2nd half December and January catch up

Blogs are hard, when you start getting behind, it is a lot of work to catch back up. That allows my procrastination to kick in full blast! Time to break to log jam.

Kyle, Laura and Lilly came down to the keys for a long awaited pre Christmas visit! It seams like forever ago!

Even Looe got into the cuddle time with Zoey!

We even caught some fish!

we caught allot of fish!

Blue runners (crab bait), kingfish, big yellowtail, cobia, and African pompano

Kyle kept trying to reel in a Goliath … they had other ideas

Can’t forget the food! Oysters oysters everywhere!

Whole mangrove snapper stuffed with crab and shrimp!

I won the big claw playing rock scissors paper

We also had the event. After we took that trip I called the fuel man to fill the boat up. “Bear” filled up the Parker, I looked in the bilge and raw fuel was pouring into the bilge.

Panic set in, and we ended up filling every container we could find and siphoned out about 45 gallons of fuel. That was enough to stop it leaking in the bilge. I spent the next bit cleaning out the bilge and venting everything out and getting the boat on the trailer..

I tore everything apart and could see some suspicious areas where it looked like the tank was leaking. A couple more tests proved it – the tank had a hole and had to go.

Unfortunately, the deck is solid (no deck hatch), so the only way to fix it is to cut the deck up and redo the floor…. and that is what we are up to now.

I am having the tank built by custom marine fuel tanks in ft lauderdale. 173 gallons, 3/16 aluminum, and epoxy coated. Deliver expected in 2 weeks.

I got a stringer diagram from Parker, and laid out the cut lines best as possible. note that we had to cut out the steps you use to get to the bow. That will be difficult to match nicely. Will tackle that hill when we get there!

This is the tank coffin. Full of foam and gassy water

There is the beast, 173 gallons of terror! I am so glad we got it out, especially with no unwanted explosions, RUDs (rapid unexpected disassembles) to quote Elon musk.

Here are the holes. About a 1/4 inch diameter clean through. There were a bunch of other deep pits lined up to fail next. that tank was definitely at the end of its life.

This brings us to now. Robin authorized me to get parts, so we went to ft lauderdale (pompano beach actually), and picked up the materials, and this weekend I turned the corner from tearing her apart to rebuilding!