Mid April I had a chance to take two clients to the Catalina Factory in Largo to look over the new Catalina 425 and since Caya is just 2 hours south in Fort Myers, it seemed like a good week to do some maintenance on the boat in anticipation of our late may -early June Dry Tortugas to Key West run.

I also had the factory build for me teak grates for the head and shower. An option that we have been ordering on new boats that I really like so I asked them about a set for Caya and they still had the patterns so they made them and I picked them up while there. Not cheap but they look great.

It'd been over 6 weeks since I was back since March is a busy boat selling month with a boat show and other events. So I had a long 6 weeks to get my list together and what needed to be done, ship stuff directly there to the marina so I didn't have to pack it etc.

So first on the list was installing a General Ecology Seagull Water Filter. I've sold a ton of these and they used to be an option on our new Pacific Seacraft boats. This is by far THE best water filter on the market. Not cheap at $650 but they will literally filter Mexican Tap water and they remove ALL the boat tank taste!

We had been hauling a lot of drinking water on trips to Caya and with the upcoming trip, it would be a lot easier to drink the water out of the tanks and not use so many plastic bottles.

This should have been a simple cut the 1/2" flexible hose to the galley sink and install a T to a 3/8" compression fitting. Well after two Rube Goldberg designs that the guys at Home Depot told me would work (and that I kept breaking the compression fittings), a third trip to HD and thinking about it over night for the second night I figured it out and got it installed. Even drilling the hole to the side of the galley sink was an issue. I wanted it on stb side but there is a dry storage bin on that side and after looking at it, there was not enough clearance. Port side would have to work but there was a drop bin trash can that also fit in that area and it had to clear that. In all what I thought would take me 3 hours, I had 10-12 in or as one of my Captain buddies told me, "that's just one boat hour (or all day!).

Other projects were getting some more fuel on board and I don't like the look of a 1 by 6 between the stanchions so I elected to do stainless tubing and the split jaw connectors for installing on the life line. Of course I measured all this the last time I was there, measured port side stanchions and realized the deck mounted adjustable pole is there after I got back home. Surely the stb stanchion distances are the same? Well they were not, they were a little longer. So the s/s poles I sent over in the mail were slightly short but long enough for the set screws to take.

Also not liking the look of big yellow jugs on deck, I'm opting to get a sunbrella cover made so I took over some plastic to make some sort of pattern and having North Canvas here in Kemah fabricate it. I'm sure it'll be the wrong size but it'll work. At least we will have an extra 36 gallons of fuel to add to our 39 gal tank.

The other projects list:
Change the joker valve in toilet-not done. I have the parts and it was "preventive maintenance" and do I really want to do that when it's not broke-No!

Change oil in genset- not done. Checked and I only have 47 hours since last oil change last Oct and it's not been a year yet. Besides I'd need to lose an instant 35 pounds to fit in that stern locker to do it. So at least I better check the oil and make sure nothing is leaking etc etc. So in thru the port aft deck locker I go and I'm all the way in, like my hand is against my face on top fo the gen set box so that I can reach the bottom rubber clips that hold the sound sheild on. And of course there is one on each side. I barely made it out.

The sound shield will come out that locker opening in the two halves. But the oil dipstick is at the stern and there is no way to do it from where I am. This is the last year Catalina made the stern step lockers open in the back. Someone thought later on they could let water in in a big stern wave- but it's never happened and Catalina took the locker lids on the transom out which is a shame because there is a ton of storage in there. For example on the stb side lockers I can put three 5 gallon jugs in there. But to get to this locker the outboard is hanging over it and the bigger issue is the dingy is hanging across the transom on the davits. So I have to lower the dingy in the water and in reality its easier to get in the dingy to reach in the locker to check the oil. All this to check the oil!?!? Yes because the dang gen is a Panda 4kw and it only takes one quart of oil. A thinner stronger guy could probably do this from the overhead cockpit locker but that thinner stronger guy is not me. Also cleaning the dingy was on the list so I had to lower it anyway.

So oil is fine and I start and run it for 30-40 mins under load sound sheild off and it runs fine (or course). So now to clean up the area some and reverse the process. I can get the sound sheild back on all all the rubber connectors except for one that I just can not pull hard enough at the absolute worse possible angle considering that I'm standing on my head, but I finally get it but only from doing it from the dingy. I should probably lose some weight.

It's happy hour which happens on my dock just about behind my boat every night so it looks like a good time to stop.
I didn't get every project done but the major ones I did and a lot smaller items as well.