The Power of Suggestion

Seems that the to do list is going slowly mostly due to laziness on the part of the bilge coolie, that would be me. We have been busy on the list thus have not gone sailing yet. The bag for the new mainsail came in a bit short so the sail maker is making another one for us. That will be about three weeks. The other two projects under way now are the toe rails and the engine maintenance. The former was rained out today so I started replacing all the hoses on the engine. I did most of them and decided to let the other stay in service a bit longer. The other item on the engine list was a cooling system flush. I started that and noticed that we were getting bubbles in the coolant recover tank and not a small amount of them at that. Boys and girls, that is not a good sign.

The other day, I asked a mechanic to look at some things I thought above my pay grade. He casually asked if I had ever had the head bolts reset. No, says I. Says he: "you might want to think about that since over time they stretch and that would allow combustion gases to leak into the cooling jacket". That was three days ago. Today, that is exactly what's happening. So, here how it goes: either a simple reset of the head bolts will solve the problem or we are looking at a new head gasket. The difference is about a grand. Duh, I would prefer what's behind door number one. We should know the fate of old wheezer in a day or so once the engine guru comes by. This is one I may be able to do myself but lacking the proper tools and motivation, methinks I will just read along in my service manual as the pro does it. So much for the cruising kitty budget.

Bear is getting back to her normal self, whatever that is and is feeing way better than a few days ago.

Scurv is sporting a new haircut and now looks more like a Schnauzer than a Westie. The beard and long eyebrows make him look like an old grumpy man in a dog suit.