June 14, 2021, Monday, East Harbor

Last night ended like today began  - with me trying to get seaweed out of the generator water intake line. I noticed that the water coming out of the generator was less than normal as I charged the batteries last evening. I took the strainer apart and cleaned out a bunch of weeds. Initially the flow of water was OK, but quickly clogged again. So, I took the strainer apart again. It was clean which meant the water intake line was clogged. I went to bed.

So early today I attacked the problem again, without success. I tried to get various wires through the hoses and fittings but could not get the water to flow normally, although I did get some seaweed out. Finally I ran the main engine to put some amps back into the batteries.

At 7:30 it was time to fish with Kevin. He picked me up  in his dingy which has an electric motor and lithium battery. That seems to work well but the prop kept getting covered with - you guessed it - seaweed. Fishing was pretty unsuccessful. It was windy and the dingy kept trying to blow ashore. Our lines kept getting tangled in seaweed, as did the prop when we tried to motor from shore. Finally we ended up on Annie. At least it was more comfortable and we could have coffee. Kevin caught the first and only fish, winning him $1. 

Now it was time to get the generator water line cleaned out. I had a plan I thought would work, and it dd. I took the washdown pump hose into the engine room and used it to blow out the intake lines. First I pulled out a large amount of seaweed that was evident when I took the water intake hose off the generator strainer fitting. The washdown pump did the rest and the generator was soon humming along nicely. I was capably assisted by Kerry who did an incredible job of turning the pump on and off in response to my commands. Look at some of the seaweed I removed. BTW, the main engine strainer and hose was clean.

We passed the afternoon very leisurely - reading, showering and working on the computer. I got some sun time in too. At 4:30 Kevin and Alice came over for dinner. We started with two pitchers of margaritas, and followed with a hamburger dinner. Alice brought over crab dip with crackers and shrimp with the hottest cocktail sauce you could imagine for pre-dinner hors d'oeuvre. They were delicious.

Before dinner I showed Kevin and Alice my box of electronic toys. These included our Ear Tec marriage saver head sets, my rangefinder and my man overboard crew watcher bob and app. I think Kevin really liked the range finder and they both walked around the boat communicating with the marriage savers. He is in the market for a set. I showed Kevin my deck washdown outlets and he really liked the way they fittings were flush with the boat sides.

We had a portable battery operated Alexa on our table for dinner. We had a great time asking Alexa to play our favorite music. Kerry liked  "Psycho Pig", Kevin liked "Gin and Juice", I liked "Picture" by Kid Rock and Alice played Jackson Brown. The evening came to a slightly premature ending as a brief rain shower and cool breeze rained on our parade. We had great fun with the Millers and could envision cruising with them in the future. 

I got a very nice picture of the sunset before we turned in. It was still light at 9:30 as the days are long this time of year. It will probably be a rolling ride home tomorrow with a north wind of 10-15 knots, building later in the day. Kerry won't be happy.