Friday, December 28, 2018

Harbortown One Month Later...

1089 nm   N27 28.084  W080 19.728

The 4 weeks home visiting family and friends seemed to fly by!  In no time at all, Christmas was past and we were back at the boat.

For a while, it looked like we were going to have to walk the last hundred miles!  We were flying into Ft. Lauderdale (about 100 mi south of Ft. Pierce), but Enterprise wouldn't rent us a one-way rental to Ft Pierce.  Seemed the whole Ft Pierce region  had a "no one way" lockout!

Hertz would have allowed a one way, but all they had left was a large pickup truck!

With only days before our flight back, I finally found a helpful Hertz agent who located a car for us at a hertz location a few miles outside of the airport.

But the fun wasn't over.  Eventually, after a shuttle bus ride, a walk, and an expensive taxi ride, we were finally at the Hertz office, which was located in the parking garage of a large hotel.  The car was a new Kia Soul, and it drove very smartly, although it was pretty wimpy when accelerating onto the freeway.  But it got the job done and we were happy to have it.

Back at the boat, everything was fine.  We had to do a quick provisioning run and start up the refrigeration, as we had emptied it and shut it down to defrost before we left.

While back home, we had shipped a number of packages to ourselves care of the marina.  In particular, I had some boxes of tools and parts for maintenance I wanted to get done while we were in Ft Pierce.  I shipped them on Dec 22, and they were due in on Dec 27, the day before we returned.  But when we got there, no packages!  I looked up their tracking numbers, and it said they had been "delayed". We had a week until Bill was arriving to join us on Jan 4, and I had planned to use that time to work so we could depart on Jan 5.  No such luck!  So, New Plan!  We kicked back and were lazy retired people in paradise. ;)  Temps were up to 80, it was sunny,  and we were in shorts.  Definitely better than the 40s and rain we had left behind!

Every day, I frequented the Marina Office until all the day's deliveries came in.  Still no dice.  New Years came and went.  Still no packages.  We got to know our dockmates.  Met a couple on another dock with a Pearson 323 (s/v Vixen) just a year newer than ours.

We had returned the Hertz rental as soon as we got back because it was so expensive, so we had been car-less.  After New Years, we rented a car from Enterprise for a few days (at 1/3 the rate!) so we could do our big provisioning run for groceries.

I took this opportunity to return to Marine Connections, the gigantic boat surplus and salvage yard.  While there, I managed to find a 3/4" thick piece of starboard (an old hatch lid) that was the perfect size for the helm seat I had been wanting to build.  Got some fittings and tubing as well.  The helm seat project was approaching critical mass.

By now it was Thursday (Jan 3) and still no packages!

Friday came, and finally one of the packages arrived!  This one had the new coolant pump, and a rebuild kit for the old one.  At least I could start on some work!

Bill flew in to Ft Lauderdale Fri afternoon, and took a bus to Ft Pierce.  After driving around for a while, we located the Ft Pierce Greyhound terminal,  in the parking lot of an Arby's!  Our crew was now complete!  Now, we just needed the last boxes to arrive.

Saturday, I swapped out the old coolant pump with the new one, and everything went smoothly.  Emboldened by success, I decided to complete the helm seat.  After some cutting and screwing, and a trip to the hardware for more parts, the seat was complete and came out pretty much exactly as I had envisioned it.
A Helm Seat!
Meanwhile, I got an alert on my phone.  The packages had come in, but the Marina Office isn't open on Saturday, so they couldn't be delivered!  They would retry on Monday, so this meant that, if all went well, we would FINALLY be able to get underway on Tue, Jan 7!

After a lazy Sunday, Monday rolled around and the last of the boxes arrived!  I went into high gear, using the custom wrench I had fabricated while home to adjust the shaft packing.  Our boat has something called a "V-drive", and it makes the shaft packing very hard to get to with tools. You need a special wrench. The shaft packing keeps (most of) the water out of the boat while allowing the shaft to turn.  It normally drips very slowly.  Ours was almost a continuous stream while the boat was running.  This is not a good thing.  Rule number one is to keep the water OUTSIDE of the boat! ;)

I even shipped some new packing material in case it was worn out and needed repacking, but that was not necessary.  I was able, using the special wrench, to tighten the packing nut to the point where it only dripped once every 30 seconds while continuing to run cool and not overheat.  Success!

Tomorrow, our plan is to head south on the ICW down to the St. Lucie River, and then leave the ICW to follow the river to Stuart and the Okechobee Waterway, which would eventually take us all the way across Florida to it's Gulf coast.

Life is good.