Oh boy!  Now we get to actually get into the “Holy Room” as Gary calls it.  Kind of like a Man Cave, minus the TV :).  Here is the door, I mean hatch, to the “Holy Room”

Door to Engine Room

You can see where Gary hangs his ear protection and the black sign is the required “Discharge of Oil Prohibited” plaque that is required by the Coast Guard.  The ear protection he wears it when he is working down there when the engines are running, at least I hope he does or there is going to be more “what?”, “what?” going on :).  This is our only entrance to the engine room.  Some of the newer Navigators have another entrance in the Galley.  Good points and bad point to that I think.  Of course I’m the First Mate and I don’t want anything to interfere with my Galley!

But back to engine room.  Once you have descended the steps, you’ll notice lots of storage room.

Port Side

Starboard Side 2

Starboard side

The two fuel tanks are on either side of the opening (behind the white board and behind the ladder and the fresh water tank and the holding tank run down the center of the hull.  You want to make sure you don’t mix those up, that could be a disgusting problem ;).

Next we have a view of Gary’s white board where he records such things as the last time maintenance was performed on the engines and generator and the temperature of various things while we are underway. We have heard many comments about his white board, mostly a lot of “Wows!” 🙂

Gary’s White Board

Gary usually does an engine check every hour or so while we are traveling, just to make sure things are ok and to make sure we haven’t sprung a leak.

As we enter the “Holy Room” notice the carpet and rubber padding on the engine room floor.  This is adds a little extra comfort for those old knees.  The rubber padding we bought at Sears.  We bought those colorful squares for kids play areas, the underside was black!

Carpet on floor of engine room walkway

Entrance to Holy Room

As you can see we are able to store a lot of items down here.   Quite a few people that we talk to that have also sold their homes and are living aboard are amazed that we don’t have some kind of storage facility somewhere with the rest of our stuff in it.  They can’t believe we got rid of everything except what is on our boat.

These pictures are from the front of the engine room.  Notice the neat and orderly fashion all items are stowed?

Storage

More Storage

This item is called a Load Bar,

Load Bar

Gary saw it in the back of someone’s pick up and thought that it would be a great item to have in the engine room to keep things from sliding backward for those times we have to pour on the coals.

You can see this Werner ladder.  Gary set it up as a shelf so he is able to stack more items in.

Werner Ladder Shelving

When it is not used as a shelf, it makes a great little two step ladder to!  Gotta love it when you can multipurpose something.

Of course there are some creature comforts down there.  Gary has set up a fan to keep him cool, a radio for a little entertainment and he even has his own roll of paper towels! Nothing but the best for the Captain and what more could a man want in his man cave? Oh, I suppose a little fridge filled with beer, but if I did that, then I’d never see him ;).

So this concludes our tour of the engine room, we hope you have enjoyed it cause now it is time for the work to begin!