Tarpon Springs

 We had a nice drive today to Tarpon Springs. It's

about 30 miles north of St Petersburg straight up hwy 19. We stopped at this nice sponge shop and I bought some Greek soap and olive oil lotion.

    

We also had lunch at Hellas a nice Greek restaurant, they have a great Bakery. We couldn't pass up the Baklava ....it was delicious!  I also took a picture of the sponge docks....where the few boats that still sponge dive tie up.  It was a really nice day.
Warren is going to change all the fuel filters ......( which I mentioned weeks ago)  and he hopes this might help with  the RPM problem. We'll try the easiest things first.  I am keeping my fingers crossed :) I
I am still waiting for something to go easy. Warren says if it was easy we wouldn't appreciate it. HA HA
                                                   


Hellas



Sea Trial

The sea trial was short......Very low RMP and 20 degrees to hot. Now Warren is researching what is causing this. So we'll be here!  The weather is great 86 degrees and blue skies. We are taking a drive up to Tarpon Springs tomorrow to get a RTS, (remote temperature sensor) for the batteries. This will keep them from over charging. I'll show some pic's of Trapon Springs, here is a brief low down. Tarpon Springs Sponge Industry helped build a Greek Community that is now famous not only for the worlds finest sponges, but for some of the finest Greek Restaurants, Markets, and Bakeries in the Country.
 This will be a good break from the boat. Did I say Warren is getting frustrated.........just a little :)

We found it!!!!

We are almost ready to start sea trials and what should happen??  The beast of "one step forward, and two steps backwards" rears it's ugly head.  After getting the battery box ready for the new batteries, I repositioned a bunch of wires, installed a new fuse for the engine starter and just tidied up the area from the mass confusion of existing wiring from previous owners.  In the process I removed a grounding wire for the fuse box, reinstalled it and didn't get it back tight enough, thus causing the refrigerator to go into ground fault mode.  It has taken me a week to track down the faulty ground and then when I found it, it wasn't the wire I was looking for.  Lucky me for touching all the ground wires on the buss bar and finding it.  So far tonight, the fridge has worked without going into the fault mode and the batteries are keeping up with the load.  A few more nights with it working like this  and we'll call it good.  You should have seen Kathy do the "We found it!" dance.  Hilarious!  I do need to take some kind of electrical course so I can at least tell my butt from applebutter. :)  Just a couple more things that are safety concerns to complete then its on to sea trials.
TTFN

New Batteries

The batteries are in, we have to monitor them to make sure they are charging and everything in working right. Warren feels very weak in the electrical department, he his still having a few issues with the start battery. He says he is retired so he's not going to work around the clock.  He wants to enjoy working on the boat.  He just said he is having a blast. I wish I was:)
Now that it is getting late in the season, we are thinking of just sailing in the Keys this summer.
It will help build our confidence and we will still be near things if anything doesn't work right. I really really hope we can do some sea trials sooooon!!!!!!!

The Auto Pilot is DONE!!!!

Everything has finally come together and Warren is done with the Auto Pilot .  The picture to the right shows the control panel....which almost became another whole story of  its own. 
Now we have just two more things to do ..Wait for Warrens spare glasses to come in and fix the battery problem. We had to break down and buy some new ones. We drove to Miami Friday, it's the only place in Florida to get Rolls batteries. They are the best deep cycle batteries on the market. When we got back to the boat we saw that one appears to have a small leak. So now we need to drive back to Miami and exchange it. 

He also finished the swimming platform!!!  Here a quick picture of Warren attaching the ladder that is used to exit the water. As you can see, it's a beautiful day, 80 degrees and clear skies.  Boy am I glad we are here and not in Fairbanks where it's only 36 degrees.