acid or now lithium, it was an easy installation. We are planning to change to lithium batteries sometimes this year.

On the boat, the electric windlass and as well the bow thruster is now fully hooked up and rewired. Benno replaced the port and starboard control toggle switch for the bow thruster with a joystick, which make it easier to move the boat’s bow to the left or right (port or starboard) when manoeuvring in a tight marina quarter. 

At this time Benno finished the diesel polishing vane pump wiring, hooked it up to a 12v battery, got a couple jerry cans full of diesel from the gas station and I helped him priming the big Racor filter and water separating unit with diesel fuel. I hit the on-off switch and “Caramba” the beast worked. It sucked the diesel out off the jerry cans, ran it through the big filter apparatus and pumped it into the day tank. They call that “Fuel polishing”. The new fuel gauge persists to our dismay not to work, but Benno will for sure figure it out soon, and I will let you know in the next update what the problem was. 

It is strawberry season now here in Ontario and although I don’t have any in my garden, there are plenty in the stores reasonably priced. 

Thanks for visiting.

The mystery tree

Thank goodness the winds have abided, the sun is out and the temps are fine for outdoor work.  That is what I did most of the day. No matter how many weeds I pick, there are always more someplace else so no shortage on that exercise. As I could no longer find an excuse to cut the grass, today I took out the John Deere for all the large areas. Actually, riding the lawn mower is fun and no work at all I find. The real workout is when I walk all the perimeters with the weed trimmer. Usually I go through three batteries, but today I needed two extras that were already charged to do the outside of the fences as well. And, I opted to rake the cuttings by hand (I could have used the sweeper but didn’t want to hookup, clean, and store again) because the high winds had brought so many keys from the maple trees across the street. If they are not picked up or cut to pieces we will have hundreds of maple saplings sprouting from the lawn in a few weeks. A big thank you to Benno for helping to cut the areas the riding mower can’t do with the self-propelled mower. It is all done now and should be good for a week at least before I have to do it all over again. Hey, I don’t complain, it keeps me fit.

There is a mystery with the little blue spruce tree I was gifted a couple of years ago. We planted it at a spot we thought it would thrive. It looked beautiful and even grew some last year. This year when we came back from Florida, I noticed that the tree looked the same as it did in the fall before we left for our trip south on the east side. However, the other sides, especially on the west side the blue spruce had turned all green. Really green with no trace of blue! I have absolutely no clue what happened over the winter months to the tree other than that there were some strong winds from the west. 

To help this little tree out, I went and bought some fertilizer for evergreens and stuck that into the ground. Now the new growth is blue gain. Go figure.

How this tree looked when we planted it

How it looked when we got back from Florida

Today on the west side

today on the east side

So while I had some outdoor fun, Benno had taken out the Webasto Diesel heater from the boat. It was not installed in a good position and had taken up some good real estate. We think we can mount it in a better spot. Also it lacks some hardware to make it run more quieter and more efficient. This particular heater was actually a truck cab unit and not configured to be mounted on a boat. We know that, because we had two of the same Webasto Airtop 2000 marine heaters on “Diesel Duck” and a similar product, the Espar Diesel Heater on “Najade”. 

Benno wanted to test it out. In order to do that, he needed to hook the heater up to a 12volt battery and then got some diesel fuel from the gas station in Wheatley. As it turned out, the heater would not fire up and produce any heat, its metering pump (Pulse Pump) did not pump any diesel to the heater, its 12volt supply was missing. Upon further investigation, like dismantling and cleaning the heater, he found a fault on a disconnect at the CPU inside the Webasto unit, which supplies the 12volt to the metering pump. (We presume the problem was already present when we bought the boat, because the previous owner had bought another fuel pump which it didn’t need after all.) 

So once Benno had everything hooked up this heating unit produced plenty of really hot air, albeit at more noise than necessary. So now we know this Webasto Heater is working and with the already ordered parts, it will find a new place in the boat in the coming months.

That is it for me today and I am wishing everyone a nice and relaxing weekend. Maybe I will sit down and read a book tomorrow.

Thanks for dropping in again.