Well, we are still here. There was a possible weather window last week but we let it pass. While we were delivering Release to North Carolina the mechanic had been working on our problems. When we got back we met with him and went over some other problems and symptoms. Since we have a Westerbeke engine and he is a certified Westerbeke mechanic we decided to have some preventive maintenance taken care of. The engine runs well except at low idle and we decided to have him check that out. There are also a number of things that should be checked due to the number of hours that have been run. Unfortunately, we motor much more than I would like but that is the problem when trying to go from point A to point B. Sometimes you just can't sail. So far we have a number of parts that have been removed and sent in for reconditioning with promises of getting them back between one to three weeks. That is why we decided to stay here for another month. There are worse places to be and most of what we need are a couple of miles away, a long walk or bike ride away. We do have access to bicycles if we need to make a run for something and Enterprise will pick us up if we need a car.
Speaking of cars, we rented one for the day and ran across the state to Clearwater to pick up our new Yamaha outboard, a 15 horse 4 cycle. We had the 9.9 horse and found that it had enough power to get us almost anywhere but we were running it at full throttle most of the time. I am hoping that the bigger motor will push us along with a bit more power in reserve for those times we have a bigger load or more people on board. Now if we just had a dinghy. The best price we found on the dinghy was up in North Carolina so we have to wait until we get back to pick it up. Another day we made a run down to Ft. Pierce to buy some chain to replace our anchor rode. The old one had lost it's galvanizing and was rusting. It was getting to the point I didn't trust it in a heavy blow. It only takes one weak link to separate us from our anchor. I initially called them to make sure they had the size and length I needed before renting the car. When we got there I took a look at the chain and realized I had ordered the wrong size. Fortunately they had not cut it yet. Once we had paid for our purchase they used their forklift to get it into the trunk and we were off. Once back at the marina we laid it out on the ground and marked it at various lengths so we will know how much we have out then replaced the old chain. We offered our old chain to anyone here that wanted it and had a taker. While swapping out the chains I also took the opportunity to tear down the windlass and lubricate some bearings that were in dire need of grease. We are now ready to safely anchor out again.
We have been making a list of projects to work on when we got back to North Carolina so we are going to try to work through them while we are here. As soon as the engine is up and running again we will continue our trip spending some time in NC and then off to Ocracoke the first weekend of June for the music festival. From there we will head out on our summer cruise north seeing how far north we will get this year.
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