cool day on sunday

[seapuppy]

on sunday morning I got up and had breakfast..then grabbed a shower and went to the boat...
I really needed to change the engine oil but hadn't had the time to getterdun!!...last weekend was insane with crazy weather and all...so..today was the day..

got to the boat and the water out in the sound was flat calm...a little breeze had kicked up, but nothing to really worry about...

had to prep the boat to get her in the water ..so..learning from my maxum...I opened the engine hatch and went to each engine...checked for any freezing parts..checked the drain plugs on the raw water pump...then put some lines out and fenders....I had the forklift get my boat and put her in the water....
the neat thing about where we boat is even in the dead of winter...we can get put in the water...
the tides were slack so it was easy to handle the boat by myself....got her put in the ways and lowered the drives and started the engines...it warmed up evenly and so..I figured I was really good to go....untied the lines and jumped onboard ...away I went when I slipped it into gear....man that felt good.....she was willing to run and do what I wanted.....
got the lines stowed and idled out of the no wake zone and thru the bridge trestle....about 25 yards past the trestle I saw some sorta wierd wake going on in the middle of the lane...so...to avoid it...I missed what ever it was...good thing...turns out it was a dead head just under the surface of the water and it looked like it was about 25 ft long and 15" in diameter!!....
once clear of the trestle I hit the throttles and she just jumped up on plane....I settled her down to 30 mph and I just ran to the everett marina and turned around to come back to dagmars.....as I was approaching Everett I saw a huge full grown Bald Eagle out on jetty island in a tree top....a few yards from me on one of those pilings was another full grown Bald eagle sitting there....and to beat it all....one full grown bald eagle flew within about 20 ft of me and wrapped around my stbd side...talk about awesome...

I turned the boat around and headed back to dagmars to pull her out and change the oil now that she was good and warmed up....

changing 1 engine is ok...but 2 is a bit of a challenge at times...I checked my spares and found I only had 1 filter....so...I had to run down to harbor marine to get one....and forgot one thing....went back to the boat and as I was getting things all set up..I looked down to the engine and realized I didn't have any oil absorbers....dang...back to harbor marine for some....
stopped off at a buddy of mine who was doing some work on his boat and asked if he needed anything at harbor...yep....needed some pencil zinc's....
got em and a fist full of oil diapers....went back to my boat after dropping off my buddy's zinc's...and started the process...

the oil bouy is awesome..I've had it for about 10 yrs and it still works great..
my boat has those hoses that connect to the oil pan and top mounted filters..
so..hooking up the oil bouy and started the vacuum process....while that was going on...I spun the oil filter with it wrapped with a oil absorber...the trick to not making a total disaster is to have a bag open and close by for the oil filter...wrap the underneath of the oil filter assembly..spin the filter and grab the absorber and wrap the filter in it as you spin it off the mount...then toss it in the open bag...absorber and all....then use another absorber to wipe up the oil on the mount...get it all ....even down the sides....

then install a new filter and listen for the sucking air sound of the oil bouy....install plug to the hose and rehang in it's place...add oil...all done...but do that times 2........

between running back and forth to harbor marine....and the boat....it took me about 4 hrs to change 2 engine's oil.......started about 11 and got done about 3pm.....all in all a very good day!!!

anytime on the boat is a good day!!...now I don't feel so bad about it being winter....I can be in the water with fresh oil in the matter of about 20 min....

now back to the grind...back to work tomorrow..