The first 10 steps of winterization seem to require lots of discussion of what the steps should be during the months of September, October, and November. Every once in awhile, one of us actually refers to the CARVER manual. Funny thing, those little issues you experienced during the summer are now cropping up during the winterization routine. Why did some CARVER engineer decide to place that thing over there instead of where it should be in the diagram? Do they just assume that everybody wants to stand down in the engine room for hours tracing things?

About half of the first 10 steps involve trips to the boat to actually perform some of the work because it seems like a very nice day to perform these duties...hmmm, why is it that all 5 of those trips ended up with us at the wall at Georgetown? The next 10 steps to winterization entailed making 10 separate trips to West Marine and Boat US - lucky for us we have both to waste our money in. I love the fact that neither West Marine nor BoatUS actually carry ANYTHING for diesel engines or generators, or that we could not have an intelligent conversation about what to order because they could not understand that it does NOT matter that the boat is a CARVER 444 and that their little computer application does not even list CARVER as a boat manufacturer, but it matters a LOT that they are CUMMINS 370B diesels and an ONAN generator and requires part number 999999 or an equivalent. BUT they had 50 million bottles of pink anti-freeze. About the time that I was ordering a case of oil filters and fuel filters online, I could think of 50 million things to do with that pink anti-freeze without it even leaving the store.

Finally the winterization begins - this plug isn't in the right vantage point, another hose clamp won't turn now that it hasn't been turned in 9 months, and amazingly the thru-hull seacocks and engine oil drain plugs are at the bottom of the engine (who knew???) requiring 9 foot long arms as the oil changers don't actually work on this because it won't pump out one tiny drop of oil, and a need for exactly 60 pounds of torque on one thing and exactly 24 pounds of torque on something else. Do we even know what torque is or did somebody come up with this so that you have to hire some type of marine expert who says just turn it until it stops?

And each activity seems to require 5 more trips to West Marine or Home Depot to buy or create some kind of tool to accomplish this one feat. Geez, whose bright idea was it to perform the winterization ourselves because gee, how hard could it be to put antifreeze in anything that can freeze? Well, that would be the same stupid captain that bought that $500 engine room heater.

Ten cases of pink stuff later and we have the water system, sanitation system, and air conditioning / heat system winterized, but still trying to figure out if we could possibly teach the three year-old how to get under that engine and unscrew that plug!!!!