We are still in Stuart, FL. After a phone conversation with Foley Marine, we decided to stay through the weekend in hopes they might have an approved mechanic here in Stuart that can take care of the engine while we are here. It is a major fix as the entire front of the engine must be removed to reach the timing case cover and replace the gasket if that is what is actually leaking. While they are in agreement to take responsibility(we think), we want to take advantage as it will be a very expensive repair.
Yesterday was overcast and in the low 70's and a bit on the cool side for me. We worked on projects on Spunky. Some were successful and some were not. John tried to install a navigation program (MAC ENC) on our Mac but the program would not run. He was able to set up our Alfa antenna which will hopefully allow us to access wifi when we are close to a transmitting tower. It is beautiful today. No clouds but fairly windy and once again in the low 70's. Today my plan is to use teak oil on the salon teak and John is going to install copper strips to ground our SSB radio. The Tacktick wind speed instrument which we installed last Monday did not work consistently so John called Ray Marine which had recently purchased Tacktick. After several calls over 3 days,they finally determined that we had been sold an old unit without updated software so we had to send it back to them to be reprogramed. Had we just exchanged it for another, one of us would have had to go up the mast where the transducer is mounted to synchronize the new unit. This way, with the reprogram, the unit should work without a climb up the 62 ft. above the water. Now we only have to figure out where they can send it when the program is complete.
Friday John took one of the marina bikes and rode to the hardware store to find screws in order to mount a chart shelf he had made for me from scraps of teak. It works wonderfully mounted under the navigation table in an out of the way place. Many of our charts are very large and hard to store but this appears to be a great solution for us. The trip to the store was down A1A which is a very busy traffic street and he said it was an exciting ride. All the jobs on a boat seem to take much longer then jobs at home because we have to get into the dinghy and then take a long walk to accomplish many of the tasks not just jump into the car for a ride to Lowes.
We found today the name of a mechanic that can look at Spunky's engine so tomorrow we will take her back over to Manatee Pocket for the day. The mechanic won't work at this marina as they are not accommodating and has recommended another marina where we have permission to tie up for several hours in their lift area. In order to hold our mooring ball we will leave our dinghy tied to the ball when we leave. We will leave early tomorrow morning as it will take a few hours to get back over to Manatee Pocket. This scheduling means we will remain here through Christmas as we will have to have parts delivered after we have determined for sure where the leak is originating. We are hoping the work can be done the week following Christmas. We are having our mail sent here and our wind instrument returned here which will make things a little less complicated.
Yesterday afternoon MAC ENC called back and walked John through installing our nav. software and that is up and running. Now we just have to figure out how it works and what it can do for us. I started putting teak oil on the wood in the salon and it really makes a difference. Tonight we will attend the Tuesday night "meet and great" and see if anyone shows up. The mooring field is full but many of the boats are sitting empty as many folks have left their boats and flown out for the holidays.
Not much too exciting going on but it sure is a nice place to spend the time waiting for repairs and equipment. It looks like Dec 24-26 will be a great weather window but we will not be able to take advantage of it. Another will come around when we are ready.
I am sure you are all frantically completing shopping, decorating and traveling for the holidays.
We wish you all a wonderful time and will be thinking of you.
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