We went down to the boat yesterday. The goal was to get a few things taken care of in terms of winterizing the boat. Change the oil, run all the antifreeze out of it, inspect for the next thing on the repair list, etc.

Oil change was a no-brainer, but when we started it up to run it for a while to run the antifreeze out of it, it appeared, and I vaguely remember this from last year, that there was an air bubble in the cooling system. It spat out a bit of the winter pink stuff, but then stopped, and the exhaust alarm went off, so we shut it down. We ran out of time to deal with it yesterday, so I attacked it this morning. One approach is to open the cap on the heat exchanger and fill it to the brim with coolant (or water, since we’re seawater-cooled), and run the engine some more, hoping that helps to fill the cavity and create the suction needed to get it flowing.

So sure, I did that, and then realized I didn’t have enough battery juice to get a start. It wasn’t holding a charge up to the level needed to generate a charge. So I went down into the battery box and popped the cells open. Sure enough, the fluid levels were low. Fortunately we had saved some distilled water aboard just for that. I topped up the cells with distilled water, reassembled everything and turned things back on. Quickly the system was able to charge the batteries beyond the required level for starts. Only now, the starter won’t even engage. Perplexing.

I remember when we installed the batteries last year that a loose connection generated the same type of failure. Going back down there last year and checking and tightening the battery connections resolved the problem last year. Not today. I checked them all, they didn’t move. I tightened them all, and still just a click on the start, no turnover. We ran out of time because of our plan to head home, but now we’re two tasks in the hole. We need to get the starter to turn over and then watch to make sure the air bubble is gone from the cooling system.

Meanwhile, last night around dinnertime, a crazy storm blew through Irvington, bringing heavy winds, sideways rain and frequent lightning. We headed over to Thai Pot for dinner just as the storm hit the club. We had already closed down the boat for the duration. Nice Thai dinner, and by the time we got back the storm was gone and the water was still as glass.

This morning it was still again, and look at all the pollen that had been dumped on the still creek.