Today we were up early and got right to work. Christi scraped barnacles off the metal on the underside of the boat for 7 hours. It was infinitely easier to scrape most of the metal out of the water than in. The exception was the stabilizer keel cooler, which is equally hellacious both in and out of the water. Christi found barnacles in every crack and crevice, including places that she hadn’t even realized existed. She was shocked to find that several of the barnacles stuck to the top of the main engine keel cooler were bigger than American half dollar coins. It is amazing that the keel coolers continue to work just fine despite the barnacles.

Eric’s first task of the day was to change the drive belt on the main engine. He thought it was going to be extremely difficult, since it meant taking off the other alternator belts and covers to get at the drive belt. He was pleasantly surprised to find it only moderately difficult because he was able to do the job without removing the lower belt cover. To remove the lower cover would mean disconnecting a coolant hose, which would be no fun, but possible since the coolant was drained. He removed the second alternator cover and the upper drive belt cover, then was able to pull the loosened belt through the hole in the lower belt cover. The belt has an auto-tensioner, and it had to be loosened. He used his longest torque wrench, which fit into the ½ inch tensioner and had plenty of leverage to remove tension on the belt. The tensioner was bumping up against the engine rail, so it was not possible to get it as loose as desired, but it was enough to get the belt off and on though.

The second task was to change the main engine coolant. This is a job that can only be done when the boat is in dry-dock (out of the water). It is a multi-part job, but he expected it to be fairly straightforward. The first step was undoing the external drain plug in the keel cooler shot a torrent of coolant at high pressure. Eric was standing under the keel cooler with a large bucket ready, but coolant was hitting the bucket with such force that it splashed out of the bucket and totally covered him with it. The second step was in the engine room. You need to drain coolant from the engine block drain and exhaust manifold drain. The manifold one is easy to get at and Eric had a funnel and tube ready. But on the block drain, it was harder to catch all the coolant before it hit the floor. Third, the drains and another vent need to be bleeded to remove the air from the system as the fresh coolant is being put in. This was a bit slow. A lot of air built up, and the system overflowed with coolant long before it was expected, and more coolant hit the floor. Removal of the air was finally complete, and new coolant is now in the engine. Not really a big deal, just it was messier than expected. Fortunately, the floor was covered with absorbent pads.

Eric also changed the aft-plate sacrificial zinc, starboard plate zinc, shaft line cutter zinc, port kelp cutter zinc, both bow thruster zincs, and the wing engine propeller zinc, all jobs that are much easier out of the water.

We pulled all of the chain out of the locker and Eric washed it. Finally, Eric pulled out a polishing attachment on a drill and smoothed some of the metal Christi had scraped.

Meanwhile, we had a crew of four people waxing the boat and polishing the metal. We also had the marina make us a new kelp cutter for the port stabilizer, which they installed today, too. Ours had fallen off recently.

In the evening, we went to Bodrum for dinner. We pulled out of the boat yard and were quite surprised to find a behemoth of a yacht sitting in the middle of the road, blocking traffic. They were clearly trying to get it in or out of one of the neighboring boat yards and appeared to be stuck. Oddly enough, there was a crew of people breaking the road around the boat up. Bizarre.

We found a detour and continued on. Yesterday we forgot to mention that there are some spectacular views along the waterfront on the drive from Icmeler to Bodrum.

We also forgot to mention that parking is difficult there. The roads are narrow, so there is very little room on the streets to park. We found a parking lot and pulled in. We were amazed at the crazy parking system they have in this lot (and we suspect, many like it). The pile the cars in three and four deep, then when someone wants to leave, move all the cars blocking them in. Literally every inch of space is taken with cars, except for an unbelievably narrow driveway through the lot. They have an uncanny ability to see parking spaces in places that would have never in a million years crossed our mind as a parkable space. They get high marks for creativity and ingenuity.

At dinner we tried a vegetarian dish. It was grilled eggplant and mushrooms, smothered in a spicy tomato sauce and accompanied with a yogurt sauce. The contrast of the cool yogurt sauce was perfect with the spicy tomato. It was good.