Still sitting here in Boot Key Harbor, Marathon. Tara has developed a significant problem: her engine will start, but won’t stay on longer than 1 or 2 minutes! Obviously we need a little more performance out of the engine than that! Of course this would happen on a weekend!
Doug has spent the better part of the past two days checking connections, replacing hoses and filters, and even replacing the start switch. He and Cap’n Geno have been putting their heads together in trying to troubleshoot the problem before calling in the pros. We have left messages at two diesel repair shops and hope to hear back from someone tomorrow when it’s a workday (hopefully). At least we have been able to somewhat narrow down what ISN”T wrong, so that the mechanic won’t have to do that (at $95/hour!)
So today we celebrated Mother’s Day by going out to lunch at the Castaway Restaurant. Doug and I walked to West Marine to buy the new switch, then we walked to the restaurant. Gene & Kay came by dinghy and then gave us a ride back to the marina after lunch. We paid for another night on our mooring ball, got more ice, and spent the rest of the afternoon on the boat. We are definitely on “Island Time” now!
We are so grateful that this problem cropped up when we are in a very nice place with access to many repair options. We are so glad we are not at Little Shark River, where we would be out of touch and couldn’t even call for a tow! Lucky break. So for now we are just enjoying ourselves and trying not to be too anxious to get going. Oh well, that’s what boating is all about–most of the time things go well, but when they don’t, you have to be flexible.
Hopefully by tomorrow we’ll have an update.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Castaway Restaurant
The Gang
