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ScarabChris

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Posts posted by ScarabChris

  1. I never knew these existed until I saw a banner ad here. It was like a bright light at the end of a tunnel because my boat has a cup holder problem. Its a great boat but came with zero cup holders and no place to really put them other than the suction cup type which I hate.

    I do have 3 nice stainless steel cup holders on the back of the lean post backrest. But three isn't enough on my boat as its used more for family/friend cruising and partying then fishing.

    I hooked up with Merritt Marine Supply to get the rod/cup holders. They had the best price and they were a great group of guys to deal with.

    While I was at Merritt I opened one of the rod holders. These things are nice! They weigh 3 times what the standard Lee's holders do that came out of the boat. They are super high polished all welded 316 welded stainless steel. The work is so good you can't even see the welds.. It looks like one solid piece. And every rod holder comes with a beer coolie....with the manufacture logo of course.

    I started taking pictures half way through the project. Here are the holes opened up...

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    This is the difference in hole size from a regular Lee's holder. You are only removing a 1/4" around the existing hole. I don't see a major concern here.

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    Installed, holding my ice water, its about 100 degrees today. And these cup holders will be in perfect arms reach when the rear seat is in place.

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    This is my console. I don't want drinks on the top. They would be right in my line of sight. And you can't sink flush mount cup holders because of the plexi glass door that slides up under the top of the console.

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    I fabricated this angle base for a flush mounted cup holder. There is only room for one and it is for the captains drink.

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    I did put a Penn International rod with a Penn 30TW in one of the holders. It sets in there nice and solid. I can feel no difference between these and the original Lee's holders.

  2. .I just hate adding oil.

    How do you feel about 4-strokes having to drain dirty hot oil into a bucket, changing out an oil filter, catching any drippage, pouring 5 to 8 quarts of oil at the top of the motor, then cleaning everything up and taking the old oil to a recycling center?

    With an E-TEC and the optional 3 gal. tank you don't have to do much, and you keep your hands clean. The best part it takes only a moment or two compared to a 4-stroke oil and filter change.

    Exactly! I'm always amazed of how people make adding oil sound like such an ordeal. Its so much quicker and easier than changing oil. Especially if you have multiple engines that you rack up a lot of hours on. Like myself.

    I have twin 250s and I add oil to the tanks once every month or two and it literally takes me less than two minutes and I'm done. And it can be done with the boat in the water. This may not be important to trailer boaters but it sure is for people like me that keep their boat in the water.

    I have over 1800 hours on my engines.

  3. Thanks for your post. Any "mini-season" madness there?

    No mini season madness while we were there. Their season starts on August 1st (yesterday) and thats the day we left. Who knows what happened yesterday and today though.

    But lobster can be had, ya just have to know who to ask. Here on our streets you have drug dealers and pimps. Over there you have a few of those as well but you also have the "dealers" that can get you lobster tails and conch any time. We bought our lobsters. But we waited until their season opened and bought them the morning before we left. We just "reserved" them two days prior.

  4. Got back from the Bimini Big Game yesterday. Well its looking like the place is coming back strong. It was packed there, not one empty slip or room. The place was looking good, the staff was very accommodating as usual which was a life saver for me since the Ft Lauderdale reservations office never sent my reservation to them so in their eyes I was showing up with no reservation.

    But they made it happen. I didn't get the cottage I requested but I got a cottage. No biggie.

    We had a great time. We went out Friday afternoon to get some Yellowtail, we did ok and got 7. They weren't very big but they were big enough to have a great meal. The upstairs restaurant prepared them for us Bahamian style which is whole fried.

    Saturday we headed out for some Mahi. The ocean was flat calm all weekend. My plan was to run out about 8 miles and troll unless we spotted something on the way out. We did spot some nice weed patches and in one weed patch was a big white piece of plastic, we could see the Mahi jumping out of the water on our approach. There was a school of about 8 very nice size schoolies. I would actually call them border line cows.

    We were working the fish all alone out there and had 5 in the box pretty quick. Then we see some boats heading towards us at full speed. One guy slowed and dropped a line to troll past the weed and nailed one I had lost twice and was trying to get. Oh well, no big deal as we had plenty of fish for the day.

    Now some pictures.

    This is a packed Marina at the BGC. Haven't seen this in years. You are seeing some empty slips but these were taken Saturday afternoon so a lot of people were still out.

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    Hey Robbie!!!

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    Rasing Cane, buddy of mine!!!

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    Then on the way back Sunday we see multiple piles of what looked like Banana tree yard trash. We pulled one very nice Mahi out of this pile.

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    Cruising back to Ft lauderdale at about 45 MPH. I wish every crossing could be like this. It made me not want to go home even though I was dead tired and hung over from drinking at Big Johns Saturday night.

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    Sorry, no pictures of the actual fish but I'm sure everyone knows what Mahi looks like. LOL

  5. Fortunately the real cops caught these guys. Thanks go to the neighbors who alerted the sheriff's office to come out.

    It is just another part of living near Miami and its large Cuban immigrant community. These thieves have knowledge of the coast of Cuba and the contacts there and in Miami to hookup for some big bucks by smuggling people. They also have no overhead other than loading up the stolen boats with drums of fuel. Pure crooks who don't even reinvest their profits into buying their own boats. Just go steal someone elses.

    They don't even care about their passengers. Some have suffered fatal injuries in rough crossings.

    These guys are pure scum. Wish we could send them to a Cuban jail for about 50 years.

    Last summer we had huge numbers of outboard thefts here in the Keys. Lower units were prime targets, especially those from v-6 Yamahas their favorites. One key tip for the cops is a Dade county license tag prowling a neighborhood, although most of the pro thiefs now buy the "vanity" plates that have no county origin. I called the cops twice last year for prowlers checking out my neighbors boats. The cops responded but not quick enough. The cops here do take that kind of thing seriously.

    My neighbor with a brand new 4 stroke 250 Yamaha left for a couple months last summer. He lowered his davits where there wasn't enough clearance for the lower unit to be dropped and then he removed the boat battery and turned the breaker off on his davits at the panel inside his house. No problems.

    There's plenty of low life immigrants in Dade county that want to immediately be wealthy off others hard work. They're not willing to work and be part of the legitimate hard working people who came here for the American dream.

    Couldn't have said it better myself. I almost hope to catch one of these losers stealing my boat so I can make an example of them. I assure you there will be no tax payers money wasted on a trial and jail time.

  6. I have a 1994 Scarab that I have had for 8 years and there is no clear coat on mine, just original gel coat. Could it be that the previous owner put a coat of Poly Glow on it just to make it look super shiny for the sale? Posting some pics would help. I don't think Wellcraft used paint and clear coat. As far as I know they are all gel coat and the graphics were vinyl decals.

  7. Just got back from 4 days in Bimini. The ride over last Thursday was a rough and sloppy 4-6 with some 8' swells. It took what seemed like forever to get there. But we had a great time, loaded up on Mahi on Friday.

    We stayed at the newly reopened Big Game Club, they did a nice job, I think it will make a great comeback. I'm planning to make another trip in a month or so. The ride back on Sunday was very nice, an easy 2-3 foot seas. We made it in an hour and 40 mins.

    Here are a few pics. Pay no attention to the dates on the pics, the camera is all effed up.

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    This is what the golf cart looked like after a quick island cruise....LOL

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    My fishing buddies in the cart on the south tip by the inlet.

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    Graveyard on the south tip. I wouldn't mind being buried here. Nice view.

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    Rainstorm offshore

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    Afternoon view from Spook Hill Beach

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