Moondancerx's BIG adventure

We woke up early this morning, before the wind got up, took a couple of pictures of Moondancer in the water - 'yawn' and then made ready to leave Amazon's mooring and come around to Msida Marina. It looks good for space in here now for the next couple of months. We'll wait until Monday to check in officially, as we want to deal with the manager, not his staff. Where we are on the quay is very ice, there are trees and flowers and birds singing and people walking by, stopping to admire our lovely home, and some stop to talk which Tony loves, and our new friends dropping by to welcome us. After a few months in the yard this is very welcome. Tomorrow there will be a barbeque on the dock for all of the liveaboards in the marina who want to come. We look forward to getting to know our neighbours. So, a couple more pictures of Moondancer and then - well whatever the next phase brings.

This morning we woke up thinking things should be o.k. But alas, they were not.We tried to start the engine but it only ran for a short period. Yesterday we tried bypassing the racor filter and that seemed to work for a while. So maybe it's time to check the forward tank to see if there is micro crap inside. We pumped out 25 gallons into our jerry cans and found some crap but not enough to warrent our problem. so after cleaning the tank and then pouring the fuel back into the tank via a baha filter which has 3 screens to filter out crap and then down to sludge and water, this must be the cure! O.k. Nancy turn over the engine. Yea it's running. Then quit again! Is it time to call a mechanic. Nancy say's maybe we should bleed it some more. I say we've tried that.By this time we both are ready to call it quits. I say "i want to try one more thing" i disconnect the fuel lines from the forward tank and the aft tank which connect to a ball valve. We open it up and...

I've posted the pictures in a smaller format which takes less time to download. To view them larger just double click on the picture.

So you may be sick of these pictures by now, but we have put so much work into making Moondancer look good, that we have to show the evidence. Here are a couple of cockpit pictures. We are more optimistic about the engine situation. It seems to be fuel that's the problem. We did an experiment yesterday and by-passed the raycor filter. By doing so the engine ran for a couple of hours at low revs. We did a bit of research on bio growth in the fuel and the fuel we emptied out of the raycor filters showed small sludgey particles which we think is bio growth. So we bought a product - a very expensive product which we put into the tanks which is supposed to kill the bio growth and absorb it. As suggested we gave the tanks a shock treatment - which means put it all in - and today we are going to try again. We are hoping to go into the marina today - if there's room.

So those videos were then and this is now - Wednesday evening on the same day at 8.45We're in the water, we motored out of the sling out into the bay and got about 10 boat lengths before the engine died. One of those deaths that usually means fuel starvation caused by something simple. We coasted up to a mooring, which incidentally happens to belong to a classic old converted steamship called Amazon who we met in Bermuda. They aren't here but we are. Tony managed to steer her up to the mooring without the engine and we grabbed it and have been tied to it all day. We've worked most of this day changing fuel filters, twice for the racor and one for the primary, pulled off fuel lines to check they are clear, which they are, and have not reached a conclusion. The engine sometimes runs for a short while gulping a bit of fuel and then stops. The bowl at the bottom of the racor filters have been full of muck, which sounds like we have a batch of dirty fuel. But we did a few...

Today's the day we go back in to water. Everything all prepared and ready to go. It feels like ages since we have been swaying about!

Actually we know exactly where it went. We have worked and worked and worked on our home, MoonancerX and it sure has paid off. She looks gorgeous, better than she has ever looked since we've owned her, not to mention some of the underwater issues that we have found, and dealt with properly. She has 4 coats of paint on her hull, the cockpit is completely scraped, sanded and cetolled with the recommended 3 coats. Our living quarters right now look like hell and its hard to move around because so much of the 'stuff' that usually lives up on deck and in the cockpit is stored down below. Anyway here are some pictures of her from the outside, we'll post cockpit pictures later.

The wall on which this was carved was entirely strafed with bullet holes. The royal Artillery was my father's regiment. I wondered as I stood there if he had also stood in the same place as a young gunner.

Living on the Hard in Malta It has been brought to my attention that my blog entries have been tardy of late. Actually they’ve been non-existent. Could that be indicative of how interesting our new life in this boat yard is? Yes it could appear that way, but our in-communicability has been very frustrating, and we have been working very hard on MoondancerX. When we got a good look at her on our return from Canada/England we thought she looked very sad and shabby, and the initial chore which in itself was major – scraping and re-finishing all of her woodwork, has now turned into a mammoth task. We are now re-painting her entire hull aswell. And when all that’s done before we return her to the water we’ll give her a couple of coats of bottom paint. Painting the hull has incurred lots of preparation work, and locating the paint a lot of leg work. So during these days of hard physical labour, where are upper bodies are either being built up to gargantuum proportions OR just wrecke...

Here are a couple of videos which we found recently after our return from Canada and England. A very unfortunate thing happened to most of the pictures we took. The C-drive on our computer filled to the point where it would take no more - and while transferring the entire My Pictures file over to D-drive I lost some. Fortunately the videos were still in the camera, I had not cleared them out. So here they are - Playing pool with Nadine and Lorne in Canada, and fishing with brother Mick and Ann in England. Sorry that I could not furnish more pictures, there are a few on webshots which I put there before losing the files.