one thing leads to another

After a super late night, we slept in a bit, then decided to tackle the VHF radio dilemma.  We won't be cruising anywhere until we have our ability to communicate in good working order.  I hope to never have to put out a mayday call, but if we do, I want to know we'll be heard! With Peter's help earlier this winter, the new radio is installed and the AIS is working, but we are not sending a signal, we barely are receiving one, and the volume control is not what it should be. So, up the mast I go to take down the old antennae and install the one we bought last week at West Marine.

This is an idea of how far up I am...Kenny is on the left and Dan is on the right watching it all from below.

Pretty Joe Rock and that 36' sailboat just outside of Banana Bay looks pretty small from up here!  This gives you a good view of the water and how shallow the Gulf of Mexico is down in the Keys.  You really have to watch your chartplotter and read the water or you'll quickly and easily run aground.  It's not always so easy to get floating again either.  You can go out nearly 10 miles and still only be in 7-8 feet of water.  Craziness.

The wind was really cranking from the east...and it seemed to pick up as I was aloft.  But, of course.

Donnie zoomed in on me, and even though he had me tied off, I had my legs tight around the mast holding on!

I cleaned the connections, and installed the new one, no problem :)  Such a big girl thing to do!

As soon as I was back on deck, he turn on the radio...nothing. nada. zilch. son-of-a-buck. Next step, Cap'n chased down the wire coming down the base of the mast into the bilge, looking for a loose or bad connection. 

Instead we found a nasty, disgusting, bilge with some diesel organisms growing in it.  I about puked.  It sent my OCDness into overdrive...THIS will not do.

Any progress on the radio problem was halted...it lead to a bigger problem (for me).  And this is just how a project on a boat goes.  What seems to be a simple fix, leads to the discovery of other issues and other problems.  Sometimes it's three days later, and multiple trips to various stores, before you finally get back to the original problem you were trying to fix.  Our friend Brett called it the Beeswax Problem.  You think all the leaky toilet needs is a $3.00 beeswax ring....instead a week later, you've spent over $5k on an entire bathroom remodel.  So, here we go again.  Up to our elbows in grease and nastiness.
 

After two hours of cleaning the bilge mess, Donnie did discover a break in the radio wire where the was some corrosion on the connectors.  He also discovered that they were connected with cable TV connectors; not what it needed for being in a potentially wet environment.  So, off to the store(s) he went, first for advice, then for the right stuff.  While we was gone, and while he was working on installing the new connections and soldering them in, I scrubbed the floor boards that cover the bilge.  After they dried in the sun, I oiled then good with teak oil and buffed them out.  When he got done with his project, I put the floor boards back in.  This lead to another problem....now the rest of the floor looks like crap!  It was dinner time, so the rest of this clean up project will have to wait until tomorrow.  Oh, and the radio still doesn't work.  Dang it.

We went to Sparky's for dinner with Danny & Biddi, and Dan and Brett.  It was 25 cent wing night, and they only make their seafood gumbo on Tuesdays.  Dan is giving Cap'n a lesson on how to suck the head out of a crawdad.  Ewwww.

I had the honey-chile glazed shrimp appetizer and a few wings.  Delicious :)

Donnie started telling snow skiing stories....the draft beer and well drinks were on special, too ;)

There were lots of laughs, as usual!

I was a thirsty camel from scrubbing floor boards in the hot sun...those rum and cokes snuck up on me!

If you can believe it, Danny was the sober driver.  Now THAT's a first, lol!!!

We walked along some of the docks afterwards, and saw this 80' fishing boat, Mystique.  The bow of this boat alone is as long or longer than all of Marquesa.  Wowzer.

Biddi was coveting this 60' Berger.  She's 50 years old, but a beautiful vessel.  Bergers are to powerboats as Hinkley's are to sailboats...the Mercedes Benz of the ocean.

We got back in time to view the sunset, it was looking promising...

No green flash...I have yet to see one this season.  Dan and Biddi said there was one on Sunday night while we were up in Georgia.  I'm thinking I believe that about as much as Fran and I believe that Donnie saw an alligator on the side of highway as we were traveling this past weekend.  Green flash or not, it's still always beautiful to me.

And then the party continued well into the night on Biddi and the Beast.  All I know is when I got up this morning, my sides hurt from laughing so much last night.  Crazy fools :)  I'll sure miss these people when we're gone in a few weeks.