We are pleased to report that we had a great summer, all in
all! You know we don’t send out updates when we are in port for a long time. It
is just too boring so I wait until we start moving to catch you up on all the
gory details.
Kermit spent far too much working on his rental properties:
at least 3 weeks renovating one of the duplex apartments and at least a month
on a small house we own in North Canton. When you add it together it was about
7 weeks out of our 16 weeks in Lake Erie were spent working on the houses.
Both properties look great now. And both are on the market
for sale.
Owning rental real estate is not the bonanza it is cracked
up to be. Even if the numbers worked. I asked Kermit what else he could have
done with his time this summer he said, “Anything!” He could have worked on the
Baretta, our 20’ ski boat badly in need of some love. We could have traveled
more with our friends. Heck, he could have read a book and relaxed!! I think we
sat in the swimming pool twice during this summer. What a drag!!
We had a wonderful “staycation” with Housers, Stiebers and
Hoffmans in July. Each couple got to pick an activity for their designated day.
Housers took us on a “C” journey. All the clues starting with a continental
breakfast began with a “C” for Char! We ended up at Catawba Island Club for a
wonderful boat ride and lunch. Steibers lead a floatilla of dinghies to a great
little restaurant, Margaritaville on the other side of Sandusky Bay. We took
the gang on a scavenger hunt (guys vs girls) on Put in Bay and Hoffmans shared
their secret swimming spot off of Kelley’s Island. We had a blast!! That is
what we love about Lake Erie.
We visited Put-in-Bay and Kelley’s Island a few times
including an amazing birthday party for Dale Fuelling at Kelley’s where we
survived a microburst to dance away the night.
Marissa visited over July 4th but the boys never
made it up to the lake. We went to visit them a few times. We caught up with
Kermit’s brothers and mom. We went to Maumee Bay with Lipka’s and Vellucci’s.
I am sure we are missing something wonderful. All in all it
was a good summer.
The biggest effort went into Good Karma. Between boat work
and rental property work I am not sure Kermit slept much this summer. Let’s
bring everyone up to date on what happened to Good Karma:
Fiberglass work: We had Venetian Marina reinforce the port
strut and repair the fiberglass after a line got caught around the propeller as
we entered Lake Erie. Venetian did a good job. This was the first repair work
we let them try since they royally screwed up our boat about 20 years ago. I
think enough time has passed!
New propellers: The props had never been what they needed to
be. We were experiencing vibrations from the props that put in jeopardy all
that expensive repair work we had done on the shafts in Charleston. So new
props were in order. Kermit contacted Ron at Wolverine Propeller in Michigan. A
big shout out to the best prop guy in the entire world. He tricked out the old
Good Karma perfectly so we knew he wouldn’t let us down. He brought the props
over to Schrock’s Marina in Marblehead who pulled the boat out and installed
the new equipment. We are driving on them now.
This is for all the techy boat guys. Everyone else just skip
to the next topic.
- · No vibration at all.
- · The engines are quieter.
- · The old props were 29x24 inches TYNE, original equipment. The new props are ACME 27x24 with a slight cup. Acme’s have a 40% larger blade area which allows for the smaller diameter.
- · Mileage has improved SIGNIFICANTLY. At idle the blades went from 5.1 to 5.5 mph. At our usual cruise speed in the butterfly club at 1000 rpm was 7.42 mph. It is now 9.1 mph. Cruise speed was 23 mph at 2300 rpm. Now at 2200 rpm we get 24.6 mph. At 2300 rpm we now get 28.3 mph. To give you an idea how good that is, today to get from Sandusky to Cleveland we used 1/8th of a tank (500 gallons). This is wonderful mileage. We are very pleased.
Fuel problems: On our way to Kelley’s Island a few weeks ago we
stopped at Battery Park nearby to get diesel fuel and a pump out. We put 125
gallons in the port side then moved the nozzle to the starboard side. We put 75
gallons in when the pump completely stopped. THE MARINA TANK WAS EMPTY! We
sucked in all sorts of crap into our fuel tanks. Kermit flipped out. Naturally
Battery Park Marina claims it couldn’t have been their responsibility that we
found a significant fuel problem. Just what we needed.
