Music, Friends, & Repairs - Must Be Boating!

 

Duende Libre live at Dimitrious Jazz Alley.   An unexpected delight as I was unaware of them.   The were on the billboard for Jazz Alley, we were in town, so we went.  Wonderful Jazz.

In case you were unaware, I'm kind of nutty about a few things.   Boats, Wine, Food, People, Music, & Music Reproduction, in no particular order. 

So, a quick jaunt to AXPONA in Chicago to meet with some audio equipment manufacturers, e.g. Pure Audio Project's founder, Ze'ev and a few others.  I really like his speakers!   Dollar for quality, there were tops at the show (there were reported to be over 1,100 vendors in 900 listening rooms.

I thought this diffuser was cool looking.

We heard a demo in this room with RD Acoustics anti-vibration footers.  They took a Streamer/DAC and had it resting on the floor.  Then they would pick it up and put it on their little footers.   They then played the exact same Phil Collins song (and a few others) and ... the difference in the sound was amazing (the vocals were much more pronounced and clearer, the highs were more open, the drumming was more impactful, and the bass more controlled).  Even Karen was shocked at the difference (and improvement) the little footers made.  No explanation for it, but we sure could her the difference.   Weird.

Here we are bleary eyed on the 4:45am flight back to Seattle...

Dinner last night with Dana & Brent at Oyster and Thistle in La Conner.  Great people, lovely dinner, and deep conversations.  Perfect!

Shameless plug for Brent & Dana.   They own WavePoint Marine in Anacortes and Brent is an EE & ABYC certified and a master of all things electrical/electronic on boats.   If you need electronics, Brent is the guy.   He has helped me change to Li batteries, Victron inverter chargers, Garmin & Furuno nav systems, fixed grounding problems, ELCI problems, and numerous other electrical issues aboard.   Brent does the work the right way - no one has ever complained that he did something wonky or weird.

And today, we lunched with friends, Arleigh & Mark at J&L BBQ in Everett.   Mark was my roommate in college.   We make it a point to visit with Mark every time we are in town, Arleigh too.

What would boating be without a little unplanned maintenance?   Karen was smelling propane.   Hmmm, not good.   I shut the system down and aired out the boat.   The protocol is to spray soapy water all over the connections in an attempt to spot the bubbles indicating a leak.  I learned 2 things.   One is that my soapy water needed to be about 50/50 mix to be soapy enough to reveal the telltale bubbles.   The second thing is that my manifold was all loose.   Since it's all bolted down, I don't know how it could loosen over the winter.

I disassembled the manifold, cleaned it, reassembled it, tightened the heck out of it, reinstalled it - and it leaked even worse than before.  Great.   So, I took it apart again, cleaned everything carefully, watched a couple of YouTube videos on how to make leak-proof gas connections and discovered that you use both yellow PFTE tape (3-4 wraps) AND PFTE Pipe Thread Compound.   I always thought it was one or the other, but no - use both!

I also discovered that my regulator was leaking propane, so off to the store to get a new one.   If it’s not one thing, it’s another….  Reassembled everything and no leaks (so far).

That meant, we got to cook and eat aboard tonight.  Yea!

G'Night, All...