Category Archives: Maintenance

Anacortes to Nanaimo

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phoenix at port of nanaimo

Phoenix tied up on the docks at the Port of Nanaimo.

We arrived in Nanaimo yesterday (Sunday) and are staying here today as well. We’re tied up at Port of Nanaimo, our choice of a place to tie up where Jim can do some work on our engine. We started out across Georgia Strait in the late morning yesterday, thinking we would take advantage of a brief weather window. But after a half hour or so, we noticed that our engine was running a little hot. We decided it would be better to get to a dock and check things out before we made a 15-mile crossing of a large body of water.

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Yikes! Lowering Our Mast

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mast_down01

When we lowered the mast, it came to rest in a horizontal position, with the top of the mast at the stern. This photo shows the tabernacle (bottom of the mast) that attaches on the fly bridge, the spreaders on the mast, and the Raymarine radar antenna. The top of the mast is to the right and out of the photo.

We’ve been boating long enough to know that our plans are always subject to change, and the key word is “flexibility.” We had hoped to be underway by now, but it’s taken longer than we expected to get things ready to travel. Some of our projects have taken longer than we planned…one was changing the bulb in our anchor light.

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Time to check on the boat

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m/v phoenix at Anacortes Marina

The sun finally broke through at the end of the afternoon and Phoenix looks good after sitting over the winter months. You don’t see the name on our boat because we removed the light boards (where the boat name appears) so we can bring the light boards home to apply a fresh coat or two of varnish.

Living in Central Oregon and managing a boat moored in Anacortes is a challenge in the winter. We try to make a few trips to Anacortes Marina during the winter months to run the boat’s systems and check to be sure all is okay. This year we haven’t been able to get away as often as we’d like, but this week we had a good weather window and headed for Anacortes.

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End of Season Wrap-up

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Cap Sante Marina September

Cap Sante Boat Haven glows on a sunny, calm late September day.

After our September cruising, we stayed on board Phoenix in Anacortes Marina to finish the annual exterior maintenance of waxing and polishing, and get the boat ready to sit over the winter. This year we were lucky to have the long stretch of dry weather continue through the rest of September and into October. Quite unusual for this time of year, and we were grateful that we didn’t have to dodge wet weather for our outside projects!

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Replace Webasto Thermostat

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original webasto thermostat

Our original Webasto thermostat failed in August, and couldn’t be fixed, so we had to order a new thermostat. This is the original one.

Our first maintenance job when we got back to the boat was to replace the thermostat for our Webasto heater. The thermostat failed in August when we left, and we determined it was old and couldn’t be repaired, so a replacement was needed. We ordered a new thermostat from Sure Marine, where we got the original unit, and we brought the new one with us when we came back to the boat in September.

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Back to the boat

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smith rock

We’re heading back to our boat! Shortly after we left Bend, we passed Smith Rock State Park on our way north on Highway 97.

After almost four weeks in Central Oregon, we finished the yard work at our house and returned to our boat in Anacortes Marina for some fall cruising. We had a good weather day for the 450-mile drive. Road construction and maintenance projects delayed us from time to time, but otherwise we had no complications.

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