Wiser heads advised us that the secret of living aboard is to accomplish one thing before noon each day. A shower counts.

There's a lot of activity on a boat. But did we really accomplish anything?

The blurry picture above may be an accomplishment. It's a proper (working) engine block drain fitting. All the expensive (and poisonous) anti-freeze was carefully drained into buckets (and old jugs and anything handy). The cooling system disassembled so that the new alternator belts could be assembled, and the coolant carefully poured back into the engine.

Barely visible is the edge of the new Balmar 712-110 alternator that will replace the old Motorola 8MR2018K. We're talking about doubling the alternator output from 55A to 110A. By adding a smart regulator (the Balmar ARS-5) we hope to improve the time-to-charge even more by pushing the charge right to the battery's limit. A Balmar temperature sensor (MC-TS-B) is part of the plan for minimizing engine run time.

Since the alternator doesn't actually work—it isn't even connected—maybe this brass fitting doesn't count for much.

Meanwhile

Under the galley floorboards, CA rebuilt parts of the fresh water system.

She took out a complicated bit of plumbing that involved a lot of hose clamps and oversized hose band-aids.

She replaced it with a SHURFlo RV 210BRB in-line water filter and two simple stretches of ½" hose.

While our tanks are pretty clean (the Port Water Tank is sparkling clean), it's a real comfort to have a proper filter to eliminate the those bits of grit that are part of a large aluminum tank filled with chlorinated dock water.

Those seem to be real accomplishments.

Since this is a vacation week, we'll open a bottle of red, sit in the cockpit and watch the sun set.

Tomorrow we'll look into finishing the alternator installation. Maybe we'll get to the point where we can start the engine to be sure it all works.