So Kermit called out the crack diesel team at Schmandel
Diesel. Jim and Scott spent a day cleaning all the fuel lines from the tanks
including taking the valves out of the tank, all the fuel lines and
disassembling and cleaning both Racor filter systems.
Then they drilled two access holes in the interior to allow
access to the fuel tanks. One is behind the sofa on the starboard side and the
other is behind the electrical panel on the port side. Then they created access
holes into the fuel tanks themselves. Each of these access holes can be used
again in case, God forbid, something like this happens again.
Then we had Jim from Tibble’s Fuel Service come out to
polish the diesel. We pulled the boat into the well and had it lifted ever so
slightly so the fuel was pushed to the back. Jim pumped all the fuel into tanks
until he saw the fuel got dirty. Then he stopped and put the remainder of the
bad fuel into different tanks for disposal. Over 30 gallons of fuel was ruined!
The remaining fuel (about 120 on one side and about 90 on
the other) was put through a polishing process through multiple filters over
and over until the fuel has no more gunk in it – less than 2 microns of crap
(whatever that means). Kermit says the Racors get up to 30 microns. The Volvo
filters clean it even more to 10 microns so this fuel polishing makes it shiny
clean.
The whole process took over 7 hours Jim from Tibbles was
very knowledgeable and very professional. Another marine service find!
The next day, Wednesday 9/21 Jim and Scott came out to
reassemble the access holes and put everything back. They sure are wonderful!!
Water heater: In August we noticed water in the bilge pump
running on and on. We couldn’t figure it out. Finally Kermit put red food
coloring in the water tank. NOTE: We had very festive ice for a few days!! He
discovered that one of the water tanks was leaking and needed to be replaced.
We carry 30 gallons of hot water in the hot water heater in two separate tanks
– an 11 gallon tank sits on top of a 20 gallon tank. After all we need lots of
hot water for that Jacuzzi we don’t use!!
Jim Schmandel came over and he and Scott changed out the hot
water heaters. That took a day or so.
New bike bags and sun pads: Kermit took Char Houser on a field
trip to visit the Amish guys to recover our swim pads on the bow and several
cushions from her new-to-her boat. They do a great job but it is quite a
culture shock. They arrived as the ice cream social was getting started! A few
weeks later Kermit and Paul Bates went back to pick up the stuff. He also made
us new bike bags out of tan Sunbrella to replace the old bags that fell apart
in the sun. We are all outfitted in tan and white now.
In addition to the big stuff we also thoroughly cleaned
every surface of the boat inside and out. The only thing we didn’t do was wax
the boat. That will have to wait until we get to Fort Pierce.
Departure. Our
goal is to get down to Florida by the beginning of December. Kermit spoke to
Boat US and arranged to change our “stay north of” before 11/1 boundary from
Norfolk VA to Jacksonville FL so we can pretty much do what we want to do. The
Erie Canal will remain open through the end of October but we want to be sure
to be through by early October just in case. With that said, we have to work
our schedule around three speaking engagements in October – 1 in Providence RI
and 2 in Cleveland. With that in mind we planned to leave Sunday September 18.
On Tuesday September 20 I took the vehicles down for winter
storage at Kermit’s brother’s house in North Canton. Jim and Karen Sigman
pitched in and drove Kermit’s truck and Karen took their minivan to bring all
of us home. That was so nice of them!
Then the fuel problem hit. We revised the departure to
Wednesday September 21. Jim and Scott from Schmandel Diesel were finished
putting the access panels back by 11am. BTW Scott figured out how to close the
door in front of the electrical panel!!
By 12pm we were pumped out and getting new diesel at Cove
Marina. Needless to say we won’t be getting fuel at Battery Park again.
As we were filling up Kermit’s phone rang. His mom had
fallen that morning and been taken to the hospital. We turned right back to
Venetian Marina to attend to family business. Mom is fine BTW.
So this morning at about 7am we left Venetian Marina to
begin our journey to Florida. Jack the cat assumed his position at Kermit’s
feet, happy as can be that he is on the water again. What a strange fellow!!
We are traveling with Miss Nansea, a 55’ Fleming. They got a
head start by traveling to Mentor Harbor yesterday. We will meet them tonight
at Erie PA. Tomorrow we will get to the Welland Canal and Saturday we will go
through the locks.
Stay tuned for more adventures with Good Karma!
