Graffs - Week of May 14,

Threatening May weather kept the house boat on the slip but we ventured a day outing to the Escalante River arm at mile marker 68 and another to the end of Antelope for some hiking and paddelboarding.  We found lots of fun side canyons in Escalante to explore and we will go back and spend more time later.  An afternoon storm left us rescuing a paddle boarder and her dog, sheltering at the Antelope Marina for an hour or so and observing a swamped boat being towed in.  The Castlerock cut off was closed but the water is rising about four inches per day.

We found the look and feel of the  new flooring, paint, window coverings, etc. to have a nice refreshing feel.  Thank you Mike and Bart for the tremendous efforts you have made for us.

There is a lingering odor coming from the small bathroom and we haven't been able to figure out why its occurring.  Keeping the door closed seems to keep it contained.  We'll need to keep working on that.

We need to keep an eye on the front HVAC unit.  It appears to have a slow leak and may need to be replaced sometime soon if it begins failing again during the season.  The cost will be about $4,000.

We started and ran the engines for a bit to keep them limber.  The starboard side was somewhat testy to get started.  We found that each repeated engagement of the starters needs to go through the cycle of turning on the ignition switch then waiting for the squeal to sound (indicating that fuel has been pumped to the injectors) before engaging the starter.  It's tempting to re-engage the starter without waiting for the squeal.

When departing please remember to shut off all propane tanks and set the refrigerators to AC or auto detect mode.

All in all a good trip.  Happy boating this season and please post a little to the blog each trip to keep us all informed.  It would also be great if we would all update the calendar with trades and periods of non-use to facilitate maintenance scheduling and overall awareness.  If wrangling the calendar is too much, send me an email with your info and I'll post the updates.

Yours,

The Graffs.