"Life's not about what's better than....
The grass may be greener on the other side but just as hard to mow"
John Butler Trio, Better Than
Tuesday was a day out of legend...light breeze blowing us off the pier, sun peeking through the peaks of morning clouds showing perfect powder blue sky behind. We slid neatly off and back out into the wild blue yonder. We wandered the yonder for about 2 1/2 hours when a small knocking became more pronounced demanding attention. Heather took the helm while Brian did a quick investigation and nothing showed its ugly head right away so we made a hard decision...turn back and troubleshoot. We mulled over the option of dropping the hook and looking at the problem but we were in the middle of nowhere and at least in Green Cove Springs there is a NAPA and several other parts stores close by. Not to mention where we were was a very unprotected section of river and the winds were suposed to pick up and it was already blowing 20+. We sailed back, bellied up in our old spot uneventfully, let the engine cool, and began a grand easter egg hunt to locate the problem.
Sockets, screwdrivers, wrenches, and such in hand I began at the engine and worked my way back. Several hours later, just past the shaft coupling is a bearing & mount...said mount had worked its way loose. Some tightening and some loctite and everything is good to go. While we were back we replaced a light that was becoming unreliable and replaced the fuel we burnt and topped off again.
Heather is doing laundry today. I am making seaworthy and triple checking plans and waypoints. Since we have a front moving in today we will wait until tomorrow when winds are in our favor and try this leaving thing again. Another plus to our return is that two people needed work done aloft so that makes 5 jobs I ran into while here...basically our time in GCS was free when everything is tallied.
Hopefully our next blog will be from the Bahamas. | 