Life on the hardstand and good progress

Our days roll by, measured by progress towards getting Envoy into the water.
We’ve just celebrated our 300th night on board, including 19 since we got back here.
Di & I have a lot of experience on boats, but never spent so much time living on a boat on the hardstand.
Brooke – you may find this interesting.
This marina is about the size of Half Moon Bay, but with many more boats on the hardstand – several hundred – ranging from 30ft to 120ft. Very few power boats – we estimate about 5%. The marina has 330t and 70t travel lifts operating flat out from 0900 to about 2000hrs.
There are no restrictions about people living on boats, either in the water or on the hard. If you’re in the water, you’re understandably not allowed to discharge sewerage (black water) overboard, but there seems to be no problem about shower and dish water (grey water), provided you don’t have too many soap suds. On the hardstand you cannot discharge anything overboard. During the day we walk the 100m to the toilet/shower block and during the night use a bucket. Our morning starts with me emptying the bucket at the toilet block. Di passes the bucket down the ladder to me and says, “whoops nearly dropped it on your head”. Some sense of humour! The toilets and showers here are superb – spotlessly clean and there’s always someone in there cleaning and scrubbing. Our dish water is emptied into the nearby garden. The marina water is safe to drink, but many folks choose to buy bottled water for drinking and use marina water for showers and dishes. No problems with power – 220v, and the marina electricians come and connect it for you. Lots of people have dogs and that’s not an issue here either. We were delighted on our return to find no evidence of any insects or rodents. We haven’t even seen a single ant on board, just a gecko in the cockpit. The marina has a nice bar, open most of the day until the wee hours (so they tell me), and a good restaurant open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There’s a dolmus (bus) to Marmaris township departing every 30 to 60 minutes, depending on time of day, for $5 return – about a 30 minute ride each way.
Ladders on boats on the hard are extremely dangerous and the marina workmen are very casual about them. You wouldn’t believe how many people suffer injuries falling off ladders in marinas. Last time we were here, a ladder against Envoy slipped and fell down. I grabbed the guy’s wrist and held him until help arrived (my wrist’s never been the same since!) When we arrived this time I lashed the top rung of the ladder up to Envoy and the bottom rung, back to Envoy’s keel, to stop the ladder slipping.
The marina requires all marine contractors entering the site to register with them, provide evidence of 3rd party insurance and sign an indemnity guaranteeing to pay for any damage caused by their actions. This is a fairly new requirement, resulting from two fires on boats caused by contractors. Contractors also have to pay the marina operators (meaning we, the customer has to pay) 15% commission for all work done in the marina.
There’s quite a social scene at the marina of organized morning teas, lunches, walks, tours to other parts of Turkey, happy hours etc. Di and I don’t really like taking part in these kind of “organized events” so have mostly kept clear of them.
Technical
Good progress! The re-sealing of the after bilge is completed, and then the new prop shaft was installed and the propeller re-fitted. This shaft is 50mm stainless steel and required a hole to be drilled through it to insert the cotter pin, which secures the prop. A Turkish worker spent 3 hours with a hand electric drill doing this hole. Of course, no safety glasses! The steering was then able to be re-connected (the rudder needed to be pushed hard over to get the prop shaft in).
We’ve got the diesel filtration system working and are busy filtering our on-board fuel. This is a system most pleasure boats don’t have. Most have a primary filter, like a Racor, and then a secondary on-engine filter. On Envoy we filter all fuel before it even gets to the primary filter, using a high-speed (450 litres/hr) pump with a two micron Racor filter (lengthy articles have been written about the correct micron rating of filters, but we’ve decided to use two). Then the diesel goes to the primary and secondary filters. It is often said that most diesel engine problems are fuel-related, and this system gives added protection. All equipment has now been checked and OK, except for a couple of “cigarette lighter” 12v outlets not working; these are always a problem, eh Frank. The main head has been re-installed (it was taken out to provide access to some hard-to-access thru hulls) and now we have our fresh water supply system operating. The bow thruster was not working. It turned out to be caused by the thruster’s dedicated battery bank being flat. A circuit breaker in the Guest cabin tripped, cutting power to the charger for the whole time we were away. These batteries are big mothers! So heavy that I found it difficult even to carry one end of a battery. Fortunately the young Demir Marine guys hauled them out of the anchor locker, charged them for a couple of days, checked the CCAs (cold cranking amps), found them to be OK and hauled them back up again. The prop is on and the bow thruster is all go. Everything now completed below the water line.
One unexpected problem is that the port fresh water tank leaks, quite low down, and when we tried to fill it, the water ended up in the bilges – a good test for the bilge pumps. We can’t access the tank except through a 300mm inspection port on the top. We’ve taken off the 10 nuts holding the inspection plate in place but we can’t prise it off at this point; hoping to get some help on this tomorrow. The starboard water tank has leaked for a while, but the leak was near the top. So while we’re doing one, we’ll repair them both.
Next week I’m getting Demir to help with inspecting our three engines (main Lugger, wing Yanmar and genset). We’ll change all filters and belts, re-install water pump impellers and do a general check. The marina doesn’t allow engines to be started on the hard, so we’ll have to hope the engine starts OK when we’re back in the water.
We have a date booked to go in the water – May 17, but it looks like we might be ready about 7-10 days before that, in which case we’ll try for an earlier launch. Once we are back in the water, there should only be about a week’s work, before we’re able to start cruising, as we’ve managed to complete many other small jobs in between the big ones.