Jane and Gene showed up in Grenada this morning. Chico and I picked them up and gave them a tour of the South side of the island as they were here only for a few hours. I think they may come back for a hotel room and a longer stay some time in the future. It was awesome and they are bringing a couple chocolate bars back to the USA to send to Sandy and Ashley (Sandy thinks she knows chocolate but has never tasted the world's best made here in Grenada). After a tour of the spices and the Grand Etang, we had lunch at Umbrellas on the beach. This is the first burger I've had in a long time. It was SWEET!!! Blue cheese and all was woofed down quickly with a couple of beers serve on island time… and I'm still burping the blue cheese. That was my first time at Umbrellas on the Grand Anse beach - Nice pub on the beach and it has a bigger menu that I thought it would have. Here is a picture of Jane and Gene looking at the falls in Annandale.

This weekend Gene and Jane are stopping in to visit and we will go for a Chico tour of the island and lunch.
I have a few small projects to work on before we start moving north for high season. The plan is to make it up to Martinique and hang there for a month or two getting fat on French food before heading back down to Grenada for the 2019 Hurricane season.

For my birthday a bunch of fellow boaters joined Cinco, Jupiter and I at Whisper Cove for Pizza. It was fun. Here is the main gang… and the following picture is of the folks at the end of the table. About 20 of us in total. This was a great way to end a very windy rainy day. Lucky for us the rain stopped about an hour before and it didn't rain for the rest of the night.

Taffy's had a party last Friday. I wore a business suit…. I didn't win a prize cause Gary was in a Tux and he won for the best dressed man. Here are a few nice photos. Vee and Silvio are awesome as the Munsters and the horse is really cool. Then there is the German group followed by Gary the Sax player and his wife Vanessa.

Today was one of those days. A few days ago, I fired up the Engine and it overheated in a few minutes. So I cut off the engine and let it cool down over night. The next day I opened the sea strainer to find it clogged with black fiber stuff and the weld on the SS strainer was dissolved. So I remove the strainer and cleaned it. I went to Island Water World and got a new Nylon strainer basket (I replaced all the other strainers with Nylon about two years ago when I rebuild all of the strainers except the Engine strainer since it was in good condition). After replacing the strainer I checked the coolant level, it was good, only needed about 1 pint of coolant. Next was the impeller, it was not good. In June the impeller was is great condition, now only one blade left. So change the impeller and inspect the head exchange head for impeller parts get it all back together and start the engine… All is good.
Yesterday was the day to service the rest of the engine, oil, filters, etc. All went well.
Today was the morning to work on the shower sump pump. It was drawing in air so not pumping as it should. Hum, I cleaned the prefilter that was clogged with dog hair (I wander how that got there?) and try again. Still sucking in air and not water. So next was to open the prefilter and make sure I could use a plunger on the shower drain. Plunger is pushing and sucking water as it should so now I need to remove the input line to the pump and see if the pump is working. While trying to remove the input line the barbed (nylon) nipple broke leaving the threaded part in the pump — Not good.
Now I have to remove the pump. No problem removing the output hose (after the through hull is closed) and cut the wires and try to unscrew the based. The pump is original so it is over 20 years old and where it sits, salt water will flow from the anchor locker on its way to the bilge sump. The screws are rusted. Will a little effort I got 3 of the screws removed but could not remove the other even with an impact driver. So I cut the rubber bushing and remove the pump that way.
I have a spare pump (I have lots of spares). I pulled out the spare pump, swapped the motor and then went to the local shop to see if they have any fitting. No such luck. So I get back to the boat and use one of the old fitting with the new pump. Get everything hooked up, wired and bolted down. Test — No such luck, still sucking air. So I pulled the input hose off the pump and attached another hose to a 5 gal bucket of water. Flip the switch and within a few second the 2 gallons of water I had in the buck has been pumped out. So the pump works.
Now I disconnected the prefilter and in the process one of the hose barbs breaks inside the spare pump. So now both pumps have the threaded ends of nylon hose barbs broken inside. I also found the the prefilter hose barb is crushed (most likely my source of air).
On Friday morning after I rest, I'll try to use a rectangle file to remove the nylon threaded part of the barb from the pumps and head out to Island Water World to see if I can get a new prefilter, some 12-10 electrical connectors, BRASS barb fitting and a new section of 3/4inch vacuum hose since the hose where the prefilter was crushed is likely damaged and there is no room to cut off a few inches. I'll have to replace the entire hose from the shower drain to the prefilter and then to the pump.
I also found out that my Buffalo router is no longer sold to USA cause of a patent dispute with Canada… I'll have to find another one to replace it.
It's time for a big ice cube and a couple shots of rum.