Jennie and I have been busy these past few days. Yesterday we got our EPIRB from Daytrex in Jacksonville. One of our readers recommended these guys, and I must say this was great advice. These guys are great, we got a sweet deal on the EPIRB because of the Miami boat show going on, plus they loaded us up with stuff for our ditch bag. 

When a life raft is re certified, they take everything out, and put new stuff in it. This includes flares, first aid kits, and lots of other survival gear. The expiry dates of all the new stuff have to be good for the three to five year recertification. What this means is they have tons of one or two year to expiry survival gear. We fitted our ditch bag with pretty much everything a life raft has in it.. for free!

Then we went and provisioned, we filled a shopping cart full, and were surprised at how low the bill was. In Canada it would have easily been three or four times that price. We also stopped buy and loaded up on fuel and oil filters. Now we have enough for five or six changes. With an old diesel it's a good idea to change the oil frequently.

Today I worked on the motor a little. I changed the oil in about 10 minutes. The motor has a built in hand pump to clear out the old oil, and accessibility to the filter is superb. I changed the fuel filter too, this is where we get to an issue. Priming the fuel system is a pain. I talked to an old USCG mechanic in the yard and he recommends initialling a small hand pump before the primary filter to prime the primary filter. Off to the auto parts store. Apparently this will really help if the filter gets clogged in rough seas and an emergency change needs to be done. 

There are always lots of projects to be done, but we go into the water tomorrow!!!!