Frolic gets some Upgrades

There comes a time in every boat’s life when upgrades need to be made to accommodate the owner’s lifestyle. With the parts for the water maker aboard it was time to do some upgrades to Frolic. We unpacked and set out the parts we had received and examined the instructions. Man that is a lot of parts and still more were needed! I figured 3 days to assemble and install the water maker.

That's alot of parts! and it isn't all yet

Will this all fit in here?

 

 

 

 

 

pass me the instructions please!

Hey! it looks pretty good!

 

 We also needed to order a 2KW generator to power it. Well, after a couple days of talking to the dealer, Mayberrys in NJ, and Tropical shipping we ordered it. The generator took 2 weeks to get to us. In the meantime the 3 day project became 8 days as I hadn’t counted on 3 days of traveling around to get various plumbing parts and fasteners. Of course when you are anchored in clear calm water off a beautiful sand beach next to an airport, one can get distracted watching the planes come and go and porpoises swim by, so production is not extremely proficient.

It has to mean good luck today!

It's a busy place and fun to watch

 

During one of our forays we went to get a drink and do Wi Fi at one our favorite places, Hubbly Bubbly, only to find them dismantling it. Apparently landlord demands became excessive and, unbeknown to us, two days earlier they had a last day party, which about 500 people showed up for, and closed. 

Kelly and Leslie talk as they disassemble the Hubbly Bubbly

 Also in the middle of the project during our normal maintenance time, we found the port raw water pump was frozen which entailed 2 hours to remove it and a trip to Crown Bay to get a new one, $300.00! The new one’s metal mounting bracket and belt shield was untreated! So we disassembled it, painted it, and reassembled it before the 2 hour reinstallation. 

This is $300!!

Get in there you bum!! Ahrrrr!

Now after a week the water maker is assembled and installed, but when I test it running off our inverter the 15A breaker on the new electrical panel keeps tripping after about 2 seconds of the motor running. This means another hour trip by Safari bus to Budget Marine for a 20A breaker and an hour back. After I install the new breaker it holds, but the motor starts to vibrate a bit after a couple of seconds so we will see how it runs with the generator. The generator came in and we test the water maker. After tightening a few leaky connectors I notice water dripping from a hairline crack in the pressure vessel. A call to the dealer reveals we are missing the support bolts for the pressure vessel. Now we wait for the support bolts and new pressure vessel.

The generator is in!

Leslie varnishes the cabinets

In the meantime a second upgrade starts. Leslie has found a cabinet she likes at Home Depot to replace the bench at the inside table. This eliminates an ugly bench and adds more cabinet storage space. So it’s another Safari bus to Home Depot, but a taxi back with the cabinets and a careful dinghy ride to the boat with the new cabinets where they were sealed with varnish before we start the installation. Cutting out the old bench proves to be tough and we go through all the blades of the multi-tool and another trip to Home Depot is in the offing.

Before the upgrade

The bench is out at last!

One cannot work all the time so one night we walked up the hill from the beach to the University of the Virgin Islands amphitheater and watched Cirque Zuma Zuma. It was a great show with circus like performances.

Leslie looks good in bubbles

she is quite the hulla hooper

unbelievable!

One of the beach bars at Honey Moon

The pig roast begins

  Then one Sunday after church we went to Honeymoon Beach for a pot luck pig roast. It is a great beach with swing ropes for kids, bars at each end of the beach for adults and horse shoes for the adventuress. It was fun, but there was no work that day

 We also decided to upgrade the main sheet and halyard winch to an electric winch and order it. Unfortunately we were informed it is back ordered until the end of March, so we can look forward to another upgrade period.

Ahhh Life is good!